Don't Eat Me

by Colin Cotterill

  In an odd way, Phosy felt sorry for the ranting judge. He’d been forced into a career that was too big for him. He’d begun to see respect as a perk of the job rather than a reward to be earned. If anyone failed to kowtow to him they became the enemy. He’d declared war on his doubters and his mockers and all those who’d shown contempt to him. This was his Waterloo and he’d been routed.

  “What about the death of Maysuk?” asked the vice minister, hungry for more blood.

  “The judge arranged a meeting between Comrade Phosy and Maysuk on the evening of the first,” said Civilai. “Phosy went to the airport but could not find the director. Nor could he find any office workers to ask about the director’s whereabouts because they were tending to their vegetable allotments. Phosy assumed the director had fled and he returned to police headquarters. Meanwhile, Judge Haeng, who had lied about Maysuk’s intentions to fly to Hanoi, had instead arranged to meet him for coffee in town. They sat at the back of a small café near the black stupa. The owner was able to identify the guests from photographs. He came forward when he heard about our enquiry. Maysuk and Haeng had a coffee each and remained in the coffee shop until around four fifty-five.

  “Judge Haeng then drove Maysuk back to the airport on his motorcycle. The Hanoi flight had left and the well-wishers and relatives had gone home. There were only one or two ground crew members and security staff still there. Some noticed a motorcycle arrive at around five-fifteen. Phosy had already left. The driver and passenger were wearing full face helmets. I assume the judge insisted on Maysuk doing so. The motorcycle drove directly to the administrative offices. Twenty minutes later, the motorcyclist drove out of the airport alone. Forty minutes passed. The night watchmen had locked up the buildings. A car arrived. The driver announced that he was from the Ministry of Justice and that Judge Haeng was in the back seat. The judge lowered his window and told the guard they had an appointment to see Director Maysuk and that he wanted the guard to come with them. He didn’t give a reason. They parked and walked to Maysuk’s office where Judge Haeng went immediately to the cupboard and discovered the director’s dead body. Unless the judge confesses there is no way of knowing what happened when he went with Maysuk to his office earlier.”

  “Nor will there ever be!” shouted Haeng.

  “All we can say is that at five-ten p.m. Director Maysuk was alive,” said Civilai. “At six p.m. he was dead. In his handwritten confession, Maysuk confirmed that he was afraid of what Judge Haeng might do to him. He went on to describe the events of both the night of the nineteenth, when Miss Vatsana overdosed, and the judge’s plan to incriminate Chief Inspector Phosy. If you look at the judge’s version of that confession you’ll see that the signature was forged.”

  Judge Haeng had begun to sing the national anthem as he rocked back and forth on his chair.

  “Could you stop that?” said the minister. But Haeng ignored him.

  “I’m a free man,” said Haeng. “This is all unsupported conjecture. I’ll be out of here in a few hours.” And he continued to hum the anthem because he’d forgotten the words.

  “In a way, the judge is correct,” said Civilai. “A lot of the evidence is circumstantial. As I say, in order to confirm many of these points we would need a confession from Judge Haeng himself.”

  “Why would an innocent man make a confession?” sang the judge.

  “Well, in fact, you did,” said Civilai.

  He went to the table and from a manila envelope he produced a small cassette player.

  “It was you,” said Haeng. “Arrest this man. He stole that.”

  “It was on my front porch one morning when I woke up,” said Civilai. “The fairies must have brought it. It contains the tape that the judge played a selective part of during Chief Inspector Phosy’s hearing. It was recorded on the day he confessed to his crimes at police headquarters. He had it running inside his hollowed-out copy of the manifesto. Now, if the judge had been a little more technically savvy he would probably have edited the tape to contain only the segment of the conversation he wished the committee to hear. But it appears he was so confident nobody would take the time to play the entire cassette, he failed to delete everything else that was on it. With the committee’s permission I should like to play the tape of Judge Haeng’s confession in its entirety.”

  “Oh, hell,” said the judge.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Man Steak

  Had the coup at the Ministry of Justice not been successful, the wedding would never have taken place. In fact, the bride and groom in their respective work camps may never have seen one another again. As part of his grand sweep up of undesirables, Judge Haeng had separated Mr. Geung and Tukta and sent them north. The morons, as he liked to call them, had been a pain in his backside ever since Siri had insisted on giving Geung equal pay for his work in the morgue.

  “There’s a place for these people,” Haeng had said, “and it’s not in the public eye.” He had tried to remove the couple without success on a number of occasions. Siri had reminded him that the only public eyes in the morgue could no longer see and that equality was the fundamental tenet of the Communist movement. But as part of his purge, one of Judge Haeng’s first actions was to send the couple to cooperatives.

  Now they were back and amid the pandemonium that followed the reshuffle of personnel at the Ministry of Justice, they had been granted permission to wed. It helped that Tukta was pregnant. The Party had initiated a fast-track marriage program to decrease the number of babies born out of wedlock. Mr. Geung’s entourage had overwhelmed the desk clerk at the Civil Partnerships Department and left her office with an official stamp.

  A registrar had come to Madame Daeng’s noodle shop mid-morning on Friday for the official ceremony. This amounted to the couple signing a register and listening to a litany of highly recommended traits for a good socialist couple to adhere to. The elderly man performed his task with no enthusiasm. He shook the hands of the newlyweds and wished them luck. If he noticed they had Down syndrome he certainly didn’t show it. In fact, he exhibited no emotions at all.

  But, as everyone knew, signing a name in a ledger had nothing to do with being married. Without a blessing from the monks and a basee ceremony with its cone of flowers and its boiled eggs and strings to join the wrists of the participants, and without Madam Daeng’s special rice whisky shared with loved and respected guests, no couple could seriously consider themselves wed. The actual nuptials were to take place at Dr. Siri’s official Party residence in the evening.

  As many wrongs had been righted that week, the mood was vibrant. The Minister and Vice Minister of Justice had stepped down. Judge Haeng was headed for a firing squad even without having the charges against him trumped up. The famous letter from the judge to the US consulate had resurfaced. The document had been too valuable to give up. The version Chief Inspector Phosy had handed to Judge Haeng was a retyped copy with the signature carefully inked by Madam Daeng. That letter alone would have been enough to condemn the man to a chest full of holes. Adding the falsification of evidence, unlawful imprisonment, and the murder of two citizens would not have made the holes any deeper or the judge any deader. All Phosy had to do was make sure the guns were loaded.

  There remained only one more delicate matter to take care of before the wedding. When Sergeant Wee arrived at Phosy’s office, the chief was already in his dress uniform. Captain Sihot was seated at the second desk. They both shook Wee’s hand before he sat down.

  “Nicely done,” said Phosy.

  He hadn’t seen Wee and his unit since they raided the tribunal. Everyone had been too busy going over old evidence and documenting the charges against the judge. Ex-Chief Inspector Oudomxai and his gang of crooked police were all back behind bars where they belonged.

  “Thank you, sir,” said Wee. “Me and the team had a lot of fun that day. You wouldn’t believe how hard it was to get ourselves arrested.
”

  “If it weren’t for you and your team I’d probably still be back there behind bars,” said Phosy.

  “You know that’s not true, sir. You had an army of fans out there. We were just the front line. Once the president’s office and the military had seen the evidence it was just a matter of time before they shut down the hearing.”

  “Either way I’m grateful for the . . . what did you call it?”

  “The intervention.”

  “That’s it,” said Phosy, “the intervention.”

  “Any luck with the zoo out at Dong Paina?” Sihot asked.

  “We detained the zoo director, Sisouk, on some fictitious charge,” said Wee. “Nothing that’ll stick. He was a government appointee. It seems everyone knew the zoo was a front. Everything found its way to the hub in Hong Tong eventually. All they did was take over the Frenchman’s franchise. All the bullshit about showing respect to the animals, that was just for the benefit of the UN and any foreign dignitaries wanting to see what Laos is doing to stop the trade.”

  “Which brings me to Comrade Vilai and his Hong Tong operation,” said Phosy.

  “He was the sleaziest of the lot,” said Wee. “What we did there was beautiful. I’m so proud we were a part of that. To think he had the gall to sit there and give evidence against you. He had nothing to be innocent about. He was a millionaire ten times over—money earned from suffering.”

  “He was?”

  “What?”

  “You said he was a millionaire—past tense.”

  “Yeah, well I’m hoping he lost all his money after we busted him.”

  “It wouldn’t be because he’s dead, would it?”

  “He’s dead?” said Wee.

  “The local cadre in Hong Tong found what was left of him yesterday morning in one of the cages. Someone had thrown him in there with a half-starved clouded leopard,” Phosy told him.

  “Really?” said Wee. “I hope it was slow and excruciating.”

  “You don’t know anything about it?”

  “How could I?”

  “Right,” said Sihot, “you know, your team said they haven’t seen you for a couple of days. You told them you were doing some secret work for the chief inspector here. What secret work would that be, Sergeant Wee?”

  “All right, you got me there,” said Wee, tapping the cigarette pack in his top pocket. “You know, I’d been working straight through since the day you were nabbed by the judge’s men. I decided I deserved a bit of R and R. Have a little bit of fun with a certain young lady friend.”

  “That sounds fair enough,” said Phosy. “If you’d put in for a few days of leave I’m pretty sure I’d have approved the request.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that, brother,” said Wee. “Old habits die hard, you know?”

  “Where did you take your young lady?”

  “Not far. Just out to the ferry at Tha Ngon. They’ve got chalets up there. I’m sure you don’t want a blow by blow account of what we got up to.”

  “Not at all,” said Sihot.

  He nodded when a balding man in peasant’s clothes entered the room without knocking. The man stood inside the door and returned the nod.

  “Wee, this is Captain Lai,” said Phosy. “Do you recognize him?”

  Wee turned in his seat and studied the old man. “No,” he said.

  “That’s not very observant of you,” said Sihot. “I thought you were more aware than that. He was on the same bus as you on Thursday. But the bus wasn’t on its way to Tha Ngon. In fact, it was headed in the opposite direction, east along the river road.”

  “Then he obviously wasn’t on the same bus as me, was he?” said Wee, removing the pack of cigarettes from his pocket.

  “Have you looked at yourself lately?” said Sihot. “If you ask me, you aren’t really the mistakable type.”

  “Well, who asked you, you fat fart?” said Wee.

  Captain Sihot smiled and patted his paunch. “The sergeant’s been watching you since you announced to the team you’d be working with me,” said Phosy.

  “You had me followed?” said Wee. He tapped a cigarette from the pack, put it between his lips and felt around for a lighter.

  “Yes,” said Phosy.

  “Because some rat on my team didn’t like the idea of me taking time off?”

  “Because we were concerned,” said Phosy.

  “What about?”

  “About Judge Haeng’s assertion that your team was a death squad,” said Sihot.

  “Now you’re trying to tell me the judge isn’t a lying little turd?” said Wee.

  Two more officers entered the room.

  “No, he’s certainly a lying little turd,” said Phosy, “but we were wondering whether he’d got this one right. You see? The three missions you worked on before you joined me on the raid of Vilai’s compound all had something in common. They all ended with the chief perpetrators being involved in fatal . . . incidents.”

  “What’s that got to do with me?” said Wee. His search for a cigarette lighter in his pockets had come up empty and he was looking around the room either for a light or an escape route.

  Phosy was thumbing through the notes in front of him.

  “The child trafficking gang in Ban Mapao,” he said. “The report stated that the village headman wrestled your weapon from you and shot himself. The nearest member of your team was thirty meters away. He couldn’t see clearly so he took your word for it.”

  “And my word’s suddenly worth shit?” said Wee.

  “In the circumstances, I would probably have been keen to believe you too,” said Phosy. “The headman was scum. Nobody was that concerned that he might want to shoot himself rather than rot in jail. But then came your next mission: another trafficking gang in Ban Siphon. Your unit had laid out a plan similar to the one in Ban Mapao. But, as it turned out, the brothers that led the gang drowned the night before your team got there. Their boat capsized. Two girls on the boat on their way to a whorehouse in Thailand were rescued by some unknown stranger but the brothers didn’t make it. The peculiar thing was the girls couldn’t swim but the brothers were strong swimmers. What are the odds against the girls surviving and the brothers not?”

  “The Lord Buddha moves in mysterious ways,” said Wee. “Any of you fellows got a light?”

  They ignored the request. Sihot took over the report. “That brings us to what happened in Khammouan, your own hometown,” he said.

  “Oh, right,” said Wee, “now you’re suggesting I gave a man a heart attack?”

  “In fact, yes,” said Phosy. “We have two excellent coroners available here in Vientiane. They just got back from the south. It seems your uncle was buried rather than cremated. Lucky for us. Dr. Siri had the fellow dug up. I imagine you know what they found in his stomach lining.”

  Siri hadn’t been to the south and after such a long time underground, the body wasn’t likely to give up too many secrets. But Phosy’s little off-white lies often saved him a great deal of trouble. Wee sighed and turned up one corner of his mouth.

  “Cobra venom, I guess,” said Wee.

  He gave up both the pretense and the smoke and forced the cigarette back into the pack. “I was going to give up smoking anyway,” he said.

  “When did you decide your uncle wouldn’t be making the trip to Vientiane?” Sihot asked.

  “Probably the moment we talked about it here,” said Wee. “My uncle was rolling in money. Whatever shit charge we brought him in on he’d get out of it. Rich guys always do. I knew he’d be back in business within the week.”

  “And you got away with it so why not kill off all of them?” said Phosy.

  “Come on,” said Wee. “Don’t pretend this isn’t what you wanted. There’s only one way to wipe the arrogance off their faces. I’m sure every man and woman in my unit wanted it
done. You and your boys wanted it done. What was the alternative? Smack a heavy fine on ’em and tell them to be good? Give me a break.”

  “And it was only natural you’d take the next step: torture,” said Sihot.

  “I don’t see putting a man in a cage as torture,” said Wee. “I gave him a fifty-fifty chance. The leopard might have taken pity on him. If the beast had been well fed and healthy it might have even decided to pass up on man steak and wait for dinner. Couple of chicken carcasses. Much tastier than a greasy old bag of bones like Vilai. Those were better odds than he’d given the leopard until then. Right?”

  “And you sat there and watched him get eaten alive?” said Phosy.

  “Oh, don’t pretend you weren’t as delighted as me when we stormed their nasty little meat market and burned the place down. What’s the difference between what you threatened and what I did? If it was such a terrible thing why didn’t your skinny old Captain what’s-his-face here stop me, eh?” said Wee. “If he followed me all the way to Hong Tong he must have known what I was up to. He could have put a bullet in me and ended it all.”

  Wee turned to the old man by the door.

  “Isn’t that right, grandpa?” said Wee. “You didn’t do anything because you knew it was right. It’s no less than he deserved. His men had already fixed the wall and rounded up what animals they could find. It was business as usual. But once they saw what was left of their boss in the cage, once they’d witnessed what Lao justice had lined up for them all, there wasn’t a man in that compound who’d dare stick around in that profession. That’s what it should be about, Phosy. They were petrified. They’d do right because they were too afraid to do wrong. You hurt another living being, we hurt you.”

  He looked around at the silent police officers and shrugged.

  “I won’t be getting a medal then?” he said.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Noodle Power

  The wedding was a beautiful affair. Siri’s official residence looked like a Chinese brothel. They’d left the decorating to Crazy Rajhid and the children, and they’d spent the day cutting and pasting paper chains. They’d rescued the paper from the vacated Chinese bazaar. Its owners had left the place in a hurry. Most of the Chinese businesses were closed in the wake of China’s threats of invasion and retribution. Laos had sided with Vietnam in the Asian cold war and Vientiane was looking ever more like a commercial wasteland. Along with the crimson crepe paper, Rajhid had borrowed a hundred red foldable tasseled lanterns and fifty embroidered candle holders. The chances of a cataclysmic house fire were high.