Paying Back Jack by Christopher G. Moore

Author:Christopher G. Moore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Published: 2009-03-03T16:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-ONE

BENEATH THE NEON LIGHTS of the Sheba Bar and the huge King Tut head with a striped headdress advertising it, three short, skinny Thai men in flip-flops and worn, patched clothing slowly maneuvered a baby elephant they’d brought all the way from Surin province. The men fanned out, selling bags of bamboo to tourists for twenty baht. No one used elephants on construction projects anymore; the forests were gone, so the elephants no longer had any logs to lift. Beasts with proud working pasts had become carnival sideshows in Bangkok’s red-light district.

Two of the men offered small bags of bamboo to a couple of bulky tourists who stopped to sort through their Thai baht. Turning them over, they squinted at the strange bank notes and tried to figure out in the neon light which one was a twenty. Hundreds of yings outfitted in hot pants and bikini tops with nylon robes slung around their shoulders paraded in front of their bars, holding signs advertising the cost of a beer.

“The cops said no elephants in Bangkok. What the fuck is this?” asked McPhail. He waved off one of the men who shoved a bag of bamboo into his face.

“That was last year,” said Calvino. He wasn’t looking at the elephant. “That’s her,” he said.

McPhail approached the elephant and touched its trunk with the back of his hand. “What do you mean that’s her?”

It was the woman from the train station who’d told him in so many words to get lost. She sat at a roadside table with a kid dressed like a whore. The vendor stood behind his counter, hacking up chicken and folding the meat over a perfectly formed scoop of rice. A couple of dancers sat at the table wolfing down bowls of noodle soup. Marisa watched Calvino as he approached. She stood up and smiled. With the young girl in tow, Marisa walked into the soi and threw her arms around Calvino, kissing him first on both cheeks and then with a long kiss on the lips. Pressing against him, she felt the hard steel of a .38 caliber police special inside his shoulder holster. Marisa knew the feel of a concealed gun on a man. Her father had been a police officer.

“Vinny, I’m so happy to see you.” Her voice was a little too loud, as if the volume was raised to make a point.

He grinned, glanced over at McPhail, who had a smirk that looked like it risked becoming a permanent feature.

“Never think it’s about you,” said McPhail, but his words were too soft to carry over the roar of the elephant that belched a huge cloud of gas from half-digested raw bamboo.

Only then did Calvino notice the flower girl holding packets of chewing gum in one hand and laser pens in the other. Marisa’s arm circled Fon’s shoulder in a motherly fashion, holding her in the tight possession of a mother or close relative.

“Please help me,” she whispered. “Those men behind you want to take this girl.

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