Mrs. Pornsawan give her the address and they arranged to meet the next day. That's why Saifon and Waldo was on a dirty cream-coloured bus jerking its way through the crazy streets of Bangkok. The bus was crowded so there weren't nowhere to sit. Waldo took up so much space he stopped ten normal-sized Thais from getting on. He was still getting a kick out of all the sweating. The folks on the bus and in the street looked at him like he was Godzilla. It didn't worry him none. He just smiled at 'em and they smiled back and not one bird dropped out of the sky.
"Hi. How you doing?" he asked 'em, and they laughed and he felt happy. It didn't occur to him once that they might of been making fun of him.
Saifon wasn't embarrassed. She wasn't the embarrassing kind.
They arrived at Ngam Duphli Street a long time after they should of. The bus didn't move no faster than the houses in Mattfield traveling down to Roundly's. Plus when they got to where they thought they was going, they found out they'd given 'em the wrong information at the hotel. In fact the address they wanted was about four minutes' walk from the frigging hotel. Saifon was pissed. Waldo was happy as a drunk. This sure beat Indiana in his book.
They arrived at the big old brick house a couple of hours after the appointment. Saifon hated being late. But she got the idea it was expected in Bangkok. Mrs. Pornsawan opened the door herself. She was a lot skinnier than Saifon remembered her, real old in fact. Her skin was stuck to her bones like tissue paper. But them pretty almond eyes was still in their sockets smiling at her guests.
She welcomed Saifon in Lao, then for Waldo's benefit she switched to English.
"Welcome to my house. My goodness. You've grown into quite a beautiful young lady." Saifon blushed out loud. Waldo beamed and held out his hand.
"How are you ma'am? My name's Waldo. I'm Saifon's daddy." The old lady shook his big old hand and didn't look in the least surprised.
"I'm so pleased she found a daddy with such a nice smile." Waldo laughed. "Won't you both join me for a cool drink in the garden. Mr. Waldo, I can see you're finding our tropical heat a little moist."
"I'm sweating like a hog on a spit, ma'am." Saifon nudged him in where his rib could of been and he got the idea he'd spoke in bad taste again. But Mrs. Pornsawan seemed to enjoy a bit of bad taste. She chuckled all the way to the back of the house.
"The yard was like a little jungle with one of them white gazebo things in the middle of it. There was a big fan on the ceiling and the temperature out there was some ten degrees cooler than the street.
Once they'd got settled, there was Saifon and Waldo, Mrs. Pornsawan and a little quiet guy sitting round a white iron table on white iron chairs. She did introduce the quiet guy but it was one of them names with more letters than the entire alphabet, so Waldo decided to forget it before it over-taxed his mind.
The quiet guy was about the same age as the old lady with dyed black hair and a black pencil moustache. He must of been good looking in his day but he was squeezing the tube now.
Saifon blurted out the people-smuggling story as soon as she could. The others sipped on tall glasses of iced red stuff. A little square girl in a long skirt kept on running out of the house and topping them up.
When Saifon was through and any questions was answered, the old lady nodded her head.
"I thought something like this at the time. I wish you'd been able to talk about it then." She caught Saifon's frown. "Oh. Don't worry. I understand perfectly why you couldn't."
"Why'd you come and see me in New York?"
"You were the only live one we had." Waldo's straw had buckled and he was sucking like his life depended on it. He give up and looked over.
"You had dead ones?"
"Yes, Waldo. There were possibly two before Saifon. One was certainly Lao. She was able to say a few words before she died at the hospital. There was an expatriate Thai nurse on duty in emergency that night. If she hadn't been there, we would never have heard about it. The nurse recognized the language and went over to listen. She managed two sentences; 'They sold me,' and 'The Chinaman bought me.'
Then she gave in to her injuries. She had been repeatedly …abused over a long period. There were no missing children reports so the police came to see us at the embassy. My husband was the Lao ambassador at the time. He was busy with the matter of rescuing the country so he handed the matter to me."
Waldo felt sick about the story but real proud to be sitting next to an ambassador's wife. Given Waldo's normal social circle, this was almost as good as a queen, he reckoned. He got super respectful.
"That was a shocking story, your majesty, but …"
"Waldo, you may call me Porn."
He was honored, but he didn't think he could ever bring himself to call a high class lady something dirty like that. She went on.
"Following that first death, the police were looking for repeats. There was one other, a girl around the same age. They found her washed up in New York Harbour. She could have been Lao. She wore wrist strings typical from a Lao ceremony. But she was dead so we couldn't be sure.
You, Saifon, were the third. That's why I went to see you. The police and the embassy really needed some help to solve these murders." Saifon raised her eyebrows.
"Gee. I'm real sorry."
"As I said, it was no fault of yours. You were quite traumatized."
"Why do you suppose they'd go to the trouble of smuggling kids all that way, Mrs. …Porn?" Waldo asked.
"As they were all girls around the same age, I have to assume it was for sex." Waldo went through four shades of brown before landing on something purple.
"Sex? But … but these was little girls."
"Exactly."
"Waldo's got a real pretty view of the world, Mrs. Porn. He don't see people for what they really are," Saifon put in. "It's been fifteen years. You don't suppose them people are still selling kids do you?"
"It's unlikely. The embassy in Washington didn't hear of any more cases after yours. But, as I truly believe people will continue to do wrong for as long as they get away with it, it isn't completely out of the question. And with the ongoing war, there's more access to orphans and to transportation. There's plenty of money to be made in trafficking people."
Waldo couldn't believe what he was hearing. He wasn't saying the old lady was a liar or nothing like that, but it just didn't seem right was all.
He was developing a taste for the red stuff. It was tart but sweet at the same time. Mrs. Porn told him it was from some berry he'd never heard of. He'd drunk so much of it he was sweating red stuff. Mrs. Porn went on.
"And it's possible these smugglers learned from their mistakes and stopped making them. Saifon, what exactly is your intention for coming here?"
"I figured I'd go find the old bitch that sold me and …"
"You don't intend to go into Laos?"
"Sure. Why not?" Porn and the quiet guy looked at each other.
"Hmm. Your government appears to be better at hiding the truth than I gave them credit for."
"You mean we ain't at peace?" The old lady creaked to her feet. Waldo stood and give her a hand.
"Thank you, Waldo. Why don't I leave it to Soup to educate you as to what is really happening in our country? I have to go and find something for you. And perhaps we should think about some lunch."
Saifon and Waldo sat silently waiting for old Soup to get boiling. It was like she'd forgot to put him on the gas before she went. Waldo had checked on him a couple of times through the morning to see if he was still breathing. He sure didn't talk much. But once they'd give up on him, he started up.
"You'll have to excuse my English. It's rather poor." Waldo smiled.
"Heck, Mr. Soup. If we excused English like yours, there wouldn't never be no forgiving English like our'n."That got a smile out'a the old guy and set him bubbling. Waldo sure had a knack of bringing out the best in people.
Soup was spilling over by the time he got around to telling 'em exactly what Mr. Nixon was really doing to his country. But I guess I pushed them soup jokes as far as they're gonna go.