Bangkok Knights by Collin Piprell Page A

sister-in-law Meow in
rare good spirits, what with this visible evidence Eddie is apbun, a
klutz, just like they’re always trying to tell him. For my part, I am impressed
by Tae Kwon Do as a true killer art Stepping back out of range of his cane, I
tell Eddie it’s truly terrifying to see how a rank beginner like himself can
beat somebody up, even if it is only himself, doing quite serious injury
without even trying very hard.
    Big Toy has inaugurated her regime as Manager-in-Chief of
Boon Doc’s Bar by shortening Happy Hour to only an hour, showing us a
literal-minded side of herself never apparent before. She has also put a piece
of tape on a tequila bottle identifying it as her own personal preserve. In all
fairness, of course, she’s entitled to a therapeutic hit of cactus juice now
and then. Though Doc’s wife never wants to come around to the bar — it’s not
polite — Pin nevertheless inquires into the provenance, present disposition,
and likely fate of every single baht and can of bug-killer in the place,
at least to hear Big Toy tell it. Pin tells Big Toy how she trusts her like
family, and then she switches on the 1,000-watt bulb and gets out the rubber
hose and she goes on asking questions till all hours, it matters nothing to her
Big Toy’s closed the bar at 1:00 a.m. and has to get up at 10:00 in the morning
to start getting ready for the next day.
    Big Toy tells me Pin has been looking at prospectuses for
American universities for young Sam, and she’s done a lot of talking to the
insurance people, never mind anybody who really loved and admired Doc is
thinking it’s a bit premature to start counting the life-insurance money.
    The police have found Doc’s car on Jomtien Beach. His clothes, together with his wallet, were on the front seat There was about ten baht in the wallet, or so the police say, as well as his driving license and
resident’s card. The car keys and Doc himself were nowhere to be found.
    The insurance people probably have little human feeling
about it one way or the other, but they think it’s too soon to take Doc out for
the count And they are rooting for it to be alive he is, naturally enough; what
insurance company in its right mind wants to cough up a pile of life insurance,
no matter how much Pin thinks Sam should go to university in the States?
    There are little things... Like for example: it’s funny
Doc’s passport hasn’t turned up anywhere yet. That is really funny, when he
kept all his personal documents—his birth certificate, copies of his driving
licenses, life insurance policies, and so on — so meticulously in order and all
together there in his strongbox. This is what Big Toy and Dinky Toy tell me,
anyway.
    Or probably he just forgot he had his passport in his
bathing suit that day on Jomtien Beach when he decided to go swimming for the
first time in twenty years. Who’s to say? Stranger things have happened.
    And there’s the poster from the Orphan Party. There was
something odd about the wording of that thing. Leary agrees with me. “It was
like Doc was trying to tell us something,” he says.
    Trouble is, the poster got thrown out long ago, and we can’t
remember exactly how it went.
    Anyway, Dinky Toy eats all the grasshoppers she wants to,
these days, and there’s no one says “Don’t.”
    Leary has come around to say howdy to Eddie, and to convey
Dexy’s compliments.
    “Ugh. It stinks out here!” Lek has just emerged from the
kitchen. “I thought it must be you, Leary.”
    “Waddaya mean?” Leary is indignant. “I even put on an
extra dose of the old Sheik of Araby, it’s so friggin’ hot today.”
    Dexy’s away for his month of sour. Leary tells us Dexy
never pressed charges against #37, and he paid the Skipjacks girl for her
medical expenses and her pain. He also squared things with Big Turk, who runs
the place. Still, it cost Dexy a baht or two to get #37 out of jail.
He’s put her in a clinic, leaving instructions they’re to