by Harlan Wolff
“So how do we start?” George asked.
Carl was glad George was feeling committed. Carl was a loner but this was not a time that he wanted to be alone.“Well we know where the killings are being done now. There will be DNA everywhere. Unfortunately an investigation into a foreigner in Thailand is never subtle. In fact, it is like a herd of elephants paying you a visit if you know what to look for. Inman will know the signs. He will soon know if he is being investigated.”
“So he could destroy the evidence,” George suggested.
“Worse than that. He would use General Amnuay’s boys to hinder or stop any police investigation. He can certainly intimidate the newspapers enough for them to ignore the story. Once the phone calls started we would never motivate anyone to look at Inman again.”
“You make it sound very bleak.”
“It is fucking bleak George but continue we must. Do you remember old Mike from Glasgow?”
“The horrible alcoholic journalist that I can’t understand a word he says? That Mike?”
“That’s the one. He has been known to go against the local paper’s policy of self-censorship and say what he thinks. If he could write about the murders from the stance of police incompetence and how a foreign serial killer is getting away with murder in Thailand, it may just stir up the necessary hornets’ nest.”
“Then what?”
“Then when the police are defending themselves and claiming it isn’t true we, with a little help from my friends, declare Inman the prime suspect to the media at the Foreign Correspondents Club,” Carl said confidently.
“You think that will work?”
“No I don’t. Not as a solution to the real problem but it will get him off my back for a while. I am hoping he will be too busy sticking fingers in dikes to worry about me and once the cat is out of the bag I will no longer have the sole possession of the information that makes it necessary to kill me. If it’s public knowledge I become less important.”
“I know most of what you know,” George said.
“I suggest we make sure nobody else knows that fact. I will go and talk to Mad Mike tomorrow morning, I mean this morning.”
“Do you know him well?”
“He was a mourner at two of my weddings,” Carl replied.
“What do you want me to do?”
“We need some sleep, we can get about four hours by my calculation. Then, in the morning I want you to find us a safe house. Somewhere we will not be found. This place is too horrible to lie low in.”
There was a knock on the door and Carl signalled George to open it as he put his hand on the gun still tucked in the front of his jeans. Carl’s man walked in, much to Carl’s relief, as he felt too tired and drunk to shoot anybody. The man looked around the room and then sat himself down uninvited on the bed facing Carl. As always he spoke Thai to Carl. He began by apologizing about the fight that had happened just outside the door and said he hoped it had not disturbed them. Carl told him it hadn’t. Then the man leant forward and said, “Do you want girls? I have nice girls, very young and all the way from Chiangmai. These girls are very white skinned, the best.” He was assuming that because Carl spoke Thai, his taste in women, or rather, in young girls, would be Asian.
“No thank you, we are a little too drunk tonight,” Carl told him.
“These girls are very skilled and pretty, they can do whatever you ask. They can even make a drunken man happy. They haven’t been working for long and they don’t have many hairs yet. They are new enough to the work that they still feel a sexual need, if you know what I mean.”
Carl knew that these girls would be permanently based in the short-time hotel. They would have been bought and paid for in the North and brought to Bangkok as brothel workers. Many of the older short-time hotels also functioned as brothels. This was the sex slave trade and it was a side of Thailand that usually made Carl very angry. These girls would be totally under the control of some old hag and never dare to question her power. It was a far cry from the go-go bars where the girls were relatively free agents. This was the ugly side of the Thai sex industry. He couldn’t afford to be angry in his predicament so he just smiled and said, “Another night would be better, thank you. We must sleep tonight as we have things to do in the morning.”
The man got up to leave. Then halfway to the door he stopped, turned around, and walked back and sat back down on the bed.“Do you want some boys? Nice young boys,” he said as he studied Carl and George closely.
“No thank you,” Carl told him pointing at George. “You see we have each other.”
The man looked at George and looked back at Carl. He had not thought they were a gay couple. He had just been doing his job when he offered them the boys. He shrugged his shoulders in acceptance that he could not expect everybody’s sexual preferences to be transparent to him even after all the years he had been opening and closing bedroom doors for them. Nothing surprised him anymore. Not in his line of work. He walked out of the room and closed and locked the door behind him.
George checked the door was thoroughly locked, then turned and said, “Phew, that was a close one.” Which got Carl laughing, followed by him coughing up raw whiskey that his laughter had made him swallow the wrong way. George started laughing as well and they both laughed like they had never laughed before until tears streamed down their faces. The man had unknowingly released the dense fog of tension that had been filling the room prior to his arrival. It felt good to laugh out loud. They felt alive.
They drank most of the whiskey then slept, drunk, with their clothes on under the mirrored ceiling.
Chapter 18
Mad Mike was a journalist from the old school and an alcoholic in the grand colonial style, a relic living in a post-colonial world. His pugilist’s nose was crooked, big and red. A colour that matched the sweat-drenched thinning red hair that was permanently stuck to the top of his head and the ruddy face that was a canvas for broken blood vessels. All in all his fair skin and sweat-producing large build were not designed for tropical living. The most unlikely expatriates were always the most committed.
He had few friends because he was a bloody nightmare to be out in public with. His favourite stunt was to pick on the largest and most unpleasant looking man in the bar and say directly to him, ‘See yoo Jimmy, Yoor urr hoomoosexual aren’t yoo? Wee noo, wee noo. Its oolright you can coom oot noo. Yoo can coom oot of the closet noo, becoz wee noo.’ There was always trouble when Mad Mike was around and drinking next to him was likely to make you collateral damage.
Once, briefly, he had been a regular at Oleg’s bar on Soi Cowboy. Carl was there the day Oleg, bathing in the acceptance of such an expat icon, walked up to him and said, “I am so happy that you like my bar so much that you come here every day.” Mike grunted and looked down at him from his slightly superior height and replied, “Can’t stand the fucking place! It’s just that I’ve been barred from every other gin joint on Cowboy.”
Nobody knew how old he was so they just counted all the wars he had reported from. It was hard to tell from his damaged face what was a result of years and what was caused by booze and battles. He was old though; he had been around forever, or, as some people said, maybe it just seemed like it. At some point in his adult life he had worked for and been fired from every English language newspaper that Carl had ever read. His wildly improbable career meant he knew everybody in the newspaper game and that was why Carl was standing outside his house at 8 o’clock that morning.
The gate was open and the bell hadn’t worked in years so Carl went in. It was an old duplex house with a small garden. It had been built in the 1960s and was typical of the lower cost houses that were rented to foreigners living on a tight budget. Its continued existence suggested that the patriarch or matriarch of the owning family was still alive as these houses were regularly demolished and the land sold after being inherited by the next generation. A little dilapidated but not an unpleasant place to live. Mad Mike had lived in the house for deca
des and paid very little rent.
Mad Mike sat perspiring in his usual place, a rattan peacock chair on the small veranda facing the garden. As usual he had a bottle of cold Singha beer in his hand.
“Well, well, Don Quixote, as I live and breathe.” His Glaswegian accent was always mild when there was nobody else present. He didn’t seem to mind Carl knowing that he had an education. To the rest of the world he liked to be perceived as coming from an under-privileged background in some shit-hole in one of the poorer areas of Scotland which left him quite mad and undereducated. Carl knew that was not really the case at all. His modest lifestyle was a result of being disowned by a moneyed family as opposed to the lack of one.
“How is that mad wife of yours then?” Mike asked with a wicked grin.
“Someone else’s mad wife now, I assume.”
“Best thing really. Childhood decides you know. Can’t keep trying to change people’s destiny Quixote. People’s problems belong to them. Stop fighting windmills that don’t belong to you is the best thing. Debauch and drink and dance instead, it is the Asian way. Much better for you I assure you. Fancy a beer?”
“I can’t dance but I could do with a coffee if there’s one going.”
Mike’s maid was hovering inside the house just behind the mosquito door. She was called for and dispatched to bring Carl his morning coffee, much to his relief. Sex hotels aren’t much use for anything else and he had missed his morning caffeine.
“This is unusually early for you. Not in any trouble are you? I haven’t seen you looking stressed and out of bed so early since I bumped into you that morning in Beirut in 1983.”
“That wasn’t stress, that was a combination of alcohol and dysentery. Beirut was one hell of a month.”
“That it was. I was pleased to see that your dysentery didn’t interfere with your drinking. Do you remember that night in the bar with the Swedish girls just ‘round the corner from the Commodore Hotel?”
“I am hardly going to forget. Still got the scars.” Carl touched a small half-moon scar on his right cheek.
“Pissed off the wrong people that night didn’t I?” Mike said laughing.
“Everyone you pissed off in Beirut was the wrong person.”
“Great days Quixote, such wonderful days.”
“All days are wonderful if you get away with it. We were lucky in Beirut.”
“People like us are always lucky Carl. Haven’t you worked that out yet?”
“Always lucky until the day you’re not. That’s how life works.”
“I can’t die and go to hell for a while yet Quixote; I’ve been barred again.” He laughed out loud.
“Can I pick that mighty brain of yours?”
“Just don’t tell anyone where you found it.”
“Deal. I have been looking into a very convoluted case. There is a central character, nasty piece of work. Ex-CIA from Vietnam now a Thai citizen and associate of General Amnuay.”
“Doesn’t have a real estate company by chance, does he?”
“How the hell could you know that?” Carl asked him, shocked.
“I tried to write a story about him years ago.” Mike sat back in his chair and said, “I was looking into a story of guns disappearing from military bases and ending up in Japan. They were written off the army’s inventory after arson that was reported as electrical fires. A shipment of guns was seized en route to Japan. They prosecuted a few small fish but never touched the big boys. I went to this dreadful man’s office, calls himself Somchai. Can you believe that? I asked him why he seemed to have relationships with all the parties involved from Thailand to Japan. He just laughed at me. But the next day Quixote, the next bloody day all hell broke loose. I was looked at through a microscope, by departments you wouldn’t want to know that you are even in the country. Dangerous men, the sort of men you wouldn’t have a drink with at the bar in a brothel. Then visits from Special Branch and Military Intelligence. I have tilted at a few windmills in my time Quixote, but you don’t fight these guys, you just don’t do it. You aren’t are you?”
“You fancy the role of Sancho Panza?”
“Not bloody likely you lunatic!”
“Mike I need to tell you a story, but you need to keep your mouth shut. My survival may depend on it.”
“You know I’m discreet but only in the really important things.”
It was true. Mad Mike was totally discreet in the big things. That’s why Carl was there. So he told him a story. He even made sure that most of it was true.
Mike listened attentively and when Carl was finished he sat in silent thought. Then he leant forward, sipped from his beer, and said, “Bugger of a situation you’ve got yourself in!”
“Brilliant! Mike, absolutely fucking brilliant! I risk life and limb travelling across town with military hit-men looking for me just to hear you speak the bleeding obvious.”
Mad Mike laughed and began speaking in a serious tone. “No paper in Thailand will run it. I may believe you but to the rest of the world it will sound like paranoid ranting from, if I may say it, a foreign private detective with something of a dubious reputation. The only time the press will run the story is if he is arrested, then it goes on the front page. But it doesn’t sound to me like an arrest is in any way imminent or even likely. From what you’re telling me there is not even going to be an investigation into him. The world press won’t have any interest in your claims; they will automatically assume that you are talking nonsense. Why should they take you seriously when the police are showing no interest in this man? You’re the one in hiding and that hardly makes your opinions credible. Should you raise your head above the parapet you won’t make it through the night. Yours is not a funeral I would enjoy, Quixote.”
“Is there a light at the end of the tunnel that isn’t an oncoming train?”
“As an atheist I can’t recommend prayer and as a friend I won’t make promises I can’t keep. You are fighting the patronage system, the mafia and the corruption that they pretend doesn’t exist. You are fighting ghosts. The only enemy you can actually see provides serious income for them so the system will circle the wagons and protect him at all costs. These people have their foot soldiers in the police, army, underworld, and politics. You, on the other hand, are just a farang that they probably think shouldn’t be here in the first place. They make the rules and this is their country.”
“I’m not getting a warm fuzzy feeling Mike.”
“Well you wouldn’t, would you?”
He left Carl alone with his thoughts and went into the house. He returned a couple of minutes later with a full bottle of beer in his hand and sat back in the rattan chair. After making himself comfortable he told Carl, “I never thought I would be suggesting this to you, I always figured you as part of the furniture. But it doesn’t matter how long you’ve called this place home, you are and always will be a foreigner. No way round that. You need to leave Thailand and never look back. Just go! That’s what you tell other foreigners who fall foul of the system here. Start taking your own advice. The system is Kafkaesque when it plots against you. Those are your own words Quixote. You know what you need to do, you are not here to seek advice, instead you are looking for an accomplice. The decision is too large for you to make on your own so you’re trying to get someone else to make it for you. Well, I’ve done what you wanted Quixote, I’ve told you what you already know. Pack your bags and smuggle yourself across the border. I know you know how to do that. And never look back.”
“I haven’t made up my mind yet.”
“Don’t wait too bloody long is my advice.”
“You are right as always.”
“You look wrecked. There is a spare room upstairs, go and get some sleep. Nobody knows you are here so you can sleep soundly. Beirut rules my friend; when the bombs are going off never pass up a quiet opportunity to get some quality kip.”
“Thank you,” Carl told him. “I think I might just do that.”
Carl was between the
chair and the door of the house when a thought occurred to him. He turned and asked Mike, “The one thing that is really bothering me, the thing that makes no sense is, why would General Amnuay be involved with this stuff? This is street stuff, he should be way above all that by now.”
Mad Mike thought for a moment, then looked at Carl and said, “This is one of those things from history that is not really a secret but just isn’t talked about much. There were thirty-eight thousand Thai soldiers serving in Vietnam under the Americans. They were called volunteers, whatever that means. If memory serves, Amnuay was a very young and very junior officer that was sent to Vietnam in the early 1970s. He came back to Thailand as a wealthy man, which is why he rose from junior officer to the dizzy heights he has achieved. Work on the assumption that he was working for the same people in Langley that your man did all those years ago. If they share a very nasty past there should be no surprise to find out their present activities are not squeaky clean either.”
“Every time I turn around I find another player in this story that used to be with the CIA. Does that mighty brain of yours have knowledge of any active CIA players presently based in Bangkok that I could reach out to, should it become necessary?”
“Of course it bloody does,” Mad Mike said smiling. “You could approach Bart Barrows and let him know that Inman is on his turf, if he doesn’t know already which he probably does. That might cramp Inman’s style and give him some sleepless nights.”
“Bart Barrows is CIA?” Carl blurted out in shock.
“Of course he is, you silly man. Didn’t you ever wonder why every bar where journalists drank in Beirut, sooner or later, you would end up bumping into the dreaded Bart Barrows? What did you think he was doing there, on holiday? Buying bomb-damaged carpets? He’s hardly the type. He’s your man, Quixote,” Mad Mike said laughing. “Carl Engel, super sleuth, can’t spot a Langley man even when he’s standing right in front of him.”
