Bangkok Bob and the missing Mormon

by Stephen Leather

  I could hear the pounding horn of a bus, louder now.

  I could see the red flecks of blood on the headrest of the front passenger seat. My blood.

  I felt the DVD slip from my fingers and clatter onto the floor of the taxi.

  And that’s when the cream and blue Bangkok Mass Transit Authority bus smashed into the back of the bike and sent it and the two men on it hurtling down the street.

  I guess that’s when I lost consciousness.

  CHAPTER 39

  ‘Mr Turtledove? Can you hear me Mr Turtledove?’ It was a man’s voice. Speaking English but with a Thai accent. Then he spoke in Thai to someone else. ‘He’s still unconscious.’

  ‘No, I’m all right,’ I said, but the words came out all wrong as if I’d forgotten how to work my tongue.

  ‘Mr Turtledove?’

  I felt a pressure on my eyelid and then it was forced open and a bright light made me wince. I groaned and blinked and then I opened my eyes to see a young doctor looking down at me. ‘Where am I?’ I asked, and this time my tongue seemed to have regained the knack of forming words.

  ‘Bumrungrad Hospital,’ he said. ‘The emergency room.’

  That was good news.

  At least I wasn’t dead.

  I guess if you’re going to be shot anywhere, the best place would be outside one of Asia’s best hospitals.

  ‘How do you feel, Mr Turtledove?’

  ‘My head hurts. And my throat is dry.’

  The doctor asked a nurse to get me some water and a few seconds later a straw was slipped between my lips and I sipped gratefully.

  ‘Do you have any other pain anywhere else?’ asked the doctor.

  The nurse took the water away. ‘No,’ I said. ‘No pain. How many times was I shot?’

  ‘Just once,’ said the doctor. ‘The bullet glanced across your temple. You were lucky.’

  ‘I don’t feel lucky,’ I said.

  The doctor took my right hand. ‘Squeeze, please,’ he said.

  I did as I was told.

  ‘Good,’ said the doctor. He put down my right hand and picked up my left. ‘And again, please.’ I squeezed again.

  ‘That’s good, Mr Turtledove. Very good.’

  There was a metallic whirring sound and the bed began to tilt up. I was in a private room with an LCD television on the wall and a sofa for visitors. I guess they’d found the insurance card in my wallet.

  ‘There was some bleeding, obviously, but it was superficial. I’d like you to come back in a couple of days to change the dressing, but other than that you’ll be fine.’

  ‘My head really hurts,’ I said.

  ‘We’ll prescribe painkillers, but we did a scan while you were unconscious and there’s no sign of damage to the skull or the brain,’ he said. ‘You’re good to go.’ He signed a form on a clipboard and handed it to the nurse, wished me a good afternoon and left.

  I asked a nurse to bring me my cellphone and I tapped out Noy’s number.

  ‘Where are you?’ she asked.

  ‘Hospital,’ I said.

  ‘I thought you were done by eleven,’ she said.

  ‘That was the plan,’ I said.

  ‘How did it go?’

  ‘Good news, bad news,’ I said.

  ‘Oh my Buddha, they didn’t cut off your manhood, did they?’

  ‘No, honey, I’m still in one piece.’

  ‘So what’s the good news?’

  ‘My colon is fine. No cysts, tumours or anything untoward. Clean bill of health.’

  ‘That’s great, honey. So what’s the bad news?’

  ‘I’ve been shot.’

  CHAPTER 40

  Noy came to pick me up at the hospital and drove me back to our apartment in Soi Thonglor, after we’d paid the hospital bill, of course. You get great treatment at the Bumrungrad, but it comes at a price.

  She didn’t ask me any questions in the car, but once I was on the sofa with a cup of coffee in my hand, they came thick and fast.

  Who had shot me?

  Why had they shot me?

  What had happened to the man who’d shot me?

  Was he working for someone else?

  The problem was, most of the questions I couldn’t answer even if I’d wanted to. It looked like a professional job, which means the hitman had been bought and paid for. But who would want me dead?

  Petrov, the Russian, maybe.

  Thongchai or one of the Kube investors.

  Tukkata’s father, maybe. He hadn’t been happy about me going around to his house.

  But I didn’t think that me asking questions merited any of them putting a price on my head.

  Maybe it was one of the other cases I’d worked on over the years.

  Hell, it could even be a case of mistaken identity. I wouldn’t have been the only middle-aged farang leaving the Bumrungrad and Thai hitmen aren’t generally known for being smart.

  ‘I don’t know, honey, really I don’t know.’

  ‘Is it one of your cases, do you think?’

  ‘It’s either that or someone on eBay thinks they got a raw deal.’

  She folded her arms and gave me a withering look. ‘This isn’t funny, Bob.’

  ‘I know, honey. I’m just trying to lighten the moment.’

  ‘Someone tried to kill you.’

  ‘I know that honey.’ I touched the plaster carefully. ‘I think that’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?’

  ‘And they might try again.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘They were hit by a bus.’

  She frowned. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘A bus ploughed into the bike. I’m guessing they’re in much worse condition than me, and I’m pretty sure they won’t have had health insurance so they won’t be getting the Bumrungrad treatment.’ I sipped my coffee. ‘I’ll go and see Somsak tomorrow. He’ll know what’s going on.’

  My mobile rang. I fished it out of my pocket and squinted at the screen. ‘Speak of the devil,’ I said.

  CHAPTER 41

  Somsak was sitting behind his desk when the secretary showed me into his office. He stood up and shook my hand then showed me to a hard-backed wooden chair. ‘How’s the head?’ he asked sympathetically. It had been two days since I’d been shot, two days that I’d spent at home being fussed over by Noy. Which, truth be told, I actually quite enjoyed.

  My hand went instinctively up to the dressing on my temple. ‘It’s fine. Just a headache.’

  ‘You were lucky.’

  ‘You must be using some definition of lucky that I’m not familiar with,’ I said. ‘Where I come from, a four-leaf clover is lucky. Getting shot in the head definitely ranks up there with black cats and broken mirrors.’

  Somsak frowned and I quickly explained about black cats crossing paths and shattered mirrors bringing seven years of bad luck.

  ‘I meant you were lucky to be alive,’ he said patiently.

  It was my own fault for using sarcasm. Somsak was as straight as a dye and while he had a good enough sense of humour where anything involving slapstick was involved, irony and sarcasm were generally lost on him.

  ‘I am,’ I said.

  ‘That bus driver saved your life,’ he said. ‘If he hadn’t been high on amphetamines he probably wouldn’t have hit the motorcycle and the guy would have got off another shot.’

  ‘They dead?’

  ‘The driver is but the shooter’s in hospital.’

  ‘Talking?’

  ‘Life support. Fifty-fifty.’

  I sighed. ‘Think he’ll talk?’

  ‘If he doesn’t die, he’ll probably talk. Depends who hired him.’

  ‘You’ll cut him a deal?’

  ‘If he pleads guilty and cooperates then any sentence is automatically halved, Khun Bob. You know that.’

  ‘I’d lock him away for ever,’ I said.

  ‘It’s more important to know who wanted you dead because whoever paid for the hit might want to pay again. And don’t worry,
he will go to prison and Thai prisons are not holiday camps.’

  He was right. Fifty men per cell, sleeping on concrete floors, a couple of bowls of rice a day and an open sewer for a toilet.

  ‘And he’s in a worse state than you are,’ said Somsak. ‘He’s lost his spleen and his left leg is never going to heal properly.’

  I shrugged. Somsak was right. There was no point in bearing grudges. He’d tried to kill me, he’d failed, and he was the one on life support. I should be counting my blessings.

  ‘Let me know what he says, yeah?’

  ‘Of course.

  ‘I wouldn’t have though this case would have been in your jurisdiction,’ I said. ‘Don’t the Lumpini cops deal with Soi 3.’

  ‘Indeed they do, but I thought you might like things handled by a friend. Especially in view of what we found in the taxi.’

  He smiled. It was a mischievous smile. Like he knew something that I didn’t. Something that amused him.

  ‘What?’

  His smile widened and he leaned over and took a DVD case out of one of his desk drawers. He tossed it to me and I caught it. ‘You’ve got a strange taste in movies, Khun Bob.’

  I groaned. It was the Bumrungrad DVD of my colonoscopy that I’d dropped in the taxi. ‘You’ve seen it?’

  ‘We’ve all seen it. You paid good money for that?’

  I sighed mournfully.

  ‘I’ve seen better pornography on sale at Pantip Plaza,’ he said.

  ‘It’s a colonoscopy.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘They put a camera through your intestines.’

  ‘The things you farangs do for fun.’ He chuckled.

  ‘It wasn’t fun,’ I said.

  ‘That’s your colon?’

  ‘All twenty-two feet of it.’

  ‘And you’re carrying around a video of the procedure?’

  I sighed. I explained that I’d just left Bumrungrad Hospital when the hitman had taken his shot. And that the colonoscopy had been clear.

  ‘See,’ he said. ‘It really was your lucky day.’ He lit a cigarette and blew smoke up into the air. ‘What about your missing American? Did he ever turn up?’

  I shook my head. ‘All dead ends,’ I said. ‘I keep trying his phone and email but his phone is off and he doesn’t seem to be logging on to get his emails. My only hope now is to get him next time he does a visa run.’

  ‘You don’t think something has happened to him?’

  ‘Somsak, I just don’t know. It looks as if he left his place in Soi 22 of his own free will, and I think he might be with a girl.’

  ‘And what about what happened to you? Do you think there’s a connection?’

  ‘What, you think Jon Junior wanted to have me killed?’

  Somsak blew a perfect smoke ring. ‘I wondered if perhaps someone you had spoken to…’

  ‘It’s possible,’ I said.

  ‘Do you want to give me a list?’

  I nodded. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I can do that.’

  Somsak grinned. ‘I probably won’t need it, I’m pretty sure that the hitman is going to talk. They usually do.’

  CHAPTER 42

  Somsak phoned me the following evening, just as I was just sitting down to eat with Noy. She’d cooked prawns with ginger, chicken wrapped in banana leaves and a red duck curry that was one of my favourite dishes, so I had half a mind to let the answering machine pick it up.

  Noy nodded at me to take the call as she put a bowl of boiled rice onto the table. ‘They’ll only keep calling,’ she said. ‘And I want you to myself tonight, to celebrate the bandage coming off.’ I’d been to the Bumrungrad in the afternoon and the doctor had taken off the dressing and said that all was well and that from now on the wound would just heal naturally. I had stopped taking painkillers and the headache had gone, so Noy had bought a very good bottle of champagne and was insisting on an early night, which I figured was the least I could do under the circumstances.

  I took the phone out on to the terrace. ‘You’ll never guess who wanted you dead,’ said Somsak.

  ‘I bet I do.’

  ‘I bet you don’t.’

  ‘This is a silly game, Somsak,’ I said.

  ‘I know, but you’ll never guess, not in a million years. The hitman is singing like a canary.’

  ‘So tell me.’

  ‘And spoil my fun?’

  I sighed. ‘The Pope.’

  ‘Why would the Pope want you dead?’

  ‘He wouldn’t. Unless he’d heard that I was pro-Choice.’

  ‘Pro-Choice? What does that mean?’

  ‘Nothing, Somsak. I was joking about the Pope.’

  ‘A serious guess, then,’ said Somsak. ‘Who do you think paid for the hitman?’

  I sighed again. ‘You said I wouldn’t be able to guess.’

  ‘Try.’

  I sighed. ‘It was Petrov Shevtsov,’ I said.

  The Russian. He wanted me dead because I’d uncovered his money-laundering scheme.

  ‘No.’

  That surprised me. But then again maybe if Petrov had wanted me dead he’d probably have shot me himself. He seemed the type.

  ‘Who was it then?’

  ‘Guess again.’

  ‘Somsak, please…’

  Somsak chuckled. I don’t think I’d given him so much pleasure since he took ten thousand baht off me with a straight flush that I hadn’t seen coming.

  ‘One more guess.’

  ‘Santhanavit.’

  Tukkata’s father. I’d told Somsak that maybe he’d wanted me dead because he didn’t want me chasing after his daughter. It was a bit drastic but Thais often over-reacted where family were concerned.

  ‘No. Not him. But you’re getting warmer.’

  ‘Warmer? You mean Mrs Santhanavit?’

  ‘No, not the wife.’

  ‘Tell me, Somsak, or I’ll pay someone to shoot you.’

  ‘It was Big Red,’ he said.

  He didn’t say ‘Big Red’ exactly. He said it in Thai. Daeng Yai. But it didn’t matter what the language was, I was still none the wiser.

  Big Red?

  Who the hell was Big Red?

  ‘He runs a magazine company. Glossy trade magazines.’

  I shrugged. I wasn’t a big reader of glossy trade magazines. Noy was but I doubt that Big Red was going around putting out contracts on men just because their wives were buying his products.

  ‘He has a big BMW,’ said Somsak. ‘A Seven series.’

  ‘A red one?’ I said hopefully. I didn’t know anyone who drove a BMW, big or small.

  ‘A black one. With tinted windows.’

  Realisation dawned.

  I’d seen Kai getting into a big black BMW with tinted windows. And there had been a big man sitting in the back. A big man in a suit.

  ‘Now you know who I’m talking about?’ asked Somsak.

  ‘He picked up one of the girls at Tukkata’s school,’ I said. ‘She was underage. I didn’t get a good look at him.’

  I rubbed the back of my neck. This still wasn’t making sense.

  ‘I didn’t even speak to him. Why the hell would he want me killed?’

  ‘You spoke to the girl. He probably thought that you were asking about him.’

  ‘That’s a bit of an over-reaction, don’t you think?’

  ‘You don’t know Big Red.’

  ‘Put me out of my misery, Somsak,’ I said. ‘Why does he want me dead?’

  ‘He’s married to the daughter of a very senior army general,’ said Somsak. ‘In fact, Big Red’s company had been bankrolled by his wife since day one. But Mrs Big Red isn’t the most attractive of women, putting it mildly. So he’s obviously been looking elsewhere for rest and relaxation as the Americans put it.’

  ‘He was sleeping with Kai?’

  ‘I don’t think there was much sleeping going on. And I don’t think he was confining his activities to the one girl. Our enquiries suggest that Big Red was paying half a dozen schoolgirls f
or sex. Kai seems to be his favourite. In fact, he’d promised to set her up as a mia noi when she reached eighteen.’

  Mia noi.

  Minor wife.

  Permanent mistress with benefits, like a house and a car.

  ‘How old is Big Red?’ I asked.

  ‘Fifty-seven.’

  Forty-two years older than Kai. The Thais have a saying for it. Old cows prefer to eat young grass.

  I could see why he might want to get rid of anyone who threatened to disrupt his cosy little arrangement. I doubt that the general’s daughter would react well to the news that her husband had set up a girl forty years his junior as a full-time mistress. He had probably seen me give my number to Kai. Once he had my number it would have been easy to track me down.

  ‘So what happens now?’ I asked.

  ‘We put together a case against Big Red. The shooter is already talking and we have a statement from the girl.’

  ‘I hope they throw away the key.’

  ‘I think he’ll be more worried about what his wife will do to him.’

  Somsak was probably right. The traditional retribution for wronged Thai wives was to wait until the errant husband was asleep and to cut off his member. What happened then depended on how angry the woman was.

  She might wrap it in ice and phone for an ambulance.

  She might throw it to the ducks.

  She might put it in the kitchen blender.

  She might tie it to a helium-filled balloon and wave goodbye to it as it headed for the clouds.

  I figured the general’s daughter would be pretty angry.

  ‘So the great Bangkok Bob couldn’t solve the mystery of the hired killer,’ said Somsak. ‘You didn’t even know who wanted you dead.’

  ‘I think I’m a pretty good judge of character, generally,’ I said.

  ‘Are you sure about that?’ said the policeman.

  ‘I’m not usually wrong.’

  Somsak chuckled. ‘Let me tell you something, Khun Bob. But first you must promise never to tell anyone else.’

  ‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’

  ‘When we play poker…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Sometimes when I have a pair of jacks or better, I blink.’

  I smiled. ‘I know that.’