by Roland Perry
‘Where do you think? Where the tarts are most plentiful. The police had to send a dozen men to watch over them, for their sakes and those of the people they ran into. That has happened almost every night for a week in Chiang Mai and often here too at Nana Plaza. They get tanked up until midnight on tequila, or whatever they drink. Then they want sex. The Chiang Mai chief can’t spare that many good security cops with the riots going on. And the fucking Songkran festival makes it worse! It’s a problem here too. A few hours ago, near Nana, our boys shot two foreigners who were brandishing giant water pistols. They thought they were using real weapons!’
‘Are they dead?’
‘One is in hospital. The other one is okay. Silly idiots! Running around near the protesters, firing water in the dark! You watch the foreign press tomorrow. They’ll be all over it!’
‘Nationality?’
‘Both Australian, thank Buddha! If they’d been American or Chinese . . .’ After a silence, Cavalier heard Azelaporn say, ‘He looks like he’s in for a good time tonight. Why is he in Thailand?’
‘A cricket tournament.’
‘Stupid game! Can’t play it in this weather!’
‘The games begin next week. Start of the dry season.’
‘If they are lucky. What’s he do for work?’
‘He’s a journalist. He was helpful when I was investigating Labasta’s murder,’ she added.
Cavalier strained even harder to hear Azelaporn say, ‘Shit, Jacinta! What is he really here for?’ Then, to his frustration, their conversation became harder to hear.
‘Just the cricket.’
‘And you, perhaps?’
‘No. He shows no interest.’
‘He must be gay then!’
‘I don’t encourage him. It’s been strictly business.’
‘Do you fancy him? He’s not bad for a farang.’
‘I respect him. He’s very professional.’
‘You watch him. Give him nothing. I don’t want a fucking foreign journalist snooping around at this time. Especially with Mendez due to visit here. He doesn’t know about him, does he?’
‘No.’
‘That Labasta killing nearly ruined things here, I can tell you. I am at least grateful it didn’t happen in Thailand.’
‘What “things” did it ruin?’
‘Just take my word for it.’
‘You mean with Mendez in Chiang Mai?’
‘There are big deals going down, bigger than you could imagine. Businessmen coming here can be easily frightened off.’
‘Not Mendez, surely? He is always under threat.’
‘Yes, but this country offers better conditions. If it looks like it doesn’t, he’ll take his business elsewhere. That means billions. I mean billions!’ Azelaporn glanced over at Cavalier. ‘Make sure he keeps his nose clean. Understood?’
Jacinta nodded.
‘As if I haven’t enough problems without damned farang reporters!’ he said. ‘If I had my way, none would be given visas at times like this.’
‘Do you want to meet him?’
‘Not really. I’d have to speak English and I am too tired to bother. What was his take on Labasta?’
‘He believes it was an Australian gangland kill. Says that a gang would not like Labasta being connected to a rival.’
‘Huh!’ Azelaporn shrugged. He gestured to his two accomplices and they left the bar.
HELL IN MEXICO
Jacinta returned to Cavalier, which caused the women pushing for a ménage with him to give up and seek other customers. He probed her about the two former bar workers in the photographs.
‘They were my two best friends,’ she said.
Cavalier ordered her another drink. Speaking in Thai, he asked, ‘These were the two long-term friends you said were murdered?’
She waited until her third Scotch was in front of her before saying softly: ‘It was a decade ago now. I was with them when they were chosen by none other than Leonardo Mendez himself. He invited them to Mexico after meeting them in this bar. They would be flown first-class and put up in six-star hotels in Mexico.’
‘And paid?’
‘They were told they would receive two thousand dollars a day, plus expenses, for two weeks. They wouldn’t earn that in a decade of bar work.’
‘So they accepted the offer?’
‘They asked me to be their bodyguard. I was a young cop. They would pay me a thousand dollars a day and make sure my flights, and so on, were first-class.’
‘How did you find Mendez?’
‘Oh, he was very charming and worldly. He was sort of educated, but lazy, I suspect. Yet, he was so urbane, and this power to click his fingers and buy expensive gifts, hand out cash, fly you anywhere . . . it was very seductive.’
‘Did you like him?’
‘No. But Jane and Poupei were taken with him, and with the money and the luxury. They’d never been outside Thailand. Never been on a plane.’
‘So you flew to Mexico?’
‘We had a lovely time in Mexico City for a few days. Mendez’s brother-in-law Ronaldo was with us. A sort of chaperone. He was gay. I liked him but was wary. He was odd. I can’t explain it, but he was strange. Anyway, we were then taken by private jet to Mendez’s stronghold in Sinaloa, on Mexico’s West Pacific Coast. An absolute fortress! There were machine guns on the ramparts. He even had a kind of rocket launcher. There were three helicopter pads. Mendez had part of a mountain blasted away for a plane runway.’
Siriporn began to shut down the bar, and clients started leaving, alone or with bar workers. Cavalier glanced at his watch. It was after 2 a.m.
‘Mendez arranged a big party at the fortress,’ Jacinta said, her voice hesitant for the first time. ‘There were about fifty guests, a band. He went to a lot of trouble. Top champagne flowed. Every drug was available. The food was spectacular. The girls . . .’ she paused to sip her drink. ‘. . . Jane and Poupei were snorting coke. Too much. I told them off. They were too far gone to respond.’ Jacinta stopped again and dabbed her eyes with a tissue. ‘I regret that moment most,’ she said, almost in a whisper. ‘If I had stayed with them, forced them to stop . . . I was there to protect them.’
There was a long silence. They were interrupted by An Nam, who kissed Cavalier on the mouth, catching him by surprise. She pointed to her chest and then, with a seductive look, made an obscene gesture with her hands. He kissed her on the cheek, saying: ‘No, thank you.’
‘You don’t like ladyboy?’ An Nam said with a mock pout of disappointment.
‘I do like,’ he said softly, ‘but not for that.’
Jacinta glared at An Nam, who hugged Cavalier. ‘You very nice man,’ she said, ‘you good heart.’ She lowered her voice to a husky whisper: ‘I am yours, honey, any time . . .’
An Nam left the bar and Cavalier said, ‘Please continue.’
‘It’s difficult,’ Jacinta answered.
‘Did you witness . . . er . . . what happened to the girls?’
‘Ronaldo asked me to dine with him,’ she said, ‘to get away from the . . .’
‘Orgy?’
‘It wasn’t his thing. He drove me forty kilometres to a cafe in a village. He was coming on to me.’
‘I thought you said he was gay?’
‘Anyway, I didn’t fancy him. I had dinner and wanted to return to the girls. Ronaldo seemed very nervous about something. Instinct told me they could be in danger. We drove back to my quarters in the east wing of the fortress at about 1 a.m. The party was in the west wing. The girls weren’t there. Ronaldo and I began to search for them . . .’ Jacinta paused, distressed. ‘We searched for at least two hours, until we found them.’ Her voice trailed off.
‘Murdered?’
‘The bodies were in a truck.’
‘The two of them?’
‘There were three other women.’ She stopped and began to cry, making a sweeping motion across her neck.
‘Decapitated?’ he heard himself ask, his voice shaky and his mind flo
oded with visions of the horrible film of his daughter.
Jacinta nodded.
‘It was Mendez’s thing . . .’ he said, catching his breath.
‘There was a guillotine in the basement . . .’
‘Shit!’ he muttered, touching her shoulder. ‘How did you escape?’
‘I panicked at first,’ she said, ‘but Ronaldo helped. He said it would be best if I got out of there and told me where cars were garaged—twenty of them! I ran to the garage. I tried every vehicle until I found the keys on the dashboard of a sports car. I drove it to the big gates at the front. I bailed up the guards, shooting one in the leg when they refused to open the gate.’
‘You had a gun?’
‘I was there as protection. My Thai contacts in Mexico gave me a Walther. I had never used one but it was effective. I took all the guards’ weapons and left. I did not stop for three hours, pushing that little car at about a hundred and sixty k all the way.’
‘They gave chase?’
‘They had choppers searching at dawn but I was out of the country and on a boat heading for California by midday. I had my passport and credit cards.’ She paused just as Siriporn flicked the lights, indicating she had to shut the bar. ‘I was lucky.’
‘This Ronaldo . . .’
‘He was disgusted with Mendez. He later sent me incriminating information . . .’
‘Such as?’
‘I can’t tell you. But I think . . .’ Jacinta hesitated. ‘I think Ronaldo paid the full price. He has not been heard from recently. I believe Mendez got rid of him.’
They sat in silence for a minute before Cavalier said: ‘We both know that Mendez will be at the Millennium . . .’
‘And Nana Plaza.’
Cavalier, Siriporn and Jacinta walked to Sukhumvit, looking for taxis. Siriporn had her arm around Jacinta as Cavalier tried to flag one down.
‘Will you be okay for the fight?’ Siriporn asked her.
Jacinta nodded.
‘You must rest,’ the bartender said, sounding concerned.
‘What fight?’ Cavalier asked.
‘In ten days, at the stadium. She is up against a big man, the international Muay Thai champion. He is a Russian, twice Jacinta’s size.’
‘Why is she fighting a man?!’
Jacinta made a warning motion with her hand at Siriporn.
Cavalier hailed a taxi for the two women but decided to walk the twenty-three blocks to Galleria 10. It was 2.30 a.m. and there were still people about. The more desperate prostitutes were standing in front of some of the big hotels, attempting to catch a farang, preferably one who was drunk and willing to spend. Beggars, some of them women with children, lay in the streets, rattling cups in the hope of some late-night generosity. Tourists, mostly men, were trudging back to hotels down darkened streets. All the stalls selling imitation everything, from watches to jackets, were shut. The massage parlours and bars had almost all closed, although there were a few hopeful sex workers standing in doorways.
Cavalier hesitated opposite the footbridge over Sukhumvit that would take him to the hotel and the rest he needed. Instead, he walked on another few blocks until he was opposite Nana Plaza. As he waited at the traffic lights, there was a disturbance outside the Hotel Majestic Suites. Two street girls were grappling with drunken Mexicans, wearing Stetsons and high boots. Taxis arrived at the hotel entrance and more street girls jumped out. They were soon kicking and throwing a flurry of round-arm punches at the men.
The lights changed. Cavalier walked towards the hotel, looking about him and sizing up the situation. He could make out some comments in Thai from the screeching street girls. It seemed that the Mexicans had become too physical with them and refused to pay for their services. The girls had rung their comrades, including some big ladyboys, and a prostitute posse had arrived to help their beleaguered sex-worker colleagues. Cavalier called the police but even before he had finished making the call, six cops from nearby Nana Plaza had rushed around the corner. He noticed that one of the Mexicans had a gash in his bicep, presumably from a knife. Cavalier looked at all the combatants in turn and noticed one of the gaudily dressed bigger ladyboys held a knife. A cop remonstrated with her and she ran off with two cops in pursuit.
Cavalier walked around the corner to Soi 4. Eight taxis were lined up and a rowdy group of Mexicans were piling into them. Some had girls with them. The taxi convoy then edged towards Sukhumvit, where they were held up at the lights. There was one stretch limousine in the middle of the convoy. Cavalier, fedora pulled down on his forehead, sidled towards Nana Plaza. Two windows in the limo were lowered and the Mexican passengers yelled obscenities at some of the prostitutes at the entrance to the Plaza.
Cavalier was a few paces from the Plaza when a shot rang out, causing him to duck. He looked over at the limo. An unseen figure laughed as he angled an AK-47 handgun out of the window and fired into the air again, which brought a round of guffaws from others in the limo and the taxis, amused by the startled reaction of the prostitutes, who ran for cover. Cavalier hustled into the Plaza as the convoy pulled away into Sukhumvit. He looked up at the two levels of bars that ran along the first and second floors. The lights to several of them, with names such as Obsessions, Cascade, G-Spot, Hollywood Strip, Rainbow, Spankys and Voodoo, were flickering off, leaving the Plaza in semi-darkness.
It was 3 a.m. but several bar girls, who had changed into tops and jeans, were relaxing outside, some with bottles of beer. Most were smoking yaba, the ephedrine-based methamphetamine, or Thai version of ice, the relaxant of choice for sex workers. A Michael Jackson song, ‘Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough’, boomed out from one ground-level bar. Phil Collins’ ‘In the Air Tonight’ was less boisterously emitting from a bar on the second level. Two drunken Europeans were propped up against a wall. Workers, mostly elderly women, had begun their laborious task of cleaning up the mess left by thousands of drinkers and diners on the move. Several hawkers with food carts were milling about the Plaza entrance and, like the hookers, were hoping for some late-night business. The smell of cooking kebabs was strong and there were plenty of buyers. Cavalier assumed this would be the first time that some of the girls had a chance to feed themselves in a frenetic rush of night business at Nana. He took out his camera and began sweeping it up and around the Plaza to film the scene.
A short, thin cop approached him. ‘What you do?’ he asked in English.
‘I’m capturing the depth of civilisation’s decadence and depravity where east meets west,’ Cavalier said in Thai, with a smile.
The cop’s manner changed when he realised this farang spoke Thai. ‘It’s better with all the lights on,’ he said.
‘That’s what all the nice hookers say,’ Cavalier joked, which caused the cop to break into a high-pitched laugh. ‘It’s the first time I’ve been here,’ he continued, still smiling. ‘Sort of place that Muslim fanatics from down south would like to blow up, I’d think.’
The comment seemed to unnerve the cop. His expression tightened.
‘What was the convoy of farang about?’ Cavalier asked, to divert him.
‘Huh!’ the cop said, relaxing and lighting a cigarette. ‘That’s why I’m here. Had to have twenty extra cops hang around Nana just for some farang wild boys.’
‘They had guns.’
‘We couldn’t do anything.’
‘They were firing out the limo window.’
‘We were under orders not to apprehend them,’ the cop said, gesturing helplessly. ‘At least the bastards have gone back to their hotels.’
‘You’ve seen the last of them then.’
‘Unfortunately, no. Those bastards will be back every night this week, as long as the damned demonstrations are on. The girls won’t leave the Plaza, so those arseholes come to them.’
Cavalier left the Plaza and walked, hands jammed in pockets, and hat still well down, along the slowly-dying-down Sukhumvit Road. It was the coolest part of the day, at about twenty-seven degrees. The streets h
ad mostly dried off, and the garbage was piling up here and there. The rats, a dark, nocturnal feature of Bangkok, were more confident with fewer humans about. Hookers stepped out of the shadows. Cavalier, alert but not alarmed, brushed them off with a firm, but polite, ‘No thank you.’ He knew that while the odd mugging had occurred in this street, they were usually in a bar backroom, when a drugged john had his wallet stolen. Apart from the obvious dangers of the demonstrations, with the police and military having the right to shoot to kill, and of his investigation, Cavalier still felt safer visiting Thailand than he did major cities in the West.
Then, as he reached Soi 10, two big, muscular and drunken men, in sleeveless undershirts and armed with metre-long water guns, leapt at him from behind some pillars. Cavalier froze, then jumped aside, but was not quick enough to avoid a drenching.
‘Sorry, mate!’ one of them said in a broad Australian accent. ‘You speak English?’
‘No, sorry; I am Thai,’ Cavalier said, checking to see if his phone had stayed dry in his pocket.
‘You don’t look fuckin’ Thai!’ the confused Australian said as he stumbled away to join his mate, who was now harassing someone else.
‘You should be careful,’ Cavalier called as he backed away down Soi 10. ‘Two Aussies were shot by mistake today, doing what you’re doing.’
‘Tell someone who fuckin’ cares!’ one of them yelled back.
TO THE RIVER KWAI
There was unrest and demonstrations planned around Bangkok but Cavalier would be well clear of them by late morning. He thought that his difficult assignment might be less so if he had the cover of disturbances in Chiang Mai and Bangkok, where he expected to gain the most information on Mendez. On the other hand, they could make his subject’s movements less predictable. Mendez was expected to turn up with his entourage in Bangkok in a week or so. But if the rioting burgeoned into something authorities would have to combat, would he come as planned or would he stay in his compound on the river outside Chiang Mai until the country settled down?
At 10 a.m. a short, shapely Thai woman in her thirties walked through the entrance of the hotel. She was the chauffeur–guide who would drive him west of Bangkok on the first leg of his assignment. Cavalier was sitting on a couch with his baggage.
