I Shot the Buddha

by Colin Cotterill

  “Laoseu?” said Daeng. “Why’s that name familiar?”

  “Father-in-law’s the headman out at Sawan,” said the guard, “but I doubt you’ve been there.”

  As Yuth, the son of Tham, the headman of Sawan, was the owner of the village truck as well as the husband of the meal lady at the Nam Som jail, Siri and Daeng decided it would amount to a conflict of interest to borrow the truck to go to Udon. So they caught the awful bus instead. Even Ugly balked at the thought of it, but rescinded his decision at the last moment and leapt on board.

  The Wat Po in Udon was actually called Phothisomphon, but the locals abbreviated the name the way you would that of a dear aunt. Its centerpiece and main attraction was a two-meter Buddha image in the position known as “subduing Mara.” They were escorted to the abbot’s quarters by a bubbly novice as keen as chili paste.

  Abbot Somluang looked around Siri’s age and wore bottle-bottom glasses and an enormous hearing aid that predated electricity. He relied on a cane to walk and had on a surgical wrist brace.

  As they approached him, Siri whispered to Daeng, “Would you still love me if I . . . ?”

  “Not on your life, brother.”

  The abbot’s voice was clear and leathery. “Ah, a young couple come for a wedding appointment,” he said.

  “So those glasses are just for show?” said Siri.

  Daeng elbowed him in the ribs. They wai’d the old man, who briefly touched his fingertips together in reply.

  “I can hardly see a damned thing,” said the monk. “But I have keen instincts, and I can sense great love before me.”

  “Then you’re quite right,” said Daeng.

  The novice poured them all tea and fanned them with a huge banana leaf as they sat on the rattan furniture on the abbot’s balcony. A monkey at the end of a rope swung down from the overhanging tree and did a forward roll on the railing. She earned a sweet biscuit for her troubles. Ugly had no tricks, so he sat and dribbled and got nothing.

  “Now, what can I do for you?” asked the abbot.

  “We wondered if you remember Rayron Nintana when he was a novice here,” asked Siri.

  “Ah, yes, young Ray,” said the abbot. “I’ve been hearing all about the goings on in Sawan. Terrible thing.”

  “What have you heard?” asked Daeng.

  “The murders and the desecration and false allegations,” said the monk.

  “You don’t think Rayron was guilty,” asked Siri.

  “Well that depends,” said the abbot.

  “Depends on what?” asked Siri.

  “What side you’re on.”

  “Your opinion of the murders depends on what side we’re on?” asked Daeng.

  “My opinion does not alter,” said the abbot. “What I tell you depends on what side you’re on.”

  “We’re here to find out who really did it,” said Daeng.

  “Then we’re allies,” said the abbot. “There is no way on the good earth that man could take a life.”

  “So you remember him well,” said Siri.

  “Of course. We arrived as novices within a year of each other.”

  “You entered late?” said Daeng.

  He smiled. He had few teeth.

  “No,” he said.

  “But . . . ?”

  “Ray and I are the same age. I know it’s hard to believe. You’re aware, I’m sure, that different animals age at different rates. I have to assume there was a mix-up at the reincarnation depot and I was born a man with the lifespan of a German shepherd. It happens.”

  Siri was relieved there was no mention of destiny.

  “Were you already here when Abbot Rayron arrived?” asked Daeng.

  “No,” said the monk. “He came first. He was already the most popular novice. I was a sickly child. That’s why my family dropped me off here. The other boys ignored me, probably sensed my weaknesses. But Ray was very kind. We became friends.”

  “Did he tell you anything about his background?” asked Siri.

  “He always talked about his trip here in a car,” said the abbot. “It took on magical proportions. We’d make up stories in the dormitory about a boy who was delivered in a chauffeur-driven limousine.”

  “But nobody could remember anything about the driver?” asked Daeng.

  “Ray came back here around 1970. He’d been doing the circuit. Long pilgrimages. Far provinces. Then the Sangha asked him to run a little temple near Nam Som. Nobody else wanted the job. But on his travels he’d nurtured a desire to learn of his roots. He came to see me. There were just the two of us here from the old days, me and mad Boh. We wracked our brains, but we couldn’t come up with a single clue. All we knew was the date of Ray’s arrival from the novice records, which didn’t help at all. Neither did the registration number of the car he arrived in. So Ray left for Sawan none the wiser.”

  “You what?” said Siri.

  “He left none the—”

  “Not that. You know the car registration number?”

  “Of course. It was a remarkable event. All the boys remembered it. But you can’t find a man from the number of his car, can you now?”

  “Knock again,” said Daeng.

  “I’m almost through to the other side of the wood,” said Siri.

  “She’s in,” shouted the neighbor who’d directed them there. “Just a bit fixated with her bloody radio.”

  “And deaf to boot,” shouted Daeng.

  The sounds of a popular Look Tung tune boomed from the little terraced slum. The Lao often said the Thais had just the two control buttons on their devices: off and too loud. In Vientiane Siri often had to endure the latter thundering across the river.

  In an instant the radio went from too loud to off.

  “Who’s there?” came a tarry voice.

  “They sent us from the town hall,” said Daeng.

  “I’m retired,” said the woman.

  “We know,” said Daeng. “But they said you were the motor registration clerk in 1939.”

  “And for thirty-six years on,” said the woman, opening the door. She was a tiny thing in a man’s T-shirt that reached her ankles. Her face was powdered thickly, but the cracks showed through.

  “We’re trying to trace the owner of a car,” said Siri.

  “Is that so?” said the woman. “And you think I’d memorize every one of the 18,791 vehicles I’ve registered in my lifetime?”

  Something told Siri there was a possibility she had, but this task was easier.

  “You might remember this one,” said Siri. “In the 1930s they switched from a central registry in Bangkok to provincial branches. As you know, Udon Thani handled the northeast. So in the first couple of years there weren’t many cars.”

  “I know that,” she said.

  “We were hoping you might remember something about the number,” said Daeng.

  The old woman was silent. Chewing the inside of her mouth.

  “What was the number?” she asked.

  “Udon Thani nine,” said Siri.

  “I thought so,” said the woman. “You’re with him.”

  “Who?”

  “The old monk.”

  Old monks were starting to pile up.

  “Which old monk?” asked Daeng.

  “Boh, the mad one.”

  “Why do you think we’d be connected with him?” asked Daeng. “We don’t even know him.”

  “Then why are you asking about the same car?”

  “He came to see you about Udon Thani nine?” said Siri.

  “18,791 vehicles, and I get asked about that same one twice,” said the woman. “Bit of a coincidence, don’t you think?”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I tell you we’ve never met the fellow,�
� said Siri.

  “I told him I had no idea,” she said.

  “Oh,” said Siri and Daeng in harmony.

  “But I know Udon Thani one was owned by the governor. His son drove it ’cause the governor was afraid of cars. And the son’s still around. He owns a nightclub out on Pracha Uthit.”

  “Yeah, it was just like I told the mad monk,” he said.

  He was a big chubby man with hair dyed bitumen black and tattoos up to his neck. A line of silver buttons down his cowboy shirt was the only thing stopping his enormous gut from spilling onto his lap. He was sitting at a table in his open-air nightclub auditioning singers. His two henchmen had just manhandled one plump girl off the stage, and they were waiting for the next.

  “It was a sort of owners club,” he continued. “We were shit-hot in those days. Rich guys with cars. There weren’t that many ‘in’ places to go at night. So when a new venue opened we’d turn up there in our brand-new cars, and there wouldn’t even be parking lots. Can you imagine that? I mean, some places still had hitching posts for their ponies. But we’d—sorry.” He raised his voice. “Get that next slut out of the toilet in twenty seconds, or she can piss her singing career goodbye!”

  Daeng and Siri were at his table sipping the iceless Mekhong Cokes he’d forced on them. It was 3 p.m. It was an open-air restaurant, but Ugly remained outside the entrance. He had a problem with doorways too.

  “I mean, we milked it for all it was worth,” the chubby man said. “The sluts would come up and admire our engines, try out our leather seats, squeeze our gear levers—if you know what I mean.” He winked at Daeng. “So we got to know the other drivers, and I don’t mean ‘like.’ Some of them were pains in the arse. But we were in the money community, you know? You should always be respectful to people with money even if you hate their guts. You never know when you’ll need them.”

  “So you knew the owner of Udon Thani nine?” said Daeng, eager to leave.

  “Like I told the mad monk . . .”

  The next girl had arrived on the stage. Siri thought she’d probably be beautiful when she grew up.

  “Excuse me, Granny,” said the chubby man. He stood up and gestured to the girl. “Hitch up your skirt, darling.”

  “What, sir?” she said.

  “Your skirt,” he shouted. “Hitch it up. Show me your legs.”

  She nervously did as she was told.

  “More,” said the man. He kept saying “more” until the skirt was halfway up her thighs.

  “All right,” he said. “That’s enough. You’re hired.”

  “Do you want me to sing now?” she asked, dropping the hem.

  “No, darling,” he said. “Come back in a couple of hours and I’ll fit you for a costume.”

  He returned to the table.

  “Sorry about that,” he said. “No rest for the wicked, eh?”

  He clinked his glass against theirs, downed his drink and nodded to the bored waitress for a refill.

  “So where was I?” he said. “Right. Udon Thani nine. Like I told the mad monk, Udon Thani nine was owned by the guy who started the Good Health cigarette factory. Of course that was before the Thailand tobacco monopoly robbed everyone blind and took all the businesses. But he had his fingers in other pies. He was a skinny Chinese; Lim was his name. Had a wife from the old country, I believe. She couldn’t hardly speak a word of Thai. Marriage arranged by the families. He had a minor wife tucked away somewhere too.”

  “Do you know where we can find him?” Siri asked.

  “Out on the old Ban Chik road behind a big wall,” said the chubby man. “It’s where all the dead Chinese mandarins end up.”

  “And the wives?” said Daeng.

  “What am I?” he said. “The receptionist to the beyond?” He laughed and quaffed half his drink. “Frankly, I think I’ve been very cooperative, don’t you?”

  “Very obliging,” said Siri. “Thank you.”

  The doctor’s instincts told him it was time to go.

  “You know how you can thank me properly?” said the chubby man. “I mean, for my knowledge and my hospitality.”

  “No, how?” said Siri, although he knew what was coming next.

  “Well, the mad monk fronted up with five thousand baht for the very same information I’ve provided you with today. He decided it was worth it. I believe one of his fingers might have accidently snapped during the negotiations, but he’s still alive today thanks to us. It disturbs me when people get hurt. Especially an elderly couple such as yourselves.”

  The henchmen were approaching the table. Siri looked at his wife.

  “Daeng,” he said. “I think the gentleman has been very helpful. I think we should give him what he’s asking for.”

  The chubby man laughed.

  “See?” he said. “That’s Lao wisdom right there.”

  “That was five thousand baht?” said Daeng, reaching into her bag.

  “Oh, that was the base rate,” said the chubby man. “With drinks and entertainment it comes to a round eight thousand.”

  He motioned for his henchmen to get back to work and laughed again.

  “I think this should cover it,” said Daeng. She pulled out a very long meat knife. The chubby man was shocked. Once she was sure he’d had a good look Daeng lowered it beneath the tablecloth and pushed the tip against his groin. Siri moved to a seat beside him and put an arm around his shoulder. From the stage it looked like a friendly gathering. In Siri’s other hand was his favorite Swiss army knife open to the fish-gutting tool.

  “You’ve probably intimidated a lot of innocent people with this routine,” said Daeng. “Probably as many as my husband and I have killed between us.”

  The chubby man’s eyeballs engorged. Siri used his knife to slice off the top silver button of the man’s shirt. He bit it to be sure it was genuine and put it in his own pocket. The chubby man flinched.

  “You could call your boys to come and help you,” Daeng continued, “but by the time they got here you’d be a eunuch.”

  “Dorsal artery,” said Siri. “Almost impossible to stop the bleeding. It keeps pumping because it thinks you need more blood for your erection. It doesn’t realize your penis is on the floor. Strange, that.”

  Siri cut off another button. The chubby man was sweating like a pig in a bamboo box. A quivering mound of jelly.

  “You be careful you don’t slice through a nipple in there, darling,” said Daeng. “All that fat, you never know what you might accidently carve through.”

  Siri whispered in the chubby man’s ear. “You’re going to stand slowly,” he said, “and walk with us arm in arm like we’re best friends. You’re going to take us to where you parked your truck. You strike me as the truck type. You’re going to sit behind the wheel and drive us back into town, and then we’ll decide whether to let you come back.”

  “With all your parts,” Daeng added.

  “Well, that was so much fun,” said Daeng. “We should come to Thailand more often.”

  “And you haven’t even seen Bangkok yet,” said Siri.

  They were driving slowly along a suburban street trying to locate 43E. They were in a stolen truck, but, given the gun and the stash of assorted narcotics they found in the glove box, they doubted the chubby man would be contacting the police. They’d decided to let him out beside the road to walk back to his club. They’d told him the exercise would do him good. If he made it he’d doubtless regroup and come gunning for the old Lao couple, but they figured they had an hour to finish their business.

  Udon Thani wasn’t Paris, so often the streets would merge into a rice field or a copse of trees. They’d taken a lot of wrong turns, even after the abbot’s concise directions.

  “Do you think we might go someday?” asked Daeng.

  “Bangkok?” said Siri. “Why not? We might even squeeze it
into this trip.”

  “How? We haven’t got a lot of spending money.”

  “Where there’s a will, there’s a way, dear Daeng.”

  “There,” she said, pointing.

  They’d missed the house at 43E on their first circuit because it was too big. They’d looked right through it searching for a hovel, at best a rectangle of bricks with a leaky, corrugated roof. A lifelong monk did not retire to a twilight of luxury. They hadn’t expected the two- or three-room bungalow set back from the road with its well-cared-for garden, but the address 43E was stenciled on the telegraph pole directly in front of it.

  They walked along the path, ignored by concrete flamingos and pink frogs. Ugly snarled at them.

  “Should we go with the ‘We know everything’ ploy?” asked Daeng.

  “It’s served us well in the . . . Daeng?”

  She stopped. “What?”

  “Who do you suppose that is up there?”

  Daeng was dazzled by the beautiful sunset, but she could make out a figure sitting on the spine of the roof with his back to them.

  “Monk Boh?” she shouted.

  “Shh,” said the man.

  “If we promise not to talk can we come up?” shouted Siri.

  “I suppose,” said the man. “Keep to the joists. Don’t crack the tiles.”

  Siri and Daeng climbed the bamboo ladder that leaned against the side of the house. They kept to the joists and sat on either side of mad ex-monk Boh. Together they watched the sun set.

  “I know we promised not to talk . . .” said Siri.

  “It’s fine,” said Boh. “The moment’s ruined anyway.”

  Siri was impressed at how much the ex-monk looked like an Asian Woody Allen. Of course very few people in Udon would appreciate the similarity. The pinks and purples of the sky reflected in his glasses.

  “It still looks beautiful to me,” said Daeng.

  “That’s because you’re not a collector,” said Boh.

  “You collect sunsets?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where do you keep them?”

  Boh tapped the side of his head.

  “I wish I could see them,” she said.

  “I could eat you,” said Boh.