“He’s a control freak,” I tell Chanya as the cab turns into our soi. “For more than thirty years he has outmaneuvered, outcheated, outwitted, outflanked, outsold, outbought, and outkilled his enemies so that he could have total and absolute control of his kingdom. Now, suddenly, he decides to enter politics, we have three Americans running his life, and everything is in the hands of people in Beijing. It’s not like him.”
“Isn’t it out of character for him to run for governor in the first place? It just isn’t his style-he’s way too shrewd to want to become a minor public figure. Is someone making him do it?”
“Force Vikorn to run for political office? Who in Thailand would have the power to do that?”
“Someone he owes a lot of money to-or someone with the power to blackmail him.”
“Blackmail Vikorn? Vikorn in debt? He owns everyone.”
Chanya shrugs. It’s my problem, not hers. Then she says, “What about that Yunnan trip all those years ago? Something happened to get you all excited for a day. You were running around all over town and wouldn’t tell me what it was about except that it was on urgent Vikorn business and that he was stuck in Yunnan with Ruamsantiah. Then it all suddenly faded, and next thing I knew Vikorn and the sergeant were back in town. I was sure there would be a coda to that one day. You told me Vikorn got himself into a tight spot and had to throw money at it. Maybe he still owes someone a favor?”
I blink. Stare. She points at my mouth, which is hanging open. I close it, give her one huge smacker on the chops, and say, “D’you know you are absolutely fucking brilliant?” I’m experiencing a non-narcotic ecstasy of the loving kind and cannot stop. “You’re just the most fantastic wife a cop could ever hope to have. I just totally adore you to bits. You’re just unbelievable.”
She enjoys adulation as well as any woman, but she has known me for a long time. “Did I say something to crack the case?”
“Yes.”
“So can I get laid tonight before you dash off to Phuket or Hong Kong or some other damned place?”
I hesitate-a bad mistake, which I have to cover by saying, “Sure,” and placing her hand on my cock as an earnest of my troth. Once inside the hovel and naked, I make a supreme effort to dedicate all my energies to the task at hand and wait the regulation period of post-coital silence before beginning to make restless movements.
“It’s okay,” Chanya says with a sigh. “I realize I’ve had my twenty minutes. You can get on with your case now. I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me exactly what I said that’s gotten you so excited?”
“Later,” I whisper. “I’m just popping out to make a call, I want a good signal.”
19
I have to tell you about the Yunan trip, DFR; it goes like this.
Colonel Vikorn was away on business with Sergeant Ruamsantiah. Only the inner circle, which is to say me, knew where they had gone: Yunnan, in southwestern China. He had never been there before, and my present guess is that he will never go there again. On the face of it, though, the intention had been a relatively normal meeting between high-end narcotics traffickers. It seems a Burmese general closely associated with, but not a member of, the ruling elite had perfected the black art of producing morphine from poppy and, when required, heroin from morphine. Vikorn was interested for two reasons, the first being that he could never obtain enough smack to match demand, the second that he had been trying for years to break into the Burmese wholesale market as a strategy for doing in his main business rival in Thailand, General Zinna, who had been pals with the psychopathic rulers of Myanmar for decades and derived most of his crystal meth supplies from there. Due diligence had revealed that General U-Tat was something of a rebel within the Burmese military but was too well entrenched in the Shan Mountains for them to do much about it. Clearly, this was a man to cultivate with a long-term view of using him to squeeze Zinna. Vikorn and Ruamsantiah set off together for Lijiang, leaving Manny and me at headquarters.
General U-Tat was not at the airport to meet them; instead they found one General Xie, of the People’s Liberation Army. General Xie gave them to understand that his dear friend General U-Tat was dealing with a minor insurrection among the Shan tribes, which he was putting down with such speed and brutality, he would be able to join the party in not less than two days. In the meantime General Xie let it be known that he knew why Vikorn and Ruamsantiah had come to Yunnan, that he was himself a major shareholder in General U-Tat’s enterprise and might even be the senior partner. As the days passed, the dinners grew longer, and the entertainment more lavish; opportunities to indulge in all the major vices were offered and, in the case of Ruamsantiah, accepted.
Then Xie announced that General U-Tat had successfully put down the rebellion but had sustained a minor yet debilitating injury to his left knee that made it difficult for him to travel. He would certainly not trouble Vikorn and Ruamsantiah to come into Burma, but would they mind meeting him halfway-at the village of Ruili, near the Yunnan-Burmese border? This would not be a sinister-looking jungle trek-there were modern roads and full communications all the way to Ruili, and for full security General Xie himself would escort them. The general had held a full inspection of the local garrison the day before and invited Vikorn and Ruamsantiah as guests of honor; they duly admired the general in full-dress uniform. Not that they trusted Xie any further than they could throw him, and not that General Xie thought he could induce them to trust him. It was more a case of the general showing how wealthy and powerful he was, and how well known, so he would hardly pull a fast one on them. For what? They were merely two Thai cops and had no money on them to speak of. What good could come from molesting them?
So when their car and escort were stopped just outside Ruili by masked men who held themselves very much like soldiers and seemed armed with standard-issue military weapons all of the same Chinese type and make, Vikorn and Ruamsantiah couldn’t believe that they’d violated the first rule of sophisticated professionals: never underestimate the other guy’s possible amateurism. They were kicking themselves.
“Suppose the general has been recording our conversations for entrapment purposes?” Ruamsantiah whispered to Vikorn while they were being professionally frisked by one of the masked gunmen.
“I’m sorry to have to tell you that our conversations together over the past several days have been recorded. After taking legal advice, I have reached the conclusion that I have no choice but to report you to the authorities for conspiring to transport prohibited narcotics across Chinese territory, a criminal offense with a mandatory death penalty,” General Xie explained twenty minutes later, when they were in a military-style cabin in an army camp less than a mile from the Burmese border.
“How much?” Vikorn said.
“Two million dollars,” Xie said.
“Okay,” Vikorn said, concealing a smirk of contempt. In the general’s position, he would have started at twenty million and stood firm at ten. Two million? It wasn’t worth bargaining about.
“In cash,” Xie said.
“Ah!” Vikorn said.
“Used notes,” Xie said.
Now Vikorn reassessed Xie. He had thought he was dealing with a brain-dead thug, of a model not dissimilar to Zinna. Now he switched models. This was classic Chinese small-and-medium-enterprises thinking: modest returns with quick turnarounds and near-zero risk; used banknotes were the caviar of money laundering. Smart operators would give as much as a 60 percent discount for used notes.
“How often have you done this?” Vikorn asked.
“Not telling you,” Xie said.
“More or less than ten?”
“More.”
“More or less than a hundred?”
Xie could not resist a smirk.
“More or less than-”
“Can you get the money by tomorrow? The price goes up ten percent per day thereafter.”
Vikorn thought about it. “You really need it for tomorrow?”
“Yes,” Xie said, “I really need it for tomorrow.”
Xie didn’t know it, but Vikorn was giving him a chance to be reasonable. “Really really?”
