Meeting Ingrid was a turning point in Avi’s life and he started to become a much more positive person. She worked in his office. She would typically be unfairly described as ‘plain’, ‘not unattractive’ or the equally bland ‘pleasant’. Avi fell in love. They would chat for hours and quickly became the closest of friends. Eventually, Avi plucked up the courage to tell Ingrid how he felt. He broke down in tears, they embraced. She felt the same way and confessed to Avi that she had never properly dated anyone. Here she was at the age of thirty, embarking on a new life. For four months Avi was skipping around town. Yes, he was lucky and now the one thing that had eluded him had fallen into place; he was in love and in a loving relationship. It all came crashing down though. Just after their four-month anniversary (yes they had celebrated it!), Ingrid was diagnosed with breast cancer. Within six months of that diagnosis she was taken from Avi. He was crushed. That was it for him. Love just wasn’t worth the pain and misery. Eventually he settled into a comfortable yet monotonous existence. The few who knew him well, knew that something was missing from his life.
Thus it could be said that the two clear aspects of Avi’s personality were guilt and missing loves. He still felt a deep guilt about how he had abandoned his country of birth, but also how he had fallen out with and essentially abandoned Mo Razzaq. At sixty he was sure it was too late to fix any of this, but he did wonder if he could still find a version of happiness.
Avi was snapped out of his daydream by the vision of Bob Lowe stumbling his way into Mints. For a moment he considered the possibility that Bob was very, very drunk, but he soon learnt that this was a sober stumbling, unique to Bob Lowe.
“Avi, my dear old thing, how’s things?”
“You know, Bob, plodding along.”
“Aren’t we all? So you’re becoming a Mints regular then.”
“Oh yes, it’s my favourite bar even if I’ve always thought Mints was an odd name for such a place.”
“Don’t get The Lowe started on that damn missing apostrophe!”
At that Mint wandered over to take Bob’s order.
“Where’s that apostrophe, Mint?! Add it! Mint’s. Mint’s Bar. Mint’s Place.” Bob had been through this many times.
“No, Bob! Mints. I eat Mints always.” Mint laughed, she knew it annoyed Bob.
“But it’s a bar! Not a sweet shop! I’ll have the same as Avi, but no mints, Mint!”
Bob roared with laughter, he was doing this partly for Avi’s benefit.
“So, Bob, any progress on my case?” Avi enquired.
“The wheels are very much turning, the wheels are turning.”
“You’ve found Mohammed?”
“Well strictly speaking, at the moment I’ve found millions of Mohammeds. Just leave this to The Lowe.” With that Bob unfurled an A4 poster that Pat had mocked up for him.
‘Disco is back! Avi Shielmann, former World Disco sensation, in Mints bar!’
He showed it to Avi “We’ll have you back dancing in no time.”Avi looked at Bob in shock, and his eyes began to moisten. Bob added “A Bob Lowe promotion. Avi Shielmann; the return.” Both men laughed as they enthusiastically slugged on their beers.
They sat together in silence, watching an expat guy of about thirty begin to flirt with one of the waitresses. Bob gave Avi a knowing look. “We all know where this is ending.”
“What’s the appeal? What’s it all about?” mused Avi.
“Er. Sex I believe, old boy. Some speak rather highly…” Bob began prattling as he wiped the sweat from his brow.
“But this whole situation, the girls, the money.” Avi waved his arm around. “And he’s a young chap. He doesn’t need to pay for it.”
“Well, if my many years in Bangkok have taught me anything, Avi, my friend, it’s that it’s so much more complicated than that. Some of them end up married.”
“Have you ever thought about marrying a girl from a bar, Bob?” Avi began to think about his own near-marriage and inevitably his words took on a melancholic tone.
“I won’t lie. I’ve known a few bar girls in my time. But, you know what, Avi. Can I be honest? I don’t think I’ve got the guts.”
Avi gave a puzzled look before Bob continued to explain.
“I’m embarrassed to admit it, but ultimately I’ve worried about what people will think. Bob Lowe shacked up with a Thai woman years younger than him. They’d be cynical. But I feel awful saying this out loud.”
Across the bar the guy they had been watching was now flirting with a different girl. Avi pondered the futility of it all and the attitude of the men. Women were very much objects to be purchased in the eyes of these guys. He let Bob’s words hang in the air.
“No need to be ashamed, Bob. You’re not one of the bad guys. You just need to meet the right one. I did once.”
Bob detected the sadness in Avi’s voice and decided not to pry.
“Ah, the one, yes indeed. But what if the one for me doesn’t think I am the one for her. Story of my life. It’d make a good book you know, the failings in love of Bob Lowe. ‘The diary of Bob Lowe; Loser in love’, it’d be too tragic to believe!”
“Two more?” Mint enquired as she approached the table.
“Two more,” they replied in unison.
TWENTY FOUR
Bob had decided that it would soon be time to report the drug smuggling to the police as he was certainly not keen to get involved in a major drug issue. Although, of course, he wondered if, with the nature of his new job, this was a reality he simply couldn't avoid. Perhaps Bob Lowe could be the man to sort out Thailand's drug problem. Bob of course would push for a much more liberal attitude to drug use. Back in the day, Bob had dabbled in any drug he could get his hands on, and as he told anyone who would listen, "never did me any harm!" With Bob easily able to pass for a man fifteen years older and with the memory of a man forty years older, many would beg to differ.
Now that he was living in Daeng's house he had something of a dilemma. He could of course simply wait for the tuk-tuk thief, but it was clear he was a young man and if apprehended by Bob he could simply run off. Bob needed to know exactly what was going on so then he could take a slick dossier to Khun Pun, his police buddy.
Bob was not finding it easy sleeping at Daeng's as he had no A/C in his spare room. Bob had been spoilt by his stay at Susie's with the room extra-cold at night. The fan splattered around and Bob woke drenched in sweat, even though it hadn't yet reached the hottest time of the year. He had to ensure he left the house well before the Tuk-tuk thief so that he could be positioned on the street corner, the latest one he had reached, in plenty of time. He left the house at 4:30 am and walked the long route so he could pop into 7-Eleven for a cappuccino on the way.
He walked down the soi and marvelled at the silence. He did love early mornings even if he wasn't always able to wake up in time to appreciate it. Once he had reached Silom Road there was a little bit more life and a few drunk tourists staggering about looking for somewhere to get some food.
"Ah, the old false hunger, such naivety," Bob muttered to himself. He had learnt at an early age that money spent on food while drunk was simply money wasted. What he called a 'false hunger', it was the booze tricking you. Bob simply drank his way through it, and if he was out of cash he would drink pints of water to defeat the hunger. That was another chapter in his unfinished masterpiece 'Bob Lowe's thrifty Bangkok living.'
He walked back around the block to reach the side soi and the latest corner he had reached. After his discussion with the old woman he was sure he would just need to watch the tuk-tuk back to Silom Road, she had basically told him that her team of drug dealers operated from a spot close to the Skytrain station.
He sat down by a small shrub growing through the tarmac. A sleeping soi dog lifted his head at the intrusion, then went back to sleep as if he was thinking 'oh it's just Bob Lowe'. Bob nodded at the dog, to thank him for not giving him any bother. Another of Bob's key Bangkok rules, "Respect the soi dog and the soi
dog will respect you." He had never been attacked by a dog and therefore was certain his policy was obviously correct.
Bob settled himself near the corner of Silom Road, with a view down the soi to the corner that he had reached with his step by step stakeout. After ten or fifteen minutes sitting and slurping his coffee he saw the tuk-tuk pull out of the soi. "Gotcha," Bob whispered and took a photo with his cheap smartphone. The photo was basically a light in the distance, such was the low resolution of his camera phone.
As he expected the tuk-tuk drove past him, turned onto the Silom Road and stopped just by the BTS entrance!
The young chap began to set up a table and took out the bags of what Bob was sure must contain bags of little red yaba pills.
Remarkable. The chap seems to be setting up a drug stall by the BTS. Police involved? Bob wrote in his notes.
He sat and watched as the young man unloaded his wares and appeared to be laying them out on display. Bob was too far away to see exactly but he was staggered by what was going on. Before he got up, he got another shock. The old woman began to walk her way down the soi.
She's going to sell the drugs herself! He furiously scribbled in his notes, and after another fifteen minutes the young man had set up the drug shop and was racing away with the tuk-tuk. Returned to Daeng. Slick drug dealers for sure.
He decided he would subtly stroll past the stall and see what was going on and how she was disguising her illicit wares. As he reached the woman she instantly recognised him and said to him in Thai, "Now you can buy some."
He looked down stunned, and saw on the table an array of delicious fried pork items, chicken wings and other delicacies. He regained his composure. "Moo grob khrap." He ordered some of his favourite crispy pork. He walked away eating it, it was indeed delicious, crispy yet chewy. Amazing.
He sat down back on the steps by his favourite 7-Eleven, and began to feel quite nervous and panicked.
They are clearly on to me, and to protect their multi-million-dollar business they have set up a pork stall.
Correction, they sell drugs inside the bags of pork! Of course! Simplicity personified.
Confirm over next few days then hand dossier to Pun.
"Breakfast at the Lumpini," Bob informed the soi as he got up and walked down to the five-star hotel. The Lumpini Park Hotel was a Bangkok institution of faded grandeur, and for Bob it was glorious. None of the flashy opulence of these new places. "Proper old-world style and classy service." Bob would tell anyone. He shouldn't really be splashing his cash on expensive breakfasts, but he knew he would eat enough to need no further meals that day; just the odd snack perhaps.
“Table for The Lowe, just the one. One Lowe!”
The staff at the Lumpini were impeccably trained and even some classic ‘Lowespeak’ couldn’t knock them off their stride.
“Certainly, sir. What room number?”
“Oh, I’m not staying here, just popped in to ease my appetence, so to speak. Lowe lives nearby, lovely old house down Soi Pipat.”
He was led to a table and the waitress asked for his drink order.
“Coffee, please. Just to check, I can have unlimited coffees, yes?”
“Yes, sir. No problem.”
“And it’s still all you can eat?”
“Yes, sir.”
“As many visits to the buffet as I require?”
The waitress confirmed before Bob added, “The Lowe’s been caught out before. Phnom Penh, a decade or so back. Frightful business, and quite a bill I might tell you.”
Lowe always began what he tended to refer to as an LBB (Lumpini Breakfast Buffet) with some steamed Chinese dumplings. Where most people would take two or three, Lowe covered his plate. He noticed a curious glance from a middle-aged tourist (Korean, Bob guessed). As Bob walked back to his table he bellowed, “Gotta love the dumplings at an LBB,” before clumsily thumping the plate down on his table and spilling his dipping sauce.
TWENTY FIVE
Bob's recent exchange with the lady selling fried pork had confused him slightly. He pondered whether he was taking the wrong approach to be now focusing on her rather than the tuk-tuk thief himself.
"It's a question of morality, Nong Pat. She's selling drugs, right there on the soi! Disguising herself as a pork seller, it's shocking," he explained to Pat when he went to meet her for lunch next to his old language school, where Pat still worked.
"Hold it, you can't be sure of this. Isn't it possible she's just selling pork on the soi?" Pat was trying to explain to Bob that sometimes the simple explanation was the correct one.
"Oh, I am well aware of that possibility, Pat, but when one is an experienced private investigator one has to be capable of balancing all the possibilities. I know enough about drugs in this city to know the simple explanation is rarely correct!"
"You know drugs?!" Pat was aware that Bob was a bit of a character and she had smoked a few joints herself, but Bob saw her as very innocent.
"Well I mean, I’ve been here many years, my dear Pat, I mean The Lowe in his youth, well I'm a changed man, of course, not myself, but you know what I mean. Well anyway, where was I?"
Pat couldn't help but start giggling. She was enjoying her new developing friendship with Bob. She had always got on very well with him, and unknown to Bob there was a time when she had hoped he would ask her on a date, but he never did. She had noticed that after a few months working there he displayed all the signs of someone who had got deep into the drinking and womanising scene. She had heard the conversations that the teachers in the staff room had and it saddened her. She still couldn't help but like Bob though, he was such a hopeless character and so quirky that it made her laugh.
One of those conversations in the staff room particularly stuck in her memory because a young female American teacher had tried to officially complain about the men and the way they spoke. On this occasion an argument broke out about where the best prostitutes in town were to be found and then, what they thought was a more nuanced debate about where the best value was to be found. It was of course shocking but Pat had got used to overhearing this sort of thing. Bob didn't say much but she heard his voice mutter a few times, "Nana, always Nana." One rather odious chap piped in, "Nana? Nana!? Third rate hookers, at best. You've got to be more open-minded and creative here."
That particular chap, Tony, was especially objectionable in Pat's eyes. He had moved in with and subsequently married a bar girl very early in his time in Bangkok and was then pontificating about 'Thai women' and how they were. It outraged Pat as he had no idea what he was talking about, just stereotyping and judging based on his limited experience. Not only was his experience limited only to bar girls, but even there his experience was minimal having so quickly settled with one. When he had got married he had paid a huge amount as a dowry, sinsod in Thai, that had shocked most in the know, but he'd say, "That's how it goes with Thai women, mate, all about the cash. Everyone pays it, most probably pay more."
Pat was daydreaming and Bob was irritated. "Pat! Are you listening?"
"Sorry, Bob, mind thinking, na. What happened to Tony, where is he now?"
"Tony? The chap from school? Goodness didn't you hear?"
"No, no. What?"
Bob explained that the woman he had married had drained him of all his money. She had opened a business, and it was obvious to all except Tony that he had given her much more money than she needed. She barely worked there anyway. He had paid thousands to her family, and then finally their apartment in Asok had been broken into, all his valuables stolen. The thief had a key. It was quickly apparent that Tony's wife had another long-term boyfriend who she had known since she was seventeen. It took a long time for the penny to drop but eventually Tony realised that their marriage was basically a sham, or even a scam, and they had broken up. Tony had sold his apartment giving more than half the money to his wife who was living back in her hometown with their only child. She was denying Tony access to the kid, spreading rumours that he was a bad fa
ther and a cheating husband. A real mess. Tony had put on about twenty-five kilos in weight and was drinking heavily, lost his job, and had to take a gig earning significantly lower wages at a mediocre language school, back where he had started.
"The poor chap's in a real state." Bob felt genuinely empathetic towards his old colleague.
Pat was clearly insincere. "Oh, that so sad." Inside she was feeling a touch of schadenfreude, she had never liked Tony. He was rude, arrogant and very ignorant. She felt he had got what he deserved.
"Anyway, back to the pork drugs. I have contacts with the police, I just need to confirm this and then report it. The next two days I will monitor. Are you free for lunch in two days? I'd like your view before I go to the police."
Pat was impressed how professional Bob seemed to be, but she was sure the truth was much simpler. Surely this woman wasn't really dealing drugs, but Bob did seem to have a lot of evidence. Naïve as Bob thought she was, Pat had simply never heard of an old woman living in a nice quiet street in Silom, while dealing in drugs.
Pat had to rush back to work, so Bob thought he'd pop to a nearby Starbucks to see what all the fuss was about. He knew he was going to find it expensive but he couldn't hold back when the barista told him the price.
"For a small cappuccino? Good Lord! Better get a new bank loan!"
The server ignored him.
Bob had to admit the coffee was nice and that it was very pleasant sitting in a cold air con environment with plenty of magazines and papers to read. He was determined to get his money's worth.
He thought through his discussion with Pat. Fancy Pat throwing me an Occam’s razor, he pondered. “I invented Occam’s razor, should be called Lowe’s razor,” he muttered under his breath. He had been careful not to patronise her, and he was determined not to reveal his intimate relationship with the Bangkok drug scene, but Pat was terribly naïve in Bob’s eyes. It was pretty certain that the suspicious behaviour of the tuk-tuk thief and his accomplice was a sign of something illegal. He would accept drugs was not a certainty, but something dodgy most definitely was.
The Mysterious Case of the Missing Tuk-Tuk Page 11