Siri and Civilai arrived in Muang Sing at exactly lunchtime as planned. Only they were a day late. On the road they’d been sharing their opiate dreams of the previous night. Although they’d both rationed the natural remedies from Kew, they’d topped up after breakfast and enjoyed a hilarious drive back. And their colds were all but forgotten, though the symptoms remained. It was Civilai who recommended they become addicts.
“I’m sure you wouldn’t want conflicting addictions,” said Siri.
“Opium and …?”
“Food,” said Siri. “You haven’t stopped eating since you left the politburo. Look at you. You look like a gecko with a basketball down his trousers.”
They’d laughed for a kilometer.
“Geckos don’t wear trousers,” said Civilai at last.
More laughter.
“Opium is so much more plentiful up here than food,” Civilai added. “Did I ever tell you how the CIA were producing heroin here and sending it to their own troops in Vietnam?”
“On a number of occasions.”
“Ironic, isn’t it? The British get the Chinese addicted to opium. The Chinese get the hill tribes to produce it, then kick them out when they refuse to pay tax on it. The hill tribes flee south, and the French buy up all the stocks to subsidize their occupation of Indochina. Then the Americans fund a war with it. And here they all are, blaming us for the flood of drugs on the streets of Paris and London and New York.”
“Not to mention the Germans,” said Siri.
“Damn, did they invade us too?”
“In a way. We can thank the Germans for taking those important scientific steps of mass-producing morphine and heroin and distributing them around the globe.”
“See?” said Civilai. “The Western world got rich on the backs of our weak wills. We should do it too.”
“Do what?”
“Cash in on the backs of the weak-willed. Let’s sell our stash and live the life we’ve always imagined. Mercedes-Benz. Air-conditioned house. Pool.”
“That’s our dream?”
“Too true.”
“I thought our dream was that everyone has an equal share of the wealth of the world.”
“Absolutely. I’ll have a maid and a gardener, and they can share my wealth in monthly installments. Perhaps a pool boy and a hair stylist.”
“If you weren’t stoned, I’d submit a report about you to the Ministry of Interior.”
“Come on, you stick-in-the-mud. Let’s go back to the house and get into that pure heroin. I bet Madame Daeng’s already off her face.”
They pulled up in front of the clinic guesthouse, and Madame Daeng hobbled down the steps to meet them. She was wearing an apron that gave the impression she might have been cooking. Siri hopped out of the jeep and gave her one more culturally inappropriate hug. Civilai turned away in embarrassment. There was no telling how she knew the men would be back at that time on that day, but she’d put together a fine spread of pickled fish and vegetables and sticky rice. She’d also set up a table on the balcony so they could watch the imperceptible flow of traffic on the main road. There was even rice wine with various local fruit juice options as mixers. Whereas the men’s health had become progressively worse over the three days, Madame Daeng had apparently made a full recovery.
They ate, drank and were merry over a long period that afternoon while Siri and Civilai regaled Daeng with all the tales of their odyssey. Of their dealings with the voodoo woman, their night of opium hallucinations and their single-handed repulsion of the Chinese invasion. She knew from experience to take their fairy tales with a large handful of salt.
“History will prove us heroes,” slurred Civilai.
“So, my wife,” said Siri, “apart from cooking and cleaning, what have you been up to?”
Daeng looked at Siri, then at Civilai. “I killed one man and have another tied to a post,” she said.
“Ha!” cried Civilai. “Vive la femme.”
But Siri could tell immediately that it was not a joke. Daeng shrugged and stood and walked down the steps and across to the clinic. Siri followed her with Civilai, still chuckling, tagging along behind. Daeng opened the door to the clinic, and there, in the center of the room, tied to a central pillar, was a short-haired man with bruises that stood out defiantly against his dark complexion. He looked up and spat in their direction.
Civilai fell against the doorframe. “You did this, madame?” he said.
Daeng nodded.
“And the dead one?” Siri asked.
“Buried behind the latrine,” she said. “Or to be more accurate, I buried him in the old latrine and relocated the latrine. The ground was softer there.”
“Oh, my goodness,” said Civilai.
“What did they do to you?” Siri asked.
“We’ll need a coffee for that story,” Daeng replied.
They were back on the balcony, but the mood had altered somewhat. The coffee was sweet and hot, and the late, low mists were starting to crawl in.
“It was the stash day,” Daeng began. “The poor woman—the weaver—was so confused when all these outsiders landed on her. It was obvious the heroin wasn’t meant for us. She had the pha sin in its plastic bag. We should have asked for it specifically. She just got confused. As we said, she was a simple woman someone had forced to mind a large stash of drugs. In fact, we were responsible for her death. It was obvious that the traffickers had killed her, and I wanted to meet them. So I advertised the fact that I had their precious stash.”
Siri dropped his head. Civilai threw his arms aloft in frustration. “How does one advertise such a thing, madam?” Civilai asked. “A small ad in the local newspaper?”
“She acted stoned,” said Siri. “You had it all worked out the day we set off without you, didn’t you?”
“Not all of it.”
“And what were you hoping to achieve?” Civilai asked.
“Probably nothing in the overall big picture of drug trafficking in the Golden Triangle,” Daeng said. “But …”
“But she got bored,” said Siri. “She wanted a taste of some of those old thrills. Right, my precious?”
“Old habits die hard,” she agreed. “And these were unsavory characters. You saw the bruises on the weaver. She’d been beaten before. I don’t like bullies. I let the word spread that I was intoxicated. I went to the market. I exposed myself a little bit. Got arrested. Then I came back here. I made sure everyone knew where I was staying.”
“You are completely mad,” said Civilai.
“Not completely.” She smiled. “I have a little way to go.”
“But aren’t there certain physical manifestations of drug taking?” Civilai went on. “I thought there were physical signs you couldn’t fake.”
“A lot you can act your way through,” she said. “The most difficult sign is the constricted pupils. But you can mimic the affect by using carbachol eyedrops. They gave me some when I was having my glaucoma treated. It’s always at the bottom of my bag, just in case.”
“So the thugs came to claim their lost loot,” said Civilai, who was now clear-headed and sober but developing a headache. Siri merely reached across and squeezed his wife’s hand.
“And I was ready for them,” said Daeng.
Civilai rolled his eyes. “And what now?” he shouted.
“Now we interrogate the prisoner and find out—”
“Prisoner?” Civilai yelled. “Are you a policewoman, Madame Daeng? No. You will interview your bully over there and discover that he works for a super-thug who in turn works for a super-thug who is in the employ of some third-world tyrant, and you and I and what we do are unrecognizable on a microscope slide compared to them.”
“They killed a woman because she made a mistake,” said Daeng. “And then they tried to kill me. They’re cowards.”
Civilai reached heavenward in desperation. “Tell her, Siri,” he said. “Tell her.”
“I’m very fond of you,” Siri said to her.
/> Civilai waved angrily, as if he were conducting a large but invisible orchestra of tone-deaf musicians.
“That’s … that’s not what I want you to tell … I want you to let her know she’s not working underground for the Pathet Lao any more. It’s not hand-to-hand fighting. Tell her she’s standing in front of a speeding freight train. Heaven help me. What a match you two are. A pair of perfect idiots.”
“Nobody’s perfect,” Siri reminded him.
“Pray tell me what you intend to do with your ‘prisoner’ once he’s spilled whatever beans you expect to get out of him,” Civilai continued. “Or heaven help him if he refuses to talk because you know he knows that you killed his partner. Are you going to make him swear an oath not to tell anyone, and he can go on his way? Or should we just stroll over there and beat him to death right now?”
“Brother, you need a lie-down,” said Daeng.
“I need …? I …? Yes, you’re quite right. I shall go for a little sleep. When I wake up, this will have all been just a nightmare.”
Civilai headed for the door of his sleeping quarters, stopped, turned around and came back. He almost said something but instead picked up the last bottle of rice whiskey and took it to bed with him. It was barely 6 P.M. Siri and Daeng watched him go.
“He’s right,” said the doctor.
“He’s always right,” said Daeng. “That’s why he’s so annoying.”
“Exactly what plans do you have for your captive over there?”
“I didn’t even need to torture him to get a confession. I mentioned the weaver in Muang Long, and he came straight out with it. He told me yes, they’d beaten her to death, and he’d be doing the same to me as soon as he got free.”
“I can imagine he was a little put out by being overwhelmed by an arthritic woman in her sixties.”
“You know what else he said? He said, ‘We own the police. We own the army. All the village headmen and the mayors and the governor. We own the lot of them. What do you think you’re going to do to me?’ ”
“Is that when you hammered him?”
“My hands aren’t up to it anymore. I had to use a book.”
“Oh? Which one?”
“Don’t know the name. It was on the shelf. There was a bear on the cover and a little boy in boots.”
“Ah. Good choice.”
They sipped at the last of their drinks. Siri suppressed a cough.
“I’m worried about you,” said Daeng. “It’s not a cold, is it?”
“Probably something tropical. My body will sort it out.”
“You look awful.”
“You got over it. I just need a little rest.”
“You mean, the type I got?”
“Oh, right. You were busy. What should we do with your hostage? We can’t hand him over to the police. You can’t kill him in cold blood.”
“This is a different planet, Siri. We can’t use southern morals up here.”
“Even so …”
“I don’t mean kill him. Just find a way to use him to win the next little battle. To make a statement that not everyone kowtows to the drug barons.”
“It’s a big fight, Daeng. Could be our last campaign if it goes wrong.”
“But what a way to go, eh?”
When Civilai awoke from a blissful, dream-ridden sleep, he had no idea where he was. It was pitch-dark, and he had a rice-whiskey headache. There wasn’t so much as a firefly passing the window. He felt across the mattress for his wife, and when he didn’t find her, he was certain she’d left him again. But then it came to him. The trip north. The Chinese invasion. The stash.
He reached under the bed. It wasn’t there. Madame Daeng hadn’t told them where she’d hidden it. Where could you hide twenty kilograms of heroin? Just as well he didn’t know, perhaps. But wouldn’t it have been fun just to … to try a little? He was a virgin. He lived in the center of the opium universe and had never sampled heroin. Opium, of course. Dull. Morphine, of course for medical procedures. But never heroin. After dedicating his life to the cause, wasn’t he due a little recreational drug use?
He had no recollection of the geography of the bedroom, so he climbed uncomfortably to his feet and felt his way around the wall until he reached what resembled a door. He opened it, and a distant glow led him to the veranda. There, Siri and Daeng sat on opposite sides of the table, staring at an assortment of objects lit by a candle. They looked up when he appeared.
“Good morning, Brother Civilai,” said Daeng.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“Three.”
“What are you drinking there?” he asked.
“Johnny Black.”
“At three A.M.?”
“We couldn’t sleep,” Siri told him.
Civilai sat on the spare chair and stared at the bottle. “Have you won the lottery?”
“You can get almost anything from China,” said Daeng.
“Okay,” said Civilai. “Pour me a glass or two and remind me where the latrine is.”
“You’d best not use the latrine,” Daeng reminded him. “There’s a flashlight on the wall inside the door. Go find yourself a bush.”
“Very well.”
He took the light and staggered off into the early morning. When he got back, there was a glass waiting for him with …
“Oh, my word,” he said. “Is that soda?”
“It is,” said Siri.
“And is this ice?”
“Yes.”
“How can a place without electricity produce ice?”
“Antarctica does it all the time,” said Siri. “You’d be surprised what you can find in Muang Sing if you have the right connections.”
“I don’t want to know what you’ve been up to all night,” said Civilai.
“Are you sure?” Siri asked. “You’d be really impressed.”
“I’m certain. How are we doing with the treasure hunt?”
“We’ve reached a point where we need your magnificent mind,” said Daeng. “We have all the parts but no whole. Or perhaps we have it, but we can’t see it.”
Civilai took a large draft of his whiskey and smiled. “Do you suppose three A.M. is too early to start drinking?” he asked. “It’s all right. Don’t answer that. Tell me what you’ve deduced.”
“Well,” said Siri, “we have the handwritten sheets our friend in Un Mai translated for us.” He flattened them out on the table. “The first is a work order for a Chinese maintenance team. These are the boys who go out and fix the mistakes the main teams have made. From the list, it looks like most of the time was spent clearing landslides and repairing subsidences. The next list is a requisition order for equipment to be used on jobs where the road was washed out. It’s for concrete pipe segments, cement and replacement blacktop.
“The last sheets are role and salary lists for the workers on the maintenance crews. They cover the second half of 1976. The workers’ names are written phonetically in Chinese characters even though the names are all Thai Lu. Mrs. Kew said that the Lu workers would be hired in China and brought over to work in Thai Lu areas in Laos. Perhaps they thought they weren’t so likely to be homesick and leave. Who knows? When he collects his pay, the worker makes his mark here in the receipt column. But here’s the odd thing. It seems that every month, apart from one or two exceptions, there’s a new maintenance crew. Look at this. You’d think they’d train one crew to do the job well and hang on to them. But they had some sort of rotation policy. Mostly new names from one month to the next.”
“Perhaps being on the maintenance crew was some sort of incentive,” said Civilai. “If you work well on the road crew, you get a month on maintenance and earn a bit extra.”
“You might be right,” said Daeng. “In fact, it looks like the maintenance boys got six dollars a day more than they would have as a corvée laborer. That would have been one hell of an incentive back then. You’d expect to find more names repeating—good workers coming back to the crew—but they d
on’t.”
“Do any of the objects relate to the lists?” Civilai asked.
“Apart from the fact the finger had laterite under the nail, no,” said Siri. “I suppose the yuan banknote might refer to salaries. The pipe stem might be … a pipe.”
“Brilliant,” said Civilai. “You didn’t need me at all.”
“What do you make of the requisition order?” Daeng asked.
“You know, the more I drink, the more insightful I become,” said Civilai.
They topped him up. There were two ice cubes in the bucket, and they gave him both. He refused the cool water in which they’d been floating. “Give me a moment,” he said.
He slid the documents closer to the yellow glow of the candle and pored over them. Siri and Daeng held hands and enjoyed the warmth of the blankets they were wrapped in. Siri’s cough had become a permanent wheeze.
“Very well,” said Civilai, at last, holding out his glass like a fortune teller who refused to divulge the future without having his palm crossed with gold. They topped him up again. “We have inconsistencies,” he said.
“Good,” said Daeng.
“It occurs to me that the volume of the order far exceeds the needs of the job.”
“What do you mean?” Daeng asked.
“Well,” said Civilai, “let’s assume that a typical road is six meters wide. We’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and say eight. And let’s give them an extra meter on either side to help divert any water flow. That means they’d need maximum ten meters of concrete piping from one side to the other. Here, they’ve ordered twenty meters per job.”
“Couldn’t they have laid two lanes of piping?” Siri asked.
“Of course they could, little brother. But did you notice any double lanes of piping on any of the roads we’ve been on this past week?”
“You’re joking.”
“You did?”
“No, I mean, you’re joking if you think I might have noticed pipes on our road trip.”
“I don’t think he’s joking, Siri,” said Daeng.
“Civilai?”
“Observation,” said the old politburo man. “When you balance budgets, you have to keep an eye on where the money’s going. Things like public address systems and paving stones and pipes. You have to keep your eyes open. If you don’t, there’ll always be someone waiting to rip you off. Look at how much cement they put in for. There’s enough to build a full-size replica of the Taj Mahal.”
Six and a Half Deadly Sins Page 17
