by James Newman
“The Buddha says you must find your work and then work at it,” Rang said. “Ko Samui is a small island; it is not difficult to understand what each person is doing. I have lived here all my life. I have seen the first backpackers with their ideas about paradise and how they can make the island their own. I have seen the land bought and sold and bought and sold. My wife was killed by a tourist. Everybody wants a slice of paradise but nobody knows the cost. Everybody wants to be like a Thai person but they want to have big money. Thai people do not have big money. Yes we have beauty, but you cannot eat a sunset.”
“But you can a grasshopper,” Joe said.
“Try one. You will be surprised.” Rang pushed the plate towards Joe who picked out a juvenile grasshopper; he looked at it and took a nibble on one of the legs. He took another, larger specimen and crunched it between his teeth.
“So when do I get to see the bodies?”
“You have the death certificates already. The bodies have been incinerated.”
“And what about the deceased’s next of kin. Could I have their details?”
Rang shot a glance towards the stage, “When I was last in Bangkok I saw an old beggar strapped to some rough boards on wheels. He was without legs and his stumps were covered with rags. He pushed himself blindly along the road; his face looked up to the night sky as if to curse his blind faith. A whore threw a coin at him and it bounced of one of his stumps and into the gutter. He knew then what he was up against. Do you understand?”
“No. Franco was in charge of both the dives?”
“You don’t understand Mr Dylan; take a look at your file. Mr Franco was the second casualty. He was the blind limbless beggar on top of the boards. He was the casualty.”
“And his dive mate?”
“He dove alone. Like the beggar, alone in the world until, it happened. Now he is with her, maybe.”
“What about the boat, a witness?”
“He dove off the rocks to the south of the island. There is a traditional story of a poor man that died when he was ordered to do so. It was a nonviolent death. He accepted his fate and was glad to be of service.”
“He died alone?”
“Yes, very unfortunate.” Rang smiled.
“It could be considered fortunate seeing as he was the only witness to the first fatality.”
“You must drink, and if you like, choose one of these sing-a-song ladies.”
The atmosphere on stage was one of total depression; to take one of these girls would be like taking a dog to the edge of a cliff and making it jump.
Joe took a long drink from his glass. It had been ninety days. Ninety days of not picking up. Ninety days of sober reflections of his past. Ninety days of hope. Joe felt the alcohol liven his senses. He felt an immediate sense of danger. He knew the moment that the glass left his lips the mistake that he had made. He swore under his breath. The lights in the bar seemed to move. As if they were dancing to the strange Northern music. He picked up the glass again and drank the contents.
Jinx knew the time was right. He stood up and brought his forearm down onto Joe’s forehead. The karaoke girl screamed. Joe threw a fist which stung Jinx’s jaw. Jinx lifted the foreigner up from the chair and threw him to the ground. Rang stood and watched the kick boxer deliver a flurry of blows.
TWENTY-THREE
The Gulf of Siam
HALE SAT on an aisle seat. Window seats made him nervous – What happened if you had to use the crapper? Nothing worse than climbing over a sleeping body when the beer was taking hold. The flight to Samui was only an hour, but the Thais knew how to sleep. Hale had seen them asleep standing up on busses, on the back of pick-up trucks, shop girls asleep at counters. Oh yes, the Thais knew how to sleep. The plane was a seventy-seater prop job that blew around the sky fuelled by hope like a sweet-wrapper in the winds. Storm clouds loomed outside the cabin windows.
Hale caught the attention of the air stewardess and ordered three beers. She smiled at Hale with a trace of resentment. The first went down quickly. The next two would have to last. As he drank the beer Chang the storm blew the aircraft from side to side. Hale began to sway. The Thais began to wake up. A Christian on the next row began to pray. Children screamed and women cried. The trolley rolled down the aisle. Hale drank his beer and opened the next one, holding it like a newborn. He closed his eyes and relaxed as the propeller airplane shook. It would be soon. The London winter smog and a proper beer in a pint glass. Football on Saturday afternoons. The sound of autumn leaves crunching underfoot. He had it all to come.
There was a P.A. announcement, something about turbulence, not panicking. Hale worked on the next beer. The way Hale saw the case was simple. A woman dies on the island. Shogun makes a telephone call to Boss who wants a piece of the claim. Boss calls Hale and they put the claim together and send it to London. London panics. A foreigner has swallowed seawater on the island. They think the girl’s family are prepared to play ball. Hale puts together a claim and thanks to Carmen London accepts and pays the claim. The funds are sent from London to Bluegreen’s Bangkok bank. Then the funds go to a subsidiary bank in Dubai. Funds whizz back to Ko Samui. Funds shooting all other place. Money, money, money. Boss and Shogun split the cash. Finnish embassy tells the family there was no insurance coverage. Alexandra’s family don’t see a penny.
Then there was another fatality and alarm bells rang in London. They send out a detective with insurance knowledge but no real grip on the country. Hale flicked through the claim file once more. First port of call is doctor Johnson.
The propeller plane flew through the storm and touched down on the tropical tarmac. Hale picked up his bag and stepped onto the shuttle bus that ferried him across the airfield to the terminal. He had no luggage to wait for. At arrivals a man held up a board with Mr. Bang, written on it. Hale walked up to him and spoke in Thai for a few moments. They walked over to where a Honda CBR stood beneath the rain. The rain was pouring down as they rode to the hospital. The driver slipped in between traffic. Bangkok had sharpened his wits. Ko Samui was like a Sunday drive, rain or no rain. They made it to the hospital and Hale went in and spoke with an orderly. She gave him the name of a bar that Johnson drank in. They arrived there minutes later. Hale tried to hand the rider a pile of notes but he refused to accept them, said he was being well paid the other side. Hale nodded, good old Chow.
The bar was in a side street of Nathon. A thin man with a halo of brown hair was beyond the point of being merry, but not yet at the stage of drunkenness. The bar was simply a few empty bottles of spirits that lined the shelves above the bar and a glass-fronted fridge that rumbled in the corner. A clock with different species of birds to mark each hour hung above the bar. The time was currently a Stork past a Golden Eagle or a quarter past twelve. Hale sat on a stall next to Johnson who was the only customer. No bartender in sight. Hale had timed it right.
“So what do you do in this town then, apart from drink?”
“I perform...” said the doctor.
“What are you a dancer?”
“Operations. Amputations, fusions, fractures. It’s all these bloody motorcycle accidents.” The doctor waved his hand towards the road outside by means of explanation.
“You like Thailand?”
“Sure. I like Thailand. Just can’t stand the bloody Thais. And by bloody I mean bloody in the literal sense; those covered in blood.”
Johnson had a sense of humour, a good thing thought Hale, he’ll need it.
“What about those drowned in seawater, sufferers of unfortunate diving accidents which never happened, yet had their death certificates signed by one doctor Johnson? Murdered foreigners? You know anything about that?”
“I know nothing about that. Can’t you see I’m drinking? I never talk about work when I’m drinking and I never work while I’m drinking.” He took a long drink from a cocktail glass to emphasize the point.
Hale pulled out the Glock 19 from his hip pocket and pointed the nozzle in the doctor’s
stomach. In his other hand he held his mobile phone on record. He placed the telephone on the bar.
“Now doctor, I want you to read this message clearly.” Hale passed over a piece of A4. “Read it.” Hale turned on the recorder.
The doctor began to sober up, “Are you threatening me?” He looked at Hale with an air of authority that they both knew he didn’t have. Not anymore.
“Well it certainly looks that way doesn’t it?” Hale was remembering the days when he used to deal with situations. Council estates back in London. The old magic was coming back. “The gun’s loaded. No point having an empty one, is there?”
“But you wouldn’t dare.”
Hale clicked off the safety and shot the semi-automatic across the bar splitting a Gecko in two pieces. The top portion of the lizard ran up the wall leaving his tail and hind feet behind. The doctor made the kind of sound a little girl makes when she sees a spider. “Read it,” he repeated.
The doctor read “I doctor Johnson signed two death certificates for two fatalities. Surat Thani Thailand. I had not seen the bodies referenced on said certificates or inspected them in any way. As such I cannot confirm that these persons are in fact deceased, or if they are deceased the circumstances surrounding their deaths.”
Johnson began to sob slightly, “But I only signed one certificate, the Italian.”
“It would appear that your signature is on both certificates. Perhaps the authorities have copied your signature onto the other document. Forgery is a crime, but you would know all about that now wouldn’t you?”
Hale passed a piece of paper with the same statement written out in black and white. The Doctor drunkenly signed the paper. He picked up his glass and took a long drink from it. He looked at Hale. “You can put that thing away now,” he said pointing at the gun.
“I will not use this document for a period of forty-eight hours. That should give you enough time to get off the island. And I suggest that you do get off the island and move away from Thailand. Take up a new hobby. A new career. I hear there’s big money in civet-coffee. Good luck.” Hale pocketed the revolver and the recorder and headed outside the bar. The time was now a Goldfinch past a Hornbill. Time to see his old friend.
TWENTY-FOUR
THE TRANQUILLIZERS weren’t enough for the big sleep. The flurry of blows were meant to intimidate rather than kill. He knew the barbiturate sensation. Joe had a taste for downers back in the day and had kept up his resistance. A few each night to cure the hangover the next day. Those were different times. The tolerance and the strength stayed. Nonetheless, he went through the motions and allowed himself to slump head first down on the table. He felt his heart slow down but not to the point of stopping. Sleep was very close but he could fight it, allowing his body to go limp as they lifted him up and carried him to a vehicle bundling him into the back seat. The engine roared to a start and they moved along a bumpy road. He decided to give the kick boxer a taste of his own medicine – or two just like it. He felt the plastic medicine bag of valiuim and norgestic in his pocket. He opened the bag and began to crumble the tablets together into a fine powder. Above the sound of the engine Joe heard crickets and tree frogs and surmised that they were travelling upwards into the jungle. The road wound around and the momentum helped keep him awake. The smell inside the jeep was terrible; at once recognizable as the stench of blood and death. Joe pictured a hospital bed with a body lying face upwards, a dead man in a diving suit. Joe had always been aware of death as something that will happen; just a case of how and where and when. It was the fear of dying. Clinging on to life that weakens a man. Letting go made him stronger. Joe’s eyes begun to slowly close. He heard a mobile telephone ring and a man speaking in rapid fire Thai, but he couldn’t make out a word of the conversation. The truck changed direction and then came to a stop and turned around; they were travelling back down the mountain towards the beach.
Joe started to count to keep awake but the numbers got to five or six and then he had to start counting again. One.. Two...
TWENTY-FIVE
HALE HIRED a motorbike and headed on up into the jungle, the light was poor but he was led by an intuition. It had stopped raining. The Thais drove on the left. Somehow he knew just where to go, past the coconut trees on either side up and around the winding jungle road, he found himself behind the metal gates that spanned the perimeter of Shogun’s compound. He dismounted the motorbike and pushed on the intercom button. Hale had known Shogun for a number of years; they had met in a Bangkok go-go bar back in the days when the licensing hours were longer and the nights were a little crazier. Shogun had warmed to Hale immediately. He had made a point of shaking hands and offering Hale the best seat in the bar. He was the main share-holder. They talked about how to avoid hard work. Hale explained the way that international insurance works. How a claim is processed and settled. Shogun nodded and smiled throughout the whole conversation. Hale had not noticed at the time but in hindsight a plan was hatching in Shogun’s mind; a plan that he has pulled off once and was trying to pull off again. They had met several times since under business circumstances. Once at the mansion.
“Chew aria?” A voice croaked through the intercom.
“Khun Hale. Open the gates.”
“Hale?”
“Yes. Just tell Shogun that it is Hale from Bangkok and I need to speak with him.”
A few moments passed and then the gates opened. Hale entered between two pillars and knocked on the door with his knuckles. The door was opened immediately by a young Thai woman, long-legged with long curls of hair falling down to her waist. She was wearing an orange sweater, and pink sunglasses rested on the crown of her head. She was exquisite.
“Gantira. You look as beautiful as ever.”
“Come with me,” Her tongue flicked out like a serpent’s. Hale felt a sudden shudder of sexual tension. Shogun was sitting on a low level couch. The room was filled with priceless ornaments, relics from Angkor Watt, Ayutthaya and Sukothai. A large bird perched inside a cage. A Persian rug with intricate decorations had been thrown across the marble floor. Hale sat on an Italian leather sofa opposite Shogun. Gantira sat on a floor cushion. Hale came straight to the point.
“What’s this claim with the Divers, Khun Shogun? You know I respect you like a brother and I hate to see you slip up in this kind of way. We are friends for a long time, but this bothers me.”
Shogun motioned to the girl. “Gantira, you are free to go.” She stood up looked at them both slowly and then left the room.
“Look, you took the one and a half million and we both know that money should not have been paid. I want to look after you and I want you to look after me, but you cannot cheat the London market, they have power, they have money. More money and power than we can imagine. We have to play by their rules. If you withdraw the claim then there will be no more problems, no more investigations. Bluegreen will not have to suffer the consequences of an international scandal. You get to keep the money and everybody is satisfied.”
“There is one problem that remains. It bothers me.”
“What is it?”
“A question of face. If we are to walk away from the second claim it would indicate that the first one wasn’t as it should be. I think we should keep moving it forward. Perhaps a third claim. This time an unidentifiable Englishman.”
“Who?”
“Why? You, Mr. Hale.”
“What...”
“You know too much and I can’t count on you keeping quiet. I could shoot you and put your body in a diving suit, feed it to the sharks.”
“But we are friends.”
“A friend wouldn’t come to my house and talk to me the way you have. A friend would show respect.”
“A true friend would try to help. That is what I am doing.”
“I beg to differ.” Shogun scratched his neck, thought for a moment and then walked to the drinks cabinet. He opened a drawer and took out an automatic. “You made a mistake in coming here Hale. A grave mistak
e.”
“Look. I’ll keep quiet. Today never happened...”
“...I am sorry my friend. This is the end of our friendship. Consider it as a termination of our business agreement. I would have thought you understood it is not about the money.”
Hale didn’t have time to reach into his pocket as Shogun fired the gun. It hit Hale in the shoulder; the entrance wound a tiny dot like that of a pencil mark, a spot of vermillion. A stain began to spread on the cushion behind his body. His head fell to one side and then with the sudden pull of gravity Hale slumped into the sofa. Shogun heard a sound. Gantira was sobbing. Shogun looked at her and then looked at the sofa upholstery. “Get this cleaned up.”
She looked at him. “I am afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“He looked at me before he died...”
“...and?”
“You know what happens when a man looks at you just before he dies.”
Shogun knew the superstition only too well. He who dies with eyes open will haunt whoever his final gaze rests. “Get it cleaned up,” he said. Gantira bent down and put a hand on Hale’s body. He was still warm. Shogun got up and slowly walked out of the room and through a corridor into a room to the rear of the mansion. A Buddhist shrine. A large gold plated Buddha sat cross-legged in the position of enlightenment. Two candles burned in the room, one for each victim. Fresh garlands hung from the walls and a picture stood on the wall furthest from and opposite the Buddha. Shogun bowed three times before the image, his hands touching the ground as he lit an incense stick. He placed it in a small bowl containing some sand and the stubs of previous incense sticks, previous kills. He closed his eyes and tried to free himself from the shame that washed over him. He detached himself from the act as if it were predetermined. He was helpless to intervene. He sat there motionless for many hours. He felt as if he were hovering over himself, looking down on a person he used to be in a previous incarnation; a person who took what he wanted and gave little in return. He flew over the island, his wings casting a shadow upon every nook and cranny.