‘And sometimes, when I don’t have anything, I also blink.’
Right then.
You live and learn.
CHAPTER 43
She was walking with two other girls, laughing animatedly and waving around her BlackBerry. All three were in school uniform but carrying brand-name bags and wearing expensive high heels. She’d never seen me in the Hummer so she jumped when I wound down the window and said hello. ‘It’s all right, Kai,’ I said. ‘I just need to talk.’
‘I’ve already talked to the police,’ she said. Her two friends were looking at her, tugging nervously at the straps of their designer bags.
‘I just need to clear some things up,’ I said. ‘I promise you, you’re not in trouble.’ I got out of the car and locked the door. ‘Let me buy you some noodles,’ I said, nodding at the noodle stalls on the pavement. ‘Or a Coke. Your friends, too. I won’t be long, I promise.’ She looked reluctant and I couldn’t be too forceful because at the end of the day she was a schoolgirl and I was three times her age and some. ‘Please, Kai,’ I said. I put my hand up to the wound on my temple. ‘You see this? A man tried to kill me, you owe me a few minutes of your time, at least.’
‘Who shot you?’
‘Didn’t the police tell you? Big Red paid someone to kill me.’ I smiled. ‘He wasn’t a very good shot.’
‘Am I in trouble?’
I shook my head. ‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘But I just want to ask you a few things. Please.’ I waved at the nearest noodle stall and she walked towards it.
One of the girls asked what she was doing and Kai told them to wait.
I sat down opposite her on a wooden stall and ordered two Cokes.
‘So the police came to talk to you? At school?’
She shook her head. ‘At home. My parents are really mad at me. The police told them everything. Big Red’s driver told the police about me, and about his other girls.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s okay. The police say we’re not going to be in trouble. Not with them, anyway. My parents have grounded me for three months.’
‘Did you tell Big Red about me?’
She nodded. ‘He wanted to know who you were and why you were talking to me.’
An old man shuffled over with two bottles of Coke and two glasses filled with shaved ice. ‘And you gave him my number?’ She bit down on her lower lip and nodded. She was scared. ‘Kai, it’s okay. I’m not upset.’ It didn’t take much to get the name and address of the owner of a mobile phone in Thailand, a few thousand baht at most.
‘I’m sorry you were hurt,’ she said.
I smiled. ‘It’s a scratch,’ I said. ‘I’m fine now. And you didn’t do anything. It was Big Red.’
‘He gave me money. He helped me.’
‘He’s a grown man and you’re a kid, Kai. You’re fifteen years old.’
‘I know, but he didn’t force me to do anything.’ She held up her Gucci bag. ‘He bought me this. And my phone. He buys me anything I want.’
‘That doesn’t make it right, Kai.’
She bit down on her lower lip again. She was close to tears. I couldn’t work out if she was upset because of what Big Red had done or because I had been shot at or because she knew she had lost her sugar daddy.
I figured it was probably the latter.
‘The first time you went with him, where was that?’ I asked.
She frowned, not understanding the question.
‘How did you meet him?’ I asked. ‘The first time?’
Her face brightened. ‘The internet.’
‘The internet?’
‘There’s a website you can go to meet people.’
‘Like Facebook?’
She shook her head. ‘It’s a chat room,’ she said. ‘You can talk to people and if you like them you give them your phone number.’
‘A chat room for men to meet girls?’
She nodded.
‘Young girls, Kai?’
‘Mainly young girls,’ she said. ‘The men usually want to know how old you are and what school you go to.’
‘And the girls have sex?’
She shook her head. ‘No, not always. Sometimes the men just want to talk while they touch themselves. Or sometimes they just want to touch.’ She giggled. ‘There’s one Japanese man who just wants to buy the underwear you’re wearing. He pays five thousand baht, just for your panties.’
‘He’s welcome to my boxer shorts,’ I said, and she laughed. ‘How did you find out about the website?’ I asked.
‘Everyone was talking about it at school. One of my friends had a new BlackBerry and I asked her how she’d paid for it and she said that she’d met a man in the chat room and he’d given it to her. She showed me what to do and I tried it.’
‘And you weren’t shy? Or scared?’
She shrugged carelessly. ‘I didn’t care. I just wanted a BlackBerry.’
‘And where did you go with him?’
‘The first time we met at the Penthouse Hotel in Soi 3. It’s one of those hotels where they pull a curtain around the car and you go straight into the room. The first time we just talked. But the second time he wanted me to…’ She shrugged.
‘He wanted sex with you?’
She nodded.
‘And you were okay with that?’
She nodded again. ‘He gave me five thousand baht the first time. And he said he’d buy me a BlackBerry. And an electronic dictionary that I needed.’
‘And he did?’
‘He bought me lots of things,’ she said. ‘Clothes. Handbags. A Sony computer.’
‘And didn’t your parents ask where all this stuff was coming from?’
She shook her head.
‘But the money? They must have known that you had money? Didn’t they want to know where it came from?’
‘My dad gave me pocket money.’
I ran a hand through my hair. Sometimes kids confused the hell out of me. ‘If you had pocket money from your father, why did you sell yourself?’
She shook her head. ‘I wasn’t selling myself,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t like that. Men gave me money and I made them happy.’ She looked me in the eyes. ‘What’s wrong with that?’
I didn’t know what to say to her.
‘Better to earn something myself than to take it from my father,’ she said.
‘I suppose so,’ I said. I didn’t agree with her for one second but I doubted that she would listen to anything I had to say.
She looked at her watch. It was a Rolex and I knew without asking how she’d earned it. ‘I have to go,’ she said.
‘Just one more thing,’ I said. ‘Tukkata. Did she do the same thing? Did she visit the same website? Did she go with men for money?’
Kai laughed out loud and then covered her mouth with her hand. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Tukkata would never do that.’
‘Why did she run away, Kai?’
She tensed and I could tell that she was about to lie to me.
‘I know she ran away, Kai. I know she left her family. Why, Kai? Why did she run away?’
Kai shook her head.
‘You told her what you did, didn’t you? You told her that you went with men for money?’
She nodded. ‘I showed her the chat room but she said I was crazy.’
‘Did you ask her to do it?’
She nodded enthusiastically. ‘I told her it was an easy way to get money but she said she couldn’t do it.’
‘So why did she run away?’
A look of guilt flashed across her face and I knew that there was something she wasn’t telling me.
‘I need to know that she’s all right,’ I said.
‘She’s fine,’ said Kai.
‘How do you know? Did she tell you that she was running away?’
She looked down, avoiding my gaze. ‘Yes,’ she said.
‘With Khun Jon?’
‘I think so, yes. She didn’t say his name but she said she was going with a friend.’
/> I sighed.
Finally, I was getting to the truth.
‘Where did she go, Kai?’
‘I don’t know.’ She looked at her watch again.
‘What was she running away from? From Big Red?’
She shook her head. ‘No. Not him.’
‘Who then? Who was she afraid of? Who was she running from?’
And then I knew.
Before she opened her mouth to speak, I knew.
‘Her father,’ I said, and it was a statement, not a question.
She jerked as if she’d been stung, and then looked at me quizzically. ‘How did you know?’
‘What happened, Kai? You can tell me.’
‘I have to go,’ she said.
‘Tell me what happened.’
She closed her eyes as if she was wishing that I would disappear. ‘I didn’t know it was him, not at first,’ she said.
‘You met him in the chat room?’
She nodded, then slowly opened her eyes. ‘We chatted online and then he called me and we talked. He seemed really nice and he said he’d give me five thousand baht for just one hour so I said that I’d meet him. He booked a room in the Landmark Hotel and told me to meet him there. He wanted me to wear my school uniform. Most of the men do. The lights were off and it was quite dark and he wanted to make love quickly and it was only afterwards when he was showering that I realised who he was. I’d seen him at the school sports day with his wife and Tukkata. And I’d seen him at the English school sometimes, dropping her off.’
‘Did he know that you knew his daughter?’
She shook her head. ‘He asked me what year I was in, that’s all.’
‘So he knew you were fifteen?’
‘He liked it. He said he liked me because I was young. He asked me to call him Daddy while he was making love to me.’
I felt my stomach lurch.
She got up to go but I put my hand on her shoulder and she looked at me, suddenly scared, and I pulled my hand away and apologised.
‘You told Tukkata?’ I asked. ‘You told her that you’d seen her father?’
She nodded. ‘At first she didn’t believe me but her father had asked for my phone number and he kept sending me text messages. I showed her and then she knew that I was telling the truth.’
‘Do you still have the messages on your phone?’
She nodded cautiously.
‘Can I see them?’
She took out her phone and called up her messages, then handed it to me. I read them and my stomach lurched again. Messages from a middle-aged man to an underage schoolgirl. Telling her what he wanted to do with her.
‘Did she talk to her father about this?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘And how soon after she saw the messages did she leave?’
‘A couple of days.’ She held out her hand. ‘Can I have my phone back, please?’
I scrolled back through the text messages. I stopped when I saw one from Tukkata. I opened the message.
‘I’m okay,’ it said. ‘Don’t worry.’
The message had been sent three days ago. I looked at the number. It was the number that Jon Junior had called.
‘Please, can I have my phone back,’ she said.
I gave it to her.
‘I have to go,’ she said. She stood up and hurried away.
I watched her walk away with her friends.
Now I understood everything.
But I was still no closer to finding Jon Junior.
As I walked over to the Hummer my phone rang. It was John Muller, apologising for not calling me back sooner.
‘Where are you, Bob?’ asked Muller. ‘Word on the grapevine is that you were shot by a jealous husband.’
‘I’m hanging around outside a school,’ I said. ‘Which is what got me shot in the first place.’
‘Are you serious?’
I climbed into the Hummer and closed the door. It was already swelteringly hot even though the air-con had only been off for ten minutes or so. I switched on the engine. ‘Fairly serious, but I’m okay.’
‘You need anything, let me know,’ he said, and he sounded like he meant it. ‘I’m calling about the two numbers you wanted checking. It took my contact longer than usual.’
‘Better late than never,’ I said.
‘One of them was a DTAC number so that was a non-starter. The other was an AIS number but it’s been switched off for almost two weeks now and no calls have been made from it. But three days ago it was on long enough to send an SMS.’
‘Did the message by any chance say “I’m okay, don’t worry” and please don’t ask me if I’m psychic.’
‘That’s it exactly. The phone was on for less than two minutes.’
‘And please tell me that you have the phone’s location?’
‘Koh Samui,’ said Muller.
Interesting.
CHAPTER 44
Koh Samui used to be one of my favourite islands, and when Noy and I were first married we used to go down several times a year, just to watch the waves crash on the sand and eat seafood and breathe in the fresh air. It’s got what Bangkok hasn’t – white sandy beaches, coral reefs and coconut palms. But it’s become much more commercialised recently, with faceless hotels spoiling the coastline and foreign firms building overpriced villas with no infrastructure to support them. The fact that foreigners can’t own land in Thailand hasn’t stopped the villas selling, and now there are parts of the island where the only Thais you see are the maids and poolboys. It’s now the second-most popular tourist destination in the country, following Phuket, but it has become a violent place too, with foreigners getting raped and robbed on a regular basis and estate agents hiring hitmen to sort out contractual problems. The full moon parties have become world famous for drug-fuelled raves that go on for days at a time, with many a bemused foreigner being busted by undercover cops. It’s been at least five years since Noy and I visited and when I told her that I was going there to look for Jon Junior she told me to be careful and didn’t offer to come with me.
The easiest way to get to Koh Samui is by plane with a flight time of an hour, give or take. The island’s airport is cute, with thatched buildings and palm trees, and the customs check for those arriving on international flights is minimal to say the least. It’s the third-biggest island in Thailand, fifteen miles long and thirteen miles wide, and most of the hotels and huts are clustered around the beaches. John Muller had been able to identify the cellphone transmitter that Tukkata’s phone had logged on to when she’d switched it on, so I had a pretty good idea where to start looking. Mae nam, on the north side of the island.
Mae means mother and nam means water and together mae nam means river. There’s a seven kilometre beach with pure white sand, shielded by a line of coconut palms. Lots of small resorts and restaurants and bars catering for tourists. I caught the first flight from Bangkok and had a taxi drop me at the east end of the beach and figured that I could walk the full length in three hours, and if I had to I’d walk back. If I didn’t find them during the day then my plan was to book into one of the resorts for the night and to try again the following day.
I wandered into a restaurant called Mr Pu’s and showed a waitress Jon Junior’s photograph. She frowned and shook her head. I sat down and ordered a coffee and a bottle of water, figuring that I ought to get my fluid levels up before I started walking down a sun-drenched beach with temperatures in the mid-forties. I’d brought a New Orleans Saints baseball cap with me and some factor thirty sunblock because the Thai sun can be devastating to Western skin. I rubbed the sunblock over my face and hands as I waited for my coffee. A couple of Italian girls came in wearing string bikinis and I showed them the photograph but they both shook their heads.
I drank my coffee and half the bottle of water and then paid my bill and took the bottle outside. The sea was blue and the sky was cloudless and I could feel the hot sand through my shoes as I headed for the water. I walked alon
g the wet sand, heading west. It was one o’clock in the afternoon, just about the hottest time of the day, but there were plenty of people lying on the beach, roasting like pigs on a spit as if they’d never heard of UV damage and skin cancer.
I’m with the Thais when it comes to sunbathing. They don’t do it, and most of the time they cover themselves up on the beach, and even swim in t-shirts and jeans.
Most of the girls on the beach were farang, so I didn’t have to get too close, and most of the men with Thai girls were in the forties or older, so again I could give them a wide berth. What I was looking for – a young American and a Thai student – was a rarity on Koh Samui.
An hour into my walk along the beach I’d already finished my bottle of water and I was heading for a bar to replenish my supply when my cellphone rang. It was Somsak. ‘What’s that I can hear?’ he asked.
‘The sea,’ I said.
‘Where are you?’
‘Koh Samui.’
‘Vacation?’
‘Work,’ I said. ‘I’m hoping that Jon Junior is here.’
‘Jon Junior?’
‘The missing Mormon.’
‘Good luck with that,’ he said. ‘Now I’ve got good news, bad news for you.’
I was hearing that a lot lately.
‘The good news is that the guy who shot you is pleading guilty.’
‘And the bad news?’
‘He’s not naming Big Red as the paymaster.’
‘What?’
‘Now he’s claiming that Big Red’s driver paid him to shoot you.’
‘Oh, come on…’ I stood looking out over the sea. On the horizon were four fishing boats, heading east.
‘I know, I know. But that’s what he’s saying.’
‘So he’ll plead guilty to what, attempted murder?’
‘Assault perhaps. He’s claiming that he didn’t intend to kill you.’
‘He shot me, Somsak.’
‘Yes, but he didn’t kill you. For which we are all grateful. I wouldn’t be anywhere near as understanding if you were dead, my friend.’
‘So assault, then. Ten years?’
‘Six if there was a trial, but it will be halved if he pleads guilty.’
Three years, then. For trying to kill me.
Bangkok Bob and the missing Mormon Page 19