The mind tells you it has seen that mug a million times before, but it has to work at reconstructing it without the deep furrows, loose jowls, dreadful grayness of flesh, and yellow eyes that indicate a serious liver problem and remind one of death. Although he was no Beatle or Rolling Stone, nevertheless for a long fifteen minutes Freddie Monroe was once part of your internal wallpaper. In his younger form he leered and screamed at you from a billion TV sets; you have seen him on talk shows stoned and mumbling about his life and times; and once or twice you have seen him in police custody after a bust, although he always managed to avoid a prison sentence. He was never the serious artist, but he knew enough to forget to shave before every performance, grow his hair even longer than anyone else’s, and wiggle his loins in that unambiguous way that even girls in their early teens understand.
He agreed to see us at his midrange apartment in a gated community on a hill a mile or so outside of Pattaya; it’s not on the sea but gives a fair view of the Gulf of Thailand and the paragliders that crowd the air during most of the year. He walks with the aid of a walker, and there is a wheelchair in one corner of the room. There is nothing wrong with his legs, but any kind of physical exertion strains a fragile system and makes him breathless.
The flat is unexpectedly modest, with only a few memento pix of yesteryear in silver frames on a side table: Freddie Monroe wowing crowds of drug-addled kids; Freddie Monroe marching from gig to gig, carrying his guitar like a battle-ax; Freddie Monroe at a garden party thrown by the queen of England. There is also a strange oil painting on a wall, which I want to ask about when I find the opportunity.
After meeting us at the door on his walker, he has eased himself into an armchair with a sigh of relief. He is not especially concerned that we are cops; I guess the imminence of death occupies all his psychic space. In pride of place on a mantelpiece is a more recent photo of him in a florid beach shirt with his arm around the katoey clerk at the Phuket land registry.
He speaks as slowly as he moves. I think he has not the energy to lie even if he needs to. His account of himself is plain enough:
“This is my second liver transplant, and it isn’t taking too well. The first, I had in the U.K. They frown a lot and wag their fingers and tell you what a bad boy you’ve been, but they’ll generally find a liver for you. They make it clear it’s a last chance, though. ‘You’re on your ninth life, mate, so lay off the booze and drugs.’ I can’t tell you how many times I heard that. But the thing is, what do you do when you’ve recovered and you want a life? Pub culture was my culture: down the boozer at least at the weekend. Without that I didn’t feel like I was on my ninth life, I felt like I was already dead. So little by little I weakened, didn’t I? Sal, my companion, nagged me about it. She’s very warm and loving and didn’t want me to die, but I didn’t listen.
“So a few years later I need another liver, don’t I? I thought, This is it, I’ve really fucked myself this time, but I heard about some setup on the Internet and sent them an e-mail. Dr. Gray was the name they used-a cover, of course. Next thing I know, a Chinese woman based in Hong Kong invites me to go see her. So I do, at her office over there: very elegant, very charming, very professional.”
“What did she call herself?”
“Lilly. Lilly Yip. She said she was an agent, a go-between. Once she saw I was serious and had the readies, she came over here to check me out a few times. To cut a long story short, if I sold the big place I used to have here in Pattaya and my yacht-it was a two-masted classic schooner, won the South China Sea Race in the 1930s-I’d just have enough for the whole operation on the black market and to buy a floating gin palace, because I can’t stand being without a boat and nor can Sally-O. I had best-quality surgeons, mind you, a proper setup in a proper clinic.”
“In Thailand?”
“No. In China. I’m not saying where because I don’t know.” The effort is telling. He has to pause for energy.
“Did Sal-Sally-O-have anything to do with this Lilly?” I ask.
Freddie rubs his jaw. “Well, that was the strange thing. Sal was still a man at that stage, but he badly needed the reassignment so he could live out his true identity. I was very encouraging, and before I got sick the second time, I promised to pay his way-but then I found myself short of the readies and couldn’t. This Lilly seemed to think she could help out. I didn’t see the need, since there’s nothing black market about gender reassignment. I didn’t realize she’d got interested in Sal because of her job at the land registry.
“At that point it all went Oriental, if you see what I mean. They had a lot of private conversations I wasn’t party to, and the next thing I know, Sal’s taking the estrogen, growing breasts, and getting ready for the operation. When I asked him where the dough was coming from, he wouldn’t tell me. ‘Something Asian. Better you don’t know’ was what he said. Well, I wasn’t born yesterday. I could see Lilly wasn’t the kind to give anything away free, so Sal must have been doing something for it. And of course, you’re cops, you don’t need me to tell you how dodgy land transactions can be over here. And Sal working in the land registry in Phuket-I’m not giving the game away, am I? I’m not betraying anyone? I mean, this is stuff you would work out in three minutes, right?”
He gives Lek a particularly warm smile. I guess there are men who just naturally have a soft spot for the third sex.
“Did this Lilly say where the liver came from?”
Freddie looks uncomfortable. “Not in so many words.”
“But?”
“Well, since she was Hong Kong Chinese and spoke Mandarin fluently, and since the operation took place in China-you know what they do with the bodies of executed prisoners… I didn’t see what else it could be. I mean, the timing was all guaranteed months in advance, it wasn’t like a last-minute traffic accident, it was all a lot more relaxed and sedate than that.” He frowns. “I don’t have anything to reproach myself for-the poor bugger was going to croak anyway, right? It wasn’t as if they were killing him just for me. And if it hadn’t been me got the liver, it would have been someone else, right? Not necessarily more deserving than me, either. I’m not the only bloke in the world fucked up his liver with booze and mainlining, am I?”
“Where in China did they take you?”
Freddie frowns again. “I already said I don’t know. There was a lot of talk about Shanghai, so it could have been there.”
“ ‘Could have been there’? What does that mean?”
Freddie opens his hands. “I just don’t know. See, once you’ve paid up the first slice of the money, they go to work on you, get you ready for the operation.”
“Who does?”
“Actually, it was Lilly herself. She also sedated me before the flight. That way they could wheel me off the private plane into the operating theater-so I suppose it was near an airport. It was all done in the just-in-time-delivery style. Could have been any airport. I was totally out a couple of minutes after we got on the plane. I didn’t know anything until I woke up in Phuket with a new liver.”
Lek and I exchange a glance. I enunciate the words slowly: “You-woke-up-in-Phuket?”
Freddie doesn’t understand the heavy emphasis, shakes his head, and shrugs. “That was part of the deal. After the operation they had me recuperate at some fantastic mansion on a hill there.” He scratches an itch on his neck. “Actually, the mansion wasn’t too far from where Sal works, so I wondered if there was a connection.”
“But the operation itself took place in China, maybe Shanghai?”
“That’s what they told me. That’s what I paid for. It must have been China ’cause that’s where they executed the prisoner whose liver I’m using.”
A pause. “Where is Sally-O now?”
He stares as if the question is without meaning. “At work, of course.”
I let my attention wander until it comes to rest on the oil painting. “Who’s that a portrait of?” I ask.
Freddie turns to follow my gaze. “You don’t recognize her? That’s Sal in her ancient Chinese costume. She’s dressed as a court eunuch in the late Ming dynasty.”
“Right. Why?”
Freddie allows himself a shrug. “She’s katoey, love. They’re all a bit that way.”