Number Nine

by Colin Cotterill

  He walked slowly over to the white Buddha and wai’d the big lump of concrete as if it had some magical qualities. He walked on to the little wooden bridge and spoke to the fish in the pond beneath it. I could see this all clearly from my viewpoint. He was at a sort of crossroads. If he turned left he’d be headed into Pak Nam with a lot of early morning shoppers at the market. If he’d gone straight he’d be back on the road north, the one he’d taken before his previous escape. But after a moment of consideration, he turned right. That direction would take him across the temple grounds and eventually to the sea. Two innocent looking boats awaited him there. But I was concerned that if his angle were too sharp he might find himself in dog hell. If he did, being arrested by the police would have been the least of his problems.

  In the north-east corner of the temple there resided Pra Narok, the meanest, most disagreeable monk ever to don a saffron robe. He’d been banished to a single cottage by himself because he disliked people. He hated the other monks. Nobody gave him alms because he cursed at the devotees if the serving was measly. And, like a magnet from the rocks of Hades, he attracted beasts that also hated people. The type of beaten and broken mongrels and moggies you might see on wanted posters flocked to the cottage. Pra Narok had a Facebook page upon which he posted photos of his ugly entourage and donors flung money into his PayPal account to feed these misbegotten sons and daughters of Satan. And, out of gratitude, the beasts kept him safe from all and any trespassers. There were rumours of drunks stumbling into dog hell and there being nothing but a gold tooth and a thumb remaining of them the next morning.

  I watched Smiley walk fearlessly towards the cottage. Ears stood to attention across the savanna of uncut grass. The forward unit of signal dogs pointed their noses in the direction of the interloper and a howl arose and the two joggers fell back. Smiley walked on. The larger, most grotesque of the second flank barked saliva across their jowls and began to attack. Ten, twenty, thirty dogs all stimulated into action against this one enemy. Two frightening beasts broke off from the central attack to take care of a road sweeper, far from the road, who held up his straw broom to ward them off. Both animals, experts in the efficacy of the broom as a weapon, clamped their teeth around it and ripped it from the hands of the sweeper. He ran like a rat out of a burning silo. Although the noisiest, most horrific of the action centered around Smiley, I was amazed that none of them had attacked him directly. In fact, I could have sworn that he reached down from time to time and stroked the heads of even the most frightening Frankenstein-like monsters.

  Two men without any pretence of disguise ran across the temple ground just as Smiley disappeared behind the cottage. They carried pistols, which they pointed at the dogs that barred their way and continued to move forward. These dog-war veterans had seen and heard guns before and they could count. Even if the chambers held eight bullets apiece and the officers were crack shots and could put down eight dogs each, there were still twenty or so dogs in reserve. A dog, don’t forget, is 99% wolf and is never one to back out of a fight.

  I heard the growl of a dirt bike and briefly saw the blur of Smiley heading north over sand and shrub. There would have been cars on the road ready to give chase, perhaps a motorcycle or two. But the confusion of the dog attack had created indecision in the minds of the commanders in the operation centre. The order for the helicopter to follow a bike heading north along the beach road may have come too late. And by the time everyone had taken a breath and regrouped, there was nothing to see. Smiley and the bike were gone. The cars, motorcycles and helicopter followed the signal of the tracking device for ten kilometres only to find the empty bag on the back of a pickup truck. The driver had no idea how it got there.

  I gave a sort of mental round of applause to Smiley. I would take it back if he’d gone on to kill the victim but I admired the work he’d put into his escape. I doubted his sanity for going to so much trouble for a bag of counterfeit money but it was a fine chase and nobody got shot. Gerri, of course, was another matter. A search of the islands found neither her nor her rotting corpse. I hung on to my dream of she and Smiley heading off into the sunset on the back of a buffalo together. But I still didn’t believe it. As the spokeswoman of overweight girls I was only too aware that no Hollywood leading man on his deathbed ever said, ‘I only regret that I didn’t spend more time with a fat woman.’ We were never going to come back into fashion.

  *

  They found the real Gerri Jansen two days later. She was alive and happy and shacked up with a very young water scooter driver on Samet island. Evidently, she hadn’t noticed that her passport had been stolen. The island chalets didn’t ask for ID so she hadn’t needed to show it to anyone. It was only when she tried to use a credit card that she realized she’d been robbed. She reported it to the small police station on Samet and it took another two days for that report to make it through the police computer network. She’d phoned the US embassy on the Monday to make a report. Her passport number was added to a list of travel documents stolen and/or sold. But the law enforcement officers attached to the embassy had already checked that list before heading south to Chumphon. It would be another twenty-four hours before that name appeared on the in-house computer system and the cross-checker showed a red flag. That’s when the Americans contacted Lang Suan with the news and Chom phoned me.

  I’d put together a few scenarios as to how the fake Gerri and the pretend fisherman had perpetrated their scam. But I was no closer to answering the question, why. I told Chom I’d meet him at the 99 Bay Resort and walk him through my theory. We headed north along the sand as fake Gerri had done. It occurred to me that the empty house behind which Smiley had parked his boat was a convenient ten minutes from the resort. They’d told me the previous owner was American and his wife was trying to find a buyer for the property. Thus, the house had been listed on a number of on-line real estate sites. My sister, Sissy, the computer genius, had found it easily enough. It was advertised as ‘the perfect hideaway’. So, fake Gerri and Smiley knew there was an empty house with access to the beach. I’d talked to Sergeant Phoum who’d been on the original surveillance team and he’d confirmed that the fisherman had not actually entered the building. Just went through the front gate, along the side of the house, and out the back gate. So, there had been no need to enter or search the house. I wanted to rectify that omission.

  We entered through the beach gate and tried the back door. It was bolted. We walked around the side to the front door which was closed but unlocked. We went inside. The place was fully furnished but had no power. The main bedroom was on the sea side and it had obviously been inhabited at some time. The bed was unmade and there were food cartons and wine bottles lying around catering to a million ants and one or two cockroaches. The dressing table was a pallet of makeup colours and there were half a dozen strips of what looked like peeled skin. These turned out to be flesh-coloured rubber pads. There was a permed wig and two wads of cotton wool. Chom opened the wardrobe and let out a little scream. He took two paces back and I went to join him. There, hanging neatly from a hanger, was what the people in Hollywood referred to as a fat suit. It had two saggy breasts and a beer-drinker’s gut. On the next hanger was a triple X size summer frock. Of course we didn’t touch anything. Chom contacted Lang Suan and suggested they send a team to look for fingerprints.

  The house was only two minutes from the police station so by the time the police cars and helicopter had been deployed Smiley was already home and hidden. A day or two for the coast to clear and two slim young tourists ride their motorcycle off to the airport with half a million fake dollars in their backpacks. I was wondering how you might get hold of a fat suit but Sissy assured me there were a number of costumiers catering to the TV and Movie companies. You just stroll in and order the size you want. But why did they choose a fat girl? Why go to so much trouble? All they needed to do was find a girl who looked similar to fake Gerri and take her passport. And all the answers I came up with were insulting. ‘Y
ou’d feel sorrier for a fat girl.’ ‘A fat girl wouldn’t be able to escape.’ ‘Nobody would expect a fat girl to perpetrate such a detailed scam.’

  The dog thing was a matter of patience. I’d talked to the angry monk earlier. He’d told me about a young fellow who’d come every day for a month to give snacks to the dogs. In the beginning he’d been chased off the compound but dogs can be forgiving when snacks are concerned. This also told me that Smiley had been around a long time before fake Gerri’s arrival. It was conceivable that she’d been here with him, setting up the scam.

  So the ‘how’ was taken care of which left only the ‘why’. A week later I had an appointment in Bangkok and I was able to detour via the US embassy where I met one of the police officers who’d attended the botched surveillance in Pak Nam. He was the size and shape you’d expect of a cop extra on Starsky and Hutch. He seemed less bemused by ‘why’ than I was.

  “This is off the record,” he said. Saying that in Thailand was not nearly as binding as it was in the States. In fact it meant nothing at all. I had my cell phone on record.

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  “There are any number of ways to launder fake US dollars in a foreign country,” he said. “The locals aren’t as aware as we are in the States. Most of them don’t check. Even the money exchange people at the airports. They count the dollars and hand over local currency. And there are all those street guys asking if you’ve got dollars to sell. Then there’s drug dealers. They’re not expecting you to cheat them. You buy your drugs then go to some nightclub and sell them and you’ve made enough money for the next month of luxury.”

  “Why didn’t she ask for two million then?” I asked.

  He rolled his eyes.

  “Who can tell what these people are thinking?” he said. “Probably just making sure we’d have enough in hand to cover the ransom. They wouldn’t want us to have to go back to Bangkok and grab some more. We used to take a million. That was the most popular ransom request in the old days. Now it’s two. I blame television.”

  “And this is a contingency? I mean, you get a report of a kidnapping with a ransom request and you jump on the next flight with two million dollars in a pack?”

  “Sure. Makes life easier than dealing with a murdered hostage. Less paperwork. Hand over the money, get the victim back then wait for the counterfeit money to show up.”

  “You think these two know it’s counterfeit?”

  “Most kidnappers are stupid,” he said. “These two have shown a level of sophistication. I’m quite sure they know. And this is the best way to get hold of good quality fake cash.”

  “You make it sound like people get kidnapped all the time.”

  “Average about six Americans in the region every month.”

  “You’re not serious? Why doesn’t it make it into the newspapers?”

  “The respective governments put a lid on it. Bad for tourism.”

  I thanked him and headed for the door. But before leaving I asked,

  “Do you think they’ll catch them?”

  “Unlikely.”

  “Why?”

  “They won’t be trying. It’s a crime without victims.”

  So there I was on a tree trunk watching the bird come and go through its ever-open cage door and it made me think about fake Gerri and Smiley. It had been six months since that case. As far as I knew, Gerri and Smiley were still on the lam spending their counterfeit money having a good time. I enjoyed the case because I could imagine the couple enjoying every minute of it. But I wondered about the officer’s comment about it being a victimless crime. What about the people who ended up with useless money? Is it their fault for not being careful? Are fools really soon parted from their money? Probably.

  My thought bubbles were popped by a call from inside the house.

  “Denise,” said Mair. “Stop tormenting Gravity.”

  The End

  Jimm Juree’s Short Stories

  Number One: The Funeral Photographer

  In this story, Jimm, exiled from the north of Thailand and just about surviving in the south, finds a new career by accident. Being Jimm, a crime is never far away.

  Number Two: When You Wish Upon a Star

  A car drives into a river and a woman is dead. A terrible accident and a broken hearted husband. Or it would be if Jimm’s sixth sense didn’t cut in.

  Number Three: Highway Robbery

  "First, my only appointment of the week phoned to postpone. Second, on the TV news in the evening I was astounded to see scenes from our own Highway 41 where an armoured security van had been deserted minus its cash. And, third, I was awoken just before midnight by the sound of groaning coming from the empty shop house beside mine. It was a while before I learned how these three events were connected."

  Number Four: The Zero Finger Option

  A letter a day delivered by a good looking young postman leads Jimm into a new mystery. It starts as a case of internet scamming, but ends up somewhere far worse.

  Number Five: Trash

  Not a message in a bottle; instead it's in a sealed plastic bag which once held medicines, stuffed inside an old sardine can and washed up on the beach. A cry for help by someone held against their will? And is there any connection to the Burmese labourers dying from malaria? Another case for Jimm Juree.

  Number Six: Spay With Me

  "On the day I, Jimm Juree, sent one of my mother’s dogs to hell, someone robbed the Siam Commercial Bank in Pak Nam. The two events sound unrelated, but they weren’t. The connection between the two was me and one amazingly bad decision I made. This will all become evident as I talk you through the events of that Thursday."

  Number Seven: Sex on the Beach

  When a tourist is raped and killed at a resort in the south of Thailand, the police place the guilt on a Burmese migrant worker. Jimm is recruited to help the arrested worker and soon smells a rat, or rather a number of them.

  Number Eight: Smelly Man

  Who is trying to kill the smelly tramp? The tramp doesn't know, but he hires Jimm to find out. Jimm with her family and a friendly gay cop set to work on the mystery as only they can.

  Number Nine: Maprao Syndrome

  Jimm and the Thai police try to solve a kidnapping of an American lady, but all is not as it seems.