Bangkok Burn - A Thriller

by Simon Royle

  Cheep turned the engines off. The sound of the sea slapping against the hull the only sound in the silence that followed. We prepared to put Leon to rest. Cheep and Chai pulled a long length of chain and the spare anchor out of the fore locker in the bow. They dragged it to the middle of the boat. I collected the gun from the locker I’d stowed it in and checked that there was one in the chamber.

  I picked up my cell phone and selected media. I turned the speaker on and pressed ‘play’.

  Dire Straits, ‘Money for nothing,” sounded tinny from the tiny speakers of the phone. In the evening on the ocean, the sound carried out across the waves. Cheep's shoulders slumped where he was crouching with Chai sorting the chain. He turned and looked at me. Chai carried on sorting the chain, but eased himself back on his haunches moving well out of the line of fire.

  “When did you find out?” Cheep asked me.

  “Last night, from Big Tiger.”

  “Who’s in the bag?”

  “The Farang, ‘Leon’.”

  “What did he say?”

  “I didn’t give him a chance to say anything. In his way, he was innocent. It was you who caused this. Out of all the places he could have chosen to come for a holiday, he chose your resort. I suppose there’s some kind of karmic fatality in that but the real twist is that it must have been you to put two and two together and come up with a hundred million. Why?”

  “I didn’t want to hurt anyone. Just thought we could pull it off.”

  “Lilly?”

  “She wasn’t supposed to be there. She normally went shopping, but that day she changed her mind and came back. I didn’t have a choice. She saw me and I panicked. I knew that ring tone was a problem. I forgot to change it.”

  “Yeah, I asked Uncle Mike last night. He said it was your favorite. You played it every trip after a successful delivery.”

  “Does he know?”

  “No. Not yet.”

  “Will you tell him?”

  “I haven’t thought about it yet. Probably not. I’d have to tell him I executed one of his best friends.”

  Cheep looked at me and nodded.

  “Why?” I asked him.

  He sighed and looked out to sea.

  “The tsunami wiped me out. My bars, and I had a small restaurant. Gone. Nothing left. Mike let me run the resort but, man, we did the same trips and he owns half of Phuket and I’m wondering how to make my next car payment.”

  “He put you in charge of the resort. He paid you to look after it. You weren’t hurting.”

  “Nothing Chance. Nothing. That’s what I had. Mike and I, we did more than half of those trips together. We got busted on any of them and I was looking at five to ten. I’m fucking sixty and not a baht to my name. I never intended for Mike or you to get hurt.”

  Chai banged the chain against the hull of the boat. A look at his face confirmed his anger. Cheep looked at the floor of the boat, shame written across his face.

  I blew out hard. I’d shared a lot of drinks with Cheep, a lot of years. The snapshots rolled in my head. In most of them we were laughing.

  “How do you want it? Front or back?”

  Behind Cheep, the sun plinked below the horizon, the sky ablaze with orange and scarlet, blood red.

  Cheep slowly stood and sat in the left rear corner of the boat, looking out back at the beach we’d come from.

  “My family…”

  “We’ll take care of them. Make sure they have enough to live and for Nong Wan to go to school. We always would take care of that, Cheep. You know that.”

  “Yeah I do, Chance. I’m sorry. Sorry for everything. Sorry for Lilly.”

  “Me too, Cheep.” I pulled the trigger. The silenced pistol spat, the sound lost in the slap of water against the hull. Cheep slumped forward, hanging over the bulwark of the boat. I tossed the gun in over the stern, the cool sea breeze drying the tracks of my tears.

  We put Cheep and Leon in the laundry basket and weighted it with the chain and both anchors. I helped Chai lift and tip it over the edge of the boat. I watched as the white canvas laundry basket disappeared from view, sinking fast, bubbles rising and then just the sea.

  Chai started the engines and turned us around. He drove boats like he drove cars. I sat in the stern as we powered our way back to the pier and the Range Rover. We had seats booked on the 10:10 pm. Bangkok Airways flight out of Phuket back to Bangkok. If we hurried we could still make it.

  I tried and failed to push the image of Cheep’s daughter’s eyes out of my mind. She stood at the front of a growing queue, all demanding the attention she was getting. The rhythmic thumping of the hull beat in tune to the glare of her eyes burning in my mind.

  ***

  Beckham was waiting for us in the arrivals area of the domestic terminal at Suvarnabhumi, Suwanna-poom to you, Farang, Airport in Bangkok. I was tired. My feet felt like lead as we walked to the car park. Beckham handed a packet to Chai. Chai took a look the contents and passed them to me. We were walking across the footbridge on Level three, to the car park. It was just past midnight.

  Inside the A4 manila envelope, the money, passports and tickets I’d given to Uni girl and Daeng. Chai paused, fell in step with me. Leaning close.

  “We couldn’t take the risk. Sorry to disobey you, but we decided to act this way in your interest. Sooner or later, they’d have told someone or got busted and spilled their guts. It was painless. They went in their sleep,” his voice, matter of fact.

  Furious at my orders being disobeyed I kept walking. There was nothing to say. Maybe I knew, deep down, it was what they’d do. We used the stairs to go up to level four where the car was parked, following Beckham. At the car, Chai put his hand on my arm, looking at me. I flicked a tired glance at him. I understand. His eyes held mine, narrowed a fraction. I nodded. He squeezed my arm, gave me a curt nod and opened the car door for me.

  In Joom’s Benz, the perfume-scented leather gave me a strange sense of comfort. Beckham provided a rundown of the day’s activities in the district. The district was quiet but talking about Big Tiger’s disappearance. There was speculation and not a little gambling going on as to why he’d disappeared. So far none of the other families had made a move. I had some work to do in that area. Big Tiger’s confession had revealed a couple of threats but it wasn’t urgent. More of a hint, of a rumor, on the edge of a breeze, heard on the balcony of a house at the edge of town. Bosses waiting to see which way the wind will blow. The wind had blown. Come and gone. Reap the whirlwind.

  Walking through the airport, in the car park, and on the drive back home, I had the strange feeling I was moving between worlds: the real everyday world and an alternate world; my world. The people in the real world can’t see in, can’t see me, even though I’m moving among them. I am invisible.

  We pulled out of the car park and took the first exit out of the airport onto the old road. Containers, gas stations and warehouses flanked the road, Chai and Beckham talking softly in the front of the car. I was sitting in the back, thinking about the five people I’d killed in the last twenty-four hours. I included Daeng and Uni girl, they were as much on my head as anyone who had pulled the trigger. I guessed it would have been Tum, under orders from either Chai or Beckham, perhaps even Mother. There wasn’t any point knowing who had done it. It was done.

  It was Por who taught me long ago. You can’t change the past. Maybe you can’t change the future. All you can do is change the present moment.

  Loose Ends

  26 May 2010 Pak Nam 6:45am

  I woke up. Pim was staring at me, her head lying horizontal on the pillow, her big eyes centimeters from mine. It was a great way to wake up.

  “Morning,” she whispered and smiled. She shifted in closer, my hands touched skin. I ran them up her body, a lot of skin. She was naked under the sheet. Her smile grew broader as her eyes turned naughty. She sank below the sheets.

  A while later, I was taking a shower, feeling a whole lot better about life. Pim had already shower
ed and gone downstairs for breakfast. I was taking my time, enjoying the feeling of the hot water on my body. The last couple of weeks had been one crisis after another, and I wasn’t out of the woods yet. I still had Yakuza Steve and the issue with the hundred million to resolve. But the snakes in the backyard had been cleared. I felt bad for Daeng and his sister. I felt bad for Nong Wan who had to grow up without a father. That was a choice her father made when he recognized a tourist's tale.

  Who knows what karmic strings were pulled to cause Leon to book a holiday at Uncle Mike’s resort and to cause Cheep to be there when the drunken Leon had told a tale of his father going missing in Phuket many years before. If you believe in spirits, as we do, Farang, you would say it was his father calling him. It’s as good an explanation as any. Or perhaps it was just pure chance. It was Cheep who contacted Big Tiger and got him to finance to the operation.

  Leon was an out of work actor living in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. His new girlfriend, Ursula, recently divorced, had enough money to buy them a holiday. Leon chose Phuket. Leon chose Uncle Mike’s resort. It was Cheep who put two and two together and came up with a hundred million. It was Cheep who flew to Sydney and talked Leon into coming to Bangkok. He hadn’t planned on Leon going crazy. That was an accident. Or perhaps it was just another twist in the great karmic balancing of all things. They would have killed Leon, but needed him to keep making the phone calls to deflect attention away from them. At least that’s how Big Tiger had told it.

  Big Tiger went out thinking he’d survived. Well, maybe he did. Hard to know what another man’s thinking before a bullet goes through his brain. He looked relieved though when I told him we were taking him home and released him from the rack. It gave his spirit a happier start on the next life. A small thing, but we think about the small things.

  The post adrenalin rollercoaster had bottomed out and I was on a gentle decline.

  I got dressed and went downstairs. There was no one around. I went out to the guest house. Beckham and Chai were sitting on the deck outside the house. I waved them down as they started to get up. Looking through the window, they were all there. I slipped my shoes off and went in. Pim was sitting next to Por. Por was sitting up in bed. All the tubes were gone. He smiled at me. I crossed the room and knelt by the bed. He put his hand on my head and stroked my hair. Pim moved out of her chair and with a touch on my shoulder and a flick of her eyes told me to sit in it.

  Mother was on the sofa talking to Uncle Mike.

  Por inclined his head slightly towards Mother. He looked tired, his eyes half closed.

  “I’ve heard you’ve had an interesting time while I’ve been sleeping.”

  “Yes, Por.”

  “Mother told me you’ve decided to get married?”

  “Yes, Por.”

  “She’s a good girl. I talked with her already. Reminds me of Joom when I first met her. Same kind of iron in her backbone….” He’d drifted off to sleep again. I got up and arranged the pillows around him. The nurse came and edged me out of the way in the way that nurses do. I looked across the room.

  Pim and Mother were listening to Uncle Mike tell one of his storys. Now was as good a time as any. If you thought I was going to do the honorable thing and tell or ask Pim to leave me, you’re insane. There was no way I was letting that much beauty out of my life. She was born for me and I for her. I had a whole speech prepared. I’d put the finishing touches to it in the shower.

  “…And Dennis, man, Dennis, he was so stoned, he’d put his leathers, you know leather trousers for riding a motorbike… yeah, he put them on backwards and when he went to take a piss, he looked down and he screamed, ‘Oh God my dick has disappeared!’ Oh man, what a character.” Mike standing with his hands around his groin, bent double, laughing his head off with Pim and Mother – a Kodak moment.

  “What did you say to Por?” I asked Pim.

  “I told him we were fucking like rabbits making the first of many grandsons.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mike’s jaw drop and then he rolled on the floor holding his stomach. To say that I have an unconventional family would be an understatement. Well, we all have our quirks. The trick is to love them. I sat back in the sofa looking at Pim. She smiled innocently at me. I mentally ripped up the speech; didn’t need it.

  “Don’t worry. I spoke in Thai.”

  “I’m not worried. Really. Not about anything. How’s your shooting going?”

  “You know about that? How did you find out? I wanted to surprise you. But it’s going good. What do you think, Mother? Have I improved?”

  “You’re doing very well, Pim. You have a natural talent.”

  “What weapon have you been training on?” I loved it when she poked the tip of her tongue out like that. Sent shivers up my spine.

  “Mother’s teaching me the AA-12 first. Based on the,” she paused and glanced at Mother, “minimal time to mass destruction potential concept.” She looked at Mother making sure she’d got it right. Mother beamed at her student.

  My phone rang. Yakuza Steve.

  “Is now a good time to talk.”

  “Sure. Go ahead, how was your trip?”

  “Yeah, good, interesting. Why don’t we meet and I’ll tell you about it.”

  “When, where?” I thought I’d give him the option of being cool about a smart place for us to meet.

  “Rossano’s off Sukumvit, off Asoke. Do you know it?”

  “Sure. What time?”

  “Lunch okay, about noon?”

  “See you there.”

  Steve didn’t sound too worried, sounded casual even, but that’s when you have to be at your most careful. Rossano’s was an okay place to meet, reasonably safe. If Steve had invited me to Thaniya, I would have known that the Yakuza board wanted my head.

  “Yakuza?” Mother asked me.

  “Yes. Sounded okay but I’ll take some of the boys with me just in case.”

  “Can I come?” Pim asked.

  “Not this time. It’s a bit tense and you haven’t learned how to shoot a handgun yet. Walking into Rossano’s with an AA-12 shotgun might cause a bit of a stir.”

  “Come with me to the farm, Pim. I want to show you how it all works.”

  Uncle Mike was sitting cross-legged on the floor, leaning against Mother’s leg.

  “I’m heading back to Phuket tonight,” he said, turning to glance up at Mother.

  “We need to talk before you leave,” I said and got up. “I have to get going, I shouldn’t be too long. What time are you leaving for Phuket?”

  “Not sure yet, I was hoping to have Cheep pick me up at the airport, but he’s probably out fishing or something. Not answering his phone.”

  “I’ll be back by four at the latest. I’ll take you to the airport and we can talk on the way.”

  “Yeah, cool, man. Thanks.”

  After kissing Pim on the cheek, I went to get dressed. I put on a jacket to hide the Glock 17 in the shoulder holster. I didn’t expect today to turn into Baghdad, but if it did I wanted to be appropriately dressed.

  Rossano’s is in a converted house, just off Asoke - upscale Italian in a relaxed atmosphere. There’s a car park, fancy name for an abandoned lot, next to it. We pulled into the lot, Tum driving, Beckham in the front, Chai and me in the back. I had kept the Maserati, I liked it, and if we needed speed to get us out of trouble, it had plenty of it. I recognized Steve’s van by a decal for a JAL in the back window.

  If there was going to be a hit, that’s where it would come from. Nothing moved, including the traffic in the soi. Bangkok was back to business, snarled in a tangled web of stalemated opportunities waiting for a green light. If the Yakuza board hadn’t accepted Steve’s explanation for the loss of the money, they’d want it back. I wasn’t prepared to give it back. We’d gone through a lot and I had some plans for that money. It would mean war with the Yakuza and that would be a problem. Last count the Yamaguchi-Gumi clan had about forty-five thousand members. We had about a hund
red at full stretch. Bad odds and I don’t gamble. Wars are bad for business. This whole area could attest to that. Last week a gas tanker had been parked less than two hundred meters away from here, with red shirt protestors rolling burning tires at it, trying to get it to explode. It’s on YouTube. Check it out.

  The air-conditioned lobby was a welcome respite from the brutal heat outside. I left the guys in the car park, keeping an eye on the van.

  “Good afternoon, sir. Do you have a reservation?” she spoke English to me, a natural enough assumption on her part and I replied using English.

  “No I don’t. I’m meeting someone. A Japanese guy.”