The Tale of the Lazy Dog

by Alan Williams

  ‘He did tonight,’ Ryderbeit said, snapping his lighter to a paraffin lamp on a side-table. He seemed to know his way around.

  The room looked comfortable and expensive: open-plan chinoiserie, in teak and bamboo, with glass-topped coffee tables, rough silk sofas, handwoven wall-screens. Ryderbeit moved quickly across the rush-matting and threw open an inside door. There was a passage beyond with doors leading off on both sides. One was half-open. Murray had a glimpse of a bathroom as Ryderbeit put his head round the door and came out again, holding the lamp above his head. He nodded at a second door which was closed. ‘Try that.’

  The knob was of solid cut-glass and would not turn. Murray leaned against it and it slipped open on a ball-catch. The room was much smaller and hotter than the last. For several moments the two of them stood under the lamplight in silence. Then Murray murmured, ‘Good grief,’ and took a step forward.

  A green filing cabinet, reaching almost to the ceiling, had been emptied, drawer by drawer, its locks wrenched open, the steel split and buckled, the floor heaped several inches deep with papers, folders, bound documents, great coils of telex tape like unrolled toilet paper. A desk lamp had been dashed to the floor, typewriter turned upside down, the desk itself cleared of everything, its drawers smashed open and spilled, the telephone ripped from the wall and lying tumbled among a stack of reference books. The one object that seemed to have escaped all damage was the telex machine in the far corner.

  Murray stepped over the mounds of paper and peered down at the keyboard. The machine was dead, with the current cut off; but the last incoming message had arrived complete, timed 1750 HRS. In the wavering light from Ryderbeit’s lamp Murray read: FINLAYSON *** LAOFARC *** INSTRUCT * CONFIRMATION * MORNING * FULL * INVENTORY * RE * LAZYDOG *** ENDS * BANG-FARC. He frowned, checking back along the spool for the last outgoing message. It was timed nearly three hours earlier — a routine bulletin on the dollar-kip par when the Banque du Laos closed that afternoon.

  Ryderbeit, who had been reading it beside him, suddenly turned and reached the passage in a couple of leaping strides, stopping at the door opposite, next to the bathroom. It was shut. He kicked it open and went in at a run with the lamp swinging wild shadows round the big silent room. It was very calm and ordered after the shambles across the passage. A lightweight grey suit was folded over the back of a chair, along with a freshly laundered white shirt. Underneath was a pair of big black shoes with a flower-pattern punched into the toecaps.

  The bed was set against the far wall — an enormous double bed under a high tent of mosquito-netting. The windows were closed, and with the air-conditioning cut off the room had a hot clammy smell. But there was something else too — something Murray was conscious of at once, but unable to identify. Something about that smell: something rancid, human.

  Ryderbeit had stepped up to the bed, drawn back the muslin drapes, and stood looking down. Finlayson lay on his stomach, his face pressed into a blue-striped pillow. He was dressed in white pyjamas and his arms were drawn up at his sides, the fingers sunk deep into the matching blue-stripped sheets which were soaked brown under his head and throat. Ryderbeit leant down and tugged at one of the shoulders. It stirred only slightly, as though very heavy. He tugged again, harder this time, and still the body scarcely moved. He stepped back, frowning, and felt one of the big grey feet sticking out from under the kimono. It was cold, but not yet stiff.

  Murray had come closer, noticing now a very small dark hole in the centre of Finlayson’s neck, just below the hairline. His first thought was that it was a bullet hole — small calibre, possibly a .22, fired point-blank while Finlayson lay asleep. That would account for the bleeding under the throat. Then he noticed that there was no trace of scorching and the hairs at the back of his neck were quite unsinged. A heavier calibre, he wondered, fired from a few feet and throwing Finlayson face down on the bed?

  Ryderbeit had grabbed the shoulder again and wrenched it back, and this time the body rolled over with a nasty tearing sound that made Murray shudder. Ryderbeit appeared unmoved. The eyes on the bed were glazed slits, the face turned mauve with the texture of greaseproof paper. He had bled heavily through the nose and mouth, and his moustache had sopped the blood up like a sponge, still tacky and glistening. In the centre of his throat was a sharp point about an inch long which had torn a slit in the sheet when Ryderbeit pulled it free. The body now lolled on its side, its teeth showing through the clotted gap between the lips. Ryderbeit held the body only a moment, then let it roll back on to its belly. ‘Holy Moses,’ he murmured: ‘Six-inch nail, straight through the neck into the mattress. Severed the spinal cord and probably touched the windpipe. Nice oriental touch, eh?’

  Murray shook his head. ‘Biblical. Jael and Sisera — your Old Testament, Sammy. You ought to know that.’

  Ryderbeit straightened up and stood with his head tilted to one side. ‘I don’t quite follow,’ he said in a thin voice, almost a whisper.

  ‘No? “Then Jael, Heber’s wife, took a nail of the tent and a hammer in her hand and smote the nail into his temple…” Or something like that. One of the brighter bits of the Good Book. Only whoever this joker was went for the neck, so perhaps he wasn’t a Bible-boy after all. As you said — a nice Oriental touch. Either that, or a European trying to make out it was an Oriental.’

  Ryderbeit took a step forward, breathing hard. ‘Just a moment, Murray boy.’ He held the lamp higher, and in the raw light his eyes had a dry yellow glitter. ‘I’m not that well-educated, and I’m not even a good Jew, so I can’t quote chapter and verse. But as I read you, are you saying I did this?’

  ‘You could have done. You knew his routine and the layout of the place. You also knew he had an appointment with me tonight. You might even know what that appointment was about.’

  Ryderbeit nodded. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Did he live alone?’

  ‘As far as I know.’

  ‘Servants?’

  ‘Houseboy. And his secretary. Nice little Vietnamese number he used to knock off in the afternoons. She could have done it. Vietnamese women have some nasty habits in the crime passionnel line — doin’ things with razors and hatpins while their lover-boys are tucked up asleep.’

  ‘And tear his office to pieces afterwards with a crowbar?’

  Ryderbeit shrugged: ‘Cover-up — makin’ out it was a simple break-in.’

  ‘Heavy work, even for a Vietnamese girl.’ Murray turned and walked over to the chair with the suit folded over the back. Using a handkerchief he felt inside the jacket and lifted out a fat snakeskin wallet edged with gold. The leather compartments bulged with credit cards and cash. He rifled through a sheaf of brand new 500-kip notes, a wad of well-thumbed U.S. twenty and fifty dollar bills, then tossed the load down at Ryderbeit’s feet.

  ‘And take another look at the bed, Sammy. He’s still wearing his bracelet and watch — another good five hundred dollars’ worth. Funny way of trying to pretend it was simple robbery. A jealous mistress might just drive a nail through his neck — and if she was really cunning she might try to cover her tracks, like pulling out the telephone so that anyone trying to contact him this evening or tomorrow morning would think the line was out of order. But that would only make sense if she was planning on an early getaway — either the ferry across to Nong Khai to catch the overnight train down to Bangkok, or the first plane out in the morning. What doesn’t make any sense at all is killing him and systematically ransacking his office, but touching nothing else in the house — not even his wallet and watch. She didn’t do it, Sammy. For that matter, nor did you.’

  ‘Oh no?’ Ryderbeit had leant down and was holding the wallet open in his hand.

  Murray nodded at it: ‘You’d have gone for the petty cash, at least. His jewellery could be traced, so you’d probably have left that — but not those nice old Andrew Jackson and General Grant jobs. Those you couldn’t have resisted, could you?’

  ‘You bastard. First you have me nailin’ him down to
his cot — and now I’m robbin’ his bloody corpse. You must think I’ve got the morals of a snake’s belly!’ He grinned, beginning to fold the dollar bills from the wallet into his trouser pocket. ‘But since I stand accused, I might as well cash in. If I don’t, others will.’ He counted out half the dollars, then tossed the wallet back at Murray.

  ‘I don’t want it, Sammy.’

  ‘Take it, you scrupulous bastard! At least let’s make it look like a break-in. You can always get rid of it outside.’

  Murray dropped the wallet reluctantly into his jacket pocket. ‘And we’d better wipe off everything we’ve touched.’

  ‘What! — for the Royal bloody Lao Police? You think they’ll bother with prints?’

  ‘They will on this job. They’ll call in the old French Sûreté boys who stayed on as advisers. And later the Americans’ll want to check up too, because FARC’s in their sphere of influence.’ He glanced again at the bed and winced. ‘Come on, let’s get away from here!’

  Outside he wiped the office doorknob, trying to remember if he’d touched anything else, while Ryderbeit wiped off the lamp, after replacing it on the table in the main room. Then he turned down the wick till they were in darkness and Murray, still using his handkerchief, opened the verandah door.

  They stood outside for a moment, listening. The moon was gone and there was a dead hush all round; even the crickets seemed to have grown quiet. Murray started across the verandah on the balls of his feet, groping for the latch of the door to the steps. He found it and rested against the frame, his whole body covered in a thin oily sweat. Ryderbeit, trained with a pilot’s night-sight, led the way unerringly down the steps, round the Mercedes and out of the gate. The track back into town was empty. He took Murray’s arm: ‘We’ve got to work something out, soldier — and fast! You go back the way we came, I’ll take a short cut, and we’ll meet at the hotel, up in your room. It’ll be all right there — nobody ever notices who comes and goes in that place. Just as long as we’re not seen leaving here together. What’s your room number?’

  ‘Two. First floor.’

  ‘I know it.’ His smile shone through the dark: ‘See you there!’ — and he vanished like a cat into the trees.

  CHAPTER 5

  Murray was not at all happy as he started on the short jogtrot back into Vientiane. His eyes had still not adjusted to the dark, his knees felt weak and his guts were like water. A car distantly grating gears made him jump. He blinked, trying to pick out the dim line of the track. On his right lay the river, flowing huge through the cathedral of the night, silently and very fast. On the other side were the trees, full of soft rustlings where Ryderbeit was creeping silken and sure-footed, back to their rendezvous at the hotel.

  But why the hotel? Murray suddenly wondered. Didn’t Ryderbeit have a place of his own? Or perhaps it wasn’t that kind of meeting he’d had in mind? He broke into a run, beginning to wonder if he could have been wrong about Ryderbeit after all. Then he remembered the heavy bulge of Finlayson’s wallet bumping against his hip, and he felt the panic hit him in a rush. It had all been very clever. They’d probably never find out why a respectable Irish journalist should break into an Englishman’s house in Laos, nail him to his bed, strip him of a few hundred dollars, then run amok in his office and finish up floating in the Mekong. Perhaps they’d write it off against drink, drugs, the climate, a bout of madness induced by yesterday’s crash.

  He had the wallet in his hand, and without hesitating over whether to help himself to a few dollar bills, flung it far out into the river — not even waiting for the splash, as he headed into the trees where he crashed blindly about for a few moments before coming out again with a stout shard of bamboo. He stayed for several seconds on the edge of the path, crouched forward with elbows raised, the bamboo held across his palms like a long knife, listening. But there was nothing above the din of the jungle and the soft swish of the river.

  He began to run again, head down, dodging, holding the bamboo stave low, ready to jerk it up into Ryderbeit’s groin the moment he was jumped. Napper had warned him less than an hour ago to keep away from Ryderbeit; yet how much did Napper know? Could he really have known that Finlayson was in danger — was even dead — and still done nothing about it?

  Murray turned a bend in the track. Ahead were pricks of light between the trees. Paraffin lamps in open doorways; jangle of a transistor radio. He sprinted up a stinking village lane and suddenly came out into the main street, not thirty yards away from the Hotel des Amis.

  He slowed and dropped the bamboo, feeling limp and a little ridiculous as he started across the street, into the dark bar under the red awning. A glance round showed him there was no one he knew. He walked up to the girl at the cash register and asked for his bill for the four nights, telling her he would need a taxi to the airport in the morning to catch the 8.30 flight down to Bangkok. He settled the bill in dollars — beginning to regret now that he hadn’t held on to at least some of Finlayson’s pocket money — as the girl handed him a lighted candle. Up in his room he opened a new bottle of Scotch, poured half a tumblerful and swallowed it straight; then he began to pack. Shaving tackle, dirty shirt, socks and underwear, notebook and half a dozen cassettes of undeveloped film. He was stuffing these carefully down the side of his grip-bag when there was a quick rap on the door. Ryderbeit came in, rubbing his hands and grinning.

  ‘You got something to drink up here, soldier? I could do with a couple!’

  ‘So, it wasn’t me and it wasn’t his mistress. Who does that leave?’

  They sat facing each other on the twin beds, stripped down to their vests in the hot airless room, sharing the whisky warm and neat out of the single tumbler.

  ‘It leaves a few of the teeming millions of South-East Asia,’ Murray said at last, feeling the sweat itching down through the hairs on his chest. ‘Did he have any enemies you know of? Jealous husbands? Anything political? CIA? Or the other side?’

  Ryderbeit spread his hands. ‘Nothing. He was just a friendly old legalised crook running his own show. Sure, he did a few deals on the side — everyone out here does, but it’s all aid money so there are no real losers — except the American tax payer. Nobody disliked old Filling-Station. It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Unless it was a maniac, it has to make sense.’

  ‘Yeah, but why the nail? That’s really kinky.’

  ‘Or a professional speciality. Professional killers prefer their own tools. Ice-picks were quite a favourite in the thirties and forties in the States. Trotsky was even done in with one. And a hammer and nail’s not so different. Quick and neat, especially if you know your victim’s going to be asleep.’

  ‘So you think it was a hired job?’

  ‘What does it look like? Someone who knew Finlayson’s habits well enough to get in while he was having his late nap — and someone who knew what he was after. Something in the office. Some correspondence, document, notebook — but certainly not money. And probably someone from outside Laos — hence the trick of cutting the phone to give him time to get away. He was probably gambling on no one calling round tonight. And unless he took the train to Bangkok, he’s almost certainly still here. Which means we ought to report it. Now.’

  Ryderbeit gave a twist of a smile. ‘And help the police with their inquiries? Sorry, soldier. Where the police are concerned Samuel Ryderbeit is strictly one o’ the boys who walks by on the other side.’

  Murray shrugged. ‘If it was a real professional, they probably wouldn’t spot him anyway. He may even lie low here for a few days before getting out. It’s just that I feel we ought to do something for old Finlayson, instead of just washing our hands of him. After all, we’re partly responsible for what happened.’

  Ryderbeit’s head jerked up from his drink. ‘Responsible? For what?’

  ‘For his death,’ Murray said calmly, reaching for the tumbler in Ryderbeit’s hands. ‘He was killed because of us, Sammy — because of the operation.’

  Ryde
rbeit brought out his cigar case and tapped a Romeo y Julieta into his palm, biting the end and spitting delicately between his feet. ‘So you think he was killed because he knew too much — was planning to run to teacher and tell tales out o’ school?’

  ‘It’s possible. Only it doesn’t have much scope. It would give both of us a motive, as well as No-Entry and Pol. There aren’t any other candidates I know of — unless you do?’

  Ryderbeit sat turning the cigar slowly round in the candle flame. ‘I don’t know quite what you’re getting at, soldier. If somebody else is interested in our little plan, why go and kill Filling-Station? He was the vital link — the one who was goin’ to put the finger on the next flush-out. And he’s not goin’ to be much use to anyone now.’

  ‘Precisely. That’s why I think he was killed.’ Murray took a long pull at the whisky. ‘No Sammy, I’m thinking of another possibility. And if I’m right, we’re both in bad trouble. Let’s look at it from the other side. If you’re someone with a special interest in stopping this operation, and you somehow get to hear about it from the Laos end, what are you going to do? You get a tip-off that a gang of Westerners are planning a huge heist of U.S. greens in Vietnam. What you also know is that part of the operation involves Laos — which is going to mean a security problem, to put it mildly — and that one of the conspirators is none other than trusty old Finlayson of FARC — which is going to be an embarrassment. You can’t have him arrested because he hasn’t done anything. You could perhaps try and pull some strings to get him sacked. But then maybe Finlayson can pull strings too — he has a lot of important friends here in Laos, which is one of the reasons why Pol chose him in the first place. So if you push it you may find yourself with an international crisis on your hands.

  ‘But your alternative — if you work by the book, that is — is to sit back and pray it won’t happen, at least not right here under your nose in Laos. On the other hand, you could inform Saigon and the U.S. Treasury, and let them get on with it their end. In which case,’ he added, taking another gulp of whisky, ‘we’re blown.’