The bungalow burst open, the flimsy lock ripped from the door frame and clattering to the floor.
“Where’s Jimmy?”
Zoe shot up from the bed and shrunk back against the wall, pulling her blanket up to her neck.
“I, I thought he was with you.”
Ryan moved around the small space of the wooden hut, eyes darting in all corners. Next, he was on his knees, checking under the rickety bed. A second later he was up again. That’s when she saw the gun. He had a fucking gun.
Zoe sat frozen. Ryan tore her clothes off the hooks of the open bamboo wardrobe, the only furniture in the room, other than the bed.
“You’re scaring me,” she finally whispered.
He stopped moving. The room fell silent. Only the floorboards creaked underneath his feet as he shifted his weight and moved towards her.
“You’re lying. You’re fucking lying.”
She started crying.
“Please…”
She looked past him into the night.
He turned raising the gun, but there wasn’t anyone of course.
“Thought you were gonna trick me then.”
She shook her head, swallowing silent tears.
He stared hard at her for a second.
“We’ve known each other a long time, Zoe. You wouldn’t be lying to me, would you?”
“Please… he took all our money… went to see you… said he’d be back by ten.”
‘What d’you man, your money? That was all my money. He’d stashed it in your place because mine’s not safe since the last bust. You know how it works. Now, where is he?”
But the fight wasn’t in Ryan quite as much as it had been when he’d stormed through the door. He’d always had a thing for Zoe. And that time when Jimmy had hit her, he’d been tempted to smash his friend up and run off with her into the sunset. But he hadn’t. Jimmy was his mate. But now Jimmy was gone, with his 40 grand, his seed money, his get out cash, half of which he owed Mr Big, the island’s godfather, to boot. No money, no mate, just a mess of a girl he ‘d once lusted for, falling apart on him. No sunset tonight. They were on the wrong side of the island. On the wrong side of the story too.
Zoe watched Ryan through her tears. Her back remained pressed against the bungalow’s back wall. She could hear the sea through the thin wood. Another world. In her world, there was only Ryan. She was watching a man’s moment of supreme realization – that all he’d worked for, all he’d toiled and sold himself for, was gone. Just as his friend Jimmy was gone. She didn’t know whether to feel heart broken or petrified.
Ryan leant against the wall next to the door. He slowly slid to the floor. He laid the gun down on the polished floorboards and pulled a crumpled cigarette packet from his shirt pocket. Zoe didn’t dare to move. All she could see was the top of his head. Smoke rising.
“This room is non-smoking.”
Ryan sat up, his face frozen in anger, “What do you care? You’re not going to survive the night if you don’t tell me where he is.”
His voice rose, “Don’t you understand that I cannot leave here without Jimmy, without the money? I will be fucking killed.”
Zoe began to cry again. Her shirt was wet with her tears. Ryan stared at her, half conscious, half somewhere else.
“The rest of my life will be decided in this room.”
He sat smoking. She sat frozen. He offered her a cigarette. Camel Blue. She shook her head, watching the cloud from his cigarette rise to the gabled roof of the hut instead. He’d picked up the gun when he’d offered her his pack.
He sat down on the bed, at the far end. They were about two meters apart. Zoe shook her head faintly. She looked pale.
Ryan started again, “Where’s Jimmy? You know I won’t leave without him. Or my money. I’m sorry, Zoe, I mean, you’re a pal. But I need to know. In a life and death kind of way.”
She couldn’t take it any longer. He was so frightening, waving the gun slowly, like the head of a cobra, in front of her. He was a sadist. He was desperate. She wanted to scream, to faint, to piss herself.
He stared at her with that angry I-will-fucking-kill-you stare. She started crying again and pushed herself off the back wall of the bungalow, hesitantly, slowly so as not to freak him out. Ryan looked like his loaded gun on the edge of her bed.
She took a deep breath. He inched closer, his hand tightening around the weapon.
“Where the fuck is Jimmy? Where the fuck is my fucking money, you bitch?”
He raised his gun as he slid towards her across the cheap foam mattress. He was 100% pure anger. She smiled through her tears. As he closed in, the gun level she gently leaned towards him. She sighed and locked eyes and for a second, just a second they connected.
Zoe didn’t hesitate. She plunged the two knives she’d held under the blanket into his chest, jumped off the bed and as he fell back, stepped onto the hand that held the gun which clattered to the floor. He was dead a moment later.
Zoe surveyed the scene. Tried to catch her breath. Calm down.
Of course, it was ironic that Ryan had died right on top of Jimmy. Now she’d have to pull the floorboards up a second time, squeeze the fat sack in there and catch the 6am ferry to the mainland. She shrugged to herself, somehow content. She’d finally be able to open that tattoo shop she’d always dreamed about.
by 
He is the author of four crime novels, including the Southeast Asia set Detective Maier trilogy. His first novel, The Devil’s Road to Kathmandu, has been translated into Spanish.
Tom is the co-owner and editor of Crime Wave Press, a Hong Kong based crime fiction imprint. He has also published non-fiction books, including the best-selling Sacred Skin with photographer Aroon Thaewchatturat. Tom is the co-author of several documentary screenplays, including the highly praised The Most Secret Place On Earth, a feature on the CIA’s secret war in Laos. His articles on Asian politics, tourism, the environment, minorities, youth culture and crime have been published in many publications including The Wall Street Journal, The Times, The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph, as well as crime fiction magazines like Noir Nation and Suspense.
www.tomvater.com
www.clippings.tomvater
www.crimewavepress.com
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