‘Then it’s a trap,’ she said, ‘… has to be. Isn’t that obvious?’
‘So if it’s shut they won’t be expecting me, maybe they don’t even know I’m in Laos yet and I’m making more progress than they expected.’
‘You said you didn’t know what was going on?’
The heat was overpowering, the blood in my head bubbling. ‘I don’t have the slightest fucking clue you’re right, but I have to do something.’
She wrinkled her nose as if she’d tasted something unpleasant, ‘I give up with you, I’m falling for a, a fucking suicide freak.’ Giselle walked away abruptly, calling over her shoulder, ‘I’ll catch up with you later, I may as well shoot some stock.’
I fought the urge to placate her. Already our boats were sailing with different co-ordinates; unless I changed tack she would float away as nothing more than an exotic memory. Hadn’t I told her everything, wasn’t that enough?
I called after her. ‘We can get some dinner later? Treat ourselves to a steak at Le Provencal?’
‘I’ll see you at seven… be careful.’ She said, and then walked away.
The sun was fierce above the fairground, the smell of candyfloss and burning caramel nauseating. Come to think of it every smell curdled in my stomach. I headed back to the guesthouse via the backstreets, passing weed-ridden temples and monks at prayer through open doorways. I headed to a comfy couch upstairs in the Scandinavian Bakery. CNN was playing on the TV. When I called up the Vientiane Times on my cell phone I was relieved to hear an Australian - the Sub Editor. He yawned and told me his name was Ed Miller. Quite plainly he didn’t want to be there.
How do you corroborate a story on dragons? I wondered.
‘I’m writing a country profile on Laos for The Independent in London. I’ve written about ecotourism, economic recovery, wildlife parks and all that for the story, but I’m curious about something else, something that won’t go in the piece.’
‘Ok, shoot.’ He said.
‘I heard some stories about people – kids - disappearing in the jungle somewhere up north. Ring any bells?’
‘Yeah it was a few hours north of Luang Prabang near Muang Ngoi Neua. Pretty dark story. We covered it a while back.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, expats love a little mystery. We had a bit of heat from up high about it though. They wanted it pulled at the last minute, but the guy who usually proofs this stuff was away at a family wake and somehow it got through. I nearly lost my fucking post as a matter of fact.’
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘We have to be careful what we publish, paper’s state-owned and everything gets approved by this fella from the Ministry of Information before we go to print.’
‘So it’s true, people actually disappeared?’
‘It’s grisly. This definitely “off record”?’
‘Absolutely.’
He didn’t sound so sure and who could blame him? ‘What’s your name again?’
I gave him my web address; he could see plenty of articles I’d written there.
When he’d finished his online check on me his voice sounded a little warmer. ‘Okay. First of all it was just talk, locals said they’d seen things and no one believed a word of it. But then they found a half-eaten body. A Hmong kid as I recall. And by the time one of the tribespeople reported it to the District Police there wasn’t much left of it - him, sorry. Bones were picked clean, head missing.’
‘Eaten by what?’
‘Hard to say,’ he answered evenly, ‘could have been scavengers that got to him after he was killed. Those forests are like the fucking Jungle Book, there’s everything in them.’
I felt a tightening knot in my stomach. ‘It wasn’t a ritual killing then?’
‘Ritual? No not by my reckoning. What kind of a country profile you doing? A guide to killing in Southeast Asia?’ he joked,
‘Like I said, I’m just curious, it caught my imagination. Aside of the journalism I’m a struggling fiction writer. It just felt like one of those ideas, you know?’
He was quiet a moment. ‘I studied at UCL and did a few weeks work experience with The Indy so I’ll tell you what I know, but if you get tempted to quote me remember I’ve got a wife who’s Lao, and a little boy. Government finds out I was speaking to you I’ll never see them again - I get deported overnight and my house and everything in it goes up in smoke. And they can stop her leaving too. That’s what happens here, okay? So this is one journo risking his ass for another.’
‘I promise.’
‘And from a professional point of view it’s just conjecture right? Ask me, this is all too fucking weird to be true and yet it seems just that. And again, you quote me and I’ll deny we ever had this conversation.’
‘Ofcourse.’
‘Well, I got a little interested in the case. Nathan Moore, the freelance scribe who wrote the article, he’s a pal of mine so we looked into it together as a bit of macabre trivia. The body was brought to Vientiane under request of the Police Department and before it disappeared from the morgue I pulled a few strings with a nurse I dated, and we were able to get in there and take a tissue sample,’
‘Sorry to stop you, you said, “disappeared”?’
‘Yeah. Probably the local man from the Ministry of Tourism, or Ministry of something-or-other, wanting to brush it under the carpet,’
‘Why?’
‘They shit themselves the tourist trade will dry up… ecotourism and the fat gang in sneakers accounts for about 30 percent of GDP here. They’re juggling selling off the jungle and HE power to the chinks, while pretending to be the greenest, eco-friendliest country in Asia. Green do-gooders like to go to conscientious destinations, makes em sleep better at night, and bodies turning up half-eaten is bad for business right?’
‘Right.’
‘Anyway, pure serendipity but Nathan had a Doctor friend, a pathologist, who was in Vientiane on a jolly from Bangkok that weekend. He got her to take a look. He analysed the tissue sample and discovered it was full of acid.’
‘You’ve lost me.’
‘There aren’t too many animals who leave that kind of deposit after a meal, less of course there’s a carnivorous chemist on the loose with a hip-flask of sulphuric.’
‘And what kind of animal are you thinking?’
He paused for his final delivery, his voice close and conspiratorial, ‘Like I said, those forests have everything in them from tigers to leopards, and a few other animals we thought were extinct or haven’t discovered yet-’
‘So you’re saying it wan’t a tiger or leopard?’ I prodded, reading between the lines as if we were playing ‘twenty questions’.
‘Reptile. That’s all I’ll say.’
I tried to buy a little more time, ‘Hardly conjecture by the sound of it.’
‘Look, I don’t want to end up with the kind of treatment Nathan’s had for sticking to his guns, he’s lucky he hasn’t been sent home.’
‘Where was the Hmong child found again?’
‘An hour and a half north of Luang Prabang, place called Black Dragon Mountain near Muang Ngoi Neua. I think it’s an NPA – sorry - National Protected Area.’
The words placed a fresh sheet of perspiration on my forehead, Black Dragon Mountain. I thought back to the map under the cupboard, ‘Can I get in there, Ed?
Maybe he didn’t trust me, maybe I’d had enough of his time, but his voice became impatient. ‘No, not open to the public,’
‘Why?’
‘The Ministry of Forestry is using it as an example of preserved, original-growth forest. Logging’s big business, even if it spells the end for tigers and wild elephants. The NPA in Luang Prabang province is a publicity stunt more than anything, they’re saying, look, we leave our forests intact and private.’
&nbs
p; ‘Private?’
‘I heard someone bought it a long time ago, some philanthropist. If you don’t mind I’ll be off now, I’ve promised to take my kids to see the white elephant at the festival.’
‘You’ve been more than helpful, can I ask you one last thing?’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Did you only report one death?’
‘One confirmed death, yeah, but there’s been plenty of alleged disappearances there, usually tribes-people. I suppose they don’t understand the concept of private property - guess it’s fair enough if you’re a nomad. But Nathan says they’re frightened to go in the NPA now.’
‘And the disappeared were all children?’
‘Sounds like you know more than you’re letting on, bud.’ He said coolly.
‘Ed, a man in Hanoi told me about an ancient cult which used to take kids from their homes and turn them into murderers. It started happening again in the early Seventies. Do you think there’s a connection, that it’s happening again now?’
He was quiet a beat, ‘Good luck with your novel Mr Deschamps. If you’re headed to Luang Prabang ask Nathan about it.’
‘Great, where do I find him?’
‘On the old peninsula. It’s a small place, everyone knows everyone. Good luck.’
I put down the phone with barely contained excitement and a great deal of gratitude; he’d been more than generous. Suddenly things were moving, even if I couldn’t make form of them yet. All arrows pointed north, perhaps first toward Luang Prabang, the city of temples. That’s where I’d find Nathan Moore. I thought about my dad, he too had been there and it was mentioned on the map he’d left me. Despite my psychic attempts to pick up on his ghost, Vientiane was unyielding… just another dusty Asian backwater with glimmers of style. Without some frame of reference from one of his old friends Luang Prabang would doubtless be the same. And what of Dad’s old friends: Gerald King now on the run, Lucan Maybury in the morgue; that left Sammy Casbaron the Scarlet Pimpernel. Perhaps if I could track him down I might be able to extract some more information.
If all my forages dried up, I could return home with the self-knowledge I’d done my best. Next time I saw him I’d ask Lou about the Ravens, the Air America pilots who once flew sorties from Vientiane; perhaps he knew a few who still lived here. And more importantly he might know who’d owned the Ravens Bar. If he was true to his word he’d be at the Bakery till 12 pm and that gave me an hour to play with.
Time to face the Ravens Bar.
Staunchly refusing to look in a guide book, I hailed a tuk-tuk. As ever he tried to sell me marijuana, a hooker, then a transvestite, in that exact order, becoming more desperate and deviant with each commodity. I offered him an extra two dollars to keep quiet. We passed gatherings of people burning joss sticks beside makeshift spirit houses, the air thick with dust and the smell of roasting chestnuts. The Lao believe the air to be thick with entities, good and evil; at any turn you might be set upon by an incubus or succubus so it is necessary to seek blessing through talismans and the offer of prayer. I wondered which spirits were around me as the bar came into view. As it happened I didn’t need a tuk-tuk at all; it was about five minutes walk from my guesthouse.
The Ravens Bar sat down an alley near the curve of the Mekong River. Just as Giselle said, it was beside a tailor’s shop. The entrance and windows were smoked glass, like you’d expect to see in the go-go bars of Phnom Penh or Patpong - windows that don’t want you to see in. On a sign over the doorway was the name of the bar and silhouette of a raven against a red background. It looked like military insignia.
I steeled myself and, heart in my mouth, tried its handle, relieved to find it locked. Relieved perhaps, because I didn’t want to go any further with my naive investigation, because it proved the veracity of my beautiful companion.
The Tailor next door wasn’t much help. ‘Don’t know when shut, so-ree!’ he said shaking a cubic, glistening head of pomade.
‘Who owns it then, can you tell me his name?’
‘Don’t know, different owner.’
‘When did he take over?’
‘It closed now.’
‘So what was the name of the previous owner, please?’
‘So-ree! You want haircut sah?’ he said changing the conversation. Maybe it was paranoia but I had the sense he knew more than he was saying, as if it was better for the order of his internal organs that he kept schtum.
I wanted to grab a hold of his bonce and shake it, tell him it wasn’t good enough and that three people I knew were dead. Instead I thanked him and walked back down the street. One of my Crocs snagged on an uneven paving stone and bounced off. As I bent down to retrieve it a black car drove by and stopped outside the bar. I slid behind a tree, legs shaking; my heart pulsing with the promise of violence. Three men climbed out of the car. I knew two of them.
His face was malarial yellow, a charcoal suit finely tailored around his lean frame. Even in broad urban daylight, he had a forbidding physical presence. I remembered the ashen hair swept back across his skull, the liver spots around his eyes as I’d seen him up close at the market in Bangkok, peering into my taxi. He looked around and fished for his keys, clinical and measured in his movements. Then he let himself into the Ravens Bar.
So the connection was now truly beyond doubt. Like a penetrating, breath-stealing shot to the solar plexus, it all made crystal sense and my worst fears were realized. The matches were left for me, their discarder presumably the man I saw before me, the owner of the Ravens Bar. And he’d been in Paris. He’d also sought out Skip and I our first night in Bangkok. The rest was just history. And so here I was, impotently hiding behind a tree realizing my fight plan amounted to very little. I felt as if I’d climbed into a nest of spiders and it was only a matter of time before they noticed me.
My knees nearly gave way, my body pumping too much adrenaline. I knelt shaking, too distressed to move. If I needed an opportunity of revenge it was here before me; I reminded myself this must be Skip’s killer, he’d been given to me on a plate. Or was it the other way around, had I delivered myself to them?
The flaking paint on the store-fronts wheeled by; tailors, merchants, barbers, mobile phone vendors, noodle bars… they rolled into one as I hurried past, my breathing clumsy as I ran into a wall of heat. Questions were strafing through my head. They wanted the key and the map and they’d ripped open my best friend in pursuit of them, but why hadn’t they gone for me first? If only they’d intercepted me in the alley off the Khao San Rd, they would have had the map and none of this would have happened; Skip would still be alive, we’d probably be in the islands by now. Who was I kidding - either way one of us would be dead.
I stopped a few blocks away, out of breath, my hands on my knees as I fought to regain myself and clear my thoughts. But I couldn’t; the feeling of pointless folly mixed with sadness for my friend became so strong, even in the midst of my panic, that I felt myself slipping into don’t-give-a-fuck territory. I needed a drink, a bar with velvet darkness and quiet, cool booths, and there was no one to stop me. I found such a place with shuttered windows on the end of Setthathirat St. It was called The Samlo, referring to an ancient form of rickshaw. If ever you needed a place to hide, this was it.
There were prostitutes hovering on the upstairs floor, I could see the whites of their eyes as I entered. The bar looked warped and decrepit with a few sorry expats draped over it. A place time is irrelevant. Perfect. I ordered a boilermaker and quickly downed it in a corner booth. Then I drew deep on a cigarette, the smoke burning fresh tracks cut in my throat by the spirit. Shame and relief washed about me, but after a while it was just relief.
As the drink went to work, I tried not to think about my AA sponsor back home. Instead I pictured Dad’s photo on the mantelpiece at Mum’s, trying to focus on his eyes - could he have really wanted me to end up in a
ll this trouble? What would Jacques have done if he was me? Judging by King’s story of his confrontation with the Shark, he could have handled it. Despite my triumphs in the ring I knew I was a weak simulacrum, I just wasn’t made of the same mettle.
But what had Dad done that thirty-five years later caused his son to be pursued by strangers with the resolve of wolves? I wanted to scream at him - why couldn’t you hold down a normal nine-to-five like most dads? – And what gave you the right to meddle in adventures you had no right to?
I was staring drunkenly into space when I felt a sharp pain shoot through my hand. The cigarette had burnt down to my fingers.
Three beers and two double shots later, and staggering in the midday furnace, I went to the Scandinavian Bakery to meet Lou. Perhaps he could help Giselle and I get out of Vientiane, at least until I could piece something together to take to the Police in Bangkok. I was sure no one had seen me by the Ravens Bar and I‘d been wise to retreat. Being forty has certain merits - there are some battles that cannot be immediately won, and you learn this through all the beatings and compromises life throws at you. Perhaps wisdom is a cousin of cowardice.
I spotted Lou’s jeep parked haphazardly by a silk shop. He was sat in the shade of the bakery’s canopy, and when he saw me he raised his cup and grinned. ‘You’re sweatin’ some?’ he said.
I tried to breathe and steady my head. I was drunk on four whiskeys and three beers - what would Richard Burton have said?
He looked at his watch, ‘Can I buy you a coffee? Or do you want another beer.’
Ashamed, I looked away. As usual the circle was quiet, a few Lao sat on plastic stools beside the fountain. I maneuvered myself into a chair behind the partial camouflage of a shrub. I noticed he had on the same clothes as the day before. ‘Lou, do you ever go to the Ravens Bar?’ I asked, spilling my cigarettes on the table.
‘Nah, wouldn’t waste my pension in there, it’s an insult to the people it’s named after. Owner’s just cashing in on the name to get the tourists through the door. Anyway, why you interested in him?’
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