The Corruptionist

by Christopher G. Moore

  “Isn’t that how it usually works?”

  Colonel Pratt nodded, sipped his neat whiskey. “Listen to this riff.”

  Calvino listened, thinking that Miles Davis was mostly about the riff that opened time and space. It was hard to pick one riff from another unless you were a player like Pratt. But he listened anyway. He wanted to tell Pratt about the men in the parking garage and the fact that one of them had been the man who’d shot him. Pratt was back, but not all the way back; he’d taken a bullet in the shoulder and a second in the lower side of his body. Calvino also knew that the burden of such knowledge wouldn’t help the healing process. He left it alone. When Pratt pulled out his saxophone, he moved a beat slower than before. Bullets did that kind of thing; they slowed even the fastest man down to a lower tempo.

  “How are you feeling?” asked Calvino for the seventh time that night.

  Colonel Pratt smiled. “Good. About the same as when you asked me twenty minutes ago.”

  “The arm’s okay?” Calvino raised his right arm over his head.

  The colonel lifted his arm level with his head. “I can lift it this far. But it will come back. Or so the doctors promise.”

  “Zhang’s not doing so well in China.”

  Pratt lowered his saxophone, wiped his dry lips. “He got too greedy.”

  “If you were going to start a cult of the patriot, he was a perfect match for Suchart’s ambitions.”

  Pratt nodded. “That was the problem.”

  “They nearly pulled it off. True Sons of The Soil were heading for a majority in the election.”

  “I doubt it,” said Colonel Pratt. “Thais are smarter than you think.”

  “The weight of money makes smart people stupid.”

  Colonel Pratt sighed, opened the whiskey bottle, and poured two more glasses. He handed one to Calvino. They touched glasses and drank. “Have you heard anything from

  Tanny Craig?” asked Pratt.

  “I talked to her briefly not long after I got back from China.”

  “You didn’t mention it.”

  “There wasn’t much to mention,” said Calvino.

  “It was an in-and-out job for her,” said Pratt.

  Calvino smiled, thinking that sometimes the colonel stumbled upon exactly the right expression that covered a whole range of activities. “There are a couple of ways to read her story. Either she had everything planned before she arrived and she used her mother as cover, or her world was turned upside down after she met her mother and found out that unless she helped the woman, no one would. She wasn’t going to let her sister’s death mean nothing. It wasn’t right, Pratt. Like you getting shot wasn’t right.”

  “How do you read her?” asked Colonel Pratt.

  “Like I read Latin. I’m half Italian. You’d think it would make sense. But I can’t understand what I’m reading. And reading Latin’s easier than reading a woman.”

  The two men fell silent, looking into their whiskey glasses as if seeking an omen.

  “When something goes wrong in your heart, the pain doesn’t go away until the wrong is fixed. The sadness of the world is that most wrong things can’t be fixed. They stay broken. And you live with the mess, because you’ve got no choice.”

  “But the wrongs of traitorous men aren’t just any wrongs,” said Calvino, thinking he sounded like one of those Burmese generals who didn’t watch television.

  “ ‘Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick, yet, with my nobler reason ’gainst my fury do I take part: the rarer action is in virtue than in vengeance,’ ” said Colonel Pratt, quoting The Tempest.

  “My father taught me that more crimes were done in the name of virtue than were done in the name of vengeance. But he wasn’t a Shakespeare man.”

  “If we let go of virtue, where does that leave us, Vincent?”

  Calvino refilled his glass, shaking his head in disappointment. He’d thought the colonel would be the first to want to put the likes of Zhang and Suchart against the wall.

  “You’re going to let it go in the name of virtue?”

  “There’s nothing for me to let go of. It’s finished. General Suchart’s in exile. Zhang has fallen from grace and will never return. That’s enough justice to satisfy me.”

  “You were shot because you found the fingerprint from Achara’s padlock,” said Calvino. “Are you going to tell me who it belonged to?”

  “Zhang.”

  Calvino leaned back in his chair. “One fingerprint.” It made awful sense. Achara’s guard had been down that day as Zhang had come with the other men, the ones who would do the heavy lifting.

  “Nam phueng yod diew,” said Colonel Pratt. It was the old Thai expression that a small mishap could cause a large disaster.

  “One drop of honey?” asked Calvino. “It was more like a bucket.”

  Calvino saw Pratt’s eyes starting to narrow, nearly shut. He seemed at peace in his chair, the empty glass on the table in front of him. Calvino had expected bitterness. But the colonel had moved beyond bitterness, redemption, or forgiveness to a more detached understanding of the forces that had been at work, and things had not so much gotten out of hand as they became futile and meaningless. Men turned despite their best intentions into agents of harm; even though they loved their wives and children and country, they no longer were bound by the restraints that check violence. They wouldn’t kill a fly for fear of committing a sin, but they would kill another to advance what they were told was the larger good. They didn’t have to worry about coloring within the lines; the lines didn’t apply to them.

  “I think the Chinese will shoot Zhang. It’s a good idea. It’s a solution that the Chinese usually find works wonders. My worry is that he might have enough money to get out of the execution.”

  “I don’t think the Chinese authorities care about the money.”

  “But he’s got connections.”

  “Failure is an orphan. Its connections vanish,” said Colonel Pratt.

  “On principle he deserves a bullet.”

  Colonel Pratt nodded, smiling. “On principle I agree with you. The problem is that the principle is a difficult one to apply.” The talk of Zhang’s possible execution had breathed life back into the colonel.

  “Your point?”

  Colonel Pratt’s eyes opened widely. “The problem is where to stop. There’s an old Thai saying, khah jet chua khot. Kill not just the offender but kill seven generations of his line.” Pratt sat up in his chair, reached out, and refilled the glasses with whiskey. He worried that he was picking up on Calvino’s habit of reaching for a bottle. That was something wounded men did.

  The colonel had it right, thought Calvino. “Tanny wanted justice for her sister,” he said.

  “I don’t see that happening.”

  “But it has. The Department of Special Investigation has arrested three officers for her murder. A couple dozen other cases will follow,” said Colonel Pratt. The department had gone into the cage and taken on the lions; the unresolved question was who would emerge from the flurry of teeth and claws and who would end up like Achara.

  “General Suchart’s luk nong must be feeling the heat,” said Calvino. A number of junior officers were discovering out what happened to their career when a patron fled abroad. To be orphaned from the source of power was to be abandoned. “Someone in the department is trying to make up for what they did to you.”

  “There’s a long list of people. I have no reason to think the arrest had anything to do with me getting shot.”

  They drank in silence.

  “The cops will make bail,” said Calvino, looking into his glass.

  Colonel Pratt nodded. “That’s how it works.”

  “The trial could take years.”

  “You’re missing something, Vincent.”

  Calvino cocked his head. “Justice. That’s what I’m missing.”

  “A colonel and two lieutenant colonels have been arrested. That may not amount to justice in your book, but i
t’s a start down a road that’s been blocked a long time.”

  Tanny’s sister had caught a bullet, like thousands of others during the war on drugs. He wondered how she’d take the news about the investigation into the murders. Maybe she would think that she had delivered the justice her mother wished for; maybe she’d think about the large distance between the cup and lip. Calvino thought as he listened to the jazz and watched Pratt wiping down the saxophone. It had been called the war on drugs—that’s what Tanny’s mother had told her, and she believed her mother. But it wasn’t a real war. In a true war, both sides sent trained soldiers into battle. In the war on drugs, only one side had the bullets and guns, and took to the field setting up ambushes. It had never been about drugs. It was all about power, relationships, and money arrangements—the brightly lit tail of the comet. He’d been convinced that the system would never try itself.

  The black house had fallen on Zhang and General Suchart. Zhang’s miscalculation was to believe that his patrons in the PLA would protect him. But he also had faith in Ajarn Veera’s ceremony. There were too many possible loose ends that could, over time become embarrassing or dangerous, if Zhang were allowed to rattle around in Chinese prisons for decades. He was dispensable. Someone else down the road would try again. Perhaps he’d also fail, but sooner or later luck would be on the side of someone with the money, the right connections, and the determination never to give up.

  Colonel Pratt adjusted the leather strap around his neck, resting the saxophone on his chest, his lips touching the mouthpiece. “Maybe you should phone Tanny and tell her about the investigation. Let her phone her mother with the news,” said Colonel Pratt.

  “I’ll think about it,” said Calvino.

  Colonel Pratt smiled, nodded, and played a favorite Miles Davis riff. The melody filled the room. Calvino thought about pouring another whiskey but stopped himself. He had already drunk too much. He sat back, watching the colonel near the window, the curtain pulled open, the moon against the sky, playing as if the gods were listening and the walls and the ceilings, the whole universe listening to the sound of hope and anguish, pleasure and pain, love and hate. But all Colonel Pratt could be certain of was one thing: Calvino had heard him.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  There are a number of people who gave their time and counsel as I wrote The Corruptionist. Each one made a contribution that allowed me to write a much better book than otherwise would have been the case.

  Les Rose, RCMP, film director, and screenwriter, pointed the flashlight along a couple of pathways I would otherwise have overlooked. He has a sense of narrative and story structure that only a few people are blessed with. And he used that talent to show me exactly where things could be improved.

  Professor Charlie McHugh read and made detailed comments on a draft as he rode the train to and from work in Japan. His painstaking work helped me plug more than one hole in the road.

  Richard Diran, painter, antique dealer, photographer and writer, devoted time to reading an early draft and providing his wise counsel and insight. Richard is an artist.

  And anytime you can nail an artist to the floor to read a book and give his opinion should be counted as a victory. In my case, the spoils of victory were Richard’s opinions on what was working and what should be tossed down a very deep ravine and set afire.

  Maureen Sugden arrived to do a professional job as copyeditor. She’s one of the best in the business. I still have dreams of all the tracking lines on the manuscript; it looked like the sewer system blueprint for Bangkok. Richard Baker worked tirelessly as copyeditor, proofreader, and continuity master in the last stages of the book, at which point I thought (wrongly) that it was finished. To Richard’s credit, the word ‘finished’ is only ever used once the book is frog marched to the printer.

  Thanks to my agent Bridget Wagner at Rafe Sagalyn Literary Agency, for her support of the Calvino series. And thanks to my wife Busakorn Suriyasarn for her humor, and our many hours of discussions about Thai culture, language and history. I couldn’t wish for a better guide along the rugged gullies and hills in the long march to understanding about Thailand.

  What errors and holes that remain are despite the substantial efforts of those above merely illustrates that even with the best professional advice, an author still will be determined to commit mistakes that he alone must live with. Anyone who has ever written a novel understands the writer is not unlike a promising football player who has the benefit of the best coaches but still manages, on occasion, to kick the ball into his own net.

  ABOUT AUTHOR

  Christopher G. Moore is a Canadian writer who once taught law at the University of British Columbia. After his first book His Lordship' Arsenal was published in New York to a critical acclaim in 1985, Moore became a full-time writer and has so far written 23 novels and one collection of interlocked short stories.

  Moore is best known by his international award-winning Vincent Calvino Private Eye series and his cult classics Land of Smiles Trilogy, a behind-the-smiles study of his adopted country, Thailand. His novels have been translated into eleven languages. His Vincent Calvino novels are published in the United States by Atlantic Monthly Press and in Great Britain and the Commonwealth by Atlantic Books.

  He lives with his wife in Bangkok. For more information about the author and his work, visit his official website: www.cgmoore.com. He also blogs regularly with other cirme authors at www.internationalcrimeauthors.com

  THE VINCENT CALVINO P.I. SERIES

  CHRISTOPHER G. MOORE’s Vincent Calvino P.I. series began with Spirit House in 1992. The latest, eleventh, in the series is The Corruptionist first released in Thailand in 2010

  Moore’s protagonist, Vincent Calvino is an Italian-Jewish former lawyer from New York who left his practice to turn P.I. in Southeast Asia. Calvino’s assignments take him inside the labyrinth of local politics, double-dealing and fleeting relationships. Unlike typical tough-guy sleuths, Calvino admits he would never survive without his guardian angel, his Shakespeare-quoting and saxophone-plaYing buddy, Colonel Pratt, an honest and well-connected Thai cop who helps him find hidden forces, secret traps and ways to keep him alive in a foreign land.

  The twelves novels in the Vincent Calvino P.I. series are: Spirit House, Asia Hand, Zero Hour in Phnom Penh, Comfort Zone, The Big Weird, Cold Hit, Minor Wife, Pattaya 24/7, The Risk of Infidelity Index, PaYing Back Jack The Corruptionist, and 9 Gold Bullets. The novels are published in Thailand by Heaven Lake Press, in the United States by Grove/Atlantic and in Great Britain by Atlantic Books.

  The third installment in the series Zero Hour in Phnom Penh won the German Critics Award for Crime Fiction (Deutscher Krimi Preis) for best international crime fiction in 2004 and the Premier Special Director’s Award Semana Negra (Spain) in 2007 or the author’s website: www.cgmoore.com.

  SPIRIT HOUSE

  First in the series

  The Bangkok police already have a confession by a nineteen-year-old drug addict who has admitted to the murder of a British computer wizard, Ben Hoadly. From the bruises on his face shown at the press conference, it is clear that the young suspect had some help from the police in the making of his confession. The case is wrapped up. Only there are some loose ends that the police and just about everyone else are happy to overlook.

  The search for the killer of Ben Hoadley plunges Calvino into the dark side of Bangkok, where professional hit men have orders to stop him. From the world of thinner addicts, dope dealers, fortunetellers, and high-class call girls, Calvino peels away the mystery surrounding the death of the English ex-public schoolboy who had a lot of dubious friends.

  “Well-written, tough and bloody.”

  —Bernard Knight, Tangled Web (UK)

  “A worthy example of a serial character, Vincent Calvino is human and convincing. [He] is an incarnate of the composite of the many expatriate characters who have burned the bridge to their pasts.”

  —Thriller Magazine (Italy)

  “A thinking m
an’s Philip Marlowe, Calvino is a cynic on the surface but a romantic at heart. Calvino ... found himself in Bangkok—the end of the world for a whole host of bizarre foreigners unwilling, unable, or uninterested in going home.”

  —The Daily Yomiuri

  ASIA HAND

  Second in the series

  Bangkok—the Year of the Monkey. Calvino’s Chinese New Year celebration is interrupted by a call to Lumpini Park Lake, where Thai cops have just fished the body of a farang cameraman. CNN is running dramatic footage of several Burmese soldiers on the Thai border executing students.

  Calvino follows the trail of the dead man to a feature film crew where he hits the wall of silence. On the other side of that wall, Calvino and Colonel Pratt discover and elite film unit of old Asia hands with connections to influential people in Southeast Asia. They find themselves matched against a set of farangs conditioned for urban survival and willing to go for a knock-out punch.

  “Moore’s Vinny Calvino is a worthy successor to Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe and Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer.”

  —The Nation

  “The top foreign author focusing on the Land of Smiles, Canadian Christopher G. Moore clearly has a first-hand understanding of the expat milieu ... Moore is perspicacious.”

  —Bangkok Post

  ZERO HOUR IN PHNOM PENH

  Third in the series

  Winner of 2004 German Critics Award for Crime Fiction (Deutscher Krimi Preis) for best international crime fiction and 2007 Premier Special Director’s Award Semana Negra (Spain)

  In the early 1990s, at the end of Cambodia’s devastating civil war, UN peacekeeping forces try to keep the lid on the violence. Gunfire can still be heard nightly in Phnom Penh, where Vietnamese prostitutes try to hook UN peacekeepers from the balcony of the Lido Bar.