by Simon Royle
On all the hills I haven’t hoed,
And shout from where I am, What is it?
No, not as there is a time to talk.
I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,
Blade-end up and five feet tall,
And plod: I go up to the stone wall
For a friendly visit.
With a groan that didn’t get past my lips but wracked my body, I thought again of Por’s admonishment. Frost reaching me from the grave.
He took me back to Goa, had me showered by a Yogi, for a karmic body wash. The images flashed, warmed, and scared me. Por was left brain and Uncle Mike was right brain. Is this all I will have from them, melancholy thoughts?
Suppose it wasn’t Por. Suppose it was me. The reluctant hit man had gone straight to my room, not Por’s. Was that simply because it was first in the corridor or was it the only target? I couldn’t know but it presented at least a fifty percent chance of being a problem. Staring out of the black tinted windows as the isthmus narrowed and we got closer to our goal, the road through the mountains twisted, slow, frustrating.
Dr Tom’s final instructions about rest and staying on the drip for at least two more days came to me as I took the IV Tube out of the needle. I taped the female needle to my arm - might need it later. The evening air was warm and carried the smell of Jasmine and burnt cooking oil. Patong’s lights glittered in the distance. The dirt road quiet, dusty. Uncle Mike’s house was about half a kilometer further up the road. The driver on loan from the army colonel was taking a piss on the side of the road - the splashing noisy. Chai standing next to me poked out his elbows sideways horizontally and swung sharply side to side. I heard the crack. He rolled his shoulders, and shouldering the Uzi, nodded at me. We never talked much. We didn’t need to. Given our track record of visiting people over the past 24 hours, I had decided to approach with caution. We set off.
We stuck to the dark shadow of the bushes lining the dirt road until we were a hundred meters from the house. Chai moving faster and with an impatient flick of his head at me, slipped away into the bush. Uncle Mike owned all the land around his villa and left it as it was. Free grazing for buffalo earning a fortune as a land bank. Uncle Mike hated guns almost as much as any form of authority. The Glock 17 is light, compact, and reliable. I had two of them. One in a shoulder holster supplied by the Colonel, and the one in my hand. Slide racked back ready to fire. Some things I agreed with Khun Por and some things with Uncle Mike. Guns I went with Khun Por. Uncle Mike lived in paradise. We lived in Pak Nam.
Uncle Mike’s villa was surrounded by a twelve foot high wall made of red brick. The sliding gate was metal alloy, colored to look like teak, with a door set into it. I tried the handle on the door. It opened. The front of the villa was dark. Uncle Mike had to be missing or worse. I kept to the side of the sandstone paved driveway, staying on the grass. I edged around the deck and to the steps leading to the front door. The smell of death came heavy, crushing the Jasmine-scented air. I walked up the steps, Glock ready but knowing there was nothing there.
The door started to open. My heart tripped. I raised then lowered the Glock as Chai appeared in the doorway. He shook his head once, and went back inside. I followed putting the gun on the side counter next to a ceramic bowl with rotten black bananas. The smell of rot got stronger in the hallway and it wasn’t bananas. Chai hooked his head towards the back of the house. I walked that way.
Lilly, Uncle Mike’s maid, was dead on the floor of the kitchen. The white tiles around her head black with her blood. Chai turned the lights on in the kitchen revealing a modern efficient island in the middle of brushed chrome. And Lilly on the floor with a cell phone stuck in her mouth. I went over to the sink. A drying cloth neatly laid by it. Lilly, always cheerful Lilly. An empty sink. He was taken in the morning. Probably yesterday, might have been the day before. I’d need someone to examine Lilly to find out. I puked up in the sink. Turning the tap on, I rinsed my mouth out and splashed water on my face. I went back to Lilly, cloth in hand, reaching for the phone. It rang. Dire Straits, ‘Money for Nothing’, the ring tone. They had a sick sense of humor and a camera in here. I stood up and walked through to the living room. The phone still ringing.
A black box on the rattan side table. I reached behind the box and pressed the little black button on Uncle Mike’s router, shutting off the Internet connection.
“Chai, call Mother and get her to put a trace on any phone calls out of towers within reach of this house.”
Chai nodded, his hand dropping to the cell phone clipped to his belt. I walked back into the kitchen and took the phone out of Lilly’s mouth. Holding it well clear of my ear, I hit the answer button.
“Don’t bother getting your mother to trace the call. I’m using Skype from another country, and go and turn the Internet back on.” Bugged as well then.
“Fuck you. How much? When and where?” The caller had an accent but I couldn’t place it. Scandinavian, German or Dutch, dunno. Keep him talking.
“If you don’t do as I say your uncle is going to be killed. Slowly. Do you understand?”
“I understand that you want something. My guess is that you want money. So you listen to me. If you hurt him, I won’t do what you want. You’ll have to just kill him, because I won’t play your game. Do you understand?”
“Khun Chance or should I call you Mr. Harper, hey Sam? What do you think?”
Shit! Not good, is what I think.
“What I think is that you should get to the point of this call. Are you going to do that anytime soon?” I was looking at Lilly on the floor and getting angrier by the second. Cool heart, jai yen, but I couldn’t let this guy think I was going to dance to his tune. That would just make everything more expensive.
“All right Mr. Chance.” He pronounced it ‘Chunce’. “I’ll get to the point. We want your Uncle Mike’s money. All of it. By the end of the day tomorrow or we kill him”.
I knew this was where we’d been headed ever since Uncle Mike didn’t answer the phone. Felt it in my gut. Now it was here for real. Front and center.
“Look maybe you’re not aware, but there’s a bit of a problem in Bangkok right now, and moving a million doll...”
“You fuck! You shut up with a million. You fuck. You think we’re stupid Mr. We know all about you, your dead Godfather, and your Uncle Mike, the farm, everything, so don’t fuck with us. One hundred million United States dollars by tomorrow.”
“Can’t do it. It’s not possible. First of all, Mike’s not worth that much, and secondly, it is physically impossible.”
His accent got thicker the angrier he got. Scandinavian. “Do it or he’s fucking dead.” And he had a slight lisp - he’sth
“He’s fucking dead then isn’t he,” I said, just trying to keep him engaged. “Are you really going to blow this because you’re too fucking stupid to understand, the word impossible? Look I can get you five million by tomorrow night.”
“One hundred million in a week. I will call and tell you how, and where to deliver it. One week, that’s all you have. One hundred million. Keep this phone charged. You fuck up and he dies.”
The phone went quiet. Holding it carefully I walked over to sink. Opening one of the cupboards above it and taking out a ziplock bag packet. I got a bag out and dropped the phone in it. I put the cloth over Lilly’s face.
***
We closed up the house and headed back to the van. I got on the phone to Mother. She answered on the first ring.
“Chance, are you okay? We’re getting the numbers that called into the towers around Mike’s place. We should have them in an hour.”
“Mother, I’m fine. We’ve just left Uncle Mike’s. Lilly is dead, murdered by whoever took Mike. They’ve called me. There was a camera and bugs in the house. This seems to be a sophisticated gang and they know about us.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean they know about the family, the business, and Uncle Mike’s money?”
“Ho
w much do they want?”
“A hundred million.”
“Baht?”
“Dollars.”
“I see.” She paused and I heard a sigh. “When?”
“A week from today, the...” I looked at the date on the phone, “the 19th.”
“All right. You get out of there. I’ll make arrangements for Lilly, poor woman. So sad, it breaks my heart, all this violence.”
“I know, Mother. I have some things to do down here, but I’ll try and get back to Bangkok tomorrow.”
“Be careful. Call me before you come so I can arrange an escort. The situation in Bangkok is getting worse. I’m hearing rumors of all sorts, everything from another coup to armed insurrection by the army regiments from Isarn.”
“I’ll call. Bye, Mother.”
We went through the rest of the rooms. Apart from the art scattered around, Uncle Mike didn’t keep any valuables at the house. Nothing was out of place. Even in his bedroom, everything was neat. It meant they’d taken him in the morning. During a day Uncle Mike created havoc with neatness.
The Best Enemies Are Dead Ones
13 May 2010 Bangkok 11 am
One of Por's favorite sayings is “A good enemy is intelligent and sane. A bad enemy is intelligent and crazy. The worst enemy is dumb and crazy, but the best enemies are dead ones.” He'd always chuckle when he delivered the punch line, and so would I. Uncle Mike would frown and then smile, shaking his head slowly from side to side. My happiest memories, days when the three of us were together.
My twitter account was filled with new tweets. Bangkok Crazy. I had a list of journalists, people “in the know”, cops, army, and then friends. Some the cops' tweets were hilarious, but I couldn't laugh. Lilly getting killed had really upset me. Her life had been miserable and tough as hell until she met Uncle Mike. She deserved to know happiness for longer. No more chance to tilt the balance in her favor. I felt, sad, sick, and really pissed off all at the same time.
From the rest of the tweets it seemed like Bangkok was going into meltdown. The red shirt leaders were playing games in the negotiations with the government, and it looked as if the government didn't want to play anymore. The center of Bangkok, occupied by the red shirt camp since April, was now a medieval fortress. In April, the street protests had turned into street battles with over 14 dead. It was possible that Big Tiger was using the protests as cover for getting rid of us. The bomb attack at Heaven had been reported as being either political or business related. Astute reporting that covered 80 percent of all possibilities and didn't actually say anything.
I couldn't see a Farang getting a bomb into Heaven. It just didn't stack up, unless the Farang had help. I went with the idea that the bombing and the kidnapping were two separate incidents. I sent an SMS to Mother. Check with cops about any Scandinavian criminal gangs operating in Phuket or Thailand. I knew the Bandidos had put together gangs in Pattaya, Phuket and Samui and they usually preyed on foreigners. But they had been quiet since '06 when a bunch of their leaders got busted. I was tired forgetting things.
“Chai go back inside and get Uncle's backup drive. It's in his bedroom. The army driver was outside having a smoke. I was inside the van with the air conditioning. I got out and bummed a smoke off him: a Marlboro red. On the packet, “Smoking Kills”. I was already dead. The nicotine fired up long dormant endorphins. It made it easier to think and wait. I needed to get some sleep and have Uncle Mike's place fingerprinted. We could get prints run through local and Interpol cops. It'd take a day or two but it was worth a shot. I was thinking about who to get to question the neighbors in the area when Chai returned, a square black box in one hand and a blue cloth bag in the other.
I needed a place to stay which had access to the Internet, was quiet with good security and out of town. My face was too well known by other “families”. A quick search, Absolute Chandara seemed like a good choice. I gave Chai the phone number and asked him to book us rooms.
***
I set up in the main living room. Chai had booked me into a two bedroom suite with private pool and put himself and the driver in the villas either side of me. The infinity pool in front of me dropped 80 feet down a cliff to the sea below. It was a good choice.
I'd hooked up the back-up to a USB port and was trying passwords. Uncle Mike always used Rolling Stone's songs. It was the only way his Acid scarred mind could remember them; the passwords, not the 'Stones, he remembered all of their songs. Written as one word with prime numbers in between the words, it wasn't foolproof but I hadn't got in yet. I knew a guy in Bangkok that could do it. An Israeli whose business it is to recover lost data, but Bangkok, and waiting was out of the question. I kept going using the song list I'd pulled up from the iTunes store. I was halfway down the list.
Honky2Tonk3Woman5
Lets2Spend3The5night7Together11
You2Can't3Always5Get7What11You13Want17
Please select Drive and location:
While Uncle Mike's hard drive copied over to mine I went and had a shower. It's hard taking a shower when you're covered in bandages. Drying myself, I took a look in mirror. I was covered in bruises from midriff to my neck. The patch over my eye hid a two-inch cut that had taken most of the eyelid off, and missed my eyeball by less than a millimeter. The number nine on my chest was as clear as ever. I wondered if it was permanent. The four-poster bed with its white linen sheets and fluffy soft pillows looked very tempting, but I still had work to do.
I hooked myself back up to Dr. Tom's IV drip. He'd sent me a SMS while I was in the shower. 'Por settled army hosp. nr Sihanoukville. Still in coma but stable. Take your medicine. T.'
I had the TV on while I was working, watching the stuff that was happening in Bangkok. It was getting worse. Deputy pm Suthep had turned himself in for arrest as the red shirt leaders had requested, but he'd turned himself into DSI. Since he was effectively the Head of DSI, the red shirts rejected the move. PM Abhisit, Mark to you, wasn't going to be resigning any time soon, and Dr. Thaksin had been making phone calls in the background. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, Kurt Campbell, had flown in seagull style. Done breakfast with red shirt leaders, crapped everywhere and flown off. The arrogance of ignorance is not bliss. It was getting too hot to cool down now. If the lid blew on the protests, there'd be fighting in the streets. I had to be back in Bangkok.
I got an email from Mother. A list of phone numbers calling into and from the base stations around Uncle Mike's house. Money is information. Information is power. I left the numbers for later, and made a call myself.
Cheep was an old friend of Uncle Mike's. He'd been a loader on a few of the runs to Australia, helping to catch the 10 kilo bundles of weed as they were tossed from the deck of a fishing boat, usually during a bad storm. The Thai navy doesn't like bad storms, and tend to stay in port while they're happening. He owned a couple of the bars in Patong and had a small crew. Mostly retired but still connected, I could trust him to keep his mouth shut and get things done.
“Khun Cheep Sawadee Krup...” there was a scream, and the sound of the phone hitting something hard. Disconnected. I hit redial.
“Khun Cheep. Hello. Khun Cheep. Are you there?”
“Who is this?” His voice sounded weird. Oh shit, of course.
“Hey Khun Cheep, don't worry man. I'm not a ghost.”
“That's exactly what a smart ghost would say.”
“Khun Cheep, it's me - the this-life me. I'm alive. We faked the death for reasons I don't have time to explain, but I've got some problems and I need your help.”
“You scared the hell out of me. I nearly pissed myself.” He was half angry now, his voice petulant with indignation.
“Would sending an SMS been better?”
“No. Okay, what's the problem?”
I outlined the situation to Cheep. He was as furious as I was about Lilly and promised to work with Mother to arrange a good funeral. Meanwhile he'd put his boys on canvassing the area to see if we could come up with anything.
“Keep the news that I'm alive to yourself, okay. And tomorrow go get a few phones and some SIM cards Chai will update you with numbers to call.”
“Don't worry, Chance. Your uncle is my best friend in the world. Whatever you want, you call. When we find these people we kill them all. Yes?”
“Yes, Cheep. We kill them all.”
Uncle's Internet history came up with a bunch of investment forums, stock trading sites, news, music, Amazon and eBay. Nothing unusual. I went through his cache. Nothing. It was nearly 1 am. I debated having a drink, but with the painkillers Dr. Tom had given me, I persuaded myself not to. The pain was good for keeping me awake. I went back to the hard drive. More out of hope than conviction, I kept looking.
An hour later I still had nothing. And I had nothing left. Something was nagging at me, something that I knew I should be getting but I wasn't. The thought spun out to the sound of a fishing boat heading out to sea.