sea with their husbands. They'd seen it all before, of course, but they didn't have an audience of seven-one of whom was admiral pervert Bigman Beung himself. Ed explained. Here again, the wonders of the sarong came into play. I won't give you a blow by blow. It wasn't a pretty sight, but my modesty was intact and I had learned one more skill for my resume.
While Gaew spouted on about steroids and the cost of good body oil, I sat beside PI Meng the private eye, glad for a break from my live feed.
'Been busy?' I asked, ever keen to keep up with the local crime scene.
'Nah,' he said.
I was hardly surprised.
'Nothing ongoing?'
'Well…'
'Come on. You can tell me. We'll all be dead by morning.
'That's true. Well, Ari hired me.'
'The monkey-handler Ari?'
'When I say he hired me, what I mean is that he offered to give me a finder's fee if I could locate his macaque. But it's been gone since Tuesday, so I doubt we'll ever see that critter again.'
'Right,' I said. 'Long gone, I expect. Across the border to Malaysia, I wouldn't doubt. It's like the southeast Asian version of Canada. They have a commune of escaped macaques down there, dodging the coconut draft, singing freedom from slavery folk tunes.'
'Really?'
He didn't have any idea what I was talking about. Few did. I was just about to mingle some more when something occurred to me. I sat back down.
'When did you say the monkey went missing?' I asked.
'Tuesday,' he said. 'Someone just untied it from his truck and walked off with it.'
'And you're sure it was Tuesday?'
'Certain.'
I was confused, but it wasn't a priority matter. I skipped Bigman Beung and sat beside my brother.
'You all right, mate?'
'I'm starting to feel seasick,' he said greenly.
'Focus on the horizon and imagine you live in that lighthouse over there.'
'There isn't a lighthouse over there.'
'I said imagine it.'
'I thought you meant imagine living there.'
'I did. See? You feel better now, don't you?'
'Yeah, a bit.'
'You just needed your mind taken off the sea. Focus on cloud shapes. Focus on a distant light. Focus on Gaew. She's a lot prettier than the Gulf. You do know she's impressed with you? You planned this all very nicely.'
'It was going all right. Sissi didn't help. Turning up like that.'
'Why not?'
'Gaew's seen the genes now.'
'Oh, don't.'
'Now she knows what stock I'm from.'
'It's a scientific fact that transsexualism isn't hereditary. You don't see me dressing up as…OK. Bad example. The fact is, you're all man, Arny. She knows that. And when the opportunity comes, you'll know it too. Look at you. You're on a boat in the middle of the sea. Miles from land. Who'd have thought that?'
His eyes rose in search of a cloud.
'I feel seasick again.'
'Sorry.'
I stood up clumsily and punched Grandad and Waew on their upper arms because I'd seen sports coaches do it on TV. It was for morale. They both complained. Said it hurt. I apologized. I returned to my computer and, I hoped, a small but faithful contingent of strangers on the Internet.
13.
Some Shy Bruised Eyes Please Go Away
Even after Lieutenant Chompu's third passing of the Egg house, all seemed quiet and peaceful. The properties on either side were unoccupied and overgrown. Egg's house had a concrete front yard, which no doubt made gardening that much easier, and a low brick wall. One short driveway led to an open carport, and one other curved around and headed beside the house toward the rear of the property. The building itself was a two-story show house with all those extras that looked fine in ancient Greece but were over the top for Pak Nam. Despite its opulence, it wasn't a loved house.
Chompu hopped over the side wall and landed on empties: bottles and cans and supermarket bags of garbage. The cockroaches objected to this surprise arrival and scattered around the yard.
'Barbarians,' he said, aloud.
He walked to the rear door and tried the handle. It was locked. Behind him, where the concrete ended and the jungle began, there was a dirt trail that extended from the driveway. He walked it to a sharp turn and a second carport. This one was mostly corrugated tin with a cloth front flap. He pulled back the corner of the cloth to see a brown and cream police truck in the dark interior. It looked familiar. He checked the plate. Chumphon 44619. It was one of the three trucks registered to the Pak Nam police unit. One was off getting a new carburetor. When he was leaving his office just twenty minutes earlier, he'd heard the second truck crew on the intercom explaining how they'd just stopped a pick-up truck with an elephant in the back. They wanted to know what the safe weight limit was for a Toyota Hilux. Nobody knew. But wait! Wasn't the third truck parked in front of the station when he left? Surely he couldn't have imagined that. And did that mean that in the time it took Chompu to complete his reconnaissance and hop over the wall, Lieutenant Egg had driven it home? Was he inside now watching this trespass through a back window?
Chompu walked up to the truck and put his hand on the hood. It wasn't hot. There was no engine ticking. It hadn't been driven for some time. So perhaps the third truck had been fixed and returned and…he'd just confused the plates? But Chompu wasn't the type to confuse three numbers he'd signed off for numerous times. Something particularly odd was going on.
He walked back toward the house and paused at the door before trying the handle again. It was still locked. He looked under the flowerpots that now contained the skeletons of plants, but there was no key. So he had no choice. Breaking and entering. He'd even thought to bring the mini-crowbar from his bike. The door popped open, and not for the first time, he considered how much easier his life would have been if he'd pursued a career of crime. There was no discrimination in the underworld. The mafia didn't hold you back because you liked Kylie Minogue.
The reconnoitre of the ground floor took all of two minutes. Apart from a tacky table/chair set in the kitchen and a sink full of plates and utensils, and smells emanating from a mountain of black plastic garbage bags in one corner, there was nothing else. The other downstairs rooms were unfurnished and empty.
Halfway up the stairs, he heard the scratchy reception of a short-wave radio. The volume was down, but it was clearly the same local band used by the rescue foundations. It was currently tuned in to the police channel. Chompu took out his pistol. It had only ever been fired at the range. It was an old Glock, and it made such a horrid bang. But he was scared. The gun was more to hide behind than to use. He wasn't the brave hero type. He was a
