Don't Eat Me

by Colin Cotterill

  The chief inspector had wondered whether the judge might have indeed taken his chance on an inner tube across the Mekhong, but, to his credit, when Phosy pushed open the door without knocking, Haeng was deep in the paperwork on his desk.

  “You got anything for me?” Phosy asked.

  Haeng jumped nervously. “Yes,” he said, “I believe I do. Maysuk contacted me.”

  “And you said what I told you to?”

  “Yes, I said you have some credible leads in the girl’s murder. I was thinking about that. It does seem ridiculous that he’d go to so much trouble just to avoid paperwork. I think he must have known where the girl came from, and it’s possible he was responsible for her death.”

  “The great mind of a judge at work,” said Phosy, rolling his eyes.

  “I know,” said Haeng. “I’ve been very naïve through this whole thing. I regret that.”

  “But you led him to believe that my investigations have gone nowhere, you’re still in your job and he’s not a suspect.”

  “That’s correct,” said the judge. “But there’s something you should know. I believe he’s planning to leave the country.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “He suggested it in our last telephone conversation.”

  “What did he say, exactly?”

  “He said in a couple of days he wouldn’t have to worry about Laos and its arbitrary legal system. He said he wanted to see me before he goes.”

  “What about?”

  “He didn’t say,” said Haeng, “but I’m afraid.”

  “Did you make an appointment?”

  “I said I’d meet him at the airport this evening.”

  “Today?” said Phosy.

  “I could try to put him off for a day,” said Haeng.

  “No, he’d get suspicious.”

  “What if you go?” said the judge.

  “Me? He thinks I’m at a seminar up north.”

  Haeng put down his pen and laced his fingers under his chin. “You could tell him you didn’t really go,” he said. “Tell him I ordered you to leave the capital, but you disobeyed me because you’re investigating me. That you believe I’m responsible for the body in the crate. You have compelling evidence against me. Get him to make a statement that he knows nothing of the incident you’re investigating.”

  Phosy was surprised at the judge’s acumen.

  “That won’t stop him from leaving,” he said.

  “It’ll let him know you’re in town and your men will be watching the airport and land borders to make sure I don’t leave the country. That might slow him down.”

  Phosy stared at the judge and considered the plan.

  “There’s something else,” said Haeng.

  “What?”

  “If I go, I’m afraid of what he might do to me. He’s threatened me before.”

  Phosy chewed his lip. “I’ll go see him this evening,” he said.

  “There’s a flight to Hanoi at five,” said Haeng.

  “I’ll be there earlier.”

  The policeman walked to the door then turned back. He reached into his briefcase and pulled out a manila envelope. He came back and handed it to Haeng. “I tried to talk the doctor out of this,” said Phosy, “but he said there’s no point in turning the screw more.”

  Haeng reached into the envelope and pulled out a sheet of paper he remembered very well. He checked the signature at the bottom of the letter and smiled. “My letter,” he said. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  “Think yourself very lucky.”

  “Phosy?”

  “What?”

  “Do you think . . . as I’m cooperating . . . do you think this period of helping you might count in my favor if there’s some kind of review. You have to agree there was no malice in what I did.”

  “Let me ask you,” said Phosy, once again heading to the door, “would you want to live in a country where the senior judge has no spine and no scruples? I’m not Dr. Siri. I don’t see the good side of bad people. The only thing cooperation will get you is a warm bowl of rice porridge on the morning of your execution. People like you disgust me.”

  He slammed the door behind him.

  Phosy had been telling the team about his visit to Judge Haeng.

  “I’m surprised he’s stayed put,” said Daeng.

  “Running away would be a confession of guilt,” said Phosy.

  “And Siri was right, where would he go?” said Civilai. “He’s got the taste of power and privilege. I don’t think his vanity would allow him to start again from the bottom in Bulgaria or Havana. He’d just be a little Asian clerk over there. And given the enemies he’s made at justice I don’t see him surviving long in a refugee camp. No, we’re the best deal he has.”

  “But it wouldn’t surprise me if he was hoping Director Maysuk would put a bullet in our dear chief inspector when he had him alone in his office,” said Siri.

  “Didn’t even get a whiff of his aftershave,” said Phosy.

  “You think he might have taken that flight to Hanoi?” Daeng asked.

  “I got there before the flight, checked at admin and stuck around the airport for a while,” said Phosy. “No sign of him. His name wasn’t on the flight manifest. I waited in his office for half an hour. Walked around a little bit. Didn’t see anyone. It felt like a national holiday. Couldn’t even find a secretary to ask where he’d gone.”

  “Didn’t it occur to you he might have wanted to harm you?” said Nurse Dtui. “He’d told the judge to get you off the case any way he could.”

  “No, Dtui,” said Phosy. “He wasn’t expecting me to turn up there. His appointment was with the judge. But I did have a gun, just in case. No bullets mind.”

  “They still rationed?” Daeng asked.

  “It’s astounding,” said Civilai. “They drop two million tons of ordnance on us in the war, and we can’t even squeeze a bullet out of the system.”

  “It’s not a joke,” said Dtui. “By insisting on doing everything yourself you put us all in danger.”

  “I suppose there’s a chance Haeng was lying about the appointment,” said Daeng. “He might have even warned Maysuk off. Encouraged him to get out of town. That might explain why Haeng stuck around. He thinks he’s got the upper hand.”

  “All possible,” said Phosy. “I’ve alerted all the border crossings to look out for the director. His official vehicle and the airport trucks were all accounted for.”

  The team was back in Daeng’s noodle shop and had spent the past hour putting together a plan for their visit to Vilai Savangkeo’s animal clearing center at Hong Tong. They didn’t have the administration on their side. The business that Vilai ran—the trade in animal parts and bi-products, the tiger farm, the export trade to zoos, the cross-border trafficking—it was all licensed. Everything he did was perfectly legal as far as the government was concerned. His was a company the Ministry of Trade was delighted to have on its books. Phosy had no legal right to break in and arrest the owner and his workers. They couldn’t even take out a warrant to search the premises. So they needed their utmost guile to get into the compound and gain access to Vilai’s files. They were all sure the businessman was connected to the body in the crate, and even though killing animals was not against the law, killing people was not acceptable.

  “Okay, team,” said Daeng. “Enough talk. We need an early night. Busy day ahead.”

  “Up at dawn’s crack,” said Civilai, with a smile.

  “Our first movie,” said Siri. “How proud I am.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  A Highly Respected Animal Torturer

  The rented bus left the morning market motor vehicle parking lot at 5:20 a.m. It was more full than a pre-war bus with rusting shocks ought to be. But passengers kept arriving even after there were no seats ava
ilable and people had to sit in the aisle.

  Thanks to the Lao Women’s Union, actors had arrived from near and far hoping for their big break. They were Ramayana dancers and puppeteers from the old regime. They were comics from wandering wagon shows. They were unknowns who’d done well in productions at school. But none of them had been in a movie. So the adrenaline on that journey, fifty-five kilometers east of the capital, would have been enough to fill the fuel tank three times over. Just looking at the elegant Panasonic camera on its tripod at the rear of the bus convinced everyone they were about to make history.

  The scene supposedly being shot that day was a classically rural pastiche set on the banks of the Mekhong River in the year 1828 of the Western calendar. King Anouvong of Laos had attempted to make inroads into the Siamese empire but was beaten back across the river. There followed a brave attempt by the Lao to defend Vientiane from the invading Siamese forces. In Siri’s version the Lao were successful in turning back the technically superior Thais. In reality, as Civilai reminded him, the Lao got their backsides kicked and lost their lowland city.

  The scene they claimed to be shooting this day showed the locals being recruited to boost the Lao army. Most of the actors were to play villagers, which dispensed with the need for elaborate costumes. Everyone brought along loin cloths and grimy underwear to pass as pauper fashion of 150 years ago. Civilai did not tire of telling them that these were the days before the priggish missionaries brought their tiresome morals to the region. Village women of 1828 wore their hair short and their breasts exposed. The female actors were surprisingly willing to whip off their tops. This naturally led to a substantial turnout of local men, many of whom had not seen a shapely breast since their suckling days.

  The big-movie atmosphere permeated every hut, every household all the way east along the riverbank to the vast compound of Comrade Vilai. It was a sprawling estate with a white, three-meter concrete wall topped with barbed wire. There was a metal gate with a guard post in front. Its similarity to the US embassy in Vientiane was no coincidence. Comrade Vilai was obsessed with security but he too was affected by the buzz that day. He had joined some of his workers and passersby on the street in front of his compound, looking back along the river to the large crowd gathered there. He was a vain seventy-year-old with dyed charcoal-black hair and false teeth that were a touch too large for his mouth. He refused to dress in anything but brushed silk, the most expensive from Bangkok, and ordered everything in the size he’d been thirty years before. He’d shrunk a good deal since then.

  Madame Daeng, wearing a tracksuit, a baseball hat and dark glasses, walked at speed toward the group.

  “What are you doing back there, sister?” Vilai asked.

  “We’re making a movie for the Ministry of Culture,” she said. She showed him the letter stamped by the vice minister. “But we’ve come to a bit of a standstill.”

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Do you work here?”

  “I own the place,” he said.

  “We’d sent a dozen buffalo and some goats from Vientiane to be here when we arrived,” said Daeng. “But they seem to have been rerouted somewhere along the line. So apart from one old buffalo and some stray dogs we don’t have any animals in our village scene. The village headman said you had some sort of zoo and might be able to lend us some animals.”

  Vilai laughed. “We certainly don’t have any buffalos or goats,” he said. “This is an exotic animal farm. But we do have one or two serows and a tapir or two that might fool the average cinemagoer.”

  “Of course we’ll pay you,” said Daeng.

  “No need for that,” said Vilai, “happy to help out the ministry. I’m a close friend of the minister, you know.”

  “You don’t say?” Daeng lowered her sunglasses and studied the face of the old man.

  “What?” he said. “Never seen anyone as good looking as me?”

  “In a way,” said Daeng. “You know, it’s rather uncanny.”

  “What is?”

  She reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out a sheet of paper with a sketch on one side.

  “Has anyone ever told you how similar you look to King Anouvong?” She held up the pencil drawing.

  “I can’t say anyone has,” said Vilai.

  “Isn’t it remarkable?” she said.

  Some of the workers gathered around to see and they agreed Vilai looked a great deal like the old king. This was not a coincidence as Daeng had commissioned a budding artist from the lycée to copy Vilai’s face from an old newspaper feature photograph. She’d added a war helmet and a chainmail necklace and made him a little younger. Not even Vilai could deny the likeness.

  “You know . . . I hope you don’t mind me asking,” said Daeng.

  “What?” said Vilai.

  “Could I make a suggestion,” she went on. “Later in the movie there’s a scene where King Anouvong rides through the village on an elephant recruiting soldiers. It would be such a great help if we could shoot that scene today rather than wait for an actor. We have the costume already.”

  “You want me to be in a movie?” said Vilai, slicking down his hair.

  “It’s a two minute scene, maximum.”

  “I can’t act.”

  “No need. Just sit on the elephant and look down at the villagers.”

  “I don’t know,” said Vilai.

  “The president’s really excited about this project. I’m sure he’d be delighted if you agreed to help us.”

  “The president?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well . . .”

  “Please.”

  “I suppose I could help out,” said Vilai. His workers whooped.

  “Excellent. Excellent,” said Daeng. “I . . . ?”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t suppose you have an elephant, by any chance?”

  As it happened, Vilai did have an elephant although it no longer had tusks. He also allowed twelve of his workers to appear in the scene as bearers and footmen. His animal handlers led an assortment of drugged mammals and placed them strategically around the village. Civilai had borrowed a royal costume from the currently closed royal history wing of the revolutionary museum. There was also an assortment of antique trousers and sandals. The museum curator seemed glad to be rid of them. So the kingly procession was in place. The director, Dr. Siri, spent most of the morning shouting directions through a large cone. Civilai was in charge of the camera complaining about the light and the heat and the lack of color. The director told the actors not to worry if they heard what sounded like explosions in the distance. These, he said, were merely charges being detonated for atmospheric purposes. Scenes were shot and reshot, all with the benefit of a camera that didn’t work. And it wasn’t until around 2 p.m. that anyone first noticed something was amiss back at the animal compound.

  A chevrotain, drowsy and disoriented, had ignored its instinct to return to the jungle and instead came to see what all the excitement was about on the river. The clumsy mouse deer lacked agility and was tasty enough to have been hunted out of existence in war-torn Laos. There was only one place it could have come from. Vilai sent one of his handlers to recapture it and another to go to the compound to see how it could have escaped. Meanwhile he sat atop his elephant beneath a tiered umbrella hamming it up for the camera. That was until he was made aware of the smoke billowing from his compound. He dismounted and headed back along the river. His workers raced ahead. He was the slowest of the group, and when he entered the open gates of his empire, the scene in front of him was far from the order he’d come to demand. To one side, all of his men including the movie extras, had been rounded up and were being held at gun point against one wall. Across the compound his house was burning and all around, cages had been opened, and, bemused by their freedom, animals were searching for an exit.

  The last t
hing Vilai noticed was a pinprick on the back of his neck.

  He came around in a deckchair on the balcony of his house. Behind him the wood beams cracked and the heat of the flames singed the back of his neck. From the concrete balcony he could see the rear wall of the compound and the gaping hole that had been blasted in it. The hill beyond was visible through the smoke and he could see two black leopards and a reunited family of gibbons and a wild elephant heading for the jungle beyond. Tapirs grazed hungrily on the sienna and two injured langur limped to a point beyond the tree line. All he could smell was the scent of burning house: plastic and wool and foam and electronics. Sitting on the balcony railing was a peculiar-looking man with a quiff. He was wearing crocodile skin boots.

  “Here we are then,” said Wee. “I estimate you have about thirty minutes of house left. You’ll be pleased to hear we evacuated your cook and your minor wife before we started the fire. We left the safe in there because the label claims it’s fireproof. We’ll see, eh?”

  “Who the hell are you?” said Vilai.

  “We’re from the World Animal Protection League,” said Wee. “As you can see, we set a lot of your animals free. Probably a waste of time. We warned the villagers to stay indoors. But most of your residents were too sick to move. The worst ones we’ve put down. We also set fire to your little warehouse of skins and tusks and the like. We gave their previous owners a nice sending off. Had a monk in here and everything, paving their path to nirvana. Your workers tell us you have a tiger farm in Thakhek. Not sure what we’ll do there. Probably not a wise idea to release a dozen tigers into the wild at the same time. Know what I mean?”

  “No,” said Vilai. “I mean what is your name?”

  “Why would you want to know that?” said Wee.

  “Because if you make the mistake of leaving me alive after this, I’ll hunt you and tie you upside down to a tree, and I’ll gut you.”

  “And why would knowing my name assist you in that endeavor?”