John Burdett - Bangkok Tattoo

ALSO BY JOHN BURDETT

Bangkok 8

The Last Six Million Seconds

A Personal History of Thirst

Authors Note

Bangkok is one of the worlds great cities, all of which have red-light districts that find their way into the pages of novels from time to time. The sex industry in Thailand is smaller per capita than in many other countries. That it is more famous is probably because the Thais are less coy about it than many other people. Most visitors to the kingdom enjoy wonderful vacations without coming across any evidence of sleaze at all. Indeed, the vast majority of Thais follow a somewhat strict Buddhist code of conduct.

On a related topic, I am bound to say that I have not myself come across police corruption in Thailand in any form, although the local media reports malfeasance on almost a daily basis.

A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Burdett is a nonpracticing lawyer who worked in Hong Kong for a British firm until he found his true vocation as a writer. Since then, he has lived in France and Spain and is now back in Hong Kong. He is the author of Bangkok 8, A Personal History of Thirst, and The Last Six Million Seconds.

ONE

The Old Mans Club

K illing customers just isnt good for business.

My mother Nongs tone reflects the disappointment we all feel when a star employee starts to go wrong. Is there nothing to be done? Will we have to let dear Chanya go? The question can only be decided by Police Colonel Vikorn, who owns most of the shares in the Old Mans Club and who is on his way in his Bentley.

No, I agree. Like my mothers, my eyes cannot stop flicking across the empty bar to the stool where Chanyas flimsy silver dress (just enough silk to cover nipples and butt) drapes and drips. Well, the dripping was slight and is more or less finished (a rusty stain on the floor turning black as it dries), but in more than a decade as a detective in the Royal Thai Police, I have never seen a garment so blood-soaked. Chanyas bra, also hideously splattered, lies halfway up the stairs, and her pantiesher only other garmentlie abandoned on the floor outside the upstairs room where, eccentrically even for a Thai whore, she has taken refuge with an opium pipe.

She didnt say anything at all? Like why?

No, I told you. She dashed in through the door in a bit of a state holding an opium pipe, glared at me, said, Ive done him in, ripped off her dress, and disappeared upstairs. Fortunately, there were only a couple of farang in the bar at the time, and the girls were fantastic. They merely said, Oh, Chanya, she goes like that sometimes, and gently ushered them out. I had to play the whole thing down, of course, and by the time I got to her room, she was already stoned.

What did she say again?

She was tripping on the opium, totally delirious. When she started talking to the Buddha, I left to call you and the Colonel. At that stage I didnt know if shed really done him in or was freaking out on yaa baa or something.

But shed snuffed him all right. I walked to the farangs hotel, which is just a couple of streets away from Soi Cowboy, and flashed my police ID to get the key to his room. There he was, a big muscular naked American farang in his early thirties, minus a penis and a lot of blood from a huge knife wound that began in his lower gut and finished just short of his rib cage. Chanya, a basically decent and very tidy Thai, had placed his penis on the bedside table. At the other end of the table, a single rose stood in a plastic mug of water.

There was nothing for it but to secure the room for the purposes of forensic investigation, leave a hefty bribe for the hotel receptionistwho is now more or less obliged to say whatever I tell him to say (standard procedure under my Colonel Vikorn in District 8)and await further orders. Vikorn, of course, was in one of his clubs carousing, probably surrounded by naked young women who adored him, or knew how to look as if they did, and in no mood to be dragged to the scene of a crime until I penetrated his drunken skull enough to explain that the business at hand was not an investigation per se but the infinitely more challenging forensic task so lightly spoken of as a cover-up. Even then he showed no inclination to shift himself until he realized it was Chanya (the perp, not the victim).

Where the hell did she get the opium? my mother wants to know. There hasnt been opium in Krung Thep since I was a teenager.

I know from her eyes that she is thinking fondly of the Vietnam War, when she was herself a working girl in Bangkok and a lot of the GIs brought small balls of opium from the war zone (one of them being my almost-anonymous father, of whom more later). An opiated man is more or less impotentwhich reduces much of the wear and tear on a professionals assetsand not inclined to argue about fee structure. Nong and her colleagues had always shown special interest in any American serviceman who whispered that he had a little opium back in his hotel. Being devout Buddhists, of course, the girls never used the stuff themselves, but they encouraged the john to get stoned out of his tree, whereupon they would extract exactly the agreed fee from his wallet, plus a tip somewhat on the generous side to reflect the risk inherent in associating with drug abusers, plus taxi fare, and return to work. Integrity has always been a master word for Nong, which is why she is so upset about Chanya.

We both know the Colonel is arriving in his limo, because his damned signature tune The Ride of the Valkyries is booming from the stereo as his car approaches. I go to the entrance and watch while his driver opens the rear door and more or less pulls him out (a beautiful cashmere Zegna sports jacket, fawn colored and somewhat crumpled, pants by Eddy Monetti on the Via Condotti in Rome, and his usual Wayfarer wraparound sunglasses).

The driver staggers toward me with Vikorns arm over his shoulder. Its fucking Saturday fucking night, the driver complains with a glare, as if its all my fault. (We prefer not to investigate even capital crimes on Saturday nights in District 8.) The Buddhist path can be much like the Christian in that the karma of others often seems to get dumped on your shoulders from out of nowhere.

I know, I tell him as I make way to let him pass, and Vikorn, sunglasses now thrust fashionably onto his hairline though slightly askew, also glares at me blearily.

There are padded benches in intimate little booths along the back wall of the club, and the driver dumps Vikorn down in one while I get some mineral water from the fridge and hand it to my Colonel, who empties the bottle in a few swigs. It is with relief that I observe the rodent cunning return to those frank, unblinking eyes. I tell him the story again, with a few commercially focused interjections from my mother (she makes more for us in a month than all the other girls put together), and I see that he already has a plan to maximize wriggle-room should things get difficult.

Within ten minutes he is close to sober, tells his driver to disappear with the limo (he doesnt want to broadcast that he is here), and is staring at me. So lets go up and take her statement. Get an ink pad and some A4 paper.

I find the ink pad that we use for our business stamp (The Old Mans ClubRods of Iron) and some sheets of paper from the fax machine, which Nong installed for those few of our overseas clients who dont have e-mail (we tried for hooker.com and similar domain names, but they had all been taken, including oldman.com; whore.org had of course been taken since the dawn of cyberspace, so we had to make do with omcroi.com), and follow him across the bar. He stares at Chanyas dress on the stool and cocks an eye at me.

Versace.