Bangkok Noir

by Christopher G. Moore (Ed)

  “Your loving father, “Samarn”

  Yuddha felt as though he had been hit on the head with a mallet. He could not move. The superintendent stared at the letter and had a strange feeling that it was staring back at him, accusingly. Samarn was not his father. The superintendent’s parents had died in a road accident years before he finished high school. He had since been under the care of a poor uncle who lived from hand to mouth, with many mouths to feed, including Yuddha’s. The Police Officer Academy, for Yuddha, had been god-sent, as every cadet was given official status and pay that helped relieve his financial burden.

  It was when Yuddha was in his second year at the Academy that he was sent, under a programme, to live like a stepson with a family in a rural province. The programme was designed for the cadet to familiarize himself with the rustic farmer’s life, and to demolish the traditional barrier that separates the police from the public. It was hoped that the experience would be imprinted on the cadet’s mind and memory so that, after his graduation and at the beginning of his police career, he would recall the hardship of his stepfamily and be understanding and sympathetic when serving the public.

  Samarn’s family had been selected for Cadet Yuddha. The week of home stay had resulted in a strong bond between Yuddha the stepson and Samarn the stepfather and his family. Before Yuddha left the family to return to the Academy, Samarn gave his police stepson a bag of straw mushrooms as a going-away present. “Son,” Samarn had said, “you won’t be able to live on the low police pay. Grow the mushrooms and sell them. It will supplement your pay and enable you to maintain your integrity and be a good policeman.”

  Samarn and his family were invited to witness the graduation ceremony. The man wept when he saw Yuddha kneeling down in front of the King, who presented Yuddha with a sword. The sword is symbolic but significant, as it marks the beginning of the long, hard road of police life.

  After the graduation the bond between Yuddha and his stepfamily weakened and diminished. The ceremonial sword was kept in its scabbard, occasionally used together with white gloves when required.

  Yuddha nearly jumped when his thoughts were rudely interrupted by the piercing sound of his cellular phone. It was the girl. The superintendent mumbled a weak excuse, telling his date he was tied up by an urgent, unexpected errand and would be with her shortly.

  The young colonel was reaching for his briefcase when he was interrupted again by a voice. It was his very own voice. The words were familiar. It was a pledge uttered by all cadets in the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, following their admittance to the Academy. The voice came in loud and clear:

  “I pledge to perform my duty with utmost integrity and honesty, to devote myself in serving the people, and to be a police officer with full moral and ethical principles;

  “I pledge to enforce the law altruistically and justly, and not to be influenced by personal feeling, aversion, bias or gratuity in making my decision;

  “If I violate this pledge, may my life be plagued by misery, despair, misfortune and disaster: may my life end with extreme pain and in torment;

  “If I remain true to this pledge, may I be blessed with mental and physical strength, ability to overcome obstacles and evil; may I be blessed with happiness, advancement and continued success in my official and private life.”

  The words of the pledge still echoing in his ears, Yuddha turned toward the altar in his office. On it were Buddha’s images of various sizes, most of which had been purchased by him or given by well-wishers. Just below the altar stood his graduation sword in its gleaming scabbard. Absent-mindedly, the young colonel approached the altar and the sword. He grabbed the sword and gently pulled it out of the scabbard. Yuddha saw that the engraved blade was still shining despite the years that had passed. His thoughts returned to the graduation day: the moment before his name had been announced by the Commissioner of the Academy, the steps he had cautiously taken toward His Majesty the King and the sword he had accepted directly from the King’s hands.

  The phone rang again. This time Yuddha did not hear it. The only thing he heard was the pledge he had solemnly made in the Temple of the Emerald Buddha.

  At 20:00 hours, the duty officer knocked on the door of the superintendent’s office. He had not seen the superintendent leave and presumed the superior officer was still in the office. He knocked again. When there was no response, the officer decided to pull the door open and stepped inside.

  The lifeless body of the superintendent was found lying face up on the carpeted floor. His eyes were wide open. The pool of blood under and around the body looked fresh. At the left side of Yuddha’s chest, about two thirds of the sword blade was visible. The rest was embedded in his chest. The grip was swaying a little, as though it had just been left there by somebody.

  “Looks like suicide,” remarked the lieutenant colonel who headed the crime scene investigation team, after preliminary examination. “No sign of foul play.”

  Later in the night, the medical examiner reported to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner a puzzling, disturbing finding: the sword bore no fingerprint, not even a smudge. It looked brand new, untouched and unused, ever.

  Pol. Gen. Vasit Dejkunjorn

  Police General Vasit Dejkunjorn has had a long and distinguished career as a police officer, newspaper columnist and writer. Widely regarded as a public servant with high integrity and professionalism, as a career police officer he served as police inspectorgeneral, deputy director-general of the Royal Thai Police, chief of Royal Court Police, and after his retirement, senator and deputy minister of interior. He started his career in literature early. Since his time as a student at Chulalongkorn University in the late 1940s, he has written thousands of articles, numerous short stories and over 20 novels. His Thai-language novels have been best-sellers among Thai readers and made into films and TV series such as Hak Lin Chang (หักลิ้นช้าง), Sarawat Yai (สารวัตรใหญ่), and many more. He was named National Artist in Literature in 1998.

  Now in his retirement, Pol. Gen. Vasit continues his writing as well as his public service work in various capacities, including as special court police officer and vice president of Transparency Thailand. He also lectures on management and ethics and teaches Buddhist meditation.

  The Lunch That Got Away

  Eric Stone

  “Sorry, no fish today, Khun Ray.” Plaa looks more upset by that than she ought to be.

  Maybe she has sold out. I hope so, for her sake. But it is still early, and this would be the first time ever.

  “Plaa, is something wrong?”

  “No, no problem, Khun Ray, only no fish today.”

  She’s a bad liar.

  “Come on, what is it?” She bites her lip and looks away. I can barely hear her.

  “Robbers, Khun Ray, take fish and all my money. Make big trouble for me.”

  I’ve been buying lunch from Plaa for a few years. She makes the absolute best green curry-coated, banana leaf-wrapped baked fish I’ve ever had. And she sells it every day out of her cooler on the street at Sukhumvit Soi 11, across from my hotel, for twentyfive baht.

  I’m in town for one hellish day of appointments. Our Bangkok correspondent is mad at the editor of the magazine. I can’t blame him. I am, too. But I don’t see why he had to take it out on me. I guess it’s my fault for letting him arrange my schedule.

  My first appointment was an interview at the Central Bank at four-thirty this morning. The guy I met gets into the office at three to avoid traffic. My last interview is set for seven this evening, back next door to the Central Bank. In between I’ve got four more appointments scattered all over town. Those six interviews are going to add up to a total of about three hours of work, for which I’m going to spend at least twelve hours stuck in traffic.

  I like Bangkok when I don’t need to get anywhere.

  At least the correspondent has loaned me his rolling office, so I can work at the desk in the back of the van as his brother-in-law drive
s me around town. And, having been the one who introduced me to Plaa’s fish, he didn’t want her to lose out on my business, so he has kindly routed us past her usual spot just before lunch.

  “When did this happen, Plaa?”

  “I get here ten o’clock, Khun Ray. They waiting for me, push me, take cooler, run away.”

  That was an hour ago, and Bangkok is a very big city. I doubt there’s much I can do.

  But I like Plaa. She works hard and spends little on herself so she can afford to keep her fifteen-year-old daughter Noi in school and out of the bars. I’m here to write an economic update on the country. My appointments are all with big shots. But it’s Plaa and people like her that actually make this place tick.

  “Do you know who it was? Did you recognize them?”

  In Bangkok everybody knows who everybody else is, at least within their neighborhoods. And why would anyone come across town to rob a street vendor?

  She gets a look on her face that I don’t like. A look that tells me she knows who it was but doesn’t want to say.

  I ask again and she pretends she doesn’t understand me. I know she does. Her English isn’t good, but it’s good enough.

  There’s a tap on my shoulder. It’s Cho, my driver for the day. He wants to get me back in the van. We’ve only got an hour to get to the next appointment, and it’s a couple of miles away. I’d walk if it wasn’t ninety-nine degrees and ninety–some-odd percent humidity and not likely to rain at any minute, and I’m not in a suit.

  Cho wants to be a journalist. I have him sit in on my interviews in case I need any translation. It’s a matter of pride for him that we’re punctual, no matter how bad the traffic.

  But I don’t want to let this drop. I’m getting tired of hearing all the glowing reports about the booming Thai economy. I could already write exactly what the next three interviews are going to tell me. “It’s 1992. If the economy keeps growing at eleven percent a year, by 2000 it will be blah blah blah.” I can do the optimistic math as well as the next well-connected mogul or government minister. It all sounds too good to be true, which it is.

  Plaa’s got a real problem, maybe one I can do something about.

  “Cho, Plaa was robbed. I think she knows who did it, but she won’t tell me. Could you ask her?”

  He leads her a few feet away, their backs turned. They talk for a minute before Cho comes back to tell me what he’s found out. Plaa stays where she is but turns toward us. Her face is pointed down, but I can see she’s looking at us through the tops of her eyes.

  “I think maybe better we go to your appointment, Khun Ray. This maybe big trouble. Better we not involved.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Man who steal from Plaa work for Big Shrimp.”

  The name sounds familiar. “What’s that?”

  “Big new restaurant, Sukhumvit 37. Owned by wife of general.”

  I’d heard of it. There was a small stink raised when an old apartment building full of workingclass people was torn down to clear the land for it. And the general himself has recently been associated with some shady land deals. But wives of generals are well-connected.

  “Huh? What would they want with Plaa’s fish? And she couldn’t have had much money.”

  “They want know how Plaa cook her fish. They offer her money, but she not want to tell. Her cook same as mother and grandmother. Is family secret. Today they steal fish and money and tell Plaa if she not tell, then she no do business any more.”

  It takes some persuasion. At first she doesn’t want help from a farang, but we get Plaa into the van. I call and cancel my next appointment as we make our way in fits and starts the twenty-six blocks to Big Shrimp.

  It’s not the world’s biggest restaurant. That’s another twenty or so blocks farther down Sukhumvit. Big Shrimp is too classy for cute waitresses on roller skates, but not by much. It’s over-decorated in the sort of Mekong whisky-fueled, faux Edwardian trompe-l’oeil taste that infected elements of the Thai upper classes in the 1970s. The illuminated walls and ceiling are lousy with 3-D wood nymphs and angels and fat cherubs. There’s a long entryway lined with alcoves, painted to look like aquariums stocked with comely mermaids and muscular mermen. There’s not a molding, frame or edge of anything I can see that isn’t painted gold. I’ve heard the food’s pretty good, but the place doesn’t do much for my appetite.

  Neither does the big man at the door to the office. He’s taller than me, really tall for a Thai guy. He’s heavy and thick with muscle, not fat. He’s got scars on his face, and his nose has been broken enough that I know he’s not averse to a scrape. Maybe the scariest thing about him is his suit. It’s shiny black, rich, dense wool, two buttons buttoned. The hallway’s not air-conditioned, and he isn’t sweating.

  I am, but I’m always sweating in Bangkok. I can talk to him all day, too, but it soon becomes plain he isn’t going to react to a thing I have to say.

  Cho steps up to translate, but the big fella doesn’t react to him either. I’m tempted to snap my fingers in front of his face, but I’m afraid he could snap me in two if I were to irritate him. So I don’t.

  I step back and whisper to Plaa, who is keeping her distance.

  “Is he one of the guys who robbed you?”

  She shakes her head no. That makes sense. There’s no point in wasting a heavy like this on lightweight street work. There are plenty of ambitious teenagers around who a rich woman can find for that sort of thing.

  But we’re not going to get anywhere even if we find who actually did it. To fix this thing, we need to talk with the boss. And she’s through the door on the other side of the thug.

  She knows we’re here. There’s a security camera above the door, covering the hallway.

  I step in front of it, thinking I’ll talk to the camera since I’m not getting anything out of the big guy. But he’s quick. He moves in front of me, blocking me from view.

  Maybe there’s sound. I try talking, but the guy smiles at me in a way that I think means I’m talking to myself. We need to figure out another approach.

  We start walking away. Out on the street in front, I suggest to Plaa and Cho that we go somewhere. I’ll buy lunch, and we can talk over what to do next.

  Plaa’s face lights up. I think she’s happy I’m going to buy lunch, but I’m wrong. She leans into Cho’s ear and whispers to him. His face lights up, too, and they both turn to me, smiling.

  “Khun Ray, Plaa has a good idea.” I turn to her and she starts explaining in rapid-fire Thai, gesturing at the Big Fish restaurant.

  Cho also points at the restaurant. “We go back in here, sit down, okay?”

  No, I don’t think that’s okay. I don’t want to give Big Fish my money. I give the two of them a look.

  “No problem, Khun Ray. You do not understand.”

  Cho leans in to explain the plan to me. It’s a good one, and as we walk back inside, I hand Plaa my mobile phone. Cho’s already making calls on his.

  The lunch crowd hasn’t come in yet, and we have our choice of tables. We sit down in the middle of the restaurant at a table that could comfortably seat six people. I order one large Kloster beer for Cho and me to split. Plaa wants hot tea.

  The two of them are making calls on the mobile phones while I leaf through the menu. It actually does look pretty good, and I’m hungry. But that’s not the plan.

  The waiter comes up to take our order, and we send him away, saying we’re going to wait for our friends to get here. Plaa hands me back my phone, and I make a few calls of my own.

  I’m thirsty, so I lift my glass and take a small sip of my beer. Cho wags a finger at me, and I put the glass back down. He hasn’t touched his, and Plaa is letting her tea get cold.

  We’ve been putting off the waiter for almost a half hour when the lunch crowd begin to arrive, taking their places in twos and threes at tables for four or more. I notice Plaa and Cho making very slight nods, little waves of no more than a finger at the people who are coming int
o the restaurant.

  These aren’t the typical, well-heeled patrons of the place. The customers have dressed as nice as they can for the occasion, but their best is a lot lower on the fashion scale than Big Shrimp’s usual lunch crowd of businessmen. The restaurant staff are giving each other looks, wondering, “Who are these people? Can they afford to eat here?”

  Our Bangkok correspondent comes in. He’s with the Thai editor of a local trouble-making magazine and his chief reporter, a tiny but solidlooking Thai woman from the country’s dirt-poor northeast. She’s known for her motto, a quote from an American journalist of the early 1900s: “To afflict the comfortable, and comfort the afflicted.” I flash them a smile. They sit down at a table in a corner from where they can observe the whole restaurant.

  By the time the restaurant’s full, there are only two tables that appear to actually be ordering lunch. Everyone else has no more than one cooling or warming drink in front of them and can’t make up their mind about what they want to eat. The waiters, maitre d’ and floor managers are in a huddle by the motionless swinging doors to the kitchen. Every so often a busboy or cook’s face appears in one of the windows in the kitchen doors, grins broadly and then disappears.

  A crowd of the usual customers gathers at the front desk, wanting their usual tables. They’re increasingly restless, perturbed in their fine summer-weight wools and linens. But too bad. Big Shrimp is full.

  The maitre d’ hurries over to try and mollify his customers, but most of them turn and walk away. There are plenty of other places to eat nearby. A few agree to take empty seats at some of the partially filled tables.

  A man in one of the most perfectly tailored suits I’ve ever seen with a haircut that no doubt cost as much as Plaa makes in a month or more sits down at our table. He’s with a Miss Universe-class, bejewelled woman of about a third his age. They smile at me and look nervously at my lunch companions.