Bangkok Rules (5 page)

The owner’s name was Oleg. He was behind the bar hovering near the cashier. He had the hollow cheeks and vague eyes of a person who had abused narcotics to the extreme and somehow lived to tell the tale. Oleg was tall and very thin. He dressed like a teenager in skinny jeans and an overly elaborate shirt and had hair that was spiked up with gel that Carl had always thought looked like a toilet brush. He atypically bought Carl a drink. Oleg never bought anybody a drink.

“Carl, I need your help,” he said, still with the Balkans still in his accent.

“Do I get a clue Oleg or do I need to guess the problem?”

“You see my bar, it is very quiet, no?”

“Yes Oleg, always quiet.”

As they spoke, a heavy red felt curtain that had been drawn across an alcove at the far end of the bar opened. Behind the curtain was a synthetic leather sofa that Oleg’s girls used to solicit tips for fellatio sessions. A slightly overweight and dangly breasted girl came out followed by an enormous Russian tourist. The Russian grunted at her in Russian and kissed her on the cheek whilst slipping a thousand baht note into her eager hand. The Russian left hurriedly.

“We serve anybody these days,” Oleg said in disgust as the door closed behind the Russian.

“So what can I help you with Oleg?”

“I was wondering after all these years you have been coming to Soi Cowboy if you can give me advice on what to do to make more customers come.”

“I hope what you mean is how to attract more customers to the bar. Otherwise it is way outside my field of expertise Oleg.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Never mind, I will tell you a story Oleg. Once upon a time there was a bar on Soi Cowboy and the owner, being new in town, asked a customer for advice. What is wrong with my bar, he asked his only customer of the night. Quite obvious, he was told, you see, the bar is on the wrong side of the room so when the door opens you cannot see the bar or the customers, and as you know, nobody wants to enter an empty bar. The bar owner took this to heart and shut the place down for a month and had the bar demolished and moved from one side of the building to the other. A few weeks after reopening there was little improvement in the number of customers. One night he asked a customer what he thought the problem was. Obvious, he said, the bar is on the wrong side. What do you mean, he demanded. I mean, when the door opens you can see everybody at the bar and what they are all doing and who wants to be seen by people from the street in such a bar.”

“I don’t get it,” Oleg told Carl.

“You will Oleg, you are already halfway there.”

Oleg went back to his corner at the other end of the dimly lit bar where his computer was situated. Due to his history with heroin he didn’t trust himself with alcohol so was addicted to Coca Cola and the Internet instead. Carl had seen him once sitting at his computer surfing Internet porn sites. Carl had thought this very curious indeed because while Oleg was glued to his computer screen three of his naked girls were putting on a show for a customer with a fat wallet. The show included hot dripping candle wax, spanking, and several dildos. Carl had wondered what Oleg could possibly be captivated by on an Internet porn site while all that was going on but he had decided that he didn’t want to know.

The door opened bringing daylight. Damien Southerby came in and sat beside Carl. Carl knew that his real name was Keith Smith but pretended that he didn’t. It was better that way. In Bangkok if he wanted to be called Damien Southerby he would get it and that was fine by Carl. He wore a starched business shirt with twinkling diamond cufflinks and a bright yellow Zegna tie. His watch was a gold Rolex also covered in diamonds. Damien had perfectly styled hair, manicured fingernails and the clear skin of somebody who eats well and visits his health club regularly.

Damien was a crook and a very successful one. He sold dodgy foreign currency investments over the phone that guaranteed a large profit to unsuspecting Australians. The gullible Australian investors never had a chance of seeing any of their money again as the only people really guaranteed a profit were the sellers; there was no investment. Damien and his motley crew worked their phone scam during Australian office hours so their working day ended at Bangkok lunchtime. They, and other groups like them, were frequently seen around the bars early in the afternoons.

“Good afternoon Carl. Bit early for you isn’t it?”

“I’m working. Your wife hired me.”

“Don’t even fucking joke about something like that.”

“Who’s joking?”

“One day you’ll give me a straight answer.”

“One day you’ll deserve one.”

“Seriously, how sure are you about that report you gave us a couple of months ago? We have been discussing it and it just seems too easy,” Damien said.

“It is very straightforward Damien. Thailand does not like, and is not very good at any case that is multi-jurisdictional. So as long as you don’t advertise that you are in Thailand and no client money enters Thailand through local banks and you don’t meet any clients here, the local authorities couldn’t give a shit what you do. The only time that could change is if a foreign government asked for help from the Thai Government. Then, if they knew who you were and where you worked they would probably just make a lot of noise in the hope that you would run away and leave the country of your own accord. There is no benefit for them if they have to build a case and testify in court for the next three years so they will give you the opportunity to flee first. Should you prove stubborn they will simply find an excuse to revoke your visa and deport you. The colonels said if you pay the agreed amount into that account number every month they will let you know if any department in the police is looking for you. Their promise to you is that you will hear about it before your door gets knocked on.”

“Are you sure about this?” Damien asked.

“Nothing in life is guaranteed Damien but that is the way it works. Continue to tell your clients that you are in New York, don’t make enemies in Thailand, and pay your hookers well is my advice. And don’t forget to pay the colonels whatever you do, they know you exist now.”

“Great, great news, thank you. Did Alexander bring the cash to you? Were you happy with it?”

“Yes I saw Alexander a couple of months ago. The bonus you added was much appreciated.” Carl didn’t add that he knew Alexander’s name was really Eric. Carl also chose not to mention that the large bonus he had received went the very same day to a spotty young Finnish poker player in an illegal gambling den whose four sevens had beaten Carl’s full house.

“Good, good, excellent. We must have dinner together soon,” Damien said as he moved down the bar and slipped behind the red curtain to make a deposit.

There wouldn’t be a dinner invitation. Carl made Damien nervous and he would avoid Carl until somebody made him more nervous and he needed him again. Damien or as his mum called him, Keith, had bought his own bullshit and saw himself as a successful globetrotting entrepreneur. The white-collar criminals were a funny lot and they were very prone to fantasy. Carl didn’t question or interfere with Damien’s movie star fantasy world; the envelope was always fat and cash was always preferable. Carl decided to leave the bar before the grunting from behind the curtain started.

By that evening Carl was sitting in one of the crowded big, new and shiny bars that were gradually taking over the limited real estate in Soi Cowboy. He was watching the topless dancers and he was deep in thought. He hadn’t intended to get drunk but it never started with that as his plan. In Carl’s vast experience, the kind of bars he had chosen to drink in on that day always provided that end result.

As usual, it had taken getting completely drunk to hit the inspiration he required. He would go and see the Dutchman. That was it! The alcohol charged bolt of lightning had struck. Of course! The Dutchman. It was so simple it would never have come to him if he had been sober but without that restraint it had become clear.

The plan would require a lot of luck but investigations typically turned on luck so it was definitely a sound idea. It was time for Carl to go home, sober up, and pay a visit to the Dutchman. He left Soi Cowboy and took a taxi to Duke’s to collect his car. The car was dry even if Carl wasn’t.

Chapter 4

Waking up on Tuesday morning was a shock to Carl’s system. It reminded him of why he had been avoiding Soi Cowboy recently. Once he had been the youngest detective in Asia and the bars had been his chosen social life. Then he would drink a bottle of vodka, have wild sex, for a price, with two fit dancing girls and get up the next afternoon full of energy and joie de vivre. Now Carl would wake up alone early in the morning feeling like death warmed over, promise not to drink again, and walk around all day like a pit bull going cold turkey.

Carl fiddled clumsily with the Italian coffee machine and managed to make himself a double espresso without spilling too much of the dark frothy liquid. The strong shot of coffee made his belly rumble and his first cigarette of the day brought on a fit of coughing. A dangerous combination so he climbed the stairs rapidly to the toilet to read a chapter of Churchill’s A History of the English Speaking Peoples. Carl had no idea what constipation was and why people complained about it. Thailand had always kept him regular.

Two hours later, shaved and showered – it had taken a while for him to get going – Carl arrived at the Dutchman’s house. Carl hadn’t called first as the aged hippy didn’t have a telephone. But Carl understood his habits well enough to assume he would be home. It was a small house in a medium-sized garden on a lane off a minor street at the suburban end of Sukhumvit Road.

The house was Bangkok old style and had well-matured trees in the garden and a rusty gate at the front. The Dutchman was one of Bangkok’s more famous old eccentric expat characters. He dealt antique Tibetan rugs out of his sitting room; that is to say he was mostly broke and in debt. He had been married once and his wife had foolishly tried to make him respectable.

They had established a direct mail advertising business in the late 1980s, his version of going straight. His ex-wife had been a large round woman, Thai-Chinese and madly, passionately in love with money. Her father had been a mister-fix it army major. A lot of plain brown envelopes stuffed with money had been passed to him under Bangkok coffee shop tables. He was known for having a dark side and would, for a fee, happily give somebody a serious talking to including a slap or worse. His daughter had not fallen far from the tree.

Carl knew the marriage was not a happy one when, around 1993, he noticed the Dutchman on Soi Cowboy every Tuesday falling down drunk. After several weeks of this odd behaviour Carl asked him why every Tuesday brought on such self-destructive behaviour? “Because Tuesday is the night Bla-bla-bla wants to sit on my face!” he slurred unhappily.

‘Bla-bla-bla’ was what he un-affectionately nicknamed his wife whom everybody else politely, and possibly out of fear, called Barbara although that was not her real name. She had chosen it due to an addiction to Barbara Cartland’s novels. Carl sympathized with the Dutchman’s plight. Bla-bla-bla was not the sort of woman that he could imagine in any sort of intimate situation. There was no surprise when the divorce came soon after that. She had gone away and was living in sin with her money in Vienna. He was down and out in Bangkok. It was hard to say which one of them got the best end of the deal.

The Dutchman’s maid ‘Pim’ came to the gate surrounded by ten yapping small dogs. She smiled when she saw Carl. It had been a while since he had been there last. She liked Carl in the way that women with a need to play mother to an unmanageable rogue are fond of the rogues that they do not have to be responsible for. The Dutchman was her project and the more he argued with her and the less he paid her, the fonder she grew. What Carl saw was a case of full-blown martyrdom, a functional relationship in which the Dutchman was the tantrum-throwing little boy, and she the suffering adult. Carl was confident that they would live happily ever after.

“He’s still in bed. Nothing has changed. He is still smoking too much ganja and drinking too much. There is a woman living here, watch out for her she’s another one of his whores. She’ll be gone soon, like the others. When the money runs out again she will leave.” Pim was muttering to herself in Thai as much as to Carl. He had heard it all before.

She opened the door to the house and Carl went in. It was a place he had fond memories of. Everything was old. Even the music collection was vinyl. The house contained piles of antique carpets and the smell of old wood and imported Tibetan dust. The Dutchman lived from hand to mouth even though what he had was highly valuable stock. Deep down he was trying not to sell it, as he’d grown attached to every piece of it. He always waited until the final demand bills came or the collectors were on his doorstep when it became essential to sell one of his treasured items. It became a matter of timing but time didn’t really matter to the Dutchman so he was often in trouble.

“You bloody asshole!” he boomed from halfway down the stairs in pyjamas and bedroom slippers. “Where have you been hiding? I heard your car from up the street. Still driving around like a bloody millionaire then. If you can afford to run that thing you can afford to send out for noodles and beer.” He went straight to the open door. “Pim, Pim, get in here, Carl is giving you some money to get beer and noodles. He’s hungry.”

“You mean you’re thirsty,” she muttered to him as she bustled into the house carrying a tray laden with coffee cups and water glasses.