Tom Callaghan - An Autumn Hunting

‘I pick you up, four hours, meeting,’ he said, his broken Thai-inflected English almost as bad as my English. I nodded, and handed the receptionist a credit card, another gift from Aliyev. She examined my passport, then the card, gave a slightly puzzled look.

‘You speak Russian?’ I asked, and she held up her thumb and forefinger.

‘A few words. For work,’ she said, in a low husky voice.

‘Corporate card. My company.’

She nodded her understanding, processed the payment, before handing the card back to me. I looked once more at the name. Bolshoi Vor. Big Thief. Aliyev’s idea of a joke, obviously.

She handed me one of those plastic cards with a built-in chip to activate the lock of my room. The sort of place I usually stayed at used the old-fashioned metal key, attached to a piece of wood the size of a brick, to make sure you didn’t accidentally forget to hand it in at reception when you left. I was moving up in the world.

I don’t normally like using lifts – too easy for someone waiting with a gun to shoot you as the doors open – but I figured this once would be OK. I’d check out the stairs on the way back down, explain to the receptionist I didn’t like cramped spaces.

The lift doors opened onto a whitewashed corridor with doors on either side. I found room 404, pressed the card against the lock, watched the light change, pushed open the door.

My room was clean, simple, furnished in what fashionable Europeans call minimalist and we Kyrgyz call empty. Wooden floors and white walls, a bed, a desk, a chair, a phone, and a bewildering array of light switches. A bathroom with a sliding wood and glass partition dividing it from the main room, the point of which escaped me. Floor to ceiling sliding glass doors with a narrow balcony outside, shaded by a tree with thick olive-green leaves.

The fierce shower pummelled every inch of me and managed to rinse some of the tiredness out of my body. Afterwards I lay down on the bed and shut my eyes for five minutes. Three hours later, the phone woke me, the soft-voiced receptionist informing me my driver had returned.

I took my time shaving and dressing, headed down to the lobby. My friend the driver was talking on his mobile, which he switched off when he saw me. I didn’t tell him I could lip read he was speaking Russian.

‘I’m impressed,’ I said, in my thickest Kyrgyz accent, ‘you must have a friend.’

I wondered if he’d been chosen for his language skills; his driving certainly wasn’t impressive. The driver shrugged, to show he didn’t understand me, then pointed at the door. My suit may have been the most expensive piece of clothing I’d ever worn, but I still got the obligatory pat-down. I didn’t mind; it meant I was meeting someone important. I hadn’t flown four thousand kilometres to go sightseeing.

The traffic was even more congested, but finally we crept up a major road which ran beneath the shadow of the Skytrain.

‘Sukhumvit,’ the driver explained, and I nodded as if I understood. He drove for the rest of the journey in silence, until we pulled off the main road into a side street. I looked out of the car window at a parade of Thai women in shorts, denim miniskirts, cropped T-shirts and high-heeled shoes. One of Bangkok’s red light districts, flashing neon lights, taxi and scooter horns blaring, rock music pounding out of the bars. A huge spaghetti-tangle of wires, electric cables, telephone lines and God knows what else drooped across the road or ran across the tops of head-high walls. There was a sense of expectation in the air, the feeling anything could happen tonight, every event could turn into an adventure or a disaster.

A sign high above the entrance to a courtyard on our left read ‘Nana Plaza: The World’s Biggest Adult Playground’. The pavements were crowded with a procession of middle-aged, balding and overweight Western men hunting for their next bedmate or simply staring at the spectacle. Nana Plaza’s reputation for anything-goes sex had clearly spread far and wide. Dressed in faded singlets, oversized shorts and colourful trainers, the men all wore the roadmap of their lives on their faces, tired, cynical, hoping for a distraction from the failure of their lives.

The car pulled over to the side of the road, and the driver pointed to a bar opposite called the Lurch Inn. The bar frontage was open to the street, and the stools which gave a view of the passing street trade were all occupied. For the price of a Tiger beer, a man could stare at as many Asian prostitutes for as long as he wanted, until it was time to buy another bottle. A lot of the customers were already drunk, shouting insults at their friends, their arms draped over the shoulders or circling the slim waists of girls young enough to be their daughters.

I’d seen prostitutes before – show me a cop who hasn’t – but never on such an industrial scale. Even above the music, I could hear the high-pitched chatter of women. Maybe the laughter was real, maybe not. We all have to earn a living, and I certainly wasn’t looking down from any moral high ground.

I looked over at the driver, shrugged what now? He pointed again at the bar, mimed drinking, said, ‘Wait.’ He obviously wasn’t going to get out of the driver’s seat and open the door for me.

The car pulled away, sleek and expensively anonymous, as I stood there, looking out across the road at the hotel car park opposite, where the freelance street meat smoked, chatted, or tried to make eye contact with every passing male. Every now and then, a man would stop, a quick discussion would follow on price, preferences, location, and the two of them would get in a taxi or walk down the street.

The girls were all tiny, exotic and very young, but knew how to use a knee or a stiletto heel. It’s a tough life, and even tougher if you’re not prepared for trouble.

I stared at the crowd for a couple more moments, pushed my way past the hectic street-food stalls cooking fish, shrimp, satay and an array of unidentifiable things. Once I was on the pavement, I walked up a few steps into the bar. Not for the first time in my so-called career, I was on my own, with no one to cover my back.

At once I was pounced on by a middle-aged woman, clearly in charge of maximising the volume of alcohol the bar sold. She took in my suit, placed me as a possible high-roller, and showed me to a small table far enough from the band to make thinking possible. Three girls in matching outfits that looked like school uniforms hovered nearby, ready to take my order.

‘Whisky? Bottle? Walker Red?’ the manageress asked, her smile revealing crooked white teeth with just a hint of scarlet lipstick smeared here and there. I shook my head, knowing the quickest way to get rid of her was to not spend thousands of baht . I didn’t know if that would work with the schoolgirls. I’ve seen vultures up in the mountains looking less predatory.

I ordered a Tiger, watched her send one of the schoolgirls for my beer, then stalk off in search of more profitable prey. The beer arrived with a menu the size of a telephone directory. I flicked through the laminated pages, sticky with spilt beer and food. I didn’t know how long I would have to wait, or who I was supposed to be meeting. I’d already been warned about the fiery nature of Thai food, so I pointed at a steak, watched the waitress scurry off in search of a cow.

The meal arrived quickly. One bite told me the cow had spent a lot of its adult life hanging around bars, getting into fights and generally being tough. After a couple of mouthfuls, I pushed the plate away.

‘One more Tiger?’

I looked at the untouched bottle in front of me, shook my head. The waitress touched the side of the bottle, shook her head.

‘Too much warm,’ she said, implying only an idiot would drink warm beer. I thought only an idiot would drink in the Lurch Inn at all.