I press the power button on the computer tower and the monitor creaks and flickers its way into Windows Millennium Edition. I click on “programs” and find a long list, perhaps as many as thirty or forty different applications. In addition to the word processors in both English and Thai, there are astrology and astronomy, gemology, a tutorial on mathematics, use of English, a Thai translation program, the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Webster’s New World Dictionary, How to Write a Winning Business Plan-it’s like a self-improvement regime for someone who intended to leap from ignorance to erudition with no gap in between.
It is 12:46 p.m. and my problem has progressed from no data to too much. Proper examination of the computer and Bradley’s web surfing will take days. I call up Word for Windows, type “Welcome, Khun Rosen and Khun Nape,” switch the screen off but leave the computer running.
I return to Kaoshan Road, to have a copy made of the key to the upstairs rooms, buy a cardboard camera with flash and return to take pictures of the portraits of the woman, the jade horseman and the computer. I lock the door, return the original key to the old lady, who squats on the teak floor downstairs, near a window convenient for spitting. She is chewing her betel. She seems to have forgotten about me, for she gives a start when I approach, then replaces the key in her money bag without looking at me. Outside in the street I find a motorcycle taxi.
16
At Dao Phrya Bridge the Mercedes was gone, no doubt taken away by police. I paused for a moment to examine something which must have been under the car. The corpses of two cobras, which had been beaten to death, not shot.
Even as I got off the bike to pay the fare, I had heard a noise from the squatter huts which was only half human. Striding across the wasteland, I became aware of a man’s full-throated roar originating from deep in his chest, like the bellowing of an enraged bull. “Fuck you, fuck the FBI, fuck the FBI’s mother, I AM THIRSTY.”
The headman came to meet me with a worried look as I reached the edge of the settlement. “You’re late. You said noon, it’s one-thirty.”
“I had a busy morning. What’s going on?” They had tied Old Tou upright to a plank with rope which encircled his arms, trunk and legs in a continuous binding of bright orange. Only the old man’s neck and head were free. They had leaned him against one of the sturdier huts. The cords on his neck stood out when he roared.
“You said you wanted him sober. This was the only way.”
“Can’t you give him water?”
“We’ve given him gallons. He’s not thirsty for water.”
“Untie him.”
“Are you kidding? I’m not untying him till we’ve got him drunk again. If he goes on the rampage he’ll destroy the whole settlement. D’you want to interrogate him or not?”
The old man glared at me with bloodshot eyes. “Are you the police bastard they keep telling me about? I’m going to tear your nose off with my teeth.”
“I just want to ask you a few questions.”
“Fuck your questions. I want whisky. Rice whisky.”
I nodded to the headman, who brought a plastic bottle filled to the brim with transparent fluid. “Give him a little, not too much.”
The headman poured a couple of inches into a plastic cup. The old man held his head up like a bird while the headman poured the alcohol down his throat. “More.”
“Just answer some questions, and you can go on killing yourself as fast as you like.”
The old man licked his lips. “When they let me go I’m going to kill you. What fucking questions?”
“Yesterday, you saw the Mercedes arrive with the black farang?”
He spat. “Of course I saw, I was sitting against the wall of the bridge having a drink. I saw everything.”
“What did you see?”
“I saw Khmer Rouge.”
Guffaws from the audience. I sighed. “You were in the Cambodian civil war?”
“Idiot, I wasn’t in any fucking war. A couple of weeks ago someone brought a DVD here about some stupid American journalist in Cambodia who got his friend into trouble-a boring fucking film but I liked the bit where he slits the side of a buffalo with a razor and drinks the blood. I never would have thought of that, those Cambodians are rough trade.”
“So what about Khmer Rouge?”
“In the film the Khmer Rouge all wear red checkered scarves around their stupid heads, that’s what they were wearing yesterday.”
“He’s right about the film,” the headman said. “We all watched it. I remember the scarves too.”
“Who was wearing the scarves?”
“The motorcycle yobs. There were about six of them, nasty pieces of work as far as I could see.”
“They arrived after the Mercedes, or before?”
“About the same time. They surrounded it.”
“You see any of them open the door?”
Old Tou laughed. “No, they did the same as you and your partner. They got off the bikes, went to the car and kind of ogled and grunted, then they started jabbering. I don’t think they were as tough as they made out. Then they all got together for some kind of powwow, and ran back to their bikes and left.”
“Were they speaking Thai or Khmer?”
“Too far away to tell. Anyway, how the fuck would I know if they were speaking fucking Khmer or Chiu Chow Chinese?”
“Was any of them female?”
“Give me another drink, asshole.” I motioned to the headman, who poured some more whisky down Old Tou’s throat. “Female? No, these were swaggering boys, you know the type, probably on yaa baa or ganja, no true manhood, they couldn’t stomach the scene in the car. After they’d gone I went over to see what all the fuss was about. That black farang was being eaten alive by that python. There were cobras, too.”
“What did you do?”
Old Tou licked his lips. “Well, I couldn’t be sure, you know.” The way he said it made some of the audience crack up. Several squatted in order to laugh harder.
“Couldn’t be sure? How’s that?” More laughter.
“I get visions.” Hilarity now from the audience. Two men and a woman lay down in order to enjoy a really good laugh. Some people leaned against a hut, overcome by giggles.
The headman grinned broadly. “He hallucinates a lot of the time. He sees snakes, mostly.”
“That’s right. That’s why I couldn’t be sure. When they told me I’d seen real snakes I had to have a drink.”
“There was no woman in the car?”
“Don’t be an idiot. If there’d been anyone else in the car they’d be as dead as that black man.”