Zero Hour in Phnom Pehn

by Christopher G. Moore

  Hatch explained that he was in charge of an education program. One of the Cambodians was getting paid five hundred dollars a month from UNTAC to work as a supervisor and teacher. But he did nothing. He never taught; he never supervised. He never showed up for work. The perfect grifter job. Hatch fired him because he thought the guy should at least have the courtesy to come around and say thank you for the free money instead of sending one of his minor wives. The fired teacher got the idea that his two assistants had blown the whistle on him and that was the cause for his dismissal. So he got off his ass and he went to a soldier and offered to pay five dollars for the soldier to kill one of the assistants.

  Hatch found out about the planned hit. “The soldier came into my office, and says, ‘Sok wants me to kill Morm.’ And I say, ‘Prak, are you gonna hit Morm?’ And Prak says, ‘No, I don’t think I’ll kill him.’ I said, ‘Why not?’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s too hot out and I’m tired today.’ The stupid fuck wasn’t in the mood. That was the only reason he didn’t kill the guy. No moral question. No issue about the money. The timing was wrong. Maybe the next day or the day after. But on that day, it just didn’t fit in with what he wanted to do. If he had been offered five dollars to kill the other assistant—a guy named Kompong, then he might have shot him. The asshole guy I fired had fingered Morm for the hit. Prak kind of liked Morm. Not enough not to take money to kill him. But enough to let a lazy mood override the desire for the money. He should’ve fingered Kompong. Prak wasn’t so friendly with Kompong and Kompong lived no more than two hundred meters away. Not so far to walk to kill a man. But a man’s mood depends on the job offered. Kill Morm, nah not today. Kill Kompong? Sure, why not, five dollars is five dollars.”

  “What are you saying? You’d kill me for five dollars?” Hatch stared at him. “I’m not in the mood today.”

  “You still in the mood to run guns to Thailand?” Calvino asked him.

  Hatch drank his beer, trying to look like a tough guy. “Straight to business,” said Hatch.

  “I never told him that,” said Patten who was on the edge of his chair, sweat coming off his face like rain over a broken gutter.

  Hatch smiled. “He never said you did, Patten.”

  “How else would he know?” asked Patten.

  “Patten, sometimes you make the Khmer road trash sound like Einstein. And I wonder if that plane crash didn’t damage your brain. After today, I know it did,” said Hatch.

  Calvino watched the two of them at each other’s throat as they sat under the umbrella and the sun began to fade through the storm clouds. He thought of the beauty on top of the APC who had passed less than an hour ago. The warriors wore make-up; and the civilians fought in beer gardens over crooked business deals. What surprised him the most was the feeling he had with Dr. Veronica—a man–woman feeling he had not felt with a mem farang for years. Just as he was thinking about her, his attention was rammed back to the present.

  Hatch sat with his back facing the street, and Patten was too scared to see beyond his nose. Calvino spotted the first swing around by an UNTAC Civ Pol Land Cruiser as it passed the shophouse. Pratt was driving and Shaw, sitting in the passenger’s seat, pointed his camera and took a half-dozen shots of the table. Pratt wore a neutral expression, the one he had when he didn’t want to look worried, and Calvino sensed it took all his powers of control not to stop and pull Calvino in. A couple of moments later, Det.Supt. Ravi Singh’s white staff car slowly passed the table and Calvino caught a glimpse of the blue turban and the smiling Indian face. He gave the thumbs-up and a wink. It was like a parade.

  “Patten hired me to give you forty-five grand,” said Calvino.

  “Is that so?” Hatch stared, hard and hungry for violence, at Patten.

  “I know we said it was finished. But we did two more runs. I didn’t want you to think we were going around you. Or cutting you out. These guys were persistent. We owed them, Mike. We couldn’t say no. One of the loads got busted in Bangkok. Our people had made firm commitments. They couldn’t back out so we had to follow through. Ah, hell, I didn’t want you to think that I was cheating you out of your end,” said Patten. He looked like he might go into a panic attack; holding himself steady on the crutch, he looked like he might cry.

  “We were finished, Patten.”

  “I know . . . but . . .”

  “So what are you saying? That you and that fuck Fat Stuart made two more runs? He’s dead, and you’re on the run. And where do you come running? Right to my fucking doorstep. You dumb fuck. If you weren’t a cripple, I’d take you apart right now.”

  “What did you say?” asked Calvino. “It’s okay, Calvino.”

  “You got a fucking problem, Dr. Frankenstein?” asked Hatch, looking at the stitches on Calvino’s face.

  “Yeah, I have,” said Calvino.

  “Then you should be more careful shaving.”

  “Yeah?”

  Hatch had taken the confrontation as a direct challenge and he turned, in an instant, mean and ugly. He balled his hand into a fist. He waited a beat too long—long enough for Calvino to work his hand under the table, grab Patten’s crutch and ram the padded armrest hard into Hatch’s face. He had never struck anyone with a crutch before. The effect was less shattering than a beer bottle across his face. But the blow stunned Hatch, his eyes clouded and turned watery as blood spurted from his nose and mouth. Calvino pulled the crutch back, brushing his jacket open and exposing his .38 Police Special. It was an accident. Never show a gun unless you intend to use it was not only a Calvino law but a law as old as the first gun. He had no intention of using the gun but he was angry enough to understand how people reached for a weapon in the heat of emotion.

  “Don’t ever call a man a cripple,” Calvino said. “I don’t like that kind of talk. It shows limited education and respect. But I’m gonna overlook that, Hatch. What I’m not going to over- look is what you know about gunrunning in Thailand. AK47s are showing up in the South. Terrorists are shooting up trains, schools, and buses. Innocent people are getting killed so a couple of guys like you can make some fast money. You’re not that important. Like drug mules. You guys do the heavy lifting. You live and die like Fat Stuart, dumb. You don’t know what the fuck you’re involved in. All I want is some names. And if I don’t get them, don’t think your little story about Prak is gonna save your ass. Your only chance is to give me those names and get out of Cambodia. Tonight or tomorrow. But you ain’t got much choice in the matter.”

  “We’re gonna walk away from here, Patten.”

  “Before you go,” said Calvino. “We got photos of the three of us sitting at this table. And those photos have a way of getting around town. So if we don’t know who shouldn’t see them, that would be embarrassing . . . and someone who causes problems in the gun-smuggling business finds himself with nowhere to hide.”

  “We don’t know his name,” blurted Patten.

  “Shut up,” said Hatch.

  “Fat Stuart and Mike did their own side deal. I told them it was damn stupid. They were into something too big. Farangs can run guns but expensive jewelry can get them killed. That’s why Fat Stuart got iced. Mike, you’ve got to give it back or they are gonna kill you,” said Patten.

  “You just put a gun in your mouth and pulled the trigger, asshole,” Hatch said, spitting blood and saliva on the pavement.

  Pratt had been holding back on something, and now Calvino knew without doubt his friend hadn’t come to Cambodia to track down gunrunners. He was after spoils far more important.

  “Tell me more about the jewels. I’m interested. Funny you didn’t mention this in Bangkok. Or did it slip your mind?” asked Calvino.

  Patten didn’t have time to reply before Hatch shouted at him.

  “Patten, I want my fucking money. And it would be real unhealthy to fuck with me. You understand?”

  Calvino locked eyes with Hatch. “You threatening him?”

  “I’m collecting what’s owed me.”

&nbs
p; Hatch stood up, walked over to his Harley, straddled the huge bike and started the engine. He gave Calvino his hardest look but it bounced off. He didn’t like that. It was an omen. When you stare at someone in the street the stare should pierce the armor and if it doesn’t, then you can be pretty sure that you’re staring into a black hole that atomizes all threats, intimidation, and violence. Hatch made his move to leave just as Calvino ordered another round of drinks.

  “Do the smart thing, Hatch.”

  “Like what?”

  “Let’s go down the road and talk to Lt.Col. Pratt. He’s a friend. He can help you.”

  “A Thai colonel wants to be my friend? That’s like I’m from the government and I’m here to help you. Bullshit.”

  “You got anyone else volunteering to keep your ass alive? Or do you think you can tough it alone?”

  Hatch stared at Calvino, wiping the blood off on the back of his hand, looking at it. “I don’t need your fucking help. And I’ve got enough problems with Thai cops. I don’t need any more offers from their colonels or generals to be their friends. They don’t know the meaning of friendship.”

  He looked away, the muscles tight in his neck, then he gunned the Harley and sped off.

  “Hell, Calvino, you shouldn’t have told him about the money,” said Patten.

  “I thought that’s why you hired me.”

  “I didn’t think you’d ever find him.”

  “You didn’t think I’d live long enough to find him, Patten.”

  “Look, Calvino, let’s play straight.”

  “That’s a kind of game that you’ve never played,” said Calvino as the drinks arrived.

  “I know what I did before wasn’t right. But I’m gonna make it up to you. I like that you told off Hatch just now. Someone calling you a cripple is, well, you know, I owe you one. I think Hatch would have killed me if you weren’t here. And I appreciate what you said. Not that I don’t think I can’t hold my own against a cocksucker like Hatch.”

  “What are you gonna give me?”

  “I think I can help you find Kim.” Patten grinned and drank his gin and tonic.

  “And why would you do that?” asked Calvino.

  “Hatch played me for a fall guy, and that’s something no man is going to do and get away with it.” With Hatch gone, Patten’s bravery had reappeared.

  “And people in Bangkok gave you cash to deliver Hatch to Kim. Only you wanted me to do your dirty work for you. Am I getting close?”

  That cleared the smile off Patten’s face. And it got Calvino thinking why he really used physical violence with Hatch. Was it to defend a cripple? Or was he trying to intimidate Hatch, making him fear that Calvino would come straight at him any place and at any time?

  “I paid you cash. So you can’t be sore over your money,” said Patten.

  “No, I’m sore that you lied to me about Fat Stuart. He never ran guns with you and Hatch. He was in the jewelry business. And since they didn’t let you in on their side game you decided to burn them.”

  Patten looked worse than Hatch after taking a crutch smashing into his face. Like the moment that SAM missile hit his plane and he knew the ground was coming up too fast. “I wish I’d never got involved, Calvino. You gotta believe me. It’s been a nightmare. I thought I could fix it, you know. I didn’t know they were going to kill Fat Stuart. They said they only wanted to talk to him. And if he gave back the jewels then no problem. You know the Thais hate confrontation. Christ, when they killed him, do you know how that made me feel?”

  “Scared,” said Calvino.

  “I hired you to find Hatch.”

  “That’s part of it, Patten. What you wanted was for him to kill me. Then the heat would be off you. Hatch in a Cambodian prison. You wouldn’t have to square yourself for the money you owed him. That’s how I figure it.”

  Patten’s face twisted like someone had hit him hard. “You don’t understand a man like Hatch.”

  “I understand Hatch alright. And I’m beginning to under- stand you, too,” said Calvino.

  “When he saw you, I thought he would know how serious it had become. I guess I owe you one.”

  “Who is Kim?” asked Calvino. “He doesn’t sound like a run of the mill professional hitman.”

  “Whoever said that he was?”

  Calvino didn’t believe it was going to be that easy to get any useful information out of Patten and of course it wasn’t. Patten had never personally met Kim. He had protected him- self with several layers of runners, messengers, gofers—the usual tag team of cut outs—whose job was to see that the Saudi jewelry which had found its way into Fat Stuart’s and Hatch’s hands was returned to the right people in the police department. Why had they picked him? Patten had a theory. Kim had connections in the gun-smuggling business, keeping the guns moving out and the cash moving in, and foremost of all protecting his identity from leaking out to his enemies and his friends. As far as he was concerned they were the same. If he helped certain Thai generals to get the jewelry, then he would have an unofficial license to transship guns through Bangkok to any third country in the world. This was just a theory but one that had the ring of truth for Calvino. Calvino’s law—When the sound of truth rings out of a conman it will be the day lambs lay down with lions.

  “You do business with Kim?”

  “If you run guns you do business with his organization,” said Patten. “He trusts no one. No one sees or talks to him. His organization keeps him so deeply hidden that no one has a fix on him.”

  While Patten had no idea who he was, he had someone in mind who had claimed under the influence of pot that he had once met Kim coming out of the cargo section of the airport carrying two diplomatic pouches filled with hundred-dollar bills. How did he know there was money inside? His cousin worked at the airport and every baggage handler in the world knows the feel and smell of money. You don’t have to see money but let your nose lead you straight to the bags of it. Kim was accompanied by two uniformed UNTAC soldiers who loaded crates of guns onto a cargo plane—the same plane that had offloaded the money.

  “I figure I owe you one, Calvino. So I am going to do what

  I shouldn’t be doing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Interfere in the affairs of dangerous men.”

  ******

  IT was still daylight when Patten finished his story and they had arrived at the market. The person who had knowledge about Kim worked out of the Russian market.

  Patten, sweating as he leaned hard on the crutch, limped as he led the way down an aisle of vendors sitting on bamboo platforms with piles of brownish grass on either side. Some were rolling the grass into joints. Others were packing it into bags. Bags of high-grade pot. Patten pointed to the bags, “Thirty sticks for 40 cents,” he said. Cheap enough and plentiful enough for the city to stay stoned day and night, thought Calvino.

  “You want some?”

  “No thanks,” said Calvino.

  “Stay straight, stay alive.”

  Another explanation for the random shooting began to emerge in Calvino’s mind as they walked down a muddy market aisle with tables of pot displayed on both sides. The soldiers at the checkpoints were smoking the stuff; some said they got loaded and started shooting to play around and pretty soon they started shooting to scare, then to maim and finally to kill. Others said that was bullshit. The pot made them mellow, relaxed, and dulled the killing instinct. Maybe it had nothing to do with hate; killing was a way of enforcing payments owed. Hatch would have understood that logic, thought Calvino.

  They passed rows of vendors selling UNTAC shirts. The going price was two dollars for an UNTAC T-shirt with a Canadian flag—he thought of Fat Stuart and turned it around, looking at it more closely. The word ‘Australia’ was printed under the flag. Maybe that came from smoking dope or not knowing what flags belonged to the countries whose troops were inside Cambodia. It was a confused place. It was as if the people had been lifted into the sky and set back down, s
o that they didn’t know where they were, and couldn’t be expected to know where everyone else was. Canada. Australia. Could they have different flags? Bottles of Stolichnaya vodka bottled in Vietnam were on sale for a buck and a half. Khmer men carrying snakes in bags opened them as they walked past. Kim, thought Calvino. It was a good code name in a place like Phnom Penh. It could be Asian; it could be a man, it could be a woman. It had a nice Kipling ring. And there were the usual fortune tellers grabbing at Patten’s crutch, trying to get money by spilling out a sad story to tell him. He kicked them away, saying they didn’t know the first thing about having a hard life. Money changers were closing up shop on the street opposite the market.

  Patten turned a corner, and entered the part of the market where vendors sold meat, vegetables, silver, porno videos, cassette tapes, Buddhas, beer, and canned fish. He stopped at stall 465, and a woman named Sitha, who was in her thirties, looked up from her notebook and called Patten by name.

  “This is my friend from Bangkok. He’s doing business in Phnom Penh. I told him that you might help him.” Sitha smiled.

  “What your country?” she asked.

  “The States,” said Calvino.

  “I like American. You number one. Speak English good.”

  She showed him her notebook that she had divided by nationality and written down the key phrases for the language of that country. It was empty for Bangladesh and Jordan. Mostly English and French.

  “My friend says you have a relative working at the airport,” said Calvino.

  Sitha shrugged, looking blank for a second.

  “Yes, maybe,” she said.

  “And he saw someone by the name Kim. I can make it worth your while to talk with your cousin,” said Calvino, withdrawing his hand from his pocket and showing a roll of twenty-dollar bills.

  Sitha closed her notebook and put it under a tablecloth next to the Stolichnaya vodka. “I think no good.”

  An amputee in a soldier’s uniform made a U-turn at the sight of Calvino’s roll and in true beggar fashion hobbled over on two crutches, stopping beside Patten. The soldier held out his army knife and pointed to the cash.