Jimm Juree 01; Killed at the Whim of a Hat

weights but she doesn’t compete anymore. Who’d have thought it? A little wooden gym in the countryside and I’d find someone like Gaew. I recognized her right away from her photos.”
    “What photos, child?” Mair asked.
    “In Body Thai .”
    “She was in a magazine?”
    “Not just in it. She had features regularly. International journals too. She was a celebrity.”
    “And she lives in Bang Ga?” I asked. I hadn’t reached the goose-bump stage but I could certainly feel little prickles of foreboding.
    “Even celebrities have to be born somewhere,” Arny reminded me. “Her family’s all there. I went to their house. All the awards. All the photos. It was like a museum. Everything I’ve ever dreamed of. She told me all her stories at lunch.”
    “So, you’ve eaten with her?” Mair asked.
    “Twice now. I took her into Lang Suan yesterday. We talked a lot. When we got back to her house there was nobody there. We almost had sex.”
    Granddad dropped his doughnut. Mair laughed out loud.
    “Arny,” I said, astonished. “We’re eating here. And you weren’t going to lose your big V until you found the big L, remember?”
    “Oh, Jimm, really. This is it,” he said. “The heart freeze and everything. I know it’s right. I’m going to ask her to marry me.”
    “Oh, child,” Mair said. “You’re a big boy now but there’s really no hurry. Trust me. How long have you known her?”
    “Three days.”
    “Three days, right. Then if it’s love after three days, it’ll still be love after three months. None of us wants to make commitments on impulse. I’m delighted, really. But passion is an egg. You have to see it grow into a chicken before you decide whether it’s a boiler or a roaster.”
    Mair always had a way with idioms.
    “What does Gaew think about all this?” I asked.
    “She feels really exactly the same. She said as soon as she saw me it was ‘clunk’. That’s how it hit me, too. Clunk. She said she hadn’t felt that way since she met her first husband. She said it was a rare, almost impossible feeling to reproduce but she had it.”
    The frame had paused again without us noticing.
    “Her first husband?” Mair asked.
    “Yeah. He was the one who got her into bodybuilding. He was an icon, too. Dom, Mick’s Gym, Purachart. He won the all-Asian title twice. You remember him. I had his poster on my wall when I was just starting out.”
    “You started out when you were fourteen,” I reminded him.
    “Yeah. Really” – Arny nodded – “that was a while ago, wasn’t it?”
    Ahead of me was a metaphorical field which was peppered with metaphorical landmines. I could have progressed lightly and tiptoed around but I knew we were headed for a messy bang whatever I did.
    “ Nong ?” I asked. “How old’s your girlfriend?”
    “Fifty-eight.”
    There was no shame or embarrassment in his voice. He’d said it proudly and loudly. It didn’t seem to cross his mind at all what effect such a statement might have on his fifty-seven-year-old mother. Mair hung on to her Titanic smile but couldn’t bring herself to speak. She wiped her mouth with a tissue, stood, and walked unsteadily in the direction of the shop. Arny watched her go with a real smile on his own face.
    “Looks like Mair’s as excited about all this as I am,” he said.
    The silence that followed was interrupted by the beep of a motorcycle horn. Ed rode past and waved. Sitting behind him was an attractive girl about my age. She smiled at me and put her hand to her heart. Not for the first time that day I didn’t know how to react, and it was barely seven o’clock.
    ♦
    Lieutenant Chompu came by at eight. I’d given him the heads-up about my note. Granddad Jah and I piled into his truck and headed off out of Maprao. Da Endorphine, the slick ballad queen was cooing on the CD player. Of course, I was the girly in the backseat. Chompu read the note and flipped it over to look at the election poster.
    “Any idea what year this might have been?” he asked.
    “Seventies by the look of his tie and his sideburns,” Granddad said. “Probably the man’s first attempt at conning his way into public office.”
    “But why was it delivered to me?” I asked. “Who knows I’m involved in the case?”
    “You mean apart from all of Lang Suan, seventy-two percent of the province and approximately half the south of Thailand?” Chompu asked.
    “All right, yes,” I agreed. “But why send it to me and not you