The Bangkok Asset

5

After I’d given myself time to think about it, I realized there was a reason why Vikorn might be happy to nail the HiSo lawyer Lord Sakagorn, he of the sky-blue Rolls-Royce and the trademark ponytail. The Colonel was from a dirt-poor subsistence farming family in Isaan and no matter how high he rose he carried with him the smoldering resentment of a people bled white by a snotty Bangkok elite who treated them like subhumans, because that’s what they honestly believe us to be. Vikorn loved skewering representatives of that class, and although he probably had nothing particular against Sakagorn, there could hardly be a more emblematic child of privilege and exploiter of deference to crucify.

“So how do we do it, Chief?” I asked.

“If you bring his lordship in, you have to justify it. He’ll come down on you like a truck, flatten you with the law.” He shook his head. “No, you don’t bring Sakagorn in without a perfect case.”

“Of what?”

The Colonel smiled as he looked down at the street. “He gambles on Colonel Ransorn’s patch. There’s an illegal casino in the car park area of a condominium block-they’ve enlarged the security hut to take over the whole of one floor of the underground car park. Inside it’s very plush, a Monte Carlo-type setup.” Vikorn checked his watch. “He’s there most evenings-starts early, after the courts close. His game is roulette. The main point for you is to take pictures. Do it ostentatiously, not only with phone cameras. Have someone with a big old-style camera with a nice bright flash. Little touches like that have an impact on the HiSo mind.”

“But there must be a lot of security. Someone like Sakagorn isn’t going to use an illegal casino unless it’s totally safe.”

“Correct,” Vikorn said. “But the casino is owned by Colonel Ransorn, who needed quite a lot of help to set it up. I charge only a minimum of interest-but of course, if Ransorn became unhelpful, I would have to charge more-or ask for a return of the loan.” He turned to face me. “Leave it with me. I’ll tell you when the security at the casino has been suspended. Probably tonight, late.”

–

The operation turned out to be simpler than I expected. At exactly eleven p.m. the casino that lies under the thirty stories of the Shambhala Palace condominium building found itself raided by a small contingent of police who behaved as if they belonged to Ransorn’s district but in fact owed their main allegiance to Sergeant Ruamsantiah. Everyone escaped except for the famous, high-flying, brilliant legal counsel Lord Sakagorn. He of the long black shiny hair, the flamboyant lemon waistcoat, the silk bow tie, dinner jacket, and smooth jowls. I sat with him in the back of the car when we returned to District 8. During the ride Sakagorn regained his composure and started throwing out a few forensic hints about how much this was going to cost me, Vikorn, and the police in general, once he got the case off the ground.

“You don’t have a chance of making anything stick. You’re not even the right crew for the district.”

I decided not to cuff Sakagorn when we took him away-after all, he is not the type to make a desperate bid for freedom in the middle of traffic, it would be inelegant. As a result, he was free to gesticulate. His performance was all the more dramatic because somehow in the scuffle he lost his silver hair clip so that his enraged face was now framed by a chaos of long, shiny hair that he smoothed back with histrionic care while he demanded to see Vikorn immediately. This was a matter to be sorted out by money and power-I had neither.

I myself felt the need for a heavy hitter to deal with Sakagorn, so I called the Colonel, who happened to be carousing at one of his clubs. His mood swung from irritation to amusement when I told him about the bust. He especially liked the detail of the lost hair clip. When we arrived at reception they told me the Colonel was waiting in the main conference room, the one with the giant LED screen.

In addition to the thumb drive for the large camera, I had my own phone pictures of Sakagorn at the casino, and also those that Ruamsantiah took. All in all I suppose there were a total of more than a hundred pictures on each of the two smart phones plus the memory card from the SLR camera.

All the time Lord Sakagorn ranted, even citing Aristotle’s The Constitution of the Athenians, while Vikorn said nothing but merely sat at the head of the table playing with the smart phones until he decided to pick one up and plug it into a cable under the giant monitor. Little by little Sakagorn stopped advocating as the photo gallery appeared in outsize pictures on the screen. After a few minutes of experimentation, which he seemed to enjoy, Vikorn found what he was looking for.

She was in her early twenties, owned the pure white skin of northern Chinese genes, held herself with the grace and simplicity of a virgin protected by power and money, turned to smile at Sakagorn now and then with the respect of a loyal daughter for a father figure, and became confused every time the middle-aged barrister rested a hand on her butt. Her dinner gown was midnight-black, her jewelry silver, her experience limited. Part of her wanted to look on the roulette as a child’s game; on the other hand, she would allow Sakagorn to have his way with her sooner or later-perhaps that was why he had made the rather reckless decision to take her to the casino, so that she would be excited, impressed, and perhaps a little drunk when he made his move. Her expression held the question of all young people at a certain point: Is this what I have to do to be an adult? To have arrived in the world? To be a part of it?

I have not mentioned her before, because I paid her no attention, assuming she was simply part of the casino’s entertainment. Vikorn, though, knew who she was. When he found a photo where her face was snapped at the moment Sakagorn fondled the nates of her ass, he stopped the show and left the picture on the screen. He still had not said a word to either of us, not even a “hello” to Sakagorn, who was technically his superior in the national protocol by a huge margin. Now the Colonel stared at Sakagorn.

“She is over the age of consent,” Sakagorn said in a cracked voice that could be a wail of fear or indignation-he perhaps had not decided which.

“By a day or so, perhaps,” Vikorn said. “But that’s not the point, is it?” Sakagorn stared at Vikorn for a moment, then looked away. “Are you going to tell me her father knows you intended to corrupt her at the casino, maybe slip her something to mellow her, before taking her up to the penthouse? There’s a private lift, isn’t there, from the casino all the way up to the top of the building?”

“I don’t know anything about that,” Sakagorn snapped.

Vikorn shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter, does it? Her father is in Washington, according to the news. Comes back at the end of the week. I doubt he’ll go the legal route to punish you-what d’you think? He can hardly turn a blind eye, with all these photos all over YouTube and Facebook.” Sakagorn had paled. Vikorn sighed. “I suppose you took such a risk because you are in love, Lord Sakagorn?”

The idea that Sakagorn could be in love with anyone other than himself caused me to smile, which caused Sakagorn to turn on me in a rage, which caused Vikorn to smile. Little by little, though, the eyes of we three men were seduced back to the screen. That was a very beautiful and very charming young aristocrat. Vikorn cleared his throat. “You haven’t had her yet, have you?”

“No,” Sakagorn admitted.

“That might just save your life. How did you intend to keep it secret?”

“I don’t know. She drives me crazy. She’s perfect, perfect. If her father gets heavy, I’ll marry her.”

“But you are already married, Lord Sakagorn.”

“If she doesn’t want to be a minor wife, I would divorce for her.”

“Tonight was supposed to be the night?”

“Can we talk about something else?” Sakagorn said. He shrugged. “Okay, it’s a deal. You keep quiet about tonight, erase all those pictures-I’ll give you what you want.” He was channeling a quite different persona when he muttered, “It won’t make an atom of difference, even you don’t have leverage in this. It’s a lot bigger than you, Colonel. Bigger than the police altogether.”

Vikorn seemed pleased that Sakagorn saw sense so quickly and took no notice of the implied threat. The lawyer cleared the hair from his face with both hands and stood in front of the video screen to block the view. Then he had a better idea. “Can you switch that damn thing off?”

Vikorn switched the screen off.

“Goldman,” the Senior Counsel said. “Goldman and his Asset.”