‘It’s not about money though, is it?’
All three of them laughed. ‘No, it’s not,’ said the Kiwi.
The Canadian took a long pull on his beer and wiped the back of his mouth with his hand. ‘There are three reasons for coming here,’ he said. ‘Sex, sex, and sex.’
‘You forgot sex,’ said the Brit.
‘You put up with the low wages, the students who don’t give a shit, the cockroach-infested classrooms, because a couple of times a week you can go out and get laid by some of the best looking women in the world,’ said the Canadian, warming to his theme.
‘Or men,’ said the Brit. He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
‘That’s just the way it is,’ said the Canadian. ‘The only ones not here for the sex are the ones running away from something.’
‘So which are you, Bob?’ asked the Kiwi.
I shrugged. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you guys, but I enjoy teaching. I’ve been doing it almost fifteen years and I wanted to see a bit of the world. And I don’t think Jon came here for sex, either.’
‘Born again virgin,’ sneered the Brit.
‘Yeah, you could never get Jon Boy into a go-go bar,’ agreed the Kiwi.
‘Any sort of bar,’ agreed the Canadian.
‘There you go,’ I said. ‘Not everyone’s here for sex. And I don’t see Jon sticking at a job he didn’t like. Do you think that he just found a better job?’
The Kiwi shrugged. ‘It’s possible. More likely that Petrov sacked him, I’d have thought.’
‘Why do you say that?’
The Kiwi took a sip from his bottle of Singha. ‘Nothing was good enough for Jon. He argued about the classrooms, the state of the textbooks, the fact that classes were merged if we were a teacher short, the rattle and hum from the air-con. He was never out of Petrov’s office, always in there with one complaint or another.’
‘And Petrov didn’t give a damn, right?’
‘The school’s a business, that’s all. He doesn’t care if the students come out speaking the Queen’s English or not, so long as the fees are paid. The kids don’t care one way or another. So why should we? I put in the hours, I get paid, end of story.’
I took a sip of my beer. ‘So do you think Jon quit? Or Petrov sacked him?’
‘Either’s a possibility.’
‘You’ve all got lockers at the school, right?’
The Kiwi frowned at the change of subject. ‘So?’
‘I’m just wondering if Jon cleaned his out.’
The frown deepened. ‘Do you think something’s happened to him?’
‘I’d feel a lot easier knowing that he’d cleared out his locker, that’s all.’
The Kiwi put down his beer. ‘You think Petrov did something to him?’
I put my hands up. ‘I’m just considering all angles, that’s all.’
‘You don’t shoot a guy just because he objects to teaching from photocopied text books,’ said the Kiwi.
‘Who said anything about shooting?’ I said.
‘That’s what you were suggesting.’
‘You’re the one who mentioned shooting,’ I said. ‘Is Petrov like that?’
The Brit screwed up his face as if he’d just swallowed a wasp. ‘We did see him with a gun once. In his office.’
‘Once,’ said the Kiwi.
‘He was playing with it,’ said the Brit. ‘Looked like he was practising a quick draw.’
Guns aren’t difficult to get in Thailand, and just because a man has one doesn’t mean he’s going to use it.
But it wasn’t a good sign.
‘Look, we make jokes about it being a school run by the Russian mafia, but the school is a business,’ said the Kiwi. ‘And Petrov is a businessman.’
‘A businessman with a gun,’ I said.
‘He does hang out with some pretty heavy characters,’ said the Brit.
‘So now we’re condemning a man for the friends he’s got,’ said the Kiwi. ‘Look, he pays my wages and leaves me alone. What more can you ask for from a boss? Jon Junior was a pain in the arse and I wouldn’t be surprised if Petrov sacked him.’
‘Fine. So if Jon Junior was sacked, where is he?’
The three teachers shrugged.
‘Who knows?’ said the Kiwi. ‘People come, people go. Bangkok’s a city of transients.’
‘Who cares?’ said the Brit. ‘He was a stuck-up prick. So where are we going tonight? I fancy Nana Plaza.’
Jai yen.
I caught a taxi back to the shop and as I sat in the back I dialled the cellphone number that Jon Junior had called. The answering service kicked in again. This time I left a message.
CHAPTER 16
‘You’re going to what?’ Noy asked me over breakfast. This time I’d cooked for her. A Thai omelette stuffed with pork, boiled rice, and a glass of freshly-squeezed orange juice with added salt, just the way she likes it. It’s one the strange things about Thais – they put salt in their orange juice and sugar in their soups. Go figure.
‘Just for a day or two,’ I said. I sipped my coffee and tried to look as if teaching English was the most natural thing in the world for me to suggest.
‘Would you like to tell me why at this stage in your life you’ve suddenly decided to teach English?’
‘It’s a case.’
‘Honey, you’re an antiques dealer. You don’t have cases.’
‘I’m looking for a boy.’
Her spoon froze in the air on the way to her lips. ‘Oh my Buddha,’ she said.
‘That came out wrong,’ I admitted.
‘I hope so.’
‘There’s an American boy gone missing, his parents have asked me to find him. He taught at an English school and I want to see if his students know where he went.’
She put down her spoon. ‘And you’re going to do this by pretending to be an English teacher?’
‘A teacher of English, yes,’ I said. ‘How hard can that be?’
‘You were a policeman,’ she said. ‘And now you sell antiques.’
‘It’s English, honey. It’s not rocket science.’
‘And when are you going to start this new career?’
‘Tomorrow. And it’s not a career, honey.’ I sipped my coffee.
‘And what about the medical? How did that go?’
‘I get the results this afternoon.’ I patted my stomach. ‘But I feel good. I weigh about five pounds less than the last time I had a medical and I’m playing more tennis.’
‘I’ll keep my fingers crossed,’ she said. ‘Just in case.’
‘It’ll be fine,’ I said. ‘The nurse who took my blood pressure said I had the heart of a twenty-five year old.’
‘Well I just hope he doesn’t ask for it back,’ she said, and giggled at her own joke.
She has a lovely giggle, my wife.
We finished breakfast and then I spent the morning in the shop, pricing a consignment of opium pipes that I’d had shipped over from Vietnam. They were copies of Chinese antiques and looked just like the real thing but at a fraction of the price. I didn’t sell them as genuine antiques, of course, but I have competitors who do. I put them on
