Bangkok Express
Author: James Newman
Date: 2009-04-30 00:00:00+00:00
Description: Gantira didn't plan for her lover to die on the Island of Ko Samui. Nor did she plan for the Alexandra to drown. She didn't plan to be trapped in a gilded cage by her narcissistic millionaire husband neither. Or maybe she did? Fraud expert Joe Dylan is back in the land of sin investigating the death of two backpackers on the island of Ko Samui. He's working the steps and trying to delay gratification. Trying to stay on the straight and narrow is easier said than done in the big mango. Burnt out expat James Hale just wants to get out of the city before the mob catch up with him and collect what
Publisher: Lulu.com

2015 edition.

Spanking Pulp Press.

ISBN 978 – 1-4092-7754-5

Copyright – J. A. Newman

1 3 4 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

This electronic edition published by Spanking Pup Press. www.spankingpulppress.com

Quotes may be used for the purpose of reviews.

This is a work of fiction. No characters in this book are intended to have any resemblance to any person living or dead.

www.jamesnewmanfiction.blogspot.com

Table of Contents

Copyright Page

BANGKOK EXPRESS | JOE DYLAN | CRIME NOIR BOOK #1 | By | James A. Newman

BANGKOK EXPRESS

––––––––

JOE DYLAN

CRIME NOIR BOOK #1

By

James A. Newman

––––––––

The series:

Bangkok Express #1

Red Night Zone #2

The White Flamingo #3

The Black Rose #4

Fun City punch #5

ONE

Death Island

Fear is Natural

FRANCO CUT the long-tail outboard motor.

Tropical sea surrounded the coconut forested mountains. Limestone Mountains, palms and low level buildings were circled by beach land. Above the sands a flock of white terns wheeled in the sky, heading towards the sea. An airplane flew overhead leaving a trail of aviation fumes in the cobalt sky. Tropical fish swam in the coral beneath the boat; the colours danced and reflected the rays from the relentless sun overhead.

Franco faced his only passenger and asked her, “Are you ready?”

“I think so, but I am a little scared.” Alexandra, twenty-three, Finnish, had blue eyes that shifted nervously, her hair fell in braids down to the wetsuit that tightly hugged her small athletic body.

She wore a tiny nose stud.

Alexandra was a backpacker, a traveller.

Backpackers travelled in convoys to the islands clutching guidebooks. They were safe in numbers, wore beer slogan T-shirts and fisherman’s pants authorizing their collective individuality. Backpackers changed their image and their philosophies more often than they changed their underwear, Franco thought, popping open the icebox and grabbing another beer. He cracked the can open and swigged from it greedily. Next to the Styrofoam boxes the remains of their breakfast were:

Chicken fried rice,

A slice of lime,

Orange juice.

Franco leant over the equipment, closer to Alexandra, crouching, eyes level with hers. He took another drink from the beer and put it down next to the Styrofoam boxes. “It is okay to be sacred. Fear is natural. Fear hates to be confronted. Look fear in the eye.” It was a line he had used before back when he had juggled lit batons on the beach, when he had promoted bars, handed out flyers. Franco had breathed fire for a while before setting alight a deadlocked hippy’s goatee. He had begun by painting henna tattoos on sunburnt bodies and it evolved from there. Some people do whatever’s necessary to extend the tropical dream. Prolonging the holiday was a fine art. No one skill was good enough.

Yet a few smooth conversational lines were essential.

Fear is natural.

He had many more lines just like it.

Franco, a well-oiled machine slipping into gear, his arms and legs were strong and bronzed. A dark brown fringe hung between his dark Latin eyes. The beach chicks thought he was cute and he tended to agree depending on if the beach chick was cute or not.

Fear is natural.

He had many more lines just like it.

Alexandra smiled nervously like a child considering disobeying her parents, knowing she would have to trust Franco or swim back to shore. The American couple hadn’t shown up, probably sleeping of their bucket of booze induced hangovers in one of the beach bungalows. She wished she had also slept in, but here she was and she always made a point of following through on her commitments whatever they were.

Franco stood up towering over her and began checking the equipment.

Her diving equipment was as follows.

List – HAVE COLLIN HELP.

Her fear comforted him. Her naivety made him wise. Her weakness was his strength. She giggled nervously. Franco smiled while checking the equipment. They snapped on masks. They pulled on fins. He checked her aqua-lung. The cylinder valve was slightly loose. He turned the wheel counter-clockwise and listened to the hiss of escaping air. He tightened it again. The needle on the submersion pressure gauge was zero. They swung on the aqualungs and clipped them tight. They positioned the regulator mouthpieces and perched on the edge of the boat side by side with their backs to the water. Franco held up one finger. She looked up to the blue sky. Two fingers, she smiled. And three, they dropped backwards into another world.

Alexandra swam up to a seahorse and tried to touch the creature with a forefinger before it darted behind a coral reef. A lone scissortail swam lazily past. She let her weight carry her down. Franco turned and pointed towards the reef as he dove deeper, twisting, enjoying the feeling of his weightlessness. Alexandra sank deeper towards the seabed.

They swam through an old wreck, out one of the windows. She saw something glimmer on the seabed, approached with her legs kicking behind her. She brushed the sand away to reveal a gold necklace. She picked it up and wore it on her left wrist as a good luck token.

They explored a coral cove, where Alexandra twisted her small body through the rock formations. She lost sight of Franco. It mattered not for her journey was what this was all about. Away from institutions of learning, away from parents, family, away from the relationship, the boyfriend turned stalker, away from the mobile telephone, the social media, the line messages, the bitchy friends, dull fashions, magazines, televisions, away from it all.

The rock formation, she thought, was wide enough to allow her to punch through the opening and make it through to the other side.

It wasn’t.

Franco spun around. She was moving with sudden urgent gestures A panic attack, Franco thought, or maybe asthmatic.

Fear is natural.

He swam over to her. Her hands were shaking the regulator. He checked it. Dead. He adjusted it. Dead. He pointed up to the surface. Her body was alert with anxiety. Eyes searching. Arms thrashing in the water. Losing the fight. She was too young. He passed her his regulator. She grabbed at it sucking at the oxygen. Franco thought about the next move. Experience had to be earned. Something had to be done. Something had to be earned.

The bail-out bottle.

He unstrapped the bail-out bottle and pulled the pin. He watched as Alexandra took a breath. Franco thought back to his training. Emergency ascent. He unzipped a section of her suit and positioned his regulator. He filled her suit with O2. Replaced his regulator and let her go. She kicked as she headed up toward blue sky, the surface. He watched her body become smaller as she rose.

Rocks.

The rocks found her. A crevice. He swam. She was unconscious. He put his arms around her and rose towards the surface. He lifted her small body broadside the boat. Her legs were still submerged. Her body was weighed down by her equipment. He pulled himself aboard and then dragged her onto the boat. She landed on deck like a horrendous catch.

He looked at her. She was unconscious. Her shoulder destroyed. The scapular was visible poking through a tear in the wetsuit. Blood seeped out onto the deck. The side of her face had suffered terrible rupture. He breathed heavily. His heart hammered as waves of adrenalin coursed through his body. He tore off her facemask. Alexandra’s nose came with it leaving behind an awful cavity. Something glimmered inside the bloody pulp. The nose stud. It reflected a beam of sunlight that made his stomach clench. Franco winced. Her face was a bloody mess. Like an exotic fruit opened up and sliced on a roadside stall. The wind carried a sudden gust of meat and ozone. A wave of nausea turned his stomach again. He leaned over the boat and lost the chicken fried rice with four spectacular retches. He watched a string of his own saliva hang from his mouth before being picked up by a gust of wind and thrown to the waves. He leaned over the side of the boat and splashed his face with seawater and walked over to the driveshaft. He pulled the outboard to a start and listened to the roar of the propellers. He headed back to the island his heart hammering as he steered the boat toward land.

Fear is natural.

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TWO

London

Eternal now

JOE DYLAN wore a single-breasted navy-blue suit, black brogues and a gold Omega watch that told him it was almost nine. The morning wind blew bitterly across the river. He watched a flock of gulls swoop down and then perch on the banks next to a brood of cormorants; their black wings held out to dry in the morning wind.

Joe knew what it was like to dry out. Simple pleasures replaced the bottles and the crazy women since he made the promise to quit. With sobriety time ran slower. He could observe and reflect on life’s hurdles without busting a gut trying to jump them. Joe was present – the past and the future were eternal now. A river and a flock of birds were the world. Sure, the ghosts came back to tempt him now and again during his weaker moments but he had no real fear of ghosts. Real people were enough to deal with. The coordinator talked about delaying gratification. The coordinator was a lapsed roman catholic who liked to ‘fess up in the rooms.

Joe walked across Tower Bridge and joined the business-suited workers heading to their offices and their desks in the square mile. He walked through a cloud of diesel fumes as he crossed the road. The smell of bacon and espresso wafted from a nearby café. A dynamite blonde with race-horse pins trotted past an old tramp sat on a throne of cardboard. He wore a suit that shone with grime. Joe remembered the old days, the restaurants, wine-bars and the cute women. The coordinator had told him to glance in the rear-view mirror but to never stare. The women and the drinks had left a huge gap in his life. Maybe the old derelict men in doorways held similar memories. Everyone had gaps that needed filling. Everyone had a past. None of those pasts were perfect.

Joe crouched down to the level of the homeless man and said, “Hey, Vern. What’s new?”

“The fear is coming Joe, if only I had a little juice.”

“I’m on it. Kestral Super?”

Dylan knew the drill, had sung the song before. He crossed over into Ledenhall market and bought a four-pack from the off license, the cans shook in his grip, he thought about it. How it was the worst and the best thing that could happen to a man, cold, crisp and lethal. That click somewhere in the back brain and with the click somebody somewhere flicked the lights on whether it be over a velvet sofa in a late night jazz club or streetlamp above a patch of piss stained pavement on a busy morning street.

There was an old Martini advert...

Anytime.

Anyplace.

Anywhere.

Paid the shopkeeper and walked back over to Vern and handed him the four pack.

“May we thank the lord for what we are about to receive,” the old man grimaced as he opened the first can and got it down good in two bites.

“Stay lucky, Vern,” Dylan said, the concrete clicking beneath his heels.

This void in his life, the gap, Joe had filled with the international flights, the hotels, and the assignments. A financial criminal turned fraud investigator. There were the Mexican ship building bandits who found a wreck and burned it. A gang of Nigerian militant youths who stole a small fleet of vessels. The Greeks and their mythological insurance claims. Like roaches, mold, and bad pop music fraud and corruption bred in every nook and cranny of the globe.

Danger was everywhere.

Women floated along the street and sat drinking coffee in Starbucks. They chattered into iPhones and walked swaying their beautiful behinds. They glanced at their reflections on mirrored surfaces. Applied make-up on the morning train. So many faces in one place at one time, merged and morphed into one. The face of an angel, Kali, The Temptress.

The London pubs overflowed with merriment, flirtations, dreams, nightmares, and empty promises. The windows clouded-over with boozy happiness. Life was spent inside a restaurant looking at a list of items he could never order. He was powerless over the menu. The menu always won. He stopped trying to beat it. The price was small but the cost was enormous. The trick was to not pick up. One drink, line, or one woman was too many, and a thousand were never enough. He liked a shot of the hard stuff and he liked women and now he had to avoid them the same way a priest avoids the whorehouse on the hill.

Don’t. Pick. Up.

Joe glanced at his Omega. Being punctual was an important part of the program. Recovery was a bitch. The steps were necessary.

One. He admitted that he had a problem and was powerless to solve it. Two. He came to believe that a power greater than himself was watching over his sorry ass. And three, he handed all his shit over to that power. Most of the old alcoholics found God, but Joe wasn’t convinced. Omnipotence was a tough pill to swallow without a good shot of whiskey to wash it down.

Joe reached the office and smiled at the doorman. He rode the elevator to the sixth floor. Mary, the secretary knew how to wear the kind of expensive perfume that created a little suspense. She was a well-built woman who Joe suspected liked to party. She led Joe across the office. She wore an impossibly short skirt that detailed every curve and contour of her mystery.

Ninety days.

“You can go in now, ‘e’s ready,” she said.

“Thanks, darling,” Joe smiled, opened the door and walked into the coordinator’s office. It was a large room with a window, a filing cabinet and a designer sofa designed for discomfort. There was a landscape painting hanging on the wall and in the corner a Chinese pot holding dead purple flowers.

The coordinator’s grey eyes looked directly at the investigator. “Sit,” he said and took a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his brow. He was a large man with a luncheon schedule designed to keep it that way. His suits were tailored-made on Fenchurch Street and he had lunch at Caravaggio’s. He was a creature of habit. Joe sensed a hint of sadness or shame in the old man’s eye. “I have some good news and some bad news, Joe. Which do you want first?”

“Give me the bad.”

“The syndicate are concerned about your performance, Joe. That case in Mexico made them nervous. They are keeping you on as a personal favour to me. They know about your past. They want me to send you packing. Out on your ear, as it were.”

“And what’s the good news?” Joe knew the Mexico case hadn’t turned out peachy. The crooks were in government office and there wasn’t a thing he could do to solve it. The material evidence was destroyed by an earthquake. At least that was the party line.

“I convinced them to give you one last shot. I figure you ought to take it.” The coordinator stood up and wobbled over to a filing cabinet, opened a drawer and picked out a lever-arched file. Joe found it impossible to sit comfortably. Who had said what to whom? He felt mildly persecuted. He remembered step number three. He handed his anger over to the higher one. Who was the higher one? A bearded dude from Palestine or a guy sitting under a tree in India? Maybe there were hundreds of them battling for power. God only knew. The important thing was to keep his side of the street clean.

Ninety days clean.

Joe looked out of the window and counted to ten. One. Two. Three. Cold sunlight glimmered from the glass windows on the opposite building block. Four. Five. Six. Construction cranes added more grey. Seven. Eight. Nine. Autumn was sliding into winter and London would soon be Baltic. Ten.

“I have an idea that you have been to Asia before?” The coordinator said.

“Yeah...I had a look around, sir.” Joe thought back to the fifteen months he’d hauled a backpack around the third world. There were terrifying bus journeys, pseudo-spiritualism, beer and lots of women. He was hoping to find himself, he did, but what he found wasn’t any better or any worse than the version he’d left behind. He looked out of the window again, smiled and said. “Which part in particular, sir?”

“Thailand.”

Joe’s eyes widened. “Correct. I spent four or five months there after I left the insurance brokers. You know that, sir. I can speak a bit of the language.” Joe remembered a crash-course in a ten-dollar hotel with a bargirl who was as cute as a piranha fish.

“That’s what I thought, Joe. What can you tell me about the country?”

“The infrastructure is good sir, some of the best roads in South East Asia. The people are open and friendly on one level sir, but it’s hard to tell what’s going on in their minds.”

The coordinator nodded and leaned back on that chair, put his hands behind his head and cleared his throat. He didn’t speak but his eyes told Joe to carry on talking.

“Difficult to truly understand the nation however long you stay there, sir. They say that you are born with Thai knowledge and you cannot acquire it as a foreigner. I am not sure that is, however, entirely true, sir.”

“I hear they’re quite tough little bastards?” The co-ordinator said with a grin. “What about law and order?”

“The Thai police force are a well regimented criminal organization, sir.”

The coordinator chuckled and leaned forward, elbows on the desk. A stack of papers contained by a brass paperweight of an elephant next to a framed photograph of his insolent twelve-year-old son. “I like that.” He lifted up the paperweight and shuffled the pile of papers. He passed them to Joe. “Read this. You fly out to Bangkok Sunday. I’ve just come off the telephone with Wordsworth at Lloyds.” The coordinator nodded towards the telephone. “They underwrote an insurance cover for a couple of diving schools in the far east. Business they had underwritten as a favour for a Bangkok client.” He coughed onto the back of his hand and continued. “The client is the hotel chain Bluegreen International. Bluegreen bought a multi-million dollar Hotel liability package. The divers’ package was part of the deal. The syndicate have authorised the investigation.”

“They had a claim?”

“They did. A fatality. Finnish backpacker. Name: Alexandra Korksi. Age: twenty-three. Died on a routine diving lesson off the island of Ko Samui. Coverage – full life indemnity, pain and suffering. The Thai brokers on behalf of the family negotiated a settlement of one and a half million dollars and the insurance company paid it, in full, last week.”

“Did they investigate the claim, sir?”

“Yes and no. Mainly no. They hired a local adjuster. In hindsight the adjuster could have been corrupted. The report is in the claims file. The underwriters saw one and a half big ones for a young European a good price and settled it backed up with the local report and some legal papers. I agree that the price for life of a young European diver was about right. As you know it cost money to check it out properly. You could end up paying double, triple. If it goes to court, you can never stop paying until the day you retire or die.”

“So what’s the problem? They paid it. They learned a lesson. Move on.”

“They’ve had another one. This time an Italian: Franco Dini. They want another two big ones. They haven’t given us any details of the fatality.” The coordinator looked out of the window. “Just a one-liner asking for the funds.”

“A bit pricy for an Italian, sir,” Joe smiled. He knew that the nationality wasn’t important. The fact that there were two claims in quick succession was.

“Yes. And a bit suspicious. So far we have seen no death certificates, nothing, zip. Niente. We expect that these deaths have been faked, or even worse, assisted,” The coordinator frowned.

“Well Wordsworth should get in touch with the deceased’s families, sir.”

“Well they might be able to, but Bangkok’s not playing ball. They insist all the negotiations go through them. That’s why we need a man on the ground.”

“And who is pursuing the claims in Thailand, sir?”

“The Bangkok retail broker is a guy named Hale. He is a liability for the syndicate. He likes the high-life wherever he’s working. He moves around Asia – Hong Kong, Singapore, and now Bangkok. Be careful with him, Joe. He speaks the lingo and has an eye for the women. Apparently he fell into the bottle in Asia and he has yet to crawl out. He’s a drinker and he is our way into Bluegreen. The kind of man you might be able to manipulate. Your recent problems are a worry to us, Joe. But I’ll be buggered if I can think of a better man for the job. I am giving you a chance to prove the syndicate wrong. To show them you can put your head into the lion’s mouth. I must be mad, to trust you, Joe. As I say. One last chance.”

“I admire your confidence, sir.”

“Well, be careful, Joe. Keep a clear head, if you slip up the syndicate will pull the finance away. Don’t pick up the bottle, Joe. Stay away from women. One day at a time. If you slip up then it will be egg on my face too.”

“Understood,” Joe said. His thoughts turned to all those brown thighs in Bangkok. Brown thighs and golden beer. He erased the thought.

The job was all he had.

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THREE

Turtle Island

A pathetic cigarette

GANTIRA’S LONG hair framed a beautiful smile and a pair of brown eyes that rose upwards when curious and narrowed when angered or upset. She had thirteen different ways to smile and none of them meant happiness. She tiptoed around disputes where possible and let others dive into disasters if they chose to do so: it was the local way to do things.

She picked up the box of Marlboro and slid one from the box and lit it. It was a habit she had picked up during her days studying tourism in Australia. She missed those calmer times. She remembered afternoons reading glossy magazines and drinking cappuccino in fashionable coffee-shops. Polished floorboards and over-sized sofas. She missed the opera house, the sea, and the bridge. She missed the way people spoke their minds without worrying about their faces.

Gantira breathed out a toxic cloud and gazed at the blue smoke spiralling up to the ceiling. Franco didn’t mind the smoke. Most western men were malleable and bland like sticky rice. Thai men playfully led the way like the front feet of the elephant. Thai woman were reliable and steady and Westerners were easily manipulated outside their comfort zone.

The bungalow rested on a limestone mountain. Palm trees shaded the morning sun. The ceiling fan spun slowly above them. She glanced at the painting of the marina. A large bedroom led to a balcony. The blinds were tightly closed. She slipped on a hemp dress. She glanced at Franco. He sat up in the bed massaging his brow. Her world would be shattered, if they saw them together. But what was her world? The islanders owed her nothing. She was born Thai but had never been accepted. Her international education kept her isolated. The locals took simple pleasures in her possible downfall; their victories sweetest as the rich fell shamefully to their own level. They had pinched-up faces and played cards at night. They had nothing much to lose and were determined to keep it that way. They watched television and believed in what they saw. They were from another world.

She strode over to the French doors and opened them. She looked out onto the golden sands and the blue and green sea below. Song birds sang in the fig trees nearby. The morning was scented with jasmine. The sex was ordinary. It meant nothing more than the chorus of gasps and grunts. It seemed that each thrust was less important and more dangerous than the last. It ended the same way it always did; a cloud of shame and a pathetic cigarette.

A dog barked in the distance followed by a series of howls from the pack of strays that gathered by the restaurant at the foot of the mountain. Gantira walked through the French doors and onto the balcony. She flicked her cigarette ash into a large seashell that stood on the stone balcony table. She looked out across the sea; blue and green fishing boats were returning to the Ko Samui cove. The sun glimmered across the waters. She noticed a lone swimmer far away from the beach.

“I killed her,” Franco said from inside the bungalow. She turned and walked back inside. Franco was sitting on the bed with his head in his hands. She sat at the vanity and looked in the mirror; a beauty spot on her cheek. She had considered having it removed. There were many such trivial matters that required her attention. A bare thread spiralled loose from the hem of her blouse. She lit the loose thread with the flame from her cigarette lighter and watched it slowly fizzle away into smoke, nothingness, air.

“Nobody killed her.”  She realised the truth was too dangerous for him to hear. She could not meet him again. He would bring bad luck. She glanced at the Italian sitting on the bed and wondered what she ever saw in him. “It happened,” she said standing up.

Franco stood up. His body reminded her of a marble statute she had seen at the university of Sydney. This is what she had seen in him.

“I have to go back into the water,” he said.

“You shouldn’t go back. You should leave the island. You should forget this ever happened,” she told him.

“But, the equipment...”

“It was an accident; you need to stop blaming yourself. You cannot stay here.” Gantira put a hand on his shoulder. She remembered that morning. The plan. He brushed her hand aside. “You have to go.”

He looked directly at her. His features sharp with anger. “bullshit,” he snapped.

“Do you have money?” Gantira walked the five steps back to the balcony turned around to face him. “Enough for you to leave the island? Forever?”

“Is that what you want?”

Gantira shrugged. He was just a diver. “There is an insurance investigation,” she said.

“I checked the equipment before the dive.”

“You did your best, Franco,” Gantira said remembering how the equipment had been tampered with shortly before the dive. Jinks smiling as he left the dive centre. “The matter will go to the court. You don’t have a work permit. Things will become complicated for you – in the eyes of the law you killed her. You shouldn’t have been out there with her. Deportation could be the least of your concerns. I’m saying this because I care about you, I would hate to see you in a Thai prison. Do you know what they do to foreigners in there?”

“No?”

“Perhaps it is better that way.”

“I tried to save her life. ”

“This is Thailand.”

“I need to talk to your husband. He can make this thing go away.”

Gantira lit another cigarette and looked directly at Franco. “Shogun is like the box jellyfish. Do you know of the box jellyfish? Of course you do. You are a diver, no? Each tentacle has half a million injections of venom. His tentacles stretch wide and far and contact with them results in death.” She walked over to a coffee table and picked up his keys. She handed the keys to him. “Leave the island today or the octopus will find you.”

Franco slammed his hand onto the coffee table. A glass tumbled to the floor. Smashed into a hundred pieces. They both looked at the broken pieces. Franco picked up a large shard of glass. He held it in front of her, his face a snarl of anger.

She smiled. “In Thailand it is desirable to have a cool heart,” She took the shard of glass from his fingers. She ran the jagged edge against her forearm. A tiny spot of red appeared. A line of blood trickled down her forearm. She smiled and looked up at him. “Is this what you want?” She stared out to the cove and smiled. “You want to see me bleed? Is this what you like? Fate is what happens when you aren't true to yourself, and destiny is what happens when you are, Franco.”

She heard him swear. She heard the door closing. She heard his footsteps. He started the bike and she listened to the machine growl down the mountain path before opening up with a burst of aggression along the beach road. She walked over to a fish tank in the corner of the room and gazed inside. A fish the size of a man’s fist swam inside. She looked at the creature and smiled.

Amateurs.

––––––––

FOUR

Bangkok

Straining to be fashionable

JAMES HALE was on his tenth drink. Or was it the twelfth? The glass was almost empty. Or was it partially full? Someone else would have to tell him. Someone that cared. Hale didn’t. He was standing in an aircraft-hanger-sized nightclub called Hollywood that was full with just as many sharks. Next to him stood Pim who worked for Bluegreen. Hale knew the type. Her father was born into money and she had never been without him or it. She was sweet, just out of university; beautifully-built and nervous. Hale leaned over to her: “You see, Pim, It’s really not my scene this. All these high society kids with their expensive haircuts, their sharp suits and their iPhones. In this city you either have the world or you have nothing. We don’t belong here. Why don’t we split and get a steak?”

“I don’t eat meat,” she said. Pim knew where she belonged and it wasn’t sharing a table with this drunken farang. Her father would hit the roof if he found out she was at a nightclub let alone with a foreigner who had a reputation.

“Figures,” he said and scanned the dance-floor. There were tables and chairs with young hipsters trying their hardest to look fashionable. They shared bottles of Johnnie Red, coke and ice. They were all connected with wireless technology and the old money. They tweeted, they face-booked, they lined, they sent stickers, and they copied and pasted. They were the new generation and they wanted immediate cyber-gratifications. Hale had more than a few drunken and cynical light-years separating him for this new cyber-savvy crowd. He wished that he’d had their chances, their education, and their hardware. The haircuts, they could keep. Hale liked his short back and sides just the way it was, cheers very much.

Hale was ranting. “Opportunities just land at their feet, all the toys and all the boys. Wow! iPhone5, special fucking delivery materialises under their pillows after a rather lucid dream. Gimme. Gimme. Gimme. A Lamborghini simply builds itself around your skinny frame after a few well-chosen words in the old man’s shell. All you have to do is turn the key and put their foot to the gas. If you crash it, daddy buys you a new one in a different colour. If you run over someone, daddy simply pays the bill. Where is the conflict, the sense of ever earning anything? If I earn the money to buy a sports car I want to really enjoy the experience of a hit and run. Hell, I’ll do the time. What’s the point in having all the toys without feeling the price, the value? Do you know what I’m saying Pim? Is this all just washing past you? If I do a hit and run I want to be there. I want to experience the whole trip, baby. I want to feel the cold clink of metal on my wrists. None of this high-society bail for Mr Hale. Life is what I want. As much of it as you can give me. I want to hit and hit again. A fucking outlaw...”

“I think they are just trying to have fun...And what’s wrong with Lamborghinis and iPads? These are good things no?”

“What’s wrong with them? Have you even been listening? What’s wrong with them? Just about everything...They are the devil’s toys thrown onto a society of hate and prejudice. This is Beelzibub’s bargain, right here. Fun?, Sister, they are pretending to have fun, but look at them. They know the price of everything and the value of nothing, honey. The funny thing is how the country pretends to be a poor, nice third world country to get the rates on import, export. Tax breaks. People starving. How about that meal?”

“Khun Hale, in Thailand ladies take things slowly,” Pim blew out a tiny breath of exasperated air.

“That’s not the Thailand I know, sugar. Is a Lamborghini slow? No. Is an iPad slow? No. Thai ladies like fast things. Fast, sister, fast, boom, boom, bam, bam.”

“Well, maybe you should get to know our country a little better.”

“Or maybe not,” he said under his breath. “Excuse me one moment, oil change.” Hale pushed through the crowds and headed for the exit. He was itching to get into the zone. The zone was a parallel universe on Sukhumvit road. The Street of Dead Artists led up to the Nana Entertainment Plaza. Explorers ventured into the zone for a few days, weeks, months, years. Some never returned. Some returned broken shells of their former selves consumed by desires, greed, and theft. They sat in bars, grey ghosts of their former selves. Dreams and nightmares were spun like webs around the carnival rides. Promises were made to be broken. The zone took no prisoners. The shows, the fashions, the attractions and the actors came and went but the story was always the same. Hale belonged in the zone; outside of it he was just killing time, like a junkie waiting for a fix. He needed the zone and the zone needed him. He felt safe there.

Two police officers stood at the exit blocking his path. They wore the tight brown uniform with guns clipped to their belts. An officer with a neatly trimmed moustache and a blank expression handed Hale a small plastic container. He looked at it. He looked at the two officers.

“Sample,” said officer number one.

“Sample?”

“No sample. No go,” said number two.

“Are you taking the...”

Hale realised that they were indeed and they had the authority to do so. He snorted through his nose like a delinquent child, “You want me to piss in a bottle before I leave?”

“Sample,” the officer repeated,

“Talkative, aint ya?”

This was unexpected. He took the plastic cup and thought about it. He needed a contingency plan. The line of cocaine snorted at Q Bar was bound to show up in the sample. He pocketed the receptacle and headed back into the crowds. Pim stood at a table fending off a group of fashion freaks. Their hair gelled up like Korean pop-singers. Hale pushed through the mob and spoke to Pim, “I need you to do something for me.”

“What is it?” Pim shouted over the trashy pop band live on stage.

“I need your help.”

“What?”

“I need you to give me something.”

“What do you need?”

“Your urine.”

“What?”

“Your urine, pee pee, piss, piddles,’ he said, mocking her accent, “I need a sample.” Hale passed the container to her. She looked at it.

“Whatever for?”

“They’re asking for it at the door. I take it you have no drugs in you?”

“No I don’t...never have...”

“Of course you don’t. The problem is I do, perhaps, sometimes... I have a little something inside me. I do however have a solution. It involves you. Now, run along to the ladies fill this little cup up and bring it back to me.”

“You expect me to do this for you?”

“I played golf with your director the other Sunday. We talked about you. He said something about a promotion. We were teeing off at the nineteenth hole. It’s all a bit of a blur.”

“A promotion?”

“His words not mine. I told him I wasn’t sure about it,” Hale passed her the plastic vessel, “‘Pim’s a fine lady but lacks basic decision-making skills,’ I told him. I say things as I see them.” She looked at Hale and then looked at the vessel. She smiled painfully and walked towards the ladies restroom. It was all too easy. Pim returned through the crowd followed by a Thai colleague named Boss. Boss had always confused Hale. He had a guilty expression most of the time and Hale figured there must have been something behind it. He worked for Bluegreen. Boss was the only man that Hale had ever met that had caused him to question the size of rats. Boss had once told him about a theory that rats could grow to any size given enough food and a happy environment. Hale reasoned that there was no limit to their size. Especially in Bangkok. Especially for Boss. He turned to face Pim, “Have you got it?”

“Yes,” she handed him the plastic vessel filled with warm yellow liquid. Seeing the small vessel Boss grabbed it from Hale’s grasp. A splash of the liquid spilled onto his hand.

“So I see we’re playing shots,” he said drunkenly. “What is it?” He takes a sniff, “Tequila?”

“Boss, you don’t want to drink that. Trust me.”

“Why not?” he smelled it again.

“You’ve had enough already,’ Hale put his finger and thumb on the vessel. “Let go.”

“No.”

“Boss, I’m going to count to three. Once I reach the number three you are going to release your grip. Do you understand?”

“Oh, have your rotten shooter!” Boss said defeated.

“Thanks.”

“Nobody wants to have fun anymore.”

“It’s the way of the world, Boss.”

Hale returned to the exit and gave Pim’s vessel to the police. They took it over to a make-shift lab set up on a table outside in the parking lot. The sample was clean. Hale was free to go. He felt a weight lift from his shoulders as he walked out into the parking-lot to a line of men on motorcycles wearing orange vests.

The quickest and most dangerous way to The Red Zone was by motorbike taxi. At night the traffic was manageable. Hale sat on the back of a motorcycle taxi and gave the rider directions. The rider sped between vehicles, weaved around danger with enough speed to keep his line, no hesitation, no mistakes, no fear. Hale trusted the rider. He knew which way the river flowed. They sped through a channel between a public bus and a Japanese pick-up. Both knew the gap existed to be exploited. All gaps did. Hale held onto the back of the seat and watched the rivers rush by; fruit markets, clothing stalls, jewellery stores, fortune-tellers, road-side bars and restaurants. The night hung over the city like an oily canvas. They arrived at The Red Zone. Hale paid the rider tipping him heavily. The rider had earned it, he was direct and honest. It was these small victories that kept Hale smiling.

The smell of burnt chillies and fried vegetables, stale beer, cigarette smoke, cheap whore-perfume, raw sewage, barbequed meat, incense, massage oils, sliced durian, exhaust fumes.

Past flashes of neon faces both beautiful and hideous, lights, thousands of lights, different colours, beautiful freaks, tourists, prostitutes, beggars, millionaires. All cats were grey at night. The caterpillar man dragged his awkward burden along the road using his stumps to propel him forward. An alms bowl held in his teeth. The whores touched cripples for luck, but Hale didn’t believe in legends and cripples and luck. Ghanaian pimps chewed gum, smacked their lips together, hissed through broken teeth. They wore baseball caps back–to-front and gold sovereigns on heavy fingers. Their women walked up and down the zone in twos and threes calling out “hey papa” and “watcha doing?”

He walked through a curtain into the Magic Table Bar. Booths, a stage, women standing on tables and dancing around chromed steel. Smoke and mirrors. Hale sat and drank Jack Daniels, bought lady-drinks, watched dances, enjoyed a short-time with a white-skinned Vietnamese. Movie-star eyes and the kind of body that dug graves. She was old enough to have put at least five lost-souls through the Bangkok meat-grinder and he didn’t want to make it number six. He made his excuse. His heart wasn’t in it; Vietnam could wait.

Goodnight Hanoi.

Hale was thinking about calling it a night when he felt the hand fall and grip his shoulder. The hand belonged to a man much bigger than any local he had ever met. Bigger than any man he had ever met. Must be a foreigner, Hale thought. One that means business. The fingers squeezed his shoulder like a rubber ball. The hand spoke.

“You messed up, Jimmy.”

It was late September. The city was flooded. Nobody called him Jimmy. Who would be out looking for him? Who would be out in the filthy waters, the blocked drains? Who would be wading through the overflowed canals? Weaving in between the hookers and the Johns in the pissing-down rain, past the super-rats and the cockroaches; cholera, dysentery, lust, HIV? Who would swim through the city’s murky waters to find him on a monsoon night?

Hale remembered a card game. A ceiling fan, an opium pipe. He had lost a lump. Bailed out by a shark called The Shark. The repayment terms were hazy. It was coming back slowly like an awful jigsaw puzzle.

The Shark.

“Come on, Jimmy, time to pay.”

James Hale knew that the hand wouldn’t pop him in the open. Anyone killing an expat in public was looking at a long stretch in the Bangkok Hilton. Killing westerners was bad for tourism. It was a warning. The voice was Australian or Kiwi. He spoke again: “You messed up real bad.” Hale felt his stomach clench as his balls rose up a notch. The Shark. Fear came in the strangest places. A bar in The Red Zone, neon lights, girls. He had heard the voice before. The hand loosened its grip. Hale turned his head slowly. He moved his body around the bar stool. The man was a mountain of heavily tattooed muscle. He had money. He loaned the money and took it back with interest. He had creative repayment plans. He was The Shark.

“Look, Shark, I’m going to get you your money, alright. I just need a little more time.”

“Mate, it wasn’t me that got in deep with the Chinese boys. You played the games, you lost the money. Now I like to help out the expats where I can. Jimmy, it’s time to pay.” The tattooed man said. His grip on Hale’s shoulder tightened. He felt something crack. The hand let go.

“Forty-eight hours,” Hale said.

The man-mountain didn’t say a word. He made a sound. Something between a growl and a sigh. He turned and walked through the barroom door. Hale finished his drink. Paid his bill and then walked out onto the street. Rain in large puddles. The dark oily water reflecting the blurry neon lights from the city. Where could he find a hundred grand?

––––––––

FIVE

Turtle Island

More guava deliveries

KHUN SHOGUN was a short man with a large paunch held tight by a golf shirt, a pair of chinos, and polished brogues. His dark brown eyes closed in on whatever fell before them with a shark-like curiosity. Everything and everyone had a price tag, either too expensive or too cheap. If you got close enough to Shogun you could smell the money. People didn’t tend to get that close. They weren’t that worthy.

The beach beer-bar did steady business. Location was everything. The bar only needed one person in every hundred to stop and buy a drink. He had another hundred bars just like it to take care of the rest of the white coconuts. It was just a tiny fraction of the empire. He liked to visit each one to let the workers know he was still around to keep them on their toes. There was a little blue book on the bar counter. He picked it up and saw it was written by a man called Peter. It was about a Thai boy who played chequers. Somebody had scrawled something in blue ink on the title page. It was a proverb. Like the Chinese proverbs, these sayings were used in everyday situations:

Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.

It made sense. Shogun stood up from the stool and smiled at Nat. She ran the bar at a profit and serviced customers with the vague hope of finding one charitable and foolish enough to make the long-term financial commitment. She was thirty-seven and wore her hair in braids. She hailed from the North East and knew the interior of every hotel room on the island. Some women became nurses, some became lawyers, and some became loyal wives and mothers. Some never became anything until they landed in the bar and became confidence tricksters using their tits and their lips as the bait. They became a nest of disappointments, a family up north and a sneaky shot of rice whiskey when the punters were looking the other way. They became a game of cards and a gold bracelet. When they died they were reborn back into the bar. The supply was solid and inexhaustible.

Dust and dirt carpeted the road. The sun beat down on his neck. He took out the key from his pocket and unlocked his Toyota pick-up. The air conditioning blasted the cabin with an icy coolness as he listened to the engine tick over. He drove along the circular beach road that snaked around the island and then rose up to Coral Cove. Past the houses and bungalows that he owned either side of the road. Up in the mountains the road steepened with mature coconut groves to one side and limestone boulders the other. He reached the gates that separated his kingdom from the rest of the island. The gateman pushed a button on the control panel inside his cabin and the wrought- iron gates mechanically opened. The road wound lazily up towards his mansion that stood at the highest point on a gentle slope overlooking the island. Shogun parked the pick-up, stepped out, and walked twenty yards to the front door. He entered the building with a key. The first level was made of block painted brilliant white and divided into eight large rooms. The upper level was teak with five bedrooms and a vast balcony with views across the palm-studded mountains to the south and the lazy curve of the cove to the west. He had a full-time staff of cooks, cleaners, gardeners, hostesses, animal- keepers and fortune tellers. There were four guards and a butler. There was a safe that held his fortune. He paid some of his staff to pour drinks and others to offer companionship for overnight guests.

Shogun walked into his vast main room and smiled at Nok his ten year old hornbill perched inside her gilded cage. Nok has been with Shogun since she was a chick. He had paid a handsome sum from a dealer in Bangkok to bring her to him. Nok was a sign of good luck and fortune. In the grounds Shogun had a small holding of exotic animals, gibbons, slow loris, several rare civets and a fishing cat kitten. None of these animals shared the same place in his heart as Nok did. Hornbills paired for life. Humans never truly paired. He had never met a woman that had filled him with as much joy as Nok. Gantira was decoration and nothing more. A woman’s love was fleeting and unreal to a man with money. They could never meet on equal terms.

Gantira was sprawled across a chaise sofa reading a book; beads of sweat on her nose despite the air-conditioning. Her skirt was hitched up. Her legs hadn’t been wrapped around his waist for a long time. He watched her slender figure sit up and saunter around the room. It was good for his image to have the most beautiful girl on the island.

Gantira stopped mid-page. A door the other side of the room opened. Shogun tightened his hands into fists as he saw Franco enter the room. He looked at him as if he were an unfortunate victim inside a car wreck. “This is a surprise.”

“I’m sorry...”

Shogun scratched the crown of his head, “Why do you return now? What have you been doing here?”

“Interesting bird,” Franco said. He walked towards the bird in its cage and placed a finger on the gilded bars. The creature flinched backwards and called in alarm. Franco turned around and faced Shogun directly. “I had to visit. I have a problem. I am thinking that you can be helping me. I am scared, Shogun. I would not ask but, you know... I hope I’m not intruding,” The Italian smiled and the powerful Thai man mirrored the smile sarcastically and spoke slowly as if addressing a small backward child.

“There is a saying that the west use. Treat others how you wish to be treated yourself. Would it be polite of me to travel to your quiet bungalow and spend a few intimate moments with your precious girlfriend? Do you have a girlfriend? Do you like my woman?” Shogun looked at his wife and then looked at Franco. The Italian could not hold his gaze without flinching.

“It is not what it seems,” the Italian said holding up his hands.

“It never is. Go on,” Shogun said. His thoughts focussed on the reclining Buddha. A statue he had seen as a young man in the Ancient Palace. The feet encrusted with mother of pearl. How many hours had he sat staring at The Buddha’s feet wondering if it was a metaphor beyond his grasp? The glimmer of hope on dirty feet? The wise beggar? The wealth of poverty?

“I need more cash,” Franco said. His words brought Shogun back to the room in the mansion. “I will have to ask my family to lie. Pretend that I am dead. It is no good for me. Alexandra. It was not my fault. You...”

“I see. Sit,” Shogun motioned towards the sofa. The Italian slumped into the seat. Shogun could see it all very clearly. The answer had presented itself. “Why should we pretend? Let us celebrate your funeral in style.” Shogun walked over to a drinks cabinet and opened an ice box and placed two chunks of ice in a glass. Sometimes the beggar did have feet of diamond. Fortune hid in strange places. He looked directly at Franco sitting opposite him behind the table. The hardwood table with a marble chess set on it. He often played chess with his wife. He never played with business associates.

To win or to loss would be foolish.

“Funeral?” Franco said.

“It is how do you say, finale? You have come here offering yourself. As my dear wife often likes to say; ‘it’s your fate and my destiny,’” Shogun took a bottle of single malt from the cabinet. He poured golden sunburst into the glass.

“But I am helping you?”

“Exactly, yes. That is correct. You will be helping me. You are giving everything for me. I am grateful.”

“Un bastardo, un figlio di puttano.”

“What did he say?” Shogun shot a glance at Gantira.

“He’s Italian, they have hot blood. Let him return to his own country and we can all forget this.”

“But, he swore at me. And you?” He turned to his wife again. “What do you know about Italians?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing.” Shogun laughed. “Niente.” He glanced out of the window and watched the distant flight of a passenger aeroplane approaching the island. “More guava deliveries,” he said to himself. “The island is being continually fertilised.”

“Please...” Franco said. “I don’t understand.” His good looks were pitiful. He had reached the end of a long race. He was not the winner. “Where do we stand?”

“A drink.” Shogun busied himself at the cabinet and mixed the whiskey for his guest. He opened the cabinet drawer, picked up and then slipped the Glock into his trouser pocket. He closed the cabinet drawer, turned around and walked back over to where Franco was sitting. He passed him the drink with a smile.

“Pezzo di merda,” Franco said. Shogun smiled again.

“Tell me? Was she good?”

“I came here and she let me in...”

“There are many things that upset me. My wife letting them in is one of them. Was she vocal? Did she wrap her long legs around you and grip you?”

“No, it was not like that.”

“So she was on top, she rode you?”

“No...”

“Listen, Franco. I plan to kill you. It is really quite selfish of me, I know. But there is a reason, you see, just after I kill somebody there is a sudden feeling of freedom, Franco. A sense of rebirth, a new beginning. Another soul has been reborn into the endless wheel of becoming. I light a candle and feel at ease with the world, but it is really nothing, the cycle of life and death continues. We are only spectators in the wheel of fortune. Life is overrated don’t you agree?”

“I promise it was...”

Shogun reached into his pocket and with one swift jerk of the arm he raised the gun and pointed it at Franco. Shogun knew about fear. It comes to a man as a long lost friend. Shogun’s finger tensed on the trigger.

He fired as the Italian tried to stand.

The blast filled the room. Franco fell back into the chair like he had been slapped on the chest. Shogun looked around the room. A table. Chess board. Black and white pieces lined up ready for battle. Franco placed a finger on the entry wound and then looked at its red tip. Gantira stood looking at her husband and the gun in his hand. He looked at her and then the gun. He smiled.

“Why?” She said.

“Why?” Shogun walked over to the Italian and fired two more shots into his chest. He then walked back to the cabinet and replaced the gun in the drawer. “Because dead people are less dangerous than live ones. You didn’t see this, Gantira, do you understand?”

“I saw nothing,” She said.

“You will not betray me again,” He looked directly at her. “Unless you wish to join him.”

––––––––

SIX

London

A voyeur of the mundane

JOE DYLAN walked past the wine bars, coffee shops and boutique gift-shops that sold over-priced gifts to over-paid workers. The workers wore business suits and neckties and held leather slip-cases. They darted in all directions. He headed towards the Lloyds building. He remembered the days when he was one of the members of the firm. He envied them. The suit and tie brigade. They had their job security, their homes in the country and their golf on a Saturday. They had Swedish au pairs and golden retrievers; they had friends over for pasta, four o-clock tea, cheeseboards and picnic baskets. They had it all. The trouble was they didn’t seem to enjoy it.

Before he was arrested that day he could have been part of the red setter and wax jacket brigade. The house on the hill was on the horizon. He remembered the days when an honest day’s work paid the bills. He was still at the fringes of the club, doing the dirty work. He was a voyeur of the mundane and safe life that could have been his before the arrest had spun his world upside-down. He remembered the day that the officers came into his building and pulled him out of his chair, “Step outside, sir”. The handcuffs cut into his wrists, the shocked faces of his colleagues. He still heard the sniggers of contempt and the laughter behind closed doors. Paranoia for Joe was a matter of having most of the facts most of the time in most of the right places. It was natural to feel uneasy – he had earned it.

Joe showed his silver pass to the doorman and walked through the revolving doors into a room the length and width of a football-pitch and higher than a cathedral. He weaved past hundreds of nervous underwriters and cash-hungry brokers. Risks were sold and claims were negotiated. It was a large betting shop. The Brokers took ten-per-cent of the premiums for the risk and the underwriters held their breath. Like all gambling houses, the odds were in favour of Lloyds, but The House didn’t always win.

Mr Wolfe of Wordsworth sat at one of the small desks that were known due to their shape and size as boxes. Joe introduced himself. “We spoke on the telephone, sir.”

Wolfe stood up. Joe shook hands with the underwriter and then sat down opposite him at the box. “Thank you for coming Mr. Dylan,” Wolfe was anything but wolfish, a frail little man who Joe surmised to be well beyond regular retirement age. He was bald and wore glasses with thick lenses, his eyes blinked repeatedly like a mole surfacing from a hole. His voice belonged to a younger, stronger man than the one sat in the chair.

“Understand we have a problem in Fun City.”

“Joe, my boy, the clock is ticking. Yes, yes, we never should have trusted them, but Hale’s business is usually sound and hindsight vision is twenty-twenty. We’ve used him before and his reputation is quite good professionally. Personally I hear he’s a bit of liability. The East is a constant headache. I don’t know why we take their business.”

“Do you have a copy of the policy?

“Here,” he handed over the policy. Joe scanned it for red flags. The policy showed Hale on Bluegreen’s behalf had made an overpayment of one hundred and sixty two thousand dollars, which Wordsworth had banked and then realizing their mistake had paid back. Some clients used the financial markets to clean money.

“What’s this?”

“An error, we paid back the funds. When somebody sends you almost two hundred thousand by mistake you don’t sit on it and ask questions. You pay it back to them, Joe. We’re gentleman here.”

“Yeah I see it. This additional premium was eighteen thousand dollars. Bluegreen paid you one hundred and eighty thousand dollars. It’s an easy mistake. Banking error perhaps? So you pay back the difference. Look, this is an old trick, Wolfe. Pay some bad money to a financial institution and get the clean money back. When I’m looking at this I can also see a sweetener. A lump of bait dangled on the rod before they file the big clam. Either way it pays to be careful when someone sends you a large sum of money. Watch whose money you pick up,” Joe put the document back down on the box.

“We had no reason to suspect anything at the time. I don’t do the IBA accounts. It’s this fatality; the claims girl Carmen handled it. She’s a good looking girl and when she goes into the market with a claim underwriters tend to settle it without looking at the small print. The first claim looked real enough, still does. Not the first time a backpacker has died while living the dream. We settled the first one, but now... We get another fatality. We can stall, and ask for more information but the most we have is a week or maybe two before its crunch time. Listen, Joe, as far as I know this has not travelled any further. This can’t go public. My balls are personally on the line here.”

“My balls are also on the wire. The market will know about this sooner or later. When they do it’s not because we’ve been screaming about it from the rafters. We both know the market right?”

“We trust you, Joe.”

“Let’s just say I know how the other side think, anticipate their next moves, and catch the bastards when they least expect it.”

“What’s the plan?”

“Ok. It’s really very simple. I fly to Bangkok on Sunday and I will have a look around. I will submit my report within a week, maybe two. Is the Broker aware of our involvement?”

“Not that I know of”

“Well, make that call. I need to meet with the broker in twenty minutes time. You can tell them as much or as little as you like, I’ll be asking questions and not answering them. Keep it confidential.”

“The syndicate is in trouble, Joe. I’m getting it in the rear end from the Shareholders and the board. What do I tell them? We take a high premium from some third-world country then we should expect to be shafted?”

“No we don’t tell them that. We deal with them carefully. Let’s just keep an open mind. If I don’t solve this case the syndicate will put me back on the other side. I don’t want to go back to the other side.”

Dylan stood up, nodded, and walked out of the room, through the revolving doors and onto the street. The sky opened and rain fell down in heavy droplets onto the pavement. Dylan sheltered by a cash machine for a moment before darting across Ledenhall Street to the massive Swiss Re Tower that shot up into the rain clouds like an angry phallus. He noticed a money-broker that had cheated him out of a fortune. Dylan had had a portfolio of shares that made a tidy sum before the walls came tumbling down. He hadn’t had the heart to rebuild it. His first instinct was to take chase of the broker, but the steps kept him from the hunt.

Let the bastard choke on it.

He cut-through Bury Street and Mitre Square before arriving at the wine-bar on Bevis Marks. He took a table to the back of the bar. A television screen played the kind of pop videos that suggested the world was an ice-cream cone waiting to melt in the lap of a hot young girl. The lounge was narrow and deep with a bar all the way along one side and a glass front looking out onto the grey. The black, the brown, the human disasters blurred outside. The broker entered the bar and placed a pile of green files onto the table. She offered her hand. It was as cold as a lizard’s. Joe shook it. She was cute. “Hi, my name is Carmen Collins.” She smiled half Latino, Spanish or Italian. A symmetrical nose was perfectly synthetic. Joe wondered if she could play the ukulele. Wide lips parted to reveal a wide smile. She wore a full length beige winter coat with fake fur at the cuffs and collars. Had she stepped out from the pages of a Parisian fashion magazine?

“Hi, I am Joe Dylan. I fly to Bangkok on Sunday. I am investigating your client. But where are my manners? You need a drink?”

“Thanks a glass of white wine.”

Joe walked to the bar. The barmaid was staring at the row of old friends above the bar. Each bottle was like a bullet with his name on it. Joe remembered that the barmaid had her own issues with the bottle; her husband ran the joint and kept her lubricated night and day. He had seen her at a meeting at Aldgate church during a brief snatch of sobriety.

The meetings didn’t work for everyone.

“A glass of Gavi and one glass, no hang on, better make that two glasses, have one yourself.” She opened the bottle and poured the drinks. Joe watched her twisted face concentrate into a knot of addiction. A face bloated from playing second fiddle to the bottle. She cracked into a smile as she poured herself one and tossed it down. “And give me a soda water, no ice,” he said.

“You off the sauce?” she said.

“Eighty-six days.” Joe said. He took the order and sat back down and placed the two glasses on the table. Carmen took a sip and smiled.

“I’m interested in the diving aspect of the policy. How did it come about?” he asked her.

“The client warned us to include this in the policy. We couldn’t make it work as part of the package so we drew up a separate policy endorsement and attached it to the cover. That’s a good wine, what did you say it was?”

“It’s a Gavi, Italian. And where do you come from? You look slightly foreign if you don’t mind me saying,” Joe wanted to say exotic but stopped himself.

“My Mother is Portuguese, my father is from Putney. It’s a running joke that I am Putugese.” She smiled and gently touched Joe’s wrist above the table.

“I like that. Now, do we have a copy of the policy?” She passed it over and he looked through it. “What can you tell me about a guy called Hale, the retail broker?”

“Every ones got a story about James Hale.”

“Yeah, that’s cute. Tell me one.”

“He plays hard and he works hard. He’s a freelance retail broker. Apparently he’s great with numbers. He gets in bed with big corporations and then he phones us.”

“Is he straight?”

“Well. Look I’m not here to gossip, but apparently Hale likes to party.”

“Not something you’ve experienced Carmen?”

The broker smiled awkwardly and changed the subject. “Our standpoint is that we trust Bluegreen and the information they have given us through Hale. If, however, you find anything to the contrary, please let us know” She passed Joe her card “We’ll have to consider our legal options.”

“Of course you do,” Joe told her. “We all have to consider our options. What options do you have for dinner tonight?”

“Excuse me?”

“I said what options do you have for this evening?”

“I have no options that will involve you on a non-professional level Mr Dylan.”

“How about on a professional level then?”

With that she stood up and gave Joe the kind of look that only beautiful women can. She walked out of the door. On the bar sat half a glass of Gavi and enough time to drink it. He thought about knocking it back. The meetings came back to him; “don’t pick up”. The waitress walked over and looked at the glass.

“You aint drinkin it?” she said.

“I can’t drink booze. I’m on the program,” he told her again.

“Waste not, want not,” she said, picked it up and knocked it back like it were life itself.

Joe drank his soda and stood up. He saw Carmen through the window making a telephone call. Her back was turned to him. He paid the bill and walked out of the door, listening.

“Wordsworth Bangkok....Boss. Carmen Collins... I have some information regarding the Bluegreen policy...Yes, I know...We are doing our best...Things have taken a turn...There is this investigator... From London... They are onto the divers claim...Who?...A Mr. Joe Dylan...Yes... Joe Dylan will be in Bangkok Monday...Be prepared...”

––––––––

SEVEN

Turtle Island

The body of a centipede

SHOGUN WATCHED the younger man’s fists hammer into the punch bag. Jinx was toned bronze ripped muscle. He was a pair of blue trunks and black gloves. His skin was fair enough to be considered high caste and his feature’s angular enough to be handsome. Jinx brought up a knee, an elbow, and then another fist hit the bag. He gave the bag hell. His last blow rang out in the gym and then the gymnasium fell ghostly quiet. Shogun walked up to the fighter side-stepping punch bags hanging from the ceiling and freestanding weights on the concrete floor. The fighter hadn’t seen him enter the gym.

“Are you winning?” Shogun asked.

Jinx span around with his guard up. Ready to pounce, before realizing who it was, Jinx nodded, dropped his gloves and smiled. His hands rose back up, his boxing mitts pressed together in the prayer motion. Shogun was in a way his father. Jinx had never known his father.

“I will answer the question for you, Jinx. ‘A Muay Thai boxer never wins. Outside the ring he must be an artist and a gentleman. Inside the ring he is an animal but he must have intelligence. An intelligent animal understands the next move his opponent will make.’ You looked good against that punch bag. The punch bag was not the champion.”

“I am training.”

“Excellent, Jinx, excellent. Take a shower. Put some clothes on. I have a job for you.”

“Five minutes. I’ll meet you outside.”

Shogun smiled. Jinx was twenty-one years of tough muscle who swam into Shogun’s family with the tide of poverty behind him. He had grown up kicking the coconut tree acquiring a huge capacity for pain. Shogun liked the way he danced in the ring. The pupil of the oldest teacher on the island, Jinx knew the ropes and the tricks. The kick lost to the punch. The punch was defeated by an elbow. The elbow was destroyed by the knee. Spirit and heart won the fight. You couldn’t fake Muay Thai anymore that you could fake acquired wealth, a good meal, art, or a poem. A victory in the ring was the ultimate victory. It could not be faked or cheated, it was, what it was. He was at the top of his game and they both knew it. He was Muay Thai.

Jinx walked towards the truck. In a tree above them a pair of collared doves cooed. That smell of Som Tam from a nearby stall. Shogun was sat in the driver’s seat. Jinx walked over to the vehicle. He looked in the back passenger seat. He looked at Franco. Dead. His heart hammered inside his chest. He was dead. Words escaped him. It was not his doing. The dead man’s eyes were wide open and his mouth was twisted into a tight death smile. Or was he snarling? Jinx retched bile. He bent over and spat it out on the street. He stood up straight. His eyes danced between Shogun and the corpse like he was watching a vulgar bout of table tennis.

“Relax, Jinx. He is as harmless as the bag you have just been punching.”

“Couldn’t the police take care of this?”

“Jinx, there’s a saying. ‘If you want something done properly, then do it yourself.’ You don’t tell anybody about this. Not your sweetheart, not the noodle lady, and not the girl from Isaan who massages your body and your ego from time to time. Get in the truck. Close the door behind you.”

Jinx opened the front passenger door. “Get in the back,” Shogun said, waving a hand to the back bench-seat.

“With him?”

“Yes. His karma has been decided. The spirits have risen from the body and now dwell in the body of a centipede. This is just dead meat, Jinx. Dead. Meat.”

Jinx sat in the back and looked at Franco. His skin was pale and the eyes were open. He reminded Jinx of something he had seen at a temple freak show. He had paid ten baht to enter a haunted house. Inside waxen corpses, rubber, paint, despair, hate. “Did the farang have money?”

“No, but there’s this thing called insurance. They guarantee their lives against accidents. We are the insurance agent so the money flows to us. ”

Jinx looked at the body again. He could see the bullet holes, the dark blue shirt thick with dried blood. “But this man has been shot.”

“Yes. But not when we’ve finished with him. Pull his body up straight.” The body kept slumping down the seat. Jinx reluctantly adjusted the corpse’s position.

“I had a grandfather who had insurance with the Krung Thai Bank. He died in a motorcycle accident. My mother got fifty thousand baht,” Jinx said.

“That’s it Jinx,” Shogun pointed a thumb at the dead Italian. “This here is your grandfather,” He pointed a finger at himself, “I am your mother, and Lloyds of London is the Krung Thai Bank.”

“Very clever,” Jinx smiled nervously at the dead body in the back seat. “He doesn’t look too happy.”

“Yes. I can see that. Sit closer to him, tell him the one about the sick buffalo and the frog in the coconut shell. Put your arm around his shoulders and hold his head back. You can kiss him if you really want.”

“But, boss.”

“What?”

“I’m scared of the foreign ghost.”

“You’re scared of what?”

“I watched it on a TV show. The Shock. The foreigners have ghosts.”

“Listen to me carefully. You want to be scared of something? Be scared of a real man. A real man that has a .22 in his pocket and has no reason not to use it. Put your arm around him.” Farang Ghosts, Shogun grinned. “When I was a monk at Watt Tha Thong I spent hours meditating next to dead bodies before they were cremated. The human body is full of corpses. What did you eat for breakfast?”

“Moosab kai jial”

“You have an unborn bird and a dead pig inside you. Your body is fuelled by ghosts.” Shogun watched an airplane fly over the island. With every flight that arrived he got a little richer.

“You believe in ghosts, sir?”

“They believe in me, but they don’t scare me.”

They drove to the small beach resort. Every morning the town was hung-over and slow. Shogun watched a woman riding a moped, obviously a whore going back home after a trick. A kid walked along the street holding coke-a-cola in a bag of ice. A black and white dog laid on its side panting under the shade of a shop awning. They drove past bars, a seven-eleven, a boxing ring, another seven-eleven A foreigner stood outside an empty bar drinking from a large bottle of Leo Beer. Shogun stepped out of the pick-up. A cat was resting beside the door. The cat stood up and raised her bent knotted tail. Shogun was careful with cats. Killing one was the same as killing a monk. Shogun opened the padlock and pushed up the metal shutters. He then pulled out another key and opened the door to the diving school. They carried the dead man inside. They laid him on the floor and shogun took off Franco’s shorts and shirt. They looked at the naked corpse.

“Over there,” Shogun pointed to where some wetsuits hung on a row of pegs, “One of them must be his. Find out which one and put it on him.”

“How do we know which one?”

“Use this,” Shogun said pointing to his head. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a board pinned to the wall behind the main desk. On the board photographs were mounted. “You see which suit the farang is wearing in the photograph?” Jinx closed in on a picture of Franco smiling topside of a boat wearing a blue and yellow diving suit. “That is the suit he must wear. You can see from the picture that it is his.”

Jinx smiled. Shogun was smart. Smarter than his grandmother who taught him about cultivating rice. Smarter than his dead grandfather who had bought the Krung Thai insurance. Smarter even than his trainer who showed him the technique for removing the delicious sweet sap from beneath the bark of the coconut tree. Shogun was the smartest man he had ever known.

They worked at getting the body into the wetsuit. No wasted movements. No talking. The dead skin on rubber squeaked and snapped. Shogun grabbed an aqualung, regulator, mask and a pair of fins and walked back to the jeep instructing Jinks to follow with the dead diver. Jinx dragged the body by its feet to the truck and they both got him into the back seat again.

“Good work, Jinx.”

“It is nothing,” Jinx grinned.

Shogun drove. He was heading for Dead Man’s Well. Tropical flowers and palm trees. A flight of butterflies flew across the road. Buffalos grazed in fields. They travelled up and down hills. Shogun took a small side road leading to the sea. The lane came to an end. The land stooped where sudden jungle began. They parked the truck and headed through the undergrowth until they reached an area of rock pools. They carried the body to an isolated rock pool, the smell of tropical pollen. Shogun and his brother Rang had swam there as children. Neither of them could touch the bottom.

Shogun and Jinx lifted the dead man. They swung him three times before tossing Franco into the water. He made a splash and then rose back to the surface, bobbing twice, before succumbing to science and nature.

Dead Man’s Well.

They walked back along the jungle path. His brother’s police motorbike was parked next to the truck. Officer Rang held his hands in a prayer-like motion with his fingertips above the bridge of his nose. Shogun returned the gesture with his fingertips slightly lower.

“Dead Man’s Well?” Rang said.

“Yes. Only he knows how deep it really is. We should leave him there for some time for the water to expand the body, about three days.” Shogun said. “Then we drag him out.”

“I have an idea.” Rang said, running a hand through his thinning hair. “An idea about the death certificate. I will summon a doctor. A farang doctor. He has violated immigration and labour laws. He is working illegally. I can put the squeeze on.” Rang polished his aviator sunglasses with a handkerchief. He looked at the lenses through the morning sunlight and then put them back on. He looked like a predatory insect, Shogun thought. A moustached moth with expectant eyes bugging forwards.

“Will this doctor fully cooperate?”

“Sure,” Rang nodded.

“Are you one hundred per cent? I could have Jinx visit him.”

“No not necessary,” Rang snapped. The officer motioned towards the beach. “I’ll have a couple of the photograph boys come and take a few shots when they drag him out”

“Yes. No press. No publicity. Bad for business. The police photographers better not start selling pictures. I’ll buy them if they do want to sell. Fix a price. I don’t want an autopsy. We authorise the certificate. We have the death registered at the district office and at the consulate. We have him burned at the temple.”

“Yes. I will arrange it. It may cost a bit. I see what you mean. How is your wife?”

“She is well. Why do you ask?”

“Just curious. No offense meant. My daughter is looking at studying at university abroad. It is expensive.”

“Be patient, brother. When the money comes I will tell you. It may take some time. It will come through one of the major insurance companies in Bangkok, and then back down to here, via perhaps Dubai. Our Arabian friends are exceptional cleaners,” Shogun lied. The money had been paid and he hadn’t considered giving his younger brother a penny. He was bad with money. He drank it or spent it at the karaoke bars. He was better without it. A time would come when he would have to give him something, but that time was neither today nor tomorrow.

“Be sure to let me know as soon as you get it. You know how much a policeman’s salary is?”

“I should do. I pay them. Let’s call it a day. I shouldn’t have to be doing this kind of work. Lucky that I had Jinx here to help me. The boy shows promise. He listens when I speak and follows orders. He will one day be a strong important man. His mind is sharp and sober.”

Rang felt a bolt of jealousy and anger. His brother had openly insulted him in front of what to him amounted to a younger and less important man. He said nothing. He mounted his silver low-rider and revved the engine. A pile of dust rained upwards and then settled down again. His brother’s time would come and he intended to be there to see it happen.

––––––––

EIGHT

An unsigned death certificate

MARTIN JOHNSON looked at an old photograph of his son. Gregory’s baby-blond hair had probably turned brown like his father’s by now. He would be ten years old. What would he think of his father? What had she told him? What had she manipulated him to think?

Johnson knew the marriage was over long before the day the divorce papers came through the letterbox and landed with a flutter on the doormat. Before that day he was just kidding himself and buying time. Tina’s company was once all that he needed. He admired his wife’s sharp wit and her easy way with words. They were once a team. Then those words became bullets loaded in a sharp-suited divorce solicitor’s gun and fired at the jugular. He gave her everything and in a cruel strange way she had earned it. She had made him what he didn’t want to be. For this he felt no resentment, just a strange hollowness and a sick contempt at his own lack of self-will. If she hadn’t of moulded him the way she had then she would never have won in court. Like a cat toys with a dying bird she had weakened him gradually until the opportune time.

The art of war was a woman’s art.

Johnson often painfully compiled inventories of his failings and came up with nothing apart from a certain oddness of character on his part. This oddness was by no means harmful to anybody, especially his wife and child. It was not a crime. It was simply a symptom of having lost his purpose in life for so long he’d forgotten what that purpose was. He had always wanted to be a doctor and had found himself instead in the position of a male nurse at a busy London hospital.

He was always on the outside looking in.

He had been a functional husband and father at best. There had been no affairs, no drunken incidents, and no violence on his part. He had simply fallen from the ladder and lost a grip on his wife’s ever-rising expectations. He lacked ambition and was scared of heights. He was boring and predictable. Who wouldn’t want a new exciting life, away from the painful drudgery of caring for patients? Patients expected everything and gave nothing in return. His nine-year-old son Gregory, the house and the car had all been conditioned to run according to her new incarnation. He was on his own for the first time in his life; it was both terrifying and liberating. She had a new boyfriend who played badminton and practiced law. Perhaps Johnson could discover something new and exciting too.

“You will never amount to nothing,” she had told him during that vicious row. The rest was a blur. A Clarice Cliff plate smashed against the wall. Doors were slammed and the golden retriever whimpered. Gregory sought sanctuary in the garden. Those words he carried around like a cumbersome backpack for many months before he decided to put the pack down and examine the contents. She was right. He was in a rut. He would never amount to anything. He needed to achieve something that would define him as a man. He was more than a nurse. She had helped him discover that he too held ambition.

Badminton was for suckers.

He searched the internet for a purpose in life and found it in the shape of a country where a man could really be a man. That country was called Thailand and was known as the land of the free. People smiled. The sun shone. The food was fantastic. He bought a round ticket that flew directly and was at once smitten by her irresistible charm. He adored the sunshine, the women, the mai pen rai attitude, the tiny cans of cold coffee, and the fruits that he couldn’t identify. He adored the clouds of diesel fumes in the cities and the rivers of humanity that flowed down Pattaya’s walking street. He loved the mountains of Chang Mai and the beaches of Ko Samui. He learned bits about the culture. One day he got speaking to an unqualified English Teacher in a Sukhumvit bar.

“Don’t worry about certificates mate, the Thais all want us working here,” he said.

The seeds were sown and Johnson decided to make a new life; to reinvent himself in the land of smiles.

But what to do?

It is always best to start with an obsession. Nurture that obsession until it matures into something real. He had always wanted to be somebody. But somebody had always prevented it from happening. People had a habit of throwing obstacles in his path to prevent him from realising his dream. Circumstance had leapt up in front of him and shaken him this one time and he wasn’t in a position to ignore the sign. He grabbed the opportunity with both hands.

Thailand would set him free.

Johnson sat for hours reading medical fiction at the library fuelled by shots of whiskey and corned-beef salad sandwiches. He absorbed medical encyclopaedias along with every bite and swallow of the hard stuff. He was on first name terms with the librarians. They liked him. Occasionally he jumped on the 12.06 to London and sat in on medical lectures at universities making copious notes along with the regular students. He joined internet forums and read expert opinion. He subscribed to New Scientist and Medicine Magazine. He gave up nursing and had nothing but time. Then he had an idea. Rather than take the more orthodox and lengthy route of traditional qualification Johnson decided to leap frog academia and buy his medical degree online. He arrived back in paradise feeling like the prodigal son who had arrived in the land of milk and honey with a new lease of life and a fake qualification.

He put the photograph of his son back in his desk drawer and thought about the journey that led him here. He had rented a second-floor room in town that overlooked the port. He watched the vessels that steamed their way into harbour while smoking marijuana. He ate banana fritters, cow car moo, and cow man gai and devoured the twenty-three baht hotdogs from seven. He rented a motorbike and took it on the boat and then drove to the labour office in the provincial capital. He spoke with a kind official lady with buck teeth and broken English. To practice his vocation on the island he had to first pass the Thai Medical Board examination, she explained. But first he had to learn the language. Johnson found the vowels and consonants possible using study guides and began to memorise the phonetics. He began to understand the tones and could rise or fall when required. He read kindergarten books, progressed to cartoon books and then bought a popular novel in both Thai and English and read them side by side. He read medical text books in Thai and after a year he was ready. He applied to the MCT. The medical Council of Thailand approved his application, he sat and passed the examination and the department of labour granted a work permit.

They called him: Doctor John-san.

The Thais at first took Johnson’s sloppy approach to work as a cavalier approach to medicine that was practiced throughout Europe. He claimed to specialize in psychiatry on the basis that there was demand for that field. It was a bold move and a good one. He had become a doctor.

That day a motorcycle courier screeched to a stop under the shade of pomegranate tree. A few minutes later a phone-call from reception. The package was addressed to doctor Johnson and was awaiting collection. He stood up and walked across the hospital. The screams of the paediatric ward. The nervous silence of the blood unit. He picked up the package, tipped the courier and ripped it open. A letter requesting that he visit the main land. An unsigned death certificate. The letter was headed with the official police emblem. An officer Rang required his attendance in a matter of delicate importance. He had a free morning.

He walked out to the parking lot. The late morning sun blinded him for a moment as his eyes adjusted to the light. His red Honda Wave stood in the shade of the pomegranate tree. He straddled the bike and twisted the key and arrived at the pier in ten minutes. He boarded the ferry and sat top deck. The sky was a clear blue and the sea a beautiful deep turquoise with the smell of salt in the air. He watched the path of a marlin beneath the surface of the water, the jagged fin darting here and there. A flock of white terns followed above the ferry and occasionally the birds dove down and picked up the small fish from a school brought to the surface by the surf. Mountains rose from islets. The locals sat top deck sharing bottles of rice whiskey and cans of Leo beer. Johnson smiled at a farang with his new Thai girlfriend. He was flapping his hands and making exaggerated gestures in an effort to have her understand his message. She nodded and smiled knowingly, wondering what to bill him. All she knew how to say was up to you and money in English, the rest of the language she didn’t need and couldn’t be bothered to learn.

Two hours later Johnson sat down opposite Rang and watched him sharpening a pencil with a Stanley blade before brushing the shavings from the desk into a wastepaper basket. He wore a tight brown uniform and wore an aura of authority like an impenetrable dome. He wore waxed boots and had a Glock clipped to his belt. Aviator sunglasses with mirrored lenses. Johnson could see his own nervous reflection looking back at him.

“Puut Thai daai mai Krwap?” Rang said.

“Daai. Khun puut paa-saa-ang-grit dee gwa?” Yes, but you can speak better English than my Thai? Johnson lied.

“Yes. In fact I would prefer to speak English. I like to practice. We are after all in a tourist district and it does me good to speak English when I can.” He smiled across at Johnson while arching his hands over the desk. His English was good. That troubled Johnson. The inspector’s face was broad and his lips thin. A mole played host to a singular strand of hair that curled up and outward from his chin “I am Inspector Rang of the Royal Thai Police force.”

“I am honoured to meet with you. What is it I can do for you inspector Rang?” Johnson said.

“I will come to the point. For you westerners it is the best place to start is it not?”

“You know our culture too well, inspector.”

“And what about our culture? Is it agreeable?”

“Very much so.”

“Good. To business. We have a potentially embarrassing situation. We had a European fatality, a diver, Italian, on Ko Phangnan last week. The problem is that his insurance stipulated that he be air-lifted to Ko Samui as there are no major hospitals on Ko Phangnan.”

“What was the cause of death?” Johnson asked stroking an invisible beard. He sensed vague corruption in the Inspector’s voice. He wondered where it was leading.

“Compression; The Bends I think you call it.”

“And when was the patient admitted to Samui?”

“That is the problem. It seems that the helicopter ambulance did not arrive in time and it would have been too late. The dive crew could not retrieve the body that was stuck between the rocks. When diving resumed it could not be found, possible, it could have been taken by sharks.”

“Well this is difficult. In my experience that is known as drowning or death by misadventure rather than compression. Of course legally he is not dead. He is missing.”

“Well...” The inspector looked over at him boyishly.

“So, you have an open verdict for the time being, with no body of course we can’t...” Johnson continued, sensing where the inspector was going and wondering how much it would cost him for his signature.

“Yes. And that is difficult for us. The family want to claim on the insurance but without a death certificate a claim would not be viable. These people have put a lot of pressure on us and have contacted the Italian newspapers, this sort of thing is bad for tourism, you understand.”

“I see. And you want me to sign a death certificate without first seeing the body. This sort of thing goes beyond everything I have ever stood for. I took an oath. Do you know how long it takes to become a doctor?”

He smiled at Johnson. “Well, Mr John-san, in your case it didn’t take too long, did it now?”

“I don’t understand.” Johnson could feel his body begin to turn rigid. He sat up straight in the chair. He felt a sudden rush of blood. This is fear, he thought, ashamed of himself. This was it. The inspector didn’t speak for some moments and the eerie silence threatened him with arrest, prison, deportation, England. He didn’t know what would be worst. Tina’s words echoed in his mind – he would never amount to nothing.

“Your credentials, Mr John-san, are not entirely in order.” The officer smiled poisonously. He picked a tiny piece of lose thread from his shirt and dropped it into the waste-basket. The inspector looked at Johnson with accusatory eyes.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Johnson stirred uneasily in his chair. Comfort eluded him. He felt trapped. His body was invisible. The inspector could see through him and examine his every flaw. Each of his mistakes were clearly visible. All of his terrible failures were apparent in microscopic detail.

“I think you do, doctor. When you renew your business visa we have to take into account that it would have been extremely difficult for you to have attended an American University while your passport clearly shows that you were, in fact, in the UK for that time period. You are staying here under false pretences, correct?”

“I did much of my studies online.”

“I would go further than that and say that you did all of your so-called studies online.”

“I am helping the Thai people.”

“If you wish to continue helping, doctor, please sign on the dotted line.”

Johnson’s arm felt like a block of wood as he picked up the pen and signed the certificate.

––––––––

NINE

Do you like writing?

“NAME?”

“Steve.”

“Steve. Do you have a second name?” Shogun bent down to eye level and looked at the prisoner. He was an ugly young American who one of Rang’s men had caught dealing cannabis on the beach.

“Floss. Steve Floss.”

“Okay Steve, I hope you aren’t busy for the next thirty-five years.”

“But...”

“Tell me Steve, do you like writing?”

“Wha...”

“Literature, Steve, do you like it?”

“But...”

“Maybe you could write one of those prison books, Steve.”

“Wha..”

“I’ve read your blog, Steve, take off your pants.”

Steve did as he was asked and gripped either side of the toilet moorings as he listened to the metallic ring of Shogun’s belt buckle hitting the concrete jail floor.

He tensed, then relaxed.

TEN

Two million dollars

GANTIRA LOOKED through Franco’s pitiful stack of papers, his pile of dirty clothes, a neglected postcard, a letter from his parents.

Franco would one day settle down back in Italy and make a living. He could help them in their old age, maybe a family restaurant?

What was he doing the other side of the world? Where was Thailand? Scuba diving?

When would he come home?

The embassy would phone the family. Their world would be shattered for a year or two and then things would carry on as they always did with a new sense of wisdom and a stronger faith in God.

She lit a cigarette and watched a column of ants march along the wall. Surely she deserved a slice of the insurance money? She was used to having money in her pocket. When she first arrived back in Bangkok as a graduate she took the internship at Bluegreen and worked as a hostess at the Poseidon club. Her English skills were something rich foreigners and educated locals would pay a premium for.

Shogun began as a customer.

Many twists and turns later he became so much more. He asked her to marry him.

It seemed the sensible thing to do.

If it didn’t work out she could always get a divorce.

Right?

There had to be a way to get to the insurance money.

She had earned it.

With it she could move away and disappear. She could travel back to Australia, New Zealand or the sub-continent. She thought through the chain of events that had begun with Jinx’s tampering with Alexandra’s diving equipment. One and a half million dollars sitting in her husband’s account. And now Franco dead. More money. She’d allowed Jinx into the dive centre. She had earned the money. Franco was at the house that day. She was responsible for the second claim as well as the first.

Two dead.

Who would be next?

Struck by a sudden idea she opened the bungalow and walked down the steps to the jeep. She got inside and drove to the marina. Franco wasn’t the only one insured. She was Shogun’s next of kin. She would inherit everything if he were to have an accident.

She walked down to the small marina and past the fishing vessels painted blues and reds bobbing up and down a little outside the cove. The distant beach; tourists laid on the golden sands rubbing sun cream into their exposed bodies. Beach vendors covered in sarongs and rags sold roasted eggs, corn on the cob, manicures, massages, soft drinks, ice creams, fortunes.

She had earned it.

She walked past the stone bench under the mango tree where she had first met Franco after one of her aborted separations from Shogun. She was feeling revengeful. She had earned it. Franco was there. He was travelling through. That’s the thing with travelling; always thinking where to go next; never taking the time to stop and look around. A composite city of all the places she had ever travelled. Static buzzed in her mind. Bicycle taxis and rickshaws. Children screamed and cheered playing ballgames in the gardens of her past.

Two million dollars.

Her thoughts turned to Franco. How simple it had been to authorize his death. Her brother-in-law issued a report which she took to the municipal office. An official issued a death certificate. She had spoken on the telephone to an English-speaking consular official at the embassy. His pathetic body was then taken to the temple. Franco was incinerated into the small bag of bones and ashes that sat on the table in the bungalow.

Nobody was there to see him burn.

Nobody but her.

The market was just ahead. She walked through it. Through the smell of raw meat, fruits, vegetables, that awful smell of fresh squid. Woman waved flies away from their produce with shreds of plastic tied to bamboo. She thought of Franco’s remains, worthless and priceless. Should she send the ashes back to Italy? Throw them into the sea? Or maybe, take him with her when she fled the island having killed her husband.

She had to kill him. The thought landed clear and precise. She found the old fish seller. Her wrinkled face grimacing above her produce. The old fish woman smiled. She knew what she wanted. It was illegal, but most good things were. Certain internal organs, the liver, and sometimes the skin are highly toxic. Japanese chefs knew how to prepare the fish leaving the meat untainted. Gantira was not as skilled. The woman handed her the puffer fish, ‘be careful,’ she said. ‘warang, na,’

‘Ka,’ she said. Yes.

––––––––

ELEVEN

Bangkok

Posers in a leafy street

JAMES HALE sat at a side-street noodle-stall. The stall was set-up underneath the shade of a row of fruit trees. He watched a pair of pigeons courting beneath a fig tree. The male’s tail feathers were pushed up in self-promotion and his plumage was arrogantly puffed up. He danced his elaborate dance of love. The female didn’t look impressed. She turned her back to him. Birds were like gangster rappers, Hale thought. They sang songs about how tough they were and how many other birds they’d nested. They were egomaniacs with inferiority complexes. Posers in a leafy street. The bastards flew at the first sign of danger. They couldn’t make it on the ground. Hale hated birds with their merry chirps and their flimsy nests. Tweet. Tweet. Tweet. The only thing Hale admired about them was the fact that they could fly. That would be cool. Right now, flying would be good.

Hale caught the attention of the noodle girl. She was cute and remedied that with laziness. She held up three fingers and Hale laid thirty baht on the table. He returned his gaze to the fig tree but the birds had flown. Something brushed against his leg. It was a street dog. It sniffed at his shoes; scabs were all over her body and her fur completely worn away at the rear end. Another male dog trotted over smiling. Hale guessed he was responsible for the rear. This one had broken teeth and one good eye. Hale picked up a chilli from the bowl on the table and popped it into the dog’s mouth. The dog chewed once, blew air through his cheeks and spat it out onto the ground. The dog looked up at him sadly. Dogs were loyal, birds independent, and Bangkok was both and neither.

Why had he been invited to the meeting?

Bluegreen needed someone to hang when it all went pear-shaped. They needed a scapegoat. As the primary broker Hale had countersigned the policy documents before they were passed down the chain to London. He had gotten into bed with them and now he was going to be chucked out into the cold Bangkok streets like a whore on an empty promise.

This Bluegreen deal, Hale decided was his ticket out of the cesspool. He had been swimming ever since he had arrived in The Zone. His head was just above water. It wasn’t all bad. He admired the walking encyclopaedias of sexual diseases who dragged their bodies through

The Zone. Zombies were cool and the whores added the colour. The foreigners begging in the street, the ones that had lost everything to bargirl black magic interested him. The mortality rate was high. The sharks were on his tail. He could vaguely remember playing that game of cards. Hell, he never played cards. How could he raise that sort of money?

He could tell London what he knew but blowing the whistle on his client was a dangerous move. Once he was on that flight back to London they couldn’t touch him. Not like the Chinese or the Russians. Like birds the Thais tended to leave you alone once you are out of the bush. Should he play ball and try and package the claim to make it look convincing?

He watched a transsexual wearing a white blouse and a navy-blue skirt sit down ordering a bowl of noodles. She probably worked in a department store on the make-up counter helping women look pretty - doing what she knew best. He often wondered why the country had an inordinate number of men dressed up as women. This was one part of the culture he didn’t understand. These things confused him. Hale left it to the birds to decide. He stood up and walked to the office.

He found himself on the ground floor of the Bluegreen Hotel. The security man waved him up. The elevator stopped at the floor above the twelfth. He entered the reception room on the fourteenth floor with a desk and a beautifully well-built woman wearing a white blouse filing her nails behind the desk. There were a few potted plants a sofa and a coffee table covered with gossip magazines. He followed the receptionist to the meeting room.

“Hi Boss.”

“Hale sit down, coffee?”

“No. Have anything stronger?”

“Those days are over.”

“Well, those days were flowing last night at Hollywood.”

“Just venting out some executive stress, my head is repaying me.”

“Right Boss,” Hale smiled at the younger man. He was corporate to the bone, bless him. He even got drunk because it was something office-workers were supposed to do. Joe once caught him reading a self-help book called the Ten Career Commandments. God help him. These people read books that taught them to act against the very nature of their culture. Honest business? An interesting concept. Maybe we could do that? Hale’s old London boss used to tell him that business was like cricket. These people couldn’t even put the pads on. The hotel business model seemed to suit them with their fake smiles and their near truths.

“Let’s get straight to it so you can get to work. Good job on the Finnish fatality, Hale. We need to move a new one through the books. This time an Italian. A dive master. Died on the island.”

“How convenient.”

“In what way, Hale?’ Boss massaged his temples.

“This is too soon. London will be swimming in a tsunami of curiosities. I’m not sure I can get involved. To lose one diver might be considered unfortunate, but to lose a second seems, well, careless. The Finish girl was covered by Bluegreen insurance. She booked the diving trip here in Bangkok, and paid the insurance fee. Can you prove the Italian did the same? I don’t recall seeing any additional premium for an Italian. Look, Boss, I know how the system works. Corruption isn’t a chink in the chain here. It is the system. Those beggars with no arms and no legs did not walk up to the top of the footbridge over Sukhumvit road. They were carried there. The system carried them there. There is not one inch of concrete in this city that is not owned by the system. You want to beg? You have to be paying the system. Or what? Call the police. The policeman better be saving his bribe money because if he wants to become a sergeant then he has to pay money for his promotion. Yeah, we have a nice little claim down there on the island. All above suspicion. What a wonderful neat and tidy world we live in.”

“Perhaps there is bad karma on the island.”

“Yes, that’s it Boss, bad karma. Shall we put that in the report? A poor little third world country struggling through an episode of bad karma.”

“The insurers have sent an investigator. Our claim could be compromised if he gets hold of the wrong idea. We have this on good advice, Carmen Collins from the London brokerage house telephoned us...”

“Carmen, a cute girl, if I recall. Half Portuguese. Party girl. I remember her back from the days at Digressions.”

“Digressions?”

“A nightclub.”

“We’re not here to talk about nightclubs.”

“Right. Sorry, I digress. We are the poor little non-corrupt country. What happened to you, man?  Let’s talk about it, Boss. When was the last time you paid for your own martini? She pushed the first claim through like only beautiful women can. You have a collection you want Carmen taking the file into the room. The underwriters go gaga at the woman’s pins and fall over themselves to sign on the dotted. She got a face like she got the itchy ear. She’s a puzzled deer looking at the first winter snow.”

“We don’t want this investigator getting the wrong idea. You understand the position very clearly. One slip-up and...”

“I understand their position too. I’m straddling the fence so far my balls are filing for divorce with each other. They will have the wrong idea. Or maybe the right one. I can’t play the London market for you. It’s not a bank, Boss. I can talk to this investigator. Sing him a poor third world country song. Who is he?”

“Joe Dylan.”

“Hmmm. I know of him, one of the better ones, He has a brain. Boss, it’ll be tricky. We can only do what we can do. We had a case in Mexico together; the assured was as bent as an Arab’s dagger, a tough taco to swallow as I recall. London paid. You present a reasonable claim and I’ll present it to London for you. Leave Joe to me. I’m not sure that the market will swallow it. Joe certainly won’t. He’s paid not to. What happened with the latest fatality?”

“Diving in shallow waters. We have a police report and a doctor’s certificate.”

“Great. We both know that the report is from Shogun’s brother Rang. I guess the investigator will find that out to. I know how London will see the second claim and it doesn’t smell like a bunch of roses on a summer’s day. I know these people. We are treading on thin ice and the only way to move on thin ice is to move surely and to move quickly.”

“We have the death certificates for the Fin,” Boss passed over the original documents. Hale looked at them.

“Doctor Johnson?”

“Yes, signed by an English doctor. It’s a new incentive on the island. Tourists like these international hospitals.”

“With the certificate I can put something together. I don’t like it, but it can be done.”

“Good. You have exactly one week to get the money,” Boss stood up and smiled.

“And if London don’t play ball?”

“Then you are finished.”

“Finished?”

“Use your imagination Hale. Telephone once you have the cash. Not before. Thank you for your time.”

“Fine,” Hale stood. They shook hands above the table. Hale walked out past reception with the documents held tightly in his hand. Outside the sun hurt his eyes. He found a bar at the mouth of the soi and walked in.

The first three beers didn’t hit the sides.

The next one he drank down slowly.

The desk telephone rang. Boss spoke briefly with reception and buzzed in the two visitors. Two figures walked through the door. The first was a middle-aged man wearing a pair of filthy brown trousers and a pink polo-neck T-shirt. He had an unshaven face and an expression like that of a puzzled bear. He had been on the receiving end of one too many bar fights. No stranger to the bottle the bear had,

Scars,

Scratches,

Scabs.

He wore a dirty blue baseball cap. He was from Zurich. He had over-stayed his tourist visa for many years. Jack had one redeeming feature; he was completely loyal to his employer.

The second was a man in his early twenties with a goatee beard and rat-like eyes. At first appearance an innocent backpacker, but Boss knew better. From Copenhagen the Elf was ex-military. A black belt in several disciplines of martial arts he had been known to knock out men three times his size.

“Jack, Elf, please sit down.” Boss opened an envelope and took out a photograph. “Take a look at this. Name. Joe Dylan. Occupation. Corporate Fraud Investigator. His flight arrives at 15.45 today. Jack, your job is to wait at the airport and follow him. Don’t let him see you. Don’t lean too heavy and don’t shout too loud. Scare him if possible. Just be yourself. It should be easy. Let me know where he is and what he is doing. This is for you.” Boss handed him an envelope. “You get another one when the jobs finished.”

Jack picked up the envelope, folded it and put it in his pocket. “Thanks Boss,” he said. “Boss, did I just see James Hale leave the building?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, maybe you might like to know that there’s a contract out on him. He borrowed from The Shark. If I take him in I get a cut. I almost pulled him in right there and then. I need the Euro.”

“The Shark? Well, don’t haul him in while you’re doing this job. Be patient. I’ll speak with The Shark. After this job is finished then you can give him to The Shark.” Boss looked at the younger man. “Elf, you get the ferry port. Rent a room at Surat Thani and watch the passengers. When you see him get on the boat then you track him down on the island. Do what you have to do to make his visit as unpleasant as possible.”

Elf took his envelope and weighed it in his hand. “It’ll cost more to kill him.”

“If it comes to that we’ll pay you more.” The three men exchanged smiles and stood up. “Well, let’s get to work,” Boss said.

The three stood up and shook hands.

––––––––

TWELVE

Sweet, wet, sobering

JOE CAUGHT the eye of a beautiful a young Thai woman waiting at arrivals. She was tall and thin and wore a black dress with high heels. Eyes like a puzzled doe. He admired the shape of her hips and her rump swaying and twitching in anticipation of someone coming through arrivals. She smiled and it hit Joe somewhere remote and cold. Then he saw it. A western man with two strands of grey hair and an artificial hip stumbled towards Miss Asia. She held her arms wide open and grandpa walked straight into them. It had been almost ninety days since Joe had felt the warmth of a woman or the coolness of a beer. He watched the old man and the beautiful woman like he’d just been shown an elaborate card trick.

Thailand had built herself a new airport, but airports didn’t excite Joe much. They were either a means of escape or a means of coming home. An immigration official unhappily stamped Joe into the kingdom. He walked past the duty-free shops. Booze and perfume. Purgatory was an international destination. It was Bangkok.

Joe stopped at a seven-eleven. He bought a road map and a bottle of green liquid that looked like tea. He headed for the exit. He knew to expect the heat. It hit him the way temperature blasts from an oven door. His breath became shorter. He began to sweat. He lost weight with each step. He put his hand above his forehead to shade his eyes from the sun. The steady hum of traffic from the expressway and the chatter of tourists. There were no other animal sounds. Only humans, snakes, rats, and cockroaches survived in the big city.

“Welcome to Thailand! You need Taxi?” The driver flashed a quick toothy smile. “Where you go?” He wore a blue shirt with narrow shoulders above dark blue slacks. He could have been twenty-five or he could have been fifty. “I give good price. Speak good English.” He raised his left arm ushering Joe towards his beat-up yellow and green.

“Take me to Sukhumvit road” Joe said.

“You speak Thai, no?” The driver asked looking back through the gap between the front passenger seats.

“If you want a tip my friend, keep your eyes on the road.”

“Ah, very good. For me no problem. Me drive same Schumacher.”

Joe got in the green and yellow taxi. They launched forward into several lanes of traffic. A red corolla taxi pulled away behind and slipped into the stream. It kept close. They moved onto the highway and weaved in and out of the traffic. Pick-up trucks, taxis, trucks, sports cars and saloons. A garland of flowers swung wildly beneath the rear view mirror as the green and yellow swerved in and out of traffic squeezing through the narrowest gaps. In the windscreen mirror Joe saw the red corolla getting closer.

“You see the car following us?” Joe said.

“It’s a taxi, same me and you.”

“Lose him.”

“What does it mean ‘lose him’?”

“It means drive faster.”

They moved into another lane. The red taxi kept close behind. Joe turned around and saw the passenger hand his driver a roll of bank notes. The red taxi accelerated. Joe’s cab surged forward. His head hit the front seat.

“He rammed us,” Joe said.

“Ahia!” Joe’s driver swore.

“Drive faster.”

The driver put his foot to the floor. He squeezed through a gap between a ten-wheeler and a tourist bus. The gap closed as the driver took the outer lane on the highway. The speedometer read one hundred and twenty and the engine had more to spare. The driver put his foot to the boards. The needle reached for the sky. Joe held onto the back of the seat.

Joe checked the road map. He found their position on the outer-ring-road. “Take the highway and drop off at soi sixty two,” Joe instructed the driver. They sped past the Bang Na exit. The red corolla was somewhere behind the traffic. Joe relaxed and looked out the side window, skyscrapers and billboard posters, empty lots and factories. David Beckham advertised motor oil with a confused regal expression.

The Bang Jak exit was approaching. Joe saw the corolla in the rear view mirror. It had gained distance. He looked at the roadmap. The car was two lengths behind.

“Make it look like you are going straight, but take the exit at the last second,” Joe told the driver. “Swerve, if you have to.” The driver nodded and kept his speed. The red taxi was now a few feet behind. Joe could make out the gold rings on the driver’s fingers. Behind him a figure wearing a baseball cap peered between the two front seats.

“Now!” The driver swerved onto the exit lane inside the path of a black Mercedes SL. The Merc hit the horn. The corolla had missed the exit. Joe saw the passenger wave a fist at them before they flashed by.

“Good driving S. Take a left and onto Sukhumvit and it’s a hotel on soi eleven.” The taxi driver smiled. Joe folded the map, clicked open his Samsonite and put it inside. They drove over a bridge and into Prakanong. Indian-Thais stood waiting for buses. Traders bought and sold goods on the streets, business schools, temples and high rise condominiums. The Emporium stood tall and proud before. Asoke, Terminal 21. Downtown restaurants, tailor-shops, hotels, bars, massage-shops, pharmacies. The taxi u-turned, took a tiny sub-soi. Pulled up outside the Business Inn. Joe grabbed his case and opened the door. He gave the driver the price on the meter.

“You have tip for me? Your friend break my car.”

“Sure,” Joe handed him a thousand and got out of the car. The driver stood smiling at him. Not a word. Only a smile. Joe wasn’t sure if he had given the man too much cash or not enough. He walked towards the hotel. He would never know. A bellboy opened a door and he walked into a cluttered lobby. Joe guessed it doubled as a travel agency. There were papers and documents everywhere. Accountancy books piled up on chairs and tables. Women pecked away on computers. Talked on telephones. Joe walked up to the desk and handed over his passport to a fat Chinese-Thai who eyed him suspiciously. She gave him the key and he signed the book.

Upstairs he placed his Samsonite on the bed. A twenty dollar room. Dark. Dingy. The smell of decay. He located the air-conditioning control and turned it on. It rumbled to attention. A television set. Wooden casing. A window looked down onto the street below. A small vanity with a chair. He opened his case. He took out his Sony netbook and placed it on the vanity. He also placed there a MP3 recorder, a pinhole camera and a small stack of memory-cards held together with an elastic band. There was also a small external hard-drive for back-up and a good old fashioned hard-back notebook and ball-point pen. He tried the bed. He took off his clothes and wrapped a towel around his waist. He ran water into the bathroom tub and returned to the main room. The coordinator had booked him into a larger more expensive hotel the other side of town but Joe had a habit of changing his accommodations at the last minute. He shaved, bathed, dressed. Beige pants and a Hawaiian shirt. He rode the elevator down to the lobby. He gave his key to reception. The receptionist smiled at him. What was it with the Thai smile? Joe figured it meant more than a simple smile most of the time and wondered why they hadn’t invented the frown.

“Your friend called to ask which room you are in.”

“I don’t have any friends. What did he look like?”

“He was foreigner, same you, old, fifty year old more, smell bad, same dog, smell bad same dog.”

“Change my room. Have the boy move my things. I’ll be back this evening. If my friend comes back tell him that I’ve checked out.” Joe walked through the travel agency and onto Sukhumvit road.

He found Cheap Charlie’s bar and sat down on a wobbly stool. It was a dive. An open-air bar that did exactly what it said on the coconut shell. The time was a little after six pm. He ordered a bottle of coke. Sweet, wet, sobering. The tourists on their way to the bars and the clubs. A middle aged man walked past with a sachet of Viagra in his mitt. The tourist opened the packet and ate the jelly there on the street. Joe’s stomach turned. Shameless. He drank the coke and ordered another. There was a faint urge to order alcohol, but he kept it at bay. What the steps and the meetings had taught him was to not try to resist. To resist meant that defeat was an obvious outcome.

The trick was to not try to try to stop.

The evening fell purple over the polluted city. Dust-masked tuk-tuk drivers steered their little blue and yellow toy taxis through the confused traffic. He watched a legless beggar pushing himself along with his hands on a primitive skateboard.

He thought about the case.

How to solve it?

Gain the confidence of a player and record a confession with video and audio footage. The legality of the evidence in a Thai court of law was a grey area. He had a hunch that those involved were unlikely to be singing. He sat on the problem. It didn’t go away. He had managed to kill off the second bottle of coke in slightly under an hour. The sugar livened his senses. He thought about ordering a real drink, nobody would know, but he would and that was the problem.

Whatever you do never pick up. The coordinator had told him those words. In Bangkok there was nothing else to do but pick up. Women. Bottles. Vice. Picking up was the city’s mantra. There was more stuff to pick up than there were hands to do the picking.

He paid the bill and hit the street.

The dusk-lit pavements were awash with the buyers and the sellers. The street vendors and the tourists rubbed against each other with the vibrant hum of commerce. Arabs in Abaya, drunken Brits in jeans and stripy shirts, Germans waddling in tight-fitting shorts, money belts strapped to their waists and gross moustaches sprouting from their top lips. West African’s in loose-fitting garments. Americans in ten gallon Cowboy hats, Australians in Bermuda shorts and flip flops, Japanese and Koreans in light cotton trousers, golfing shirts. The tourists were a migratory herd passing through the Serengeti. Prostitutes were poised on the sidewalk like lionesses leering at the migration, seeking out a weak or injured animal. The lionesses were Thai, Vietnamese, Laotian, Burmese, Russian, Nigerian, Ghanaian and Ukrainian. They sat down at shop entrances and eyeballed the passing herd. The Russians lounged around in coffee shops making one cup last several hours hoping a passing John would break from the herd and join her table. The Africans sauntered straight up to the herd and grabbed the weaker ones by the limb, pulling them away from the safety of numbers.

The trick was not to catch their eye.

Don’t pick up.

Joe walked into a pharmacy and was greeted by three generations of Thai behind the counter. He asked the eldest for Valium and he nodded knowingly. The pharmacist pulled out a giant plastic container from a shelf below the counter.

“How many you need?”

“One hundred.” He told him. The old pharmacist’s eyes lit up like street lights on a Piccadilly whore.

“One thousand Baht.” He said measuring out the blue tablets.

Joe gave him the money and as an afterthought bought a can of coke that sat in a rumbling refrigerator by the door.

Only in the East.

“You no need Viagra?” The second eldest asked with a boyish smile.

“I no need.” Joe told him “I need norgesic.”

“Yes. Have,” He said. Norgestic was a muscular relaxant, opposite to Viagra; useful in small doses but lethal on higher dosage. The human body relies on muscles, the heart, the diaphragm.

It was good to feel prepared.

Joe wandered back through the market streets. Oil paintings on silk cloth, butterflies in glass cases, silk pyjamas, electric lanterns, samurai swords. He walked past massage parlours and cathouses. He reached the Asoke interchange road and made it over to Soi Cowboy. He stood for a moment at the mouth of the soi dazzled by the neon lights. An Indian nut-seller with a sad smile approached him and Joe brushed him away saying something about an allergy. The neon lights shone above bargirls, cash-carriers and money-boys. Their eyes were wide and predatory. The shape of an elephant trundled along the end of the street.

Joe walked into a bar on Soi Cowboy with neon blue lighting and a beer box pool table inside. A stage with two hopeful bargirls dancing to sad progressive rock. The hooker at the bar had been there since 1986. He played pool and lost money to a girl with cool brown eyes and hands as steady as a surgeon. She shot ball after ball and toyed on the black before shooting it into the top far corner pocket. She probably made a living hustling tourists for money, Joe thought. She probably made a living in other ways too. However she made it. She made it well.

Joe sat at the bar on a stool next to a character that may or may not of been breathing. He wore a full-length raincoat and a panama hat. He was painfully thin with an aristocratic face. He reminded Joe of a photograph of an old CIA man. He guessed there was one or two agents rotting away in every city in every dirty corner of the world. Joe finished his drink. There were some bars in the world where he walked in feeling clean and walked out feeling dirty. This was one of those bars. Outside the streets were beginning to fill with water coming from both directions, rain from the sky, sewage water up from the drains. His feet led him up Asoke road.

Joe found himself in a dark alley.

There were cats everywhere, jumping up and running along the pavements. These cats were acrobatic; they ran up walls and moved fast. They were brown in colour. One brushed past and its hairless tail slapped his calf. Rats. He heard a sound and turned around to see the silhouette of a bear-sized man wearing a baseball cap. Joe stood his ground as the man walked up to him. The man spoke English with a German or Swiss accent. As he got closer Joe could see that his teeth were broken and his breath was a cloud of whiskey and cheap tobacco.

“This alley is a dead-end. There is nothing to see here,” the man said.

“Excuse me?”

“I only came here to relieve myself.” The man smiled. “Bangkok is a dangerous city. Where are you staying?”

“What...”

Joe looked at the man’s hand. They were open and empty. His shoulders dropped as he told the man the name of a road that wasn’t important.

“Go back to the main road, turn left and keep walking. Bangkok don’t take prisoners in the back streets, stick to where the lights are.”

“Thanks.”

The man nodded and Joe watched him face the wall and then heard the sound of a zipper opening. Just a harmless old drunk taking a leak, he thought, and walked to the mouth of the alley.

The sound came from nowhere.

The first gunshot sounded like a sudden handclap. The bullet ricochets off the wall. Joe slung his back to the wall and looked along the alley. Another shot. The next one was closer. Joe felt the impact. He couldn’t see the man. Joe slinked to the edge of the road and back onto Sukhumvit. His shirt was torn and damp with blood. He took a deep breath and swore.

Stick to where the lights are.

Joe’s head hit the wall as he glanced up the alley. The man had disappeared into the shadows. Hiding with the rats. He touched his shoulder. The wound pulsed. He stumbled back onto the road. A tuk-tuk driver was smoking a cigarette at the mouth of the alley.

“What you do?” He asked.

“Get me to a hospital, will you,” Joe said calmly. “I’m bleeding.”

The driver looked at Joe and smiled.

The drivers smile was wide.

His teeth were white.

“Five hundred baht,” The driver said, smiling.

THIRTEEN

A connection for junk and iron

THE GUNSHOT only scratched. The nurse cleaned it up at the police hospital. Joe had garnered similar warnings across the globe. A death threat in Lagos and a close call with a pistolero in a Mexican dive bar. Joe figured if anyone wanted him killed then they would have done the job. The next morning he took a trip to China town and picked up a piece of iron for three hundred dollars. The pocket Glock was sold to him by a Chinese named Chow. The weapon and the seller were recommended by the coordinator. There was a connection for junk and iron in every town around the rock. The connection was always Chinese.

The gun slipped easily into the inside pocket of the dark blue three button suit but it weighed enough to be conspicuous. He checked into the Landmark Hotel while keeping the room across the road.

A Bluegreen representative had agreed to meet at a Japanese restaurant. Dylan took the skytrain five stops. He whistled above the Red Zone huddled together with the commuters. He found the restaurant near the mouth of the soi. He walked inside and chose a table in the far corner. Near the bar with a view across the restaurant. A clear path to the exit onto the street or out back through the kitchens. A dozen teak tables were evenly spaced. Two of the tables were occupied by Japanese businessmen. Butterflies and exotic birds decorated all four walls. Joe ordered a coke from a waitress and watched her gracefully pour the liquid into the frosted glass before inaudibly floating back to the kitchen.

A man entered the restaurant. He had a face like a surprised kitten. He spoke briefly with the waitress. She led him to Joe’s table. He was a little shy of thirty wearing a grey two-button suit with plum colour shirt and tie. Silver rimmed spectacles. Short jet black slick-backed hair. His eyebrows were high. His lips thin. Joe stood up and waied with his palms pressed together and his fingertips level with the bridge of the nose.

“It’s not often, Khun Joe, that Europeans visiting us for the first time wai,” he said with a smile. “It almost makes me nervous.”

“No need to be nervous, sir.” Joe said.

They both sat down and looked at each other across the table. “Have you been to our kingdom before?”

“Yes, a long time ago. I am fascinated by your country. The locals seem friendly enough. Always smiling.” Joe glanced at the menu.

“Yes, the land of smiles. I studied in England, Bristol. I won a scholarship from a provincial Thai government school. Quite something for the family, you understand. But can you imagine a shy eighteen year old Thai boy going to study in England?”

“I can imagine the lack of smiles would kick like a mule on steroids.”

“The first winter I sat inside the dormitory questioning my sanity? How could people stand this weather? How could people eat this food? I made friends slowly. My English in Thailand was better than any other student I knew. And then my English in England was nothing.”

The waitress floated over to the table. Boss spoke to her in sharp snaps of Thai ordering the food. Joe felt a shot of anger that he hadn’t been given the chance to order. He began mentally counting the steps.

“So you came to Bangkok straight after University?” Joe asked.

“No I worked in London for a short time. But I couldn’t afford to live there. My family are not poor, but London prices you understand.”

Joe understood.

They made small talk until the food arrived; grilled asparagus, king prawns, Kobe steak, sushi, sashimi, octopus, squid.

“You know the Japanese have their cattle drink rice wine. They have beautiful women massage the cows,” Joe said.

“Is that so?”

“They are civilised people,” Joe said.

“Yes,” Boss took a drink.

“Yes, but ultimately they are having these animals slaughtered. They are killing them for money. It isn’t very civilised to kill for money, is it now?”

“It is against the laws of karma.”

“Sure,” Joe said. “I’m interested in the divers deal,” he picked up his chop-sticks. “It’s an interesting piece of business. I represent the London insurance office. Your insurers have retained my services to investigate these fatality claims. The last time Bangkok coughed London caught a cold. I’m here to see that no more cows get massaged.”

“And?” Boss said.

“We have some questions. First one. How did this insurance come about?”

“There’s a freelance broker named Hale. He wanted to place the business direct to London. In Thailand we have to go through the appropriate channels which meant finding a Bangkok underwriter. But Hale said he could save money by doing a direct deal. The hotel can book adventure holidays for tourists and if they sign up we provide the insurance. The poor girl that died was a guest at Bluegreen before she went to the island. She signed up for the diving course.” Boss went for the tuna sashimi and dipped it in wasabi.

“Tell me about Hale?”

“A live wire. Ungrounded. Risky. But he gets the business through the door and he knows how it all fits together. It was a nice piece of business. He provided the whole insurance package for half the price of the other quotes we had.”

“Very nice at first,” Joe picked up a piece of Kobe and dipped it into soy. “I need to speak with this Hale.”

“Sure.” Boss reached into his breast pocket and took out a crocodile-skin wallet. He looked through it and then pulled out a card and handed it to Joe.

“That’s most helpful.”

“Mr Dylan, you are our guest in this country.” Joe noticed that his smile was not unfriendly.

“Sure. So where do you go for entertainment in this town?”

“You are the guest Kuhn Joe, what would you like to see?”

“All I need is water, Mr Boss, and perhaps some light entertainment.”

“The Plaza it is then,” he smiled.

“The Plaza?”

“Yes, The Plaza, surely you have heard of it?”

“No,” Joe said.

“It seems to me that you have lived, as they say in England, A sheltered life Mr Joe. I will take you to The Plaza.”

––––––––

FOURTEEN

A debauched utopia

THE PLAZA was like a regular shopping mall except the items for sale moved around and danced. The Plaza had escalators leading up and down. The women that worked there were translators, tour guides, mothers, daughters, carers, libertines, liars, drug users, dreamers, manipulators, business women. They were also products. They massaged cows. They fed the cows rice wine. They could do so many other things for brown, purple and red pieces of paper.

Joe felt his heart somersault as he walked into The Plaza. He counted the steps under his breath. One. Joe watched a transvestite, or was she a transsexual? It was hard to tell. Two. She or he or it sat outside the entrance to a bar. Her long body was wrapped in fish-net stockings and long leather boots. Three. She grabbed at the men that walked past her and took feminine puffs from a cigarette held in a holder. Four. A short Thai girl with large breasts in stockings and suspenders. She appeared intoxicated. Five. She flicked out her tongue like a reptile and beckoned for Joe to enter her bar. Six. He was ready to have the higher power remove all of his defects. Seven. He was ready to walk into that bar and have all his shortcomings removed by the holy one. Eight. It was all too much. Nine. Holy. Ten. Jesus. Eleven. Fucking. Twelve. Christ.

“It started out as a mini-mall and a restaurant area in the late 1970s,” said Boss. “A small number of go-go bars rented the space and the trend continued. Now it is all bars. The largest sex complex in the world, so they say.”

The weight of ninety days was like lead on his shoulders. He had to take one, anyone, and be done with it. To have her in a hotel room, to destroy her before turning the gun on himself. The weight of the Glock in his pocket was reassuring. Nobody would miss him. The steps kept him walking but the steps had never been here before.

What was he stepping towards?

Women were everywhere. They were serving drinks, dancing around chromium poles, playing cryptic games, making deals, promises, hustling tourists, and greeting the old-hands. Neon lights flashed in all directions. Music pounded from each bar. The sounds met in a flurry of beats; a white compost of sound exploded in the middle of the Plaza. It was the last cigarette saloon. The wild east. The last frontier. A debauched utopia that tourists flocked from all over the world to worship. It was either the best or the worst place on earth.

Joe couldn’t decide.

Boss took the escalator and Joe followed him up to the first floor. The air smelled of burnt chilli and cheap perfume. Food was being prepared in the walkways and the bargirls sat outside semi-naked devouring pungent salads. A dwarf stood lazily smoking a cigarette. A sign in his hand. The Thais here knew how to say one word: welcome. They entered a bar through a red curtain. A young cashier in a white polo-neck waved a torch to usher them to a corner booth where they sat and ordered a beer and a soda.

“This is one of the better bars,” Boss said.

Smoke and mirrors. A sudden blast of conditioned air. A large revolving stage occupied the centre of the room. Twenty women shuffled around on the stage. Each one had a number pinned to her bikini. They looked at themselves in the mirrors and liked what they saw. Joe watched number twenty-three smile down at them upon each revolution of the stage. Mirrors. It had been almost ninety days. Smoke. Ninety. Days. She had implants and a tattoo of a cobra snake slithered up from a white cowboy boot. She stood next to a pale skinned beauty with short hair and spectacles. In another life she could have been a librarian. In another world she was. Next to her was a woman with air-hostess legs and a movie-star smile. Next to her was one of the skinniest women that Joe had ever seen.

“Smoke and mirrors,” Joe said.

“These women may have been models if they were born into money,” Boss observed. “These are working girls, mostly from poor families in the Northeast. Here they can earn more in one night than they can earn following a month’s hard labour in the rice fields. Our country for the most part is very poor. They come here to work, and if they are lucky find a husband who can pay for their life. Remember you can have any woman you want here. The price is small but the cost can be enormous.”

“You mean the cost is small but so is the value?”

“Well, yes that. What are they really buying? Is it a dream, an illusion, a little piece of paradise?” Boss said.

“They are buying escape?”

“Yes, a nice way to put it Khun Joe. But escaping from what?”

“Themselves mostly. But they’ll tell you it’s the ex-wife. Ex-husband. Kids. Responsibilities. The way I see it is the lights and the smoke and the mirrors takes them away from what matters. They failed at the stuff that matters. Here they thrive.”

A beer and a soda arrived from the cash-carrier wearing the white polo-neck.

“What is this?” Boss asked.

“It is merely a distraction, a roller-coaster, a waking dream manufactured for tourists. A hooker at the top of her game knows the rules. She knows she can have a boyfriend. She knows that she can marry him. She knows that she can have his children. She can go to his country and meet his family. But she also knows that she can never love him. These girls have standards. These girls have rules.”

“All that glitters isn’t gold,” Boss said pointing to the girl with the white boots and the tattoo. “Her name is Tong. Be careful of the inner-man. He is not working to your advantage. Remember that. Your inner-man will cause you more harm than any girl ever can. The girl lies to you and the inner-man believes the lies. Love is a sickness. Sickness kills,” Boss took a long drink from his bottle of Heineken. Joe looked at the glass of soda water but didn’t pick up. The inner-man was dry. His thigh was being caressed by number twenty- three. She had walked down from the stage and sat herself beside him. She was a cat purring in Joe’s ear. She was a puzzled deer. She was seeing the first winter snow. Her eyes were amber. Her eyes were impossible. She was his destiny and he was her fate. Her body was impossibly perfect. Generous breasts, slim waist, gorgeous smile. Boss spoke in Thai and she walked back to the stage where she danced to hypnotic music.

“The lady drinks are one hundred and forty Baht but contain only coke. The bar keeps one hundred and she takes the other forty. It’s another way for the bar to make money and for the ladies to entertain the customers. One hundred and forty baht for a coke is too much to pay.

“Boss. Have you been to Samui?”

“Many times on vacation. Once on business. I had some business there,” he said glancing to his left with a sudden interest in number twenty-six.

“The diver’s policy?”

“Yes. That. Well, I didn’t have to visit for that exactly.” Boss answered impatiently. He took another drink from the beer and Joe realised that Boss was now drunk.

“Who was your contact there, Boss?

“Well, some contacts are not who they seem to be. We are not at liberty to discuss who it may have been.”

Joe opened his suit jacket just enough for Boss to clock the piece. “I think you are,” Joe smiled. “You see. I’ve come a long way.”

“You can’t walk around with a gun in Bangkok, Joe. This isn’t a movie.”

Joe picked up the glass and sniffed the contents. “Vodka doesn’t smell as much as whiskey but it still has a smell. What are you doing here Boss?”

“It must have been a mistake, the waitress...”

“Fuck the movies. Fuck the waitress. Fuck Ko Samui. Give me a name.”

“He’s a business man.”

“What’s his name?”

“Shogun.”

“Keep going...”

“...Bluegreen wanted to build a hotel on the island. Shogun owned the land. There was a dispute about the price. The diving contract was put together around this time. We made a mistake. His wife set up the contract. She worked as an intern us at Bluegreen. She knew Hale. She knew us.”

“What is Shogun’s involvement?”

“Shogun owns the island. ”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean he owns it. There are some plots he hasn’t yet bought up, but he owns most of the land, the people on it, the property they live in and the way they think. If you are going there try not to make a scene.”

Joe noticed a man in the corner of the bar. Baseball cap. He wore a shirt and dirty trousers. His teeth were broken. The man waved over to the bar-staff. Asked for the bill. He paid keeping his eyes down low and then stood up to leave.

Back to another dark alley.

“Looks like we have company. Shall we get a bigger table?” Joe looked directly at Boss. Before he could speak Joe hit him with a right that came from nowhere. Drinks fell from the table. Boss recovered and stared at Joe like a rat caught in headlights.

“You’ll be fish-food, like the rest of them,” Boss said. “You are in the big league now.”

“Right,” Joe stood up. “Fish-food.” He thought about slapping Boss again. Two gorilla-like bouncers approached them. Joe stood and flashed the piece and walked past them through the red curtain and out into the Plaza. The night was hot and heavy with the smell of cigarette smoke and burnt chillies. The piece felt suddenly heavy in his pocket. He ran along the plaza runway pushing past semi-naked women and tourists. He saw baseball cap bobbing towards the escalator. He looked over his shoulder and increased his pace. Boss was nowhere. The man took the stairs and dog-legged down to the ground floor. Joe pushed past a group of Korean tourists.

The gun was there in his pocket.

He got to the mouth of the plaza and the man was bent over with his hands on his knees trying to catch his breath. Joe grabbed him by the scruff of his collar and pushed him up against the wall. “Not used to running, huh?”

“You are crazy. I’m a tourist the same as you.”

“Okay so you’re a tourist. What the hell do you want?”

“To warn you, that’s all.”

“Warn me about what?”

“I told you before. The city. It can be dangerous.”

Joe looked around. He thought about the gun. Too many witnesses. A crowd of tourists and bargirls had gathered around them. The man’s face was like a tranquilised bear. “Leave the poor guy alone,” shouted an American. “Yeah, let him go,” said a Brit.

Joe let go of the man and watched him fall to the floor. He turned around and walked away from the crowd. He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned. A large man squeezed Joe’s shoulder like it was a rubber ball. “Listen we don’t want your type here.” His accent was from Australia or New Zealand. “You English are all the same.”

“This is none of your business, man.”

“I’m making it my business, pal.” The crowd around them grew heavier. The man continued to squeeze Joe’s shoulder. The man was huge and covered in tattoos. He squeezed Joe’s shoulder. The shoulder that had missed the bullet. “Say sorry to that gentleman,” the man nodded towards baseball cap who was now standing beside them.

“Forget it.”

“Apologise,” the grip tightened.

“Never,” Joe smiled at the man.

The fist that landed on Joe’s nose was the size of a brick and just as heavy. The crowd let out a cheer. Joe fell to the ground and looked up at the crowd. Their faces were white and ugly and masked in justice. He sat in the road and watched the faces disappear. The tattooed monster walked slowly away. He sat there on the sidewalk watching the whores walking past. He began to count the steps.

Step one. They were beautiful.

Step two. It began to rain.

Step three. Bangkok.

––––––––

FIFTEEN

Trash, rats, whores

“MAN, YOU look like you could use a drink,” Joe looked at the man’s scuffed lizard-skin shoes, his black pin-striped trousers, his creased business shirt, and his neck-tie decorated with beer and curry stains. Hale looked like a man who had nowhere to go and was in a desperate hurry to get there. His grey eyes were friendly lamps below short hair matted slightly with sweat. His smile was warm. Heat was the last thing Joe needed. He needed a break.

“You should see the other guy,” Joe smiled.

“Stand up, mate. Best foot forward. You like my shoes? Monitor lizard. Five thousand baht a pair on soi three.” The man crouched down to Joe’s level and breathed a cloud of alcoholic fumes. “Look mate, you may not want my help, you can tell me to bugger off if you like, but when I see a fellow country man in trouble it’s my duty to take him for a beer and bathe in the glory of his misfortune. I’m a man just like you, but my shoes are better. What do you say?”

“I say you’re a bastard and the cobbler saw you coming. But I like you, help me up.”

“Good. My name’s Hale.” Hale offered a hand. Joe grabbed it and pulled himself vertical.

“Pleased to meet you,” Joe stood up and brushed himself down. His pride hurt more than the swollen eye and the grazed shoulder did. Fate was a cruel bitch but she threw him the strangest crumbs from time to time. Fate was the only woman that Joe had known for the last eighty-eight days. She was a bitch but she was his bitch. She was all he had.

“I know a lovely little place not far from here,” Hale said, “A high class joint. Beds instead of chairs. You look like you could use a rest, mate, if you don’t mind me saying. You look like a geezer that fell into a barrel of tits and came up sucking his thumb. You know what I mean?”

“Sure. Lead the way, Jimmy.”

“No one calls me that.”

The mouth of the soi. Across Sukhumvit. Streets, broken pavements, trash, rats, whores, dirty underwear, paperback novels, reading glasses, cross-bows, vibrating dildos, angry birds, drugs, robotic toys, perfumes, sex, dreams. The river of humanity was flowing. Yes, it flowed. Down, down, down, The tide went only one way. Down. Sukhumvit road. The zone. Reservoirs of pleasure. Carnal canals. Lakes of longing, seas of sin, oceans of desire. Down it went. The tide was uncontrollable. African hookers and Isaan whores washed-up on the kerbs. A caravan of drunken Arabs swayed ahead of them. Joe’s legs were like blocks of wood. Shit. The steps were fading fast. Just one, anyone, would do. Step one. They found themselves outside the bed supper-club. Two. Hale stopped at the foot of the stairs to the club. Three. Joe looked at his alcohol ravaged face. “Need to have a smoke before we go in,” Hale said and lit up a Benson and Hedges. He blew out the smoke across the street. Joe watched a drunken farang negotiate the purchase of a kebab. Step four. A cat walked across the road with a raised knotted tail. Five. Six. Seven.

Joe watched the clientele entering and leaving the club. They dressed smartly. Joe guessed they paid for it with new money rather than old. They may have been movie producers, litigation brokers, marketing experts. Perhaps they sold cosmetics or made government policy. Snake-oil, vitamins, interior design, luxury motor vehicles. Red Bull executives. Ferrari dealers. Nobody knew. Everybody cared.

The nightclub was a metal cylinder raised on stilts. It reminded Joe of something he’d seen in a science fiction flick. Perhaps whores and Johns made it inside. Space whores and cyber Johns.

Barberella.

Joe watched a young Thai woman with long legs saunter out of the space-pod followed closely by an old western man in a business suit. She stopped and waited for him to reach her and she put a hand through his hair. She tilted her head to one side. She kissed him. He smiled like a dumb weasel. Whatever he was paying her wasn’t enough, new money or old. She walked a few paces in front of her date and waved down a yellow and green. They got into the taxi and disappeared into the traffic. Some high-tech condo in the clouds where dreams were manufactured with Swedish furniture, delivery pasta, and inherited cash. A place where the holy cow was massaged and fed imported Chilean red.

“Let’s do it, like,” Hale grunted, stubbing out his cigarette with the sole of his lizard-skin shoes. Joe followed Hale into the nightclub and they sat down on one of the stark white beds. Everything was white inside. The floor, the walls and the ceiling were white. Joe felt strangely sterilized by the whiteness. A waiter came over to the table. He was wearing white. Joe glanced over the white menu and ordered steak with fries and a glass of lemon juice. Hale ordered two bottles of beer.

“Healthy appetite,” Hale observed. “That’s good. You’ll be needing it.”

“Tell me about Thailand. How did you end up here,” Joe said, “and skip the parts about the temples and the food.”

“It’s dangerous. But anything fucking interesting always is. I came here because no one else wanted to. Before that I was in China, before that Singapore. How do you like it here, Joe?”

“I like the way it surprises me. I like the way that the women are only after my money. I like the heat and I love the pollution. I like the darkness. I like the whiteness. I like the contrasts and the contradictions. I like the way a guy fires a gun at me and another smacks me in the face. I like lizard-skin shoes. What’s not to like?”

“Yeah, well, she grows on you like testicular cancer, sunshine. Slowly and deadly. You ever had the clap, Joe? Nothing like a dose to put things in perspective. I was in Pattaya. I thought it was all over, mate. It was like my left nut was being tightened in a vice. It had a heartbeat, I tell you, a heartbeat. My bollock was throbbing like there was no bleeding tomorrow. The pain was out of this fecking world. But that’s another story for another clinic waiting room. I know who you are, Sherlock. I heard you are one of the best. The syndicate likes you. I heard you’ve been to this town before. Stick with me son. If we don’t pull in here I’ll take you to the Eden bar. Get involved with some weapons of mass destruction. I hear you are a bit of a player, yourself Joe. Or at least used to be?”

“I’m on the program.”

“On The Program.” Hale mimicked Joe’s voice. “Fecking pussy.”

A white-suited waiter put Joe’s order down on the table between them. “There’s one thing you should understand, sunshine. A little thing about the Thai people. Do you understand the concept of face, greng jai?”

“Tell me about it,” Joe said forking a fry.

“Thai’s will never say what they want or what they mean. Drives you round the fecking bend. They will tell you what they think you want them to say. They don’t do conflict very well neither. They’re fecking terrified of saying the wrong fecking thing, unless it’s behind your fecking Harris – then they go to town. How would your lordship say it. ‘Cowardice protects a tremendous loss of face. Hatred is conveyed through rituals of politeness.’ I’m serious Sherlock. Once your back is turned the knives get sharpened. You got to watch these fuckers, man. Watch them.”

“Sounds kind of backward.” Joe felt the weight of the gun in his pocket. The weight was both a blessing and a curse. Like a bankroll in a strange town.

“You can’t go steaming in asking questions, Sherlock, especially if that person is higher than you in the rich social fabric of Thai society. And remember one thing; they are all above you in the rich fabric because they invented it. It’s their playground. New kids are allowed to play in the sandbox, but they better bring new shiny toys and be prepared to lose ‘em.”

“So these people have their little rituals. They get sensitive. Frankly, I don’t care.”

“You don’t care? Ok. Why? Let me tell you a story. It’s a true story. Do you like stories, Sherlock? Yeah, sure you do. Last week I came home after a hard day at the meat grinders and I fancied a meal with my Thai-Chinese high society girlfriend. I give her a call. I mention Chinese or Italian. She says up to you. So we get to the restaurant, nice place, only just got the table because I’m in with the Italian chef. Anyway Ploy sits there pushing her food around like it’s a shit sandwich. Without the bread. We pay the bill and get in the taxi. She starts crying. The bitch starts fucking crying. I ask what the matter is and she says she’s hungry, that she needs to eat Thai food. I almost slapped her there and then, Sherlock. God help me I almost punched her fucking lights out. These people drive me fucking insane.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Why didn’t I what?”

“Hit her.”

“For fucking cultural reasons, Sherlock. Greng jai. She didn’t want to hurt my feelings so she told me she wanted to eat the Italian food. Of course there will always be those who will take it to the extreme or use it to their own advantage. She knew my heart was on the Italian so she went with it. She didn’t want to cause a scene. She hates conflict. Thais hate conflict, Sherlock. See it all the time. That’s why they’re always bloody smiling. You do not want to cause a scene down there on the island. Especially over an Italian. Rich people are vulnerable and vulnerable people are sensitive and can make rash decisions. Don’t ever push them into a fucking corner. They’re like snakes, man, they will slither away at the first sign of danger, but if there’s nowhere to slither, then watch out, Sherlock. Watch out. These people bite.”

“I have a job to do.”

“Sure. It’s all about awareness. Be aware that the Thais have many smiles including the I’m-gonna-rip-you-apart-limb-from-limb-smile. It turns you into a basket case if you get sucked into it. Go with the flow, Sherlock. This is too much risk for a bloody insurance policy. You want to die over an insurance policy? You want to be the next dead diver?”

“I’m not giving a killer money to do it. You say I shouldn’t investigate him because it would upset him to be seen with his hand in the cookie jar?”

Hale took a long drink from his beer and changed the subject. “The women were fun at first, but now I need new toys. Singapore was the same, Hong Kong. Bangkok is pulling me down. I owe some people some money and I haven’t got what it takes to pay them.”

“What kind of people?”

“Just people.”

“Are they heavy?”

“Well, let’s just say they have creative repayment plans. The guy who baled me out is a brick shithouse muscleman known as the Shark. He is covered in tattoos and well, I’m doing okay. Sharkey knows I’m good for it. When in Rome, do as the Romans do, Sherlock – but don’t be expecting a picnic,” He waved the waiter over and ordered another drink. Hale noticed two women at the bar. “Mine is in the black, Sherlock. You got the one in the pink.”

“I’m on the straight and narrow.”

“The city is a predatory animal, Sherlock. Bar-dwellers are easy pickings. The one in the pink likes you, Sherl. She’s sending out the vibe, bro. We’re the soft targets. We are the ones dropped out of the sky by the big metal birds. We land on the ground and grow up like fruit trees harvesting more of the bird-shit. Look, she’s smiling. I’m not as bad as you think I am, Sherlock. I’m just doing what I’m doing. Maybe you need to look at yourself and stop being so judgemental. As I say, mine is in the black. She wants it. I can tell these things.”

“I’m leaving,” Joe stood up.

“Hey, we only just got here. What you got to go home to? Watson getting lonely? Stay and have a drink. The Long Island Ice Tea in here is out of this world. You’ve earned it. Let’s see Bangkok.”

“I’ve seen enough of Bangkok city for one day, Hale,” Joe stood. He reached into his pocket and took out a purple five hundred and placed it on the table. “Be lucky.”

“Your loss, Sherlock, your loss.”

––––––––

SIXTEEN

Turtle Island.

THE CAT looked up at Rang who towered above it.

Rain hammered down on the house as lightning struck somewhere close by lighting up the room and the terrified expression on the cat’s face.

Rang approached, the animal now backed into the corner.

He grabbed at it. The cat’s body stiffened in his grip. One hand gripped the tendons in the cat’s shoulders the other hand gripped the animal’s head.

He twisted the head around anti-clockwise while holding the body tight.

The cat’s hissing was replaced by the cracking sound of the spine being pulled and twisted out of shape, and then, severed, silence.

Rang dropped the cat’s black dead body on the floor.

Thunder cracked, and then lightning.

He returned to the bottle.

To the storm.

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SEVENTEEN

Turtle Island

SHOGUN POINTED at the young woman singing into the microphone.

The song she sang was impossibly sad.

She bowed to Shogun and padded towards him.

He drank from a tiny cup of coffee. He asked her if she would like a cup, she nodded to the affirmative. He wondered where she was from, not that it mattered. If she had been any less beautiful she would have been miles out to sea working for days on one of the fishing trawlers. She had been lucky, fate had brought them together, perhaps only for one night.

She drank the coffee and motioned with her head that Shogun should follow her upstairs.

He agreed and stood, his muscular body towering over her.

As she lay down on the bed, her long legs widening, Shogun could have sworn that her cheeks were damp.

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EIGHTEEN

––––––––

LATE AFTERNOON was slipping into a cool tropical evening as inspector Rang’s daughter opened the letter. She could hear the sound of his motorbike approaching. Outside the window a flight of butterflies hovered above a patch of purple flowers. Her father had been digging in the garden, fresh soil had unearthed. Chickens pecked at scraps in the front yard. Dogs barked in the distance. She had planted the flowers years ago. She opened the letter. Her heart leapt with joy as she read the words.

She had been accepted.

A moment later her father pushed open the door and walked into the bungalow. Her father. The policeman. Inspector Rang. He took off his aviator sunglasses and rubbed his eyes. She could smell his afternoon. Beer and whiskey. She stood up and bowed. Her father had often spoke about her beauty. How she reminded him of her mother, before it happened, before the accident. Before their lives were turned upside down. He smiled at his daughter and nodded his head. He looked tired. He often did.

“Father? Are you well today?”

“Yes, I am well.”

“The letter arrived from Boston today, father. I have been accepted. I will be the best I can be. I promise.” She picked up the letter and passed it to her father. The exchange program meant everything to her.

It meant freedom.

“This is wonderful news. Your mother would have loved to see this day, Mintra. I wish that she was still here with us.”

“I do too father. I will study for her and for you. I will make you both proud of me.”

Rang sat down and picked up a copy of the Thai Rath newspaper, he looked at the pages. She searched his face for a trace of emotion. She found none.

“Father, I have a question.”

“What is it?”

“I have asked you before, but I am still not sure. How did mother die?”

She had asked before, many times, her father sighed. “You were just a small girl. It was when we lived in the larger house, the other side of the island, do you remember?”

“There was a hammock near the beach. I can remember playing on the sand and learning to swim. I loved it there. Why did we move?”

“Money. Time. Change. Things were difficult after your mother died.” He closed the newspaper and looked at her. She sat and smiled with the acceptance letter in her hand.

“I liked it there, it is nice here, and the school is nearby...”

“Listen, Mintra. Nobody really knows what happened. That night we had argued. She was angered about something and I was at home drinking beer. She hated to see me drink.”

“I don’t like it too sometimes,” Mintra said sadly. When her father was upset he created a silent vacuum. It was her duty to fill that silence with the bits and pieces that she remembered from their past lives. Stuff about mom. But the life that she so desperately clung to was like a house of cards. It stood delicately balanced. One wrong word sent it tumbling to the floor like a gust of wind blown through an open window. And then what? She would have to build a new house of cards built on the very same sands of disillusion. A dwelling that all the time in the world and all the words she could muster would end up destroyed; just like the last one. There were only so many houses that she could build. None of them lasted. Mintra knew that her parents weren’t that special. The evidence was overwhelming. One day she would teach her children that some people are interested only in themselves. She would build her own house of cards. A house that would not crumble. A family built on love rather than guilt.

“What were you arguing about?” She asked.

“Money and drinking. She said that my brother would help us if only I could put down the bottle. I couldn’t do it and I knew he wouldn’t help. There are certain things you learn about somebody when you grow up with them. You are lucky in many ways that you are an only child. The truth is your mother wanted all the things that the other women had. The cars and the land and the businesses. She wanted to be seen as somebody on the up and not on the down. I couldn’t provide these things for her. She resented me. Mintra, if you are angry with someone that is above your social station you resent them. If they are on the same level you are angry with them. If they are below you, you feel contempt for them. Shogun was not prepared to help and I resented him. We had a falling out over a piece of business that I tried to help him negotiate.”

“Where did she go that night?”

“She was found up in the mountains. Her bike and her body were found by the side of the road. A foreigner had been seen in a four-wheel-drive. Just before or after the crash. He was motoring away from the scene. We never found who or what caused the accident.”

“But you have been strong father. You have been both a mother and a father, I am proud of you.”

“I did my best. I am glad that you do not see me as a failure, Mintra. I know you would not say so if you did.”

“You are my father,” She smiled.

“Both Shogun and myself were born and raised in a place and time where taking what you could get made more sense than dying in the fruit plantations paying back endless karma. Shogun believes in karma, but he would do, he has everything he could ever want.”

“And does father believe?”

“I am not so sure. Everything for me has always had to be fought for.”

“It is ok, I love you as you are, father.”

“And I love you,” He smiled. Rang then stood up from his chair and went to the window and looked out onto the shabby front yard – all the land that he owned. His eyes felt heavy. She watched him walk out onto his patch of land. He walked to the shop next door. The old woman smiled and got the bottle of white whiskey from the shelf and poured a measure into a glass. She passed it to him. He drank it. The shot burned his throat. He watched a cloud of bats flapping ungracefully in the dusk. He listened to the sounds of the crickets from the jungle. Somewhere in the distance a tookay lizard called. The old woman poured another. Rang picked up the shot and threw it back indicating that she keep filling the glass. The sun could be seen disappearing from behind the mountains. He glanced at the bold white of his brother’s kingdom up in the mountains. The sky darkened.

Rang knew that the next shot wouldn’t burn him. It would make him stronger. And then what? Then he would finish the bottle and decide how to find the money to pay for his daughter’s scholarship. If Shogun would not share the insurance money he would find another way to get to it.

––––––––

SIXTEEN

––––––––

THE TWELVE hours from Bangkok had been a chance to rest and clear his mind. A chance that Joe hadn’t taken. He had stayed up all night thinking about the case. He had two dead tourists and a large lump of money at stake. Joe figured that the pistol shots in Bangkok were just little boy’s stuff. That the real action would take place on the island. A man could go missing and never found again in the Far East. He wasn’t scared. He believed that each man had a time and place to go and there was no way trying to cheat oneself out of it. If he was supposed to be blown away on an island then so be it. If he was to die in a train wreck so be it. There was no use in being scared of the dangers outside of the comfort zone. The perverts creeping around the woods. The axe murderer in the dark. The casual poisoner. Joe realised that the most dangerous people in this world were the one’s closet to him. He was statistically more likely to be killed by his mother, his father, sister, brother, or lover than the bushy-haired-man-in-the-night. The most dangerous woman in any man’s life was his mother.

Joe was safe.

His mother was dead.

He had no family. He was single. This was by design. It was all about eliminating danger. Watching your guard. Keeping it real. Strangers were safe. Distance from people was agreeable if you were playing the gig for the long haul.

On the ferry top deck he watched the tropical islands approach. The sea was calm. Turquoise. Inviting. A sea eagle soared in the above distance. Joe watched the bird’s flight as it glided above the waters and disappeared from sight behind the peak of a palm-forested mountain. It appeared again this time with another bird. They both soared above and below each other their talons locked together. The courtship ritual looked dangerous, but then again, all courtship rituals were. The raptors twisted and turned in the sky. He wondered about truth. Why the Finnish girl had died and why the man that should have saved her followed suit. The only one who could tell the story was dead. The cynical answer was too obvious: life insurance in the third world was guaranteed to end in a claim. It was too much for them to resist.

The island grew larger. The ferry approached the pier. Joe picked up his Samsonite and slung the strap over his shoulder. He remembered the gunshot wound the moment the weight came down.

The pier. A herd of backpackers. A line of pick-up trucks converted into taxis. Joe followed them and stepped into the loading bay of a pick-up with two rows of bench seats and a roof. Two female backpackers chattered about their adventures opposite him. The first had streaky blonde braided hair and wore leather sandals that were coming apart at the sole. She smiled painfully as Joe sat down. They probably summed him up for what he was: a middle-aged man with alcohol and sex issues who had been in a bar fight. The second woman was Australian, pretty in a natural windswept way, and did most of the talking.

“First time to Thailand?” she asked.

“Yes” Joe lied, “Just come from Bangkok, long journey.”

“We just came all the way from Chang Mai.” She looked at her friend knowingly and then back at Joe. “Without stopping,” she added.

“No wonder you look like you tired,” he told her, “With all those buses.”

“You don’t look very good yourself. I reckon we are probably used to the travelling by now,” She said as that knowing look passed between them again. “We did most of India by bus, six months of it.”

“Not to mention Nepal,” Said her friend.

“And how long did it take you to d
o Nepal?” Joe asked.

“India and Nepal together came to seven months and twelve days,” said the Australian.

“That’s a long time on a bus.”

“Yes,” She said seriously, “It was. We spent two months at a retreat, you know, I want to mediate everyday but I just don’t find the time.”

A voice came from the back of the truck. “To mediate you must first remove the concept of time and then remove the concept of want and then remove the concept of I. Our ISMS – I self and Me. Desire is, erm, undesirable,” said a small man with a little beard at the back of the truck. Joe hadn’t noticed the rodent-like man before. Eyes like a pensive squirrel. “It’s only when you realize that there is nothing that you can do to change the situation that you are in that the real knowledge begins.” He nodded slowly and then turned to the attractive girl, “I can teach you some techniques if you want. Free of charge. I don’t believe in receiving money in exchange for the enlightenment of others. It is a fool’s bargain to do so. We must reward each other with our own individual talents and wisdom.” He stroked his wee beard and continued, “You see Gautama Buddha taught us that we must clear the mind in order to find our inner truth. It is very difficult. But it can be done with the right techniques. With a clear mind we can see a tree as a tree a rock as a rock and we can see ourselves as just an image within the whole illusion that is what we call life. All of life, hopes, dreams, inspiration are a simple flicker in a tree frog’s eye. Let me take you to my retreat here on Ko Samui and we can explore these concepts. Why shackle ourselves to hate?”

Joe had to hand it to the elf. He had the technique down. The two women were ready to fork each other’s eyes out to get to him first. Joe wondered about how men reinvented themselves in the east. They could be whoever they wanted to be. They could grow facial hair and become a guru, harvest civet-shit-coffee or learn to play the guitar. They could become yoga instructors, dieticians, health gurus, chess players, champion ping pong players. They could sit in a little beach shack and read Proust. True success in life was measured by the amount of women you slept with and how you managed to do so without guilt and without paying. The city bankers flashed around their money. The beach bums promoted their poverty as a thing of real value. It wasn’t the product that was important it was what you did with it.

The rat-eyed man was a winner.

It was eighty-nine days.

The truck descended and took a sharp right to a small town by the beach.

Joe rang a bell attached to the roof of the vehicle, the truck braked. A dusty road. Warm sun and the smell of grilled chicken.

The Sea Breeze Bungalow. Lamia. The yellow and red sign was faded by the sun. He walked along the dirt track past a laundry woman sat over a plastic bucket rubbing cloth together. He walked past two locals playing chequers with beer bottle-tops. They were sat on a stone table and spoke lazily as they slammed the bottle-tops down on the board. He walked past a small pack of dogs scratching in the sun. A cat. A bird in a cage. He made it into the reception. He placed a hand on the reception desk. There was a bell but he didn’t press it. A man with a bored expression approached the desk. The walk was not worth the man’s effort. Nothing was.

“Are you full?” Joe asked him. He had a shaven head and a large stomach. Bare-chested with more pieces of body-art than Joe had seen on any man. His face was like a hungry buzzard.

“Not full now,” A toothpick moved around inside his mouth. He picked it out and looked at the end of it. He put it back in his mouth and sniffed, “Up to you.”

“You had a lady from Finland staying here. She died in the sea. Alexandra. I want her room.” Joe looked directly at him.

“Up to you. We no busy. She stay room twenty-four. Why you want to stay in there?”

“She was my daughter,” Joe said. It was the easiest thing to say. The buzzard smiled.

“Up to you. Here key.” The buzzard handed Joe the key. Joe wrote a name in the admissions book. Mickey Mouse. The buzzard didn’t ask for his passport.

Joe walked down a pathway. The crushed shells crunched beneath his feet. The Bungalow stood fifty feet from the beach. A porch with a few potted plants and a hammock underneath a guava tree in full bloom. He walked inside. He put his bag on the bed and drew all the blinds. There was a bed, a chair, and a vanity unit. There was an attached bathroom. Joe ran water into the tub. He sat on the bed. Above him the ceiling fan groaned on every slow revolution before speeding up into a steady hum. Joe unpacked his clothes and placed them in a neat pile on top of a chair. He took out his recorder and checked the batteries. He checked the microphone and recorded some sounds in the bedroom and the bathroom. He recorded on the balcony. He wanted to hear what Alexandra had heard that last day.

Joe took out his camera. He photographed the bed, the bathroom, the balcony, anything that caught his interest. He took a shower and changed his clothes. He walked down to the beach and recorded the sound of the waves smashing against the rocks. Sunbathers waved away the Thai beach-sellers, fishing boats bobbed in the distance. A man with dreadlocks mediated on the rocks. The roar of a jet-ski blasted across the bay.

He walked back past the men playing chequers. Along the beach road the town had grown lazily on either side. There were bungalows and small hotels here and there. Bars and tacky discothèques. Women drank and played connect-four and back gammon with tourists. Here and there backpackers stood in the road reading guidebooks.

Joe reached a building. He couldn’t decide if it was an art gallery or a bar. He liked both so he walked inside. Inside futons and low tables. Oil paintings hung on the wall. Island scenes, harbours, still life in the tropics. There was a bar and an old aluminium coffee machine. The smell of cigarette smoke hung in the air like an angry thought. Joe walked up to the bar. Ordered a soda water with ice. He noticed a woman sat crossed-legged. A futon. She was toying with a chessboard. He stole a glance and noticed her body; tall, lean and slim. Her hair was long and wavy and reminded Joe of the ocean. A sea of hair. Sharp features. A long slender neck. Careful breeding. That hair went on forever. She didn’t belong there but neither did he. Another time. Another place. Her face was a puzzled fox both as innocent and as deadly as the bottles of vodka and rum behind the bar. Joe caught her eye and smiled. He took a sip of his water and walked over to her. His feet felt like blocks of concrete.

“Playing alone?”

“Observant,” she said.

“It’s my job. What’s your name?”

“Gantira.” She looked him up and down. “Been in a fight?”

“Maybe. That’s a pretty name.”

“Yes,” She said.

“Do you work here?”

“No I just drink here and play chess. I don’t like to work too much. I don’t need to.”

“I admire you,” Joe raised an eyebrow. “Would you like a game?”

“Why should I want to do a thing like that?”

“Maybe you like the thrill of winning.”

“Or perhaps you like to lose?”

“It doesn’t matter if you win or lose,” Joe said as he sat down opposite her. “It’s about how much you hurt the other guy. Everybody knows that, right?”

“Looking at that eye you must have killed the other guy. White or black?”

“Lady chooses,” Joe eased himself down onto the opposite futon. He could sense her energy across the table. When the booze left his life in its place was an ability to read people. She was interested, he could tell. He could read her. She was white.

“Very well, I shall be white,” She said. “White may win, black may win, or there could be a stalemate. Exactly how those things happen is where the interest comes. We both know the range of possible outcomes is limited. The good guys win, the bad guys win, or we're back to where we started.”

“It’s a minefield. My friends call me Joe.”

“Who needs friends,” She said, “Unless you have enemies?”

“I have no friends, that’s my problem.”

“Problems are often blessings in disguise. You are lucky nobody cares about you, darling.”

“Maybe. Maybe it means I’m just unlikable.”

“Hmmmm,” Gantira bit her bottom teeth lightly and began a bold offensive. Joe held back anticipating her moves took a pawn and a knight with two simple passages of play. Gantira began to employ the queen taking Joe’s bishop before retreating back to the safety of a reasonable corner spread. He had the impression that she had let him take the two pieces.

“You play well,” She told him.

“I haven’t played since I was a kid. I used to play for the church until the vicar realised that my parents were undesirable. I was kicked out of the club. It was at that moment I lost my faith in the church.”

“A shame. You could have progressed.”

“I did, but not at chess or religion.”

“Sounds like you regressed, being kicked out like that for something that wasn’t your fault.”

“Perhaps...”

They both had a small queue of each other’s pieces by their side of the board. On the board were a king and queen of each side, a stable of pawns, one black knight and a white rook. They played until Joe was captured in check three times before check mate became inevitable.

“I guess you’ve read The art of War,” He smiled at Gantira as he pushed over his king.

“I wrote it,” She said. “You play well in an obvious way.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” she stood while bowing her head and granting Joe a tiny smile.

“Will I see you again?”

“Maybe. I sometimes go to the Beer house at night. It’s touristy but so is everything here.”

Joe watched her float away and sat for a moment looking at the chessboard. The pieces lined up by the side of the board.

Ninety days.

––––––––

SEVENTEEN

OFFICER RANG drove to a small house on the island. He could smell fish being barbequed and hear the waves lapping onto the rocky bay. A pack of dogs barked and a cloud of bats wheeled in the evening sky. He walked down a dusty path to the house. It was nothing more than a rude fishing hut by the water. A wooden shack with a corrugated-iron roof. The land around the shack was owned by his paternal grandmother who was sat inside with the doctor. His grandmother had outlived both his parents and his wife. She was ninety-two years of age and still had most of her faculties. Solid practical thinking typical of the poor occasionally lapsed into snatches of vivid past remembrance. Stories of animal spirits and ghosts. Rang remembered listening to her words years ago with his brother. The days before money changed everything. The old woman’s past memories were a magical insight into the mysteries of the world. Sometimes she stopped half sentence and Rang and his brother Shogun as children would gather round, concentrating on picking up the thread, and wondering why the monologue would suddenly change direction, like a bird in mid-flight. Stories of colourful Thai nobles swooped into bland meditations on the price of fruit in the market...She was fond of amulets... She drank the stories... Rama... Sita... Ravana... Some said she was capable of reading into the future and some said this was just fruit born from a front row seat at the theatre of humanity for almost one hundred years, nothing magical, only knowledge... But what is wisdom if not magic? It is all we have in the end...Her hair was a short shock of grey on an oblong, heavily lined, tanned face. She had been a good-looking girl and woman and entered middle and then old age with a plodding perseverance of character. A young girl in the wake of King Rama IV’s reign and pubescent in the second world war, fully grown by the Vietnam conflict and already an old lady by the time of democratic reform. She had seen many conflicts, but that day she faced the conflict that is ultimately self-consuming. The final conflict. She sat in a squat position and coughed and spluttered as she tried to speak. Her thin body bird-like and frail, her eyes heavy and tired.

Rang waied his grandmother as he entered the house, and he then placed some documents on a side table. Land ownership deeds that upon her signature would free enough money for her treatment. He nodded to the doctor.

“Tuberculosis,” said the doctor “It’s quite serious.”

“Then move her to the hospital. But first I would like a moment alone with my grandmother.”

The doctor left the room and Rang sat down in front of her. He had a set of land deeds in his hand. Her signature would end his suffering.

“I have some documents grandmother. I just need you to sign and then the doctor will take care of you.”

“What documents?” The old lady barked. She looked at him suspiciously. In almost a hundred years she had not found time to learn to read or write. Born in an age where schooling was just becoming compulsory she had somehow kept putting it off. She trusted Rang and his brother the same way a child trusts a snake; with curiosity and excited fear.

Rang reassured her. “For the hospital. The doctor says you should stay a couple of nights and you have to sign the documents for insurance.”

“Insurance? What is insurance?” She coughed.

“Same as a guarantee, to make sure the doctor or the hospital doesn’t make a mistake. We need you, grandmother. Please sign,” Rang said.

“Be careful, luk, be careful...All that shines isn’t the truth. The truth is dull and grey and goes by other names.”

“Yes grandmother.”

“Be careful who’s money you pick up. It is made of tears. It will harm you. Your brother’s money is made of tears.”

“Are you going to let him take everything? Mintra and I have nothing grandmother.”

“So these papers bring out the truth. Daughter’s tears make her stronger. A drunk and money can never to be friends. It’s better to move in shadows than to be found naked in the light. All cats are grey at night.”

“Sign grandmother.”

“Never, you do not smile, luk. When the smile has gone the knife is not far away. When I pass, which will be soon, into the next life I will leave this land to Mintra. She is the only one I can trust with slice of the island, my part of the island. Brothers that fight like dogs. I will never let you have it, never,” She wheezed.

“Have you seen a lawyer?”

“It’s done. Your daughter will profit in my next life, nobody else.”

“Mintra?”

“She will have my land and only her. There is a clause in the deed, she can’t sell for twenty years.”

“Thank you grandmother.”

Rang watched the doctor lead her out of the house and helped her into the back of the doctor’s car. He followed closing the door behind him. He walked to the doctor’s parked car. She sat in the back seat confused and coughing, talking to herself; spluttering.

“Send the invoice for the medical bills to Khun Shogun’s address and I will see that is made good,” Rang told the doctor. He had a feeling that his brother wouldn’t pay. He smiled at the doctor and walked over to his motorcycle. He thought about his brother. A man who owned half the island and intended on squeezing his way into the other half. The man who would see his niece at a government school and watch his grandmother die. He mounted the motorcycle and started the engine. He drove away leaving a cloud of dust behind him.

His daughter would not starve after he had done what needed to be done. He will always be her father. He would stay strong, always.

––––––––

EIGHTEEN

THE BEERHOUSE.  A circular bar. Joe sat at a stool with the backpackers. The travellers. They had dreadlocks. They had skinheads. They wore braids. They had tattoos. They had collective originality. A grey-haired American traveller stood up and began to preach. “I’ve swam with piranhas in the Amazon basin. I’ve played a major role in a Bombay production,” he adjusted his Vietnamese rice-picker’s hat, “I’ve seen things that would drive you crazy, man. There’s a fish man in Chonburi. He lost a wife and a house in a Siamese fighting fish bout. The Thais don’t like to lose. Never underestimate the old oriental face game. This dude calmly handed over the keys to his mansion kissed his wife goodbye and they later found him bobbing around beside the Si Racha pier. You don’t believe it man, just check it out. Google is your friend. Another dude in Japan had a business breading Kobe cows, dude. He had beautiful women who massaged his herd and fed them sake. Best steak a man can eat from Kansas to Kathmandu. He performed a ritual suicide after losing a distribution contract with a retail outlet. Cut himself up like the cattle he was peddling. Dude must have loved his work.”

Joe thought about it. The same old foreign guy drank in every tourist trap in the third world propping up the bar. Spouting out the same tired old kobe bullshit. Maybe the stories were true, maybe they weren’t. It didn’t matter. He remembered hearing the one in Mexico about the dreaded candiru that swam up the stream of a man’s urine whilst he was pissing in the Amazonian basin. The stories about black magic in Morocco. Barbarians in Budapest. There was danger everywhere. Some invited it, some avoided it, and some invented it. Some drank it and stuffed it in a pipe and smoked it. Some shot it in the main line. Some fucked it. Some photographed it and some tried to sell it. Some stuck a firecracker up its ass and lit it.

Joe ordered a soda water with ice. The adventurer was still talking. Joe walked over to him. “You ever see something strange in this town?”

“Shit, yeah. Just the other morning I saw two Thai’s dragging a dead guy into some shop house. It was early morning. I was still drinking.”

“That must of been something. Where did they take him? Was the dead guy a foreigner?”

“Into some fucking dive school. He had dark hair. I didn’t go up to take a closer look. The truck had blacked-out windows. Toyota. Everything about it looked like mafia, I’m not getting involved with that shit, man. That shit’s heavy.”

“Shit happens, man. I’m Joe. What’s your name?”

“The kids call me Hemingway. I’m a travel writer. But my real names Mike.”

“You live in town?”

“Last three years and counting. I got myself a cheap place near the temple.”

“Nice living man. Enjoy paradise,” Joe said and walked back to his bar stool. He took out a notebook from his pocket and wrote a few lines. It would be difficult to get Hemingway to sing in court but Joe didn’t see it coming to that. London could never win in a Thai court. He had other things on his mind. She said that she’d be at the bar. But promises that couldn’t be broken weren’t even worth making. Promises were made to be broken and lies were common currency. Shit, even Hemingway knew that. He figured that she had told him a lie, jai greng. It was her business. Had Alexandra drank at the Beer House? Joe realized he forgot to mentioned the Finnish girl to the American. A foam machine blasted foam onto the dance floor. Maybe she was a mermaid. Maybe she was a witch. Maybe she was both. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time and Joe knew the feeling. He longed for a cigarette, craved a drink, but the steps kept him strong.

Joe looked around. It was a typical hippie hellhole. The bar had been thrown together from local stone, coconut timber and bottles of booze. It had expanded. Plants sprouted out here and there from pots and beds. A small stream with a sparkling water-feature ran through the middle of the joint where a concrete cupid pissed out a stream of water into an oily puddle. The music was trash but that was all that anyone expected. Three beer box tables stood to one side where a large screen projection showed Chelsea losing at home to Spurs. There was a dance floor with a machine choking out foam and lights doing the epileptic blink. Joe lined up another soda and set about it. It tasted like hell. The optics above the bar glistened at him. Johnny, black and red. Jim, good old Jim. Vodka Ronny, and Captain Morgan. All his old friends were lined up above the bar like bullets in a loaded gun. Even the odd one night stand with lady Bacardi or the old tequila temptress had her appeal. He was an outsider looking in at a party that could have been his funeral.

A skinny kid with dreadlocks, an elfish wee beard and a ring through his bottom lip came up to Joe and looked him in the eye. Joe recognized him as the kid from the bus. He was the one who knew all about the mysteries of the east and had a way to massage kali from the cute girl’s knickers.

“How’s it going, kid?” Joe said.

“How. Is. It. Going?” He repeated the question philosophically. “I feel ‘where is it going’ would be a better question grammatically. But since you ask I will need to determine what it is that you refer to as it?”

“Life in general and all that shit?”

“Well shit has been a large part of my life recently,” The elf smiled.

“You and me both, kid,” Joe glanced up at the row of poison. He owed something to each of them. They each owed something to him.

“Are you familiar with colonic irrigation?”

“Not intimately.”

“Well, I am. A detox diet at a resort in Phuket. A rubber tube, laxatives.”

“Shit.”

“The physical vehicle is a cumbersome beast,” He said as he picked at a beer coaster and gazed off into the distance. “Energy follows activity. I feel that my centre is off balance. A disturbance of energy flow, but thankfully my chi is still above the solar plexus. When your chi falls below the abdomen serious illness may ensue. It is a dangerous life. But nobody said it wouldn’t be.”

“I see.” All Joe could see was that the boy had been talking about his ass for so long he’d ended up talking through it. He had taken himself to a retreat on a tropical island and now he understood the universe. Joe had met these types the first time he had travelled around Asia. Sure, it’s great to get away from mummy and daddy and spend some of their money in the process, but don’t try and get all serious about it. Backpackers were tourists who used local travel agents rather than ones back home, and spent longer on holiday because they didn’t have a job to go back to. It was quite simple, Joe considered. He was jealous of them. They had nothing but time and experience to burn. They had nothing to lose.

“I take it you sir are one of those sex tourist types?” The Elf said before ordering a nam som. The orange juice arrived and he took a sip. “Concentrate,” he said. “I hate concentrate. I prefer squeezed.”

“I’m trying,” Joe’s top-lip curled up. It shouldn’t have, but it did. He looked out across the bar. The young Thai women and the old fat sex-tourists. Christ. He wasn’t one of them. He was different. He was working. He was thirty-one.

“Don’t wear yourself out, buster. Sex. Tourists.” He laughed, “

“What did you just say?”

“Sex tourists,” he smiled, “need to preserve their energy.”

Joe felt the anger hit him like a tsunami. “Look just because I don’t walk around with a silly little beard...”

“I can see you watching the young Thai girls, whom it would seem on first impression are of a socio-economic type that, shall we say, work late hours,” The elf said smugly.

“Haven’t you got a tube you should be shoving somewhere...”

“Perhaps...”

Joe sighed, shrugged and turned around on the bar stool. He handed it over to his higher power. He looked out across the dance-floor and then he saw her. The foam had settled and Gantira danced across the floor. The elf saw her at the same time and got up from his stool. “Watch and learn,” the elf said as he licked his lips and walked toward her. Joe watched the elf stride over and touch Gantira on the arm. He said something. Gantira looked at him with a puzzled expression and she began to walk away from him. The elf grabbed hold of her arm and pulled her closer to him. He tried to kiss her. Joe walked over.

“Okay kid. Let the lady go.”

“Well, look who it is? he said. “Sex tourist saves the day.” Joe swung at the elf, aiming for the beard, but he ducked and Joe punched air. The elf brought up his guard. “Hit me,” he said.

Joe swung again and was blocked. The elf danced and then crouched and took Joe’s feet away with a low swinging kick. The kid knew the martial arts. Joe hit the deck and tried to kick out from the floor but it was useless, a sandaled foot cracked beneath his jaw and a flash of surprise preceded an immense pain in his throat. Joe couldn’t breathe and he didn’t want to. The Elf had kicked the wind out of him. Joe felt a blow to the head. He lay on the floor looking up at the flashing lights until one light got larger and larger until it was all he could see.

Then blackness.

––––––––

NINETEEN

JOE WOKE up in hospital. There was a fight in a bar. There was a girl. Then nothing. Thailand wasn’t working out for him. The bright lights hurt his dilated eyes. A doctor looked down at him over a clipboard held just below his chin. He was a foreigner with a brown halo of hair. The doctor spoke to him in a English accent. How long had he been knocked out? Had he been in a coma? Had he somehow made it back to England. That was it. The syndicate had flown him back. He thought about the assignment, about the coordinator, the money. Bangkok and the island. It didn’t make sense. The doctor spoke. He touched his forehead with his hand and let out a painful breath of air.

“How did I get back here?”

“A young woman brought you here in a taxi, I believe.”

“How could I have got back to England, so, fast? Aeroplane, knock-out drugs?”

“You didn’t Joe. You are at Nathon Government Hospital, Ko Samui. Nothing serious, concussion and a dislocated jaw. We managed to snap it back into place.”

“Snap it?”

“This is Thailand my friend, Land of Smiles,” he said with a wry grin. “You can be discharged today, but no more excitement. Concussion is quite serious, I think.”

“Well, I’ve always said that the Thais put the ‘Hospital into Hospitality.”

“Yes,” said the doctor. “Take this slip to the pharmacist, just a little codeine to help with the pain. Are you taking any other medication?”

“No, but I could use something to repair my pride.”

“We don’t prescribe anything like that here.”

“Just a minute Doctor, you might be able to help me out.” Joe eased himself up onto his elbows. He looked at the doctor and something fell into place in his mind. He remembered the meeting with Hale. The policy. The death certificates.

“Go on.” The doctor looked down at Joe impatiently.

“I heard some stories about a couple of diving incidents on the island. I’m looking to take diving lessons. I’m worried about the safety aspect. Two divers have died. You signed the certificates.”

The doctor looked at Joe with squinted eyes below furrowed brows. It was as if he were examining a new unusual deadly tropical disease. “Yes, well unfortunately I am at not at liberty to discuss any other patients that may come through these doors. Doctors oath.”

“But would you be worried about diving on the Island?”

“That right now is the least of my worries. I would say by in large you are safer back in England.”

Joe sat up so he was almost eye-level with the doctor. “You and me both. Tell me about the Fin and the Italian, doc.”

“What do you mean?”

“The job. The death certificates you signed, doctor.”

“What certificates?”

“The ones in the file. I’m from London. The insurance company sent me, sir. How much did they pay you to sign, doctor?”

“I didn’t get paid to sign anything. Now if you will excuse me. I have emergencies to attend to.” Doctor Johnson placed the prescription in Joe’s hand and disappeared through the curtains. Joe could sense the cloud of anger left in his wake. Joe smiled and reached for a glass of water that sat on the bed-side table. He drank it. It tasted terrible. Joe laid back down and closed his eyes and fell into a fitful drug induced sleep. He saw the Finnish girl, he saw the Italian. He heard Jazz piano. It was too late. The coordinator was sat there in the desk in front of him, clicked his fingers and Joe opened his eyes. The coordinator mutated into Gantira sitting at the end of the bed. He wondered if it was one of those dreams within a dream deals. She looked real enough. Her hair fell in spirals beyond her shoulders. Joe ran his hands through his hair and sat up; if it was a dream then it was one he didn’t have any desire to wake from.

“How you feeling Joe?”

“Like I just got beaten up by a tree-hugging-psycho.”

“Well we can’t all be tough guys. Here have some of these.” She put down a plastic bag containing a sliced fruit with green skin and white flesh.

“What’s this?”

“Oh come on Joe, You never have sour mango before?”

“I usually wait until it’s ripe.”

“Well, you wait too long. Have some.”

The sour taste livened his taste buds. Then he tried to bite and winced with the pain. His jaw ached. He realized that he hadn’t eaten for over a day. It was day number ninety. Day ninety and he couldn’t eat.

“Do you have any transport?” He asked Gantira.

“I have a Chopper. You want a ride, Joe?”

“I’ve had enough of Thai Hospitality already. Thanks, for bringing me here... I need to find my clothes.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll get them, Joe.”

She returned with his clothes. Gantira pulled the curtain around the bed and Joe put on his clothes. They walked out of the ward, past the screams of the paediatric unit, and out through the hospital and onto the parking lot. Neatly trimmed gardens circulated around a Buddhist spirit house that glittered with red and gold paint. A boy sat with a pair of scissors cutting the grass. Bushes had been clipped into animal shapes. An elephant. A giraffe. Gantira’s motorbike was parked beneath the shade of a parched banana palm to the side of the admissions building. She strode the low-rider and straddled the seat while starting the engine. Joe got on the back.

“Where did you get the bike?”

“A friend gave it to me. He doesn’t use it anymore.” She revved the engine, the smell of exhaust fumes, away onto the road, up the ring-road, bars and restaurants, colours rushed by, a corner, another turn, the mountains. Gantira parked in the driveway of the bungalow on stilts over-looking the bay. Coconut-shell-hanging-baskets with flowers dangling in pink and yellows. A cat sat on a wicker chair on the veranda. A cockerel crowed in the distance. A large balcony, a pair of men’s sandals.

They stepped into a living area. A painting of a marina hung above the bed next to tasteful Thai silk drapes. Antique bronze statues of elephants and hornbills sat in the corners of the room. A fish tank with one lone puffer fish. A bronze Buddha sat in mediation. A well stocked drinks cabinet sat in the far corner. A leather couch with silk pillows beside a teak coffee table.

Gantira took off her crash helmet and curls of brown hair cascaded down across her back. She hit a switch and the air conditioning rumbled to attention. She walked through to a bathroom. She turned a faucet. The sound of running water.

The coffee table, one solitary cup, the faint smell of lemongrass. He sat down listening to the sounds of her clothes hitting the floor as she undressed. The sudden rush of water. A gentle Thai song.

“Joe? Come here.”

He followed the ghost of her voice. He stood outside the door and listened to her soft song singing, the sound of water against flesh.

“Come in,” she said.

The bathroom was limestone rocks. One wall was a boulder. The shower was above the boulder, and the water fell down it like a waterfall. She stood naked, her head tilted backwards, the water splashed and ran through her wavy hair and down her shoulder blades. Her body gleamed almond. It had been ninety days. Her feet were tiny, almost childlike, growing into slender calves and thighs. Her shapely behind tattooed. Ninety days. Her waist was impossibly slim, hips wide, shoulders straight and athletically broad. She was the most beautiful, well-built woman Joe had ever seen. He counted the steps, but the steps could go to hell. What did the steps know about the beauty of a woman.

Day ninety.

“Joe come and clean my back,” she said.

She turned around, the shower nozzle in her hand, breasts alert like a Gauguin painting. She was alive with sexual energy.

“What’s the matter?” She turned around. Her back was facing Joe once again.

His shirt came off and then the jeans. Joe stepped into the shower cubicle. His body was muscular. She passed him the soap and smiled. She rubbed the lather onto his body.

“In Thailand lovers pass the soap,’ she said.

He lathered the soap and put his hands on her shoulders. He began to work on the shoulders massaging the muscles beneath the neck. He felt his recovery slip away from him with each twitch of his hands. The cubicle was filled with a sweet coconut scent. She began to breathe deeply as the tension in her shoulders relaxed. Her head tilted backwards and she spun around. Her dark eyes looked up into Joe’s. She turned around and cupped him in her hands and gently moved her tiny fingers up and down his curiosity.

“Check mate,” She said. The most dangerous people were those closest to you.

“I can’t do this,” Joe said. He turned. His back was to her as he stepped out of the shower. He slipped on his jeans and grabbed his shirt. “I made a promise.”

“To who?” Gantira took a towel and wrapped it around her wet body.

“It doesn’t matter. I can’t do this,” Joe sat on a cane chair and stared directly at her.

Her beauty was heartbreaking.

“It’s okay, Joe. We can take it slow.”

Joe put on his shirt and walked out onto the balcony. He could smell lavender flowering. A cockerel crowed. Joe’s head ached. He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed.

“Do you like my cage?”

“Cage?”    “I know why you are here.” Gantira’s voice came as a surprise. He turned to face her. She was wearing a sky blue dress.  “I think that you should know who I am. Or at least who I am kept“Yes. The cage may be “Yes it “It “It may be gilded gold, but it is still a cage.”

“Right.”

“A bird inside a cage may spread her wings but never fly. He owns this bungalow, but he owns hundreds. He doesn’t know that I use it occasionally. We are safe.”

“Well, for now at least.”

“We have an agreement. Plus he has many mistresses. I am only his legal wife.”

“And the others?”

“I don’t see much of them. They live in different provinces taking care of other businesses.”

“Sounds like he has it all worked out.”

“I think sometimes that he only took me so that nobody else could have me.”

“I can’t say I blame him.  But this place here...”

“...it’s ours for now. We have another house up in the mountains. That is where he spends most of his time. We are free to do what we like here. He does not love me. I think his true heart is elsewhere, with his boy, Jinx, perhaps,” Gantira lit a cigarette, passed it to Joe, and then lit herself one.

“Tell me about the boy?”

“Thai from humble background he is a great Muay Thai fighter. He is Shogun’s prodigy. Don’t you just love a cigarette. Why do we adore toxins so much?”

“If he were to find us here together he wouldn’t be too happy about it?” Joe said looking at the puffer fish in the corner tank. “Talking of poison. I believe that fish right there can pack quite a punch.”

“He would probably kill you. And maybe me.”

“The puffer fish or Shogun.”

“Both. I was planning to make love to you and then kill him. The puffer fish knows too much.”

“That’s a little bit extreme.”

“Sweet talker, something is either extreme or it is not. I hate him, but he owns me. I am inside a cage.”

“And what would you do if I opened the cage door?”

“I would travel. Fly away. Go somewhere new. I don’t know why I am telling you all this.”

“Well, we all have dreams,” Joe noticed a plane flying overhead.

“Yes, and nightmares,” She said sitting on a wicker chair. He touched her cheek with his finger. She flinched away. Joe walked the length of the balcony, the sky was darkening. He knew when he was being played.

“You deserve better than this,” he said, “Tell me about the police officer?”

“Rang is Shoguns younger brother. He has some remaining morals. Shogun asked him to do a job that involved cutting out a foreign drugs supplier. Rang refused to intervene knowing that any enquiry would lead to the investigation of Shogun as the ring leader of all the drugs supplied on the island. They fell out. Then Shogun did something that for him was beyond evil. Something that shocked even me.”

“Tell me.”

“He had Rang’s wife killed. Or did it himself. I’m not sure how it happened but I know he was responsible. I overheard him speaking to her on the telephone that night. He told her he needed to speak with her alone and in person. He mentioned a sum of money he was intending to give to her to take care of their daughter. He said to say nothing to Rang. She drove up the mountain and a truck hit her on a dangerous curve in the road. Shogun later said to his brother that the death has been caused by a foreigner. He hoped that would help bring him over to his side.”

“Why would you want to leave him, with all the money and the arrangement? And this island?”

“He only gives me a small allowance, like a child. If I had money, real money, I would leave, but it would have to be a large amount of money. Enough to last forever.”

Joe stood and went inside. He sat on the bed and looked out of the French doors. The sky was still darkening. Gantira lit a cigarette and blew the smoke up towards the sky. Her face relaxed as she smoked. Joe watched her every move with interest. He felt tired. The thunder started as a distant rumble barely audible above the humming of the rotator wall fan. Birds chattered as they returned to the trees to shelter from the oncoming storm. Palm-trees shook as the wind caught the leaves. Gatnira stood up, came inside, and closed the patio doors. The rain started slowly at first and then picked up momentum; outside torrents of water crashed onto the ground like a hammering curtain of water. Gantira locked the doors and lay on the bed next to Joe. The thunder was overhead. A tree fall in the distance, thunder crackled, lightening flashed. Quietness was directly above them in the eye of the storm. Then the storm moved over and electricity flashed outside the window. Wind punished the palm-trees blowing them side-ways. A lightning bolt struck ground nearby. A tree crashed to the ground footsteps away from the bungalow. Joe felt his body tense as another lightning bolt struck then fizzled out. Gantira lay on the bed next to Joe, “Hold me,” she said. Joe held on tightly as the storm thrashed above and around them. He closed his eyes.

––––––––

TWENTY

NOK SQAWKED at Rang as he walked up to its perch to examine the bird more closely. The bird hopped nervously from one foot to the other inside it’s gilded cage.

“Don’t worry brother. It’s just the bird. A beautiful specimen don’t you think?”

“Never had too much time for birds myself, apart from those on a plate,” Rang laughed. “I hear the Hornbill is quite toothsome.”

“Have you been to the temple recently?”

The teachings of the Buddha were clear in Rang’s alcoholic mind. The first truth was suffering. Birth, old age, sickness and death. A desire for the unobtainable. The recognition that what is achieved is ultimately insubstantial. Desire was the rat in the trap with the bait there in front of him. Desire was the hooker who lost the John to another hooker because she pushed too hard. Desire was completely undesirable and the desire not to desire was worse than desire itself. The wheel of dharma spun on every day.“Never mind that. Where is the Whisky?” Rang said.

Shogun set the drinks down on the table and poured a generous measure of Mekong into his brother’s glass. He did not pour one for himself. “Drink likes the peasants, brother. You can take a bottle home with you if you like. Drinkers lack ambition, Rang. A workforce fuelled on cheap liquor is easy to govern. They lack any ambition beyond the next drink and are willing to perform the most mundane task to keep the glass topped up. Whiskey drinkers think whiskey. Beer drinkers think beer. Drunks are terribly predictable. They think they are liberating themselves while in reality they are limiting themselves.”

“Thank you Khun Shogun, you are, of course wrong.”

“I don’t require liquor. I can see why some would like to see others drink though. Where I stand the world is clear. I can’t afford the fog alcohol brings me.”

“Sometimes the fog is all I have,” Rang said.

“Exactly. Listen, brother. How does your daughter like a drunk for a father. How did your wife like having a drunk as a husband?”

“Lizard,” Rang swore at his brother.

“Buffalo,” Shogun shouted. “What are you going to do?”

“Why, you think I don’t have the nerve,” Rang advanced on his brother and reached out his hands. His hands gripped Shogun by the throat. “You, fucking lizard,” his grip tightened.

Shogun reached into his pocket and brought out the gun in one fluid movement. He pointed the Glock at his brother’s temple. “Do it, Rang, do it”

Rang fell to the floor. Shogun stood with the gun aimed at his brother. “Move, stand up.”

Rang used the sofa to get back to his feet.

“Get out of here,” Shogun barked. “Don’t ever come back.”

Rang turned to face his brother, spat on the ground, and headed toward the door.

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TWENTY-ONE

Bangkok

THE FLOORBOARDS were wooden and the ceiling low, the few tables in the establishment were empty. Nautical scenes hung on the walls. The air-conditioning was arctic. It was the kind of pub Hale found himself drinking in and after a few pints forgetting that he was living in the world’s hottest city. Hale ordered a Guinness and took a seat near the window. It was six in the evening and the whores walked past going to the job. Not too bad a job Hale decided. You got to wake up late in the day and dress up in party mode. You go to a bar, get bought free drinks, and if a guy takes your fancy, you take him to a hotel and he pays you in the morning. It doesn’t seem too bad a deal on the surface and sure beats crippling your back in the fields. If Hale had been a Thai woman there was no doubt that he would have been a prostitute. Commercial sex was a slot machine. You put money in and sometimes you got lucky. But you knew deep down inside the machine always won. He’d rather be the machine than the punter. Hale drank the Guinness and ordered another. The barmaid looked bitterly at the room around her. Too many cocks and more often than not they were attached to the wrong body. She felt cheated and angered. They were both disenfranchised.

Hale shared her pain.

He paid the bill and walked up Cowboy, the neon lights and the girls spilling out from the bars. That awful stench of som tam salad. Hale walked past the bars like the old Bangkok hand he had now become. Newcomers walked with their eyes darting around in a look of wonder and amazement. A few girls called out to Hale but he simply walked straight on until he reached the end of the road. A man wearing a cap was smoking a cigarette. Hale walked into an internet café and asked to call international. The Thai girl called the number and handed him the phone.

“Hello, Lloyds of London.”

“Put me through to Wordsworth Syndicate please.”

Silence and then a secretary’s voice said good morning.

“Yes, please put me through with whoever deals with the Bluegreen policy. I’m the producing broker.”

“Oh let me see.” Hale sensed a difficult question. “Just put me through to your Asia non-marine department. I will deal with it from there.”

“Ok, Putting you through to Mr Wolfe.”

“Hello?”

“Yes, this is James Hale calling from Bangkok I need to speak to someone dealing with the Bluegreen hotel policy.”

“That would be me but I need to ascertain who you are and who you work for.”

“I work for myself: I’m the retail broker out here in Bangkok. Name’s Hale. I know the situation and I think I can help you out.”

“Go on,” Wolfe said.

“Well you paid out for one corpse already, I know that and the second one is the problem. There could be a third.”

“Yes, we are making investigations.”

“Yes. And he hasn’t come up with shit. I can. I will settle this for you if you can do something for me. I want out of this place. I want a ticket back to London and I want a job back in Lloyds. I can prove that the second death was fraudulent and I will save you from paying out the two million. Provide me safe passage back to the UK, a hotel and a job and I’ll give you all the evidence you need. What do you say?”

“A condition of the deal is that you work with Dylan.”

“I work alone.”

“It is not a request. It is a condition.”

“Ok. It may work. Goodnight London.” Hale slammed down the telephone. Outside the building a man with a baseball cap stared at him. He was ugly. Hale walked to the end of the soi and hailed a taxi to china town.

The Shark fin restaurant in China town wasn’t the kind of place you would want to eat in, but there wasn’t much eating done there. Five or six empty tables littered the main dining area. A dog with dermatitis scratched at his furless belly. Thirteen clocks each telling different incorrect times hung from the far wall. Chow looked up at Hale and smiled; he walked from around the counter and slapped Hale on the back. Chow stood at almost six foot tall with wide hips and shoulders. His hair was long and hung in pig-tails down his shoulder blades. He wore a sleeveless T-Shirt and a pair of army-style combat shorts. He motioned for Hale to follow him to a room beyond a door framed by a beaded curtain.

The room was sparsely furnished; three oriental mattresses sat around a large ceramic opium vase. The vase was decorated in a cool aqua blue with watercolour images of trees and birds. A pipe extended from the bowl and a thin line of smoke rose upwards. Chow busied himself making tea and motioned towards the pipe and the mattress. Hale sat down on the mattress jostling with a Siamese cat for position. He took a lighter from his pocket and lit the black opium on the top of the gauze, the smoke filled his lungs and he sat back and let the drug take effect. A slight tingling in the legs and warmth washed up his back. He closed his eyes. A sudden unexplained anxiety shot through him and then disappeared as he took the second hit. Chow brought the tea and placed it down on the floor. The jasmine leaves were measured out perfectly. Years of practice.

“So what brings you here my friend?” Chow sipped his tea and looked at the cup for a moment as if assessing its worth.

“I need a gun,” Hale said.

Chow looked up into space for a moment. He considered the question but did not answer.

“I do not intend to use it,” Hale added.

“You should never have a gun unless you intend to use it my friend. I will ask no questions because it does not do one good to ask questions about this sort of thing. I can let you have, let me see...” Chow stood up and walked to a cabinet in the far corner of the room. He took out a key and unlocked the door. He took out a piece. “Will this do?” Chow handed Hale a Glock 19, butt-first. Hale dropped the gun onto the mattress, nearly hitting the cat who darted off to the safety of the restaurant. “Standard police issue. Don’t ask how I got it. It isn’t loaded, the safety is on. Do you need bullets?”

“As I say, I do not intend to use it, I just need some information from someone and a gun often loosens the tongue.”

“I see. The gun has made seventeen hits. It’s passed through many hands. Some of them no longer with us. Is there any way I can help?”

“No. I shall see to it.” Chow owed him a favour from a couple of years ago. Chow’s brother had died in a motorbike accident, hit by a truck. Hale negotiated the claim. A substantial figure considering the normal run of things.

“I hope it works out for you my friend”

“Wait,” Hale said, “There is something you can do. I fly to Ko Samui tomorrow.  Can you get the gun onto the island ahead of me?”

“I’ll have a boy drive it down by motorcycle. He’ll load it too. A gun without bullets is useless. The boy will meet you at the airport with a board with you name on it. Although it won’t be your name. It will say, let me think, BANG. Mr. Bang. He will give the gun to you and drive you to where you need to go.”

“Good. I land a little after 4pm.”

Hale lit the pipe again and took a deep intake of the black smoke, his eyes closed and he could see the city of London in front of him. He could smell the bacon cooking and the booze-soaked carpet. He heard footsteps and a door handle turned. He opened his eyes. A man stood inside the room. He wore a baseball cap. He smiled showing crooked teeth, “Some people looking for you Hale. No use hiding anymore. Where’s the money?”

Hale raised the empty gun and pointed it at baseball cap. He stood up. “Don’t worry about me, Jack. I got Buddha on my side. Why don’t you run along and tell The Shark he can wait another forty-eight hours. We’re in the middle of something here.”

Chow walked the five steps to where they were standing. “Now is not a good time,” He put a hand on each of Jack’s shoulders and spun him around. “Walk,” He said. The Swiss spun suddenly and punched at Chow who not expecting it fell back. Hale was face to face with Jack. His finger tensed on the trigger and a gunshot rang out. The slug hit Jack and he fell backwards.

“I thought this thing was empty?” Joe shouted at Chow. “You told me it was empty!”

“I thought it was. I’ll clean this up. Get out of town Hale. Now!”

Jack was on the floor. His baseball cap had fallen from his head. He was bald beneath his baseball cap but that didn’t matter now. What mattered was the bullet that had entered into his brain. Hale stepped over the dead man, ran through the restaurant and disappeared into the crowds of Chareon Krung Road feeling the heat closing in behind him.

––––––––

TWENTY-TWO

Samui Island

JINX KNOCKED on the bungalow door and listened for any movement inside. It was the third bungalow he had tried. He watched a lizard run across the wall. It’s tail disappeared through the crack between door and frame. He tried the door. It was unlocked. He opened it. A foreign man was lying on the bed asleep. The pills were in his pocket. Rang had telephoned him two hours before. The instructions were simple. Find the farang and drug him. He had a history of alcohol abuse. An overdose of sleeping tablets. A neat plan. If the authorities came sniffing for an autopsy with toxicology reports then they would let them have it. If the farang awoke then he was to take him to Rang and then dispose of him. He had not spoken to Shogun to confirm the plan. He figured it was his boss’s idea.

Jinx smiled and walked towards the figure on the bed. It was Joe Dylan alright. Thirty-one, average build, short hair. Jinx didn’t speak. He saw a glass of water on the table beside the bed, he approached closer. The man in the bed moved suddenly like a frightened animal. Jinx grabbed Joe by the arm, grunted, and pointed with his lips toward the door.

“Tam aria nong?” Joe looked at the Jinx. He didn’t struggle as he told him to keep calm. His eyes panned around the room as if looking for something. Jinx’s squeezed Joe’s shoulder. Joe didn’t cry out in pain. He had been in this kind of situation before. He had been in worse situations. He had a strong mind. Normally foreigners would break down and ask for pity. Not this one. He was tough.

“Bpai,” Jinx said. Go.

“Bpai ti-ni? Me fon-dtok maak. Bpai ni mai di,” we can’t go anywhere in this rain.

“Bpai!” He repeated.

“Ok,” Joe told him to take it slow.

Outside the rain was hammering down. Jinx found it difficult to see more than a few feet in front of him. He dragged the farang and bundled him in the back seat of the truck. As they drove night fell. Jinx kept one eye on the road and the other on the rear view mirror. Joe was calmly looking out of the side window. Joe smiled. “What’s this all about?” Joe asked. “A bit rude to wake me up like that and not even have the courtesy to tell me what this is all about. I’m guessing you are Jinx. Shogun’s boy. The fighter. I like the way you drive. Say, maybe I could watch you fight one day. Sit ringside and cheer for the other guy.”

Silence answered him. Jinx stopped the truck. The darkness was broken by a string of fairy lights hanging from a row of trees. Inside, the lights were low; a few tables sat in front of a stage decorated with the same coloured lights. They went inside. Jinx pushed Joe towards a booth and he sat down. He ordered drinks from a girl with a Khmer forehead and a strong frame. Good bone structure. She nodded, disappeared into the darkness. On stage a girl sang a slow sad song about lost love. She was heavily made-up wearing a gold-coloured sarong that reflected the coloured lights. The Khmer girl returned with the drinks. A bottle of Thai whiskey, a bucket of ice, soda, coke, and three glasses. Joe nodded a thank you and smiled.

Jinx waied at a figure barely visible through the darkness of the bar. A tight uniform joined the table; he looked at Joe the way a jeweller might look at a fake stone. He nodded and grunted. He glanced towards the stage and caught the singer’s eye. She put down the microphone and gracefully walked towards the table. She put her hands together and bowed to the police officer. The music stopped. Rang sat down. The girl sat next to him.

“Joe Dylan investigator,” Rang said in near perfect pronunciation. “I am inspector Rang. It has taken us just twenty-four hours to find you. The number of police on Ko Samui are small but we have good resources. A bit naive to break into the deceased’s bungalow. You are not afraid of ghosts, this is good. In our country spirits are everywhere. Those that left the earth at a moment of danger, or violence, these are the most dangerous spirits. Do you understand?”

“Dead people don’t scare me as much as live ones do, inspector. Why were you so keen to meet me, sir: Thai hospitality?”

“Yes.” The inspector smiled. “This is it exactly. We want to assist you in your investigations and we are upset that you did not come to us in the first place.”

“Well, I can’t say that I have really began any kind of investigation yet. Of course, I should like to interview the doctor who signed the death certificates.”

“I believe you have already met.” The chief laughed. A single strand of hair attached to a mole on his chin moved around like an antenna as he spoke. His lips were carpeted by a thick moustache. Joe couldn’t see the man’s eyes behind the bug-like aviators.

“And the bodies?” Joe asked.

“We have photographs of the bodies for your inspection, along with the death certificates. All you need to do is have a little look, telephone London, and all this business can be put to rest.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“This is a tourist island. I speak English. I know who goes where and who does what. Every day that this matter goes on the newspapers are printing more and more garbage. There are now two newspapers for Ko Samui along with the national and international newspapers. I don’t need to tell you what this sort of thing does for our tourist trade. I am here, Mr Dylan, to assist you in your investigation, but first let us have a drink.”

Rang poured a generous measure of whiskey into a glass and handed it to Joe. It wasn’t the officer’s first of the day. He held a leather case. He put it on the table. Joe looked at the glass and then he looked at the case.

“I took the liberty of picking up your mail from the postal depot.” Rang opened the case and handed Joe a UPS envelope. Inside was a file. Jinx watched Joe flick through it under the dim lights; death certificates, medical reports, grainy photocopied pictures of the dead divers.

A plate of fried grasshoppers arrived and Jinx helped himself to a handful. He enjoyed the salty taste. He chose the largest specimen and popped it into his mouth, he smiled. An insect leg protruding from his lips.

“The Buddha says you must find your work and then work at it,” Rang said. “Ko Samui is a small island; it is not difficult to understand what each person is doing. I have lived here all my life. I have seen the first backpackers with their ideas about paradise and how they can make the island their own. I have seen the land bought and sold and bought and sold. My wife was killed by a tourist. Everybody wants a slice of paradise but nobody knows the cost. Everybody wants to be like a Thai person but they want to have big money. Thai people do not have big money. Yes we have beauty, but you cannot eat a sunset.”

“But you can a grasshopper,” Joe said.

“Try one. You will be surprised.” Rang pushed the plate towards Joe who picked out a juvenile grasshopper; he looked at it and took a nibble on one of the legs. He took another, larger specimen and crunched it between his teeth.

“So when do I get to see the bodies?”

“You have the death certificates already. The bodies have been incinerated.”

“And what about the deceased’s next of kin. Could I have their details?”

Rang shot a glance towards the stage, “When I was last in Bangkok I saw an old beggar strapped to some rough boards on wheels. He was without legs and his stumps were covered with rags. He pushed himself blindly along the road; his face looked up to the night sky as if to curse his blind faith. A whore threw a coin at him and it bounced of one of his stumps and into the gutter. He knew then what he was up against. Do you understand?”

“No. Franco was in charge of both the dives?”

“You don’t understand Mr Dylan; take a look at your file. Mr Franco was the second casualty. He was the blind limbless beggar on top of the boards. He was the casualty.”

“And his dive mate?”

“He dove alone. Like the beggar, alone in the world until, it happened. Now he is with her, maybe.”

“What about the boat, a witness?”

“He dove off the rocks to the south of the island. There is a traditional story of a poor man that died when he was ordered to do so. It was a nonviolent death. He accepted his fate and was glad to be of service.”

“He died alone?”

“Yes, very unfortunate.” Rang smiled.

“It could be considered fortunate seeing as he was the only witness to the first fatality.”

“You must drink, and if you like, choose one of these sing-a-song ladies.”

The atmosphere on stage was one of total depression; to take one of these girls would be like taking a dog to the edge of a cliff and making it jump.

Joe took a long drink from his glass. It had been ninety days. Ninety days of not picking up. Ninety days of sober reflections of his past. Ninety days of hope. Joe felt the alcohol liven his senses. He felt an immediate sense of danger. He knew the moment that the glass left his lips the mistake that he had made. He swore under his breath. The lights in the bar seemed to move. As if they were dancing to the strange Northern music. He picked up the glass again and drank the contents.

Jinx knew the time was right. He stood up and brought his forearm down onto Joe’s forehead. The karaoke girl screamed. Joe threw a fist which stung Jinx’s jaw. Jinx lifted the foreigner up from the chair and threw him to the ground. Rang stood and watched the kick boxer deliver a flurry of blows.

––––––––

TWENTY-THREE

The Gulf of Siam

HALE SAT on an aisle seat. Window seats made him nervous – What happened if you had to use the crapper? Nothing worse than climbing over a sleeping body when the beer was taking hold. The flight to Samui was only an hour, but the Thais knew how to sleep. Hale had seen them asleep standing up on busses, on the back of pick-up trucks, shop girls asleep at counters. Oh yes, the Thais knew how to sleep. The plane was a seventy-seater prop job that blew around the sky fuelled by hope like a sweet-wrapper in the winds. Storm clouds loomed outside the cabin windows.

Hale caught the attention of the air stewardess and ordered three beers. She smiled at Hale with a trace of resentment. The first went down quickly. The next two would have to last. As he drank the beer Chang the storm blew the aircraft from side to side. Hale began to sway. The Thais began to wake up. A Christian on the next row began to pray. Children screamed and women cried. The trolley rolled down the aisle. Hale drank his beer and opened the next one, holding it like a newborn. He closed his eyes and relaxed as the propeller airplane shook. It would be soon. The London winter smog and a proper beer in a pint glass. Football on Saturday afternoons. The sound of autumn leaves crunching underfoot. He had it all to come.

There was a P.A. announcement, something about turbulence, not panicking. Hale worked on the next beer. The way Hale saw the case was simple. A woman dies on the island. Shogun makes a telephone call to Boss who wants a piece of the claim. Boss calls Hale and they put the claim together and send it to London. London panics. A foreigner has swallowed seawater on the island. They think the girl’s family are prepared to play ball. Hale puts together a claim and thanks to Carmen London accepts and pays the claim. The funds are sent from London to Bluegreen’s Bangkok bank. Then the funds go to a subsidiary bank in Dubai. Funds whizz back to Ko Samui. Funds shooting all other place. Money, money, money. Boss and Shogun split the cash. Finnish embassy tells the family there was no insurance coverage. Alexandra’s family don’t see a penny.

Then there was another fatality and alarm bells rang in London. They send out a detective with insurance knowledge but no real grip on the country. Hale flicked through the claim file once more. First port of call is doctor Johnson.

The propeller plane flew through the storm and touched down on the tropical tarmac. Hale picked up his bag and stepped onto the shuttle bus that ferried him across the airfield to the terminal. He had no luggage to wait for. At arrivals a man held up a board with Mr. Bang, written on it. Hale walked up to him and spoke in Thai for a few moments. They walked over to where a Honda CBR stood beneath the rain. The rain was pouring down as they rode to the hospital. The driver slipped in between traffic. Bangkok had sharpened his wits. Ko Samui was like a Sunday drive, rain or no rain. They made it to the hospital and Hale went in and spoke with an orderly. She gave him the name of a bar that Johnson drank in. They arrived there minutes later. Hale tried to hand the rider a pile of notes but he refused to accept them, said he was being well paid the other side. Hale nodded, good old Chow.

The bar was in a side street of Nathon. A thin man with a halo of brown hair was beyond the point of being merry, but not yet at the stage of drunkenness. The bar was simply a few empty bottles of spirits that lined the shelves above the bar and a glass-fronted fridge that rumbled in the corner. A clock with different species of birds to mark each hour hung above the bar. The time was currently a Stork past a Golden Eagle or a quarter past twelve. Hale sat on a stall next to Johnson who was the only customer. No bartender in sight. Hale had timed it right.

“So what do you do in this town then, apart from drink?”

“I perform...” said the doctor.

“What are you a dancer?”

“Operations. Amputations, fusions, fractures. It’s all these bloody motorcycle accidents.” The doctor waved his hand towards the road outside by means of explanation.

“You like Thailand?”

“Sure. I like Thailand. Just can’t stand the bloody Thais. And by bloody I mean bloody in the literal sense; those covered in blood.”

Johnson had a sense of humour, a good thing thought Hale, he’ll need it.

“What about those drowned in seawater, sufferers of unfortunate diving accidents which never happened, yet had their death certificates signed by one doctor Johnson? Murdered foreigners? You know anything about that?”

“I know nothing about that. Can’t you see I’m drinking? I never talk about work when I’m drinking and I never work while I’m drinking.” He took a long drink from a cocktail glass to emphasize the point.

Hale pulled out the Glock 19 from his hip pocket and pointed the nozzle in the doctor’s stomach. In his other hand he held his mobile phone on record. He placed the telephone on the bar.

“Now doctor, I want you to read this message clearly.” Hale passed over a piece of A4. “Read it.” Hale turned on the recorder.

The doctor began to sober up, “Are you threatening me?” He looked at Hale with an air of authority that they both knew he didn’t have. Not anymore.

“Well it certainly looks that way doesn’t it?” Hale was remembering the days when he used to deal with situations. Council estates back in London. The old magic was coming back. “The gun’s loaded. No point having an empty one, is there?”

“But you wouldn’t dare.”

Hale clicked off the safety and shot the semi-automatic across the bar splitting a Gecko in two pieces. The top portion of the lizard ran up the wall leaving his tail and hind feet behind. The doctor made the kind of sound a little girl makes when she sees a spider. “Read it,” he repeated.

The doctor read “I doctor Johnson signed two death certificates for two fatalities. Surat Thani Thailand. I had not seen the bodies referenced on said certificates or inspected them in any way. As such I cannot confirm that these persons are in fact deceased, or if they are deceased the circumstances surrounding their deaths.”

Johnson began to sob slightly, “But I only signed one certificate, the Italian.”

“It would appear that your signature is on both certificates. Perhaps the authorities have copied your signature onto the other document. Forgery is a crime, but you would know all about that now wouldn’t you?”

Hale passed a piece of paper with the same statement written out in black and white. The Doctor drunkenly signed the paper. He picked up his glass and took a long drink from it. He looked at Hale. “You can put that thing away now,” he said pointing at the gun.

“I will not use this document for a period of forty-eight hours. That should give you enough time to get off the island. And I suggest that you do get off the island and move away from Thailand. Take up a new hobby. A new career. I hear there’s big money in civet-coffee. Good luck.” Hale pocketed the revolver and the recorder and headed outside the bar. The time was now a Goldfinch past a Hornbill. Time to see his old friend.

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TWENTY-FOUR

THE TRANQUILLIZERS weren’t enough for the big sleep. The flurry of blows were meant to intimidate rather than kill. He knew the barbiturate sensation. Joe had a taste for downers back in the day and had kept up his resistance. A few each night to cure the hangover the next day. Those were different times. The tolerance and the strength stayed. Nonetheless, he went through the motions and allowed himself to slump head first down on the table. He felt his heart slow down but not to the point of stopping. Sleep was very close but he could fight it, allowing his body to go limp as they lifted him up and carried him to a vehicle bundling him into the back seat. The engine roared to a start and they moved along a bumpy road. He decided to give the kick boxer a taste of his own medicine – or two just like it. He felt the plastic medicine bag of valiuim and norgestic in his pocket. He opened the bag and began to crumble the tablets together into a fine powder. Above the sound of the engine Joe heard crickets and tree frogs and surmised that they were travelling upwards into the jungle. The road wound around and the momentum helped keep him awake. The smell inside the jeep was terrible; at once recognizable as the stench of blood and death. Joe pictured a hospital bed with a body lying face upwards, a dead man in a diving suit. Joe had always been aware of death as something that will happen; just a case of how and where and when. It was the fear of dying. Clinging on to life that weakens a man. Letting go made him stronger. Joe’s eyes begun to slowly close. He heard a mobile telephone ring and a man speaking in rapid fire Thai, but he couldn’t make out a word of the conversation. The truck changed direction and then came to a stop and turned around; they were travelling back down the mountain towards the beach.

Joe started to count to keep awake but the numbers got to five or six and then he had to start counting again. One.. Two...

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TWENTY-FIVE

HALE HIRED a motorbike and headed on up into the jungle, the light was poor but he was led by an intuition. It had stopped raining. The Thais drove on the left. Somehow he knew just where to go, past the coconut trees on either side up and around the winding jungle road, he found himself behind the metal gates that spanned the perimeter of Shogun’s compound. He dismounted the motorbike and pushed on the intercom button. Hale had known Shogun for a number of years; they had met in a Bangkok go-go bar back in the days when the licensing hours were longer and the nights were a little crazier. Shogun had warmed to Hale immediately. He had made a point of shaking hands and offering Hale the best seat in the bar. He was the main share-holder. They talked about how to avoid hard work. Hale explained the way that international insurance works. How a claim is processed and settled. Shogun nodded and smiled throughout the whole conversation. Hale had not noticed at the time but in hindsight a plan was hatching in Shogun’s mind; a plan that he has pulled off once and was trying to pull off again. They had met several times since under business circumstances. Once at the mansion.

“Chew aria?” A voice croaked through the intercom.

“Khun Hale. Open the gates.”

“Hale?”

“Yes. Just tell Shogun that it is Hale from Bangkok and I need to speak with him.”

A few moments passed and then the gates opened. Hale entered between two pillars and knocked on the door with his knuckles. The door was opened immediately by a young Thai woman, long-legged with long curls of hair falling down to her waist. She was wearing an orange sweater, and pink sunglasses rested on the crown of her head. She was exquisite.

“Gantira. You look as beautiful as ever.”

“Come with me,” Her tongue flicked out like a serpent’s. Hale felt a sudden shudder of sexual tension. Shogun was sitting on a low level couch. The room was filled with priceless ornaments, relics from Angkor Watt, Ayutthaya and Sukothai. A large bird perched inside a cage. A Persian rug with intricate decorations had been thrown across the marble floor. Hale sat on an Italian leather sofa opposite Shogun. Gantira sat on a floor cushion. Hale came straight to the point.

“What’s this claim with the Divers, Khun Shogun? You know I respect you like a brother and I hate to see you slip up in this kind of way. We are friends for a long time, but this bothers me.”

Shogun motioned to the girl. “Gantira, you are free to go.” She stood up looked at them both slowly and then left the room.

“Look, you took the one and a half million and we both know that money should not have been paid. I want to look after you and I want you to look after me, but you cannot cheat the London market, they have power, they have money. More money and power than we can imagine. We have to play by their rules. If you withdraw the claim then there will be no more problems, no more investigations. Bluegreen will not have to suffer the consequences of an international scandal. You get to keep the money and everybody is satisfied.”

“There is one problem that remains. It bothers me.”

“What is it?”

“A question of face. If we are to walk away from the second claim it would indicate that the first one wasn’t as it should be. I think we should keep moving it forward. Perhaps a third claim. This time an unidentifiable Englishman.”

“Who?”

“Why? You, Mr. Hale.”

“What...”

“You know too much and I can’t count on you keeping quiet. I could shoot you and put your body in a diving suit, feed it to the sharks.”

“But we are friends.”

“A friend wouldn’t come to my house and talk to me the way you have. A friend would show respect.”

“A true friend would try to help. That is what I am doing.”

“I beg to differ.” Shogun scratched his neck, thought for a moment and then walked to the drinks cabinet. He opened a drawer and took out an automatic. “You made a mistake in coming here Hale. A grave mistake.”

“Look. I’ll keep quiet. Today never happened...”

“...I am sorry my friend. This is the end of our friendship. Consider it as a termination of our business agreement. I would have thought you understood it is not about the money.”

Hale didn’t have time to reach into his pocket as Shogun fired the gun. It hit Hale in the shoulder; the entrance wound a tiny dot like that of a pencil mark, a spot of vermillion. A stain began to spread on the cushion behind his body. His head fell to one side and then with the sudden pull of gravity Hale slumped into the sofa. Shogun heard a sound. Gantira was sobbing. Shogun looked at her and then looked at the sofa upholstery. “Get this cleaned up.”

She looked at him. “I am afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“He looked at me before he died...”

“...and?”

“You know what happens when a man looks at you just before he dies.”

Shogun knew the superstition only too well. He who dies with eyes open will haunt whoever his final gaze rests. “Get it cleaned up,” he said. Gantira bent down and put a hand on Hale’s body. He was still warm. Shogun got up and slowly walked out of the room and through a corridor into a room to the rear of the mansion. A Buddhist shrine. A large gold plated Buddha sat cross-legged in the position of enlightenment. Two candles burned in the room, one for each victim. Fresh garlands hung from the walls and a picture stood on the wall furthest from and opposite the Buddha. Shogun bowed three times before the image, his hands touching the ground as he lit an incense stick. He placed it in a small bowl containing some sand and the stubs of previous incense sticks, previous kills. He closed his eyes and tried to free himself from the shame that washed over him. He detached himself from the act as if it were predetermined. He was helpless to intervene. He sat there motionless for many hours. He felt as if he were hovering over himself, looking down on a person he used to be in a previous incarnation; a person who took what he wanted and gave little in return. He flew over the island, his wings casting a shadow upon every nook and cranny.

He walked upstairs and saw Gantira sat on the balcony.

“Come inside,” he said.

She walked slowly inside. Her husband grabbed her by the waist and wrestled her onto the bed. “I know what you have been doing,” he said, and then he slapped her across the face. “Do not speak.”

Gantira lay on the bed shaking. Her husband advanced smiling. “You have neglected your husband. What is it these foreign men have? What is it that you need?” He unbuckled his belt, folded it in half and then hit her across the legs and the chest with it. She brought up her arms to defend herself. Her body tensed and then relaxed. She closed her eyes tightly. Her tears were impossible.

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TWENTY-SIX

ON THE beach a hammock hung between two palm trees. The sun rose blood-red above the coastline. Jinx was sitting on a stone table with a tile chessboard embedded on the face. An empty bottle of Mekong and a glass sat beside him. Joe eased up from the hammock and stood. He looked at the man in front of him; there was no possibility of fighting him and winning. He was a hulk of muscle and tattoos.

“More drinks!” He said to Jinx in Thai.

“Arai wa?” Jinx replied.

“It’s the morning and I am thirsty. What can we do?”

Jinx smiled and walked towards a wooden shack. Joe put his hand into his pocket. He could feel the mix of drugs now a fine powder. Norgestic and valium.

“We think you sleep long time.” Said Jinx in English.

“I sleep already,” Joe told him. “Now I am full of sleep.”

“Why you not die?” Jinx said as he put down a bottle of Thai rum and three glasses. “One glass for me, one for you, and one for the ghosts of your friends.”

“Did you see them die?”

“I see nothing. Maybe I have died, and I’m now a ghost.”

Joe pointed over to a fishing vessel on the horizon.

“What they fishing for?”

Jinx glanced over. Joe sprinkled the powder into his glass. He didn’t see it.

“Gung,” – Prawns.

“Chop de Krwap,”

“Cheers.”

They drank down the Sangsom rum. Joe drank his drink, smiled, and sat back down in the hammock. It had been over ninety days. Ninety days of no drink and no women. Ninety days of hell. Ninety days of questioning reality. Ninety days of counting steps and handing over his life to the higher fucking power. The rum tasted good. It tasted like somebody somewhere had put the lights on in his stinking life. Sure his shoulder hurt, his jaw ached, he felt slow and tired. He had been beaten up and he had been shot at. He was sat on a Thai beach with a man that was being paid to kill him. But the rum tasted good and there was no denying taste.

The fishing boats were sailing closer to shore. Birds sang in the trees inland. The rum rushed through his system. Ninety days. He picked up the glass and drained it. Step one. He was powerful and capable of making his own decision. Step two. He believed in the existence of a little bag of powder could deliver him from insanity. Step three. The whiskey, rum, whatever it was tasted like heaven. He poured another one without mixing it and drank it straight. Jinx was talking. His words were a background noise to the booze symphony in Joe’s head. The relapse had awoken him. The new day was dawning.

“You farang are so stupid. You take our women, but only the women that we do not have the time for. You are welcome to them. You have money, but you not have money for long,” Jinx smiled. His smile was like a shark’s smile – four hundred million years of self-assured security.

“Tell me little brother,” Joe said, “What do you dream about? When you go to sleep at night.”

“Being the champion. Being number one.”

“How do you know, once you have got there, when will you arrive?”

“It’s easy...”

“You know what I dream about?”

“What?” His words were sleepy. The tablets took little time to take effect. Jinx’s eyes became heavy.

“This,” Joe stood and brought up a knee to the kick-boxer’s chin. Step four. Jinks rolled back from the chair and sprang to his feet. Five. “You’re a violent messenger, Jinx, my boy. But so am I. It’s a message from London.” Joe hit him again. Step six. He tried to stand. Joe picked up a chair and cracked it over his back. Step seven. The chair splintered into pieces. Step eight. Jinx hit the sand and made the sound of a wounded animal. He got back onto his feet and kicked at Joe. He caught him on the hip. Nine. Joe charged the kick boxer, throwing his weight at the smaller man. Ten. Jinx hit the sand again. Joe put his boot in. The tablets were taking effect. Jinx’s body became limp. Step eleven. Joe smiled. What the smile meant was anyone’s guess. Jinx groaned. His tongue hung out from the side of mouth. A mouth wide open trying to draw in oxygen. He fell down onto the sands and his legs thrashed for a moment. Grains of sand rose up into the cool morning air and then fell back down again. His hands touched his throat and then he stopped moving. Blood spilled from the corner of his mouth. The final step. A cat was sitting on a nearby chair. The cat yawned widely and stretched its claws. It raised a knotted tail. Joe breathed and looked down at the kick boxer. It was over.

Jinx’s pockets held a set of keys. The jeep was nearby. He fired the engine and drove along the beach dust tracks before reaching the main beach road. Rain began to fall on the road. The sound of dogs barking on the roadside. Joe drove towards the bungalow. The island was a simple lump of rock in the sea. He came to the place. It was quiet. He walked up the steps to the bungalow. His body ached for another shot of rum. A cat slept on the hammock and a towel was hung out to dry. He took the towel, wrapped around his fist and punched his fist through the window. He unlatched the window and opened it. He cleared away the shards of glass and lifted himself through the window and into the bungalow. The only sound was that of the wind blowing through the brass wind-chimes.

He headed for the drinks cabinet and poured some Johnnie Red into a glass and knocked it back. He looked at the shelf and something caught his eye. It was the bronze Buddha. The statue looked offended. Joe reckoned he had a point. It had been ninety days. He looked at the offended Buddha. Next to the statue was a fish bowl. Inside the bowl a puffer fish swam lazily. There was a treasure chest in the fish bowl. Joe stood up and put his hand in the tank. He pulled out the chest. Opened it. A waterproof plastic bag. He opened the bag. There was a piece of paper folded and placed inside. He opened it. He took the paper between his thumb and forefinger, and he pulled it out, stood, and opened it. There was a crude hand drawn map and a note:

Joe,

...Look for the most beautiful house on the island...

Love,

... a bird inside the cage.

Attached was a crude map drawn in pencil and a memory stick. Joe pocketed them along with the letter. He walked out past the cat sleeping on the porch and he got back into the jeep. He pictured the map in his mind, the large house on the hill. The roads were silent. Buffalo grazed in patches of open land and the calling of migrating birds as they flew across the island. A monitor lizard stood smiling beneath a banana palm. There was something about the lizard that made him feel uneasy. He had a premonition.

Joe stopped the truck behind some rocks on a small incline facing the front of the property. He got out and stood in a patch of undergrowth to the left side of the entrance. The jungle above afforded both shade and shelter. He crouched down and observed the long driveway and the entrance to the mansion. He froze noticing a rustling sound that made his nerves twitch. Then he heard a sound like air escaping a tyre. He instinctively knew what it was before he saw it. He spun around to see a king cobra coiled, it’s eyes level with Joe’s. The snake’s body was brown with white and black stripes. Its beady eyes glowed in the semi-darkness of the shade. Joe remained still transfixed within the King’s striking distance. The snake was an arm’s length away and remained still as Joe slowly touched the ground and felt for a weapon. He gripped a piece of wood and brought it up suddenly. The movement caused the snake to spit venom at the stick and then the snake lunged forward. It’s fangs held on tightly to the stick. The stick was an extension of Joe’s body. Joe lifted the stick with the serpent still attached and stood up. It’s body reached the ground. Joe threw the branch away from him, the snake holding tightly. The snake landed, dragged its body around and took one last look at Joe before slithering back into the jungle.

He breathed out deeply and swore inwardly. He walked up to the metal gates and then along the perimeter wall. He saw an area where the brick had crumbled and reasoned he could climb it. He walked through the jungle the other side of the mansion grounds until he found the place to the west of the building. Fig vines had grown up the wall and Joe managed to climb the vines before reaching the top. He jumped over to the other side. There was an offensive smell, outbuildings and large cages, inside there were wild cats and dogs. One large cage housed a family of sad-eyed gibbons. He walked past the animals and crouched behind a wall. He surveyed the area dividing his position from the mansion. There was a sala with a man sat inside. He had his back turned to Joe. He crept forward keeping his head down. He reached the sala and looked at the back of the man sitting there, he was still, and Joe realised that he must be sleeping. He sprinted past and reached the west wing of the building. A door was open and he let himself into a large utility area. There were washing machines, filters, a water dispenser. He walked past into a kitchen and then padded down a corridor, past a Buddhist prayer room and into a larger room. A bird perched inside a cage in one corner and eyed Joe suspiciously. A large desk sat along the window looking over the front lawn. Joe opened the drawers one by one. He suddenly felt a presence and spun around. A short powerful-looking man wearing a golfing shirt and chinos was standing by the door smiling.

“Most of my guests make an appointment, Mr. Dylan. But I was wondering when we would finally meet,” he said. “Please sit down. I have been waiting for you.”

“I am ok standing for the moment,” Joe looked over at the caged bird. “Do you mind if I take a closer look? A Rufus-necked hornbill, I believe.”

“Yes. One of the rarest species. In the wild this bird would find a mate and then seal herself inside of a cavity, rock face or a hollowed tree. She would make herself secure whilst the mate would find food and feed the female through a hole in the cavity. If something should happen to the food gatherer, then the mate would perish inside the cavity. Of course in captivity the bird handler takes the place of the mate. I have fed Nok since she was a chick. But I do not think that you have come here to talk about birds, Khun Joe.” The smile remained on his face. “I believe you have come here to steal something that belongs to me.”

“Where’s Gantira?”

“Oh, you know women Khun Joe. They love disaster. They seek it out, rush towards it like ants to sugar. The sweetness consumes them in the end. That sugar-coated smile means little to the outsider. The hand closes the sugar pot, they die inside it. She was a victim of her own success.”

Joe smiled. “Of course she was. I would like a drink. Something sweet. Is she still alive?”

“Yes, what would you like?”

“Vodka, no ice.”

“Certainly,” Shogun walked over to the drinks cabinet and began mixing the drinks. “Have you filed your report?”

“I haven’t. We have the evidence, as you probably know, in several locations.”

“The evidence you have is not worth the paper it is written on, Sir.” Shogun handed Joe a tumbler and then sat down on the sofa. He arched his hands in front of him. “Consider this: An English doctor named Johnson and an English insurance broker named Hale in Bangkok have both conspired to try and cheat our legal system. The Insurance man’s signature is on all of the claim documentation, and the doctor, who was in fact an impostor, signed the death certificates. They were in cahoots. Do you see?”

“Clever tyrants are never punished,” Joe took a drink. It was like an old friend. A chance meeting in a busy street. Waves of tension evaporated. Step one. He was powerless.

“But the foolish ones are always punished. Do you know what they do to foreigners in a Thai jail, Joe?”

“No,” Joe could feel his mind drifting somewhere it had been before. The weeks of sobriety were all history now as he listened to the crime-lord speak. Step two. The belief that a higher power existed.

“It depends. The older and uglier foreigners are usually left alone to do their time. They are not seen as a commodity, just a chink in the system. They improve their Thai language. Non-government organisations bring food and basic supplies. They get through their time and maybe learn from it. If you are old and unattractive prison may come as a welcome break. But Joe you are not young and you are not ugly. A good-looking young foreigner arrives in prison and he is highly-prized by the alpha males. He is a commodity. They make him a special place in the prison and then charge other inmates to visit. They dress him up in women’s clothes and keep him with the transsexual inmates, who help loosen him up. Usually for the first few months the alphas have to hold him down while the inmates visit, but after some time he becomes passive and accepts his fate. Perhaps he even enjoys it. But the commodity becomes old and worn out and the inmates need a younger model. He is replaced by a younger man. The old convict doesn’t know if he should be relieved or upset. He is no longer valuable within the system. He spends the rest of his time confused and in pain. His life is in tatters. He has been ruined.”

“Perhaps he deserved it.”

“Perhaps he did. It is not about the two million. The two million means little to me. Look out the window, Joe. I will soon own all of this. You have come to our island to try and cheat the system.”

“Your life has given you one face, Shogun, and now you are going to make yourself another.” Joe looked around the room. “When does this desire stop consuming you?”

“Let me further explain.” He looked out of the floor to ceiling window to the postcard perfect view of tropical jungle and the beach below. “You are out of your depth here; this is not your place. This is not your system. Our story is better than your story and we have the Government to prove it. You cannot win, Khun Joe.”

Shogun sat on a sofa and lifted a cushion revealing a semi-automatic underneath, “I keep leaving these things around, Joe,” He stood and pointed the gun at Joe. He kept talking. “Let’s see. Where was I? Ah, yes. The investigator decides to flee along with the other two fraudsters. It is impossible to trace his whereabouts.” The smile remained on his face.

“It is easy enough for Westerners to disappear in the East,” Joe said.

“Yes. What are they going to do? Send out a detective to look for a detective?” That smile looked like it was permanent. The safety clicked.

When a man is two foot away from you with a gun in his hand you have a chance, a slim one, but a chance. When he is ten foot away and point blank range you have no chance. Two foot away you can knock the gun to one side and you have a chance at getting a hit in with whatever is to hand. Joe looked around. Nothing was to hand. It wasn’t fear that Joe felt at that moment. It was a kind of excitement. Step three. He handed everything over to the higher power. He may have even smiled as Shogun’s finger tensed on the trigger.

Joe heard the shot. Then he saw Shogun looking at the smokeless barrel and then looking down at his stomach. A confused expression crossed his face and then he touched his stomach with a finger. A spot of vermillion on his shirt grew until it was a large bloody stain. He licked his finger and then slumped forward onto his knees. Behind him, stood a Thai woman with long wavy hair and a .22 in her hands. “We don’t have much time.” Gantira said.

“The bird has spoken,” he said.

“The octopus is gone,” she replied.

The last word. The last breath. Shogun slumped down on the carpet. Nok ruffled her feathers. Shogun’s body fell into the foetal position. Blood seeped out. He had become his dream. He had become an island. An island surrounded by a sea of blood.

“Gantira, come with me.”

“No. It is safer if we stay apart.”

“But what about you?”

“I will think of something – Go!”

“But...”

“Joe, the cage door has been opened. Now the bird must fly.”

Her eyes were moist. He held her. She looked at him directly “Go now and be careful,” She sniff kissed his cheek and turned and padded out of the room. Joe stared into space for a moment and then paced to the hall and out of the front door. He sprinted up the path to where the jeep was parked.

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TWENTY-SEVEN

THE SEA was rough. Joe bought three cans of Thai Beer and sat on the deck drinking. The steps were fading into the distance. He bought another three and sat back down. It was good to be back. A group of five backpackers shared a joint top-deck. They flicked through guide books and exchanged adventures. European men sat with Asian women. Joe imagined taking Gantira to a remote island. Making love and drinking cocktails. He pictured the sun setting over the Andaman coastline. Waking up early and swimming in the Andaman Sea. Leaving footprints in the white sand on the way to a beach restaurant where a breakfast of fresh fruits is served with tea from Chang Rai. He would then open a long Russian novel and retire to a hammock and lazily read the pages comparing the cold hard fiction with the wondrous reality. Maybe he would have a massage on the beach before a lunch of fresh seafood. He gazed across the gulf. There were many Islands, not all of them hostile.

As the ferry moved into the dock Joe saw the police reception. He took out his mobile and called The coordinators emergency line. “Sir, its Joe. I need a Lawyer. I’m on the ferry. Surat Thani. Thailand. A man has been shot.”

“Joe, calm down. Sit tight. We have our connections. I have anticipated this moment. Tell them nothing. Our man will be at the station as soon as he can get there.”

Joe joined the line of passengers waiting to disembark. Each passenger was having his or her passport checked by the line of police at the end of the ramp. Inspector Rang pointed to Joe as he walked down the gangplank. Two officers pushed through the crowd and pulled him off the boat using more than the force necessary.

At the station Joe was photographed, fingerprinted and then led down to a detention room. Two other prisoners were inside the cell. They spoke in a strange low-pitched language. Probably Burmese refuges trying to make some money working over the border. They ignored Joe and he returned the compliment.

Several hours passed. Joe paced the cell. He tried sitting in various positions. In the end he slept huddled in a corner. It was blank dreamless sleep. He woke up to find one of the Burmese with his hand in his pocket. The other Burmese rushed around and grabbed his hands and held him.

They attacked.

Joe kicked at the first refugee and managed to land one hit. The rest of his blows were blocked. It was useless. The Burmese punched and Joe blocked. They were powerful. Buried under a pile of blows he heard a Thai voice shouting. The two prisoners backed off. Joe’s lip was cut and he could feel his eye swelling. Confusion and anger filled his mind. The alcohol had worn off leaving in its place a feeling of deep emptiness and despair. His head ached terribly and every muscle in his body was tense and tight. His hands shook. His throat was dry. He could not remember the last time he had ate. And then it came back, the insect, with inspector Rang. The karaoke bar. The beach.

Joe dug inside his jeans pocket. Inside was something very small and rectangular, Joe still had the memory stick. A guard came to the cell and opened the door; he was led back up the stairs and into a room with four chairs, a table, a tape recorder and a television screen. Seated in the room were Rang and another highly decorated officer. Also present was a Thai gentleman, mid-thirties, wearing a black Italian suit and grey shirt and neck tie.

“Sit,” Rang pointed at the chair opposite him and muttered something in Thai into the tape recorder.

“I take it you are aware of the offence?” He asked coldly.

Joe said nothing.

“Then let me show you.” He switched on a computer and then he switched on the monitor screen. The image came alive. It was shot inside Shogun’s mansion. The closed circuit surveillance footage showed Joe walking into the room. He walked over to the desk and opened a drawer. Then he turned around. Shogun could be seen walking into the room. The picture flickered out of focus. “The tape ran out at this point,” he said. “My brother was found today dead, shot to death by a British detective who had hatched a conspiracy plan with two other British men to falsify and claim insurance monies.” Rang toyed with his whisker. “Is that not how it happened?”

“One moment,” the man in the suit put a hand up. His hand was opened palmed. A gesture of peace. “I request five minutes time in private with my client.” He had an air of authority that Rang disliked, but he relented. Joe sensed some history.

“Go ahead,” he said leaving the room with the officer close behind.

The Lawyer was grey of hair with a youthful face. He handed over a business card and laid it face up on the table. His movements were cool and smooth like a Salamander emerging from beneath a shady rock.

“My name is Chalung. There are two types of people in the world. Those that make things happen and those that things happen to. I make things happen to those that things have happened to. Does that make sense?”

“Yes,” Joe smiled.

“There is Thai law and then there is me. I know both. I’m retained by the syndicate. You are working for them, so you are my concern. I don’t lose. I either win or compromise. How did they treat you downstairs?”

“Beaten up by two non-Thais.”

“Good. A bit of brutality always works in our favour in a farang case.” Chalung flipped open his briefcase and took out a point and shoot camera. He clicked off a couple of pictures of Joe’s face. “I’m aware of the situation you are in and have an angle to get you out of it. I have spoken to Wordsworth and the coordinator on my way here. I take it we make a deal. Do you agree?”

“Yes.”

“Right. On one hand we have a closed circuit camera picture of you inside the mansion. You have a reason to be there, investigating insurance fraud perpetrated by the deceased. On the other hand is the story crafted by the officials. It will take a long time to sort out if we decide to go through due process.”

“Right. All I want to do is walk.”

“I figured that. The police mentioned the deceased had a gun in his hand. Where is that weapon now?”

Joe shook his head. “There are weapons stashed all over the house. It was only a matter of time...”

“You took it with you and lost it. Ok. We have no gun and so no self defence claim. Don’t look too upset, if there was a gun than the police would have removed it from the scene anyway. I am working on the angle that there was no one else there.”

“So what’s the angle?”

“There are many angles and I know all of them and each one reflects badly on officer Rang and his dead brother. The deeper they look into this, the worse it reflects on them. They do not want to take this to court, it would all come out in the wash and Rang would probably lose his position.”

Rang entered the room followed by his colleague.  They both sat down. Rang turned the tape recorder on looked at his notes. He watched as Chalung turned it back off again. The lawyer smiled slowly at each officer in turn.

“Gentleman, we all know where this is going so why don’t we cut the bullshit and talk about the numbers. Rang, you have enough blood on your hands already and I am surprised that you have the audacity to pull this man in. In fact, I am surprised that you are still at your post. Thailand is changing, Ko Samui is changing.”

“You always were a little piece of shit Chalung. Made yourself rich by protecting farang.”

“Thank you,” he replied, “but I am a piece of shit beneath the buffalo’s feet, the buffalo will trip and fall on this piece of shit. For this piece of shit is slippery.” Chalung brushed his hand through his hair and continued. “Now, my client offers to reward you with one million baht to cover the costs of your investigation, which, let’s face it, will lead to you hanging yourselves.” The smile remained as if chiselled on his face, “Do you agree with these terms?”

“One million is chicken feed. One million is bullshit.”

“Well, that sort of money could put your daughter through college. Think about it.”

“My brother was worth millions.”

“Yes, well the will hasn’t been read. This money is real. It’s what my client is offering. It is money on the table. If you want to fight this thing, well, I have friends in media, I have friends in Bangkok. It seems that you have a mountain to climb, Rang. My advice is not to climb it.”

Chalung looked at Rang and held his glance until the policeman began to shake nervously.

“You think I don’t have friends? You think I don’t have connections, you fucking lawyers all the same think you can change the system.”

“You crooks are all the same, you think you can change the law. One day the law will be the system. It is my dream that one day corruption will be part of the system rather than being the entire system. My client had a gun pointed at him by a known criminal. That criminal would have killed him if a third party had not intervened.” Chalung opened his hands and then closed them suddenly. “It is a nonsense case and we are offering you money to see it as such. Bail one million. One million baht to let this innocent man free. I hate to think what would happen if he didn’t have London behind him on this.”

Rang turned the tape recorder back on and spoke. “I will detain the prisoner until further evidence is gathered. I will keep you up to date Mr Chalung.”

The officer, who had remained silent through the interview, took Joe by the arm and led him back downstairs to the detention room. He understood little English and having just endured the arguments in English was feeling confused. Rang had intended to keep him out of the picture. There were a million reasons why he would want to.

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TWENTY-EIGHT

THE NEXT morning a junior officer opened the door to the detention centre and Joe was led upstairs to where Chalung sat smoking a cigar at the front desk. He was blowing smoke rings in the direction of the desk sergeant, who upset by the blatant disrespect, knew better than to complain.

“They took the million, I have paid this out of my own pocket, but London reassures me that they will pay back the bail plus my time and expenses within two weeks. You are free to go Mr Joe.” Chalung smiled through the blue cigar smoke. “We cut the deal.”

“How did you do it?”

“It’s what I do. Keep hold of my card, you may need it again. Also we took the liberty of collecting your case.” The lawyer reached under the desk and picked up Joe’s Samsonite. He placed it on the desk. “Everything should be there.”

“Does the syndicate think of everything?”

“Risk limitation, Joe. You are free to go back to London and file your report. Let’s just look at this as a job well done. The syndicate has had to pay out a few thousand dollars and will not be paying out for the Italian. The corrupt policeman gets enough money to keep him happy. Everybody is happy in the land of smiles, Joe.”

“It’s over. It is that simple.”

“From where I’m standing there seems to be no more problems. The assured keep the money from the first claim and Wordsworth quietly denies the second.”

“Sounds wonderful.”

“It is what we do.”

Joe shook the lawyer’s cold hand and walked out of the station. Outside the sun blinded Joe for a moment. He took a motorbike taxi to the train station and walked up the steps to the railway station. He smiled at the ticket man.

“Bangkok Express,” he said.

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TWENTY-NINE

RANG PICKED up the telephone and grunted into the receiver. It was Shogun’s lawyer. He stood with the telephone in his hand listening for several minutes. His face twitched. “Nothing... You mean he has left us nothing?...Who...Jinks the boy?....But he...His heirs...Shit...” He put down the telephone. He had left everything to the boy who had died in the line of duty. The boy’s parents would receive everything that Shogun had stolen. Maybe they would come to live on the island, or more than likely they would sell everything and then lose the money gambling and helping out old friends. Rang slammed the telephone down on the desk. He punched the wall. There was a bottle in the drawer of his desk. He opened the desk and then opened the bottle, he drank half. He felt better. He undressed. His police uniform he folded and carefully hung in the wardrobe. He dressed in jeans and a polo-shirt. He looked at his face in the mirror. He took off his sunglasses. He drank the remaining half of the bottle and then he took a razor blade and began to shave off his moustache. He got a pair of small nail-scissors and cut off his whisker. He found a cigarette and lit it. He unclipped his gun from the holster and placed it in a smaller holster that he concealed under his belt line. He slung a courier bag over his shoulder. He went downstairs. His daughter was sat on the sofa reading an English language book. He walked up to her and then crouched to her level, breathing whiskey fumes over her face.

“I’m doing this for you and for your mother,” he said. “We have always been a poor family. I have tried my best and I have failed. I have one last chance to redeem myself. To give this small family what it deserves. Do you understand Mintra?”

“Father why are you going out dressed like that. You always wear your uniform.”

“Please. Do not ask questions now, my darling. I am going fishing,”

“Is it to do with uncle?”

“He is not your uncle anymore, Mintra.”

She gave her father a confused smile and returned to her studies. Her father walked over to a filing cabinet and opened a drawer. Inside he felt the shape of his Glock. He looked over his shoulder. He slipped the gun into his messenger bag and zipped it shut. He took the speedboat back to the mainland and made it to the station in time for the train. He jumped aboard and found an empty compartment. He sat and waited. He opened his bag and felt the gun between his fingers.

He felt both calm and alert.

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THIRTY

JOE BOUGHT a first class ticket for a compartment to the rear of the train. The train vibrated and then lurched forward towards the capital. The journey would take several hours. Enough time to write the report. He took out a piece of writing paper and began to make some notes. Notes that would turn into a report that would eventually be read in London by an Underwriter who would skim through with minor interest, and then put the report to one side without too much thought. Then that underwriter would have a three-pint-lunch and a tuna-fish sandwich. The story was of course incredible. He left out the smaller details. After a few pages, Joe put it down on the seat and the paper flew out of the window. That was why he had the netbook he reminded himself. He opened his case and took out the Sony and turned it on. The blank screen was just that. Joe watched the scenery rush past outside the window. Cattle egrets sat atop of buffalos picking at the insects that fixed themselves to the docile beasts. Children worked in the fields, picking fruit from the trees. Now and again a small village flashed past, chicken and geese pecked in the road.  His mobile telephone rang.

“This is Joe here.”

“Joe the superstar investigator?”

Joe recognized Hale’s voice from Sukhumvit. “Hey thanks for helping out.”

“Congratulations. I would smile, but it hurts. I took a slug for you pal, one day maybe you can return the favour.”

Joe asked him what he meant and Haled filled him in on his trip to Ko Samui, the doctor, the mansion. “How have they fixed you up?”

“Gantira got me out of the place while Shogun was meditating. Made it to the hospital. Stitches. Internal bleeding. Missed the major organs. The bastard didn’t kill me. Sometimes I wish he did. I haven’t had a drink since...”

Joe felt a weight come crashing over his shoulder. The netbook fell from his lap and landed on the compartment floor. Above him Rang stood with his teeth bared and shoulders tense. He had the Glock 17 in his mitt. Joe acted fast and kicked at the man’s legs. He stumbled and Joe made it to his feet and went for the gun, it fired and a shot blasted out the window. Joe brought a knee up to Rang’s groin and his grip loosened on the Glock. Joe grabbed at it and Rang grabbed his arm. They wrestled with the gun, arms out of the window. A kick to Rang’s leg made him release his grip and the weapon fell to the tracks below. Joe remembered the story about Rang’s wife, the accident. He hit Rang with a right hook. The investigator swung back and Joe ducked under Rang’s arm. Joe rolled out of the compartment.

He stood. His mind raced as he ran along the train, past bemused passengers. He looked over his shoulder, Rang was closing the gap between them. Joe kept running until he could run no further. He had reached the end of the train. He turned with his back to the track, either side the doors were wide open. Joe could see the track whistling past. Rang came crashing into him. He wrestled Joe to the side of the carriage and Joe felt his body slip through the door he grabbed onto the carriage and began to pull himself back into the train. Joe held onto the carriage, his legs dangling out of the train, Rang above him. His feet scuffed the track. “You still miss her don’t you Rang?”

“Who?”

“Your wife, you still miss her. A foreigner didn’t kill her Rang, your brother did. Your brother did it to get back at you Rang, and now he’s dead too.”

“You lie!”

“It’s the truth,” Joe grabbed onto something, it was Rang’s ankle, he pulled himself up and put Rang off balance. He fell to the compartment floor and Joe got to his feet. “That’s right he killed her and then he made you do the dirty work for him. How much did you get in the will, Rang?”

Rang stood up and put up his guard, he hit Joe with a left that seemed to come from nowhere, Joe countered with a jab to the ribs. They were both sweating, and took their time to find the right delivery. Joe shuffled around so that Rang’s back was facing the tracks below. “Who are you fighting this fight for Rang? Your brother? Your wife?”

Rang hit Joe on the chin and he stumbled back. Rang reached under his shirt and pulled out the second gun from the holster and pointed it at Joe. “It’s a matter of face, Khun Joe. If you hadn’t come here then none of this would have happened. Say goodbye to Thailand, Khun Joe.”

Joe could see the tunnel coming. He needed it. He had to stall. “You fire that gun and you will never see your daughter again, Rang. They will give you the injection Rang, the big sleep.”

“They will never find you nor me,” Rang’s finger tensed on the trigger.

The tunnel was getting closer. Joe counted. One. Rang’s face was furious as he stared directly at Joe. Two. The tunnel grew larger, closer. Three. Blackness. Joe surged forward in a blind offensive he threw himself at Rang, a shot rang out. Four. The express train was inside the tunnel now and Joe punched blindly. Five. He heard the sound of a man falling, another shot, and then the sound of a body hitting the ground at speed. Six. The train came out of the other side of the tunnel. Joe was alone in the compartment. Seven. The sound of metal on metal beneath the Bangkok Express.

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THIRTY-ONE

JOE WALKED slowly through Hualamphong station and onto the busy Bangkok streets. Hundreds of motor cars all travelled in different directions. Stalls stood here and there selling cans of soda and snacks. The sky was a mixture of reds and blues and crimson, the trains clunked to a stop at their final destination. He hailed a taxi and took it to the Business Inn. He walked upstairs to the same room he had stayed in three days back. He opened his Samsonite and took the memory stick from his pocket and inserted it into his netbook. He listened to the recording and smiled. The doctor’s confession. There was a knock at the door, he opened it; the bell-boy had a letter in his hand. Joe tipped the boy and opened the letter. It was the confession in writing. Hale must have sent him a copy. Joe phoned downstairs to the travel agency and had them arrange the flight. He slept like a baby.

The next morning Joe packed his case. He was methodical and precise. Not a single movement was wasted. He thought about how Gantira would have packed, what she would have taken, what she would have left behind. He walked down to the reception and paid his bill. The receptionist told him to come back anytime, his room would be waiting. He walked out onto Sukhumvit road. The heat was offensive. He stood on the curb and hailed a yellow and green. The beat up Nissan pulled over and he stepped inside. The air-conditioning hit him with a wave of relief. The driver was dark-skinned and serious.

“Where you go?” He asked.

“Airport,” Joe said.

“Express?”

“Yes.”

The traffic for once was forgiving. Joe walked into departures and found a bar. He ordered two bottles of beer. He looked at the departure board. The LED letters and digits blinked green. The EA014 flight to London was boarding. Holiday-makers laughed and joked about their adventures. He watched the digits flash and drank the second beer. It tasted good. He ordered another. The final call came and he stood up and picked up his bags. He walked to the departure gate and stopped for a moment. He scratched his head and turned around. What was he doing? He had finally found somewhere that made him feel alive. He kept walking until he reached the terminal exit. He walked out of the airport into the tropical Bangkok heat. He threw his ticket into a bin. He walked to the side of the road. A driver taxied up to him and stopped. The driver wound down the window and smiled. All teeth and sunglasses.

“Hey, you, mister, where you go?”

“Bangkok,” Joe said, “The Red Night Zone.”

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THE END

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IF YOU enjoyed this book please consider leaving a short review on Amazon. To find out more about James A. Newman, Joe Dylan and the Crime Noir series, please join up to the crime noir club by emailing us at spankingpulp@yahoo.com for updates, news, free books, posters and the latest regarding The White Flamingo motion picture production. You can visit the author at www.jamesnewmanfiction.blogspot.com or email the author at james_newman99@hotmail.com.

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Bangkok Express

GANTIRA DIDN’T plan for her lover to die on Death Island that day, nor did she plan for the backpacker to drown. She didn't plan to be trapped in a gilded cage by her narcissistic millionaire husband neither. Or maybe she planned it all?

Fraud expert Joe Dylan is back in the land of sin investigating the death of two backpackers on the island. He's working the steps and trying to delay gratification. Trying to stay on the straight and narrow is easier said than done in the big mango.

Burnt out expat James Hale can't play poker for love nor money. He needs to escape the city before the mob catch up with him and collect what's owed. They accept cash or body parts.

These three colorful lives come together in this an exotic action-packed thriller set in this most colorful and exciting city.

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Red Night Zone

MONICA WANTS to be loved like all the other pretty girls in Bangkok. But sometimes getting what you want isn't healthy. Her body is discovered decapitated in her cold-water apartment room. A case holding an ancient black magic spell is missing from the scene.

Joe Dylan ventures into the Bangkok City bars. The detective follows a trail leading to the Demon Dreams, a Bangkok S&M joint run by a beautiful transsexual and her mentally deranged brother. Joe discovers a world of bizarre nocturnal acts and black magic rituals. A seedy Bangkok underworld that picks-up fallen women from the streets and throws them into an evil world of torture and murder.

The White Flamingo

The Black Rose

THE BLACK ROSE takes JOE DYLAN on his fourth adventure to London on a missing person case that tangles him up in a nest of crime, drugs and an evil club-footed gypsy with a beautiful wayward daughter determined to find her own path to Fun city. Enter a dark noir world that spans the streets of London and leafy Kent to the decadent Far Eastern city of Fun City. P.I Joe Dylan, an established character, flawed with drug and alcohol addictions negotiates the rescue and return of a boy, once thought dead and left to grow up a feral youth with gypsies. Joe must take him back to the decadent world of his natural father who resides in Fun City. Drugs, death, prostitution, torture, kidnap, ransom, love, humor and warped decadent sex all speed along like a runaway train with Newman's death defying writing technique.

Fun City

COMING SOON...

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WORDS ABOUT THE JOE DYLAN SERIES:

"NEWMAN JOINS more established writers such as Christopher G. Moore and John Burdett in an exploration of the garish netherworld of private eyes, prostitutes, pimps, gangsters, cops and dirty tricks."

- Chiang Mai City News.

"JAMES NEWMAN writes with a flamethrower. He's terrifically gifted, enormously energetic, and in THE WHITE FLAMINGO he builds up, layer by layer, like lacquer, the everyday reality of "Fun City"—a/k/a Pattaya—with such intensity that he creates a nightmare town so terrible that even the advent of a modern-day Jack the Ripper can only make it a tiny bit worse. Newman has serious talent, if he reminds me of any author it is early Ken Breen."

-Edgar and Shamus nominee Timothy Hallinan

"AN UNDERGROUND rocker himself, James Newman understands that similarity and leaves plenty of original fingerprints all over this hardboiled mystery. [,,,] Newman’s specialty is hard-hitting, brass-knuckles prose that works well in the crime fiction genre. [...] The author also excels in succinct, smartly written characterizations. [...] Newman has added a sharp, poisoned arrow to the quiver of neo-noir."

- Jim Algie - author of Bizarre Thailand and The Phantom Lover

"A WORLD where most of the humans are behaving like primitive bugs and reptiles, just wandering around eating whatever they can whenever it is available and trying to have as much sex as possible before they die."

- Bangkok Noir Artist Chris Coles

"NEWMAN’S Bangkok Express is exactly that, noir pulp fiction."

-The Bangkok Trader

“YOU DON’T skip any words of James A. Newman because you never know when the gold nuggets will show up as you pan across the page. It could be in his observations between the sexes, the act of sex itself or the descriptions of the pull and power that brings in so many millions to Fun City every year, where the small fish are plentiful and always available for a fry."

-People Things and Literature

"Like Hunter Thompson on acid."

-Amazon

BIOGRAPHY

JAMES A. NEWMAN, born in London 1977, moved to Bangkok to write fiction full-time in 2001. Newman has sold Pulp Fiction stories and novels to publications in Arizona, Mumbai, Johannesburg, London, Ontario and Bangkok. Newman has worked as a litigation insurance broker, a copy-writer, an English teacher, a movie extra in Bollywood, a rare book dealer, a rainforest tour guide, and an importer of cheese and wine. He lives in Bangkok, Thailand with his family, is kind to certain animals and is very much involved with the local art scene, writing books, reviewing plays, hosting literary events and supporting writers and artists. His novel the White Flamingo has been optioned for adaptation into a motion picture.