Through the oily steam billowing from her woks, I saw something in her eyes. Nop had been noncommittal. Evelyn had focused on her parties. The girls in red and green had seen the whole incident as a photo op. Ajarn Jaa had been caught up in the complexity of his theories. But this woman was afraid. In her eyes I saw a deep and implacable fear. “I wasn’t there,” she stammered. As she handed me a little plastic bag of chicken and rice, she whispered, “You’d better go home.”
There was clearly no point in pressing further. I thought: “I’d better take her words at face value. It’s time to go home.” In any case it was almost five o’clock, and soon New York would be on the phone demanding a response.
As I entered my building, I recognized someone seated in the lobby. It was the man in the striped shirt. He reintroduced himself as Khun Jaeng, a Thai banker. His condo was a few hundred meters down the soi. Could he come up to my apartment to talk?
He looked so proper, I felt it would be rude to refuse. You never know what trouble an act of rudeness could later cause you. So I invited him up.
We sat down in the living room, the late afternoon sun slanting through the windows and beaming through glasses of iced tea on the glass table between us. Pleasantries were exchanged. “I see you sometimes at the café, and since I live on the same soi, it’s a pity we haven’t had a chance to meet properly,” Khun Jaeng opened.
It was hard to focus on the conversation. Why was this person in my home? The light shining from behind Jaeng’s chair fell straight into my eyes, dazzling, disorienting. I had a report to file soon with very little real information to offer, and in New York they would not be amused.
Into my head flashed a scene from the old French novel Thaîs. A hermit has been meditating for decades in a desert hut, and every evening six black jackals come and sit outside. One night he has an unsettling dream, and when he awakes the next morning, he finds one little jackal sitting inside his tent. He knows then that outside forces have penetrated his magic ring.
The Phii of the Afternoon had breached my defenses. She had forced herself in and was shining light into a space usually shadowed.
The Phii of the Night drape themselves in outlandish costumes and go out and do a little hooting and grimacing, which scares the good people of the city as they walk dark byways. But after a few hours of haunting, these phii retire and you rarely see them again. The Phii of the Afternoon, on the other hand, once she’s entered your home, never goes away. I realized with finality that she would be waiting for me when I arose the next day. And the day after.
I wrenched myself back to Khun Jaeng, who was rambling on about our soi, the traffic, the breakfast menu at the café. Then finally: “I hear you’re investigating the incident on the Skytrain last week,” he remarked.
How on earth could he have known? But of course, he was a witness. He’s mixed up in this very intimately. The look in the eyes of the chicken lady still fresh in my mind, I proceeded with caution.
“The incident?”
“Yes, the killing of that man Kaew. We know you’re interested in that.”
“We?”
“Well, you know, we all saw it. We know what really happened. You never will.”
I glanced down at my watch. It was 5:00 p.m. Like a Zen adept who experiences enlightenment in the instant when his master asks where he had set his shoes, at the words “You never will,” I suddenly saw it. It was so simple.
Khun Jaeng was right.
I would never know. Looking back, this had been clear right at the beginning. An epiphany, it made sense of those Bangkok streets I’d walked through earlier that seemed to have mysteriously changed.
Mundane practicality reasserted itself. What could I tell New York? They wanted facts. With a jolt I realized that Khun Jaeng was still seated in the living room, looking at me expectantly with a glass of iced tea in his hand.
“You’re quite right,” I assured him. And like a murderer who’s keeping a body in the closet but hopes the police won’t open that particular panel, I slowly edged Khun Jaeng to the exit, hoping he would ask no more questions. Thankfully he didn’t. More wais.
Finally I was alone. The phone rang. It was New York. “About the Skytrain murder…” I began, but my editor had no time for that.
“A bomb went off in New Delhi. Who cares about the Bangkok Skytrain?”
“You asked me to look into it.”
“You know we only run that Thai stuff as a sop to people planning trips there. It’s time to focus on serious news. See if you can find a Southeast Asia angle to the India story. Otherwise, never mind. We’ll call you when something comes up.” And she was off the line.
It was six. The setting sun was blowing huge orange and purple balloons across the Bangkok skyline. New York didn’t need the story after all, and what a relief. The Bangkok night was coming on, and the Phii of the Afternoon was visibly losing energy. The snake had struck, was digesting her meal and would soon curl up and go to sleep. Leaving the night open and free.
I knew I would never again speak of Kaew to anybody. Which was fine because, after all, he was a person of no particular importance.
Alex Kerr
Alex Kerr (born 1952) is an American writer based in Japan and Thailand. He is well known for his book Lost Japan (1994), which describes the changes he witnessed in the country where he has lived on and off for decades since childhood. Alex originally wrote Lost Japan in Japanese, for which he was the first foreigner to be awarded the Shincho Gakugei Literature Prize for the best work of non-fiction published in Japan. His later book Dogs and Demons (2002), addresses issues of environmental degradation and loss of native culture in the wake of modernization and Westernization. Since the 1980’s,Alex has made Bangkok his second home, establishing in 2005 the Origin Program to introduce traditional Thai arts to foreign visitors. His most recent work is Bangkok Found (2010), which explores the cultural themes of his Japan writing within the Thai context.
Death of a Legend
Dean Barrett
His dark brown hands working the cleaning rod were large. By Thai standards they were huge. Stubby and rough. But not calloused. And despite their size his finger had no problem slipping inside the trigger guard and working the Smith and Wesson revolver when occasion demanded it. It was what he did for a living. And he was good at what he did.
But what struck you on seeing him for the first time was his overall size. Something about an Asian male of six foot, two inches, with lots of bulk—far more functional muscle than fat—made you either take a second look or look away so as not to draw his attention. But unless he had a contract to eliminate you, you had nothing to worry about. He was the type of hit man who never shot or beat up anyone or even raised his voice without being hired to do so. Using his talent for free would have been anathema to him. And that’s why, despite his nearly unbroken string of victories against better known opponents, he had left the Muay Thai ring forever. Why kick people senseless if there was no money in it? The only thing he still had from those days was a slight scar over his left eye and a damaged elbow that ached during the rainy season. And the tattoo of a scorpion on his broad back.