Black Tiger (34 page)

‘One of the boats is missing!’ Van Hooten pulled up to a walk. ‘The damned young fool!’

Even in the darkness, it struck me that my companion’s expression was one of satisfaction rather than regret.

The body washed up the next morning. The guards, running along the golden sands in their dawn training session, discovered it, lying dark and still as a beached log. They stopped their cheerful yelling and quickened their pace. The young prince lay face down on the sand, one arm draped across his head as though resting. Deprived of his hallmark spectacles and permanently worried expression, when they rolled him over gently, his eyes gazed at the sky without reproach. For once, Toom the scientist seemed not to be searching for answers.

He had been killed, it was ascertained, by a severe blow to the back of the head—doubtless from the boom, which had swept him into that blood-warm water, which in turn had cradled him until he slipped from unconsciousness into lifelessness. An easy death, or so Sya assured the distraught mother and sister. His princely father received the news with admirable stoicism, his famous aplomb unruffled.

The missing sailing dinghy was not found until sometime later. There was not a mark on it, but then, no one seriously expected there to be.

‘So very sad. That fine young man.’ General van Hooten murmured the conventional regrets to Colonel Sya as the pair of them walked purposefully toward the Premsakul villa. ‘Clever boy, I hear. Untimely death.’

‘What is to one man untimely is to another timely,’ Sya replied evenly, without looking at him. ‘Events have their seasons. Their inner logic.’ With the small cane he carried, he slashed at the bright faces of blooms in the flowerbed as they passed.

‘Now you’ve lost me, Colonel. I’m a babe in arms when it comes to Eastern mysticism.’ The American’s Southern drawl purred like molasses. Sya snorted and shot a sideling glance at his companion.

‘We are not all mystics, General. We too have our notions of expediency.’

Now for the first time, the American swung his heavy jaw round and looked at the shorter man who walked very straight beside him. ‘Why, Colonel Sya, I surely do not comprehend your use of an expression such as “expediency” in the present terrible circumstances! Now, for land’s sakes, what expediency could there ever be in the heart-rending tragedy of that fine boy’s death?’

Sya stopped and looked at him. ‘I wonder,’ he said softly. He walked on through the blazing garden into the house of sorrow, where the wails of Princess Premsakul floated from an open window.

Salikaa had remained at the villa. Nobody seemed to know what to do with her. She had become an embarrassment. Now Sya himself would speak to her, and, for reasons he did not choose to divulge, had insisted the American must accompany him.

‘Let’s go pay our respects to the grieving fiancée,’ he suggested. Again van Hooten fell into step beside him.

A frightened servant showed them into the sitting room. They hardly had time to take in the view of hills and sea, the delicate shell-pink furnishings, when the troublesome creature burst into the elegant room like a fury.

‘I want to see the king! Take me to Vajah!’ She flew at Sya and shouted into his face. ‘I won’t be treated like this! I have an understanding. You can’t treat me like nothing.’

He looked at her, considering. ‘You are nothing. You have nothing.’ He tilted his head. ‘But you may, perhaps, have something. A husband. Yes, that’s what you need. A husband with a firm hand.’

‘Don’t think you can bully me,’ she shrieked, beside herself. ‘You can’t sweep me under the carpet. My stepfather Vichai is the most powerful man in his province. He will protect me!’

‘Would that Vichai be….?’ the American queried, suddenly alert, leaving half his question dangling in the air.

‘Vichai the Bandit!’ exulted Salikaa. ‘My stepfather is Vichai the Bandit!’ She advanced the information with the air of one producing the ace of trumps. ‘A king among bandits!’

General van Hooten looked thoughtful. ‘I believe my presence here is somewhat
de trop
,’ he said, ‘so, if you will excuse me—Colonel, ma’am.’

Sya nodded. The American had swallowed the bait. Sya had what he wanted. Salikaa, glaring at Sya, ignored van Hooten. After he had left, Sya continued, as though without interruption:

‘I have just the husband for you. My cousin Vasit.’

She stared at him. Her lip curled like a snarling cur’s. ‘Your cousin. A tribesman?’

He grinned wickedly. ‘A black Akha. He will teach you manners. If I were not so busy I would marry you myself.’

Her mouth was dry, but she screwed up her jaw and spat. The spittle glistened on his chin. He caught her by her snake of black hair, spun her around, and pulled her back against him, twisting her head back so far that he could look down into her furious eyes, up her flaring nostrils. Holding her with one hand, he wiped his face clean with the switch of hair. ‘Too far, young woman—you have gone too far!’

‘I’ll kill you,’ Salikaa hissed.

Laughing, he released her. ‘Someone, somewhere, surely will,’ he said. ‘Why not you?’ Contemptuously, he added, ‘Except I don’t think you have the necessary talent.’

Van Hooten had returned to his office. Feeling well pleased with his own endeavours and deviousness, he extracted a cigar from his desk drawer and sat chuckling at the beautiful symmetry of it all. Miss Amphorn, his secretary, had composed two letters in Siamese, wondering greatly but too well trained to enquire. The first she addressed, with a disapproving sniff, to a figure of myth and legend, Vichai the Bandit. She signed it as instructed ‘a friend of your stepdaughter.’ Honourable stepfather was urged to come across from his riverside stronghold to meet his stepdaughter on the outskirts of a neighbouring village. Only his intervention could save her from a terrible fate. If he came, all would be well, there would be celebrations, and Miss Thailand would achieve all her dreams.

The second was addressed to Colonel Sya of the Border Patrol Police, purporting to come from Vichai Kiengsri, whose rat’s nest of escaped villains had long been a thorn in the flesh of the local administration and hence of Sya himself. It was to be businesslike, but not too educated, this quality to be demonstrated in a certain illogical emotionalism. It was to offer unconditional surrender. ‘Weary of a life of crime, a social outcast, hunted like an animal, I wish to change. Now my adopted child has been accepted in high circles, I would not wish to embarrass her. In a token of good faith, I will hand myself over, on with my armaments and a substantial sum of money, so long as Colonel Sya is personally involved in the event. He is the only policeman I ever respected.’ Miss Amphorn read back her composition in translation with a certain satisfaction.

‘That’s great, Miss Amphorn. Go buy some cheap Chinese stationery to type it on. And get a couple Cokes from the canteen while you’re at it, heh?’ Her smile disguised her exasperation with the peculiar ways of foreigners.

While she was gone, with one finger the general typed out a press release for future deployment:

Gallant Officer Falls in Gun Battle with Bandits

Colonel Sya of the Border Patrol Police, a gallant officer famous for his zealous eradication of corruption in the armed forces and in local administration, as well as for his unflinching devotion to the Chakri dynasty and the Thai people despite his tribal origins, fell yesterday in the course of duty. The colonel was shot while attempting to destroy a nest of communist terrorists under leadership of notorious bandit chieftain Vichai Kiengsri, whose depredations have long terrorised border regions. Colonel Sya’s indomitable courage and devotion to duty will long be remembered.

He put it in an envelope, addressed it to the Editor-in-Chief,
Bangkok Herald
English Language newspaper, and tucked it in the picture frame behind his wife and daughter’s smiling faces. Catching their eyes, he sighed. He wondered how soon he would have to cut his losses and run if things didn’t work out.

Miss Amphorn was a conscientious girl. Even if it pleased her strange foreign boss to write letters in the name of a bandit terrorist, certain formalities should be observed. There was an oversight, but Miss Amphorn was blindingly efficient and would soon put it right. Smiling at the thought of how pleased the general would be, Miss Amphorn completed her task. In the top right-hand corner of the cheap white envelope, the stamped legend was clean and clear: US MAIL.

Miss Amphorn prided herself upon her meticulous attention to detail.

Now the recipients would be sure to know the official provenance of the letters, and would accord them due respect. She would not point out his little mistake to the general. She would wait until he discovered her cleverness, and rewarded her, perhaps with a bag of apples from the PX. Apples were so expensive in the Bangkok market, but admirable for one’s complexion.

Raven

I was strolling in the gardens of the summer palace, feigning an interest in the royal herbaceous border (a magnificent testament to the fifty gardeners’ industry) and reflecting that I had been mercifully free of any communication from Smith for a considerable time. Our sole means of contact was through Drinkwater’s diplomatic bag. He had sent me a couple of chivvying notes, which I had disregarded, and likewise his fussy instructions to ‘keep him posted’. Now I was in Hua Hin, and not Bangkok, which eliminated that possibility. International telephone calls in Southeast Asia were a nightmare. Nothing was secure, anywhere, ever. Heaven only knows how the Americans managed to conduct a war with such a primitive and ineffectual system. As I strolled I was also keeping a close watch on Sya; he was sitting on the stone steps beside a large ornamental lion and yelling into his radio, when suddenly a motorcycle courier roared up with a post for him. He glanced at the letter and the envelope and grinned broadly. He yelled across the garden: ‘Hey, Professor! I gotta go check something out. Fancy a joyride?’

I wanted to keep Sya in my sights, so I accepted. I reflected later that the last thing I fancied was a helicopter jaunt to witness battles—first the degrading spectacle of a cockfight, which seemed symbolic of the second battle, with human rather than avian casualties. Sya bawled over the noise of the rotor blades: ‘We will see traditional Thai entertainment, Raven. More exciting than the
ramwong
dance! Better than the tango, even!’ He grinned malevolently.

After we landed in the usual upcountry clearing, I followed him and the men who had come to meet him down a dusty path to what passed for a marketplace. He had not introduced me, and I was happy about that. I was less happy when I realised the nature of the spectacle we were about to witness.

The contestants held the two fighting cocks face to face. Bred for fury and bloodlust, these two, one black and one gold, had been handpicked for their savagery. Already their beaks were slashing the air. The market square was cleared, and the betting had already begun, men waving fistfuls of banknotes as the proud owners bound steel blades to the birds’ spurs. The judge inspected the bindings. The betting boiled up suddenly like a pan of oil and then died away into an ominous silence. The two cocks were set facing each other, mad yellow irises glaring. Shaking free of the hands that restrained them, they hurled themselves at each other, squawking, and exploded in a shower of feathers. The blades opened a vein of deep purple somewhere deep in the gaudy plumage. There was no shriek of pain. Blood puddled the earth in thick gobs. Blood-maddened, the black cock drew back and in a frenzied attack drove its blade home. The golden bird staggered and fell, its neck gaping open.

The victor strutted over its paralysed victim, dragging its blade. Its owner, sweating with excitement, handed Sya a broad knife. Without expression he hacked off the golden cock’s legs and tossed the mutilated rag of its body back into the ring. Even then it would not die, but struggled to its bloodied stumps, its mad eye blazing defiantly at its tormentors and the sun. The onlookers tossed it from hand to hand, tearing out its feathers. Finally, it was thrown into a basket, where, much later, in a shudder of blood-speckled feathers, it died.

As we left the place, Sya was still breathing hard like a blown horse, his eyes fiercely slitted. I was doing a fair job of controlling my nausea. Sya looked at me and laughed. ‘Sentiment, my friend! Losing always has its price. These birds enjoy the battle. A bit like you and me, huh?’ He looked down at his blood-stained hands and laughed again, twisting his wrists like a
ramwong
dancer. ‘But there’s only one winner. Blood!’ he observed wryly. ‘If you want to see blood, you should come to my village when we slaughter buffalo. We drink the warm blood and tear the raw flesh with our bare hands!’ He paused, and then added, with sinister mischievousness, ‘I wonder how Miss Thailand will adjust to the life!’

We entered a café; Sya called for two large Singha beers.

‘You think I’m a barbarian? You should meet the rest of my family!’ As he spoke he scanned my face intently, searching for a reaction. Something about his hyperbolic rant seemed false. I could not put my finger on it. I wondered how much he knew, then cursed myself for a fool. He knew everything. Of course he did.

‘Raven, Black Bird.’ He dropped his tone to a purr of feigned intimacy. ‘Forget the damned tribes! The root cause of unrest in this country is not the tribes—it’s the Chinese. Ruthless, clannish, ineradicable, like some creeping, poisonous weed. They spread their suckers everywhere. Can’t rip ‘em out, can’t burn ‘em out. Don’t talk to me about the traditional Thai policy of assimilation—it’s broken-backed. Until the Chinese stranglehold on the economy is broken, stability in Thailand will remain a pipe dream. Once it was the
farang
who owned the corporate conglomerates. Who do you think owns them today?’

He thumped his fist on the table.

‘Even the civil service is now crawling with second-generation ethnic Chinese. Status for them is defined in terms of wealth. The Thais are individuals; their status is birth, landed wealth, government employment, religious merit.’ The waiter, hearing the raised voice, approached tentatively, and set the large glasses before us on the rickety tin table. He retreated, smiling nervously.