The lift doors opened and we rode down. ‘Bitch,’ said the client, venomously. His face was bathed in sweat and there were damp patches under the arms of his jacket.
I said nothing. I could see his point, but I figured that of the two of them, he’d lost the most. She’d lost a sugar daddy, but then she wouldn’t have to satisfy the sexual urges of a man big enough to crush her if he rolled over in his sleep. And a girl as pretty as her wouldn’t have to look too hard to find another husband. He’d lost a beautiful young gold-digger but now he’d have to sleep with nothing more than his right hand for company. Swings and roundabouts? I didn’t think so. If ever there was a Pyrhic victory, this was it.
We walked out of the block and over to the Mercedes. ‘I don’t need you any more,’ he wheezed. ‘I can take care of myself at the airport. Thank you. For everything.’ He handed me a fistful of euros which I guessed was my cab fare home.
I opened the rear door of the Mercedes and he hauled himself slowly into the back. The suspension groaned in protest. I closed the door behind him and the car moved away from the kerb. I got one last look at the client as the car drove off. There were tears streaming down his fleshy cheeks.
THE CASE OF THE CHRISTIAN CONMAN
Khun Bua was a lovely woman, a decent middle-class Thai lady who kept dabbing at her eyes with a lace handkerchief as she told me her story. She was my first real client. I’d done a few bargirl investigations for friends but Khun Men was to be my first paying customer. She’d read my one and only advertisement in a tourist magazine that was delivered free to Bangkok hotels. I was surprised to be contacted by a Thai because the advert was aimed at tourists and visitors. I’d assumed that any Thai would prefer to deal with a Thai detective. But as Khun Bua told me her story as we sat together in a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet close to her home, it became clear why she wanted a farang.
She had a copy of the magazine with her. Not the one that contained my advert, hers was from almost a year earlier. It was open at a page with an article about a Thai marriage agency. There was a photograph of a man in religious attire conducting a marriage ceremony between a middle-aged farang and a young Thai girl.
As I read the article, Khun Bua sniffed and dabbed at her eyes. She was wearing a small gold crucifix around her neck. It was unusual for a Thai to be Christian. Thailand is a Buddhist country and Christians are a small minority. The man in the picture was the Reverend Marcus Armitage, and he had founded the Canadian-Thai Christian Dating Agency with the aim of finding wives for good Christian men back in Canada.
Between sniffles, Khun Bua explained that she worked for the magazine. A friend of hers, a wealthy politician’s wife, had put up the money for the publishing venture, but Khun Bua had been hired to do most of the work. She sold advertising space, wrote many of the articles, liaised with the printers and arranged to have the magazines delivered to the city’s hotels. Khun Bua had never married and had worked hard all her life, putting all her spare money in a savings account for the day when she retired. There’s no Government pension scheme in Thailand, it’s every man, and woman, for themselves. Thai parents have their children to support them in their old age, but Khun Bua was alone in the world and would have to take care of herself. But she lived frugally, saved every baht she could, and once she was retired she planned to build herself a small house in Phetchabun and spend her time reading and sewing. But the Reverend Armitage had brought Khun Bua’s plans crashing to the ground.
Armitage had met Khun Bua at the magazine’s office. He had agreed to pay for a half-page colour advertisement and in return Khun Bua had agreed to write an editorial, extolling the virtues of the new agency. He had been charming, and impressed Khun Bua with his knowledge of the Bible, often quoting passages at length. He had taken her out for dinner, he had sent her flowers when the article had appeared, he had given her a leather-bound Bible on her birthday. As she dabbed at her eyes, she told me that she had fallen in love with the smooth-talking Canadian. There had never been anything physical, she added quickly, not even a kiss on the cheek. He was the perfect gentleman. She had told him everything, her hard early years on a farm in Isaan, the one man she had loved who’d been killed in a road accident when she was twenty-one, and that fact that she was saving to build her own home.
During one dinner at a well-known Bangkok seafood restaurant, the Reverend Armitage told Khun Bua about his plans to start a new business in Thailand. His marriage agency was working well, he said, but what he really wanted to do was start a flower business. He planned to export flowers, especially orchids, to churches back in Canada to use in funerals and wedding ceremonies. The only thing that was holding him back was the fact that all his capital was tied up in the marriage agency and in his home on the west coast of Canada. If only there was some way he could find a business partner to help him get the new venture up and running. With his church connections back in Canada, the money would come rolling in.
Khun Bua took the bait. She offered to back the Reverend Armitage in his new venture. At first he declined, saying that he didn’t want to jeopardise their friendship by going into business, but Khun Bua insisted. She trusted the man of the cloth, and he was offering her a way to fund a very comfortable retirement. The Reverend allowed Khun Bua to persuade him that she was the perfect business partner, and he went with her to the bank where she drew out all her life savings in a cashier’s check. Armitage gave her a legal-looking document which stated that she was a partner in the Thai-Canadian Christian Orchid Company and that she would be entitled to fifty per cent of all future profits.
There were no profits, of course. At first there were excuses. Lots of excuses. There were problems with permits, with visas, with suppliers. Then his mobile phone number was disconnected. Khun Bua went around to the offices of the marriage agency in a run-down tenanted high-rise in Asoke. The only employee there was a young secretary who hadn’t been paid in two months. Of the Reverend Armitage there was no sign.
At this point in the story, Khun Bua broke down and began sobbing. I started to get angry looks from the diners in KFC, who obviously thought that I was the one making the middle-aged lady unhappy. I patted her on the back of the hand and told her that I would do what I could to help, and she blew her nose loudly and took a deep breath.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she sniffed. ‘But I have nothing now. That man, that evil, evil, man, took everything I have.’
The secretary told her that the rent hadn’t been paid, and that the electricity and phone were about to be cut off. She had Armitage’s home address but he wasn’t answering his phone. Khun Bua went around to the apartment in Soi 39 and found the landlord there. All Armitage’s personal effects had gone and he owed a month’s rent.
Khun Bua collapsed in the landlord’s arms. He advised her to go to the police, but they said there was nothing they could do: Armitage hadn’t broken any laws. Khun Bua had taken a week off work. She was getting heart palpitations and had developed a nervous tic. While at home she’d picked up the latest copy of the magazine and saw my advertisement. As we sat in the KFC outlet, she threw herself on my mercy. I was her last hope. Her only hope. And she had no money to pay me. Nothing. Nada.
Like I said, she was my first real case and I really did feel sorry for her, so I agreed to work on a commission of ten per cent of any funds recovered. If I could find the elusive Reverend Armitage, I stood to make 40,000 baht, which wasn’t at all shabby.
My first stop was the marriage agency’s office. The secretary was still there, but she was packing her things into a cardboard box when I walked in through the door. Her name was Nid and she was a typical young Thai university graduate, eager-to-please and working for a pittance. The average university graduate in Thailand earns less than 8,000 baht a month. Young Nid had been promised twice that but had only been paid for two months. She had no idea where her employer had gone and had problems of her own. Her rent was due that week and she hadn’t been able to send any money back to her family upcountry. Her only hope was to find another job and that wasn’t going to be easy as Bangkok was awash with newly qualified graduates.