Don't Eat Me

by Colin Cotterill

  “This is your chance to apologize,” said Phosy.

  “How?”

  “By solving the case for us.”

  “What . . . what do I have to do?”

  “Just be your normal, obnoxious self,” said Phosy. “You pretend you got away with the Zil thing and you ordered me out of the city. You work through your in-tray as if nothing had happened.”

  “What do I do if Maysuk gets in touch?”

  “That would be perfect. That’s what we’re hoping will happen. We want to know why he set you up and who the girl is.”

  “You expect me to act as if nothing’s happened?”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “Of course it is,” said Haeng. “Everything’s different. I’m nothing now, nobody. A little play acting for you and your team isn’t going to change my future. No matter the result this isn’t going to get me out of the gutter.”

  “No, but you can make it your starting point. As long as you’re aware you’re in the gutter you only have one direction to go. This way you can start your new life by doing something selfless, something positive. The alternative is that you stay in the cell I just pulled you out of and you start to rot there. This is a second chance.”

  Haeng looked at his hands and sighed. “What’s to stop me from leaving?” he said.

  “Your conscience, if you have one.” Phosy shrugged and headed for the door.

  “Chief Inspector,” said Haeng.

  “What?”

  “I understand I’m not in a position to ask a favor.”

  “Then don’t ask,” said Phosy.

  Haeng stood and walked to the front of his desk. “And I would completely understand if you said no, but this isn’t for me. It’s for my family.”

  “Well?”

  “My career’s over, probably my life is in the balance. The shame is already eating me. I deserve everything I’ll get for abusing my position. But, there’s my father.”

  “What about him?” said Phosy.

  “He loves this country. He sent me to study in the USSR, and I promised to return and dedicate my life to Laos. It will be hard enough for him to learn of my stupidity over the skeleton affair. But if he ever thought I’d betrayed my country it would kill him.”

  Phosy turned to face him. “Are you talking about the letter?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “You offered to hand over state secrets to the Americans in return for a green card. That’s treason, boy.”

  “I know,” said Haeng staring at the ground like a schoolboy in front of his headmaster, “and not a day goes by that I don’t wish I could unwrite that letter. It was totally imbecilic of me. I was going through a bad period in my life. Look, Phosy, I’m already finished. You have me cold. I deserve no favors, but disclosing the contents of that letter to my family, that would be cruelty. You’d be stabbing a corpse.”

  “I thought Dr. Siri gave that letter back to you.”

  “Phosy, you know very well that wasn’t the original. It was a very good Xerox copy but the signature was not written by pen. Another one of the doctor’s little jokes. He still has the original.”

  “You deserve nothing.”

  “I know. But, please. Please let me see that letter turned to ash before I’m stood in front of a firing squad.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Judge Haeng, as if felled by a bullet, dropped to his knees and groveled. “I beg you,” he said.

  Phosy looked away embarrassed. “I’ll talk to Siri about it.”

  “That’s all I can ask. Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  They were sitting in a bamboo hut out of the sun and Chong brought them coconuts with straws sticking out of them. The coconut water was sweet and warm.

  “Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?” said Siri.

  “It’s one of my jobs to answer questions, Your Lordship,” said the old man.

  “Right, but this isn’t specifically about the zoo,” said Daeng.

  “It’s sort of connected to the civet incident,” said Siri. “Nurse Dtui got the feeling there was more you’d like to have told her, but you weren’t so comfortable with your boss around.”

  “She’s a smart lady,” said Chong.

  “You said civets don’t attack people,” said Daeng.

  “Only to defend their young they might. Unlike people, they know their limitations.”

  “But you saw the bone,” said Siri. “You knew it was civets that chewed on it. It isn’t impossible that the girl was killed by them.”

  “You don’t know for sure, do you?” said Chong.

  “No,” said Daeng, “but the corpse wasn’t so old when it was found. Our fear is that she might have been eaten alive.”

  “Oh no,” said the old keeper, “they’d have to be starving to death themselves to resort to that.”

  “Any idea why there might have been a crate of starving civets with a dead girl inside?” asked Siri.

  The keeper chewed on imaginary buffalo skin with his imaginary teeth. It made him appear to be smiling but his eyes said otherwise.

  “Was this at the airport?” he asked.

  “It might have been,” said Siri.

  “Then the question as to why there’d be a crate of starving animals is easy enough to answer. There’s hardly a day goes by when a box of hungry this or that doesn’t arrive at Wattay.”

  “They don’t get fed?” asked Daeng.

  “They’re cargo,” said Chong. “Once they arrive at the airport they’re packed in the hold like the parcels and the bundles. You’d like to think they had a good meal before the trip but the only responsibility the agent has is to get them on the right flight. They sedate them and ship them. There’s only a few species that hibernate naturally. Civets aren’t one of them. You can’t sedate an animal for as long as it takes to get them to the other side of the world. And even when they’re asleep they relieve themselves on whoever’s in the crate below. Can you imagine the state of them when they arrive? And transit’s even worse. Do you see some overworked Russian airport worker breaking open the crates and giving the inmates a bunch of fresh fruit to sustain them for the rest of the journey? There’s no clean up. There’s no temperature control. You have to be some tough critter to survive an air trip.”

  “We were told the business had been regulated,” said Daeng. “Conditions were better.”

  “That’s true,” said Chong. “So, you can imagine how nasty it used to be.”

  “Any idea how a human body might have found its way into one of those crates?” asked Siri.

  “The dealers are a mean bunch,” said the keeper. “They’re not really that fond of newcomers to the business. It could have been someone who tried to muscle in. Someone being taught a lesson.”

  “It was a young girl,” said Daeng.

  “Is that so? I’m sorry about that.”

  “Who does the packing?” Siri asked.

  “Depends,” said Chong. “There used to be a lot of collection points, including this place. They’d pack and ship their own animals. But as our new rulers aren’t so fond of private enterprise I hear there’s a big clearing house somewhere out east now. Most of the agents send their stock there. They get a lot of stuff from Vietnam and Thailand.”

  “Does this zoo still send animals?” asked Daeng.

  “What?” The old man blushed through his dark skin.

  “I’m sure locals bring you animals they’ve caught,” said Daeng. “What do you do when you’re overstocked?”

  The old keeper sighed. “We get more sent here than we can take,” he said. “There are costs. We can’t survive just on the entry ticket money. We get no funding from the government. Selling animals is the only way to hang on to the ones we put on display.”

  “You don’t like this
trade, do you?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because you aren’t under any pressure. You don’t know who we are but you’re spilling a lot of beans.”

  “Who am I to do anything?” said Chong. “Be nice to think there was somebody who cared enough to, you know, get involved and do something about it.”

  “Why do the Thais and Vietnamese send their animals here?” asked Daeng.

  “That’s a long story,” said the keeper, “and I don’t think I’m the man to tell it. I was just a worker all through the trade agreements. I think you should talk to the man who was running it in the sixties.”

  “I thought he was French,” said Siri.

  “Yeah, that’s right. Monsieur Yves. Before the PL moved in he was the biggest dealer in Southeast Asia.”

  “He’s still alive?” asked Daeng.

  “His mind’s going a bit but he still has all the stories.”

  “We don’t actually have a budget for long distance phone conversations,” said Daeng.

  “How did you get here today?” asked Chong.

  “Motorcycle,” said Siri.

  “Then that and a bottle of cognac’s all you’ll need.”

  Phosy and Nurse Dtui were sitting in the same coffee hut that had launched Mr. Geung and Tukta on their careers as freak show celebrities. The owner was chatty and, as Geung had said, shifty. Phosy had managed to stall the Vespa just past her place and spent twenty minutes trying to restart it. While doing so he pocketed the live spark plug and replaced it with a dead one. Dtui had walked back to ask the woman where the nearest mechanic could be found and the owner’s son had run off to fetch him. The mechanic, a middle-aged man who looked as if his grease stains had been applied strategically like stage makeup, arrived ten minutes later. He seemed overwhelmed by the 1960 collector’s item and the task of getting it back on the road.

  In that first half hour, at least a dozen hunters had arrived at the wildlife agency opposite. Some had rifles slung over their shoulders, others had machetes hanging from their belts. They’d come in pairs with fruit bats or giant squirrels suspended by the feet from a bamboo pole or individually with heavy burlap sacks on their backs. A group of happy children arrived with a cane cage full of box turtles, and an old man staggered up with an elderly macaque lashed to the crossbar of his bicycle. But the market could absorb it all. Nobody was turned away.

  “Is that a food market over there?” Dtui asked the coffee shop owner.

  “Sort of,” she said.

  “I was thinking we might get some meat to take home with us,” said Dtui.

  “It’s not that sort of market,” said the woman. “They won’t sell you meat.”

  “What else would they do with all those animals?” Dtui asked.

  “Sell ’em of course,” said the woman. “Live, most of ’em. Make a nice little income, they do. One of these country boys comes in with a mongoose and they give him fifty kip and he’s happy. Then they up and sell the same thing for eighty thousand. I wish my husband had got us into that business, I tell you. No getting rich selling coffee and biscuits.”

  “Might as well take a look anyway,” said Dtui.

  And with the bemused mechanic still tinkering, Dtui and Phosy strolled across the wide dirt street. With every step the stink grew more overwhelming. It looked at first appearance like a regular market with a corrugated tin roof and aisles but no walls. It was an annex to a sturdy two-story house with a fine metal gate. It was the only non-wooden building in the village. But there were no tables in this market. Instead the aisles were lined with cages and boxes. A squat man with Chinese features sat behind a desk cooling himself with a rattan fan. He wore a damp white singlet and football shorts. A pair of dark glasses hung on a string around his neck although it was clear from his chalk white skin that he’d never been in the sun. He looked up from a pile of money when the couple walked in.

  “What?” he said.

  “I’m Chom,” said Phosy, “and this is my wife, Pun.”

  “I didn’t ask for a roll call,” said the man.

  Phosy was sure the pasty man was nicknamed Whitey when he was a kid.

  “No, that’s true,” said Phosy. “My wife and I have a little export business, nothing spectacular, mind. We just send Lao goods to my wife’s family in Udon.”

  “And what’s that got to do with me?”

  “Well, my bike just broke down,” said Phosy, “and we’ve been waiting for the mechanic to fix it. And we noticed the impressive volume of trade you’ve been doing here. I think we could probably be of service to one another.”

  Whitey looked them up and down. “Not interested,” he said.

  “I haven’t made my offer yet,” said Phosy.

  “You don’t need to. I’ve got a regular customer. He’ll take everything I’ve got.”

  “What if I took everything you’ve got for a better price?” said Phosy.

  “Let’s just say I’m a faithful dealer,” said Whitey. “Now leave me alone.”

  Dtui had veered away from the conversation and was walking the aisles heading for a yard at the back. She couldn’t bear to look into the overcrowded cages: clawless otters crammed together, young komodo dragons piled one atop the other like bags of rice, turtles in dry buckets. She leaned over an unplugged ice chest, lifted the lid and recoiled at the sight. Inside was what looked like oversized spaghetti, but it was moving, packed to the rim with all varieties of snakes.

  “Oi, what are you doing there?” shouted Whitey.

  He reached under the desk in front of him but Phosy was on him before he could pull the revolver from its hidden shelf. The policeman had the gun out of Whitey’s hand and was holding it by the barrel before he could say anything. He smashed it down onto Whitey’s fingers, but the yell was muffled by the animal cries from behind the market.

  “Sorry,” said Phosy, “hope I didn’t break your trigger finger.”

  “Who do you think you are?” said Whitey, wringing his injured hand. “You can’t just walk in here and hit people with no reason.”

  “You were just about to shoot my wife,” said Phosy. “That’s reason enough, don’t you think?” He called to Dtui. “What do you see back there?”

  “A lot of miserable animals,” she said. “Those that aren’t being crushed to death hardly have voice left to cry. There are bigger cages out back. Bears and wild cats as far as I can see. They don’t look any happier. I smell disease and death everywhere.”

  “And there’s another good reason to break your hand,” said Phosy. “I’m on the animals’ side.”

  “You won’t get away with this,” said Whitey.

  “Why, what are you going to do?”

  “I don’t need to do anything,” said the man. “My customer looks after his people. You’ve made a serious mistake here, pal. He’ll find you and he’ll make you very sorry. You won’t be able to hide.”

  “I have no intention of hiding,” said Phosy, “in fact I’d be delighted to meet him. It’s the least I can do considering I’ll be taking over his business.”

  The man laughed. “What happened to the little family exports to Udon?” he asked.

  “I lied.”

  “You have no idea who you’re dealing with,” said Whitey.

  “I don’t really care,” said Phosy, “and you know why? Because you’ll all be working for me soon enough.”

  Dtui was unlatching cages but few of the inmates had the energy to take their chance for freedom.

  “Oi, stop that,” shouted Whitey. “Tell her to stop.”

  Phosy raised the pistol and scratched his nose with the barrel.

  “She’s a free spirit,” he said. “No controlling her.”

  “That’s my livelihood, that is. I’m just working to feed my family like all of us.”

  “A friend
of mine in Vientiane—a very wise man—once told me some famous philosopher whose name I can’t recall said there are some occupations that make it impossible for a man to be virtuous. This is one of them.”

  “You’re mad,” said the man. “You’d need an army to take over this business.”

  “I’ve got one,” said Phosy, reaching inside his back pocket. “You probably heard there have been some changes at police headquarters. I’m the man now.”

  Phosy held up his ID long enough for Whitey to see the photo and read the line, Chief Inspector of Police, but not long enough to read the name.

  “It seems such a shame to shut down all these profitable enterprises along the border,” said Phosy, “especially as our budget’s so modest. So we’re nationalizing them, starting with you and your boss. You want to give me an address so I can pop in and say hello?”

  The man was confused. The freed animals, those that could walk, were staggering around the market dumbfounded. Dtui, quite wisely, only released the ones she knew were more afraid of her than she was of them.

  “Just stop her, will you?” said Whitey. “I don’t know where he lives.”

  “Bull dung.”

  “No, really. I’ve never been there. I’ve heard it’s out east somewhere, but we’ve done all our business here. The truck drivers won’t say. It’s some secret compound.”

  “You got a name for him?”

  “I can’t . . .”

  “Believe me,” said Phosy, “you should worry more about what I’ll do to you than what he will.”

  They were on their way back to Vientiane on the Vespa. Dtui had to shout into the back of her husband’s head. Even without helmets it was hard to be heard above the growl of the bike on the gravel.

  “Are you sure that was wise?” said Dtui.

  “What’s that?” said Phosy.

  “Declaring war on a trafficker.”

  “They’re cowards, Dtui. They make their living out of cruelty. I’m not worried about some businessman who has no respect for life.”

  “I told you you’d make a good Buddhist.”

  “Can’t be a good Communist and a good Buddhist at the same time.”

  “What worries me is that you’re staging a turf war in the name of the police force.”