had been around forever, or, as some people said, maybe it just seemed like it. At some point in his adult life he had worked for and been fired from every English language newspaper that Carl had ever read. His wildly improbable career meant he knew everybody in the newspaper game and that was why Carl was standing outside his house at 8 o’clock that morning.
The gate was open and the bell hadn’t worked in years so Carl went in. It was an old duplex house with a small garden. It had been built in the 1960s and was typical of the lower cost houses that were rented to foreigners living on a tight budget. Its continued existence suggested that the patriarch or matriarch of the owning family was still alive as these houses were regularly demolished and the land sold after being inherited by the next generation. A little dilapidated but not an unpleasant place to live. Mad Mike had lived in the house for decades and paid very little rent.
Mad Mike sat perspiring in his usual place, a rattan peacock chair on the small veranda facing the garden. As usual he had a bottle of cold Singha beer in his hand.
“Well, well, Don Quixote, as I live and breathe.” His Glaswegian accent was always mild when there was nobody else present. He didn’t seem to mind Carl knowing that he had an education. To the rest of the world he liked to be perceived as coming from an under-privileged background in some shit-hole in one of the poorer areas of Scotland which left him quite mad and undereducated. Carl knew that was not really the case at all. His modest lifestyle was a result of being disowned by a moneyed family as opposed to the lack of one.
“How is that mad wife of yours then?” Mike asked with a wicked grin.
“Someone else’s mad wife now, I assume.”
“Best thing really. Childhood decides you know. Can’t keep trying to change people’s destiny Quixote. People’s problems belong to them. Stop fighting windmills that don’t belong to you is the best thing. Debauch and drink and dance instead, it is the Asian way. Much better for you I assure you. Fancy a beer?”
“I can’t dance but I could do with a coffee if there’s one going.”
Mike’s maid was hovering inside the house just behind the mosquito door. She was called for and dispatched to bring Carl his morning coffee, much to his relief. Sex hotels aren’t much use for anything else and he had missed his morning caffeine.
“This is unusually early for you. Not in any trouble are you? I haven’t seen you looking stressed and out of bed so early since I bumped into you that morning in Beirut in 1983.”
“That wasn’t stress, that was a combination of alcohol and dysentery. Beirut was one hell of a month.”
“That it was. I was pleased to see that your dysentery didn’t interfere with your drinking. Do you remember that night in the bar with the Swedish girls just ‘round the corner from the Commodore Hotel?”
“I am hardly going to forget. Still got the scars.” Carl touched a small half-moon scar on his right cheek.
“Pissed off the wrong people that night didn’t I?” Mike said laughing.
“Everyone you pissed off in Beirut was the wrong person.”
“Great days Quixote, such wonderful days.”
“All days are wonderful if you get away with it. We were lucky in Beirut.”
“People like us are always lucky Carl. Haven’t you worked that out yet?”
“Always lucky until the day you’re not. That’s how life works.”
“I can’t die and go to hell for a while yet Quixote; I’ve been barred again.” He laughed out loud.
“Can I pick that mighty brain of yours?”
“Just don’t tell anyone where you found it.”
“Deal. I have been looking into a very convoluted case. There is a central character, nasty piece of work. Ex-CIA from Vietnam now a Thai citizen and associate of General Amnuay.”
“Doesn’t have a real estate company by chance, does he?”
“How the hell could you know that?” Carl asked him, shocked.
“I tried to write a story about him years ago.” Mike sat back in his chair and said, “I was looking into a story of guns disappearing from military bases and ending up in Japan. They were written off the army’s inventory after arson that was reported as electrical fires. A shipment of guns was seized en route to Japan. They prosecuted a few small fish but never touched the big boys. I went to this dreadful man’s office, calls himself Somchai. Can you believe that? I asked him why he seemed to have relationships with all the parties involved from Thailand to Japan. He just laughed at me. But the next day Quixote, the next bloody day all hell broke loose. I was looked at through a microscope, by departments you wouldn’t want to know that you are even in the country. Dangerous men, the sort of men you wouldn’t have a drink with at the bar in a brothel. Then visits from Special Branch and Military Intelligence. I have tilted at a few windmills in my time Quixote, but you don’t fight these guys, you just don’t do it. You aren’t are you?”
“You fancy the role of Sancho Panza?”
“Not bloody likely you lunatic!”
“Mike I need to tell you a story, but you need to keep your mouth shut. My survival may depend on it.”
“You know I’m discreet but only in the really important things.”
It was true. Mad Mike was totally discreet in the big things. That’s why Carl was there. So he told him a story. He even made sure that most of it was true.
Mike listened attentively and when Carl was finished he sat in silent thought. Then he leant forward, sipped from his beer, and said, “Bugger of a situation you’ve got yourself in!”
“Brilliant! Mike, absolutely fucking brilliant! I risk life and limb travelling across town with military hit-men looking for me just to hear you speak the bleeding obvious.”
Mad Mike laughed and began speaking in a serious tone. “No paper in Thailand will run it. I may believe you but to the rest of the world it will sound like paranoid ranting from, if I may say it, a foreign private detective with something of a dubious reputation. The only time the press will run the story is if he is arrested, then it goes on the front page. But it doesn’t sound to me like an arrest is in any way imminent or even likely. From what you’re telling me there is not even going to be an investigation into him. The world press won’t have any interest in your claims; they will automatically assume that you are talking nonsense. Why should they take you seriously when the police are showing no interest in this man? You’re the one in hiding and that hardly makes your opinions credible. Should you raise your head above the parapet you won’t make it through the night. Yours is not a funeral I would enjoy, Quixote.”
“Is there a light at the end of the tunnel that isn’t an oncoming train?”
“As an atheist I can’t recommend prayer and as a friend I won’t make promises I can’t keep. You are fighting the patronage system, the mafia and the corruption that they pretend doesn’t exist. You are fighting ghosts. The only enemy you can actually see provides serious income for them so the system will circle the wagons and protect him at all costs. These people have their foot soldiers in the police, army, underworld, and politics. You, on the other hand, are just a farang that they probably think shouldn’t be here in the first place. They make the rules and this is their country.”
“I’m not getting a warm fuzzy feeling Mike.”
“Well you wouldn’t, would you?”
He left Carl alone with his thoughts and went into the house. He returned a couple of minutes later with a full bottle of beer in his hand and sat back in the rattan chair. After making himself comfortable he told Carl, “I never thought I would be suggesting this to you, I always figured you as part of the furniture. But it doesn’t matter how long you’ve called this place home, you are and always will be a foreigner. No way round that. You need to leave Thailand and never look back. Just go! That’s what you tell other foreigners who fall foul of the system here. Start taking your own advice. The system is Kafkaesque when it plots against you. Those are your own words Quixote. You know what you need to do, you are not here to seek advice, instead you are looking for an accomplice. The decision is too large for you to make on your own so you’re trying to get someone else to make it for you. Well, I’ve done what you wanted Quixote, I’ve told you what you already know. Pack your bags and smuggle yourself across the border. I know you know how to do that. And never look back.”
“I haven’t made up my mind yet.”
“Don’t wait too bloody long is my advice.”
“You are right as always.”
“You look wrecked. There is a spare room upstairs, go and get some sleep. Nobody knows you are here so you can sleep soundly. Beirut rules my friend; when the bombs are going off never pass up a quiet opportunity to get some quality kip.”
