I Shot the Buddha

by Colin Cotterill

  “What should I do?” Siri asked.

  “See if you can frighten them,” said the younger girl.

  “Creep up on them,” said the elder.

  Siri did his sneaky private detective walk toward the cupboard and the girls giggled excitedly.

  “One, two . . .” said Siri, and took hold of the cupboard door. “Three,” he said, and threw open the door. The girls screamed. Siri jumped back. But the only thing to overpower him was the sweet smell of fresh linen and warm towels. He looked around but the girls were gone. He walked to the sofa and sat down.

  “Now everyone’s disappeared,” he said, which was the cue for the girls to leap out from behind the seat and shout, “Boo!”

  Siri feigned a heart attack and collapsed on the sofa. The girls dived on top of him.

  “What are you doing back there?” came the mother’s angry voice. The girls and Siri sat up properly just as the mother arrived at the doorway. She put her hands on her hips. “Come here this minute,” she said, and the girls did as they were told. “Your father will be here at any moment. Get to the bathroom and wash off those nasty smells right away.”

  The girls ran laughing from the room.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  “No problem at all,” said Siri, and meant it.

  “I’ll get them washed. Make yourself at home.”

  Siri sat on the sofa with a smile on his face. Little children always made him happy. He would have been a good father, but fate and the Communist Party had denied him the opportunity. He looked around the room: tastefully decorated but nothing of great value. He looked at the linen cupboard. Its door was shut, although he didn’t remember closing it. He tried to recall where the ghosts in his own house had lived all those years before. But he couldn’t even remember having a house.

  Then he heard the voice.

  “Can you hear me?”

  The words were muffled, a male voice undoubtedly coming from the cupboard. Yet there had been no hiding space inside. How was it possible? He stood and walked toward it.

  As he was in Thailand, he asked in Thai, “Who’s in there?”

  “It’s me,” shouted the voice. “Can you hear me?”

  Siri grabbed the handle and yanked it open. This time there were no sweet-smelling sheets on shelves, only darkness and depth. And as the light of the room flooded into the cupboard, he briefly saw the outline of a man, a short, stocky man, walking away from him. He recognized him immediately.

  “Looking for our ghost, are you, Doctor?”

  Siri was as shocked by the sound as by the vision. He turned around to see the young prosecutor Suthon, standing behind him. The man smiled and wai’d politely. Siri responded with equal respect.

  “Your girls have traumatized me with their stories,” said Siri.

  “Then you’ll need a drink,” said Suthon. “Hang on there a minute.”

  The prosecutor left and Siri sat on the sofa. His heart was thumping. He’d wrestled with spirits and vanquished demons, but this was an entirely different dimension. Once again he’d met himself. This was his encounter from that night between the connecting doors. The music. The giggling. The scream. This was what he’d heard. It had happened three weeks earlier, yet here he was reliving it from the other side.

  “You strike me as a neat whisky man,” said Suthon, handing Siri a generously filled glass. His own drink was its equal. “You look a little pale,” he said. “Are you all right?” He sat down opposite Siri on a cane chair.

  “Wrestling with the under-fives takes it out of you,” said Siri.

  “Cheers,” said the judge.

  “Good luck,” said Siri.

  They raised their glasses and took a swig. The warmth soothed Siri’s troubled heart. Suthon seemed every bit as thirsty for a shot of good whisky as Siri. The doctor wondered how many evenings the man returned home with the weight of doubt on his shoulders. An honest man in his position was doomed to burn out or turn to drink.

  “You don’t seem surprised to see me here,” said Siri.

  “I set up my life to avoid surprises,” he said. “For example, I encourage our clerks at the public prosecutors department to accept bribes but to inform me as to what they were bribed to do. We all win like that. Today I received a phone call telling me an elderly gentleman was asking for my home address. She told me he’d arrived in an expensive car with a mature couple and a dog in the backseat. I fondly remembered you attending my court with a dog. So I told the clerk to accept nothing less than three thousand baht and to give you the address. Where is the dog, by the way?”

  “Clothes shopping,” said Siri.

  “I’m sure he’ll look adorable.”

  They laughed.

  “Why would you let me see you?” Siri asked.

  Suthon unfastened his tie and undid the top button of his shirt.

  “Can you believe they make us wear these stupid Western clothes in this heat?” he said. “Why did I agree to see you? I’ll be honest with you. I heard about the alleged suicide in Nam Som on the day of my return here. Frankly, I don’t like it. I don’t like anything about it.”

  “Excuse me if I sound a little cynical,” said Siri, “but you do appear to be opening up a little fast to a complete stranger.”

  Suthon laughed. “You’re not a stranger, Dr. Siri,” he said. “I know who you are and what you’ve achieved. I learned most of it the day after you entertained me in my courtroom in Nam Som. We Thais can be most resourceful if we’re interested enough.”

  “And why should I interest you, young man?”

  “Because you are what I hope to become. You’re brave. You damn the consequences of your actions. You survive against all odds, and you put your all behind even the most hopeless of cases.”

  “Like Abbot Rayron?”

  “Exactly.”

  “And there I was thinking your embassy in Vientiane was only good for tourist information. Or is your covert data hotline connected directly to the CIA?”

  “No need to be paranoid, Doctor. I didn’t learn anything negative about you. You have remarkable instincts. You’re here because you have information to share with me about the abbot. You chose me because you trust me. So let’s stop wasting time and get on with the job. What do you have?”

  Siri was pleased with his choice of confidant. The fellow was smart and enthusiastic. In a country where corruption ruled, Suthon would probably be assassinated for his honesty before he reached fifty, but his successes would inspire future generations. Siri read from his report because it was written in Lao and would be slow to plough through for a Thai. Suthon took notes throughout. He asked intelligent questions and offered practical suggestions. Somewhere in the middle of it, the girls came in to say goodnight to their father and to the kind grandfather who had gone in search of their ghost.

  “You’ve done a good job with them,” Siri told him when they left.

  “I hope so,” said Suthon. “It’s hard to know what’s right. You just have to learn from the mistakes of ignorant parents who let their children raise themselves. You come across them all the time in my line of work.”

  “I have no argument with you there,” said Siri.

  They were well down the bottle of scotch when Siri made his summation. They both considered the implications.

  “Nothing here,” said Siri. “Basically nothing of legal substance.”

  “I disagree,” said Suthon.

  “No evidence,” said Siri.

  Suthon was pacing slowly around the room. He stared at the doctor.

  “Siri,” he said, “I know you and your wife can’t wait around in Udon forever, but I’d like to think I’d be able to call you back to give evidence once we’ve put a case together.”

  Siri was delighted. “You’re that confident?” he said.

  “Absolu
tely.”

  “Then it would be a pleasure.”

  “We’d pay for travel and accommodation, of course,” said Suthon.

  “Even more pleasurable.”

  “When’s your mad monk driver picking you up?”

  “Hard to say,” said Siri. “Madam Daeng’s shopping in a foreign country that has choices. She can’t afford anything, but there’s nothing stopping her from trying on everything in the stores. I’m sure they’ll be here before dark though.”

  “Excellent. I promise I’ll keep you informed of every eventuality. And rest assured I won’t give up until we have that bastard policeman in front of the executioner. That much I can promise you.”

  Suthon stood.

  “Come through to my office,” he said, “and I’ll give you my business card with some phone and fax numbers on it. I’m sure you’ll eventually get a line out of that sorry little country of yours.”

  Siri staggered a little from the bump of the whisky and walked slowly out into the hall. Either the whisky was a lot stronger than he was used to or the toils of the previous week were catching up with him. He held on to the office door frame and focused. When the room became clear his jaw dropped. He could not believe his eyes. It was not late at night. There were no insects buzzing around a lamp outside the window. There were no dark shadows. But this was the room, the crossover room Siri had entered from the connecting doors.

  Suthon was crouched over his desk looking through the drawer.

  “I’ve got one here somewhere,” he said. “Lots of cards but never the one you’re looking for. Isn’t it always the way?”

  Siri shuffled unsteadily across the room in search of the door he’d passed through that night. There was none. He leaned against the wall as a wave of fatigue broke over him.

  “You probably wouldn’t have a card, would you, Coroner?”

  Siri felt for a door handle, a hinge, the texture of wood, but there was nothing. He began to slide down the wall like a dollop of cooking lard until he was in a sitting position.

  The last thing he heard before he lost consciousness was, “. . . given the shit hole of a country you come from.”

  “I’m afraid you’ve missed him,” said Suthon. He was standing on the front porch hand in hand with his silent wife.

  “He went without us?” said Madam Daeng, still winded from her jog from the car.

  “We invited him to stay for supper, but he said he’d troubled us enough already,” said the prosecutor. “He seemed to be in a hurry to go somewhere.”

  “Do you have any idea where?”

  “He asked me where the nearest samlor taxi stand was. I told him it was on the next block and he headed off. I’m sorry. I didn’t think to ask where he was going.”

  “That’s all right,” said Daeng. “He’s always disappearing. We’ll find him. Thank you.”

  “You’re most welcome.”

  She was about to head back to the car when a thought hit her. “Did he leave you the report?” she asked.

  “We went through it together,” said the prosecutor. “It’s all taken care of. I told the doctor I’d keep you all informed of events.”

  “That’s a relief. Good night, then.”

  “Good night.”

  At that moment, to ex-monk Boh’s surprise, Ugly leapt from the backseat of the car onto his lap and then through the open window. The dog sprinted past Daeng on the garden path barking wildly. The prosecutor and his wife had barely made it inside the screen door when the hound arrived and butted the mesh with his head. Madam Daeng hurried back, took the dog by the collar and yanked him away.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “He’s never done that before.”

  Ugly continued to bark.

  “I have to accept responsibility for that,” said the prosecutor. “Our bitch is in heat. Every dog on the street has been queuing at our door for the past week. I really should have had her spayed.”

  Boh arrived from the car with a length of electrical cord to use as a leash. Ugly was howling. It took the two of them to wrestle the mad dog back to the car. Even as they were driving away, Ugly continued to snarl and drool against the rear window.

  Suthon shut the front door, walked past his wife, who stood silently in the reception area with her head bowed, unlocked his office door and went inside. He relocked the door and turned on the light. Siri sat off in one corner on the guest chair. He was gagged with several layers of cellophane tape. His hands were cuffed to the wooden rungs of the chair arms.

  “Oh, you’re awake,” said the prosecutor. “Splendid. I need to talk to you.”

  He sat on the leather chair behind the desk and started to write.

  “I didn’t really need to cuff you,” he said. “That was just in case you fell out of the chair. The sedative will eventually work its way through your system, but I doubt you’ll have any feeling in your extremities for another nine hours or so. You certainly won’t be able to walk. And they warn us about that one last glass for the road, don’t they? And do we listen? If I remove the tape do you think you could resist the temptation to shout? I mean, it wouldn’t do you any good if you did. The little lady is completely complacent, and the neighbors won’t hear you because I have air-conditioning in here and thick glass windows.”

  Siri nodded. The prosecutor took the paper knife from his desk, slit the tape behind Siri’s ear and ripped it off. The doctor took four or five heavy breaths.

  “Oh, that’s right,” said the prosecutor, “you have breathing problems, don’t you? I think I can use that somehow in your untimely death. Running for a bus or something. Nobody will think twice about it. You’re old. You should have died a long time ago. Yes. That would have saved me a lot of trouble.”

  “Congratulations,” said Siri. His lips were numb. The words slurred.

  “On what?”

  “I had no suspicion whatsoever. You weren’t even on my list of suspects.”

  “I know,” said Suthon. “That’s why I had to see your list. It almost passed inspection, too. Captain Gumron was such a perfect candidate given that you were looking for a policeman. But you see, the Royal Thai Police Academy has graduate courses that allow a bright man such as myself to attain a lofty position. No sooner was I in uniform blowing a whistle than there I was one step below a high court judge. The land of opportunity.”

  “What part of my report upset you?” Siri asked.

  “That one small item. You mentioned it in passing in your report, and when I questioned you about it you hedged. You said your man was looking into it. Kritsana Mukum, Dusit Insurance Company, Suan Dusit. It was the only clue even vaguely traceable back to me. Where did that come from?”

  “I can’t tell you,” said Siri.

  The prosecutor laughed. “You’re hardly in a position to refuse.”

  “Well, if I can’t feel my arms and legs, torture isn’t going get you very far, is it?”

  The prosecutor returned to his desk with a smile on his face. “You really don’t care if you die, do you?” he said.

  “I’ve had a good life.”

  “You do know this is all there is to it, don’t you?”

  “This what?”

  “This earth. This lifetime you’re just coming to the end of. You do know there’s nothing more to look forward to?”

  “Ah, a pure atheist.”

  “A realist, Siri. Belief is the greatest fault in humanity. You expect a deal from the beyond, from the almighty, from the chosen one. You expect a part two. You get run over by a tuktuk on Monday and by Tuesday afternoon you think you’ll be sipping a cold beer on a balcony overlooking the gates of whatever heaven you’ve invested in.”

  “And where do you think your victims are now?” Siri asked.

  “Wherever they’re filed or scattered or rendered to ash. Their contribution to earth—if t
hey made one—ended when their hearts stopped beating. The lights went out, the ventilation system shut down and that being ceased to be. The story endeth.”

  “What about your children?”

  “What about them?” he snapped.

  “Don’t they have a right to believe in something?”

  “No.”

  “No? How can you stop them?”

  “I can stop them because I am their father. I can stop them the same way you stop your son from smoking or your daughter from dating unsavory boys. You teach them through example. By being a responsible parent.”

  “Not like your parents.”

  That reference started a tic in one corner of the prosecutor’s mouth. Siri was in no doubt that Suthon was Lim’s legitimate son.

  “They weren’t parents,” he said. “I could not be any more unlike them. My children will grow up with a mother and father who are with them whenever they need them. A mother and father who love them and listen to them and tell them the truth. Not false stories about holy ghosts and afterlives and monsters that live in the rafters.”

  “Your girls have ghosts in the linen cupboard,” Siri reminded him.

  “It’s a game,” he shouted, “not a belief. They will never be dragged off to a temple to light candles and stick gold leaf on a dead monk’s crotch and listen to the fairy stories about a millionaire who lost his mind and found enlightenment. They won’t be sat down in front of an altar to beg forgiveness from ancestors for not refreshing their Coca-Cola once a week. They won’t be taken to a concrete tomb to say hello to dead grandma. They won’t be locked in their room and bullied into learning the precepts. By the time my children are eight, they’ll already know these things are wicked fantasies.”

  There was silence in the room until Suthon regained his composure.

  “Was there a time when you believed?” said Siri.

  “It wasn’t belief, Siri. It was brainwashing. It was psychological surrogacy. They’d go off and leave me for days. They’d tell me I had nothing to fear because the spirits would watch over me. I was petrified.”

  “Do you know where they went?” Siri asked. “When they left you alone.”