The Scoreless Thai (aka Two For Tanner)

Chapter 5

“I will be able to learn some of what you wish to know, my little Evan. The information industry is of prime importance in Bangkok, and my sources are of the best. But if you will accept some advice in addition to what information I can supply-”

“Of course.”

“Then, it is this, and of course you are free to disregard it. But it is this – remain in Bangkok and enjoy yourself and play whatever games may amuse you with the clutch of spies who infest this city. And then, by all means, return to New York. Do not attempt to move into the north country. Bangkok is a city of great charm, of infinite sophistication. In the north are cutthroats and bandits and madmen. Whether or not many of them are Communists I do not know. They are… what? Malcontents. And brutal fools.” He smiled disarmingly. “You would have a far better chance, I think, of carrying out a revolution in Latvia than of completing the most innocent sort of mission in rural areas of Thailand.”

Abel Vaudois was an excellent host. We sat in the comfortable library of his immense estate and drank what was easily the best cognac I had ever tasted. His home, a rococo mansion on the eastern outskirts of Bangkok, housed Vaudois, an endless flock of servants, and his two Eurasian mistresses, each of whom presided over a separate wing of the house.

I had told him virtually everything I knew about Tuppence and the jewels. He in turn had known only a little more than I. From what he had heard so far, Tuppence and the musicians were not suspected of the theft of the gems. They had played a royal command performance at the palace, had greatly pleased His Majesty, and had returned to their hotel. The royal gem collection was stolen the following night in a daring commando-style raid in which several guards were killed, alarm systems cleverly short-circuited, and no clues left behind. Then, a day later, Tuppence and the Kendall Bayard Quartet were snatched from the Orient.

“I had suspected the gems might be offered to me,” Vaudois said. “It would have been the sort of proposition that might have tempted me. Would I have cared to involve myself? I do not know. I live quite comfortably in Bangkok. It is a congenial atmosphere, I am at ease here. One does not wish to jeopardize such a situation. And yet” – his eyes narrowed – “and yet, the profit potential of such a theft is enormous. Few could handle the dispersal of the collection. I could do so, of course. One would have to parcel the lot, a shipment here, a shipment there, certain pieces to be broken down, certain stones to be recut…”

He continued, outlining the entire operation as much for his own benefit as for mine. He was a huge man, well over six feet tall and carrying a great deal of weight on a very heavy frame. Most of our conversation was conducted in French, but now and then he switched to German when he wished to make a particular point.

He rang a bell, and a servant entered silently, poured more cognac for each of us, and departed as silently as he had come. “You will sleep here tonight,” he said. “I gather you have no great desire to return to your hotel?”

“None.”

“Good. I am sure you will be comfortable here, and tomorrow will be time enough to see what can be learned about your friends. And the King’s gems. But tell me, have you been to Europe lately? I cannot return, as you must know. Tell me…”

We talked awhile of Europe, our conversation broken now and then by the bell summoning the boy with more cognac. Then we talked of the increasing complexity of international travel, of the many organizations with their extensive dossiers, of the endless paperwork involved. It had been a simpler matter in the old days of the Orient Express, he assured me. In those days the individual had been all; now everyone was a cog in a machine, a component in a computer network.

“This fool you spoke of,” he said. “I gather he believed your tale of opium?”

“I think so.”

“Incredible. You were correct in saying that Bangkok is a center for the trade. Bangkok, Beirut, Macao, Istanbul – those four are of considerable importance. Imagine establishing an operation in Africa! I have never even heard of such an idea. One frequently hears talk of developing new refineries in the Middle East. There was even a plan, some years ago, to attempt opium cultivation in Iraq. Some preliminary inquiries were made, and then the government changed hands and nothing ever came of it. But Africa – I wonder, now. The right climatic conditions would be found without difficulty, would you not say? Of course you would require a nation with a properly permissive government and a government with some degree of stability. A problem, that. Africa -”

“You sound interested.”

“Ah, my little Evan!” He smiled disarmingly. “Let us say merely that I find the notion amusing.”

I spent the night in a comfortable bedroom on the second floor after having declined my host’s offer of a parlormaid’s companionship for the night. Instead I took the cognac bottle and a few books upstairs with me. I reread an early Eric Ambler novel in French. Vaudois was right, I decided – it was simpler then. I read a book on Indochina, also in French, written about the time that the French were being forced out of that unhappy land. The author had concluded that European influence could not possibly be maintained in Southeast Asia and that it ought to be yielded up as gracefully as possible. I wanted to put stamps on the book and mail it to the State Department.

The sun came up. I looked out my window at an expanse of formal gardens, lush with subtropical vegetation. The sky overhead was a brilliant blue. I waited in my room until a servant knocked to summon me to breakfast. I ate alone, and a giggling Chinese girl brought me a plate piled high with eggs and bacon and sausages and fried potatoes and a pot of particularly good coffee seasoned with chicory. I was on my third cup of coffee when Vaudois entered the room.

“I hope you found this to be a typical American breakfast?”

“A little better than that,” I said.

“Potatoes, in particular, are difficult to obtain locally. But I find them so welcome a change from the endless rice. You slept comfortably? I am glad. I have taken a liberty, Evan. I have been presumptuous. I hope you will forgive me. I sent one of my young men over to the Orient to pack your bags and bring them here. Everything awaits you in the library. It occurred to me that you might not wish to return to the hotel and the watchful eye of Mr. Hewlitt, was that his name? I would have asked you first, but this was more easily accomplished early in the morning, and I did not wish to disturb your sleep. You are not angry with me?”

“I’m delighted. I didn’t want to go back to the Orient.”

“I thought not. And now as to the jewels and your girl friend. I have made inquiries. Not productive, but not entirely fruitless either. First, the gems.” He heaved a sigh. “The business of the theft, as you may have gathered last night, was carried out in a genuinely professional manner. And yet no local professionals in that line of work seem to have been involved. Nor have any known professional jewel thieves from outside been recognized in Bangkok of late. Nor, finally, have any of the jewels made their appearance on the international market. This last point is not of great significance, I do not think. Had I been concerned with the theft” – a wistful sigh – “I would not have attempted to disperse the gems for some time. Two or three months, at the least. Of course many persons prefer to move more rapidly. It is a question, I suspect, both of temperament and of organization.

“Now, as to the musicians – it does seem very likely that they were taken away to the north. No one to whom I spoke has heard anything about their having been taken out of the country, and my contacts might well have heard of it had it happened. You understand that in my line of business it is important to be able to enter and leave countries without going through Customs, so I have access to good information in that area. There have been no ransom attempts either.

“So I wonder immediately why anyone might kidnap them, eh? Perhaps they stole the jewels, and the kidnappers then stole them and the jewels. But I do not think so. Or perhaps they were kidnapped for political reasons, eh? I would not attempt to guess those reasons, but in the realm of world politics I have found it to be true that anything is possible, anything at all. As long as the motive of financial profit dominates, then a degree of logic prevails. But once political considerations are involved, ah, then lunacy and chaos enter in.” He shook his head. “In my native Switzerland we remained quite aloof from such politics. We let our nation serve as a maze for political rats from other nations to wander through, but we ourselves were never involved.”

“But that’s no longer the case,” I said.

“Oh?”

So I told him about the situation in the Jura, a few hundred square miles of the Canton of Bern bordering on France. The Jura region, predominantly French-speaking, desired to secede from the German-speaking cantor and achieve autonomous status within the Swiss Confederation. Even now extremists were waging arson attacks against German-speaking inhabitants of the Jura, and political refugees were beginning to turn up in Paris.

“But this is remarkable,” Vaudois said. “I am from the Jura. It is only since the Treaty of Vienna that we have been a part of Bern.”

“I know.”

“And they wage attacks on the German element, eh? Have they much hope for success?”

“I doubt it, but-”

“You know of these people?”

“Yes.” I hesitated. “As a matter of fact,” I said, “I’m a member of the Council for Autonomy of the Jura. I haven’t been able to play too active a role, as it happens, but-”

“This is marvelous!” He beamed with pleasure. “No doubt my countrymen are severely oppressed, Evan. You must supply me with a name and address. I would be honored to furnish them with, oh, a small donation.”

After he had recovered from his attack of Juran patriotism, I told him my plan for getting into the north. Obviously I needed a cover. Neither my size nor my complexion would facilitate my passing as a Siamese, and I would not be particularly welcome as an American agent. But throughout the remote areas of the world the natives had grown accustomed to the periodic invasions of American scientists, especially of the simpler sort. With just the most rudimentary sort of equipment I could easily pass as an itinerant lepidopterist, chasing net in hand over the rice paddies of Thailand in a madcap hunt for elusive butterflies and moths. I wouldn’t even have to pursue any winged creatures. I could insist that I was only interested in the Bat-Winged Gobbletail or some such, and leave inferior species alone. And, with that sort of cover, I could visit remote villages and mingle innocently with the people, asking all sorts of irrelevant questions and trying to get a line on whatever pea-green butterflies and black people might have passed through the region.

“It is not impossible,” Abel Vaudois admitted. “You may make a list of the various articles you require, and I will have them purchased for you. There is no sense in your showing your face in Bangkok. And of course you will want a driver. I can supply a man.”

“I can drive.”

“But your driver will also be able to speak Siamese.”

“I speak the language.”

“You do?” He studied me. “That is hard to believe. I have lived here for years and remain at sea in it. And as you know, I am a good linguist. From birth I spoke German and French and Italian, albeit with a heavy Switzer accent. And I am fluent in several other European tongues. But this maddening language? I find it impossible. I say khao when I wish some rice, but the same syllable also means badly, or white, or old, or news. One little syllable with five meanings!”

“It is all a matter of inflection. For rice one would say khao, for badly one would say khao, for news one would say khao, for white one would say khao, for old one-”

“Stop, stop! You will give me a headache. Each time it sounds quite the same to me.”

“When you have the ear for it, the words sound quite distinct.”

“And you have such an ear?”

“I can get along in Siamese.”

“Then this will be a great help to you. Ah, Evan. Should you ever tire of working for this Chief of yours-”

“I don’t work for him, exactly.”

“Well, should you ever desire to work for me-”

“I am honored, Abel.”

“My good little friend. Such a madness, from Latvian armies to Siamese jewels to Negro singers. And opium in Africa, eh? You will make your list, everything you require. But first you must come for a look at my gardens. I think you will be impressed. An expense, to be sure, but of what use is money but for the provision of comfort and beauty? Come.”

I remained with Abel Vaudois for two more days while his men picked up the Land Rover and the other tools of the lepidopterist’s trade. Abel even thought to include a half dozen beautifully preserved specimens of local butterflies, each neatly mounted in a glass frame. I took the net into the garden and practiced catching various flying insects. I let them all go and after I’d done some damage to a clump of late-blooming hyacinth, I gave up insect-hunting in the garden.

Finally I left in the hours just before dawn, picking up the main highway north from Bangkok. The first stretch of road was broad and flat, with endless stretches of rice fields on either side. The road was built up high because during the rainy season the lands were frequently under water. Even with the height of the road it was occasionally impassable.

When the road got worse, I began to go into my act. I stopped in the small villages and bought my meals from the people, bartering silver coins for crudely spiced bowls of rice and meat. My equipment drew considerable interest, and the villagers were amused that someone would be foolish enough to spend time and money pursuing the pretty little butterflies. I redeemed myself in their eyes by explaining that I sold the insects at a handsome profit to rich collectors – thus it was these rich collectors who were the fools, and I was merely a shrewd tradesman. I would sit cross-legged around village campfires and show the tools of my trade and pass around the half-dozen mounted butterflies for everyone’s rapt inspection. I hadn’t yet bothered catching any butterflies of my own.

It was at one of these villages, far north of Bangkok, where the rice fields were more and more frequently giving way to stretches of bamboo forest and stands of teak, and where a few coins had bought me a water buffalo steak pounded by hand and rubbed with ginger and broiled over a wood fire, with a spicy root wine to wash it down, that I first began to feel genuinely at ease. In the distance were the noises of the nighttime wilderness – monkeys chattering in the trees, the far-off growl of a jungle cat after its prey, the hooting of an owl. And all around me were the soft voices of the local peasantry, its country’s pride, according to Goldsmith, which when once destroyed can never be supplied.

Here the soft voices spoke Siamese. But for the language and the food I could have been almost anywhere – on a hill in Macedonia where my son, Todor, lived, alongside a jungle stream in the Amazon Basin, in a green valley in Slovenia, anywhere. Here Bangkok and Manhattan were equally far removed, light-centuries away. Here people grew their own food and slaughtered their own animals and built their own huts and made their own music and drew their own pictures. Here there were no newspapers, no radios, no jukeboxes, no air conditioning, no central heating, no deodorants, none of the conveniences of modern civilization.

And here, too, I had my first word of Tuppence. Why, yes, an old woman told me, she had seen some people with black skins, a woman and some men as well. It was remarkable, she had not known there were persons in the world of such a color. They had passed through the village a day after Prang’s buffalo had calved, just nine days ago.

They were with the bandits, a man added. But he did not think they were of the bandits but were perhaps their prisoners.

“Bandits? Were they Communists?”

“What are Communists?”

I took a different tack. “How did you know that the captors of the black persons were bandits?”

“They took food,” the old woman said, “and did not pay for it, and pointed guns at us. Since they did not have uniforms, we knew they were not of the government, so they must be bandits.”

“Do bandits come here often?”

“Not too often. Farther north there are more bandits, and they are cruel to the villagers. But here only once in a great while do the bandits come to steal from us, and from time to time the soldiers of the government come north looking for bandits, and they too steal from us. But for the most part we are left alone, safe from soldiers and bandits, and we prosper.”

I learned more of the bandits as I moved to the north. There were many groups of them, I was told, and sometimes they fought among themselves and other times they battled the government forces. The bandits hated the government, I learned, and the government had vowed to exterminate the bandits, and it was the peasants who suffered most, as is usually the case. Often the bandits would raid a village and behead the chief of the village and force the young men to go off with them. And if a village chieftain cooperated with the bandits, then the government troops might raid the village and take the young men off to join the army, and the chieftain who had cooperated with the bandits would be shot by an army firing squad. The government had announced that some day all the bandits would be dead, and the bandits had announced that the government would be destroyed and the land would belong to the people, and the villagers sincerely hoped that someday all of the soldiers and all of the bandits would succeed in killing one another.

I heard scattered reports of Tuppence, nothing too certain but bits and pieces picked up here and there. I left the main road and took a road that was not main at all, and only the engineering marvel that was the Land Rover enabled me to keep on going.

Until at last one fine day I emerged in a clearing and suddenly found the Land Rover utterly surrounded by armed men. They were not in uniforms, so I knew they were not government soldiers and guessed that I had found some bandits.

I spoke to them in Siamese; I spoke to them in Khmer. They did not answer. And the next thing I knew I had been stripped naked, divested of clothing and socks and shoes and money belt, and tucked unceremoniously into that horrible bamboo cage.

Now, according to the only bandit who had deigned to talk to me, they were finally ready to kill me.