I ran the basic checks. She’d never been married and she didn’t have any children. She was living alone in a small studio flat in Soi 22, the same place she’d had when she was dancing. Ann’s stall was on the corner of Sukhumvit and Soi 7. She only had her pitch from 9pm onwards and had to wait for the daytime vendors to pack up and go before she could set up shop. Thai laws says that you cannot sell on the public footpath, and to make that point Wednesdays are generally declared ‘no sell’ days but during the rest of the week the day vendors basically pay the local cops for the right to set up shop. Once the day vendor leaves, another vendor can take his place, providing a small fee is paid. That’s the arrangement Ann had, and I reckoned she had a good spot with lots of passing traffic. She was selling cheap T-shirts and sundresses and I found myself a seat in an airconditioned bar in Soi 7 from where I could keep an eye on her.
Sales were slow on the three nights I watched her. She worked from 9pm until 3am and I reckoned she was doing well if she took in 1,000 baht a night, which would be less than she’d have been paid for an hour’s short-time when she was hooking. The 1,000 baht was turnover, of course. Her profit would be between 300 and 400 baht. Fairly decent money for a Thai, about the same as a schoolteacher or office worker would get, but a fraction of what a pole-dancer would pull in. I saw her chatting to a couple of Thai guys who were selling an assortment of flick knives, samurai swords and knuckle-dusters but there didn’t seem to be anything untoward going on and she always went home alone. On the first day I put on a baseball cap and sunglasses and walked by her pitch, bought a T-shirt from her and flirted with her in my very best Thai. I made her laugh but she wouldn’t give me her phone number and wouldn’t agree to see me for a drink.
I phoned Damien and told him that Ann was being a good girl and that he had nothing to worry about on that score. He asked me to approach her and tell her that I was a friend of his and that I would help her with her visa application. We agreed a fee and the next day I went to see her. I read through all the correspondence from the embassy and it was clear that they weren’t convinced that she had gone legit, so I decided to beef up her application. I took her to Bo-Bey market where she bought her stock and I collected some receipts and took photographs of her at work. I went with her to her bank and got copies of her statements showing that Damien was sending her money and that she was putting cash in herself. I got her to give me photographs that had been taken when Damien had met her family. I figured we had a pretty good package, and we sent that in to the embassy. A month later Damien phoned me to say that the embassy had turned her down and that Ann had taken it badly.
I went around to her place in Soi 22 and found her in tears. She’d ‘forgotten’ to tell Damien that she’d made a previous application for a tourist visa with another Australian guy acting as a sponsor. That’s a definite red flag so far as the embassy is concerned. It suggests that the girl isn’t particular about who gets her into the country.
Ann wasn’t just upset, she was as mad as hell. In true Thai style she said that Australia and everyone in it could go screw themselves. Frankly, as a New Zealander myself, I could sympathise with the sentiment. Anyway, she’d go back to work in Hollywood Strip and find herself a man from a country that would allow her to visit. And that was that. She finished with Damien, sold her business and went back to hooking, and over the next few months I saw her several times leaving Nana Plaza on the arm of one overweight German or another. I gather that Damien flew back to beg her to reconsider but that she refused point blank. He’d had his chance and he’d blown it. He kept calling me asking if I could help, but there was nothing I could do. I felt sorry for him, and for her. I think he loved her, and she was certainly prepared to give up the bar scene and work hard at a real job so that she could be with him. If it hadn’t been for the embassy playing hardball, I really think they might have made it work.
Anyway, from then on she wouldn’t even look at a guy from Australia, no matter how much money he had. I heard that she hooked a rich German and she now lives with him in Bonn in a huge house and is pregnant with her second child. All’s well that ends well, I suppose. Except for Damien, of course. But hey, even a Thai private eye can’t win them all.
THE CASE OF THE BLACKMAILED BEAUTY
Klaus was a German, and I don’t get too many German clients. Nothing to do with the war, it’s just that for some reason Germans don’t seem to have as many problems with bargirls as guys from other countries. I used to ask the girls why Germans never seemed to lose their hearts to the girls who dance around the silver poles. The general consensus seemed to be that Germans think with their heads. The Americans think with their hearts. And the Brits think with their dicks. When a tearful bargirl starts to tell a Brit or a Yank that her father is in hospital or her sister needs a new pair of shoes or the water buffalo has died, he gives her money. The German just shrugs and reaches for his beer. The Germans are more pragmatic, they understand that a bargirl has a history and deals with it. The Brits tend to believe every lie they’re told. No, the girl doesn’t have a husband. No, she doesn’t have kids. No, she doesn’t spend hours in an internet cafA© talking to her sponsors around the world. So when Klaus phoned me up and said that he wanted to talk to me about a girl, alarm bells started ringing. I knew it wouldn’t be a straightforward bargirl investigation.
He’d worked in Thailand for almost a decade, and that sent up a red flag too because most long-term expats are well aware of the dangers of getting involved with a bargirl. And if they wanted to check out a bargirl’s story they usually had plenty of friends who could do the job for them. I’d had a quiet week so I ignored my reservations and arranged to meet him at a Starbucks close to my office.
He was waiting for me at an outside table, smoking a cigarette with an espresso in front of him. He was in his early forties, balding, and looked as if he spent quite a bit of time in the gym. I ordered a white coffee and then joined him at his table. He started by giving me a potted life history. He’d lived in Berlin, married with two children, then divorced and moved to Thailand to start a new life. He’d built up a successful computer company, importing components from Europe, and now had offices in Germany, Hong Kong and Bangkok. He’d married again to a Thai woman, but happily admitted to a series of affairs. Nothing serious, more often than not just a matter of barfining a bargirl and taking her to a short-time hotel.
His life had ticked along perfectly until the time he flew down to Phuket to see about opening an office there. In one of the island’s up-market pickup joints he met Nut, the love of his life. She wasn’t a bargirl but a law student, twenty-seven years old and drop dead gorgeous. She was bright, and according to Klaus was able to talk to him about everything. Economics. Politics. Literature. She was on vacation, footloose and fancy free. He had never met such a smart girl before and he was besotted. He started thinking about divorcing Wife Number Two and starting afresh with Nut. He persuaded her to go on holiday with him to Hong Kong, and on their return she said she had to go back to Rhamkamheng University to prepare for her final exams. Klaus was keen to play the white knight. He offered to give her a lump sum to cover all her expenses, and give her a laptop so that she could email him as he travelled around. Nut jumped at his offer of sponsorship. Klaus probably saw it differently, but in my experience young girls aren’t attracted to rich middle-aged farangs because of their good looks, witty conversation or sparkling personalities. Nut said she stayed with her sister in Bangkok but that he could visit whenever he wanted. It was a done deal. Klaus gave her 60,000 baht for her first month’s ‘salary’ and a brand new laptop.
After they returned to Bangkok, Klaus gave Nut a couple of days to settle in and then phoned her. There was no reply from her mobile and his emails went unanswered. Klaus was distraught. He was already planning to divorce his wife, he believed he had finally met the love of his life, and now she had disappeared. He’d phoned the apartment block where she stayed with her sister but someone there told him that she had moved out.
‘I vant you to find her, Varren,’ he said. ‘Money no object.’
Ah. The three words that every private eye loves to hear. He was as good as his word and took out an envelope containing 50,000 baht. I spent half an hour with him getting as many details as I could and he gave me a photograph that he’d been carrying in his wallet. She was a pretty girl, all right. High cheekbones, rosebud mouth, long lashes.
My first port of call was the apartment block where Nut was supposed to be living with her sister. I was lucky, it was quite small, just a few floors above the offices of a cleaning company. All residents and visitors had to go in through the offices, which I reckoned was good news because the staff there would almost certainly be able to put names to faces.
Klaus had told me that Nut had spoken of a previous boyfriend, an English guy who’d returned to London a couple of years earlier. I adopted one of my regular personas-an embassy offcial. Most Thai girls would do anything to get a visa to the West so I walked into the office in a suit and tie and carrying a briefcase. There were two girls sitting at a reception desk and I told them that I was from the British Embassy. I told them that Nut had applied for
