Stephen Leather - Bangkok Bob and the missing Mormon

Not Brent Whittington.

He was practically forced onto the plane at gunpoint, kicking and screaming all the way to Bangkok.

Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration. But Brent never wanted to come to Thailand, and neither did his wife and two sons. They were perfectly happy in London, where Brent headed up a hugely profitable stockbroking operation for one of the big banks, one of the ones that didn’t nearly go belly-up in the financial crisis that hit Europe and the States. There are those who say that Brent had a lot to do with the fact that his bank did well while so many others almost went to the wall. Brent is far too modest to ever say as much, but he is pretty contemptuous of most of the UK’s banks and says that they deserved what happened to them.

Back in 2005, Brent’s bank went into partnership with a stockbroking firm in Thailand, owned by a wealthy family with Royal connections. Try as they might the joint venture just couldn’t make money, and Brent’s bosses decided that the only way to salvage the situation was if he went out to run it.

At first Brent point-blank refused, but eventually his bosses made him an offer he couldn’t refuse, which is why he now has a seven-figure salary, a luxury villa in a gated community, a Bentley and driver on call twenty-four hours a day, unlimited first class travel between London and Bangkok, and places in one of Thailand’s top schools for his boys. It was one hell of a good deal and one that made him the envy of the rest of the stockbroking community. Brent still wasn’t happy to be in Thailand, though, and had a cast-iron guarantee that after five years he and his family would be back in England.

I met Brent through his wife, Samantha, who wandered into my shop one day and walked out with a nineteenth-century fifty-thousand baht reclining Buddha. She came back with Brent a couple of weeks later and we hit it off and he’s been a friend ever since. He’s still counting the days before he gets back to London but he seems happier than when he first arrived. Brent and I don’t agree about much, as it happens. He thinks cricket is the best game in the world and I know for a fact that it’s baseball. He thinks Thailand is a Third World hellhole and I can’t think of anywhere that I’d rather live. And he’s sure that the best steaks in Bangkok are served in the Rib Room on the thirty-first floor of the Landmark Hotel while I’m sure they’re only available in the New York Steakhouse of the JW Marriott Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 2. I was the one who wanted something so I arranged to meet him at the Rib Room and told him that the evening was on me.

‘Are you playing poker on Friday?’ he asked as he sat down and took the menu from one of the Rib Room’s many pretty waitresses.

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘You?’

‘Probably not,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to go to Singapore and probably won’t get back until late. At least I’ll save money, I’ve lost pretty badly the last few weeks.’

‘Yeah, Somsak’s been on a bit of a winning streak. And Tim.’

‘You don’t think they’re cheating, do you?’

I laughed. ‘A Thai policeman less than honest? Perish the thought.’ I shook my head. ‘Somsak plays for fun, he doesn’t care if he wins or loses. And Tim’s just a good player. ‘

‘And we’re on losing streaks.’

I waved over a waitress and ordered a bottle of red wine that I know he likes, and we spent the next hour eating perfect steaks and chatting. I waited until we’d finished our meal before getting around to the reason that I’d invited him. It seemed only fair.

‘I could do with some advice,’ I said as he stirred brown sugar into his coffee.

‘Buy cheap, sell high,’ he said.

I grinned. ‘I knew I was doing something wrong.’ I put a spoonful of sugar into my coffee, even though Noy is always nagging me to give up on the sweet stuff. ‘I want to pick your brains about the boiler room situation.’

‘Are you looking for another job? Because I have to warn you it’s a young man’s game.’

‘It’s a young man that I’m looking for,’ I said. ‘And before you say what I know you’re going to say, it’s a missing person case. A young American, a Mormon. His parents are frantic and I’m trying to help.’

‘A young American in Bangkok?’ He raised his glass of red wine. ‘Try Soi Cowboy, then Nana Plaza, then Patpong. If that fails then try the Khao San Road.’

‘He’s a Mormon, Brent. Doesn’t drink, doesn’t go out with girls, wouldn’t say boo to a goose.’

‘And you think he’s working in a boiler room? I don’t think so, my friend.’

‘Someone heard him on his phone, talking about working for one.’

‘It’s a high-pressure job, Bob. Not for the faint hearted.’

‘Do you know anyone who’s hiring?’

Brent chuckled. ‘I hope you’re not implying that I hang out with those guys.’

‘You know every trader in the city,’ I said.

‘That’s true.’ He swirled his wine around the glass. ‘Did he have any experience?’

‘None,’ I said. ‘He was doing some English teaching.’

‘But he had a good head on his shoulders, did he?’

‘I think he’s a normal American kid. Why?’

‘It’s a tough job, boiler room guys have to be pushy yet personable, and while they work from a script they have to be able to think on their feet. You know how it works, right?’

‘Selling worthless shares to people who should know better,’ I said.

‘You old cynic, you,’ he said. ‘But basically that’s it. The boiler room boys have been chased out of the States and Europe so a lot of them have set up in Asia. International phone calls are so cheap these days that it doesn’t matter where they are. Hong Kong and Singapore have been clamping down so more have been moving here in recent years.’

‘So what are you saying, he could have gone anywhere?’

Brent shook his head. ‘Nah, a lot of them are quite small operations, half a dozen or so traders who all know each other. They rarely bring in outsiders. But there are a couple of larger set-ups where they do recruit. Most of them are run by Aussies selling into Australia or New Zealand.’

‘Offices?’

Brent shook his head. ‘Low, low profile,’ he said. ‘They don’t want to be found.’

‘So how would my guy have found them?’

‘Word of mouth,’ said Brent. ‘Followed by a chat in a pub, then they’d make a few checks and if he panned out then he’d be shown the office.’

‘Dead end, then?’

‘Not necessarily,’ he said. ‘There’s one group I know off who drink at the Dubliner most evenings. They’ve got a place in Soi 33 somewhere and then walk to the Dubliner to wind down. The boss is an Aussie called Bear. Huge bloke, bushy beard. Used to be a legit broker years ago in Hong Kong but got done for insider trading. If you can find Bear he might have come across your lad. They take backpackers on and train them. His name’s Alistair Wainer but everyone calls him Bear.’

‘Bear it is, then.’

‘Just be careful, Bob. They’re a suspicious bunch at the best of times.’ He finished his wine and held up the empty glass. ‘Another?’

‘It’s the least I can do,’ I said.

I left Brent in the hotel’s reception area. He was waiting for his chauffer to arrive. He lived about thirty minutes drive north of Bangkok in a gated community on the campus of the International School of Bangkok. The school was mainly for Americans and the Nichada Thani expat community was one of the most secure areas in the country, with its own supermarket, medical facility and shopping plaza. Brent liked the fact that his kids could cycle safely to school and that his wife had plenty of friends and had insisted that his company set him up in one of the biggest villas on the site. Getting to my humble abode in Sukhumvit 55 meant crossing over Sukhumvit Road and catching a taxi. I’d decided against driving because I knew that Brent and I would get through at least two bottles of wine at dinner. I wasn’t worried about losing my licence because like most traffic violations in Thailand, a few hundred baht would make the problem go away. But I was worried about driving while under the influence because even when stone cold sober Bangkok was one of the most dangerous places in the world to be behind the wheel of a car.