Harlan Wolff - Bangkok Rules

Their landing area was the temple’s toilet and shower. The massive percussion noises made by the two big men crashing onto the thin tin roof received fearful screams from inside where a novice monk had been squatting on a toilet. He was new to the spiritual atmosphere of his new environment and although his mind was readily open to all things he hadn’t anticipated the world exploding above his head, that had never been discussed, and so he had been taken totally by surprise.

They leapt down from the bent roof and into the temple grounds where they ran for the main entrance on the far side with Carl strongly outpaced by George but keeping up as best he could. The throngs of local people holding garlands and candles on their way into the sanctuary of the temple moved aside just in time as the two giant men came charging and yelling through their centre disrupting the calm joss stick infused air.

Once out on a street and well around the corner from Candy’s bar, Carl and George headed toward Silom and kept running for a good ten minutes. At this point they decided it was safe to flag a taxi. They climbed in the back of the car wheezing and coughing much to the amusement of the driver. Carl told him that an angry bar girl was chasing them and if he wanted a tip he should put his foot down.

George’s stolen car was not parked anywhere near Candy’s. They had put it in the car park of an office building around the corner from Patpong and walked the remaining distance to the bar. As safe as they assumed it probably was they decided it best to wait a couple of hours before collecting it or possibly not to bother. Carl needed a drink, as usual.

It was around midnight and Carl was lying on the back seat of yet another stolen car as George drove him to the nightclub. When they arrived he sat up and looked around. Everything out on the street looked relatively normal. The queue of people leading up to the security area with its airport style metal detector and front desk was typical of that time of night. Carl got out of the car and walked under the building through the parked cars. He entered via the back door and through the kitchen. George stayed outside in the car.

The colonel was standing in his usual place at the bar surrounded by the usual suspects. By the time Carl had crossed the crowded floor the bar staff had a drink prepared and on the bar waiting for him. Colonel Pornchai hadn’t seen him come in so Carl tapped him on the shoulder. He saw Carl then took a quick glance around the busy nightclub to check for danger.

“You’re living dangerously,” he shouted above the music. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

Carl leant forward and said in his ear, “I’m being as careful as I can. We should talk in the kitchen.”

They both picked up their drinks and walked to the kitchen, dodging the party people on the dance floor as they went. The kitchen had stopped serving food and the chefs and their helpers had gone home. Only the most junior of the kitchen staff were still there working and they cleaned up around Carl and the colonel. Carl put his drink down on a chopping board and turned to face him.

“I need something done,” Carl said to him.

“Does it involve you staying out of trouble?”

“Yes it does, after this I’ll be staying out of trouble,” Carl told him.

“All right, go on then.”

“There is a building on New Phetchburi Road.” Carl handed him a piece of paper with the address written on it. “I need you to get a couple of boys from the drug squad to go and talk to the neighbours. They must make lots of noise and ask lots of questions about that building, and I mean a lot of noise.”

“Is that all?”

“No. Then I want them to go to the local court and apply for a search warrant on the grounds that they have an informant that has told them the building is being used by youth gangs to store drugs and to host drug taking parties. However, and this is the important part, they must make a mess of the search warrant application. I need the application rejected and submitted continuously for not less than two full working days. They must also be very rude and angry so that they argue with everybody working in the office at the court. Everybody in that department must become aware of this application.”

“Are you sure this is necessary?”

“Totally necessary, and I need it done exactly the way I have asked.”

“Why the drug squad?”

“Even the big shots will not interfere and tell the drug squad to back off,” Carl told him. “Too much risk for them, by interfering they will go on the radar as possibly being involved in the drug business themselves. Under the present political climate that attention is something they will not want.”

The colonel thought for a while and said, “The cost will be at least sixty thousand baht.”

“A hundred thousand will be transferred to your account.”

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” he asked, obviously happy with the amount he was being paid.

“I hope so.”

“Do you know that your friend Mike was murdered?”

“Yes. I was taking a shower upstairs in his spare bedroom when they killed him.”

“Maybe you should leave Thailand for a while.”

“So people keep telling me.”

“Don’t go getting yourself killed just for the sake of being stubborn. I’ll miss our business deals if you leave, but I don’t make anything from you if you are dead.”

“I am not planning to die.”

“You won’t have a choice. If they want you dead you’ll die. You are a farang and they are Thai.”

“Nobody will ever let me forget I am a farang. That is what I have going for me right now and why they won’t see me coming.”

“You are talking nonsense. Are you drunk?”

“Not yet.”

Colonel Pornchai went back to the bar and Carl went the other direction via the kitchen sinks and left by the back door. He saw the car immediately. It was as close to the exit as was possible. George had kept the lights off but left the engine running. Carl looked up and down the street to make sure there was nothing out of the ordinary. All appeared normal so he got in the car and lay down on the back seat.

George drove through Bangkok for half an hour and parked the car outside Boonchoo’s house. Boonchoo was their taxi surveillance man. Boonchoo lived with his family in one of Bangkok’s oldest housing estates. The houses were very old but they all had small gardens, which made them more pleasant than most of the cheaper housing that the outskirts of Bangkok offered.

They got out of the car and rang the bell on the gate. Boonchoo and his son opened the rusty gate and greeted the pair with big old-fashioned genuine Thai smiles. Carl was always uncomfortable about his height around the people from the provinces as they were even smaller than the Bangkok Thais. Carl and George were a foot taller than Boonchoo and felt clumsy. Boonchoo’s home was old and built for people like him, not giants like Carl and George.

He took them both by their hands and led them into the garden where a stone table with stone benches on each side had been prepared for them under a flame tree. They squeezed their large legs under the stone table and sat with their knees pressed against stone and buttocks partly hanging off the back of the bench. It was not a problem as long as neither one of them moved.

“Welcome to my house.”

“Thank you Khun Boonchoo. I’m sorry it is the middle of the night.”

“For you and Khun George any time is a good time.”

The table was covered in small plates of food. A bucket full of ice and bottles of beer had been placed at the centre of the table. They were an old-fashioned north-eastern Thai family and while the men sat in the garden eating and drinking the women and young girls ran backwards and forwards to the kitchen carrying buckets of ice and plates of food.