Bangkok 8 by John Burdett

Author:John Burdett
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Mystery & Detective, Library, Fiction, Mystery fiction, Thrillers, Suspense
ISBN: 9781400040445
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2003-06-03T11:58:12.498000+00:00

36

Cops who will not take money must earn their keep in other ways. Pichai’s exceptional marksmanship gained him a place on every shoot-out in District 8. Thanks to my English, farangs are usually shunted in my direction. We are not on any tourist circuit, so my workload in this respect is not heavy: a steady trickle of Westerners who took a wrong turn and became suddenly frightened to find themselves all alone in the Third World, a few international criminals with a specialization in narcotics, and kids like Adam Ferral.

Sergeant Ruamsantiah sent for me this morning and when I arrived in the interrogation room Ferral was already seated in one of the plastic chairs, a hatpin through his eyebrow, a silver stud through one nostril, all the usual tattoos, a succession of rings through his ears like a ring binder, and the kind of light in his eyes which often distinguishes visitors from other planets. Ruamsantiah, a decent family man with only one wife to whom he is scrupulously faithful, who really does invest his share of the bribes in his children’s education, has no objection to tattoos but is known to dislike nose studs, eyebrow hatpins and obnoxious young farangs who do not know how to wai or show respect in any other way. He was smiling at Ferral as I entered the room.

The sergeant was sitting behind a wooden desk, bare except for a cellophane bag of grass about three inches square, a bright red pack of outsize Rizlas, a butane lighter and a packet of our foulest cigarettes called Krung Thip, which were surely ten times more damaging to the health than the marijuana. I had been summoned to these interrogations many times; usually the farang kid’s fear is tangible and fills the room with a frozen paranoia. Adam Ferral, though, was unfazed, which was why Ruamsantiah was using that dangerous smile. Ruamsantiah had leaned his nightstick against a leg of the table. He jerked his chin at the kid without relaxing the smile.

“I can’t work him out. Maybe you can explain it. He came into the police station on the pretext of being lost, then fished in his pockets for something and out popped the grass. It was as if he wanted to get caught. Is he a plant or a moron? Is the CIA checking us out?”

Not a serious question. Ferral was too young and the dope too trivial. I would have put Ferral at nineteen, twenty at the most.

“You have his passport?”

Ruamsantiah took a blue passport with an eagle on the front out of his pocket and handed it to me. Ferral was nineteen and a few months, a native of Santa Barbara and in his visa application gave his profession as writer.

“You publish your stuff on the Web?” I snapped at him. The question took him by surprise and fresh pink blood bloomed first in his cheeks, spreading quickly to his neck and scalp. A young nineteen surely.

“Sometimes.”

“Travelers’ Tales dot com?” The pink deepened to crimson.

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