Bangkok Noir

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.

He was casually dressed in an open shirt, which revealed a thick neck without wrinkles, although he was already well into his late forties. He had served a few years inside Bang Kwang prison for one mistake or another, but those were the days of his youth, and those days were over. Now, when he received a call for his services, he spent days, even weeks, surveying the scene, checking out the person he was to hit—or in his lingo, the poo rap, “receiver.” He never asked what the receiver had done to deserve to be on the receiving end of his talent; that wasn’t his business. His business, as the poo hai, “provider,” was to do the job and leave the scene without being identified, much less caught. And despite increasingly difficult and dangerous assignments, he had never failed.

The living room he was in was on the third floor of a run-down apartment building in a section of Bangkok infested with freelance Thai hookers, elderly, Viagra-fuelled johns and filthy short-time hotels. The room was permeated with the stale smell of some spicy northeastern Thai dish. But he was from a village near Petchaburi, a town known for producing excellent hit men. And even though he had fled the province in his teens, he still favored the unique cuisine his mother could make from the area’s plentiful sugar palm fruits.

A colorful but cliched painting of a Thai village scene hung on a wall. A village not unlike the one he grew up in—except the painting had left out the poverty, the drunkards, the anger, the petty feuds and the feeling of confinement. And yet even the amateurish rendition of a Thai village made him nostalgic for the way things had been. Before his first hit.

The room’s sofa was worn. Everything was worn, old, second-hand, shabby, used up. A cheap wooden statue of a Buddha in meditation was on a shelf above a cracked oval wall mirror, which reflected the poverty of the room. But there was no dust or dirt; it was just shabby. Someone lived here. Someone who had probably been paid a few thousand baht to make themselves scarce for a few hours.

A thick white bath towel and a clean set of shirt and trousers had been neatly folded and placed on top of an out-of-date television set. A narrow hallway led into the darkness of unseen inner rooms. The venetian blinds on the only window of the room were dust-covered and stained with yellow spots. They were tilted downward, and a few streaks of late-afternoon light spilled out across the table beside his glass of Mekong whiskey.

He paused to take a drink and then again worked the cleaning rod into the weapon, meticulously and without hurry. Steel cleaning rods and small white cotton cleaning patches were spread out neatly on the sports page of a Thai language newspaper. Beside the paper were his gun-cleaning kit and a can of gun conditioner oil. And five bullets. He would occasionally hold the revolver up to the ceiling’s old-fashioned circular fluorescent light and check the barrel or cylinder for any buildup of debris or sign of rust. Regardless of what he saw, he would replace the patch with a clean one, sparingly spotted with oil, and clean again. A friend of his who had been a monk for years had told him that what he was doing wasn’t really cleaning the gun, that for him it had become a meditative experience. The big man had liked the phrase and remembered it.

The knock on the door was tentative and soft. The man continued to clean. His voice was rasping and gruff, he figured from the years when he still smoked. “Yeah.”

After a pause, the knock came again. Only slightly louder.

“Yeah!”

The door opened slowly and a thin, young Thai man entered cautiously. He was in his early to mid-twenties and wore an expensive street jacket over a long-sleeved shirt and well pressed trousers. His leather shoes looked as if they’d been spit-shined. His complexion was several shades whiter than that of the big man. He attempted to affect a cocky exterior but his nervousness was obvious. He stared at the big man for several seconds and then closed the door and looked around the room.

“You left the door unlocked?”

“If you say so.”

“What if it had been him?”

For the first time the man in the chair glanced up to look at the boy. Then he continued cleaning his weapon. “Him?”

“The guy we’ve been hired to hit. He’s a legend!”

“Legends die, kid. Like anything else.”

“But he might have come here early and—”

“And what?” For a few seconds the man stopped cleaning and locked eyes with the boy. Then he resumed cleaning. “Don’t worry, kid, he’s known to be punctual.”

The boy hesitated and then walked to the man and held out his hand. The man ignored it.

“I’m Sombat Ti—”

“Don’t tell me your name. Don’t ever tell me your name. How long you been in this business?”

“Uh… Lo-long time…”

“So how long you been here?”

“A while. Wichai hire you?”

“Yeah, Wichai.”

“What’d he tell you?”

“About what?”

“About the hit!”

“Just that the guy does what we do. And that he’s the best.”

“What do we do?”

The boy threw his shoulders back and began strutting as he spoke. “You know. Eliminate obstacles for people. Settle disputes. Solve problems. Permanently… Like when I did the Kaeochart hit.”

“You did the Kaeochart hit?”

“Yeah, I did the hit. You heard about it, huh?”

“Kid, everybody in the business has heard about the Kaeochart hit. Right in the middle of Lumpini Park. I heard the shooter got off the motorcycle, brushed past the guy’s bodyguards, shot his target, walked casually back to his bike and took off. He was staring at them the whole time. Bodyguards were too scared to react.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s the way it was. Cool and daring.” The boy stopped to preen himself a bit in the mirror and stared at the big man’s reflection.

“But the guy we’re waiting for pissed Wichai off.”

“That right?”

“Yeah. I don’t know what. But if Wichai wants him dead, he must have fucked up big time. So Wichai wants it done and done right. That’s why he sent me.” The boy checked his watch. He suddenly spotted the clothes on the TV set. He held up the towel. “What’s with the clothes and towel? … Oh. That’s good. That’s really good.”

“What’s good, kid?”

“I can see from the way you’re cleaning your gun. You value cleanliness. So you brought clean clothes, just in case you get blood on what you’re wearing.”