Bangkok Rules by Harlan Wolff Read Free Book Online Page B

smuggling gemstones were more severe than for smuggling narcotics.
     
    He had found the Dutchman half drunk at the bar. “What took you so long?” The Dutchman asked Carl casually. Carl didn’t answer. He had already decided that his smuggling days were over. Decades later, sitting in the Dutchman’s sitting room, Carl found the memory amusing although he hadn’t thought so at the time.
     
    “I don’t do the daytime drinking thing anymore,” Carl told him, ignoring the fact that it was exactly what he had done the day before.
     
    The Dutchman put a vinyl record on his old Technics turntable and lit a joint. Carl recognized it as one of his favourites, ‘Monk’s Music’. The room filled up with marijuana smoke and the sound of Thelonious Monk’s piano. Oh yeah, memories were made of this.
     
    Carl swept away the fog that was taking him back in time. He wasn’t a dope smoking gem smuggler anymore. He was a private detective, a serious person handling serious matters. It occurred to Carl that the previous day he hadn’t been very serious. Yes, he had picked up a twenty thousand dollar retainer, which is as serious as it gets, but he was still drunk before the sun went down.
     
    Carl recognized the rising danger. He was on the verge of attempting to talk himself into something foolish again. That’s the problem with nostalgia; the past is always in front of you. But he was not falling for it that day, he decided, and he changed gear into the 21st century and declared to himself that the party was at least temporarily over.
     
    “You’re well known for never throwing anything away. Do you still have your mailing lists from that direct mail company you ran with your ex-wife?”
     
    “They’ll be somewhere in the garage.”
     
    Carl knew the Dutchman had never owned a car so the garage had always been his warehouse.“Standard stuff I assume. Sports Club, Polo Club, credit card holders, golf societies, chambers of commerce and such?”
     
    “Yeah, that sort of thing. Why are you asking?”
     
    “I have one of those silly clients. The ones that think life is a movie and they are starring in it. Thinks his wife cheated on him when she was first married to him. Mad as a hatter I’m afraid.”
     
    “So why the interest?”
     
    “Someone pays you ten thousand baht for nothing it would be impolite not to take it.”
     
    “He gave you ten thousand baht? That’s not much.”
     
    “Oh, not for a case. Just to find out if the name he heard back then was a real person. Anyway, if someone gives me ten thousand baht to come and visit an old friend it seems like a good day to me.”
     
    “I suppose it is,” he said without a smile.
     
    “So we look at your lists and split the money.”
     
    Suddenly the Dutchman was smiling from ear to ear. If Carl could read minds he would have known the Dutchman was making a mental list of all the girlie bars he was going to spend the money in.
     
    “Wait here,” he said and shot out the backdoor.
     
    The sounds of Monk and the boys playing ‘Well you needn’t’ from the record player washed over Carl. Don’t listen to it Dutchman, he was thinking, yes you need to!
     
    By the time the Dutchman came back the record had finished playing. The Dutchman was bringing endless plastic bags into the house, wheezing with the effort. It took him ten minutes of sweating and puffing before he could speak.
     
    “So what’s the name we are looking for?” he asked still out of breath.
     
    “James Peabody, somewhere between 1993 and 1996.”
     
    He was pulling out A4 size soft files that resembled manuscripts. They were lists of everything imaginable and most importantly the names were in alphabetical order.
     
    “You start with this lot,” he told Carl as he started making a pile in front of him and another in front of himself.
     
    Pim came back, clanking beer bottles. She brought beer and noodles in on another tray. She had lots of trays. Fortunately the