Humphreys heard what Danny had said but the pain was too great for him to speak. He had no control of his body or speech. The heat he felt all through his body now was turning white.
“Do you fecking understand me now, fuckwit?”
Humphreys knew it was his only chance to live. With all his conscious effort and strength he gasped one last gulp of air and the words, “Yes, understand” hissed out in the last of his breath. His eyes were now bulging out from their sockets. He looked as ugly now on the outside as he was on the inside. Danny stood up and Simon Humphreys collapsed onto the table, smashing glasses with his face and sending knives and forks onto the floor. The clatter made people look around and there was a gasp.
“He’s had a heart attack” someone behind Danny said out loud and people further away stood up to see what had happened.
“Why did you do this?” asked Danny to Bee.
“I wanted you to know that you are not special. You are the same as every other farang who comes to Thailand. You only come here for sex and your wife, your friends, your business partners all sell it to you. They sold it to Humphreys and a million people like him before they sold it to you. You get what you deserve. I just wanted to show you what you really are. What all farangs are.”
“Get your man here to hospital.”
The restaurant was hushed. Danny turned and walked out, picking his way through the tables, looking back at the hundreds of eyes that were looking at him. They all looked away when he did. His jaw was set. He looked mean and angry, like a man ready to explode. Nok, Meiwa and Pon all stood up without speaking and followed Danny out of the restaurant. Everyone inside looked at Bee and whispered to each other behind raised hands. Bee could feel their condemnation. She could read the judgement in their eyes.
“You’d better get this man an ambulance” she said, picking up her handbag from the table and walking out of the restaurant.
The taxi took Danny, Nok and Meiwa into Patong town. Danny told the driver to stop before they reached the town.
“I’ll get out here” he said.
“Tee rak, where you go?” asked Nok.
“I want to walk.”
“I come with you tee rak.”
“No Nok. I want to be alone. I can’t breathe, I need air. I need to think. I feel sick.”
“Ling love you very much tee rak. Ling have good heart, she good lady…..”
Danny put his hand up.
“Nok, I don’t want to hear it. I need to think everything through for myself. Please don’t say anymore.”
Danny handed the driver a 500 baht note.
“Take the ladies to wherever they want to go.” He got out of the taxi.
Nok rang Ling and told her what had happened at the restaurant. Ling and Nok were crying. Ling cut the conversation short because she needed to speak to Danny. She needed to tell him that she loved him. She needed to know that he still loved her and their beautiful twins. She rang Danny. His mobile rang four times and was then turned off. She tried ringing him every ten minutes for the next five hours, but the phone was off.
Bee came out of the restaurant. Pon was sitting in his car, the engine was running and he was gripping the steering wheel. Bee opened the passenger door and sat in next to him.
“You have a black heart” he said out loud without really meaning to.
“Take me home Pon. Tonight you can sleep with me.”
Pon flicked the lights on and drove to Bee’s apartment in silence.
Chapter 30 Think it all through.
Danny still had a long way to walk back to his hotel, or even into the town, but it didn’t matter; he didn’t care. His head was spinning and random thoughts banged around in his head like thunder and lightning. He couldn’t even start to rationalise his feelings. His heart was so heavy in his chest he could hardly breathe. He fell in love with Ling and he knew what she did before she met him and he thought that he could accept it, but he had never been confronted with one of her customers; a customer so disgusting.
Danny stopped next to a lamppost. He put his hands on the post to steady himself as he felt his insides turn over and his stomach lurched up to his throat. He vomited, but he hadn’t leaned forward far enough and his own sick residue went down the front of his jacket. He wiped the stain with his sleeve and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He couldn’t shake off the visions of Simon Humphreys fucking his wife, doing disgusting things to his wife; kissing his wife. Suddenly, Danny was a broken man, his heart shattered.
He walked slowly along Beach Road heading towards the town. In the air conditioning of the exclusive Baan Rim Pa restaurant with all the swanky VIP guests, Danny had looked like he fitted in. He was smart in his white tuxedo, black trousers and red bow tie. He had two beautiful women dressed in expensive evening gowns on his arm. Now, as he walked alone along Beach Road in the heat and humidity of the night, he looked ridiculous, foolish, out of place. Suddenly he didn’t belong here and, the nearer he got into town, the sillier he looked sweating in his suit, laughed at and pointed at by tourists in shorts and tee shirts, who padded around in flip flops. Stared at by the Thai tuk-tuk drivers, who were too polite to let him see them laughing at him, so they just smiled, nodded and called out “Tuk-tuk?”
As he approached the first of the bars along Beach Road the bar girls whistled and called out to him. Danny didn’t even realise that they were calling out to him. He was in a daze, in shock, his mind lost in a maze of visions of his beautiful naked wife, her slim tanned body sexually entangled with the fat white naked body of Humphreys, rutting like a pig.
He wandered into one of the first bars he came to and sat at the bar on a stool. The young girl behind the bar pulled out a freezing wet wipe from the chest freezer behind her, rolled it in her hands and then smacked it on the bar making a popping sound as it split open. She leaned over the bar, her small breasts pushed together by her bra to make a cleavage, now on display for Danny to admire. But he didn’t; he didn’t even notice. The mamasan, also sitting behind the bar, spoke in Thai to the four bar girls standing at the front of the bar trying to entice customers.
“Come on one of you, the farang has money and a broken heart. We can fix his heart and take his money” she said.
The girls laughed and one of them in a tiny blue dress slinked her way across the bar and sat next to Danny.
“You like beer?” asked the smiling young girl behind the bar.
Danny looked at the row of bottles on the shelves behind her.
“I’ll have a Jack Daniels and coke please.”
The girl looked confused and turned to the mamasan.
“JD coke” said the mamasan.
“You buy me one?” said the girl in the little blue dress sitting next to him, her hand now stroking his thigh. Danny nodded and she wai’d to him before speaking to the girl behind the bar in Thai.
“Do you sell cigarettes here?” asked Danny. The girl in the blue dress jumped off her seat and held her hand out for some money.
“I can get for you. What cigarette you want?”
“Get me some L&M blue please, and a lighter would be grand.” He put 200 baht into her open hand and she skipped out of the bar. Danny’s drink and the lady drink were put on the bar in front of him and the girl scribbled out a bill and rolled it up, sliding it into a little tin cup, which she placed at his elbow on the bar. The girl in the blue dress came back and handed Danny the cigarettes and lighter. She held the 120 baht change in her hand and offered it to him. He told her to keep it and she kissed him on the cheek. She saw the sick stain on Danny’s jacket and used another wet wipe to clean it up.
“My name Fon. Where you from?” she asked, again letting her hand rest on his thigh.
“Fon, I don’t really want to talk. I just want to sit here by myself. Sorry.”
/> Fon spoke to the mamasan and then drifted back to the girls standing at the front of the bar, taking her drink with her.
Danny took a swig from his drink and felt it going down and warming his insides. It was like meeting an old friend after a long time. It was stronger than he remembered, but he hadn’t had a drink for such a long time and his tolerance for alcohol was a lot lower than it had been. He lit up a cigarette. He hadn’t smoked since he had stopped drinking. It didn’t taste good and it made him light headed, but he persevered and took another drink. He told the girl behind the bar that he would buy the half full bottle of Jack Daniels. He sat at the bar drinking and smoking and trying to find some thought, some memory to make him happy, or at least stop the pain he had in his heart. He paid up and left what was left in the bottle of Jack Daniels on the bar. He wandered along Beach Road. Now he was relaxed and not thinking too much about anything. He turned left into Bangla Road, walked along and then turned into Soi Tiger towards the Cocktails & Dreams ladyboy bar.
Danny saw a familiar face sitting hunched in the bar opposite the Cocktails & Dreams ladyboy bar. It was the same man he had noticed when he was inside the Cocktails & Dreams bar with Suzie, making enquiries about Daa. Danny had guessed that he was an ex-navy man because of the heavily inked blue tattoos that filled his arms; ‘Mum & Dad’, ‘Jenny’, ‘Milly’, the Union Jack flag, a naked lady, four aces, and a skull and crossbones. Danny had had an immediate sympathy for a lonely fellow drunk when he had seen him last time. The man at the bar watched Danny walking down the street and suddenly they had eye contact. The man at the bar raised his glass to Danny in salute and nodded. Danny nodded back and went and sat next to him.
“Can I buy you a drink?” asked Danny.
“Oh yes. Marcus never says no to a drink.”
“Danny O’Brien” said Danny, offering his hand.
“Marcus Davies.” They shook. Up close the man looked younger than Danny had first thought, but he couldn’t guess an age. Years of alcohol abuse and chain smoking had taken its toll, but Marcus had a good smile and Danny liked him.
“I’m guessing you are ex-navy.”
“Yep. Marcus was a stoker, 22 years served. He has travelled the world, got drunk, got in trouble and broken hearts, all in the service of Her Majesty, The Queen.” Marcus raised his glass in salute before knocking it back and sparking up another cigarette.
“And Marcus is guessing that you are ex-police.”
Danny was surprised. He had under estimated Marcus Davies, but he quickly realised there was a lot more to Marcus than an old drunk sitting at a bar.
“Yes, I was a copper. A long time ago in another life.”
“Marcus saw you in Cocktails & Dreams the other day with the tall ladyboy, asking questions and showing photographs.”
“Jesus! I thought that you were too pissed to notice anything.”
“Marcus sees everything. Were you asking about Daa? She was a nice girl. Awful business.”
“You knew her?”
“Marcus knows everyone; the bar girls, the ladyboys, the cigarette sellers. He even knows the Soi dogs. Nobody bothers with Marcus. They think he is just a friendly old drunk, but that suites Marcus. He can sit and drink and smoke and watch the world go by.”
“Did you see Daa on the night that she was murdered?”
“Yes of course. Marcus saw her every night.”
“Did you happen to see her leave the bar?”
“Yes I saw that.”
Danny was relieved that he had stopped talking about himself in the third person.
Marcus started coughing. It was rasping and made his eyes water. Spit splattered from his open mouth as he coughed and Danny put his hand over the top of his drink to protect it. Marcus thumped his chest several times.
“Keep going you bugger” he laughed at his own joke, but the laugh turned into another coughing fit. Danny waited until it passed.
“Did she leave with a big fat man?”
“No she left with a woman.”
“A woman! Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. She was wrapped around the big young fella with the red mark on his face, but then she went over to the woman, who had just gone in, and they left together. The young big fella followed them out. Marcus is never wrong.”
“What was the woman like?”
“She was Thai, mid-thirties, very posh, expensive looking, but not in a bar girl way. She had class, attractive, but angry at something.”
“Jesus! That’s Bee” Danny said out loud, but was talking to himself. He pulled the mobile out of his pocket and turned it on. He had over twenty missed calls from Ling. He called Nok.
“Nok, did you ever try to find out anything about Bee when I asked you to?”
“Yes of course. I got a copy of her police record, but it didn’t say very much and a lot of it had been deleted. Why?”
“Have you got a photograph of her?”
“Yes, there was one on her file.”
“Nok, can you get it now and come and meet me? I’m in the bar opposite Cocktails & Dreams.”
“With Marcus Davies” shouted Marcus.
“You want me come right now?”
“Yes Nok. It’s important. Bring the photo.” Danny closed the phone and then turned it off just as another call from Ling came through.
Marcus lifted his arm and turned his wrist. He had to close one eye to focus on his watch.
“Marcus is never wrong” he said. “In ten minutes you’ll see a Soi dog come down the street. He stops outside Cocktails & Dreams bar. One of the girls will come out and give him some scraps. It’s always the same girls who feed him. They think it gives them merit with Buddha and they hope that, if they come back as a Soi dog in the next life, somebody will feed them.”
“They are making themselves an insurance policy for the next life” nodded Danny.
“If they really wanted to make merit they should pay for a vet. The dog is a bit crippled, one of its back legs is short and it has a sore behind its ear. Every night the dog sits in the road and spends a lot of time and energy trying to scratch behind its ear. It goes through all the motions but his foot just doesn’t reach his ear, so he can’t scratch. Must be driving the little bugger crazy. People who see him laugh at the crazy dog who only ‘pretends’ to scratch, but I feel sorry for him. He has an itch he can’t scratch and I wonder how many times each day he must try. Poor bastard.”
Danny and Marcus raised their glasses to the ‘poor little bastard’ and drank. Five minutes later the crippled Soi dog hobbled down the Soi and sat outside the Cocktails & Dreams ladyboy bar. It cocked his head over and used his withered rear leg to scratch behind his ear. Just like Marcus said, his foot stopped about six inches short, but he scratched anyway and people laughed. One of the girls came out in a short sparkling dress and tossed some scraps down into the Soi and the dog gobbled them up before trying to scratch again.
“Poor fecker” said Danny.
Nok had to dress again and then go to the Great British Detective Agency office to collect Bee’s old police photo, then get to the bar to meet Danny, but it was still only 35 minutes from when Danny had rung her. She hugged Danny when she saw him.
“Are you OK tee rak? I worry you.”
“Yes I’m OK. I was going to get pissed, but I’ve just sobered up.”
“Tee rak, you should ring Ling. She worry you too.”
“Nok, I don’t want to talk about Ling. I don’t even want to think about her right now. This is Marcus Davies. Marcus this is Nok. Nok, show him the photo.”
Nok and Marcus said hello to each other and Nok pulled the photo from the A4 envelope and handed it to Marcus.
He studied it and lit another cigarette. He handed the photo back to Nok before he spoke.
“Yes, that’s the same lady. That’s the lady Daa left the bar with on the night she was murdered. It’s an old photo, but it is the same lady. Marcus is sure.”
“Holy Jesus Mother of God!”
“Tee rak, what this mean? Bee know Daa?”
“I don’t know what it means Nok. I’m still too drunk to work it out. My head is spinning with all sorts of thoughts mixed with Jack Daniels. I’m going to go back to the hotel, get drunk on the balcony and try to think it all through.”
Danny bought Marcus another drink. Marcus lit up another cigarette and started another coughing fit. Nok and Danny said goodbye to him and walked off along Soi Tiger, back up towards Bangla Road.
“Keep going you bugger” spluttered Marcus, thumping himself on his chest.
Danny and Nok hugged each other on Bangla Road before they split up. Nok walked up towards Rat-U-Thit Road to go home, while Danny walked down towards Beach Road to go back to the Holiday Inn Hotel. He bought some more cigarettes and a bottle of brandy to take back to the hotel.
Chapter 31 A message for you Mr. O’Bline.
The phone on the bedside cabinet had rung several times. It had woken Danny up, but he couldn’t be bothered to answer it. He turned over and buried his head under the heavy duvet. He was just dropping off to sleep again when somebody started knocking on his bedroom door. At first he ignored it, but the knocker was not going to go away. A chink of light squeezed through the gap in the thick curtains and it told Danny that it was morning. He sat up in bed and tried to focus. He had forgotten how bad drinking made him feel. The knocking continued.
“Jesus! Will you kop yerself on, I’m fecking coming” he shouted.
The knocking stopped and Danny dressed in the courtesy white Holiday Inn bathrobe before opening the panelled door.
The pretty girl from reception wai’d to him, but Danny was still too drunk and too sleepy to do anything other than grunt and nod in return. The girl handed him a note written on Holiday Inn headed paper.
Cocktails & Dreams Page 13
