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.