Pattaya 24/7

by Christopher G. Moore

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “So that you know what I am up against. And you and everyone else in this compound, if I keep digging into what happened to your husband. It’s time to be real careful. You let me know where I can find Ton, and we can have one more chance.”

  “Asking questions is dangerous,” she said.

  “That’s why most people don’t bother,” he replied. “Why do you have only one more chance?”

  “These guys don’t give anyone a second chance.”

  The question in his mind was whether he had put his faith in the right woman. There were no second chances. Period.

  TWENTY-NINE

  DAVID JARDINE HAD left a message for Calvino to meet him at eight o’clock inside TQ2. Calvino threaded his way along Walking Street in South Pattaya, turned into a small lane, and found TQ2 with a flashing neon sign. He was a couple of minutes early. Colonel Pratt had said on the beach that David Jardine was the terrorist specialist attached to the American Embassy, and Calvino tried to figure out Pratt’s relationship with Jardine. What was the chain of command?

  Jardine’s voice message had been short and sweet: “I’d like to talk to you about Veera.”

  Jardine had caught Calvino’s attention. It left Calvino with hours to sort through a deck of doubts. Had Pratt volunteered the information about the meeting with Veera? Why hadn’t his friend told him? Jardine might have found out from an independent source. American agents with diplomatic credentials traditionally worked out of the embassy. With fresh bomb attacks planned in Narathiwat and links between the bombers and the terrorist group, Jemaah Islamiah, it didn’t take much of a leap to believe the Americans had beefed up their local manpower. Each of them with laptops and high-tech hook-ups to secure transmissions, sorting through profiles, photographs and intelligence reports, looking to prevent the next terrorist attack.

  Inside TQ2, four or five dancers in bikinis and high-heels were on a stage, moving to the tune of “Rocket Man.” Moved, moving were active verbs; most of the dancers were closer to a state of suspended animation than movement. Angels frozen in a solid block of amber light. Young and expectant, they wondered as Calvino walked in if he were the customer—the one who walked through the door with a wad of cash and a desire for a good time. The farang who would buy them a cola, who would pay their bar fine, and the next morning buy them a gold chain, helping them execute their private business plan for a stream of cash. Mobile teenaged CEO’s with one product to sell. A product that wasn’t until that moment moving. That was their business: the moving of cash from a rich pocket into a not-so-rich china doll satin gown. Calvino retained all of that magic possibility and wishful thinking for about twenty seconds. All eyes on stage tracked him as he walked one level up and sat down, looking down at the stage. He avoided eye contact with the dancers. He didn’t flash a smile. He didn’t look happy. Most of all, he didn’t look like a buyer. The angels returned to their state as angels frozen in the amber light. He’d signaled that he was an old hand, and had come for some other business. That killed the magic; they would need to wait for a new opportunity to move and cash in.

  One of Calvino’s laws for holding a meeting in a bar was straightforward: If you made an appointment with a stranger while investigating a murder case, ignore the bar hostess, whose job is to steer the mark to a front row stool eighteen inches from the stage, prime angel-picking terrain, and demand an isolated seat on an empty bench two levels up from the stage. Always occupy the high ground, don’t make eye contact with a ying, and never take your eye off the door to the street even if five goddesses on the stage seek your attention. The promise of xenophilia by a bar ying is a con; the only xen that’s real in a bar is xenophobia.

  Calvino had originally thought that Pratt had drawn the short straw and was sent on the thankless, dangerous and difficult job of finding enough evidence to collar Veera. He figured that Veera had become too powerful and this was causing someone a major headache. Whatever the reason, the crackdown had less to do with Veera’s crimes than Veera’s influence. The time had run out for the old days when local godfathers were all-powerful entities inside their small feudal turfs; a new way had emerged, and in time, their influence and power was being consolidated, absorbed into a larger organization. Those who refused to go along with the times were a problem. Like dinosaurs once the climate had changed, they had trouble breathing in the new atmosphere. Veera had continued to live in a different era and, like in the Road Runner cartoon where the bird overshoots the cliff, he simply hadn’t looked down. He didn’t know there was nothing under his feet but a very long fall.

  It didn’t take rocket science to figure out that Jardine was either Special Forces or CIA, an undercover agent on assignment in Thailand. Bangkok had become spook central. They had fanned over the region. Spooks spilling into Pattaya—that was natural. After all, Chon Buri was packed with Cobra Gold troops. Not that one would have called them a soft target, but they would make a tempting target for the kind of people who liked blowing up Americans. Guys like David Jardine would be sniffing around looking to shut down trouble before it happened. Hardly an arrest of a suspected terrorist in Asia had happened without an American security detail being involved. They had their own internal system of operation. Meaning they were a law unto themselves. Calvino waited and nursed his drink. Jardine wanted something he had. What did Jardine want from him?

  After receiving the voicemail from David Jardine, Calvino phoned Pratt.

  “David Jardine, does the name ring a bell?” asked Calvino. “You mentioned him on the beach. Wasn’t he the reason I should get out of Pattaya?”

  There had been a moment of silence. “He’s the reason. Why?”

  One of those spooks with a name card with no title written under the name.

  “I have an appointment to meet him.”

  “It’s still not too late. Go home, Vincent.”

  It was Calvino’s turn to pause. “You’re working with him?”

  “I’ve met him.”

  “I’m about to meet him.”

  “David’s a pro,” said Colonel Pratt. “He’s worked in East

  Timor, Somalia, Kosovo.”

  “That almost prepares him for Pattaya.”

  “He’s the best at what he does.”

  David Jardine worked in a shadow world wedged between the rotating blades of the political mandates of Washington and the practical realities of what could be accomplished on the ground, and to survive, he had to be good. Pratt’s assessment wasn’t something that he said about just anyone.

  “Exactly what does he do?”

  “I am certain he’ll explain that to you.”

  When a tall, middle-aged lanky farang stood framed in the door, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness before entering, the first thing that struck Calvino was how well lived-in the face looked, crossed with lines spreading from the eyes, and how quickly he scanned the room. The yings on stage looked him up and down for a few seconds, locking their radar onto the target and then logging off, knowing they could never bring this one down.

  Jardine scanned the upper rows and locked eyes with Calvino. He nodded and walked up the two steps and sat down, taking a cold towel from the waitress and wiping his face and the back of his neck. He folded the towel and laid it on the counter.

  “Vincent Calvino?” “David Jardine?”

  Jardine didn’t smile. He didn’t look like he knew how to smile. He held out his hand and Calvino shook it. He was the kind of man that put a lot of stock in a firm handshake, as if firmness were a litmus test of character. Jardine’s orange juice arrived in a tall glass with a straw.

  “Colonel Pratt said you work at the Embassy,” said Calvino. He thought it was a good idea to immediately raise Pratt’s

  name. Drop the dime and see where it bounced.

  “Colonel Pratt is one of the few cops we trust. I understand you’ve known him for many years.”

  “Since he was a student in New York.�
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  “He says your family saved his life.”

  It had been an eternity, thought Calvino. David Jardine could have opened an entire line of questions about how Calvino and New York and the colonel had come together.

  The fact that he didn’t meant that he already had that intel-ligence, or it simply didn’t matter to the business he had in mind. Jardine struck him as a cautious and careful man who didn’t leave things to chance. He figured Jardine had the intel on him and Pratt.

  “The people I work with feel that Colonel Pratt is the right person on the ground. They trust him. And I agree with them. You save a man’s life in this culture and he owes you his life.”

  “Colonel Pratt owes me nothing.”

  “It doesn’t work that way. I think you know that.”

  Jardine sipped his orange juice, barely looking at the stage. He turned back to Calvino and he said, “I learnt two lessons. First, that the most important asset is the one honest, connected and brave man on the ground. Someone who can’t be turned. You know the percentage of men who can’t be turned by money, sex, blackmail?” He held up one hand and started to fold down his fingers until two were left showing in the semi-darkness of the bar. Pratt was one of two fingers.

  “Pratt is one of two out of a million.” Calvino didn’t bother to ask who the other person was.

  “You said there were two lessons.”

  Jardine nodded. “Good, that means you’re listening. Lesson number two I learned from an old hand who lived in Thailand many years. Jack Shirley. Jack said never go into a place until you first figured out how the hell you can escape. You plan your exit before you go in. Once you’re inside, it’s too late. When the shit starts happening and you have to run, you can’t make it up as you scram. You have to mark the way out.”

  “If you knew Jack Shirley, you knew one of the best.” Calvino had underestimated David Jardine, who had some

  history with Pattaya and with Jack Shirley, one of the legendary agents of the secret war in Laos.

  “That’s something we can agree on. I understand that you saved the colonel from some hard times at the hands of a Chinese drug gang in New York, and that you ended up paying a high price for helping a friend. The colonel tells me that you never once complained about paying the price for that friendship.”

  “Did the colonel tell you what I am doing in Pattaya?”

  “Investigating a murder.”

  “The widow thinks it was murder, the lord of the manor and the police think it was suicide. I was hired by the lord of the manor.”

  “Valentine, the concert pianist. I once heard him perform in Paris. Mozart Concerto in F Minor,” said Jardine. “If you know anything about music, you would know that Valentine is one of the best pianists alive. And he walked away from it.”

  The man had done his homework.

  “Why today at this bar? I thought secret agents used safe houses or limos with tinted windows.”

  “To see how you balance a chip on each shoulder. A couple of Mekhongs in a Pattaya bar and, who knows, one of the chips might fall off,” said Jardine.

  The waitress asked Calvino if he wanted another drink. He ordered a Mekhong and Coke.

  “Make that two,” he said, and then, turning to Jardine, “One for each chip.”

  Jardine had shown a few of his cards. He had let Calvino know about his connection with Jack Shirley, Colonel Pratt and his murder case. There was an art in revealing just enough information to gain the confidence of another person. To create a sense of ease so they’d relax, let their guard down. Then punch hard about their attitude, call it a double-chipped shoulder complex. It had to work most of the time. As Colonel Pratt had said, Jardine was the best at what he did, and that was getting information. They were seated together because there was something that David Jardine needed to know from Calvino. He didn’t have to wait until the Mekhong and Cokes arrived before Jardine turned over the next card. It was a joker with Veera’s face on it.

  “You think that Veera is connected to your murder case?” Jardine wanted a debriefing on the Veera meeting and had been waiting for the right moment to bring up the subject. Calvino shrugged. “I don’t know it’s murder. Veera says every time someone gets whacked in Chon Buri, everyone points a finger at him. He’s says he’s an ordinary businessman.”

  “There are some bigger issues at play.”

  In David Jardine’s world the boundaries were defined by big issues, and well-financed men met at the frontline to test each other and decide which of those big issues would prevail. Winning had nothing to do with merit or morality; like on the African savannah, survival had to do with being the fastest and strongest and most disciplined and determined.

  “I leave the big issues for the big people,” said Calvino. “If I can find who killed Valentine’s gardener, that’s good enough. You don’t need my help to make the world a safer and more secure place. I wouldn’t know where to start.”

  For the first time, David Jardine smiled. “I am not so certain I know where to start either.”

  After the Mekhong and Cokes arrived, Jardine seemed to relax. “The bad guys have no trouble blowing up schools, bars, discos, office buildings. That’s the problem. They chose to play hardball on 9/11. Anyone who doesn’t understand that the terrorists have the rules of engagement has been living in a fucking cave.”

  Calvino had heard this party line and understood the drill. There had been a catastrophic inflation of fear. Fear exploded at the speed of light. The masters of the new universe seized the chance to play God. Ice to water; water to steam. Such fear justified an inflated counter-reaction. Legal formalities had to be abolished. The Patriot Act was seen as necessary to rework the Constitution. Men like Jardine had been sent across the globe like post-modern missionaries to preach the gospel and make converts. Call it intelligence, call it religion—it didn’t matter. Either one was a true believer or one was on the other side of the line. Hunter and hunted. Redemption came from following the sinner, pursuing him to the ends of the earth. Find him and either kill him or bundle him away to Cuba or to a base in Afghanistan. Use whatever techniques were required to make him talk—until all of his bank accounts, friends, relatives, car rentals, houses and contacts were disclosed. That wasn’t salvation. That was survival. Apply to a court for extradition? No one even raised the question anymore. The courts were secular. They didn’t understand the new religion. Court procedure was a relic from an old, dead world, from the age before the government became god and the new class of priest chased after the devil.

  “It’s a different game,” said David Jardine. “You grab him, you fly him out on the next military transport and do what is needed to get the information. The information gets old quickly. The word gets out and the bad guys shift to a new set of caves. If you want to catch the ringleaders, you move fast. Vincent, we are at war, and the people on the other side are full of rage and murder and we have to stop them. If we don’t act, then we will have 9/11 over and over until everything and everyone you love is destroyed.”

  “The government said that about the Mafia. They said that about drugs. You know what—both are still with us. No amount of weed killer gets them all,” said Calvino.

  “No one ever thinks we can get them all. But we can contain them.”

  “How do you do that unless you can contain the panic and fear that makes people feel the other side can’t ever be contained? And if that’s the conclusion, everyone lives under permanent siege,” said Calvino.

  Everyone on the covert side had joined the race to unplug the murdering machine; fueled with hatred and rage and pain, they functioned on automatic pilot, their mission to destroy the West one bomb at a time until finally nothing and no one was left standing.

  “We hold a halal ritual for all human beings,” said Jardine.

  “Hit ’em or buy ’em,” said Calvino.

  Jardine nodded.

  “The world has lost nuance.”

  “You’re either with us
or against us.”

  Jardine flinched.

  “I didn’t make this new world. Like you, I try to do the best I can and remember that at the end of the day, I have to live with what I do. The same goes for you. You can think what you want about me. The government. Policy debates. None of that matters right now. I want you to think about your case. The death of a gardener wasn’t necessarily just another domestic murder.”

  It was more than normal volatility in the system. That’s what Jardine meant.

  Fear had the capacity of turning every death into part of the larger fight. That’s what Calvino thought.

  Calvino finished his Mekhong and Coke. “One piece of intelligence I can pass along: if you want a good massage, you won’t find it at the Harmony massage parlor.”

  “I don’t think you are with the program,” said Jardine.

  “I don’t have cable. Tell me exactly—what program am I missing?”

  “That we are at war with an enemy who believes God has stocked heaven with virgins for murderers.”

  “And what’s their side? Your people, who want to kill them, believe in the virgin birth,” said Calvino.

  “Tell me, which myth is crazier?”

  “The Jemaah Islamiah operatives in Thailand aren’t cartoon characters. The press refer to them as JI. What the newspaper don’t report is how tough, committed, ruthless the JI are. Well trained, cunning, and well financed. I don’t underestimate them. My problem is with someone who’s lived too long outside of their own country. They no longer understand what others in their country value or feel.”

  “Colonel Pratt said I should go home.”

  “Do you have a home to go back to?”

  “Like my mother said, you can always go home.”

  Calvino had lived in Thailand half a lifetime. His reaction to Jardine’s world was one of anger. But he recognized that Jardine had made a point and that he’d just made a fool of himself. Expats ran the risk of falling between worlds, leaving them in the void with other expats like themselves. Invisible—and not so invisible—barriers made it impossible for a farang to assimilate into Thai culture. At the same time, places like America retreated into the fog of the past. The place remembered was not the same place anymore. Jardine had gone silent. He’d pushed the right button. Calvino had been about to call for the check. If Jardine wanted to bring him into the game, why not find out what the game was.