Cambodia Noir (29 page)

If she has the books, will she decide she doesn't need me?

After the gunfight in the tall grass, there were a few minutes of hurried cleanup: arranging corpses and planting guns so it looked like the Cambodian drivers and the American thugs had shot each other. Keihatsu took a quick look at the cuts on my arm and leg and pronounced me not about to die. Miss Eyre slapped some tape patches over the Renault, Kara tied up Chua and stuck him in the hood, and we got out of there. We drove in the dark for about half an hour, until we came to a grimy little roadside restaurant and garage. Miss Eyre drove away in the Renault, while the rest of us piled into this huge black machine. Headed north.

On the rare moments when the moon breaks through the clouds, I can make out Chua sitting behind Keihatsu, slumped against the door, his face a chiaroscuro of bruises. Behind me, in the mirror, Kara's is serene: as empty of expression as a model's in a magazine. Then the clouds close again, and all I see is the red glow of her cigarette.

Every time she stubs one out I hold my breath, waiting to feel steel wire sinking into my throat. It doesn't come.

I scan dark skies for any sign of a horizon. How long has this night gone on? Has to get light sometime.

Waiting seems to take forever.

Eventually, though, the outlines of treetops become visible against the clouds, black slowly warming to green and charcoal gray. The road in front of us gets longer and longer, until we're driving down a narrow country lane rather than careening through the dark. Then we pull out of the woods onto a patch of asphalt in front of a large building, and Keihatsu brings the Range Rover to a halt.

We're in the parking lot of a not-very-expensive hotel: a health-resort kind of place, where wealthy Khmers and Thais go for relaxation. All at once I know where we are, and I look at Kara in the mirror. “Battambang?”

“I thought we could use some R and R.”

As soon as we get to the suite, it starts.

Ashen morning light is breaking through the windows as Keihatsu gestures Chua to a leather armchair, then pulls another up across from it. They sit leaning forward, so close they're almost touching, speaking Mandarin in low, empty voices. There's something tense and repellent about the sight of them, like mating scorpions.

Kara turns and whispers, “We can take it from here.”

“I want to see.”

She doesn't smile, but the expression on her face might be approval. I realize this is how she wanted it. I'm just another part of her math. Chua doesn't know what's between us: he thinks I'm one of hers, and he knows that even half-dead I'm a better fighter than he is. Two on one, he might still try something, even given how terrified he is of Kara. Three on one, he knows he's got no chance.

Once he's broken, the math will change.

I want a drink, but Kara's eyes hold me in place. She hands me a cigarette. I'm too unsteady to light it, so she does it for me.

When I see Chua slump down in his chair, I know it's done. He's lost. Kara takes my hand and guides me into the hall. I try to stay solid as I face her, but my vision is blurring with exhaustion.

“He made the smart move,” she says. “Interrogators are pragmatists. Chua's operation doesn't even know there's an enemy. When they find out, they'll get rid of loose ends, and he's one of them. If he cooperates, we protect him. Maybe Keihatsu even finds him some work.”

“His boss won't like that.”

“If he's too scared to flip, he can still hope for a clean death,” she says, like she's discussing the TV schedule. “A body to send home to the family. He knows if he doesn't talk, it'll be as bad for him as anything his boss would do.” She looks me up and down like she's seeing me for the first time, and I feel my muscles tense—

But Kara just smiles her tiger smile and hands me a room key. “Get some rest. I'll send a doctor to look at you.”

Bedroom—kill the lights.

Can barely stand, but have to do one thing: stash the journals. Too tired for anything fancy—under the mattress. Hard for anyone to find them with me passed out on top.

So much speed, it might take me a while to—

Vague impressions of doctors coming and going.

“Don't touch the bandages, it needs time to heal.”

My left eye is bad, they think I might lose it. Days half-blind in a halo of gauze. Sitting in the dark, drinking juice and eating soup from room service and licking my wounds. Sky News on television, nothing in my head.

Waiting for whatever happens next.

When I'm strong enough to stand, I hide the journals again: better this time. Even that's more than I can manage. Make it almost back to my door before I collapse. They find me later, in the hall—

“What are you doing out of bed? You need rest.”

Darkness again.

I wake to see Kara looking down at me, her expression unreadable. “Time to get up, lazybones. We're having lunch.”

She helps me out of bed and I get a breath of her scent, jasmine and cordite. She's taller, in five-inch Louboutins: not pretending to be a tourist anymore. She looks ready for breakfast at fucking Tiffany's. I take in the view as she opens the window, revealing a balcony I never knew was there. On it, two chairs and a table laid with crisp white linen. Trays of miso soup, prawn-and-seaweed salad, fresh sushi, ice-cold bottles of Asahi.

A cleaver-faced Japanese man pours my beer as I sit. Kara raises her glass, and we drink together.

Tastes like heaven.

By our third lunch together—oysters on the half shell, probably flown in by helicopter; chicken Caesar salad, Sapphire martinis—we're tired of talking about how nice the weather is in Battambang. I don't know what Kara wants from me, but I'm going to make the most of it.

“When are you going to tell me who Luke and Chua were moving heroin for?”

Surprisingly, I get an answer.

“I don't suppose the names of West Coast triad overlords mean much to you?”

“Nah.”

“Well, it was one of the major ones. He got tired of dealing with the Mexicans, and decided to reopen the Eastern Pipeline.” It makes more than a little sense: the Golden Triangle, where Burma, Laos, and Thailand meet, used to be the biggest source of heroin for the US. After the Burmese bought out Khun Sa in the early nineties, the flow dropped to a trickle. If the triads could start it up again, they could carve away the Mexicans' territory with a better product.

“So Cambo is just the tip of the iceberg,” I say.

“Oh, yes. This was a sophisticated operation. They saw how the South American cocaine cartels worked and figured they could start the same thing up here. They were playing a long game, working Burma, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam . . .”

She lets it sink in: how very much I should be dead. I think about it as I freshen my drink.

“I don't understand why you're telling me this.”

She doesn't answer, just swirls her glass like she's enjoying herself. Her eyes say:
You're mine
.

The rest of the story comes in bits and pieces. While we hide up here drinking martinis, Kara's guys are crawling the country. Every day brings some new update. One morning, she tells me they've found a bunch of customized boats hidden in a Cambodian port: tugs and trawlers with cleverly disguised compartments, the kind that could carry tons of product through US customs undetected. Another day, they've turned up two more aid organizations with plants in them: guys like Luke, scouting out the kind of desperate, isolated communities where refining and smuggling would seem like good business to the locals.

Turns out the Koh Kong governor really did order the break-in at Luke's office: not because of the damn assessment, but because he guessed about the smuggling and wanted his cut. He thought he was dealing with a few rogues, not a major international operation. Chua got him straightened out somehow, and that blew over.

Mostly, the triads had been able to co-opt or bully existing outfits into working with them. But here, General Peng and his army buddies weren't interested in new partners. So Chua and the other lieutenant in charge, a guy Kara called Tan, got the bright idea to turn the police against the army. Hok Lundy went for it: saw a chance to expand his operation and get Peng out of his way. Maybe he thought he'd be prime minister someday. He came up with the idea of using the international advisers as cat's paws: he knew a hand-picked police unit to root out the drug runners in the security services would appeal to guys like Steve. The police could harass the competition and everyone would think it was just standard foreign interference—really, they were figuring out how to take over. When the Sydney bust made waves, Hok Lundy just blamed the Australians, made some payoffs, and everyone calmed down.

Peng didn't see the trouble coming until he wound up in the back of a police van. Then he struck back hard, taking out officers, friends and family members of task force officials—including Charlie. But he was in a vise: his bloody payback made Hun Sen look weak, and that couldn't stand, not with the political deadlock.

Now Kara's seen an opening, and she's taking it. I don't ask what her endgame is—figure the yakuza has its own reasons to worry about the triads getting too much power.

I worry about what comes next.

Do I ever get to leave this hotel? It's packed with Japanese now—a tour bus full of young, middle-income couples from Kobe, looking for peace and quiet and natural healing. Their stories check out, long as you don't look them in the eye. I can't get from my room to the elevator without one of them latching onto me, wanting to talk in broken English about how beautiful the backcountry is.

I don't see much of Keihatsu—I think mostly he babysits Chua, whose leash is even shorter than mine. But Kara is always around. She keeps me close. At any hour, Miss Eyre or one of Kara's crew of young, female “personal assistants” might show up to summon me to the suite. There are usually drinks, and always questions. Kara pumps me on Cambodian politics, on various officials and their roles, on who's who in the criminal underworld. Other times she just appears, unannounced. I might wake to find her working at the desk next to my bed, or sitting on my balcony to watch the sunset. On these occasions, she says nothing at all.

It frightens me that I am becoming used to her presence.

One thing we never talk about. Kara is taking apart Chua's organization piece by piece, but there's been no sign of her sister. Chua says he never saw her: I believe him. It's possible Luke killed her without telling his boss and dumped her body in the water somewhere, but it doesn't seem likely: they were all too disciplined for that.

One day, Kara asks for details about the body in the mangroves. She seems particularly interested in the marks Bun My found on the bones: “I'd like to see them.”

“Lon can take you there.”

“Lon?”

“The boatman. He'll remember.” I'm not hiding the bitterness in my voice. “It had to be him who told Luke what we were up to. Best guess, he was paid to report on who was moving around that bit of coast. He can take you right to the spot.”

“Yes.”

I catch her look and realize what I've done, but it's too late.

In the dream, I'm back in Koh Kong. It's just before dawn, the main street empty and black. I walk down to the marina. For a little while, Phann walks with me, still in silence.

This always happens at the beginning.

I find Lon tying up his boat. When he sees me, his eyes go white and he starts to babble, then turns like he's going to run. I show him Phann's pistol and he stands still, not sure whether to look at my eyes or the gun.

“Relax,” I say. “We're just going to the island.” I start up the little engine, guiding us out of the harbor.

The sea is charcoal, the sky is ash. Clouds like mountain ranges hang overhead. The land recedes behind us.

“Just to the island?” Lon asks.

“Yeah.”

“What you want see?”

I don't answer. Finally, we come far enough out that we see nothing at all: dark water extending to a dark horizon. I cut the motor and we sit there awhile, both of us waiting for light.

“You have to answer for Phann,” I say at last. He starts to protest, to say he doesn't know what I'm talking about. I cut him off. “You sold us out to Luke, and Phann ended up dead.” He doesn't say anything, just stares straight ahead, his head hanging slightly. I'm undoing my belt. “He wasn't a good guy; he probably had it coming. But I liked him. And I got him into this, so I can't let it go.”

He nods slightly, still looking out at the horizon. I loop the belt over his neck and pull the buckle tight. It's slow work, choking a man. He claws at the leather a little—not much. His eyes never leave that thin line in the distance. The sky does its magic thing, changing from ugly gray to brilliant blue so subtly that you can't quite say when it happened. Finally, it's done. I stand up, carefully, and lay the body back against the motor. Lash him down with the belt. I have Mr. Chua's knife in my pocket, and I use it to make two deep slashes in his abdomen, so the sea will keep him.

I expect to feel something, but I don't. I have plenty of blood on my hands already. Doing it myself doesn't feel any different.

There's a dark shape in the distance now. I wait, standing, as it grows closer. After a while it pulls up next to us: a small commercial tug. Keihatsu waves down at me from the deck and lowers a rope. I climb up.

When I'm standing next to him, I pull Phann's gun from my waistband and empty the clip into the bottom of the little boat. It fills with water shockingly fast, and in less than a minute it's gone, along with the body, down into that warm, gray nothing. Keihatsu laughs and claps me on the back. Job well done. You made your bones, kid. Come on, she's waiting.

I put the gun back in my belt. When I turn around, though, I see who's driving.