Carl had spent two hours thinking in a bar around the corner from the hotel. The Two Ladies bar was open in the afternoon and seedy enough to dissuade most people from entering. The place smelt of drains and mould with a dash of Thai fish sauce. It was the oldest bar in the infamous red light district known as Soi Cowboy which is a narrow lane connecting the side-road Sukhumvit Soi 23 with the thoroughfare of Soi Asoke.
Cowboy had been a tall slim black American serviceman who had come to Bangkok from Vietnam in the mid-seventies and set up a go-go bar called Loretta’s with his first Thai wife. When they fell out he opened his own bar opposite Loretta’s called Cowboy’s. The street quickly became known as Soi Cowboy. The new name was soon adopted by its customers and by Bangkok’s taxi drivers until it stuck. He was charming, loud, irresponsible, and a world-class bullshit artist. He died broke in the 1990s many years after having the street named after him. Cowboy and Carl had drunk a lot of whiskey together over the years.
Carl had always found it easier to think in public places. Bars had always been his places of choice for his brainstorming sessions. Carl’s investigations began with a hypothesis and then a plan to prove his theory wrong. Carl strongly believed in this method as trying to prove a hypothesis correct is dangerous, as the detective’s own theory will decide what he sees. Carl’s working hypothesis was that his client was full of shit. All he needed after that was a plan to try and prove that he wasn’t.
The Two Ladies Bar was as good a place as any to be alone with his thoughts. Putting on the right attitude and tipping well was essential to his requirements. Unfortunately the customers were not as easy to train as the bar girls. An overly garrulous tourist type had overhead Carl ordering a drink in Thai and tried to start a conversation with him. The tourist defended his exuberance by explaining to Carl that he hadn’t been in Bangkok for very long. Then he asked Carl how long he had been in Thailand.
“So long that I tip the girls here not to play with my dick,” Carl said coldly.
He was left alone after that. Being the grumpy old Bangkok hand may not be the most sought after reputation but it suited Carl just fine.
The problem he was wrestling with was how to establish if the passport of the homeless man James Arthur Peabody had been used to enter Thailand in 1992 or 1993. It was avery well-kept secret that the immigration department didn’t keep information on their computer beyond two years. In Carl’s previous cases it had taken one phone call to an immigration policeman that he had a special financial arrangement with to get full details on a person’s comings and goings. When they arrived and when they left the country, where they left from and where they went. But what Carl was looking for was almost twenty years old and so the computer was not an option.
He was aware that there was a warehouse somewhere with all the past records in hard copy and he had been told that potentially it was feasible to retrieve information from there. But by Carl’s calculations it would require a police case, paperwork between departments, and take several weeks. He didn’t have that much time, as he needed to impress the client. Clients needed to be convinced, shown a little magic trick or two. Otherwise they could lose interest and, god forbid, ask for their money back.
It occurred to Carl that he was assuming that the target would not have kept his initial identity, would not have renewed the passport and would not still be traveling on it. Thoroughness would require confirming this.
Carl finished his drink and stepped outside for a cigarette. He had learnt the hard way to never leave a drink on the bar when he was going to the toilet or briefly stepping outside for a cigarette. He would always finish the drink and order another one when he came back. The Two Ladies was safe, they knew him and they wouldn’t let a stranger near his drink, but it was a discipline he had learnt the hard way, so he gulped down the remaining liquid.
Opening the door of an air-conditioned bar in the middle of the afternoon was always a thermal shock. The curtain of hot thick air hit him and brought back the memory of the first day when he had stepped off a Bangladesh Airlines DC-8 at Don Muang airport and felt Thailand for the first time. The sign on the wooden hut of the bucket shop at Earl’s Court train station in London had said, ‘The Cheapest Air Tickets in London’. The sign had caught the eye of the teenage Carl Engel. That was the day he decided to see the world but then never made it further than Bangkok. That had been over thirty years ago and in another lifetime. Carl always drank in the afternoon back then, vodka by the bottle, Stolichnaya if they had it. But, having aged and become less familiar with daytime drinking, the hot air made him feel drowsy.
Carl was pleased to see that the floodwater was already less than a foot deep and would be gone in a few hours. He made the call to his contact at immigration to run a check on recent travels to and from Thailand of US citizen James Arthur Peabody. Carl finished the cigarette and went back inside the bar in search of his second wind.
The tourist that Carl had driven off earlier came and sat next to him. He tried to order a drink from the girl behind the bar in Thai but failed miserably and reverted unhappily to English. He was obviously drunker than the last time he had spoken to Carl.
“Look,” he said slurring, “I ain’t wanting to bother you, I just wanna know how to talk Thai like you.”
“Why?” Carl asked him.
“Well, see, it’s like this. I have this girlfriend and we get on OK but I always had this, like, ambition of speaking to her in her own language.”
“And what makes you think if she has nothing to say in your language that she could possibly have something to say in her own?” Carl snapped.
The tourist was turning red and his body had stiffened. He looked like he wanted a fight but obviously thought better of it and moved to a safe distance further inside the bar, near the toilets. Carl didn’t have anything against him but he was not in the mood to adopt him and become his tour guide to the Bangkok red light experience. He was getting less tolerant of people with every passing year.
Carl exhibited all the symptoms of Expatriate Bubble. When old Bangkokhands have had enough, they retreat into their anger-powered Expatriate Bubble where they can control contact with the outside world and avoid being hit by the flying bullshit. In Carl’s opinion this was not a healthy way to live but he had ended up there anyway.
The cool and windowless place made him forget that it was a bit early for his drinking habit and he quickly got back in the swing of it. After all, he hadn’t actually received payment and so was entitled to take the rest of the day off. After the fifth drink Carl always found an excuse to avoid work. It would be a couple of hours before he expected to be called back by his man inside immigration so he decided that he might as well kill some time and enjoy himself.
An older waitress with a reasonable English vocabulary was talking to an obvious tourist. He was besotted with a young girl with the more voluptuous figure of the new generation that had grown up on dairy products. Foremost company of the US had a plant in Thailand during the Vietnam War making reconstituted milk, yogurt and ice cream under contract to the US military. When the troops pulled out they had no customer base, as most Thais were lactose intolerant. By the 1990s they had weaned the younger Thais onto their products.
The girl was under twenty years old so would have got the full calcium, protein, and cow fat package. It may not have been as healthy as the original Thai diet but it had given her a body by Michelangelo, which was fine by Carl. She was too young for him unfortunately. Children had never been Carl’s thing. He still looked though. The love-struck tourist was a bit older than Carl and he seemed to think her age was perfect. She looked bored and disinterested.
The older English-speaking waitress left the amorous barfly and the voluptuous girl together and came over to Carl and said in Thai, “He likes her a lot.”
“Who wouldn’t? She’s very beautiful and very young.”
“She is beautiful but still stupid. She’s my daughter and I am teaching her to be clever. All she wants is to be with young people but I told her, young people have no money. She’ll learn though, I must make sure she learns. She looks up to you. Maybe you can take her for a few days. You could teach her what makes men happy.”
“What makes you think I’m happy?”
“You spend lots of money and get drunk a lot.”
Then she took the frustration off her face, put on a smile, and walked back over to her daughter.
When the phone rang over two hours later Carl was in alcohol’s happy middle phase and surrounded by half-naked women. He was entertaining them with Thai jokes, which are always of a sexual nature. Unfortunately his repertoire was limited and it signalled that it was time for him to leave the party. After having been drunkenly playful and having a dozen or so girls rolling around laughing for half an hour Carl could hardly sit in silence again. So he let the phone ring out while he paid his bill.
As soon as he stepped outside he saw the flood had reduced into a giant puddle. He returned the missed call and got the information he had expected; there was no record of a James Arthur Peabody entering or leaving Thailand at any time in the previous two years. He put the phone back in his pocket and walked through the puddle with his confident and rolling stride, splashing water all around him.
Carl’s next stop was a dimly lit bar where all the waitresses were advertised in lace G-strings. ‘Brevity is the soul of lingerie’ said a sign on the wall. Brevity was taken so seriously that some of the girls didn’t bother with underwear at all. The owner was Croatian and had come to Thailand to escape the horrors of the Balkan war. He went north to the hills of Chiang Mai where he chose heroin over his military uniform. Then, after a couple of years, he had chosen lingerie over the heroin and the result was a fetish lounge on Soi Cowboy. Lingerie is a relatively harmless fetish, which is probably why the place was not overly popular.
The owner’s name was Oleg. He was behind the bar hovering near the cashier. He had the hollow cheeks and vague eyes of a person who had abused narcotics to the extreme and somehow lived to tell the tale. Oleg was tall and very thin. He dressed like a teenager in skinny jeans and an overly elaborate shirt and had hair that was spiked up with gel that Carl had always thought looked like a toilet brush. He atypically bought Carl a drink. Oleg never bought anybody a drink.
“Carl, I need your help,” he said, still with the Balkans still in his accent.
“Do I get a clue Oleg or do I need to guess the problem?”
“You see my bar, it is very quiet, no?”
“Yes Oleg, always quiet.”
As they spoke, a heavy red felt curtain that had been drawn across an alcove at the far end of the bar opened. Behind the curtain was a synthetic leather sofa that Oleg’s girls used to solicit tips for fellatio sessions. A slightly overweight and dangly breasted girl came out followed by an enormous Russian tourist. The Russian grunted at her in Russian and kissed her on the cheek whilst slipping a thousand baht note into her eager hand. The Russian left hurriedly.
“We serve anybody these days,” Oleg said in disgust as the door closed behind the Russian.
“So what can I help you with Oleg?”
“I was wondering after all these years you have been coming to Soi Cowboy if you can give me advice on what to do to make more customers come.”
“I hope what you mean is how to attract more customers to the bar. Otherwise it is way outside my field of expertise Oleg.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Never mind, I will tell you a story Oleg. Once upon a time there was a bar on Soi Cowboy and the owner, being new in town, asked a customer for advice. What is wrong with my bar, he asked his only customer of the night. Quite obvious, he was told, you see, the bar is on the wrong side of the room so when the door opens you cannot see the bar or the customers, and as you know, nobody wants to enter an empty bar. The bar owner took this to heart and shut the place down for a month and had the bar demolished and moved from one side of the building to the other. A few weeks after reopening there was little improvement in the number of customers. One night he asked a customer what he thought the problem was. Obvious, he said, the bar is on the wrong side. What do you mean, he demanded. I mean, when the door opens you can see everybody at the bar and what they are all doing and who wants to be seen by people from the street in such a bar.”
“I don’t get it,” Oleg told Carl.
“You will Oleg, you are already halfway there.”
Oleg went back to his corner at the other end of the dimly lit bar where his computer was situated. Due to his history with heroin he didn’t trust himself with alcohol so was addicted to Coca Cola and the Internet instead. Carl had seen him once sitting at his computer surfing Internet porn sites. Carl had thought this very curious indeed because while Oleg was glued to his computer screen three of his naked girls were putting on a show for a customer with a fat wallet. The show included hot dripping candle wax, spanking, and several dildos. Carl had wondered what Oleg could possibly be captivated by on an Internet porn site while all that was going on but he had decided that he didn’t want to know.
The door opened bringing daylight. Damien Southerby came in and sat beside Carl. Carl knew that his real name was Keith Smith but pretended that he didn’t. It was better that way. In Bangkok if he wanted to be called Damien Southerby he would get it and that was fine by Carl. He wore a starched business shirt with twinkling diamond cufflinks and a bright yellow Zegna tie. His watch was a gold Rolex also covered in diamonds. Damien had perfectly styled hair, manicured fingernails and the clear skin of somebody who eats well and visits his health club regularly.
Damien was a crook and a very successful one. He sold dodgy foreign currency investments over the phone that guaranteed a large profit to unsuspecting Australians. The gullible Australian investors never had a chance of seeing any of their money again as the only people really guaranteed a profit were the sellers; there was no investment. Damien and his motley crew worked their phone scam during Australian office hours so their working day ended at Bangkok lunchtime. They, and other groups like them, were frequently seen around the bars early in the afternoons.
“Good afternoon Carl. Bit early for you isn’t it?”
“I’m working. Your wife hired me.”
“Don’t even fucking joke about something like that.”
“Who’s joking?”
“One day you’ll give me a straight answer.”
“One day you’ll deserve one.”
“Seriously, how sure are you about that report you gave us a couple of months ago? We have been discussing it and it just seems too easy,” Damien said.
“It is very straightforward Damien. Thailand does not like, and is not very good at any case that is multi-jurisdictional. So as long as you don’t advertise that you are in Thailand and no client money enters Thailand through local banks and you don’t meet any clients here, the local authorities couldn’t give a shit what you do. The only time that could change is if a foreign government asked for help from the Thai Government. Then, if they knew who you were and where you worked they would probably just make a lot of noise in the hope that you would run away and leave the country of your own accord. There is no benefit for them if they have to build a case and testify in court for the next three years so they will give you the opportunity to flee first. Should you prove stubborn they will simply find an excuse to revoke your visa and deport you. The colonels said if you pay the agreed amount into that account number every month they will let you know if any department in the police is looking for you. Their promise to you is that you will hear about it before your door gets knocked on.”
“Are you sure about this?” Damien asked.
“Nothing in life is guaranteed Damien but that is the way it works. Continue to tell your clients that you are in New York, don’t make enemies in Thailand, and pay your hookers well is my advice. And don’t forget to pay the colonels whatever you do, they know you exist now.”
“Great, great news, thank you. Did Alexander bring the cash to you? Were you happy with it?”
“Yes I saw Alexander a couple of months ago. The bonus you added was much appreciated.” Carl didn’t add that he knew Alexander’s name was really Eric. Carl also chose not to mention that the large bonus he had received went the very same day to a spotty young Finnish poker player in an illegal gambling den whose four sevens had beaten Carl’s full house.
“Good, good, excellent. We must have dinner together soon,” Damien said as he moved down the bar and slipped behind the red curtain to make a deposit.
There wouldn’t be a dinner invitation. Carl made Damien nervous and he would avoid Carl until somebody made him more nervous and he needed him again. Damien or as his mum called him, Keith, had bought his own bullshit and saw himself as a successful globetrotting entrepreneur. The white-collar criminals were a funny lot and they were very prone to fantasy. Carl didn’t question or interfere with Damien’s movie star fantasy world; the envelope was always fat and cash was always preferable. Carl decided to leave the bar before the grunting from behind the curtain started.
By that evening Carl was sitting in one of the crowded big, new and shiny bars that were gradually taking over the limited real estate in Soi Cowboy. He was watching the topless dancers and he was deep in thought. He hadn’t intended to get drunk but it never started with that as his plan. In Carl’s vast experience, the kind of bars he had chosen to drink in on that day always provided that end result.
As usual, it had taken getting completely drunk to hit the inspiration he required. He would go and see the Dutchman. That was it! The alcohol charged bolt of lightning had struck. Of course! The Dutchman. It was so simple it would never have come to him if he had been sober but without that restraint it had become clear.
The plan would require a lot of luck but investigations typically turned on luck so it was definitely a sound idea. It was time for Carl to go home, sober up, and pay a visit to the Dutchman. He left Soi Cowboy and took a taxi to Duke’s to collect his car. The car was dry even if Carl wasn’t.