Escape Read online

  ‘And you know Thai sticks have to be ordered specially,’ Tommy added. ‘They don’t make them anymore.’

  ‘No problem. I can wait.’

  Tommy and I crossed the river once more and I left him at a furniture showroom. He was arranging the delivery of a garish, black wood, three-piece lounge suite with livid silk cushions. It would be a gift for General Lee’s birthday. All the Triangle’s competitors insisted on outdoing each other with expensive, ostentatious gifts.

  The office of Concorde 999 Gold International Travel Agency wasn’t easy to find in the narrow arcade of Bangkok’s Chinatown. Two fluorescent tubelights inside the small office had trouble lighting beyond its peeling green window plastic. The single door’s hinge had broken so Tramshed had to leap from his couch to let me in. Perhaps that was his job.

  ‘Ah, Mister David, come in. Please. Have a seat!’

  It was good to see Tramshed had lost none of his enthusiasm. He and Large Raj immediately began an inventory of their disasters and gave me a Fanta with a rusty top and dusty drinking straw. I recall none of their woes as I was thinking hard about Tommy. He had paused for some time at the furniture shop’s entrance in front of its showroom windows. Not looking at carved goblins and brass cauldrons but to check the reflection in the glass for anyone following us. This kind of behaviour was rare for Tommy. He was nervous, had been all morning and had strained to avoid telling me why.

  After twenty minutes with Tramshed and Large Raj at the C999G agency, I made excuses and left. Visiting Chinatown had been mostly a ruse so that I wouldn’t have to tell Tommy that I’d be seeing Myca, my venerable first connection in Thailand. Although I’d spoken to each of the other they had never met—unfortunately old friends seldom accept that need to retain even older ones.

  12

  Still Tuesday. Just twelve hours in Thailand and already back in the world of spooks and shadows. While waiting at the Nana Hotel for Myca, I sipped an orange juice hoping to wash away the sweetness of Tramshed’s Fanta. At the same time I was concluding that Tommy was being followed over something he thought might put me off my game if I knew. From the agency I’d taken a three-floor walk through the Siam Center hoping to spot any watchers before taxiing to the Nana. A foreigner in a strange land cannot easily make tails yet in Asia, local police don’t expect diligence from Europeans, a small advantage. If Tommy was being followed I could live with that. He had been since the day we’d first met and I hadn’t changed.

  Myca had gained some weight over the years but still held a child’s eyes. He’d moved house four times and in each had built a bedroom, always made up in case I should arrive unannounced. As we sat in the Nana coffee shop Myca described the growth of Bangkok with the pride of a farmer before his lush crop.

  ‘I’ll show you. How many days will you stay? Ten, twelve?’

  ‘I’m very sorry, Myca. It’s like I said. Just passing through. But I’ll be back, I promise.’

  Myca’s face didn’t disguise his disappointment. He then asked, ‘You need something? I haven’t been doing much for years, just the land business. Oh, a little here, a little there. Just for friends. You know.’

  ‘No. Nothing thanks. Next time I’ll make a proper visit of it.’

  Myca leaned back against the bench within our booth. Shyly from the side pockets of his padded jacket he withdrew two fat envelopes.

  ‘Here’s just a little. It’s your Christmas, isn’t it?’

  ‘There’s no need.’ But I took the envelopes and a quick calculation from their open flaps came to US$10,000.

  ‘No, you come to my house tomorrow,’ Myca insisted. ‘Then I have a lot more. Relax a while. You should see our new land now, all shops and apartments.’

  Had I forgotten how much Thailand held for me? This tight schedule was no way to retrace my steps, not that such was part of the plan. I left Myca and walked to my next appointment. Nearby at the Grace Hotel.

  The Grace Hotel in Sukhumvit had been a magnet for tarts, double-bent cops, single-trippers, sub-orbital space cadets and those spring-necked noddies who spent their waking hours peering into the dark side of the spoon. In the 1990s the hotel’s reputation had barely improved so one might think it a poor choice of flophouse for Sam Gilburne, an old player and professional courier. Yet he lived by omens and signs so the Grace must have proved lucky for Sam in Bangkok.

  Sam Gilburne would tell people that he had been born and raised in Colorado but, if so, he’d changed his voice. I did know that sleepy-eyed Sam had joined a team of boys and girls from Quebec who would launch mass landings at chosen Canadian airports in the mid-1970s. Six of them would disembark dressed in full hippie colours to attract customs staff. The seventh man, trailing behind, would then pass through unhindered in plain-clothes camouflage.

  Sam now lived in Toronto, worked alone and was considered one of the most reliable independent couriers of our acquaintance. Druggists paid Sam US$7,500 for any Asia–West haulage. This was more than twice that paid to the Paolos, Saleems and Eddies and worth the premium, for Sam would always stand his ground. I’d phoned from the front desk of the Grace and Sam came downstairs to greet me, avoiding the lift. Sam wouldn’t open his hotel-room door to his mother bearing an apple pie and had suffered many cold breakfasts.

  ‘Sam, you old ham. Look at you. It’s been, well—hasn’t it?’ I looked at Sam’s silk Pacific-island-print shirt stretched over his now porky torso.

  ‘Yeah, at least. And then some.’

  I lightly prodded Sam’s colourful shirt. ‘About time for the extra large Sam?’ The wiry build of Sam’s youth was now well padded.

  ‘Too many hours at the tables.’ Sam meant Las Vegas. ‘And I’m not losing this shirt. Let’s go upstairs. Too many freaks down here.’

  The bed in Sam’s room was covered by new shirts still in their plastic wraps. He would never wear them. They were part of his elaborate ritual purchases and abandonments that underpinned his faith in luck. As a person who lived perennially in temporary lodgings Sam would litter his nests to imitate the surroundings of a family man as though the gods would be kinder to those with a life in full.

  ‘Up to no good, Sam? I hope.’ I had some work for Sam and wanted an outline of his bookings.

  ‘Don’t worry, David. Not the Pakistanis, not the Nigerians.’ Sam lit his cigarette with a chipped black lighter I’d seen before. ‘Remember Wolf from Stockholm?’

  A good man. Wanted and on the run but careful.

  ‘I’m off Thursday,’ Sam continued. ‘Afternoon Swissair to Zurich. Shouldn’t be a problem.’ Sam keyed the links of his gold bracelet, a gift from a girl in La Coruña. He’d said that the rattling of the heavy bracelet into the metals tray at airport-security posts always distracted the staff.

  ‘Everything bedded down?’ I made a stirring motion with one hand, enquiring as to the quality of packing done for Sam’s Zurich run.

  ‘Yup,’ but Sam would say no more using sound. He stood, walked to the open wardrobe and crouched next to a pair of long leather boots. Looking at me, Sam slowly guided the back of his hand along the length of a boot. Then stood, moved to a hand-luggage case by the minifridge and stroked a finger across the bag’s handle. It was a double-grip leather handle and I estimated that it held around three hundred grams.

  Sam had revealed more than he usually would so rapidly moved on. ‘Right, where do you want me?’

  ‘It’s an island hop.’ I unfolded a travel map upon the bed. ‘Starting in Margarita.’

  ‘That’s Venezuela, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah, but full of European tourists. You fly to Santo Domingo and then on to the Caymans.’ I could see Sam wrinkling his nose at the thought of the Dominican Republic. ‘Well, I’m looking at some way of cutting that out—but the Caymans flight is the important one.’

  ‘Mmm … I know it. Air Canada to Toronto.’

  ‘Right. And you’re the man for Toronto. You must know that airport like the palm of your hand.’

  ‘No
need to sell it to me, Dave. I’m on. Will you be at the other end? I don’t want to meet strangers in my own town.’

  ‘This won’t be for a month or so. I should be able to fly more easily by then.’ I was less sure than I sounded.

  Sam bounced around the room tearing scraps of paper into tiny pieces which meant he was thinking. ‘Okay. Sounds good. Can I catch up with you later tonight? I’ve got an early dinner not far from here. Won’t take long. Not a friend really. Might be a gig for me.’

  ‘Anyone I know?’

  ‘Doubt it. Colin Mackenzie?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘I met him down at Naklua.’ Sam was talking about the beaches near Pattaya. ‘He’s a Kiwi. I thought you might know him. Lives in Vancouver when he’s not here. I was a bit doubtful at first but he knows his stuff.’

  ‘Well, be careful,’ I said routinely. ‘And I’d like to stay but I’ll be gone by ten tonight. Just a whistle stop.’

  I walked with Sam to the restaurant of his meeting. We ran through our communications protocols. I gave him a business card for an optician in London’s Baker Street.

  ‘My number’s on the eye chart.’ I pointed to a graphic on the card that I’d had printed. ‘The code phrase is “frozen days”. Just follow the letters from the top.’ Each letter represented a number from zero to nine corresponding to those letters in the code phrase, so chosen as no letter is repeated. All good stuff except that ninety-nine crooks out of a hundred will go home and phone immediately from their dodgy landlines or infected mobiles.

  As Sam turned into the restaurant I walked on to a jewellery shop. I’d already selected a gift for Sharon before I realised the choice of a charm bracelet had been influenced by Sam’s company. Reversing to the corner I paused to look through the windows of La Grande Bouffe. And there he was, at a table towards the back, sitting opposite a man with a beard. The beard did most of the talking, Sam looking down to rearrange his unused cutlery. I suppose there is a particular order for knives and forks with Sam.

  Returning to the Oriental just before seven I half packed my bag and broke the cellophane to eat some hairy rambutans from a fruit basket. As with most hotels in Bangkok the Oriental would not include durian fruit in its baskets or even allow any in the building, despite its rich confectionary taste. If a durian’s alligator skin were peeled in a confined space the pungent bile stench would have guests complaining.

  At that moment, staring at the fruit basket, I remembered the real identity behind the beard of Sam’s dinner companion. He was Keith Kellaway.

  Twelve years earlier and without that beard, Kellaway had been flipping burgers at a greasy café in Port Moody, not so very far from where Sam now lived in Canada. Third-rate burglars and street girls would sit in the booths until their dealers would slide by to tuck matchboxes behind the serviette racks. This was Kellaway’s first experience of the lowest trading floor. When he finished calculating the money he’d seen changing hands Kellaway decided to go into the drug trade. And as an importer from the outset. For Kellaway even buying his minced beef from the butcher next door seemed an imposition when there were cows roaming the countryside unchaperoned. Within a year he’d financed a couple of awkward runs from Thailand after grilling junkie-backpacker customers for contacts. Needy street people had been hired to swallow thirty or forty condoms filled with heroin and Kellaway never let them out of his sight until their last meal was back in his hands. The dope would be ground and cut on Kellaway’s steel benches, then sold straight to the consumers from his café. The night I’d called in for a thick shake and to watch the show, he’d turned ugly at someone who couldn’t pay. Only the smell of burning egg and onion rings drove him back behind the counter. I guess the value of the debt was less than a burnt burger. Kellaway’s frustration was that his couriers could not swallow enough but he was too stingy to pay for professional couriers whose luggage would not be picked over by customs.

  The next I heard of Kellaway was from a mercurial smuggler who’d lost a couple of large wooden elephants in the mail. He and Kellaway had once shared a Bangkok connection. Kellaway would never risk posting his kilos and often spent weeks seeking gullible Canadian tourists to whom he could entrust his cargo. ‘I know just the shop where you can buy fine carvings cheap,’ Kellaway would tell the elderly couples he’d befriend in hotels. The plan was to drop by one evening sometime once they were all back home; take the pensioners out for dinner while an accomplice elbowed the couple’s back door to retrieve the elephant. However, that would mean Keith trusting a friend. That would mean Keith having a friend.

  ‘Keith never had the patience for that,’ recounted my elephant-posting acquaintance. ‘I don’t think he did that trick more than once or twice. He’d go around for evening drinks, then lose his rag with the oldies if he couldn’t immediately spot the pachyderm and start yelling, “Stick your sherry up your ass. Where’s my fucking elephant, you old stinkbags!” Then Keith would get nasty. That was his way, no patience for the last mile.’

  Over the years I’d hoped to hear of Keith’s timely death but there had been no news until Myca told me about a Canadian who had been looking for a particular Burmese doctor who had a reputation for silent treatments. This medic would sew up gunshot wounds or provide suitable poisons as a solution to business disputes. This doctor was not quite so silent when he drank.

  Keith Kellaway had persuaded a young man to travel with him to Thailand. (I’d elsewhere heard of Kellaway organising charity raffles at a services club where lucky young singletons could win trips to Thailand, although there may be no connection here.) The young man was chubby, nearing obesity.

  In Bangkok Kellaway and Chubby spent a few evenings together paying bar fines to take out girls. Kellaway wouldn’t have kept that up for long. One night, after drinking too much, Chubby and Kellaway stumble out into the street to a confrontation with alley boys. There is a fight. The alley boys have knives.

  Chubby wakes up the following morning in a strange guesthouse, bruised and sore to see a foot of fresh stitches curving along his gut. Some swelling. Kellaway tells him that the fight was touch and go. He wears some mascara for a black eye. He must have also invented some dangers in going to local hospitals, perhaps spoken of months awaiting the courts if the fight were to be reported to the police. Chubby is grateful, he has found a true friend at last. ‘T’weren’t nuthin’. I imagined Kellaway affecting modesty.

  Through some mix-up with the flight reservations Chubby has to return to Canada via Seattle. At the last minute ticketing difficulties are, in part, resolved. Kellaway gets the direct flight but promises to collect Chubby at Seattle rather than have him wait for a transit connection. Chubby must promise to keep taking the penicillin.

  Kellaway was waiting in a rented car at Seattle when Chubby limped out to the kerb.

  Another two years would pass before I heard the conclusion to this elaborate bit of staging, although I knew that Kellaway was dealing again within a week of his return. More quietly that time.

  I telephoned the Grace Hotel but Sam had told the desk not to put through any calls. His Canadian mobile phone was only taking messages and Sam did not keep a local mobile number. Unlucky, he had said. Even so I reasoned that Sam was no fool. A scoundrel such as Kellaway would have no easy job talking Sam down a blind alley. Besides, in two hours I would be leaving Bangkok to get some desperately needed sleep aboard an SAS flight to Copenhagen. On the other hand, Sam had put on a lot of weight.

  I finished packing after seven so went downstairs to the Riverside Café for some alcohol to clear my head. With only twenty minutes to spare before leaving for the airport I ordered a fruit salad, a Cointreau with ice and lemon and began reading an International Herald Tribune taken from the lobby. Frank Zappa’s death had allowed rock historians a few columns and Boris Yeltsin was in trouble. Our universe would be spared never-ending expansion by a mysterious dark matter and Europe’s internal borders were to be unmanned. A small box in the paper reprinted an ang
ry letter from 1922 complaining of the continued requirement for passports at international borders. The Great War was over, wrote Angry, so the need for such intrusive documents had gone. Groundhog Day was playing everywhere, opening to more screens due to word-of-mouth recommendations. I raised my snifter, swirled its crushed ice and drank to Sam. I made a decision.

  At that moment, looking through the glass, a girl had appeared in the diamond lights of the hotel entrance some nine metres away. She descended the timber steps to the torch-lit garden. Softer than the night and dressed in wind-drifted layers of yellow and sunset-orange organdie, the tall blonde floated in an arc around me to the water’s edge, quietly taking a corner seat at a large table. I thought it unusual to find a woman such as she unattended, for she was beautiful. She lifted her eyes from her hands, spread flat upon her table, and spoke.

  ‘Would you care to join me for a drink while I wait for my girlfriend?’ Her voice, kept low, easily carried across the three-metre gap as the sounds of Bangkok had suddenly stilled. She spoke with a New York City accent a touch harder than her features.

  ‘Of course. That would be nice.’ I abandoned my newspaper to take a seat at her table.

  Her name was Jacinta, mine was Daniel. I wondered if hers had been adopted between boyfriends or, as mine, between terminals, for unchivalrous suspicions were beginning to form.

  ‘I’ve been drinking brandy but I’m ready for a change.’ I signalled a waiter.

  ‘I feel like champagne.’ Jacinta then spoke to the waiter though keeping her eyes on me, ‘Do you have Dom Pérignon?’

  As the waiter left I defended the wine from the prevailing taste. Jacinta broke in saying, ‘The first bottle’s on me. My treat!’

  ‘I wouldn’t do that,’ I said lifting my key tag to the bar staff to indicate billing to my account (and taking the opportunity to replace it face down from Jacinta). ‘The hotel mark-up here is 300 percent.’