Assignment Bangkok Read Online Free Page A

wore nothing. Her skirt of green flowered Chiengmai cotton lay on the floor at the foot of the bed. She had obviously been raped several times.
    Durell straightened with a long, slow sigh. He no longer felt any remorse about the man impaled on the canal pole.
    He remembered her laughing, smiling, giving him a deep wai when he first met her four years ago. She had been a woman dedicated to sanook, the sheer joy of living.
    “ Sawadee , Aparsa,” he whispered, “goodbye.”

    He stepped outside. The incipient thunder of the mango storm had rolled away to the east. The air smelled hot and dry. Something fluttered briefly against the tiny, dark garden, and it had not been there before. He crossed the grass to the sala phra phum. A slip of paper had been weighted down on its offering platform, among the clay dolls and incense sticks. A small jug of rice whiskey held it in place. Durell reached for the slip of paper and read the note in the dim light that came from the nearby houses. He heard a brief blare of Thai music from the nearest house on the canal, then the sound was turned down. A baby cried somewhere. The heat of the night held dry electricity in it.
    The note was written in a shaky hand, in English.
    “My friend. I rest on my boat. Safe. You know where. I cannot help. What happened is a gift of the 'sonkran'."
    Sonkran was the Thai name for a madness that seized men during this hot, dry season, when thirst clawed at the land and it seemed as if it would never rain again.
    Durell put the note in his pocket and walked back to the edge of the canal.

    Uncle Hu’s face was seamed and wrinkled and emotionless, and his narrow black eyes showed no tears, showed nothing at all behind their obsidian facade. He gave Durell a wai, his hands veined and callused by his life as a river man. His English was simple, but effective, spoken flatly.
    “You have had difficult time, Nai Durell.” He wore blue denim slacks and jacket and straw sandals. In his bony temples, two blue veins throbbed. His age could have been forty or seventy. His wispy beard was white. “I apologize for what happen in my humble house.”
    Durell stared at him and accepted a cup of tea. The sampan rocked slightly as a boat passed by. The only light came from under the roof of the little cabin in the rear. There was a heap of pottery, piles of straw, and small boxes in the forward area, where Hu usually peddled his wares in the water market during the day.
    “You have seen your wife?” Durell asked gently.
    “Yes.”
    “You know what happened to her?”
    “Yes. They made me stand and witness.”
    “Have you called the police?”
    “Not yet. I know you, sir. I knew you would come back at once. So I waited here.”
    “You know it was Aparsa who helped me to escape?” “Yes, I know that. I told her to speak to you, when she had a chance. I was not permitted. It is my fault.”
    “One of them is now dead,” Durell said.
    The old sampan man blinked, his only reaction. Then he said, “Thank you.”
    “These men,” said Durell, “work for a certain Mr. Chuk, a Chinese who heads the labor union, the Muang Thrup.”
    “They are all criminals.”
    “How did they know I was coming to see you?”
    “They did not say. They came only a few minutes before you arrived, and they threatened us, Aparsa and me, and made us keep silent, and when you walked in, they attacked you and threw you into the klong jar cellar. Afterward, they did much drinking of Mekong whiskey, and made Aparsa cook for them. One went out and was gone for much time, maybe three-four hours. They ask who you are, what I know about you. I said only that you once befriended my nephew, young Kem, who has been in the Sangra, the Brotherhood, as you directed him four years ago.”
    “I’ve come to waken him,” Durell said quietly.
    “Yes. Kem said that one day you would need him.”
    Durell nodded. “I need him very much. I came to ask you where he can be found. There are so many bhikkhus