The Second Biggest Nothing

by Colin Cotterill

  “That’s correct,” said Siri.

  “Why would you . . . they do that?”

  “Good question,” said Daeng.

  “I mean, why machetes?” said Bruce. “There were guns everywhere.”

  “And why rip off their shirts?” said Daeng.

  “It’s cinema,” said Siri. “It’s symbolic.”

  “It’s symbolic of insanity,” said Daeng.

  “I’m afraid I have to agree,” said Bruce. “The movie’s already two hours too long. Can’t we just stick to the original script?”

  “Things were getting dull,” said Siri. “I wanted to inject a John Wayne moment.”

  Bruce seemed to be finding it harder to keep his team in order and focused. Civilai was taking more and more time off, and Daeng seemed preoccupied with other matters. Only Siri showed an unwavering commitment to the project. But then even he disappeared. Bruce turned toward the street for a second when a rare car went by, and when he looked back, Siri was gone.

  The doctor found himself on a film set he recognized but couldn’t immediately name. He was standing before a throbbing pink spaceship in a landscape of dry ice. He resented the fact that he was still not in control of these spiritual summonses. He knew who had called him to the other side and that he’d have to put up with more of Auntie Bpoo’s mood swings. The old transvestite was his spirit guide. It was she who should have been at Siri’s beck and call, not the other way around. Aladdin didn’t have to go spelunking into the lamp to get things done.

  “All right, I know you’re here,” said Siri. “Let’s get this over with. I have a film to make.”

  “Huh,” came a familiar voice. “That’s one little chicken that won’t ever make it out of the egg.”

  Bpoo appeared from behind the spaceship. She was finding it hard to walk in her skin-tight silver spacesuit. She’d gained a lot of bulk since their last meeting. She reminded Siri of a big balloon baby wrapped in tinfoil. Despite her weight, she left the ground and floated in her personal zero-gravity zone. She removed one of her gloves and lowered the zipper at her chest. Siri recognized the scene. It was Jane Fonda’s erotic striptease from the beginning of Barbarella. The Fonda version had been one of his most memorable soft-porn moments in cinema, but he really did not want to watch the Auntie Bpoo interpretation through to its climax.

  “What’s all this supposed to mean?” said Siri.

  “You should know. You’re the host.”

  “Barbarella,” said Siri. “1968. Is this a new test?”

  “No, I just took a fancy to the costume. You know I’m naked underneath?”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of. But I’m going to have to stop you there. Our relationship is about to change. I don’t have to put up with your idiosyncrasies anymore. I realized something the other day that explains everything about you. I understand why you’re such a grump.”

  The spirit guide dropped to the ground like a suet pudding.

  “You really know how to hurt a girl,” said Bpoo.

  “All these exotic locations, all the symbolism, all the drama and acting and cross-dressing, I get it now.”

  “I doubt you’re that clever.”

  “No, you’re right. It should have occurred to me a long time ago, back when you were still alive and making do with three dimensions. I should have seen it then.”

  “Are you telling me the offspring of a celebrated shaman has finally had an insight? The wait has been excruciating. Oh, Great Seer, what can you tell me?”

  Sarcasm was rampant in the otherworld.

  “The dress-ups,” said Siri. “The tutus and stilettos and halter tops, the entire wardrobe that doesn’t fit you. Clothes that you hate wearing. You have no choice, do you?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t you? I think most of your life, even into death, you’ve been stalked.”

  “Gibberish.”

  “The phibob found your weakness a long time ago. Somewhere back in your history when you were still a normal, polite young man with a real life, maybe even a career. The malevolent spirits decided to turn you upside down by visiting you in your dreams as a succubus. She became your lifelong nemesis.”

  “You should stop now, little doctor,” she said.

  Her spacesuit was liquefying and dripping off her like leaks in a gargantuan thermometer.

  Siri continued, “You were so desperate to get her out of your life you started to sleep in a nightdress to persuade her you weren’t male. You’d heard the rumors that she only took the lives of men. And it probably worked for a while, but she followed you, even into the daylight hours and haunted you. So you began dressing as a woman all day, all night, afraid to let down your guard even for the briefest time.”

  “This is a bad talk,” said Bpoo.

  “Of course your friends and neighbors ostracized you. They thought you’d gone mad. And you got to the point where you had no friends. You weren’t homosexual or actually interested in cross-dressing, so those communities didn’t want you. And you’d never attract a wife looking the way you did. So you became a bitter loner: miserable and obnoxious.”

  “No.”

  “And there you are now in the otherworld, still petrified to let down your guard. Still unpleasant. Still looking over your shoulder all the time. Because you’re in their realm now, so there’s no sleep for you. No rest. And you know the funniest thing about all this?”

  “Make me laugh.”

  There was no scenery now. The spaceship was gone. They were facing each other in a green-screen room both dressed exactly the same in Siri’s unfashionable attire. They were sitting on plastic bathroom stools.

  “The phibob have only one weapon,” said Siri. “All they can do is put their fear into you: the fear of death, of helplessness, of worthlessness. None of it is real. They plant an idea into you and sit back and watch you self-destruct. Ghosts don’t kill people. People are eaten from the inside by their own terror. You’ve been living this lie all your life. Still, in the afterlife, you continue to be afraid even though they have no physical control over you. You are drowning in your own imagination. You still shroud yourself in all this symbolism because you think it puts them off your trail, but they aren’t there, Bpoo.”

  “Is this you attempting to take control over me?” said the transvestite.

  “Ah, so that’s why you’re being so defensive about it all. I have never and will never have control over you,” said Siri. “But at least now I understand you. I’m sorry that you’ve spent so much of your life hiding and depressed. I’m sorry for all the times I’ve been rude to you. I’ve decided to go out of my way to like you. In fact, you’ve inspired me to put together a plan.”

  “To save me?”

  “No, you’re on your own. But I think I can save the boys your succubus has on her list. I might need a little help with that.”

  Chapter Nine

  Collateral Deaths

  “Oh, Siri, you made me jump,” said Nurse Dtui.

  “He sneaks up on you, doesn’t he?” said Daeng.

  Siri was back in the restaurant, but the sun was on its way down, and Dtui and Phosy had arrived in his absence. Bruce was still leaning over his processor.

  “But where did you come from?” said Dtui. “I’m sure you weren’t there when I came in.”

  “They used to call it ‘out of thin air,” said Siri. “But the air got thicker, and you have to fight your way through the pollution. Actually, I was in the bathroom. How’s the screenplay coming along?”

  “Well, when you ran off to wherever you went, and I gave up waiting for Civilai,” said Bruce, “I decided to go ahead and cut all the extra scenes you’ve both been forcing on me. It’s a lot shorter now.”

  “I wish to see the changes,” said Siri.

  “Right now, the mov
ie is on hold,” said Phosy. “We’re putting our effort into your latest threatening letter. Bruce has read the note already, so we’ve drafted him into the team. We’ve got more important things to worry about than film scripts. This is getting serious. I’ve recruited my people to look into the case. I’ve made it a priority for the department.”

  “Any insights?” Siri asked.

  “Well, it was obviously sent from inside the country,” said Daeng.

  “And the sender knows us and watches us,” said Dtui.

  “We talked to the people at the post office,” said Phosy. “Nobody remembers seeing a foreigner buying stamps for a local delivery. Only airmail letters overseas. But of course he could have had someone local buy the stamps for him or procured them some other way.”

  “What about the writing?” Dtui asked.

  Bruce put the two notes side-by-side on the table.

  “I’m not a native speaker myself,” he said, “but they both seem grammatically correct to me. Neat. Relaxed. He or she wasn’t in a hurry.”

  “You think there’s a chance it might have been written by a woman?” asked Daeng.

  “Just saying it’s not impossible,” said Bruce.

  “How are we doing with the list of journalists?” asked Daeng.

  “The embassies just gave us copies of the standard application forms, the passports and their CVs,” said Phosy. “A lot of them are on their first overseas assignments. If we’re looking for someone bent on revenge for something that happened in the doctor’s past, our choices are limited. There’s only one old enough to have been around in Paris in ’32. Dimitri Popov, Russian, sixty-eight years old. He was on the Pravda desk in Germany until the second war. Ring a bell, Siri?”

  “No. I didn’t go anywhere near Germany,” said Siri.

  “But no saying Popov didn’t go to Paris,” said Daeng.

  “Why are the Soviets sending some feeble old journalist?” Dtui asked.

  “They aren’t going to spare someone with his own teeth for a dead-end mission like this, are they now?” said Bruce.

  Siri cleared his throat loudly.

  “If Civilai was here he’d beat the pair of you with his walking stick for disrespecting your elders,” he said. “Compared to us lot, the Russian’s barely out of diapers. But I don’t think he’s our man. His name doesn’t ring any bells. Who else do we have?”

  “Two Poles that covered our war with the French,” said Phosy. “They fit the age bracket. Their names are Zielinski and Wisniewski. They would have been in Hanoi or on field assignments when you were in Vietnam.”

  “Don’t forget this information came from their own CVs,” said Daeng. “There were war correspondents who spent all their time overseas in bars and in various beds. They made up stories and the only excitement they had was what they wrote on their CVs afterward. We have to consider a lot of this data could be bogus.”

  “Anyone else?” Bruce asked.

  “Just the one East German,” said Phosy. “Ackerman. He was based in Hanoi during the war with America. Made a name for himself there. The embassy seemed quite proud of him. Made him sound like some sort of hero. It was a coup that they persuaded him to come to Laos of all places. They said he turned down more interesting offers.”

  “He’s my favorite so far,” said Daeng.

  “Mine too,” said Dtui.

  “I don’t know,” said Siri. “I don’t recall offending any Germans. I need to run all these names past my Dr. Watson.”

  “Who?” Phosy asked.

  “Civilai,” said Siri. “He’s my facts and figures man. He could tell us if we met any of the journalists on the list. He has a remarkable memory for names.”

  “Madam Nong says he still has the runs,” said Nurse Dtui.

  “Well, that’s very inconsiderate of him,” said Siri. “If he didn’t refuse point blank to accept my boundless medical experience, I’d ride over there to Kilometer Six and fill him full of aloe. Snails, indeed.”

  “Is somebody treating him?” asked Bruce.

  “He swears by Dr. Porn,” said Daeng. “He was on his way to see her when I had my medical appointment. He said she didn’t find anything potentially fatal. Said he’d be right as rain soon.”

  “He wouldn’t find a better doctor in this country than Porn,” said Dtui. “Present company excepted.”

  Daeng laughed. Siri bowed.

  “He says he prefers to visit a general practitioner because they make their decisions based on symptoms,” said Daeng. “They’re less likely to cut you open and take a look under the bonnet.”

  “After all these years he still sees me as a mechanic,” said Siri.

  “So until he’s feeling better,” said Dtui, “what do we do about the men on our shortlist?”

  “I’ll arrange translators for those that need them and have a talk with them,” said Phosy.

  “But, you know, we’re really limiting ourselves,” said Bruce. “We might not be dealing directly with the man who made the threat. He could have hired someone.”

  “I’m not so sure,” said Daeng. “The notes seem personal.”

  “Then a relative?” said Bruce.

  “That’s the most likely,” said Siri. “A vengeful son . . . grandson.”

  “Then it could really be any one of the sixty-four journalists here,” said Daeng.

  “I can’t interview all of them,” said Phosy. “And don’t forget, we only have threats so far. No dead bodies.”

  Daeng said it was superstition, but Siri believed that talking about the dead increased the odds of encountering them. Fate had a wicked sense of humor. He immediately reached for the amulet beneath his shirt, but it was too late. Standing beyond the half-closed shutter was Phosy’s deputy, Captain Sihot.

  “Evening, all,” he said.

  “What is it?” Phosy asked.

  “There’s been a . . . an accident,” said the captain.

  “Anybody . . . ?”

  “Two,” said Sihot.

  “I knew it,” said Siri.

  “I’m working sixteen hour days already,” said Phosy. “Can’t you just take care of it?”

  The captain thought about it.

  “No,” he said.

  The morgue at Mahosot Hospital had been opened for the night. It had the smell of a plastic bag that had once contained stale pork sausages. The two bodies were laid out side-by-side on aluminum dollies. A half circle of non-matching people stood staring down at them. Siri recognized the new Minister of Justice, a short army general by the name of Sing; Comrade Sikum who had taken over as head of the Public Prosecution department following the execution of his predecessor; Bjorn, the disagreeable Swede from the previous evening; the Australian ambassador and his translator; and a man in short trousers with a fishing net over his shoulder. Finally, there was Comrade Intara, the head of protocol assigned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the coordinator of the journalists’ visit. It was he who spoke first.

  “Phosy, you have to do something about this,” he said.

  “I don’t yet know what this is,” said Phosy.

  “I think I can tell you,” said the Swede. His fluent textbook Lao felt overly fussy but it was understandable to all but the Australian. Phosy stepped up to the tables. He recognized the two men: the journalist scholar Marvin and the photographer Jim.

  “I met you with these two last night,” he said. “What happened between then and now?”

  “Like these two here, I passed up the opportunity to visit the model cooperative this morning,” said Bjorn. “No offence to the minister or the Lao government. I had a migraine and one of my Swedish colleagues agreed to take notes for me. I woke up late but in time to catch these two at breakfast. They were excited because they had, what they called, an adventure planned. They said they’d met an old friend who could
get them access to the old Silver City, the nickname of the American OSB storage facility out past That Luang. It’s where the Americans left behind the things they didn’t have time to smuggle over the border when they were thrown out in ’75.

  “Jim had heard a rumor that one of the CIA boys had a 1952 red Ferrari that was locked away in a warehouse in Silver City. That car has developed something of a cult reputation among the Western press. Did it or did it not exist? Their contact confirmed that it was still there. When I met them at breakfast they were on their way to see it.”

  “I have to point out,” said the protocol officer, “that Silver City is out of bounds. Access to the area is forbidden. I cannot think how this mysterious contact was able to obtain keys for the sheds.”

  “It wasn’t guarded?” Phosy asked.

  “There was no need. As I say, it was locked.”

  “Right.”

  “Then how did they drown?” asked Siri. He was leaning against a cabinet behind the group. They all turned around.

  “How do you know they drowned?” asked the minister.

  “It’s not raining and they’re wet and they’re dead,” said Siri. “Didn’t need a medical degree for that one. Of course, I suppose one of you might have hosed them down before putting them on display, but there are other little telltale signs like froth around the nose.”

  The minister coughed. “I don’t think Mr. Bjorn needs to be here for the further discussion,” he said. “Thank you for your evidence.”

  The Swede huffed, obviously angry to have been dismissed so curtly. He glared at Siri before leaving the room.

  “Then my question is, at what stage of their adventure did they happen to drown?” said Phosy.

  “It appears that not only was the Ferrari still there,” said the prosecutor, “but there were several cans of fuel—enough to fill the tank.”

  “And despite all the limitations we placed on the visiting journalists,” said the protocol man, “these two gung-ho cowboys decided to take their stolen car for a drive. This, I must say, is exactly why we were against inviting anyone from countries with overly free presses. They think they can say and do anything they please. They adhere to no discipline whatsoever.”