Black Tiger (4 page)

Crazy Archin, a shambling giant with the mental age of a toddler, had already dispatched fifteen people with his bare hands before the authorities caught up with him. Archin had once had a cellmate, but the experiment was not a success. One day, without apparent reason, he had shoved this unhappy cellmate’s head through the bars and crushed his skull like an egg. After that he had nobody to share his cell but a chicken. He eventually ate the chicken alive, feet first.

But Archin took a great liking to Python Prasert. Whenever he caught sight of the Python’s cross-eyed countenance, he pointed, shouting ‘Witch-boy!’ and laughing uproariously. As for the guards, they found the Python helpful and polite. Soon, his chains were struck off so that he could move freely and undertake the duties of a trusty.

‘Life in prison’ no longer meant ‘until death’, even in Thailand. Eventually the Python was released. While bloodthirsty in a drunken haze, in sobriety he waxed sentimental. Once free, he decided to look up his only blood relation, his son. Accordingly, he set out to the east, hitching rides on the back of trucks until he reached the Isaan village, where he enquired after the house of the village policeman.

Sompong opened the door, clutched her hair, and shrieked.

‘Daughter!’ cried the Python, saluting her. But Sompong went on shrieking. She had started a new respectable life as the wife of a policeman. Besides, she had just discovered she was pregnant. The last thing she wanted was for her unborn child’s disreputable old grandfather to turn up and claim a stake in the life of the law-abiding little family. She rushed about the tiny house like a terrified bird in a cage, hands fluttering helplessly, squeaking, ‘Why did you have to come here? Leave us alone! We are decent people, respected. Jailbirds, felons, bad blood—how will this look? What about my husband’s reputation?’

Tamnoon, alerted by a neighbour to the commotion at his home, rode up on his rusty bicycle. He was as displeased as his wife had been. But filial duty forbade him to exhibit his dismay in public, so he invited the old man in. Tamnoon produced a bottle of Mekhong whisky and some cigarettes, and ordered Sompong, in an unusually brusque tone, to prepare food. Grinding her teeth, she disappeared outside to her kitchen area. She resolved to make Tamnoon pay dearly for his rudeness to her. It would be easy, now that she knew she was pregnant. She didn’t feel so inclined to vigorous demonstrations of affection these days. He would have to beg. Sompong smiled as she crushed the beetles for the red sauce.

‘As you see,
Khun Paw
, honourable father,’ Tamnoon indicated the modest shack, ‘we have little room in our home.’ The Python helped himself to a tumbler of whisky.

‘Don’t work up a sweat, son. I see how the wind blows.’ He tapped the side of his nose and winked. ‘I’ll just look round for a place to put up a cabin and do a bit of fishing, a bit of farming, a bit of this and a bit of that.’

Sompong popped her lovely head through the bamboo fly-curtain. ‘Where are you going to do all this, old man?’ she demanded sharply. Tamnoon scowled in embarrassment, but his father grinned. He had lost three more teeth in jail, Tamnoon noted. Together with his creased, tobacco-coloured skin and his cross-eyes, he looked a consummate rogue, but his voice when he answered was mild and innocent.

‘Why, hereabouts,’ the Python made an expansive gesture toward the door. ‘Lovely spot. Thought I’d build me a shack just there, on the riverbank. Close to my nearest and dearest!’

Sompong waved her kitchen chopper, making the bamboo curtain rattle like dried bones. ‘Oh, no you don’t!’ she squealed. ‘We don’t want your type squatting on our doorstep!’

The Python looked hurt. ‘I’m reformed. I’m as decent as anyone else these days,’ he protested. ‘You’ll see. I’ll be a credit to you!’

Soon, he had built himself a neat little cabin on the riverbank, just a few yards from his son’s house. There he stayed on, doing a bit of this and a bit of that. It became clear, however, that prison had not entirely succeeded in reforming the old man, and his activities soon became a trial to his virtuous relatives. He got drunk, he chased low women and smoked opium, he played cards for drinks—Mekhong whisky on a good day and Singha beer the rest of the time. He bawled bawdy ditties at the top of his voice. He fell in the river, stole the odd chicken, and in general made himself an embarrassment. The hardest to bear was his choice in fellows.

The Python acquired a new best friend—no less a person than Vichai, the local bandit chief. Tamnoon thought this the most unsuitable choice possible. He was mortified. Sompong, her misgivings proven right, was bitterly triumphant and gave him no peace.

Vichai was a highly successful brigand. He ran an immensely profitable organisation from his fortress on the far shores of the great Isaan River. He maintained state-of-the-art battle firepower by trading opium for weapons with the American military bases at Udorn and Korat. Drugs, women, and terror were Vichai’s stock-in-trade. Vichai abhorred problems; he had always been careful to ensure that the local policeman was on his payroll. But then Tamnoon arrived on the scene. Righteousness, a quality Vichai found tiresome in anybody, was intolerable in a policeman. To those engaged in free enterprise, an incorruptible policeman spelled no end of
lambaak
—as Tamnoon was to discover, to his cost.

Meanwhile, back at Bang Saen, Big Archin, lonely without his friend, had decided the time had come to make his escape. He could never have masterminded a jailbreak on his own, of course. His first act of freedom was to break the neck of the unfortunate who had helped him, for, limited though his mental powers were, Archin was nonetheless sufficiently astute to keep his life tidy. He tossed the dead body of his co-conspirator into a
khlong
and set off to find his good friend, the Python.

The Python had told Archin about the son who’d moved to a village in Isaan, to the northeast. He could not have remembered a name—Archin was not good at names—but luckily this village had no name, just a number. Village thirteen. He plodded along the roads after nightfall, laughing aloud as trucks swerved and squealed past him, horns blaring, big lamps flashing. He stole food and drink from wayside stalls, bananas and papayas and Coca-Cola. When there were no wayside stalls, he ate insects and frogs. Sometimes, as he lumbered along, his big head wagging from side to side, he chuckled to himself, imagining the Python’s delight at seeing him. They’d exchange a few backslaps and shoulder-thumps, a few laughs, a few beers, go look for a few girls—
bai theuw puying
. It would be happy days!

When Archin finally caught up with his friend, the Python, a sociable fellow, did welcome him. He took him into his cabin, offered him refreshments, let him doss down to wait out the hue and cry. He did not think it wise not to mention Archin to his son, nor did he tell Archin about his son’s inconvenient profession.

It was unfortunate, therefore, that a couple of days later, Tamnoon received word from police headquarters that the monstrous serial killer known as Crazy Archin had escaped from Bang Saen and was rumoured to be making his way east. Tamnoon, realising his father and Archin had been fellow prisoners at Bang Saen, decided to stroll over to the riverside cabin for a chat. He thought his father might know something about the dangerous escaped prisoner’s possible destination.

But there was another reason for this filial visit. Tamnoon now knew that his wife was expecting their first child. In Tamnoon, as in his father, such occasions brought out sentimental tendencies. He felt a grandfather’s blessing and reconciliation would make for a more propitious atmosphere for the baby’s birth.

He determined to speak to his father first, to make sure Archin was nowhere around, and then invite his father up to the house for a meal. Afterward, he decided recklessly, he would beard the notorious bandit chief in his den—for it was well known that Vichai would offer asylum to any useful antisocial elements. Tamnoon was determined to find out whether Vichai was harbouring Archin, or if he intended to do so, and warn him that this would not be tolerated. The authorities had promised a substantial reward for the recapture of Crazy Archin, and Sompong had warned Tamnoon that babies were very expensive.

As Tamnoon approached his father’s shack, the Python saw him from the window and hurried out to greet him before he entered and discovered Archin. The Python had not told anyone in Bang Saen prison that his son was a policeman. So when Archin peered out and saw his host deep in conversation with a man in uniform, his instincts screamed, ‘Treachery!’ He waited until Tamnoon left, then did what he had to do.

The Python did not put up much of a fight; he wasn’t expecting an attack from his guest. Meanwhile, Tamnoon set off across the river in a long-tail boat on his heroic mission into the heart of the bandit’s lair.

Ironically, the Python, reluctant to take responsibility for his unpredict-able companion, had already approached Vichai and tried to persuade him to take Archin in. But Vichai was no fool. He had stared at Archin and said, ‘That psychopathic gorilla? When I need a thing like that I’ll go to a zoo. Psychos are
lambaak
, and a man in my kind of business needs trouble like an extra hole in his ass. I can shit plenty with the one I have.’

Seeing the Python chatting jovially with a policeman had set the familiar anger demon dancing in Archin’s brain. As he struck the unsuspecting man down and twisted the knife in his neck, he watched his friend’s agonies through a red haze, as if he were looking through a film of blood. Killing the treacherous Python was not sufficient to placate the demon. So, growling and grumbling, Archin went up to the little wooden house, and when the stupid woman there opened the door and started screaming, it enraged him even more. He pushed her over and held her down and had her, right there on the wooden floor, in spite of her great girth and her bitter resistance. She scratched and spat, and Archin quite enjoyed that part, too. But she made too much noise, squawking like a chicken, and then there was nothing for it but to throttle her. He despatched her as easily as his feathered former cellmate. She no longer moved, but Archin felt his flesh stir again. This time he would take his pleasure slowly, revelling in the stillness and the silence.

Vichai’s success as a chieftain was largely ascribable to his meticulous attention to detail. From the far bank of the river he had observed the police officer approaching his camp across the river in his long-tail boat. He had immediately sent one of his own men, in another, swifter long-tail boat, to watch the policeman’s house, where he knew the policeman’s pregnant wife was alone, in case assurances were needed. Vichai’s spy, appalled by the carnage he found on the other side of the river, fled, sliding down the slippery bank to his boat and roaring across the river. As Tamnoon was getting slowly out of his boat, coolly watched by Vichai and his guards, and wondering if his courage would hold, Vichai’s spy veered up behind him and crashed his long-tailed boat into the reeds. As he stumbled up the opposite bank, he yelled out that a monster was on the loose who would murder them all.

Once he understood what had happened, Tamnoon gave a howl, turned his craft around and headed back across the stream. Vichai barked out orders to his men to launch their boats, and with a roar of engines and a surge of bow waves they set off in pursuit. Vichai’s face was black with rage. He would not countenance violence not of his own devising within his empire.

On the damp ground outside the shack, Vichai’s men found the Python lying in a pool of his own blood. Archin had stabbed him a dozen times and then ripped his tongue out. There was nothing they could do for him. Hearing a sound from the nearby house, they started running again—but Tamnoon was swiftest, fired by terror. He stopped, peering into the dark interior, clinging to the doorpost. He thought at first some wild creature from the jungle had invaded his home, some lurching black bear or giant hog badger, rooting away, grunting rhythmically. But then, hideously, he saw. With a howl he hurled himself upon Archin. Archin shrugged him off and stood peering down at him as he lay helpless, struggling, wailing and weeping. Archin shook his head, picked up Tamnoon and threw him through the window, breaking his neck. Then he sped into the jungle.

The men fired a few shots after him but nobody was keen to follow.

Vichai now turned his attention to the woman lying lifeless at their feet, her neck twisted and her clothing disordered. He felt his men’s eyes on him, waiting for his lead. He pushed Sompong’s leg gently with his foot. He squatted down, big hands hanging loose, and studied her closely. He flicked up the cloth of her bright sarong and saw her swollen belly.

‘I’ve heard this is possible,’ he said, standing up and holding his hand out behind him.

Isaan was a land of hunters and trappers. Every man carried a skinning knife. A man slipped his knife into Vichai’s hand. Vichai signalled to his henchmen to hold the dying woman’s head, tugged aside her sarong, and with the razor-sharp blade slit open her belly. Someone shouted, ‘There’s the baby’s leg!’ and Vichai pulled the child into the light of day. He took one look at the furious bloody face and shuddered. ‘Give it to the women. They’ll deal with it. It’ll probably die, anyway.’

He would never forget the rage on the child’s face or the way the tiny fists pummelled the air. Even his strong stomach was upset. Steeped though he was in sex, blood, and torture, he had been at the death many times but never at the birth. It was revolting. He almost regretted succumbing to his curiosity and giving the child life.

The child stubbornly refused to die. Vichai’s wives and concubines took over the duty of rearing it. At the moment of its birth, Vichai couldn’t have cared if it had expired; later, however, he became possessive, almost obsessed. It was an unusually beautiful child, with its mother’s fair features. Vichai’s women took delight in spoiling the doll-like creature, dressing it like a princess in the off-cuts of bolts of smuggled silks. The child seemed to avoid the usual chubby, ungainly stages of toddlerhood; if it was ever pudgy, no one could recall it afterward. It grew up gracefully, and instead of crawling and stumbling into things, it danced, light as a leaf. It still had no name. The women called it ‘Ugly’ to fool any evil spirits who might be lurking and who would be attracted by a more flattering name. If they gave it a name too soon, especially after so inauspicious a birth, the name might prove unlucky. They did not want to bother changing it, which would be confusing not only to the spirits, but also to the child itself. Then one day Vichai, maudlin in his cups, watching the child dance to its inner music, said, ‘Poor little motherless thing! It flits like a swallow. Call it after the long-tailed swallow. Call it Salikaa.’