Jimm Juree 01; Killed at the Whim of a Hat

by Colin Cotterill

  “Sugit is bastard,” she said. “I happy his face break. I shake hand this kidnap man. Sorry he not dead, old Sugit.” A pause to calm her excitement, then: “But is not me.”

  And, for some peculiar reason, I believed her. I didn’t like her. I didn’t trust her. But I believed her. Once she’d exhausted her Thai language supply she reverted to speaking through her son although he no longer needed to translate what we said. She understood everything. She had a lot of dark tales of broken land deals and underhanded profiteering. She smiled when she related victories she’d had over Sugit and even spat betel on the floor at one stage as she recounted his dishonesty. I saw it as a turf war between two old Thai Chinese bandit empires. They’d each assumed an air of respectability in modern times but deep down they were all crooks. I didn’t favor one camp over the other but neither did I see a connection between this rivalry and the little plot of land at the back of Old Mel’s plantation. I dared ask the question again as to why she’d sold that small sliver of land. The answer was different this time and she answered personally.

  “People who make connect past and future may know the present,” she said.

  It sounded like a fortune cookie. I had no idea what she was talking about. It must have been an inscrutable Chinese thing that I could never hope to understand. In the police truck on the way back Granddad Jah and I tried to recall every small detail of our discussion. Did we believe her? Who were we to say? But…no, not all, not completely. Did she have Sugit abducted? I didn’t think so. Her final riddle stuck with me for some reason and it’s just as well it did.

  Fifteen

  “If you don’t stand for anything, you don’t stand for anything! If you don’t stand for something, you don’t stand for anything!”

  —GEORGE W. BUSH, BELLEVUE COMMUNITY COLLEGE, NOVEMBER 2, 2000

  We arrived at Lang Suan at eleven thirty. Meteors had landed, dinosaurs had turned into goldfish, sprouted legs and become presidents, and it wasn’t even lunchtime yet. Lieutenant Chompu drove us directly to Sugit’s house. The lieutenant assured us that the old politician was in the hospital on a drip, milking all the sympathy and press attention he could get.

  “So, why are we here?” I asked.

  “We’re taking his daughter out for lunch,” he said. “I called to make a date while you were off partying with the Chainawats.”

  Upmarket dining wasn’t easy to find in Lang Suan. You could forget French, Japanese and Italian, even American, Vietnamese and German. It was all too fancy for the locals. Even the new KFC had been empty since its launch a month earlier. So, we took the ex-minister’s daughter to a tiny place beside the Uaychai Department Store. It was owned by the minor wife of a propane gas tank baron who didn’t really care what she cooked as long as she turned a profit. The food was cheap but tasty and eclectic and the service was so slow it gave you plenty of time to chat.

  The daughter, Mayuri, was indeed the crimson-haired servant I’d met, but not been introduced to, at the house. She’d come with us without protestation or fuss, just walked out past the camouflaged gardeners and climbed into the truck with a friendly smile. She seemed truly delighted to have an excuse to leave the property. She was funny and as colorful as her hair, but she seemed to be sadly lacking in instincts. She had no apparent fear that we complete strangers might have motives for this lunch other than food, and no sense at all that our questions were leading. It didn’t take a great mind to deduce that Mayuri wasn’t the brightest squid boat in the sea. I felt no pressing need to be discreet.

  “A VW Kombi…” I began.

  “I read that” – she thrashed into the gap. “Can you believe that? Buried. Unbelievable. Those poor people.”

  I had no idea where to go from there.

  “But you knew what a VW Kombi was before you read about it?” Chompu asked.

  “Oh, yes.” She grinned. “They were so ‘it’ back then. They said there were more VW vans criss-crossing the world than there were in the whole of Germany. And that’s where they were made. Imagine that. A flock of, like eagles flying out in a fleet of Kombis all round the world. Wow!”

  “Did you ever see one?” Chompu asked.

  Mayuri was sitting next to him and she leaned close and cupped her hand around her mouth as if she were about to impart a deep secret.

  “Not only did I see one,” she whispered aloud, “I rode in one. That’s why it was so awesome when I saw it in the newspaper.”

  She had my undivided attention. There weren’t that many VW Kombis around.

  “When was that?” I asked.

  “Nineteen seventy-eight,” she said.

  She’d hammered the year. Put herself right there.

  “How old were you then?” Chompu asked.

  “Twenty…what? Twenty-two?”

  “How did you get to ride in a VW Kombi?” I asked.

  She tutted and sipped her Coke.

  “The things you do,” she said. “The things you do when you’re young.” She looked around at us all staring at her and decided it was probably no big deal to go on. “The seventies were crazy,” she said. “This army coup and commies everywhere, and government spies, everyone suspicious and blaming each other. It was a really hard time to grow up and, you know, believe anything. Some of us headed down to the beaches where the backpackers were. We had these wild times down there. We met this crazy Thai guy who’d been living in the jungle hiding out from the junta, and he had this family land outside Surat. He asked us to live with him there. There was like a group of us. We thought we were flower children but I think we’d been just pretend hippies till he came along. This Thai guy gave us a chance to live a real alternative lifestyle, you know? We set up this, what do you call it? This cooperative farm. He’d lived on something similar in the States, he said. We were trying to do it all without money. We grew most of what we needed, raised animals, cut wood for cooking, you know? It was this very simple, like, beautiful life.

  “But there were needs, you see? The bigger our commune got, the more we needed – petrol for the pumps, you know, a truck, a little tractor – but we weren’t making anything from the stuff we produced. We were just, you know, surviving. And we needed money. I guess, when I think about it now, that means we weren’t very good at being self-sufficient. The whole point was that we…Anyway, I had this father, of sorts. I hadn’t spoken to him for years but I got in touch and asked him if he could let me have some money. He wasn’t into it but he said he had a few odd jobs he could let us do to earn some bread. He told me about this car rental deal. He’d front the rental money and arrange IDs. Two of us would hire a rental car, drive it to this friend of my father up the coast, and leave it there. His friend would take it to Hua Hin and sub-rent it to foreigners at three times the price. Then he’d drive it back.”

  “What makes you think that’s what they did?” Granddad Jah asked.

  “What else would they do with them?” she asked.

  “Steal them.”

  “Ooh, do you think so? That sounds a lot more dishonest than just borrowing, doesn’t it?”

  “You don’t think it odd that they didn’t have you drive them back to the rental firm?”

  “Right. I hadn’t thought about that.”

  “Right,” I said. “And how long were you and your friends involved in this rental scam?”

  “I don’t know. Three months? About that. It was a nice easy income. And we didn’t see it as illegal, you see? Just sharing rich people’s wealth around. That was our philosophy, our mantra.”

  “Rob from the rich and give to yourselves?” said Granddad Jah.

  Mayuri missed the point.

  “We’d have nice cars to drive, look at the scenery, take our time and come back on the bus. And we had money for the commune.”

  “So, how did the VWs change things?” Chompu asked.

  Two of our seven ordered dishes arrived on the table. We didn’t know whether to tuck in or wait for the rest. Mayuri solved the dilemma by dippi
ng a spoon into the prawn fried rice and ladling a good helping onto her plate.

  “There were two or three couples renting cars, I remember,” she said. “They were mostly, you know, Fords and Austins, that kind of thing. Nice cars but nothing exciting. Then we were told to go to this company and they had two VW Kombis. They were, like, these chariots of the flower gods. We were awestruck. Dad wanted sedans but we couldn’t resist it. We rented one of the two VWs. It was a gas. We were so close to heaven we lost it.”

  “The van?”

  “Our minds. We’d wanted that life. That VW nirvana. Once we were driving around in a Kombi it was better than drugs.”

  “Which you also had,” I threw in.

  “Mostly ganja. We grew it in the hills around the commune. It was a sin, of course. But so was beer and swatting flies so we ignored that. Religion was one of those strangling, you know, doctrines we were anti at the time. So we all traveled with a stash of dope for the journey. We found somewhere secure to hide it ‘cause the cops were even more Bolshevik then than they are now.”

  “That’s nice to hear,” said Chompu.

  “My soul partner then, his name was Wee, beautiful man. He said we shouldn’t take the van straight up to the dealer guy. He said we should enjoy it a little bit.”

  “So you didn’t make it to Chumphon?” I asked.

  She giggled and I saw traces of the wild girl in her eyes. My mother had those same remnants of devil.

  “We didn’t even make it out of the province,” she said. “We were picked up by the highway police the next morning and packed off to the Chaiya police station.”

  “What for?” I asked. This and the account of the Surat detective, Captain Waew, were beginning to merge.

  “Oh, you know. The supernatural magic of the Kombi. We’d driven around, had a little toke. Drove some more, had a little toke. Next thing you know we’re heading back into Surat. Going completely the wrong direction. So we found a pretty nature spot and bunked down for the night.”

  “The police found you naked and stoned in the back of the van,” said Granddad Jah. “You weren’t twenty meters from the highway.”

  “We were crazy, uncle. Like I say.”

  She giggled again and shoveled in some rice; she seemed energized from the memories. Her past was obviously a lot more fun than her present.

  “What happened then?” Chompu asked.

  “We were using fake IDs. We knew it wouldn’t be long before the cops got wise to that, then tied us to the other cars we’d rented. We didn’t want to get in trouble. Then this inspector came from Surat and, like, told us he was investigating my dad – except he didn’t know he was my dad – and that we could do a deal. He said he’d keep us out of jail if we gave evidence against the old man. Of course, anything’s better than being in jail, right? So we agreed.”

  “To give evidence against your own father?” Granddad Jah asked.

  “Yeah. We weren’t that close. I don’t know. We might not have gone through with it if he’d helped get us out, but he just went quiet. Pretended he didn’t know us. I was afraid he was going to let us burn. You know? He was like that. But, anyway, while we were thinking about it, they put us up in this nice little locked-up house with a fridge and a TV. The detective said it was to keep us safe but there wasn’t any way to get out. There was this fat constable there at the gate watching over us. It was cool. We were just hanging out, watching TV. It was all so surreal. Then Dad showed up.”

  “And he helped you stage the kidnapping?” I said.

  “Yeah. It wasn’t that hard ‘cause the constable had vanished and left the doors unlocked. Weird, that.”

  The last of our food order arrived, passing our hopes on the way which were heading at speed out of the window. The bodies in the VW were obviously not this couple.

  “Did you go back to the commune after that?” Chompu asked.

  “No. We weren’t game. We figured the police would have found out about it and raided the place. Dad told us to get out of town and lie low.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “Just drifted. Smartened ourselves up. Got casual work here and there and the whole love-child thing sort of got old in a hurry. It turned out me and Wee couldn’t get along in the normal capitalistic world. We drifted apart.”

  “Any idea what happened to the VW you’d rented?” I asked.

  “No. Last time I saw it, it was in the parking lot behind the Chaiya police station. I imagine they sent it back to the owner.”

  “No,” said Granddad, “he didn’t get it back.”

  “No? Probably got adopted by some kind law enforcement officer, then,” said Mayuri, out-eating us two to one despite all the talking. “I’d been thinking perhaps the one they found buried was the one we’d used.”

  “Any idea who rented the second van?” Chompu asked her.

  “No, like I say, we didn’t go back.”

  “Do you know the names of anyone else in the commune?” Granddad Jah asked.

  “Yeah, but it wouldn’t help. We were all Bread and Steed and Morning Glory. We discarded our decadent labels when we joined the farm. We didn’t know anyone’s real names. Wee wasn’t really Wee, you know? It’s English for urine. It’s full of nutrients. Indian fakirs drink it like orange juice.”

  “Nice,” said Chompu, putting down his glass. “Where did you drive your stolen…I mean, borrowed rental cars to?”

  “Tako.”

  Tako was about thirty kilometers up the coast. There were two routes from Surat. If you took the highway you’d pass through Lang Suan. The quiet back road that avoided police blockades would lead you along the coast almost to Pak Nam. Back then, there wasn’t a bridge so the detour would drag you way up-river almost past Old Mel’s land. We needed to find out who rented that second van. Tan Sugit still wasn’t in the clear.

  “Mayuri, you still aren’t very close to your father, are you?” I said.

  “Can’t think what gives you that idea. You’ve only met the old bastard once.”

  “Oh, just a hunch, I suppose,” I continued. “You’re implicating him in all kinds of illegal activities. You’re calling him names. You aren’t sitting by his bedside holding his hand.”

  She laughed and a noodle slipped out of her mouth.

  “He doesn’t need his hand held,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with him.”

  “He was kidnapped and tortured,” I reminded her.

  “He was not.”

  “Do you know anything about last night’s events that you’d like to share with us?” Chompu asked.

  “The doctor I phoned said the only evidence of torture they could find was in his imagination. He broke his nose but with all the reconstruction I doubt he felt it. No, I bet he just got downright drunk with his whores and they got carried away in some prank. He doesn’t have a clue when he’s drunk. The terrorist story was just something to save his face.”

  “Why are you living with him?” I asked.

  “He took me in as an unpaid housekeeper. I was out of work. Out of men. Out of luck. I contacted him and asked him if he had any odd jobs I could do. He asked if I could cook. I’d never actually lived in his house before. Ha, don’t look so surprised. I’m child number four of twenty-eight or so. Seven different women. There was only one that he married. I had to remind him who my mother was. There isn’t a lot of, what you’d call, paternal affection going on here, although there are nights I have to remind him we’re blood relatives, if you know what I mean.”

  ♦

  We dropped Mayuri back at her house, and on the way back across town we admitted we’d come full circle with the VW case. Granddad and I sat in the truck while Chompu popped in to see the duty officer at Lang Suan police headquarters.

  “Granddad Jah,” I asked, “what do you make of it all? I mean, the kidnapping, the note to me?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “The girl could have been right. It might have been S&M that got out of cont
rol.”

  “Stripped and handcuffed to a bench in the train station?”

  “Some of those bar girls can be vindictive, Nong Jimm. You dump one and move on to another…”

  “So, what about the words on his belly, sa som?”

  “It means ‘deserved’.”

  “I know what it means, Granddad, but why would bar girls write it on him? Don’t you think it sounds like something a bit more sinister? And surely you don’t think the note to me was just a coincidence. There has to be a connection.”

  But I didn’t get a chance, then, to hear his response. We were interrupted by the breathless return of Lieutenant Chompu who jumped into the truck and showed us his small but perfect teeth.

  “I don’t need to tell you,” he gasped, “I’m not at liberty to tell you this, but…we’ve got good news and bad news and good news and bad news, and then good news. But it’s all better than no news at all. Where should I start?” We both glared at him. “All right. The good news it is. First, the girl child was indeed a genius because the Benz number checked out. They found the car. The bad news is that it’s a rental from a company in Phuket, and the fellow that stayed over at the resort was one of their hired drivers. His name’s Wirapon, nickname, Keeo.”

  “That shouldn’t rule him out,” I said. “Rental car drivers can be murderers, too.”

  “That’s true. But it appears he’s more than happy to help the police with their inquiries. They’re driving him over from Phuket along with the details of the customer who hired the car and the daily log.”

  “Doesn’t sound like a criminal to me,” said Granddad Jah.

  “Me neither. He’ll be here by three so we should have some answers then. So, where was I? All right. Good news number two is that the court gave us the go-ahead to trace the number of the person who called in the accident of – aka attack on – Sergeant Phoom. The cell number belongs to the owner of a wheelchair and crutch dealership in Lang Suan. The bad news is that the owner says he wasn’t the person who called in. He’d lent his phone to his brother who was visiting from Chonburi that day. He was doing some business down here and had forgotten to bring his phone charger with him. He said his brother was due back to his home the next day and didn’t want to hang around here making police reports. The hospital number was on speed dial on the phone.”