Chapter 2
Carl had lived on his wits all of his life. People generally perceived him as sincere, possibly because he tried to be when life didn’t get in the way. His greatest asset was the ability to turn their trust into tax-free income. He had to live on something and he was a man of expensive tastes.
The Sukhumvit Grande Hotel, a five-star property, had become an important part of Carl’s working life. He used it to run his business from and was there at least two days a week. Carl’s clients were more impressed by him receiving VIP treatment in a five-star hotel than they would have been by a small office down a Bangkok backstreet. So, over the years he had befriended the staff and made the hotel his own.
He had been at the hotel a couple of months earlier, before his financial drought, holding a complicated meeting with four police colonels regarding the Thai police’s legal interpretation and attitude toward shady foreign businessmen, white collar criminals who were happily paying Carl for the information. Carl was in the middle of the meeting when the hotel manager, Fritz Freysinger, tall, Swiss, dressed like an undertaker, relatively new to Bangkok and antiseptically efficient, showed his disapproval of Carl’s influence over the hotel’s staff.
It was Carl’s own fault there was a conflict. He had been at a cocktail party in the ballroom of the hotel when the manager had come over and introduced a friend from Germany. “I want you to meet my friend Graf Felix Von Gorbitz, he is a real Count.” Carl looked him up and down then turned to the manager and said, “Sorry to hear that. I find it commendable that you still put up with him though.”
Since that day the manager disapproved of him and the day Carl was talking to the colonels was an opportunity for revenge so the manager came over and said, “Nice office you have here,” hoping to expose and embarrass.
“Cheap too!” Carl replied.
He knew exactly what Carl meant. Five people drinking coffee under crystal chandeliers would cost the equivalent of forty American dollars. It was far more impressive and a lot less expensive than paying rent on a proper office. Herr Freysinger’s beloved hotel had been called cheap so he chose neutrality and left hurriedly. Carl didn’t need him. As long as he tipped the staff well it was his hotel. A hundred baht handed out to a few key people meant he was in control from the car park to the F amp; B outlets. If the manager didn’t like it there wasn’t a problem. He wasn’t on Carl’s list of people to give a hundred baht to and if his sarcasm didn’t stop Carl would take him off his Christmas list as well.
Carl rolled down the legs of his jeans, put his shoes back on his wet feet, and looked around the lobby. He liked to make a point of identifying the person he was meeting before they gave out any signals. It took them by surprise and gave him the necessary edge. Carl was looking for the tension that comes from the anticipation of making a confession.
Clients contacted him when something had gone seriously wrong in their life. Something they had tried to deal with but had failed to find a solution to on their own. So, before they discuss a course of action, they feel a need to explain how they got to that point whilst avoiding sounding foolish. Therefore it was a confession. So Carl was looking for someone that was tense and probably more than a little nervous.
Carl spotted him immediately. The potential client looked like an oversized schoolboy sitting outside the headmaster’s office. He was at least one hundred and fifty kilos but, like so many foreign visitors to the tropics, he wore shorts and a polo shirt. His belly hung over the belt of his shorts and his huge swollen legs protruded downwards out of the cotton shorts like the creations of a drunken sausage machine. His large cheeks and nose were red from years of drinking and the exertion of breathing in the humid air of the tropics. His hair had receded to leave the top of his head bald but what he had on the sides was left long enough for him to sweep it across the top of his head like a randomly thrown floor rug. He had finished off his artistic creation by dying the hair jet-black. It was not a pretty picture.
Carl thought the man looked like an oversized clown but he had a Rolex watch on his wrist and a diamond ring on his finger so all was not lost. Carl walked over and introduced himself. The man showed his surprise that Carl knew who he was without having been given a description. Carl shrugged his shoulders to give the impression it was merely a magic trick and not to be taken seriously. Carl introduced himself and suggested they move upstairs to the library where it would be more private. They took the ornate stairs in the middle of the lobby.
Carl climbed the stairs slowly so as not to embarrass his whale of a potential client. They eventually reached the library without the fat man needing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, which was a good thing as Carl had decided that if he collapsed halfway up the stairs he would wait for help and if no help arrived Carl would let him die. Even Bangkok private investigators have limits to what they will do for a client and this hideous looking fat man was only a potential client.
The client sat his large body in an armchair and after several minutes of heavy breathing he began his story.
“This is a difficult story to tell so I would appreciate it if you don’t interrupt. I will answer any questions afterwards.” He observed him carefully until Carl nodded his agreement.
“As I intend to be totally honest with you, first I will tell you that my name is Victor Inman and I am sixty-seven years old and my story takes place over several decades. To continue in the spirit of truthfulness I must tell you that there was a time when my brother was quite high up in the CIA. He was posted to Vietnam shortly after that commie cocksucker and friend to the Soviet Union was shot by Lee Oswaldin Dallas. No insane conspiracy theory there, my friend. Just a pissed off American alone with his rifle. You do not side with conspiracy theorists I assume. I am counting on you being much more intelligent than that.”
Carl assumed he was referring to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy who was no friend of Russia but fortunately, a friendly enough man to have averted World War III. Right wing elements on both sides had taken the world to the brink of nuclear war. Kennedy had refused to be influenced by the warmongers and had fortunately chosen a more tempered solution to the Cuban Missile Crisis. He was one of Carl’s favourite historical characters.
The alleged ‘lone’ assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was an enigma, most certainly a villain, and sometime friend of Russia having taken up residence there after denouncing his US citizenship. He later asked for his passport back and returned to the US with a Russian wife. All visa applications for the wife from communist Russia were apparently processed without hindrance suggesting the support of the State Department. Oswald had certainly crossed paths and had dealings with the CIA during his time in Florida prior to that bloody day in Dallas. Carl had always believed a military coup had taken place to take the White House back from uncooperative civilian hands. Carl had seen a few military coups in his time and he knew what one looked like.
There were three good reasons for Carl to hold his tongue: he had agreed not to interrupt, he didn’t like right wing arseholes and had a tendency to get angry around them, and arguing politics was a sure way of walking away from the table with empty pockets. He forced his face to remain expressionless. The fat man saw this as approval and continued.
“In all honesty Lyndon Johnson was what the country needed, a proper president and a good American. Under his administration the CIA were tasked with confronting communism across the globe and my brother was sent to Vietnam. He was immediately put in the Phoenix Program and he served his country honourably.”
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.