The Amok Runners

by Colin Cotterill

  ‘Damn. They don’t even have a landline? They got a name?’

  ‘The receptionist called it Northern Thai Castings.’

  ‘Otherwise known as a guy with a cell phone. Did you call?’

  ‘Nobody’s answering.’

  ‘Wow.’ I got to my feet and stretched.

  ‘I have to consider all the implications of this in the bathroom.’ I said.

  ‘Hurry back,’ said Sissy.

  I walked off the deck, the boards bouncing under my feet. I hoped it had nothing to do with the two kilos I’d packed on since starting the project. Arny winced as the floorboards rearranged themselves beneath him. He worked himself into a position where he could drink his tea. It was cold now but he couldn’t reach the thermos. He looked like a seal with no hope of standing on his hind flippers for the foreseeable future. Doomed to drag himself …

  ‘You didn’t tell me this was an actual tea party,’ came a voice from the shadows.

  Sissy and Arny looked up to see a sight barely more credible than an American frontiersman in Siam in 1560. Leaning on the corner beam of the cabin in comfortable jeans and a Singha Beer T-shirt was the hottest thing to hit Hollywood since the bushfires of 62.

  ‘Oh,’ they said.

  ‘I’m fine, thanks,’ she replied.

  ‘We weren’t exactly expecting you to come,’ said Sissy.

  ‘I’m not leaving,’ she laughed.

  ‘No. That’s good,’ said Arny attempting to climb up the railing. ‘We don’t want you to.’

  Sissy was surprised to see his brother flustered in the company of a beautiful woman. He watched him blush and act as if the pain in his back were nothing. The boy had a crush.

  ‘Wow,’ said Sissy. ‘This is like when you write a letter to the President and as a postscript you say, if you’re ever passing North Pole, Idaho I’d be mighty pleased if you’d drop by, but deep down you know it isn’t going to happen.’

  ‘There’s no such place as North Pole, Idaho,’ she said.

  ‘Is too.’

  ‘I’m still not leaving.’

  ‘Good,’ said Arny, leaning now against the railing like the last drunk in the bar.

  ‘What were you doing on the floor, Arny?’ she asked.

  ‘Yoga,’ he replied.

  At this stage in the performance I re-emerged onto the deck after a torrid time in the toilet, not suspecting there might be a movie star lurking in the shadows.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. For some reason I was in my New York mode. ‘I’m shitting like a rabbit these days. It’s coming out in pellets. I’ve got to start eating better.’

  ‘Hey, Jimm,’ Sissy yelled.

  ‘Yuh?’

  ‘Guess who’s out here on the balcony.’

  ‘Osamah Bong Label.’ I guessed.

  ‘Good try. It’s Bunny Savage.’

  ‘Yeah?’ said I, ‘She here for hair and makeup tips from the country’s number one grooming guru? You do realize how plain she is under all that foundation.’

  I looked up at the summit of the mountain, black against a dark grey sky. The moon was somewhere up there still cloaked in its gauze of smog. I didn’t even bother to look off into the bushes where my brothers were pointing. I’d fallen for that trick too many times. It was a ridiculous moment but a great one. I loved weird scenes like that. I sat in the recliner just as Bunny climbed the steps to the balcony. I was too shocked to scream but I laughed so hard my stomach ached. I knew from experience that things could only go downhill from there so I just wanted to savour the moment. I didn’t even bother to apologize.

  ‘What’s so funny, girl? Sissy asked. ‘You’ve just offended a diva. Shame on you.’

  But Bunny was impressively cool. She put her hands together in a well-constructed wai leaving us no choice but to return the greeting. Ours were clumsy and amateur by comparison.

  Arny recovered his own cool long enough to manage an introduction.

  ‘My sister, Jimm Juree – Ms. Bunny Savage.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Jimm,’ she said.

  ‘You’d better sit down,’ Sissy told her. ‘Jimm’s intimidated by women taller than her.’

  ‘Which is most of the population,’ I said.

  The rattan chair let out its trademark creak as the actress sat but she trusted it. She looked up at the looming cliff and took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the scents of the night.

  ‘Nice spot,’ she said then looked at Arny. ‘You don’t look so good.’

  ‘His back’s out,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, no. It wasn’t from today’s scene?’ she asked.

  Arny was about to deny she had any culpability but Sissy didn’t give him a chance.

  ‘He had a disc out a few months back. He isn’t supposed to do anything too strenuous, but you know what these career weightlifters are like. Think they’re always in their teens.’

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ she said.

  ‘Not your fault,’ said Arny. ‘How did you get here?

  ‘Legs.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you be going around with a minder or something?’ Sissy asked.

  ‘Gus,’ she said. ‘Ex-marine. The only Jewish bodyguard in Hollywood who still wears his kippha.’

  ‘Where is he?’ I asked.

  ‘Sitting outside my room at the Chalet. I climbed out the window.’

  ‘What floor are you on?’ asked Arny.

  ‘Second. It was okay. The balconies are close together and there was a tree. Piece of cake.’

  Sissy and I were dining out on the weirdness of it all. Arny was clearly traumatized.

  ‘It’s just like Notting Hill,’ said Sissy, feeling certain Bunny would share his love of chick-flicks.

  ‘The movie, not the place,’ I added.

  ‘I’ve seen it,’ said Bunny.

  Sissy floated over to the rail and sat looking at his movie star guest.

  ‘I’ve dreamed this,’ he said, ‘in a vision. I’m Hugh Grant except I’m better looking. She meets him, just like this, by accident. She pretends not to be interested in him …’

  ‘She’s really not pretending,’ I told him.

  ‘But she realizes she wants a simple guy like him. How sweet, how funny is this simple guy. Perhaps a little effeminate but, hell, who cares? It works for Hugh. She decides that Hollywood’s too rough for a girl like her, too bullshit. And she gets it in her head to run away from it all – with him. And here she is and here he is. It’s just like I saw it in my fantasy.’

  ‘Except in your fantasy you had the Julia Roberts role,’ I reminded him in Thai.

  ‘Gee!’ was all Bunny could manage.

  It was a while before the laughter died down and a calm descended on the balcony.

  ‘Man, I needed that,’ Bunny told them. ‘Just an honest to goodness chuckle.’

  ‘Want some tea to go with it?’ I asked.

  ‘Sure.’

  Arny lowered himself to the small table to prepare it for her. He walked to her on his knees with her tea held in front of him as would an indentured slave. She took it and dismissed him with a wave of her royal hand. I got the feeling she could have been good at a lot of things if the signs had been right; a tank commander in Iraq or a nun, or a nuclear physicist. She was ballsy. I watched her chest heave. Okay, perhaps she couldn’t be a nun.

  ‘Where are you from?’ I asked.

  ‘Boston,’ she said. ‘Catholic school. Nothing to do with religion.’

  ‘How’d you get into movies,’ Sissy asked.

  ‘Hmm,’ she said, ‘I thought I’d be getting into teaching but I got waylaid. I’d done drama in high school, and some kid’s father was a producer. He came to watch his daughter but when he got home the only close-ups on his Handi-cam were of me. He fast-tracked me through TV then onto B movies. Next thing you know I’m in Thailand with an arrow in my gut.’

  I understood. Like me she was a victim of her looks. Whereas mine excluded me from the glamour careers, hers funnelled her into th
em. Nobody would let her teach school or drive a bus. Somewhere along the line she’d have been bullied into image servitude. There was too much money to be made out of her. She’d always be under pressure to sell herself one way or another. Yet here she was, five thousand dollars an hour, yakking with three worthless slobs. I considered that very cool.

  When Sissy went to get himself some food she went with him and came back with her own plate of spicy salad and six large bottles of icy cold Leo Beer. She drank hers from the bottle.

  ‘What about your figure?’ Sissy asked.

  ‘You kidding?’ She swigged her beer. ‘Ten minutes out in that heat tomorrow and this little fellow will be evaporated up into the heavens. Beers just brown water, you know?’

  ‘Cheers to that,’ said Sissy and raised his bottle.

  ‘Which reminds me,’ I said. ‘You don’t think Gus the bouncer’s going to find us and beat the shit out of us?’

  ‘He’s not that type of body guard,’ she said. ‘He’s mainly there to keep the paparazzi off my back and make sure nobody pokes an autograph pencil in my eye. He isn’t my brother. Besides, he thinks I’m in bed.’

  ‘How do you know there isn’t a photographer over there on the far bank with a telephoto lens this minute?’ Sissy asked.

  ‘What if there is? I’m dressed and we aren’t doing anything untoward. What trouble could I get in with such a harmless group?’

  ‘She’s sprung us, Jimm,’ Sissy shook his head. ‘She knows we’re pussy cats.’

  We were interrupted by a sudden commotion from behind the cabin. It was some kind of linguistic duel – English versus Thai. Neither combatant seemed prepared to yield.

  ‘I tell you, madam, I am a guest here.’ (English)

  ‘Who the hell are you? I don’t know you?’ (Thai)

  ‘If you’d just allow me to knock on one or two more doors I’m sure …’ (English)

  ‘You’re annoying my guests, darkie. Get your skinny lizard ass out of my resort (Thai)

  I rushed out to intervene. I’d recognized the intruder’s voice and knew right away the poor woman was no match for the burly manageress of the resort. After a few minutes of platitudes and pleadings, I returned to the balcony with Khin under my wing.

  ‘She … she actually had a knife,’ the Burmese said. ‘You don’t suppose she …?’

  ‘She would have gutted you in a heartbeat,’ Sissy told her. ‘How you doing, you night stalker?’

  ‘Rather grateful to be alive, it would seem,’ said Khin. ‘Ah, we have a daughter of Eve in our midst.’

  ‘Khin Thein Aye,’ said Sissy. ‘This is the Bunny Savage.’

  Khin shook her hand and said, ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance.’

  ‘And yours,’ she replied.

  ‘You’re a very attractive young lady. Are you married?’

  Cinema fanzines were apparently not on Khin’s reading list.

  ‘Happily. Three bonny children,’ Bunny replied.

  ‘That’s nice. Anyway,’ Khin addressed the balcony, ‘I have excellent news. I have translated a very important manuscript in Pa Sang.’

  ‘Well done,’ said Sissy. ‘What’s it say?’

  ‘Wait,’ said Arny making the appropriate hand signal. ‘We have to call a time-out here.’ The tweaked nerve had been temporarily subdued by the beer and the painkillers and he was vertical again. ‘We have a guest. It’s only fair that we tell her about Khin.’

  Sissy and I were able to summarize the entire nutty Khin story in three minutes. We told it like a pirate booty hunt and left Bunny in no doubt that poor Khin was hanging onto sanity by a thread. Only Khin seemed to miss the sarcastic tone.

  ‘Okay, Khin,’ said Arny. ‘You’re on.’

  ‘And not a moment too soon,’ said Khin, managing to lower herself onto the same recliner as me. It let out a plea for mercy but held us both.

  ‘Brothers Sissy and Arny,’ she began, ‘Sister Jimm and new Sister Bunny, I have made a remarkable discovery.’

  ‘You found the treasure?’ I asked.

  ‘Not quite,’ she said. ‘It transpires that I have been flogging a dead horse.’

  ‘Meaning, no, right?’ I asked Bunny.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There’s no treasure?’ said Arny.

  ‘That isn’t what I’m saying,’ said Khin. ‘My discovery is that the treasure I have been seeking may very well be a myth.’

  ‘Alleluia,’ I said. ‘Khin’s come home to us.’

  ‘Welcome back to our planet,’ said Sissy.

  ‘I feel like I’m at a reunion of the Stooges,’ said Bunny. ‘You guys should go on the road with this.’

  ‘So, Khin,’ Sissy shook his head, ‘if the treasure’s a myth, why are you looking so pleased with yourself?’

  ‘Because I was extremely clever to be able to uncover my misapprehension,’ said Khin.

  I turned to Bunny. ‘She’s a classic.’

  ‘There is, true enough, something classical about me,’ Khin confirmed. ‘Perhaps if you’d share with me a little marijuana I might be able to convince you of my dexterity.’

  We all looked guiltily at Bunny.

  ‘Don’t mind me, guys,’ she said. ‘I’ve got beer.’

  So I retrieved our stash from the secret compartment in the jeep, and expertly rolled a joint in the front seat where the paparazzi wouldn’t see me. Khin filled in the wait by asking Bunny what she did for a living and rechecking that she was spoken for. When I returned, Khin allowed the good Burmese weed to creep along her inner passages before resuming the story.

  ‘You may recall,’ she began, ‘my original theory being that the first king of the Mangrai dynasty …’

  ‘King Mangrai,’ Sissy interrupted.

  ‘Thank you, Sissy,’ said Khin. ‘Yes, that Mangrai himself had buried the Ngoen Yang regalia and the coronation jewels in respect for his ancestors. But, that twenty-eight kings later, King Kawila had somehow found the loot and used it during his own coronation. Fearing that he had offended the spirits he ordered the treasure reburied. It has been in search of this latter interment that I have been investing my efforts.’

  She took another drag.

  A natural quartet of ‘But?’

  ‘But’ she said, ‘I found two independent descriptions of Kawila’s coronation in the chronicles. One was in ancient Mon, a script with which I have some familiarity. It goes into great detail.’

  She reached into her back pack and removed a dog-eared wad of folded papers. She slowly started to shuffle her way through them.

  ‘You can see why we don’t need a TV,’ Sissy said to Bunny.

  ‘She’s climbing my chart of favourite living characters,’ she smiled.

  ‘What makes you think she’s alive?’ I asked.

  Khin was by now impervious to extraneous comments. An historian with a Mon transcription was like an alcoholic with a fresh fourth of gin. ‘If I may read you my actual translation,’ she continued, ‘and please excuse my poor rendition. It says, “And Kawila was splendidly regaled. Like Mangrai so many years before him he held aloft the semblance of the Sikanchai dagger whose blade glinted proudly in the sunlight.”’

  The audience waited patiently for her to continue, for some kind of punch line, but Khin merely grinned at them, looking from face to face in the dim moonlight.

  ‘That’s it?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s the line that killed off your treasure hunt?’

  ‘In its original form, most certainly,’ she agreed.

  ‘Why?’ Bunny asked.

  ‘Well, he says it, doesn’t he?’ said Khin, ‘“The semblance of the Sikanchai dagger”. It obviously wasn’t the real thing. Kawila made copies of the royal regalia based on the historical records at his disposal.’

  ‘Whoa, girl,’ I reined her in. ‘You’re saying the entire destruction of your theory comes down to the word, ‘semblance’? A word that you translated yourself from an ancient Mon text? You sure you couldn�
�t have – oh, I don’t know – screwed up on the translation a little bit?’

  Others would certainly have been offended, but not Khin.

  ‘Yes, I’m sure,’ she said.

  ‘How can you be?’ Bunny asked.

  ‘The writer was an eye witness,’ said Khin, ‘or at the very least, he got his account from an eye witness.’

  ‘You guess,’ I said.

  ‘I’m confident.’

  ‘Even so,’ said Sissy, ‘it’s a sad death for an otherwise good theory based on that one word.’

  ‘But, my pet, don’t you see?’ said Khin. ‘He confirms it.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘In the line, “Its blade glinted proudly in the sunlight”.’

  ‘Now, you’re not about to argue it was overcast that day?’ I said.

  ‘Better than that,’ said Khin. ‘The Sikanchai was an ancient ceremonial dagger. It dated back to before the eleventh century. It was cast in simple kilns from local material. It was made of dull iron – probably black. There was no glinting to be had.’

  A hush descended upon the group as the mental penny dropped. We all found ourselves nodding slowly.

  ‘This is better than The West Wing,’ Bunny clapped her hands, glee plastered all over her face.

  ‘So, it’s all over,’ I said. ‘The Kawila guy was a con man. Let’s call the time police, have him picked up.’

  ‘Oh, Jimm,’ Khin beamed. ‘It isn’t all over in the least. Don’t you see? It’s just the beginning. Kawila didn’t discover Mangrai’s treasure.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Mangrai’s treasure is exactly where he buried it.’

  ‘And that is?’

  ‘… the next excruciating episode of “Khin’s adventures in The Land Without a Clue”,’ said Sissy.

  ‘I confess I may have to go back over some notes,’ said Khin, ‘but this narrows down the field remarkably. I’m so excited about it I have to take a shower. If you’ll excuse me.’ She rose awkwardly from our seat. ‘Where am I sleeping tonight?’

  She went inside without waiting for an answer. Bunny watched until we heard the bathroom door slam shut.

  ‘She’s something else.’

  ‘She sure is,’ Sissy agreed.