Death In Mindanao
Chapter1
Jerry the Finn swaggered into the Tachilek immigration office and demanded his passport. The uniformed men and the office girl backed off from him in horror, not only was he staggering drunk but he stank of cheap whiskey and the vomit that stained the front of his tee-shirt. Producing his passport in record time; it was the only one left because the Thai border was minutes from closing, they watched him leave with palpable relief. The day pass system at Myanmar immigration requires border crossers to leave their passport at the office. But it wasn’t alcohol that drove the Finn towards the stylish archway that contained the Thai border post, he wasn’t any where near drunk by his standards- Max had got him to limit his intake, but the potent cocktail of heroin and amphetamines that coursed through his veins.
Ignoring the offered arrival form he brushed aside the unenthusiastic clutches of the immigration officers, burst through the remaining tourists and visa-run Expats and fell splendidly down the steps into Thailand.Two blonde backpackers hurried over to him with anxious cries and helped him to his feet, retrieving his small heavy back pack as the Thai police came running down pushing them out of the way. They had been expecting Jerry but not this late and in this condition; wondering if he had lost his nerve or the greedy Burmese had decided to keep it all for themselves. Their furious officer, nothing less than a police colonel, grabbed the backpack from the girl, not noticing that the other girl wore an identical one. They dragged the roaring thrashing Finn back up the stairs, the enormously strong man taking care not to hurt anybody during the struggle. Max wandered forward playing the interested onlooker and the girl handed him her backpack. The switch was on.
Max threw the backpack into the trunk of the small black BMW. Hired in Chiang Mai for the week it made the required statement. Winding the engine up he dropped the clutch and pointed it south to Chiang Rai. Behind the tinted windows he was a rich Thai businessman heading back to Chiang Mai after a weekend of screwing under age Burmese girls. Coming to the first check point he revved the motor angrily and was waved through by the Thai police eager to go home at the end of their shift. Good, the police hadn’t realised the dope was gone, but the second check point twenty klicks further south was too much of a risk. He swung right into the Mae Salang turn off and headed through the mountains for the Fang to Chiang Mai road. It may even be a good idea to spend the night at Mae Salang, they would never think of that, assuming that he had slipped through the checkpoints and had gone to ground in Chiang Rai; he had driven past an interesting looking karaoke bar there the previous year, probably full of Lisu or Karen girls but there may be a pale, breastless Chinese girl who had disgraced her family working there.
Mae Salang was full of Chinese, even the street signs were in Mandarin. A Nationalist regiment, cut off from the eastern coast of China by Mao’s army after World War Two had fled into Burma expecting a welcome from their former English Allies. The British, their hands full with resurgent Burmese nationalists, were hardly overjoyed at the arrival of a fully equipped, battle hardened Chinese regiment with nowhere to go. They directed them south to Thailand; still smarting at the American decision that all non-communists were good people and that the Thai treachery in the late war could be forgiven, they decided that the Thais deserved them. In typical Thai style the government decided that the Chinese would come in handy one day and pointed them into the remote northern mountains, informing them that a professional reorganisation of the opium trade would be appreciated as long as the Thais got their cut.
The tiny ivory skinned girl snuggled against Max; she couldn’t believe her luck, a rich old Farang who had been happy with a blow job and a quick fuck. He slept like the dead after running her hands over her body thoughtfully for a while, lowering the level of a bottle of Islay Malt as he did so. He would be more enthusiastic in the morning, the old ones always were, but with luck he would leave the remains of the bottle along with a good tip. She stroked his penis thoughtfully; it was amazing that no matter how much she tried to remain detached her body always went into immediate convulsions when a long pale Farang organ entered her. Perhaps it was how they stroked and caressed her with fingers and tongue beforehand where as her tuktuk driving boyfriend entered her immediately and it wasn’t until after his second or third orgasm that she managed to enter into the spirit of things. She gently rubbed the sensitive area under the glans, feeling the white snake stiffen and a tiny pearl of sticky dew appear on the end. She heard him chuckle and lowered her mouth to him, thinking that if she got him off again she could sleep in the morning. But, by the Gods, why was it so sweet, why was it so sweet.
Pleased with his day Max lay awake as the exhausted girl slept beside him. It was always easier to let the hot ones get on top and ride themselves out then give them a bit extra for luck. Finding Jerry after all these years had been nothing short of miraculous. He had gone to Mae Hong Song with a plan half formulated; he needed a mule, a drug courier, who was a step above most of the Farang junkies that hung out there. Someone smart and suicidally brave; some one desperate enough to risk all on one throw of the dice. As he crossed the street an almost forgotten gravel voice, last heard a quarter of a century ago in a Brisbane pub, roared across at him. “Hey, stuck up Pommy bastard, stop, I want to talk to you.” He wanted to hug Jerry the Finn but knew that he wouldn’t tolerate any of that “fucking poofter bullshit” so settled for returning the bone shaking punch to the shoulder that had left his arm numb to the wrist.
In the nearest restaurant Max ordered two bottles of Leo beer, he knew that Jerry would drink straight from the large bottle, to the mortification of the Thai waiter, so included an extra one for himself.
The big Finn looked at him affectionately, “Fucking Pommy cunt, Jeez you got fat” he said; Max had made the mistake years earlier of telling Jerry of his English origins. The years hadn’t been kind to either of them, of a similar height Max was well over a hundred kilos and Jerry’s ravaged face spoke of other bad habits than the booze and black girls he had once craved. They talked well into the night; only memories for now, business would come later. Where was PJ? He of the Bourbon and Coke and Rothman’s plain cigarettes, twenty years dead, most of the remaining tissue on his two metre frame tumours. He had been Max’s special mate when they had headed for Cairns in the seventies and shared the willing hippy girls. Smoking grass to be part of the scene but alcohol always the drug of choice. Some fucking flower children we were thought Max.
Brownie, as fastidious as an old maid, cleaning pub cutlery with an immaculate handkerchief before eating; dying alone and in terrible pain, too proud to reach for the phone and call a friend, desperately ashamed of the colostomy bag.
Bombhead, who had walked out the pub one day, had his stomach stapled and given up beer and pies. Max had seen him a few years previously driving a courier van and the once affable big man had barely spoken to him.
Lee, who had parked in the bush with a bottle of scotch and run a hose from the exhaust pipe to the window; his wife and family had him under pressure to leave the woman and child he loved and one day he had just said “Fuck every thing”.
Ivan and Melvin, drunk and stoned early one morning in the outback, turning their car into an abstract sculpture on the front of a road train. The brotherhood of the pub.
Reminiscences over; Jerry, as always, got straight to the point. “I’m on the fucking hammer” he said “Fucking drunk one night they make me try it; I can beat anything but not this. I make enough for my stuff doing six and five with the junkies waiting for money from home but I got to get back to Finland, they got good rehab there.”
Six and five was the old Asian bargirl loan system, borrow five pay back six at the end of the month. His iron face softened “I got daughter in Australia I want to go back to, God she fucking beautiful”.
Max put the proposition to him. Jerry was smart enough to see any flaws in it but could add some input to improve the plan. Max told him he had one hundred thousand US; some his, the remnants of his divorce settlement but the bulk coming from silent partners in Australia. They would buy Burmese ecstasy, not the pills- the powder, the active ingredient. The pills could be made up in Australia and sold there. The younger generation spurned heroin as an old man’s drug and barely even smoked marijuana, they wanted to dance all night and half of the next day. Jerry listened carefully, he trusted Max, everyone trusted Max, he was the one who had never let anybody down.
Only his family, his parents who had sent him to university only to see him to drop out and go to jail for safe breaking, leaving them shattered. Virtually condemned to a life of menial labour by his record he had done the lot, driven cabs, trucks, painted houses and shovelled shit.
Only the wives and girlfriends who had loved him, Lisa the Australian who had seen him sell the florist business she loved because he said that a recession was on the way. She had made him pay with years of adultery. Da, the twenty year old Lao bar girl, who had shared his bed for a year, thinking her life would change when his divorce came through. Regina the Filipina woman who still waited for the phone to ring and finally Thuy, the devout Vietnamese Catholic, who had given him her virginity. Max had ignored her emails for two years now.
Months before Max had invited two friends to a steak dinner in a Sydney pub; they went back a long way, calling themselves old school chums: the school had been Pentridge Prison in Melbourne. Neither were serious drinkers so Max ordered low alcohol beer for himself. He laid out the plan, producing a map, feeding them enough line to keep them on the hook but withholding vital details. Either of them was capable of taking the scheme and using it themselves.
Harry had been the success story of the three. Now known as Sydney’s porn shop king he was a crime groupie and loved only guns and cash money, but his empire was becoming shaky. He had sold guns to the wrong people who had used them to exterminate their opposition in the Melbourne amphetamine war. The police had trapped a middle man and he had set Harry up with an undercover agent. The Taxation Department was waiting in the wings; they knew that Harry hadn’t banked a single hundred dollar note since they had appeared on the currency scene. After the police were finished they would pick the carcass. Harry’s criminal record came in three bound volumes and he was unlikely to see the light of day again, and it would be an impoverished daylight at that. Harry fancied overseas retirement and liked the idea of a last minute earner.
Rex was another kettle of fish. Unlike Harry and Max, both from middle class backgrounds, he had been virtually abandoned at the age of six and ended up in reform school for the crime of running away from his foster parents. Meeting real criminals there he had been an apt and enthusiastic pupil, finally being freed at the age of eighteen. The reform schools had had trouble keeping him in one place too. Rex had immediately embarked on a career as a professional criminal, a used car yard stocked with stolen cars, a partnership with a builder that under cut the opposition because Rex was stealing the required materials off their building sites. Strictly small-time he was a frequent guest of her Majesty’s Prisons. Then one day, he had been ripped off by a pair of junkies that he thought he was buying a truck load of stolen goods from. As they relieved him of his cash he heard one remark that they would buy dope in the comparatively marijuana friendly state of South Australia and sell it in the less tolerant Eastern states at a handsome profit. Being at gunpoint at the time he gave it no further thought that day but later drove out to see a grower friend of his. On hearing the proposition the grower said it would work but like anything organised by dope smokers it usually went tits up. If it could be run as a disciplined operation by someone who could keep his mouth shut and not personally use up his stock, sure it would work.
Rex embarked on his new career and after a year of trial and error turned it into a million dollar operation. Intensely paranoid he seldom slept in the same bed and bemoaned the gradual disappearance of public phone boxes, his only electronic means of communication with his clients.
Rex had noticed the demand for party pills but had also observed that the production was controlled by leather jacketed gentlemen with a low tolerance of competition. However they were wary of Rex who tended to take a similar attitude to protecting what he regarded as his and he had been assured by distribution level people that there was sufficient demand in the market to leave room for him. Rex had put to Max a plan to bring the pills into Australia from Europe using commercial shipping, but Max knew more about boats than Rex after a stint as in the Painters and Dockers and knew it wouldn’t work. The work force in the merchant marine now almost exclusively consisted of Eastern Europeans and a few Asians, most of whom spoke little or no English. They were highly unlikely to risk their jobs and freedom for pie in the sky.
So Max laid the plan out. He and Harry would put the money up, Harry the bulk. Rex, who Max well knew would be reluctant to part with cash, would be in sole charge of manufacture and distribution. Max would do the work and take the risks. After expenses they would divvy up twenty five, twenty five, and fifty. Max with the biggest cut to pay his operatives. “Done deal” they said, neither stood to lose any thing they would miss.
Max had spent several nights a week over three months in Tachilek whispering in the right ears. Dropping a few dollars, making himself popular with the small brown Burmese prostitutes who didn’t mind an occasional yah bah themselves. Crazy drug the Thais called it. He knew that the drugs were controlled by several factions, the Shan State Army, who used them to finance their war with Yangon, the United Wa State Army and the PRC Chinese the most prominent. Personally he preferred doing business with the Shan but recent heavy fighting in the South had driven them further into their mountain fastness. The Chinese were recent arrivals on the scene but had made heavy inroads with a savagery that had even made the Wa take a step back.
Finally he was invited to accompany a tuktuk driver who drove him several kilometres west of the Sai River. When he saw his future partners his heart sank; small, dark and wicked they were officers of the Wa Army forces. Only a generation before the Wa, a primitive mountain tribe, had been taking heads as part of their religion. The Shan and Karen, the enemies of their blood, had parted with theirs reluctantly and at a high cost. Treacherous by nature they had eventually joined forces with the Burmese generals and assisted them in their murderous campaign against the other ethnic groups. Max knew he would have to step smartly to keep his body organs in their correct place.
Max was well aware Jerry was in for a hard time but the Finn had assured him that he had been through it before. If the rewards were there he would cope, and Max had already put a hundred thousand baht in his account. The buy had gone off well, both Farangs aware that every detail would be reported to the Thai police and had gone over the procedure a dozen times. Max had crossed the border early and tested the E in a hotel room then doing the buy in a large outdoor restaurant adjacent to the border post. Ignoring the sellers’ advice to leave immediately he had gone across the street to another restaurant and started drinking with a waiting Jerry. Horrified by this lack of professionalism the Wa had departed; arguing publicly about the distribution of Max’s money. Another identical back pack had been produced and Max headed for the border, the Finn nursing what the Americans called a speed ball that he would put in his arm when his courage needed a touch of insanity. He only drank now from habit; now that his Aussie mates were all gone he didn’t enjoy it as much anyway.
Max raised his arms and was patted down while the Thai police tore the lining out of his backpack; no way was there twenty five kilos of powder there. The floor was littered with pirate DVD movies and cheap clothing, the typical purchases of a Farang tourist on a day trip to Myanmar. Police Colonel Duangvichit was not amused; the easy money from the amateur deal was not working out as simply as he had assumed. He could hold Max but if he did the big blonde Farang who obviously had the drugs may not make the crossing, leaving the Burmese to take all the pickings. The drugs could be confiscated and sold back to the supplier, a common practice every time people who were not in the system turned up to make a buy. A hundred thousand US wasn’t peanuts and maybe his superior would stop making jokes about his Lao name for a piece of that. Also there would be Farangs to put in jail. Thinking deeply he smiled at Max in apology and indicated to the police to let him go.
End of chapter 1
Chapter 2
Max spent some time thinking over his breakfast rice and omelette. Not being a fan of Chinese steamed buns he had settled into a Thai restaurant, sending across the road for Chinese tea. He couldn’t see any problem getting down to Chiang Mai where he would get the train to Bangkok. Booked well ahead he would arrive with minutes to spare and be on his way before anyone noticed. Being a tall, fat Farang had its disadvantages when it came to being inconspicuous in Asia. He felt a twinge of guilt when he thought about the Finn’s breakfast, no way would Duangvichit have accepted his protestations of drunken innocence, but hopefully the backpacker girls would have fled back to Mae Hong Song before someone inquired about their part in the drama. You could never tell with fucking junkies though.
Warming up the BMW he headed south through the mountains, happy with the difficult drive, time spent behind the wheel was easy time to him. Ten years driving cabs in Adelaide had sorted that out, as had twenty years in the trucks. When people pointed out he must be eighty years old with all the jobs he had had Max merely said that a hundred hours a week allowed for considerable over lapping. He liked the cabs and had nearly bought one but Leah wanted her own house, a good investment back then. Sure, but when you had your own car you could run it eighteen hours a day, only coming home for a nap and a quick bang, essential to keep you from accepting the many offers a good looking young cabby got. Better than living on café food and pills to keep awake, the customers could pick that in an instant. His mate PJ had cleaned his act up big time with his own cab in Hobart; pity he hadn’t given the smokes away too.
Max left the car at the Thapae Gate, a well known part of the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai, ringing the hire firm with directions and an apology for not returning it to the office, saying he would pick up the false passport and the deposit the following week, flagged a passing tuktuk and headed for the airport. He was there long enough to buy a cheap suit case, concealing the backpack and his own small bag, walked out and got a cab to the train station. Timing it well he settled into first class for what he hoped would be a relaxing ride to the capital.
Waking up with a start- and a erection, it was amazing how a night of sex fired up the system, Max looked out the window. Fucking police every where on the platform and some of higher rank than the normal tourist checking squad.
Where was he?
Phitsanulok, a large city of central Thailand; what to do now?
He grabbed his bag and headed down the train to the third class carriages, there would be a crowd down there and a pack of tuktuk drivers waiting for customers among the backpackers getting off the train. He went down the steps and pushed through the crowded platform, people getting on, people getting off, tuktuk drivers clutching at potential customers; he was off the platform and into a tuktuk before the delighted driver realised he had a fare. Declining an invitation to see the Chinarat Buddha or partake of a massage with a friendly young lady he directed the driver to Wang Thon, a few kilometres east of the city, but safely off the Bangkok to Chiang Mai road and rail routes. He would get the bus there and flee to the North East, crossing the Mekong at Nong Kai into Laos.
God, Laos, it would be like going home.
Max looked out of the window as the land grew steadily poorer; Isaan, the largest and least wealthy province of Thailand, a land that supplied it’s daughters to the bars and brothels of Central and South Thailand. Max had slept with Isaan girls as far south as Sungai Kollok, a shit hole brothel town on the Malaysian border. They catered almost exclusively to Malay men who crossed the border to frolic at pursuits denied them in there own country. Max still remembered the joyous reception he had received on his first visit, ordering a round of drinks in a small bar and sending out for Tom Yam Goom- spicy shrimp soup, pork BBQ and rice for all; while across the street half a dozen gloomy Malay men shared a soft drink and dickered with the Mama San for a bulk rate.
Isaan girls, nearly every Farang who married a bargirl ended up with an Isaan girl. Max remembered that once, drunk in the early days, he had asked a stunningly beautiful Korat girl why she worked bar. She looked at him in amusement, “When I was a little girl” she said, “my father walked to the village meeting, sat at the back and said nothing. Now he rides there on his new motorbike, sits in the front row and when he speaks, everybody listens. That’s because I work bar.”
Few things are less comfortable than a Thai inter-provincial bus if your weight is in excess of a hundred kilos and your back nearly crippled from years of picking up things that were too heavy. Especially if some of them didn’t belong to you.
Max made the most of the many stops to stretch, finally giving up at Udon Thani, he capital of the North East, it was too late to cross the border bridge anyway and he had to think about the dangers of leaving through Thai immigration. Getting into Laos across the Mekong illegally was a breeze, a hundred small boats made the trip across the river every night carrying cheap Thai goods to Vientiane and returning with Lao produce and illegal immigrants for the factories and brothels of Thailand.
Getting back into Thailand was another matter, he had planned to run overland, south to the Malay border- a simple tactic using the Thai road and rail system but the Thai police were onto him, The fucking Wa had set him up, he had hoped to buy the E off the Shan, they had a reputation for honesty and may have even walked it across the border in the mountains, making delivery in Thailand. The charade at the border with the Finn had definitely been plan B, covering the worst case scenario. Now the hunt was on, the police wouldn’t expect Max to head for Laos, but his name would probably come up on the computer the minute he handed his passport over. Better to cross illegally, stamping his own passport using the skilfully crafted Thai immigration exit stamp he had purchased in Bangkok’s Khao San Road, then go back into Thailand through one of the ‘casino border crossings’ where the immigration officials just stamped the passports and ignored the computer. This meant back to the Golden Triangle, only a few kilometres from the Mae Sae crossing hehadjustleft or overland through Cambodia to cross near Hat Lek.
Max went into town from the bus station and booked into a cheap centrally located hotel. The temptation to do the extra hour into the border town of Nong Kai was there but time wise it made little difference. He showered up and walked around to Steve’s Bar; more of a restaurant than bar, Steve’s Thai missus had run a good food pub in London for ten years before her first husband died, then she married Steve and talked him into taking her back to Thailand. He had had a few laughs in this bar in the past, no bar girls but draught Heineken and good grub. Imported Australian lamb chops were a house speciality and after two days with one meal it fitted the bill precisely.
One night he had walked in on a visa run, where a temporary visa was extended by leaving the country, from Laos and watched hilariously while the place stopped dead leaving Steve to serve the drinks. The eyes of every waitress and barmaid were glued to the TV in stunned silence; the English magician David Copperfield was weaving his spell over the audience. Max had caught one’s eye, “Phee Mor?” he said, Ghost Doctor?
She never doubted it for a minute. Sophisticated Thais they may pretend to be but they were all Lao or Khmer this far to the North East. They knew a genuine witch doctor when they saw one.
The draught beer and lamb chops settled Max down; he was wary of this, feeling good didn’t necessarily mean things were good but at least you could put things in perspective. He could cross the bridge early using his second legal passport, a British one. If he was questioned by the sleepy Thai officials about the lack of an entry stamp he would produce the Australian, showing the near lack of empty pages as an explanation for the switch. There would be no police there and if they put the number of the Aussie passport into the computer he would just walk away, hopefully across the bridge into Laos, stamping the passport himself on the way. There was no love lost between the Thais and the Lao anyway, the Lao still holding a grudge over several border wars and the Thai theft of the Emerald Buddha, which they had stolen from the Thaïs several centuries before.
The beer was going down well and as usual Max’s thoughts turned to the fair sex, One of the waitresses was particularly attractive but Max doubted she was on the game. He had a lot of mates in Asia who specialised in the conquest of this type of girl, believing that she was only interested in their charm and good looks. Max knew it was all about money and subsequently only went with girls after the price of the night had been decided up front. Tiredness and booze were catching up with him so calling for the check bin, the tab system of keeping track of the customer’s expenditure, he paid up, tipped the waitress and barmaid a hundred baht each and walked out to their grateful wais.
He decided he wouldn’t mind getting laid; if he ran into Da in Vientiane tomorrow being horny would offer no assistance in any discussions. Plus if he ended up in the slammer it could be a while before he got a sniff of pussy again. Entering the hotel foyer he noticed a group of young women sitting in the corner. An older woman beckoned him over but he turned away with a show of indifference; one of the girls approached him as he picked up his key but he smiled and said “ Mai kop khun khap, mao mak mak”, no thanks, drunk too much. Letting himself into the room he turned on the air con and TV and laid back on the bed expectantly. Within minutes there was a knock on the door, he let it knock twice then opened it, leaving the security chain in. Two girls stood there smiling. Sure, they would do nicely.
Max had slept with three girls at the same time once and when telling of it to gaping pub drinkers in Australia said that the problem was that you kept losing your place and having to start again. He always enjoyed a threesome though, letting the girls work on him, usually one either end, until he was ready to burst. He didn’t mind if they messed around together a little bit but was not into extended lesbian shows, he could watch that on porn movies and save paying the girls.
The first time he tried it was at a beach resort one Christmas in Northern Luzon about two hundred miles north of Manila. He had got drunk and taken a half African-American girl back to the hotel suite, he had been in the chips then and it had a living room and a spa tub. The girl said she could she could only stay an hour, she had to get home. Max hated that, he should have been told it was a “short time” before leaving the bar and had angrily taken her back and claimed a refund.
Somewhat annoyed with himself he had gone back to the hotel, and reluctant to sleep alone on Christmas Eve had looked into the hotel night club. It was minutes from closing time and most of the remaining dancers were getting dressed but a solitary girl still swayed hopefully on the stage. Max paid her bar fine her on the spot. The bar fine system, for the uninitiated, involves a payment to suposedly compensate the bar for the loss of the girls work if she leaves with you. In Thailand it means exactly that and the wise man negotiates a fee for any extracurricular activities he may be hoping for before he pays it. In the Philippines it usually covers the earlier mentioned activities for the duration of the night as well.
The girl was strangely reluctant and Max, drunk, annoyed and unromantic had banged away for half an hour before falling asleep unfulfilled. The next morning both were apologetic and she asked if she could spend the day with him. Max was going to the nearby town of San Fernando to check the markets for silver jewellery and had plans involving less alcohol and a more enthusiastic girl for that night. Considering himself kind hearted to a fault with the opposite sex Max said he would call in and buy her a drink.
Returning with tongue dragging about four that afternoon, conveniently the bar’s opening time, he ducked in and, ordering a San Miguel, he looked around as his eyes adjusted to the dimly lit bar. The girls were getting onto the stage in their dancing “costumes” a small bikini, and Max thought he recognised his erstwhile partner. Beckoning her down to his table she came and sat beside him and he realised she was several years younger, about nineteen, a considerable effort on his part considering his alcohol intake the night before. As she looked at him with out recognition he saw the correct girl enter the bar and duck down behind the island stage when she saw them. The penny dropped. Wrong girl, right girl comes in and tries to hide to save embarrassment all round. Oh boy. Max went and got her, full of apologies, they looked similar he said. They were similar, at least cousins, possibly even half-sisters; small hooked nosed girls from southern Mindanao, Arab blood. Pure Sulu Sea pirate stock.
All pride restored with a drink Max started looking at his watch, he had heard of Philipino bars in town where nearly anything could happen and he wanted to conduct a survey. The older girl recognised the signs immediately and suggested Max take them both on. “One up, one down” she said. Max stopped dead in the act of calling for the check bin. Two girls?
Was he up to it?
Even then, on his way to his mid fifties, he still surprised himself on occasions . “OK, why not?” he said. While they were doing whatever bargirls do before leaving the bar Max hurried back to the suite and turned on the spa tub taps. Teenage masturbatory fantasies were rushing through his mind and all would be played out tonight, he could see it coming.
The girls arrived and primly removed their clothes, holding towels against their bodies as they tiptoed into the tub. Max joined them, raising the water level considerably. Strategically placed beers added to the festive atmosphere and the three people began to cleanse each other. The younger girls body was stunning, her small breasts were rock hard almost as if silicone enhanced, impossible up here. He washed her down and grabbing his shampoo he began washing her hair; always a turn on for him and guaranteed to put even the most hardened bargirl off balance. Looking down he saw that the older girl was soaping her work mate’s breasts unnoticed. Suddenly realising what was going on the younger girl pulled away, squealing with embarrassment and outrage. Max nearly lost it; dragging the girls from the tub they rinsed off and set to partners on the bed.
As an introduction to threesomes no man could have wished for more, the older girl refused to let him enter her, directing his efforts at the younger who welcomed him with mouth and pussy eagerly. Finally collapsing utterly sated on the stained sheets Max marvelled at his endurance as the younger girl rolled to the other side of the bed and fell instantly asleep. Dozing off himself Max was awakened by an angry blow on the back. The older girl took his hand and placed it between her legs. She wanted to be fucked and badly. Her very arousal brought Max back to life and the girl came the second he entered her. Her single orgasm lasted fifteen minutes before she passed out.
The next morning she woke early and talked to Max earnestly. If he stayed with her he could do this all the time; she would organise anything he wanted and as long as she could be there it would be OK.
“Bloody hell,” thought Max, “but what would a man do to give himself a treat?” He slept all the way while his amused fellow traveller drove back to Manila.
The pair of young Thai ladies were not in the Filipina girls’ class but they took the edge off his anxiety about the following day, like most Thai prostitutes they had picked up some basic massage and managed to get the kinks out of his back allowing him the untroubled sleep that had become so essential to his wellbeing in his later life.
As usual Max abandoned sophisticated plans and headed for the border like any other tourist, first the bus then a tuktuk to the Friendship Bridge, declining the drivers kind invitation to allow his brother to organise his visa. Force of habit made him do it himself at the border and save ten USD. The sleepy Thai immigration officer hardly glanced at his passport.
“Kop chai lai lai”, he said to the Lao border official as he passed through, thank you very much, his first Asian language slipping easily off his tongue.
End of chapter 2
Overland Run: part 3
Walking out of the immigration area Max strolled across to the collection of decrepit taxis and tuktuks lined up in the car park. The same old faces sauntered across to him and inquired where he wished to go. He negotiated an hourly rate, saying that he had indeterminate business on the way to Vientiane and directed the driver east, away from the city. Five or six kilometres later, on a road he knew well having dodged every pothole on it by motorbike many times, he halted the driver next to a couple of Lao style houses and got out, giving him twenty baht and pointing to the small restaurant across the road telling him in halting Lao to eat, he would have at least an hour to kill. A small, very pretty girl child, came out of one of the houses and let out a shriek when she saw him, turning and running back into the house. It was Per, Da’s daughter, and she would be first with the news that Max was back. Still remembered after four years thought Max, he remembered that Per, then four and rarely seeing her mother would attack her violently if she showed any affection to someone other than her. Max had stopped Da punishing the kid saying it would only make her worse and then made sure that she was not left out of any hugs on the rare occasions they saw her. Poor little bitch he thought, passed around the family all her life while Mum worked bar to keep everybody. Da’s mother wasn’t much help, living in Thailand with an unemployed tuktuk driver, but her two sister’s were good people- Noh and Noi, both married, Noi separated. The family had tried to direct him away from Da to Noi doubting that she would be able to keep him. Da was incapable of refusing any one with fifty USD, equally incapable of seeing that fucking for money had any bearing on a relationship.
Still, she had loved Max for a year, believing that he would take care of her and her family, and given the time over again he probably would have. Their year together had changed Max’s outlook on life completely, she had painstakingly shown him how to get along in Asia. Politeness was every thing and any show of anger was demeaning to everyone involved; laughter was not always to show humour, it could cover embarrassment, disappointment or grief. Max vividly remembered a video he had seen later of a Khmer Rouge executioner being interrogated by Vietnamese forces after the invasion of Cambodia, which had stopped the genocide that had been totally ignored by every other country in the region as well as the United States. The man, possibly minutes from death himself, had confessed to numerous murders while laughing nervously and artificially through out.
Living with a woman nearly thirty five years his junior had been a first for him too. One night she had taken him to a disco that played only music that Max had assumed was techno. Deafened and disorientated by the flashing lights and thrashing beat he had seen a boy collapse on the dance floor, his first experience with the party drugs. Later the police had come, checking a few ID cards, mainly the good looking girls, and had looked at Max in silence for a long time.
He had loved her friends, all young and beautiful they would turn up at the apartment he shared with Da bearing shopping bags of food from the market and cook up huge Lao meals. Broke at the time Max had eaten anything put in front of him, whole boiled cucumbers in soup, pig’s entrails crisped on a charcoal fire and one memorable day liver and cauliflower soup. On the side they had pounded up at least half a kilo of the tiny prik nuu - “mouse shit” chillies; serving Max first then stirring the chilli, mixed with a little fish sauce, into the remaining soup. It had made Max’s eyes water from two metres away.
After eating they would sleep on the floor, arms around each other like lovers, a less charitable man would have suspected lesbian relationships but Max had never seen any other sign of one. He suspected they just took all of the genuine affection they could find.
Then the cards would come out; Max was a reasonable card player having played serious bridge at one stage of his life and they taught him the game. It was a form of a game he had played as a child and called rummy; the Americans called a similar game gin. Most of the girls were dynamite players and Buddha help Max if he played the wrong card, allowing the girl next to him to lay down her hand in triumph. One day Va, an older girl, who worked with Da as the cashier and manager of their bar had turned up with two nearly full quart bottles of spirits. She had been running a little river front bar on the side in what her boss called a bamboo tent, and the authorities had evicted her, and a dozen similar establishments, on in the expectation of future development.
The word passed around rapidly and the neighbours turned up for a party, some bearing booze them selves. Not fond of the available gin or vodka, Max had gone and bought a bottle of Thai whiskey for himself, drinking it with Coke. Several hours later the place had looked like a bombsite, bodies asleep every where, only a surprisingly sober Max and a not so sober Tip left standing- or sitting, anyway. Tip was a stunning beautiful Lao girl with Chinese features, Lao people were very much a mixture of ethnic appearances, ranging from slim pale Chinese like Tip to short dark mountain people like Va. He suggested cards and her not having any money had decided to play for kisses. Win or lose Max got a kiss- starting on the cheek and moving to her bud-like lips. Just as he was about to suggest below the neck kisses, possibly progressing to below the waist, Da had woken up and goggled drunkenly at them.
Years later Va had told him that Tip had been bitterly disappointed at the outcome and had schemed on how to arrange a rematch for a long time.
The girls drinking habits were surprising. Da could make a Bourbon and coke last all night and walk out leaving half the drink behind; then on other, rare, occasions get falling down drunk. Not working under the “lady drink” system where they received a percentage of the cost of the drink from the bar, they felt no obligation to accept drinks from customers which possibly prevented the slide into the alcoholism that so many Thai bargirls suffered from. Of the others only Va drank on a daily basis.
The family came out to meet Max in force, they had genuinely liked him even though he had contributed little to the family coffers. He had left before his divorce settlement and only returned briefly on a couple of occasions since, usually with a mate who was disinclined to spend time with a local family. Realising he would have to eat with them Max sent across the road for deep fried chicken’s feet and other finger food and several bottles of Beer Lao. They ate and talked, with difficulty, a mixture of Lao, Thai and English. A young niece was produced, a shy leggy fourteen year old on Max’s last visit, to assist in the conversation with her schoolgirl English. Max had found that the Lao were generally better educated than the Thais, particularly the older ones. He had known many who spoke Russian, having studied at universities in the old USSR, French from their colonial heritage, Vietnamese, the language of their new colonial masters and Lao and Thai. English was a common language in Vientiane, a left over from the Vietnam war days.
Finally he broached the subject, where was Da? They were immediately evasive, discussing it amongst themselves. Da was in Thailand. Pattaya? , Bangkok? More evasion, obviously she was with someone else. He summonsed the taxi driver, giving both the sisters fifty USD; he knew this was an enormous amount for them, a worker was lucky to get a dollar a day here. Max accepted their wais, a wai from a Lao was worth ten from a Thai and the smile always genuine. The Lao took no shit from anyone.
Settling back in the collapsing taxi seat he directed the cab to a near riverside hotel in Vientiane. The couple of bottles of beer he had drank, served by village girls making sure that their heads were always lower than his, had whetted his appetite. Not that, he thought ruefully, it took much to whet his appetite these days.
Showering, always showering- Da had taught him that the stench of unwashed bodies was one of the more offensive things in South East Asia, then with an application of deodorant and aftershave he headed for the town. Stopping at an exchange he picked up a wad of kip, smaller than in the old days he thought when the largest note was five thousand- about fifty cents US, now they came in tens and twenties. He could have paid in Baht or even USD but he liked the millionaire feeling of kip. First to the Samlo Pub, darkness was falling and he walked in and ordered a Beer Lao. The Samlo, prince among pubs, once run by the legendary Paul T Bounds who had sold it to his Cambodian manager Putt, a street kid Paul had pick up out of a garbage heap after his dying mother had carried him to Laos from the killing fields of Phnom Penh, on foot. Now Paul had disappeared somewhere in Thailand, the heavy daily intake of alcohol finally taking it’s toll, and Putt owned everything. A lesson to us all thought Max.
Putt as always was pleased to see Max, he sat where he could see the till and Max knew none of the girls. As always, the girls had work to do in the Samlo, tending bar, cleaning up, cooking and none left the bar till closing time. After that was their business.
Soon the freelance prostitutes would be in, he would know most of them, Niem of the slim body and the five children, she had moved in with Max and Da for while and he had teased her, “didn’t your Mama ever teach you that boom boom made babies?” She was the worst card player Max had ever seen and had started moving her children in one by one until one day he had thrown her out. The crunch had come when Max was watching a new neighbour move in. A Lao man of Max’s age who had lived in America for twenty years then been sent back by his company to establish a business footing. He had looked in the open door and seen an unhappy Max watching a group of kids play cards. “Do you know how old these children are?” he said.
Max knew that none were over eight.
Max explained the situation.
“No good for you” said the Lao man.
That misunderstanding sorted out for the meantime he proudly introduced Max to the young lady who would be keeping him company for the duration of his stay. Plump, twenty two, pleasant faced and not very bright, Max made appreciative noises. Unfortunately Da arrived on her motorbike, hair flying, clad in shorts and tank top, leaping from the bike blowing Max a kiss and running inside. After at least a minutes stunned silence the Lao man turned sadly away. Still speaking English he said. “I suppose it’s all very well for those who can afford it.”
Glory days.
The other girls, half Indian Pian, then sixteen and mildly retarded, Paul used to tell the punters she was the last of the Lao royal line, “one of the old Kings grand daughters” he would say. Sometime she used to fuck them under the abominable pool table up stairs. One of her regulars was a senior embassy official who turned up in suit and tie once a week. He always gave her a thousand baht note that Paul’s Thai wife would cash for her giving her back five hundred baht in Kip. Pian always sent out for food for everybody when she had a customer.
Glory days.
Door, who had lived in France, well educated and speaking perfect English; her Belgian ex boyfriend was in a Lao jail and likely to remain there for a while.
“What for?” Max had asked Paul one day.
“For being a fucking arsehole” Paul had said.
Max had taken her along with Da and the other girls to a large hotel swimming pool one day and she had flaunted her body in a bikini in front of the tourists, unashamed of what she did to live. Marijuana was her drug of choice.
Glory days.
Max raised a glass to Putt, no good buying the miserable sod a drink; he was only here so the word would get out of his arrival. He finished his drink and paid the check bin and walked into the now dark street. As he left he heard a squeal of delight and a bowling ball shaped figure ran to him almost dragging him to the footpath with a hug. Big Deng, deputy to the Nai Barn the, chief of the local government area.
Chief ? Mayor, supreme court judge, militia commander and lord high executioner was more like it. A useful woman to know. She loved Max as much as everyone else did. One night, weeping bitterly after Eric, her Icelandic boyfriend, had betrayed her with two half Nigerian girls, a not uncommon blood line in Laos, she had begged Max to sleep with her. Da was out of town and Max had looked at it and declined with an eye to future consequences. “No boom boom, just to hold,” she had howled.
Sorry darling: one more let down.
Eric was dead she said, killed in the act of demolishing his car, two bottles of Thai whiskey a day had finally caught up. Stan was dead, the Pommy mechanic whom Paul had paid to bash his Thai wife after she had attacked him with a meat cleaver. His Lao wife had stolen all he had and done a runner, unable to find work he had killed himself. The thought of going back to England and begging for a pension after thirty years was too much.
One night, drunk, he had let a lady boy have oral sex with him and next day the whole town knew. The delighted Lao girls, led by Big Deng, had tormented him for weeks. Vientiane was like a small country town for Farangs.
Charlie was dead, minor surgery gone wrong in Phnom Penh, Phin his Lao wife had lost the plot and waited in Nong Kai for Max to return, convinced that Da had stolen him from her the first night he had arrived in Vientiane. Fucking hell, thought Max, glad he hadn’t lingered in Nong Kai, if you put all this in a book the publishers would laugh you out of town. But that was Laos.
Promising Deng he would return he headed down the quiet street to Khop Chai Der the popular back packer restaurant that served cheap draught beer and over priced food. They specialised in See Dam, the table barbeque shaped like a metal Mexican’s hat. Sitting on a charcoal fire with the rim full of stock you grilled meat on the black top, See Dam meant black in Lao and Thai, and braised cabbage like vegetables in the stock. Some of the idiots spent more on food in a night there than they had in the previous week.
Seeing no familiar faces he didn’t linger, not one of his favourite watering holes he had gone there on occasions when he felt like playing the old Asia hand to impress the tourists.
As he left a tuktuk driver called out to him “you were the boy friend of Da?”
Max nodded agreement. Now the word would be out for sure. He headed for the Mekong, a street away, he needed a good dose of it. The glimpse he got from the friendship bridge hadn’t been anywhere near enough, he wanted to sit and drink and watch the lights of the Thai towns on the other side play on the water. It was a shadow of the river he had first known, sand bars black in the moonlight, he remembered when dozens of dragon boats had staged a regatta, each propelled by fifty paddlers. If Max could get ten minutes alone in an American ICBM site he would cheerfully nuke the Chinese dams upstream that were slowly strangling it.
Settling at a street front café, he ordered beer and eyed a small figure who shuffled through the dirt towards him. Filthy, with legs twisted at grotesque angles from polio, it was Noi the crippled boy-man who had a begging round in the city. Most of the Vientiane beggars were street kids or mentally retarded and they all gave Noi a wide berth. Max had given him a five thousand kip note most days and Noi had kept the other beggars away when he had drank and eaten with Da at the riverfront restaurants. Intelligent and shrewd he had been to Europe also, taken by Eddie the imprisoned Belgian, where doctors had looked at his legs and shrugged. The disease had run it’s course and the paralysed legs were beyond salvation.
Noi hadn’t made the most of his opportunities, fond of drugs he had settled for begging. Max didn’t doubt that put in the poor little bugger’s situation that most people would have turned to drugs too. One day he had seen him in a pristine white shirt, incongruous against the other rags and the matted filth of his hair. To Max’s amused inquiry Noi had loftily informed him that he was on his way to school. He reached out a small strong hand in supplication, “Max, I need fifty thousand kip for my books.” Laughing, Max had given him ten thousand- twice the usually daily score. Most of the expats despised Noi, they had all given him money for a fresh start and he had blown it. Even Paul had finally got sick of him but Max was not judgemental, very much a pragmatist he believed in the right of everyone to change the circumstances of their rebirth.
One night when Da was in Thailand, he had knocked on Max’s door. He was clean, his shining hair neatly combed. He scrambled onto a chair and accepted tea. It was a nice place he said, plenty of room, how about if he moved in with Max? Max averted his eyes, fine by him he said but Da wouldn’t stand for it, didn’t want anyone else living there. Sorry.
Another friend who had expected too much of Max.
Noi, a common name in the Tai group of languages- meaning small and therefore often unoriginally given to children of both sexes, said he hadn’t seen Da but would keep an eye open. Times were hard he said, the standard of tourists had risen and the police kept moving him on. His three wheel cart was in the repair shop, he needed twenty thousand kip to get it out. His clothes were rags but fifty thousand would get him out of the shit all round. Max handed it over to the astounded Noi without further discussion who obviously bitterly regretted not asking for more. He looked at Max again, there were other changes besides the weight and the extra years. Sometimes being tall and complete wasn’t everything. He waved and moved off towards a group of tourists, scooping up a little more dirt and rubbing it into his hair.
Da pulled up on the red Honda Dream.
“Hello” she said, “Remember me?”
End of chapter 3
Chapter 4.
Da had loved Max but had no illusions about him. When he had came back to Vientiane expecting to live with her after a brief earlier affair, which she considered at the time that she had never been properly compensated for, he had handed over a wad of US dollars telling her to get an apartment, furnish it with fridge and TV and get herself a motorbike. A motorbike, all her friends had motorbikes but her family had always come first; enough for a new Honda Dream, 110ccs and shining red. She hadn’t bought a new one although there was sufficient money, carefully checking the second hand models, knowing that one a year old, it must be repossessed of course, would have run any problems out of its system. With that single stroke he had won her heart.
Amazingly she found that Max was easy to live with, easygoing, clean and above all totally accepting of her culture and religion. She found out early that his funds were limited and suspected he would move on when he became wealthier. Still, while it lasted, it was better than working the Samlo Pub. She hated Putt who had propositioned her then cut her wages for every shortage in the till when she had laughed at him. Max was easily pleased; sexually he was lazy and uncomplicated. Sure he never took his eye off the other girls but had never made a move on them either. That slut Tip had tried her best but he had never bothered. He had been smart enough to realise that she would have known about it before his cock was dry.