Confessions of a Bangkok Private Eye: True Stories From the Case Files of Warren Olson

by Stephen Leather

  The Dutch agency had told me to take good care of the client so I booked a Mercedes and driver and got to Don Muang Airport an hour before the flight was due, holding a piece of card with his name on it as I sipped my black coffee. The man who walked over to me and introduced himself was just about the fattest guy I had ever set eyes on. He wasn’t big. He wasn’t even huge. He was obese and must have weighed at least 400 pounds straight out of the shower. He was in his early forties, with slicked back hair and half a dozen chins. He was wearing a light blue suit that was stretched like a sail in a high wind; I figured he must be at least five times the weight of the his wife and I couldn’t imagine how they went about having sex. We shook hands. His was the size of a small shovel but the fingers were soft, like underdone pork sausages. He had no luggage and hadn’t shaved on the plane, but he said he wanted to head straight out to the apartment. I sat upfront as we drove out to Bangna. The client didn’t say anything and only grunted at my attempts to start a conversation so after a while I just let him sit there in silence.

  It isn’t unusual for a pretty young Thai girl to marry an older guy. Like girls all over the Third World they want someone to take care of them and their families and there’s no doubt that a few thousand dollars in the bank can help add to a man’s attractiveness to the opposite sex. But there was no way on earth that the match between the lovely girl we were going to see and the blimp I had in the back of the Mercedes was a marriage made in heaven. He must have known that. Every time he caught a glimpse of the two of them in a mirror it must have hit home that he was simply too big for her. If it had been me, I’d have just been grateful for the fact that I was allowed to sleep with a woman as beautiful as her, and if the downside meant that she had the occasional fling with a man nearer her own age, well then I’d just put that down to the price I had to pay. The Dutch guys hadn’t managed to catch her being unfaithful in Amsterdam, which meant that she was probably only fooling around in Thailand. I wanted to tell the client that he’d be better off turning a blind eye to the occasional indiscretion and that the best thing he could do would be to go straight back to Holland, but I kept quiet.

  I had the driver park around the corner from the apartment block, and pulled on a pair of shades and a Singha beer baseball cap before I got out of the car. The client was obviously used to sitting in the back of expensive vehicles because he didn’t make a move to open his door himself, he just sat staring straight ahead until I opened it for him. He wheezed as he hauled himself out of the car, and I swear the suspension sighed with relief. ‘I burn easily,’ I said, explaining away the cap and sunglasses, but the real reason was that I didn’t want to risk being recognised if Machete Man and his gun-wielding buddies were back in the restaurant. They weren’t, and I relaxed a little when I saw that the restaurant was closed.

  A receptionist buzzed us into the apartment block and a purple 500-baht note got us the room number. We rode up in the lift in silence to the fourth floor. I looked around to see if there was a weight limit for the lift, and I kept having visions of the cables snapping and us both plummeting to our deaths.

  There were a couple of dozen rooms on either side of a long corridor. We walked slowly along to the room. I waited at the side of the door as the client knocked, twice.

  The door opened. The girl was there wearing a white T-shirt and blue denim shorts. She stared at him sleepily, then her jaw dropped as she realised who it was.

  ‘Darling…’ she said, but then the words dried up and her mouth open and closed silently.

  ‘Don’t “darling” me, you whore!’ hissed the client, and he pushed the door open. It was a studio apartment and the waiter was lying on the double bed, wrapped in a towel. The waiter leapt to his feet as the big guy strode into the room and rushed out, his bare feet slapping on the tiled floor as he bolted down the corridor.

  I stayed where I was. The client had left the door open so I could hear everything that was being said. The girl began pleading that there’d been a mistake, that the waiter was just a friend, that she was only staying in the room until she could get a flight to Chiang Mai. The client let her beg and plead, then silenced her with an outburst of expletives that suggested he’d had an army career in his younger, and probably thinner, days.

  ‘You were a whore when I met you, and you’re a whore now!’ he shouted once he’d finished swearing. ‘I gave you everything. I gave you the clothes on your back, the watch on your wrist. I gave you money for your parents, I paid for your brothers to go to school. Anything you needed, anything you wanted, I gave to you. And you do this to me? You fuck around behind my back.’

  She started to cry.

  ‘You’re dead to me, you bitch!’ he shouted. ‘When I get back home I’m destroying everything of yours. Every dress, every handbag, every shoe; everything I ever gave you, I’m burning. Every photograph of you, I’m destroying. You’re dead to me. I’m divorcing you and you won’t get a penny. The best lawyers in the country work for me, and if I get my way you’ll lose your Dutch citizenship.’

  There was a dull thud and I took a quick look into he room just in case she’s beaten him over the head with a blunt object but she was the one on the floor, slumped down next to the bed, her hands over her face, sobbing her heart out.

  He waddled over to a dressing table and grabbed her handbag. He pulled out a Dutch passport and ripped it into several places, went over to the toilet and flushed away the pieces. Then he threw the handbag into the toilet for good measure.

  ‘Please, darling…’ sobbed the girl.

  The client sneered at her and walked out of the room, his ham-sized hands clenched into fists. I followed him back to the lift. I saw the waiter in the stairwell, anxiously looking in our direction, his hands clutching the towel around his waist. I waved for him to keep out of the way.

  The lift doors opened and we rode down. ‘Bitch,’ said the client, venomously. His face was bathed in sweat and there were damp patches under the arms of his jacket.

  I said nothing. I could see his point, but I figured that of the two of them, he’d lost the most. She’d lost a sugar daddy, but then she wouldn’t have to satisfy the sexual urges of a man big enough to crush her if he rolled over in his sleep. And a girl as pretty as her wouldn’t have to look too hard to find another husband. He’d lost a beautiful young gold-digger but now he’d have to sleep with nothing more than his right hand for company. Swings and roundabouts? I didn’t think so. If ever there was a Pyrhic victory, this was it.

  We walked out of the block and over to the Mercedes. ‘I don’t need you any more,’ he wheezed. ‘I can take care of myself at the airport. Thank you. For everything.’ He handed me a fistful of euros which I guessed was my cab fare home.

  I opened the rear door of the Mercedes and he hauled himself slowly into the back. The suspension groaned in protest. I closed the door behind him and the car moved away from the kerb. I got one last look at the client as the car drove off. There were tears streaming down his fleshy cheeks.

  THE CASE OF THE CHRISTIAN CONMAN

  Khun Bua was a lovely woman, a decent middle-class Thai lady who kept dabbing at her eyes with a lace handkerchief as she told me her story. She was my first real client. I’d done a few bargirl investigations for friends but Khun Men was to be my first paying customer. She’d read my one and only advertisement in a tourist magazine that was delivered free to Bangkok hotels. I was surprised to be contacted by a Thai because the advert was aimed at tourists and visitors. I’d assumed that any Thai would prefer to deal with a Thai detective. But as Khun Bua told me her story as we sat together in a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet close to her home, it became clear why she wanted a farang.

  She had a copy of the magazine with her. Not the one that contained my advert, hers was from almost a year earlier. It was open at a page with an article about a Thai marriage agency. There was a photograph of a man in religious attire conducting a marriage ceremony between a middle-aged farang and a young Thai girl. />
  As I read the article, Khun Bua sniffed and dabbed at her eyes. She was wearing a small gold crucifix around her neck. It was unusual for a Thai to be Christian. Thailand is a Buddhist country and Christians are a small minority. The man in the picture was the Reverend Marcus Armitage, and he had founded the Canadian-Thai Christian Dating Agency with the aim of finding wives for good Christian men back in Canada.

  Between sniffles, Khun Bua explained that she worked for the magazine. A friend of hers, a wealthy politician’s wife, had put up the money for the publishing venture, but Khun Bua had been hired to do most of the work. She sold advertising space, wrote many of the articles, liaised with the printers and arranged to have the magazines delivered to the city’s hotels. Khun Bua had never married and had worked hard all her life, putting all her spare money in a savings account for the day when she retired. There’s no Government pension scheme in Thailand, it’s every man, and woman, for themselves. Thai parents have their children to support them in their old age, but Khun Bua was alone in the world and would have to take care of herself. But she lived frugally, saved every baht she could, and once she was retired she planned to build herself a small house in Phetchabun and spend her time reading and sewing. But the Reverend Armitage had brought Khun Bua’s plans crashing to the ground.

  Armitage had met Khun Bua at the magazine’s office. He had agreed to pay for a half-page colour advertisement and in return Khun Bua had agreed to write an editorial, extolling the virtues of the new agency. He had been charming, and impressed Khun Bua with his knowledge of the Bible, often quoting passages at length. He had taken her out for dinner, he had sent her flowers when the article had appeared, he had given her a leather-bound Bible on her birthday. As she dabbed at her eyes, she told me that she had fallen in love with the smooth-talking Canadian. There had never been anything physical, she added quickly, not even a kiss on the cheek. He was the perfect gentleman. She had told him everything, her hard early years on a farm in Isaan, the one man she had loved who’d been killed in a road accident when she was twenty-one, and that fact that she was saving to build her own home.

  During one dinner at a well-known Bangkok seafood restaurant, the Reverend Armitage told Khun Bua about his plans to start a new business in Thailand. His marriage agency was working well, he said, but what he really wanted to do was start a flower business. He planned to export flowers, especially orchids, to churches back in Canada to use in funerals and wedding ceremonies. The only thing that was holding him back was the fact that all his capital was tied up in the marriage agency and in his home on the west coast of Canada. If only there was some way he could find a business partner to help him get the new venture up and running. With his church connections back in Canada, the money would come rolling in.

  Khun Bua took the bait. She offered to back the Reverend Armitage in his new venture. At first he declined, saying that he didn’t want to jeopardise their friendship by going into business, but Khun Bua insisted. She trusted the man of the cloth, and he was offering her a way to fund a very comfortable retirement. The Reverend allowed Khun Bua to persuade him that she was the perfect business partner, and he went with her to the bank where she drew out all her life savings in a cashier’s check. Armitage gave her a legal-looking document which stated that she was a partner in the Thai-Canadian Christian Orchid Company and that she would be entitled to fifty per cent of all future profits.

  There were no profits, of course. At first there were excuses. Lots of excuses. There were problems with permits, with visas, with suppliers. Then his mobile phone number was disconnected. Khun Bua went around to the offices of the marriage agency in a run-down tenanted high-rise in Asoke. The only employee there was a young secretary who hadn’t been paid in two months. Of the Reverend Armitage there was no sign.

  At this point in the story, Khun Bua broke down and began sobbing. I started to get angry looks from the diners in KFC, who obviously thought that I was the one making the middle-aged lady unhappy. I patted her on the back of the hand and told her that I would do what I could to help, and she blew her nose loudly and took a deep breath.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she sniffed. ‘But I have nothing now. That man, that evil, evil, man, took everything I have.’

  The secretary told her that the rent hadn’t been paid, and that the electricity and phone were about to be cut off. She had Armitage’s home address but he wasn’t answering his phone. Khun Bua went around to the apartment in Soi 39 and found the landlord there. All Armitage’s personal effects had gone and he owed a month’s rent.

  Khun Bua collapsed in the landlord’s arms. He advised her to go to the police, but they said there was nothing they could do: Armitage hadn’t broken any laws. Khun Bua had taken a week off work. She was getting heart palpitations and had developed a nervous tic. While at home she’d picked up the latest copy of the magazine and saw my advertisement. As we sat in the KFC outlet, she threw herself on my mercy. I was her last hope. Her only hope. And she had no money to pay me. Nothing. Nada.

  Like I said, she was my first real case and I really did feel sorry for her, so I agreed to work on a commission of ten per cent of any funds recovered. If I could find the elusive Reverend Armitage, I stood to make 40,000 baht, which wasn’t at all shabby.

  My first stop was the marriage agency’s office. The secretary was still there, but she was packing her things into a cardboard box when I walked in through the door. Her name was Nid and she was a typical young Thai university graduate, eager-to-please and working for a pittance. The average university graduate in Thailand earns less than 8,000 baht a month. Young Nid had been promised twice that but had only been paid for two months. She had no idea where her employer had gone and had problems of her own. Her rent was due that week and she hadn’t been able to send any money back to her family upcountry. Her only hope was to find another job and that wasn’t going to be easy as Bangkok was awash with newly qualified graduates.

  I promised to do what I could to get her back pay, so she let me rummage through the desks. There were no clues as to where the elusive Reverend Armitage might have gone, but on one of the desks was an old computer. I plugged it in. It was password protected but Nid had that so I was able to get into the email programme and pull out his contacts list. There were two Armitages on the list, which I figured would be close family. I showed the names to Nid and she confirmed that they were both his brothers. One was in Montreal, the other lived in Singapore.

  Nid also told me that her boss had a girlfriend from Udon Thani but she didn’t know the girl’s name. From the description-tall, leggy, long hair and a tattoo of a scorpion on one shoulder-it sounded as if the Reverend Armitage was either rescuing wicked women or he’d fallen for the charms of a bargirl.

  I headed off to the Canadian Embassy but they were in no mood to help. I explained that Armitage had left a decent middle-class Thai woman penniless but the young Canadian guy behind the glass window just shrugged and told me that they didn’t give out information to third parties. I went to an internet cafA© where I downed a couple of strong coffees and fired off emails to the two brothers.

  I knew that both guys received the emails but neither got back to me. I didn’t have an office back then, I worked out of my apartment and used computers in local internet cafes. I’d pop in every few hours to see if there was a reply but after a couple of days it became clear that they were ignoring me. The one person who kept calling me was Khun Bua, who was becoming increasingly frantic. I tried to calm her down but I knew that it wasn’t going to be an easy case to crack. I had no idea where he was, and even if I did find him, I was only a private eye. To force him to hand back Khun Bua’s money I’d need the backing of the police, and that was easier said than done.

  Thai police precincts don’t cooperate especially well with each other. They prefer to operate as separate entities. As the money had been taken in Bangkok, I’d have to register the complaint at the Thonglor police headquarters. But it looked as if Armitage
had fled Bangkok, and that being the case the Thonglor cops wouldn’t go out of their way to pursue him. Equally, if he was picked up outside Bangkok for anything else, it wasn’t a foregone conclusion that the upcountry cops would check back with Bangkok. I needed an arrest warrant, and for that I needed a judge. Then I had a stroke of luck. Khun Bua was on the edge of a nervous breakdown so I offered to take her for a coffee. I was shocked when I saw her. She’d aged a good ten years since our first meeting. She’d developed a stammer and I swear her hair was now streaked with grey. I explained the position to Khun Bua, and she told me that one of the owners of the magazine company was related to a Supreme Court Judge. Bingo! Getting things done in Thailand is all a matter of who you know and who you’re related to. As a farang, I was short of top-level contacts, but Khun Bua had come up trumps.

  I took Khun Bua to the police station and made an official complaint. As part of the deal Khun Bua agreed to pay the station a small percentage of any money recovered. Par for the course in Thailand. The cops gave us a copy of the complaint and Khun Bua went with her boss to see the judge who happily signed an arrest warrant. Now all I had to do was to find the elusive Reverend Armitage. I remembered what Nid had said about Armitage having a girlfriend from Udon Thani. It was a fair bet that if he was still in Thailand he’d gone back to her home town. That being the case he’d have to do a visa run every few months, and most long-stay expats in Udon Thani crossed the border at Nong Khai to visit Laos, get a new visa and then return to the Land of Smiles.

  I took a train to Nong Khai-twelve hours on a hard seat on a rattling train that at times rumbled along at barely more than walking pace-and then paid a motorcycle taxi to drive me out to the border. On the way we stopped off at a local supermarket and picked up two bottles of Johnnie Walker Black Label-the universal sweetener.

  My Thai was good enough to get me ushered into the local immigration chief’s office and I handed him the whisky and the warrant. I told him the full story, how Armitage had ruined the life of a sweet little old lady, and that I was pretty sure that he’d be crossing the border at some point. I told him that Khun Bua was well in with a Supreme Court Judge and, naturally, promised him a share of any money recovered. And that was all I could do. I caught the next train back to Bangkok and waited. Khun Bua kept calling me but I explained that it was now in the hands of the immigration officers at Nong Khai. She promised to pray for my well being, and for Armitage to be apprehended.