Excerpt Day: Thai Died by William Maltese

[reviews_and_ramblings]

Thai Died, A Stud Draqual Mystery #2, by William Maltese
Release Date: May 12, 2009
Publisher: MLR Press
ISBN: 978-1-60820-051-1 (ebook)
Publisher Link: http://www.mlrpress.com/ShowBook.php?book=THAIDIED

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Amazon: Thai Died: A Stud Draqual Mystery (Stud Draqual Mystery Series)

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Blurb: This second title in a new gay mystery series is a fast-paced tale that melds mystery and erotica. When a lingerie manufacturer goes to Thailand on business, he gets far more than he bargained for. While innocently shopping for silk and taking in the sights of Bangkok, Stud Draqual finds himself being stalked by a mercenary -- one who's been implicated in the murder of a male prostitute.

Excerpt:

Scarier was how, close up, the kid wasn’t a kid and hadn’t been for quite some time. He was merely made up to look that way and had, from a distance, fooled even me. His school uniform was a dark-blue blazer, dark-blue shorts, starched white shirt, dark-blue tie, dark-blue knee socks, black shoes. His hair was cut so it straight-line banged all of the way to his eyebrows. His doe-like eyes had to be chemically dilated.

He sat his section of sofa like a little-boy, his feet-off-the-floor. A more comfortable position would have had him seated with his feet all of the way down.

“You’re waiting to see me?”

“Mr. Draqual?”

He didn’t stand but offered his hand. Which I took and found limp as a wet noodle.

As someone who continually works with models who put makeup on and take it off, I know it when I see it. There was definitely mascara on his eyelashes; maybe, there was even mascara on his brows. Definitely, he wore a bit of black eyeliner. There was a bit of blush along both of his cheekbones. Obviously, he’d used something to make his full lips their ripe pink. Seen close up, he had more than a couple wrinkles, at the corners of his eyes and mouth, but they were camouflaged (expertly, I might add) by foundation and a bit of powder.

Thailand’s active prostitute population, sometimes estimated as high as two-million, was thought to be at least one-fifth male. Youth, and/or the illusion of, was always at premium.

I was surprised he had been allowed in by hotel management. On the other hand, he was there to see me, and I was in Bangkok to see Roxanne Whyte. The Whyte name had tremendous cachet even at The Oriental.

“I’m truly afraid you’re wasting your time.” I had to give the guy moxy for having come right on in and having staked claim to his isolated bit of lobby. “I’ve very little free time, this trip. Business. Business. Business.”

He blinked his mascara-enhanced eyelashes. He smiled his pink-enhanced lips. He cocked his head slightly, as if doing so made him see me more clearly.

“Actually, I’m here in the hope you can help me locate my dear Nana.”

He flipped open his portfolio to retrieve the top photo in a pile of photos. Beneath the one chosen was one of a completely naked young Thai with a boner the size of which forever belied the stereotypical Asian as small-peckered.

“I was almost too absorbed with the neglected photograph and my amazed, “Good God, can that thing of his be real?”, to register my visitor’s, “Here’s a photo of my Nana and me, when I was just a baby.” He referred to the selected snapshot he extended in my direction.

He noticed my not noticing (and noticing).

“Ram is very popular, especially with foreign customers,” he said.

“Ram?” I sounded like a myna.

“I can, also, recommend another young man who comes with even larger appendage, but …”

“I don’t believe I got your name,” I interrupted. I took the innocuous family snapshot, glad he took the hint and closed his portfolio over Ram’s disconcerting ram.

“I am sorry. My name is Sammy Ped Mai.” He fished his jacket pocket for an embossed business card that said: SAMMY PED MAI: PURVEYOR. So, that was what they were calling “it” these days.

A coincidence — I thought not! — that “ped mai” in Thai means spicy? What’s more, a good rule of thumb, in Thailand, or anywhere else, is to avoid, like the plague, anyone who calls himself Mr. Sammy or Mr. Jimmy.

“Your grandmother is missing, Mr. Sammy?”

“Just call me Sammy,” said Sammy.

“And you somehow think I can help you?” I shook my head in disbelief.

“Yes, please,” he said and patted the spot next to him on the overstuffed sofa.

“I really don’t think …”

It was his turn to interrupt: “Pretty please.”

No one — thank God! — seemed to be noticing the two of us.

“Please, please, please,” Sammy emoted. A childish temper tantrum seemed inevitable.

I sat down, only because it would take me only a quick second to set Sammy right. I didn’t sit down next to him, though. I took the chair directly across from him.

When he leaned forward, I thought for sure our knees would bump.

“I truly believe your friend, Miss Whyte, has absconded with my Nana,” he said. Absconded?

“What?” The scenario had become all the more ludicrous.

“I truly do believe so,” he said. He crossed his heart!

“Roxanne has made off with your grandmother?” I thought, perhaps, he or I was a bit confused as to the definition of “absconded” or “Nana”.

“Maybe, she has even perpetrated more dire consequences,” he said. Perpetrated? Dire? Consequences?

I took a good look at the frail old lady in the photo. She had wispy white hair. She was seated on what I can only describe as a milking stool. She had a cane in one hand, a baby in the other. To be literal, the baby was cradled in her arm. The height of the cane kept the one arm raised at an ungainly angle.

“And, what would be Roxanne’s motive?” I couldn’t help myself. (Sorry, Dr. Melissa!). I was fascinated by how Sammy might think he could ever bring me around to his way of thinking.

“Environ…” He paused. “What is that name for people in your country who hug trees?”

“Environmentalists.”

“Granny was a tree-hugger,” he said. I thought for sure he’d opt for the more multisyllable word. “She was born and raised in a particularly patch of much-beloved first-growth timber. Nana and I spent many enjoyable hours there.”

What, I wondered, would Nana think of Sammy now in Bangkok, portfolio in hand? What would she think of his business card? — SAMMY PED MAI: PURVEYOR.

“One of Miss Whyte’s companies decided to log the area,” Sammy said.

Powell Whyte had not only left his niece with his silk business but with extensive interests in logging, tin, antimony, tungsten, iron, and as (and those were only the ones I’d learned about in passing).

Sammy shook his head, as if genuinely distraught. His bangs slid down his forehead like windshield wipers over glass.

“So long and so loud did Nana protest that Miss Whyte came running.”

I nodded in indication that he should, by all means, go on.

“Shortly after, Nana disappeared without a trace. Shortly after that, the big trees were encircled by a large electric fence. Armed men stood guard.”

“Why?” I couldn’t wait to hear his explanation for this one.

“Exactly,” he said and left whatever the explanation hanging. “You tell me.”

“Nana hugs one of the trees, and they wait for her to let go?” Okay, it came out wise-ass. But, really!

“And why, a few months later, did the fence and the trees come down, the guards no longer anywhere to be seen?”

Sammy Ped Mai had been an interesting diversion. But, on a day, like that day, filled as it was with diversions, his story of a tree-hugging Nana, missing in action, wasn’t holding its own.

I must have telegraphed my waning interest.

“Just ask her about my Nana, will you?” he said. His hand was on my knee for emphasis. His feet finally touched ground.

“I have your card.” I got to my feet.

“I can make whatever your efforts worthwhile,” he said. He looked at the portfolio in his lap, and his fingers caressed its cover.

“Really, too much business for any recreation, this trip,” I said. “Thanks anyway.” I’d been propositioned enough times to know how to make a non-homophobic exit.

“I have women, too,” he said. In proof, his portfolio opened to a lusciously naked woman whose hands provocatively parenthesizing her shaved cunt.

My cock went harder, but it always has a mind of its own.

Quite detached from the expansion of my cock in my pants, I was more interested in what kind of dye could possibly have produced the vividly hot-pink of the sheets on which the woman was sprawled.

I headed for the elevator, without giving Sammy Ped Mai a backward glance.