by Simon Royle
“This morning Sankit invited me for breakfast. Said he had some information to give me. Asked me to come alone. He was a with a cop from Crime Suppression. He handed me these.” I put the photos on the bed and spread them out, propping them up on Por’s leg. Mother picked one up, the one with Chai slipping the money to the fat guy. A hand went to her mouth.
“Oh no. Oh, Chance. I’m so sorry.” I’ve never seen Mother cry but tears welled up in her eyes, the photo in her lap the cause. Tears landing on the image, one on Chai’s face, distorting it. She sniffed back the tears and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
“Where’s Pim?”
“She went to visit some friends. I spent some time with her this morning on the range. Chance, we have to deal with this now, today. We have no choice.”
“I have to ask him why.”
“It doesn’t matter. All that matters is to remove the threat. That is the truth. If you try to understand why everything happens you can go crazy trying. It can be as stupid but as basic as jealousy. Money, blackmail, position, bad mood, all of them - are why things happen. But when you cut off the source it all stops.”
“I need to know why Chai has done this to me.”
“Ggh.” The sound made us both jump. We’d been talking in whispers. It was Por. His eyes open. He was trying to talk but the respirator in his throat made that impossible. His eyes were barely open, but I could tell he was forcing himself to stay awake. He lifted a hand and made a sign for a pen. On the coffee table, a pad and a pen. I got up and grabbed them. I put the pen in his hand. It still felt frail and fragile, but he gripped the pen. I held the pad steady for him.
‘not Chai’ – he wrote. The pen fell out of his hand. His eyes closed but flickered open. He signaled for the pen again. I put it back in the finger.
‘chai talk ok - Por’. The pen slipped off the bed covers and fell on this floor. His eyes didn’t open. The heart rate monitor looked normal. He had fallen asleep again.
“You go get ready and meet me at the sala in five minutes.” Mother picked up the photos and put them back in the envelope. She pressed the bell for the nurse.
I went to the main garage off the forecourt of the main house. On the rear wall, a bench stood and above the bench, shelves holding toolboxes. I took one of the toolboxes down and pushed on the panel behind it. The panel pushed in, sliding sideways to reveal a secret shelf. I took out a Beretta M9 and a Gemtech silencer, putting them on the bench. I loaded a magazine. It’s like folding a parachute, something you have to do yourself, to be sure. The garage and house were quiet. Each click of a bullet seated like the click on a slide projector flicking through images of our life together. Some images of photos when we were apart. Photos he had of me and I of him. I thought of him as a brother. We were a team. I pushed the full magazine home and put one in the chamber.
I picked up a jacket from my room and went down to the sala. Joom was sitting at the far end. Next to her stood a small table and on the table, the family Buddha, ancient and worn. I knelt and waied. Mother patted the floor beside her. She was sitting with her knees tucked under her next to the table. I sat down covering the gun with my jacket. Mother called Chai.
“Chai come down to the sala now I want to talk to you.” Mother hung up the phone. It was her style. She turned to me.
“I’ve told everyone to leave us alone. No one will disturb us. Whatever needs to be done must be, for the sake of the family. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, Mother.” I checked that the safety was off, sitting cross-legged, with my hand under the jacket, finger on the trigger guard.
Chai came up the steps to the sala. Shoes off, he paused slightly, a frown crossing his face as he saw the Buddha. He prostrated himself and waied three times as is our custom. Keeping his head low, he crossed to us and knelt on his knees in front of Mother.
His glance took in my stance and hand. His eyes flicked to me, understanding. The corners of his mouth twitched up in a little smile.
“Chai, you will swear to Buddha that you will tell the truth.”
“Yes, Mother.” Chai looked calmer than he had ever done. His hands folded one on top of the other as if he were at meditation - a calm face and eyes that were smiling.
“Chai, did you pay the Cambodians to kill Chance.”
“Yes, Mother. I did.” My heart raced. I was truly shocked. He was so blasé about it, like it was nothing. Mother put her hand on mine, the one under the jacket.
“Can you tell us why?”
“No, Mother. I’m sorry, I cannot. I cannot tell a lie and I cannot tell you the truth. I swore I would not.”
“Who did you swear this too?”
“I swore that I wouldn’t say.”
“You understand that Chance has no choice but to kill you?”
“Yes, Mother, I understand and I accept it. I am content.” He smiled at me. “My brother is ready to become Godfather, so my work is done. May Buddha protect him and guide him.”
Mother leaned forward, placing the pad with Por’s words on it in front of Chai. “Por wrote that today. I think he wrote it to you. Does that change what you can tell us?”
Chai visibly slumped and smiled.
“Por is awake?”
“Yes, for very short periods. He is recovering. Now can you tell us what this is all about?”
Chai waied the ground in front of Mother, holding his hands together in front of his chest.
“I swear, in front of the Lord Buddha, that what I shall say is the truth as I know the truth.”
Chai’s Tale
24 May 2010 Pak Nam 10:15 am
“In early May, I went to the showroom to get a car. If you remember, it was the car you took to Hua Hin, when you stayed at the Dusit.”
“The seven series BMW?”
“Yes. What I didn’t know is that Por had just used the car for a job. He had loaned the car to some Indian financier and he had it bugged. The bugs weren’t taken out until after you came back from Hua Hin. I took the car back to the showroom and picked up another one. Two days later, Por called me to come see him. We talked here. He asked me what I knew about you and Pim. I told him what I knew. He told me that Pim was forcing you to leave the family and asked how I felt about that. I told him the truth which is that would upset me very much, that you belonged to us.” Chai smiled at me. “And you do. You are ready to be Godfather now. You belong here, with us.”
I knew what was coming. Could virtually replay every word of the discussion between Pim and I on the drive back to Bangkok. We’d got caught in traffic. I don’t know how long Por’s tapes lasted but we talked solidly for three hours. Most of it was about leaving the business.
“Por was upset with the idea of you leaving the family. Said it was the wrong move for everyone, especially you. He left it at that. Told me he was going to think about it and then he’d decide what to do. A few days later, he called me again. Asked me to come see him. He told me he had a plan but he needed my help.
“Por said it was time for Samuel Harper to go. His plan was to kidnap Pim, take her upcountry and give her a good talking to about family values and have someone try to kill you. I would kill whoever tried to kill you but it would be leaked to the media so you as Samuel Harper would be exposed. Por said he could take care of all the legal stuff. Once we’d 'rescued' Pim, and you were back in the family, Por planned to retire.”
“I asked around, found out about some Cambodians who’d moved into the slum in Lad Krabang. I followed them a bit, got to know their habits, and approached them with a deal. I’d tell them where and when they should hit. If they broke that rule, they wouldn’t get paid and they’d all be killed. They agreed. I went back and told Por what was organized. He said to wait until he was ready. The next thing, the bomb went off in…”
“Chai, I’m perfectly aware that Por was with a girl in Heaven. Please, it is normal,” Mother said.
“You sent the photoshopped photos to the Thai Rath?” I asked him.
I’ve known Chai a long time. Up until this morning, I’d have said I could tell when he was lying. If he was lying, I still couldn’t tell. His eyes were open, honest, and unblinking, looking from me to Mother with a small smile on his lips.
“Did Por order you to carry out the plan or did you see that in a dream as well?”
“As I was carrying Por out of Heaven, he asked me about Bank and Red. I told him they were dead and he told me to follow the plan, to do it, said we needed it now. It was his last order to me and with Bank and Red dead, he was relying on me. Then he passed out. I went back and got Chance then I drove you both to the hospital.
“The hospital was a good controlled environment and public. I called the Cambodians, told them to send three and it worked out exactly as I planned.” He looked at me with a grimace. “From then on things got a bit out of hand. When the first group of three was killed and you announced dead. I thought it was good enough. I paid them and told them to stop. That’s when they got the bright idea that they’d still kidnap the girl. It wasn’t you they were after. It was Pim. That wasn’t supposed to happen. That’s why I was so angry, I wasn’t there. But you did a good job. To make sure it didn’t happen again, while you were in Singapore I killed most of the rest of the gang. They were scum, dealing yaa baa to the kids in the slum. They needed to move on to their next life.”
“What about the guy on the pier?”
Chai smiled. “Por showed me in a dream. A crocodile being attacked by a tiger at a watering hole but the crocodile rolled and bit the tiger in the neck. So, two birds, one stone. I implicate Big Tiger and get rid of the last of the Cambodians.”
“He had a double-barreled shotgun pointed at me.”
The smile grew into a grin. “I know. I gave him the shotgun and told him you were coming, while you had a smoke. Then I walked up the pier and called you. Waited till you appeared and he made his move, then I shot him.” Chai leaned forward and put his hands out in front. He turned them over to show he had nothing in them. He reached up by my ear and held two 9mm cartridges in his fingers. He smiled again.
“You ordered Pichit and Somboon to put the guy in cold storage and turn the temperature down.”
“I did and he was the last of them. That evening I sent Thai Rath news desk the photoshopped photos of you and the next day Samuel Harper was dead and Chance alive. That is everything that happened.” He dropped his hands which hand been in a wai all this time, and put them on his thighs facing Mother. He bowed his head, his chin on his chest.
Mother shuffled forward, her hand reaching to Chai’s chin. She lifted his head and leaned forwards, kissing him on the forehead. She turned looking at me.
“Maybe we can talk later, after dinner. I’m going to take the Buddha back to his room. I’ll leave you two to talk things over.” She waied the Buddha and picked it up. Holding it in hands, she rose from her knees. She smiled at Chai. If he had a tail he’d be wagging it.
Chai looked at me.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, I understand. It was Por’s orders.”
“No, I’m not sorry about that. I’m sorry I had to tell Joom your private conversation with Pim.”
“You killed five people to keep me in the family.”
He grinned, his dark brown eyes wide open, innocent as a newborn babe. “It was nine if you include the one’s you didn’t see. I killed nine scum who deserved to die. I’d have killed ninety saints to keep you with us.” He didn’t blink.
There was nothing more to say.
***
I knew now, how the bomb had gone off in Heaven. I still didn’t know if it was an accident or deliberate. The trail ended at the 11th Infantry Regiment Barracks. Sankit had genuinely helped in the Cambodian assassin thing, even though he looked pleased that my own bodyguard had betrayed me. I’d leave him in the dark on that one. I hadn’t told Pim any of this. Saw no value in that. Without concrete evidence of some kind, it was all conjecture. I decided to put the matter on a back burner.
I wasn’t any closer to figuring out who had grabbed Uncle Mike. Immigration had turned up nothing on Leon and all the other paperwork was a false trail that led nowhere. It was possible the name was just one of those coincidences, you know, chance. It was possible but somehow I doubted it. There was something that niggled away in the background, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Just a feeling that there was something I’d missed.
We retrieved Um’s body and sent it to his parents with enough money to give a decent funeral. We are not heartless. We did this on behalf of the red shirts and added his name to the list of those killed in the fighting. In a way, it was the truth. I sent the same amount to Ice’s father, promising I’d come and see him personally when I had a bit more time. I told him in my note that Ice was a victim of the political violence and that the person who got her involved was dead. I hoped it would give him some closure. I lied about the money too; said it was found in Ice’s room and belonged to him. I knew he’d be too proud to take it otherwise.
Loose ends, yes, but I’ll take any end to trouble. I still had to decide what to say to Pim but the choice had narrowed. I couldn’t leave the family. Not now. Not ever. The only choices that remained: let her go or be selfish and ask her to stay with me.
I had been thinking about Joom. About the day I first met her. I was picked up at the apartment building by Uncle Mike and Por. I don’t really remember much about what happened before and my memories of what happened after are like anybody’s. I remember the first day I met Joom like it had happened this morning.
I got out of the car and saw her for the first time. She was sitting under the house, where the garage is now. Back then it was hard-packed earth with a wooden Thai house on stilts standing on it, grass and trees all around. The river flooded here regularly. There were boats turned over under the house and Joom was sitting on one. She was twenty-two then, but to me as a kid, she was just another adult. We don’t figure out age until we’ve got some.
I stayed where I was. I wasn’t scared. My parents had often left me with strangers or alone. Mostly, I preferred being left with strangers. Joom got up off the boat and walked over to us. She squatted down in front me. She was then and still is beautiful. She smiled.
“Can you speak Thai, Dek Farang.” I nodded. I spoke Thai better than I spoke English, as a kid I’d spent more time with Thai people than Farangs.
“You know it isn’t polite to nod when an adult asks you a question?”
I remember looking at her and thinking that over. Her eyes were smiling so I gave her an honest answer. “No. I didn’t know that.”
Her smile got bigger. “Do you know why you’re here?”
I had started to shake my head but replied, “No.”
“Do you know who Buddha is?”
“Yes.” I did. My parents were, ‘really into Buddha you know, man…’
“Buddha has sent you to me. You can call me Mere Joom.”
Tum pulled into the parking lot of the Golden Fortune Chinese Restaurant. Chai and I got out. The car park was dark, hot and crowded. I was standing in for Por at the monthly Godfathers' meeting. Held at a different location each month, this month’s place had been chosen by Loong Virote. Literally translated, his name means ‘Tower of Strength’. He was being helped out of his old black Benz, the kind with the long vertical headlamps. His bodyguard reached in behind him to collect the aluminum cane he used.
Big Tiger pulled up, Daeng and his boys following in their white van. Tiger got out, yelling at the girl in car with him. It was Uni girl. Obviously she’d made it back from Samui. Tiger and his boys saw us and started walking over. Uni girl got out of the car, yelling at Big Tiger, calling him a fat old lizard. He just waved a hand and kept walking, his boys chuckling.
I stopped still.
The thing that had been nagging at me – the woman’s voice – “Leon”. It was Uni girl.
Making A Killing
24 May 2010 Pak Nam 12:45 pm
I walked quickly past Big Tiger, heading for the fire exit door that Uni girl had used. I heard Big Tiger call out.
“Hey, Chance, the elevator’s this fucking way,” but I was moving, as fast as I could without running, Chai a few steps behind. I was thinking: Uni girl on Lilly’s phone, how the hell did that happen? I banged through the fire exit door. Yellow painted walls and a staircase leading up. I took the steps three at a time, running, now that I was out of sight of the guys in the garage. The staircase ended with a door I slammed open. It led into the open air lobby of the restaurant. Uni girl nowhere to be seen. Then I spotted her. She was getting into a cab about fifty meters away. I ran, Chai hard on my heels. The taxi pulled away before we’d got halfway there. I turned and shouted at Chai, “Get the car. I’ll follow them.”