I went after the dog, who looked back over his shoulder and started to run. Running for me was as alien as discipline was to him. But I felt there was a need. I swore I could make out the shape of a handgun wrapped in rag. Sticky was heading straight for the major. He stopped directly in front of him, dropped his booty, and barked proudly. The policeman turned around to find Sticky staring up at him and drooling. Like most southerners, the major was wary of strange dogs. He backed up. Sticky nudged the package closer.
'Will someone call this mutt off?' said the policeman.
'Looks like he brought you a present, Major,' said Constable Ma Yai. 'Hey, little fellow. What you got there?'
He bent down to pick up the package, and Sticky snapped at him. Ma Yai recoiled. I arrived at that moment. There's something slow-motion about me running. I threw myself to my knees and grabbed the gun and the dog. Over the sound of Sticky yapping, the major asked:
'What is that?'
'Hairdryer,' I said. 'It's a game we play.'
I laughed. They laughed. Sticky barked. It was pretty clear the dog had been Eliot Ness in a previous life. It probably really pissed him off that he couldn't make words anymore.
'You buried it?'
'Yes.'
'That was your grand idea for hiding the gun?'
The police had gone, and I had Grandad Jah cornered in the toilet block. He'd been unclogging a drain. It was a good feeling to be reprimanding him for screwing up. I didn't get the chance that often. He nodded. His overconfi-dence had given way to humility at last. All at once he was forty-five kilograms of decaying osteoclasts, and I felt like a bully.
'Well, consider yourself lucky our local police force can't tell a magnum from a hairdryer,' I said. 'I bet they raid a lot of beauty salons.'
'Idiots.'
I knew it was too much to expect an apology from the old man. I sat on the sink and heard a crack. Time to think seriously about that diet. With the monsoons, I'd stopped cycling, and every meal, every flagon of Chilean red, every mini-Mars Bar was setting up home in my hips.
'So where do you think it'll go from here?' I asked.
'The police will bring the two hoodlums in for questioning. They'll deny they threatened us. They might or might not mention the gun, but my guess is they won't.'
'Why not?'
'Because we don't look like gunslingers, so the police would laugh at 'em. And they don't have any evidence.'
'Thanks to me.'
He ignored that.
'They'll probably come up with an alibi,' he said, 'and technically the police would check it out. But knowing our lot, they'll probably accept it and apologize to the hooligans for taking up their valuable time.'
'Not Chompu.'
'I admit the queer boy does have skills. But we don't know they'll assign him to the case.'
'They don't have cases, Grandad. What else has happened down here for the past couple of months? They weed the station flowerbeds, use up their petrol allowance by driving round smiling at girls, and set up random barricades to extort money from truck drivers who think seat belts are for sitting on. Oh, and they practice marching.
They have to assign it to Chompu. He's the only one who can spell.'
'These police don't know how to deal with hard nuts like those two thugs. There's only one recourse,' Grandad snarled.
He cracked his knuckles. It sounded like tiles shuffling on a mah-jong board.
'Oh, Grandad. No.'
'There's only one thing those types understand.'
'Please.'
'Street justice.'
I'd been afraid that might happen. Our own geriatric Judge Dredd had recently formed an alliance with an equally honest and subsequently vilified ex-policeman from the south called Waew. Together, they had wreaked revenge on an evil-doer and got away with it. Vengeance was a drug that made Viagra look like aspirin. I suppose I should have reasoned with him, told him how dangerous it was to be messing with villains like the rat brothers, but Grandad's well past his use-by date. When you're beyond seventy, nobody's really surprised when they find you facedown in your fried rice. Probably better to arrive in nirvana with a slit throat and stories.
'Whatever,' I said.
I was about to take the truck into Pak Nam in search of the elusive Burmese community that Lieutenant Egg had failed to engage. I'd reversed out of the carport and was crunching my way into first. It's an old truck. But in my side mirror I saw an excitedly pretty face. I squeaked down the window and said hello to Noy.
'The coast is clear,' I said.
Mother and daughter had been hiding out in the woods at the far end of the bay for an hour for no particular reason. None of the police asked whether we had any guests.
'Jimm, I just wanted…to tell you…'
She was out of breath. The wind did that to you. Filled you up with so much air you couldn't get it all out. I'd been expecting a story. They'd had enough time to come up with a good one. I'd thought something like…I don't know…vengeful husband or boyfriend perhaps. That would have worked. Ours was a matriarchal family, so that would probably have twanged at our heartstrings. But what they conjured up was a disappointment. Noy ran round the front of the truck and put herself in the passenger seat. She was trapped now. There were no handles on the inside.
'I hope you don't mind,' she said.
'Not at all.'
I switched off the motor, and the truck shimmered to a standstill.
'I imagine that you and your family are wondering what people like us are doing here,' she said.
'You're not on vacation?'
She giggled.
'I'm sure you didn't believe that,' she said.
'If our prime minister can make spring rolls on national television, nothing would surprise me.'
'The fact is…' she began.
I've noticed how often people say 'the fact is' before launching into fiction.
'The fact is my father is one of the leading activists against the yellow shirts. You do know about the situation in Bangkok?'
I guessed nobody had informed her that I'd been an almost prize-winning journalist at a national publication. An army was rising up to oppose the yellow shirts, with the backing of the satellite-dish tsar and his billionaire family.
'I think I saw something about it on TV,' I said.
'Well, he…Dad was very vocal against the yellows. We tried to convince him to keep a lid on it, but he's a very principled man. He spoke up in public accusing the yellow shirts of dragging our democracy into the dirt. He…'
'Yes?'
'He received threats. Not against him but against us. His family. They said they'd kill us.'
'The yellow shirts said that?'
'Right. As he loves us, and I'm sure you understand why I can't divulge his name, he sent us away from Bangkok. That's why we're here. That's why we removed the number plates. That's why we're avoiding the police. I'm so sorry we couldn't tell you this. But we still have to be very careful. The yellow shirts can be evil.'
'Right.'
I could imagine the scene. Auntie Malee, the exporter of traditional coconut cakes, calls together Bert, the
