I Shot the Buddha

by Colin Cotterill

  “Was everything neat and tidy?”

  “There were odds and ends lying around. A shirt slung over the chair. A cup and a spoon on the table. A saucer beneath it on the ground. A saucepan on the range, quite clean. Its lid off and lying beside it. A jacket on a nail behind the door.”

  Siri closed his eyes to imagine the scene. “So nothing unusual happened during the entire time you were in the room?”

  “Nothing at all. When I was walking out I heard one of the inhabitants of another room crying. A woman or a young girl. But that was none of my business.”

  “Did they match?”

  “Did what match?”

  “The cup on the table and the saucer on the floor.”

  “How on earth is that relevant?”

  “Indulge an old man.”

  “I must say I didn’t make a note of the design.”

  “Was the saucer broken?”

  “No.”

  “What was it made of?”

  “Some sort of ceramic material I imagine. I don’t know. I didn’t pick it up. I wasn’t about to do the washing up.”

  The doctor put his hand to his chin like all good detectives in the films were wont to do. Mr. Geung arrived at the top of the stairs with a large steaming bowl of broth and handed it to the judge.

  “I don’t . . .” Haeng began, but the aroma from the bowl cut his rejection short.

  “You will,” said Siri. “And I don’t suppose you still have those keys in your office, do you?”

  •••

  “We’re looking for my uncle,” said Nurse Dtui. “We’re a little worried about him. He set off on his bicycle three days ago, and we haven’t seen him since. He’s senile, you know.”

  It was an untruthful story repeated twenty times. Dtui sat on the rear seat of the police department’s lilac Vespa while Phosy played the dumb driver. Citizens were more likely to help a fat woman with a young child than a policeman. Residents would even duck into the neighbors’ places to ask around.

  “She’s lost her uncle,” they’d say. “He’s quite mad,” they’d say. And those days a lot of old and infirm people with nothing to do sat on their front stoops staring gormlessly at the road. So far Phosy and Dtui had three confirmed sightings of Noo the forest monk heading southeast the Saturday before. He’d set off along Nongbon Avenue and made a number of lefts and rights on small dirt lanes before arriving at the Tardeua road. He seemed to be heading away from everything. He was already two kilometers from where he’d set out and showed no signs of flagging. He clearly had an objective even though Phosy’s map displayed few landmarks along the quiet road that eventually led to the ferry crossing.

  A kilometer from the last sighting, just before the Australian recreation center, Phosy and Dtui struck gold. They’d worked up a thirst from the road dust so they stopped at a bamboo kiosk. The proprietor, a shorter but wider version of Dtui, sat on a stool behind a regiment of cordial bottles. The colors bore no relation to anything to be found in nature, so you tended to order by color rather than flavor. To a blind man the tastes would have been identical.

  An untidy banana tree provided the only shade, so Phosy parked beneath it, and there they drank their sugary colors. The woman stared at them.

  “From Vientiane, are you?” she said. Making it sound as if the city were a short flight away rather than a twenty-minute ride.

  “Resident but not born there,” Dtui told her. “Out on a day trip. This is a nice, quiet spot.”

  The woman continued to stare at them rudely. Dtui was about to tell her the story of their uncle when the woman beat her to it.

  “You’d be surprised,” she said.

  “About what?” asked Dtui.

  Malee was already buzzed from the sugar hit, so her mother pulled the glass away. As the addiction had started to kick in, the child voiced her displeasure. Dtui took a small ice cube and put it into her daughter’s mouth. It’s hard to whine with a lump of ice on your tongue.

  “You’d think out here in the wilds nothing would ever happen,” said the woman. “I mean, there can’t be more than twenty vehicles a day passing my shop. But you’d be surprised.”

  “Then surprise us,” said Dtui.

  “Right there,” she said, pointing to a spot beside the road that had nothing remarkable about it. “That’s where they nabbed him.”

  “Who?” said Phosy.

  “Some poor little old uncle on a bicycle,” she said.

  “Straw hat? Flowery shirt?” asked Dtui.

  “Yes. Looked like he done no harm to no one in his life. Just pottering along on his bicycle he was. Having a nice ride.”

  Phosy and Dtui stepped down from the bike and stood on either side of her.

  “What happened?” Dtui asked.

  The woman smiled for the first time. This was her blockbuster story, and she wanted everyone to know it.

  “He was pottering along,” she said.

  “We know that,” said Phosy.

  “And the two boys was behind him on a big motorcycle. They was riding really slow, and they bumped him. Bang. No, not really ‘bang.’ In fact there wasn’t no sound. Just their tire bumped his tire, and the old uncle lost his balance and fell off. Probably got a nasty graze from the gravel. They keep saying they’re going to put a surface on this road but—”

  “What happened to the uncle?” Dtui asked.

  “That’s just it. The boys got off their bike and went to pick him up. I’m thinking they’re saying ‘Sorry, Uncle,’ you know? Something like that. ‘You all right?’ But instead they grab him really rough-like. And one of the boys looks over here at my enterprise. At first I thought he might want to buy a glass of red to revive the uncle, but afterward, I got to thinking. What if he was checking for witnesses? You see, I’m a bit short and from the road you can’t barely see me behind the bottles. So perhaps they’re thinking I’m off on my lunch break. I only thought that after. I’ve had time to think, you see?”

  “But then . . . ?” said Dtui.

  “But then, to my shock and horror, they punch him one in the face and drag him to their bike and squash him like in a sandwich. One of them in front, one at the back. And they drive off with him. Just like that.”

  “Did he put up a fight?” Phosy asked.

  “No, went like a baby.”

  “What direction did they go?”

  “Turned round and went right back the way they came.”

  “Were they in uniform?”

  “No. T-shirts and long trousers.”

  “Short hair?”

  “Yeah. Military types. Both of them were quite good-looking to tell you the truth. Wouldn’t have minded if they’d come for a drink, if you know what I mean. Unless they were planning to kill me, of course. I wouldn’t have liked that at all.”

  “Where’s the bicycle?” asked Dtui.

  “What?” Blood leaked into the woman’s cheeks.

  “The uncle’s bicycle,” said Dtui. “What happened to it?”

  “Don’t know,” said the woman in a way that made it obvious she did.

  Phosy flashed his badge, she shrugged and they all traipsed off to the woman’s small hut some thirty meters from the road. The bicycle took pride of place behind a mountain of empty cordial bottles.

  As Laos had no coinage, Dtui flipped a bottle top and Phosy had the honor of riding the bicycle back to police headquarters. Dtui drove the Vespa with Malee on her lap. On the way home she considered what she’d heard. Comrade Noo had been snatched in broad daylight. But why and by whom? She had a feeling her husband was about to get himself involved in a very elaborate runaround.

  •••

  Siri’s beloved Triumph motorcycle lived under a tarpaulin in the backyard of his government-appointed house. Thanks to a little good fortune that had befallen him and Civil
ai during a previous case, he had a sum of money put aside. This meant that unlike everyone else he’d be able to fill his tank and go places. But the paper chain of documents needed just to pass the first police post ten kilometers from the city, and the subsequent laissez-passers to enter every town thereafter, really took away a man’s urge. He wasn’t the type to ride around Vientiane with his nose in the air, so the Triumph went nowhere. He did like to look at it from time to time, though.

  “I’ll buy it from you,” said Inthanet, the old Luang Prabang puppet master.

  “With what?” asked Siri.

  “My fiancée has a nest egg,” he said, proudly.

  Siri looked at him and, as usual, could see nothing irresistible: thinning hair hanging on for dear life to a bald patch, beady eyes, a small stack of chins and a weedy frame with no arse. Yet the man was like a magnet to thoroughly passable women of all ages. It could have been explained if he were a multimillionaire, but to make matters worse, he was always broke.

  “Is this the fiancée who sings ballads at the Anou Hotel?” Siri asked.

  “Ah, Siri, sadly, that didn’t work out. My current darling has a cattery. Siamese. Some very valuable. As soon as the Thais reopen the border crossings we have orders queued up.”

  “Shouldn’t be long,” said Siri. “Their prime minister was here last week mending fences. He and our fellow issued a joint communiqué about certain past misunderstandings along the border. I’m not sure who’s courting whom but I’m sure we can expect to see a lot more Thai rubbish in the market quite soon. Get your kitties out while the coast’s clear. It never lasts.”

  They were joined by Tong, the reformed prostitute who had become the house mother at Siri’s home for strays.

  “Hello, Granddad,” she said, and put her arm around Siri’s waist. He could smell an entire garden of passionflower oil on her.

  “Isn’t it about time to start coating that old motorbike with gold leaf?” she said.

  “We aren’t worshipping her,” said Siri. “We’re admiring her lines. Basking in the nostalgia of how fast she used to go.”

  “I suppose I can relate to that,” she said. “Are you here for a house meeting?”

  “No. Nothing to talk about. I’m here to see you.”

  “Ooh, we are honored.”

  “What do you know about Imelda Marcos?”

  “I know she’s not having my room,” said Tong. “I suppose she could double up with the Vietnamese, but she has strange bathing habits.”

  “Actually she’s the wife of . . .” Siri began.

  “I know who she is. I’m just playing with you.”

  “Do you know where she keeps her favorite shoes?”

  “Of course I do. It was in Thai Fanzine a week ago. I read it to everyone in the house.”

  “Was Noo here?”

  “He was eating it up. He loves celebrity gossip.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “Where does she keep her favorite shoes?”

  The house refrigerator was a Dnepr made in the Soviet Union and barely large enough for a sad Leningrad spinster, let alone a dozen assorted squatters. Yet there was something traditionally Lao about the contents. In a shared house in the West there’d be territories. “Susan’s shelf.” “William’s yogurt. Hands off.” But the Lao fridge had no such borders. You’d eat something, and the next time you went to the market you’d buy something similar. Or you cooked for everyone and everyone went food shopping. No reason at all for heart palpitations over a missing radish. But it was a policy that made it difficult to identify anything specifically belonging to Noo.

  “Imelda Marcos loves crocodile skin so fresh it almost snaps at her toes,” said Tong, still quoting the fanzine article. “But, surprisingly, crocodile skin doesn’t like the tropics. It goes bad easy. Smells a bit. So when you’re the wife of the President of the Philippines, you probably have twenty refrigerators just for your shoes.”

  She stood with Siri staring into the fridge, looking for something with personality. But it was a generic food supply depot. No labels. Nothing allergy specific. No personal tastes.

  “It all looks so healthy,” said Siri.

  “We can’t afford junk,” said Tong. “But Noo did have a sweet tooth.”

  “Hm,” said Siri. “Healthy but sweet. Let’s start digging.”

  They removed the fridge contents one by one, examining each leaf, every spring roll skin for hidden messages. Siri reached the point where he was looking for the meaning behind ingredients that shared a plastic bag or were tied together in a bundle. Then he saw the bamboo. There was one stick of kow lahm; sticky rice baked in a narrow bamboo tube and sweetened with red beans. The tube was sealed at each end with a wedge of banana leaf. Even before he opened it, Siri knew where he’d find the hidden message of Comrade Noo.

  “There were two notes,” said Siri.

  He turned on the flashlight to show Daeng the first. He and Daeng had cleaned up after the evening rush and were sitting on bamboo recliners on the riverbank. The Mekhong was scarred with sandbanks that sliced the twinkly reflections from the Thai side. The only lighting Vientiane had to offer was the dim papaya glow of candles in windows here and there. The moon was late to rise. The Lao liked to say that it was probably held up by paperwork.

  The first of Noo’s notes was written in Thai in beautiful hand on one side of a sheet of lined paper. Siri let Daeng read it silently to herself.

  Dear Siri,

  This letter is probably unnecessary but in light of the commitments I’ve made this past week, I considered what a shame it would be if I merely disappeared. I’m sorry to have been so secretive about my past and I apologize deeply that I am sharing this information in writing and not in person. It means a lot to me that you and Daeng never pried into my past. My story is brief and its content not uncommon.

  I joined the monkhood because my wife left with our daughter, to live with another man. They moved to Bangkok. My first reaction was to kill them. I followed them to the capital and traced their whereabouts. I procured a gun and lay in wait. That their movements diverted them from a fatal confrontation with me again and again could only have been fate. The endless wait allowed me time to reflect on why karma had been so biased in their favor when I was the wronged party. And one night I awoke and saw my true self as clearly as a cockroach stepping under a kitchen lightbulb. I saw all my faults and failings and I detested myself. I threw the gun into the Chao Praya River and fled to a monastery.

  Twenty-five years on I am still in robes and on the road, putting myself in harm’s way in an attempt to purge myself of the bastard in me. On the back of this note is an address in Bangkok. It’s where my daughter lives with her family. I’ve had the abbot at her local temple keep me informed of her movements. At first I thought I’d like someone to tell her about the selfishly motivated good deeds I’ve done. But, actually, I regret that I lacked the courage to tell her I was sorry. Sorry I didn’t give her a better start to her life. Sorry that I ignored her. All I want her to know is that I spent almost half my life trying to gain her respect . . . yet was too afraid to beg for it.

  Daeng released a puff of air. Somewhere in the middle of the note she’d stopped breathing.

  “It wasn’t till I read it that I realized I’d known nothing about him,” said Siri. “We’d been acquainted for almost a year but we’d never talked about his life.”

  Daeng took a swig of her nightcap. “So many people are congested with guilt,” she said. “Clogged with secrets and unsated hatred and regrets. It’s a wonder they don’t burst.”

  “I suppose we all burst in our own ways,” said Siri.

  “Does it get worse in note two?”

  “Not at all. He’s got everything off his chest. In note two we arrive at the intrigue.”

  Dear Siri Part Two,

&nb
sp; I suppose whilst in this “if something has happened to me” mode, I may as well attempt to salvage the mission I’ve obviously failed at. Siri, I have absolutely no right to ask you to do this, but, should insanity once again strike you, here is the plan as it stands. On the morning of the twenty-ninth of this month, at 2 a.m., I was to meet a monk on Donchan Island. Measures would be taken to neutralize the Lao sentries at that point there along the river. A small boat would come from the Thai side and take us across to a spot where a truck would be waiting for us. It would take us to Nong Khai where we’d spend the night and take the first public bus to Udon. There, a Thai delegation would be waiting for us. They would take responsibility for the monk and my task would have been fulfilled. As simple as that. I’m sorry I’m unable to give you any more details but you have to understand this is a vital mission. It would mean a great deal to me if you could take it on. If you do decide to do so, I can’t offer you any reward other than the likelihood that you will be reincarnated as the next king of Laos if you are successful.

  Daeng looked at Siri while the small flickering lights could still pick out his smiling eyes.

  “Siri,” she said.

  “Yes, my love?”

  “You’re considering it, aren’t you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Siri?”

  “Perhaps a little bit. Although there are any number of reasons why I’d not want to come back as the king of Laos.”

  They sipped on their Vietnamese rum, its edge tempered by a squeeze of sweet plum. In the river they saw the silhouette of a naked man wading between the sandbanks. Crazy Rajhid the Indian came into his own after dark, inhabiting a world only he could see. Siri waved at him and he froze in position. He still believed he could make himself invisible by keeping very still.

  “We can see you!” shouted Siri.

  “I’d have to come too, of course,” said Daeng.

  “I wouldn’t want it any other way,” said Siri. “But what about . . .”

  “The shop? You’d be surprised what Mr. Geung has learned to do with a noodle sieve.”

  Before parting company, the league of comrades had one last afternoon meeting in the noodle restaurant. The topic was the eerie connection: three separate missions all related to Buddhism. Dtui, delighted to be taking a week away from her deathly dull classes, would be managing the restaurant in Daeng’s absence. Mr. Geung would produce the noodles. He’d already displayed his prowess that lunchtime. Some were even game to admit there was little difference between the two chefs. As Geung’s teacher, Madam Daeng was not in the least offended. Mr. Geung’s fiancée, Tukta, would wait tables and provide the glamour. There were still those who looked down on a Down syndrome relationship but Daeng’s no-name restaurant didn’t want customers like that anyway.