John Burdett - Bangkok 8

By the time he's on his feet he fills my hovel. I'm reminded of a Buddha statue in a cave that's too small. I have to stand aside to let him out the door. When he returns he is with a couple of the motorcycle kids, who are weighed down with stacks of six-packs and bags full of ice. Elijah reaches into his pocket and takes out a new padlock with keys dangling from it. "Sorry about the other one. There wasn't any comfortable lobby or anyplace I could wait."

"Never mind. How'd you break it so cleanly? I didn't see any marks on the door."

He snorts. "That little thing? I did it with my fingers. Muscle power, my friend, still opens doors from time to time."

"What did you say?" I ask, suddenly transfixed by the ice cooler.

"I adored Billy," Elijah says. "Probably because he adored me. We hardly knew our father, so I was the only role model he had. We were inseparable until I got my ass sent to reform school, just a little smack deal that went wrong. I was fifteen years old. When I came out they gave me a good probation officer, a black who understood where I was coming from and knew my mother. He says to me: 'You might have the smarts and the speed, but what you gonna do to your kid brother? You gonna destroy him? No way young Billy can take the kind of shit you're gonna take. You're dragging him down to hell without a ladder.' I didn't need to think about that because I knew he was right. I started to put some distance between me and the kid, even though it broke my heart. I can't say I was thrilled when he joined the Marines, but it was a load off my mind. It hurt when he started acting so superior and looked down on me and my wicked ways, it hurt a lot, but it was still a load off my mind. Even when he stopped calling me or talking to me, it was still a load off my mind. I felt like a father who has done better for his son than he ever could do for himself. I was so thrilled when he started calling me again, it was like ten years didn't count for nothing. We was pals again. Since he died I wake up with the sweats thinking about breaking the people who did that to him. Breaking them across my knee, one by one."

It is 2:34 a.m. and we've drunk most of the beer. Elijah has told me how to cook meth, how to set up a network, how to find cops to bribe in New York. In particular I am now an authority on glassine bags (they have to be the right size-too big and the price is too high for the average crackhead; too small and you're giving yourself too much work-above all, don't get fancy and put your own proprietorial stamp on the outside, like gold stars or something, because the courts will assume organized crime). He's told me everything I need to know if I ever want to deal in drugs in the United States, and now he has finally told me why he is in my country. He has come to tell me because he has realized his quest for vengeance is impossible. With greater speed than the FBI he has understood that crucial thing about Asia: we play by different rules and we are two-thirds of the world. He has come to say goodbye.

When he heaves himself to his feet I need help from the wall to do likewise. I have felt great love for this gigantic man with his gigantic heart, and this love has compelled me to match him beer for beer. I've never been so astonishingly drunk in my life. I am also grateful that he has helped me solve one detail of the case which has been nagging at us for weeks, the FBI and me. On rubber knees I follow him to the shop and we hug each other goodbye near the motorcycle taxis. Only the largest of their bikes, a 500 cc Honda, is strong enough to sustain him, and there is much grinning and wonderment when he sits on the back, crushing the suspension. I watch him and the driver wobble off into what is left of the night, then I stumble back to my cave, where, with superhuman concentration, I press the FBI's number into the keypad of my mobile. I wake her from a deep sleep and it takes some moments to convince her I'm not some Thai variant of a dirty phone call. She is fully awake by the time she has made sense of my drunken mumblings.

"Saw it when Elijah busted my padlock," I explain with sloppy pride.

"The cobras were in a steamer trunk? Bradley thought he was doing a standard pickup from the airport? The python was there to bust open the trunk?"

" 'Xactly."

"But what about the whole problem with injecting the snakes with yaa baa?"

"Weren't injected. Packed in straw between ice. Snakes hibernated. Ice smelted. Snakes woke up thirsty. Drank water from smelted ice. Water had yaa baa in it. Yaa baa drove python crazy. Bust the locks no prob." I cackle. "Must have been fucking terrifying."

"What about those two dead snakes you found-the ones that were beaten to death?"

"Squatters had to snatch trunk before we arrived. Some snakes left in back of car. Rest all over Bradley. Killed ones in back with stick or something. Steamer trunks was the way they brought in the yaa baa every few months-that's why Old Tou had enough to build his hut."

"Some trusted squatters snatched the trunk out the back door despite the snakes, because it would have blown their whole operation if you'd found it? Yes, I can see that. But that drunk never mentioned anything like that?"

"Maybe he wasn't so dumb. Maybe they schooled him. Who knows, he's a drunk."

A pause which I think must express wonder at my forensic brilliance, or my advanced toxicity-I'm not sure which I'm most impressed with myself.

"No kidding. Well, nice work, partner. We'll talk when you've slept it off. Maybe in a week or so?"

A knock on my flimsy door. Someone calls my name, trying out Sonchai, then Detective Jitpleecheep. I must have fallen asleep fully dressed on my futon. My head is killing me. It takes twenty minutes to emerge crumpled from my cave. Without windows I tend to lose all sense of time, especially when I've been pissed out of my brain. I'm traumatized by the bright sunlight. Out in the forecourt just in front of the shop and the motorbike kids I see that the Colonel has sent a car with motorcycle escort. It is the same Lexus as the one in which he recently abducted me, with a different driver at the wheel.

There are four motorbikes this time and the traffic cops have been warned to make way for us. I am surprised to find we are heading for the domestic airport, but there is nothing I can do about that. I wish they wouldn't be so gung ho with their damned sirens.

I am escorted firmly but politely from the limo to the check-in desk for flights to Chiang Mai, where one of my minders pulls out a first-class ticket in my name. The minders use their police IDs to pass through into the waiting area, where we all sit down. Even when it's time to board they accompany me as far as the airplane. The flight lasts thirty minutes and there is another limo waiting at the other end. The driver is Vikorn's usual trusted man. I'm sobering up by the minute, leaving no alcohol buffer between me and my triple-A headache.

I have never been to his house in Chiang Mai and I'm surprised at how far out of town it is. We travel parallel to the Ping River for about ten kilometers until we come to some of the best riverside property in the world. From time to time they appear for sale in the classified pages of the newspapers, these million-dollar mansions in their own leafy grounds with river access and five-car garages. Some of them are renovated teak houses, some are imitations of Thai style, but most of them are imitations of Western luxury houses, perhaps from Malibu or the suburbs of Los Angeles. Gangsters own all of them. The Colonel's is a two-story with vast sloping roofs in red shingles, white walls and floor-to-ceiling windows. Two cops with walkie-talkies stand guard at the electric gate, which opens as we approach.

Vikorn's driver gets out of the car and walks across the gravel in a relaxed mood, as if returning home after a day's work. The Colonel in a loose linen shirt, baggy black pants and old leather slippers comes to the door, looks at me waiting in the car and beckons me in. A few minor clues-the way he shuffles, a lazy left eye-tell me he is drunk. Must have been something in the stars last night.