Harlan Wolff - Bangkok Rules

He stared at Carl to see if he was able to follow the conversation. The Phoenix Program was a CIA-backed operation to control the civilian support of the Viet Cong by use of assassination, imprisonment and torture. Carl had spent enough time drinking in Patpong bars with Vietnam veterans to know what Phoenix was. He nodded his understanding.

A very attractive fair-skinned waitress carried a tray to their table and smiled at Carl and asked him how he was. Carl assured her that he was well and asked after her mother who had recently been in hospital. The client fumbled with the sugar he was spooning into his coffee and drank some water. He was still sweating profusely. Carl told the pretty girl he was pleased her mother was in better health and home from the hospital. She gave him her biggest smile and flirted a little with her lovely brown eyes. Then she turned and walked away. Carl, having affirmed his status at the hotel, gave his attention back to the fat man in front of him so he could continue his story.

“He returned to the US around 1975, shortly after the fall of Saigon. He was lean and physically fit, not a follower of the family love of good food that, in all honesty, as you can see, I am a victim of. He was married in 1982, and had two children, the usual disaster. He started a real estate company and he lived well. In 1992 he was accused of being a serial killer. Several girls had been murdered around the greater Las Vegas area. The killings were linked by two similarities; the location of the stab wounds, and the fact that all the bodies were found without ears. The most shocking case involved the removal of the nipples and clitoris with a sharp knife. They were later found in the victim’s stomach having been forced to eat them whilst still alive. In all honesty I have never believed my brother was this man but the FBI were relentless and their investigation ruined his business and turned his bitch of a wife against him.”

He stopped talking and looked away. His distress weighed heavy on his shoulders pulling them forward and downward. This was not a happy man. But so few of Carl’s clients were. He looked around the library as if he feared being overheard and then spoke again.

“He came to my house early one Sunday morning, shortly after church. He told me he couldn’t take it anymore. He asked me to go to California and befriend homeless people, ‘Buy them hooch’, he told me. I was to find one that looked as much like him as possible and arrange a meeting. I did this for him and a few weeks later he left Vegas in the middle of the night and I have not seen or heard from him since.”

“How can I help you?” Carl asked him in as bland a voice as possible. He had learnt to avoid letting clients think he had an opinion. Carl had an opinion of course. It was his opinion that he was about to make some serious money.

The client fidgeted in his chair before answering.

“To be honest with you my biggest problem was that the killings stopped. After he left there were no more murders. I began to lose my mind and check the news ten times a day hoping a murder had occurred. Anything that would prove to me that it wasn’t him. I felt terrible, wishing a horrible death on a young girl just so I could sleep better at night.”

He stared at Carl’s face to try to see what he was thinking. But Carl had his poker face and wasn’t giving anything away.

“Recently our mother died and left us both a lot of money. She also left property that requires our mutual agreement before anything can be done with it. So I desperately need him to come to America or I need a death certificate. I have always suspected that he was living in Thailand as he spent a lot of time here during the Vietnam War. I recently searched for him in the archives of the Thai newspapers online. Instead of finding him what I found was a serial killer with an MO exactly like the one I had read about in the Las Vegas papers twenty years earlier. My brother is now seventy years old so I need to know if he is dead or alive and if he is living in Thailand. Most of all, I need to know if my brother is a murderer. Can you do this for me?”

This was the time to close the deal that would get Carl out of his present financial embarrassment. Most of what Carl did was tedious and for relatively small amounts of money. It paid the bills, just about. But a few times a year he struck gold and this appeared to be one of those times. The trick, Carl knew, was finding the balance between getting as much as possible whilst not scaring the client off.

“Before I answer that I need to ask you some questions,” Carl told him.

“Fire away.” He was more confident. The talking cure obviously worked.

“I assume you have a picture but it is almost twenty years old?” Carl asked him as he took paper and pen from his pocket and perched some reading glasses on the end of his nose so he could look at the client over the top of them. It was show time and Carl took on the role of the slightly eccentric yet wise detective.

The client took a picture from his pocket and handed it to Carl. A smiling man in his forties with wife and children in the garden of a very upper middle class suburban home. Not the picture of a murderer but Carl already knew that nobody really knows anybody.

“Good, that will help. Did you bring the name of the homeless man? He may not be using that name after all this time, but I will need it anyway.”

“James Arthur Peabody was the hobo’s name. I have a good memory for names,” the client said. Carl listened, then wrote it down and nodded as if it meant something.

“Was there a male in your family that was close to him in appearance?” Carl asked.

“What is the relevance of the question?”

He was showing impatience so Carl knew he needed to take charge.

“Just answer the question please,” Carl told him looking at him sternly over the top of his glasses.

“He was said to resemble our paternal grandfather.”

“At what age did he die?” Carl asked him still watching him over the lenses.

“Seventy-one.”

“Do you have an old family photograph of him a few years before he died?”

“Yes, yes, I can get one sent here.” His face was lighting up. Part of the show is allowing the client into the process of playing detective. Delivering their childhood fantasy is included in the fee.

“Tell me anything you can about his activities. Was he a golfer, marathon runner, chess fanatic or anything like that?”

“He played poker. Any kind of poker, he would play anywhere. He was said to be good at it. Whatever that means. Not much else I can think of. He went running every morning, he liked to keep fit.”He touched his vast belly self-consciously.

“Did he subscribe to any magazines, clubs, associations or such?”

“Not that I can think of. He did smoke cigars though, big Cuban ones. I once asked him how he got them in the US as they are illegal, but he just smiled and winked at me.”

“Poker and cigars,” Carl repeated to him as he wrote it down. “Any particular brand of Cuban cigars?”

“Bolivar Churchills were his favourite. There were empty boxes everywhere.”

Carl listened and wrote it down. “What about social habits? Did he have lots of friends?”

“Some, but he was more solitary than most people. I believe he occasionally played golf, only for business, not pleasure.”

Carl added solitary and golf to his notes. He was running out of questions.

“Can you remember the day he left?”

“It was sometime in July 1992,” he answered and Carl wrote it down.

“That should do for now.” Carl took his glasses off and put glasses, pen and paper in his pocket. “I will need a running fund of twenty thousand US dollars deposited in my Singapore bank account. When cases are dangerous or controversial I do not accept payment in Thailand. I will message the bank details to your mobile if you are in agreement with this.”