Bangkok Burn (21 page)

“Khun Oh, please do accept our humble apologies for what happened. We assure you we are doing our utmost to find out who could have done such a cowardly thing. Of course, we would be happy to host you, and your guest, anytime free of charge.”

I smiled at him. I gave him the one I’d copied from the crocs.

“Don’t worry. I’m not here to kill you. Not today. I would like to talk to you in private. Is there somewhere we can do that?”

The manager was looking from my eyes to Chai’s to see if I was joking. Then he processed the second part of what I’d said.

“Oh yes, yes, of course. Please come this way.” He took us through a door under the stairs marked ‘Staff’, down a corridor and through a door that had 'Manager' written on it. I guessed it was his office. We sat down. Chai stood by the door.

“Khun Oh, how can we be of assistance?”

“When and how was the suite booked for the meeting?”

“It was booked that morning by his driver, Bank.”

“Who knew that we were here? You did. Did you perhaps tell someone? Let it slip? Tell us truth. It will all come out in the end anyway.”

“I swear on my mother’s life that I didn’t tell anyone. You can take me to any temple and ask me to die on the spot if I lie to the Buddha. I swear I told no one about the meeting.”

“Okay I believe you, but was there anyone else who could have known about the meeting?”

Wringing his hands, staring at the table in front of him, he licked his lips and looked at me, then looked at the table again.

“Who? Don’t fuck around. I’m not in the mood.”

He jumped, weighed options and made the right choice. “The owner.”

“The owner knew that Por and I were having a meeting. Why should he know?”

“Because he wanted the room for himself and I had to explain why he couldn’t have it.”

Chatree, the owner, was a minor mafia boss with a small crew. He made a lot of money smuggling oil and put it into property on Ratchada. Not a major player but I’d met him at a few functions. The manager was looking increasingly nervous. He was sweating but it was cool.

“The owner's here, now?”

His eyes darted to the door, hit Chai, widened in fear, and came back to me. I used crocodile smile again. His eyes widened further. He nodded, vigorously.

“Where?”

“Suite 501 on the fifth floor, first door on the left out of the elevators. We’ve closed the sixth and seventh since the bomb.”

“Show us.”

The manager used his key card to unlock the door and then scuttled away. I opened the door and stepped in. Khun Chatree was in the tub. Judging by the angle of the girl, he was getting a blow job. I walked quietly over to the edge of the tub and sat down. His eyes opened and he started. The girl giving the blow job sat up. Her dick was bigger than his and she didn’t have a hard on.

“What the fuck? Who the fuck do you think you are? Get the fuck out of here.”

“Khun Chatree. I only have one question for you and I need an honest answer – now. So either you get smart and answer me politely and honestly or I’m going to tell Chai to stick his Uzi up your ass and pull the trigger. Do you understand?” Chai was at the other end of the tub screwing the fat tube of the Uzi’s silencer on.

Chatree nodded.

“Did you tell anyone that I was meeting Por here that day?”

He nodded, his eyes on Chai’s Uzi.

“Good. Thank you. One more question. Who did you tell?”

“Sor Sor Sankit, You know, Police Colonel Sankit.”

I did know. I knew very well. He was Pim’s father.

Animal Planet

21 May 2010 Bangkok 1:30 pm

It seemed Uncle Mike’s hunch was right
. It was about a woman. I’d just figured on the wrong woman. I told Chai to drive around for a while. I needed to think.

Pim’s family had been opposed to me since we first started seeing each other. After a couple of visits enduring frosty silences and baited words, we gave up on cozy family get-togethers. When Pim told her parents she was moving in with me, her father had threatened to cut her off. He hadn’t done it, but he’d threatened to. I still couldn’t figure out how he’d got the bomb in there at such short notice. Nothing showed on the CCTV, and Chatree wasn’t stupid enough agree to kill Por in his own place, never mind lie about it.

I tried to think back to the week before the bombing, trying to remember Pim’s movements that week, if she’d visited her parents or not. She usually saw them at least once a week, but I couldn’t remember anything special about that week. I couldn’t ask either. Not right now. She’d pick up on it in an instant. I wondered if he was behind the Cambodians as well. Missed with the bomb so sent in the backup.

Chai pulled into a gas station, stopping at the restrooms. He jumped out and disappeared. I got out of the car, a break from the air-conditioning, and walked over to the smoking area. Yes, we have smoking areas in our gas stations – stops people smoking at the pumps while their cars are being filled.

Last night, after we’d made love in the sala, we’d talked more. Pim was excited, eyes large, shining. We’d agreed to break the news tonight at dinner. I looked at the cell phone. In another four hours. We’d also agreed to wait for Por’s health to improve before having the engagement party. The way Thai weddings work, at our level, is that once the happy couple have decided to tie the knot, they turn the whole process over to the respective families. The groom’s parents visit the bride’s parents and “Sing Sodt”, the dowry payment, is negotiated – almost always settled between the mothers. One loses a daughter, one gains a daughter. A down payment, usually in gold, is made once suitable compensation has been agreed upon, and the engagement party is arranged. After that Monks are consulted for an auspicious wedding date. Although the males make all the speeches, the reality is, weddings are women’s business.

Thinking about it, the bombing was a pretty smart move by Colonel Sankit. It was win-win. If he succeeded, problem solved. If he didn’t, he could claim, and he’d be right, that living with me was dangerous. Chai came out of the restrooms, looked around, saw me, walked over and sat beside me on the bench.

“We keep this to ourselves, okay? For now anyway.”

He nodded, staring at the forecourt of the gas station, gas fumes and shimmering heat distorting the view. It was a hot day and humid. Good. Ken’s house had a pool. It was his habit to take a swim when he got home. Usually he got home late, between eleven at night and one in the morning. If he missed his night swim, he never missed a morning swim.

“I can take care of it, quietly. An accident.”

“No. At least not yet. He might be behind the Cambodians. I want to know if he is, then we’ll decide.”

Chai looked at the space between his boots.

“What?” I asked him.

He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, head twisted sideways. It looked like he was going to say something, but he shook his head, got up, and went back to the car. I followed him. A young guy sitting in a new ‘red plate’ white BMW, parked behind our car, beeped his horn. Chai got out.

“Forget it. Let’s go,” I said.

Then the young guy leaned out of his window and shouted, “Get a fucking move on, Uncle” and beeped his horn again. The girl sitting next to him giggled. Chai, who had been about to get back into the car, looked across at me. I shrugged.

Chai moved. The young guy panicked, closing his window fast. Chai whipped out his K-Bar and smashed the driver’s window with the butt end of the knife. The laughing girl screamed. I glanced around at the pump attendants. They all looked away. Chai reached in. The guy climbed up his seat like there was somewhere to go. The hood popped open, and Chai walked around, reaching under, releasing it. He grabbed the top with both hands and kept pushing, climbing onto the grill, bending the hood over the front windscreen of the car. When the hood touched the roof, he jumped off. He squatted down until he was looking directly in the young guy’s face.

“With mindfulness, a person always prospers.” Chai, spreading the Buddhist word, a walking contradiction in a city of extremes balanced on the edge of chaos.

***

I tapped a spoon against my wine glass and stood up, clearing my throat.

“I have an announcement to make.”

They were all there. All the family, except Por. Uncle Mike was filling in for him at the head of the table. I sat at his right hand, Mother opposite and Pim next to me. Further down, the aunts were arranged in order of seniority, then the daughters, those with husbands first, until my youngest sister-in-law at the far end of the table. At another table, set a short distance away, were Beckham, Chai, Tum and a few of the most trusted boys, their eyes now all focused on me.

I looked at Pim sitting by my side, dressed in a simple white shirt, one of mine, and jeans. I held my hand out and she took it.

“I have asked Pim to be my wife, and I’m happy to say, she said yes.”

There was a burst of applause. Uncle Mike stood up and gave me a hug, Mother doing the same with Pim and by then the aunts had crowded around us.

Mother gave me a hug, whispering in my ear, “Has Pim told her parents yet?”

I shook my head.

“Have you fixed a date yet? If not, I’ll ask Por Luang Soong for you. He’s the best. Every marriage date he’s fixed, the couples live happily,” Aunt Su said to Pim.

“What about the doctor that brained his wife with the golf club?” asked Aunt Ning.

“He didn’t do that one. They ignored his advice and went to another monk chosen by the doctor.”

“Are you pregnant?” Aunt Malee said in a voice that was meant to be a whisper but was heard in the farthest corner of the room.

“No, but we’re trying every chance we get.” Pim smiled sweetly, her answer bringing a smile to Mother’s lips and a faux scandalized gasp from the daughters. If there was a virgin among them, I’d walk across Pit 51 naked and covered in buffalo blood.

Behind the smiles, and they were genuine, I saw the calculators go off. There had just been a tectonic shift in the plates on which the family’s foundation rested. No matter that they all loved me, and I knew they did, they were all jealous of Mother. In varying degrees of course, and as time had passed, and they realized Por would never leave Joom for any or all of them, the jealousy had waned. I was the son they never had, but I was not their son. I was Joom’s. Yesterday, the sons of their daughters still had a shot at the title. Today they were ‘could’ve been’. It’s the way we are.

Later, the men at one table, the women at the other, and the youngest of the daughters sent to bed, Chai, leaned across to me.

“Now I have two lives to protect.” His way of saying Pim was okay by him.

I squeezed his breeze block of a shoulder. “Thanks Chai, that means a lot to me.”

We touched glasses and emptied them. A phone rang. It was Ken. I looked at the time 10:45 pm. I left the table and went to the patio doors. Sliding them open, I slipped outside. It was quiet, warm, and a mosquito buzzed my ear. I answered the phone.

“Yes, Ken.”

“Ah Chance, I’ve been trying to get ahold of you. You haven’t been answering my calls. Is everything okay?”

“Sure, Ken. Why? What’s up?”

He sounded like he was in a car. So he hadn’t got home yet.

“Oh nothing. Just wondering if everything is okay your side. Got to keep an eye on my investments.”

“Sure. All good. How about you? You sound like you’re out and about.”

“Yes, I’m heading home. Been a long day.”

“Anyway, Ken, if there’s nothing urgent, I’ve got some stuff I have to deal with.”

“Stay in touch, Chance”

“I will Ken. You’ll be hearing from me soon, I promise.” I hung up. Let him think about that while he’s taking a swim. I went back inside and sat down at the table with the boys.

“I have another announcement to make.” I said, cutting through the talk of football, politics, and loose women. The buzzed eyes turned to look at me.