A Tiger in Eden

by Chris Flynn

  I laughed then and pointed to Olly’s bumbag lying on the ground. He put two and two together pretty quick, you have to hand it to him he was sharp as a tack our Olly.

  Oh I see, he says, nice as you like with a big smile, that sort of guest, well don’t be so rude Billy close the door and let’s make him welcome. The whole time he was cracking his knuckles, the Thai fella pissed himself when I shut the door. I knew ‘cos it was that familiar aul smell of fear, it took me right back so it did.

  8

  Olly wasn’t too keen on splashing out on one of them luxury air-conditioned coaches but I insisted like, even if we were going to freeze our nuts off. Sure I was sick of the aul local buses, they were dead hot and if you didn’t have any food on ye you were fucked, they’d pick these scrawny fuckers up by the side of the road and they’d walk down the bus with a big stick over their shoulder with all these wee plastic bags hanging off of it. I don’t know what was inside, sure it looked like sick or something, loads of wee bits floating around in there but they were selling it anyway and the locals always snapped it up and sucked it down with an aul straw. Near turned my stomach so it did but sure if you’re starving you’ll eat anything. I was worried about getting a dose of the runs, it’s not like there’s service stations with lovely pristine toilets every ten miles it’s more a case of squirting out your lunch in a festy ditch with all the people on the bus watching ye. Best avoided really.

  Under duress the Frenchman agreed to take a flash coach up to the Bangkok, it was good so it was, sure they had TV screens and everything and they showed a film The Nutty Professor with yer man Eddie Murphy in a fatsuit. I overheard one of the backpackers on the bus saying fuck me that hasn’t even come out yet in Europe, I suppose the Thais had a pirate tape of it or something, that seems to be their way. It was a load of aul shite but my eyes were glued to the screen sure I hadn’t seen a film in about six months, it’s funny how quick you forget about the so-called civilised world when you’re hiding out on some wee island doing nothing but shagging backpackers and eating green chicken curry and getting hammered on Chang.

  There was a couple of all-right-looking western girls on the bus, I heard a Scottish accent and even an American one, sure you don’t see many of them ones they mustn’t travel or something. Olly wasn’t interested of course, too much trouble for him having to act like he gave a fuck. I wasn’t fussed either to be honest, I was too busy getting my jollies with all the wee comforts like a flush toilet and a seat that didn’t smell like someone’s armpit.

  Olly had run out of batteries for his Walkman and sure mine had gone the way of the dodo after the ants got to it. I’d have to buy me a new one in the Bangkok or maybe splash out on a CD one except I’d no CDs but that would be easy remedied by a trip to the Khao San Road, sure you could buy anything you wanted there and even some stuff you didn’t realise you wanted yet. There was nothing else for it but for me and the Frenchman to have a yarn.

  Do ye ‘member, I says, yon time your pals in Algeria who got us those guns wanted six cars as payment instead of cash that was weird wasn’t it, whatever happened to them?

  Olly grinned then and sat up straight, Yusuf and his crew, yeah I remember we had some good times down in Marseille me and him but fuck he was mad you know he had eight sisters in Chlef not a pretty one amongst them and he was always trying to find them husbands, fucking hell he offered me twenty kilos of hash just to take one off his hands.

  Pimping his sisters out that’s charming that is, we could never work out what he wanted the cars for with all the money they had could they not just buy their own cars, they wanted dead specific makes too not even that good.

  They were for his sisters, I think. He didn’t want them to have BMWs that would draw too much attention.

  Right, I says, that makes sense but still what did he want cars from us for unless maybe they’d be harder to trace or something.

  Yeah maybe, Olly goes, I don’t know, I didn’t ask too many questions, I’ll tell you what though they were a bitch to get over there without arousing suspicion, I had to rent a shipping container and bribe about a dozen customs officials it cost me a fortune and I had to use up a couple of favours, it was easier getting the guns to you boys.

  Aye well I suppose nobody says boo if they see an army truck driving around with a bunch of Armalites in the back but half a dozen Ford Fiestas are a bit harder to disguise like. Is Yusuf and them ones still in business?

  Well he got shot in the leg and the last time I saw him he was on crutches but I didn’t use him after that, the fucking cops were all over him for the turf war in Marseille, it was a bad scene and I didn’t want it to lead back to me. He’s either dead or in jail now I suppose.

  Aye most of our ones are as well. Same for me too if I hadn’t come out here.

  Olly just nods. I’ve been meaning to ask you, he says, why are you out here anyway, I mean with me it’s just a case of avoiding debts basically and saving my own skin it’s not like I’m on the ten-most-wanted list but you and your crew up there well don’t tell me anything I can’t deny in court later but you had a civil war going on, correct me if I’m wrong.

  Aye, I laughs, thinking it’s not very funny what the fuck are you laughing for, that’s just a front though, I says.

  Oh come on, he goes, you’re just saying that because I’m Catholic, tell the truth, Billy, everyone knows it’s a religious war between your boys and ours it’s all over the news.

  Oh aye? I says. You tell me what it’s about then.

  He was a bit defensive then, like I’d offended him or something.

  Well, he goes, all slow and careful, as far as I know the Catholic minority want a united Ireland so the IRA are fighting to get the English to leave but your side wants to stay part of the UK. That’s about the size of it, non?

  Nice and simple isn’t it, I goes, and maybe that’s how it was at the start a long fucking time ago but let me burst your bubble here by telling ye a wee story. Every fortnight me, my brother Mark and my boss Big Jim Gallagher would have a meet at a nice wee café down the city centre, cappuccino and a caramel slice sort of thing. You know who would join us? Three lads from the other side of the wall, this dead funny cunt called Liam, I loved him so I did he was great craic, Declan was another one, he was the muscle like me so he never said much, I always wondered if I could take him but never found out, and the third one was their boss man Shay, he was the brains fuck he was smart just like Big Jim sure the two of them got on like nobody’s business. They’d both been to Queen’s University when they were younger sure that’s where they met.

  Anyway we would all have an aul yarn about business just to make sure we weren’t steppin’ on each others toes sort of thing, we’d even help each other out sometimes or if there was a new shopping centre opening up someone would bring the plans along and we’d work out what we were going to do about it. If there was a lot of jobs tied up in the construction contracts then once the place was near finished we’d blow it up, our side or theirs it didn’t matter sure we’d take turns, the important thing was that the place was reduced to rubble so all the lads working on it would have another year or two’s employment. Everyone knew so they’d all make themselves scarce so no cunt got hurt unless we wanted rid of someone in which case we’d stick them in the back of the van loaded up with Semtex, kill two birds with one stone you know. Anyway there’s only so many times you can blow a place up, apart from the Europa Hotel that is, sure we done that more than twenty times.

  Didn’t Clinton stay there last year, Olly says.

  Aye sure it’s lovely when it’s in one piece. I stayed there myself a couple of times, good food. As I was saying eventually we had to let places like Castle Court get built but once they were it was a goldmine we’d meet Shay and the lads to divvy up the protection money, it was dead funny sometimes I ‘member us arguing over who was going to shake down Toys ‘R’ Us. Shay and Liam had weans so they wanted it.

  That was only the tip of the i
ceberg between us and them sure we ran gambling, drugs, prostitution and everything else you can think of not to mention taking our cut of government contracts for reconstruction and all that shite. There used to be this big mural on the Shankill estate, it said ALL DRUG DEALERS WILL BE SHOT like we were guardians of the community or something, what a joke, course you read between the lines and what it really says is all drug dealers who don’t work for us will be shot. We’re businessmen, that’s all there is to it, no different from the Mafia or your drug lords. This aul peace process? We don’t want that so we don’t, that’s bad for business.

  Olly was nodding, he could see the sense in it, sure he done deals with all sorts of fuckers us included.

  Still, he goes, a lot of people have got killed so you and the rest can make money does that not bother you.

  Course it does, I says, there’s not a day goes by I don’t think about some of the poor cunts we done over especially now when I’ve got too much time on my hands, it’s going to fuck me up so it is but what can you do sure we’re not the first ones to go down this road.

  Olly looked disgusted and sort of disappointed. I’d seen that look on people’s faces before when I gave them the lowdown.

  I know what you’re thinking, I says, you thought there was something romantic about the struggle sure you’re not the only one, there’s thousands of Americans give money to the IRA every year thinking they’re helping out freedom fighters or something, what a laugh the whole thing’s one big fucking joke, the UDA the INLA the UVF the Provos and every bunch of lads with guns and Semtex it’s in their interest to keep the Troubles going on forever, sure you know how ye can spot a terrorist in Belfast? He’s the one wearing a tracksuit and a baseball cap, driving a BMW 7 Series.

  Everyone knows who we are but they’re all too scared to say something, sure who would you go to anyway, the peelers? Big Jim was a chief superintendent in the RUC, how’d you think we got things done? No one could touch us except now these aul politicians are trying to fuck it up for everyone.

  Olly thought about this for a minute. The aircon on the bus was freezing, I tried turning it down on the wee panel above us but it didn’t seem to make much difference.

  This doesn’t answer my question about why you’re here, he goes.

  Aye. Sure, why don’t we just watch The Nutty Professor for a bit.

  9

  So much for the glitz and glamour of Bangkok. Olly took us straight to this dive he knew about fifteen minute’s walk from Khao San Road, it was dodgy as fuck but at least it was nothing like them backpacker places with a big lounge room always playing some Hollywood movie like Predator 2, it’s not bad that one but the original’s hard to beat like. Me and Mark used to do the scene where Arnie meets his aul mate the black fella and they shake hands with their muscles bulging, what’s the matter Montgomery one of us would say, the UVF got you pushing too many pencils. Funny as fuck. Our Mark used to say get to the chopper Billy all the time, we don’t have a fucking chopper, I’d say, sure we’ve only a Nissan Micra. That would crack him up so it would.

  The rooms were about the dirtiest I’d ever stayed in and I was thinking it might be about time for me to check into the Ritz for a week just so’s I wouldn’t go mental. Olly wouldn’t hear talk of it mind sure he’d sleep in a ditch rather than pay money for a bed, he must of been running low on funds or something that was why he didn’t mind us shooting on up to Bangkok so he could line up a wee job with yer man Mr Carson he’d talked about. It sounded like trouble but sure I’d a contact in Bangkok myself I intended looking up when Olly wasn’t about, I’d a wee plan of my own brewing.

  The Bangkok’s wild so it is, sure there’s loads to do, Buddhist temples and that to see if that’s your thing. Just ask the driver of one of them tuk-tuks to take ye and he will right enough no bother, happy to help as long as you don’t mind spending two and a half hours being fitted for an aul cheap suit by his brother-in-law’s second cousin twice removed in a backstreet tailor’s conveniently located about ten miles in the opposite direction. Or else you could take a wander down the Khao San market and buy yourself a lovely pad thai cooked in an upturned bin lid, might give ye the gastro but sure that’s part of the experience.

  The safest way to spend your afternoon is probably to go to one of the sex shows down in Patpong sure they’ve got everything the westerner wants to see pussy opens bottle, fish in pussy and yer aul favourite the classic ping-pong ball act, sure it never gets stale though how minging is it? I’m sure they don’t sterilise those balls between acts and I don’t know how often they change them, it’s not like fucking Wimbledon.

  Aye sure the whole place is fucked in the head, you get pestered constantly. I was thinking of carrying three Polaroids round in my pocket, one of me wearing a suit that was three times too big with the arm hanging off of it, one of me puking my guts up in a gutter somewhere and the third one of my knob after I’d given it a good aul going over with a wire brush. That way when I get stopped in the street for the five-thousandth time by some Thai cunt offering me one of their essential services I could show him the photos and say, already bought it ate it caught it, get away to fuck.

  Olly was keen to make some money so he called yon Mr Carson fella and set up a meet. He had to contact him through some pissy wee travel agency, it must of been a front or something. I didn’t like going in to those sorts of things without being tooled up but there wasn’t time to sort something out, the best I could do was to buy an aul flick knife from some dodgy fucker down the market. What’s that for, Olly says, making sandwiches, I goes, we’ll not be needing that, he says, aye well better safe than sorry, I goes, sure I’ve no idea what you’re getting us into here. We’ll be all right, Olly says, I’ve had friends work for him before.

  I clocked the Rolex on this Carson cunt as soon as he shook my hand. He was wearing a dead nice shirt open at the neck with cufflinks and everything and a wee gold necklace, he’d obviously had a haircut quite recent like sure he was well presented no doubt about it he looked the real deal though you can’t tell in places like the Thailand where there’s so much fake gear going around. We met him in this café in the south of the city, it took us a while getting there and we were the only white people on the bus, obviously westerners never went to that part it was all office buildings and what have ye. The café was quite nice, there was other businessmen sitting around talking dead quiet and the owner obviously knew this Mr Carson ‘cos he gave us a table in the corner quite cosy for having a serious aul yarn, the whole thing reminded me of doing deals back home except I’d no piece on me this time. Olly was a bit nervous and over-enthusiastic, I was glad I was there just to watch his back sure there were two fellas sitting smoking cigarettes at another table looking over at us from behind their mirrored sunglasses. I knew straightaway they must of been Carson’s goons keeping an eye on proceedings, Olly was so worked up he never even noticed them.

  Carson ordered coffee for the three of us and gave me a good looking-over all smiles. So you are seeking work I believe, he goes.

  I let Olly do the talking seeing as it was his gig, he mentioned one of his pals who’d escorted fellas from the Middle East into Japan and how highly he’d spoken of Mr Carson and all that sort of blather, yer man Carson just sat there quietly nodding and Olly says to him we wouldn’t mind doing something similar but Carson waved his hand and goes, I have a better job than that for you if you are interested.

  More money? Olly goes.

  Much more, what is the country of origin on your passport?

  French, Olly says, and his is UK. That is fine, Carson says, here is what I propose. He had a dead soft accent and his English was good in that menacing sort of polite Singapore way. I will fly you both to Europe and you will be met there by two associates of mine from Pakistan. They will have around twenty passports for each of you. Each passport will be in a different name but will have your photograph. They will also have approximately ten thousand dollars US in traveller’s chequ
es corresponding to the names on the passports, a total of two hundred thousand dollars each. You will spend one month with these men travelling around Europe cashing the cheques, in every country except your home. You will hand the money to my associates every day and spend twentyfour hours in their company. You will not be able to see or talk to anyone else during this period. I am sure you understand the need for security. At the end of this month you will be free to leave and my associates will pay each of you ten per cent of the total sum cashed, which will be approximately twenty thousand dollars, obviously. Simple and clean. All you need to do is handle the transaction of cashing the cheques. There is virtually no risk. We will cover all your expenses.

  That sounds really good, Olly starts to say, but I cut him off.

  I have a question, I says, yer man gives me a funny look and then nods, go ahead, he says. What guarantee do we have that we’ll get paid at the end of the job?

  Olly threw his hands up, oh come on Billy, Mr Carson comes highly recommended we shouldn’t.

  I wasn’t talking to you, I says, be quiet.

  Mr Carson gave me an aul thin smile, you have my word, he says.

  Right well that’s very good, I goes, but I don’t know you Mr Carson and the way I’m thinking is that no one knows where we are and what’s to stop your associates from Pakistan marching us out into some forest in Denmark or wherever and putting a bullet in our heads rather than hand over the money.

  Olly had this look of horror at first but then I see his brow furrowing as he works out what I was saying was entirely possible.

  That’s not how I do business, Mr Carson goes, consider this a trial and I’m happy with your work then I will give you a much bigger job when you return.

  Uh huh, I goes, that’s very kind but let me ask you something else, you say there’s virtually no risk but I presume these passports are stolen or forged, it seems like if something goes wrong we’re the ones who’re going to go down for it and you and your associates will just vanish, there’s no protection for us at all here.