Keeping up with him wasn’t easy as he sped through the labyrinth of dusty streets in his bare feet. His house was a few flimsy pieces of plywood tied with string. A tattered tarp covered the dirt floor. In one corner was a girl missing an arm, sleeping on a straw mat. Ary was a little older than Rangsey. When she saw me, her face went dark with suspicion.
“Who have you brought here, Rangsey?” Ary whispered. He shrugged and looked down at his feet.
“It’s okay,” I said. “He’s done nothing wrong.”
“You speak Cambodian?” the girl asked.
“Some,” I said. And she smiled, a huge grin, full of life in this depressing shantytown on the outskirts of a wild city.
I sat down on the dirty tarp and learned that both parents were dead, one of gunshots and one of what sounded like AIDS. A land mine took her arm during a desperate attempt to steal rice from a nearby field.
I drew a decent salary from the USAWMD, and other than the rent on an apartment with no furniture, I spent none of it. It sat there in my bank waiting for a rainy day. Maybe this was my rainy day.
“If I help you, maybe you can help me,” I said. They glanced briefly at each other and settled their eyes on me, keeping them deliberately blank. Offers of help in their world usually came with strings attached.
“I’m going to have to visit here from time to time for my work and will need someone reliable to drive me around. Do you drive, Rangsey?”
An indignant look from the young boy. Everyone drives here, even the toddlers.
“If I buy you a motorbike, you can taxi for people when I’m not here but use it for me when I am here. I’ll arrange for money so you can keep the bike in decent shape. How does that sound?”
Ary’s face hardened at the offer. “Why do you do this?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, honestly. “I guess I just want to. You can trust me.”
I could see her at that moment making a deal with fate, deciding to believe me when all her experience to this point had been to the contrary. Rangsey, thoughts of his own motorbike clouding his vision, looked desperately from Ary to me and back again.
“Thank you,” she said in a tiny voice. “We won’t let you down.”
“No, I don’t imagine you will,” I said, giving this wisp of a child a small hug.
I took Rangsey out and bought him a used bike, not too flashy but solid. I arranged for him to use the bike shop when he needed to do repairs. I told the owner that I’d make him disappear if he didn’t honor our agreement and I think he believed me. I didn’t disclose to Rangsey or his sister the nature of my work. There are some who would believe that I’d actually endangered the lives of these two unfortunate souls. But I was not one of them. I didn’t see the alternative, the life they were already living, as being less dangerous than hanging around with me.
Every month I arranged for money to be sent to a market near their house for food. I didn’t want to give them cash directly, making them objects of undesirable attention. I also sent them to an American doctor working for a local NGO. A nice fat donation to his cause and he agreed to keep an eye on the two children in my absence.
When I got home, mission accomplished, Simon Still was sitting in my apartment, feet up on the coffee table, reading my mail.
“Too involved, Sal,” he said. He did not even bother to look up.
“I’ve been flying for about a hundred hours,” I pointed out. “Can’t this wait until tomorrow?”
“No,” he said, standing abruptly, my junk mail and flyers scattering across the floor. “You don’t get involved with the locals. You don’t save them. You use them. Do you understand the difference?”
I nodded slowly.
“Are you sure? Because it certainly didn’t look like it over there in Phnom Penh.”
“Yes, I understand.”
“Well, you had better, Sally Sin. If you get involved, you end up dead. Got it?”
I nodded again, looking at the ground.
“It’s for your own good. Don’t you have any interest in living to see thirty?”
I continued to nod my head, knowing already that I would defy his orders. Simon kept me out of Cambodia for two years as punishment for my humanitarian leanings. But when I finally showed up again, there was Rangsey, exactly as we’d arranged. And he’d been there every time since.
Rangsey and I didn’t talk until we stopped for tea, about halfway to our destination of Siem Reap, home to Angkor Wat. By this point in the ride, I was so rattled I felt like my molars were about to fall out of my head.
“Next time, I think I’ll fly,” I said, sipping my scalding hot tea.
“Flying is not so low profile, Sally.”
“I know, I know. But this road. I’m growing to hate this road.”
Rangsey laughed. “You have no sense of adventure.”
“Then I clearly picked the wrong profession, wouldn’t you agree?”
Rangsey looked serious for a moment. “You be careful of Sovann and Blind Monk. They are very dangerous, even for Cambodia.”
I waved him off. “It’s not like I’m going to sit down and have a meal with them. I need to poke around a little, ask some questions. When I’m done, I’ll disappear back into the jungle.”
“You hate the jungle,” Rangsey reminded me.
“I didn’t mean that literally,” I said.
“It’s wet,” he continued, “there are huge bugs. Not to mention the land mines. Can’t forget about the land mines.”
“Okay,” I said, “enough with the jungle. You made your point. Tell me what you know.”
As Rangsey got older, I started using him as an ear to the ground. His information was always right as opposed to the information I got at my desk in Washington. That intelligence was never attached to anyone. It was written in short spurts, with no punctuation, and more often than not it was wrong. The Agency demanded to know if you were using your own sources in addition to what they provided you because they liked to take liberties with those sources for their own purposes. But I knew better than to mention Rangsey to Simon Still. Chances were we’d both end up in Outer Mongolia for the rest of our natural lives. Or something equally appealing.
“The Blind Monk is here for the grand opening of The Grand Event, Siem Reap’s latest luxury addition to hotel alley. Word is that Blind Monk is one of the hotel’s investors, but I don’t know anything about his partners. Probably Chinese.”
I nod. “Busy guy.”
“But that is not all. The Blind Monk is here to check up on his hotel investment, yes, but also to do some business with Sovann, who has some bombing materials hidden in a warehouse in the jungle.”
“Nuclear stuff?”
“Yes, what you said. Nuclear stuff.”
“Anything new you can you tell me about Sovann?”
“He’s still the same wee little man. Still not too friendly. But he has become a big deal in Cambodia. Lots of people owe him. Kind of like that Godfather movie. You see that one? Very good, I think.”
“You’ve got a real talent for this, Rangsey.”
He beamed.
“But don’t do anything foolish,” I added.
“No,” he said, “I don’t do anything like what you would do.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Oh, there is one more thing. Someone else is here too. Everyone is talking about the man with the blue eyes and the black hair.”
I leaned back in my chair. Fucking fabulous.
“Sally? You okay? Bad information?”
“No,” I said, patting Rangsey’s hand. “Great information. Bad Ian Blackford.”
11
I am crawling around on the living room floor picking up the drift of children’s books before Maria the cleaning lady arrives, lest she sweep them into her giant trash bag and toss them out with the rest of the junk. When Will first suggested I ought to have someone come in and clean the house, I didn’t know whether to be relieved or insulted.
“It’s not like I don’t clean the house,” I said.
“I hate to say this, Lucy, but you don’t clean the house. And neither do I. So let’s agree that we both don’t clean the house. Okay?”
I nodded. I wasn’t confident I could accurately explain that having a strange person walking around inside my house with a broom and a bottle of Seventh Generation Disinfecting Multi-Surface Cleaner might not be so good for my paranoia. How was I to know that her intentions were solely to make my stainless-steel refrigerator gleam like a hotel mirror?
“Okay. I agree on the cleaning thing. But what if she, you know, isn’t who she says she is or something?”
“That’s kind of paranoid, don’t you think, Lucy?”
You have no idea.
But I eventually agreed to the deal because I was not that good at cleaning toilets and it seemed no one had bothered to change the sheets on our bed for over a month.
I hear Maria’s key rattling around in the lock and I go still, my body ready for some sort of ambush, even if my mind knows I’m not at any real risk from a five-foot-tall grandma.
“Hello, Mrs. Lucy. You here?”
“In the living room, Maria, trying to put away the rest of the books.”
Maria joins me on the floor. “Why don’t you leave them? I finish here.”
“Are you sure?”
She nods, muttering in Spanish, something about how she thinks I’m kind of a kook, but not necessarily in a bad way.
I leave her with the books, but today I don’t go far because today, it appears, anything can happen. Lingering outside the door, I pretend to be engrossed in my cell phone when really, I’m scrolling up and down my contacts list, which contains about ten numbers on a good day. It’s true that Maria seems innocent enough, but who is to say that she isn’t an Agency plant, put here to spy on me, ready to be activated at any moment? She carries an impossibly large, worn brown tote bag that is so heavy she can barely manage my front steps. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen her take anything out of that cavernous sack. Which means it’s completely within the realm of possibility that Maria could, at any moment, whip out a fully loaded Uzi and start taking hostages. Or maybe pull out a hand grenade and roll it into my kitchen, which would really make a mess of things.
Maria glances up from the floor.
“You go drink some coffee, Mrs. Lucy. Yes?”
I grumble something about taking a call, humiliated that my cleaning lady thinks I’m crazy. And I head toward the kitchen, but I still can’t quite get there. That brown tote bag is too big for me to really relax.
On a certain level, I am embarrassed that I have someone picking up my books, washing my dishes, and folding my laundry. I have not gotten used to the feeling of uselessness that sometimes goes along with being a full-time mother, the feeling that you aren’t doing much more than waiting for the next stage of child development to show up so you will have something new to obsess about. Is it enough to raise your child? Should I be cleaning my own house and making a pot roast? Have I simply become a consumer of resources with nothing to contribute? Oh the horror. But then again, back when I used to have an impact on things, that impact wasn’t always positive. No, I’d be the first to admit that Siem Reap turned into an unmitigated disaster.
After a few dreadful hours rattling around on the back of Rangsey’s motorbike, we finally arrived in Siem Reap. Rangsey dropped me off at a guesthouse and waved good-bye. I had no idea where he slept and didn’t ask. Such a question would seem too forward somehow.
In my room, I lay down on the bed and closed my eyes, trying to get my body to accept that it was no longer on the road from hell. The noise from the vibrating motorbike still rang in my ears, but it didn’t stop me from hearing my room lock being picked. Fast. I didn’t even bother to sit up.
“Are you going to kill me this time?” I asked, not moving, my eyes shut tight against how my simple mission was starting to resemble a three-ring circus.
“Perhaps. I haven’t decided yet.”
“You always say that.”
“One day you will ask me and the answer will be yes.” And the way he said it, I knew he was telling the truth. “So why don’t you tell me what you are you doing out here in this nasty jungle, Sally?”
“Sightseeing.”
“And I’m the fucking King of Siam.”
“You are definitely not the King of Siam. He was bald.”
“That was a joke.”
“It wasn’t a very good one.”
“Maybe I should have killed you in Madrid.”
I finally sat up and there he was, blue eyes twinkling like Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. I shuddered and looked away. This never seemed to get any easier. Might as well cut to the chase.
“Are you trying to start a war with the Blind Monk?” I asked. There was no other reason I could come up with, no matter how far-fetched, to explain his being here. He was preparing to throw a monkey wrench into the Blind Monk’s carefully executed deal with Sovann.
Blackford stood across the room from me, his feet planted, his shoulders loose. He had the nerve to look relaxed, but his face was dark. I’d managed to irritate him already.
“When did you decide you could ask me questions?”
“When you picked my lock!” I blurted, suddenly angry at his intrusion. “Doesn’t the violation of my privacy entitle me to ask a few questions?”
Blackford glared at me. “Go ahead. One question.”
“Are you here to start a war with the Blind Monk?”
“Start a war? Where have you been, Sally? The Blind Monk and I are already at war. We’re enemies. Traditionally, enemies try to eliminate each other.” He smiled, and I swear he sounded gleeful about the prospect of a battle among titans. Couldn’t they just go outside and beat each other up like civilized men?
“Let me put it another way. Are you going to jump-start this war by trying to buy Sovann’s stash out from under the Blind Monk?” Almost as soon as the question passed my lips, I knew I’d gone too far.
“Sorry, Sal. I said one question and besides, that’s strategy and that remains confidential. My advice is for you to shove off. Maybe finish out your holiday in Phnom Penh. Take those straggly kids of yours out for a proper meal or something.”
At the mention of Rangsey and Ary, I felt an unfamiliar surge in my blood pressure. I never understood it until I held Theo for the first time, that do or die mother instinct that silences all rational thoughts around it.
“Never mind the kids,” I said.
Blackford grinned. It wasn’t a nice grin.
“Look at Sally getting all worked up. Nice. Listen, you and I both know that if I wanted those little urchins in a ditch outside the city limits, it would be done before we even finished this rather hostile and unpleasant conversation.”
In a split second, I flew across the room and had Blackford by the neck. It was an amateur move. He could have easily killed me, but I wasn’t thinking. I was acting. I tightened my grip, but he kept grinning.
“Crazy Sally. I always knew you had it in you.”
With one quick motion of his arm, he tossed me aside as if I were weightless. I landed hard against the door. This would hurt later. Blackford stood over me, a blank look on his face.
“Don’t ever try something like that again. It will end badly for you.”
I didn’t move, too scared to get up from the floor.
“I’d like you to leave Siem Reap,” he said, his voice flat. “And I don’t want to ask you twice.”
With his foot, he shoved me out of the way, opened the door, and disappeared down the hallway.
I crawled over to my knapsack and pulled out my cell phone.
“Blackford is here,” I whispered when Simon answered. My rib cage was already starting to throb painfully.
“Gee, what a surprise,” Simon said. He did not sound surprised. “Are you sure of your sources?”
“Pretty sure. You knew.”
“I most
certainly did not.” He was lying. I knew it. But from roughly nine thousand miles away there was nothing I could do. “Do you think I would have sent you into the middle of a war zone without a warning?”
Yes.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked. Every time I took a breath my chest hurt.
There was a pause. I could hear Simon sitting up in his bed, probably going to the window to see if anyone was out there on the street spying on him in the dead of a Washington night.
“Kill Blackford, Sally. Close the deal.” I heard a faint buzzing coming down the line indicating that Simon Still had hung up on me.
And sitting there on the floor of my room, I felt very bad about the choices in my life that had led me to this place.
12
I follow Maria to the laundry room but stay back about ten feet in the hopes that she won’t notice I’m there lurking in the shadows. She hums a tune that I can’t quite recognize as she opens the dryer, pulling all of the clean clothes into the plastic basket. Suddenly, she gasps.
“Mr. Will do these clothes?” she asks, her back to me, clearly aware of my presence.
Of course Will would not be doing laundry in a washing machine. And he would certainly never turn on a dryer except perhaps if he were held at gunpoint. No, Will would hand wash every item of clothing in a single gallon of cold water using biodegradable soap and, much to the horror of our neighbors, hang everything out on the line to dry. Never mind that the clothes were still covered in chocolate milk stains. It would be energy efficient. I consider letting him take one for the team. But in the end I tell the truth.
“Um, no. It was me.”
“Tsk, tsk, Lucy,” Maria says, wagging a finger at me. “You need pay attention to colors.” To illustrate, she holds up a new pair of Theo’s jeans that are now so badly bleached they resemble a 1980s acid-wash disaster.
“White with white. No colors in here. Okay? Okay.”
I stare at my feet like I’ve been reprimanded by the teacher, which in effect I have. In light of the ruined pants, I cannot figure out why exactly I thought I could protect humanity from itself. Honestly, if you can’t do a load of laundry you cannot save the world. It really is that simple.
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