Escape Page 12

  ‘I shouldn’t be. It’s been a hard week.’

  Eric, the slimiest of the visit trusties, began herding the Nigerians from the visit pens. Someone they had been expecting had failed to arrive. Dean looked toward Eric but I shook my head. To pay Eric for the use of the lawyers’ cage would spark his meretricious curiosity.

  ‘So, Dean. It’s been over four months. No one will agree to terms?’

  ‘Well, they agree to terms all right.’ Dean held the bars with both hands. ‘But not for the kind of money we have.’

  Dean detailed the list of people in need of fixing. A judge, a prosecutor, some policemen and all the spongy cement that held them together. A total of US$250,000.

  ‘That seems a lot for my small case. Less than 200 grams found—and found not with me, only in the large airport I once used.’ I added that this price was about five times the amount Bangkok assassins would charge to kill them all, ‘Just by way of a comparison.’

  Dean shrugged. ‘There are complications. A small case, in some ways. But people are ... interested in you.’

  That would have been the moment to ask about the mysterious suit who’d spoken to Sharon at the Rembrandt. Yet there was no point. If Dean had spotted any surveillance either he would have told me or done something about it. If he were blind to spooks telling Dean would not improve his eyesight and might scare him out of the game. Either way more money would not help.

  I folded my arms and leaned forward. ‘Dean, I think we need to stop being golden geese. Keep things simple. Keep in mind that the single object that would get me out of here is no more than a piece of paper. A piece of paper sent from the court at six any evening. You can manufacture that paper.’

  I gave Dean my own list of people: minor functionaries who deal with court papers; those who carried the documents from court, the jailers who stamped bail orders when received and those who passed them on to others who unlock the lucky few after nine each night. ‘You’ve talked your way in here for months using bogus embassy letters. How hard can it be to make bogus court papers?’

  ‘Possible. Yes, possible.’ Dean answered too quickly so I knew he had something else in mind. ‘David, I don’t want any more money.’

  I wasn’t expecting that.

  ‘If you give me a contact—one in Europe, I mean—I’ll do the business. Just a kilo or so. That is, I’ll make the money we need, come back and then it will be one, two, three!’ Dean snapped his fingers. ‘All I really need is someone you know who’d be ready to see me.’

  Now that was something to wonder at. Never before had Dean mentioned going into trade. I returned to Building Six thinking of someone suitable who could be ready to welcome Dean Reed with all the care his efforts deserved.

  10

  April and the Songkran Water Festival when unimprisoned Thais cheekily splash water on each other in a celebration of life. At Klong Prem the mutual bucketing altered the canvas of the jail in one big wet, with no one truly joyous, just going about the business of survival with the addition of drenched clothes.

  Sten and Swiss Theo had built a hut behind the chief’s office and had both taken hobbies. Sten’s included oil paintings that took longer to explain than paint. In lighter colours Theo painted wobbly tables and chairs of his own making to ward off the fear of a long sentence. He then painted the walls of their hut, the outside of the chief’s temple, nearby trees and had begun whitening the kerbstones leading to the gate of Building Six.

  Calvin had been sentenced to twenty-five years, the minimum for attempted export. ‘That’s okay. I’m pleased with that,’ he’d said, looking suicidal.

  Dean Reed had submerged into his new mission as a smuggler without asking for any further guidance. After some time a huge care package had arrived from Dean postmarked Hat Yai, southern Thailand, containing useless and expensive clothing, carved boxes, delicate Japanese prints, religious ornaments and hand-made stationary. All carefully wrapped in tissue paper under flocked giftwrap. Everything smelled of incense. No note.

  Charlie Lao had been granted a royal pardon at last. One night, in a rush, he ran to cell #57 and had breathlessly shown me the long-awaited document. Simply worded but bearing a huge regal seal. ‘I have to go to Sydney,’ Charlie had said, then promised, ‘I’ll be back.’

  My little cat was growing, although not well. Her mother had lost interest in nursing after less than a week and then the kitten had been kidnapped. Jet put up reward posters and Dinger—so named as her mother had been gonged on the head by a guard—was returned. (The posters made the threat that further kidnappings would be costly.) Her captors had fed her spicy food resulting in long-term intestinal damage. Cats in KP learned to move fast. As soon as they grew beyond cuteness they would often become subjects of the inmates’ surgical experiments. Dinger now required especially bland food to restore her health. Our cook, the middle-aged cheque-kiter Bo-Jai, was kind enough to prepare each day a tiny portion of milk-boiled chicken. Bo-jai ran his busy evening-meal take-away service from the boot shop. It was Sten who’d privately renamed him Blow-Job. (Due to his physical similarity to Goldfinger’s Odd Job and his aikido skills—the surly and brusque chef would sooner charbroil customers than kiss them.) Each evening Jet would fetch the stack of steel tins from Bo-Jai with the tiny tin for our ailing cat.

  Americans Big Bill and Andy had disappeared. Suspicions about the pair’s resilience became very strong when they began to have frequent visits from two DEA agents dressed in the matching black suits of Jehovah’s doorsteppers. Bill and Andy had agreed to return temporarily to the US to appear as state’s witnesses against a Chicago rookery of Nigerian smugglers. After testifying Bill and Andy would be returned to Klong Prem despite their unwritten contract with the DEA. One that included quick transfer back to a US prison followed immediately by parole.

  Referring to his former employees Big Bill said, ‘Those idiots, they even paid for one of our tickets using a stolen credit card,’ this lapse presumably making Big Bill’s role as state witness a fair response. ‘No wonder the Feds knew all about them.’ Andy held fears of a hatchet job once back in KP by agents of the Nigerians. Neither would be in any danger. The damage of the testimony would have been done, the fallen quickly forgotten and the Nigerians saw no value in financing an unprofitable revenge for those whose luck had failed. As for DEA policy, clearly its administrators were now demonstrating that there would be no more collusion with the drug traffickers. Other than colluding to strike a deal for prosecution testimony, a tradition too useful to sacrifice.

  By the time the waters of Songkran had dried I had surveyed almost every foreigner who’d shown any inclination for escape. After eliminating those who were incapacitated and those unlikely to keep silent, the list was short. Just Sten from Sweden, Theo and I formed the vanguard of a non-existent counterforce.

  ‘And if I hear anyone suggest an escape committee, I’ll quit!’ Sten said, although none of us held illusions of team spirit.

  The next month’s court hearing brought some new faces to the show. As I shuffled along a corridor to the courtroom I was given a beaming smile from the police major who’d arrested me in Chinatown. He had never appeared in court before this day. With him was a tall, urbane Westerner in an expensive suit and I intuitively thought of him as the friendly gent Sharon had met at the Rembrandt. After taking my seat at the defence table I asked Montree who he might be.

  ‘An American. He’s with the major.’ Montree tapped the desk, indicating that no more information had been given.

  This day’s witness was a seedy police detective wearing a black leather jacket. He claimed to have found a bag at the airport. A bag containing 200 grams of heroin. He also said that he had seen me at the airport that day.

  ‘Don’t ask him anything, Montree. Please,’ I said when the time came for cross-examination.

  ‘I didn’t plan to,’ Montree whispered to me, at the same time smiling at the judge. Montree knew the policeman would have been well schooled to
say bad things if asked any wider questions.

  As I returned to the holding cages a great fuss of guards’ shouting broke out near the parking bay. The prisoners’ buses had been moved for some important arrival. Then two new, sparkling police cars arrived at speed between which a black Lexus with tinted windows and glaring halogens was guided to the cage doors. A policeman adorned with medals quickly stepped out to open the rear door of the modest limo.

  Police Major General Prompon Phoont’ang jauntily stepped from the darkness dressed in inappropriately tight shorts, a golfing T-shirt and top-shelf white trainers. No chains, of course. He was trying to give a carefree impression, smiling at everyone, winking and finger pointing at the respectful guards as he took a cage alone.

  After a short short time the guards left him, having covered their bets by asking politely if all of Phoont’ang’s needs had been met. Within a few minutes I walked to his cage and then paused, trying to think of a way to introduce myself. This proved unnecessary.

  ‘Come in, Westlake,’ laughed the major general as though my name alone was a great source of hilarity. (Perhaps ‘Westlake’ meant shithead in Thai for this was not the first time a Thai had enjoyed speaking my name.) It was not yet noon and Phoont’ang was drunk. ‘Welcome!’

  It would have been impolite to ask immediately about the faked Saudi royal jewels so I simply complained about the length of our trials.

  ‘That doesn’t matter. A long time can be good.’ Phoont’ang clapped his hands in slow motion. ‘No witnesses.’

  Ordinarily a man of such high rank and power as Phoont’ang would have had no trouble avoiding punishment but it had been an indirect offence to Thai royalty to filch another royal’s personal knick-knacks. I hinted to the major general that he might have to wait for the quiet of the appeal courts to get free. When he didn’t respond I set out my reasoning in a disinterested yet respectful tone.

  Finally Phoont’ang sat up from his bench and gently clapped me on one shoulder.

  ‘Westlake,’ he said warmly. ‘Very sorry. You’re fucked. Everybody knows.’

  When a stranger tells you that which everyone seems to know you might as well believe it. Yet to understand why my case was hopeless, I would have to think back to the days leading up to my capture. As always happens after each life-wrecking arrest I had shed the memory as a snake sheds a skin that becomes too tight. Now I must revisit that discarded husk and pick over its scales for clues.

  11

  In the months before my journey to Thailand I had been living in a small apartment, formed in the renovation of a 1960s motel that had been bypassed by a freeway leading to the airport. There I kept only my name and clothing so nothing for which I cared. Yet the bed was large and made comfortable and, at any time, I was prepared to check out without notice. Each day with US$5,000 and a passport in my tracksuit pockets, I would take morning runs. Skirting the playing fields of parkland, ducking through bracken and ascending over the rubble to the high ridges of an old railway line to then stop and view the nearby cityscape of Melbourne. This routine would also allow the first shift of detectives to let themselves into the flat to poke around. More widely, my phones were tapped, there were bugs in my office furniture and this early morning rifle through my drawers was, for them, no more than an eye-opener before beginning a day’s four-car surveillance.

  Most youthful indiscretions are forgivable. Some are not. Unlawfully—or even legally—making a fortune before the age of twenty is unpardonable in any land. It didn’t matter that twice since I’d lost and made again that fortune. There would be no forgiveness. Newer religions might aspire to fundamentalist rigour but nothing tops Anglo-Christianity for eternal damnation.

  Two previous police groups had expended their funding so these surveillance tasks were now maintained by the Target Identification Branch, a federal agency. Every three months these agencies would exchange these duties until one of them could convince the boss that a dedicated taskforce would be worth the investment.

  For me an impractical amount of each day was taken up merely communicating with friends: burying my car in the concrete of big car parks to then take trains and taxis to meetings, locating untapped payphones away from telescopic lenses to make calls. Inevitably the time came when I needed to speak with distant friends using real names and dates. At the same time new equipment had been installed in the capital’s phone-tapping bunker making every phone in the country unsafe. I would need to travel even to talk.

  ‘You could do nothing and wait for the police to go away.’ This was Michael, a friend formed strong within the pressure of our carbon mountain.

  ‘Or I could grow old and die,’ although I doubted that Michael was making a serious suggestion. We were standing at the front gate of Michael’s suburban house. Parked at the kerbside about a hundred metres away stood a white delivery van with mirrored rear windows.

  ‘Let’s move into the garden.’ Michael nodded at the van. ‘Maybe they have a lip-reader today.’

  Michael and I had worked together, on and off, for fifteen years. We had met by chance just before dawn at the Electro Doghouse where hot dogs were sold to go and, in those days, one of the few places open around the clock. Michael was dressed in a buckskin jacket and wore snakeskin boots. I carried a cane and wore a large felt hat. I was twenty. We had both finished work for the night, having quietly met our last customers at the Doghouse.

  Michael’s ex-presidential convertible was parked by the pavement rubbish bin and I spoke as we both dumped our unopened hot dogs in the bin.

  ‘Looks like it’ll be a fine morning,’ I declared.

  ‘It sure does but I won’t get to see much of it,’ Michael said. ‘I work nights. I’m a waiter.’

  ‘Really, now there’s a coincidence. So am I.’ As I spoke a police cruiser eased around a corner. ‘But let’s not wait here.’

  Now, seventeen years later, we sat on the cushions of two large cane chairs under a cloud of microscopic summer insects rising from the untended ferns of Michael’s back garden.

  ‘No other way?’ Michael’s eyes stared through his rusting incinerator drum that had burned more evidence than Saigon’s embassies. ‘You’ve tried phoning Thailand, I suppose?’

  ‘The usual waste of time. Tommy’s wall of voodoo goes up. And, of course, yes is always the answer even when all the questions are misunderstood. I get yessed to death.’

  So that I would not be missed by the watchers my tour of Bangkok, Brussels, Copenhagen and London needed completing within five days, with a return by Friday lunchtime. I explained to Michael that I’d leave a wig and moustache in the bus-station lockers near Sydney Airport for the return journey.

  ‘How about passports?’ Michael removed his wire-frame sunglasses to give them a needless polish. ‘The forces of darkness know all our old names.’

  ‘Indeed. I’ve left the birth certificate and application for a New Zealand passport lying around the office.’ I stood up from my chair. ‘The spooks couldn’t have missed that. But I have a new one. Very deep and another crap passport to sacrifice in Thailand.’

  ‘You’ll still be missed.’ Michael didn’t like the idea of the cops running around looking for me.

  ‘Could be and that’s where I need your help.’

  One thing on which I could absolutely rely was that my mobile phone was not only tapped but also routinely traced to the nearest transponder. So using a dictating machine, Michael and I recorded a phoney but still guarded three-minute conversation in which I hinted at an immediate journey to the Murray River marijuana fields. On a recent buying trip to the area I had spotted a shadow (ultramarine T-shirt, black Nikes, city hair and a bumbag) so felt confident the watchers knew that I frequently visited the Italian countryfolk. As I gave the recorder to Michael I told him what I thought best to do.

  ‘Wait until Wednesday next week. That’ll be my last day in Bangkok. Go into Melbourne, downtown and on foot. Take my mobile phone and find a payphone out of sight. Dial my
number. Of course, my phone will ring in your pocket so answer it. Then I think it’s best if you play the recording into my mobile phone, not the land line in your other hand.’

  Michael agreed that this trick should convince the monitors that I was still somewhere in the city, at least, rather than 10,000 miles away. Even so he cautioned, ‘Don’t overdo it with the red herrings, David. That can excite them more if things seem too busy.’

  I squeezed my hands together. ‘I’m breaking the rules anyway. I suppose with this much heat I’d be smarter to leave the country and not come back. Call it year zero in a new land.’

  An evil-eyed crow speared into the tall grass at the end of the garden and Michael said, ‘It’s a long way to go to make a few phone calls.’ Then smiling, he added, ‘Good luck.’

  The portly young man sat in my office waiting for the laser printer to deliver a sheet. I sat at the desk. He had covertly entered the premises by the back door, a task slowed by the fact that there was no back door.

  Barry plucked some remaining twigs from his jacket and we began.

  ‘It’s you.’ I seemed surprised. ‘I didn’t recognise you under that beard. And you’re all wet! Take off that sou’wester and sit down.’

  ‘Thanks. I could use a drink.’

  ‘Sure.’ I rattled the ice in my Coke. ‘So, tell me. How’d it go?’

  ‘Well, the third zodiac sprang a leak but other than the usual thing with Gomez, it was a breeze.’

  ‘I thought you might’ve had trouble with the handshake.’

  ‘No, my grandad was a mason,’ Barry answered. ‘By the way, Maxwell Kenton gave me a message. You’re to go to the beach hut in Esperance next Tuesday. He’ll call you then from St Kitts.’

  ‘How do I get in?’

  ‘He left the key in the barky bole of a tree at the back. The one that looks like a big “W” on the grassy knoll.’ Barry made a coughing noise. ‘What’s in this drink?’

  ‘Your usual,’ I assured. ‘Absinthe with—oh, sorry. I’m fresh out of persimmons. Cumquats okay?’