Harlan Wolff - Bangkok Rules

Inside, everything was ready and the musty room had taken on the appearance of a well-organised classroom. George and Boonchoo’s family had played their parts in the new decor and the Finns had come in late that afternoon to add the final touches. Carl stood alone by the window, waiting with the lights off.

Outside, Phetchburi Road was a sea of colour as the headlights fought with the neon signs for dominance. The light and shadow against the wall with its dreadful metal ring to restrain victims appeared like something straight out of an early black and white horror film. The hairs on the back of Carl’s neck were standing up and his stomach was a bucket of eels. He thought about time and how it would pass with or without him wrestling with it. He made himself focus on the reality that what was in front of him would soon be something that was behind him, leaving all negative feelings, fear and pain redundant. ‘God give me patience; but I want it right now!’ he told himself.

The room he was waiting in had been witness to repeated performances of the ultimate crime, the killing of human beings for pleasure. Experts can rationalize the behaviour of such men but rationalizing is not the same as understanding. Shakespeare wrote in his final play, ‘Hell is empty and all the devils are here’. Such cynical conclusions often come at the tail end of a man’s existence. Perhaps because he can look back without the fear that is always present when looking forward. The other possibility is that age just makes man negative and bad-tempered. Something we then confuse with wisdom. Carl didn’t much care where his reasoning had come from. He had already made his choices and it was too late to turn back.

Carl smelled the petrol before he heard the footsteps. It wafted up the stairs like napalm on the night air. Then he heard the clink of glass bottles getting louder as Inman climbed higher. Anthony Inman entered the room that had once been his office and later had become his second floor dungeon of dirty tricks. He wore a polo shirt, cotton trousers, and an expensive-looking pair of brown leather moccasins. His hair was grey and perfectly groomed in the old slicked down Brylcreem style with a side parting. He was tanned and physically fit. He looked a hell of a lot better than Carl did. He placed the plastic supermarket bags containing glass bottles of petrol on the floor. He reached into his pocket for a large wad of cotton material and a lighter, which he put down beside them, the tools of the traditional arsonist.

He didn’t see Carl at first. Carl stood quietly in the shadows and watched the most evil man he had ever had the misfortune to cross paths with wistfully surveying the dreadful room. Carl remained silent and still as Inman’s body language changed as he began to sense that there had been unwanted visitors and changes had been made to his lair during his absence.

He switched on the light, turned around and saw Carl. Inman appeared more annoyed than concerned as he pulled out an expensive-looking pearl-handled Desert Eagle.357 Magnum automatic pistol and pointed it at the private detective. It made perfect sense to Carl. If a man’s in the arms business you had to expect him to be carrying expensive equipment.

“What are you doing here you dumb motherfucker? Never mind, it’ll be good that they find your body in the ashes.”

“Be hard to stick the murders on me if I have bullets in me.”

“You’re right. Now turn around and put your hands behind your head.”

“I’m not going to do that. You need to wait for Amnuay and Bart. Forgive the cowboy rhetoric but the building’s surrounded.”

“You’re such an arrogant motherfucker. Don’t you have any concept of how out of your depth you are?”

“Those noises you just heard from downstairs are General Amnuay and Bart. And by the sound of all those heavy feet the general has brought help.”

“Good! I always appreciate some backup,” Inman said with a confident razor-thin smile.

“So this is where you like to hurt people?” Carl asked him.

“Guess what motherfucker? You’re next,” Inman snarled.

“Now you have the Thai army and the CIA here to help you it should be a fairly even contest.”

“Fuck you!” he said snarling again.

“Is that all you have to say? Consider some well-chosen last words. Time is not something you should be wasting. You don’t have much of it left.”

“I’m going to get great pleasure from killing you,” Inman told him grinning like a Cheshire cat.

Carl had handled the situation and bought the time he needed. As long as Inman was talking he wasn’t shooting. The herd of feet reached the entrance to the room and General Amnuay and Bart Barrows entered, leaving a squad of soldiers lining the stairwell. They both surveyed the room and went and stood beside Inman.

“If this is your idea of a negotiation then I fear you have started from a position of weakness,” Bart said to Carl after noting the gun that Inman had trained on him.

“I wasn’t expecting him to show up so early,” Carl said.

“Doesn’t appear that your plan was well thought out,” Bart told him.

“It doesn’t matter anymore whether I live or die tonight, this thing ends either way. The choice you will be given is whether you go down with the ship or take the lifeboat I am about to offer you and the general.”

Bart looked around the room and saw what Carl had done to the walls. Every wall had a large white card stuck on it with information written in foot high letters with a bold black marker pen. On the wall behind Carl the sign detailed the available DNA available from the various blood spatter evidence and pointed out the steel ring for restraining victims.

On the wall to his left was written a list of the victims’ names and the dates that their bodies were found. On the wall to Carl’s right was a description and list of knives and DNA that would be found in the bathroom plus a detailed technical explanation of the room’s soundproofing. On the far wall was an extra-large card providing Inman’s history of aliases and crimes, starting in Vietnam then America and Thailand. The spaces throughout the room were filled out with enlarged black and white surveillance photographs that didn’t record anything of significance but helped provide a general atmosphere of thoroughness.

“Show and tell is it Carl?” Bart said shaking his head in sympathy for Carl’s foolishness.

“Read it all Bart! You’ve been protecting a truly evil man.”

“You can’t expect me to believe all this nonsense, can you?”

“Look at him and look around you Bart,” Carl told him.

Bart looked at the man beside him and then knew it to be true.

“Is this you Tony? This animal that kills people’s children is you?” Bart said staring at Inman and becoming noticeably angry.

“Shut up Bart!” the general told him loudly with a perfect North American accent. “Shut up and stay out of it. So he’s sick. Big deal. He was always sick you hypocrite. I don’t remember your necktie-wearing bosses ever complaining in Vietnam when we dug people’s graves before we started interrogating them.”

“This is different, general,” Bart pleaded.

“The hell it is. He is one of us and don’t you forget it. I will deal with this problem. This is not Vietnam, this is my country and I am in charge here.” Then he took a long quizzical look at Carl and asked him, “What is this Hollywood crap all about?” as he waved his arm in a circle to show that he had seen the contents of the room.

“Can you make him put the gun away? Then I’ll be happy to explain everything.”

“Sure, you’re not going anywhere.” General Amnuay took the pistol from Inman’s hand and placed it in his own belt. “I’ll deal with this, Tony.”