Grandad, There's a Head on the Beach

by Colin Cotterill

  Chompu hopped over the side wall and landed on empties: bottles and cans and supermarket bags of garbage. The cockroaches objected to this surprise arrival and scattered around the yard.

  “Barbarians,” he said, aloud.

  He walked to the rear door and tried the handle. It was locked. Behind him, where the concrete ended and the jungle began, there was a dirt trail that extended from the driveway. He walked it to a sharp turn and a second carport. This one was mostly corrugated tin with a cloth front flap. He pulled back the corner of the cloth to see a brown and cream police truck in the dark interior. It looked familiar. He checked the plate. Chumphon 44619. It was one of the three trucks registered to the Pak Nam police unit. One was off getting a new carburetor. When he was leaving his office just twenty minutes earlier, he’d heard the second truck crew on the intercom explaining how they’d just stopped a pick-up truck with an elephant in the back. They wanted to know what the safe weight limit was for a Toyota Hilux. Nobody knew. But wait! Wasn’t the third truck parked in front of the station when he left? Surely he couldn’t have imagined that. And did that mean that in the time it took Chompu to complete his reconnaissance and hop over the wall, Lieutenant Egg had driven it home? Was he inside now watching this trespass through a back window?

  Chompu walked up to the truck and put his hand on the hood. It wasn’t hot. There was no engine ticking. It hadn’t been driven for some time. So perhaps the third truck had been fixed and returned and … he’d just confused the plates? But Chompu wasn’t the type to confuse three numbers he’d signed off for numerous times. Something particularly odd was going on.

  He walked back toward the house and paused at the door before trying the handle again. It was still locked. He looked under the flowerpots that now contained the skeletons of plants, but there was no key. So he had no choice. Breaking and entering. He’d even thought to bring the mini-crowbar from his bike. The door popped open, and not for the first time, he considered how much easier his life would have been if he’d pursued a career of crime. There was no discrimination in the underworld. The mafia didn’t hold you back because you liked Kylie Minogue.

  The reconnoitre of the ground floor took all of two minutes. Apart from a tacky table/chair set in the kitchen and a sink full of plates and utensils, and smells emanating from a mountain of black plastic garbage bags in one corner, there was nothing else. The other downstairs rooms were unfurnished and empty.

  Halfway up the stairs, he heard the scratchy reception of a short-wave radio. The volume was down, but it was clearly the same local band used by the rescue foundations. It was currently tuned in to the police channel. Chompu took out his pistol. It had only ever been fired at the range. It was an old Glock, and it made such a horrid bang. But he was scared. The gun was more to hide behind than to use. He wasn’t the brave hero type. He was a thinker. He would have made a great detective but for this defect.

  He walked past the first open bedroom door. A pig sty. Clothes piled everywhere. Dirty magazines beside the unmade bed. Empties. But the radio sound was coming from the next room. He edged along the tiled landing and stopped to steady his heart before peeking in through the half-open door. The blind was closed. There were two single beds. On one slept a young man in undershorts. He had cropped hair and was a wiry mass of muscles and scars. His mouth seemed to cave in on one side. The radio played him a non-stop lullaby of traffic reports and static, and he snored through it. Between the beds were two chairs, and draped over each was a full police uniform.

  Two …

  … chairs.

  He felt the knife tip in the small of his back. It pricked his skin and probably drew blood. He yelped. He was sure he’d never get bloodstains out of that shirt.

  “This is what they call a knife,” said a husky voice not far from his ear. “It’s sharp. The slightest shove and it’ll carve your kidneys in half. So how about you drop that gun?”

  The weapon clanged onto the tiles and woke the sleeping youth. This was Ben of the rat brothers. Half awake, he was an ugly and angry boy.

  “What? What’s happened?” he asked, jumping up from the mattress.

  “We got a guest,” said Socrates, the ear voice. “Didn’t even have the politeness to ring the doorbell. And you know? I think when he saw you lying there all naked and sweaty—I think he had a mind to do you.”

  “What? Whadya mean?” asked the youth.

  “Well, you know who this is, don’t you?” said ear voice. “This is the queer one. Egg’s office mate.”

  “What’s he doing here?”

  “I told you. He’s come looking for your bum.”

  Ben was incensed. He paced the few feet between the beds as if he were trying to fathom it all. Chompu could see he was obviously experiencing some mental turmoil. Some inner yearning. He knew what to expect next. Ben, realizing he was barely dressed, grabbed a Thai manga comic from the foot of his bed and held it against his crotch. His modesty preserved, he fronted up to Chompu and poked a finger in his face.

  “Is that it?” he shouted. “Is that what you’ve come for? You’re a pervert. You’re dead.”

  The second poke was directly in Chompu’s left eye. The eye watered, but he was too numb to really appreciate the pain. The whole scene was as surreal as Janet Jackson’s boob popping out at halftime in the Superbowl but perhaps a little more life-threatening. He was alert and aware but not as a participant exactly. There was a meditation-like clarity. Some mixture of Buddhism and shock. It was as if he were hanging on the wall with the lizards, observing his own impending humiliation.

  Young Ben reached down to pick up Chompu’s gun. He was shaking now. In a frenzy. Uncontrollable. Chompu felt the barrel bump into his temple, but there was still no here-and-now reality to it. No fear. In fact, he might have even smiled. The finger squeezing the trigger was seven centimeters from his eyes. It had a long dirty fingernail.

  “Not yet” came the ear voice of Socrates.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m standing behind him, you thickhead.”

  Ben was in a red funk that Chompu doubted the calm voice of logic could ever penetrate. But after a shudder, the gun was lowered and the youth sent a gob of spit against the policeman’s cheek. Chompu looked down at the uniforms. This was why there was a fake truck in the yard. Why Egg was on the radio all the time. He needed to know where the real police were so he could send out his fake ones to pick up Burmese. Impersonating police officers was a serious matter, and he knew, once they were found out, there was no way they could let him go.

  Live Internet feed. 6:30 P.M. Gulf of Thailand

  (CAMERA—CLOSE-UP OF JIMM JUREE)

  JIMM: We’ve been at sea now for an hour and a half. The constant drizzle has finally let up, but the waves continue to bat us back and forth like a Ping-Pong ball. The conditions are taking their toll.

  (CAMERA SCANS TO THE RIGHT TO THE REAR ENDS OF ARNY, WAEW, AND BIGMAN BEUNG, WHO ARE LEANING OVER THE SIDE OF THE BOAT. THE SHOT BECOMES UNSTEADY AND WE HEAR THE SOUND OF A FEMALE RETCHING OFF-CAMERA)

  ED: (OFF-CAMERA) You all right there, Jimm?

  JIMM: What? Why wouldn’t I be? I’m fine.

  ED: You just—

  JIMM: Shut up, Ed.

  (CAMERA RETURNS TO THE PASTY FACE OF JIMM)

  JIMM: It’s the elements. That’s what puts woman in her place. Out here we are insects. We are termites compared to the power of the universe. But even in our little ant farm, we can demand justice and fair play for—

  (CAMERA DROPS TO SHOW CLOSE UP OF JIMM’S FEET AND WE HEAR MORE OFF-CAMERA RETCHING)

  “Do you think they’ll be all right?” Mair asked. She was at the Internet shop, sharing a seat with Sissi, watching the screen.

  “They’re on a boat in a monsoon sea,” Sissi reminded her. “They might even capsize before they reach the slavers. But that’s why it’s so great.”

  “It is?”

  “Of course it is. You couldn’t write a better script. Who’s
going to move away from their computer with this all going on? It’s so tense.”

  “But what if they … I don’t know … die?”

  “Exactly. That’s the spirit. It’s the ultimate thrill trip. There’s no Hollywood-ending clause. The tension’s real because the actors are expendable. And look at that, Mair. We’ve got fourteen thousand real-time viewers online. That’s more than Susan Boyle’s first day on YouTube.”

  “But I’m serious. What if they don’t make it?”

  “None of us makes it, Mair. We all die. But how many of us get to die live on the Internet?”

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  “Excuse me.”

  They looked up, surprised to be disturbed by the spotty Internet shop owner who’d been sitting at his desk watching customers turn away from the locked glass door. The five-thousand baht Sissi had handed him for the use of his establishment seemed to give him no pleasure at all. But now he was enthralled by what was happening in front of him.

  “What?” Sissi asked.

  “This is all real, isn’t it?”

  “It’s taken you two hours to work that out?”

  “I’ve been sulking. I can’t focus when I sulk. Can I Tweet about this?”

  “The more the merrier,” said Sissi.

  Live Internet feed. 7:30 P.M. Gulf of Thailand

  (CAMERA—CLOSE-UP OF JIMM JUREE)

  JIMM: We’ve been at sea now for almost as long as our last prime minister was in office. But we’re just hearing some exciting news from Captain Kow in our lead boat. He’s there at the handover spot. You’ll hear the dialogue between the two captains over the radio. I’ll translate as best I can.

  (CAMERA ZOOMS IN ON ED)

  KOW: I’ve held back as far as possible. The three squid boats are lit up like Bangkok. I’m dark here. I’m using my binoculars, and I can see that the three big boats have come together in a huddle around the ferry. They’re … they seem to be sharing out the Burmese between the three boats. I can’t make out how many guards there are. It’s far, and the conditions are shitty. But … wait. There’s some kind of conflict. I can hear the guards shouting. It might … I don’t know. It might be someone refusing to get out of—

  (SOUND OF AUTOMATIC WEAPON CARRIES OVER RADIO)

  ED: Kow! You all right? Kow?

  KOW: Yeah. They just … they just shot one of the Burmese. Threw his body overboard. I guess it was a reminder of who’s in charge. I … yeah. (SILENCE) The ferry’ll be coming back this way soon. What do you suggest I do?

  ED: Stay out of sight, but stay with her.

  JIMM: (OFF-CAMERA) I’m sorry. I was … I was a little behind on the translation there. I’m just … yeah. Oh, man. These people are serious. Ed, are you sure Kow should follow the boat?

  ED: Yeah. I’ve got a plan.

  14.

  The Colors of the Rambo, So Pretty in Disguise

  (from “What A Wonderful World” — BOB THIELE, GEORGE DAVID WEISS)

  Live Internet feed. 7:55 P.M. Gulf of Thailand

  (CLOSE-UP OF JIMM JUREE SWINGS ROUND SLOWLY TO THE DARK SEA)

  JIMM:(WHISPERED) We’re sitting here with our lights off because the ferry, on its way back to the port after dropping off its slaves, is passing only fifty meters in front of us. We can see the red signal light of Captain Kow in pursuit. We’re hoping to catch the skipper by sur—

  (SOUND OF THE LOUD CLICK OF THE SPOTLIGHT BEING SWITCHED ON.)

  JIMM: Our boat and Captain Kow’s have both switched on their full beams. You can now see the little boat quite clearly. My grandad is standing up in the front of our boat beside Bigman Beung in his impressive uniform. I’ll translate.

  GRANDAD JAH: (OFF-CAMERA) Cut your engine.

  (SOUND OF GUNFIRE)

  JIMM: That was the sound of Grandad firing his gun over the head of the ferry skipper. At least, I don’t think he was trying to hit him. I imagine with the lights and the uniform, this must look like a navy raid of some kind. He’s … he’s cut his engine sure enough, and he’s got his hands in the air. Our own engine kicks up, and we head toward him. Will he reach for a gun when he works out we’re nobody official?

  BIGMAN BEUNG: (OFF-CAMERA) Keep your hands where we can see them.

  JIMM: As we get close, it’s obvious that the skipper isn’t in any fit state to reach for anything. He’s either drunk or drugged. That’s Captain Kow you see pulling alongside him. He’s tying up his boat and jumping aboard. Well done, Captain. (CLOSE-UP OF CAPTAIN KOW OPENS UP TO TAKE IN THE CAPTURED BOAT) And here it is. The open boat that carried seventeen slaves to the fleet, one of whom was killed right in front of the captain’s eyes. I will take you aboard so you can see the cramped conditions under which the Burmese were forced to endure the journey out to the deep ocean. Here. Two narrow wooden benches. Leg irons. The smell of vomit. No food or drink. My grandad is interrogating the prisoner of war. Like many fishermen, he’s probably spaced out on amphetamines.

  (ZOOM IN ON THE INTERROGATION)

  GRANDAD JAH: What’s your name, old man?

  FERRY SKIPPER: Yeah. Whatever.

  GRANDAD JAH: Do you realize that what you’ve just done is an infringement of international law?

  FERRY SKIPPER: You finished? I got a night job to get to.

  GRANDAD JAH: You aren’t going anywhere, son. You’re under arrest.

  FERRY SKIPPER: Is that so? I don’t see any police. Just old farts and tarts.

  GRANDAD JAH: Then you aren’t looking hard enough.

  (POLICE CAPTAIN WAEW GOES ROUND BEHIND THE SKIPPER AND SNAPS ON HANDCUFFS WHILE GRANDAD MANHANDLES THE PRISONER DOWN ONTO ONE OF THE BENCHES)

  FERRY SKIPPER: You can’t do this. I’ve got contacts. I’ve got a number to call. I’m protected.

  GRANDAD JAH: Yeah? Where is it? I’ll call it for you.

  FERRY SKIPPER: In my shirt pocket.

  GRANDAD JAH: Thank you. That’ll come in very useful. In court.

  (CAMERA ROTATES BACK TO JIMM)

  JIMM: So, there you have it. The first victory. We are now three boats. But how do we use this windfall to our advantage? Stay tuned.

  “Oh, this is just it, Mair. Just it.”

  “It is?”

  “Absolutely it. Look at the counter.”

  “That’s certainly a lot of numbers.”

  “We just jumped like some mad thing. We’re fifty thousand short of half a million. And they’re everywhere. Look at this.”

  Sissi dragged her mother to a far computer.

  “See this, Mair? This is a stat-counter. It tells you where people are logging in from. Look at this: London, Rio, Cape Town. Look at the figures. We’re global.”

  “That’s nice. But I don’t think I’d want her with a bushman. A nice Englishman would be fine.”

  “Mair, this isn’t a dating service.”

  “I know, but you did promise to make her look thinner.”

  “She’ll have every man in the world drooling over her. She’ll be a celebrity. It doesn’t matter what you look like if you’re a celebrity.”

  Mair looked at her daughter and touched the screen.

  “Being a celebrity isn’t like being a person,” she said. “It’s just another two-dimensional brick in the entertainment empire. It’s temporary. I want her to find someone because she has a good heart.”

  “They’ll see her heart, don’t you worry. Look what she’s doing. Heart’s about all they’re running on out there.”

  * * *

  “Why’s he naked?”

  “Lady boys don’t like being, you know, exposed. They’re lost without their queer clothes, and…”

  “What psychology book did you get that out of?”

  “Everyone knows.”

  “Right.”

  Lieutenant Egg was standing in the doorway looking down at Chompu, who was handcuffed to the headboard by one wrist. It was a Home Art two-thousand baht bed, so if Chompu had been of a certain mind and musculature he could have destroyed the whole thing
in seconds. As it was, he lay on the mattress with one manacled hand above him and the other on his genitals.

  “And the bruises?” Egg asked.

  “He resisted arrest,” said Ben. Socrates sat on his own bed, watching. Both were now dressed in their fake police uniforms.

  “You know, normally I’d say that was excessive violence,” said Egg. “I’d say, ‘You have a foe. You have a need to dispense with him. You do it cleanly and without personal animosity. It’s a job.’ But there are times when the would-be victim rubs you so far up the wrong way, you just want to make it last as long as you can.”

  Egg sat on the bed beside Chompu.

  “Why didn’t you gag him?”

  “He hasn’t said nothing,” said Ben.

  “Probably got a sore throat from all that man juice,” said Socrates.

  Egg grabbed Chompu’s modesty hand and yanked it away from his organ.

  “Well. You’re well equipped for a lady boy, aren’t you?” said Egg. “What a waste. And I bet your reporter girlfriend hasn’t even seen it. Am I right? But as she’s got the balls in this relationship, I wouldn’t be surprised if you coming here was her idea. Yeah, you haven’t got the sense to put all this together by yourself. This and all that filing-cabinet bullshit. You think I’d leave anything incriminating in a police station? Do you?”

  Egg clicked his fingers, and Ben handed over his stiletto blade.

  “And his cell phone,” said Egg.

  The rats went through the crumpled clothing on the floor and came up with the mobile. Egg scrolled through the numbers.

  “OK. Here she is,” he said.

  He pressed the number and handed the phone to Chompu. At the same time he slowly slid the razor-sharp knife under the policeman’s pride and joy.

  “You get her here any way you can,” said Egg. “But you make it sound innocent. You’ve got something to show her. I don’t care how you do it. But one stupid comment and you’ll be half the man you never were. You know what I mean?”