Zero Hour in Phnom Pehn

by Christopher G. Moore

  “The first time you heard what?” asked Shaw.

  “That Cambodia’s on the road to democracy. They’ve had their free elections,” said Calvino.

  She was boiling, hands shaking as she changed the film in her camera. Calvino turned around and took a final look at the courtyard. Near the far wall a couple of women squatted in the garden, weeding, their heads covered with bamboo hats. The two naked children ran through the green vegetables. They ran and ran and ran as if they were pulled by the wind.

  “You underestimate women,” said Carole, as they walked through the grounds. “So you try to fence your emotions off with cash. I suppose it works for a while with some women. But what about the long run? Don’t you want something more?”

  He was thinking about Dr. Veronica.

  “Yeah, sometimes,” said Calvino.

  “But then I wake up the next morning and find I’m still living in a cash and carry world. Know what I mean?”

  ******

  AFTER they returned to UNTAC headquarters, Shaw stood next to a table while Scott looked through a book of mug shots. It was an Interpol volume of world-class criminals, spies, conmen, drug dealers, terrorists, and murderers. As the coffee arrived, Scott turned the page and shook his head. He had been doing a lot of that, thought Pratt, who sat in one corner, half-watching Scott and half-looking out the window on the courtyard where UNTAC soldiers passed, carrying automatic weapons. All those Western faces, he thought. Year Zero was the year the white faces had fled. All trace of the foreigner was eradicated. With bullets and starvation and recorded in blood.

  Calvino and Shaw hovered over Scott as he finished one book and then opened the next. Halfway through the third book of NGOs working in Phnom Penh, he looked long and hard at the photograph of a French national—Dr. Veronica Le Bon. She was too smart, connected, and smooth to ever have been thought to be involved in such an affair. She was a doctor. Her mission was to save lives. And she had managed to get herself tied up with a rogues’ line-up of international riff-raff. Scott’s expression didn’t change.

  “You know this one?” Pratt asked, as he walked over and pressed a finger down on the photograph.

  And Scott said what Pratt guessed would be his reply.

  “I have never seen her. Not bad-looking. But a little old.” He said it real cool and slow.

  “Never?” asked Calvino. “You’re sure?”

  He had to know if she were involved. If she had killed the Russian to shut him up or to save Calvino. There was a pause as Scott examined the photograph. What kept flooding back into his mind was her beyond good and evil speech. If she could help the Khmers who had lost legs in the minefields, then she would do anything. Anything.

  “Not that I know of,” said Scott.

  “Someone killed Hatch. Hatch was your friend, Scott. And murdered Patten. So you think real carefully. You were the guy who came running here. Or am I forgetting something?”

  “Never seen her,” repeated Scott.

  “Remember the French hospital?” asked Calvino. Scott nodded.

  “And the French doctor, Veronica.”

  He looked at the photograph again. “That is her! She doesn’t look dangerous.”

  Pratt looked out the window. He knew sooner or later that Calvino would find a way to get to Scott; it was only a matter of time. Once he did find out, what would Calvino do? He had some feeling for the woman, thought Pratt. He had allowed his emotions to get mixed up in the case. Finding Scott’s price was never that difficult. But Calvino had interjected a personal element that didn’t have a price. She had had dinner with Philippe but that didn’t make her a criminal. Yet it howled a connection. Was it friendship, business, sexual? All those questions were going through Calvino’s mind. All Scott wanted was out of Cambodia. Asking Scott all day and night wouldn’t get him to admit that Dr. Veronica Le Bon had made some deal with Philippe who worked under the code name Kim. There was nothing in it for him to cooperate. At the same time Calvino kept pounding away, knowing it was hopeless, and also knowing that he didn’t want to face up to the reality that he might never find the truth. Scott and Hatch were a couple of farangs who had come to Cambodia not for any larger truth but to make their fortune. And it looked like one of them just might make it out alive and beat the odds.

  “Did you ever see the doctor talking to Hatch?”

  Scott had seen this French doctor talking with Hatch several times. But he had been drunk each time and couldn’t recall what they had talked about. Hatch had said the French doctor was trying to raise funds for medical equipment, more hospital beds, supplies, artificial limbs for the mine victims. She wanted help and thought that Hatch was someone she could trust.

  “Did Michael Hatch ever have sexual intercourse with the doctor?” asked Shaw.

  Scott laughed.

  “Hatch fucked just about any woman.”

  “Did he fuck her?”

  Scott looked at every man in the room. They were waiting on him.

  “That’s what he told Fat Stuart. But he could have been lying. Mike liked to brag he could bed any woman. It was an ego thing with him.”

  After Scott finished no one spoke for a couple of seconds. John sat down at the table and stared at the photograph.

  “Why would he tell Fat Stuart?” asked Shaw.

  “Dr. Veronica was a distant cousin. Some kind of relative,” replied Scott.

  “You mean to say that a French doctor, a woman, killed Hatch and Patten?” There was an Irish look of amusement on Shaw’s face as if he were waiting for the punchline.

  “There is no evidence to support such a theory. Nuth said Philippe was the mastermind. He was French and so is she. Why shouldn’t they have dinner?” asked Calvino.

  “Are you representing Dr. Veronica?” asked Shaw.

  “I’m talking about what we know happened. What we can prove,” said Calvino.

  Scott looked up from the photographs and lit a cigarette. He looked more relaxed than he had in days.

  “I have a feeling that she’s involved,” said Scott.

  “Yes, Mr. Scott, we all have our private feelings,” said Pratt. “But sometimes one can get carried away by one’s feelings.”

  “Say Hatch and Patten had Dr. Veronica’s cousin killed in Bangkok. She might want revenge,” said Calvino.

  “Who is clear of crimes here?” asked Pratt.

  Shaw raised an eyebrow. “He’s a philosopher,” said Calvino. “Shakespeare, philosophy, it’s hard to remember half the time that he’s a cop.”

  “But other than what I can testify to, you’ve got nothing to pin on her,” said Scott.

  Everyone turned and stared at Scott.

  “What do you have, Mr. Scott?” asked Shaw.

  “I know that she screwed Hatch and that Fat Stuart was her cousin. But other than that, you’ve got nothing. She got away with it. That’s what it means. Right under your peace-keeping noses.”

  Pratt never forgot he was a policeman inside a department divided into factions. Some siding with men like Hatch or Patten when it suited their purposes; others seeking to do their job in the best way they could and that wasn’t always easy.

  Pratt felt the surge of Calvino’s anger, and then he let it roll through and over him. Jai yen, having a cool heart was the way to survive. With a cool heart you moved amongst the pieces of the puzzle, weaving a life, soul, family into a personal destiny. It was not an afterthought. Being a cop was this lifetime’s way to test him—tempting at every turn with the exercise of power. Power was a weapon, a gift, and a shield. And for Pratt it was a way to make enough merit not ever to be reborn into a world of grifters. And he asked himself, would the Frenchwoman have a cool heart when she learned her cousin had been killed? Was this capable doctor personally implicated in the Saudi jewelry theft? What was her relationship to Philippe, the man that Calvino had killed at the hospital? He knew that he would have to go out and find the answer. At the same time, he had the strong feeling that Calvino didn’t
want to know the truth of her involvement.

  SEVENTEEN

  UMPIRE IN DOUBTFUL STRIFE

  ON THEIR LAST day before leaving for the airport, they had agreed to meet for breakfast in the hotel restaurant. Calvino hadn’t slept that much, tossing and turning. Thinking how Thu had cried when he had taken her back to her room at the lake. As soon as he expunged her from his thoughts, he saw Nuth’s face through the bars, and the bodies that had been left behind—Hatch, Patten, and Fat Stuart.

  “You look ill,” said Pratt as Calvino sat down.

  Pratt was dressed in his police uniform, his hat on the table. He had an official, businesslike look, which made the waiter snap to attention when coffee was ordered.

  “I just checked over my bill. Seems it was paid. Including the room service bill for five hundred and eighty-five dollars. You would think that I was a party animal.”

  Pratt didn’t say anything.

  “Can’t say I’m gonna miss this place,” said Calvino.

  “And thanks for picking up the bill. Since you’re not about to admit you paid it. Or the department paid it. Or UNTAC. Or, Christ, thanks go out to the guys who paid the tab.”

  They had not succeeded in making a positive identification of Philippe as Kim, thought Pratt. Nuth said it was Philippe but he was in no real shape to answer any questions. It looked likely Philippe was their man but there were holes in the theory. They had taken the case as far as they could. Only one other thing caused Calvino concern—Dr. Veronica’s connection with Philippe. There was no direct evidence to tie her to any crime or wrongdoing. And one more thing, they were going back to Bangkok without the Saudi necklace, thought Pratt. The political mess with the Saudis would continue. His superior would be disappointed. Pratt would lose face. But there wasn’t much they could do about that. About all he could offer for his efforts was the farang gun-smuggling ring was smashed. Not that others would not spring up to replace the Patten and Hatch operation. But it was something.

  “You’re thinking about the necklace. The Windsor Factor?” asked Calvino, sipping his coffee and shaking off the sudden urge to sleep. “You think she has it?”

  “You think that Dr. Veronica has the necklace?”

  “Who else?” asked Calvino. “It’s certainly not around Richard Scott’s neck.”

  “Aren’t you going to see her before you go?” Calvino shrugged off the question.

  “To talk about old times?”

  “She did save your life, Vincent.”

  “Or saved herself a lot of trouble by killing that Russian.”

  ******

  PRATT had been thinking a great deal about Dr. Veronica. The way she had looked up from her office desk at the hospital when he went out to see her. The previous afternoon he had gone alone to the hospital. He had double-checked with Bangkok—Dr. Veronica Le Bon had not been on their list of those suspected of having something to do with the jewels. No one had any information that a woman, a foreign national at that, had been linked with the missing jewelry. Murder, smuggled arms, stolen jewelry was man’s work; or so they thought. They had been after men who had economic motives; men who wanted to get rich. They had overlooked other selfless motives—helping those in need.

  “Tomorrow I leave Cambodia. Mr. Calvino will be leaving as well. And I wanted to see you before I left,” said Pratt.

  “Colonel, I am pleased to see you. Please sit down. I will order tea. Do you take milk? Sugar?”

  “Can I speak directly?”

  She smiled. “But of course.”

  “You knew your friend Philippe tried to have Calvino killed that first night we arrived?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “I thought Vincent was responsible for Stuart’s death.”

  “Philippe told you that?” “Yes, he did.”

  “And then you found out that he was wrong.”

  “Yes, of course. But Mr. Calvino was with him that day.”

  “He was sent by Patten to find out information about Mike Hatch.”

  “I know that now. And I believe he is a good man.”

  “Do you love him?”

  Dr. Veronica shrugged.

  “It is possible.”

  “Do you have it?” asked Pratt.

  She looked up as the tea came and waited until the orderly closed her door.

  “Have what?”

  “The necklace.”

  “You know there are so many things these people could do with that money. Ambulances, proper medicine, operating equipment, more doctors, more of everything. To break that piece of vanity into value and provide basic medical care to those who desperately need it, would that be wrong, Colonel? Would such an act constitute a sin or would it be an act of making merit?”

  “Your cousin promised you the necklace.”

  She nodded. “Indeed, he did. He was a good man. He wanted to do right. But he was always getting into trouble with men like Hatch and Patten. They threatened to kill him unless he gave them the necklace. I didn’t take it seriously. But they did. They killed Stuart. Like he was a nothing. And for what? A piece of stolen jewelry. Is the world really that mad, Colonel Pratt?”

  “Mad enough for you to revenge your cousin’s death by taking two lives.”

  “An eye for an eye, the scriptures say.”

  Pratt watched her drinking her tea. “You never found it.”

  “It’s gone,” she said, setting her cup down on the saucer.

  “Now I must get back to work. I have many patients and so very little resources and time. You will excuse me.” She got up and showed him to the door. He picked up his hat.

  “One more thing. Did your cousin Stuart ever tell you where he stored the necklace?”

  “He said he buried it deep in the sky.” Pratt walked into the corridor.

  “Goodbye, Dr. Veronica.”

  “Stuart would have given it to me if they hadn’t killed him. I believe that. I believe he wanted to change his life and helping this hospital was the way to a new life.”

  “Only it didn’t work out that way. It worked out as a way to a certain death.”

  “One never knows in life or death, Colonel. But one knows the difference between the two. In a hospital you learn that lesson very quickly.”

  “The ways these men died are not the ways of a medical doctor. And that includes your friend Philippe who would have killed you for that necklace. Am I wrong?”

  Dr. Veronica sighed as if she had had her patience tried.

  “Of course you are wrong. They died as they lived. But I must tell you the matter of their deaths was not prescribed by me. It was left to others. Others who were like them. No better, no worse. And if it makes any difference, Mr. Calvino ended Philippe’s life in this very hospital. You see, Colonel Pratt, this has been quite a lesson for me. Those men had returned to kill Miss Thu and to kill me. They would have taken the necklace as sure as I stand here. I was such a fool. I believed . . . in such people, how can one be so stupid?”

  Pratt didn’t have an answer for her. People believed because they needed to; whom they chose to bestow the belief in was as much a product of circumstance, trust, and expediency as any concerted plan. She had acted on the spur of the moment, thinking that others had shared her values and goals. Of course they had not. Any more than her cousin had. She had been betrayed and defeated from the beginning. It would have been less bad had the betrayal not sprung from her dreams. But where else do our betrayals spring from?

  After the interview ended he had walked back to the hotel alone. He couldn’t blame her. He had seen her in the restaurant that first night. There had been a certain way that she had watched him and Calvino. He wanted to call her expression sad but sometimes sadness and resignation appeared the same on the face of a stranger. She may have known who they were. That Calvino had been with her cousin the day at the racetrack. All the time they had been misdirected by false assumptions that they were searching for a farang mastermind. Kim was someone who had powerful friends inside the
police department and in the Thai army. Every faction had its useful outsiders to advance its interest. The theory was the mastermind in Phnom Penh was an old Asia hand, fluent in half a dozen languages, with high-level political and business contacts. They had created a legend about someone who never got the jewels. He had failed. The question was whether Dr. Veronica was telling the truth. Had she found the necklace?

  When Pratt observed Calvino’s face as he stared at Veronica’s photograph, he wondered why his friend didn’t realize that it didn’t matter. There was not sufficient evidence to tie someone like her to any criminal activity. She was clean. Evidence of wrongdoing was a Western concept. Even though Calvino had been a lawyer in New York, he was surprised when he used the term evidence with Shaw. In Asia evidence of wrong was judged according to the status of the person suspected of a crime. Status determined the sufficiency, not the evidence itself. She had status, gender, and profession as safeguards that no one could penetrate. This was the way the world was in Indochina and would be for their lifetime, and the lifetime of those who would follow in their steps.

  Pratt had seen all the American cop shows on TV and the movies. The hero unearthed the evidence and that was the end of the story. What a simple, alien idea the Americans had about how life worked—a kind of collective delusion if not insanity. And even if they had evidence against Dr. Veronica it wouldn’t matter. Because objective evidence only adhered to the weak and powerless; it had no sticking power to the surface of men with connection to those who ruled. And as to Kim? Why don’t we assume that he accomplished his mission?

  “He delivered the necklace to the bad guys in Bangkok,” said Calvino.

  “Nice idea but it would not work,” said Pratt.

  “By now they will have found out that someone killed their man.”

  “That should put them in a good mood.”

  “Your name isn’t connected with the killing.”