A Haunting Smile

by Christopher G. Moore

  “You think he’s on drugs?” she asked.

  “Just tobacco. He doesn’t look like the type for anything illegal unless it has something to do with guns. But life is full of soundbyte surprises.”

  For the next two weeks, all Snow could hear was a horizon of sound, eerie, unintelligible noise—non-stop gobbling filling every wave frequency, bouncing off walls, doors, windows, from one end of the long, narrow building to the other. Roger sniffed the air, cupped his hand to one ear, leaned into the sound wave, and smiled, nodding his head. It wasn’t noise.

  “Roger. Roger. Roger. That’s what they are saying.”

  “Man, you ought to take a vacation.”

  “If I do, they will learn your name. That’s what happens.”

  “You’re full of shit.”

  The following week Roger went on vacation.

  Two weeks later, it was in the late afternoon, Snow had worked his way half-way down annex building number one. The chaos of the gobbling shifted; a kind of vocal unity in the chorus of turkeys broke through. Snow shook off this rewiring of sound wave reception and kept on working. He dropped the bucket he was carrying and looked over thousands of turkeys. He blinked.

  “Fuck,” he said. He listened again. They were calling his name, “Snow, Snow, Snow.” Roger’s departure was a distant memory. They had learned his name, and now he heard it in their throats. He quit in the middle of his shift, and not waiting for his car pool ride back, he walked the three miles into town and went to where Jennifer was working at City Hall.

  “We gotta get back to California,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Don’t ask questions, we gotta go.”

  “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me why I have to quit a perfectly good job and why you quit your job in the middle of a fucking depression.”

  “Because the turkeys…” he broke off. Man, she’s a white woman, and white women never understand the source and nature of weird sound waves.

  “Because?”

  “I got a freelance job in Bangkok,” he said.

  She looked him over, then broke into a wide smile and hugged him. Jennifer looked genuinely relieved. “God, Snow, I’m so happy for you. For a minute, I thought you had tripped the madness crosswire like that idiot Roger.”

  “Who?”

  “You remember, the guy who said he heard the turkeys calling his name, and that sooner or later you would hear them calling your name too?”

  “Oh, that guy. What the fuck does he know?”

  “Nothing,” said Jennifer, squeezing his head, and kissing him on the nose.

  “The guy was a megalomaniac.”

  “How else could he hear a turkey calling his name?”

  “Exactly,” said Jennifer.

  11

  Front line

  May 1992

  Bangkok

  Dear Richard,

  IT IS SAID that if you put a seashell next to your ear you can hear the sound of the sea. Each seashell has captured the roar as effectively as any man-made recording device. And if you press a floating stone against your ear, what sound echo dwells within? Laughter, weeping, crying—what clutter of sound waves might be decoded and called forth from time? For instance, the sound of Cortez’s having taken five short steps inside the temple, then the sound of his reaction which came on the heels of the sudden realization. Skulls everywhere. What was the sound of his discovery as it struck him full blast? What sound might he have heard from the 136,000 chambered skulls which lined the temple walls like seashells? Not the ocean, not a laugh, not a sigh; but the sound of mass murder with the volume turned down to zero. Would the sound have been like turkeys calling Snow’s name in Montana?

  In early May before the killing started the mob picnic—as they and the press called them, among other kinds of mobs—took to Sanam Luang by the tens of thousands. One of the demonstrators carried a sign which read: “Lose one’s life, but not one’s words.” The mob picnic gathered, so the sign would have us believe, in the name of words. Protesters came to hear the words which shouted accusations against the Government and the military. The crowd applauded those words of support; and hissed the names of the leaders of the government they wished to force out of office. They created new words for themselves—mob picnic, mob high-tech, mob nom priew. The protesters arrived at Sanam Luang in their cars, with mobile phones, videocams, and yogurt.

  “If you work a mob long enough, something happens, you start to hear them calling your name,” said Snow. “A turkey sound-byte. When they start hearing it, they will leave. The Army won’t have to fire a shot.”

  Everyone you know here was on the telephone and sending faxes, keeping the words in circulation just in case people were called upon to remember why members of the mob high-tech were willing to die waving their mobile phones in front of videocams held by their friends. Something had been in the air, then, something beyond the usual Bangkok air pollution, gray with dust, and infiltrated with heat waves jamming the lungs and nostrils. All those words had given a promise of hope that some meaning might be discovered in a world beyond the cars, mobile phones, videocams and yogurt. Just maybe…the 60s had bobbed up on the seashore of time, and Sanam Luang was a seashell that if pressed against the ear, the old mobs could be heard.

  Words come with background sounds attached. The laugh track which signals when the observers are supposed to laugh—now. The applause sign facing the audience which faces the speakers who control the laugh track system. The signs light up and flash, ‘Applause’ blinks, meaning—clap now. When the leader spoke before Parliament in a live broadcast on TV, the background sound track was neither laughter, nor applause, but the most hated of all sounds—boos and hisses. The observers understood the signal was to boo—now. Join the mob high-tech at Sanam Luang. Wear your sign that worships words: “Lose one’s life, but not one’s words.” The TV news editor was transferred. No one is ever fired. But a replacement was made because the wrong sound track had accompanied the leader’s words and in the rebroadcast that evening, the boos sound track had been taken out and substituted with applause, so that a long pan shot of MPs in Parliament appeared to defy gravity like my floating stones. The MPs appeared to be clapping with their raised fists. For the first time in history the sound wave of applause had come from many clenched fists waved at the podium. And, it might have worked, but for one thing—the mob high-tech were all at the rally. No one stayed behind to double-check the video. Not all the boos were erased from the live version. It was not one-hundred percent applause. So a replacement was called in and taught the importance of what background sounds must accompany words.

  Sound waves are more than the words on the screen. The seashell is more important than the sea. It can be carried in the pocket; stored on a shelf like a skull; or traded for something of value. The sea like the mob is an obstacle; an affront to those who wish to exercise power.

  “Lose one’s job, play the real sound track of dissent.”

  “Keep one’s job, applause is reserved for your employer.”

  “Join the mob, search for words which can belong to you.”

  Yours,

  Robert Tuttle

  12

  WHEN TUTTLE PADDLED his kayak along the Nan River with a cargo of bones he never thought he would be walking the deserted streets of Bangkok looking for a young girl named Daeng. He stumbled home after a fruitless night and found Ross asleep on his couch. Tuttle’s maid had let him into the house. On the coffee table were bloated folders disgorging photographs and a thick envelope marked “Private and Confidential: Denny Addison.” The scene spoke for itself. Ross had personally delivered the dossier on the loathsome Addison who had gained control over his daughter like a cult leader. Only Tuttle wasn’t home so Ross had decided to raid the booze, and then passed out. Tuttle found him in this state, made coffee, and half an hour and three cups of coffee later, Ross had sobered up enough to explain what he had delivered and why.

  “Addison is yo
ur basic asshole,” said Ross, lighting a cigarette. “You think I can have a drink? I think better with a drink in my hand.”

  Tuttle made him a drink, noticing how several of the bottles had lost volume.

  “What do you want, the bad news or the good news?”

  “The good news,” said Tuttle.

  “Okay. Addison’s had woman troubles from Manila, Hong Kong, to Singapore. And a few stops in between. His MO is pretty much the same. He becomes fluent in the native language. That gives him a real advantage, then he hunts until he finds what he calls a respectable girl. He makes her his ‘babe’, gets her to move into his apartment, then makes her an assistant director for one of his fucked-up documentaries. Then once she turns twenty-five, twentysix, he trades her in for a newer model. He’s been deported, banned, black-listed from four Asian countries. Two of them for life. But he’s clean in Thailand. It’s all in the report.”

  “What’s the bad news?” asked Tuttle.

  “I need another drink first,” said Ross.

  Tuttle thrust a fistful of ice into the glass and filled it with whiskey. But Ross grabbed the glass before Tuttle had finished pouring, and whiskey spilled onto the coffee table and floor.

  “I guess you think I’m a messy drinker?” asked Ross, not expecting an answer.

  “And the bad news?”

  Ross laughed, his face turning a blotchy pink color.

  “Your daughter, Asanee, doesn’t turn twenty-five for another two years,” said Ross. He roared again. “And there’s more. He’s made special films of his live-ins as insurance policies against future problems.”

  “What kind of film?” asked Tuttle.

  “Porno,” said Ross. “How else do you get lifelong bans from certain Asian countries? You have naked movies of respectable girls. So what do you want to do? You want to arrange for Addison to disappear?”

  “Slow down,” Tuttle said, softly. “He has a film of Asanee?”

  “I didn’t say that. All I said was that before he came to Thailand he made fuck films with a couple of his ‘babes.’ Look on the bright side, he figures he has another two years before she’s too old. So he’s been a little sloppy. He’s thinking he has all the time in the world.”

  Tuttle stared at him without blinking.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” said Ross.

  “What am I thinking?”

  Ross threw back the rest of his drink and slammed the empty glass down on the coffee table. “What kind of judge of character am I? Who am I to judge Denny Addison as a pervert, a whoremonger, a corrupter of local women, a man who exploits the innocent, a moveable Rocky Horror Picture Show unleashed on the face of Asia? Well, I’m gonna tell you how and why. And after you hear what I have to say, you will have no doubt as to my judgement, my verdict, the gathering of evidence in this case. My personality profile on Addison has one conclusion. Addison’s a conman. He’s mastered the creative closing. Only one man, an Iranian, was ever better than this guy.”

  “Creative closing?” asked Tuttle.

  Ross nodded and smiled.

  “But as the Iranian showed, sometimes your con can be too good to be true. I think Addison’s history shows the same brilliant defect,” said Ross.

  13

  HOW ROSS LEARNED TO JUDGE PEOPLE

  A Short Story

  by

  Robert Tuttle

  ROSS WORKED HIS way through college and law school selling encyclopedias door-to-door in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Many Union Pacific Railway people lived in Council Bluffs with their families. Ross evolved a system for judging the occupants by the outside of their house. If they had an old stuffed chair on the front porch, he was guaranteed a sale. Another dead giveaway was the carpet inside the house. He rolled out a plastic stretcher and laid it on the floor and he placed the encyclopedia volumes on the surface. After the presentation, as he rolled up the stretcher, if there were tiny bits of bacon stuck to the back, the people always bought. He never knew why only bacon bits and not other kinds of food stuck to the bottom of the stretcher. If they dropped pieces of bacon on the floor, they would buy books. There was no logical explanation but it was always true. Bits of pig stuck to the carpet and stuffed, rotting chairs on the porch created this great hunger for a multi-volume set of books from a total stranger at a highly inflated price.

  Some potential customers would already have one set of encyclopedias. A few owned several sets of encyclopedias. That was a better indicator of a sale than bacon bits on the carpet. These people were often encyclopedia freaks. Of course most of them also had overstuffed chairs rotting on the front porch, bacon bits on the carpet, and overgrown, dying bushes in the front of the house. They lived like pigs. But since they worked for the railway, they had money. They kept cash and sometimes they’d count out $375 in oily five dollar bills. That was a lot of money in 1962.

  It wasn’t always a picnic to close a sale, though. An unbalanced illiterate might sick his mongrel dog on Ross.

  “We ain’t reading no books,” Ross would hear the madman call from the front door.

  The problem wasn’t so much whether he could make a sale at such houses but whether the customer would later receive credit approval.

  Ross specialized in creative closings.

  If the customer had a can of beer on the coffee table, he used the alcoholic closing. “You mean that for the cost of one single beer a night, you can’t afford these books for your child’s education? One less beer for little Billy? All Billy wants is a chance in the world. If he were old enough, he’d say, ‘Dad, just drink one less beer and give me a chance to get this learning. You’ll never regret it, Dad.’ You won’t miss that one beer. Not for your son’s future.”

  Bingo. The alcoholic closing was fail safe. There wasn’t a boozer who could swallow enough beer to wash away that much guilt.

  The polio kid closing was another winner. Often the customer worried himself sick about the price. He was stone cold broke; didn’t have the money. Ross always avoided using certain words such as money, budget, financial problems.

  “Little Billy had polio. He couldn’t walk right. He had trouble even feeding himself. But he had a desire for learning. That little boy reached out with all his will for one of these books. He stretched and stretched until he grabbed one. That’s because he had the desire. And I’m not certain you desire these books. It takes a special person to have that much desire. To overcome all the odds just to reach out with all that desire.”

  They always signed.

  Ross sometimes worked with an Iranian. Sometimes the Iranian would be the boss; sometimes Ross would play that role. This was in the days of the Shah and everyone in America loved and respected the Iranians. After the presentation, the Iranian had a unique closing that Ross had never seen anyone else ever use. The Iranian would sit opposite the couple on a lumpy couch; and Ross sat with the contract off to the side with the cap off his pen. The Iranian casually lit a cigarette.

  “You can do anything you want in this world,” said the Iranian. “All you must do is will yourself to want something. You can control everything in your life simply by willing it. You can will yourself these precious gifts of knowledge.”

  All the time the Iranian was holding the lit cigarette against the flesh of his hand. The customers sat with huge eyes, clutching one another, as a tiny screw of gray smoke rose from the Iranian’s hand, and the faint smell of a substance like burnt bacon drifted across to them. Ross handed them the contract and they signed without a murmur. The problem was the company policy on follow-up. Three days later someone from the company phoned and interviewed the people about the contract. Ninety-nine percent of the customers who signed after the Iranian used the burning hand trick backed out of the deal. The shock hadn’t lasted. Why was it these people changed their minds while those with bacon ground into their carpets never did? There was no answer. Only after death would the answer be revealed, thought Ross.

  Ross quit selling door-to-door because he bec
ame detached; like an actor. He’d be giving the polio kid closing and suddenly he would be looking down on himself from the ceiling giving the spiel. He saw his personality fractured into parts. “I wanted to be more integrated. So I stopped selling door-to-door.”

  14

  CORTEZ SAT ON the wheel of a burnt-out bus and watched soldiers throwing dead bodies into a burning pit. Long tongues of flames burst above the surface of the ground. The lights from several trucks and Army jeeps shined across the opening where the men worked. Montezuma had been counting the bodies out loud.

  “Twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen,” counted Montezuma.

  “I’ve been giving a lot of thought to TV,” said Cortez.

  “The studio audience loved you.”

  “You really think so? Or are you trying to get on my good side?”

  “You have no good side to get on. Besides, enjoy while you can, soon we go back to the studio for another retake of the interview,” said Montezuma. “Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen…”

  “We’ve been taping forever,” said Cortez.

  Montezuma immediately lost count; he loved all discussions about the new machines. “You know what I like most about these breaks? The freedom to explore how counting and images work. You can change what you count. You can change how you count. You take that body number eighteen, and you cut the image in the Eye Wave Machine and put it in front of body number one, and then everyone believes that eighteen comes after one.”

  “That reminds me of an idea for the retaping. What about Zapruder and his film of Kennedy’s assassination?” asked Cortez.

  “It’s been shown a thousand times on the show.”

  “What if Zapruder had his camera when you were hit on the head with a brick, people would still be asking the same questions. Yeah, that’s the angle. Someone would add a voice-over to the Zapruder film of the Montezuma assassination: ‘Did the brick-thrower who killed Montezuma act alone? Was the brick-thrower in the service of the Spanish? Was he an Indian? Was he an Aztec? Could he have been a half-breed seeking revenge for the sacrifice of a relative in Montezuma’s temple? Were those objects in the hands of other people near Montezuma bricks as well?’ Then we would splice in shots of the skulls in the temple; the bloody idols, the ashes from the burnt hearts, that sort of thing, to give your assassination a context.”