Bangkok Burn (33 page)

I shot him in the temple. It was kinder. Let him go in paradise. I lifted his head to check the exit. There wasn’t one. The bullet was in his head. I kept a watch on the bathroom. Chai dodged out to the laundry trolley and unrolled the plastic bag onto the empty space on the double bed. We rolled Leon onto it. Chai put a plastic bag over Leon’s head, securing it in place with a couple of tight cable ties around his neck. I worked the zip of the bag quietly closed, keeping an eye and ear on the bathroom door. Bag closed I searched the bedside drawer. Leon’s passport, wallet, watch. I took a hundred thousand baht out of my packet and left it in the bedside drawer: Leon’s guilt money for Ursula.

Chai nodded at me from the door. I heard the water in the shower stop. We picked Leon up and carried him out the door, putting him quietly in the basket. Chai threw his beach towel in after covering up the folded body bag. I pushed the lock back in on the door and closed it behind me. A last glance showed the bathroom door opening. I was glad Ursula was taking a shower, we didn’t need the baggage. Chai was already turning the corner up the path to the car park, the laundry basket’s wheels rattling on the brick path.

Chai opened the rear door of the Ranger Rover. I got one side of the laundry basket and we lifted it into the rear cargo area. Back on the main road, we turned left and headed up the west coast of the island to the main pier and car ferry to Don Sak.

We drove west up to Taling Ngam. Outside a gas station on the intersection to the pier, we pulled over. I had a bowl of red pork Kuai Teow with wontons for breakfast.

After eating, I called Mother.

“Our friend has already left for Singapore. I’ll send his arrival time by email.” I took out Leon’s Australian passport and took a photo of the identification details page. I sent the photo to Mother. Leon would be entered in Thailand’s immigration computer as having traveled from Samui to Bangkok and then Singapore. He was already on his way.

We drove down to the roll-on roll-off pier, Chai at the wheel. Traffic was heavy, pedestrian and vehicles. I got out and walked to the ferry. I climbed the stairs to the upper deck and stood leaning against the railing. The sun sparkled on the sea, glints that made you squint your eyes as their brilliance hit you. A couple of kids shrieked, startling me as they chased each other up the stairs laughing. Their mother called to them to be careful. I sighed. The day wasn’t done. We had more chores to do, starting with getting rid of Leon’s body.

I called Cheep.

“Hey Cheep, how you doing?”

“Chance. I’m good, really good. What’s up?”

“I need your help. Want to go fishing, about five miles offshore, deep water. Can you organize?”

“Sure. Can. When you need?”

“This afternoon. We should be there just before 5:00 pm.”

“No problem. Consider it done.”

“And Cheep, just us. I have a special kind of bait.”

“Understood. I’ll drive.”

“Thanks, Cheep. See you later.”

The ferry to Don Sak would take between two and a half to three hours depending on the captain’s mood. I looked around. There was a wooden bench seat up against a bulkhead. I sat down. The morning sun felt hot on my face, warming the material of my shirt and my jeans. Chai came up the steps and stood by the railing looking out to sea. I put my arm across my eyes and stretched out. The warmth felt good. I pushed an image of Leon, curled up in the body bag, out of my mind. Time enough for that later.

After the ferry ride, it was a two hundred and eighty-seven kilometers drive to Phuket, most of it on twisty mountain road. More time to sleep.

Sunset Cruise

25 May 2010 Phuket 4:45pm

Between the sleep I had on the ferry and the first couple of hours
driving to Phuket, I was refreshed. I had taken over driving a little over a couple of hours ago to give Chai a chance to get some sleep. I nudged his shoulder as I rolled down the sandy track next to Cheep’s, actually Uncle Mike’s, resort.

I turned left on the track just before the beach and drove down to the fishing pier that Uncle Mike had built. It was illegal, but the Navy, whose ground it was on, turned a blind eye in return for a monthly envelope. I parked the Range Rover at the end of the pier and got out. The sun hung low on the horizon now, the sky a faultless blue, the sea undulated calmly, not a wave to be seen.

At the end of the pier, Cheep was standing next to an open speedboat. From where I stood, it looked like a fast smuggling boat. Chai and I got the laundry basket out of the Range Rover and down onto the wooden pier. We collected everything from the Ranger Rover, tossing it into the laundry basket. Chai pushed the basket, rattling its way down the pier.

Cheep looked nervous. Hands clasped in front of him, but he came forward to give a hand.

“Sawasdee, Khun Chance, Chai,” he waied. Unusual, he’d never done that before, always treated me as a Farang, as Uncle Mike’s nephew. I waied him back.

Getting a square basket, loaded with a man, from a pier onto a smaller boat is not easy. As we lifted the basket down, Cheep stumbled, and the body bag tumbled out onto the floor of the boat. After that it was a piece of cake.

The boat was basic. A center console with twin 300HP mercury engines on the back, seats arranged fore and aft. Cheep cast off from the pier and spun the boat around. He eased the throttles forward, the boat lifted its bow and we headed out to sea, cruising at about ten knots, not up on the plane. I went and sat in the right corner of the boat.

The air was cool with the speed of the boat. The sea lay flat, like a mirror. Just us and a couple of fishing boats heading out for a night’s work. I took off my shirt and my jeans, putting the Walther and my phone into a small locker next to me. The air felt good against my skin. I stretched my arms out either side of the boat. Chai was sitting up front, with Cheep steering, sitting sideways on the captain’s seat, one hand on the wheel. I squinted and put a thumb between the sun and the horizon. Clouds formed up ahead, orange rays putting down lanes in the ocean.

Once we got a decent distance offshore, Cheep pushed the throttles forward. The boat’s bow rose and then fell as we came up onto the plane, the beach steadily fading to a smudge of white against a background of dark blue and green behind us. I started to feel cool and reached into the bag we’d bought with us. New jeans and a new t-shirt. I put them on. Face feeling gritty with the salt air.

The sky in front was a riot of orange and purple, behind dark blue fading into a black green smudge on the horizon. Here and there I could see the lights of fishing boats ducking in and out of view, twinkling as we rose and fell on the slow swell. I got up and reached across, tapping Cheep on the shoulder. He cut the speed, the rear of the boat rising as the last wave of our thrust passed beneath us. It caused me to stumble and I held onto Cheep’s arm. He grinned at me, steady on his sea legs.

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.