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I was fit for an asylum. I fidgeted around in the passenger seat of the little truck like a child on sugar. My pours spilled out nervous sweat; my eyes stung with it. Harried instructions tumbled from my trembling lips, the words all broken and staggered by my choppy breath.

The Laem Chebang port area is huge! I had no address! My driver didn’t know where the hell he was going!

I’m looking for a damned needle in a haystack!

We asked people on the street if they had ever heard of the place. I could only sit and hope that my driver translated correctly. My heart pumped like crazy. I thought only of the danger my friend faced if I didn’t get there in time!

By the will of God, or Buddha, or somebody, we finally found it. A rust stained corrugated steel warehouse with a sign declaring: The Talisman Warehouse Company.

I wanted the element of surprise so I released my driver and approached on foot. It appeared abandoned from the outside, but sturdy padlocks on the front roll-up garage doors indicated that the place still saw periodic use. I circled the powdery orange monolith until I found a door on the rear side. It was locked from within!

If the Blow-Torch Murderers are in there with Sorkan, this is how they must have got in.

I would have been fucked at that point had it not been for a low window I spied not far off the ground. It had long since been broken and was carelessly boarded over with a thin piece of plywood. Some quick pulling and prying and I was in.

The first thing that hit me was the stench. It was like a burnt cooking smell but way more disgusting.

Propane torch! Sorkan! Am I too late?

I scrambled up to a steel mesh landing and across a pile of boxes to a point where I could look down upon the open floor area of the warehouse. What I saw instantly sent barf up my throat. Only my intense fear managed to choke it back down.

I recognised Big Yannie, a dagger in his hand, swaggering around the floor (actually, Yannie being gay, it was more like a sashay combined with a swagger) and the little gem dealer from Chantaburi holding a propane torch. Its flame burned an intense blue.

Tied to a chair was Captain Sorkan. Facing him, bound to another chair not ten feet away were the hideous remains of their fourth victim.

Again, I almost yakked.

By his uniform, it appeared to be another customs officer. The fucking smell of his burnt body-tissue was so thick and horrible I had to fight back the instinct to run back outside for fresh air. They’d burnt all the flesh from his face. His hair was singed back to the middle of his scalp. It formed a wispy ash-coloured hairline that stood out shockingly from what blackened flesh still stuck to the bones in his face. Either still alive by some cruel miracle, or his over-heated brain directing a hideous death-dance, his torso seemed to rock gently in a slow sickening reflex. The last wisps of oxygen escaping his lungs made a piteous gurgling moan as they passed through the mutilated hole that was formerly his mouth. Snot glands in his sinus cavities poured out a sticky fluid that bubbled when it drizzled onto the scorched cartilage that used to be his nose. It evaporated in thick wisps of gas.

The man had been bound to a chair while they literally burnt his face off. Sorkan, bound to a second chair facing him, had been forced to watch.

“Why do you resist our offer Captain Sorkan? Do you want to meet the same fate?” said Big Yannie, motioning the gem dealer to bring the torch to within inches of Sorkan’s nose. “Just walk away from the case. No one will fault you. Officially it’s a Bangkok National Bureau investigation anyway. We will pay you handsomely for your non-interference. We can then continue our business as usual, you get to keep your life and your good looks, and that fool Lastradisomp can continue amusing himself by searching for smuggled cheese.”

“Lastradisomp is a fine detective,” countered Sorkan, without a blink. “Eventually his path of investigation will lead him to you. Then you’ll be in the same pickle you are now. Will you try to buy him off as well?”

Big Yannie arched back and howled with laughter. “You give your old school chum far too much credit, Sorkan. By the time Lastradisomp figures out our game, we’ll be long gone, wealthy men both of us.”

“Is there such a rich market for stolen diamonds? I don’t think so,” hissed Sorkan coyly.

Diamonds? I gasped in confusion. What the fuck is he talking about?

“Ahh. So you’ve even seen through our little sapphire ruse, have you! We have sorely underestimated you Sorkan. We told our customs men that they were smuggling geuda sapphires. How else could we get them to work so cheap? Had they known it was actually diamonds, we would have never been able to keep a lid on it.”

“It was a clever scheme,” admitted Sorkan. “One of the most ingenious I have ever encountered. Imagine. A decorative glass orb concealing a small fortune in diamonds for anyone to see…anyone who wants to gaze into its milky core—but of course no one would ever suspect that they were real diamonds inside those little dime-store baubles! Or even sapphires for that matter!”

Big Yannie laughed with vulgar satisfaction. “I’m glad you appreciate the elegance of it. As you know I am South African. For years I’ve been buying stolen diamonds from my friends who come to visit me from back home. My friends, you see, make a business of pilfering, here and there, from their employers. It is a remarkably easy thing for men working in the right places. But you must understand, Captain Sorkan, the diamond trade in South Africa consists of a small, tightly knit group. For obvious security reasons, it’s a closed-shop operation from start to finish. Should any of these friends of mine try fencing their wares anywhere close to home, they would most certainly be found out. And so, that brings them to me. You see, I started fencing diamonds for some of them almost a decade ago. The gay ones, of course. I was always a man known for uncompromising discretion when it came to arranging…entertainment…for friends from back home.” He chuckled. “You must understand that many of the men who come to see me, have wives and children back in South Africa.”

“So they brought their stolen booty with them on their holidays, and you started selling the stones for them,” hissed Sorkan, “For a fee of course. And slowly your clientele expanded to include straight diamond thieves as well, I suppose. Then at some point, you started to run out of buyers here.”

“Right again, Captain,” confirmed the big South African, “Besides, what one can fetch for diamonds in a poor county like is peanuts compared to the prices available in America!”

“So you hooked up with this charming fellow.” Sorkan gestured toward the little gem dealer. “My mysterious leper I believe, eh, once he dons his make-up?”

“Your talents are wasted here in Pattaya, Captain. You should be Chief Inspector of the Bangkok National Bureau yourself.”

Ignoring the compliment, Sorkan continued. “Unlike yourself, he already dealt gemstones to buyers in the US. Albeit only sapphires and rubies. Nevertheless between the two of you, you had the unbroken chain of buyers and sellers that you needed; stretching from the kimberlitic pipes of South Africa, through Thailand (where auspiciously, crooked customs men are not unheard of) to the high-end retailers in North America. Very shrewd of you. You certainly live up to your reputation.”

“A simple matter really,” said Yannie smiling broadly. “But I have a question for you Captain: From only what you saw at the murder scenes, how did you ever make the deduction that it is diamonds and not sapphires that we are moving? After all, our customs men all believe they are handling geuda stones from Chantaburi. The truth is something that only my friend and I share. And we made certain that none of the stones were ever left behind!”

“Mr. Balaem,” hissed Sorlan. “Your first victim, Mr. Balaem.”

“But how? Balaem was no genius,” scoffed the South African, “He was as taken by our sapphire story as the rest of them!”

“Indeed, this is true,” replied Sorkan. “But as I’m sure you know, sapphires change colour when they are heated to 1500 degrees Celsius. By your apparent sapphire-smuggling scheme, Balaem deduced that once they arrived in the US, you where heating them to produce the prized ‘corn-flour blue’ colour which would multiply their value.”

“This is true. In fact it’s precisely the impression we intended them to have.”

“And so your men think this accounts for the strangely large payoffs they received. If they only knew they were actually smuggling diamonds for you…very shrewd sir, very shrewd. But you underestimate the power greed has over men. Mr. Balaem saw his fortune in heating the stones and selling the finished product himself. Not a bad plan for one as limited as Mr. Balaem.”

“It got him killed though didn’t it?” spat Big Yannie with sudden vengeance.

“But in death, he led me to check a few facts. It turns out sir, that propane torches, acetylene torches, and pottery kilns are all capable of heating sapphires to 1500 degrees. So why did Mr. Balaem’s attempts appear so desperate and futile? Because the stones he was heating weren’t sapphires to begin with.”

“You bastard!” cried the South African. The little gem dealer took this as his cue to finish his dirty work. The torch burned blue-hot. Sorkan stared at it in steely defiance. My heart swelled at his courage. The flame drew toward him. In panic I searched for a weapon. Clawing with desperate fingers, I tore open the box I crouched on. As Sorkan hissed in sudden pain my hand closed on a small glass orb. I wound up and fired. A perfect ninety mile an hour fastball struck the gem dealer in the temple and shattered into a thousand granules of crystal. The gem dealer crumpled like a beaned batter. A gun flashed from Yannie’s belt. A bullet struck the corrugated steel behind me with a reverberating twang. I rose again firing but my second pitch impacted an empty backstop of cardboard. Sorkan struggled against his bonds, a pretty good sun-burn on his cheek but alright. Yannie was gone; disappeared among the walls of boxes!

My eyes searched the cardboard catacombs like a hunted animal. He could be anywhere! He could get me from any angle! Or Sorkan! I threw myself behind a wall of boxes. I had a glass baseball in each hand. If he had a full clip, he’s got nine shots left. I started to move. I slipped out of my sandals and padded over the concrete silently. I could hear him. He’s in that corner. He’s expecting me to be in the vicinity of the door. He’ll think I’ll either run for it, or attempt to free Sorkan. But I wasn’t about to run. Not with my friend in danger. He won’t shoot Sorkan yet. He can do that anytime. He’ll keep him alive to bait me, or for use as a last minute hostage.

“I detect no sound from that door back there, my friend,” shouted the South African. “You’re still here. Who are you? The Captain’s guardian angel?” His head peered around a wall of boxes.

I wound up and threw. Surprised, he just barely avoided my vicious bean-ball and answered quickly with two more shots from the gun. I dove for my life. Rolled. And was back up at a full-speed retreat in the blink of an eye.

I heard the pounding of pursuit behind me. I turned down another isle. A sweet scent reached my nostrils above the gunpowder and cooked flesh. It was deja-vous. Lagerfeld aftershave!

The knife thrower at the rubbish pile was Big Yannie! I realised. Around another cover I plunged. Deeper into the maze of boxes.

“This is pointless,” yelled the big South African as I heard his footfalls slow. “Once I finish off Captain Sorkan, I’ll have time to come hunt you down!”

“That will be a difficult trick,” I heard Sorkan yell. I popped out of an isle-way in time to see Yannie emerge and gape at the empty stretch of floor where Sorkan had sat. His momentary distraction gave me time to wind up and take aim. I gave him the high-heat. A blistering split-finger that broke upward catching him right on his gun hand. An explosion of crystal engulfed him in a glittering cloud. The gun fired once of it’s own account and sailed out of sight behind a confusion of cardboard. Yannie recovered with frightful wrath. The dagger now in his hand, he charged toward me like a furious bear. I heard the rear warehouse door slam.

Sorkan is safe!

I was alone in my peril. He was almost in striking distance. I braced to deflect his lunge. Suddenly a flash of motion impeded his path and with a sickening thunk the big South African dropped to the floor with the hilt of a bayonet protruding from his chest.

“Only one thing worse ‘an Germans,” muttered Will, the bartender from the Ugly Parrot as he looked down at Yannie, “an’ that’s murderous old queens like ‘im.”