Read Online Bangkok Knights by Collin Piprell - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Collin Piprell
Ads: Link
real
conversationalist in any case, which was maybe not too surprising, under the
circumstances.
She was more than three feet tall, and she didn’t have a
flat head, even though her forehead did slope back pretty radically before it
disappeared into her bangs. Still, you had to think Dexy had found his ideal
woman, the way he was carrying on.
She did look sort of cute, if you didn’t look too closely.
She wore a frilly white blouse tucked neady into a short denim skirt and her
hair was tied back in a pony-tail with a big white bow ribbon. She could’ve
passed for a student, if you ignored the metallic sparkle stuck all over her
eyelids and the spike heels with the straps crossed over and coming halfway up
her calves. And if you didn’t look too closely at her face.
Dexy was telling us about Thai women and dentists, and
other mysteries of this life. “These Thai dentists don’t know their business,
and that’s a plain fact. I send my little buddy, here, on three visits to this
dentist. Three. He X-rays her, stuffs her mouth with plaster and makes a
kind of statue of the inside of her mouth she gets to take home, and then
charges me just about as much as Smokin’ Sal’s take-away fee. I ask you. And
then he tells me there’s nothing wrong with her bite. Now, you don’t gotta go
to dentist school to know that’s just plain bullshit.
“Half the girls in Thailand have bad bites, if you want to
know the truth.”
Dexy was down on girls who ground their teeth at night.
“I can’t sleep. And it makes me nervous. Goddammit. Why
don’t they get their teeth fixed? Of course then you got the dentists, they
don’t know their business — don’t know a bad bite from their own arse end.”
I was no dentist, myself, and no psychiatrist either, but
I had an idea #37’s problem might lie elsewhere. I’d been watching her while
Dexy told us how it was, and she’d been chewing ice cubes — crunching them
right up like a little gravel crusher. Crunch, crunch, crunch. All the while
she wore an expression of cold, blank intensity on her face that chilled you
more than the remorseless ice-cube chewing. I wasn’t the only one that noticed;
it was hard not to notice. She chewed up the ice from her orange soda, and then
she fished the ice out of Dexy’s whiskey and processed that, too.
N umber Thirty-Seven came out of her shell for a moment to
say something to Big Toy, who then served the kid up a bowl of fresh ice-cubes.
Right away, she was at them like they were her favorite khanom, the
tastiest candies you could ever imagine. No, that’s not quite right, because
she didn’t look like she was enjoying them. But she didn’ t stop, except now
and then, when Dexy would turn to her and ask “Ain’t that right, you little
honey?” and she’d show him a tight smile that was as warm as ice, as pleasant
as grinding teeth.
I thought I could hear Eddie’s teeth grinding, as well,
though it might’ve only been my imagination. He’d been listening to Dexy’s
exposition in spite of himself. Given his attitude towards this expert on
oilrigs and women, you’d have expected to find Eddie at the far end of the
room; but there he was, practically hanging on Dexy’s every word. It was
probably the same impulse that leads a person to probe a sore tooth, no matter
how much you know it’s going to hurt.
Eddie said something to #37 in Thai, asked where she was
from, where her family was. That stopped her for a minute, this farang speaking
Thai and asking her nice questions, polite as can be, just like she was a
person and everything. For a minute she did seem like a little kid; she stopped
chewing ice and gave Eddie what could’ ve passed for a real smile, though it
was kind of sad-looking. Only for a moment. Then she glanced at Dexy and
recollected herself.
“Sexy man,” she said to Eddie, and sniggered. Her smile
had turned purely ugly.
”Hey. What’d you say to her? Huh?” Dexy appeared
consternated altogether
conversationalist in any case, which was maybe not too surprising, under the
circumstances.
She was more than three feet tall, and she didn’t have a
flat head, even though her forehead did slope back pretty radically before it
disappeared into her bangs. Still, you had to think Dexy had found his ideal
woman, the way he was carrying on.
She did look sort of cute, if you didn’t look too closely.
She wore a frilly white blouse tucked neady into a short denim skirt and her
hair was tied back in a pony-tail with a big white bow ribbon. She could’ve
passed for a student, if you ignored the metallic sparkle stuck all over her
eyelids and the spike heels with the straps crossed over and coming halfway up
her calves. And if you didn’t look too closely at her face.
Dexy was telling us about Thai women and dentists, and
other mysteries of this life. “These Thai dentists don’t know their business,
and that’s a plain fact. I send my little buddy, here, on three visits to this
dentist. Three. He X-rays her, stuffs her mouth with plaster and makes a
kind of statue of the inside of her mouth she gets to take home, and then
charges me just about as much as Smokin’ Sal’s take-away fee. I ask you. And
then he tells me there’s nothing wrong with her bite. Now, you don’t gotta go
to dentist school to know that’s just plain bullshit.
“Half the girls in Thailand have bad bites, if you want to
know the truth.”
Dexy was down on girls who ground their teeth at night.
“I can’t sleep. And it makes me nervous. Goddammit. Why
don’t they get their teeth fixed? Of course then you got the dentists, they
don’t know their business — don’t know a bad bite from their own arse end.”
I was no dentist, myself, and no psychiatrist either, but
I had an idea #37’s problem might lie elsewhere. I’d been watching her while
Dexy told us how it was, and she’d been chewing ice cubes — crunching them
right up like a little gravel crusher. Crunch, crunch, crunch. All the while
she wore an expression of cold, blank intensity on her face that chilled you
more than the remorseless ice-cube chewing. I wasn’t the only one that noticed;
it was hard not to notice. She chewed up the ice from her orange soda, and then
she fished the ice out of Dexy’s whiskey and processed that, too.
N umber Thirty-Seven came out of her shell for a moment to
say something to Big Toy, who then served the kid up a bowl of fresh ice-cubes.
Right away, she was at them like they were her favorite khanom, the
tastiest candies you could ever imagine. No, that’s not quite right, because
she didn’t look like she was enjoying them. But she didn’ t stop, except now
and then, when Dexy would turn to her and ask “Ain’t that right, you little
honey?” and she’d show him a tight smile that was as warm as ice, as pleasant
as grinding teeth.
I thought I could hear Eddie’s teeth grinding, as well,
though it might’ve only been my imagination. He’d been listening to Dexy’s
exposition in spite of himself. Given his attitude towards this expert on
oilrigs and women, you’d have expected to find Eddie at the far end of the
room; but there he was, practically hanging on Dexy’s every word. It was
probably the same impulse that leads a person to probe a sore tooth, no matter
how much you know it’s going to hurt.
Eddie said something to #37 in Thai, asked where she was
from, where her family was. That stopped her for a minute, this farang speaking
Thai and asking her nice questions, polite as can be, just like she was a
person and everything. For a minute she did seem like a little kid; she stopped
chewing ice and gave Eddie what could’ ve passed for a real smile, though it
was kind of sad-looking. Only for a moment. Then she glanced at Dexy and
recollected herself.
“Sexy man,” she said to Eddie, and sniggered. Her smile
had turned purely ugly.
”Hey. What’d you say to her? Huh?” Dexy appeared
consternated altogether
Similar Books
