Black Buddha

by Richard Waters

  I stared at his yellowing beard and stopped breathing as an eye sprang open behind his glasses, his moustache moving as his mouth ripped into a grin. ‘Think Scarecrow!’ he said.

  Another punch to the heart, then the room began to fill with laughter. I lurched back in my chair and fought for breath as he rolled up his sleeve. Discreetly tattooed at the join of his elbow and emaciated bicep was the symbol I’d grown to hate. It seemed oddly fitting this group of deceivers had adopted the emblem of a two-faced snake. In a rush of choked breath, I broke away from them, toppling the chair underfoot as I backed into the next room. No one followed, they didn’t need to, I wasn’t going anywhere.

  ‘This is the man who made the call, who made the call, Alain, so many summers ago.’ Said Casbaron as if it was a nursery rhyme. ‘This is the pencil pusher who brought your father to Laos for the final time.’

  I lingered in the divide and stared at Lou I disbelief. ‘You were CIA?’

  Lou grinned, ‘Yup, in another life.’

  ‘You set him up.’

  I went for him in a fury, but James appeared from the darkness of the second room and pushed the pistol against my stomach. ‘Back!’

  Phantoms and death were reeling behind my eyes like patterns on a zoetrope; the boundaries between reality and nightmare seemed to have collapsed.

  When Ali fought George Foreman in Zaire he was booked on a train to Hades without a return ticket. Foreman should have killed him; in fact he was doing for the first couple of rounds. Then something extraordinary intervened; if you watch the fight you see Ali at the end of the first round in his corner, fear written across his face, humbled and terrified by Foreman’s mammoth strength. It just gets worse; by the end of the second he’s fighting for his life against a man who’s younger and more aggressive, full of hate instead of gobby rhetoric. Then, as if a divine light is suddenly guiding Ali something inspired kicks in over the following rounds as he returns to his senses, realizes he needs to do something opposite to what he’s been doing… he needs to feed the other the bait, give him the impression he’s got it in the bag, so out came the ‘rope-a-dope’ tactic; sitting on the ropes getting pummeled while Foreman lets rip the dogs of war. Ali takes it round after round, mostly on his elbows, protecting his face and body. But then it started to pay dividends, the behemoth was getting slower and there’s a light in Ali’s eyes… he’s biding his time, waiting for that golden door of opportunity to open. And when he saw it Ali came to life, flew at the other with such ferocity that it was all over in a matter of seconds.

  Time to take my moment.

  I caught James unawares smashing my fist down on his stringy arm, the Beretta clattering on the floor as my knee flew at his crotch. By the time he was on his knees clutching his balls in agony, I had the gun pressed against his temple. I waited for them to rush in; a moment passed, but no one came. James looked anxiously at his premier and I pistol-whipped him across the side of the head. Casbaron smiled and clapped,

  ‘I’ll kill him.’ I said unevenly.

  ‘So kill him, he’s done his bit. We all pass through tonight.’

  James flinched beneath me. I didn’t know if Casbaron was bluffing, it was impossible to tell; after all Lou was still alive.

  ‘I mean it, he’s perishable, you can do my work for me… just get on with it, we’ve got a busy night ahead of us.’

  ‘You’re insane.’

  He shook his head. ‘What’s your yardstick for sanity, that mother of yours who makes paper dinosaurs? I’m insane?’

  ‘Go on Alain.’ Giselle said encouragingly. ‘You hate him anyway.’

  I almost felt sorry for him.

  ‘Every soldier needs to be blooded… makes him a better player. You know a grunt has a fifty percent improved chance of survival after he’s made his first kill?’ said Casbaron.

  Something flashed beneath me, James one-handedly fingering a lock-knife against his leg. I didn’t even think about it, I heard the click of the pistol, felt the snap of the bolt before I felt the squeeze of the trigger. The report echoed through the clearing.

  James fell to the floor with a thud. The jungle celebrated my first kill in a symphony of echoes and a wild applause of animals. Power and disgust raced through me in equal currents, I felt like crying and laughing at the same time. Casbaron looked almost proud, his milk eyes wide and excited. ‘Feels good doesn’t it? The juices in your stomach, the electricity in your arms,’ He knew exactly what he was talking about. I trained the gun on him and he held up his hands,

  ‘Don’t ruin it for yourself, this is a special moment. Jesus I envy you for it, I’ve killed so many people I don’t remember when I last had the buzz, but you…the past and future can go to hell, you’re in the present now, the arbiter between life and death… finally you’re alive!’

  I squeezed the trigger and angled the gun at his eyes. ‘Shut up!’ I screamed.

  But I knew I couldn’t kill him, that he held the final pieces of my jigsaw in his burnt hands. I knew I had to kill him. At my sides like luminous bookends were the ghosts of my best friend and father. I could almost touch them.

  Casbaron smiled at me with the tenderness of an executioner. ‘You see the sunlight now?’ he whispered.

  I raised the barrel, closed my left eye and looked down the sight. I almost jumped back as the figures of Lou and Vong appeared smiling beside him, the cheerful dead rolling back the stone of Gethsemane. Casbaron’s expression seemed to change with the dying light of the candles, ‘Hope you enjoyed your moment Alain.’

  ‘You’ve got a choice,’ I screamed, ‘you can die without a word or you can explain to me why you did all of this... I’ll kill you anyway.’

  ‘Games are fun so long as I’m making the rules up. I’m bored now.’ He furrowed his brow and stared at James. ‘Talitha Cum, brother.’ James twisted in mock spasms, rose to his feet and joined the others, laughing.

  I squeezed the trigger again, the smell of gunpowder, the recoil of the pistol as I fired blindly. They stood unscathed by the blanks. Casbaron fished in his pocket and produced another pistol, a discreet black Mauser. The room jumped as he nosed it to James’s ear and fired. This time his body fell to the floor, his blood spraying in a temporary geyser.

  ‘Like I said, the buzz is no longer there.’

  Next thing I knew I was face down on the bamboo struts.

  - 41 -

  A leaden dawn fit for a dirge, fishermen bent over damaged nets, merchants carrying their wares to market before the onslaught of the morning rain. Jacques took breakfast in a café by the Mekong, swollen to burst with the monsoon. He wanted to look up his old friends, see if any of them were still in Vientiane, but that would be fatal, Carabas had ears everywhere; he’d located him on the island of Ko Chang with Penelope, found him at Bangkok airport; even now he might be watching. Better to let old ghosts lie, fulfil his objective and return to the life he’d made for himself in England.

  He’d called his bank the day before - the money was in the account - eighty grand Stirling. Penelope could now buy as many carpets as she wished; the house was paid off and plenty left over in their savings. He tried not to think about her as he studied the dossier Knowles had given him. There was nothing in it they hadn’t mentioned in the meeting, just the collected intelligence of dead mens’ endeavours. That and a psych profile from some bod in a lab coat who’d probably never met a real killer.

  The profiler had concluded Carabas was a grade one psychopath, chiefly because he lacked a conscience. He wasn’t a serial killer, the latter’s brains were like pieces of broken glass, houses of cards that eventually tumbled after an orgy of killing. But Carabas held it together, blossomed in immorality like a poisonous flower.

  That night he made the journey upriver from Vietniane against the currents of the Mekong. It would take at least three days to get to l
uang prabang then on to Muang Ngoi Neua. Drawing closer through the belly of the jungle he felt as if he was travelling up an artery to the centre of a corrupted, black heart. A heavy rain threw down needles of glass on his face, the outboard struggling against the swelling currents. He gathered his poncho around him and blanked out the discomfort, instead he thought about the money and safety of his loved ones.

  Finding Carabas was one thing, but getting there was his present objective; everywhere the country swarmed with Pathet Lao soldiers. With the help of their Vietnamese brothers they’d almost attained the unattainable. Even now the reports were coming in that the Americans retreating, the jeeps and fat painted wives, moving out in a flock of helicopters. Not long till the last Chinook made its final turn and left Saigon for neutral Thailand. Jacques was on his own here.

  The jungle crowded around him in a feral embrace, trees sluicing water, earth moist and fecund as Eden’s first rainfall after the birth of the serpent. It called to him, mocked his wavering courage, in here, somewhere in here, keep looking… a faint hiss in his mind. He steeled his eyes against the flotsam of dead animals washing against the bow of the boat. Once or twice he passed a floating corpse in the darkness; even the dead were trying to leave Laos. Somewhere, deep in its forested womb waited the sorcerer and his worshippers. Jacques comforted himself with the thought of Maybury; by now he’d be in Burma, safe on his way to a new life.

  He moored up beside a mud bank, created a screen of camouflage with cut branches and pulled out his map. Another night’s travel would see him in Luang Prabang. People were saying it was now a ghost town. A few hours later he woke to the sound of a boat passing on the other side of the river. It was at least fifty yards away but he could hear the voices, then see the outline of Pathet Lao clutching cigarettes as they passed on their way south. The outboard muttered away and he lit a cigarette of his own to warm his hands.

  His gun was wrapped in plastic, stashed at the bottom of the longtail. There were also claymores and frag grenades he’d picked up from a contact in Vientiane that morning. He shut his eyes and envisioned his foe a day upriver. The moment was waiting, it always had been, even in London; Carabas whispering to him across coffee and cigarettes in their Richmond flat… two men who had no choice but to destroy one another.

  The next morning it was still raining. By first light Deschamps was back on the river, stopping at each bend to scope ahead for enemy patrols. He squinted up at the gunmetal sky, the rain and trees locked in sombre embrace. It was madness to travel by day, he should wait in the interior and bide his time; but he kept going, all the time willing himself on with the promise of his return home. His stomach felt soft and suburban, his muscles weak and unconditioned.

  Toward afternoon he passed the statue graveyard in Pak Ou caves, high up in the cliff. He was ten miles short of Luang Prabang.

  The roof of the palace loomed out of the mist; Jacques crept gingerly toward it like a hunched cat. The shutters on the building were closed, he noted the overgrown grass as he padded to the servants’ entrance; there was no one around, not a soul to lift the encompassing depression of the times. He fiddled with a padlock on one of the doors, eventually the pick found a purchase and the lock fell open.

  The white walls of the royal bedroom were spiderwebbed, the room smelt of mildew. Hard to imagine so many princes had been spawned here through the centuries. Where were the royals now? He hurried on through the innards of the palace, finding himself in the velvet-walled room he’d once sat in with the king. His heart slumped, everything was covered in drapes; the throne, the oil paintings on the walls, even the cabinet with the gifts from foreign emissaries. So Savang Vatthana had been taken just as he himself had predicted. As he hopped the wall and returned to the boat, the sky ripped open impatiently and started to thunder.

  Three hours on, toward Muang Ngoi Neua, the Frenchman moored up by a rusted U.S patrol boat gasping for breath on the shore. A boy on an elephant laughed at him from an opening in the jungle as Jacques’s foot disappeared up to his shin in the quagmire of wet earth. That afternoon, the rain still falling, he rode on the back of the elephant with the little mahout. They plodded through the cathedral of green toward the faraway mountain range. It was almost dark beneath the canopy of the jungle. Briefly, they stopped to let the elephant rest, the young boy clicking his tongue and tapping his grey beast on its neck with a stick. It groaned and settled upon its knees for them to dismount.

  At sunset, through a gap in the trees, Jacques saw what he’d been looking for; the triangular mountain he’d seen so long ago in the company of Carabas… the night of the black shit.

  He’s evolved.

  The mahout shivered, huddling close to the elephant’s stomach. He pointed to the mountain and resolutely shook his head; he would go no further. Jacques checked his watch, almost four pm, he was in good time. He paid his ferryman and set off on foot toward the mountain.

  Knowles had mentioned a temple up the mountain; an old Khmer Palace built a thousand years before. But there’d been no need for the intelligence. Carabas’ lair was in one place and once place only - Black Dragon Mountain. It’s your destiny, the king or Yin had said. Destiny? Where’s the king now, dying of cold in some dreadful prison cave in the badlands of Viengsai. Had he predicted that? Jacques pinpointed the co-ordinates and trudged toward them as a weak sun slumped behind the fortress of the jungle.

  Two hours on he thought it was his imagination playing tricks on him, but then the sound of drums rolled closer, almost in step with his heartbeat. He looked at the map and traced the direction of the noise; it was coming straight from the temple. The branches pulsed with drumbeat, the trees alive, cascading with rainwater. Jacques smelt the rotten air from dead teak trees and grimaced. A thick mist had risen, it crawled soundlessly around the forest floor covering roots and dells, a blessing perhaps. No-one would see him coming.

  That evening he saw the first of the stone faces carved from the walls, their full lips and chipped eyes. He scanned the temple ruins and lay down on his belly; the drums were close now, the air thick with the smoke of burning wood. He cursed the crack of twigs echoing around him like footfalls in a tomb, and dogtrotted to the remains of a vine-ridden pillar, unsheathing his gun and flicking off the safety catch.

  If his target was surrounded, Jacques would find it difficult to escape, they knew the jungle better than he did. He would kill Carabas as he slept and if followed, lead his warriors back through a trap of rigged claymores. How to first terminate the target with minimum noise? He’d use his knife.

  He snuggled into a stone recess and waited for the sounds to move away, the shadow of the mountain rising up from the mist above him. He spoke to fate, to the long and colourful life he’d experienced; there had to be a reason for him coming here, something more than money. His question rebounded off the forest walls and came back to him without answer.

  It was still, the drumrolls faded. His body had lost its charge, jet-lag coursed around him and told him to sleep. He sucked in the oxygen and tried not to think of his home, his son playing on the late summer lawn. Shadows scuttled around him in a conspiracy of silence, he raised his gun and aimed at a shape, but it was nothing. Jacques closed his eyes and gathered his poncho around him, just a few minutes rest, that’s all… then he would push onward. His eyes flickered stubbornly and then he was asleep.

  One by one the children and warriors tightened the circle, there was no moon above them, only the black ooze of the forest air. They crept silently toward him through the mist, their sunken faces painted in mud and phosphorescent green paste. The first of the tapers were lit.

  Jacques’ eyes sprang open, it had started to rain and a wall of fire was crackling around him. He tried to count them; twenty, thirty… no, there were more. Children, some of them barely older than Alain, sat in the branches of trees, squatted over the broken walls of the Khmer ruins, watching him pa
tiently; and there were older, hardened Hmong warriors, their eyes flat and dangerous. It was as if he’d wandered into the keep of a Medieval warlord.

  A narrow aisle opened in the sea of flames, a deathly hush rose as their leader walked toward him. Carabas stood wrapped in a black robe like a hideous subversion of a Buddhist priest. The light of the flames played on his burnished head, his glittering ebony eyes without any trace of whites. The Lizard drew gracefully toward him, his muscles slicked in sweat like the powerful flanks of a horse. His worshippers gathered around him without words.

  Carabas bunched the muscles in his neck and smiled at him. ‘Thank you for coming Scarecrow, I knew you wouldn’t keep me waiting.’

  ‘How did you know?’ he said, easing his free hand to the knife beneath his poncho.

  Another figure emerged from the flaming throng, a westerner. Lou Knowles raised a salutary hand and smiled as Jacques looked desperately for an escape route.

  Carabas raised his arms to the sky, his face a mask of shadows. He opened his mouth, the overbite extended, sucking in rain as if he were catching errant souls. The warriors stood tensed as a single body, their faces glowing as the Lizard focused on his foe, hands flexing with the magic of the moment. Behind him two children carried a hideous buffalo skull, the horns skirling into the dark. They presented it to their master. As he looked around with the solemnity of a high priest, the blackness started spilling from his mouth.

  Then he placed the skull on his head.

  ‘Take our lamb to the hut,’ Carabas said softly and Jacques’ bladder released itself.

  - 42 -

  ‘You’ve got a choice, another crossroads. Which turn will you take?’ said Casbaron. The air was cold against my naked legs, I was on the balcony above the dragons and cat’s cradle of ropes they’d erected for Yin. He dangled above them like a fly in a gathering of web-spool. I wasn’t sure if he was still alive; in the wan light of the burning torches I could see his legs were mangled. The creatures built a house of cards from one anothers’ bodies, a mound of black-grey hides and yellow eyes. The larger beasts were at the top of the pile, balancing on their thick tails and using their front paws to reach for him.