Mrs. Pollifax and the Golden Triangle

by Dorothy Gilman

  It was also Bonchoo who insisted on escorting them to the airport for the plane to Bangkok.

  "But you'll miss your bus home to Chiang Saen," she protested again, when Cyrus went off to buy their tickets.

  He said gravely, "I do this because I would much better like to invite you to my village to rest, but I do not think it so restful there, so like first-class guide I escort you."

  Cyrus, joining them again, grinned. "Not restful because of Charoon, Praphas, Pote, Amporn and Panngham?"

  "You have good memory," Bonchoo said, smiling up at him. "They would be all excitement to meet you, yes, but it is not like hotel, and you are both—"

  "Older peoples?" suggested Cyrus with a twinkle.

  "Very tired peoples," Bonchoo said with a reproachful glance.

  "How about a raincheck?" asked Mrs. Pollifax.

  "Raincheck?" he said, puzzled.

  "She means we could visit you later, after we've convalesced," said Cyrus. "Before we leave your country for home. What about it, Emily?"

  "Oh, I'd love that," she said warmly. "To see you again —to meet your family—"

  Bonchoo's eyes brightened. "Then it is not goodbye after all, Koon Emily!"

  "Not goodbye, no. Oh, and Bonchoo—" With a smile at Cyrus she reached into her purse and brought out the Buddhist votive. "Ruamsak may be dead," she told him gravely, "but he delivered all the information before he was—er—murdered with a Shan knife, and so this was to be given to you—to Ruamsak—for services rendered."

  He accepted it graciously. "A very pretty votive—I thank you."

  "Not votive," said Cyrus. "Tell him, m'dear."

  "Like your phyot arm-band it's in disguise," she told him eagerly. "It's a cube of gold."

  "Gold? he gasped. "G-gold?" he stammered, his eyes shining. "Yai! my wife can have a sewing machine at last, and I—maybe now I open a shop in Chiang Saen and not smuggle teak anymore!" He beamed at them happily. "It is a world of wonders, is it not? filled with phi-spirits and ghosts and nagas that have surrounded us all, and who would have thought we would live through it to see the Chiang Rai airport! You have good spirits looking after you!"

  "Think so?" Cyrus said, amused.

  "Oh yes, and we are most fortunate of peoples, for we have survived Wen Sa!"

  She said teasingly, "A tale to be told in your village?"

  "With many additions," he assured her gravely. "A farang of giant size carrying tins of sardines, rescued from the evil ones by a woman magician who is surely a spirit herself—"

  "That's how the story will go?"

  "Of course," he said, grinning.

  She smiled back at him, suddenly recalling her first impressions and her doubts of him, and remembering how patient he had been with her, and how loyal. Certain vignettes tugged at her memory: of Bonchoo merrily smoking a cheroot in the Akha village; of Apha's joy at being given a tube of lipstick, a mirror, a cluster of safety pins; of an outraged American who had been mistaken for Cyrus. She thought of Colonel Lu, and of Mornajay's strange pilgrimage, but most of all she remembered a temple in the jungle with three dreaming Buddhas and a holy man.

  "It's goodbye then for only a little while," she said, and to her surprise she was hugged by Bonchoo.

  "Yes—you come soon, but first to Bangkok."

  'To sleep," she said, nodding.

  "For at least two days," Cyrus added with a grin and they headed out to the plane waiting on the tarmac.

  But Mrs. Pollifax had no intention of sleeping late the next day, there was still something important to be done, and the next morning, once again at the Oriental Hotel, she was awake by seven. She lay quietly for a moment, savoring the miracle of Cyrus asleep beside her, and turned her head to be sure—yes, he was still there, he was real—and then she carefully slid out of bed to avoid waking him. From the window she could look down on the river. Somewhere below lay the terrace, and as she dressed she remembered the day an eternity ago when she had pictured them back here in a matter of hours to once again watch the barges and pleasure boats passing on the river. And now they were here, five days late and considerably wiser, but they were here.

  How strange life can be, she thought, and lifting the guidebook from Cyrus's suitcase, she sat down, opened it, ran her fingers down the index and turned to a certain page. She had a choice, she noted, but she copied out only one of the addresses, the one most accessible at this hour of the day. Scrawling a note for Cyrus—back soon—she propped it on the bureau and tiptoed out of the room.

  Descending in the elevator, she did not turn to the right and head for the terrace but proceeded through the glass doors to the taxi stand. The elegantly uniformed concierge summoned a cab for her, she gave the address—95 Wireless Road—and asked that the driver be instructed to wait for her there.

  It was not a long drive. Once at her destination she stepped out of the cab to enter the gardens and grounds of the U.S. Embassy and to be met at once by the fragrance of flowers and of freshly cut grass. She paused briefly to admire jasmine and bougainvillea, but already she had caught a glimpse of what she had come to see and now she moved impatiently toward it.

  It was a bronze statue, prominently displayed near the path and encircled by a bed of bright flowers. As she drew close it seemed to tower over her—as three Buddhas had once towered over her, she remembered. Reaching it, she politely read the plaque that identified the figure as John Lloyd Matthews and then she looked up into the face. But bronze was very different from flesh, she thought, and she stood under it for several minutes, frowning and in doubt, for the sculptor had posed the man gazing off into the horizon and he looked bloodless and official. The features vaguely matched but she reflected dryly that the head of the man in bronze was not shaven. Still in doubt she stepped around a rose bush and moved to the side. Reaching the profile, she gasped. At once—with a jarring abruptness—she was swept back in time to the parapet of a crumbling temple in the mountains where she had last seen this profile etched against a moonlit sky, calm and serene in deep meditation.

  There was no longer any doubt: she was staring at the Acharya.

  How very strange, she thought, and yet... and yet... how very right, somehow.

  Dimly she became aware that a man had stopped beside her to look at both her and the statue. He spoke now, and she turned to look at him: a young man carrying a briefcase, obviously headed for the Embassy. Gazing at the statue, he said, "He was a great man, you know—name of John Lloyd Matthews."

  "Yes," she said. "Did you know him?"

  He shook his head. "I was assigned here too late to know him, unfortunately, but I saw him—just once—a few days before he left for Chiang Mai and disappeared." He shivered. "If he was murdered I hope he died quickly."

  Mrs. Pollifax thought about this and smiled. "To the things of the world I'm sure that he died quickly—very quickly."

  "A pity what happened to him," he went on, scarcely heeding her oblique words. "It seems such a waste, he changed so many things in Thailand for the better, you know."

  "Perhaps Thailand changed many things in him, too," she said softly. "For the better," she added with a smile, and with a polite nod she returned to her waiting taxi to go back and tell Cyrus of her discovery: that among the people to whom they owed their lives there could now be added the name of his old friend Joker Matthews.

  On Wednesday morning Carstairs said to Bishop, "By the way, Mornajay's back in his office this morning."

  Bishop's jaw dropped. "What, no scandal, no investigation, no early retirement? I must say that's mysterious!"

  "Well, this is the CIA," Carstairs pointed out. "Home of mysteries, digressions, covert and overt covers, et cetera et cetera et cetera. I hear that he looks ghastly, he's apparently been quite ill."

  "Aren't you curious?" asked Bishop.

  Carstairs smiled, picked up his cup of coffee and leaned back in his chair. "Bishop," he said, "I am very curious. I would like very much to know what Mornajay was up to, and where he'
s been and why he killed Jacoby—which I'm certain he did... I would also like very much to know why Mrs. Pollifax was so deliberately evasive in her phone call to us as to where the hell she and Cyrus had been for five days. But since they're off viewing temples now, and inaccessible, and since Mornajay has been restored to us, one must be philosophic... What's important is that the coup failed in Bangkok, Mrs. Pollifax and Cyrus are safe and the evidence against Lueng on its way to us, Mornajay is back at his desk and we are all of us—thank God—in our appointed places again."

  "Amen," said Bishop with feeling. "I take it we can now dispense with our Thailand-watching, after its occupying us for one hell of a long week?"

  "Consider it back in the hands of the DEA now," said Carstairs cheerfully. "Who incidentally reported a raid in northern Thailand last weekend, and nine hundred pounds of dried opium burned to an ash."

  Bishop chuckled. "Maybe that's where Mrs. Pollifax was—maybe Emily lit the fire."

  Carstairs gave him a pitying glance. "Your imagination certainly knows no limits, Bishop. Curb it and get back to those reports on the Sudan, will you?"

  "Yes, sir," Bishop said and retreated to his office to begin another day's work.