Noble Lies

by Charles Benoit

  The walls were cleaner than he remembered and there wasn’t as much trash, but the bloodstain on the doorframe, brown and faded, and the larger one at the foot of the dumpster let him know that he’d been down this path before. He kicked some of the cardboard boxes out of the way, checking the ground for the weapon he was sure they had hidden but never got a chance to use, when the police cruiser started down the alley.

  It moved toward him slowly, not as intimidating as a Crown Victoria but the banana-clip machine guns in the rack behind the two solemn-faced cops made up for the car’s subcompact size. Mark turned and watched the car approach, smiling his best lost-tourist smile. He could see the driver speaking into the radio’s handset, the springy black cord looping on the dashboard. The passenger stepped out of the car, adjusting his white belt, smoothing out non-existent wrinkles in his polyester uniform shirt. He ran a finger up the ridge of his nose to push his mirrored aviator glasses tight against his face. It was only when the cop gave a two-finger wave that Mark noticed a second police car pulling up behind him.

  Mark widened his smile as he walked toward the policeman. “I’m glad to see you. Can you tell me how to get to the City Hotel from here? I seem to have—”

  “Shut up,” the officer snapped. He strode up to Mark, his fists balanced on his hips, his thin arms and bony elbows sticking out like a set of wings. Mark was a foot taller and eighty pounds heavier, but they both knew that that meant nothing now. “Why are you here for?” the cop shouted.

  “Like I said, I was walking around and got lost—”

  The cop stretched up and slapped him hard across the face. “You lie.” Without thinking, Mark clenched his fists, an unseen cop behind him responding with a sharp jab in the back from the end of a nightstick, the cop in front of him stepping closer, daring him to do something. “Why you here?”

  This time Mark said nothing, not even flinching when the cop slapped him a second time. There were two cops behind him now and they pulled his arms back, rapping the cuffs down hard on his wrists and ratcheting them tight. Mark did not resist but they shoved him down on the hood of the car anyway, kicking his legs out wide to pat him down. He let them push him into the backseat of the car and he didn’t sit up until they had backed out of the alley.

  It was hot and airless, with a thick taxi-style Plexiglas divider keeping the AC to the front of the car. He leaned back and closed his eyes. He had been in the back of enough police cars to know how to use his time. It would be a short ride and he needed to clear his mind. It could be nothing—a couple of corrupt cops shaking down a lone tourist, taking their frustrations out on someone twice their size. It could be everything—a clear link to a body found in a hillside shack on Phuket.

  He focused on his breathing.

  No matter what was waiting at the end of the ride, he knew he needed to be ready.

  ***

  “Can I get you something cold to drink? A Pepsi, maybe? Or a Thai iced tea?” The police captain leaned back in his chair and pushed a button on the window-mounted air conditioning unit. It gave a shudder, the metallic hum stepping up an octave. Mark could feel the cool air blowing on his sweaty face. He would have liked to run a hand across his forehead, wipe the sweat away from his eyes, but the handcuffs kept his arms locked behind his back.

  “I’m going to get you the iced tea,” the officer said, turning back to face his prisoner across his paper-strewn desk. “It’s not like the iced tea you’re used to, but you really should try it.” He picked up the phone on his desk and punched in three quick numbers. He smiled across at Mark as he waited, then spoke in Thai to the person at the other end. “Do you like your tea sweet?” he said, tilting the receiver away from his face. He raised his eyebrows, smiling warmly the full forty seconds it took Mark to respond.

  “Not too sweet,” Mark said. His lip was swollen where one of the cops had elbowed him as he got out of the car, not hard enough to break the skin but enough to make his words sound fat and slurred.

  “Good idea,” the captain said, “I’ll tell them to make it two.”

  The office was on the second floor of the police station, past a warren of cubicles, across from a dust-covered photocopier and far away from the row of small holding cells where Mark had sat for the last three hours. Other than a stained porcelain drain that served as an open toilet, the ten by ten foot cell had been empty. In the twin cell to his right, fifteen Thai men spent their time watching Mark as he sat on the concrete floor, asking him questions in Thai, laughing at jokes they knew he could not understand. They had fallen silent when the guards came down the row, stepping away from the bars, looking down at their own bare feet as the guards unlocked Mark’s cell. Mark was trying to stand up when the guards entered, shoving him back on the ground then shouting for him to get up, hoping he’d give them a reason to pull out their nightsticks. But Mark had had time and he was ready. They could knock him down and make him stand all day. They’d get bored before he’d snap, a high tolerance for physical harassment and general bullshit one of the benefits of being a Marine. They let him stand on his thirty-third attempt, then walked him to the captain’s office without a single shove.

  The captain wore old-style army fatigues, dark brown, tailored to match his lean frame. The sleeves were rolled up high on his arms, tight against his biceps. He was no larger than the other cops, but stronger, the muscles in his forearms twisting like cables. A multi-colored patch showed his unit and twin bars on his collars denoted his rank, his name embroidered in black Thai script above his right chest pocket. His black hair was freshly trimmed and his face glowed from a close shave. He was handsome and his smile and bright eyes made it hard for Mark to guess his age or his intentions. The tea ordered, he leaned back in his chair, interlacing his fingers behind his head. “So, Mr. Rohr…may I call you Mark? Great. My name is Jimmy—”

  Mark felt himself smirk.

  “Okay, it’s not my real name, but it’s easier for foreigners to say than Kanjorngiat Niratpattanasai. Hell, get a few Singhas in me and I can’t say it right.” He chuckled, swiveling his chair from side to side. “So tell me, Mark, are you enjoying your visit to Krabi?”

  Mark considered several answers before saying, “I haven’t been here long enough to form an opinion.”

  Jimmy nodded. “Sure, sure. Okay, first impressions then—what do you think?”

  Mark ran his tongue along his swollen lip. “It seems like a nice place.”

  “It is, isn’t it? The people are generally honest…okay, most are, but if it weren’t for the others I’d be out of a job, right?” He chuckled at his own joke. “It’s not a big city, but then it’s not some little village up in the hills. And—no offense—there’s not as many tourists as, say, Patong or Koh Samui.” He paused a long beat. “Have you been to Patong Beach, Mark?”

  It was Mark’s turn to smile. The bigger the lie, the more truth you needed to support it. “That’s where we came from yesterday.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” Jimmy said. “You and your girlfriend.”

  “And the Thai family—a girl named Pim, her nephew and her grandfather. They’re with us, too. I’m sorry, I can’t remember their names.” The officer continued to smile and nod, and Mark couldn’t tell if he was confirming what the man already knew or surprising him with revelations that would mean trouble later.

  The door to the office opened behind Mark and the cop who had slapped him walked to the desk carrying their drinks on a round plastic tray. He set one glass down on a coaster in front of the officer, the other he set in front of Mark.

  “Ah, just in time,” Jimmy said, lifting his drink from the desk. “You’re going to enjoy this.” He poked a straw in the drink, shifting the ice and mixing the light, frothy top with the creamy middle and dark liquid at the bottom of the glass. He took a long pull on his straw before he noticed that Mark hadn’t moved. Laughing he said, “Go a
head, Mark, it’s not poisoned.”

  Mark raised his shoulders, tilting his body to show off the handcuffs.

  “Oh, I forgot.” Jimmy snapped his fingers and said something to the street cop, who reached over and placed an unwrapped straw in Mark’s glass before leaving the office. Mark looked across at Jimmy as he leaned forward and worked the straw into his mouth. It had a strong tea taste with hints of cinnamon and vanilla. But it was cold and wet and Mark drained a third of the glass before sitting back in the chair.

  “It’s better if you mix it up first,” Jimmy said, pumping his straw in his glass to illustrate what he meant. “Maybe next time.” He set his glass back on his coaster. “So Mark, tell me, what were you doing in that alley last night?”

  “Which alley is that?”

  Jimmy raised a finger. “Good point. We may not have as many alleys as, say, Canajoharie, but we have a few. No, the alley I mean is the one where you were jumped by those three guys. Ring a bell?”

  “If you know about the alley,” Mark said, ignoring the casual reference to his hometown, “then you know I was just walking through and that they jumped me.”

  “Hello? Isn’t that what I said?” Jimmy shook his head as a show of disappointment. “Is that where you got the fat lip?”

  The fat lip twitched as Mark smiled. “Actually, I got that from one of your men.”

  “Ouch,” Jimmy said, bringing his hand up to rub his own lip in sympathy. “Well, they can be a bit rough. Not like in the States, huh? Yeah, I was a cop down in Maryland for a few years, the Gaithersburg area. Been there? You should check it out, very pretty. This was after the military. I was ninety-five B…Army talk for an MP. You’re a jarhead, right?”

  “Ex.”

  Jimmy laughed. “No such thing as an ex-Marine, Mark, you know that. And a Gulf War vet, too. What did you do to get that Bronze Star?”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  Jimmy waved his hand, dismissing the question. “Sure, sure. They just give those things away.”

  “Were you in the war?”

  “Me? Hell no. I did my three years and got out. Ended up here when my father died and my family moved back. Started as a patrolman and bought my way on up. Pay’s not as nice but when you add in the bribes it’s been a good living.”

  “Is that what this is about?” Mark said.

  “Bribes? Come on, Mark, you’re a tourist. How much money are you going to have on you? Enough to bribe a street cop, maybe even a sergeant, but I’m a captain. It takes more than you’ve got to buy me.” He was still smiling but the humor was fading from his voice. He glanced up at the clock that hung above the map of Krabi. “Look, Mark, I’m going to make this easy for you and fast for me. I’ve landed a position with a special maritime police unit based out of Phuket City—smuggling intervention, illegal immigration, piracy prevention, that sort of thing. It cost me a small fortune but the kickbacks and the potential for serious bribe money is enormous.”

  “Serve, guide and protect, huh?”

  “Don’t get all self-righteous on me, Mark, or I’ll turn you over to Jarin.”

  Mark dropped the sarcastic smile and held his breath.

  “His offer is the best one on the table right now. Not a lot, but more than the other, and enough to get my attention.” Jimmy reached out for his glass, stirring the ice around with the straw before taking a drink. His throat was dry, but Mark had lost interest in the spicy tea.

  “Fortunately for you, Mark, I plan on doing a lot of business with this man. If I turn you over to him now, he’ll think that he can get me for, well, let’s just say far less than I’m worth. There’s the other offer, but I don’t trust it. Sadly, all that ‘honor among thieves’ stuff is crap. Which brings me back to you.” Jimmy set down his empty glass and picked up the phone. “And you, Mark Rohr, you are an inconvenient distraction.”

  He said something into the phone, something short and curt, and Mark could hear booted footsteps coming up the stairs.

  Chapter Eighteen

  It had been a busy day.

  It started with a phone call, one of his mid-level minions calling to tell him that a shipment had arrived the night before, as expected. The man was professional and business-like and as meekly subservient as the rest, and Jarin had thanked him, certain that the man was just trying to be efficient and responsible.

  But the man had broken the main rule.

  He had brought business into his home.

  It was only a phone call and he had been discreet and polite, but that was not the point. The man had defiled his home, his sanctuary, and would have to be dealt with. He had to set an example for the rest. The Top Dog book understood. Rule Number Three: Your bark and your bite are the same thing. He felt sorry for the man and would tell him so, resolving to make it fast and painless.

  The day then continued with a recital at his daughter’s pre-school. They sang the same old traditional Thai songs he had sung his few years in school; they forgot half the words, mixed up the rest and they were off key and none of them clapped in time to the music. For the money he was spending they should have been more than just adorable.

  Of course the headmaster had spotted him, ambushing him as he left the auditorium. On and on about how it was always an honor to have Mr. Jarin stop by, and how he was such an important businessman and role model, not just for the children and the teachers but for the entire community as well. It was embarrassing, the headmaster fawning on him like some bar-beer whore buttering up a fat German tourist. This time it was a new computer classroom with his name on the door. Jarin knew what would come next. The headmaster—’what a coincidence!’—just happening to bump into him in Patong, maybe a note sent home with his daughter or a visit by a couple of her teachers, the pattern repeating until he paid up. And he knew he’d pay, too. It was the same technique he had been using for twenty years and it never failed, although he doubted the school would break his legs if he didn’t send a check. Rule Number Six: Bite down and don’t let go. That was in the book, too, but there were some things that didn’t have to be written down to be true.

  At his office he reviewed the disbursement details and sales figures for an amphetamine shipment, made a courtesy call to the out-going chief of the maritime police, arranged for an inconvenient fire at the computer store owned by a man whose son had racked up a six-figure gambling debt, and approved a bootleg-movie deal with a new connection in Hanoi. He had spent some time after lunch meeting with accountants and attorneys from his construction company about prospective government contracts—all legitimate and by the book—then stopped by the beach home of an elected official to go over the sealed bids of his competitors.

  It had been a busy day and he still had one last stop to make.

  Jarin turned down Bang-la Road. It was still early—it would be a couple hours before the police blocked off both ends of the street for the nightly dusk-till-dawn party. He pulled the Honda up in front of the Super Queen, the two bodyguards and Laang, the non-driving driver, jumping out before he had the engine off. He had told them many times to carry themselves like they were his business associates, not armed guards, but there they were, putting on their Ray-Bans and scanning the rooftops like there were nests of snipers on every corner. In all the time he had run Patong, no one had so much as sneered at him, but he knew that part of it was because he had bodyguards. And he had bodyguards so that no one would so much as sneer at him. Zen-like balance, or a dog chasing its tail, all the same thing.

  It was still early but there were already fifty tourists scattered around the vast space—nothing but a fancy tin roof and glittery lights that you couldn’t see in the daytime. But it wasn’t the décor that brought them in, had them sleepy drunk at three in the afternoon. It was the small army of small women, all big smiles like they actually wanted to be here. In their black and yellow striped rugb
y shirts they swarmed around the balding, middle-aged men like cute little bees, flirty and sweet until you tried to leave without spending what they thought was enough. Then the stingers came out and they turned into foul-mouthed tramps, armed with memorized phrases in every language that shattered the spell they had cast, reminding the tourists what they looked like and what was really going on.

  Most of the bouncers and a few of the bartenders recognized him—hell, they probably worked for him—and he could tell by the way they shifted their feet that they were shocked he was here, paralyzed between slinking into what anonymous little shadows they could find and stepping forward in case he should need their help. The bar manager was gone, probably halfway down the coast by now, unable to imagine a good reason why Mr. Jarin would visit the club in the middle of the day. As for the bar-beer girls, most were from up-country, the mountains above Bangkok, and all of them too young to care who he was. To them he was just some fat local businessman, old enough to be their father. Well, he couldn’t blame them. That was the image he projected, the one even those who knew better pretended to be true.

  Jarin cut across the empty dance floor, the speakers thumping out the crap that passed for music these days. With a flick of his wrist he waved off his entourage. They fanned out around the bar, watching the crowd and covering his back. Despite their occasional screw up, like that screw up at the warehouse the day before, they were efficient, self-taught professionals, good enough at what they did. There was something in the book about that, Rule Eight or Nine, something like ‘pat them on the head when they do well’. It was stupid advice. You never pat a pit bull on the head unless you want your hand ripped off. And you never tell a bodyguard he’s doing a good job. They get lazy that way, start thinking for themselves. Either way, dogs or people, rewarding expected behavior was dangerous.