I nodded. I smiled. I nodded again. She didn’t look much to me but Hank was the client and he was paying for my time. If it meant I’d get more money I’d have probably told him that he was a ‘handsum man’ and stroked his thigh. I know what you’re thinking. And you’re right. It isn’t only bargirls who tell people what they want to hear.
Hank took the photograph back, stared at it with moist eyes for a while, then slid it inside his wallet again. He continued his story. He’d offered to pay Elle a monthly ‘salary’ so that she could take care of her mother and daughter while she attended a good hairdressing school. Once she was qualified, Hank intended to set her up with her own beauty parlour. Elle was over the moon with the arrangement. She had to work at the bar until the end of the month to collect her salary and drinks commission, but once they had paid her she’d quit and start studying haircutting. It was only when he’d gotten to the airport that Hank started having second thoughts. He was twenty years older than Elle, he only had her word that the husband was out of the picture, and like most long-term visitors to Thailand he’d heard all the horror stories. He wanted me to check that everything was kosher, that she wasn’t continuing to sleep with customers, that she did indeed quit her job at the bar at the end of the month, and that she wasn’t still married. He also wanted me to find a good hair salon training school. All of it easy work which I figured wouldn’t take more than a day or two at worst, but he pulled out a wad of NZ dollars and handed me a week’s retainer before I could say anything. I thought about giving him half of it back, but just as quickly remembered that rule number one of the private-eye game is that the client was always right. Rule number two: never look a gift horse in the mouth.
I wished Hank a safe trip and headed back to the city. Coming up with the name of a good hairdressing school was easy. I’d been asked the same question more than a dozen times that year. It was a standard bargirl scam, to ask a sponsor to pay for her to learn hairdressing. Most just pocketed the cash and carried on hooking. Some started the course but quit after a week or so to go back to hooking. Some did the full course and then went back to hooking. So how many bargirls had I met who’d gone on to become hairdressers? Err, let me think about that. Err, none. Zero. Not one. That doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen, of course. I’ve never seen Father Christmas, but my seven-year-old nephew says he brought him a bicycle last year. The best schools were in Siam Square, and opposite the Siam Commercial bank on Petchburi road. I already had the names, addresses and contact numbers on my computer but figured I’d wait a few days before emailing Hank. Rule number three of the private-eye game: don’t make it look too easy.
Hank few out on Friday night but I left it until Monday before checking out Elle’s bar, figuring it would be easier to talk to her on a quiet night. Her bar was at the Asoke end of Soi Cowboy, small and sleazy, just the way I like them. I wandered in, wide-eyed as if I was a newbie, waied the waitresses and ordered a Jack Daniels and Coke. There were three tired-looking go-go dancers who were well past their sell-by date, up on a podium and another five clustered around a couple of Asian guys in suits, probably Japanese. The girls were probably thinking of the good old Rule of Four when it came to the Japanese: four inches, four minutes, four thousand baht. Okay, that’s racist, but then hell, we didn’t attack Pearl Harbour, did we?
My drink arrived. The Coke was flat which was par for the course in a go-go bar, but the JD was the real thing. I sipped it and studied the girls. None looked like the photograph that Hank had shown me. He’d given me her number so I squinted at the small circular badges that all the girls were wearing. Each badge had the girl’s number, as required by law. It also meant that guys didn’t have to bother remembering a girl’s name. Hank had told me that she was Number 27. One of the waitresses sat down beside me and started rubbing my thigh. She went through the basic bargirl questions. Where was I from? How long had I been in Bangkok? What hotel was I staying at? Australia. One day. The Sheraton. There was no number 27 in the bar which was either good news or bad news so far as Hank was concerned. Either she’d quit her job early or she was already in the sack with a punter. It turned out to be option three. The track came to an end and the bargirls tottered off to be replaced by a second shift. The middle girl was wearing number 27. She was fairly heavy set and her hair was a bit shorter than in Hank’s photograph. The longer that I sat and looked at her, the more I began to question Hank’s judgement. She wasn’t in the least bit easy on the eye. I guess if pushed I’d have described her as one-bag girl. That’s how I rank the dogs I come across. A one-bag girl is so ugly that you have to put a bag over her head to do the dirty. If she’s really ugly you need two bags. One for her, and one for yourself so that no one will recognise you. And if she’s really, really ugly then you need a third bag, to throw up in. So I guess using that scale, Elle wasn’t too bad. Anyway, I smiled and gave her a little wave and she started to dance around the pole a little more enthusiastically.
Twenty minutes later the girls shuffled off the stage and four more not-particularly attractive girls took their place. Elle appeared at my side, wrapping a leopard-skin sarong around her waist. I said hello and offered to buy her a drink. She had a cola, the standard bargirl’s commission drink, and within a few minutes she was stroking my thigh and I was getting her life story. She told me that she wanted to open up her own beauty salon and I took a risk by suggesting that she was very pretty and that she must have some guys who could help her. She giggled and said that yes, she had two guys who really liked her but that she wanted to do it herself. She told me about her daughter, and she told me that she lived on Sukhumvit Soi 101, which is the address that Hank had given me. I bought her another drink and brought up the subject of her bar fine and she said sure, she’d love to go with me. I said I didn’t think girls could go back to my hotel and she said that was fine, she knew several short-time hotels. I said I was still jet-lagged but that I’d be back the following night and that I’d barfine her then. I got a pout and a quick rub of my genitalia but then it was time for her to dance again. And she went back to the podium.
The waitress came over and asked me if I wanted another drink, so I ordered a JD and Coke and bought her one, too. She sat next to me, stroked my thigh and told me how handsome I was. She whispered in my ear that if I paid her barfine and took her to a short-time hotel, she’d screw me for free. That was a standard bargirl scam, I knew from experience. She was banking on the fact that she’d be so good in the sack or I’d be so drunk that I’d forget the deal and pay her when she left. I told her that she was cute, which she was, but that I really liked Number 27. But I hear she has a few boyfriends, I said.
The waitress nodded sympathetically. Yes, she had a soldier in Germany who liked her a lot and a man from Australia who gave her money. I figured Australia was close enough to New Zealand that it was probably Hank she was talking about, but even so it looked like my client was getting the short end of the stick.
I paid my bill, waved goodbye to Elle and ducked as she blew me a kiss. The next day I emailed Hank with my report. I gave him all the details I had on hairdressing schools, and told him that he could expect to pay about 30,000 baht for a year’s course at a good school, or about half that for a six-month course. If Elle were to graduate from one of the good schools she’d have no trouble getting a job in Bangkok. And I told him that he probably wasn’t Elle’s only sponsor. There was the German soldier, and there could well be other men who were sending her money. And I made it clear that she was still happy to have her bar fine paid.