Zero Hour in Phnom Pehn Read online

  A few minutes later a scratchy Thai voice called the race. As the horses left the gate, the crowd was on its feet. When the horses came around the final bend and headed for home, it was clear that something out of the ordinary was going on with Saddam and his jockey. The jockey was standing up in the saddle, and pulling back on the reins; he was trying to stop his horse. When the electronic board listed the horses in order of finishing, Saddam had finished next to last. Calvino tore up his ticket and let the pieces drift to the floor. He had dropped a hundred baht—four dollars; but Fat Stuart had lost four thousand baht—and one hundred sixty dollars bought a lot of donuts.

  Hundreds of punters, including Calvino, watched the replay of the fourth race. Several Chinese with thick gold necklaces watched the replay on TV through rented binoculars. It was status to use binoculars even if they were trained on a black and white television monitor. Calvino slowly made his way through the crowd, climbed down the terrace and sat beside Fat Stuart. He glanced at Fat Stuart who was slumped to one side. Calvino felt the awkward silence was caused by Saddam coming in next to last. If he had put down a lot of money on Saddam, then he would not have all that much to say either, Calvino thought. Maybe three, four minutes passed before Calvino figured that Fat Stuart wasn’t pouting. He saw that Fat Stuart had a large, half-eaten brownie clutched in one fist, the nails half clawed into the edges. The brownie was the kind filled with raisins and nuts; a brownie that someone like Fat Stuart waddled across a traffic-choked Bangkok street to buy. It wasn’t like Fat Stuart to leave a brownie in his hand that long no matter how depressed he was. Leaning over, Calvino saw that Fat Stuart was staring at the finish line with his eyes fixed, unfocused. He was dead. With a really huge fat man like Stuart it was a close call to know if the man were dead or had just stopped eating and that’s the way he looked in between eating binges. He smelled the brownie, picking up the odor of toxic chemicals. Fat Stuart had finally eaten himself to death with a little help from someone who, if he were still around, had blended into the crowd. Then there was the problem of all that dead weight; he was so fat that he hadn’t fallen over, he simply sagged.

  By the time the police arrived and removed Fat Stuart, the sixth race had finished. The police worked as quietly as they could, given the weight of Fat Stuart. One lucky break was that Fat Stuart had been killed near the bottom of the lower terrace. The only practical way—without going to the time and expense of hiring a crane—to remove the body was to carry it across the racetrack, where an ambulance with a blue light flashing was waiting. Some golfers stopped in the middle of the fairway, talking together, leaning on their clubs, and watched six cops and attendants trying to fit Fat Stuart into the ambulance. The announcer came onto the public address system, and said someone had gotten sick and passed out in the heat. Then he paused for a second, and continued with another announcement, “Dom, the jockey who rode Saddam in the fourth race has been banned for life because he failed to try and win.”

  Bangkok heat rising off the racetrack, some golfers looking up from the green to watch the ambulance carrying Fat Stuart cross through an opening on the members’ entrance side. He made an exit in death that had been denied him in life. A moment later the ambulance was gone and it was as if the entire incident had never happened. Calvino knew a lot of people in Bangkok who were eligible for lifetime bans because they failed to try and win. It was stinking hot on the concrete terrace. He thought about Fat Stuart being the kind of guy who had tried to win one too many times and something had chopped him down, chewed him up, and spit him out. Bangkok numbered one less crooked jeweler.

  TWO

  GOING NAKED

  MS. ALICE DUGAN asked her secretary to make an appointment with Mr. Vincent Calvino, private investigator, at ten in the morning. She showed up carrying a briefcase and mobile phone, running more than thirty minutes late. After she had climbed the two flights of stairs to Calvino’s office, she arrived out of breath. Winded, she explained to Ratana, Calvino’s secretary, that she had been delayed in a massive traffic jam on Sukhumvit and then got lost. The traffic jam was the big, easy lie everyone used and just about no one ever got called on. The lie that allowed a couple of hours for a busy executive to spend with his mia noi while assured that his major wife wouldn’t question the heavy traffic excuse. No one with a mistress in Bangkok ever wanted the city’s traffic jams fixed. It was why after twenty years there was still no rapid transit system. And why it would never be fixed. As for getting lost, Calvino had discovered most people who came to his office were lost in one way or another.

  But hearing the excuses from Ms. Dugan, Ratana responded with a suspicious smile; when a farang lied through their teeth, it gave her more evidence that most people were pretty much the same underneath. Ratana had a sixth sense about the farangs—with all their love of logic and rationality, it didn’t bring them all that much happiness, and like just about anyone she had ever met, if they got trapped in a corner, the gloves came off and they came out swinging just like you would expect.

  Ms. Dugan, early 30s, short blond hair, dark business suit, unpolished nails, a trace of lipstick, looked like she had spent a lot of serious work-time between smiles. It didn’t improve her mood when Ratana told her that she had to wait until her boss got off the phone.

  “Could you inform him that Ms. Alice Dugan, Canadian Embassy, is here?” she asked, drumming her fingers on her briefcase. Ratana looked at Dugan’s name card—her title was Third Secretary.

  Ratana knew one thing about her boss: he wouldn’t be all that impressed. She could have been the Ambassador and it wouldn’t have mattered to him, she would have had to wait until he finished talking with Patten. The client always came first, he told her. The sudden appearance of the Canadian had surprised Ratana. But nothing surprised Calvino. She stared down the Third Secretary while Calvino was getting an earful on the phone from Patten. The day after Fat Stuart’s murder, Patten had sent one of his boys to Calvino’s office with the money. That was mid-morning. An early time for a guy like Patten.

  Ratana scribbled a note, moved out from her desk, in a short silk dress and sleek nylons, walked a few feet around the partition, and gave Calvino a note. He looked down and read her note.

  “White bitch sharpening her nails. She looks dangerous.” They exchanged a smile as he continued to listen to Patten’s

  instructions about the trip to Cambodia. There was fear in Patten’s voice, thought Calvino. Patten’s words had a fatigued, sweat-like quality to them.

  When Ratana walked back to her desk, she saw that Ms. Dugan was looking at Calvino’s ticket on Cambodian Airlines to Phnom Penh. She had caught her in the act of snooping. Ms. Dugan blushed, her pale face going red like a sunset straight through her scalp.

  “You’re interested in Mr. Calvino’s travel plans?” asked Ratana.

  “I saw Angkor Wat on the cover of the ticket.”

  Unlike the excuse about traffic jams, this was a makeshift, transparent lie, and Ratana, who had worked for Calvino long enough to make the cultural leap required to confront someone caught in a misdeed, took the ticket, dropped it in her desk drawer, and slammed it shut.

  “Curiosity killed the rat,” said Ratana. “Isn’t that an American expression?”

  “Killed the cat,” said Ms. Dugan. “And I’m Canadian.” Ratana smiled, locking her desk drawer. The Thai woman and mem farang, like competition swimmers, eyed each other as if they were standing at the edge of the pool and waiting for the starter’s signal.

  “I like rat better,” she said. “When I go to someone’s office, I don’t read what’s on their desk. Maybe the Canadian Embassy does things differently? But in Thailand we think that is rude, Ms. Dugan. Maybe you didn’t know how we feel, so I thought I might point it out. You don’t point with your foot and you don’t sneak around on someone’s desk when their back’s turned. You follow those rules and I think you’ll enjoy your time in the Kingdom.”

  Calvino stayed on the phone and listened to Pa
tten’s views on who had wanted Fat Stuart dead. It was a long list and writing down the names had kept Ms. Dugan of the Canadian Embassy waiting in his secretary’s alcove for another ten minutes. Calvino pulled the phone away from his ear, looking down at the list of possible killers and listening to the tiny distant voice of Patten.

  “That fat piece of French shit would die at the racetrack,” said Patten. “Eating a fucking brownie. Fat Stuart had no class. He never had any class, Calvino. But it doesn’t matter. His fat ass is a buffet for three hundred acres of worms. I want you to find this cocksucker Mike Hatch. Hey, but I’m reasonable, if he isn’t around, fuck, he isn’t around. The worst thing that happens is that I have to spend his forty-five grand.”

  Ratana talked to Ms. Dugan about a movie playing in Washington Square, it was a doomed romance, and Ratana was about to ask if there was any other kind, when she saw the red light on Calvino’s phone go out, meaning the call to Patten had ended. Ratana showed Ms. Dugan to a chair in front of Calvino’s desk. He sat with his jacket off, wearing a white shirt, blue tie, and his leather shoulder holster strapped on the left side, with his .38 Police Special inside. He held up two fingers as Ms. Dugan came in. Her face was still flushed from Ratana’s lecture. The Thais were supposed to avoid confrontation, criticism, she thought, watching Calvino hands folded behind his head. She was confused and angry. Calvino looked her over in a way that made her feel uncomfortable. Having a miserable day, for an Embassy official , translated into coming out second best with a private eye’s Thai secretary.

  “Your secretary’s very direct for a Thai.” These were the first words out of Ms. Dugan’s mouth. The gun he openly wore startled her and she couldn’t take her eyes off it or Calvino. “It’s probably something to do with her working environment. Daily exposure to clients with more than their fair share of character abnormalities.”

  She slowly sat down opposite his desk, giving him her name card, staring at his gun. He looked Italian mixed with something else, olive skin, black hair combed back from his forehead and black eyes that locked on, looking into places where eyes shouldn’t be examining. She had seen his file at the Embassy—“Vincent ‘Vinee’ Calvino, ex-lawyer, forty-three years old, born New York City, has lived in Bangkok for the past nine years. Occupation: private investigator. Long-time connection with Police Lt.Col. Prachai Chongwatana aka ‘Pratt’. Lives in a slum. Has gun license. Marital status: divorced. Cur- rent status: ex-wife, one daughter, an ex-Japanese girlfriend. Girlfriend returned to Japan. No known hobbies. No friends except Thai police colonel. License to carry concealed weapon. Keeps to himself when not working. Handles difficult cases. Difficult to handle. He should be approached with extreme caution.”

  Calvino stared at her as she fumbled to unfasten the latch on her black executive briefcase. But he was slow to show his hand. It was better to let her reveal exactly why this urgent appointment she had made and nearly broken was so important. She started slapping papers on Calvino’s desk.

  “Where you from?” he asked. “Vancouver,” she said.

  “Thought you people in Vancouver didn’t much care for Quebec.”

  She ignored his statement.

  “Is that gun loaded?” she finally asked.

  “Do you always ask a lot of personal questions?”

  “It would be personal if I asked if you were loaded.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Score one goal for your side, Ms. Dugan.”

  “I figure you are the kind of farang who likes young girls.”

  Calvino clasped his hands behind his head, trying to decide what this Embassy type was really after. “I never ask a woman her age, Ms. Dugan,” said Calvino. “But I do have one rule—I never body-check anyone against the boards if she’s under 39 kilos. Otherwise you can end up spending a lot of time in the penalty box.”

  “I suppose that’s a joke?” she asked. “Because if it is, then it’s in very bad taste.”

  He looked at his watch. “Talking about bad taste or what tastes bad, I suspect you came around to talk about Fat Stuart. The four-hundred-pound French-Canadian who was always hungry. Why would the Embassy send around their Third Secretary? Aren’t you the resident spook?”

  His question made her wince.

  “Am I right?” he asked. “You have ten minutes to tell me why Canadian Intelligence is concerned over L’Blanc’s death, then I’ve gotta go. Another appointment. Hey, it just occurred to me. Did Fat Stuart ever play hockey in Montreal?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “I guess it’s not. So what is the point?”

  She started again, this time from the script she had practiced in the taxi to Calvino’s office. She was upset with herself that she had allowed him to distract her.

  “Stuart L’Blanc happened to come from a very good, prominent family in Montreal. And the family has asked the Canadian Embassy to follow up on their son’s death.”

  “That’s enough to send the resident covert agent to my office?”

  “You were the last person to speak with him before he died. They would very much like to know the content of that conversation,” she said, balancing a pad on her knee, a pen ready to take down Calvino’s reply.

  “He gave me a tip on a horse named Saddam. The horse lost. A lethal brownie whacked Fat Stuart. Saddam’s jockey was suspended for life for not trying. About the same thing happened to Fat Stuart.”

  “Did you often go to the racetrack with Mr. L’Blanc?” she asked.

  “No.” He looked down at the long list of names of possible candidates that Patten had given him.

  “Were you a friend of Mr. L’Blanc?”

  “No. We never exchanged jewelry.” As far as he could remember Fat Stuart didn’t have friends. He only had appetites and ex-cellmates.

  “Did you know him well?” “No.”

  “Do you ever worry about the size of your cock?”

  Calvino paused for a couple of seconds. “No.” He let the silence produce a little heat.

  “Should I?” he added.

  Ms. Dugan looked up from her pad, teeth clenched, and tapped her pen on the pad, thinking she had written on what the file had said about Calvino, “Difficult to handle. White Male Asshole.”

  “Would you lie to me?” she asked.

  “Why would a white male asshole do that?” he asked, breaking into a smile.

  She turned her note pad over and took a deep breath. “We believe Mr. L’Blanc might have been involved with a criminal element and they might be responsible for his death,” she said.

  “You see, Ms. Dugan, it is usually the criminal element that is responsible for killing someone. If you check Fat Stuart’s background in Bangkok, you’ll find he only associated with people in the criminal element. Or who sold food.”

  “Does that include you, Mr. Calvino?”

  “I didn’t associate with Fat Stuart. I knew him to see him in Washington Square. He spent a lot of time feeding there. And I made the mistake of betting on a horse he tipped to win.”

  “Why were you at the racetrack that day?” “Looking for a winner,” he said.

  “Or looking for Mr. L’Blanc?”

  “He wasn’t someone who got lost in a crowd.” “This isn’t a joke, Mr. Calvino.”

  “No one is laughing, Ms. Dugan.”

  Calvino stood up, looked down at his desk as if he had forgotten something, stretched his arms forward, then slowly unsnapped his shoulder holster. He carefully wrapped the straps around the holster and the .38 Police Special, putting them in the bottom drawer. He pulled out his worn, dog-eared American passport and laid it down with a snap.

  She watched him lock the desk drawer and put a well-worn Thai International business class key ring into his pocket. “It’s called going naked.” She said it loud enough for Ratana to hear her on the opposite side of the partition.

  His head popped up, he was still tugging on the drawer to make sure it was secure. He tried but failed not to look surprised, and she liked th
at feeling of taking him off guard. “That’s right. Going naked.” He couldn’t quite figure her. She knew the slang of the streetwise farangs, the wise guys who talked in this kind of code, having picked it up from a TV show or a Mafia movie. In Ms. Dugan’s case, it was likely she had picked up the term in her training as a spook.

  Calvino reached over, pulled his cotton jacket off a hanger and slipped it on. It was navy blue, tailored, fit like a glove.

  He straightened his Jim Thompson silk tie in the mirror, catching the Third Secretary’s eye in the reflection. She watched him dressing like a man watching a girl dancing in a bar. She tried to cover it up with some childlike doodles of a gun—AK47 was his guess—on the side of her note pad.

  “If you look over the police report which you already have, you’ll find a very complete statement. If it’s not in the report, then you better believe it wasn’t important,” he said. As he finished with his tie, Ratana slipped around the partition, noiseless, catlike.

  “The car for the airport is here, Mr. Calvino,” she said, looking down at Ms. Dugan, smiling. But there was no warmth. Ratana was flashing one of her trademark smiles—the one she reserved for people who made her feel uneasy—the smile which showed a lot of teeth. She made a great show of handing the air ticket to Calvino. Ms. Dugan’s face had turned the shade of red you find painted on Chinese gold shops in Bangkok. Ratana seemed to grow taller in her bare stockinged feet, savoring the moment before returning out of sight to her desk.