Bangkok Express (Joe Dylan Crime Noir, #1)

by James Newman

Right?

  There had to be a way to get to the insurance money.

  She had earned it.

  With it she could move away and disappear. She could travel back to Australia, New Zealand or the sub-continent. She thought through the chain of events that had begun with Jinx’s tampering with Alexandra’s diving equipment. One and a half million dollars sitting in her husband’s account. And now Franco dead. More money. She’d allowed Jinx into the dive centre. She had earned the money. Franco was at the house that day. She was responsible for the second claim as well as the first.

  Two dead.

  Who would be next?

  Struck by a sudden idea she opened the bungalow and walked down the steps to the jeep. She got inside and drove to the marina. Franco wasn’t the only one insured. She was Shogun’s next of kin. She would inherit everything if he were to have an accident.

  She walked down to the small marina and past the fishing vessels painted blues and reds bobbing up and down a little outside the cove. The distant beach; tourists laid on the golden sands rubbing sun cream into their exposed bodies. Beach vendors covered in sarongs and rags sold roasted eggs, corn on the cob, manicures, massages, soft drinks, ice creams, fortunes.

  She had earned it.

  She walked past the stone bench under the mango tree where she had first met Franco after one of her aborted separations from Shogun. She was feeling revengeful. She had earned it. Franco was there. He was travelling through. That’s the thing with travelling; always thinking where to go next; never taking the time to stop and look around. A composite city of all the places she had ever travelled. Static buzzed in her mind. Bicycle taxis and rickshaws. Children screamed and cheered playing ballgames in the gardens of her past.

  Two million dollars.

  Her thoughts turned to Franco. How simple it had been to authorize his death. Her brother-in-law issued a report which she took to the municipal office. An official issued a death certificate. She had spoken on the telephone to an English-speaking consular official at the embassy. His pathetic body was then taken to the temple. Franco was incinerated into the small bag of bones and ashes that sat on the table in the bungalow.

  Nobody was there to see him burn.

  Nobody but her.

  The market was just ahead. She walked through it. Through the smell of raw meat, fruits, vegetables, that awful smell of fresh squid. Woman waved flies away from their produce with shreds of plastic tied to bamboo. She thought of Franco’s remains, worthless and priceless. Should she send the ashes back to Italy? Throw them into the sea? Or maybe, take him with her when she fled the island having killed her husband.

  She had to kill him. The thought landed clear and precise. She found the old fish seller. Her wrinkled face grimacing above her produce. The old fish woman smiled. She knew what she wanted. It was illegal, but most good things were. Certain internal organs, the liver, and sometimes the skin are highly toxic. Japanese chefs knew how to prepare the fish leaving the meat untainted. Gantira was not as skilled. The woman handed her the puffer fish, ‘be careful,’ she said. ‘warang, na,’

  ‘Ka,’ she said. Yes.

  ELEVEN

  Bangkok

  Posers in a leafy street

  JAMES HALE sat at a side-street noodle-stall. The stall was set-up underneath the shade of a row of fruit trees. He watched a pair of pigeons courting beneath a fig tree. The male’s tail feathers were pushed up in self-promotion and his plumage was arrogantly puffed up. He danced his elaborate dance of love. The female didn’t look impressed. She turned her back to him. Birds were like gangster rappers, Hale thought. They sang songs about how tough they were and how many other birds they’d nested. They were egomaniacs with inferiority complexes. Posers in a leafy street. The bastards flew at the first sign of danger. They couldn’t make it on the ground. Hale hated birds with their merry chirps and their flimsy nests. Tweet. Tweet. Tweet. The only thing Hale admired about them was the fact that they could fly. That would be cool. Right now, flying would be good.

  Hale caught the attention of the noodle girl. She was cute and remedied that with laziness. She held up three fingers and Hale laid thirty baht on the table. He returned his gaze to the fig tree but the birds had flown. Something brushed against his leg. It was a street dog. It sniffed at his shoes; scabs were all over her body and her fur completely worn away at the rear end. Another male dog trotted over smiling. Hale guessed he was responsible for the rear. This one had broken teeth and one good eye. Hale picked up a chilli from the bowl on the table and popped it into the dog’s mouth. The dog chewed once, blew air through his cheeks and spat it out onto the ground. The dog looked up at him sadly. Dogs were loyal, birds independent, and Bangkok was both and neither.

  Why had he been invited to the meeting?

  Bluegreen needed someone to hang when it all went pear-shaped. They needed a scapegoat. As the primary broker Hale had countersigned the policy documents before they were passed down the chain to London. He had gotten into bed with them and now he was going to be chucked out into the cold Bangkok streets like a whore on an empty promise.

  This Bluegreen deal, Hale decided was his ticket out of the cesspool. He had been swimming ever since he had arrived in The Zone. His head was just above water. It wasn’t all bad. He admired the walking encyclopaedias of sexual diseases who dragged their bodies through

  The Zone. Zombies were cool and the whores added the colour. The foreigners begging in the street, the ones that had lost everything to bargirl black magic interested him. The mortality rate was high. The sharks were on his tail. He could vaguely remember playing that game of cards. Hell, he never played cards. How could he raise that sort of money?

  He could tell London what he knew but blowing the whistle on his client was a dangerous move. Once he was on that flight back to London they couldn’t touch him. Not like the Chinese or the Russians. Like birds the Thais tended to leave you alone once you are out of the bush. Should he play ball and try and package the claim to make it look convincing?

  He watched a transsexual wearing a white blouse and a navy-blue skirt sit down ordering a bowl of noodles. She probably worked in a department store on the make-up counter helping women look pretty - doing what she knew best. He often wondered why the country had an inordinate number of men dressed up as women. This was one part of the culture he didn’t understand. These things confused him. Hale left it to the birds to decide. He stood up and walked to the office.

  He found himself on the ground floor of the Bluegreen Hotel. The security man waved him up. The elevator stopped at the floor above the twelfth. He entered the reception room on the fourteenth floor with a desk and a beautifully well-built woman wearing a white blouse filing her nails behind the desk. There were a few potted plants a sofa and a coffee table covered with gossip magazines. He followed the receptionist to the meeting room.

  “Hi Boss.”

  “Hale sit down, coffee?”

  “No. Have anything stronger?”

  “Those days are over.”

  “Well, those days were flowing last night at Hollywood.”

  “Just venting out some executive stress, my head is repaying me.”

  “Right Boss,” Hale smiled at the younger man. He was corporate to the bone, bless him. He even got drunk because it was something office-workers were supposed to do. Joe once caught him reading a self-help book called the Ten Career Commandments. God help him. These people read books that taught them to act against the very nature of their culture. Honest business? An interesting concept. Maybe we could do that? Hale’s old London boss used to tell him that business was like cricket. These people couldn’t even put the pads on. The hotel business model seemed to suit them with their fake smiles and their near truths.

  “Let’s get straight to it so you can get to work. Good job on the Finnish fatality, Hale. We need to move a new one through the books. This time an Italian. A dive master. Died on the island.”

  “How convenient.”


  “In what way, Hale?’ Boss massaged his temples.

  “This is too soon. London will be swimming in a tsunami of curiosities. I’m not sure I can get involved. To lose one diver might be considered unfortunate, but to lose a second seems, well, careless. The Finish girl was covered by Bluegreen insurance. She booked the diving trip here in Bangkok, and paid the insurance fee. Can you prove the Italian did the same? I don’t recall seeing any additional premium for an Italian. Look, Boss, I know how the system works. Corruption isn’t a chink in the chain here. It is the system. Those beggars with no arms and no legs did not walk up to the top of the footbridge over Sukhumvit road. They were carried there. The system carried them there. There is not one inch of concrete in this city that is not owned by the system. You want to beg? You have to be paying the system. Or what? Call the police. The policeman better be saving his bribe money because if he wants to become a sergeant then he has to pay money for his promotion. Yeah, we have a nice little claim down there on the island. All above suspicion. What a wonderful neat and tidy world we live in.”

  “Perhaps there is bad karma on the island.”

  “Yes, that’s it Boss, bad karma. Shall we put that in the report? A poor little third world country struggling through an episode of bad karma.”

  “The insurers have sent an investigator. Our claim could be compromised if he gets hold of the wrong idea. We have this on good advice, Carmen Collins from the London brokerage house telephoned us...”

  “Carmen, a cute girl, if I recall. Half Portuguese. Party girl. I remember her back from the days at Digressions.”

  “Digressions?”

  “A nightclub.”

  “We’re not here to talk about nightclubs.”

  “Right. Sorry, I digress. We are the poor little non-corrupt country. What happened to you, man? Let’s talk about it, Boss. When was the last time you paid for your own martini? She pushed the first claim through like only beautiful women can. You have a collection you want Carmen taking the file into the room. The underwriters go gaga at the woman’s pins and fall over themselves to sign on the dotted. She got a face like she got the itchy ear. She’s a puzzled deer looking at the first winter snow.”

  “We don’t want this investigator getting the wrong idea. You understand the position very clearly. One slip-up and...”

  “I understand their position too. I’m straddling the fence so far my balls are filing for divorce with each other. They will have the wrong idea. Or maybe the right one. I can’t play the London market for you. It’s not a bank, Boss. I can talk to this investigator. Sing him a poor third world country song. Who is he?”

  “Joe Dylan.”

  “Hmmm. I know of him, one of the better ones, He has a brain. Boss, it’ll be tricky. We can only do what we can do. We had a case in Mexico together; the assured was as bent as an Arab’s dagger, a tough taco to swallow as I recall. London paid. You present a reasonable claim and I’ll present it to London for you. Leave Joe to me. I’m not sure that the market will swallow it. Joe certainly won’t. He’s paid not to. What happened with the latest fatality?”

  “Diving in shallow waters. We have a police report and a doctor’s certificate.”

  “Great. We both know that the report is from Shogun’s brother Rang. I guess the investigator will find that out to. I know how London will see the second claim and it doesn’t smell like a bunch of roses on a summer’s day. I know these people. We are treading on thin ice and the only way to move on thin ice is to move surely and to move quickly.”

  “We have the death certificates for the Fin,” Boss passed over the original documents. Hale looked at them.

  “Doctor Johnson?”

  “Yes, signed by an English doctor. It’s a new incentive on the island. Tourists like these international hospitals.”

  “With the certificate I can put something together. I don’t like it, but it can be done.”

  “Good. You have exactly one week to get the money,” Boss stood up and smiled.

  “And if London don’t play ball?”

  “Then you are finished.”

  “Finished?”

  “Use your imagination Hale. Telephone once you have the cash. Not before. Thank you for your time.”

  “Fine,” Hale stood. They shook hands above the table. Hale walked out past reception with the documents held tightly in his hand. Outside the sun hurt his eyes. He found a bar at the mouth of the soi and walked in.

  The first three beers didn’t hit the sides.

  The next one he drank down slowly.

  The desk telephone rang. Boss spoke briefly with reception and buzzed in the two visitors. Two figures walked through the door. The first was a middle-aged man wearing a pair of filthy brown trousers and a pink polo-neck T-shirt. He had an unshaven face and an expression like that of a puzzled bear. He had been on the receiving end of one too many bar fights. No stranger to the bottle the bear had,

  Scars,

  Scratches,

  Scabs.

  He wore a dirty blue baseball cap. He was from Zurich. He had over-stayed his tourist visa for many years. Jack had one redeeming feature; he was completely loyal to his employer.

  The second was a man in his early twenties with a goatee beard and rat-like eyes. At first appearance an innocent backpacker, but Boss knew better. From Copenhagen the Elf was ex-military. A black belt in several disciplines of martial arts he had been known to knock out men three times his size.

  “Jack, Elf, please sit down.” Boss opened an envelope and took out a photograph. “Take a look at this. Name. Joe Dylan. Occupation. Corporate Fraud Investigator. His flight arrives at 15.45 today. Jack, your job is to wait at the airport and follow him. Don’t let him see you. Don’t lean too heavy and don’t shout too loud. Scare him if possible. Just be yourself. It should be easy. Let me know where he is and what he is doing. This is for you.” Boss handed him an envelope. “You get another one when the jobs finished.”

  Jack picked up the envelope, folded it and put it in his pocket. “Thanks Boss,” he said. “Boss, did I just see James Hale leave the building?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Well, maybe you might like to know that there’s a contract out on him. He borrowed from The Shark. If I take him in I get a cut. I almost pulled him in right there and then. I need the Euro.”

  “The Shark? Well, don’t haul him in while you’re doing this job. Be patient. I’ll speak with The Shark. After this job is finished then you can give him to The Shark.” Boss looked at the younger man. “Elf, you get the ferry port. Rent a room at Surat Thani and watch the passengers. When you see him get on the boat then you track him down on the island. Do what you have to do to make his visit as unpleasant as possible.”

  Elf took his envelope and weighed it in his hand. “It’ll cost more to kill him.”

  “If it comes to that we’ll pay you more.” The three men exchanged smiles and stood up. “Well, let’s get to work,” Boss said.

  The three stood up and shook hands.

  TWELVE

  Sweet, wet, sobering

  JOE CAUGHT the eye of a beautiful a young Thai woman waiting at arrivals. She was tall and thin and wore a black dress with high heels. Eyes like a puzzled doe. He admired the shape of her hips and her rump swaying and twitching in anticipation of someone coming through arrivals. She smiled and it hit Joe somewhere remote and cold. Then he saw it. A western man with two strands of grey hair and an artificial hip stumbled towards Miss Asia. She held her arms wide open and grandpa walked straight into them. It had been almost ninety days since Joe had felt the warmth of a woman or the coolness of a beer. He watched the old man and the beautiful woman like he’d just been shown an elaborate card trick.

  Thailand had built herself a new airport, but airports didn’t excite Joe much. They were either a means of escape or a means of coming home. An immigration official unhappily stamped Joe into the kingdom. He walked past the duty-free shops. Booze and perfume. Purgatory was an inte
rnational destination. It was Bangkok.

  Joe stopped at a seven-eleven. He bought a road map and a bottle of green liquid that looked like tea. He headed for the exit. He knew to expect the heat. It hit him the way temperature blasts from an oven door. His breath became shorter. He began to sweat. He lost weight with each step. He put his hand above his forehead to shade his eyes from the sun. The steady hum of traffic from the expressway and the chatter of tourists. There were no other animal sounds. Only humans, snakes, rats, and cockroaches survived in the big city.

  “Welcome to Thailand! You need Taxi?” The driver flashed a quick toothy smile. “Where you go?” He wore a blue shirt with narrow shoulders above dark blue slacks. He could have been twenty-five or he could have been fifty. “I give good price. Speak good English.” He raised his left arm ushering Joe towards his beat-up yellow and green.

  “Take me to Sukhumvit road” Joe said.

  “You speak Thai, no?” The driver asked looking back through the gap between the front passenger seats.

  “If you want a tip my friend, keep your eyes on the road.”

  “Ah, very good. For me no problem. Me drive same Schumacher.”

  Joe got in the green and yellow taxi. They launched forward into several lanes of traffic. A red corolla taxi pulled away behind and slipped into the stream. It kept close. They moved onto the highway and weaved in and out of the traffic. Pick-up trucks, taxis, trucks, sports cars and saloons. A garland of flowers swung wildly beneath the rear view mirror as the green and yellow swerved in and out of traffic squeezing through the narrowest gaps. In the windscreen mirror Joe saw the red corolla getting closer.

  “You see the car following us?” Joe said.

  “It’s a taxi, same me and you.”

  “Lose him.”

  “What does it mean ‘lose him’?”

  “It means drive faster.”

  They moved into another lane. The red taxi kept close behind. Joe turned around and saw the passenger hand his driver a roll of bank notes. The red taxi accelerated. Joe’s cab surged forward. His head hit the front seat.

  “He rammed us,” Joe said.