Zero Hour in Phnom Pehn

by Christopher G. Moore

  “Did you say a Harley?” asked Scott. “They don’t know the make.”

  “There’s only one Harley in Phnom Penh.”

  Calvino saw Scott’s hands shaking as he reached for a beer.

  “Mike Hatch’s,” said Calvino.

  ******

  THE windscreen wipers on the Land Cruiser were synchronized with a moody Miles Davis song. Calvino had slipped the tape into the cassette recorder. Even the Irish liked Miles Davis. It was good music when the weather pulled a gray curtain down over the sky dome, making the world look like wraparound prison walls. In the rain on the way to the lake no one said much but listened to the music. About half a kilometer along the lake there was a roadblock manned by UNTAC Civ Pol. Pratt brought the Land Cruiser to a stop, showed his identification while the officer looked at all three men. Calvino lowered the volume on the music.

  “Deputy Superintendent Shaw expects us,” said Pratt.

  The officer handed back his ID. He flipped out his walkie-talkie and confirmed with Shaw before letting them proceed.

  This kind of security precaution surprised Pratt. “Most unusual,” he said.

  “Heavy,” said Scott.

  Calvino cranked up the volume on the music and said nothing; he had a feeling—the Thais called it sakit jai—a built-in sixth sense that picked up the super-charged air crackling with violent, unexplained death. No movement could be seen around the houses. All those bodies were inside. Bodies frozen by fear; by the same sense of death stalking the area.

  No one had to tell them when or where to stop again. The potholes had filled with water. They bounced along until they came to a small knot of UNTAC Civ Pol officers, their plastic ponchos glistening as beads of rainwater ran off, standing beside a muddy path which had been cut through the tall grass. Land Cruisers were parked on both sides of the road. Calvino got out of the vehicle. Scott followed his eyes upward to the heavens.

  “What are you looking at?” Scott asked him.

  “The rain. Remember at the Lido you told me the Khmers shoot at the clouds to drive them away?” said Calvino.

  “And?” asked Scott.

  “It’s still raining, Richard.” “I never said it worked.”

  “Like many other things you never said,” replied Calvino. Scott shrugged and moved ahead. They went along with Pratt down the path winding by the edge of the lake. On the way down, Calvino was thinking how none of the wooden shacks faced the lake; they all faced the road. In the States, a house on a lake was for the upper class; owners had piers and boats, manicured lawns ran to the water’s edge. But not these slum shacks along the lake in Phnom Penh. Business for the owners came from the road. Men looking for women didn’t come by water; they came by land. They didn’t care about a room with a view. The lake was the hidden back of the house, a watery slum roiling in filth and garbage, where beer cans bobbed in the weeds along the shoreline. The shanty houses that backed onto the lake used it as a toilet and rubbish tip. As far as the eye could see the shoreline was rimmed with debris—paper, cartons, and bloated lumps of tissue. A diseased stew—that was best description of Boeng Kak.

  Shaw, wearing rubber hip waders, and several other officers worked beside a hoist fitted on a flatbed truck. As Pratt, Calvino, and Scott stopped at the lake edge, two divers in wet suits emerged like otherworldly beings, dripping grungy slime, bits of greasy garbage caught on their tanks. The divers had rolled the Harley along the lake floor and hooked the chain on the end of the hoist to the midsection.

  “What have you got, John?” asked Pratt.

  “One Harley with rider attached,” said Shaw, the lake water past his knees.

  Scott’s eyes were fastened on the bike as the engine belched and slowly hoisted it out of the water, the two divers balancing it as it broke the surface. The Harley dripped a salad of green reeds and river mud, and smelled of raw sewage. A body slumped over the handlebars. Chains had been threaded around the chassis of the Harley and wrapped around the dead man’s waist and legs. His hands had been left free and hung limp over the side. Shaw wiped mud and weeds off the head of the body and carefully pushed back the head. Black water bilged from the mouth of Patten whose face was puffy and the color of a two-week-old newspaper.

  “Looks like we got ourselves a homicide,” said Shaw, examining the face that looked as if it had been submerged in a toxic waste dump.

  “Who had some help from people who weren’t his friends,” said Pratt, also looking at the body.

  Shaw squatted beside the Harley. “Someone jammed the carburetor and brakes. Looks like a professional job.”

  “Patten,” whispered Scott. He tried to retch but had the dry heaves; nothing came out when he leaned over and retched again.

  Calvino had climbed onto the wooden walkway of a shanty a few meters away. He had walked to the end where the railing was shattered. The Harley had smashed through the railing at full throttle. Calvino thought about Patten telling the story about the huge snake taking the chicken in its jaws. The silence of that moment. The look of fear, absolute certainty of death; no reprieve, no chance, just a second of recognition at the end. He wondered what had gone through Patten’s mind as the Harley had raced down the walkway and burst through the railing and was suspended above the lake for a split second. Had he seen himself hurling into those jaws?

  “Anyone talk to the people inside?” asked Calvino, looking at the rundown clapboard house.

  “There is no one inside. And if we wait until they come back, they will tell us that no one saw or heard anything,” said Shaw.

  “There is less fear in silence,” said Pratt.

  “Depends on the silence you’re facing,” said Calvino. A strange thing to say, thought Pratt.

  “Recognize the Harley?” Pratt asked Scott who had sat down on the edge of the wooden walkway where Patten had taken his final run.

  Scott nodded, his front teeth pressed into his lower lip. It was the same Harley he had cleared for Mike Hatch at the airport. Hoisted over the lake, the Harley looked like a bad imitation of a Patpong upstairs bar act with one of the participants missing in action. Mike Hatch’s prized bike with his Bangkok business partner imprisoned on the machine for one last ride into the deep. Pratt had gone into the lake up to his knees. He lifted one of Patten’s hands and examined the fingers. The nails and fingers had been ripped; there were deep tears from his frantic effort to break free of the chains. Calvino watched him, thinking how Hatch had told the story about the Khmer man who didn’t feel like killing his friend for five dollars. He had told Patten he wasn’t in the mood. Had he changed his mind?

  “Forensic will be able to tell us if he was alive when he went in,” said Pratt, letting the hand fall back.

  “Nasty piece of work,” said Shaw. “And a very professional hit.”

  He was staring at Scott, who looked anything but professional.

  Calvino made the necessary introductions. No one shook hands. No one said much of anything for several minutes, until the crane lowered the Harley to the ground.

  “Khun Richard, I believe, is the man who cleared the Harley at the airport,” said Pratt.

  “Bad things are happening to people connected with this Harley. Can you think why that might be, Mr. Scott?” asked Shaw.

  The Irish lilt of Shaw’s voice seemed to surprise Scott. “Don’t know,” he said. “We can probably discount the luck of the Irish. This is a question I’m asking myself. Am I next? And where is my business associate, Mike Hatch?”

  “Good questions,” said Calvino, noting that Scott had downgraded Mike Hatch from business partner to business associate. Soon Mike Hatch would be a guy he knew around the bars of Washington Square in Bangkok. A guy like Patten, who many people had listened to as he spun his tales of war. Another farang who lived from purple to purple in a small room. “Any idea where Mike Hatch is hiding out? Or how Patten ended up riding his Harley to the bottom of Boeng Kak?”

  Scott flashed a nervous smile and played with the side
of his face that had started to twitch. “Hatch? Who knows? He could be anywhere. And probably is if he has any brains. Patten? All I know is the man drowned in the lake. No more than you know. Should I know more?”

  “Where were you last night?” Dep.Supt. Shaw asked Scott. “At home,” he replied. “I had a slumber party.” The smile on his face looked painted on—the Chinese-like smile worn at public executions by those pointing the guns and those at the other end of the barrel.

  “He has three alibis,” said Calvino, answering for Scott who had gone speechless, his body shaking.

  “You don’t think that I killed Patten?” asked Scott.

  “Who knows, Richard?” replied Calvino. “But if I were you I would be worrying about who did and whether he was coming in my face. You seem to be part of a larger conspiracy. Where it will end is anyone’s guess.”

  The word conspiracy—one of Scott’s favorites—had the desired effect of rattling him. He was a conspiracy theory man; but the theory was always distant, in politics, in history, or in other people’s lives. Now Calvino had dropped the word straight into his own private world and he didn’t like the feel of it at all.

  The divers used welders’ torches to free Patten from the chains. Patten’s body was loaded into a body bag. The death of any man was inevitable and Patten had had his fair share of close calls with death. He had flown jet fighters at treetop level in secret wars. He had been shot down and crippled in the service of his country, or at least that was his story. Whatever the real truth, he ended up like a scarecrow on the back of the Harley, his wooden crutch wedged between his legs like a witch’s broomstick. This was a sick gesture by someone sending a message. Hadn’t it been Hatch who had called Patten a cripple? Calling a man a cripple and killing a crippled man are universes apart; but violence travels faster than the speed of sound when self-preservation is at issue. Hatch had threatened Patten and more than likely plenty of others.

  Patten had been the guy in the Lonesome Hawk Bar who had signed the card for Jerry Gill. It had never made sense sending it to Gill’s ex-wife, Doris. Then it had never made sense that Gill had died of a heart attack in Bangkok. Calvino remembered that Patten hadn’t had any time to talk about Gill or go to his cremation. Patten had said whenever a farang died in Thailand the death certificate said the cause of death was ‘heart stopped.’ Patten’s heart had stopped, and Black Hank would be passing around a card at the Lonesome Hawk Bar, asking regulars to sign. Only there was no one to send it to. Unlike Jerry Gill, Patten didn’t even have an ex-wife. Calvino moved away from the body. They walked back along the lake. At the entrance to the path, their backs to the road and the rain, they stopped.

  “Will you help us find Hatch?” Shaw asked Scott.

  Scott looked over at Calvino—one of those defeated, what choice do I have looks.

  “An Irishman asking a Welshman in Cambodia to find . . .”

  “Mike Hatch,” said Shaw.

  “Why not?” asked Scott. “I apparently have little else to do. Certain business ventures in Vietnam are on hold.”

  Calvino reached over and put a hand on Scott’s shoulder. “You know whoever did this may want to kill you?”

  He felt a shudder run through Scott’s body. Of course, he knew that much. Seeing what they had done to Patten, and the way they had done it, was not lost on him.

  “Maybe I should hire you,” said Scott.

  “The sooner we find Hatch the better for you,” said Calvino.

  Pratt was already in the Land Cruiser. This was a farang thing but with significant repercussions for the Thais. What was going through his mind was who in Thailand was backing this Kim. He didn’t think for a moment that Scott or Hatch had killed Patten. It wasn’t practical to do so. But he was also puzzled. Thais and Khmers didn’t go to this kind of trouble to kill someone. They shot the person in the neck. Slit their throat. Finished. This was not useful. To ruin such a valuable machine as a Harley. No, this was not the work of the Khmers. Patten would be in the lake. But the Harley would be long gone. Who had killed Patten? Why would Mike Hatch go to all the trouble to bring in such a motorcycle and then throw it away to kill someone? What was the killers’ play? What faction did they belong to and what was their influence and power? When would they decide that Kim was a liability and cut him loose? Or was he so important to their group, their plans, their network that he would be allowed not only to survive but to keep in business?

  These were some of the questions that ran through Pratt’s mind as he watched Calvino and Scott talking to each other as Shaw listened. The farangs knew so much, but really had scratched only the surface. It was under that surface, like under the lake, there was an entangled network which could only be guessed at—their motives, intentions, and blueprints.

  As they walked back in the rain to the road, Scott stopped again and looked back at the lake. “The Khmer you asked about at the airport.”

  “What about him?” asked Calvino. “He was arrested.”

  “Great. Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  “Things aren’t quite the same, are they?”

  “Anything else you might suddenly remember? Say about

  Mike Hatch and smuggling guns into Thailand?” Scott watched as Patten’s body bag passed.

  “He did one deal. A one-time thing. He never thought of himself as an arms smuggler. He’s a businessman. He saw an opportunity to make some quick cash. Really all Mike wanted was that Harley. Now that’s gone.”

  “Or at least it needs an overhaul,” said Calvino.

  “I can’t imagine Hatch had anything to do with this. It’s not his style. He might be from Jersey but he doesn’t go around whacking people. He’s probably scared shitless,” said Scott.

  “Like you.”

  “Like me,” said Scott, in the small voice of a child admitting he was in serious trouble.

  THIRTEEN

  DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER

  JUST AS CALVINO had suspected, Richard Scott had known all along where Hatch lived. At the Lido he had lied. In his shophouse he had lied again. He had watched Calvino and Thu on the back of the motorcycle going to find Hatch, but he had said nothing. With the discovery of Patten’s body anchored to Hatch’s Harley all that changed. Scott no longer lied. Shaw took Scott in his Land Cruiser and Pratt and Calvino followed in a second vehicle. Scott led them directly to the street where Hatch lived and pointed out the building from the Land Cruiser. He stuck his finger out the window and waved it as if to get even for what Mike Hatch had done. Then he was out of the Land Cruiser going straight for the door. Shaw motioned for Calvino and Pratt to follow. Calvino had a vague memory of the street; but it was daytime and everything looked different from the night Thu and he had gone off with the zombie with the dull eyes, the driver who had been killed when they were ambushed. His eyes had looked the same in death as they had in life; like light bulb filaments fused in a power surge.

  Calvino made no effort to get out of the Land Cruiser.

  “It’s the same place,” said Pratt, reading what Calvino was thinking.

  “Where they tried to kill you.”

  “I remember,” said Calvino.

  “A man never forgets another who tries to kill him,” said Pratt.

  “Or a man who saves his life. The way I see it, we’re even, Pratt. You’ve paid the bill from New York.”

  “It doesn’t work that way. Some things can never be repaid. You must learn not to measure what cannot be measured. In New York the Chinese Triad would have killed me. I couldn’t go to the police. And neither did you. Your family intervened. You handled it the Asian way. I can never forget this. You and your family had everything to lose and nothing to gain. Without your effort I would have been dead many years ago in New York. I say this because I feel guilt. I helped you in Phnom Penh for my own selfish reasons. I admit that to you as my friend even though you may hate me. But I must be honest. If you had died here that would not have been neutral. I would have lost not just a friend.
”

  “And the possibility of assisting your superior,” said Calvino. “I read the newspaper. I know that he is under siege. That his political enemies in the department and the Ministry of Interior are trying to destroy him. And if he’s destroyed so are you.”

  “I have my duty.”

  “Sometimes you can have more than one duty and they can conflict,” said Calvino. “Let’s go.”

  “You are part of my family, Vincent. A Thai has no higher duty than to his family. Don’t ever forget that.”

  “I’ve been trying. But I keep coming back to something my mother taught me. The family doesn’t keep secrets from each other. They keep secrets from strangers.”

  They walked toward Scott who was yelling what a fucking bastard Hatch was and trying to stick a key in a large metal lock on the front door of a building. The building was pock-marked to hell by bullets as if someone had used it for target practice. They ran after Scott who climbed two steps at a time up a rat-infested staircase. Scott seemed to know the drill, as he avoided all the places where the floorboards were broken or missing. A couple of rats squeezed through the gaps in the boards avoiding the rush of feet; the rats had seen worse terror. Scott went straight to a door off the staircase. He tried it. But the door was locked. Calvino pushed past him.

  “I did have a key,” said Scott, searching his pockets.

  “Forget it,” said Calvino. He knocked and then waited. But there was nothing except silence.

  Calvino took a long, deep breath and hit the door hard with his shoulder. A piece of cake. Wood splintered like old matchsticks between a truck driver’s teeth.

  Two steps inside the room they found Hatch. He was dead. Scott stepped back—not so much stepped as recoiled, pressing his shoulders against the wall next to the door.