by Harlan Wolff
Carl found the whole meeting curious, very curious indeed. The client’s agreement to his request came too easily for Carl’s liking. Alarm bells were going off in his head but he ignored them. He was going to Macau to play in a big poker game with a suspected serial killer. It sounded like too much fun for him to worry about a little thing like alarm bells in his head. The first lesson in surviving on the streets is how important it is to trust your instincts.
Carl said goodbye to the client and his semi-detached companion, got up from the table and walked past the poolside restaurant on his way to the swimming pool exit and the lifts. He winked at the security man as he walked past. The man smiled in embarrassment and reported Carl’s departure on his radio.
He took the lift to the basement where there was an unmarked door that took him into the head of security’s office. Jack Burke was at his desk in the windowless room studying the cryptic crossword in that morning’s Bangkok Post.
“Morning Jack,” Carl said as he took a seat.
Jack Burke looked up from his newspaper and smiled. “You’ve got strange friends Carl. It’s one of the things we like about you. Never a dull moment when Carl is around, we tell each other at morning meetings. The only thing is Carl, why the fuck do they all have to stay at our hotel?”
Jack had taken the queen’s shilling in his youth and served honourably for three decades. After retirement he had taken a long holiday in Thailand, where his straight back and military bearing had landed him the position as head of hotel security. Carl approved of him in spite of his habit of wearing short-sleeved white shirts and his regimental tie.
“You can’t put this one on me,” Carl told him, “he was already a guest here when I met him.”
“Client?”
“Possibly, I think he’s feeling me out. God knows I could do with one at the moment.”
Jack looked up from his crossword. “Been playing with a cold deck again, have you?”
“Something like that. Can you ask your boys to keep an eye on who visits him at the hotel? It would be useful to know if any lawyers or other PIs are sniffing around.”
“Sure Carl. They never mind doing you a favour.”
“Please let them know that I always appreciate it,” Carl said as he got up to leave.
“No problem,” Jack said as he got back to wrestling the crossword. “This one’s got me stymied; a meal fit for a prince or a rover? It’s two words.”
“We should get together at Paddy Murphy’s for a pint one night when the football’s on.”
“Look forward to it. You’re buying,” Jack told him without looking up from his paper.
“Dog food,” Carl told him as he went out the door.
The Porsche went quickly and noisily through the car park’s twists and turns. Its rumbling deep bass engine set off car alarms as it went past them. The red monster shot down the hotel ramp and into Bangkok gridlock. Carl patiently drove through the heavy traffic to his destination on the river, ducking in and out of lanes with great skill as Bangkok drivers are expected to do.
He arrived at River City shopping centre over an hour later. His car didn’t like daytime Bangkok traffic and its air-cooled engine suffered from the midday heat and lack of speed. The monster’s roar had become a whine and like a horse ridden too hard it needed a few hours of stabling.
River City was the antique market specializing in expensive furniture and Buddha amulets. It was located on the Bangkok side of the Chaophya River and catered to tourists and wealthy locals. Carl parked the tired Porsche on the third floor and entered through a door marked Fire Exit. He walked past the shops with their high-priced antiques to a Thai seafood restaurant with a view across the water to the Thonburi side. The other side of the river had always been the less expensive half of the city, as it did not cater to many foreigners.
Carl sat at his regular table facing the river and ordered an iced tea and a plate of pad thai noodles with fresh prawns. The restaurant staff kept the table for him whenever possible.
There was an apartment building on the other side of the river that Carl could see best from that particular table. He had regularly watched it for several months but didn’t do so every day. He couldn’t see anything of importance anyway, as it was too far away for normal eyesight, and he didn’t bring binoculars.
The building under surveillance was a relatively modern condominium with a swimming pool and terrace facing the river. Residents could access it by taking a boat from the pier next to River City, thereby never actually having to interact with the Thonburi half of Bangkok’s vast metropolis.
Carl easily identified the balcony window belonging to apartment 5C because he had stayed there many times — that and the bright orange curtains. It didn’t matter to him that he was too far away to see any people moving around inside. He already knew what the inside of the apartment looked like.
At that time of day, the woman in the photograph he kept on his bookshelf would be singing standards and exercising her vocal cords. She would be in the white dressing gown he had stolen for her from the Oriental Hotel and she would be wearing nothing else. He imagined her lithe dark body under the white towelling. She was probably singing Misty. She usually sang Misty when she exercised her vocal chords.
He enjoyed having lunch at the seafood restaurant. It was never pre planned that he drove there in the middle of the day through the lunchtime traffic. It just happened sometimes. It had been happening quite a lot lately.
Chapter 10
Early Friday morning Carl received the phone call he had been hoping for. It was from the colonel telling him that Somchai Poochokdee had boarded a plane to Macau late Thursday. Carl had packed an overnight bag in readiness and it was waiting for him on the middle of his desk with his passport. Carl knew the target’s habit was to spend a couple of long weekends in Macau every month so it had not required deductive genius to know he would be rushing to the airport sooner rather than later. The magnetic pull of clinking chips and playing cards fluttering across green baize had made it difficult to sleep. Carl was exhibiting all the impatience of a child at Christmas.
Carl was excited that he was going to be able to meet his prey and get a good look at him up close and personal. The client’s story had sounded credible enough up to a point but Carl found it overly convenient that Bangkok’s serial killer had been handed to him on a plate. He had never had one before and had never expected to get one so easily. The case had finally got his full attention.
At the time Carl had not believed the claim that the long lost brother was also a serial killer. Clients have a tendency to vilify their chosen targets to private investigators and lawyers in the belief that it will get them better service. That and the comfort they got when they believed that they had recruited an accomplice as opposed to a service provider to help fight their cause. Carl had found the client’s claims of having a serial killer in the family a little too topical for his liking. Private detectives and clients read the same newspapers in the morning. He had heard lots of stories in his time and rarely believed everything his clients told him.
He had spent the previous evening counting out money and studying his poker books so when the call came he would be ready for action. Carl had also searched the Internet and listed the phone numbers of the major casino hotels in Macau. He made a coffee from the espresso machine, took it upstairs, lit a cigar and got on the phone.
“Good morning can you put me through to Mr. Somchai Poochokdee’s room please.”
A pause and then, “We don’t have a guest by that name.”
“Thank you.” He hung up.
On the fourth attempt he was waiting for a response at the end of the pause but instead got the sound of a phone ringing in one of the rooms. He hung up the phone immediately. The target was staying at the Venetian Hotel and Casino in Macau. Carl made an online airline booking to fly to Macau in the afternoon and booked himself a room at the Wynn Hotel and Casino. He was not going to stay at the Venetian Ho
tel, as it would have made it too easy for the target to get his real name.
Carl checked and confirmed that the ten thousand dollars was in his Singapore bank account. The money was already there and he wondered if he was letting his suspicions get the better of what was so obviously good for business. He found it hard not to feel a certain fondness for a client that gave him large sums of money so quickly and easily. Carl felt that sometimes he had quite a lot in common with the girl with the green fingernails.
Carl was standing in his office and going through all of his standard last-minute actions before getting a taxi to the airport. He checked his passport to make sure his re-entry visa was properly dated and stamped. He printed out his ticket with all the required reference numbers. When he checked his emails, he saw that the background check he had asked for had been emailed to him by his contact in Los Angeles. There was also the daily report from Boonchoo. Carl printed both emails including attachments, put them in his bag, and left for the airport.
Once in the taxi Carl made the necessary phone calls. He rang George to tell him he was on his way to the airport and would be out of contact at least until Sunday. George told Carl he already knew what time the flight was. He had heard it from the compound’s underground maids’ network. Remember, it is only a secret until you tell somebody, Carl reminded himself.
The next thing Carl did was to call the colonel. He told him he was going to Hong Kong. If he had said Macau the colonel would have assumed that he would end up broke which would not be good for the colonel. Most people leave their money at the casinos, and the colonel’s friends, like most Thais, were fearless gamblers, betting incredible amounts on the turn of a card at the baccarat tables of Macau’s casinos. Fortunes were sometimes lost in a single weekend. So Carl created a story of a small job that he needed to do in Hong Kong to avoid a lecture on the evils of gambling. Before they ended the call the colonel told him he was meeting some police associates on Saturday night and would ask them what they knew about the student murders. The colonel said one of his friends was in the department that was investigating the most recent cases.
Carl felt he had everything under control. Thinking everything was under control was always a foolish thing to do. It was Asia and anything could happen.
The last call on his list was to the old man working the surveillance.
“How is it going?” Carl asked him.
“Nothing much happening. He goes to work and goes home. We took pictures of his car, his house and his office. I send you all the pictures daily by email. Last night he went to the airport with a bag. My son went to the noodle shop where his staff eat their lunch and heard that he is due back in the office Monday morning.”
“Very good. Take the weekend off and start again Monday morning.”
“Thank you,” he said. Then before Carl could hang up he continued.“Just one thing. There was an unusual event at 2:35 yesterday afternoon. He had a very loud argument with another foreigner at his office. It started outside on the street when our subject arrived in his car. He was confronted and then the argument continued as they went upstairs shouting at each other. The foreigner doing most of the shouting left about fifteen minutes later. He was smiling when he left. My son jumped in another taxi and followed him to the Sukhumvit Grande Hotel.”
“What did he look like?’ Carl asked, dreading the answer.
“Very old and very fat. I have a picture.”
“That’s all right, I know who he is. We will talk again on Monday. Thank you.”
Shit! Never trust a client. The case was flowing nicely and everything was in place and then his own client blew his cover. He hadn’t considered the possibility, even though these things happened. They happened a lot. Carl should have been used to it. But, more importantly he should have planned for the possibility. It was extremely foolish of him to assume that on whatever case he was working on, that this time everything was going to be different. Clients were impatient and acted foolishly.
Carl needed to rethink his situation before he got to the airport. Anthony Inman knew that he had been found but had still gone to Macau. That could mean he was not concerned or it could mean that he was. So it made no difference to Carl’s understanding of his new situation. Was there any reason to believe that he would be aware that it was Carl who had located him? Not likely, but certainly not impossible. Would he take it personally if he knew it was Carl? No reason to think so. Most people didn’t. As long as he was not a raving lunatic he should see Carl as a nuisance, not an enemy. Like a person being sued would feel towards the lawyer retained to sue him. Not that Bangkok private investigators had the luxury of assumed respectability that often protected lawyers.
Reality check. All Carl really knew was that he didn’t know very much. The real decision to be made was whether or not he should get on the plane to Macau. He found the adventure was irresistible so he had spent ten minutes doing mental gymnastics for nothing. Of course he was going to Macau.
Carl arrived at Suwarnabhumi Airport with plenty of time to kill. He strutted in like he owned the place to cover up the stress that had taken a grip on him in the taxi. Airports are not good places to be seen acting nervous and upset in. Not unless you liked being touched up by a gorilla in a uniform. He avoided the new automatic check-in machines and went to a counter with a human being behind it. Carl was old-fashioned about such things.
The name of the airport should be a warning to visitors. The unpronounceable name ‘Suwarnabhumi’ for an airport built to receive millions of visitors who don’t speak Thai is a declaration that the locals are planning to have it all their own way. The correct pronunciation is soo-wah-nar-poom but only a handful of foreigners can work that out from the complex spelling. Typically when tourists asked Carl how they should pronounce it to Bangkok’s taxi drivers so they could be understood, Carl always told them, “Airport!” That worked most of the time, he told them.
Carl spent the long journey from the security check to the departure gate trying to work out what had been bothering him since the first day when he had taken the case. The long distance walk gave him plenty of time to think. The conclusion he reached on arriving at the departure gate was that it was the money. The money had come too easily for Carl’s subconscious to be comfortable with. The rest of Carl had of course been ecstatic. The voice at the back of Carl’s head was reminding him of something. It was saying that people who pay that much money and that easily usually have a guilty conscience. Carl put his doubts aside for the second time. He was going to Macau and he was going to play poker with somebody else’s money. What could possibly go wrong?
Once in the air he soon wished he had stayed on the ground. Carl had taken a Bangkok Post newspaper from the rack at the door of the plane. He waited until the plane had taken off before opening it. He had only taken it for the cryptic crossword. A quick glance at the headlines on his way to the cryptic crossword was his habit. Unfortunately Carl got stuck on page three and never made it to the crossword page.
He had noticed a small headline in the top right hand corner with a couple of paragraphs below it; a seventy-year old tourist had been shot outside the Sukhumvit Grande Hotel. Victor Boyle, a tourist, had been shot Thursday evening as he left his hotel. A motorcycle with two men in dark clothing and wearing black crash helmets had pulled up beside him as he was getting into a taxi. They shot him three times and fled through the Bangkok traffic. The paper reported they were believed to be professional killers as the shooter had calmly walked up to his victim and checked for a pulse before fleeing. The deceased was said to be a very large man and a US citizen from the state of Nevada.
After all the years Carl had been operating as a private investigator it had finally happened; he had lost his first client. Who the hell was Victor Boyle? Carl thought his name was Victor Inman like his brother. He hadn’t checked, which was stupidity bordering on total incompetence.
He went to the luggage locker above his head and took the background check on
Anthony Inman from his hand luggage. Carl sat down, put his glasses on, fastened his seatbelt and started reading. It was all there as he expected; the marriage and divorce, the children he had abandoned, and his company directorships. There was no mention of him and the CIA of course. It was pretty much what Carl had been told by his client. There was one glaringly obvious thing missing though; Anthony Inman didn’t have a brother!
Chapter 11
Macau from the air was only recognizable to Carl from its shape and the location of the bridge that joined the two parts. It had gone from being a sparsely populated island to a neon metropolis. He had last been there in 1979 for a day. He had arrived on the hydrofoil from Hong Kong to seek his fortune at the tables. Carl left Macau that night for Hong Kong, on the last boat out, with empty pockets. The tables had not been kind.
The last time Carl had been a teenager. Now, over thirty years later, the memories were patchy. He remembered arriving back in Hong Kong and eating a cheeseburger from a fast food outlet. It was all he could afford and a novelty as the factory that made semi-synthetic food hadn’t invaded Thailand at that time. After that Carl went to the famous Bottoms Up bar and found himself unable to finish a whiskey soda. This was something he found curious indeed. Carl returned to the very cheap hotel he was staying at and went straight to bed.
Carl woke up two days later. He was bright yellow and too weak to walk to the bathroom. He remembered rallying all his strength and crawling there to vomit continuously. He somehow found the strength to get back on the bed where he passed out and didn’t come to until another twenty-four hours had passed. Whatever it was, it was very bad. Carl thought he was dying but hoped survival was not out of the question. Staying in the hotel room was not feasible. He was almost out of money and if he stayed any longer the bill would exceed his wallet. Carl decided to die in Thailand instead of Hong Kong.