Bangkok Haunts

You’re all about sending me to death row so you can get on with the next case. So I ran away, and now you have an even better excuse.”
    “You know a lot about the Thai system of justice?”
    Bitterly: “I’ve been here four years, man. I’ve seen a lot. You don’t have a justice system.”
    “If it’s so dreadful, why are you in Thailand?”
    Suddenly: an avalanche of words that must have accumulated in his feverish brain during the couple of days he’s been down here. His tongue races to keep up with the thoughts:
    “I’m here because there is no such thing as rehabilitation in the free world: one criminal conviction and you’re out, no jobs above subsistence level for you. I’m here because marriage doesn’t work. I’m here because I’m bald and almost middle aged—sounds silly, but I haven’t come across a single Thai girl who gives a damn if I’m thirty or forty, bald or not, divorced or not. You’re a nonjudgmental people, and it’s taken me four years to find out why. You’ve got a massive underground hell called the prison system that devours anyone who falls off the tightrope. It’s amazing, it’s the most outrageous institution in the world. It isn’t really a prison service—it’s a Stone Age money factory owned and run by cops and prosecutors. No one is safe. It could happen to anyone, Thai or
farang,
male or female, old or young: you’re walking down a quiet street one night, a cop emerges from nowhere, plants an Ecstasy or
yaa baa
pill on you, and takes you off to jail. You have a choice: pay his fee for freeing you, or watch the system gobble up the whole of the rest of your life. In your society there is only one judgment to be made: has he fallen into the pit or not?”
    “This pit—does it have a way out?”
    “I don’t have the money to pay you to let me go. I just don’t have it.” Looking me in the eye: “I didn’t kill her.”
    I nod gnomically. “Suppose I tell you you’ve lucked out with the one cop in Bangkok who doesn’t take money? Suppose I tell you I really am interested in finding out what happened to Damrong?”
    I guess I should not have used her name in that tone. It causes him to flash me a look. An idea is slowly rising to the top of his mind. “How would I know that?”
    “You were married to her, you two had been business associates—to some extent you still were. Maybe she confided in you more than anyone else. Maybe you didn’t kill her but have a shrewd idea about why she had to die.”
    I think the choice of phrase
why she had to die
was quite serendipitous. It seems to have triggered some internal narrative that takes him off into another space. Finally he says, “Did she have to die? You haven’t told me how it happened.”
    “I want you to tell me.”
    “I don’t know. You haven’t even told me when she died.” Looking me in the eye again: “When did she die, exactly?”
    “Good question,” I admit. “But not strictly relevant. Thanks to technology, many things can be done by remote control today that needed a hands-on approach in more primitive times.”
    Now he is assessing me in a different way. Now he is more scared than ever. I was fishing, though, and have no idea why my words should have had such a profound effect. The expression on his face is of a drowning man. I shift my chair a little closer. “Tell me,” I say softly, “tell me. Maybe I can help.”
    A shrug. “Help? I’m between a rock and a hard place. You let me out today, I’d be lucky to even make it to the airport.”
    I nod sagely, then abandon the chair to stand up and pace a little while I speak. “I see. So you weren’t supposed to keep those clips on your laptop. Am I right?”
    Shaking his head in wonder at my understatement: “Yeah, you could say that.”
    “So why keep them there?”
    “Knee-jerk opportunism. It’s been a problem all my life. Great tactics, no strategy worth a dime. It was dumb. I’ve been beating myself up ever since. Discipline is what I don’t have. If I did, I’d be rich and free.”
    “You thought having the clips might give you leverage one day when you needed it?”
    “Right.”
    “Do you know who the Thai Chinese player is?”
    “Not exactly. Someone big. A
jao paw.
”
    “Yes, a godfather. You could say that. You weren’t supposed to keep him on your hard disk, so I suppose the drill was for you to set up the cameras, record onto a DVD, and give it to her so she could choose when and how to turn