I wait while Pichai slips out of the car, clamps the siren to the roof, where it flashes and wails to no effect on the gridlock, and walks over to the sentry box, where the traffic cops are dozing. At the same time he is strapping on his holster and gun and reaching in his pocket for his police ID. A more advanced soul than I, he gives no sign of the disgust he feels at being trapped in this pollution called life on earth. He would not wish to poison anyone else’s mind. Nevertheless, he smacks his hand somewhat violently against the glass of the sentry box and yells at them to wake the fuck up. Smiles and a gentlemanly discussion before the boys in donkey brown (the uniform can appear bottle green in some lights) emerge to take charge. They come up to me in the car and there is the usual double-take when they see what I am. The Vietnam War left plenty of half-castes in Krung Thep, but few of us turned into cops.
There are several inches of slack within which every car can shunt, and our colleagues show considerable skill and cunning in making a space. In no time at all I am able to drive up onto the sidewalk, where the siren terrorizes the pedestrians. Pichai grins. I am skilled at very dangerous driving from the days when we used to take drugs and steal cars together, a golden age which came to an end when Pichai murdered our yaa baa dealer and we had to seek refuge in the Three Jewels of the Buddha, the dharma and the sangha. There will be time in this chronicle to explain yaa baa.
While I practice close encounters with cooked-food stalls, sex traders and oncoming traffic, wheel spins, split-second lurches and even one hand-brake spin, I try to remember what Dao Phrya Bridge is famous for. Why have I heard of it at all?
We are very happy. Sabai means feeling good and sanuk means having fun. We are both as we race toward the bridge in demonic haste, with Pichai chanting in Pali, the ancient language of the Gautama Buddha, for protection from accidents. He asks also of the Buddhist saints that we do not accidentally kill anyone who does not deserve it, a touchy point with Pichai.
Krung Thep means City of Angels, but we are happy to call it Bangkok if it helps to separate a farang from his money.
3
I remembered what Dao Phrya Bridge was famous for.
“Squatters, a whole village. They’ve been there for more than twenty years. They are all tribespeople from the northwest, Karen. They have a big still. Gambling and whisky are their main industries, with a little prostitution, begging and theft to make ends meet.”
“They must pay protection. What district is it?”
I shrug. “Fourteenth, fifteenth?”
“The fifteenth is Suvit’s. He’s a bastard.”
I nod. “He will be reborn as a louse in the anus of a dog.”
“Not before he’s spent eighty-two thousand years as a hungry ghost.”
“Is it eighty-two?”
“That is the standard sentence for men like him.”
I furrow my brow. Pichai’s meditation is way ahead of mine, but his mastery of the scriptures is often shaky.
The gray Mercedes can be seen from the bridge as we pass over the canal, which surprises me. It is more than two hours since Traffic told us where it had been sighted, perhaps by one of the squatters. Why would a squatter call Traffic?
Like many things in my country, the slip road from the bridge to the riverbank peters out without contributing to the economy. It is just there, like us. I crunch to a halt on the gravel, which has abruptly replaced the tarmac, about thirty yards from the Mercedes, which is surrounded by men, women and children. They are hunched, ragged, and have automatically assumed the self-effacing postures of the poor when cops arrive. Some of them own the smeared eyes and crooked mouths of the permanently drunk. We will never know which one of them made the call. They will never tell us anything. They are my people.
Pichai gets out of the car first. He is still wearing his gun, which rides on his left buttock as I hurry to follow him, clipping on my own holster as we stride across the gravel toward the crowd, which makes way for us.
“What happened? What are you all staring at?” Not a murmur, not even a nod, but a woman in a torn T-shirt and sarong, barefoot, far advanced in alcoholic poisoning, raises her head toward the bridge and howls. At the same time I hear Pichai grunt in the way a brave man grunts when another might scream. Despite himself he steps back from the car, enabling me to see. I also grunt, but it is my way of muffling fear. I look at Pichai, who is a better shot than I. Pichai says: “Look at the door.”
The Mercedes is a five-door elongated hatchback and someone has slipped a C-shaped piece of steel, of the kind used in reinforced concrete, over the handles of the front and rear doors on the driver’s side. Anyone, even a child, could simply roll down the window, remove the crude device and escape, but it would take time, time to work out what was jamming the doors, time to roll down the window. It would also take a mind not clouded by terror.
Many Americans are afraid of snakes, even marines. The Vietcong used them as weapons in the tunnels of Cu Chi to great effect. This one, an enormous python, has wrapped itself around the black man’s shoulders and neck and is trying to swallow his great head. I note that pythons do not normally shake like that, nor do they normally ride in Mercedes. Is the black man shaking the serpent, or vice versa?
I order the people to move away while Pichai takes out his gun. “The bullet might ricochet, it could go anywhere, go back under the bridge.”
When they have done so Pichai crouches at the driver’s window, but is unsatisfied with the angle of his shot. He does not want to hit the marine, who might still be alive, but how to tell if the glass will alter the trajectory of the bullet? He walks quickly and soberly around the car before returning to his original position. “Someone jammed the other doors as well.”
He has mastered himself and I know what is going through his mind. He has vowed to erase the appalling karma which must follow his murder of the yaa baa dealer by becoming a Buddhist saint, an arhat, in this lifetime. An arhat does not hesitate to lay down his life when duty so requires. An arhat masters fear.
He crouches, takes careful aim and fires. Good shot! Three-quarters of the python’s head is blown away. Pichai slips the metal clip from the door and opens it, but the huge marine is top-heavy, with the snake now slack around his head, and falls onto the door, which is too much for Pichai to hold. Before I can rush to help, the marine and python have fallen onto my dear friend, pinning him to the ground. I assume that his scream is simply from fright as I go to him, at first not seeing (not believing) the small cobra which has attached itself passionately to his left eye. With a great wrench I drag him from under the marine, take out my gun and lay down beside him while he writhes with the cobra in one hand.
Another characteristic of Naja siamensis is that it never lets go. I shoot it through the throat and it is only then that I understand what Pichai is trying to explain through his agony. There are dozens of them, a virtual cascade, shivering strangely and spitting as they pour out of the car. One peeps between buttons on the black man’s shirt, which is alive with undulations.