At three in the morning, Geraldo Segura put on his backpack and slipped out of his hotel on Sumner Place in Brooklyn. He stopped at an all-night market and bought a bottle of Poland Spring, two KIND bars, and the early editions of the New York Post and the Daily News.
He ate the energy bars and drank the water as he walked to the Flushing Avenue station. Then he climbed the stairs to the elevated subway platform, caught an eastbound J train, and scanned the papers.
A picture of the detective wielding a pair of bolt cutters to free Nathan Hirsch was on the front page of both. The Post headline said
HERO COP SAVES LYING LAWYER
He turned the page and read the banner above the lead story:
THAI BOXING CHAMP IS HOTEL BOMBER
There were two pictures of him: one from his high school yearbook, the other from his fighting days in Thailand. At this point, he looked like neither. He’d come to New York with a bagful of professional disguises, and for this outing he’d aged himself twenty years, his head bald on top, with a fringe of mousy gray hair on each side. A matching beard obscured his face.
The details in the article were sketchy because the 911 tape had not yet been released, and Hirsch, who would have lied anyway, had been hauled off before the media could descend on him.
The Daily News coverage was the same as the Post’s, but the caption above his Muay Thai photo made him smile:
The Most Wanted Man in New York
He carefully tore the page from the newspaper, folded it, and put it in the pocket of his Windbreaker. He couldn’t wait to show it to Jam.
He remembered the day he met her. She had come to Klong Prem prison not for the boxing but to watch her older sister parade around the ring in a bikini, holding up a card announcing the number of the next round.
“You’re from America?” she asked him after he’d won four matches that day.
He smiled. She was cute. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Who was your favorite president?” she asked.
“Abraham Lincoln.”
“Then he’s the one I’m going to read about,” she said, flashing a bright smile. “Thanks.”
He was twenty-two at the time. Jam was only twelve.
She came back for his next match and told him she’d read three books about Lincoln. “I cried when they shot him,” she said. “What’s your favorite book that you read when you were my age?”
“To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.”
And so the friendship took hold. Soon Jam would start visiting between boxing matches, and the prisoner and the schoolgirl would talk about literature, philosophy, history, and her favorite subject, America.
“Whenever the girl comes,” Pongrit Juntasa instructed his guards, “let her in. She makes him a better fighter.”
That may or may not have been true, but by the time he was twenty-eight, Geraldo Segura had become Rom Ran Sura, the best Muay Thai boxer in Southeast Asia—with his sights set on the rest of the world.
Special prisoners are afforded special privileges, and one evening Segura was given a hot shower and clean clothes and driven to Juntasa’s house. A guard escorted Segura to the dining room, where the head of the Department of Corrections was standing next to a table set for two.
“Rom Ran Sura, your most recent victory at the World Combat Games has once again brought great honor to the kingdom,” Juntasa announced. “As a reward, His Majesty has graciously reduced your sentence by another seven years.”
Segura silently did the math. He had been fighting for his freedom, and with this latest grant from the king, he would be out by the time he was fifty years old. He thanked his benefactor.
“I have one other gift,” Juntasa said. He raised his hand, a door opened, and Jam Anantasu entered.
“It is her eighteenth birthday,” Juntasa said. “The age of consent. Enjoy your evening.”
He left the room, and Segura stood there, barely able to breathe. Jam was a vision, a goddess in a white-lace dress, her shimmering black hair cascading down to her bare shoulders, her lips parted in a shy smile, her smoldering eyes locked on his. She was no longer a child. She was a woman—the one he wanted to spend his life with. If only she was willing to wait.
They dined. They drank. They talked. They laughed. And then they adjourned to a bedroom suite, where the air was filled with soft music and the scent of jasmine, and they made love by candlelight.
The next morning, he returned to prison. He never lost another fight, and with each new achievement, the king rewarded him by taking more time off his sentence.
The conjugal visits continued, and over the next ten years, he and Jam had four children. As the dream of a life together slowly became a reality, she took a job working in the American Embassy in Bangkok. She was the one who secured his passports: one that gave him easy entry into the U.S., and a second passport with a new identity for his new life. Their new life.
He was too well-known in Thailand to go back, and as much as he knew Jam would want to live in America, that was impossible. The plan was to meet her and the kids in Adelaide, Australia. Flynn Samuels had given him contacts. After putting his life on hold for twenty years, he was ready for a fresh start.
But not yet. He still had two more people to see in New York.
Princeton Wells was no doubt expecting him. But first he had to pay a surprise visit to one of the most ruthless men in the city.
The J train stopped at Broadway Junction, and Segura connected to the L, took it six stops, and got off at the Rockaway Parkway station in Canarsie.
He tightened the straps of his backpack around his shoulders and started the mile-long walk to the Karayib Makèt on Rockaway Parkway.
He had a gift for Malique La Grande, and he planned to deliver it personally.