Bangkok Wet by Simon Royle

Author:Simon Royle [Royle, Simon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: hard-boiled, noir
ISBN: 9786169076926
Google: DgJPngEACAAJ
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services LLC - KDP Print US
Published: 2013-03-14T11:00:00+00:00

Chasing Down A Who Do There

yohn hin thaam thaang – Throw a stone, follow the path

Nakhon Si Thammarat, Tuesday, 1 November 2011, 1:15PM

Nakhon Si Thammarat has more hit men than any other province in the country. Included with the information Mother had sent me, a cautionary note: The Brothers Grim had put a price of one million baht, about thirty-three thousand US dollars, on my head. I wasn’t sure that news of the bounty would have reached here yet, but I didn’t want to find out the hard way. We stuck to the back roads.

Mother’s information pack on Red Bull included old newspaper clippings, his autopsy report and interestingly that he had no identification card or number. His alleged name was, Preecha Arooncharoenboonmee, and now you know why we make up nicknames and use first names for everyone, hence, ‘Red Bull’ or in Thai, Krating Daeng.

One of the articles had a picture of him, supposedly taken in Bangkok in 1976. I was surprised. It showed a young, slim, pale, academic-looking man, leaning against the rear of a car, of average height, wearing glasses and smoking a pipe. He looked more like a teacher than a master bandit and bank robber. Something troubled me about the image. It was grainy, as a copied, old, black-and-white photo from a newspaper will be. There was something about it, but I couldn’t put my finger on what. Perhaps it was just the difference in my expectations. I’d been expecting a mountain man, outdoors guy like man vs. wild, and got someone who looked like an accountant.

He’d been tried and found guilty at the provincial court. A photo of a much younger, slimmer Sankit with a crueler, thinner face than the one which he had acquired since coming to Bangkok – the similarity between him and Chatree was obvious. I felt the tiniest twinge of pity for him, Chatree that is, as for Sankit, my disgust for him had grown exponentially over the past twenty-four hours. Mother hadn’t found the names of the guards who’d transported Red Bull, but the location of his demise was clearly detailed in the autopsy report.

Chai crossed Route 401 heading east, and within a kilometer, we turned right, running on a small dirt road next to the ocean, not far from Tha Sala. Coconut trees, shrimp farms and small, mainly Muslim populated fishing villages lined the road. I opened the window of the car, baseball cap and sunglasses on. The sharp smell of the sea combined with the pungent aroma from the racks of squid drying in the early afternoon sun. We passed a temple, and then it was all scrub and coconut trees until the road ended in a small track and a wall of bamboo.

“This is it,” Chai said and put the Fortuna in park. He pulled his Uzi out from under the seat and starting checking it over.

Foliage had reclaimed the abandoned track, the path just wide enough for Chai and me walking side by side. It

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