I would make Som’s life as miserable as possible. Every step I would take was increasing and my final blow–a real devil’s plan–would break her neck. Now a new phase would begin: A Farang Strikes Back.
In the late evening I called Pong, the taxi driver, and asked him if he had some time available. I wanted to deepen the new friendship because I needed Pong. We arranged a meeting in his apartment and we drank several bottles of Beer Chang. Later I asked Pong what he thought about Thai women. Were they like my ex-girlfriend and just looking for money? Pong didn’t think so. He said that only whores sleep with farangs for money. They came from poor families, didn’t go to school for long and hadn’t any money or good job prospects. Thai women from the middle class would be different. They wouldn’t prostitute themselves and when they met a chap–Thai or farang–they would really love him and wouldn’t think about money. Pong told me about some cases where a Thai supported her farang-boyfriend because he hadn’t any money. They went shopping together, she paid the cashier or she paid his rent because he was unable to raise cash.
Some time later Pong turned on the television and thought he was doing me a favour by putting on a Karaoke video CD with English songs. He took a microphone and sang old hits. He gave it to me afterwards and I tried myself on “My Way”.
* * *
My son arrived in Bangkok the next morning. I asked him to take a taxi from the airport to Pattaya. I didn’t want him to stay near me because I didn’t want him to know what had happened and even less about what I was up to. That’s the reason I reserved a room for him in the Lek Hotel. It was near enough to meet after a short walk, but not in the same exact neighbourhood of Soi Skaw Beach. I feared he could be hot on my heels and disturb my plans. I had a lot to do and couldn’t waste a thought about my wife, anything or anyone who was an immediate connection to her. After his arrival at the Lek Hotel, John was going to call me when he had the opportunity.
Dao and I rode a motorcycle taxi to where she lived near Sukhumvit Road. We asked neighbours if they had seen Thong but they hadn’t. Maybe he didn’t have the courage to hang around because he feared the police would be waiting for him and instead he went into hiding at a friend’s place.
While Dao was waiting in a small supermarket, I went up the stairway onto the third floor. A long hallway was in front of me. The hallway ended with a wall. There was no way out if Thong cut my path to the stairway. I had to be very careful. First I stood in front of the door to the apartment and strained my ears but couldn’t hear anything. Stupidly I had forgotten to ask Dao whether she had locked her apartment with a padlock. There wasn’t one. This could mean Thong was in the room, but this wasn’t compelling evidence. When I slowly unlocked the door I stood to the side leaving a free access to the stairway. Slowly I opened the door slightly and pushed it completely open with one hand. I stood in absolute darkness. I bend forward, found a switch and turned on the light. A neon light cast a pale glow on the grey linoleum floor. In the room were a bed and a wardrobe. The closet stood in front of the only window; that was the reason for the darkness in the room. I slowly went down to crouch and peered under the bed. Nobody was hiding there. I went to the bathroom without closing the door to the apartment. Very carefully I opened the door. Through are larger and larger gap I saw an empty bath room, nobody was behind the door. The same went for the balcony; the door was bolted from the inside. Thong wasn’t in the room indeed.
I called Dao, who now had the courage to come upstairs. She packed her things in a rucksack and a bag very quickly, and afterwards we went to my room where Dao tried to make herself comfortable, well as comfortable as possible under the circumstances.
When she was finished, I said, “I don’t have any money.”
“Mai mee ban ha.” No problem. Dao fetched her handbag and produced two 100 baht notes from her purse.
I had to smile. “I didn’t mean it that way,” I said. “I need much more, a lot of money. I want to borrow it from you. I will pay it back with interest.” Solemnly I said, “I promise.”
“All right, all right. But I don’t have a lot of money. I invested everything in my parlour.”
“I know. Call Mr. Hong Kong and tell him you need 200,000 baht. You don’t even have to lie. Tell him what happened. You have to repair the parlour. He has to transfer the money to you via Western Union today.”
“200,000? I don’t know if he’ll do it.”
“He will. The pansy let you down and has a guilty conscience because of it. Call him!” I held my mobile phone in front of her swollen nose to illustrate my words.
Dao took her own mobile phone.
“Should I leave the room?” I asked.
She shook her head and cried when talking to Mr. Hong Kong. The call didn’t take long.
“The money will arrive within the hour,” she said. “What are you planning to do?”
I told her and ended with the words, “She had bought a house. I am sure of it. But I don’t know where. Have you been there?”
Dao nodded. She told me Som had indeed bought a house in Pattaya. Som really had to have been 100 percent sure that I had given up; otherwise she wouldn’t have taken the risk of staying in Pattaya. The danger that we might meet by chance wasn’t small. The “actress” has been a friend of Som who had arranged the charade in the house of the Swede. Som lived in South-Pattaya but not in the direct neighbourhood of the Swede’s house.
“She isn’t in Pattaya right now. Som went to Chaiyaphum. She wanted to deal with something there. At least that’s what she told me the day before yesterday.”
“All the better. Please call her and ask her how she is doing.”
Dao called Som’s mobile phone number while I peeked over her shoulder. It was the Orange number. Dao talked a while and ended the call.
“I talked to her mother first and then with Som. She is still in Chaiyaphum. She doesn’t yet know when she is going to return.”
“Fantastic!” I shouted. “Let’s go to her house and find out the address.”
Dao rode with a motorcycle taxi in front and I on another bike behind her. I wore a full face helmet, so nobody could recognize me. When we reached the soi where Som lived, Dao rode more slowly and pointed to a white house with a red roof which we passed at a walking pace. At the end of the soi we stopped at a street sign with the number of the soi, a side road of Soi Korpai. I had memorized the house number. We went back and again I looked at the one storey house which wasn’t very big.
From there we rode to Soi Buakhao to go to a bank. Dao was paid almost 200,000 baht from Western Union. I assured her that she could trust me but Dao didn’t want to hear it. To suggest that I write a promissory note would have offended her. I was happy to have some cash in my pocket. Not last because I wouldn’t have to beg from my son a couple of thousand baht.
Back on Soi Skaw Beach I had to hire, for my part, an “actress” and what was more obvious than to give I-didn’t-ask-for-your-name a job where she wouldn’t have to lie down on her back for good money.
“It won’t work,” Dao said.
“Koi doo.” Wait and see. “Always think positive.”
The name of I-didn’t-ask-for-your-name was Soda and she liked her new role as a movie star despite there not being a camera around. I “booked” her for the entire next day and offered her the substantial sum of 5,000 baht. For this amount she would have probably done everything I desired. First I asked her to lend me her ID-card.
I went to an internet café and scanned Som’s ID-card copy in a computer and saved the data on a memory stick. After that I went to a shop which serviced everything about printing: business cards, T-shirts, billboards. All details from Som’s ID-card were printed on small plastic stickers. Her name, her date of birth, the date of issue and the number of the ID-card. Should there be any questions about the address later, Soda should say she moved and had a new ID-card. To be the least suspicious–and the employees in the shop certainly were–I took the stickers and Soda’s ID-car
d back to my room. Dao helped me to doctor Soda’s ID-card, when I pasted the stickers on it. The biggest headache was the embedded chip in the ID-card. I didn’t have any software to alter the data on it–if it was possible at all. I had to take my chances but couldn’t imagine that there were machines in Thai banks reading the chips. As far as I knew, Thai banks simply photo-copied original ID-cards.
I had several prints of every sticker so we had many attempts. I also had printed out stickers in multiple colours. Either transparent or bluish white. The Thai ID-cards are bluish white but on particular observation this could be an extensive term. The razor-thin stickers glued to the ID-card were slightly elevated. I wanted to use a trick. The ID-card shouldn’t get in the hands of a bank employee or the staff member of an administrative body. I wanted to make several copies which Dao should have at hand. If somebody asked for the ID-card, she could show it and offer a copy immediately. The risk of exposure of the planned fraud had to be minimized as much as possible. For the rest of the afternoon Dao and I didn’t leave our forger workshop.
* * *
I had to shake off John two times. When he called, Dao and I hadn’t yet finished work on Soda’s ID-card. There was no other way, I had to meet him. He didn’t have a Thai number so I called the British number to reach him. We arranged for a meeting in front of his hotel.
We gave each other a hug. I wasn’t only glad to see him again but that he didn’t show up in tow with his mother. I had feared to the last minute he wouldn’t come alone and was relieved.
“How are you, son?”
“Fine,” he said. “And you? You’re looking tired.”
I answered elusively and suggested to have dinner in the Apex hotel where we could serve ourselves at the buffet.
I waited a long time until John spoke about the reason for his long journey. In the beginning we had just small talk and spoke about insignificant things. He didn’t say anything about my wife and I didn’t mention Som. A strange conversation because these topics preyed on our minds, even I knew from the beginning that I wouldn’t tell him anything about Som. Actually I hoped he wouldn’t start with the topic but there was no way out. I had to face the discussion. On the other hand there was no reason to tell him that my girlfriend had left me and I wanted to get my own back. John would hardly have understood that. In the contrary he would have used the end of the relationship as argument to bring me back to England.
After dinner we made a long walk through several sois between Soi Buakhao and Second Road and oriented ourselves in the direction of Beach Road. We sat down in a bar where the music wasn’t too loud. John ordered a Whisky Coke and me a Heineken with one of the bar girls.
“So what’s up?” I initiated. I wanted to get this over with.
“Mom doesn’t feel well. She wants you to come home. And I want it as well. What are you doing here anyway? What do you want? Why?”
“I am sorry that mom isn’t feeling well,” I said. “But I had decided to start a new life. You aren’t a child anymore and you should understand it.”
John smiled. “Not a child anymore? I am over twenty. Sure, I understand it. But…” He shook his head.
“I should have talked to mom before. It was of course a mistake to leave her like that,” I admitted. “But I would have left her anyway. This way or that way. And if I hadn’t gone to Thailand I would have looked for a new flat. She has to understand it.”
“Don’t you want to think about in again?”
Two bar girls sat down beside us. They didn’t understand much of our conversation and we let them have their way. If they became bored they would retreat.
John explained he came only to Thailand to ask me to go back home. He thought it was his duty to save the marriage of his parents. He didn’t complain about my decision or accuse me of anything. He mentioned some highlights of our family life, told me about adolescent memories and that all of the time he had loved his father and mother equally.
I heard him out but couldn’t imagine living with my wife again. If not Som it would be someone else. But a Thai. My wife was left out. It was over and I tried to explain it to John that evening during the conversation. He took the news calmly. I figured he just had minimal hopes of convincing me of changing my mind. Or maybe he didn’t want to press me too hard in the first discussion, because he changed the topic.
“What about the girls at our table?” he asked.
“Pattaya is worse than its image,” I said.
“What’s going on in Pattaya?” he asked curious.
I told him about bar girls and added, “But keep your powder dry if you enter a massage parlour,” I said. “Masseuses are dangerous. Better if you don’t get a massage.”
John avoided asking about my girlfriend and I thanked him secretly. I didn’t want to hurt his feeling or that of his mother. I still didn’t know how much of our conversation he would tell his mother. The less he knew about Som the better.
“How long do you have for vacation?” I asked.
“Three weeks.”
I nodded. Please, don’t be angry but I won’t have much time for you over the next few days; probably no time at all.”
“Why? Are you going on a trip with your girlfriend?”
I didn’t answer or deny the question and let John believe what he wanted. “Now and then we will talk on the telephone,” I said. “There is a lot of entertainment in Pattaya. I don’t think you are going to be bored. As soon as I have time we will meet again.”
“Please, think about it again.” He almost begged me after we said our good byes.
“All right,” I said to John to cheer him up a little.
* * *
On the next day Dao, Soda and I had to get up early. Soda looked a little bit like she had not had enough sleep–usually she went to bed at this time of the day. She showed up in her usual bar uniform, but I asked her to reduce her make-up and dress like a decent girl. With her make-up, her tattoo and her belt-sized mini skirt which showed her undies, she looked like a whore. But I didn’t tell her that.
Soda, about 5 foot 4 came back. She wore jeans, a blouse with long sleeves which hid her tattoo and discreet make-up. I liked her much better this way and secretly I wondered if I would ask her at night time for seconds.
The three of us went to a notary, who Dao had recommended. She knew him from former business she did with him and also knew of his excellent connections to a bank–and that was extremely important for us. On the day before we had made an appointment for the early morning. However, Dao ask me not to attend the meeting. She wanted me to wait somewhere outside. He shouldn’t know that a farang was the puppeteer. He would ask for money, a lot of it. And because we were in a rush, the notary had to deal with several authorities and a bank where money had to be deposited. Dao didn’t want the prices to double just because I showed my face. On the other hand I didn’t have anything to do with the matter. That’s why I waited in the distance while Dao was dealing with the notary. Soda should just sit quietly next to her, nod and sign at the end. It was boring to wait and I nervously paced up and down. Then I sat on steps which lead to the entrance of a gallery after I had looked at the paintings like I had all the time in the world.
Finally Dao showed up. She said, “I need 100,000 baht. Som mortgaged the property.”
“I thought so.”
I gave Dao the money which I had borrowed from her. She went back to the office and after what seemed to be an eternity she left with Soda and the notary in tow. Dao didn’t look at me at all. I understood and kept quiet. They went to a car–probably the notary’s–got in and went away. I went to a restaurant nearby and had breakfast while watching the notary’s office. Very late, the three came back and entered the office again. After a while Dao and Soda left. Dao looked around, searching for me. When she finally saw me she came to meet me.
“It worked,” she said smiling. “But it was really hard to get everything done today.” She rubbed her thumb and index finger. She looked a
round, grabbed her handbag and produced six thick bundles of 1,000 baht notes which I let disappear in my backpack.
Dao showed me the documents in Thai language. A purchase contract, certified by the notary, a land office entry and several bank statements. Soda had acted as Som and sold her (Som’s) house for a fictive sum of one million baht to Dao who deposited symbolically one baht. Som’s mortgage had to be paid back. After a trip to the bank they put the house in Dao’s name and went back to the bank so Dao could get a mortgage herself. A friend of the notary who worked in the bank had helped. For an extra price his friend was willing to do all the paper work on the same day. The property was now mortgaged with 600,000 baht to the pain barrier. Now I had financial funding again and in the not too distant future, someone would knock at Som’s door to ask her for the monthly payment. I suggested Dao to sell the house as quick as possible and told her it would be wise to let the purchase money disappear. I wanted her to keep the profit. The amount which was higher than the 200,000 baht I had borrowed from her was the money I paid for her service. However, I couldn’t suggest that she inspect the house prior to selling it.
* * *
To prepare my house visit à la surprise, I had to go shopping first: A pair of rubber gloves, a screwdriver, an axe, scissors, a big hammer, a bucket with red paint and a plastic bag with superglue–at Big C on sale for eleven baht per tube.
A Farang Strikes Back Page 12