Bangkok Burn (7 page)

Dogs Don’t Have Money

14 May 2010 Bangkok 7:15 pm

Mushashi Shirotomi, Ken, to his friends
, stood by the door. A stocky guy, shorter than my six foot, but broader in the shoulder, wearing a dark suit and white shirt. Ken's a new generation, no tats, Yak. While his crew controlled the hookers, drugs, and snakeheads, Ken spent most of his time on the golf course. Just like any other Japanese exec. I gave him a wai. He bowed back.

“I heard you were alive, just five minutes ago.” My rumor had beaten me to Silom.

“Well keep it to yourself, could you, Ken? Another rumor's coming out tomorrow that I am really dead. And that one will be supported by a grainy YouTube video of me being put in a body bag.”

A low laugh from a throat made raspy by the Mild Seven cigarettes he chain-smoked, then his face turned serious, and he gestured towards the long white sofa at the far end of the room.

He sat on the sofa opposite me, a low Thai teak table between us.

“What's going on, Smart? Is Khun Por really dead?”

“No, but he's still in a coma and he's lost a leg.”

“I'm very sorry to hear that. Please pass my wish for him to have a full and speedy recovery to Khun Joom.”

“I will and thank you.”

A guy came in with a tray and set it down near Ken. He moved the tray between us and poured me a glass of hot sake. Assorted sashimi and sushi lay on little plates on the tray. He waved his hand at the food, and taking his glass, raised it to me.

“Cheers.”

“Cheers.”

I took a sip of the sake and then put it down on the table.

“Ken, I will come straight to the point. I have a favor to ask. Two favors.” I held up two fingers. Elbows on his knees, palms together, a steeple to a point resting on the tip of his nose, he nodded his buzz cut head at me.

“One. I need some information on a Russian girl from Odessa. Her photos are on this.” I handed him a USB memory stick. He nodded. “The second favor is I need one hundred million dollars by Wednesday next week.”

Ken didn't blink. He sipped his sake and then put the cup down on the table.

“Australian, Singapore or US?”

“US.”

“Collateral?”

“Stocks, bonds, gold futures contracts, a couple of coal mines in Indo and 45% of a tech company in K.L that I'm in the process of taking over. Total book value for the whole lot of about 150 mill. If liquidated in a fire-sale not less than 110. If you hang onto it for a few years 500 mill, easy.”

“How long will you need the money?”

“Not more than fifteen days.”

“1% a day compound.”

“Can you do 1% a day flat rate?”

Ken lit a Mild Seven. I reached across and filched one from the packet.

“I thought you didn't smoke?”

“It's a newly acquired habit, along with dying.”

“I hope dying doesn’t become a habit. It'll be hard to go for a drink with you. Have you figured out who's trying to kill you?”

“No, not yet. Night before last, in the hospital, whoever it was tried again. Funny thing, the shooter, stopped at my door first.”

“You couldn't keep him alive?”

“No, Chai and Beckham were handling things. I was still banged up from the morning. And to be fair to them, the other two were hanging out down the corridor whilst this one guy went into my room.”

“Which room came first your room or Por's?”

“Mine.”

“Maybe just a coincidence.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

The guy who brought the tray of food and drinks came back in and walked around to the back of the sofa. Ken leant back and the guy whispered, in Japanese, something in Ken's ear. He could have shouted from the door but I guess he was just being polite. Ken nodded and looked at me. His eyes thin slats in his tanned face, thick black eyebrows came together in a frown as he sucked hard on his Mild Seven and then stubbed it. Blowing the smoke out in one long exhale, he looked at me.

“Seh Daeng has just been shot in the head. Seriously wounded according to our guy on the ground.”

“Shit. That's heavy. Things will get bad quickly now.” Seh Daeng was a rogue Thai army general who'd allied with the red shirts organizing their defenses and, some said, the M-79 attacks.

“Who'd you think? Army?”

“Could be. Most probably. Seh Daeng is widely thought to be behind the blowing up of the army colonel last month and also behind the M-79 attacks going on. But he has enemies on the other side too. Some of the red shirt leaders are more scared of him than they are of the army. Nothing is what seems.” I shrugged.

Ken nodded and took out another Mild Seven. He saw me looking and pushed the pack my way. I shook my head, lifting up the one I was still smoking.

“I can get the money. I'll have it ready by tomorrow. And forget about the interest. Get it back to me in 15 days, okay. Give me a call when you need it. Allow ten hours for delivery.”

Between our business interests in Japan and his in Thailand, it was a safe deal. I stood and offered him my hand. He smiled, looking up at me from the sofa, rose and took it. Ken understands Griengjai, and he'd just earned himself a boatload.

***

Outside of the cloistered world of the Ken's office, automatic gunfire crackled interspersed with the loud ‘crump’ of explosions. Negotiations were a thing of the past. No one was talking now, only shooting. The yellow phone rang.

“Chance?”

“Cheep - what have you got?”

“You were right. The woman and a man that sounds like Uncle Mike got on a big motor yacht from Yacht Haven. They left about midafternoon. Four guys, all Farang, with them. I got copies of their passports, I'm scan...” a series of loud explosions went off. They sounded close.

“
What was that
?” he shouted. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I'm okay. A shooting war's just started in Bangkok. Someone shot Seh Daeng about ten minutes ago. Hang on, I'm moving up the street a bit.” I turned right and walked quickly up Thaniya and found a doorway which shielded some of the noise. “Yeah, okay. What were you going to say before the explosions?”

“Mother of God, that's going to set things off.”

“You started to say something before the grenades went off.”

“Oh yeah. I'm scanning copies of the passport and the yachts papers. I'll send them up to you.”

“Okay. Thanks, Cheep. I got to go.”

I kept walking up Thaniya, typing out a quick message on the Blackberry to Chai. The bursts of automatic fire faded the further I got up the street. I needed to get off the streets and out of here.

- where r you?

- Chinatown

- pick me up Lob. Montien 15 min.

- k

Fifteen minutes from Chinatown was pushing it, but traffic was light, and Chai only knows one speed when he's driving. I stuck my head out to look up the street and to the right. Any shooting would come from there. It seemed calm enough, so I turned left, keeping to the edge of the buildings. There was a lull in the shooting behind me and then another series of loud bangs and the automatics started up again. The Montien Hotel was about another hundred meters up the road. I thought running might be better than walking.

The lobby was nice and cool - a guy playing on a piano. You couldn't hear the shooting. The bar was empty except for the waitress and the bartender. The little war was hitting tourism hard. Numbers at our crocodile shows were seriously down.

The waitress, dressed in a dark green Cheongsam, showing lots of leg, came over and knelt by my seat.

“Can I get you something to drink, sir?”

“Yes. Hennessy Cognac XO.” I spoke in English.

She gave me a strange look. I guess Biker's don't usually drink Cognac, but to hell with it. The Blackberry buzzed in my pocket. I checked it. Mail from Cheep, with attachments. I left it. It was too hard opening attachments, especially large files on the BB. The waitress went to the bar and I overheard her say in Thai to the bartender, “The smelly dog wants a Hennessy XO, give him the cheap shit, and if he pays in cash I'll split the difference with you.”

The bartender looked across, smiled at me, and nodded. The waitress turned and smiled at me too. Land of Smiles. She came back with the cheap shit, and kneeling put it down on the table in front of me, sliding the bill in a leather holder next to it. I smiled at her and said in Thai.

“Now go get me a Hennessy XO, and don't fuck around. I'm not in the mood.”

She went pale and grabbing the drink went back to the bar. The barman quickly poured a very generous shot into a new glass. He didn't look at me the whole time he did this. She came back and put the Cognac down. I picked it up and swallowed the lot in one go. It burnt deliciously all the way down. She looked at me nervously. I spotted Chai out of the corner of my eye, waiting just outside the doors. Standing up, I bent and picked up the leather holder the bill was in and gave it back to her.

“Here. You can pay this. Smelly dogs don't have money.”

She took it. Her eyes dropped. A 1,500 baht lesson. Got to do what you can for the country’s tourism standards.

Chai saw me coming out of the bar and got in the driver’s seat of a black Benz 500 SEL parked in front of the entrance. I slid in the back. My notebook was on the seat beside me, and I knew the Glocks would be under the seat in front of me.

Chai sitting at the wheel, engine running, looking straight forward and waiting for instructions.

“Lat Prao 93.”

We eased out of the forecourt of the Montien, Chai driving at a reasonable pace, not wanting to draw fire from a panicked soldier or red shirt. I plugged in the BB and downloaded the message that Cheep had sent me. I wanted to get a look at this fucker.

Lucjan Kaminski, age 35. I figured the passport was bullshit. I have a Polish passport. I've got four of them. They're the easiest to get and they give you access to EU countries. He had a pinched face and a hooked, long nose, with deep-set eyes. It was a black and white scan of a passport photo so the resolution was poor and the contrast made the cheekbones high and dark. With the pinched face, it made him look evil, or maybe that was just the way I was looking at it. The yacht's papers were more revealing. I'm sure the name was also faked, but the make would be real. The papers showed she had entered Thailand the day before the kidnapping and then gone straight to Yacht Haven. I started to forward the message to Mother with a note to get the photo of Lucjan around our contacts, and then I stopped. Little point, and it was a risk. I was pretty sure they'd left Thailand two days ago. The hundred million dollar question was where were they now? I canceled the format and instead hit reply, typing out:

- Find out how much diesel they put in the yacht.

Most big yachts sail with a full tank. Knowing how much diesel was put in would give us a range, assuming an average cruising speed of eleven knots, standard for a Hatteras. Also assuming that they were headed back to where they came from. Both big assumptions but something was better than nothing. Got to have a start point for searching. If they came in straight from where they had last been, it would give us a radial within which we could search. A Hatteras 53 is not a small motor yacht, and the yacht clubs and marinas around SE Asia are not that many.

I looked up from the screen and over to my right, through the dark tinted car window. There was an orange glow reflected in the clouds above Lumpini Park. Bangkok was on fire.

How You Doing, Baby

14 May 2010 Bangkok 9 pm

Pim stood in the doorway looking very pissed off
, her eyes puffy and swollen. I smiled. No response, but she stepped aside to let me in. I slipped off my shoes and walked past her into the living room. I didn't sit down and I didn't look back. That would be inviting trouble and I already had enough. She walked past me, picked up a magazine from the coffee table, and sat on the sofa, her long smooth tanned legs pulled up underneath her. She was wearing one of my shirts, the top four buttons undone, and lacy black underwear. I didn't dwell there, afraid she might glance up and catch me staring at her crotch. She didn't look at me, focused on the upside-down magazine in her hands.