The Feiquon Heist

by D. C. J Wardle

  The end of the opening hours that afternoon brought a new wave of unusual sights. Mr Tann was the first to leave the bank. In the past, Kheng would never have described Mr Tann as ‘jaunty’. Kheng was far too respectful, and Mr Tann had never chosen to display any degree of jauntiness about him. However, were there ever to be a day when a primordial need had overcome all reason and the label of ‘jaunty’ needed to be applied, then this was the moment to grasp at it. The head clerk departed from the front door’s step with the agility of a grasshopper and the contentment of a small boy who was aware of his growing reputation in the discipline of marbles. The contrasting image between the enveloping dark storm that had consumed Mrs Yeo-bo and the springtime meadow breeze that wafted Mr Tann through the bank’s gates and down the street was both striking and confusing.

  Of equal note was the departure of Mr Hua Lin and Ms Win-Kham. Or rather, the lack thereof. Both were busy in the office for over an hour after the bank should have been closed. This was unheard of in Maklai banking terms. The hours were set for work and they were either followed or skived from. To do extra would only raise suspicion. It certainly raised Kheng’s suspicion. He made several rounds of the bank’s perimeter so that he could peer through the windows to see what was going on. Mainly it was paperwork. Both of them were in Hua Lin’s office surrounded by bank documents and examining each one of them with a high degree of diligence. Kheng had at first wondered if they were investigating the robbery, but soon dismissed the idea. If they had discovered the missing money then they would have to call for the police, and then head office. The guards would have been the first ones dragged inside for questioning. Mr Hua Lin was many things, but one of those was a man who followed the rule book and procedures to the letter. Kheng’s back up theory for the sudden change in behaviour was that the two of them were having an affair. Nelea, Kheng’s wife, would be delighted if that was the case as Kheng never had good gossip for her to shock Mama Tae with. Being the first one to know about this kind of scandal in their small provincial town would temporarily send her to film star status. At least for a day or so until everyone got bored with it and some other scandalous revelation turned up. So it was all a bit odd and, despite the lack of dramatic police arrivals, it made Kheng feel nervous.

  When eventually both Hua Lin and Win-Kham departed, Kheng was able to take note of their demeanour. Ms Win-Kham was looking pleased with herself. Very pleased. She was energetic and had a light in her face that Kheng had never noticed before. She was not at all tired for her long day’s work or resentful at having to stay late in the office. Kheng felt happy for her. He’d always worried that she looked so uninspired, like her life was being slowly wasted, as she drudged through her working routine. Mr Hua Lin, meanwhile, looked relieved. He looked tired as well, but mostly gave off an aura of relief, as if a great burden had been lifted from him. Neither of these was an emotion that was compatible with those of people who had just uncovered evidence of a daring bank heist.

  As they walked through the gate and took turns to balance across the planks that traversed the entrenched footpath, Hua Lin offered to walk Ms Win-Kham to a restaurant for dinner. He explained that it would be only fair of him as he’d kept her late from returning home and being able to cook for herself. She politely accepted, and life and energy seemed to glow from her face even more.

  Kheng locked the gates and sat down on the faded old plastic chair. He was a little envious that his colleagues would be going to the restaurant. Unusually, he’d decided to bring his evening meal to work with him. What with all of the other goings on in the past twenty-four hours, he’d concluded that risking the wall-climb and having his dinner break back at the house might be pushing his luck a little too far. It was now a whole working day since the bank heist had been carried out. No one had called the police, no one had sent for the guards to explain possible break-ins, nobody had arrived from head office to initiate a formal investigation. Maybe, just maybe, the mischievous tree spirit of the late Papa Han had helped them through, and they had got away with it. Sure, there had been a few odd goings-on that day. But a few odd goings on was not really that unusual for Maklai. Even when everything was normal it was still a little bit odd.

  48. Hospital

  Three weeks later..

  Kheng sat in the waiting area at the front of Maklai Provincial Hospital. Before him in the opposite wall was a small hatch with a sliding piece of glass, behind which, one of the administrative staff was busying herself with a pile of official-looking forms. About ten other people were waiting there next to him, sitting in the row of grubby plastic chairs. One of them had crutches and a plaster-cast, for the others it was hard to tell if they were there as patients or visitors. Some were probably relatives of patients waiting to see how they were faring, or to bring them food. All of them were staring at the old TV that was hanging from the ceiling in a sturdy metal cage of welded square bars above the receptionist’s window, captivated by a cheap soap opera that was delivering some amateur dramatics of unrequited love. The cage looked too heavy to remain so securely attached to the ceiling and was probably worth more than the TV. Next to the receptionist’s window was the counter for the pharmacist, who was sorting through a box filled with coloured pills in small plastic bags. To his right was a doctor’s consultation room. Through the open door he could see there was a young guy having a wound treated on his leg. A big bottle of brown liquid was being sponged liberally onto the oozing graze with a ball of cotton wool. The kid had no doubt fallen off his motorbike. He probably came off trying to impress either a girl or some of the bigger kids. Kheng was glad that he was no longer under pressure to impress others in the way that he had felt when he was the same age as that kid. The doctor’s corner of the hospital looked whiter and more hygienic than where he sat with his queue of soap opera devotees. However, the hospital block was an old concrete building that had been built to be very open, to try to keep it cool. It was suffering from its aging construction and a limited budget. Kheng admired how the staff managed to maintain such pockets of hygiene to ensure that the patients were looked after where it really counted. From where Kheng sat he could see into the corner of the doctor’s room. There was a wooden cupboard with a glass door. It was crammed high with old documents, presumably for patients who no longer had need of them. Looking through the glass door they seemed orderly enough. After a while, Kheng noticed that the base of the cupboard had given way under the weight of the aging hospital records. In the small gap between the floor and cupboard was where the stack of mouse-chewed paperwork started, still sitting on the plywood from inside the cupboard. It was a bit like the bank really. It appeared normal and orderly enough from an initial inspection, but stare too long and the quirks and abnormalities would surface soon enough.

  Kheng turned his attention to the TV, having exhausted the other points of interest in his immediate vision. As he did so, he saw Mr Salt walking down the corridor towards him.

  “Mr Kheng. I’m so glad you came.”

  Kheng offered up the small plastic bag of fruit that he had put on the floor under his chair.

  “I picked up some fruit.”

  Mr Salt kindly observed the bag.

  “Rambutans. She’ll enjoy them.”

  “How is your wife? Did everything go well?”

  “It’s okay now, Kheng. I came in early this morning to check on her after the operation.”

  “What about those expensive machines that she needed?”

  “It was all organised with the doctor days ago. She’s already getting all of the treatment. I told him I would pay up-front for the main treatment and so he arranged it with the administration. I then have to make smaller weekly payments to cover anything extra. I’m supposed to sort out the next payment today, in fact. The administrator is in the next building. First though, you should meet my wife. She’d really appreciate seeing you. She’s just down the corridor in one of the wards there on the left. The kids are with her.”

  �
�Yes. Of course. I’d be very happy to see how she’s doing.”

  Mr Salt beamed at Kheng as if lots of happiness was trying to show itself all at once but his face wasn’t used to the exertion. Kheng assumed that the additional joy was partly due to the Salts’ children being there. He got the impression that for Mr Salt’s son to engage enthusiastically would have been victory enough on any day, regardless of the circumstances.

  Kheng wasn’t particularly comfortable when meeting ill people. He didn’t really know what he was supposed to say. ‘How are you?’ he would ask. They would then politely say they were ‘not so bad’, and meanwhile everyone knew that they were really feeling awful and asking probably hadn’t helped. Should he then be upbeat and chatty to try to inject some positivity into the atmosphere, or was it more appropriate to remain demure and respectful? It was so hard to tell.

  In the ward, Mr Salt’s son and daughter were sitting quietly next to the bed looking demure. Kheng decided that as the mood was already set, it wouldn’t do to deviate too much. He stepped up next to the bed and put the fruit on the table at the side.

  “Hello. I’m a friend of your husband’s. We worked together at the bank.”

  She smiled back at him.

  “I’ve heard all about you from Salt. I think we have a lot to thank you for, Mr Kheng.”

  Kheng smiled back.

  “I’m always happy to help out a friend.”

  “Well, if you hadn’t told Salt all about that dream of yours he would never have put his salary on the lottery numbers and won all that money. Lucky I was stuck in here at the time or I’d have never let him do it.”

  Kheng looked over at Mr Salt. Salt looked straight back at him with a firm expression. It suggested that, in light of all that had gone on in recent weeks, this final small distortion of honesty was hardly here or there. Kheng gave an almost undetectable nod.

  “…’cause, normally I’d batter his ears for wasting our money on lottery games like that when we’re so strapped for cash. However, I guess I’ll let it go this time. What a fantastic dream though, Mr Kheng. Especially as it was so lucky with the numbers. Maybe there’s more to it than just the lottery?”

  Kheng tried to look as though he was giving this suggestion some thought.

  “Maybe there is. We could ask my neighbour, Mama Tae. She seems to be interested in other worldly goings on. You know, hearing the words of tree spirits, analysing strange events, the meaning of dreams and that sort of thing.”

  Kheng turned to Mr Salt:

  “Are you coming this afternoon? It’s the big party at the bank. I’ve been put in charge of some of the entertainment by Mr Tann.”

  “I’d not forgotten, Mr Kheng. Looking forward to it. After all, there’s quite a lot to celebrate.”

  49. Fireworks

  The firecrackers exploded into life and then several ear-rattling rockets shot up into the air. Kheng moved back and sat on his plastic chair at a safe distance at the side of the bank’s compound, so that he could admire his creation.

  He had had considerable time to prepare the firework display and so had planned the entire extravaganza in meticulous detail. The first wooden post that was laden with rockets and firecrackers was positioned just to the side of the main gate. Kheng had waited for the end of Mr Tann’s speech and then ceremoniously lit the fuse. The crackers were loud, maybe louder than the ones at Papa Han’s funeral. The rockets then shot upwards, some of them less upwards, some of them not upwards at all. This was not unexpected by the gathering of invited guests, who would duck whilst remaining in awe at the ferocity of the display. As the firecrackers burned down the post, the fuse was lit on a rocket that was connected to a wire. The rocket shot forward and was guided upward to an even bigger stash of rockets and firecrackers on the roof that had been set up by Kheng earlier that morning. The crowd looked on at the display, which continued its haphazard explosion of fun and near-misses. Kheng was a methodical person and could easily have set up the whole thing to make sure that all the rockets went skywards, but he was not so old and sensible as to want to take all of the excitement out of the event. What wasn’t so clear to the crowd from below was the way that two future rockets had been set up with wires and were specifically aimed at the two security cameras which continued to spy on the front gates and door of the bank. Kheng observed as his two carefully designed rockets took it in turns to obliterate, in spectacular fashion, each of the cameras on the front of the building. No one else noticed as they were too busy focusing on the need to dodge other stray rockets.

  Kheng smiled. He’d been saving his rockets for his own funeral. However, he had decided it would be nicer to use them to celebrate life as it was happening, not after it was gone. Besides, if Papa Han could be a mischievous old tree spirit in his next life then there was every chance that Kheng would be blessed with his dream of becoming a bird flying above the forests. Maybe he’d even nest somewhere near Old Papa Han.

  At the back of the compound, Mr Tann was pouring more drinks for his guests and chatting with the men in suits that had come down from head office. He looked happy. He was happy. Maybe the promotion of Mr Tann to manager of the bank was the ultimate aim of Papa Han when he started interfering with Kheng’s dreaming. The robbery was somehow the catalyst for all of the subsequent changes, and now Mr Tann was succeeding Papa Han. He guessed that was what the old man had always intended.

  50. Night Guard

  By 4.00pm most of the guests had left the bank. The party was over and Mr Tann was undisputed as the new manager of the Maklai Provincial Bank.

  More than two weeks had passed since the night of the bank heist. There had been a lot of changes since then. A lot.

  The most striking event had been the return of Mr Hua Lin to Khoyleng. It had taken a couple of weeks, but it seemed that he was desperate to return to his old but less exalted life in the big city. To many people’s surprise he proposed to Ms Win-Kham and took her back to Khoyleng with him.

  Mr Hua Lin’s last day as the provincial manager had been a fairly predictable affair. The morning had seen a notable change of routine as the various banking staff looked for opportunities to go into the manager’s office, express their regret at his sudden departure, and provide a small leaving present, usually a gift basket from the market containing various essentials like jars of honey, toothpaste, and packs of biscuits. For senior staff, the essential sign of respect was to include some local spirit or whisky within the offerings.

  Before his departure Hua Lin had stopped the contracts of both Meebor and Salt with an apology and an early salary payment that covered the first month. The relief guard position was cancelled before it had even started. The bank was back to one guard, and Kheng was back to the old routine. He would start his shift when Mr Tann locked up for the evening and finish when he arrived in the morning. It was a system that had always suited Kheng just fine. Kheng suspected that the sudden ‘cut backs’ in staff at the bank were strongly linked to an awareness within the management of some missing finances. So did the other two guards, which is why they didn’t protest too strongly when they were given their swift notice. Besides, they both had sufficient wealth, and no longer needed the work.

  Kheng tidied up some of the discarded rubbish that was scattered near to the gate. He then seated himself in the faded plastic chair at the front of the office and surveyed. The storm drain had finally been covered over, a path with paving stones had been laid on top. Even proper man-hole covers had been installed over the gaps in the pipe. It would now be very difficult to climb down in there and sneak off for dinner, but that didn’t really matter any more. Eventually, Mr Tann locked up the kitchen at the back of the bank, which had been the hub of the party catering, and made his way past Kheng and out to the street. He thanked Kheng for organising the fireworks as he did so. He even made a remark about the weather, without being prompted by Kheng to make conversation. It was as though the world would never be the same again. Kheng felt that Mr Tann appeared t
o be physically a lot healthier these days. Happier in a way, less slouched perhaps. Having never previously given the impression of being happy then it was probably quite difficult for him to start at his age. However, he did seem to have a little more verve than his usual pottering suggested, which could only be for the good.

  It was like Mama Tae had implied when he’d told her about all of the sudden changes in staff at the bank. Sometimes it looks like things are changing because everything is different for a while. It’s only really a change if you can look back a long way and no longer recognise where you’ve come from. Normally Mama Tae was a bit obscure, and years of hitting the rice wine early on in the day had probably played quite a big part in that. However, on this occasion, her disjointed rambling had been quite astute.