by Kae Bell
At the exit, Andrew signed out with the security guard and walked through the heavy metal gates, peering out into the night, looking left and right down the quiet street.
In front of him, Andrew saw the leafy trees of Wat Phnom. He walked that way. He wanted to see the Wat itself on the hilltop.
As he walked along the sidewalk, taking in the fresh night air, a stray dog trotted by, its scruffy ears perked up, looking for scraps or romance, whichever it encountered first. It glanced at Andrew and sniffed the air, but found nothing of interest there. He trotted down a side alley that held great promise.
Andrew crossed the street and entered the tree-filled park of Wat Phnom. There were a handful of people out this late, gossiping and drinking beers under a streetlight, enjoying the dry weather.
With the end of the rains, autumn had arrived. The temperature, though still warm, would, over the next couple weeks, drop several degrees. Under the constant shade of the trees, the park was a cool place to escape in any season.
Andrew slowed his pace, taking deep breaths of the fresh air and getting a feel for the park, its light and shadows. He heard the leaves above him rustle in the breeze. He looked up, on alert. There was nothing but wind.
At a tap-tap tapping sound behind him, he whirled around. A wizened Cambodian grandma wearing loose yellow flowery pajamas shuffled by him, poking a long stick at the piles of dry leaves on the sidewalk as she moved along. She glanced at him as she walked past. He watched her disappear into the deepening night. He moved further toward the center of the park.
As he walked, Andrew thought about what Flint had told him. There were thousands of unexploded landmines in Cambodia, left over from the Khmer Rouge regime forty years before. People were maimed or killed everyday, all over the country, though the civil war had been over for decades.
So a landmine casualty was not unusual.
Except. With the email Janey had shown him, Andrew wasn’t convinced it was simply Ben’s bad luck in the jungle. Something felt off. Orchestrated. Intended.
Andrew walked up the long flight of steps to Wat Phnom. Wat Phnom was a sacred place for Buddhists, one of several Wats in town, but by far the most visited, with its unique location on a leafy hilltop. It was open to all.
At the top of the hill, in the dark, Andrew made his way inside the quiet temple.
The main room in the Wat was rectangular with high ceilings, lit by candlelight. Colorful murals on the walls and ceiling depicted stories of ancient times, of the reincarnations that preceded Buddha’s enlightenment. Rows of red and green columns in the room’s center marked the most sacred space. On the altar, a large golden Buddha stared at the offerings on the floor below. These offerings would multiply a thousand fold in a few days’ time, on Pchum Ben Day, when people visited the Pagodas to revere their dead.
Andrew stepped forward to study the Buddha. Someone had placed a flower bouquet in his cross-legged lap. Smaller statues of lesser deities and monks stood at his feet. Flowers lined the altar yet the room smelled of stale incense.
Andrew glanced around the room once more. He didn’t belong here. He trotted back outside, then down the long set of stone steps, to the concrete sidewalk. Walking halfway around the circular park, he settled against a tall wide tree, his arms crossed, leaning his shoulder against the rough bark.
Hearing someone behind him, Andrew whirled around, expecting to see the little Cambodian grandma, though his hand reached instinctively for his gun.
In front of him stood a tall stunning Cambodian woman with waist-length hair, wearing a short green dress.
Staring at Andrew, the woman said, “You need to find your own tree in this park.” Her voice was light and warm, her nearly perfect English laced with a mild Cambodian accent.
“Excuse me?” Andrew didn’t sense any immediate danger. But something was off.
“This section of the park belongs to me,” the woman said. There was no malice in her voice but she did not smile.
Andrew looked around him then back at the gorgeous woman wearing heavy makeup, a too-tight dress and five-inch heels. He realized what she meant.
“Sorry, I hadn’t realized. I’m not working. I’m just a little knocked out from the heat. I’ll move on, if you can give me a second.”
At this, she smiled and giggled. “Oh, you’re a funny man. I’m teasing you. You looked so serious. You stay right there. I saw you here all alone. Thought you might want company. You know?” She raised her eyebrows and tilted back her head. “I’m Socheat, by the way.”
Andrew studied the woman, her jaw line a little too sharp, her shoulders a little too broad. While her face was stunning, her laugh, deep and throaty, gave her away.
The ‘she’ was a he, a katoey or ladyboy, a young man dressed, very convincingly, as a woman. The katoey was part of the culture in Southeast Asia, in some countries even a third gender. Andrew had read about the local ladyboys. In Cambodia they were part of the scenery, working as hairdressers, shop owners and sometimes in the sex trade.
“Ahh, well, thank you. But, no offense, you’re not really my type,” Andrew said, slightly embarrassed.
“No fun for me,” the ladyboy said, disappointed. “You figured it out so quick. Not everyone as smart as you Americans.” His face lit up. “How do they say in your country? ‘Don’t knock it ‘til you try it.’”
Andrew nodded and chuckled. “They do say that.” He’d noticed there was a love of American idioms in this country. Then he realized something with a start.
“How did you know I was American?”
The ladyboy was leaning his back against the tree, perky chest out, with one long bare leg bent at the knee, his high-heeled foot resting on the trunk. He lit a cigarette, blew the smoke in Andrew’s direction.
“I watched you. You walked out of the American Embassy and over here. I made a guess. And look, I was right! I’m smart too.”
Andrew took a step toward him, trying to get a sense of danger. He was good at reading people. Socheat gave no signs of ill intent.
“Do you often watch the people who come and go from the Embassy?” Andrew asked.
Socheat batted his wide eyelashes at him, flirting.
“Hmmm. Who wants to know? Are you a cop?” Socheat asked, a glimmer in his eye. He winked. He loved a man in uniform.
Andrew hid his surprise. “No. But I find it interesting that you noticed me.”
“Oh, I notice many things.”
A tuk-tuk full of drunken tourists drove by, Western ladies on a bender, yelling out at anybody they saw. One of them lifted her top at Socheat and Andrew. The tuk-tuk kept on around the curve of the circular drive, heading toward another night club and another round of shooters.
Andrew watched the tuk-tuk disappear. It was quiet again. Socheat watched him.
“What do you notice?” Andrew asked.
Socheat smiled at him, pushed away from the tree and started to walk along the sidewalk. He turned and waited for Andrew to follow him out of the jarring streetlamp light.
“There’s a lot to notice in this small town. You hear things.”
“What have you heard?”
Socheat ignored the question. “Such a small town, you learn to tell the good people from the bad people.”
“Do you know some bad people?”
Socheat stopped and looked directly at Andrew. “We all know some bad people,” he said then continued walking, smoking his cigarette down the end.
Andrew watched him walk for half a minute. Then he jogged over to catch up.
“Look, I’m trying to find out what happened to a friend of mine.” Andrew pulled out the picture of Ben. “Maybe you can help me? Do you know him? His name is Ben Goodnight.”
Socheat stopped to study the image. Andrew did not see any flicker of recognition on Socheat’s face.
“No. Do not know him. He’s handsome. But, no, I have not seen him. I would have remembered.” Socheat took out another cigarette and held it in his delicate han
d. “What happened to him?”
Andrew rummaged in his pocket. He always carried a few things: A knife, a pen and a lighter. He’d gotten more information simply from lighting cigarettes than from taps and hacks combined.
“He was in the jungle and he stepped on a landmine.”
Socheat inhaled with a hiss. “Ahhh. That’s bad luck. Many people every year are maimed by the landmines leftover.” Socheat leaned toward Andrew. “Where was he?”
“In Mondulkiri, near the eastern border, toward the mountains.”
Socheat breathed out, “Ahhh.”
“Is there something about that location?”
“It’s risky, the jungle. Dangerous.”
“Sometimes you’ve got to take risks to make a living.”
Socheat nodded. “Yes, I know that.”
Socheat walked toward Andrew, his legs moving in a slow runway strut.
“There is a legend about the forests of Mondulkiri. The land there refuses to be tamed. That is why the rain falls heaviest there, the jungle is thickest, the animals the most ferocious. It is ungovernable. Many men have died trying to tame it.”
Andrew wasn’t one for myths and legends, but he always listened. Sometimes amidst the mumbo jumbo, there was a nugget worth hearing.
Socheat crossed his arms, watching him, one leg perched out, knee slightly bent.
“Yes, well the landmine that blew up my friend certainly didn’t want to be tamed,” Andrew said.
Overhead there was a screeching commotion in the trees.
Socheat nodded up at the trees. “It’s the park monkeys. They are naughty. They steal food, flowers, even laundry. Anything they can find. They destroy things for fun and scare the tourists. Very naughty.”
Andrew stared up into the trees. He didn’t see anything, but he did hear large shapes overhead in the leaves, bickering in the night.
Andrew wrote down his local cell phone number and handed it to Socheat. “If you hear anything about my friend, please, give me a call.”
“Will do, handsome. And you know where to find me. If you get lonely.” Socheat winked at him, flipped his hair and kept walking, his heels clicking on the sidewalk.
Andrew waved his hand in a small goodbye and muttered “Not likely,” under his breath. He moved away from the Wat toward the main road of Sisowath Quay and the river. He needed to walk off the day.
*******
Heading toward the Japanese Bridge, Andrew saw the bridge was crowded with late night traffic. The clubs must have all closed.
The bridge, its full name the Cambodian-Japanese Friendship Bridge, was a gift from the Japanese government some fifty years ago. It linked the east and west banks of the river. Next to it stood the town’s latest project, the Cambodian-Chinese Friendship Bridge, only recently opened to traffic.
Andrew walked across the street, traffic flowing by and around him, parting like a sea. The air was thick with exhaust fumes.
On the bridge, traffic had jammed. Andrew walked past idling cars and tuk-tuks. At the high point of the bridge, he stopped and looked over the edge at the slow-moving Mekong. A couple junk boats floated downriver, trailed by a late-night tourist booze cruise, lit up with colorful lights.
From where Andrew stood, looking out at the lights of Sisowath Quay on his right and the dark east bank on his left, Andrew thought he could easily be looking upriver from the Memorial Bridge over the Potomac River in DC, gazing at the lights of Georgetown and the darkness of Roosevelt Island. For a moment, he felt a queasy combination of homesickness, déjà-vu and the rapid passage of time, rolled into one. It wasn’t pleasant.
Andrew was knocked from his reverie by three laughing Cambodian girls, out riding bicycles well after their curfew. They pedaled by him, bare arms thin as matchsticks, their long black hair streaming behind them in the wind. One bike’s wheel rolled over Andrew’s foot, so he stepped closer to the wall. A noisy truck stinking of diesel chugged by, puffing black exhaust into the night air. Andrew turned toward the water.
He heard the shot before he felt it whiz by his hand on the bridge wall. It blasted a chunk of the concrete. Andrew spun around. Drivers continued on, the jam clearing up. No one else had noticed the shot. Andrew looked up, back toward Wat Phnom. From this angle, it had to have come from the hill.
Andrew ducked low by the wall; there was nowhere to take cover. In the bright bridge lights, the shooter had a clear shot. Even if the shooter was a bad shot, he might get lucky the second time around. Or was the first shot a warning? Andrew hesitated a moment then grabbed the lip of the bridge, pulling himself over the edge and launching toward the watery darkness below.
The second shot hit the bridge squarely where Andrew had been crouching, blasting white chips in every direction.
Andrew swam toward the quiet east bank of the Mekong, swift frog-like breaststrokes propelling him away from the Friendship Bridge. The water was colder than he expected and smelled of fuel.
Behind him, the lights of Sisowath Quay silhouetted late night revelers walking along the river’s edge, oblivious to his watery plight.
As he swam, Andrew stayed mostly under the water’s surface, popping up every twenty feet to inhale and check his sight line, to avoid any errant Mekong party boats whose massive propellers would chop him into fish bait.
The slow-moving brown water carried him downriver. Ahead to his left, Andrew could see a few yellow lights from the clusters of simple riverside shacks. He swam toward the wooden huts, where many Cambodian families made their homes.
Reaching the bank, his feet touching ground, Andrew stayed submerged and tread in the muck. The pier loomed ahead. He grabbed a thick wooden pole and settled in behind its bulk, in the small eddy. In its shadow, Andrew caught his breath and removed his sopping wet shirt. His chest heaved with exertion and adrenaline.
Several thin junk boats were tied to the far side of the pier, knocking together in the light current. Staying low, Andrew crawled into the closest one, slipping over its low side and settling on its floor, covered in fishy netting. He breathed through his mouth to avoid the salty stench.
From here, he could see the bridge upriver in the distance. He looked beyond the bridge, to the high green hill of Wat Phnom. He glanced downriver and saw a bright white neon sign that read ‘Snowy’s’. He clambered onto the shore and followed the neon, his waterlogged shoes squishing with each step.
At the bar, several hardy patrons drank late in the night. Three grizzled Western men sat on the wobbly wooden stools, hold-overs from another era. One of them wore a jean jacket with a large POW-MIA patch on the back. They watched Andrew walk in, one nudging his drinking buddies to take a look at what the cat dragged in.
The bartender, a tall cheerful Brit with rosy cheeks he inherited from his Scottish mum, lit up when Andrew walked in. He loved a good story and one had just walked into his bar.
The bartender asked, “Did you have trouble finding the place, mate? Looks like you maybe took a wrong turn there, ended up in the drink.” He sniffed the air. “Kinda ripe too, the river, this time of year. Everything’s all churned up.” He wiped the bar with a damp Stella beer towel, glancing up at Andrew in between swipes.
“Yeah, I got a little turned around,” Andrew said.
“Well, you’re welcome to stay, but shirts are required inside, I’m afraid, unless you’re on the balcony. Where pretty much anything goes.” He winked.
“That’ll work, thanks.” Andrew started to walk out to the balcony, when the jean jacket guy grabbed his arm, yelling out to the bartender.
“Get this man a beer, Simon. Looks like he’s had a rough night.”
Andrew nodded his thanks, took his beer and stepped out into the night.
While he drank his cold beer, standing in a dismal pool of river water, staring at the lights of Sisowath Quay on the opposite shore, Andrew thought about how much he disliked being target practice.
He’d been shot at before, but only when he’d expected it. Maybe even deser
ved it. But this investigation was supposed to be a mere formality. Apparently, though, somewhere, he’d struck a nerve. Unfortunately, he didn’t know whose. Which might make it hard to avoid future bullets bearing his name.
Chapter 12
The next morning at 8:45, Andrew’s tuk-tuk pulled up to the Ministry of Mines and Energy, a drab, three-story concrete building that looked like it could serve as an adequate wartime bunker. The Ministry did not open until 9:00 AM, so Andrew sat in the back seat and watched as employees scurried into the front door.
At nine sharp, Andrew hopped out and tossed several dollars bills in the tuk-tuk driver’s basket, nodding to the driver, who revved his engine in thanks.
Andrew walked through the metal gate by the large guard, who eyed him but let him pass. The Ministry was open to the public. On the Ministry steps, a yellow cat mewled loudly. The guard, catching sight of the stray, ran to kick it outside the gates.
Andrew pushed open a glass door, receiving a blast of cold air from the portable AC unit chugging away in the lobby window. At the front desk a middle-aged woman with long black hair piled high on her head in an elaborate braided bun glanced at Andrew as he approached her gray metal desk. Her thick glasses reflected the computer screen, which she stared at while listening to someone yell at her on the other end of the phone. Andrew could hear the caller from five feet away.
The receptionist spoke into the phone and punched the hold button on the phone, shaking her head in annoyance. The red light blinked on and off. The woman whose nameplate read “Devi Yann” stood and gave a small bow to Andrew, her folded hands in front of her breastbone. As the woman bowed her head toward him, Andrew saw her blue butterfly hairclip in her tight black bun. She said, “Jo’om reap suoh” - Hello - and Andrew replied with a brief nod.
“Please to welcome you to the Ministry. How can I be to help you?” She smiled at Andrew.
“My name is Andrew Shaw. I’d like to see…” Andrew glanced at his notes. “Mr. Phirun Cheng.”
Devi blinked several times, then smiled at Andrew, her eyes darting left and right around the room. Devi picked up her phone, punching one button and spoke Khmer into the mouthpiece, her words short and sharp. She listened to the rapid reply. The earlier caller was still on hold, the red light blinking.
