He stopped talking and looked away. His distress weighed heavy on his shoulders pulling them forward and downward. This was not a happy man. But so few of Carl’s clients were. He looked around the library as if he feared being overheard and then spoke again.
“He came to my house early one Sunday morning, shortly after church. He told me he couldn’t take it anymore. He asked me to go to California and befriend homeless people, ‘Buy them hooch’, he told me. I was to find one that looked as much like him as possible and arrange a meeting. I did this for him and a few weeks later he left Vegas in the middle of the night and I have not seen or heard from him since.”
“How can I help you?” Carl asked him in as bland a voice as possible. He had learnt to avoid letting clients think he had an opinion. Carl had an opinion of course. It was his opinion that he was about to make some serious money.
The client fidgeted in his chair before answering.
“To be honest with you my biggest problem was that the killings stopped. After he left there were no more murders. I began to lose my mind and check the news ten times a day hoping a murder had occurred. Anything that would prove to me that it wasn’t him. I felt terrible, wishing a horrible death on a young girl just so I could sleep better at night.”
He stared at Carl’s face to try to see what he was thinking. But Carl had his poker face and wasn’t giving anything away.
“Recently our mother died and left us both a lot of money. She also left property that requires our mutual agreement before anything can be done with it. So I desperately need him to come to America or I need a death certificate. I have always suspected that he was living in Thailand as he spent a lot of time here during the Vietnam War. I recently searched for him in the archives of the Thai newspapers online. Instead of finding him what I found was a serial killer with an MO exactly like the one I had read about in the Las Vegas papers twenty years earlier. My brother is now seventy years old so I need to know if he is dead or alive and if he is living in Thailand. Most of all, I need to know if my brother is a murderer. Can you do this for me?”
This was the time to close the deal that would get Carl out of his present financial embarrassment. Most of what Carl did was tedious and for relatively small amounts of money. It paid the bills, just about. But a few times a year he struck gold and this appeared to be one of those times. The trick, Carl knew, was finding the balance between getting as much as possible whilst not scaring the client off.
“Before I answer that I need to ask you some questions,” Carl told him.
“Fire away.” He was more confident. The talking cure obviously worked.
“I assume you have a picture but it is almost twenty years old?” Carl asked him as he took paper and pen from his pocket and perched some reading glasses on the end of his nose so he could look at the client over the top of them. It was show time and Carl took on the role of the slightly eccentric yet wise detective.
The client took a picture from his pocket and handed it to Carl. A smiling man in his forties with wife and children in the garden of a very upper middle class suburban home. Not the picture of a murderer but Carl already knew that nobody really knows anybody.
“Good, that will help. Did you bring the name of the homeless man? He may not be using that name after all this time, but I will need it anyway.”
“James Arthur Peabody was the hobo’s name. I have a good memory for names,” the client said. Carl listened, then wrote it down and nodded as if it meant something.
“Was there a male in your family that was close to him in appearance?” Carl asked.
“What is the relevance of the question?”
He was showing impatience so Carl knew he needed to take charge.
“Just answer the question please,” Carl told him looking at him sternly over the top of his glasses.
“He was said to resemble our paternal grandfather.”
“At what age did he die?” Carl asked him still watching him over the lenses.
“Seventy-one.”
“Do you have an old family photograph of him a few years before he died?”
“Yes, yes, I can get one sent here.” His face was lighting up. Part of the show is allowing the client into the process of playing detective. Delivering their childhood fantasy is included in the fee.
“Tell me anything you can about his activities. Was he a golfer, marathon runner, chess fanatic or anything like that?”
“He played poker. Any kind of poker, he would play anywhere. He was said to be good at it. Whatever that means. Not much else I can think of. He went running every morning, he liked to keep fit.”He touched his vast belly self-consciously.
“Did he subscribe to any magazines, clubs, associations or such?”
“Not that I can think of. He did smoke cigars though, big Cuban ones. I once asked him how he got them in the US as they are illegal, but he just smiled and winked at me.”
“Poker and cigars,” Carl repeated to him as he wrote it down. “Any particular brand of Cuban cigars?”
“Bolivar Churchills were his favourite. There were empty boxes everywhere.”
Carl listened and wrote it down. “What about social habits? Did he have lots of friends?”
“Some, but he was more solitary than most people. I believe he occasionally played golf, only for business, not pleasure.”
Carl added solitary and golf to his notes. He was running out of questions.
“Can you remember the day he left?”
“It was sometime in July 1992,” he answered and Carl wrote it down.
“That should do for now.” Carl took his glasses off and put glasses, pen and paper in his pocket. “I will need a running fund of twenty thousand US dollars deposited in my Singapore bank account. When cases are dangerous or controversial I do not accept payment in Thailand. I will message the bank details to your mobile if you are in agreement with this.”
He didn’t say no, so Carl continued.
“I will need to grease the wheels of justice to get things done, especially as I will be looking into an active murder investigation. This is not something that I typically agree to do as it is extremely foolish and draws attention to my activities. There are no licensed foreign investigators in Thailand and what I do would be illegal if they actually understood what it was. Unfortunately, seeking information on the progress of their investigation will be necessary in this case. I will need to provide good financial incentives to the police to accomplish this with any level of safety so I will not proceed until I receive this payment.”
The fat man nodded, so Carl said, “Should further money be needed you will get a full report and be in a situation to judge whether you are satisfied with the progress of the investigation.”
As Carl got up the client said, “Good luck.”Which Carl had not heard a client say before, especially one he had just cornered into parting with twenty thousand dollars. It felt ominous and Carl was uncomfortable. You’re not supposed to feel uncomfortable when you have just made a big score.
“I will be in touch as soon as I have something to report,” Carl said giving him his ‘you are in good hands’ look as he got up to leave.
Once in the street Carl sent the phone message with the bank details. Within two days he would know if he had a client. Carl was confident the fat man would send the money. Carl knew things about people. He figured he had a client, what he didn’t know was if he had a real case or not.
The client called Carl within an hour to let him know that the money had left his bank account and that he had emailed a copy of the confirmation to the email address on Carl’s business card. Carl chose to believe him so he decided to break his own rule about waiting until the money was in his hand and start planning. The story had piqued his interest.
He would not usually take a client’s word when money was involved. Payment was never confirmed until it was actually in his bank account. This was a rule to live by, as clients did not only lie about case information. Carl put his cynicism aside and started to plan how he would begin the investigation. He dropped his poker face and smiled as he waded through the water along Sukhumvit Road. It felt good to be out of the financial woods again.
