The Bangkok Asset: A novel Read Online Free PDF

bastards from yesterday, of course. Especially that damned Asset who somehow induced a Thai boy to kill his mother. I don’t have to tell you what that must mean. They’ve developed some kind of military technique for taking over a person’s mind. I don’t care what anybody says, no Thai boy that age is capable of killing his mom. Thai mothers instill total and absolute obedience in their children, a dependency that death itself cannot break. Everybody knows an emotionally enslaved male child is a lot more reliable in old age than social security. No, that Thai boy was poisoned by
farang
mind, no doubt about it.” I paused. “And most of all I would like to find the perp in the Market Murder case. I want whoever killed that girl and plastered my name in blood all over the mirror.”
    Vikorn scratched his chin. “You can’t arrest the Asset or Goldman. They both have diplomatic cover, and anyway the CIA would never allow it. If you made too much fuss, they would take you out.”
    “Then I want to arrest Lord bloody Sakagorn of Senior Counsel,” I yelled. “He’s clearly guilty after the fact and knows what’s going on.”
    I uttered this last outburst quite certain that no one was going to give me authority to arrest the aristocrat lawyer whose connections went all the way to the top of government. To my surprise Vikorn smiled, though a tad wanly. “That’s what I thought you would say. Leave it with me for the moment. I’ll, ah, have to check.”
    “With the Chinese?”
    He frowned. Then, as if in a senile change of heart, Vikorn suddenly dismissed us: “Well, that will do for now. I’m sure the two of you will catch up in your own time. I’m afraid I have a meeting with the Director in an hour and the traffic is gridlocked on Rama IX. If you’ll excuse me?”
    Krom and I immediately
waied
and left the room, now known as the Communications and Command Center, or CCC.
    —
    The door had no sooner closed behind us, leaving us in the hall together, than Inspector Krom reverted. She hunched her shoulders and lowered her head, giving the impression of serious, if narrow, intent. At the same time she walked next to me slightly bowlegged, like a man with swollen testicles, and used a kind of rolling rhythm with her arms, as if she were readying herself for a fight. She was chummy, though, in her natural form, and chatted to me in a matey way, making use of the latest—and most masculine—street slang.
    “What are the girls like over at your mother’s bar?” she wanted to know. “Great tits and ass, I bet.”
    “We pay over the odds.” I wrinkled my brow. “You’re not a feminist?”
    She wrinkled hers in turn. “Do I look that old? Want coffee?”
    We left the station to cross the road to the cooked-food stalls. I’d already eaten so I ordered a coffee. Krom ordered extra-spicy
somtam
salad. She stared at me, waiting for me to speak first.
    “I’m a homicide detective,” I said.
    “I know. And yesterday you witnessed a quadruple homicide, and no way will they let you bring in the perps. Like Vikorn said, they have diplomatic immunity.”
    “Fuck immunity, this is matricide.”
    She nodded. “I understand. But the key is Vikorn who takes his orders from a ministry in Beijing these days. What did you think of that new high-tech meeting room?”
    “I think it’s weird, like an alien installation.”
    “But that’s exactly what it is. The aliens are Chinese. That display on the map, that is an electronic gun held to the Old Man’s head. It’s a naked statement of how much—how very, very much—he owes the Chinese. Basically, he screwed up.”
    “How’s that?”
    “They tricked him. He was allowed to move a lot of stuff out of Myanmar—I mean huge loads—through Yunnan and all the way across to Hong Kong and Shanghai. He was already a billionaire, and he doubled his fortune. Sure, he bribed. He bribed and bribed and made a lot of regional bosses very happy—the mistake he made was to