“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 decades 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.”