Jimm Juree 01; Killed at the Whim of a Hat

through the lens of that very expensive camera when I arrived at Pak Nam’s mini hospital. The outpatients area was ablaze with color: the dull yellow of hepatitis, the scarlets and crimsons of recent motorcycle accidents, the mauve of football injuries, the pale greens of food poisoning, and the various shades of pink from pregnancy right through the color chart to the weak pallor of anemia. I sat with my hand shading my eyes waiting for the nurse to take me to Sergeant Phoom and I thought about logistics. If it really had been the killer who ran the sergeant off the road and stolen the camera, he had what he wanted now and had no reason to stick around. There would have been a sudden departure. I took out my cell phone and called the hotels I’d visited a few days earlier. My suspects in Lang Suan hadn’t checked out. So I tried the resorts. Nobody picked up the phone at the Tiwa Resort. I talked to the receptionist at the 69 who told me only the Korean lady had left the previous day. A group of Korean electricians had moved in and had spent their lunchtime drinking in the restaurant so there might have been some conflict. It was anyone’s guess. Dr. Jiradet was scheduled to check out that morning and the receptionist also hinted that she thought the teenager might have moved in with the German.
    Sergeant Phoom was in a small ward with four beds. The other beds were occupied by people who looked like there was absolutely nothing wrong with them. They were chatting with seven or eight village types who were sitting cross-legged on the floor eating. Only the sergeant seemed poorly and I wondered whether I should suggest the revelers keep the noise down. A young constable I didn’t know sat beside him reading an illustrated brochure on kidney diseases. He looked up when I walked to the bed.
    “How is he?” I asked.
    I had a bag of mangosteens that I placed on the bedside table. Phoom wouldn’t be in any state to peel away the thick skins for some time to come. Both his eyes were purple and bloated and a shaved section of hair framed a nine-centimeter millipede of stitching. His mouth was closed and bloody. His arms and legs were wrapped in bandages like a cartoon explosion victim.
    “He’s fine,” said the constable.
    He was a pretty boy, not rugged enough to grow into a gnarled old detective.
    “Really?”
    “He was awake a little while ago.”
    “Did he say anything?”
    “Nothing coherent. Um, who are you?”
    I was about to dive straight into a lie just in case they’d told him not to allow in the press, but in this little corner of Utopia, that would always come back to bite me.
    “My name’s Jimm Juree. I – ”
    “You’re the journalist.”
    “I know the sergeant. I just – ”
    “I always wanted to write.”
    Nine months earlier, my reaction to such a straight line would have been ‘You should have paid more attention at nursery school’ or ‘Lucky the police entrance exam is all pictures’. I doubt I would have voiced those smarmy comments although I would certainly have imagined them. But something was happening to my sarcasm skills and I didn’t like it. I found myself feeling disappointment on his behalf, sad that he’d become a policeman and missed out on the chance to be nominated for an S.E.A. Write Award.
    “It’s never too late to start,” I said.
    Sergeant Phoom coughed and the constable held a small bottle of Red Bull to the older man’s bloody lips.
    “Is that prescribed?” I asked.
    “He swears by it.”
    Whatever works, I thought. Why not a placebo of sucrose and glucose and caffeine? The sergeant turned his bruised and bloody head slowly to my side of the bed. It was like watching a piglet turn on a rotisserie.
    “ Nong Jimm,” he said. I had to strain to hear him.
    “Isn’t this ward a bit noisy for you?” I asked.
    “It’s like this all the time,” he said.
    I looked to the constable for an explanation.
    “His family,” he said, nodding at the floor party. A couple of them waved at me. I waved back. I pulled across a chair and sat close to the sergeant.
    “Did you see the car that hit you?” I asked.
    “I’ve asked all that,” said the constable.
    “Poor man’s hit his head,” I reminded him. “It always pays to ask twice just to confirm the answer’s the same. Sergeant?”
    “I got a brief glimpse of it in the mirror,” he said. “It was right on top of me then. Black Benz. New one.”
    I got that bat in the belly flutter and