Rattlesnake

by Andy Maslen

  “You should talk to Visna about that. He has plenty to say.”

  “You said you didn’t know him. That you knew of him.”

  She smiled.

  “Like I said. I didn’t know whether I could trust you at first. Visna is a friend. In Cambodia, if you are investigating anything at all beside westerners getting their bags snatched or buying drugs, you can find yourself in a lot of trouble. The kind of trouble bribes don’t work on.”

  “So what does Visna investigate?”

  “The sex trade. His charity is called Tom Boh. It means Big Uncle in English. He tries to rescue the youngest children from brothels, from being trafficked. From western men who come here where they think there are easy pickings.”

  “Judith mentioned them, too. And a bloke at the airport gave me his card. Said he was a hunter.”

  Lina nodded as she helped herself to some more vegetables mixed with cubes of fish.

  “I know about the hunters. I wrote a piece about them. They try to work with the police, but the trouble is, many police will turn a blind eye for dollars. Some are even involved in the trade. Do you think your friend was involved with them somehow? The hunters?”

  “Honestly? I don’t know. He kept a video diary. He was volunteering for Visna. For Tom Boh.” Lina nodded approvingly at his pronunciation. “I think he learned something about an American company that got him killed when he returned to the US.”

  “Then I should take you to meet Visna. Maybe the three of us can work together.”

  Lina signalled to one of the waitresses who flitted between the tables like brightly coloured butterflies.

  She spoke in Khmer, eliciting a conspiratorial smile from the waitress who glanced at Gabriel, giggled, then sped away on small feet.

  “What did you say to her?” Gabriel asked.

  “I told her we were finished, but we had room for one final local delicacy.”

  Gabriel tried hard to read Lina’s expression, but she deadpanned like a poker player.

  The waitress returned a few moments later, carrying another of the small, lidded, porcelain bowls. She set it before Gabriel, giggled again, and stood back. Gabriel noticed Mister Vhet arriving. Several diners at the adjoining tables were craning their necks to see what the barang would do next.

  Sensing a test approaching, Gabriel steeled himself for frogs boiled in syrup, fried sparrows, jellied grasshoppers or whatever “delicacy” Lina had arranged with the waitress to discomfit him. Man up, Wolfe. How bad can it be?

  He lifted the lid by its bamboo handle. And groaned. Very bad.

  Crowded together in their white porcelain nest were a dozen or so spiders. Caramel-coloured, and crispy from frying, their legs splayed at random angles, the creatures were as big as mice.

  “Ah ping!” Mister Vhet announced happily, displaying gold dental work. Then, in English, “Edible spider! From Skuon. Very good. Try. Try!”

  Gabriel Wolfe hated spiders. His stomach churned.

  Yet the diplomat’s son in him warred with the man who wanted to hurl the bowl and its contents out of the nearest window.

  He looked up at the beaming restaurateur.

  “Ar-koon, chi-teh,” he said with a matching smile he wasn’t feeling on the inside. Thank you, grandfather.

  He picked up one of the eight-legged snacks and turned it this way and that.

  “Just the legs,” Lina said with a smile. “Like a crab.”

  Holding the spider by the body he broke off a leg with a whispery snap. The broken end held a scrap of whitish-grey meat. In a darting move like a heron taking a fish, he snapped his head forwards and down and sucked the meat out. He tasted garlic and salt, crunched once, then swallowed.

  Good-natured cheering and laughter erupted from the neighbouring tables. Lina was laughing too, and Mister Vhet clapped him on the back.

  “You are true Cambodian now, sir,” he said, before clapping his hands.

  The waitress who had been hovering at Gabriel’s shoulder during his ordeal by spider, materialised once again, this time, bearing two small, gold-rimmed glasses on a brass tray. They brimmed with a dark brown liquid that Gabriel sincerely hoped was local brandy and not spider juice.

  “Ar-koon,” he said again, before lifting the glass to his lips, inhaling an intense treacly hit of alcohol and knocking back the brandy in one, suppressing a shudder. “Miss Ly,” he said, fixing Lina with a gimlet eye. “You … are trouble.”

  “Me?” she said, laughing and holding a hand to her chest. “I’m the one who’s helping you find your friend.”

  “True. So tell me, when can I meet Visna?”

  34

  Life is Short

  THEY left the restaurant talking about the following day. Lina had agreed to call Visna first thing in the morning to fix up a meeting between the three of them. The sky had darkened, and with the ever-present dust in the air, the stars were completely blotted out. The smell seemed to have faded, although Gabriel wondered whether that was simply the effect of his brain switching off his sense of smell to save his nose. Lina threaded her arm through his as they walked.

  “Where are you staying?” she asked.

  “Oh, a charming place called The Hotel De Gaulle. To be honest I’d normally try to find somewhere with a bit more local charm but I was in a hurry.”

  “So, my place is just beyond Pasteur Street. I’ll walk there with you. Phnom Penh can be tricky for barangs to negotiate at night.”

  “What, so you’re my bodyguard, is that it?”

  She laughed.

  “Why not? I belong to a martial arts club. Aikido is my sport.”

  Gabriel turned to her.

  “Karate’s mine. Kendo, too. Plus Kung Fu, Wing Chun and a couple of others.”

  She smiled and held his arm a little tighter.

  “Well then, beware any muggers who get too close, eh?”

  It was eleven o’clock, yet the streets still rattled and buzzed with crowds of Hondas. Hawkers wandered along the pavements with bamboo poles over their shoulders, selling fried chicken, chillies, garlic, wooden prayer beads, flowers. Whatever someone might want to buy for a few riels, the rush baskets dangling from the poles contained it. Maybe because he was accompanied by a Cambodian, maybe because his gait spoke of physical confidence, or maybe just because they were busy elsewhere, the muggers stayed away. Outside the hotel, Gabriel stopped and turned to Lina. She let her arm slide out of his and faced him.

  “Thanks for taking me to the Royal Palace,” Gabriel said. “Though I’ll pass on the ah ping next time.”

  She smiled up at him.

  “Perhaps we should have a nightcap to wash away the taste?”

  Gabriel frowned, just for a second, thinking that Mr Vhet’s brandy on the house had done that job. Then a voice spoke inside his head. The assassin Sasha Beck. Oh, really, darling! Don’t make her spell it out.

  He smiled.

  “Would you like to come up? My room has a minibar, and there’s an ice machine down the hall.”

  Lina nodded, repossessed his arm and let him lead her into the hotel.

  She stood with her hands on her hips and surveyed the print of Angkor Wat behind the bed.

  “Children work there, you know, selling trinkets. The western tourists take pity and buy from them, but really they should be in school.”

  Gabriel had just returned from the corridor, carrying a woodgrain-effect ice bucket. He added ice to their drinks, vodka and tonics, and moved closer to her.

  “Cheers,” he said, clinking glasses as he looked at the temple.

  “Cheers.”

  “Are they the ones Visna looks out for?”

  She shook her head.

  “No. Their parents send them there to work. They sell all their bits and pieces then take the money home. It isn’t ideal, but it’s better than being one of the mean tauch. That means little chickens.”

  “Is that what the kids are called? The ones who work the streets?”

  “It’s
local slang, though the perverts have picked it up. But that’s Visna’s story. He can tell you tomorrow.” She took a sip of her drink. “Do you like to dance, Gabriel?”

  “Dance?”

  “Yes, you know, a man and a woman. We hold each other and move in time to music. There’s a radio on your nightstand. Let’s find some music.”

  She found a station playing jazz, turned the volume up and came back to Gabriel. She held out her arms for him. He slipped his right hand round her waist and drew her closer. Then he settled it into the muscled indentation in the small of her back. With her right hand held in his left, they began to dance to the Cambodian swing band moving competently through the chord changes of “My Funny Valentine.”

  “Kiss me, please,” she whispered, before closing her eyes and turning her face up to his.

  He leant down and placed his lips on hers. As they kissed, he drew in her perfume. She found his tongue with the tip of her own and there they danced, too.

  He felt himself growing hard. Lina pushed her belly against him and held him tighter.

  “Do you have a girlfriend back in England?” she whispered.

  He hesitated.

  “No.”

  “In Hong Kong?”

  “No.”

  “In San Antonio? A strong Texan girl?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Let’s go to bed.”

  It was uncomplicated. That was a good thing. She undressed in front of him and gestured for him to do the same. No coyness. No disappearing to the bathroom.

  Her body was slender. Small, dark-nippled breasts sitting high on her ribcage. Narrow hips and a strip of black hair over her pubis.

  She encircled his neck with her arms and seemed almost to levitate onto him, so softly did she raise herself. Then she sank down a little, drawing him into her. Gabriel closed his eyes and buried his nose in the long hair at the side of her neck where she’d unfastened the leather thong holding it back. She smelled of jasmine and rose.

  Gently, he tipped her backwards until she came to rest on the bed. There they moved together until he felt her quickening beneath him. With a cry, she reached her climax, clutching him so tightly he felt his breath stop altogether. As he came, he imagined them sporting in the Mekong river like dolphins.

  He woke in the night. Lina was sleeping in the crook of his arm. Her head was turned towards him and each outbreath disturbed the hairs on his chest. He’d been dreaming of Britta Falskog. In the dream, she was standing at the edge of the bed while he and Lina made love. Her face was hidden by a carnival mask. He couldn’t tell whether she approved or not. She only spoke once. Telling him, “Du kan inte förråda en dröm.”

  Staring at the ceiling, he tried to translate her message before it faded. After she broke off their engagement, he’d spent the first few months in Hong Kong improving his Swedish. A pointless exercise, but he’d needed some way to stay connected to her. Lina shifted her weight in the bed, curling a leg over Gabriel’s own, then releasing him and rolling onto her back. He slid out of bed and scribbled a phonetic version of the Swedish phrase on the top sheet of the hotel’s notepaper then returned to the bed and Lina’s embrace.

  A steady shaking of his shoulder woke Gabriel from a dreamless sleep. Wondering whether he’d slept at all since waking in the middle of the night, he scrubbed at his face then turned to look at Lina.

  “Hey,” she said, smiling. “I have to file a piece today. This morning in fact. But not until ten thirty.”

  She reached beneath the sheets and took him in her hand. As he hardened, she moved on top of him, straddling him and rocking gently. Gabriel looked up at her.

  “You’re very forward. I imagined Cambodian women would be more guarded. We only met yesterday.”

  Without ceasing her rocking, she answered.

  “Life is short, Gabriel. Life is short.”

  Six miles to the east, Vietnam Airlines Flight VN528, arriving from Da Nang Airport, touched down on the patched and scarred tarmac at Phnom Penh International Airport with a shriek of rubber and spurts of blue smoke. Among the tourists and executives, the engineers and sales representatives, the civil servants, army officers and returning Cambodians, one man stood out. Baines Christie tended to stand out wherever he travelled, his bulk not lending itself to a stealthy approach. Those in front of and behind him in the queue for Immigration maintained a discreet but noticeable distance from the huge American with the stone face.

  As he neared the bored-looking immigration officer in his glassed-in booth, Christie pulled his passport and visa from his inside pocket. Then it was his turn to cross the yellow line. He slid the passport under the scratched Plexiglas and stared into the eyes of the officer. The officer stared back, scratched his snub nose with a dirty fingernail and went back to the photo. Unconsciously, his hand strayed to the butt of the pistol at his hip, a Czech CZ-75, Christie noted with a professional’s interest. Christie knew he had that effect on people. He didn’t mind.

  From behind him he heard a loud sigh and, in an English accent, a mutter of disapproval.

  “Come on, for fuck’s sake! Some of us are here for a holiday.”

  Christie turned to see who was making a fuss.

  The speaker was six foot, and heavily built. But where Christie’s bulk was muscle, this man’s physique spoke of an indolent life in front of one sort of screen or another. His dark hair was thick and wavy, and his face was fleshy, dominated by a wide mouth beneath a luxuriant black moustache. Christie glared at the man, using the opportunity to vent a little of the frustration he was feeling after his forty-five-hour journey from Langley. The man dropped his gaze. Satisfied, Christie turned back to the officer just in time to see him stamping his visa and passport.

  As he waited for a taxi, Christie observed the man he’d intimidated in the immigration queue talking to a second man. Though they were built along different lines, they had the same look, from their brightly coloured Hawaiian shirts to the flickering gaze of predators. He watched with interest as their attention was drawn to a family of Cambodians struggling with all manner of suitcases, soft bags and, trailing along behind the harassed-looking parents, two small children holding teddy bears by their legs. The men conferred in whispers, heads almost touching, one gesturing at the children and winking at his friend.

  Christie’s mouth tightened as he clenched his jaw muscles in a reflexive movement. It looked a lot like chewing. He dropped out of the taxi queue and walked over to the two men.

  “Excuse me,” he said with a disarming smile as he came within conversational distance. “I’m with the Cambodian Bureau of Tourist Affairs. We’re conducting a survey of international travellers. It won’t take long and I am authorised to offer you gentlemen limousine transport to the centre of Phnom Penh as well as tourist vouchers to the value of fifteen US dollars good in any of the city’s attractions. Please.”

  He held his arms wide.

  They looked at each other.

  The tall man spoke first.

  “You were in the queue at passport control.”

  “Indeed I was. We often travel on inbound flights so we can judge passenger comfort, customer service and so on. I must apologise if I stared. As you know, it was a somewhat bumpy flight and, well, my nerves were a little shot.”

  The man shrugged.

  “Tell me about it. How long does this survey take, then?”

  “Oh, no more than five minutes, I assure you. We have a very comfortable interview suite. If you’d like to come with me, I can get you gentlemen set up with one of our nice young researchers straightaway.”

  The men looked at each other. The shorter man spoke.

  “Might as well. Beats queuing with the locals for a cab, doesn’t it?”

  “That’s the spirit!” Christie said, as he guided the two men away from the queue and towards the rear of the passenger terminal.

  “Not far now,” he said. “We have a marketing office just on the other side of that wall.” The wall in
question was ten feet tall, brick-built and covered with a mural depicting smiling families waiting to board a plane.

  He smiled broadly as he ushered the two men round the end of the wall.

  A broad expanse of abandoned taxiway greeted them, the view uninterrupted from the rear of the wall to distant forest.

  The tall man turned to Christie.

  “What the fuck is this?” he demanded, hands on hips. “Where’s the marketing office?”

  By way of answer, Christie lanced the straightened fingers of his right hand into the man’s throat, dropping him to his knees, red-faced and gasping. He shot his left fist out, breaking the other man’s nose with a loud crack.

  As they crawled on the ground before him, Christie used his feet on them. Devastating kicks to the stomach and kidneys from high-laced boots, which were revealed as the cuffs of his khaki chinos rode up. He could have killed them had he chosen. Even without a gun or a knife, Christie had an embarrassment of riches when it came to weapons. Hands, feet, elbows, knees. On one memorable day in rural Pakistan, he had even bitten a man to death, tearing a rent in his throat from which his lifeblood had flowed like a geyser. He didn’t suppose the Cambodian police would struggle overmuch to track down the murderer of two men such as these.

  Martha would be dismayed at his lack of discipline, as she would see it. But Christie didn’t care. She was strictly office-based, these days. More of a political operator than a field agent. Wolfe was his primary target, yes. But on operations, he decided how things went. Dispensing a little American justice on his travels had become something of a hobby. Muggers, rapists, hustlers, pimps, neo-Nazis, paedophiles – he’d met them all on his travels, and wherever he could, without compromising operational integrity, he liked to try to dissuade them from their chosen way of life. Failing that, he was not averse to making the choice for them. Permanently.