"William Gibson - Disney Land with the Death Penalty" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gibson William)

to transport the suitcase to Athens for a payment of US$20,000. Sniffed
out by Changi smackhounds, the suitcase was pulled from the belt, and Van
Damme from the transit lounge, where he may well have been watching
Beaver's dad explain the Feast of the Hungry Ghosts on a wall-mounted Sony.

The defense told a different story, though it generally made about as much
sense as Mat Repin's. Van Damme had gone to Bangkok to buy a wedding ring
for his daughter, and had met a Nigerian who'd asked him, please, to take
a suitcase through to Athens. "One would conclude," the lawyer for the
defense had said, "that either he was a nave person or one who can easily
be made use of." Or, hell, both. I took this to be something akin to a
plea for mercy.

Johannes Van Damme, in the newspaper picture, looks as thick as two bricks.

I can't tell you whether he's guilty or not, and I wouldn't want to have
to, but I can definitely tell you that I have my doubts about whether
Singapore should hang him, by the neck, until dead - even if he actually
was involved in a scheme to shift several kilos of heroin from some
backroom in Bangkok to the junkies of the Plaka. It hasn't, after all, a
whole hell of a lot to do with Singapore. But remember "Zero Tolerance?"
These guys have it.

And, very next day, they announced Johannes Van Damme's death sentence. He
still has at least one line of appeal, and he is still, the paper notes,
"the first Caucasian" to find his ass in this particular sling.


"My ass," I said to the mirror, "is out of here." Put on a white shirt
laundered so perfectly the cuffs could slit your wrists. Brushed my teeth,
ran a last-minute check on the luggage, forgot to take the minibar's
tinned Australian Singapore Sling home for my wife.

Made it to the lobby and checked out in record time. I'd booked a cab for
4 AM, even though that gave me two hours at Changi. The driver was asleep,
but he woke up fast, insanely voluble, the only person in Singapore who
didn't speak much English.

He ran every red light between there and Changi, giggling. "Too early
policeman...."

They were there at Changi, though, toting those big-ticket Austrian
machine pistols that look like khaki plastic waterguns. And I must've been
starting to lose it, because I saw a crumpled piece of paper on the
spotless floor and started snapping pictures of it. They really didn't
like that. They gave me a stern look when they came over to pick it up and
carry it away.

So I avoided eye contact, straightened my tie, and assumed the position
that would eventually get me on the Cathay Pacific's flight to Hong Kong.