“Do you get much demand for the Bolivar Churchill?” he asked the girl at the desk.
“We don’t sell many. They have been out of stock for a while now.”
He went into the smoky room and picked a leather armchair. Carl lit his cigar slowly so as not to overheat it. He took a couple of puffs and leaned back. The room was half full of local businessmen, politicians, and a few of the usual rogues. The rogues nodded at Carl and then went back to their whispered conversation. A large man came in and sat in the armchair opposite Carl.
“Heard anything about the coup?” he asked Carl.
“Only that there was one.”
The man sitting opposite Carl ran one of the legitimate stock brokerage companies in Bangkok. He was an elderly English public schoolboy who Carl assumed would have gone to Eton or Harrow. Carl’s money was on Harrow as there was a theory about Harrovians wearing brown suede shoes with everything. Today he was wearing a dark blue suit with his well-worn brown suede shoes. His name was Robert Standish and he was a pillar of Bangkok’s expatriate society.
“Now come on Carl, we all know you’re a spook. Tell me what the gossip is in your secret world.”
“But I’m not a spook, I’m merely a struggling consulting detective,” Carl told him affectedly as he ceremoniously puffed on his fat cigar. Carl knew that Robert would see denial as confirmation. Bangkok was full of people claiming to be what they weren’t, so claiming not to be something often got the opposite assumption. Carl liked the game.
“Very Sherlock Holmes I am sure. But come on old sport, this isn’t the time to hide behind cover. You are needed man. So what have you heard?”
“Well Robert, it is like this; over the last twenty years the politicians have started to believe that they are actually running this country. That made them even greedier than usual and instead of discreetly feathering their own nests they tried to claim ownership of the whole forest. So, like naughty children, they got given a red card by the self-appointed referee and sent for an early bath. They are officially suspended for a few matches until they have learnt to behave themselves, or at least found the good manners to invite the referee to play on their team. Nobody likes being left on the sidelines. I don’t know when the next game is scheduled but I’m sure they will let us know eventually.”
“For god’s sake man, this is no time to try and be funny,” Robert Standish told Carl in a low shout.
Carl believed that foreigners, particularly the clever ones, didn’t understand Thailand because they would not accept its basic venal nature. They felt it an insult to their intelligence to be told that Thailand was not as complex as they imagined. The suggestion that it was simple when they found it so confusing perplexed them. So they chose to keep it enigmatic and inaccessible disregarding its very straightforward foundation of mutual greed and jealousy. To understand Thailand, as a foreigner, the other thing you had to accept was the simple truth that you were completely powerless and your future was in the hands of strangers.
“You know I can’t tell you more than that,” Carl said in a lower and more serious voice. “You have to read between the lines in the newspaper like everybody else.” Carl leant forward, put a serious expression on his face and whispered conspiratorially, “All I can tell you Robert is that everything will be all right. There’ll be no changes that will have any dire consequences for you personally, or for your company for that matter.” Then Carl put his finger to his lips and said, “Shhhh, your ears only old man.”
“Good news then. Thank you Carl. You are sure of this? It comes from a very reliable source then?”
“The highest,” Carl said, thinking that it was the most reliable source he could think of, his own opinion. He was usually right though. That and the fact he had Thailand’s past history on his side. Thailand’s history may not repeat itself but it certainly rhymed.
Robert Standish was pleased. Like many foreigners, he just needed someone to tell him that everything was going to be all right. If Carl had been able to work out how to charge people for going to their offices and telling them that everything was going to be all right he would have made a fortune. There had always been a demand for such a service. Carl just hadn’t worked out how to bill for it. Yet.
“Must dash, duty calls,” he told Carl as he got up to leave.
“Don’t forget that it’s all hush hush,” Carl told him.
“I won’t tell a living soul Carl. Wouldn’t want you to get into trouble with the ambassador.”
“That’s right Robert. Always nice to see you,” Carl told him as he left.
Carl assumed he was in a hurry to go and tell everybody that Carl the spook said there is nothing to worry about. Lots of people doubt religion but they all believed in Hollywood and James Bond. Carl didn’t mind the stories that were made up about him. They were good for business.
Robert Standish didn’t care if the streets ran red with blood as long as his beloved stock market stayed healthy. In reality he had little to fear. A few generals rattling their sabres and politicians crying ‘freedom’ because they had lost control of the money was not a threat to his industry. Both sides of the conflict were stage managed by extremely powerful and wealthy men. These eagles amongst sparrows on both sides were so heavily invested into the market that allowing it to fail was not an option.
The cigar lead had not borne fruit. Carl hadn’t expected it to. Luxury retail shops in Thailand are little more than a wonderful advertisement for shopping in Hong Kong’s low cost outlets. The lack of demand for Bolivar Churchills in Bangkok suggested to him that his target might still be flying regularly to Macau for his poker habit. Carl wanted to see Macau again and began to see an opportunity to make it happen.
Carl finished his cigar and went looking for somewhere to have lunch. He felt like eating in a restaurant where nobody would know him. He left the car and walked along the Skytrain’s public walkway to Paragon shopping centre, the largest shopping complex in Thailand. Carl took the escalators past the high fashion brands from Milan and Paris to the third floor where Bangkok’s largest bookshop was located.
He browsed the history section and selected a book about Beirut and paid for it at the counter. Book in hand he took the escalator back down to the first floor and walked over the Skytrain’s bridge to Siam Square, the old shopping area. There was a Hard Rock Cafe there and he assumed that nobody he knew would be there as no self- respecting expat liked to sit with the tourists. The place was full of holiday makers providing excellent cover and a burger was just what he needed to go with his new book. He could use one hand for the burger and the other hand to hold the book.
Chapter 6
Carl went home early afternoon to study his new case and consider his options. His house was a four-story townhouse in a contiguous quadrant of twenty-eight units. The entrance to the complex was a high double wooden gate with a security box and sleepy guard. The security guard was another person on Carl’s payroll. Should any unpleasant characters, with or without uniforms, become interested in him the chances were they would befriend and question the security guard. Carl had made sure that he would be told immediately.
On entering the quadrant there was a ground floor visitor’s car park area. Each unit also had space for one car in front of their ground-floor kitchen door. The second floor of the complex had a swimming pool surrounded by gardens accessible from all of the units through their sitting rooms. It was designed to be a community area but most residents kept themselves to themselves so it was mostly unused. The swimming pool was where Carl often went to think.
He changed into swimming shorts and took his new book to the pool area. The sun felt good and he was pondering taking a swim. The light was too bright for reading and hurt his eyes. He was feeling relaxed and at peace with the world. Carl had his eyes closed and his face pointed towards the sky. There was a small cough-like sound beside him that made him open his eyes and look around. Not a good thing to do as his face was pointing at the sun. Carl squinted at the tall man standing over him.
“Hello Carl.”
It was Carl’s favourite neighbour. George Wilde had a habit of sneaking up on him. He had served in a US special forces regiment and had spent his youth in the jungles of Vietnam sneaking up on the Viet Cong and now out of habit, he sneaked up on everybody. He was a big man with incredibly large hands and piercing eyes. He was around sixty but remained as fit as he must have been back in his military days. Carl liked him. He had liked his wife too, but she had died in a motorcycle accident the previous month. It had left George undermined.
