Read Online The Thai Amulet by Lyn Hamilton - Free Book Online Page A

deliberate, and I was reasonably sure it was, was over the top, and there was something vaguely unsettling about it. Busakorn was seated in an honored position at Khun Thaksin’s right, and next to Chat, while Jennifer was down the length of the table from her beau, seated between Sompom and Wannee. Wichai, Busakorn’s father, had the other position of honor, to Wong-vipa’s right. Jennifer seemed to have recovered from her earlier stage fright, however, and was talking in an animated fashion to Sompom. I was seated to Thaksin’s left, and while Busakorn sat across the table from me, she rarely spoke to me. Indeed, she rarely seemed to speak at all.
    Yutai sat on my left. “How long have you worked for the family?” I asked him, as my opening conversational gambit, prosaic though it might have been.
    “Eight years,” he said. “I worked as a clerk at Ayutthaya Trading at first, but Khun Wongvipa discovered me, I suppose you might say, and offered me the office manager’s position at Ayutthaya, and then later the position here. Khun Wongvipa is most generous and kind, as are the others, and I feel I am treated almost as one of the family.”
    “I don’t suppose the name William Beauchamp means anything to you,” I said.
    There was a perceptible pause before he answered. “I do not believe so,” he replied. “Should it?”
    “Not really, I suppose. It’s just that he rented space from Ayutthaya Trading, but when I went to his shop, it was closed. He is a fellow antique dealer from Toronto, and I was hoping to drop in to see him while I was here. I was wondering if there was any chance you would know where he’d moved.”
    “I don’t believe the name is familiar. Ayutthaya Trading has so many properties, I’m afraid. But perhaps tomorrow I could look in the files and see what I could find. The name is not familiar to me.”
    “Who are you looking for?” Khun Thaksin, at the head of the table to my right, asked. He seemed a little hard of hearing and cupped his ear in my direction.
    “William Beauchamp,” I said, a little more loudly than I might otherwise. Heads turned in my direction. I wasn’t sure, but the name seemed to be a source of interest.
    “Certainly,” Khun Thaksin said. “We know Mr. William. He has been in our home. You remember him, Yutai.”
    “That was a long time ago,” Khun Wongvipa said, down the length of the table, before Yutai was required to reply.
    “I suppose it was,” Thaksin said. “But he was here. Pleasant fellow. I can’t recall why he was here. Do you?” he said, looking at his wife.
    “I think he was interested in some of our antiques,” she said.
    “That’s right,” he said. “Antique dealer, wasn’t he?”
    “I suppose he was,” Wongvipa said. “Now, I hope everyone will enjoy the meal.”
    “I hope you like Thai food,” Thaksin said. I was sorely disappointed to have the conversation turn away from Beau-champ, but politesse was required. Indeed, I do like Thai food, and the meal was a rare culinary experience. “In this part of Thailand we really have two types of cuisine,” Yutai, who apparently had taken on the responsibility for my education in all things Thai, said. “One is what I suppose you would call the cooking for the everyday. The other is what we call palace cooking, I suppose, or perhaps royal cuisine would be a better name for it. It is much more elaborate and at one time would have been made only for the royal court. Now we have it on special occasions. This evening Khun Wongvipa has planned a royal meal in your honor.”
    Dish after dish flowed from somewhere mysterious. There was soup, chicken and coconut scented delicately with lemongrass. There was a spicy green papaya salad, a really elaborate dish called
mee grop
made with very thin and crispy rice noodles served with shrimp, some lovely little pancakes stuffed with pork that are called
kai yaht sai,
grilled whole fish flavored with lemongrass and basil, a couple of