their progress slowed to a snail’s pace. Carl wasn’t worried about the gridlock. He knew that they had plenty of time.
He picked up his phone and called Bart Barrows.
“You need to get General Amnuay to Inman’s old office on Phetchburi Road tonight at midnight. You can tell him that I’m ready to make a deal. If he doesn’t show up tell him he will be able to find me at the Foreign Correspondents Club buying drinks for foreign journalists.”
“What makes you so sure I can get him there?” Bart asked.
“He knows police and journalists are already sniffing around Inman and his safe house.”
“So why will he meet you?”
“Because you all want me to go away Bart so of course you’ll all come,” Carl told him. Bart stayed silent so Carl hung up.
“Can I ask the question?” George requested.
“Go ahead,” Carl told him.
“I know how it works Carl. You don’t tell people your whole plan. I go along with that, but in the past I’ve always understood your process. This plan you are playing out worries me because it seems overly complex. So complicated that I have no idea what you are up to.”
“That’s because what you are watching is the absence of my standard type plan. I gave up days ago. There is no magical solution this time. I don’t have jigsaw pieces juggled in the air ready to fall neatly into place. The system here is conveniently corrupt but this time it’s working against me. I’m up against somebody that has been manipulating the system for longer than I have. He has the large amounts money and the connections to get away with murder, literally. His friends are now my enemies and they have all the power, it’s their country and I’m nothing but a foreigner they choose to tolerate, at least for now, like all foreigners.”
“So what does all that mean?” George asked.
“It means I am running a bluff and if they don’t fold their cards I’m finished, game over. What I’ve done will eventually bring them down anyway but I won’t be alive to see it. For me to win they must fold their cards.”
“Why don’t you want me there?”
“I need to surprise them. If you are there it will appear confrontational and if they choose violence over dialogue then the game is over.”
“But what if they send the soldiers I saw following you at the airport?”
“They won’t,” Carl told him.
“I hope you know what you are doing.”
Then Carl explained to George where they were going and why. He told him that they were dumping the car and leaving for the islands the following morning. Carl told him that they would reinvent themselves and the islands would make everything good for a while. He told George that his dead wife would want him to move on and give up his house full of memories where every corner he turned he still expected to bump into her. And Carl told him that, after what was going to happen that night it would be time to start living again. George had no more questions so they drove the rest of the way in silence.
Chapter 27
Through the heavy soundproof window Carl could see the cars on the road outside flashing past the building. It was late and the roads of Bangkok had sped up. A stream of headlights flowed in both directions either going to or coming from one of Bangkok’s nocturnal pleasures. He wondered how many crimes were being committed that would never be discovered. Some of the drivers had to be transporting drugs, taking bets on their mobile phones, trafficking underage girls, or possibly even preparing to commit murder. The statistics said that some of the cars’ occupants had to be breaking the law, drunk driving at least. Laws are about controlling society. Their purpose is not to make sense of it. Law enforcement became involved when, often by sheer accident, they were made aware of a crime and it was topical enough to deserve their resources. Unfortunately, in Thailand, even then it did not always get the desired result.
Inside, everything was ready and the musty room had taken on the appearance of a well-organised classroom. George and Boonchoo’s family had played their parts in the new decor and the Finns had come in late that afternoon to add the final touches. Carl stood alone by the window, waiting with the lights off.
Outside, Phetchburi Road was a sea of colour as the headlights fought with the neon signs for dominance. The light and shadow against the wall with its dreadful metal ring to restrain victims appeared like something straight out of an early black and white horror film. The hairs on the back of Carl’s neck were standing up and his stomach was a bucket of eels. He thought about time and how it would pass with or without him wrestling with it. He made himself focus on the reality that what was in front of him would soon be something that was behind him, leaving all negative feelings, fear and pain redundant. ‘God give me patience; but I want it right now!’ he told himself.
The room he was waiting in had been witness to repeated performances of the ultimate crime, the killing of human beings for pleasure. Experts can rationalize the behaviour of such men but rationalizing is not the same as understanding. Shakespeare wrote in his final play, ‘Hell is empty and all the devils are here’. Such cynical conclusions often come at the tail end of a man’s existence. Perhaps because he can look back without the fear that is always present when looking forward. The other possibility is that age just makes man negative and bad- tempered. Something we then confuse with wisdom. Carl didn’t much care where his reasoning had come from. He had already made his choices and it was too late to turn back.
Carl smelled the petrol before he heard the footsteps. It wafted up the stairs like napalm on the night air. Then he heard the clink of glass bottles getting louder as Inman climbed higher. Anthony Inman entered the room that had once been his office and later had become his second floor dungeon of dirty tricks. He wore a polo shirt, cotton trousers, and an expensive-looking pair of brown leather moccasins. His hair was grey and perfectly groomed in the old slicked down Brylcreem style with a side parting. He was tanned and physically fit. He looked a hell of a lot better than Carl did. He placed the plastic supermarket bags containing glass bottles of petrol on the floor. He reached into his pocket for a large wad of cotton material and a lighter, which he put down beside them, the tools of the traditional arsonist.
He didn’t see Carl at first. Carl stood quietly in the shadows and watched the most evil man he had ever had the misfortune to cross paths with wistfully surveying the dreadful room. Carl remained silent and still as Inman’s body language changed as he began to sense that there had been unwanted visitors and changes had been made to his lair during his absence.
He switched on the light, turned around and saw Carl. Inman appeared more annoyed than concerned as he pulled out an expensive-looking pearl-handled Desert Eagle.357 Magnum automatic pistol and pointed it at the private detective. It made perfect sense to Carl. If a man’s in the arms business you had to expect him to be carrying expensive equipment.
“What are you doing here you dumb motherfucker? Never mind, it’ll be good that they find your body in the ashes.”
“Be hard to stick the murders on me if I have bullets in me.”
“You’re right. Now turn around and put your hands behind your head.”
“I’m not going to do that. You need to wait for Amnuay and Bart. Forgive the cowboy rhetoric but the building’s surrounded.”
“You’re such an arrogant motherfucker. Don’t you have any concept of how out of your depth you are?”
“Those noises you just heard from downstairs are General Amnuay and Bart. And by the sound of all those heavy feet the general has brought help.”
“Good! I always appreciate some backup,” Inman said with a confident razor-thin smile.
“So this is where you like to hurt people?” Carl asked him.
“Guess what motherfucker? You’re next,” Inman snarled.
“Now you have the Thai army and the CIA here to help you it should be a fairly even contest.”
“Fuck you!” he said snarling again.
“Is that all you have to say? Consider some well-chosen last words. Time is not something you should be
