Grandad, There's A Head on the Beach

11.

The uneventfulness of the following morning made it all the more remarkable. At three A.M. the power had returned, and all the lights we'd forgotten to turn off and the utilities we'd forgotten to unplug came to life. There ensued the act of putting them all back to sleep. We'd awaken later to a cautious normality. The natural erosion caused by the backhoe ditch had turned our garden into the Grand Canyon. Water had gushed out onto the beach, and the rear flood waters had subsided. The tide had ebbed to leave one end of our latrine block embedded in the beach, as if it had dropped from space. The sky was clear, and the only reminder of the monsoon was a brisk wind blowing off the Gulf. The Noys sat on their veranda playing pre-breakfast mah-jong with Grandad and Captain Waew. Mair and the ladies of the cooperative continued with their exemplary renovation of the shop. Arny worked out by raking beach wood into pyres, which, if they ever dried out, would one day make spectacular bonfires.

Captain Kow announced that the small boats would be able to venture out that day. As they'd been docked during the temperamental tempest, he had no fresh fishballs to sell from his motorcycle sidecar. Undeterred, he was there bright and early in front of our shop with an honest sign saying THREE-DAY-OLD FISHBALLS-NOT THAT DELICIOUS. It was hardly surprising he sold not a one. I'd invited him to join us for breakfast. As always, he seemed flattered. Grandad Jah seethed, like the alpha old man, at the table but said nothing. And once everyone else was full and gone, I led the captain to my balcony. He admired my mobile shell collection.

"How far out can the little boats go?" I asked.

"Depends on the waves," he said. "Two meters maximum for most of us."

"But if it's calm?"

"Go all the way to Vietnam or until the diesel ran out. Why?"

I'd decided the previous night to tell the captain everything, from the head on the beach to the slave ships to the suspected involvement of the Pak Nam police force. He listened intently but didn't seem all that surprised.

"It's not just here," he said, when I was done.

"What's not?"

"The slavery. Happens all around the coast. Except the recruiting's done by agents over on the west. They put crews together, take their down payments, make promises, then vanish. The Burmese do a three-month stint, then queue up for their salaries only to be told that the wages are all handled through the agencies. It's in the contract-in Thai. As the agents have all shut up and shipped out, that's three months of free labor and nothing for the Burmese to send back to their families. Happens all the time."

I blame Buddhism, you know? Get yourself a soft religion and you can forgive yourself almost anything. No shame. No guilt. I'll do my penance in the next life. No worries. I wondered whether Captain Kow was one of those maipen rai characters. One of the "no problem, let's not get worked up over nothing" majority.

"I imagine you're going to do something about it," he said, and smiled.

Damn. I wish I could have put some teeth in that gap. I knew it would have been a grand smile if it hadn't been so vacant.

"I'd need help," I confessed.

"I could get about ten, maybe fifteen small-boat men together, I suppose."

"You could? And why would they cooperate?"

"They don't like the big boats much. And they owe me favors."

"And why would you cooperate?"

"Me?" He laughed. "I like your style, Jimm. I like your spunk. You're a credit to your mother. I'd be proud to be there beside you."

You tend to assume old men are flirting when they overdo the rhetoric, but Captain Kow's eyes sparkled and I really got the feeling he was up for the adventure.

"You got a plan?" he asked.

"Sort of," I replied. "Do I have to tell you it?"

"Too true you do."

It was almost lunchtime when Lieutenant Chompu called me from the police station.

"At last," I said. "How long does it take to read a few documents?"

"Ooh, what dominance," he said. "I love a forceful woman. If it had been just words, I might have finished yesterday evening. But it wasn't that simple. Our Lieutenant Egg uses his own shorthand, the type of which I'd never seen. It amounts to leaving out all the vowels and tone markers. So every word was a puzzle."

"But you cracked it?"

"I have a reputation for inserting my key into otherwise impenetrable locks."

"But the documents?"

"Yes, those too. I have entered his devious world, young Jimm."

"And did you find anything?"

"Not really."

"Chom!"

"Not a complete failure, however. I found no fewer than eleven official reports in normal script for beached bodies and body parts. These were cases he'd personally taken on. His success rate in finding relatives and solving the cases was-as far as I could see-zero. All 'Case closed, probably Burmese, domestic dispute.' "

"But he's only been here in Pak Nam for a month."

"Right. These reports go back six months to when he was stationed in Pattani. Your personal head is number eleven. It's his first up here."

"So if he's cleaning up, he's following a boat."

"Or a fleet. I checked out the movement of deep-sea vessels from Pattani to Lang Suan around the time of his transfer. There was a total of four that changed registration and fishing zones. One was a mackerel trawler bought by a conglomerate in Prajuab. But three others always traveled together. Same owner. Same catch records. They're now operating out of Pak Nam, but they spend most of their time at sea and transfer their catch to smaller boats. This deep-sea fleet has five local boats registered to collect and deliver. Doing good business, by all accounts."

"So somewhere out there are three big boats that don't come home much. I bet that's them. There I was imagining one slaver ship. Sneaking up on it in the dead of night. Surprising its sleeping crew. But three? You've just changed the odds."

"You mean from 'don't even think about it' to 'very don't even think about it'?"

"Why do I not feel a deep sense of police cooperation?"

"Jimm, there are three boats bobbing fifty kilometers from the nearest impartial witness. They'll each have burly, unshaven ex-convict types with automatic weapons patrolling the decks. They would have already massacred so many random Burmese that they'll not even consider murder to be a negative thing. They'll have spotlights on their boats, radar even. I have no idea how you'd sneak up on them without being cut into little bloody pieces. My love remains undying, but my cooperation ended with this report."

"You aren't even going to tell your boss?"

"Tell him what?"

"That…"

No. He was right. No evidence. No proof. No point.

"Chom. Don't you have an urge to see justice done?"

"It's not nearly as strong as my urge to reach forty with a complete set of limbs."

"Then do it for me."

"Valor, you mean? Chivalry?"

"Don't tell me it's dead."

"You know in your heart it is."

"Fine. Never mind. I'll die without a hero by my side. Without ever knowing what it's like to have a man stand up for me, put his life on the line out of love."

"So I'm excused then?"

"I suppose."

"Good. Oh, and there was a message from the post office."

"What? Are you moonlighting for the Royal Thai Post now?"

"They have my number because I receive a lot of FedEx packages in plain brown envelopes full of evidence, if you know what I mean. And they know that you and I are seeing each other."

"In the romantic sense?"

"Naturally. In a place like Pak Nam they always hold out hope that people like me can see the folly of our ways."

"So?"

"So, Nat the manager said he'd had a suspicious visitor. A woman. She wanted to get in touch with her sister who'd given the Pak Nam Lang Suan post office as her return address. He'd told her that the sender sounded like the girl and her mother who were staying at your resort."

"Oh great."

"After she'd gone, it occurred to him that they'd only typed that information into the system at eight this morning and the parcel wouldn't be arriving till tomorrow. So he couldn't see how anyone would know. He tried to phone your mother. As he was calling, a cell tone rang out from his pile of outgoing mail. He hung up and tried again. And it rang again. He found a letter from your mother with a phone inside. He wondered whether she'd put it there by mistake."

"When was the woman there?"

"Just before I called you."

"About ten minutes?"

"About."

"Damn. We need help."

How on earth could they have traced it that soon, and how could they get down here so quickly? It was fifteen minutes from Pak Nam to our resort, if you didn't get lost. Most people got lost. But I couldn't count on that. I ran to the Noys' veranda and interrupted the mah-jong tournament.

"OK, I don't want anyone to panic," I said.

My hands were shaking and my legs were wobbling. The mah-jong players stared at me curiously. I was the only one panicking. But my mind was clear.

"Noy and Noy," I said. "We might have had a security breach at the post office."

The clock in Mair's cabin chimed midday. Our calm was over. The afternoon of the big chaos had arrived.

"They've found us," said Mamanoy.

"We have about five minutes," I said. "This is what I want everyone to do…"

Once they'd heard me out, they set to work. The Noys apologized to the old men for interrupting the game and calmly collected the tiles. I jogged over to the shop, selected two members of the cooperative, and dragged them and Mair back to the cabins. I'd barely made it wheezing back up to the shop when a metallic gray BMW pulled into the car park. "Mamma Mia" rang out from my back pocket. I took out the phone. Sender-Aung. Not now. Please don't let it be the message from Shwe. I turned off my phone and went to greet the new arrivals. The four doors opened simultaneously, and three middle-aged men in gray safari suits and a young woman in a skirt and blouse leaped out. It felt like a raid.

"Can I hel-" I began, but the visitors weren't in the mood for my reception niceties. Mair walked across to intercept them.

"Where do you think you're going?" she asked, stepping in front of the meatiest of the men. He grabbed the wrist of the hand she laid on him and attempted to fling her to one side. He obviously hadn't figured Mair's jungle training into that rash decision. With some innate sense of direction, her knee found the nest of his testicles. He sank slowly to the ground and issued a sound like a slow puncture in a whoopee cushion. But his colleagues were unconcerned. They hurried on to the cabins. Two of them held short metal bars, they used to jimmy open first door number one, then number two. We stood back, amazed. At room three they dragged two screaming women out to the veranda. They were in a state of undress, but nobody listened to their pleas.

The raiders moved on to the back tier of bungalows, using their bars to prise open each door of our family cabins, even though none of them was locked. In one of these rooms they found two frail old men, and they too were dragged to the veranda of cabin three. All this was completed in less than two minutes. We'd been rounded up like cattle, and every room had been searched. All businesslike and silent. Not even the gang of local women at the water's edge, dragging their cockle trays through the sand, had noticed anything untoward.

I'd been hoping the young woman was the head of this invading army. I like to see my gender assume dominant roles even in illegal activity. But I didn't hear her speak at all, so I had to assume she was the terror-pretty of the group. "Pretty" had become a noun in Thai to describe women who use their sex appeal to show men how pathetic they are. The meaty man whose family jewels had been devalued by my mother walked uneasily up to the veranda. He was about fifty, short-haired, and I could smell military about him, about all of them. He glared at Mair, who gave him a glimpse of her Titanic smile.

"There's more where that came from," she said.

"Mair!" I shouted through gritted teeth. "Let's not antagonize our guests."

"All right," said Meaty. "Where are they?"

"Excuse me," I said. "But who are you, exactly?"

"The two women staying here. Where are they?"

"Well, they're right here," I said, pointing to Ning and Somjit, neither of whom seemed the least embarrassed to be standing there in their underwear.

"And the least you can do is allow them to protect their dignity," said Mair.

She pushed past one of the other gray safaris into the room and came out with sheets, which she draped around the grinning co-op ladies. Another safari came back from the carport and whispered into Meaty's ear.

"Enough of this," said the boss. He was obviously used to striking terror into the hearts of people. Arny was off lifting weights at the gym; otherwise I knew he'd be quivering now at all this aggression. The rest of us weren't particularly impressed, but we felt obliged to assume the submissive role of ignorant country folk.

"I want the owner of that Honda, and I want her now," yelled Meaty.

He kicked the fence post in front of the cabin for effect. It shattered into a hundred shards. It was riddled with termites, so that wasn't as impressive as it looked. But the sound woke the dogs, and seeing their pack leader in danger, they came chasing at Meaty from the rear. Theirs, too, was a silent attack. He knew nothing until they were on him. He looked down as these three little dogs ran circles around him barking laughably. They weren't a fearsome pack, and he quite rightly ignored them. Sensing their failure, they lay down on the sand and scratched.

"Well, if you know them, you stay right where you are, mister," said Grandad. "If you're a friend of theirs, you can just pay their bill for them."

"That's right," said Mair with an impressive southern lilt.

"What?" said Meaty.

"Those two stuck-up bitches drive in here with their posh accents and their snobbish airs, stay here for four nights, eat all our food and sleep in our luxury cabins, and the next thing you know, they've gone. Didn't pay a damned baht and wrecked the TV to boot."

Way to go, Grandad.

"When was this?" he asked.

"Sunday morning," I said. "We woke up and they'd gone."

"Why didn't they take the car?"

I hadn't thought that far.

"The heads had seized up in the cylinders," said Grandad. "Happens a lot down here from the salt water. Japanese. What can I say? No idea how to make a decent car."

"And you are?" asked Meaty.

"Retired mechanic," said Grandad. "Stockholder in this establishment."

"I bet they got a bus out to the airport in Surat," I said. "Probably long gone by now."

"Then explain to me why they were still in Pak Nam yesterday?" Meaty asked.

"Those bastards," said Mair. "I bet they're ripping off one of the other resorts now. If only I could get my hands on…

At that moment, one of the safari suits tapped his boss on the shoulder and pointed toward the road. My hero in brown turned into the car park on his police motorbike and headed in our direction. Chompu should have stopped in front of the shop because the sand was soft out by the cabins, so his arrival wasn't as impressive as it might have been. He got bogged down in the sand and fell over sideways. The safari suits exchanged glances while he got himself up.

"They're vandals, officer," said Mair. "Look what they've done with our doors. Arrest them."

"What's going on here?" asked Chompu in a particularly manly voice.

Meaty sized him up, probably deciding whether to shoot him.

"Come with me, Lieutenant," he said and started to walk toward the kitchen block. Chompu stood his ground.

"Tell me why I should be taking orders from you," said Chompu.

"Because you'd be very sorry if you didn't."

Wisely, I thought, Chompu walked a few meters away and stood beside Meaty, who seemed to be getting something out of his pocket. They faced away from us, heads bowed while Meaty spoke in hushed tones. Chompu nodded, then wai'd. When Meaty returned to us, Chompu stayed back as an observer.

"What cabin were the women in?" Meaty asked.

"Two," I said. And one of the safaris went immediately into that room without being told.

"Did they leave anything behind?" asked Meaty.

"A busted TV," said Mair.

The safari came out of the room shaking his head.

"We'll be back," said Meaty. "You're to do nothing. Tell no one about this visit. If the women come back for their car, you'll call this number immediately."

He handed me a card with nothing but a cell phone number on it.

"Mr….?" I said.

The unwanted visitors turned and hurried back toward the car.

"Who's going to pay for all this damage?" Mair shouted.

I squeezed her arm. The car doors slammed, the tires kicked up gravel, and they were gone. The engine sound soon blended into the growl of the surf. I smiled and walked around to each of the members of our cast and squeezed their hands. It had been a creditable ensemble performance. Chompu came over to join us.

"My knight," I said. "Thanks for coming, Chom."

"I'm not sure I helped at all."

"I don't know. They were a scary bunch. Who were they?"

"I've been ordered not to tell you that they were from Special Branch. But some elite faction that deals with- what he referred to as-higher matters."

"You'd better not tell us then."

"Sounds like the gray squad," said Grandad. "They only come out when there's something heavy-duty happening. And if they've been running checks on the banks and the post offices, that's a lot of manpower. Exactly what have your two ladies got themselves tied up in?"

"Exactly what two ladies are we talking about?" asked Chompu.

I'd had very little time to explain the details of our resort resident problem.

"I assume this has nothing to do with the Burmese?" he said.

I remembered Aung.

"The Burmese. Right," I said and I turned my phone back on. "I tell you what, Captain Waew, why don't you brief the lieutenant? We can't have any secrets here now. I reckon we'll have a couple of hours at the most before they've scoured all the resorts and come back here for a second round. We have to get the Noys to a safe house."

"We've got a little house out back," said Somjit of the co-op. "It used to be our grandmother's till the cow fell on her. It's comfortable though. Not much of a hike to the outside toilet."

"They can wear disguises," said Ning.

The girls had no idea what was going on, but they were quick to get into the spirit of things. Even when we'd first dragged them over from the shop and told them the Noys were in danger, they'd been quick to strip off.

"Call them up," said Grandad.

Waew let out an impressive whistle without the use of his fingers, and two of the cockle collectors looked up from beneath their broad cowboy hats. He gestured them over. The Noys walked up the sand wearing the sarongs and

T-shirts the co-op ladies had been wearing earlier. Their cockle dredgers were cardboard election placards. Their shell harvest was unimpressive, but they had survived. All that remained was for them to collect their things from cabin three and prepare their escape. Mair kept watch in case the safaris returned. I dialed Aung.

"Aung. What's up?"

"Where have you been?" he asked. "I've been-"

"You're not my only emergency. Is it Shwe?"

"He called. His battery's very low. They were being herded into a small boat," he said. "I'm not sure, but I think he said the name of the boat had the word AMOR written on one side. He couldn't read the Thai on the other."

"Did he say how many they were?"

"Seventeen. Four women. They'd brought over another bunch from a different holding center."

So, they'd got their new crew. I wondered what had happened to the previous one.

"Can you help?" he asked.

"I hope so," I said. "Keep your phone on."

And I clicked off.

I wasn't ready. I needed another day at least. I needed more people. I needed…I needed a miracle. I called Captain Kow.

"What is it?" he said. His voice sounded like rust deep in the back of the phone.

"Where are you?" I shouted.

"Nam Jeud," he said.

"It's started. I know it's short notice, but did you get in touch with anyone?"

"Ha! Started, has it? I haven't got through to everyone yet. I focused on boats around Sawee, like we agreed. My brother's up there."

"Are there any boats out at the moment?"

"This time of day? Not many. Only the squid trapmen checking their traps."

"Are they on walkie-talkie?"

"Normally they wouldn't need to be. They only use the wireless at night to tell each other where the shoals are. The trappers have permanent spots, but the transient boats have to follow the squid."

"But?"

"But, well, there's the karaoke."

"The karaoke?"

"The nights can be a bit long and boring, waiting for squid. And a lot of fisherfolk like to sing. So about a year back we started entertaining each other by crooning over the short wave. And someone came up with the idea of bringing along tape players and singing along with the music. So they-"

"Kow! We've got seventeen people about to be beheaded. Is there a short version of this?"

"Sorry. Almost done. So, every night you'd take your turn to sing. And the M-150 energy-drink people heard about it, and they launched a CB transceiver karaoke competition with cash prizes. The competition's next week and everyone's rehearsing. Night or day we have our channels open. Sing a bit. Get feedback from your mates."

"So what you're telling me is that the trap setters are on air."

"You could say. Them and the night boats."

"Can you contact them?"

"My brother Daengmo can."

Daengmo? Now, why did that name ring a bell?

"All right," I said. "Ask them if anyone saw a small boat leave Sawee before midday. It might be called Amor. At least that's what's written in English…or French. There were seventeen Burmese on board. You can't hide seventeen people in a small boat, so someone must have noticed it. We need to know what direction it was headed. And someone has to get after it."

"I'm on my way," he said.

"Where to?"

"If I can get the headings from Daengmo and the karaoke crowd, I can set a heading to intersect with it. It's all in the angles."

"Are you alone?"

"Yes."

"You have to be careful with these people. How far out before you lose this cell-phone signal?"

"About thirty kilometers unless I'm heading toward the islands."

"Then how do we keep in touch?"

"I'll give you Daengmo's number. I'll use the wireless transmitter. You'll be able to get the bearings from him."

"Kow?"

"Yeah?"

"I'll never forget this."

"I really can't tell you how much of a pleasure it is."

"We'll have reinforcements out there soon. Don't do anything stupid."

"Aye aye."

They really said "aye aye"?

When I went to join Mair in the shop, Captain Waew was just pulling out, with the Noys lying down in the bed of the truck. The co-op ladies were up front. Elain was on a rope on the flatbed. Mair was alone, waving to the monkey.

"Where are all the other ladies?" I asked.

"I sent them home," she said. "I sense danger. Your policeman said he'd call you later. I phoned Arny and told him to come home."

"Arny? Great! Who else would you phone in times of danger?"

"Don't make fun of your brother. He'll be there for you when you need him."

"And where's Grandad?"

"Last time I saw him he was rearranging the flotsam on the beach."

"Why…?"

An engine was gunned; I imagined wheels spinning. We ran down and looked along the beach. The tide was low but still only six meters from the cabins. Grandad Jah had laid out a long bridge of bamboo down the sand to the water's edge. It seemed rather pointless, considering the incoming tide would wash it all away before…

A roaring Honda City leaped from the carport, gained traction from the bamboo, and sped off over the bridge and into the water. I saw the grinning flash of Grandad's face as it vanished behind the splash. It had traveled fifteen meters at speed before the wheels began to spin in the sand and the Honda came to a standstill. Only the roof was visible above the waves. I raced into the surf, dismissing my water phobia as trivial compared to the love of my grandfather. But as the water began to crash against my waist, the fear waxed and the love waned. By the time I reached the Honda and the current was forcing me back it, occurred to me that I'd never really been that fond of him. Even so, some insanity saw me pinching my nose with my fingers and ducking my head beneath the surface. I opened my eyes and a stinging wash of salt filled them with pain. Everything was blurry. I pushed my head in through the open window. The cab was empty.

I burst, spluttering, into the atmosphere and looked around me for the floating corpse of my beloved relative. He was standing beside Mair on the beach, the bastard. I was furious. I wanted to stomp back to him, but the water was buffeting me around like laundry. By the time I washed up on the beach, I was out of breath and out of ire.

"What," I huffed, "was that all about?"

He came over to my supine body and crouched down in one of those impossible country squats.

"I've had an idea," he said.

"Please share it."

"Well, in an hour or so the tide will be fully up and the car will be invisible from the beach. We have the phone number of the Special Branch fellow. So, we give him a call and tell him the car's gone. We hint that the Noys came back and drove it off. And they'll spend the rest of the day, perhaps even the rest of the week, scouring the country for this car. We'll be out of the loop."

"And what happens if they come back at low tide when the car's visible?"

"We can drape it with weed and make it look like something being washed up."

"And what about you-an ex-mechanic-telling them the pistons are seized up?"

"A miracle. The floodwater from the river rinsed out all the salt and the thing started working."

It didn't sound at all plausible, but Grandad Jah had that senile look so they'd probably put it down to dementia. And it was good to get one emergency off the front burner for a while.

"OK," I said. "Crazy but acceptable."

While I was telling them about the Burmese in Sawee, Arny and Gaew pulled up on her Harley, so I had to start all over again. When Ex-Police Captain Waew returned from concealing the Noys, I had to tell him too. After three times of telling it didn't sound any more hopeful.

"So what are we supposed to do?" asked Grandad.

"I have a plan," I said, and told him about Captain Kow and the small-boat squid men.

"That good-for-nothing wastrel couldn't organize fluff in a belly button," said Grandad. "I'm not putting my life in his hands."

"All right, stop it. Stop it now," said Mair. "I've just about had enough of you insulting Kow. Either you button your lip or I'll punch it."

She looked furious, and I'd never seen my grandfather back down to her like he did at that moment, but I could sense some friction between father and daughter. There was too much going on around us to follow up on it, but I put a mental yellow Post-it sticker against that moment.

Gaew it was who brought us all back to practicalities.

"We need a boat," she said.

"That's right," said Mair, still glaring at Grandad. "We do."

A boat. Right. It was the one aspect of this mission that I'd tried to drown in my subconscious. As the leader, I could hardly send them all out into the deep ocean and wave my handkerchief from the quay. But I was petrified by the very thought of having nothing but a wooden plank between me and Davy Jones.

"We've got to get out there as soon as we can and help those poor people," said Arny, pushing his big chest ahead of him.

Actually, Arny was every bit as scared of the water as me. We'd both had life-threatening experiences in water that I won't go into now. But Arny had an image to project here, and if it involved wrestling sharks, I felt there was no turning back for him.

"Now, who do we know with a boat?" said Mair.

Actually, we lived in a fishing village. Everyone we knew owned or had access to a boat. What she was really asking was who would be dumb enough to lend us one so we could go and get it riddled with machine-gun bullets.

"Ed," said Arny.

"No," said I.

"Why not?" asked Grandad. "He's got a fine new boat. Just finished it a week ago."

"Look, just not Ed, all right?" I said. "Then give us an alternative," said Grandad. The effects of the antidepressant had abated some. I still felt a tickle when I thought of the male musculature, but I was no longer in heat. I was left with only the shame of the erotic thoughts that had forced me onto our grass cutter. I understood all those addicts who woke up in the bodies of complete strangers and lived those strangers' lives badly. If we didn't all die at the hands of slavers or government agents, I vowed I would volunteer at the local drug clinic. I acknowledged my addiction. I am Jimm and I'm a recovering sex addict.

Mair was talking on Amy's cell phone. When she finished, I asked, "Who was that?"

"Ed," she said.

"Mair, we're a team," I said. "Teams consult. Teams don't ignore the opinion of their daughters. What did he say?"

"He's on his way."

"Chom, thanks for this afternoon. Can you speak?"

"Do you mean, have I learned the fundamentals, or am I in a position to discuss the illiterate ape I share my office with?"

"OK. Question answered. Where are you?"

"I'm sitting in a children's playground with a cigarette."

"You don't smoke."

"I didn't say I was smoking it. I'm just holding it near my lips so that from the police station opposite it looks like I'm smoking, and therefore I have an excuse to be out of my office."

"You're hiding."

"I've reached my limit. I'm imagining all the things I'd do to him if I were four times the man I am."

"You want revenge?"

"Absolutely."

"Good. You remember his address?"

"I've driven past it several times and thrown imaginary Molotov cocktails."

"Do you feel like going inside?"

"That would be what we policemen refer to as breaking and entering?"

"That's the one. I bet you're good at it."

"And what, apart from the stimulating rush of adrenaline, would be my motivation?"

"We're going after the slavers. Even if we get them, we still wouldn't have any evidence that Egg was involved. There's nothing incriminating in his files. We need something that ties him to this whole slavery thing. And we need to know what other police are involved."

"Other police?"

"The Burmese they've taken today were picked up by uniformed police."

"Do you have an actual witness this time?"

"We have seventeen of them. But they're on their way to the deep ocean. We're going to bring them back."

"Do you have a plan?"

"It's complicated."

"You don't have a plan."

"I do. It's coming. And your breaking and entering is a part of that plan."

He was quiet.

"Are you thinking?" I asked.

"I'm posing elegantly with my cigarette between two fingers as I consider the humiliation of being discharged from the police force."

"It can't be any worse than the humiliation you've suffered by being in it."

Another silence.

"You're right."

"So, you'll do it?"

"Nobody bullies big Chom and gets away with it."