Stephen Leather - Confessions of a Bangkok Private Eye - True Stories From the Case Files of Warren Olson

Knight took out his bulging wallet and took out a handful of 1,000-baht bills. He gave them to me with a rueful smile and then used the remote to rewind the tape.

Gung showed me out, his face still impassive. But as he closed the door, he winked at me.

A few months later I was in my dentist’s waiting room and I picked up one of the glossy magazines. There was a photoshoot of the opening of Greig Knight’s latest restaurant. At the top of the page was a picture of the man himself, grinning like a man possessed, one arm around the shoulders of the lovely Ying, the other around the waist of Ying’s girlfriend. I stopped watching the video after that. The fun had gone out of it.

One of my first jobs as a private eye was to check up on a girl called Fai, a rescued bargirl who was now living a life of luxury on the back of a guy called Arthur. Arthur had met Fai in a Nana Plaza bar and had decided that she was the love of his life. He worked in an oil refinery in Rayong, a couple of hours’ drive from Bangkok, and he wasn’t short of a bob or two. He paid her family a decent sin sot, or dowry, moved her into his spacious apartment on the outskirts of Rayong, paid her a monthly allowance that was more than I earned in a good month, and kept her on a long rein. Every now and again he had to pop over to his firm’s head office in Singapore and while he was away Fai would go to Bangkok to see her family. All was well until one of his friends said that he’d seen Fai on Sukhumvit Road, eating at a street stall close to the Thermae.

Arthur was enough of an old Bangkok hand to hear alarm bells at the mention of the Thermae. It’s a Bangkok institution, a late night hang out frequented by freelancers, or Pay For Play girls as I call them, and expats who baulk at paying barfines. There’s always a mixed bag at the Thermae: former bargirls who are past their prime; young girls just down from the countryside who don’t speak enough English to work in the farang bars; office girls who are struggling to pay their rent. The going rate for a short time with a Thermae Pay For Play girl would be about half what it would cost at Soi Cowboy or Nana Plaza. The expats are a mixed bunch too but generally they are at the scummier end of the market, prowling around like tigers hunting for fresh meat. If Fai was hanging around the Thermae, it wasn’t for the bar snacks.

He got in touch with me and asked if I’d keep an eye on her next time he went to Singapore. She normally drove her motorbike to the bus station and took the bus into Bangkok. He paid me a three-day retainer and agreed to put me up in a decent hotel in Rayong for one night and pay for a rental car. I’d stick out too much if I went on the bus with her, so the car was a necessity. I asked him for details of the family members that she went to see in Bangkok, but he didn’t know their names or their addresses. He seemed a trusting chap, and in my experience, trusting chaps in Thailand are lambs to the slaughter. I was looking forward to following Miss Fai, especially once he’d given me a photograph of her. She was drop dead gorgeous, long hair, long legs, long eyelashes, perfect natural breasts and flawless skin. I practically got a hard on looking at her photograph.

The night before he was due to fly to Singapore, I booked into the hotel in Rayong and started spending a good chunk of Arthur’s retainer in the hotel’s nightclub. It got me two bottles of Jack Daniels and a whole lot of new friends, one who was snoring softly next to me when Arthur phoned to tell me that he was leaving the apartment. I knew there was no need to rush as most Thai girls, those that don’t have jobs to go to, don’t usually surface before noon.

Seeing as how Arthur had woken me up, I figured it was only right that my companion should be awake as well, so I rolled on top of her and had my wicked way with her. By the time I’d showered and shaved, she’d fallen asleep again so I went downstairs for the hotel’s eighty-five-baht breakfast. I wasn’t particularly interested in the hard strips of bacon and cold scrambled eggs but the half dozen cups of strong coffee were a good way of kick-starting the day. My new-found friend was still asleep when I got back to the bedroom, no doubt dreaming of her life in New Zealand with her new rich farang. I left her a 500-baht tip on top of her neatly folded jeans and went downstairs to check out. I told them that my ‘wife’ was sleeping but would be up soon.

I picked up a Bangkok Post from the lobby, a ten-baht bag of pineapple from a street vendor and a bottle of water from the 7-Eleven and drove the rental car in search of a shady spot outside Arthur’s apartment block.

It was one o’clock and I’d polished off the bag of pineapple before Fai appeared, and she looked even better in real life than she did in her picture. She was wearing tight jeans, impossibly high heels and a low-cut top. She got her motorbike from the car park and I followed her to the bus station. I watched from the car as she bought a ticket for the next aircon bus to Bangkok, and waited for fifteen minutes until she boarded. So far, so good.

I got the number of the bus, then drove like crazy back to Bangkok. The bus would take twice as long, with frequent restroom stops along the way, so I had plenty of time to take the rental car back and phone one of my motorcycle-taxi friends to pick me up and run me over to the Ekkamai bus station. We had just finished our chicken satay snack when the bus rolled up.

Fai got off the bus and climbed into a taxi. Following a car when you’re on a motorcycle is a breeze in Bangkok and we had no problems tailing them along Sukhumvit Road, down Thonglor and up Petchburi Road to Soi 43/1. She went into Miami Apartments, a notorious block of cheap housing that’s home to a good number of Bangkok bargirls. I’d been there a number of times, usually when I was too short of cash to spring for a short-time hotel.

Fai went into the foyer of the rear block, walking by a table where half a dozen girls were tucking into bags of dukadan (grasshoppers) and washing them down with Sangthip whiskey and soda. Two of the girls shouted out to Fai so I figured she was well known there. I waited until Fai had gone before I went over to the table. I recognised two of the girls as Thermae regulars so I gave them a ‘ Sawasdee krup ’ and sat down. As I was offered some grasshoppers, I bought them another bottle of Sangthip, a steal at seventy baht. We had a few glasses before I asked about Fai. The girls knew her, knew that she was married to a farang, and that she often came to stay with her sister who lived in the block. I asked about her sister and the girls told me that she worked in the German bar in Sukhumvit Soi 7. I knew it well. It was a well-known haunt of freelance hookers, most of whom were well past their sell-by date. But with Fai being in town, the girls said, they’d probably be up at the Hard Rock CafA© in Siam Square, a much more upmarket pick-up joint.

Excellent. I headed home for a few hours’ sleep, and by ten o’clock was revitalised and ready to take on whatever the night might hold. I put on my best pair of Chinos and a freshly ironed polo short, splashed on some aftershave and caught a cab. The Hard Rock CafA© is the haunt of Westerners with money to burn, and hookers looking for a fast buck. The girls don’t look like hookers, and they’d probably be really offended if you called them prostitutes, but they are definitely there hoping to hook a wealthy farang. Most of them probably have jobs, working in department stores, beauty parlours, travel agents, or banks, but what they earn in a month wouldn’t pay for a night out at the Hard Rock. They turn up, usually in pairs, buy themselves a cheap drink and start the hunt. Play For Pay girls is what I call them. And they can be even more dangerous than the go-go bar hookers. The guys who live in Thailand know the score and treat the place for what it is-a meat market. But tourists who turn up often get the wrong impression. They think that they have suddenly become much more attractive and that the pretty young thing in tight jeans and a sexy top is hanging on their every word because they’re God’s gift to women. They take her back to their hotel, have a night of great sex, and then get all confused when the new love of their life starts asking for an expensive present, a cash donation, or help with their mother’s medical expenses.