Black Tiger (56 page)

Chee Laan listened intently as the commentator recited the glory and the infamy, exaggerating what he knew and embellishing as far as he dared. The camera crew, also, were exhilarated, panning and swooping dizzily above the throng like hunting buzzards.

As for the throng, Chee Laan Lee thought she had never seen such a crowd, neither for the king’s birthday nor for the Miss Thailand Pageant. The military parade throbbed the ground, packed and heaving.

‘Amateurs! All time zoom, zoom, make dizzy, huh!’ grunted fat Pao Lee resentfully, who deplored all forms of physical discomfort. Shielding his eyes from the screen’s nausea-inducing images, he dumped his heavy, short-legged body onto the corner of the sofa, wrinkling its pink silk, taking care not to spill the large glass of whisky and lime he grasped in one pudgy hand.

Chee Laan Lee felt rather than saw her brother’s sidelong glance in her direction, his small eyes rolling like pinballs along the slitted sockets above his bloated cheeks. She remained intent on the screen. Tensely, she watched in fascinated horror as the camera focused on a small hut rather like a field latrine. Nearby a tent had been erected, as though for a tournament, or to house a chamber orchestra in the event of rain.

The rain was predictable. Each morning and night it poured for exactly one hour, as if someone had turned a faucet on full bore, and then turned it off again quickly, leaving the land hissing like a poached egg.

Chee Laan had seen tents like this elegant, rectangular structure of jackfruit-yellow parachute silk at the garden parties of the
farang
, sheltering the musicians playing Mozart and Schubert and, during the rest bars, using the tips of their bows to flick insects from one another’s necks. This tent, though, had strange markings on it, unlike any other she had seen. This was the Death Pavilion.

As if in recognition of her thoughts, the announcer’s chatter suddenly stilled. Now the sullen silence of the crowd assumed a tangible presence. Oppressively it permeated the room where the Lees huddled round the big television screen. Pent-up air burst painfully from Chee Laan’s chest; she realised she had been holding her breath.

There was a ripple of movement. The firing squad goose-stepped whip-smart into view, slicing a path through the multitude. Before the hut they wheeled and stamped, presenting arms. Now a Buddhist priest swam into focus, enthroned upon a high-backed chair, fanned by a temple boy with a woven rattan fan. The boy knelt self-consciously, shaven head and taut little bum thrust backward, but the priest seemed relaxed, his gaze turned inward, sedate and implacable. Some power flowed from him, neither gentleness nor judgement.

The camera slalomed respectfully over the motionless figure of the priest and then nosed out its true target. It homed in on the kneeling man, dwelt at length on every detail of the colonel’s dress uniform, lingered over the gleaming planes of the close-cropped skull, as if contemplating the edifying and disconcerting spectacle of so much splendour and power brought to its knees.

And indeed, reflected Chee Laan Lee, watching it was an object lesson. Viewing ratings were purely incidental. It was irrelevant that such didactic spectacles should titillate the bloodlust of men such as Pao Lee, when they conveyed such a moral impact.

‘Get on with it!’ Pao gurgled, anticipation causing him to slurp his Johnny Walker. No Mekhong rotgut—foreign imports only for Pao Lee. He slapped the plump arm of the sofa. ‘Splatter the bastard!’

Chee Laan said nothing. Pao wondered what was going on inside his sister’s smooth, painted-doll’s head. Beneath the cool surface, surely there must writhe a snake pit of emotion—and much interesting information. He ached with curiosity. He squinted sidelong at Chee Laan, malice twisting his gut, picturing himself hammering slivers of bamboo up the quick of her nails, shattering that infuriating calm, forcing her secrets from her in a tortured shriek. Some part of him knew the bitch would die first—through pride and sheer contrariness.

‘Do calm down, brother,’ Chee Laan said. ‘You will self-destruct. It will make such a mess.’

Her cool regard enraged him. He shouted, ‘You think you are so smart, with your convent education, but you are just a little Chinese girl, a Jek bitch, my precious little sister. Overeducated offal. They should have exposed you at birth, on a mountainside, for the buzzards to tear.’ His lifelong hatred twisted his guts. She ignored him, her eyes on the screen.

At last the priest moved. Inclined ceremoniously forward without speaking, he handed the condemned man a lotus flower, swollen but still secret, not yet burst from the bud. The uniformed man bowed his head to the dust at the priest’s feet.

In one swift movement Sya rose, clicked his heels together, and turned his face directly into the camera’s prying lens. It bounced back, off the planes of his strong features, and there remained an impression of immobilised rage, the image of a treed panther; then the camera shot panned out, as if the close-up of Sya’s face had been too shocking.

In the next frame, the condemned officer was distantly marching in step with his armed escort across the parade ground, toward the Death Pavilion.

Chee Laan saw he had now put on his uniform cap, and it was clear what a huge man he was. He towered head and shoulders above his six guards. The ropes of gold braid that adorned his uniform reflected the sun, igniting dazzling black blobs like liquid mercury across the television picture. His bearing was that of a young cadet at his passing-out parade, heart bursting with pride and patriotism, trained to his peak, not a middle-aged man one hundred and twenty seconds away from death and final disgrace.

The Thais’ admiration for gallantry, almost equal to their love of pageantry, forced a ragged cheer from the throats of the people standing nearest as the seven men marched into the tent without breaking step. They disappeared from view. Outside the tent the target marks were now clearly visible. They indicated the head and heart of a large man standing inside. The firing squad took up their positions. Their officer bawled an order, and they shouldered arms. Like lovers they laid their cheeks against their weapons, as if embracing the almond-oiled flanks of dusky beauties. Each gun was worth a year’s pay. Bearing arms was an honour. Even this unwelcome assignment, which offended against religious principles, brought great honour. Besides, Chee Laan reflected, they knew they were on camera. In the crowded street bars of Chieng Rai and Chonburi, they would be pointed out with gleeful yells by families and mistresses.

They took meticulous aim at the diagram on the tent wall. Their officer barked the command. There followed a feeble crackle and pop, like damp New Year’s firecrackers. Chee Laan saw her brother’s disappointment at this poor show. It did not sound very effective, certainly not fatal. Surely not capable of stopping the heart of the man who, a moment before, had stared arrogantly into the camera’s eye.

But the firing squad had obviously practised hard—at targets, tin cans, falling coconuts. The shots had found their mark after all, burning through the tent’s yellow silk at the very spot which must have been the heart of the man standing behind the screen.

Faces shining with relief, the squad sloped arms, about-faced, and marched away. Chee Laan remembered the soldiers from the army camp where she’d made her radio broadcasts, and thought they would keep marching, like clockwork toys, until they ran out of steam, even though they themselves were longing for somewhere quiet where they could remove their boots and caps and scratch themselves and chew a lump of betel.

Pao Lee took a large gulp of whisky and craned forward, riding the sofa like an overweight jockey, agog for horrors.

Now they saw men bearing a stretcher enter the execution tent. Moments later, they emerged, heads bowed under the burden of weight and reverence. On the stretcher reposed the body of a very large man with a black bag over his head. A colonel’s gold-braided cap lay on his chest. Before placing it there, someone—a medical orderly, perhaps—had lifted the heavy hands and folded them over the chest in a dignified attitude. But the movement of the stretcher had dislodged the left arm. As the party advanced toward the cameras, the arm, with its colonel’s stripes, swung casually back and forth, as though its owner were taking his ease on a hot afternoon in a hammock between two palm trees.

Chee Laan wondered whether Colonel Sya Dam would have appreciated that final gesture of posthumous rebellion. Giving the world the bird one last time. Then she realised with surprise that she did not really know. She stared at the big swinging hand. She had not realised until that moment how huge such hands were, how powerful.

As if at a signal, the crowd, like a wave breaking, began to disperse quietly, avoiding eye contact—a class of chastened children.

‘Huh! Not even worth watching!’

Pao flicked off the television set, farted juicily, and spat in the direction of the stainless steel bowl that stood by the sofa leg. He missed. His sister, inured to the social rituals of the male members of her family, refrained from comment. She rose to leave.

‘So that’s the end of that!’ Pao grunted. ‘Got his deserts, the fucking rat! I hope he rots in hell! Well, what have you got to say now, eh? Who said the mighty fucking Colonel Sya was above the fucking law?’ He heaved himself to his feet, barring her way with his bulk, determined to provoke some reaction. ‘Shooting, number ten!’ Pao said, peering into her face. Anger made him slobber. Her nostrils contracted at the sour whisky-and-lime stink of his breath. ‘Hanging more better! Hanging number one! More funnier. Wee Willie Winkie, wiggle wiggle!’

Speaking to her in Pidgin English was a calculated mockery. Raising one of his hands with the other, he wiggled the little finger back and forth like a flaccid member straining to achieve erection. Now at last she did turn the head that seemed too heavy for her delicate neck, like a dark peony on its slim stalk. She looked at the twitching pinkie and said in fast, harsh Mandarin, ‘I see you have a recurrence of the old trouble, Brother. Rhino horn. Remind me to send you some. Now I have work to do. Piss off and play with yourself somewhere else.’

His own Mandarin was not as good as hers, though he had had more lessons, and had even studied in Taipei on a scholarship financed by the local Chinese community—with a major contribution from the Lee family empire. The empire whose millions she would now control, his fucking little sister. Tears of rage welled in his eyes.

She gave him a sharp prod in the chest that took him by surprise. He flopped into the sofa, his heavy thighs spread wide, his fat face twisted with hatred and fury. The salty drops tickled his nose as they ran down and he sneezed gobs of phlegm onto his sleeve.

‘Sya Dam is dead!’ Pao bellowed.

‘Yes,’ she said calmly. ‘It was on TV.’

The temperature was one hundred degrees in the shade, but as she walked from the room, she trembled as if with cold. She had seen the evidence with her own eyes. But she, in common with a handful of other people, knew that this charade of an execution was not the end of Sya Dam. She felt a stab of despair, longing to confide in Raven, yet knowing that this was a secret she would never share with him, this man with whom she had shared so much. Raven must believe that Sya had been ultimately defeated. He must leave Thailand in ignorance. There had to be a clean break between them.

For once in her life, Sunii Lee looked out of place as she sat in the back seat of her new cream Mercedes. She wore the simple black pyjamas of a peasant woman; her hair was drawn back tightly and powdered, accentuating the grey, but the huge dark glasses struck an incongruous note. For once, the chauffeur had been relieved of his duties. Behind the wheel, Chee Laan drove in silence. She was meditating on the principle of the cool heart. There would be no more wailing.

She halted at the Thanom Vittayu road junction and a man wearing the saffron of a
bikkhu
climbed into the back seat beside Sunii—and even though Chee Laan knew the massive robed figure was the Black Tiger, she neither turned her head nor passed comment. She sat more stiffly, bitterly aware of his malign presence. But she schooled herself not to react. She knew there was no turning back, now that she had embraced her destiny.

Outside the departure lounge at Don Muang airport, Chee Laan swung the big car half onto the pavement and sprang out, pressing a hundred-baht note into the hand of the uniformed traffic official before he could protest at her unorthodox parking. He bit back his remonstrance and saluted smartly, and got busy helping the two passengers alight. A hundred baht was a hundred baht. Now eager to please, he would have assisted them with their baggage, which appeared to be clumsily packed bedrolls, but the older lady bade him desist, with a gentle smile. He gazed at her, puzzled. Her attire was that of a modest woman, a servant even, but her assured demeanour betrayed a very different status. He watched as she and the male passenger walked side by side into the building, followed by the young Chinese woman who had given him the tip. It was true, he thought, the banknote crisp in his hand. Not all Jek girls looked like pigs. This one was beautiful.

As they entered the hall, Sunii Lee said to her companion, almost jauntily, ‘You will ensure that, at the appropriate time, I am wearing this contraption correctly?’ He nodded.

‘What
is
that thing?’ Chee Laan asked, catching up with them and glancing at the bulky roll of cloth.

‘This? It is a double parachute, of course. I am unfamiliar with the procedure, but my companion, fortunately, is experienced, and we shall make the leap together. It is known as a tandem jump. I am told the experience is most stimulating.’ Sunii Lee’s eyes sparkled. ‘We are travelling by the premier Royal Thai Orchid flight. The pilot will make an unscheduled detour over the northwest, where we shall leave the airplane by parachute. There, a small aircraft awaits to continue our journey. This commercial pilot, an intelligent and accommodating man, has a private agreement with me. If questioned he will simply say some technical consideration forced the detour. One of the cabin crew has been…encouraged…to open an emergency exit for us. The pilot will continue his route with only minimal delay. For this favour, he will never need to work again.’