9
Like a lot of people, I’m a fan of the sky train on the rare occasions when it’s of any use to me. The logic of the system is unimpeachable: to beat the traffic, rise above it. It was one of those ventures founded on foreign capital and foreign expertise for which our politicians developed a suspicious passion. For what felt like decades whole sections of the city’s roads were clogged or shut off while armies of men and women in yellow plastic hats built their concrete pillars and their state-of-the-art elevated tracks. Now the project is complete in its first phase and the gigantic city has swallowed it up as if it weren’t there at all. We all scratched our heads. All that for only two lines?
Riding it is a distinct pleasure, though. You get a great view of the city from a flying compartment with glacial air-conditioning. It’s also a study in bankruptcy if you take note of the great skeletons of unfinished high-rises that loom out of the chaos from time to time, monuments to a building frenzy that chilled with the Asian financial crisis in 1998 and never heated up again. Now these new Stonehenges are home to beggars and bag people. From the train you can see their hammocks, their dogs and their washing in the honeycombs of concrete caves, sometimes a monk meditating in his saffron robes. Even though a taxi would have been cheaper, I ride the train all the way to Saphan Taksin and get a boat to take me the rest of the way up the Chao Phraya River to Dao Phrya Bridge. The river is noisy and busy with barges and longtail boats and I cannot help but remember the fun we used to have on it, Pichai and I . . .
It is early evening by the time I reach the bridge. The Mercedes is cordoned off by means of iron stakes and orange tape, guarded by two young constables who sit on the car, one on the hood, the other on the roof. The one on the hood sits cross-legged and stares as I approach. I snap at him to get off the car and look like a real policeman. Now the two cops are scrambling to wai me, placing their palms together mindfully near their foreheads and bowing. “How long have you been here?”
“Eight hours.”
“Anybody come to take statements from the squatters under the bridge?”
The boys shake their heads. I make a quick tour of the car, looking in from the outside only. I notice that the back seat has been folded to make a clear flat surface from the hatchback door to the backs of the front seats. A cell phone lies abandoned on the floor by the front passenger seat. Nevertheless, the car will have to wait. The car will not deteriorate as fast as people’s memories.
The wasteland between the Mercedes and the squatter huts is intermittently illuminated by lights from traffic passing overhead. Under the bridge, there is a homely glow from electric lights crudely hooked up to the power cables which run under the arch. People are sitting on bamboo mats eating. There are some brilliantly lit cooking pots with women squatting over them, men dressed only in shorts sitting cross-legged on the ground and playing cards, drinking from plastic cups. There are a couple of televisions, too, flickering with their ever-changing images on trestle tables on which women are preparing food.
I cross the wasteland and squat beside one of the circles of men, who take no notice of me. A stack of banknotes waits beside each man, held down by a stone. I pick up one of the plastic cups and sniff. Rice moonshine. I look around to try to locate the still. I guess it will be in one of the larger huts, lost in darkness further under the bridge.
“Tell me, brother, who is the headman?”
The card player grunts, and nods toward a large hut. I walk over, knock on the door. I smell the heavy, sweet odor of fermented rice cooking. An aggressive yell from inside the hut, to which I reply: “Please open the door, brother.”
The door opens and a balding man in his fifties stands there. Behind him, the massive terra-cotta urn standing over a small charcoal fire, a pipe sticking out three-quarters of the way up, an aluminum dish full of water covering the urn. The alcohol would condense on the underside of the dish, be caught and drip out through the pipe. The pipe leads to a crude cloth filter. I show my police ID.
The man shrugs. “We pay protection.”
“I’m sure. And for the gambling?”
“No one gambles here.”
I nod gravely. “Who do you pay your protection to?”
The man draws himself up straight. “Police Colonel Suvit, superintendent of District 15.”
“That’s good. Do you think the Colonel would like to be investigated by the American FBI?”
“The who?”
“I come in peace, but I need your help. I’m not going to write anything down. An American was murdered today, a black farang.”
“He died of snake bites. It happens.”
“Murdered. The snakes also killed my soul brother, the detective who was my partner.”
The man looks me up and down with more interest, now that a matter of the heart has been mentioned. “Your soul brother? I’m sorry. You’re going to avenge him?”
“Of course.”
“I think you’ll have trouble. I wasn’t here, but I’ve heard a gang came. Young men on motorbikes.”
“Who says so?”
“Old Tou. He was sitting smoking when the car arrived, followed by the motorbikes.”
“I have to speak to Old Tou.”
The headman struggles with a smirk. “I think you’ll have trouble.” He beckons for me to follow and we trudge over the uneven ground to the least well-appointed of all the huts. Some thatch made of leaves on a bamboo frame rests on walls of battered aluminum steamer trunks no higher than four feet. I have to wonder if a truck dropped the trunks over the bridge one fine day, when Tou was young. “Help me.”
I help him lift the entire roof and set it on the ground. Between the walls an old man, gaunt and gray, snores from deep in his throat. “Too much moonshine,” the headman says, as if speaking of a noxious substance beyond his knowledge. “Want me to wake him?” The headman pulls away one of the trunks and kicks Old Tou in the calf without interrupting the snoring. He tries a few kicks to the rump, each one harder than the last, before I say: “That’s enough.” We replace the old man’s roof. “When does he wake up, if ever?”
“He generally appears about midday—that’s when he starts on the moonshine. He carries on drinking until he’s like this. I guess he’ll be dead soon.”
“I’ll come back tomorrow at noon. I want him sober—don’t give him any moonshine. Okay?” The man nods, a slight smile on his face. “Didn’t anyone else see anything?” The headman looks away, toward the canal. “Ask them.” He waves a hand toward the groups of card players and the women squatting over their cooking pots. I know it is hopeless. Only a drunk who expected to die within the week might tell the truth to the police. I start back toward the road. “Make sure he’s sober,” I tell the headman. “I don’t think your Colonel Suvit wants a team of FBI agents crawling over the place, checking on the moonshine and the gambling—and the yaa baa.”
“Nobody here does yaa baa,” the headman says reproachfully. “That’s a killer drug.”
I take a cab to the river and ride back to my project in a small longtail boat empty except for me, the boatman and two monks; we roar past other longtails and rice barges almost invisible in the night. I let the monks go first when we arrive, watching the older one carefully arrange his robes so they do not catch as he clambers onto the ancient wooden jetty which lies in darkness except for a single gas lamp blazing from one of the woodpiles. The monks pass through this magic circle of white light and disappear into the darkness beyond. I walk on unpaved paths between squatter settlements until I reach my project.
The kid is there lounging under the awning, but one of his friends speaks to him when he sees me coming. The kid immediately jumps up and follows me into the building. I pay him twelve hundred baht for three yaa baa pills, even though he offers to give me them for free. I tell him I’m not that kind of cop as I hand over the money. Outside, there is a roar of a bike more powerful than anything the motorbike chauffeurs own, and the kid and I both step out. The kid’s jaw drops at this vision of an equivalent tribesman from the distant future. The rider is all in black leather with upholstered knee and shoulder pads and a tinted full-face helmet that looks like he bought it this morning, on a 1,200 cc Yamaha that probably does a hundred in second gear. His back bears the Day-Glo insignia of Federal Express. He doesn’t need to say anything as he gets off the bike and pulls off his helmet, he is the man. A little of his glory rubs off on me when he makes it clear that I’m the reason he’s here.
The bubblepack I sign for is A4 size and comes from the United States Embassy. Inside, a thousand-baht note wrapped around a Motorola cell phone with its battery charger and manual and six three-by-five photos of Bradley. On the back of one of his cards Rosen had written: “Date confirmed. Figured you and I would both benefit from the cell phone and I guess you forgot to ask for the pix. The new help arrives tomorrow. Keep the phone with you. Tod.”
The kid says: “Check how many units it’s got.” I don’t know how to do that so I give it to him. He presses a few buttons and shrugs. “Only eight hundred baht. Don’t call San Francisco.” I try to kick him but miss as he walks back to his sun bed.