The Second Biggest Nothing

by Colin Cotterill

  “As you know, Mr. Geung’s senses are more active than my archaic system,” said Siri. “We took a look at the Ferrari. Geung’s nose led him straight to the mat under the driver’s seat. He pulled it out and there were three puncture holes in the floor. The petrol had been drained but he could still smell that the holes went right through to the tank. Someone had deliberately made those holes so the fumes would fill the car.”

  “Why?” asked Dtui. “To make an explosion?”

  “No,” said Siri. “That was my first guess too. But there wasn’t much chance they’d ignite the fumes unless they lit a bonfire in there.”

  “The killer wants them to-to-to breathe it,” said Geung.

  “Exactly right,” said Siri. “As the temperature rose, the fumes would have filled the car. They wouldn’t notice because there was a much stronger smell there.”

  “Flowers,” said Geung.

  “Someone had put together a whole bunch of leis and hung them from the rearview mirror. Jasmine in a confined space tends to overpower other scents. If they’d smoked their weed they might have noticed the subsidiary smell of petrol fumes because grass tends to heighten the sense of smell, but they didn’t. They drank beer. One of the bottles had been re-capped. I had Geung take a sniff.”

  “I could s-s-smell rotten egg,” said Geung. “Like, like antibiotic.”

  “And why would anyone put antibiotic in a bottle of beer?” Siri asked.

  “Beats me,” said Dtui.

  “Some antibiotics deaden the sense of smell temporarily,” said Siri. “So, what if the killer gave them the leis and the beer to see them off on their journey. But also to make sure they didn’t notice the petrol fumes?”

  “But why?” Dtui asked.

  “I couldn’t do an autopsy on Jim, the photojournalist, but I did notice he had sinus problems. I guessed he’d had allergies. If his condition was chronic and he didn’t have access to medication, the fumes could have been enough to kill or at least incapacitate him. He’s drinking, driving too fast on bad roads in a car without seatbelts. He has an attack. It either kills him outright, or he drives into a tree or a house.”

  “Or a pond,” said Geung.

  “The killer couldn’t have planned for both of them to die,” said Dtui.

  “It didn’t matter if only Jim had recognized him,” said Siri. “Perhaps they’d met in the war, stationed at the same press corps. I don’t know. But he got lucky. The two of them ended up in a lake and both drowned. And anything Jim had told Marvin about the reunion drowned with them. Our killer had cleaned up.”

  “And he could use the deaths to show he was serious,” said Dtui.

  “And capable,” said Siri.

  “How did the k-k-killer man know about the ah, ah . . . ?”

  “The allergy?” said Siri. “That’s a good question. If they’d worked together it wouldn’t have been much of a secret. If Jim used an inhaler it would have been noticed.”

  “Any of the journalists here for the festival could have seen him use it,” said Dtui. “And they didn’t recover an inhaler from the car wreckage.”

  “It could have floated away,” said Siri. “We’ll get Phosy to ask around when we’re done here.”

  “And what are we looking for with your girlfriend Madam Lah,” Dtui asked.

  “Any evidence that the death wasn’t natural.”

  “It wasn’t,” said Geung.

  Mr. Geung, either under the influence of Siri and his spirits or through some innate Down syndrome sub-ability, had certain senses that reached into the realm of the dead. His intuition was rarely wrong.

  They’d talked to Lah’s sons. The only existing condition they knew of was her insomnia and, for that, she’d been taking herbal magnolia bark for years. But they recalled that recently their mother had heard reports on Thai radio and had switched to pharmaceuticals. They didn’t know where she acquired them or how much she used. They gave Dtui all the drugs from their mother’s medicine cabinet in a plastic bag. There was nothing to be learned from the containers. Only one had a label and that was for heartburn powder. Another two or three pill boxes were unmarked and a large bottle with only a centimeter of liquid inside had a handwritten sticker that said: Two glasses before bed.

  Siri recognized the pills in one of the boxes. China was flooding the market with its cheap versions of European drugs, and they made their products look as much like the originals as they could. The drug was a variety of benzodiazepine commonly prescribed for insomnia, and, in certain cases, for depression. By itself it presented no danger. With alcohol it could be fatal. But, according to the sons, their mother drank alcohol rarely and in moderation.

  There were no obvious signs of drug abuse. In fact, as they foraged inside the bread lady, Dtui commented that the woman was in great shape internally. They took samples and Dtui and Geung retreated to the lab. The days of guesswork and comparative color-chart tests were behind them. The Soviets had funded a room with equipment and chemicals to test the fluids and flesh. Only Dtui could read the directions and instructions, and, without her, the room remained locked.

  Siri sat under a tree with the chemistry lab goats and drank sweet coffee and ate sticky buns—the specialty of the Mahosot canteen—and waited for news.

  “You were right about the benzodiazepine,” said Dtui. She sat beside the doctor on a pile of tractor tires. “High concentration but not enough to kill her.”

  Mr. Geung joined them on the grass, greeting the goats by name.

  “Anything else?” Siri asked.

  “We don’t have results from blood and urine,” she said, “but we did an analysis on the contents of the bottle the boys gave us. Some sort of liquid morphine. Again, a high concentration and mixed with something sweet. I guess it was to take the taste away. Geung sampled it. He said it was like a milkshake.”

  “Yummy,” said Geung.

  “Lucky it wasn’t poison,” said Siri.

  He thought back to his days there at the hospital. To their lunches on the river bank. To Lah, and her handmade baguettes and pretty smile. And he recalled one week when she was away at the Soviet hospital, a small operation on a rather aggressive mole. She said it had been particularly painful because she had a low tolerance for opiates and had refused pain killers.

  “That’s how he got her,” said Siri. “The combination of the opiate and the psychoactive drugs on an elderly woman. It would have shut down her central nervous system. And if he got the doses right he could have timed it to within a day of his schedule.”

  “So, someone knew about her intolerance,” said Dtui.

  “Must have,” said Siri.

  “Somebody’s playing God,” said Geung.

  His stutter had become less pronounced since his marriage.

  “Exactly,” said Dtui. “He’s blurring the line between natural and unnatural death. But how can he have access to everyone’s medical history? A colleague talking about his allergies is one thing, but Lah was a Lao bread maker with no foreign contacts and a life that was limited to a few city blocks. How does he find out . . . ? Siri, she must have been seeing a doctor.”

  Siri knew Dtui would arrive at that conclusion soon enough. He still had Civilai’s medicine bottle with Dr. Porn’s label in his pocket. He’d known the doctor since he arrived in Vientiane and he respected her. He’d trusted her with his secrets. He didn’t want to believe she’d have a role in this macabre drama but nothing in those odd days of Lao noir was out of the question. Only one thing could vindicate her.

  Siri jumped to his feet and the goats scattered to the ends of their tethers.

  “All right, team,” he said. “Let’s get back inside.”

  “Are you sure you’re up for this?” Dtui asked.

  “He’d have expected it of me,” said Siri. “When I next see him, he’ll be complaining about the rust on
the scalpels and the coldness of the dolly under his arse. No pleasing some people.”

  Dtui probably took that as a comment designed to lighten the mood, but Siri knew it was true.

  Mr. Geung had placed a hand towel over Civilai’s face and it helped. The comrade’s eyes, despite hours of manhandling, had refused to close. It was as if the old fellow was keen to see what had finally defeated him. They were surprised to see the scars of at least two bullets and one long, poorly stitched wound from a knife or machete. And that was only the front. Siri knew a politician would invariably have more knife wounds in his back.

  He left the Y incision to Dtui and even before she was down to the navel all three of them stepped back in horror. The liver looked like someone was smuggling an over ripe durian inside him. His spleen was bloated and fatty deposits sat here and there like clouds on a break. Thick bands of fibrous tissue tried, to no avail, to hold everything together. But, most importantly, there was congealed blood. Lots of it.

  “This happened too fast,” said Siri.

  “What do you mean, Doc?” Dtui asked.

  “If he’d been bleeding like this he wouldn’t have been able to function for months. He certainly wouldn’t have been sipping Hundred Pipers last week and annoying everyone and acting out scenes from our film. A week ago, Civilai was himself, albeit dying slowly from cirrhosis. Then, almost overnight we have the glasses to hide his jaundiced eyes and the loss of appetite and the bruises and the trips to the bathroom to throw up. It was as if he went from ignoring his condition to freefall and death.”

  “You think it was accelerated to fit into the killer’s timetable?” Dtui asked.

  “I think we need to see what’s in his gut,” said Siri.

  At that point the temperamental air-conditioner let out a rare puff of cold air, and the hand towel on Civilai’s face lifted and wafted away like a magic carpet. Siri found himself staring into those jaundiced eyes and returning that cheesy grin.

  “You bastard,” he said.

  Siri sat at his desk and again left the analysis to Dtui and Geung. In his heart, he knew what they’d find. Someone had given Civilai anti-coagulants. If they tested the jar in Siri’s shoulder bag they’d find Aspirin or Warfarin or some such. And again he’d return to the same three questions: How did the killer learn of Civilai’s condition, why would Dr. Porn prescribe him something potentially lethal, and why did she lie when she said she hadn’t been treating him at all? Was she doing him a kindness? Did he go to her office and ask for something to end the pain? She was surely too professional to agree to that and there was still a lot of pain to be had in bleeding to death. Siri had no choice now but to tell Phosy of his findings and have the lady doctor brought in for questioning.

  “Are those tears, boss?” said Dtui from the office doorway.

  “My face leaks from time to time,” said Siri. “It’s the old pipes.”

  “Time to switch over to PVC,” she said.

  “What have you got for me?” he asked.

  “It’s conclusive. What’s your guess?”

  “Aspirin?”

  “Ibuprofen.”

  That afternoon, while Siri was at the morgue, the third letter arrived. Bruce was upstairs tinkering with the Panavision. He was the only one who still believed their film would be made. It seemed to give him a purpose for returning to his homeland. What else would he do? Daeng held out the envelope to him. It had the same odd combination of stamps attached to it. He didn’t take it from her.

  “It’s to Dr. Siri,” he said.

  “He’s not here.”

  “We should wait.”

  “Open it,” she said, then threw in a half-hearted “please.”

  Reluctantly, the young man took the letter and tore open the envelope. He read it through silently first and sighed. He looked into her eyes and she nodded. He translated.

  “My dear Dr. Siri,” he began. “I’m sure you can see that the countdown has begun. Loved ones A and B have kicked the proverbial bucket. Loved one C is already under my spell and there’s nothing you can do about it. Grief would kill you eventually, I suppose, but I don’t have time to wait for that. You’ll be following close behind, doctor. And my promise to you will be consummated and I will be able to breathe again. Fare thee well, you shit.”

  It wasn’t until later that night that Daeng showed Siri the letter and told him what it said. They were on a grass mat on the bank of the river drinking Daeng’s own homemade rice whisky with wild apricot juice. That minor fruity addition made it feel more medicinal. Less likely to kill them. The mosquitoes had apparently tired of Lao blood and were off in search of foreign journalists. The moon was hopping from cloud to cloud. It reminded Daeng of the bouncing ball in song lyrics but the only music was from the cicadas and the frogs.

  “So, if I’m next,” said Daeng, “what existing condition is he going to exploit?”

  “I’ve been racking my brain,” said Siri. “You’re so annoyingly healthy. Your tail’s not even long enough to strangle you.”

  She knocked the top of his head with her fist.

  “Why doesn’t he just shoot me?” asked Daeng.

  “What?”

  “If the objective is to wipe out your loved ones because you directly or indirectly ruined his life, why not get it over with as quickly as possible? He has a limited time. Guns and various explosives are readily available for a small fee. He could have just wiped us all out in a couple of days and honored his threat. Why the show?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying he’s gone to all this trouble to make a point. He’s doing to you what he thinks you’ve done to him.”

  “Used natural causes to kill someone?”

  “Something to do with a physical condition that was aggravated because of something you did or didn’t do? I don’t know. He’s playing God because he thinks that’s what you did. You made him lose face or made him poor or put him in jail, where he picked up a disease. I don’t know. You need to go back over those three threats and find out what happened to the men you incensed.”

  “How do I do that?”

  “Has bereavement really left you so empty of ideas? The French have released their records on their involvement in the colonies. Their reports are on public record. It shouldn’t be that hard to locate a major incident that occurred during the last few days of French control in Saigon. And our good friend, Seksan, acting caretaker-cum-ambassador at the politically clogged French embassy, has a lot of time on his hands. I’ll send him over some noodles and see what he can do.”

  Siri smiled. Daeng was at her most desirable when she was organizing. Nobody did it better.

  “Now, as for the Americans,” she said, “I’m sure they can tell you what became of long-nose Henry once they found out he was a fraud.”

  “We still don’t speak English,” he reminded her.

  “Which would have been a problem before the gorgeous, speaks-fluent-Lao, movie star Cindy came on the scene. They don’t have a single thing to do at the US embassy. I’m sure she’d be delighted to thumb through a few files, especially if you were leaning over her, breathing onto her neck.”

  “You’d trust me alone with her?”

  “I know your fancy: mature, slightly overweight and armed.”

  “That’s true. She could never compete. What about Paris?”

  “As you are one of the few residents of 1932 Paris still alive, I think we need help from someone with a good memory. And I reckon we’d have a chance with the oral history traditions of the Corsicans.”

  “And where do we find a Corsican at this time of night?”

  “How about this for a suggestion,” said Daeng. “We stroll ten minutes down the road to the Nam Poo fountain, where we will find the open-air bar of Dani and his Lao wife.”

  “Dani’s a Corsican? I thought he
was Serbian.”

  “Dani’s father was a pilot with Air Opium in the glory days of trafficking. I’m sure he could help us with some history, and, if we’re good, with a cold pitcher of beer.”

  “Dr. Siri,” she said. “What a nice surprise to see you here.”

  “They told me this was a famous hangout for foreign diplomats,” said Siri.

  The bar at the Nam Poo fountain was popular with foreigners even though the fountain never spurted and the beer was never cold enough to please everyone. When Siri arrived they saw Cindy drinking with a handsome young Asian man built like an athlete. It was dark, but he had sunglasses perched on top of his head. She let go of his hand when Siri arrived and didn’t introduce him.

  “How’s the film going?” she asked.

  “On hold,” said Siri.

  “Yes,” she said. “We heard about Civilai. You and he were very close.”

  “We were brothers.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Thank you.”

  He didn’t feel a lot of sincerity coming from her direction. She was clearly drunk and impatient to get back to her liaison.

  “I was hoping you could find me some information about a pilot who was shot down over Vietnam in ’66.”

  “Much of our records are still classified,” she said.

  “This one should be open enough,” he said, and told her about Henry. He kept it brief because he felt he was intruding. She threw back a tall rum and Coke and signaled to the waitress for another while he spoke. He got a feeling her Grace Kelly looks wouldn’t be accompanying her into her forties.

  “We all have to go to the parade tomorrow,” she said. “But I’ll see what I can find after.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  He nodded at the young man who merely glared back, and he went in search of Daeng on the other side of the fountain. They were in the middle of the city but there were no street or shop lamps around, so he used the table candles to light his way. He almost missed his wife, who was sitting at a shadowy table with Dani and Chanta, the owners of the bar.

  “Siri,” said Daeng. “We may have some good news at last.”