“All I want is a face-to-face with Mike Hatch,” he said. “You want to put your face somewhere else, that’s your business.”
“You talk like a tough New York street guy, right? I’m sup- posed to be impressed, right? A little scared, huh? Bullshit. I’ve covered battlefields from Afghanistan to Cambodia. I’ve been shot at by much meaner assholes than you’ll ever see. Had rockets blow dirt and rocks into my face. I’ve had malaria,” she said, having worked herself up just as the waiter brought her salad and a double whiskey for Calvino. By the time the waiter had left the table, she had calmed down and had the look of someone who wished she could have erased a couple seconds of dialogue. She worked her knife and fork until the cucumber, tomato, and lettuce had been folded into a perfect mouth-size bite.
“But hopefully you’ll never be down to your last twelve million dollars,” said Calvino.
She laughed, showing the lettuce sticking between her expensive dental work. “You make me laugh. That’s in your favor. Okay. What if I help? Not that I’m saying I will. But let’s say you are not entirely full of bullshit and have some connections to deliver T-3 . . .”
“It’s yours.”
“Only one problem,” she said. “Which is?”
“I don’t know where to find Mike Hatch any more than you do.”
“There’s a guy who might know,” said Calvino. “Who?”
“Del Larson. He hangs out at the Gecko. Smokes joints as big as your thigh.”
She stopped eating. “Not that guy. He’s crazy.”
“He’s waiting. That doesn’t make him crazy,” said Calvino. “Waiting for what?” asked Carole.
Calvino remembered what Carlo had said in Bangkok about Larson.
“He’s on the trail waiting for Charlie.”
“Bonkers crazy. Besides why don’t you ask him? Do the T-3 Prison story yourself?”
“He doesn’t like me. Remember the Star Wars Bar? No reason. The Alien creature just instantly hates your face. The Alien creature comes over and says, ‘My friend, he doesn’t like you.’ It’s that kind of problem.”
“At the press briefing the place was packed with journalists, why me?”
He leaned forward over the table. “I liked your ass.”
She stopped eating.
“My . . .” “Ass.”
“You haven’t lived in America for a long time,” she said. “No American man would ever . . .”
“A man can’t say he likes a woman’s ass?”
She smiled displaying all of those perfect teeth. “Some women would reach for a gun.”
“And you?”
“I never carry a gun.”
As he looked over the verandah, the powdered white sky pressed hard on the thin reed of green drawn on the horizon. Four young Khmer boys walked along the Quay carrying bamboo fishing poles on their shoulders. Pieces of string attached as lines to the poles blew in the breeze. Children without a problem. Little Khmer Tom Sawyers. They passed a naked boy of eight or so who sunned himself on the edge of the Quay. A powerboat with a fiberglass bottom cut through the sampans, rocking the small boats, the buoys on the fishing nets bobbing up and down from the waves rippling out from its powerful engine.
It seemed like such a beautiful afternoon to waste plotting a meeting with a wise guy named Mike Hatch. He started to ask questions about how evil worked in the world and manifested itself through men like Hatch. Children going to fish at the river’s edge. A simple scene of innocence that he knew could not hold. Why did evil track down and murder children in Phnom Penh, Bosnia, or Harlem? How could people maintain faith in their neighbors, friends, God or themselves with the certainty that evil could not be stopped? And the faces of evil—they were everywhere, in every city, country, every crowd on the street or in the market.
A devil hadn’t invented the division between masterminds and cut outs. Any more than evil was somehow out there waiting. The horror of the children at play was in the utter falseness that their innocence mattered. Evil was a possibility waiting inside of everyone. The impulse to violence tempted guys like Calvino and Pratt to stand up and defeat it. This was part of the game; the illusion that victory over bad men was a victory over evil. Nothing could have been more dangerous than that belief.
SEVEN
BUYING A PIECE OF THE NIGHT
CALVINO SUGGESTED THAT they follow the Chief of Operations’ recommendation and have dinner at La Paillote, a French restaurant located behind the Central Market. It was the kind of upscale restaurant you would expect to be run by a guy named Rick who looked like Bogart and had a murky past he was trying to escape. Only there wasn’t a piano player named Sam. Or a piano. What La Paillote did have from the movie was the usual suspects who were attracted or ordered to a country that had fallen under military rule by foreigners. The fact the army was sponsored by the UN didn’t alter the basic reality that outsiders carried guns in the street. Phnom Penh was lousy with guns. Not all of them were in the right hands or stayed in the right hands. This made the street in front of La Paillote a little tense—a kind of standoff between the haves and the have-nots. The haves arrived in military uniforms and business suits and provided a warlike atmosphere. Every night the tables filled up with UNTAC soldiers in uniform, foreign businessmen, and NGOs. The have-nots watched this nightly parade from the front entrance to the restaurant.
A ring of ragged beggars, hands stretched out, with their faces twisted in a plea for mercy, pushed forward like a lost honor guard from hell. Some of the beggars had limbs miss- ing. The surefire sign of a Third World have-not. Upcountry land mines had blown off a foot or leg and they came to Phnom Penh because there was no work in the countryside. There was no possibility of work. The entire country was unemployed, Shaw had said. One more thing—there was no dole. The only handout was the one you could take yourself. Other beggars were demobbed soldiers; old uniforms hanging off them turned them into scarecrows, hobbling along the perimeter of the restaurant as if they were forever on patrol for a rich foreigner to throw them a few riel to buy some rice.
A waiter rescued Pratt and Calvino who had been surrounded at the door by beggars, shouting at them the way shopkeepers snap at soi dogs. Calvino nodded at a table in the back, and the waiter escorted him and Pratt past tables occupied by other foreigners. Like Calvino, Pratt was dressed in a business suit. Seated together at the table they might have easily passed as two more suits looking for an angle to squeeze profit out of the UNTAC presence.
“Carole Summerhill-Jones said she would help you find Mike Hatch? Why would she do that, Vincent?” asked Pratt across the dinner table from Calvino.
A waiter filled their water glasses and gave them menus. “It was my winning personality,” said Calvino.
Calvino ordered a double whiskey, a green salad, and squid. Pratt ordered lamb curry and orange juice.
Pratt handed the menu to the waiter. “Did you promise her an exclusive interview with Pol Pot?”
“I thought of that.”
“I bet you did.”
Calvino raised his water glass in a salute. “So I got her the next best thing.”
“Which is?”
“Mrs. Pol Pot. Brother Number One’s wife. I guess that makes her Sister Number One. Or Wife Number One. I’m not sure yet. But no one has ever seen or talked to her.”
“After you stopped being a lawyer in New York, you should have done standup comedy in the Village.”
“My mother said that.”
“Farangs never listen to their mothers. That’s why they rarely amount to anything,” said Pratt.
“She’s rich.”
“Who? Your mother?”
“No, Carole Summerhill-Jones. Old timber money from San Francisco. Cambodia makes her feel right at home. All the illegal logging by the Khmers and the Thai army on the border makes her homesick for her family. She’s rich and bored. She’s turned into a war-zone junkie. She interviews a general, watches a few rockets hit a building, and counts bodies in th
e street, and files a story. Next time she’s at the country club, everyone’s talking about TV and football. Except Carole. She’s got war stories. She’s been at the front. And, bingo, she has an audience, she’s an instant hero.”
“Heroine.”
“Since when did you become politically correct?”
“That last time you went on the wagon.”
“I’ve never been on the wagon,” replied Calvino.
“There’s your answer. So she’s rich. What does that have to do with helping you?”
“I promised her a Pulitzer Prize if she helped. Her class put a lot of stock in prizes. It makes them feel loved.”
“We’re back to Mrs. Pol Pot?”
“No, we are inside T-3 Prison, taking pictures.”
“You will never receive permission,” said Pratt. His voice had grown serious as he began to understand that Calvino was not joking.
“I never intended to ask.”
A tall, elegant woman in an evening dress walked past their table. A step behind her was a man in his late forties, moustache, expensive suit and five-thousand-dollar wrist- watch. They sat at the next table to Calvino and Pratt. Their entrance stopped the conversation. The woman looked over and smiled at Calvino. Her dress was cut low and exposed the top of her breasts.
“I’m Vincent Calvino. This is Pratt. He’s Thai. I’m a Yank.”
“I’m Dr. Veronica Le Bon. I work at the French hospital.”
“Nice to meet you, doctor.” He thought she didn’t dress the way doctors dressed.
“And my friend is,” and she was about to introduce him, when he cut her off.
“Philippe,” he said.
“He’s just arrived from Moscow for a visit.”
This information didn’t make Philippe happy either. Dr. Veronica sensed it was pointless making small talk in the presence of a man who had no desire to talk to strangers at all.
“Perhaps some other time, if you come out to the hospital, I can show you my work.”
“What kind of work, doctor?”
She smiled. “I work with young Khmers who have lost limbs. They step on a mine. That’s it. No more leg. It’s very sad to see how young some of them are.”
Philippe had a killer’s eyes which had never moved off him, thought Calvino. Cold, penetrating eyes that watched the path of a bullet finding its target, entering and exiting. He didn’t smile much either. Taking a cigarette from a gold case, he offered one to Calvino and Pratt. But they declined. There was a diamond set into the case. Maybe one carat of diamond. What had he been doing in Moscow, Calvino wondered. But it was the way that Dr. Veronica looked at him, as if she had seen him before, knew him somehow, which puzzled Calvino, and left him wondering if he had seen her before in Bangkok. However, it wasn’t that he had seen her before but that there was something of himself that he saw reflected in this woman. It wasn’t usual for a woman like that to start up a conversation with a couple of men at another table unless she wanted a diversion from a boring companion or she had found something she wanted or thought she wanted. Women like Dr. Veronica always wanted something slightly out of reach, a connection below the normal surface of conversation. Once formalities had been exchanged there wasn’t a lot else to say. But a great deal to think about. A French doctor in a low-cut evening dress talking about child amputees was escorted by another French national fresh in from Russia. Philippe gave the impression he didn’t give a damn if all children had a missing limb or two. Bottom line, she was friendly and he was standoffish. He was unfriendly and hostile as if someone had invaded his territory.
“How much did the case cost?” Philippe slipped it into his pocket.
“Four thousand US,” he replied. “Smoking’s an expensive habit.”
“Some say gold and diamonds are more addictive,” said Calvino.
Calvino knocked back the last of his drink and called for the bill. Pratt, watching this exchange, could never understand how such bluntness among farangs did not lead to more bloodshed.
“You’re not leaving?” she asked. “We were just starting to have such a lovely conversation.”
“We have an appointment,” replied Calvino.
Pratt hadn’t missed anything in the look Calvino and the doctor had shared. Here were two people who were trying to find some way to clear the room so they could climb into bed. Only it wasn’t going to happen. Calvino knew it; and so did the woman. The recourse was to get the hell out of the restaurant. There was a little tension as they left. Before they reached the door, Dr. Veronica came running up and touched Calvino’s arm.
“You forgot this,” she said, handing him a photo. He had left the photo of Fat Stuart on the table. “You know him?”
She looked blank.
“The man in the photo.”
“Should I?” she replied with a warm smile.
Calvino shrugged and went out the door with Pratt.
“You can bait the trap but you can’t always trap the bear,” said Pratt.
“Shakespeare says that?” “I said that.”
Pratt was turning over in his mind their previous conversation about getting the foreign correspondent into T-3 without permission.
“You’re likely to get yourself killed as well,” said Pratt as they walked out.
“But you’re thinking about someone else, right?”
“If Carole Summerhill-Jones were killed. That would be awkward.”
“And in my case, just inconvenient.”
Calvino felt relieved to be out of the restaurant. Though he looked back to see if the doctor were still in the door. She had gone. Calvino didn’t want to talk about the doctor any more than Pratt did.
“Hey, Pratt, you’re forgetting. We’ve got the luck of the Irish on our side.”
“John Shaw?”
“Ever notice the UNTAC Civ Pol is lousy with Irish cops? It’s like the New York City police department in the old days. Besides, did I say that anyone was going to help us?”
“Why would John Shaw take such a risk?”
Shaw was waiting outside a Land Cruiser. As Pratt and Calvino cleared through the line of beggars, he waved them over.
“Why don’t you ask him?” asked Calvino as they walked over to the Land Cruiser.
“It would be better if I wait for him to tell me.” Calvino smiled. “Are you worried about his face?”
Pratt shook his head. “No, I’m more worried about getting you back to Bangkok in one piece.”
Shaw gestured for them to climb into the Land Cruiser. There was a quick slamming of car doors. He didn’t say anything until they were under way.
“We got a tip on an illegal checkpoint. Nothing special about that in Phnom Penh,” he said. “But this time we may have something different. The word is some soldiers at the checkpoint are part of an AK smuggling ring. They run AKs through the checkpoint, get them confiscated, get paid, and leave. UNTAC personnel may be involved. The AKs go out by ship or air to buyers. I’d like to stop them. A going-away present for Cambodia.”
Pratt glanced over at Calvino, who raised an eyebrow and nodded.
“And Thailand,” said Pratt.
“Some AKs are finding a home with your Muslims in the South,” said Shaw.
“And other AKs are likely ending up in the hands of the IRA,” said Calvino.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” said Shaw. “And those weapons are no better for the people of Ireland than they are for the people of Thailand.”
There were not many idealists on the police force in Thai- land. Maybe an idealistic cop was an oxymoron, thought Pratt. Yet there was a passion in the way Shaw spoke, a conviction of doing right and a conviction that right had a meaning and chance of success.
******
THERE was the sound of sporadic gunfire off to the right. It came from the far distance. Shaw, after eighteen months of duty in Phnom Penh, knew the back streets like he knew Dublin. As they bumped along, the rain started, and streets turned to muddy rivers.
“The records are in a mess would be my guess,” said Pratt.
“A mess I could deal with. They have no files on criminals. No one is certain how that happened. One theory is they simply forgot. Another is they refused to keep any records until they received decent pay. Interpol sends them information all the time about wanted criminals. Nobody is interested in Interpol and they can send bulletins and updates all day long, and everything shares the same fate—it’s all trashed. Unread. If anyone at the Ministry can read.”
“The promised land for grifters,” said Calvino. “And don’t think they haven’t figured that out.”
“Like Mike Hatch,” said Calvino.
“Thousands of Mikes have been hatched in Phnom Penh,” said Shaw.
The windscreen wipers were losing the battle with the slanting rain and the road blurred in the headlights of the Land Cruiser. They passed a block away from one mobile checkpoint; Shaw cut the lights, and circled around, coming to within a hundred meters of the barricade of a jeep and a truck. Shaw switched off the engine and cruised to a stop. The night sky flared with muzzle flashes, all from the same direction—the checkpoint. A couple of the soldiers had opened fire on a pick-up truck that hadn’t obeyed the order to stop. Trigger crazy would have come close to describing what they saw. They sat in the dark and watched the men in uniform passing around a bottle of local booze. Drinking had made them not so much crazy as just happy to shoot any target that moved away from them. Fortunately for the occupants of the truck, the soldiers were too drunk to shoot straight, and they escaped into the darkness. None of them sitting inside Shaw’s Land Cruiser said anything. They were witnesses to an incident, which was part of a larger whole that Calvino was only beginning to understand.
“There’s something missing in Cambodia,” said Shaw. “Law and order,” said Calvino.
Zero Hour in Phnom Pehn Page 13