Crackdown Read online

  The officer leaned into the back and touched Fah’s shoulder, saying, “If you can tell me the phone number of your two friends, I’ll let you go.”

  She couldn’t. The numbers had been on auto-dial.

  “You can’t remember,” said the officer. “So how do you phone each other?”

  “It’s a scientific fact that when a person is terrified, they can’t remember numbers,” said Palm.

  That earned him a slap across the face.

  “Stop with the bullshit!”

  Palm shook his head. He should have left a small backup phone directory. There were a lot of things they should have done. That was becoming the clear takeaway lesson about life in the back of a military vehicle on the way to a secret location.

  TWENTY-THREE

  “Through endless night the earth whirls toward a creation unknown...”—Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer

  OSBORNE LOVED DINING at any French restaurant where the owner permitted customers to bring their dogs. He had a regular table and two leather-cushioned chairs for his Jack Russell and Golden Lab. The dogs sat at eye level with the table and sniffed the air with the arrival of every new dish that came.

  Calvino had phoned him to say he had news about Fah but wanted to talk in person. He’d told him he should bring along his friends Cesar and Charlie. Osborne admired the way Calvino used a code to suggest meeting at Osborne’s favorite French restaurant. The private investigator must have assumed someone was likely listening to his conversation. Calvino could be theatrical at times, like most Americans, but he had good instincts for survival, important to making it in Bangkok in his line of work.

  “Cesar and Charlie are with me and send their fond regards.”

  Osborne was an old pro in a city where pros and cons weren’t different sides of an argument but descriptions of the people who ran things. He’d understood Calvino’s message. He’d told Calvino about the restaurant and the routine of the dogs dining with him once a week.

  “You are more clever than you look, Mr. Calvino,” he’d said on the phone.

  “Thank you for your confidence, Mr. Osborne.”

  “I recommend the lamb,” said Osborne, chipping in without missing a beat, a requirement to disguise the uselessness of the information. Disinformation had its own code of conduct, and Osborne had learnt the code by heart.

  “Cesar and Charlie are quite fond of lamb, too.”

  “Let them know. I have a bone for them,” said Calvino.

  “That should motivate the two of them to sit up and take notice.”

  Calvino terminated the call and put his phone down beside his computer. Let them try and track him. He slipped out of his condo, putting on his helmet as he stepped out of the lift and onto the fourth floor. He rode his motorcycle down through the parking area and headed out through the back sois of the neighborhood. Calvino had memorized the shortcuts, the small, crowded sois where cars, vans, chairs, tables, potted plants and vendors expanded their territory, claiming part of the street as their own. In the best of the small sois, traffic was reduced to one lane, perfect for a motorcycle. Fast-track predators loved the cover of Bangkok’s big darkness.

  He looked into his rear-view mirror, checking for a tail. He saw none. Weaving in and out of traffic on dimly lit sub-sois, he passed streets lined with hotels, condos, shophouses, bars, restaurants and 7-Elevens. The topology of the city changed at nightfall. Darkness shrouded the landmarks, and the signs were difficult to read, the dim street lighting falling short. People suddenly appeared out of shadows, stepping out of their shophouse or car, not looking at the street, only to be swallowed up in darkness again.

  Thirty minutes after leaving his condo, Calvino pulled into the French restaurant driveway, a narrow passage buried among dozens of other entrances along a sub-soi off Thonglor. He tossed his keys and then his helmet to an attendant, who caught them each with one hand.

  “Khun Alan’s Rolls Royce,” said Calvino, drumming his fingers on the driver’s side window.

  He recognized Osborne’s pale yellow 1970 Silver Shadow alone in a reserved parking area.

  “Park my bike next to Alan’s Rolls.”

  Calvino handed the attendant a hundred baht note. He then turned and walked toward where two more attendants held open a door. A wall of chilled air greeted him at the threshold.

  Calvino stopped a few feet within the entrance and looked around for Osborne. He found him seated at a far table beside a large window overlooking an illuminated flower garden. Osborne sat between his dogs, smoking and glancing out the window at the garden. Beyond Osborne, with Charlie, the lab, perched on his right and Cesar, the lower-slung Jack Russell, nudging him to be scratched from his left side, the empty restaurant teemed with staff trying to make themselves useful.

  “Looks like business can only improve,” said Calvino, sitting down opposite Osborne.

  “Just tell me where she is,” said Osborne.

  No preliminaries, no greeting or banter.

  “She’s in military custody.”

  Osborne rolled his eyes, his jaw slack like he’d been shot in the guts.

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why? They’ve lifted the curfew.”

  “Martial law, Alan. That’s how it works. They can do whatever they want to anyone, anywhere. Not knowing that is dangerous. Not knowing that means you haven’t been paying attention.”

  “Don’t lecture me, Calvino. Just tell me who I have to pay and how much they want. What’s their price? Nothing else is relevant.”

  “You surprise me, Alan. Weren’t you one of those who wanted a coup?” asked Calvino.

  “This isn’t helping me. Just tell me the amount I need to pay.”

  Calvino studied Osborne’s expression. It was clear he really believed it was that simple; he wasn’t putting on a front, joking or being ironic.

  “Alan, this isn’t business as usual. The military is running the show. Handing someone a bag of money isn’t going to fix it.”

  Osborne butted out his cigarette, lifted his chin and blew out a column of smoke. The wheels in his mind were spinning. He lit another cigarette.

  “Don’t you have a friend who’s a general?”

  “He’s police, not army.”

  “You told me they called him back from retirement. He must have powerful friends in the military or they wouldn’t have bothered with him. You’re right about the military. They aren’t particularly sentimental. If your job is to shoot people, sentimentality isn’t useful.”

  Osborne the angle-shooter had called his shot. He now waited to see if the ball he visualized rolling toward Calvino dropped in the side pocket or missed. He could see in Calvino’s face that he’d sunk the ball. He’d been right. Unless someone high up in the army had supported Pratt’s reinstatement and promotion, he would still have been stretched out on his beach chair looking at the tide coming in.

  “He might be able to help, but you’ll have to give something in return.”

  “Okay, now we’re talking. How much does he want?”

  “No money, Alan. Give him information about Ballard and what he was doing in Bangkok, something specific—places, names, meetings, deals. That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about.”

  “He stayed with you. I suspect you know much more than I do, Calvino. Besides, I wasn’t exactly his blood brother. Ballard was just someone I knew. It’s like you—what do I really know about Vincent Calvino’s connections, past or secrets? People are a mystery. And in this town their mystery only grows deeper.”

  Calvino watched as Cesar snatched a bun from Osborne’s plate. A cute waitress dressed in a short black skirt flashed an inviting smile as she rushed to the table with a basket. She used a pair of silver tongs to lift another bun onto the plate. The Jack Russell gulped down the bun, and the thump of Charlie’s tail against the window sounded like a sudden hailstorm had moved in from the garden. She moved around Osborne and placed a bun on Charlie’s plate.


  “There’s not much he can do for you in that case,” said Calvino.

  He caught the eye of the waitress.

  “Bring me a double Johnnie Walker Black on ice.”

  As the waitress turned to leave, Osborne said, “And tell the chef I want to buy a cigarette.”

  He tipped her with a hundred baht note. He lifted his right hip and slipped his thick wad of notes back into his pocket.

  “You were saying your general wants information in exchange for the release of Sky? That’s outrageous. What basis do they have for detaining her?”

  “Wrong attitude, wrong intention or just the wrong information on her Facebook timeline,” said Calvino.

  “But she’s only a student. She’s pregnant with my baby, and I want her back. Tonight. After we finish with dinner. ”

  Not even Osborne, in a rational moment, could believe that was remotely possible. But Osborne was like a dog paddling around a pond looking for a place to get out. He barely noticed as his pedigreed pets wolfed down another round of dinner rolls.

  “Do you have any idea what she and her friends have been up to, Alan?”

  “You’ve been tapping her phone, so you have that information. Tell me. Get it over with. I can take it.”

  “What has she told you?”

  “She tells me everything. She goes to university. She studies. She fucks me. Three things.”

  “She’s said more than that. You told me she did. What did she say?”

  Two days before her detention, Osborne said he had confronted her when she had come home late, smelling of paint. He had sniffed her neck, arms, hands and blouse.

  “ ‘Paint. Why do your reek of paint?’ I asked her. She glared at me. I grabbed her wrists, forcing her down on the sofa. And she said, ‘You’re hurting me.’ And I said, ‘Why are you doing this? Surely you’re not moonlighting as a house-painting contractor. Who are you taking money from? What’s his name? Is it one of the Tree Brothers? Or is it that Cambodian tattoo guy? Tell me the truth.’ ”

  Calvino waited as Osborne let the word truth hang in the hair.

  “What did she say?” asked Calvino.

  “She said, ‘I’m not taking money from anyone. No one but you.’ I said she’d been lying to me. ‘I have proof. Who is this Munny, and what are you asking him to draw?’ ”

  “She’s going to wonder how you know his name,” said Calvino.

  “You only develop that level of paranoia when you grow older, Calvino.”

  Aside from the Tree Brothers, Calvino had supplied him with the name of this Cambodian. Osborne had been turning the three names over in his mind, imagining orgies, drugs and loud music thumping in the background.

  “What did she say?” asked Calvino.

  “The usual. ‘And you only tell me the truth?’ and ‘All you care about is money.’ She said I don’t pretend to care about the truth. She’s wrong there. I hate it when someone lies to me. If she wasn’t in it for money what possible reason could she allow herself to have wild political ideas? Democracy is just a word. I told her that it had nothing to do with her. I said, ‘Stick to your books and lectures. Look after my baby.’ And you know what she said?”

  Osborne padded Charlie on the head and sighed. He looked up at Calvino with sad eyes. “She said, ‘To show the true reality of things takes courage.’ How I’d told her what I’d learned that at age fifteen in a bullring in Spain. She believed me. She said, ‘I admired you. You said that courage is hard and people will say you’re a fool. But you don’t care what they think. You know the truth, but don’t expect anyone to thank you for pointing it out. It embarrasses them that you know they live a lie. To give in to their make-believe reality is the easy way out.’ She told this Munny what I’d told her: ‘If I’m going to be hated, let it be because I told the truth.’ And then she said, ‘Or were those just words told to a schoolgirl?’ ”

  “She said that?” asked Calvino as Osborne finished.

  “Word for word. See what I’ve created? What was I thinking? This is Thailand, and the bull wins. The matador dies. Why didn’t I explain that to her?”

  True to character, Osborne’s attention shifted as he smoked the cigarette sent out from the kitchen. He called over the waitress and ordered a rack of lamb with seasoned vegetables. He looked up from the wine menu and gestured to the sommelier, who looked as forlorn as a standup comic playing to an empty house. When Osborne ordered a bottle of 1986 Lafite, the sommelier almost kissed him.

  “Tell the chef I need another cigarette.”

  Talking about bullfighting, Spain, coups, paint and detentions had put him in the mood to order a thousand-dollar bottle of Bordeaux. Calvino wondered whether, if Osborne ever tried to stop drinking, as he was trying to give up smoking, he’d be sending requests to the kitchen for single glasses of wine.

  “Sky showed me that Khmer tattoo artist’s work. I didn’t tell her you’d already showed me.”

  He stopped as the sommelier handed him a cigarette, holding the wine bottle in this right hand.

  “Give it to me,” Osborne said, sticking the cigarette between his lips and chomping down as he snatched the bottle and examined the neck. “You see that, Calvino?”

  Calvino looked at the label on the bottle.

  “It’s wine. Lafite Rothschild, ’86.”

  “Is there any other Lafite?”

  Osborne dismissed Calvino’s ignorance as a failure of the American education system.

  “I meant the wine in the neck. When it’s low, that means it hasn’t been properly stored.”

  He looked up at the sommelier.

  “Bring another bottle. A bottle with the wine at this level.”

  Osborne pressed his thumb at a high level on the neck of the bottle.

  “Leakage, Calvino. That is the bane of our existence. What isn’t properly stored leaks over time, it spoils. And not just wine—women, family, politics... Deals, too.”

  The sommelier returned with a bottle of Lafite ’73.

  “An inferior year for Lafite,” sighed Osborne.

  Calvino watched the poor man in the starched shirt and necktie endlessly shuttling from the wine cooler to the table with bottle after bottle, trying to please. Cutting things short, Osborne gestured his surrender. The sommelier smiled at his victory and uncorked the chosen bottle. Osborne smelled the cork and nodded. The sommelier poured a finger of wine in the glass. Cesar grabbed the cork from Osborne and ducked under the table.

  “Powerful but not brash, a gentle nose,” he said. “Long and intense. Pure and well-defined. An elegant, sensual body. I could be describing Sky. Indeed, I am.”

  The sommelier filled Osborne’s glass before attending to Calvino and then departing swiftly.

  “You can see why they do no business. The sommelier doesn’t know enough to decant a Lafite. Even an inferior year deserves time to breathe before being drunk. It’s the same with women. They too need space to breathe before you drink them. I sat Sky on the sofa and told her that I’d given her a great deal of breathing space. And that seemed to make her happy. As I talked to her, I realized it was like seeing someone for the first time. This stranger was carrying my baby. How did that happen? Was I dreaming? Have you ever experienced that feeling of strangeness in the presence of someone you thought you knew?”

  Osborne had managed to also describe Calvino’s feelings about Marley. But sharing those feelings with Osborne would have given him the distraction he needed next after already stalling with the Lafite saga.

  “Let’s move on to Ballard,” said Calvino.

  “We’ll come to him in a moment. Let me finish. I don’t mean ‘strange’ in a bad way. It’s just that there was a whole part of Sky that I knew nothing about. I had thought she was a rather silly girl, someone who was after my money. But I was wrong. She has substance. Why hadn’t I seen that before? Later that night, she showed me a term paper that she’d handed in to her professor. He’d written a load of nonsense in the margins. His favorite word was ‘
false.’ From the pen of an academic, that’s enough to make you want to vomit.

  “It wasn’t even her idea. Palm ripped off the idea about the Users and the Used from the Internet. Instead of writing the paper, she hired a grifter named Lee Welford, who is from Perth in Australia and lives in some squalid room off Petchaburi Road. Mr. Welford, an Open University dropout, ghost-wrote it for them. Where did she get the money to pay him?”

  Osborne used his finger to stab himself in the chest.

  “I paid the fee. She told me no one has time to write term papers. Not to mention the lack of the English skills to write one. Their final mark would rest not on the caliber of their argument, she said, but on a forger’s perfect grammar. It’s all appearances with these people. I thought about it and concluded that I should be proud of her. Sky was showing a deep insight—the importance of carefully selecting competent partners in a criminal enterprise. Most people don’t learn that lesson soon enough, and they go to prison.

  “But now it turns out she didn’t learn it well enough, that bitter lesson about the importance of making quality judgments about strangers. That doesn’t mean she should be thrown in some dungeon to be tortured by troglodytes. It’s unbearable, Vincent.”

  He grabbed the bottle of wine by the neck and refilled his glass. He looked dejected as his rack of lamb arrived.

  “How is your lamb?” he asked after while.

  Calvino hadn’t touched his plate.

  “Others have been detained with her,” said Calvino.

  “I don’t fucking care about the others.”

  “Frankly, the people holding her don’t fucking care about you.”

  “It’s a standoff. I am not the one who will give way.”

  “Rolls Royce against a tank. Who wins that standoff, Alan?”

  Osborne sipped his wine and paid attention to the Jack Russell.

  “I will win.”

  “Give me something about Ballard, Alan. Anything.”

  “Aren’t you eating?”

  “What do you know about him?”

  Calvino shook his head in frustration.