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

8

Of course Lek and I know very well who Pi-Oon's lover is. His mug adorns the pages of the HiSo zines in both Thai and English versions. Here he is with the usual suspects at some ballgown and black-tie function, having his pic taken with deep-cleavage wives of deep-pocket movers and shakers. Round-faced with porcelain skin, laden with filigreed gold on his neck, wrists, and-according to Lek-ankles, he has shrewdly cultivated the banking sector of the aristo circuit, which is said to be the real reason his advertising business thrives. His name is Khun Kosana, and he is known throughout Bangkok as a true na yai: big face. His bizarre affair with the poor, ugly, but wildly gifted Pi-Oon has been the talk of the gossip industry for over a year; it seems they get on famously and really are considering a marriage in Canada or Amsterdam, and to everyone's amazement Khun Kosana, the na yai playboy par excellence, really does seem to adore his paramour, has paid for all the medical fees pertaining to his gender reassignment, and most incredible of all has so far been faithful to him.

I'm at my desk, thinking that things are falling into place rather well. All I have to do is find a subtle way to put the squeeze on Khun Kosana to find the origin of the Damrong snuff movie. I have no doubt one of the advertising mogul's HiSo buddies earned himself some street cred by giving him a copy; no doubt it's doing the rounds of the jet-set circuit, and so long as I play by the rules (never threaten law, only blackmail), I'll be able to force one of them to reveal the true source. I'll need to have Vikorn behind me in order not to get snuffed myself, of course, but that can be finessed by letting the Colonel do some milking of these expensive cash cows who run the country. All in all it was a good move to get stoned with Gauguin – I'm still thinking of him in that incarnation (which I rarely revisit, I mean the Tahiti lifetime a century ago; it was a mistake, the whole back-to-nature thing; I was a French doctor, which is how I got to know Gauguin, who, as we have seen, has not yet clawed his way out of the third-world trap he set himself over a hundred years ago-but never mind, it's not part of the plot). Now my cell is playing Dylan's "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here with You": it's Lek.

"They're dead," he says. "Both of them."

"They tortured Pi-Oon in front of him, then shot them."

Lek has called a couple of uniform cops to secure the hut while we're waiting for the forensic team, but there isn't going to be anything we don't know already: Pi-Oon, his great prizefighter face still in a howl of agony, his artist's hands twisted and torn, fingernails ripped out, a hole between his eyes and a bigger exit wound at the back of his skull, is propped against the lower part of his self-portrait in the middle of the triptych. Khun Kosana seems to have been executed standing up, because there is a vertical trail of blood on the painting, pointing down to where he is collapsed on the floor. He too bears the entry and exit wounds of a single professional shot.

"Nobody knows anything, of course?" I say to Lek. "The shots were heard about three this morning. Yesterday evening about seven a tall, well-dressed farang paid a visit. He asked someone for directions, so it must have been his first time here. He spoke Thai with a thick English accent." Lek is avoiding my eyes. When I try to bond with him, he says, "I'm going to the wat," and leaves me in the hut to wait for the forensic team. When they arrive with their plastic gloves and video equipment, I go to find Lek at the wat at the entrance to the shantytown. He is sitting in semilotus facing a gold Buddha on a dais, straight-backed, his eyes closed. I light a bunch of incense to stick in the sand tray, sit with him for half an hour, then leave. In the street outside the wat I fish out my cell phone to call Vikorn. When I describe the scene of torture and murder, he grunts; when I tell him one of the victims is the famous playboy Khun Kosana, he says without missing a beat, "It didn't happen."

"But-"

"It didn't happen."

"What about his family and friends?"

"He was tragically hit by an untraceable truck."

I take a deep breath. "Colonel, this is a murder. We're cops."

"This is Thailand, and I got a phone call five minutes ago."

"Just a phone call is all it takes? The one who made the call-how much is he going to pay?"

"Mind your own business."

"You have no sense of responsibility at all?"

"Cut it out, mooncalf. If you hadn't investigated, nobody would have wasted them. If I'm taking money, it's in return for covering for your fuck-ups. Maybe you're the one who needs a course in responsible behavior. Who told you to get so intense about a little old snuff movie in the first place? Nobody cares about that whore except you."

He is using Teflon Voice, preempting all argument. I'll have to use Baker, I'm thinking as I close the phone. He's the only lead left. But does he know anything?