Harlan Wolff - Bangkok Rules

Two men got out of the car and walked briskly along Silom Road until they caught up with their quarry. As the third man drove the car slowly along the road beside them they zapped the slick-haired old man with a stun gun that they had purchased from a street vendor’s stall on lower Silom that morning. They had been pleasantly surprised to find that a full array of weapons was openly available for purchase from the street vendors in the tourist area of Bangkok. One of the men opened the back door of the car and the other man bundled the body onto the back seat. It was over in a moment and none of the local people showed any interest in the car or the foreigners as they sped away.

The old man regained consciousness in a room without daylight. He had been injected with something to put him to sleep in the car. Then later he’d been injected with something to wake him up. His mouth was dry and his head was frustratingly fuzzy. He was tied to a chair and saw there were three men in masks standing in front of him. The masks were the rubber Halloween kind that can be found in the toy sections of department stores. As the fuzziness in his head began to clear Anthony Inman realized he was completely immobile and naked. The man with the grey hair, he assumed the oldest of the three, leant forward and said, “You shouldn’t have killed the fat man. He promised us a lot of money.”

Anthony Inman looked at the grey-haired man and said nothing. The masked man with the fully grey head of shoulder-length hair pulled a chair across the floor from the other side of the room and sat down facing the prisoner. The naked Inman was shaking, this couldn’t happen, he was the one with godly power and being made powerless was not a possibility that he had ever considered.

“You are Anthony Inman?”

Anthony Inman did not reply. He had been trained for such situations and was supposed to gather information and not provide it. His training had not prepared for him for how scared he was feeling though. He decided he must outsmart his captors. That was it, he told himself not to forget that he was the most intelligent being in the room. Even gods were tested from time to time.

The ghoul with the 1970s haircut sighed and sat back in the chair. He stared coldly at his captive with steely dark eyes. Then he leant forward again and put the coldest eyes Inman had ever seen close to his face and said, “This is only about the money. If the fat man lied and there’s no money I’m going to be very pissed off. You won’t like it if I get angry.”

He sat back again and stroked his chin in contemplation. The grey-haired ghoul then took his fingers from his chin and clicked them above his head. The other two in their gory masks carried over a table, camping gas, a frying pan, a small bottle of olive oil and a clove of garlic. After the table was set up the grey-haired ghoul took a Swiss army knife from his pocket and opened it showing the small blade.

“Here is the way it’s going to be. You get to keep your property and your stock investments. We get the loose cash in your bank accounts. Fail to communicate immediately and I’ll remove one testicle and fry it with garlic and then I’ll force you to eat it while it’s still hot. The fat man told me you like watching girls eat their own genitals so don’t think this is an idle threat. Then I’ll do the same with the other testicle. Once you have become a eunuch I’ll give you ten minutes before I cut your throat. Your only way out of here and back to your life is to make a fast deal. I’ve no patience for psychological torture techniques so you need to understand that this is a straightforward ultimatum. As you know, an ultimatum is pointless without the will to carry it out. It would be foolish to doubt my will. Now I’m going outside to smoke a cigarette. When I come back you can make a deal with me or you’re eating your testicle fried in garlic.”

The grey-haired ghoul took a cigarette from his shirt pocket and left the room. Inman sat naked in the chair shaking and sweating as the two remaining masked men stood calmly in the corner of the room watching him. His mind was racing and he had no idea what he was supposed to do. He had been trained in counter interrogation and torture techniques but he had no idea how to deal with such a shocking ultimatum from a grey-haired ghoul.

He heard the door open and close behind him, telling him that the grey-haired ghoul was back in the room. The man slowly and deliberately turned on the camping gas and lit it with a disposable lighter. He poured a little olive oil into the frying pan and put it on the heat. With the blade of the Swiss army knife he opened and sliced a clove of garlic, which he put in the bubbling hot oil, filling the room with the pungent cooking smell.

“No salt and pepper?” he barked at his accomplices. “He should have salt and pepper on it.”

The grey-haired ghoul then sat in his chair, leaned forward, and took the naked man’s testicles in his left hand, and with his right hand he held the small penknife to the side of the sack.

“You have ten seconds starting from now. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two.”

Anthony Inman felt the small blade pressing into his scrotum. “What do you want me to do?” he yelled.

The grey-haired ghoul withdrew his hands and the knife and stood up and turned off the gas. He took another cigarette from his pocket and left the room without speaking another word.

A short man with dark hair and younger eyes sat in the chair in front of Inman. His face was hidden behind the rubber mask but Inman could see by his eyes that he was smiling.

“You wanna stay out of the frying pan you cooperate and you better hold nothing back,” he said with the twang of street New York. “I’m an expert on bank accounts and internet banking processes. Our leader who you just saw leave the room is never going to speak to you again, never another mother fuckin’ word. If he comes back it’ll be to use the knife and the frying pan so don’t try and lie to me. You will tell me about your accounts and the passwords and the security devices attached to those accounts. I will let you speak on a mobile phone to instruct a household member or a member of your office staff to retrieve the security devices and deliver them to a place of my choosing. Do you fully understand me?”

“I understand,” Anthony Inman said shakily looking down at his intact genitalia.

Approximately ten hours later Anthony Inman woke up, fully dressed on the back seat of a car parked on the side of the road not far from Bangkok’s airport. His head was full of cotton wool and his memory patchy as a result of the drugs that had been used to force him in and out of consciousness. His pockets were empty but there was a five hundred baht note sticking out of his shirt pocket. At least he had taxi money to get him home. He was a very angry and unhappy man and he felt weak and foolish. It had been an expensive afternoon.

While Anthony Inman had been suffering his worst ever afternoon, his nemesis was only a few kilometres away having a quiet drink. Carl had spent a few hours in Candy’s bar being prodded and pulled in all directions by the scantily dressed girls. He felt exposed being back there but was comforted by the knowledge that George was out on the street watching all of the comings and goings on Suriwongse Road. Candy’s was busier than on his previous visit. Several barstools were occupied by early evening drinkers who had come straight from their nearby offices for fun and games before dinner, the usual crowd.

Carl finished his drink and walked to the toilet at the back of the bar. Mick Flynn grabbed him roughly as he went through the door. Mick was an extremely heavily muscled Irish building contractor with a drinking problem and permanent nosebleeds from the buckets of cocaine that he shoved up his nostrils all day and every day. He was dabbing at his nose with a blood-stained handkerchief with his left hand as he grabbed Carl’s arm in a death-grip with his right hand. His breath stank of Irish whiskey and there were minute particles of white powder above his top lip.