Highway Robbery

by Colin Cotterill

Road 41: The Asia Highway is a long, straight stretch with cow dung and debris and potholes and unobserved speed limits. Two lanes and a hard shoulder in each direction. It’s like a computer game with actual death at the end of it. I’ve yet to travel on it without seeing either the accidents themselves or the aftermaths. I was glad to be peddling to it and not along it. My bicycle was leaning against a Red Curry Next Turn Off sign. I sat on the concrete twelve-kilometre marker looking out at the scene of the heist. Ten-wheelers and pickups and red-plated luxury vehicles whewed past me as if I was irrelevant. The spaghetti sauce bloodstain was barely noticeable on the dark bitumen.

  Behind me, an unmarked dirt track cut into a field of dying rubber trees. I tried it. It fizzled out after fifty metres. Impassable. That’s where I would have had my cohorts park the getaway car. But, as Chom said, why not pull off the highway onto the track and do the unloading out of sight? Maybe they were disturbed. Perhaps the driver overshot the turning, stalled the van and couldn’t get it started again. Something clearly went wrong. The only advantage to the location that I could see was that vehicles coming from the other direction wouldn’t have witnessed the crime. A ditch separated north and south traffic and casuarina trees on the central reservation offered up some shade. But at that spot, some zealous local headman had decided to beautify the scenery by planting bougainvilleas in the ditch but hadn’t bothered to tend them. The bushes were overgrown and dense and it was the only spot where you couldn’t be seen by oncoming traffic. It probably meant something. I’d ask granddad. He was the specialist.

  The second-day follow-up on the Channel Seven evening news was brief. The heist had dropped down the scheduling to tenth or eleventh item. Much fresher and bloodier stories had taken its spot. The red team was out there on the streets, armed and dangerous and civil war always took priority over larceny. But Seven did manage to display a photograph of the security van driver. He looked younger than I’d expected. They gave his name, said that he was from the south, and, probably for the benefit of old maids like myself, mentioned that he was single. I have to admit he wasn’t bad looking. I still had this annoying habit of imagining myself in passionate embraces with attractive men. They’re usually footballers but I could make an exception for a man with a-hundred-and-eighty million baht to spend on me. Mysteriously, there was no photograph of the second guard and the newsreader seemed to have no information about him. Not even his name.

  At 1 AM I was awoken by the sound of a toilet flushing in the erstwhile empty room next door. This was unnerving because I’d bumped into Yungluk, my landlady, that evening and asked her about my new neighbour. She said the place was still empty. I mentioned I’d heard a deep groan the night before. We went to investigate together. The room was Spartan and spotless. Yungluk had the only front and back door keys and the locks hadn’t been tampered with. She asked me if I was back on the Chilean Red and I had to admit I’d had a glass or two to help me sleep. The groan may have been in my dream.

  But I positively refused to dream about toilets flushing. And besides, I hadn’t yet fallen asleep. I considered phoning Yungluk but I remembered the poem about Matilda who pretended her house was on fire one time too many. There was only one brick-thickness between the rooms. If anyone was in there I’d hear them. I leaned against the wall with a beaker to my ear. I’d seen that in a movie. I had no idea whether it made any difference, especially as the beaker was plastic and chipped. But I maintained my position for half an hour. Then I heard it. It was a sound you get used to growing up with two brothers and a grandfather. It was clearly a fart. Over the years, we women have learned to suppress flatulence as one would smother a sneeze. But men take a pride in letting that old trumpet blow. My new neighbour was no Louis Armstrong but he’d obviously eaten something volatile before returning to the empty shop. I was embarrassed to have been a witness to it.

  I went to the drawer in my filing cabinet, unlocked it and took out granddad Jah’s service revolver. I’d never worked out why a man who handed out traffic fines needed to be so heavily armed. And, evidently, neither did he. He hadn’t fired it at all in service and only once since, in the defense of our lost resort. I, on the other hand, had used it several times and had become something of a sharp-shooter at the range. But I had no plans to shoot my new neighbour. That wouldn’t have been…neighbourly. I’d just scare the life out of him a little.

  I’d been less than honest with my landlady. We’d entered the vacant shop through the front, grunching up the heavy shutter just high enough for two short-legged women to get inside. On the way out, I’d offered to reattach the padlock and make sure it was secure before handing her the key. Yungluk didn’t bend so well because of her age. I may perhaps have failed to click the lock completely shut. Locks always seemed so limiting. I liked my options open.

  I left my shop through the back door, quietly shoved a plank of two-by-four coconut wood under the rear door handle of the supposedly empty shop, and walked barefoot around to the front of the building. There I stood staring at the dirty green shutter, formulating a plan. I had a flashlight but didn’t dare use it. There were no street lights in Maprao and it was a cloudy night. It was just as dark outside as in. But my night vision is remarkable. I eat a lot of carrots. I considered the likelihood of myself not being the only one armed. Raising the shutter even thirty centimetres would make enough noise to wake Mother Theresa. I’d need sixty at least, all right, ninety. I really had to do more than just talk about that fruit diet I planned to go on.

  I did have surprise on my side. I put the empty plastic garbage bin in front of the shutter. If there was a shadow at all, that’s where he’d shoot. The unfastened padlock was off to one side. I slipped it out of its hasp, put my gun and flashlight on the ground, grabbed the shutter handle and clean-and-jerked it up to my chin. I threw myself to the ground grabbed my gun and my light and waited for the shot from inside. All I heard was the clatter of the door as he tried to hop out the back. I turned on my light and caught him in the beam like a hypnotized buffalo calf. A young, good-looking calf without a shirt.

  This is where I’d normally put in half-a-dozen pages of gritty dialogue between me and shirtless Mr. Warm, my terrified neighbour. But this isn’t a novel. It’s a case report and I have a feeling my hero Clint E. would prefer me to keep it all succinct. He could pad it into a screenplay later. Malpaso had people to do things like that. I’d just send this as a sort of elaborate synopsis. In fact I’m probably irritating him by interrupting my story to mention our relationship. If he ever wrote back I’d have a better idea of what he expected of me. But he’d certainly be disappointed that everyone had already guessed who my neighbour was. Clint’s not big on ‘the coincidence’ as a plot device. And the odds of the most wanted man in Thailand hiding in a shophouse beside the almost second-best female crime reporter in the country were infinitesimal. But, what can I say? Real life doesn’t kowtow to audience expectations. There he was; the security van driver, trembling in my flashlight beam, unkempt and, did I mention, shirtless?

  Putting down my gun and speaking nicely didn’t seem to settle him at all. It wasn’t until I went next door, grabbed a bottle of Chilean Red, two beakers and a candle and returned with a smile and a dab of lipstick on my lips, that I felt he was able to relax. I was surprised he hadn’t taken the opportunity to bolt but, let’s face it, where could he go? We sat opposite each other in the unfurnished shop. He wasn’t much of a drinker. Half a glass and his brown cheeks shone black in the candle light. He had a burden on his shoulders and, from experience, I knew red wine made light of the heaviest of woes.

  So it was I heard about the worst yesterday in his life; the day of the heist. This was his version of events. Warm had been driving for a Surat-based security company for eight months. It was the local branch of the international Banx Corporation. He’d got the job through an uncle. Warm had been surprised to have been accepted because he’d done two months in Bang Kwang jail for robbery. Apparently, nobody had asked abo
ut his past. Most of the work involved moving money from offices to banks and back and of picking up strongboxes at the airport. It was all cash but he was paid well and had no thoughts (so he said) of helping himself to the shipments. Usually, he had a second guard on board and if the cargo was especially important there’d be a police motorcycle escort. So, even if he was tempted to dip into the pot, there were always eyes on him. Until yesterday.

  At this stage I felt more like a confessor than a journalist. I had a pen and a notebook on my lap but I felt guilty to be writing while he told me his story. The tears in his eyes reflected the slow-dancing flame. He spoke in a monotone that flattened all the notes of his deep southern accent. But clearly he needed to tell the tale.

  The Surat Airport job had been on his work schedule chart for a month. But the night before, the second guard’s wife phoned to say her husband was in hospital with food poisoning. Warm called the company to let them know. They said it was late notice but they’d try to find someone before the delivery. When he arrived at the van pool at six the next day, the supervisor introduced him to a baby-faced boy whose uniform swamped him. He wasn’t that chatty. This was to be his new co-pilot although Warm couldn’t see him putting fear into the hearts of any would-be robbers.

  There was a secure building at the airport where the van could drive inside and be loaded. It was in the compound belonging to the Royal Thai Air Force and they took a pride in the fact they’d never lost a shipment. The airport security chief was there along with two air force personnel to supervise the loading. All this under the watchful eye of the Banx representative who had checked the documents from Bangkok that confirmed the banknotes were not counterfeit. He counted the sacks onto the van. Everything was in order; all but the non-appearance of a police motorcycle escort. This was odd considering the size of the load, but it had happened before. If a member of the Royal Family was passing through the province, every available police officer would be dotted along the route. None would be available for escort duty.

  In fact, Warm gave none of this a second thought until he reached Chaiya, some forty kilometres from the airport.

  ‘I’ll be getting off here,’ said the other guard.

  ‘What?’ said Warm.

  ‘I’m supposed to be on another detail,’ said the boy. ‘The company’s short-staffed. They just borrowed me long enough to make all the fliers happy and see you out of airport security. I have to meet my driver at the Siam Commercial in Chaiya.’

  ‘Nobody told me anything about that,’ said Warm.

  ‘No, they couldn’t say anything in front of the air force people. They’d cause a stink like they always do. Nothing to worry about. Here’s fine.’

  Reluctantly, Warm pulled over and let the boy out. Once the driver was alone, his imagination got the better of him as his mind ran through all the oddities of the day. And here was the most peculiar. It didn’t occur to him until he was five kilometres from the intersection that there was no bank on the highway in Chaiya. You’d have to walk two kilometres to get to the branch in town or hire a motorcycle taxi. Why didn’t the boy ask him to take him in? That was strange. That’s when he should have trusted his instinct. That’s when he should have radioed back to headquarters. But what would he have told them? Nothing serious had happened. There were irregularities but surely nothing to worry the company about. He didn’t want to make waves. He had an end of year bonus to keep in mind.

  He’d never been robbed or felt threatened or had a gun pointed at him. Once he was on the road, the Asia Highway calmed his nerves. It was mid-morning on a weekday and there was a lot of traffic. There was a sort of camaraderie in sharing a highway. You felt, apart from the odd mass pile-up, that nothing could go wrong. He nodded at the truck drivers and made good time to La Mae. There’d been no accidents and no police checkpoints, official or otherwise. He started to feel confident. He found himself on a clear stretch of road about twelve kilometres from Lang Suan. There was nobody in his rear-view mirror. He put his foot on the gas. He opened the window a crack to breath in some air. He considered checking out the local FM on the radio. He’d never used it before. He liked being alone.

  That was when he saw the pick-up truck. It was stopped across both lanes, angled facing the wrong direction. The driver’s door was open. The driver’s body hung down to the road at the end of an extended seat belt. Blood everywhere. There were two other adult bodies sprawled on the road. One appeared to be female. But what caused Warm to ignore regulations and slam his foot on the brake was the sight of a young child lying in a pool of blood directly in front of him. The van skidded. The brakes squealed. Somehow, with millimetres to spare, the van shuddered to a halt.

  Regulations stated he should never leave his vehicle unattended. But this was a disaster. His mother and the abbot had instilled in him the solid Thai tradition of helping one’s fellow Thais in times of adversity. He unfastened the complicated locking device on the door and climbed down to view the carnage. He didn’t know what to do or where to start. He briefly looked back for assistance but the road behind him was empty. The oncoming traffic in the opposite lanes seemed not to notice or care. The responsibility was his alone. It filled his chest like wet cement. He took a step toward the child. Her eyes stared up cold and lifeless from the bloody puddle. And that…that’s all he remembered.

  ***

  ‘What do you mean, that’s all he remembered?’ said Granddad Jah.

  ‘Exactly that, Granddad,’ I told him. ‘Or, at least, that’s all he remembered of the accident. Next thing he knows someone’s throwing water in his face and slapping him awake. When he comes around he sees two characters in balaclavas leaning over him. One with a northeastern accent grabs him by the throat and says,

  ‘You just lost a-hundred-and-eighty million baht, brother. Everyone knows it’s you that took it. You’re an ex-con. Nobody’s going to believe your version of events. In an hour you’ll have every policeman in the province looking for you. You’d be best off staying out of sight for a while. You understand?’

  ‘The poor boy,’ said my mother, Mair.

  She had sanity issues but there was nothing wrong with her heart. She could have found compassion for Charles Manson. We were sitting on the balcony of Captain Kow’s little cottage deep in an oil palm plantation. Her dogs, her cow and her monkey sat around her as if she were the good queen in a Disney cartoon.

  ‘Pile of buffalo dung,’ said granddad.

  There was always a villain in Disney cartoons.

  ‘You think he was involved?’ I asked him.

  ‘All I know is that his story’s bloody ridiculous,’ he said. ‘Mid-morning. Asia Highway. And suddenly there’s no traffic on the road? Don’t make me laugh. He just happened to be the first person to come upon an accident? Nobody in front. Nobody behind. And he happens to stop despite orders never to open the door, not even for police checks.’

  ‘The truck was stopped across both lanes,’ I reminded him.

  ‘So he says. He could have gone around.’

  ‘There was the blood and the child.’

  ‘Convenient,’ said granddad.

  ‘It’s lovely that he would stop,’ said Mair. ‘Father, wouldn’t you want someone to stop if they saw you lying on the highway with blood gushing out of you?’

  I considered that. Anyone that knew Granddad Jah well enough would probably run over him again just to make sure. Granddad ignored her.

  ‘And, what about the traffic coming in the opposite direction?’ he continued. ‘You don’t think anyone in the far lane would have stopped to help out at the scene of an accident?’

  That would have been nice but I thought most people these days pretended not to see anything. The good Samaritans of history weren’t traveling at 140kph in an air-conditoned Honda Civic. But I told him about the bougainvillea bushes in the ditch.

  ‘Well, that just makes the dung steamier and stinkier, doesn’t it?’ said granddad.

  ‘So you don’t believe me
now?’ I said.

  ‘I believe the regulations,’ he said. ‘Section five of Highway Construction and Maintenance Manual, 2004. “Each district is responsible for clearing debris and vegetation from the ditches along the central reservation as part of ongoing flood prevention. No flowers or trees are to be planted in the water channels.” I may not have cited it verbatim but that’s the gist of it.’

  I know. Annoying, right? How could Granny Noy have married and produced children with a man who memorized the Highway Code and traffic regulations? He was a freak.

  ‘Where did you meet this young man?’ Mair asked.

  ‘On the beach,’ I said.

  If I’d told the truth, Granddad Jah would have ratted Warm out without question. And it’s fine to lie to your mother if she’s unlikely to remember the conversation a few hours later. So I couldn’t tell them how Warm had found his way to the shop. That he’d taken some while to clear whatever they’d injected into him at the scene and even longer to get oriented. They’d taken him off the highway to a spot around Kilometre Eight. He’d staggered around until he came to a road sign, Maprao 10kms. He had a relative in Maprao, an unmarried aunt who repaired clothes. He’d visited her there once with his mother.

  He’d walked off-road through the palm plantations most of the way. He was confused, bemused, and had a headache hammering like a temple gong. The balaclava guys were right. He was in deep shit. Thai police didn’t venture far from the obvious and Warm was obvious with bells on. It was dark when he reached Maprao but the old girl was still at her sewing machine, working beneath the light of a flickering fluorescent, buzzed by moths, bats and mosquitoes. He told her he needed a place to crash for a while. He couldn’t tell her why. All he knew about her was that she had secrets of her own. She gave him a key to the shop next door. The previous tenant had made unauthorized copies and left one with her when he did his runner. When the shutters were down, the aunt fed Warm and sent him next door to the empty room. She didn’t ask any questions. She didn’t have a TV so, my uncommunicative neighbour, Singer had no idea just how many people were searching for her nephew.