Red Night Zone - Bangkok City by James A. Newman

Author:James A. Newman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bangkok. City. Thailand. Pattaya. Bargirl. Asia. Crime. Noir. Pulp. Hard-boiled.
Publisher: www.booksmango.com
Published: 2014-02-19T05:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-FIVE

FRANCIS WAS hammered.

Losing control.

He was about to pass out with fear, rage, guilt, shame, or more likely, the booze, it smelled like he’d been drinking since dawn and most likely the night that led to it. Whatever ate him, it ate him bad. He wore a dirty white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow and a pair of beige slacks and black brogues that were maybe once shiny, but now were scuffed and scraped by the serpentine wanderings of a lost drunk in a dirty city. He held a plastic bag with a few bottles and food packages inside.

“My investigation led me here, Francis. The door was open. I walked in.”

He breathed out an exasperated whiskey-soaked breath: “I suppose you think that I killed her?”

“Well, Sir, I don’t know what to think.” Joe decided in the interest of his sanity, not to mention his daughter, her messages, or her concerns about his conduct in the Zone.

Francis collapsed into a beige sofa. “I appreciate you are only looking for the truth. The truth is, I didn’t know she was dead until I went to the police. I know how it looks...”

“...You knew she was dead. You asked me to find her. It looks bad. You said you went to the cops straight after the incident?”

Francis sighed. The sigh of a man who had found himself in the middle of a particularly nasty section of hell with no apparent way out of it. His hands shook with the terrible anxiety of alcohol intoxication, withdrawal, fear, and exhaustion.

“I was economical with the truth. I admit that. I can see how this all seems. Take a seat, Joe, let’s get up to speed.”

Joe sat on a chocolate coloured chesterfield and accepted the offer of a drink. Soda water. Francis looked surprised, almost offended, stood up, and walked over to a cabinet, poured the drink and handed it to Joe. Next, he poured a generous portion of Scotch and looked at it. He didn’t add any soda. Social hesitation lasted a second before metabolic need took over and he hit the poison in one fluid motion before pouring himself another. He looked thoughtfully at the tumbler in front of him as if it had the answer, or at least some clue to his current predicament. The glass said nothing. The glass was just a passenger. Sodium. Calcium. Silicon dioxide. What did the fucking glass know? He turned and looked at the detective. “Look, Joe. It stinks, I mean it really smells.”

“Bangkok plumbing, or that giggle juice in your glass? I thought you didn’t drink?”

“I didn’t until a matter of hours ago. Last night after I spoke with you, I walked into the Plaza. Nana Plaza is one hellish place to relapse. I was on the program, you see, for twelve years solid. AA,” he blurted wearily. “I went to all those dreadful meetings and spoke about my most embarrassing inadequacies with perfect strangers. Then after the briefcase, after speaking with you, I tried one, just one.

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