"Bangkok Tattoo" - читать интересную книгу автора (Burdett John)

22

I 'm feeling pretty good, farang. In fact, I'm feeling like a farang. Truth be told, I cannot recall ever carefully preparing a watertight case and generally going the whole investigative nine yards. I must admit it's not something I'd want to do more than once in a while, it's so damned time-consuming (I mean, nine times out of ten you know whodunit so you grow the evidence accordingly-it's one of those efficient Asian techniques you'll have to adopt as global competition heats up-can't have your law enforcement potting fewer perps per cop than us, can you-especially now you've dumped the rule of law in all cases where it proves inconvenient, right?), but Vikorn wants it done by the book this time. We're going to leak the evidence to the media and run it on the Internet, so the judges will have to nail Zinna or risk impeachment themselves-there will be no funny business behind the scenes like last time. So I'm sitting at my desk making one of those lists cops like me never make:

Evidence

1. The dope. Well, it's definitely morphine that Buckle was carrying, our forensic boys did all the tests, and Ruamsantiah called them on the telephone this morning: Of course it's morphine-is the Dalai Lama a Buddhist? They're happy to go into print, we'll have the report by this evening.

2. Chaz Buckle, with a little chemical inducement, is ready to sign off on his increasingly detailed revelation of the Denise operation and her connection to Zinna.

3. Khun Mu, with a guarantee of security from Vikorn and a sum of money that he won't discuss (but will have to be enough to buy Mu a new identity and a new life with no loss of amenities: I reckon well over a million dollars has changed hands), will testify that the meeting between Zinna, Denise, and Chaz Buckle did indeed take place on her land.

All I have to do is find Denise and bang her up for a week or so until she's ready to confess all she knows about Zinna in return for a dramatic reduction in what would otherwise be a death sentence. It doesn't get much neater and more satisfying than that, and I'm ready to concede there are times when your system has its merits, farang. (Promotion, here I come.)

Except that my mobile is ringing, and I'm having one of those gloomy glimpses into the immediate future. I see from the screen on the phone that the call is from Ruamsantiah.

In a depressed tone: "We had to let the farang Chaz Buckle go."

"Huh?"

"Our forensic boys decided the stuff he was carrying was just icing sugar after all. They claimed the first tests used contaminated instruments that misled them."

"Zinna paid them off?"

"Is there another explanation? The General sent some high-powered lawyer to explain to us that we have no legal right to hold Buckle. Then the Director of Police called Vikorn to tell him to let him go."

"How's Vikorn taking it?"

"He's in his office waving his gun around."

I close on Ruamsantiah and take a deep breath before I call Vikorn on his mobile.

Vikorn: "You've heard?"

"Yes. We had to let him go."

"Have you any idea what this is doing to my face?"

"Yes."

"I'll be a laughingstock."

"Not necessarily. We can call for a second opinion on the dope, maybe send it to a farang agency overseas."

"So then we end up with two conflicting forensic reports. That's all the wriggle room he needs."

"You can't give up now."

"Thais laugh at losers. I'm looking like the loser here. I frame him, he gets off. I grab one of his couriers, he springs him."

What can I say? This is all true.

"Be careful-he hasn't finished yet," Vikorn says despondently, and closes the phone.

I'm back at the bar in the evening. It's quite a slow night, and I'm thinking of closing early, when my mobile starts to ring. It is the colonel in charge of the Klong Toey district. It seems that a squat, muscular, unusually ugly, and tattooed farang has been found dumped in the river. Someone told him I might know something about it. I call Lek to tell him to pick me up in a cab.