Harlan Wolff - Bangkok Rules

They were nice people and they all looked after each other. Out of everybody in Carl’s circle, Boonchoo was probably the most content. Carl and George spent a pleasant hour talking, eating, and drinking beer with ice cubes in it. Carl almost felt normal for a while.

After the meal Carl took the old man to one side and explained what he needed him to do. Carl told him George would be overseeing everything and offered to pay him up to date and for the days ahead.

“I know you have troubles so you don’t have to pay me. I will do whatever is needed.”

“Thank you Khun Boonchoo I know I can always rely on you. Money’s the least of my worries at the moment so please take it.”

He took the money reluctantly. Carl had always known that, in Thailand, the people with the least were always the most generous. They had some more drinks, then they both thanked him and his family politely for their hospitality and left. It was two in the morning.

Once inside the car George asked, “I’ve arranged a safe house like you asked. Do you want to go there?”

“Is it peaceful?”

“Quiet as a guilty conscience.”

“All right chauffeur, stop by the hotel to pick up my stuff then drive me home.”

They picked up Carl’s meagre possessions and drove north for almost an hour. Then George turned off the highway onto dirt roads that meandered beside canals and fruit orchards. He stopped the car at a big wooden gate with a seemingly endless hedge on one side. He jumped out of the car and opened the double gate. Carl followed him out of the car so he could close the gates after George took the car in.

The driveway was very long and had a hedge on the right and a green field full of trees on the left. Carl walked after the car taking in the country smell of the place. The driveway ended at an old Thai style teak house that could not be seen from the dirt road. Carl walked around in the moonlight. It was very large and surrounded by orchards and ponds. Carl could hear the sounds of birds and animals all around him.

“It is incredible, you really are a wizard George.”

“It belongs to a very old Englishman. It was to be his dream retirement home. Unfortunately it took so many years to build that by the time it was finished he was too old and sick to live so far away from a modern hospital. He lives in a small apartment with a view of Bumrungrad Hospital now. His children rent this place out to Thai television for their latest ghost series. I told them I had a Hollywood production team on a location hunt and they gave me the place for a few days so I can show it. Do you want to see the special rates they created for our Hollywood production?”

“I assume they are double what Thai TV are paying.”

“Triple actually. Nice to see you haven’t lost your cynical grip on reality.”

“Contact them tomorrow and tell them that the scout is very excited and can’t wait for the director to get here next week. A week should do us.”

“Already did. I called them this afternoon.”

“Hiding out in a ghost house!” Carl laughed out loud. “Pure genius. Even the assassins in this country are scared of ghosts.”

They opened up the house and turned on some lights. At the back of the upstairs sitting room was a door that opened onto a very large wooden deck that ran the length of the entire house. To the side of the deck was a wooden stairway that went down to a pond that occupied the entire back section of the land. It was home to various kinds of birds and plants. It was straight out of old Siam, all except for Carl’s favourite inhabitants, a pair of imported white swans that glided around the surface of the water like luxury yachts. They were imports.

“This is absolutely fucking wonderful George.”

“You want to hear the best bit? A Canadian lived here for a while. He rented the whole place for forty thousand baht a month. The Thais won’t live here because on television it’s full of ghosts and the foreigners don’t like it because it’s in the middle of nowhere.”

“Let’s have a drink George. But when this is all over I want to rent this place.”

“I’ll go find a bottle of whiskey and a couple of glasses,” Georgesaid as he went into the house.

There were mosquitos but for once Carl didn’t mind. This house was where he wanted to be. George came back and they sat drinking under the deck and looking at the private world of the old house bathed in moonlight.

When they had become comfortably numb George asked Carl, “How come you never talk about my wife?”

“Would it help if I did?”

“No it wouldn’t, in fact it would make it worse.”

“That’s why I don’t talk about it.”

“I figured that was the reason,” George said and then didn’t feel like talking any more.

They sat in silence watching the swans glide backwards and forwards across the pond surrounded by the dances of the fireflies. After a couple more drinks they stumbled off to find their beds.

Carl was woken at dawn by a screeching sound outside his bedroom window. It was a shocking grating noise and it was being made by something very close, too close for his liking. Carl pulled on his jeans and went outside to see what was going on.

George was already awake and sitting on the deck drinking coffee after having taken a ten-kilometre run and a shower. Carl was dehydrated and miserable. His head hurt, even his eyes hurt. He’d always seen George as an alien creature. What kind of person slept only a few hours, and then ran a ridiculously long distance with a smile on his face? Not Carl, that was for sure.

At the end of the deck perched on the wooden rail within a few feet of the window to the room where Carl had been sleeping was an adult peacock. His fan of a tail was open in all its multi-coloured glory and he was jumping up and down on the wooden rail in all the excitement of wanting his opinion heard.

“What the fuck is that?” Carl asked.

“It’s a peacock.”

“I know it’s a fucking peacock George. What’s it doing screaming abuse at me outside my bedroom window?”

“Sorry, I forgot to mention Pretty Boy Floyd over there. He was another pet of the Canadian that used to live here. He was abandoned to be fed and looked after by the gardener, like the rest of the wildlife.”

“Maybe you can reason with him. Tell him that all of us foreigners may look alike but it wasn’t me that abandoned him.”

Pretty Boy Floyd turned around to face them and continued to scream at Carl.

“I need a coffee,” Carl told George as he walked away and re-entered the house. Carl was getting very attached to the house. It would be a wonderful life, away from the madness of central Bangkok and it was a long way from his enemies.

Carl found a coffee maker and a bottle of cold water in the kitchen. He went upstairs and found a dock for an iPod on the second floor landing connected to two battered speakers. He retrieved the iPod from his bedroom and plugged it in before selecting some appropriate morning music. Good morning Sibelius and welcome to paradise.

The violin concerto suited his mood. He carried the coffee mug and bottle of water out onto the deck and sat contentedly in the morning sun. Carl didn’t have anything to do with his day. He had put a plan in process and had allowed it to run with its own momentum. Now he had nothing to do but wait.

“Where’s the gardener?” he asked George.

“I told them we had some famous people arriving from Hollywood that didn’t want to be bothered by paparazzi so he has been given the week off.”

“Good move.”

“I know you like your privacy. I’ll take the car and do some running around today.”

“Give the old man a call late afternoon while you’re out.”