“That’s so true.”
“Right. It even has a Buddhist ring to it, doesn’t it? I feel like you’ve put me on some kind of spiritual learning curve. So how do you want to do this, intuitively or systematically?”
“Up to you.”
“Well, since I don’t have any intuition to speak of, I’ll have to suggest we use a system. How about we start at the river, near the jetty, and work slowly west till we find it?”
The jetty is unexpectedly robust and modern-looking, with tubular steel piles more than two feet in diameter, a smooth reinforced concrete surface and a squat, powerful-looking gantry at the end with a heavy-duty sling. It doesn’t fit with the rest of the scenery, as if visitors from the future built it on a whim, then left it for us to use. Jones doesn’t pay it any mind as she turns her back to it, stretches out both arms to establish longitude and outlines the modus operandi.
I try to follow Jones’ instructions to the letter, walking slowly between wrecks of cars and trucks which have been stripped to their bare rusting bones, carefully scrutinizing the lines to left and right so as not to miss a late-model Mercedes Estate. About halfway through the task Jones throws me a black look down a narrow lane between the wrecks, but we don’t stop until we reach the far western end of the compound. Sweat is pouring from Jones’ hairline and she is blinking from the salt. She has undone the zip on the front of her coveralls and rolled up the sleeves. She avoids my gaze while she squats against the wire fence and I squat beside her. I say: “I’m sorry, Kimberley.”
A deep breath. “You know, back in my country I’m accustomed to thinking of myself as a pretty bright person. Then for a few days over here I wondered if I’d been deceiving myself, and maybe I was a pretty dumb person. I got over that when I realized I was just suffering from culture shock, that everyone is dumb outside their own frame of references. So I set myself to learn patience and even a little Buddhist compassion and for a moment I was stupid enough to be pleased with my own progress. Reality has a way of kicking us in the balls, doesn’t it? Especially in Thailand, or so it seems to me.”
I feel worse than ever and am unable to reply. I look at the ground instead.
“At least tell me if I have correctly understood why you’ve been in such a foul mood all morning.”
“Yes, you have understood.”
“Let’s cut to the chase. What I’ve understood is that in Bangkok’s only police car compound all the vehicles look as if they died from vehicle plague about twenty years ago. I know the standard of living is not particularly high in your country, but there are quite a few luxury cars on the roads of Bangkok, a quite surprising number of Mercedes, high-end Toyotas, Lexuses, that sort of thing. Statistically, one would expect them to be represented at least by one or two models in the car compound belonging to the Royal Thai Police Force, wouldn’t one?”
“Yes.”
“And oddly enough, the only new-looking, late-model, intact vehicles I’ve seen are two BMWs parked very close to that jetty.”
“That’s true, Kimberley.”
“That is true, isn’t it, Sonchai? Sonchai, you have done many things to my mind since I’ve teamed up with you, but I have always forgiven you because I never caught you being dishonest. I never thought you would deceive me. Why did you let us come on this wild-goose chase when you knew all along they already sold the fucking car?”
“There are cultures of guilt and cultures of shame. Yours is a culture of guilt, mine is one of shame.”
“Meaning you always wait to see if the shit is really going to hit the fan?”
“That’s not a bad way of putting it. The car could have been here.”
“I don’t think so. That sergeant in there sold it, didn’t he, that Mercedes which constituted a major piece of forensic evidence in our little murder investigation?”
“It’s not his fault.”
“Oh, not his fault. Are we doing karma again, or did a tree spirit build that magnificent jetty and force the sergeant to use it to whisk away every damn car worth more than a thousand dollars, on one of those barges I bet, all the way to wherever cars go in Bangkok to experience rebirth, maybe a Buddhist monastery?”
“It’s hard to explain to you, but it really is a good system.”
“I thought you were an arhat, a totally noncorrupt cop?”
“I am, but you have to bear in mind relative truth. Before there were endless wars between the districts. Sometimes the colonels came close to shooting each other. The only solution seemed to be for each district to have its own compound.”
“Let me get this straight. With only one compound receiving cars from all over the city, it was the district in which the compound was located that was making all the dough from selling the cars and the parts?”
“Yes. It was very bad. There were fights, shoot-outs, quite a few deaths. The profits from the cars are very good, you see, so everyone wanted a piece of it. Then we had a rank-and-file revolution. Cops from all over Krung Thep voted to appoint Sergeant Suriya as the officer in charge of the compound. He’s a devout Buddhist and maybe nearly an arhat, so everyone trusts him. He spends the proceeds on charitable works, especially for the Police Widows and Orphans Fund, and to help cops with health problems. We’ve even built a new wing on the Police General Hospital.”
“We?”
“We’re all proud of what we’ve achieved here. There was a party when they finished the new jetty. That crane cost twenty million baht.” I wriggle a little in the heat. “It’s just a different way of doing things, I can understand why a Westerner would have a problem.”
She nods sagely. I think my country is having an aging effect on her, which does not make me altogether sorry. I believe the first buds of wisdom have appeared under those blue eyes. I detect just the first touches of Thai humor around her mouth. “Wouldn’t it have been easier to call the sergeant and ask him outright if he still had the car or not? Just not the Thai way of doing things, huh? No admissions until the farang has exhausted herself digging up the unpalatable truth. So how is it no one ever complains? An expensive car gets towed away and the owner doesn’t want it back?”
“Oh, where the owner is still alive we always offer the opportunity of buyback.”
“Buyback?”
“Sure. Within a specific period of time of course. After that we classify it as a wreck, which gives the government legal ownership.”
“Government meaning the cops, right?”
We both stand up at the same time. It really is too hot for arguments. “Who else?”
We trudge back to the office, which is empty. From the window we watch while Suriya expertly drives one of the BMWs onto the jetty. He has already lowered the sling, and now the car sits over it, waiting to be hauled into the air. From across the river a steel barge turns against the current and makes toward the jetty. As soon as the boat is tied up, Suriya gets out of the car to work the gantry. I remember the stories of the first time he tried to work this crane; there are at least three cars drowned in the river directly under the jetty. You would never believe that now, from the great skill he exhibits in putting the car in the bottom of the barge. Merrily he skips off the seat of the gantry to fetch the second BMW. Jones is watching intently.