Cambodia Noir (34 page)

I tie Number Two up with his back against the bed. Rope his hands together with one end of the sheet, his ankles with the other. Not the kind of knots that hold, but he won't make any sudden moves. Stuff a shirt in his mouth. Done, I step out into the hall for my bag. I could use a beer. Then I take a look at the gun. It's a Chinese piece of shit, just like his locks. Bought cheap from some moto—the gangsters carry better kit. I check that it's loaded.

Two stirs, starting to come around. I hold the gun up for him to see.

“You know you couldn't have shot me with this, right?” His eyes are big as headlights: the last few weeks haven't made me any prettier. “You gotta chamber a round first.” I do it. “Now you can shoot somebody.”

Once I'm sure he's aware of the situation, I set the gun next to me, in reach. “Wanna beer?”

He nods. I take the gag out, slowly, then hold up the can and give him a long swig. He sighs.

I sit back down on the floor. “Sorry about this.” He stares. “I guess we're friends, or what passes for it out here, but I've had a hard few weeks. I got broken ribs and broken teeth and I goddamn near lost my eye. I've seen a lotta people killed, and I'm willing to add to the number. But I'm still a hell of a lot nicer than the guys who come next. So talk to me.” He nods. “Let's start with why you're carrying that.” Point at the gun.

“I was afraid he'd come after me.”

“Who?”

Two hesitates. “He'll kill me.”

“I can break a knee or something, you want me to prove I'm serious. I can do it quiet.” Pick up the shirt again.

“Samnang, his name—is Pisit Samnang! He's, uh . . . he—”

“I know who he is.”

The worst cop in Cambo. The one I was afraid to go to, to ask about June's police connections—

You think you own him, then you realize he owns you.

—
but he was the connection all along. He's the guy Barry saw arguing with June—the same one she spied on in Number Two's apartment. Her Bad Lieutenant.

“How did you meet him?”

“In the Heart, a few weeks after I came. He . . .” Two chokes up.

I let him stare at the floor and sniffle for a minute before I say anything. “I know what he did. He scored for you. Gave you your walk on the wild side—kept it nice and easy. Let you get in deeper and deeper.” Two nods. Wheels clicking in my head. “When did things start to go bad? After Sihanoukville?” Now he looks at me, mouth open. “I know all sorts of things. You just worry about the answers.”

“Yeah. Sihanoukville. Things had been weird since that shipment got stopped in Sydney. Sam's supply was in trouble, there was a crackdown and he had no access.” In Two's face, shame and fear struggle with a twisted kind of pride. “He thought he was getting cut out of something, so he wanted me to chat up people for him. I have contacts from work, I could find out if they knew anything, without anyone getting suspicious.”

“That why you got June involved—to help you get information? Or did you just figure she was an easy lay—”

“No! Fuck, mate, it wasn't like that!”

“She was vulnerable, so you—”

“I was lonely!”

“You, with your dozen girlfriends?”

“Christ, it was a blag, all right? You buy a girl a drink, bit of chat, drive her home, and everyone thinks you've pulled. But it never happens, everyone's too, I dunno, fuckin' scared. This place, right? You don't get close to anyone. Then June . . . I'm not proud, okay? The first few times, I was fucking legless. But . . . in Sihanoukville, it was like Shakespeare or something: we took the piss, but we talked, too. Really talked about stuff, right, not just who's shooting at who? She liked my writing, she cared about the work. It felt good. I didn't realize . . .”

He's trailed off, lost in his thoughts.

“Realize what?”

He snaps back to reality, looking puzzled. Then he laughs—a bitter cackle that sets my teeth on edge. “All that stuff you know . . . but you still don't get it.”

“Tell me. Be convincing.”

He pauses, gathering himself. “For a while, I thought me and June were really something. . . . Then she started asking questions. Where did I get my stuff, what did I know about drug dealers. I said, ‘Bugger all,' obviously. But she knew. She knew about Sam, wanted to meet him. I was meant to set it up, or she'd tell Gus that Sam was dealing to me, and then I'm fucked, back in bloody King's Cross eating shit.”

“So what did you do?”

“I told Sam. He went fucking mental on me at first, but June said she knew who was cutting off the heroin, and he couldn't resist.” Another pause. I wait it out. “You know the fucked-up thing? Even after all that, I still thought, ‘Oh, she's just a kid.' I thought I could handle her. But once she got with Sam . . . she had big ideas. They were gonna move in on this new outfit, get a piece of the action. Sam just wanted to know what was going on, but June wouldn't give him details. I think she started sleeping with him, but I didn't care by then, I just wanted to get away from her. But Sam said I'd brought her in, so I had to keep her close. Keep an eye on her, it was for her own good. . . .” He's running out of breath again.

Cut to the chase: “Why was she doing all this?”

That angry laugh again. “I have no idea.”

I put a boot in his ribs, just for emphasis. “You can do better than that. Was it her family?”

“I dunno! Whatever her shit was, I don't—”

Reach out and grab a finger, bend it back. “There has to be a reason.”

“I don't know!”

Clap a hand over his mouth: “Softly.” He nods. I take my hand away.

“Open my shirt,” he says.

“You gonna try something stupid?”

He groans, shakes his head. I slide the gun across the room, well out of reach. Then I undo his top buttons. He smells of whiskey, cologne, and sweat. On his chest: four long, puckered trails of pink skin.

“June gave me those. Her idea of fun. She was always different in bed. Wild, like . . . like a whole other person. At first it was a kick, right? Intense. But then it got . . . just fucking mental. She kept . . . she wanted me to . . .” He can't finish; tries again. “We'd meet up in hotels, different ones. One night, she shows up with some Thai girl who's smacked out of her head, and June wants me to cut her. I fucked off, so the next day she sent the same girl to me at the office. I had to try an' blag it with Gus, and June's just sitting there, watching, not even fussed.” He looks up at me, and in his eyes there's nothing at all. “It was the kind of thing you would do.” His gaze moves to the beer. “Can I have another sip of that?” It's barely touched. Pour a long swallow down his throat. “June was brilliant at keeping her cool in public, but when she was tripping, things got bad—”

“I thought she didn't do drugs.”

“You have no idea. She did more drugs than me, more than you. Smack if she had it, which wasn't much, or a bloody medicine cabinet of other shit. Special K, lots of it, then snorting yaba to go to work and play schoolgirl. She had everyone fooled. But when we were alone, she'd get paranoid and take it out on me.”

I have nothing left to say. And he just keeps talking.

“June didn't care about the money. Not at the end . . . maybe never. She didn't care about the story. Or me, or Sam, or even the drugs. June didn't have reasons. She just wanted to see what was in the dark.”

I want to say he's wrong, he's lying. I want to hit him again.

“So what happened to her?”

“Sam had enough. He said she was out of control, but he still wanted what she knew. So he came up with this crazy plan, they were going to steal this shipment themselves and take it to Sam's contacts in the army. He never meant to go through with it, it was just to get her to tell him what was up. He figured June would go for it, it was her kind of crazy—but she held out, said the army was too small, they needed the guys behind the army. So Sam gets this other idea, he has some contact coming in from Hong Kong, some big gangster. And he has me talk the guy up to June like he's the power behind the heroin trade. Then he tells June they'll take the stuff to him. It was bullshit, but she went for it. She made up the Siem Reap trip as cover, and they went out to Koh Kong.”

“And what was Sam planning to do once he had his information?”

Two sees the danger in my eyes, starts to panic. “Fuck, mate, not that! He said he was gonna put the fear into her—stick her in jail a few days, tell her he was gonna sell her to slavers, whatever it took, then put her on a plane back to LA—”

“Was there a farm, where she could run and play with the other animals?” I realize I'm furious. It's crept up on me as Two talked, and now I feel blood in my eyes. I want to hurt someone. “Sam was never gonna send her home.” I say it hard, so he knows how dumb he is. “He got her to show him what she knew, and then he had a nice, shallow grave picked out for her in the swamps. I found it.” Two's face crumples. Lie: “I dug up her bones.”

“Jesus,” he says. “Jesus—”

It takes him a few minutes to get a grip on himself. When he's done sobbing, I go on. “Did you see Sam, after it was done?”

“No. I got a couple texts from him, that it was sorted an' I should lie low. An e-mail—I thought it was from June—saying she'd gone, wasn't coming back. I didn't write to her. I didn't think . . . I thought she was home, and Sam was off trying to use whatever info she'd given him. I thought they'd had enough of me.”

My anger has evaporated; now I just feel sick. “If Sam didn't say anything, why did you run?”

“You. I thought that night at the Heart was fucked: I never black out. But I wasn't sure. Then you vanished. Vy was coming round, I heard her having a go at Gus about you and figured you were looking for June. Then these guys start showing up at the office. Cambodian cops, and Americans, guys like, like they think they're in
The Matrix
. Told us you were coming back, and they wanted us to get in touch when you did. I didn't know what you'd say, I knew they'd make me talk, or you would, and then Sam . . .” He can't finish.

Guess I know what I need to know. Two is looking at me again—the same look he gave me back at his place, a million years ago. He wants me to make it go away: to say I've done worse, that it'll all be okay.

I have. It won't.

I don't want to watch anymore. “Why didn't you get the fuck out? Fly home?”

He looks at me like it's a stupid question. “I was going to, but . . . I just . . . I . . .” He breathes deep, trying to summon the words. “I had a life here, man. I had a job, finally. I had mates, I was getting promoted, making contacts with the agencies. I thought, after a year or so, move on to Bangkok or Saigon. For about ten minutes I thought I had a girlfriend. I couldn't just . . . walk away.”

“You can now.” My voice sounds weak and insincere, even to me. Glance over at the gun in the corner. “When I'm gone, take that and run. Those knots will only hold a minute. Go to another hotel, hide in the fucking tall grass, whatever. Go home.”

He stares at me, face blotchy and tear streaked, eyes red and disbelieving.

I stand up.

“I'm sorry,” he sniffles. “I didn't mean to hurt anybody. I didn't mean—”

I shut the door gently.

As I step onto the main road, I see a figure in the shadows. Look for an exit, but there's another behind me. Not Cambodian—Japanese.

Friends in high places.

The first moves into the light: Keihatsu. He looks up at the hotel, then at me. I nod and stand there, buying as much time as I can.
Get out,
I think,
run
.

The little interrogator raises his eyebrows:
Is there something I should know?

I smile, and walk slowly away.

I walk for a long time. In the distance, fireworks; gunshots.

I guess I could pretend Two made it, but I'm not in the mood.

Night slides past, cold on my face and stinging. Dawn coming soon.

I walked into the center of town until I found some sleeping motos. Gave the last of my cash to a guy with a big two-seater, to take me back by road. I thought the boat docks might be watched.

I don't even know if anyone's after me—I just know everything's burned.

Every part of my body is sore. My ass aches from banging against the seat, my ears ring along with the gas bottles in the saddlebags. I drift in and out of a kind of sleep, June dancing in my head. June the junkie, June the grifter. June who needed something so bad, it drove her off the edge of the world.

Her story should have ended in that swamp—but it didn't. Sam dug her a grave, all right, but he was the one who ended up in it. It's the only thing I can make into sense: If Sam was still around, he'd have come after me, or Kara would have turned him up.

June must have seen it coming. She knew she was being measured for a coffin—but she went anyway. All the way out to Koh Kong, and then—

What? Maybe she did it herself. She had Barry's gun and wild audacity on her side. Even Sam underestimated her. But more likely she had help: She waited until this Hong Kong gangster was in the picture. She wanted an exit, and he was it. No more use for Sam, then.

“She just wanted to see what was in the dark.”

If I want to go after her, all I need is a name.

If.

It's pretty likely June doesn't want to come back.

“If you go hunting her, be careful—”

If I were smart, I'd let her go. Let her join my company of ghosts: one more face waiting for me when the lights go out. One more name I can't think.