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Character Assassination
By David Gardiner
This story may be reproduced in whole or in part for any non-commercial purpose provided that authorship is acknowledged and credited. The copyright remains the property of the author
Dermot had been on the island for so long now that the local people thought of
him as one of themselves. He was taller than most of them of course, and fair-
skinned, and his eyes were big and round, which was the defining characteristic of
a foreigner, a falang or "round-eyed-one", but he wasn't a foreigner. He was
Dermot. He occupied a category all his own.
In the Cool Season he would take parties of tourists out in the boat to fish or to
scuba-dive, or to see the turtles coming ashore to lay their eggs at a little cove that
very few people knew about. In the Rainy Season, when the boat couldn't go out
because of the danger of sudden storms and freak tidal effects, he would lead treks
into the interior to look for butterflies and snakes and lizards and bats and clawed-otters, and he would show them what plants you could eat and what ones were
poisonous, and how to catch giant cat-fish in the rivers, and where to harvest the
water-chestnuts. In the hot season, when it was too hot and dry to do anything
much, he would relax, let out a couple of rooms to tourists who were foolish
enough to come to the island at the wrong time of the year, help his friends in the
bars on the main tourist strip, or organise and supply the people selling the ice-cream and cold drinks from the little beach-carts.
Everybody somehow knew, without it ever having been discussed, that he didn't
really need to do any of these things. These were Dermot's hobbies, not his real
source of income. Dermot was a wealthy man. If one of the bar-girls was short of
the price of food for herself or her baby, or some family in the interior needed
money for medical treatment, they could always come to Dermot. He wasn't a soft
touch, he wasn't the kind of man you could deceive with a lot of bullshit about
how you'd fallen on hard times, but if there was a genuine need, Dermot wouldn't
send you away empty-handed. With the exception of the monks in the local
Buddhist temple, Dermot was probably the most revered man on the whole of the
island.
In fact when he went in to the market, which wasn't all that often, he found it
difficult to buy anything. He would lift up a bag of dried prawns, or a straw hat to
keep the tropical sun from burning his face, or a jar of pills for his headaches, and
ask the price; only to be given a second bag of prawns or straw hat or jar of pills to
go with the first one and told that there was no charge. The only way that he could
spend money locally was to send somebody else to shop for him, somebody who
wasn't known to the market-people and who was sworn to secrecy as to who the
goods were for.
In the evenings, if there was nothing else to do, he would often sit in the boat tied
up at the quay and read a book beneath the sunshade, or just watch the world go
by. Sometimes one of the bar-girls would come down and ask him to translate a
letter from a former client, always euphemistically referred to as a "boyfriend",
who had returned to America or England or Germany or who-knows-where and
was trying to keep up a correspondence; often promising marriage or a foreign
holiday, or at least eternal love for the girl in question. Dermot's Thai was not
perfect, but he had enough words to clarify the finer points of most letters, and he
could tidy-up the girl's broken English if she wanted to attempt a reply, or, even
more importantly, advise her with regard to what this particular falang was really
up to, and how seriously she should regard the promises. This "agony uncle" role
gave Dermot a considerable insight into human nature, an admiration for the
unquenchable optimism and endless good nature of the girls, and a deep-seated
contempt for the behaviour and motivations of most of the foreign men they
encountered.
"Try not to assume that everybody else has a good heart just because you do," he
would warn them. Sometimes one of the girls would actually bring along a
"boyfriend" for him to meet, and afterwards ask him what he thought of him. It
was a heavy responsibility. He generally paid little attention to the "boyfriend" but
observed the bar-girl very closely. If she seemed genuinely affectionate towards
him, and if he was not obviously a monster, then Dermot would report that in his
view the fellow was probably all right. The girls really came to be told what they
wanted to hear, and if Dermot had no firm evidence to the contrary, that was what
he told them. Sometimes he got it wrong, but with the passage of time his score
improved.
It was through one of these meetings that Dermot's profoundly private past nudged
momentarily towards the surface. Wanee, one of the girls who worked in the Pink
Teddy Bear; a small, pretty. scantily-clad teenager with shining jet-black hair
reaching down to her waist, arrived at Dermot's boat as the sun was hovering low
over the dazzling neon-drenched water-side strip of tourist barland, holding in
both of hers the huge right hand of a broad, pug-nosed and sun-scorched Irishman
of late middle-age. His face seemed to light up as soon as he got a good look at
Dermot.
"This my boyfriend, Mick," she began to introduce him, but Dermot cut her short.
"We've met," he said with unusual abruptness. "Have you come to ask my advice
about this man, Wanee? I'll give it to you right now. Avoid him as you would a
wounded cobra."
Mick smiled, a grim mocking sort of smile. "Why don't you go and wait for me in
the bar, Wanee?" he pulled a roll of bank-notes from his inside pocket and handed
over a couple of them to the girl. "Buy yourself a drink or two. Dermot and I are
friends from way back. We'd like to talk about old times for a while. Wouldn't we,
Dermot?"
Dermot did not answer until Wanee had left. His face was stern, serious. She
glanced back once, saw Mick climb over the side of the boat with remarkable
agility for such a big man, then she hurried off in the direction of the strip.
Wanee didn't feel good about the meeting between the two men. If Dermot said he
was bad, then he must be very bad. She had never heard him judge anybody so
harshly before. She went to see Lek, the mammasan who looked after the girls at
The Pink Teddy Bear, and explained to her what had happened. Lek took her
straight to the police station, where the duty sergeant was a very good friend of
hers.
"Dermot called this man a wounded cobra?" the garishly-uniformed officer
repeated, with open-mouthed disbelief. He produced some forms from the filing
cabinet behind him and shouted into the back room for assistance. "This must be
properly documented," he explained, handing out forms for his fellow officers to
fill-in. Then he unlocked the cabinet in the back room and came out holding a rifle
in a canvas carrying-bag.
Back at the boat, Dermot's guest sat down on one of the benches that had been
fitted for the Cool Season tourists. "An unexpected pleasure. Dermot," he said at
last. "Have you been keeping well?"
"I've been minding my own business, Mick. Keeping out of trouble. Not bothering
anybody."
The big man shrugged. "Sounds a bit dull."
"Did you really find me by accident?"
"Not entirely. A few rumours seeped back that you might be somewhere in this
part of the world. I wouldn't have bothered except that I wanted to come to
Thailand anyway. I just thought I would make a few inquiries while I was over
here."
"They didn't send you after me, then?"
"After all these years? Naw... the most of the old comrades are long dead. It was
really... our personal business that I wanted to pursue."
"What am I supposed to do? Change the past? I can't do that, Mick."
"What makes you think I want you to do anything... ?" Mick became distracted.
There seemed to be a hubbub developing on the quay. People were having
animated conversations in Thai and moving back from the waterfront.
"You know, I used to think about this moment, Dermot," he went on, "about what
I would say to you if I found you. About what I would do.... But now....... There
doesn't seem to be much point in it all, does there? Truth is, I don't know why I'm
here any more.... So long ago...." He caught a quick movement out of the corner of
his eye, high up among the roofs of the bamboo-and-galvanised-iron shacks. The
people on the quay were still behaving unnaturally. He looked Dermot straight in
the eye. "What are they doing out there? What's going on?"
"Eh? Where? What are you talking about?" Dermot's view of the quayside was
obstructed by the boat's sunshade. He started to edge forward.
Mick stood up for a better view and stared inland.
There was a single, crisp rifle shot. Blood gushed from Mick's forehead, just above
his right eye, and his lifeless body slumped forward onto the deck.
Dermot froze. The colour drained from his face. After a few moments he
remembered to breathe and drew in a great noisy gasp of the warm tropical air.
When he looked up Lek and Wanee were there with the police sergeant. Lek had a
bucket of water and some old towelling and she proceeded to clean Mick's blood
off the deck, as though this were an everyday occurrence and she wanted to get
things back to normal as quickly as possible.
"Sorry if we make your boat dirty, Mr. Dermot," said the Sergeant cheerfully,
"This bad man was killed by accidental discharge of a firearm. I have signed
witness statements from the three police officers on duty, one from Khun Dang the
hotel manager, another from Khun Li the customs officer, another from Lek and
six of her girls. Lucky that so many people saw accident happen. Also have Death
Certificate, accidental death. All very unfortunate. I send all forms and statements
to Bangkok. You, nothing to worry about. All taken care of. All over now."
Wanee could see that Dermot was badly shaken and went over to comfort
him in the way that she knew best. She hugged him and pulled his face
down to plant a gentle kiss on his cheek.
"I... I didn't ask you to do this, Wanee," he managed to whisper at last, "this
wasn't what I expected..."
"You think we leave you alone with that bad man?" she said with genuine
puzzlement, "you think we not care about you? What else you do with a
wounded cobra? What else you do, Dermot?"
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