Cautiously he navigated alongside the trawler. On this attempt, one of the men in the bow grabbed the boarding ladder and steadied the boat. The Khmer ringleader reeled away from the railing as one of the two men removed his white mask and cursed at the pilot of the fishing boat. Captain Suthan had told them they were taking on board an ill man but he hadn’t warned of possible infection. The crew, taking the lead of the Khmer ringleader, froze with fear. Two of the Khmer who had knives drawn bent over and tried to cut the rope ladder. The captain ran down the starboard side of the deck. He shoved the Khmer with the knife away from the boarding ladder and slapped him. He called them stupid water buffalo. His hands balled into fists, his voice roared with anger. He threatened to throw both of them overboard. At first they recoiled but slowly they stepped forward. They had a job to do. And the captain told them that under no circumstances would the rescue operation be aborted. No one on board had any choice but to participate; it was their duty. Was his intention clear enough for them to understand? They glanced at each other, out at the sea, was there any real other choice? The men begrudgingly returned to their hard work. Unless they were quick, there was a good chance a hole would be punched into the side of the small fishing boat. One of the crew leaned over with a long pole and one of the men in the bow of the boat grabbed hold, steadying the fishing boat. A choppy wave hit the boat, nearly knocking the man overboard.
“Inshah Allah,” the man yelled, and his mask slipped down around his throat. “God willing.”
He quickly pulled the mask over his nose.
The crew thought that they had heard curse words. There was no need to speak a language to understand the hint of warning embedded in such words. The sounds were unlike Thai or Khmer. Whoever the stranger was, his speech wasn’t Thai. One of the men, the mask still covering his face, had begun to climb the rope ladder. The fishing boat rocked alongside as the slender bearded man with large brown eyes showing above the white mask wheeled himself over the railing and jumped down onto the deck. Whatever the cause of his illness, it wasn’t apparent. His eyes were bright and clear and his movements agile and quick. The captain approached the man. His greeting was neither a wai nor an offer to shake hands. The two men simply nodded to each other. The captain ordered the crew to lower the main net. Two members of the crew worked the winch and the others pushed the netting over the side. Slowly the net touched the boat below and the two men remaining in the fishing boat struggled to load a large crate-like object inside the net.
The sun quickly dropped into the black sea and the men below worked under the beam of a flashlight. The captain ordered one of the Khmer down the ladder to help secure the cargo. In darkness, guided by a crewmember’s flashlight, the Khmer disappeared down the rope. A quarter of an hour later, the three men managed to lift the cargo into the net, and moving the flashlight from side to side, signaled they had finished. The captain signaled for the net to be raised. The wheels and gears of the winch groaned as the net slowly rose. Under two flashlights, the crew saw for the first time that the cargo was a large footlocker. Inside the net, it banged against the hull. The stranger who had just boarded barked through his mask in broken Khmer at the men to be very careful with the cargo. He hung over the railing watching the progress and directing the man at the winch. The Khmer who returned from the fishing boat came up the ladder just behind the net, guiding it as it slowly rose. It required the full crew to land the net and footlocker on the deck. The Khmer and the other crewmembers stared at footlocker, at the stranger wearing the mask, then at one another. They all had had their fair share of experience in the smuggling game. All of them had seen smugglers loading sealed footlockers. The one pulled out of the main shipping net of this trawler was no different in any tangible way.
With the footlocker safely on board, Captain Suthan turned, looked over the side and waved his flashlight at the fishing boat. The pilot waved his flashlight in reply and started the engine. A moment later the fishing boat slipped away into darkness. A foreigner, who spoke broken Khmer with the men in the boat, appeared on the deck and, after exchanging a few words in highly accented English, he disappeared with the captain. The men had an uneasy feeling about this smuggler.
In his hand was a well-used copy of the Koran. Call it an omen. As he stood on the deck, the surgical mask obscured the stranger’s face. He could have been anyone. He could have been infected with any kind of disease. He clutched the book, turned his back and was gone. Like a ghost.
Later that evening one of the crew crept past the captain’s quarters. He saw through the window as the foreigner, the surgical mask hanging around his neck, counted out stacks of American hundred-dollar notes. The captain sat passively on the edge of his bunk, not blinking. He showed no fear of being in close proximity of the infected man. The captain coolly smoked a hand-rolled cigarette as the stranger counted out hundreds and hundreds of hundred-dollar notes. When the sailor returned to the crew quarters, he shared the story of the stranger and the money counting. He might not have known who Benjamin Franklin was, but he certainly recog- nized his face.
“How much money did he pay?”
In Thailand there were three standard questions: Where do you go? Have you eaten rice? How much does it cost? The question that mattered the most was the last one. The only person other than the stranger and the captain who had the answer was a simple-minded boy of eighteen. But the young spy hadn’t a precise answer. He said that he’d never seen so much money. American dollars, too. Having gone to a village school for four years, he didn’t think in large numbers, so he replied with the largest number that he could think of: “Many, many hundreds.”
Vagueness in thought and ambiguity in answers had its rightful place on board the trawler and on shore. The crew understood that a great deal of cash had passed from an infected stranger to a captain who had no concern that the stranger had removed his mask. The mystery of the footlocker with its secure locks stored away on the quarterdeck remained unsolved. None of the crew spoke as they went about their work. The captain let them know he expected them to forget about what they had witnessed. The man they’d rescued was in serious distress, despite what any of the men thought. The captain did what any captain would do to render assistance. Then he smiled and broke out beer for them. It was the day before New Year’s Eve. A new year was about to arrive and the old year’s work was nearly behind them. The trawler would soon return home. The trawler was scheduled to return in time for the crew to celebrate the New Year. The captain had calculated the timing. To have returned to port too early would have invited questions. To have docked without a catch in the cooler would have ensured the wagging of tongues. His men were exhausted from five weeks at sea. The unscheduled pick up at sea had unsettled them and threatened to delay their return home. Sailors loved routine. What had been thrust upon them wasn’t an ordinary work detail. Some of the crew—egged on by the Khmer—wondered if they would be paid a bonus. They had only been at sea for thirty-five days. They calculated the captain would pay them for that time. With the money that the infected man had paid, it was only right, they decided among themselves, that some kind of New Year’s payment was fair compensation for the added risk.
The next morning, no one saw the stranger, who stayed in the captain’s quarters. Food was taken to the door and left. The captain talked about disease and infection in a round-about way. He claimed to know a great deal about both and about how to protect against the spread of infection. He explained that to prevent VD all one had to do was apply a tab of Darlie toothpaste into the penis after intercourse. The active ingredi- ent killed the germs that made a man ill. The captain swore an oath that this was the truth and that he had never been sick after sleeping with any woman, no matter how long she had been on the game. No one among the crew had the nerve to ask whether Darlie toothpaste might cure whatever disease had afflicted the stranger. The next morning the empty dishes were left outside the stranger’s door. While the stranger might be suffering from some rare ill
ness, whatever the nature of this infection, it hadn’t lessened his appetite.
That evening a launch from the trawler was lowered, and the men worked up a sweat lowering the footlocker to where others waited inside the launch to guide the cargo downward. The captain, a crewmember and the stranger climbed into the launch. The trawler had anchored three miles off shore. The coast was a tiny white ribbon in the distance. The crew waited as the launch took the stranger to shore. Thirty minutes after leaving the trawler, the launch reached the beach. Not more than an hour later, the launch returned with the captain and crewmember. With the captain on board, the trawler set course for home. The captain, all smiles, had pulled a case of beer from the huge, nearly empty freezer hold for the crew. He handed around chilled bottles of Singha beer. The hold was filled with fish. The frozen fish would fetch a good price, the captain told them. The men said nothing, drinking their beer. The Khmer broke the silence as he asked about a bonus. It was a vague question, but the meaning wasn’t lost on the captain. The captain grunted and his face darkened. Hadn’t he always looked after his men? Hadn’t he given them more than any other captain? Why were they so ungrateful, after all that he had done for them?
He didn’t finish his beer, throwing the bottle overboard. He walked over until he was a couple of inches away from the Khmer. This man was a troublemaker, the captain said to himself. He looked at the Khmer as he spoke to the entire crew: every man should keep his mouth shut about the stranger. After they reached port, everyone should stay to themselves and wait until he sent for them. This was not a request. It was a direct order. A threat on a ship was different from one made on shore. Surrounded by water, no man needed to be reminded how a captain could make an example of a sailor for everyone else on board to fall in line and, once in line, that line would hold once they reached shore. The Khmer’s knees were shaking. He held onto the railing, eyes down. He wished he hadn’t asked the question. He apologized to the captain and said he didn’t mean anything. The captain thought about the apology. He didn’t commit himself one way or another. None of the usual mai pen rai. One of the crew handed him a fresh beer and said not to worry so much. Thay had their fish. And in a week or so everyone would return to sea together. The same sailor lit a cigarette and handed it to the captain, who said nothing as he turned and looked out at the moonlight on the sea.
THREE
THE TRAWLE TIED up at the wharf in the early morning. The captain had phoned ahead and arranged for transportation. A good catch was on ice and the trucks would deliver the fish straight to the market. He also radioed Veera that the trawler was returning to port with a full catch. This was more than a simple courtesy call; it was expected and necessary, as Veera controlled the port, the loading, and the unloading of trawlers the way he controlled many other activities from hotels, massage parlors, billiard halls, restaurants, and shopping centers. The captain and Veera went back a long way. Captain Suthan’s trawler was one of the last that Veera made the effort to meet personally. As a man of stature in the com- munity, he dispatched a luuk nong, a second in command, to look after his interest. Protocol required that old friends not hide behind their success. Of all the trawler men, Veera had maintained the closest relationship with Suthan. They had done various business deals over the years. Their fathers had known each other. Their families had intermarried. There was a history of money, bloodkin, and friendship. Money. Captain Suthan owed Veera a large sum of it. The captain had used the money to buy the trawler and had borrowed more money to refit it. His loans to Veera had been overdue for more than eight months.
For the first few hours, everyone was as busy at the port as they had been at sea. There was little time to talk. Unloading the fish from the huge freezer hold in the trawler required brawn and patience. It had been easier loading the fresh catch than it was removing the frozen carcasses.
When the last of the catch had been loaded in the back of pickups, the captain was ready to pay his crew in cash. They stood around the wharf waiting for him to reappear with white envelopes containing their money. Each of the Khmer had an extra five-hundred-baht note in their envelope. Each one waied the captain, thumbs touching their forehead, the envelope pressed between their fingers. They smelled of fish and the sea. Once on shore, a swagger returned to their step. They were free of command and work. Food vendors had setup stalls hawking noodles, beer, and fried rice. Another vendor had a tray of flowers weaved together for an offering. Four or five Thai men in their early twenties were at the wharf waiting. They wore green vests with a number stitched on the back. A couple of men squatted along the road; the others sat sidesaddle on their parked motorcycles. They stared at the Khmer walking towards them from the wharf. Word had spread that Captain Suthan had returned with a full load of fish.
The boss, a decade older than the taxi drivers, was stocky; hung on his barrel chest were one-baht gold chains each holding three amulets. He combed his thinning hair back from his forehead. His pencil mustache and scraggly beard suggested the conflict between a career of smash-and-grab and poetry. On his left pinky finger, he sported a long fingernail. Three, four inches and perfectly manicured. He wore a quasi-military shirt and trousers. He watched the Khmer from his white plastic chair as he picked his teeth with the tip of his long fingernail. As the Khmer reached the road, the boss leaned over and spit. All eyes at the taxi stand focused on the men clutching their white envelopes; the whiteness gleamed, as it was set off against their dark skin. The crew seemed smaller, thinner and more fragile on the vastness of land. The Thais had no trouble knowing who belonged and who were for- eigners. They had no trouble spotting the two dark-skinned men as Cambodians. The Khmer walked towards them with their pockets full of money. With money came women, liquor and face, and that was just the start of it. Foreigners wanted to grab what wasn’t theirs.
One of the Khmer hesitated as they walked past the motorcycle queue. The weight of all those stares made him swallow hard. Slipping under the waves in the middle of sea. On board ship, the crew looked after one another. It didn’t matter who was Thai or Khmer; they faced the same dangers. On land, the bonds of the sea dissolved, and there was no one to rescue them. The Khmer had entered deep waters even though it was bone dry land and they felt totally alone, and abandoned.
“Where you go?” one of the taxi boys asked the Khmer in Thai.
One of the Khmer spit out the name of a karaoke bar not more than half a kilometer away. The boy kick-started his motorcycle and patted the back saddle. The Khmer swung a leg over and sat behind the driver. “Fifty baht,” said the driver.
The Khmer knew the local price was five baht. Knowledge wasn’t always a good thing to have. He shrugged off the extortion and decided not to challenge the driver as the other motorcycle drivers looked on.
“Mai pen rai,” said the Khmer. “No problem.” He ate his own words as if they were a bitterroot.
His friend, whom the captain had seen as the ringleader on the trawler, tried to hop onto the back of the same motorbike. The two men were small enough to fit on the saddle. Upcountry, entire families were loaded onto the back of a motorcycle. The boss leaned forward in his chair and waved off the Khmer.
“No, cannot,” he said. “You must take bike, too. You break the law, I think. You pay one hundred baht.”
The Khmer slowly got off the first motorcycle and, showing no expression, walked over and started to mount the next bike in the queue.
“I say you give me one-hundred-baht fine.”
The two Khmer were outnumbered seven to two. Weight-wise and in terms of weapons, it was more like twenty to one. Those weren’t good odds. Whatever the motorcycle taxi drivers demanded, the Khmer had no choice but to comply.
The first Khmer had disappeared on the back of a motorcycle—he had no choice, no chance to help his friend, as the motorcycle taxi driver gunned the bike, heading to the village. His stranded friend looked helpless as the members of the motorcycle queue surrounded him. The Khmer opened his envelope and offered
the queue boss a hundred-baht note. The boss looked at the note, and then with pure hatred in his eyes looked at the Khmer. “Next time, you pay me two hundred baht, okay?”
A new Mercedes Benz pulled alongside the parked motorcycles. The tinted back window silently lowered and a well-groomed Thai greeted the motorcycle queue boss, who returned a full wai, and bowed his head.
“Have you eaten yet?” asked the man on the passenger side of the car. “Krap. Taan tan khaow rue yang?” Have you eaten, sir?
Veera could easily have been mistaken as an ethnic Chinese. He had light, clear skin and a rounded face, flat nose and large puffy bags under eyes hidden behind a pair of designer sunglasses. The eyelids drooped, revealing an age somewhere between mid-forties to early fifties. Veera carried himself like a much younger man. He lowered his sunglasses, nodded and grinned at the motorcycle queue boss, who showed his submission the way an omega animal prostrates to his alpha superior. The alpha showed his rank with the car, driver, and the twenty-baht gold chain around his neck, catching the sunlight. On three fingers of his left hand, he wore rings festooned with rubies, diamonds and sapphires. On his wrist was a gold Rolex thick with diamonds studded around the twelve points of time. One by one, Veera hooked his fingers over the edge of the glass. The Rolex appeared and the sun caught the diamonds in a cold glittering white swirl of light. His little fingernail was half as long again as the motorcycle queue boss’s prided pinky nail. No animal in the wild kingdom mustered a better display of power and influence than a local gangster. Every attention to detail was a conscious choice, a sign that he’d established himself at the top of the food chain. Big fish ate little fish and Veera was the biggest fish in the area. Trawler captains occupied a status far below his. Veera controlled the waterfront. He was the man who decided who came on his turf and the price for that privilege, who lived and who died.
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