by Harlan Wolff
“He knows police and journalists are already sniffing around Inman and his safe house.”
“So why will he meet you?”
“Because you all want me to go away Bart so of course you’ll all come,” Carl told him. Bart stayed silent so Carl hung up.
“Can I ask the question?” George requested.
“Go ahead,” Carl told him.
“I know how it works Carl. You don’t tell people your whole plan. I go along with that, but in the past I’ve always understood your process. This plan you are playing out worries me because it seems overly complex. So complicated that I have no idea what you are up to.”
“That’s because what you are watching is the absence of my standard type plan. I gave up days ago. There is no magical solution this time. I don’t have jigsaw pieces juggled in the air ready to fall neatly into place. The system here is conveniently corrupt but this time it’s working against me. I’m up against somebody that has been manipulating the system for longer than I have. He has the large amounts money and the connections to get away with murder, literally. His friends are now my enemies and they have all the power, it’s their country and I’m nothing but a foreigner they choose to tolerate, at least for now, like all foreigners.”
“So what does all that mean?” George asked.
“It means I am running a bluff and if they don’t fold their cards I’m finished, game over. What I’ve done will eventually bring them down anyway but I won’t be alive to see it. For me to win they must fold their cards.”
“Why don’t you want me there?”
“I need to surprise them. If you are there it will appear confrontational and if they choose violence over dialogue then the game is over.”
“But what if they send the soldiers I saw following you at the airport?”
“They won’t,” Carl told him.
“I hope you know what you are doing.”
Then Carl explained to George where they were going and why. He told him that they were dumping the car and leaving for the islands the following morning. Carl told him that they would reinvent themselves and the islands would make everything good for a while. He told George that his dead wife would want him to move on and give up his house full of memories where every corner he turned he still expected to bump into her. And Carl told him that, after what was going to happen that night it would be time to start living again. George had no more questions so they drove the rest of the way in silence.
Chapter 27
Through the heavy soundproof window Carl could see the cars on the road outside flashing past the building. It was late and the roads of Bangkok had sped up. A stream of headlights flowed in both directions either going to or coming from one of Bangkok’s nocturnal pleasures. He wondered how many crimes were being committed that would never be discovered. Some of the drivers had to be transporting drugs, taking bets on their mobile phones, trafficking underage girls, or possibly even preparing to commit murder. The statistics said that some of the cars’ occupants had to be breaking the law, drunk driving at least. Laws are about controlling society. Their purpose is not to make sense of it. Law enforcement became involved when, often by sheer accident, they were made aware of a crime and it was topical enough to deserve their resources. Unfortunately, in Thailand, even then it did not always get the desired result.
Inside, everything was ready and the musty room had taken on the appearance of a well-organised classroom. George and Boonchoo’s family had played their parts in the new decor and the Finns had come in late that afternoon to add the final touches. Carl stood alone by the window, waiting with the lights off.
Outside, Phetchburi Road was a sea of colour as the headlights fought with the neon signs for dominance. The light and shadow against the wall with its dreadful metal ring to restrain victims appeared like something straight out of an early black and white horror film. The hairs on the back of Carl’s neck were standing up and his stomach was a bucket of eels. He thought about time and how it would pass with or without him wrestling with it. He made himself focus on the reality that what was in front of him would soon be something that was behind him, leaving all negative feelings, fear and pain redundant. ‘God give me patience; but I want it right now!’ he told himself.
The room he was waiting in had been witness to repeated performances of the ultimate crime, the killing of human beings for pleasure. Experts can rationalize the behaviour of such men but rationalizing is not the same as understanding. Shakespeare wrote in his final play, ‘Hell is empty and all the devils are here’. Such cynical conclusions often come at the tail end of a man’s existence. Perhaps because he can look back without the fear that is always present when looking forward. The other possibility is that age just makes man negative and bad-tempered. Something we then confuse with wisdom. Carl didn’t much care where his reasoning had come from. He had already made his choices and it was too late to turn back.
Carl smelled the petrol before he heard the footsteps. It wafted up the stairs like napalm on the night air. Then he heard the clink of glass bottles getting louder as Inman climbed higher. Anthony Inman entered the room that had once been his office and later had become his second floor dungeon of dirty tricks. He wore a polo shirt, cotton trousers, and an expensive-looking pair of brown leather moccasins. His hair was grey and perfectly groomed in the old slicked down Brylcreem style with a side parting. He was tanned and physically fit. He looked a hell of a lot better than Carl did. He placed the plastic supermarket bags containing glass bottles of petrol on the floor. He reached into his pocket for a large wad of cotton material and a lighter, which he put down beside them, the tools of the traditional arsonist.
He didn’t see Carl at first. Carl stood quietly in the shadows and watched the most evil man he had ever had the misfortune to cross paths with wistfully surveying the dreadful room. Carl remained silent and still as Inman’s body language changed as he began to sense that there had been unwanted visitors and changes had been made to his lair during his absence.
He switched on the light, turned around and saw Carl. Inman appeared more annoyed than concerned as he pulled out an expensive-looking pearl-handled Desert Eagle.357 Magnum automatic pistol and pointed it at the private detective. It made perfect sense to Carl. If a man’s in the arms business you had to expect him to be carrying expensive equipment.
“What are you doing here you dumb motherfucker? Never mind, it’ll be good that they find your body in the ashes.”
“Be hard to stick the murders on me if I have bullets in me.”
“You’re right. Now turn around and put your hands behind your head.”
“I’m not going to do that. You need to wait for Amnuay and Bart. Forgive the cowboy rhetoric but the building’s surrounded.”
“You’re such an arrogant motherfucker. Don’t you have any concept of how out of your depth you are?”
“Those noises you just heard from downstairs are General Amnuay and Bart. And by the sound of all those heavy feet the general has brought help.”
“Good! I always appreciate some backup,” Inman said with a confident razor-thin smile.
“So this is where you like to hurt people?” Carl asked him.
“Guess what motherfucker? You’re next,” Inman snarled.
“Now you have the Thai army and the CIA here to help you it should be a fairly even contest.”
“Fuck you!” he said snarling again.
“Is that all you have to say? Consider some well-chosen last words. Time is not something you should be wasting. You don’t have much of it left.”
“I’m going to get great pleasure from killing you,” Inman told him grinning like a Cheshire cat.
Carl had handled the situation and bought the time he needed. As long as Inman was talking he wasn’t shooting. The herd of feet reached the entrance to the room and General Amnuay and Bart Barrows entered, leaving a squad of soldiers lining the stairwell. They both surveyed the room and went and stood beside Inman.
“If this is your idea of a negotiation then I fear you have started from a position of weakness,” Bart said to Carl after noting the gun that Inman had trained on him.
“I wasn’t expecting him to show up so early,” Carl said.
“Doesn’t appear that your plan was well thought out,” Bart told him.
“It doesn’t matter anymore whether I live or die tonight, this thing ends either way. The choice you will be given is whether you go down with the ship or take the lifeboat I am about to offer you and the general.”
Bart looked around the room and saw what Carl had done to the walls. Every wall had a large white card stuck on it with information written in foot high letters with a bold black marker pen. On the wall behind Carl the sign detailed the available DNA available from the various blood spatter evidence and pointed out the steel ring for restraining victims.
On the wall to his left was written a list of the victims’ names and the dates that their bodies were found. On the wall to Carl’s right was a description and list of knives and DNA that would be found in the bathroom plus a detailed technical explanation of the room’s soundproofing. On the far wall was an extra-large card providing Inman’s history of aliases and crimes, starting in Vietnam then America and Thailand. The spaces throughout the room were filled out with enlarged black and white surveillance photographs that didn’t record anything of significance but helped provide a general atmosphere of thoroughness.
“Show and tell is it Carl?” Bart said shaking his head in sympathy for Carl’s foolishness.
“Read it all Bart! You’ve been protecting a truly evil man.”
“You can’t expect me to believe all this nonsense, can you?”
“Look at him and look around you Bart,” Carl told him.
Bart looked at the man beside him and then knew it to be true.
“Is this you Tony? This animal that kills people’s children is you?” Bart said staring at Inman and becoming noticeably angry.
“Shut up Bart!” the general told him loudly with a perfect North American accent. “Shut up and stay out of it. So he’s sick. Big deal. He was always sick you hypocrite. I don’t remember your necktie-wearing bosses ever complaining in Vietnam when we dug people’s graves before we started interrogating them.”
“This is different, general,” Bart pleaded.
“The hell it is. He is one of us and don’t you forget it. I will deal with this problem. This is not Vietnam, this is my country and I am in charge here.” Then he took a long quizzical look at Carl and asked him, “What is this Hollywood crap all about?” as he waved his arm in a circle to show that he had seen the contents of the room.
“Can you make him put the gun away? Then I’ll be happy to explain everything.”
“Sure, you’re not going anywhere.” General Amnuay took the pistol from Inman’s hand and placed it in his own belt. “I’ll deal with this, Tony.”
“Then I will begin,” Carl said. “And, yes General, this is going to be a little Hollywood I’m afraid.”
Carl spoke to the room as he walked around pointing out evidence detailing forty years of global murder history.
“Wars compromise morality and Inman took advantage of that fact and made the people close to him complicit without them realising it was happening. My guess is he gradually escalated his requests for help to pull you into his wickedness. Beware of people seeking advice; most of them are really looking for an accomplice. Inman has conned you both for decades and it’s time you took your souls back. This may be your last chance.”
Bart stared open-mouthed as Carl finished his show and tell. General Amnuay did not show any emotion apart from mild impatience.
“That’s it?” Bart said, frustrated.“Appealing to the general’s better nature is your plan to bring Tony Inman to justice? Jesus Christ bwoy! This is the best you can do to protect the next poor son of a bitch’s daughter. I expected more from you than this. This makes you a walking dead man. How are you planning to escape?”
“I don’t need an escape plan. When I’m finished I’ll just walk out,” Carl told him surprisingly calmly.
Bart was flustered. He wanted Inman dead and out of his life, not back out on the streets. He had a daughter, and of all the crimes he had spent a career turning a blind eye to, the sexual torture and murder of children was not something he wanted to negotiate with his conscience.
“Madness! Total goddamn madness!” Bart said shaking his head in anger and frustration.
“General!” Carl said strongly and confidently. “You find yourself in a very embarrassing predicament. I recommend you call your friends in the police and ask them to come here and arrest your hideous associate. My advice is to tell them that you are shocked to discover that your long-time associate is quite insane and that you have evidence he is Bangkok’s serial killer.”
General Amnuay laughed. “And why would I do that you crazy motherfucker? I don’t disagree with what you say but there is honour between soldiers and that is always above everything.”
“Because even though I went with the Hollywood solution, there are no microphones which means, out of respect to you, I have left you with a way out. There is no other intelligent choice at your disposal.”
“What are you talking about?” For the first time, the general looked mildly concerned.
Carl continued with his show and tell. “If everybody will look at the four corners of the ceiling you will notice four small white plastic balls. They are high definition cameras and are wired straight into the heart of the Internet at an unusually high bandwidth. We have established a website that has promised to show the whole world a serial killer being arrested in real time. An Internet first I am told.” Carl looked at his watch then looked back up to his audience. “According to my watch we went viral about an hour ago. The estimate from my technical people is an audience of two million including CNN, BBC and Al Jazeera. The website provides details on your friend Tony’s activities and aliases plus a few exaggerations of my own.” Carl pulled a face playacting at being ashamed. “I threw in some extra stuff like Victor Boyle’s confession and Tony being identified by eyewitnesses bringing victims here. Sorry about that but a little poetic license was essential.”
Bart smiled happily but turned away so the general wouldn’t see. The general glared at Carl. Carl continued speaking.
“Now, as nobody can hear this conversation we’ll all be judged by our actions. I have finished my show and tell as Bart called it and, although the global audience couldn’t hear me, everything was made clear by the writing on the walls and the highly detailed information on the website. I like that, ‘the writing on the walls’. Everybody can read the writing on the wall clearly, general, apart from Tony over there, but that’s because his back’s up against it.”
Bart laughed out loud, then he covered his mouth with his hand and said, “I think you need to take this seriously General, the agency has a lot invested in you and the shirts in Langley won’t expect you to blow your career for an ex agent that they thought they had seen the back of thirty years ago.”
“Bart,” Carl said, “if you wouldn’t mind, reach out and turn on the TV on the wall beside you.”
The LED television sprang to life and showed a website listing pretty much the same information that was on the walls. In the middle of the webpage was a live stream of the room where they could see themselves. At the top of the page, on the far right, was a counter that showed 1,800,000 viewers increasing constantly.
“Don’t understand how it all works but there it is gentlemen. My boffins are good. This is going all over the world I’m told.”
The general said nothing so Carl concluded, “I advise you to look shocked and get on one of your many communication devices to get the police here as soon as you can. This could be the end of a brilliant career or this could be your finest hour. The choice is entirely yours and your audience is waiting.” Carl waved his hand theatrically in the direction of the tele
vision.
Anthony Inman stood shaking and sweating as he realized, after the decades of close friendship, what the general’s decision had to be. “A million dollars if you let me leave now,” he told Carl.
Carl thought for a moment. “A million dollars is not a lot of money. Not as much as it used to be. I think I will leave you with it though. You obviously need it more than I do. You must believe that you can spend it in hell otherwise you couldn’t have lived the life you did. I do believe in hell you see, there must be one. Otherwise where do devils like you come from?”
“Do you know anything about the men that robbed me?”
“I know everything about the men that robbed you,” Carl said smiling.
“What do you mean?”
“They were my people. I had them fly over from the Philippines. They run a bar there but always wanted to be actors. By the time you woke up in the back of the car they were already in the air on their way back to Manila. Three million dollars and some change was a lot more than I expected you to have lying around in cash, a nice surprise. All of it is safely in an offshore bank account that is under my control. By the time I’ve paid the boys and bought a very expensive watch I should have two million dollars left for my retirement plan. They were harmless theatrical types and they wouldn’t really have hurt you. Must’ve been good, I wish I’d seen them scamming you. The artist Caravaggio used to threaten to boil his enemies’ balls in oil when he was drunk. I never forgot that dreadful imagery.”
“But everybody said you were straight. Nobody said you were a criminal. That is why we didn’t suspect you were involved,” Inman said looking at the general for his reaction.
“Psychopaths like you make me think like a criminal and then it just becomes a bad habit. It takes people like me to put animals like you out of our misery.”
“Amnuay, you can fix this! Please, you have to get me out of this!” Inman pleaded to his old friend.
General Amnuay did not answer him. Inman stood in front of him shaking and twitching. Carl was enjoying it too much so he decided it was time to leave.