The Honourable Assassin

by Roland Perry

  Relieved to see the misreport of the alleged hijacker’s nationality, Cavalier looked around. Four Thais in one cubicle, two Americans in another and a musician he recognised from the Boy Blues Bar were the only other patrons. They were paying him no attention. He read the article again and turned to another item, concerning the Thai army doing joint exercises with the Indian army. Below that was a story about the recently deposed prime minister attending ‘a ritual to dispel bad luck’. His eyes then fell on a small article at the bottom of the page, headed ‘Headless Corpses in River Ping’. It began: ‘Chiang Mai police have yet to learn the identities of two headless bodies found on the banks of the Ping some ten kilometres from the city . . .’ A chill ran up Cavalier’s spine as he stared at the article, which went on: ‘Unsubstantiated rumours suggest that the deceased were freelance prostitutes. Police are investigating.’

  He pushed his food aside and sipped his coffee. His first thought was that Mendez and his people had to be involved. Decapitation and prostitutes would be part of any credible summary of the Mexican’s activities over the past fifteen years. But Cavalier admitted to himself that this was a rushed assumption. He had seen him last night and, even then, Mendez, if it was Mendez, and his thugs had gone to a pole-dancing place where prostitutes operated. On reflection, he realised that the deaths probably would not have involved women at Foxy Lady. To be published in the morning paper, even online, the murders would have had to have been committed at least a day earlier. He tried to convince himself that the Mexicans might not have had anything to do with the killings. But he was compelled to find out more.

  For now, though, Cavalier put that new investigation on hold and went on with his plans for the day. Midmorning, he hired a Mazda 6 and drove north towards the mountains, still covered by cloud that had settled on them like a heavy white quilt. He found the construction site for the soccer stadium that Mendez was building, situated on a plain of flat, scrubby land off the main highway north. The bottom layer of stands had already been put up. He took pictures and video of it and noted a sign saying: ‘This is a Golden Eagle Construction’.

  Cavalier thought it could not be a coincidence that the insignia on the methamphetamine packets had been a golden eagle and here Mendez was advertising his own building operations with the name, although not the insignia. At first, it caused him to wonder if Mendez had been blinded by his money. But then, depressingly, Cavalier considered that his reserves of wealth put him at the top of the select band of the world’s richest multi-billionaires. He could afford to be as arrogant, and even reckless, as he wished. Mendez seemed to operate secure in the knowledge that he was unlikely to be arrested for anything. His power put him above the law. Cavalier considered how Thailand was the best place for someone with that status in life. As long as Mendez did ‘good works’, and financially supported corrupt political leaders, judges, police and some of the more powerful Buddhist monks, he could avoid almost any prosecution, although the junta’s proclamation that it would stamp out corruption would cause him concern. But as long as Azelaporn was acting as his ‘agent’ he would be shielded.

  Cavalier turned his mind to the two prostitutes on the riverbank. If Mendez or his henchmen were behind the slayings, would the local police bother to investigate him?

  He drove back along the highway and headed west to the River Ping, where he followed a road leading to a dirt path. He stopped about eighty metres short of a roadblock. Two security guards sat in a shelter next to a boom gate. He looked up to see the second storey of a square white building about two hundred metres down the path. Cavalier could see a wall under construction to his right and realised this was the boundary of the land on which the white building had been constructed. He remembered the drone aerial shot of the Mendez construction, where that far right wall was just beginning to be built. Now it was almost complete. Cavalier could just make out a ramp leading underground, which had not been visible from the aerial shots. He speculated that there had to be a bunker under the compound.

  He again took pictures and video, this time from inside his car. He could see the guards in the shelter stirring at the sight of his vehicle. One of them sauntered out of the shelter and a few metres down the dirt path in Cavalier’s direction. That was enough to make him drive off, satisfied that was as close as he was going to get to the compound, which, he estimated, was a hundred and fifty metres square. The stone walls were three metres high. Barbed wire was at the top of them and already on most of the final, nearly completed, wall.

  Just after 1 p.m. Cavalier found a roadside cafe, patronised only by locals, and savoured its speciality of pork buns and pork balls with rice soup. He updated his diary and checked his photos. Then he returned to the Centara, for a gym work-out and swim, before an hour-long massage in preparation for his game the next day.

  At 5 p.m. he received a text from Gregory, informing him that there may be a second coup with a certain General Gaez angling to be the new man in charge of the country.

  After thirty seconds, the text was deleted automatically.

  The curfew had been adjusted from 10 p.m. to midnight on Friday night, to accommodate the local night-life. At 7 p.m. Cavalier walked down to the Foxy Lady, where a few girls were performing for a handful of male customers. He ordered an orange juice, sat on one of the benches surrounding the stage—the gynaecological seats—and two young women directed their writhing pole movements at him. He asked a scantily clad waitress if he could talk to the mamasan, the manageress, who soon appeared from a back room. An attractive woman in her sixties, she introduced herself as Mali. Cavalier knew that her long experience in dealing with johns would have her assessing him. He hoped that his polite manner and smart-casual dress made her put him in the ‘acceptable’ and ‘well-funded’ bracket. She asked the usual question of whether the gentleman was here on business or was a tourist. When, with a smile, he answered, ‘pleasure,’ her expression changed a fraction, to become more cautious.

  Mali’s eyes turned to the women, who were gyrating with more intent now that they saw she was with this potential customer. ‘Would you like to engage any of these girls?’ she asked, turning her gaze back to him.

  ‘They are lovely,’ he said, ‘but . . .’

  ‘Would you prefer someone more thin and model-like? We have a few but the majority of our more discerning visitors prefer shape.’

  ‘Oh, and they have that,’ Cavalier said, not wishing to offend. ‘But they are not what I came here for.’

  ‘Are you police?’ Mali asked warily.

  ‘No.’ He took a five-hundred baht note from his wallet. ‘But I would appreciate some information.’ He slipped the note into her hand. ‘You had a visit from some Mexicans last night.’

  Mali’s expression closed off. She placed the money on the counter in front of him, and made a move to leave. Cavalier held her forearm. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘I wanted to warn you about them.’

  Mali sat back in her seat and waited.

  ‘Did you read about those two . . . sex workers . . .?’ he asked.

  She nodded, almost imperceptibly.

  ‘I guess what I’m trying to say is, please don’t let your workers go with any of them.’

  Mali stared at him, trying to work him out. She blinked and said, ‘Thank you, but the police have already said as much.’

  ‘Have they?’ Cavalier said, at first relieved, and then confused. ‘But the cops have been protecting them, haven’t they?’

  Mali stared again, still trying to read this engaging, mannerly farang, who was proficient in Thai. After a few seconds, she said: ‘Doing a duty of “protection” for a wealthy farang is one thing. “Protecting” local citizens is another.’

  Cavalier nodded as he sifted through the meaning of her remark. ‘When you say “duty of protection”, what do you mean?’

  ‘There is a fear, a rumour, that a certain farang . . .’

  ‘Mexican?’

  Mali allowed herself a thin smile. ‘A rich far
ang may be a target for elimination. Let us just say there is an unusual level of paranoia within this man.’

  ‘Paranoia? Why?’

  ‘I am told that his second-in-command was dealt with recently.’

  Cavalier was now the one who was staring.

  ‘Not in Chiang Mai,’ Mali added. ‘Another country.’

  ‘Do the rumours say,’ he heard himself asking cautiously, ‘how this deputy was . . . er . . . dealt with?’

  Mali turned to him. Using both arms, she enacted a charade of shooting a rifle and added a sound like a whistling bullet.

  ‘Can you tell me any more?’ he asked.

  ‘No. It is all rumour with no substance.’ She waved a hand at the dancers and her radiant smile returned, making her eyes wrinkle warmly and sparkle as they had before. ‘Would you like one of the girls or, perhaps, both?’

  Cavalier wanted to leave but, not wanting to offend, said, ‘Let me buy them both a drink.’

  A hand gesture from Mali soon had the two dancers—Appear and Dalan—leaving the stage and sitting either side of Cavalier. He ordered them drinks and soon discovered they were not Thai but Khmers on a ‘working holiday’. Within a minute, tall, dark-skinned Dalan’s hand was high on his thigh and Appear was kissing his neck. Cavalier managed, with admirable restraint, to let it all happen without responding, and tried conversation, learning they were both country girls from rice farms in Cambodia. After fifteen minutes of talk and a second drink for both his companions, he announced he had to leave. Appear insisted he put her number in his phone and pushed hard for a time for both women to visit his hotel, which he was careful not to disclose. As he left, he noticed the mamasan speaking with the women and glancing at him.

  Cavalier decided to eat at the open-air restaurant close to the Boy Blues Bar. He picked at his fried vegetables and rice, and mulled over the conversation with Mali. It seemed what had happened to Labasta in Melbourne had frightened Mendez. Such fear would cause some suffering. Cavalier’s mind flooded with thoughts of his daughter and how she might be in some lonely mass grave in a remote part of Mexico. He took from his wallet a picture of her that he hardly ever looked at, such was his pain, the lack of closure. He looked at it now. Was her half-smile telling him something?

  Cavalier went to his hotel and continued reading the book on Iraq. At 11 p.m. he put it down, stretched and looked through the window at the Meridian forecourt. The Mexican convoy of vehicles had returned. He waited and watched. A few minutes later, he saw the Mexicans moving in a group towards the Centara. They had no female companions with them and were soon right opposite the hotel in the Loi Kroh Road.

  He eased across the room to the far side, to watch them walk over the little bridge and left, down an alley of bars at the Chiang Mai entertainment complex. Soldiers and police would be swarming over it, not to mention the bodyguards. There was a strong chance that Cavalier would be checked for ID, and if he didn’t have a passport with him, he might be taken back to his hotel for further checks. He opened the safe and took out the false passport in the name of a Frenchman, Claude Lallemond. He fossicked in his coffin for one of the wigs, jammed a baseball cap over it and checked himself in the mirror. Only someone inspecting him closely would detect the wig, especially given the way he had positioned his cap. He also slipped on clear glasses and took a packet of Gauloises cigarettes from the coffin’s side pocket.

  A few minutes later, Cavalier entered the alley, and had gone a few paces when two soldiers confronted him and demanded to see his passport. They both gave it a cursory glance and ushered him on his way, reminding him he had about forty-five minutes before the complex would shut. He was pleased to see a good number of patrons attending the twenty or so bars, making it easier for him to mingle as he ignored the overtures of the girls at each bar.

  Cavalier reached the Muay Thai boxing ring, where a grotesque fight was in progress. A midget with a Mohawk haircut was doing a fair impression of a mini-windmill in a battle with a wild-swinging, short, corpulent woman. Most eyes were on the fun. Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You’ belted out from one the bars near the ring, and at times could only just be heard above the cacophony of other music, if it could be called that, from most of the bars in the complex. The onlookers stomped, clapped and cheered the fighters.

  The evening’s rain had given way to an oppressive mugginess and Cavalier began to sweat under the wig. He pretended to watch the boxing, or heavy slapping that it mostly was. The Mexicans were interspersed between two bars to the left of the ring. Close to one of the bars, six guards tightly protecting him, was Mendez.

  There was no question in Cavalier’s mind this time.

  He had to suppress an impotent rage that he had never felt before. Making any move, any gesture, would be nothing short of suicidal. It took him a minute to think rationally. He knew he had to find a way not to be noticed using his phone camera. Cavalier now sat at the other bar, ten paces from Mendez, making sure not to look his way. He could sense one of the Mexicans staring at him.

  A glamorous, busty woman in very tight, short blue hotpants and undersized red top, leaned over the bar and touched his arm. She introduced herself as Carol, a most unlikely name for a girl from northern Thailand. She reacted coquettishly when she learned he was French and struggling with English, their meagre course of communication. During the usual queries from the ‘How to chat up a farang’ manual, he became aware that the Mexican who had been staring in his direction was at the bar, ordering tequila for all his companions.

  Cavalier noted that the pool table—five metres closer to Mendez—was free. In strongly French-accented and hesitant English, he asked if she would have a game with him. Carol’s eyes lit up. Cavalier moved to the table and, within a few shots, realised why. ‘Mademoiselle Lindrum!’ he said, as he watched her pot ball after ball. Cavalier finally used his cue, and kept making shots so he could look up at Mendez, who was surrounded by dazzling women and tall ladyboys from the nearby Cleopatra Bar.

  They had wedged themselves inside the rowdy cordon of guards. Mendez wore a Stetson and elaborate dark glasses, and Cavalier wondered if he were sizing up targets for the night. The Mexican’s hidden gaze was roaming the crowd and bar girls, looking for a victim, or perhaps even a hidden assassin. Mendez was leaning casually back against the bar but Cavalier believed he was edgy. The smile looked false; the chit-chat was a little quick and forced, and punctuated with high-pitched laughter. With each drink, his guards were carousing more with the bar girls. The soldiers were the only ones alert and not drinking. About a dozen of them, including the two who had checked Cavalier’s passport, stood apart from the farang throng at the bars. They looked relaxed but still they were on duty; their automatic weapons were slung lazily over their shoulders, yet ready for any incident. They were waiting for the clock to tick past midnight, so they could demand that all the bars close.

  At ten minutes to midnight, an ageing, overweight ladyboy and bar owner, Cleopatra, began a dance with a live two-metre-long python, claiming the attention of all the Mexicans, especially Mendez. With the python curling around her neck and shoulders, Cleopatra moved close to him, knowing he was the big spender. She focused on him as the snake’s head wandered near. Mendez was wary.

  Cavalier decided to take a risk. He lined up the compliant, ever-smiling Carol for a photograph, positioning her so that he could fit Mendez into the shot. He managed several photos of the Mexican, who was menaced by the python’s proximity.

  Cavalier pushed the button for the video. A child of no more than ten years wandered into the bar, selling roses. Cavalier, playing the generous Frenchman, complete with cigarette in the corner of his mouth, bought a dozen roses and gave them to Carol, who blushed in a practised manner. All the while, the video was running, recording the unedifying moment when Mendez, terrorised by the reptile, took a revolver out of his sleeveless brown vest and shot at it.

  Cleopatra, her puffy face crimson with anger, struck Mendez with her two fists, causing on
e of his guards to tackle her to the ground, with a crash of bar stools and tables. In a matter of seconds, the bar floor was a mass of writhing legs and arms. One of the Mexicans drew a knife that looked like a small Samurai sword. He hovered over the screaming, biting, kicking Cleopatra and seemed about to wield it when Mendez took it from him. In front of her, Mendez chopped hard at the stricken snake’s head, severing it.

  The soldiers waded into the crowd and aimed their weapons at Mendez. He slowly, reluctantly, lowered the knife. A soldier wrenched it from him. Lights flickered in the complex and bars began closing their shutters. It was curfew time. A shaken, shouting Mendez, accompanied by his guards, bustled down the alley. Cavalier put away his phone camera. Carol asked him if he would like company but he politely refused. It struck him that the python incident may have saved the lives of some of the bar girls but then he noticed that the Mexicans had left with six of them.

  Cavalier waited, despite soldiers ordering him to move on, as all the bars closed down. He chatted to Carol until the Mexicans were out of sight and close to the Meridian. Then he strolled down to his hotel, careful to take the back lift and avoid the foyer. He removed the wig and lay on his bed, exhausted. Despite his fatigue, he would not sleep well. The pressure was mounting and Mendez’s proximity put him permanently on edge.

  THE TIMELY INNINGS

  The next morning’s Chiang Mai Mail had a follow-up article about the prostitute murders of the day before, headed ‘Police Baffled by Headless Corpse Atrocity’. The unnamed reporter noted: ‘Chiang Mai police have made no progress in discovering what happened in the case of the two alleged prostitutes found decapitated on the banks of the River Ping. An unconfirmed coroner’s report says that both victims were “technically men”. This would suggest that they may have been local ladyboys.’