Gunshine State Page 15

‘Stop,’ said Chance, his voice hoarse.

  Issarapong tapped a key. The film stopped. He snapped the computer shut.

  Chance breathed deeply for several moments. He had no love for the old man, but no one deserved to die like that.

  ‘I’ve only shown you the final moments of the film. Long was a tough old man. He withstood a lot of punishment. A fitting tribute to his strength of character.’

  ‘What about his daughter?’

  ‘I don’t know. She’s not in the movie.’

  Chance felt a rush of relief. ‘Who would do that?’

  Issarapong said nothing.

  ‘Gao’s people,’ Chance answered his own question.

  ‘The obvious choice.’

  ‘How much do you know?’

  ‘About what, that unpleasant business you and your friends were involved in in Surfers Paradise? Everything.’

  Chance tried not to let the surprise show on his face.

  ‘Do you really think I would have agreed to look after you without knowing the circumstances of how you came to be in my country? This equipment is not just for show. I know everything on the public record about you and your friends.’ Issarapong smiled, patted his laptop. ‘And some that isn’t.’

  ‘How did you get the film?’

  ‘It arrived a few days ago. I don’t know where it was sent from, but I’ll find out.’

  Issarapong leaned forward, rested his chin on his hands.

  ‘What is important is the sender knows you are here under my protection. My father made the agreement with Long to protect you. I honoured the deal because my father and Long were friends. Now that Long is dead, I consider the arrangement void.’

  Chance started to speak, but Issarapong talked over him. ‘Any other course of action in the current circumstances would be poor business sense. If I continue to harbour you, I will make an enemy of a powerful person, perhaps more powerful than me. I have little choice but to turn you and your friends over to Gao’s people.’

  Chance had no comeback, no choice but to wait until the Thai revealed what he wanted.

  ‘My father stayed in control of this organisation for nearly forty years by killing anyone who stood in his way. He sent me to study in the U.S. because he wanted something different for his only son. Unfortunately, his illness ended those plans. Now I am in charge, I have to do exactly as he did, just as ruthlessly.’ Issarapong paused to let his point sink in. ‘That is, unless you can do something for me, something that might make it worth it to me to prolong our business arrangement.’

  ‘Such as?’

  Issarapong opened the laptop, typed something on the keypad. The screen sprang into life, an image of a tall man dressed in a jacket and open-necked shirt. He had short hair, an unusually angular face for a Thai.

  ‘I want you to kill this man.’

  ‘Why don’t you get one of your own men to do it? Maybe Milo here? He fancies himself as a gangsta,’ Chance mimicked Milo’s Cockney drawl. Milo looked straight ahead, did not meet his eyes.

  ‘Milo’s talents lie in other areas.’

  ‘Then get someone else.’

  ‘My father sold the American alcohol and women during the Vietnam War. He always said farangs were such blunt instruments. No subtlety. There are certain rules that need to be respected, especially in the delicate time following my father’s death. It would not be good for me to be seen to have a hand in the killing of one of my senior subordinates, a rival for my position, even one that has been so disloyal.’

  ‘Bad for morale?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Perform this task for me and I’ll allow you to go your own way, no questions asked. I’ll even provide new identities for you and your two friends. I’m not just talking about passports. I have the resources to create new data shadows for all of you, histories that won’t raise a red flag to more high tech forms of police and security surveillance.’

  ‘You must want this guy dead very badly.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘What happens if I say no?’

  ‘You will not leave this compound alive and I’ll turn your friends over to Gao’s people, or our police.’

  ‘Then what other choice do I have?’

  Issarapong smiled. ‘None.’

  FOUR

  This is bad,’ said Kate, her voice hollow.

  An understatement, thought Chance. Things were so much worse than bad. He sipped his beer to hide his irritation.

  Chance, Kate and Tavener sat at a table in Sri Racha’s evening market, two dozen stalls under a corrugated tin roof, fluorescent tubes for lighting, a battery of ceiling fans that did nothing to relieve the stifling heat but a good job of evenly distributing the aroma of ginger, garlic and chillies from the surrounding kitchens.

  Chance had just finished a heavily edited version of his conversation with Issarapong. Kate, eyes wide, her upper lip curled in horror, chain smoked as he spoke. Tavener lounged in his plastic chair, drank his beer. Chance could tell by the absence of his usual wisecracks and asides, the American was every bit as alarmed by what he had heard as Kate.

  ‘Who does Issarapong want dead?’ said Tavener.

  ‘His name is Saradet. One of his senior lieutenants.’

  ‘What did you tell Issarapong?’ said Kate as she signalled for another round of beers.

  ‘What the fuck do you think?’ Chance said with a pained expression. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can you imagine how much bad karma we’re all going to amass from this?’

  A vein on Chance’s temple throbbed. ‘For Christ’s sake, spare me the cheap Land of Smiles tourist spirituality? In case you hadn’t noticed, there aren’t a lot of options on the table.’

  ‘It was a bad joke, I’m sorry.’ Kate placed her hand on Chance’s forearm.

  Chance shook it off, suddenly angry she’d followed him here, that he felt responsible for her safety.

  ‘We don’t do this job, Issarapong will turn us over to Gao’s people. That happens, we’ll be starring in our own home movie.’

  ‘There must be other options.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘We could run?’

  ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re already running.’

  Kate glanced at Tavener, got no reaction.

  ‘Listen,’ said Chance. ‘I don’t like this any more than you. It’s totally out of my league. I’m a thief. I steal things, usually for someone else. I’ve thought about the situation all afternoon. There’s no other option.’

  Chance flinched at the loud hiss of food hitting hot oil in the nearest stall.

  ‘Want to know something else? It’s a relief, because at least it’s some movement. I’ve been asleep for the last couple of months, ever since we arrived in Thailand. Now I’m awake and it feels good.’

  ‘That operation didn’t just change your face, it changed your personality, as well,’ said Kate coldly.

  ‘Don’t pretend you ever knew me,’ said Chance. ‘You don’t like the way things are going, be my guest and fuck off.’

  ‘And where exactly would you like me to fuck off to?’

  ‘Wherever. I don’t care. I didn’t have a choice about coming here. You did. The police back in Australia didn’t have much of a line on you. They don’t even seem to know your real name. You didn’t need to leave. Why the hell are you in Thailand anyway?

  The question hung unanswered in the humid night air, as a young woman cleared away their empty beer cans, replaced them with new ones.

  ‘If you two have quite finished.’ Tavener picked up his fresh beer, opened it and drank. ‘You realise it’s probably a set-up?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Chance. ‘I help Issarapong eliminate a business rival or whatever the guy is, after which he’ll frame me for the killing, hand me to the Thai police or shop me to Gao’s people. But at least, this way gives us some breathing space, a chance to try and turn this thing around.’

  ‘So, how are we going to go about it?’ said Kate.

/>   ‘Did you say ‘we?’’ said Chance. ‘I didn’t say anything about Tavener being involved and I thought you found the whole thing morally beneath you.’

  ‘Let’s just say you’ve convinced me we don’t have much choice in the matter. I’m in. What about you, Tavener?’

  ‘Why not? Besides, left to his own devices, Gary would probably just fuck it up, land us all deeper in the shit than we already are. Did Issarapong say where you’re supposed to do this?’

  ‘Bangkok.’

  ‘Any other details?’

  ‘No. Milo’s our liaison. We’re to meet him in Bangkok tomorrow night, he’ll run through all the details then.’

  ‘Milo?’ Tavener snorted. ‘Jesus, that’s like crawling into a sleeping bag with a rattlesnake.’

  The young woman arrived with their order, several seafood dishes on iron plates that sizzled and hissed in the middle of their table.

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ said Kate, taking another cigarette from a pack on the table next to her.

  ‘Well, I’m not going to let it go to waste.’ Tavener reached over and helped himself to the nearest dish, a whole fried fish smothered in chilli sauce.

  Chance reluctantly spooned some rice onto his plate, picked at it with his fork. He knew he should eat, but images from the movie, the sound of Long’s screams on continuous loop in his head, had left him with little appetite.

  ‘Okay, we’ve got to think carefully about this,’ Tavener said as he chewed his food. ‘Bangkok is good. It gets us out of this shithole into a bigger playpen. I’ve also got a contact there that might be able to help us, someone my daddy knew in Vietnam.’

  ‘Tavener has a mother and a father?’ Kate’s mouth twisted into a wry smile. ‘Who would have imagined.’

  FIVE

  Chance leaned against his motorbike, watched a group of young construction workers dig away at the earth next to the footpath.

  The downpour had subsided. Water dripped from signs and awnings, collected in brown puddles along the gutters. The scent of rain on hot asphalt lasted an instant before being doused by dust and the stench of exhaust fumes from the endless traffic.

  A large billboard with a smiling nuclear family, well-groomed and pale-skinned, looked down on the dark-skinned workers. The father held a credit card next to his face. The text was in Thai. Chance couldn’t tell what it said but assumed the message and the associated image of affluence wasn’t lost on the men digging the hole.

  Bangkok was a city where power and wealth dwelt in the sky, trickled down like rain to the streets below. The rich lived in tall, gleaming condominium complexes and luxury hotels like the one where Chance was waiting outside. The poor, the men digging up the road, lived with their families in portable dormitories on the outskirts of town, or corrugated iron and wood shacks in the shadows and crevices of motorways and skyscrapers.

  Chance refocused his mind on the task at hand, the few details Milo had revealed when they’d met two nights ago.

  The target’s name was Saradet Kriansak.

  He lived in an upscale condo in Bangkok’s northern suburbs with his wife and two children.

  Milo would supply money, transport, whatever they needed to get the job done.

  They had two weeks.

  Issarapong wanted the job done as cleanly as possible.

  ‘This is not fucking Iraq,’ quipped Milo. ‘The boss wants everything kept low key and don’t hurt his family. Everything else is on a need-to-know basis and, for now, you don’t need to know anything else.’

  Milo was staying at the same hotel as Chance and his companions, a large, featureless building among the architectural and neon chaos of Bangkok’s Chinatown. The man who’d driven Chance to see Issarapong—his name was Nareth—had accompanied Milo, sat in the corner of the room, said nothing.

  ‘How am I supposed to kill him?’ Chance had asked. ‘With my bare hands?’

  ‘You’ll get a weapon, whatever else you need, after you come up with a plan,’ Milo said. ‘Until then, there’s too much risk of your being picked up by the local Plod carrying a gun.’

  It also made it easier for Milo to control things, thought Chance.

  ‘This setup’s got more holes than a hunk of Swiss cheese,’ said Tavener after the two Thais had left. ‘We need more information.’

  He proposed a rolling stakeout to gather intelligence on Saradet’s movements, potential weaknesses, whatever additional information would help them pick the best time to move. They agreed to take it in turns, shifts of two days each. Any longer risked becoming too obvious. Chance got the first shift.

  ‘This isn’t a movie. How does a foreigner my size tail a Thai gangster around Bangkok without being noticed?’

  The solution, Kate’s idea, was for him to dress like one of the ubiquitous motorcycle taxi drivers that collected in gangs all over Bangkok: sneakers, blue jeans, long-sleeved top, fluoro vest, gloves, balaclava, helmet.

  Chance sweltered under the layers, the helmet and gloves, but, so far, it had worked. No one bothered him, although Chance had to be constantly alert to ensure the real, and notoriously competitive, motorcycle taxi drivers didn’t get suspicious. Aside from that, his main problem had been finding places to piss without losing his target.

  Chance spent the first day following Saradet to a series of meetings. The Thai travelled in style, a silver Mercedes Benz, two bodyguards who alternated driving duties. He looked like a typical fortysomething Thai businessman, smart suit, good haircut, latest model iPhone, constantly pressed to his ear, with one difference: his skin was a rich mahogany, like the men who toiled in the muddy hole outside the hotel.

  Chance had speculated about the man’s origins. Perhaps a farm boy turned enforcer, risen up through the old man Boonchu’s organisation. What had Saradet done to earn such a prominent place on his boss’s shit list?

  The only break in the monotony occurred when they were caught up in some sort of political rally, hundreds of people camped on the sidewalk outside what looked like a government building, wearing identical yellow shirts. They waved Thai flags and held portraits of the country’s King. Police watched from the sidelines.

  Day two and it didn’t look like things were going to get any more exciting. Saradet left his condo early, spent the better part of the morning at Klong Thoey market, a sprawling old-fashioned wet market now surrounded by skyscrapers, then continued on to what Chance assumed was a lunch meeting at this hotel.

  Chance’s Bangkok geography had come back to him over the last day and a half, and he recognised the hotel’s location, a stone’s throw from Khao San Road, Bangkok’s main backpacker strip. He popped a lozenge in his mouth to soothe his throat, raw from the pollution. It was a part of town he remembered well from a previous visit to Bangkok.

  Chance had been in his early twenties, already planning to join the army, but wanted to put off the decision, and travel seemed the best way. He’d backpacked up through Indonesia, Malaysia and southern Thailand, ended up low on cash, marking time in Bangkok.

  Mel had been from Sydney, older than Chance by a decade. She was on the run from a marriage she’d got into too young and a small child back in Australia she didn’t know what to do with.

  She’d been sitting in a cloud of marihuana smoke in the café attached to his backpacker hotel, drinking beer and watching a Sylvester Stallone movie on a TV attached to the wall above the bar. Next to her was a dreadlocked Thai man called Eddie, who Chance had seen lurking around the popular bars on the strip.

  Chance and Mel had got to talking. Mel had some money, but more importantly, Chance thought, she could teach him things. They became lovers, sunk into a daily routine of drinking, fucking and dope-smoking, punctuated by the occasional half-hearted trip to a temple or some other tourist site.

  They were sitting in the café with Eddie when the Thai suggested the three of them visit a place that sold cheap gems. No pressure, but if they wanted they could buy some, take them back to Australia to sell, make good mo
ney.

  They went, patiently sat through the owner’s spiel about how to recognise fake stones from real, but didn’t buy anything. It was so obviously a setup that Chance and Mel wondered whether it was some kind of test. Their suspicions were confirmed a couple of nights later when Eddie made them another offer. How would they like to make ten thousand dollars each? All they had to do was each take a package back to Sydney with them, deliver it to a flat in Bondi.

  ‘What’s in the packages?’ Chance had asked cautiously.

  ‘What do you think, man?’ said Eddie. ‘Heroin.’

  ‘What happens if we get caught?’

  The Thai had exhaled a lungful of marihuana smoke, smiled. ‘You’ll go to jail.’

  He declined. Mel said yes. She wanted money to start a new life with her daughter, flew out two days later, the smack taped against the contours of her belly.

  The night she’d left Chance got drunk, brought a bar girl back to his hotel room. He woke the next morning, found she’d cleaned him out—passport, what little money he had left, a watch his late father had given him, even Mel’s leftover toiletries.

  When Chance told Eddie what had happened, the Thai gave him a stoned grin, said he might be able to find a way for Chance to make some money.

  He went to work for Eddie, spotting Australian tourists who might be interested in transporting packages back home. Chance was good at it, quickly learned how to pick up the signs of desperation or recklessness that were the prerequisite signs for a possible mule, while his casual, everyman air put people at their ease. When he’d flown home several weeks later, he had money in his pocket and a crash course in human weakness under his belt.

  Chance was wondering for the hundredth time whether Mel had got through airport security okay, what had become of her, when he saw the bodyguards exit the hotel, followed by Saradet.

  The three men stood on the front steps, waited for a valet to bring the car around. Chance flipped down the visor of his helmet, gunned the bike into life and edged several cars behind them as they turned into the traffic.

  SIX