Stephen Leather - Bangkok Bob and the missing Mormon

‘No, I’m all right,’ I said, but the words came out all wrong as if I’d forgotten how to work my tongue.

‘Mr Turtledove?’

I felt a pressure on my eyelid and then it was forced open and a bright light made me wince. I groaned and blinked and then I opened my eyes to see a young doctor looking down at me. ‘Where am I?’ I asked, and this time my tongue seemed to have regained the knack of forming words.

‘Bumrungrad Hospital,’ he said. ‘The emergency room.’

That was good news.

At least I wasn’t dead.

I guess if you’re going to be shot anywhere, the best place would be outside one of Asia’s best hospitals.

‘How do you feel, Mr Turtledove?’

‘My head hurts. And my throat is dry.’

The doctor asked a nurse to get me some water and a few seconds later a straw was slipped between my lips and I sipped gratefully.

‘Do you have any other pain anywhere else?’ asked the doctor.

The nurse took the water away. ‘No,’ I said. ‘No pain. How many times was I shot?’

‘Just once,’ said the doctor. ‘The bullet glanced across your temple. You were lucky.’

‘I don’t feel lucky,’ I said.

The doctor took my right hand. ‘Squeeze, please,’ he said.

I did as I was told.

‘Good,’ said the doctor. He put down my right hand and picked up my left. ‘And again, please.’ I squeezed again.

‘That’s good, Mr Turtledove. Very good.’

There was a metallic whirring sound and the bed began to tilt up. I was in a private room with an LCD television on the wall and a sofa for visitors. I guess they’d found the insurance card in my wallet.

‘There was some bleeding, obviously, but it was superficial. I’d like you to come back in a couple of days to change the dressing, but other than that you’ll be fine.’

‘My head really hurts,’ I said.

‘We’ll prescribe painkillers, but we did a scan while you were unconscious and there’s no sign of damage to the skull or the brain,’ he said. ‘You’re good to go.’ He signed a form on a clipboard and handed it to the nurse, wished me a good afternoon and left.

I asked a nurse to bring me my cellphone and I tapped out Noy’s number.

‘Where are you?’ she asked.

‘Hospital,’ I said.

‘I thought you were done by eleven,’ she said.

‘That was the plan,’ I said.

‘How did it go?’

‘Good news, bad news,’ I said.

‘Oh my Buddha, they didn’t cut off your manhood, did they?’

‘No, honey, I’m still in one piece.’

‘So what’s the good news?’

‘My colon is fine. No cysts, tumours or anything untoward. Clean bill of health.’

‘That’s great, honey. So what’s the bad news?’

‘I’ve been shot.’

Noy came to pick me up at the hospital and drove me back to our apartment in Soi Thonglor, after we’d paid the hospital bill, of course. You get great treatment at the Bumrungrad, but it comes at a price.

She didn’t ask me any questions in the car, but once I was on the sofa with a cup of coffee in my hand, they came thick and fast.

Who had shot me?

Why had they shot me?

What had happened to the man who’d shot me?

Was he working for someone else?

The problem was, most of the questions I couldn’t answer even if I’d wanted to. It looked like a professional job, which means the hitman had been bought and paid for. But who would want me dead?

Petrov, the Russian, maybe.

Thongchai or one of the Kube investors.

Tukkata’s father, maybe. He hadn’t been happy about me going around to his house.

But I didn’t think that me asking questions merited any of them putting a price on my head.

Maybe it was one of the other cases I’d worked on over the years.

Hell, it could even be a case of mistaken identity. I wouldn’t have been the only middle-aged farang leaving the Bumrungrad and Thai hitmen aren’t generally known for being smart.

‘I don’t know, honey, really I don’t know.’

‘Is it one of your cases, do you think?’

‘It’s either that or someone on eBay thinks they got a raw deal.’

She folded her arms and gave me a withering look. ‘This isn’t funny, Bob.’

‘I know, honey. I’m just trying to lighten the moment.’

‘Someone tried to kill you.’

‘I know that honey.’ I touched the plaster carefully. ‘I think that’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?’

‘And they might try again.’

‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘They were hit by a bus.’

She frowned. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘A bus ploughed into the bike. I’m guessing they’re in much worse condition than me, and I’m pretty sure they won’t have had health insurance so they won’t be getting the Bumrungrad treatment.’ I sipped my coffee. ‘I’ll go and see Somsak tomorrow. He’ll know what’s going on.’

My mobile rang. I fished it out of my pocket and squinted at the screen. ‘Speak of the devil,’ I said.

Somsak was sitting behind his desk when the secretary showed me into his office. He stood up and shook my hand then showed me to a hard-backed wooden chair. ‘How’s the head?’ he asked sympathetically. It had been two days since I’d been shot, two days that I’d spent at home being fussed over by Noy. Which, truth be told, I actually quite enjoyed.

My hand went instinctively up to the dressing on my temple. ‘It’s fine. Just a headache.’

‘You were lucky.’

‘You must be using some definition of lucky that I’m not familiar with,’ I said. ‘Where I come from, a four-leaf clover is lucky. Getting shot in the head definitely ranks up there with black cats and broken mirrors.’

Somsak frowned and I quickly explained about black cats crossing paths and shattered mirrors bringing seven years of bad luck.

‘I meant you were lucky to be alive,’ he said patiently.

It was my own fault for using sarcasm. Somsak was as straight as a dye and while he had a good enough sense of humour where anything involving slapstick was involved, irony and sarcasm were generally lost on him.

‘I am,’ I said.

‘That bus driver saved your life,’ he said. ‘If he hadn’t been high on amphetamines he probably wouldn’t have hit the motorcycle and the guy would have got off another shot.’

‘They dead?’

‘The driver is but the shooter’s in hospital.’

‘Talking?’

‘Life support. Fifty-fifty.’

I sighed. ‘Think he’ll talk?’

‘If he doesn’t die, he’ll probably talk. Depends who hired him.’

‘You’ll cut him a deal?’

‘If he pleads guilty and cooperates then any sentence is automatically halved, Khun Bob. You know that.’

‘I’d lock him away for ever,’ I said.

‘It’s more important to know who wanted you dead because whoever paid for the hit might want to pay again. And don’t worry, he will go to prison and Thai prisons are not holiday camps.’

He was right. Fifty men per cell, sleeping on concrete floors, a couple of bowls of rice a day and an open sewer for a toilet.

‘And he’s in a worse state than you are,’ said Somsak. ‘He’s lost his spleen and his left leg is never going to heal properly.’

I shrugged. Somsak was right. There was no point in bearing grudges. He’d tried to kill me, he’d failed, and he was the one on life support. I should be counting my blessings.

‘Let me know what he says, yeah?’

‘Of course.

‘I wouldn’t have though this case would have been in your jurisdiction,’ I said. ‘Don’t the Lumpini cops deal with Soi 3.’

‘Indeed they do, but I thought you might like things handled by a friend. Especially in view of what we found in the taxi.’