“Then they’ll shoot me,” said Dtui, surprisingly cheerful.
“Possible,” said Phosy. “But they know I’m on the case, and I probably have backup.”
“That’s me,” said Tumsin the butcher.
“They wouldn’t want to risk a shootout or a fistfight,” Phosy continued. “I guess a sniper on the riverbank or in a boat might work, but he’d be sitting there all night hoping Dtui walks past a window.”
“And the military couldn’t hit a buffalo from two meters,” said Sergeant Sihot.
“Things have changed since you were in the army,” Phosy told him. “They have time to train them now.”
“Let’s face it,” said Dtui. “The motorcycle rider asked if I’m sleeping here. They’ll go the ninja route. Wait till everyone’s asleep, tippy-toe over the rooftops, drop down through an open window and garrote me before I have a chance to let out a scream.”
“That’s the way I’d do it,” said Phosy.
“See why I married him?” said Dtui. “We have so much in common.”
Mr. Geung turned to his fiancée, Tukta.
“I wo-won’t let anyone garrote you, darling,” he said, and they kissed. Everyone turned away.
With Sergeant Sihot on point on the riverbank and Rajhid still clinging to the upper branches of his tree, the front of the restaurant was taken care of. Mr. Geung with Tukta on pillion rode the restaurant bicycle in the direction of Siri’s house just in case they were being watched. At the Lane Xang Hotel they dismounted and crept back through the shadows to take up their positions. The others pulled down the metal shutters, and turned out the lights. With butcher Tumsin on a stool in the small backyard clutching his favorite cleaver, Phosy and Dtui went upstairs confident that every eventuality was covered. Their inquisitive daughter was absent, and they weren’t expecting to be slaughtered in their beds until after midnight, so for half an hour they took advantage of the comfortable mattress and the abundance of adrenalin before retiring to their respective rooms.
The motorcycle ninja was not spotted when he returned to the restaurant at 2 A.M. because he had hopped over the small wall into the backyard and not disturbed the sleeping butcher. The upstairs window shutters were open. His equipment was simple enough: a rope with a football sock tied to one end. Inside the sock was a metal petong ball. He aimed for a point between the shutters and tossed the rope. The ball arced and looped over the left shutter, pulling the rope back into the hands of the waiting ninja. And there it hung. He pulled on the ends to test the hinges then hoisted himself up with the agility of a gibbon.
It could not have been simpler. He perched on the window ledge looking down at the fat girl. She was alone. It was a dark, cloudy night, but she was burning a scented candle beside her sleeping mat. The flame flickered. She wore a figure-hugging nylon nightdress. Her hair fanned out across the pillow. He liked them big. It was almost a shame he had to kill her. But he’d screwed up once. He couldn’t get it wrong again. His bare feet made no sound on the parquet floor. The blade was in a holster at his belt. It was a ballet he’d choreographed. Two steps forward, slash, two steps back to avoid the blood. He took the first step, except . . .
Some dark angular shape appeared in the window frame through which he’d just climbed. He turned his head and saw some half-naked Indian sitting on the ledge. And the naked half was not the top. Then, in an instant, someone was on him from the other side. One strong hand grabbed the wrist that held the blade in an unbreakable grip. The sleeping woman had been neither asleep nor a woman. The wig remained fanned out on the pillow bereft of a head. Crazy Rajhid leapt from the sill and positioned himself so he could kick the motorcycle ninja in the groin. No martial art on the planet can counter that. Then another man came, then a woman, and the ninja was pinned to the parquet tiles like a moth in a museum display cabinet.
“Bugger it,” he said.
•••
An unused foreign language could fade as rapidly as the flowers in a wreath. For fifteen years in Paris, French had come more naturally to him than Lao. Now here was Civilai in a dusty temple office with stacks of mildewed papers on the table in front of him. Every one of the reports he read was a challenge to his eyesight and to his memory. Sirimongkol Temple was more functional than decorative. Its large events hall had become a community center with Vietnamese language classes, bomb disposal workshops and lessons in beekeeping. Hives were spaced out across a yard that was once gay with festivals. But early that morning when Civilai had arrived the only movement was from a flock of chickens being shooed out of the prayer hall.
There was just the one monk in residence, a feebleminded young man more used to following orders than making decisions. He’d remembered the two old French suitcases and had led Civilai to a tall wooden cupboard where they’d remained untouched for decades. He hadn’t asked Civilai his name or what his business was. He didn’t tell the visitor to be careful with the old documents. He just laughed a little when Civilai said “thank you.”
One suitcase contained paper spaghetti and droppings. There were several entrances and exits in the vinyl that were the shape of mouse holes in cartoons, which gave Civilai cause to chuckle. The contents had served the temple rats better than they would him. The other suitcase had proven too much of a challenge for the rodents. It was also almost beyond Civilai. He’d spent about half an hour with his penknife attempting to free the spring locks from their rusty shrouds. He’d feared the documents would be unreadable. When the lid finally lifted the stink of mold on the leather case overpowered him. But the lettering was so clear on most of the papers they might have been typed a week earlier.
From the dates Teacher Grit had provided, Civilai narrowed down the search to the period around 1942. He worked his way down the stack, wondering whether he might succumb to lung infection before he found what he was looking for. It had been a fruitless search so far. In fact the only personal communication he’d found referring to Administrateur Marche was a formal letter from Paris telling him the Vichy would honor its agreement to ship the administrator’s luggage to France at the end of his truncated tenure. The phrase that Civilai found interesting in the letter was, “. . . despite the unfortunate circumstances.” It went on to give details on how to itemize personal belongings but did not elaborate on what the unfortunate circumstances might be.
It was not until Civilai started to sift through the personal correspondence of Administrateur Lebouef, Marche’s successor, that a plot began to unfurl. Shortly after he took over, Lebouef had been asked to host a Monsieur Gallas, a junior detective from the French Sûreté Nationale. He had been appointed to conduct inquiries into the activities of Administrateur Marche during his stay in Laos. Evidently, somebody of importance had curtailed Marche’s contract and ordered an investigation. There were no copies of Monsieur Gallas’s reports, but Administrateur Lebouef had included the original mission statement with his letter to the protectorate.
It appeared that Marche had been less than candid about his background when applying for a post in French Indochina, and the Paris police had been less than conscientious in their examination of the man’s past. If they had been more thorough they would have found the records of his involvement in two court cases dealing with the disappearance of teenage girls. In both cases, the prosecution had failed to make a strong enough argument against Marche, who was subsequently acquitted. Thus, Marche had had no legal obligation to disclose the arrests. The mission statement went on to say:
Our office became involved in this affair following M. Marche’s written application for acquiescence to take up a government post in Paris upon his return. It is the guiding principle of the Vichy administration to thoroughly scrutinize applicants for official positions. Whilst examining the administrator’s affairs prior to his appointment in Indochina we uncovered the court dealings and a number of other complaints which had, for some reason, not been investigated. There we
re also several grievances from French and Vietnamese citizens reported during his tenure in Pak Xan. We came upon one complaint, for example, from a French accountant, M. Charles Delon, who was employed by the Vichy throughout the region during that time. He claimed that Administrateur Marche had been integral in the procurement of teenage girls in Laos. The accountant had been made aware of this matter by his clerical assistant, a French citizen of Vietnamese origin, who was the mother of one of the girls concerned.
As the procurement of teenage girls was not a rare occurrence in Laos and the arrangement was usually deemed to be consensual, the matter was not further pursued at the time. It was only when viewed in relation to the earlier cases that we began to see a pattern. Our department commenced an investigation into the actions of M. Marche with more vigor, and it was then that we uncovered suspicion of crimes far more nefarious than mere kidnapping. This is the rationale behind Marche’s recall to France and Inspector Gallas’s journey to Indochina and specifically to Pak Xan. It is hoped he will be able to gather sufficient data to support our suspicions and build a strong legal case against Marche. We appreciate your cooperation in this matter.
Yours sincerely,
Police Commissioner Alain Boyer
“Crimes far more nefarious than mere kidnapping,” said Civilai aloud. “Damn, if that doesn’t leave a reader on the edge of his seat.”
He huffed and coughed his way through another half hour of administrative dross but found neither a word of the progress of Inspector Gallas nor reports on a trial nor further mention of the Vietnamese clerk’s missing daughter. But Civilai persevered because, as Siri often said, “A story without an ending is like a tin of corned beef without a can opener.”
The sun had reached its highest point by the time Civilai found another mention of the case. It was in a copy of a monthly report from Administrateur Lebouef to his desk officer in Paris. It was the seventeenth of forty-two asterisked items on issues pending. It was a short but tart reference—one that made the hairs stand up on Civilai’s arms.
Six months on and still no news of the whereabouts of Inspector Gallas.
Civilai walked back to his guesthouse with no great urgency. He found it hard to walk fast and be brilliant at the same time. And this matter needed all the brilliance he could muster. He hoped the team he’d requested would be there soon. There was something eerie, threatening even, about the whole situation. Having some ministry people beside him would buoy his confidence. Initially his inquiries about the old colonial building had been unrelated to the reception he hadn’t been given. It was just idle interest. But he’d been uncomfortable about the place since they’d first parked in front of it. Innocuous but imposing at the same time, it stood out like an Arc de Triomphe in the desert. There was no logical link between a reluctant would-be Buddha and a French child abuser more than thirty years earlier, but Civilai was certain a connection existed.
At the guesthouse a sweaty man in a dark grey shirt rose from the only chair in the reception area and nodded curtly. His haircut made him look like he’d run his head through the blades of a combine harvester.
“Civilai Songsawat?” he said.
“Yes.”
“I’m Sergeant Savath of the Pak Xan police force.”
“You’re a policeman?” said Civilai, looking him up and down.
“Yes,” he said.
“You’re wearing rubber flip-flops.”
“They’re comfortable.”
Until Civilai’s visit to Pak Xan, anarchy had been just a theoretical concept. Perhaps he’d been sheltered as a high-ranking official because he’d never actually felt it. But this area was crawling with a tangible sense of disrespect. Pak Xan anarchy exposed itself through its bad attitude.
“Do you have official police business with me?” Civilai snapped.
“Yes.”
“Then go home and come back appropriately dressed.”
He tried to push past the solid man to get to the staircase, but the policeman grabbed his arm. Civilai pulled away and was about to play his “Do you know who I am?” card when the policeman beat him to the payoff.
“Early this morning a woman’s body was found in the reeds a few meters from where you and your wife were getting drunk on Sunday night.”
Civilai took a step back, and the policeman released his grip.
“She’d been dead about forty-eight hours,” Savath continued. “She’d been beaten so bad we couldn’t recognize her at first. When we found out who she was we learned something interesting. The evening she died, guess who the last person she was seen speaking to was?”
•••
Siri’s experience with real judges was limited. In fact the only arbitrators he’d ever appeared in front of were either military officers appointed to settle disputes or Haeng, who everyone agreed was a poor excuse for a judge. Siri’s idea of what a judge should look like had been fashioned from early Hollywood, where the man in the chair was always balding and had white muttonchops and wise, saggy eyes.
So when Suthon, the traveling public prosecutor of Udon Thani entered the temporary courtroom Siri looked behind him for the real judge. Nobody else came. In Siri’s eyes, the prosecutor was a boy. He was pale with no chin and had an ill-fitting piggy nose. He didn’t even have a robe and instead wore a white shirt with a tie and black trousers like a college student. Siri’s first instinct was to shout out, “How old are you exactly?” But to Madam Daeng’s relief he kept his mouth shut.
They’d arrived three hours earlier in the back of the Sawan truck that was only ever used on special occasions. The Sangharaj had climbed aboard the truck’s flatbed without complaints. He’d pulled his robe over his head to protect himself from the sun and hummed some non-ecclesiastical tunes all the way to Nam Som.
Siri had stared at him and imagined himself as a supreme patriarch. He was certain he wouldn’t be at all humble. He’d ride around the country on his Triumph in his American sunglasses rooting out sinners. He’d have S.P. stamped in gold lettering on the back of his leather jacket. Perhaps that was why nobody had asked him to be the supreme patriarch.
The young judge was going through cases at a cracking pace. Siri noticed he dispensed wisdom only when he thought the accused might appreciate and understand it. Otherwise he’d hand out punishments with no embellishments. He knew the law and the penalty for breaking it. He spoke well and not over the heads of the uneducated. Despite the fact that the man, perhaps in his forties but clean shaven, was far too young for his position, Siri found himself admiring him.
Some of the accused entered the room in leg shackles led by uniformed police officers. When they’d heard the verdict they’d be escorted either back to the cells or into the arms of freedom. In most cases the only words they spoke were, “I do,” when the administrator asked whether they understood the judgment. There was no schedule posted, and the only list of cases to be dealt with was the one on the table in front of the judge. So it was a pleasant surprise when he looked up and said, “I see Abbot Rayron is in the room and unchained.”
Captain Gumron had been sitting at the rear of the courtroom writing reports. He hurried to the front and wai’d the judge. To Siri’s further surprise, the judge wai’d him back.
“The abbot has been under the supervision of the Sangharaj of Laos,” said the captain.
“And that’s gone well, has it?” asked the judge.
“Quite well, sir. That is . . . until this morning.”
“Don’t tell me there was another incident,” said the judge.
“Murder. The report should be on your desk, sir,” said the captain.
“Witnesses?”
“One.”
“Reliability?”
“Blind as an earthworm, sir.”
The young judge looked at the abbot. “It seems like I have a new accusation against you every time I c
ome here,” he said. “What are we going to do with you?”
It was undoubtedly a rhetorical question, but Siri felt an uncontrollable urge to answer it.
“Release him,” said the doctor.
Daeng pinched his arm.
“What was that?” said the judge. “Somebody have something to say?”
“It was me,” said Siri.
Daeng sighed loudly.
“And you are . . . ?” said the judge.
“Sir, he’s just . . .” began the captain, but the judge waved him off.
“Just an old student of the process of law,” said Siri.
The judge smiled. “Your name, sir?”
“Dr. Siri Paiboun.”
“And what is your assessment of this case, old student?” asked the judge.
Siri stood. “That the evidence is scant and largely circumstantial, the witnesses are unreliable and above all there is no motive.”
Siri saw what he hoped was a smile of admiration on the young judge’s face.
“I can tell from your accent that you hail from a country that currently has no laws,” said the judge.
“Which is why I admire a legal system that has such clearly defined parameters,” said Siri.
“Good response, old fellow,” said the judge. “I don’t often find men in my courtroom who can put together such long, grammatically correct sentences. Perhaps someday we can sit down over a beer and discuss the relative values of law versus lawlessness. But in the meantime I think I’ll have to run with the premise that if enough circumstantial evidence falls repeatedly on the same suspect we cross the line of coincidence and enter the realm of probability.”
“But you haven’t even read the latest report,” said Siri.
“Indeed I haven’t, comrade counsel for the defense,” said the judge, still with a pleasant smile on his face. “But it seems whenever I fail to put the abbot in a cell somebody else ends up dead. And being a coincidence doesn’t make them any less dead. So, Abbot Rayron, I am ordering your detention here in a lockup at the Nam Som police station until we can transfer you to Udon Thani provincial court to face the charge of three counts of premeditated murder.”
I Shot the Buddha Page 15