18mm Blues

by Gerald A. Browne

  The water taxi proceeded to the bend, rounded it.

  There was the white speedboat. On the opposite side of the klong, idling with its bow pointed out, as though waiting, sure of itself and waiting. On the pilings nearby tin advertising signs were nailed up for the everything kind of store located on the dock.

  They’d stopped at the store for some reason, was Grady’s first thought, most likely beer. They were standing in the forward cockpit. All Grady could see was their heads and a little of their bare shoulders above the windshield. They were young men, Caucasians, similar in appearance, not quite twins but close to it with their darkly tanned skin and variegated blond hair. They even had similar hairstyles, cut close along the sides, long and layered on top, sort of ecclesiastic. Sunlight flared off the mirrored lenses of their identical sunglasses.

  Grady half expected they would shout something, probably something obscene, but coming from the speedboat all he heard was the flatulent gurgle of its exhaust along with some heavy metal rock. A cassette in a boom box. The music was suddenly turned up to peak volume, strident, ugly.

  Grady gave the two young men the attention they seemed to be clamoring for, glared contemptuously at them across the canal. Because of their sunglasses he couldn’t tell whether or not they were looking his way. They seemed to be but perhaps not, perhaps his silent reproach was wasted. Finally they smirked and raised their bottles of beer to him, and Grady realized they’d delayed reaction on purpose, that it was their way of transmitting superior contempt.

  Smartass punks, Grady thought, they’d brought him down, spoiled his high with their spoil. They were probably some diplomat’s boys, taking advantage of immunity. Shouldn’t have let them get to him that much, Grady told himself. Anyway, they were left behind now as the water taxi continued on with not far to go to where this klong gave to the river.

  Grady tried not to look back. He didn’t want to know the speedboat was no longer stopped at that store. Then he heard it, the growl of it under way, and he couldn’t resist wanting to see where it was.

  Which was about fifty feet behind the water taxi, just tagging along at the same speed. It seemed taunting, intent on intimidating, biding its time with a bit of foreplay until it grew bored with that and became in some way more malicious. Grady was visibly disturbed by it. Julia, realizing that, hooked her arm to his and attempted to distract him by pointing out a young couple making alfresco love on a dock. The man seated with his legs over the edge, the woman astraddle him, kept from falling into the water by his hold around her. They were fully clothed, the man’s trousers in place, the woman’s skirt naturally gathered up around her by her position. At first glance they appeared to be merely kissing, however the giveway was the cadent up and down cantering motion on the part of the woman, punctuated by a series of rotations and the way when she broke from the kiss she let her head fall back as though she lacked the strength at that moment to sustain it.

  “Don’t you wish you could be that oblivious?” Julia said.

  “I could be,” Grady contended. “Given the right circumstances.”

  “Conditions, conditions,” Julia needled.

  The speedboat came on.

  Came up even with the water taxi and ran alongside less than ten feet away.

  Grady got a better look at the two young men and they got a better look at him. It seemed they were checking him out, verifying him. Maybe, Grady thought, he was wrong about that; there was no reason for it. The one at the helm was good with the boat, sure of it, Grady noticed. He also noticed the other one had a thin gold chain around his waist, swagged there, kept from slipping off by the studs of his hip bones.

  The speedboat dropped back but only to get a running start so with a lot of throttle it could swoosh by the water taxi, causing it to have to contend with a wake so severe it came within a few inches of taking on water.

  The taxi driver was incensed. So was Grady, who called them young shits while the driver called them worse in his language. Futile cursing because they were well out of hearing range and, anyway, its engine would have drowned it out.

  The speedboat was down the klong. It turned around, came back and hounded the water taxi again, came alongside again, matched speed and maintained it about twelve feet away. The young man wearing the waist chain had moved to the aft cockpit, was standing there facing in the direction of the water taxi.

  Grady sensed a change in the young man’s attitude. It was as though he’d shed his layer of spiteful amusement and was down to a serious self. No mere hell raising in his eyes now, and there was a grimness to the set of his mouth.

  The water taxi driver was livid. He stood, shook his fist at the young men. Let go again with his string of invectives, spitting them out so rapidly and with such rage that particles of saliva sprayed out along with the words and caught the sun in the air around his face.

  Grady didn’t see the gun, not at first. For one thing it was entirely unexpected. It was just something black on the end of the right arm of the young man in the stern of the speedboat before it became a gun, before it was raised up to hip level and pointed.

  A nine-millimeter machine pistol was what it was. With a silencer attached so that when the trigger was pressured what was heard was merely a spewing of seven or eight thumps.

  At least four of the shots struck home. An up-to-down pattern. From the water taxi driver’s throat down to his crotch. The impact reeled him, drove him against the hot bare engine and crumpled him into a contorted heap in the limited space back there.

  Grady couldn’t believe it. A situation of mere harassment and peeve had suddenly turned deadly. Next he and Julia would be raked with bullets. However, the young man didn’t shift his aim, actually relaxed the pistol, hesitating as though to appraise and appreciate what he’d done to the driver.

  Grady and Julia dropped to the latticed deck of the water taxi. There was no way to hide, really. The upper part of the hull, the free board, barely kept them out of sight. The speedboat needed only to come a half dozen or so feet closer to have them visible, and the young man would shoot them point-blank.

  The only possibility, Grady thought, would be to wait until the speedboat was coming alongside. There’d be an instant, perhaps, when it wouldn’t be quite close enough to suit the young man but close enough for Grady to loom up suddenly and leap from boat to boat, leap right at the young man and get to him before he had a chance to fire. Could he risk a peek over the gunwale to see if the speedboat was within leaping range? Sure, and get the top of his head blown off. He’d just have to guess it, time it just right. Maybe there’d be a sound that would help him decide when. At best it was going to be the most desperate kind of move. How different it would be if he had a gun, he thought. If the situation wasn’t so one-sided. If he had a gun and let these men know it, just fired it in the air to let them know it, they’d probably run. No fucking gun.

  Julia was faced away. She turned her head to be eyes-to-eyes with him. Hers were showing more of their whites than usual, and she was breathing through her mouth, like she was a bit winded. For Grady there was a sadness to her fright, the idea that Julia was about to be deprived of the rest of her time, the currency of her existence to be squandered, infuriated him and, in turn, his fury made him feel even more helpless.

  He waited, listened, would attempt the leap.

  The young man fired off two volleys. One group of bullets struck around the waterline of the taxi. The others went much higher, tore through the canopy several feet above Grady and Julia.

  Intentionally wasted shots, Grady believed. To keep him and Julia as they were, cowered down. But why? Why wasn’t the speedboat being brought alongside? They’d witnessed the killing, could identify the young men. Maybe those two didn’t care, were privileged enough not to care, Grady hoped they were, hoped they were through and by now headed away.

  Something flew through the air.

  Thrown from the speedboat.

  Landed within inches of Julia’s hea
d, scraped across the plain surface of one of the plank seats and found nothing to grab onto. It was a five-pronged grappling hook, a ten pounder attached to half-inch nylon line. Like some awkward, galvanized crustacean it proceeded to the interior of the hull, tried to get the gunwale, groped along it and finally got a hold on one of the upright steel pipes that supported the canopy.

  At once the nylon line was made taut and Grady heard the speedboat’s engine answer the demand for more power. Felt a sudden surge. Took a cautious look at the situation.

  The young man who’d had the machine pistol now had an automatic rifle. At the ready. He was standing in the rear of the speedboat, alertly facing back to the water taxi, which was now being towed down the klong in the direction of the river. Going at a fast clip. About twenty feet of line connected the two vessels. Because the grappling hook had the water taxi caught back a ways from its bow, the water taxi was being dragged along at an angle and the resistance of its hull to the water was causing shudder.

  Grady considered going overboard, making a swim for it. He asked Julia what she thought of that. She was all for it. He gave it a second and third thought: maybe when they rose up and dove in, no matter how swiftly, the young man would get off a spurt of shots and not miss. And, even if he did miss, before they could swim to the bank the speedboat would turn around, come back, and have no trouble killing them in the water. Alone, he would have risked it. But he didn’t want to risk her. Besides, he had no idea how good or bad a swimmer she was. For all he knew she was a dog paddler.

  A short distance farther on they reached where the klong joined the Chao Phray River and the idea of swimming to safety was no longer a reasonable option. No matter how well they swam, with the wicked currents of the Chao Phray it was doubtful they’d make it to shore.

  Why, Grady wondered, had they resorted to towing, and where to? Going like hell downriver. It wasn’t far to the sea. Maybe they had extemporized their maliciousness, had been inspired by it to take him and Julia water-skiing, mix fun and fatalness. That would be their style. Whatever, considering the way the driver had been so deliberately killed…

  Grady glanced at the dead driver, whose lavender shirt was ugly brown where the blood had seeped and was already coagulating. What, considering the circumstances, would the driver do if he were still alive? Grady asked himself. Speak to me, driver, he thought. You know the fucking river; you know this fucking water taxi. You’re an old bag of tricks. Yeah, you’re an old dead bag of tricks, gone to the place where they dole out next lives. You’re no help at all.

  But wasn’t it possibly some aspect of the driver, some ability that he’d acquired since death, that spoke into Grady’s head, gave him instructions in the form of an idea?

  Grady slithered over the rear passenger seat to the driver’s spot, shoved the lifeless old man out of the way. Kept low while he studied the engine, its controls and the steering system. It could hardly have been simpler. A switch for on or off, another for forward or reverse. A horizontal steering arm with a throttle on the end of it—a rotating section such as commonly found on motorcycles.

  Grady peeked around the side of the engine over the stern. There was the twelve-foot-long shaft that reached back and down diagonally to the water. With the propeller on the end of it. He tried the steering arm, moved it laterally to the left. The engine, shaft and all, moved with it, swiveled so the propeller was off to the right. He moved the steering arm laterally to the right to have the propeller off to the left. Nothing complicated about the steering.

  It occurred to Grady then that the engine should be on. They’d been under way when the driver was killed, so it should still be on. Had the driver hit the on/off switch when he’d been slammed back against the engine, or perhaps when he so suddenly released his grip from the throttle had the engine stalled? Anything was possible, including a malfunction.

  Grady glanced at Julia.

  She drew a question mark in the air.

  Grady shrugged. Which was true. He wasn’t sure. It seemed as though he was making this up as he went along, and yet, it equally seemed as though he was obeying instructions a step at a time.

  Such as now. He was to switch on the engine.

  It started right up.

  He gave it just enough throttle to keep it idling. Craned up for a peek at the young man in the stern of the speedboat, who apparently was none the wiser and wouldn’t be able to hear over the roar of the engine beneath him.

  They were surely on the river now, going down it, somewhat favoring the left half. There was considerable traffic. Four boats, extremely narrow for their length, the makeshift fat-beamed boats of families that lived on the river, water taxis buzzing about, of course, and many barges, tugs laboriously pulling strings of four to eight of those. Most prominent were the huge rice barges, semicylindrical shaped with corrugated tin roofs. Given wide berth by all the other vessels. In fact, every floating thing kept a generous distance from every other floating thing.

  It was that afternoon time when the accumulated heat was about as high and thick as it would go. The sky was ambivalent, had blue patches, but directly overhead leaden clouds had amalgamated and were swiftly gaining weight for the daily downpour.

  Well, do or die, Grady thought. He twisted the throttle up full and shoved the steering bar as far to the left as it would go.

  The stern of the water taxi swung left, making an advantage of the angled way it was being towed, increasing the angle so the bow caught more water and was forced even farther right.

  Which, in turn, brought the stern around sharply. And now the water taxi was perpendicular to the speedboat, being dragged along sideways by it like some unwilling charge.

  The nylon towline was quivering with tension. It wouldn’t break, could take at least ten times the strain now being put on it.

  Grady in the driver’s place was exposed now, not entirely, but enough so the young man brought the rifle up to aim position and pulled off several short bursts.

  Bullets cut the air close around Grady. Others ricocheted off the head and block of the engine. Grady expected any moment to experience what it was like to have a bullet smash into him, most likely into his skull, the most evident target.

  He flipped the switch.

  From forward to reverse, from full speed ahead to full power back.

  Causing a sudden additional surge of resistance.

  The grappling hook kept its hold on the upright support of the canopy. However, the support couldn’t take the pull. It gave way, as Grady had hoped. The four long screws in the flange where the upright was attached to the flat upper edge of the hull ripped out, and that section of the canopy collapsed. As though settling for any sort of grasp, the grappling hook got into a tangle with the canopy and its steel frame, and, next thing, the entire canopy and frame were torn away and that was all the speedboat was dragging downriver.

  Grady had only an instant to appreciate that. Because with the abrupt release at full throttle in reverse the water taxi was out of control. Headed for collision with a forty-passenger tour boat.

  Grady had to switch to forward and swerve the taxi sharply.

  Too sharply.

  The bow of the taxi reared up, high up. For an instant only its stern was in the water. It did a partial, off-balance pirouette and came down more overturned than not.

  Everything loose in the taxi was all at once in the water, ineluding the body of the driver. Grady and Julia were plunged in and under so awkwardly that for a while they were disoriented, didn’t know which was the way to the surface.

  Julia wasn’t panicked. Ordinarily, being underwater was not something she found pleasant, or safe, even when she was in a nice, clear swimming pool. However, now she felt unexpectedly capable of coping with the situation. Actually, she was more concerned with Grady’s safety. Where was he?

  The river water was murky and there was no sunlight to help visibility. Julia could barely make out the body of the driver, his lavender shirt, as it sunk off
a ways to her right. Then, also in that direction, she spotted something else.

  Bright red. The drawstring pouch containing the rubies. It must have come out of Grady’s shirt pocket.

  Julia’s immediate reaction was to swim to it, to retrieve it, and, after only a couple of strokes, there it was within easy reach, sinking slowly because it was lightweight and not yet saturated.

  She didn’t grab it. She watched it, as though fascinated with its descent. Her thought was she could have it in her grasp whenever she chose. Treading water, she kept her gaze on the red pouch, picturing the rubies she knew it contained, how important they were to Grady.

  She reached for the pouch.

  But only mentally.

  It was as though her arms were paralyzed. She couldn’t work her arms. They wouldn’t move. Why, for God’s sake, why?

  The pouch was soaked now, sinking more rapidly.

  Julia commanded her arms to allow her hands to seize it.

  They disobeyed.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “You moping?”

  “Just thinking.”

  “You’ve never struck me as the sort who’d mope. Even if it was over a loss of a million or two.”

  “You called the airline?”

  “All of them. Want some bread and wine?”

  “No.”

  “Anything I can do for you?”

  “Get us a flight home.”

  “There’s no available space, except as far as Hong Kong. We’d have to lay over there until tomorrow night, maybe even until the next day, nothing could be promised.”

  “Fuck Hong Kong.”

  “My sentiments exactly. One airline, I believe it was Singapore, said it would put us on standby. But do you want to do that, hang around the airport praying for no-shows?”

  A negative grunt from Grady. The last thing he wanted to do now was subject himself to airport hours. That, he thought, would likely cause him to go mad.

  They were in the bedroom of their suite at the Oriental. On the floor in a pile of pillows with neither clothes nor lights on. That afternoon when the river police pulled them out of the Chao Phraya, Grady had decided the episode with the young men in the speedboat was too complicated and implausible to explain. He’d let the police assume what it appeared to be: merely another case of near drowning. Besides, he’d discovered right off that he’d lost the rubies and was in no mood for words.