Colin Cotterill - Thirty-Three Teeth

“I don’t blame you.”

“Right. So she kicked up a fuss and I told her I wasn’t even supposed to be talking to her till I saw an Int5Q, so she should go away and come back with some paperwork. I asked her, “Where do you think the country would be if everyone conducted his or her daily business without the correct forms?’”

“Good for you.”

“I can’t even tell you what she said to that. I said ‘Good day’ and went back to my deskwork. She stormed out, and I suppose I eventually calmed down and forgot about her. I found myself engrossed in a rejac. budg. requisition that needed some backup Rll’s. I’m a bit short-staffed right now. Normally I’d have a girl running back and forth to the cabinet room for files, but these days I’m having to do it myself. So I went next door and what do you know? The door was locked. I banged and banged and who should come to the door?”

“I think I know.”

“Her, brazen as anything, comes and opens the door. And she has the nerve to tell me she took a wrong turn and got herself locked in that room with the files. A likely story I do not think. I mean, the lock’s on the inside for the first thing, and there she was opening it. I was flabbergasted. I’d never seen such abuse of the regulations.

“Of course, what I should have done at that point was restrain her and call for security, the police even. But, well, she was a big girl and I’m not a physically well person, so I instructed her to leave, forthwith. Would you believe she strolled past me smiling without a glimmer of guilt?”

“I would.” He fought back his own smile.

“What?”

“I mean, she’s a hardened criminal. These people have no shame. Too bad you don’t know what file she was looking at.”

“Ha. Not know? You don’t think I could spend over a year setting up this system and not know what’s been tampered with? She didn’t even bother to put it back in the drawer straight. DC19368.3. That, Comrade, is a criminal record file.”

“I wish all our witnesses were as diligent as you, comrade. I’m afraid I’ll have to take a look at that file. It’s the only evidence we have against her.”

“What’s her name?”

“Her name? We refer to her as … as HJJ838.”

The man jotted it down.

Twenty minutes later, Siri walked out of the Corrections Department into a brick wall of dry heat. It had to be the hottest damned year he’d ever known. There hadn’t been more than a sneeze of rain since last December. Nothing was really green anymore.

A depleted flock of bicycle taxi pedalers wilted on their back seats beneath the gray leaves of a peacock-tail tree.

“Good health,” Siri said hopefully.

“Good health, Uncle,” a couple replied. They’d seen him arrive on his motorcycle, so they knew there was no chance of a fare.

“Hot, isn’t it?”

“Damned hot.”

“I don’t suppose any of you recall giving a ride to a nurse here this morning, do you? About nine?”

“I do,” said a bare-chested young man with a stack of coat hangars inside his skin. “There was a heavy one this morning. It was me that took her.”

“Remember where to?”

“Out to Silver City, Uncle. Almost killed me it did, day like this.” “Thank you.”

Siri was on his way back to his bike when he glanced across the street. In the heat that shimmered up from the pavement, he saw Saloop sitting with his long tongue flopping out of his mouth.

“Saloop?” Siri said. “What the heck are you doing here?”

He remembered the old Lassie black and white films he’d seen at Le Cine in Paris. Perhaps his dog had come to tell him there was danger back at the house. He couldn’t think how he’d traced him here. He waited for an old Vietnamese truck to pass before going across to see. But once the vehicle and its trailer of tarry black smog had cleared the lane, Saloop had gone.

“I never will get that dog,” Siri said to himself.

Before the Silver City trip, Siri stopped off at the morgue to see whether Dtui had made an appearance. All he found was Geung sweeping grooves into the concrete floor. At the hospital administration office, Siri called Phosy and by a one-in-a-hundred chance found him at his desk. He told Siri about the appointment he’d completely forgotten the previous evening with Dr. Vansana. He also told him to call back if Dtui still hadn’t shown up by five. It was already nearly four.

There was one more stop before Silver City. He arrived at the ugly shanty behind the high wall of the national stadium and walked along the narrow dirt lane, wading through a flock of newborn chicks. At Dtui’s banana-leaf door, he called out Manoluk’s name before going in.

“Ooh, come in, Doctor. Haven’t seen you for ages.”

Dtui’s mother lay as always on the thin mattress in the center of the room. The head of the standing fan cluttered and groaned back and forth but did a poor job of lowering the temperature in the stuffy slum. She’d never looked well in all the time Siri had known her, but she’d looked a lot worse than she did today. He didn’t want to distress her by discussing Dtui’s disappearance.

“Good health, Mrs. Manoluk. How you feeling?”

“Just fine,” she lied. “What brings you?”

“I was visiting the family of one of our deceased around here,” he lied back. “Thought I’d drop in and see how you’re doing.”

He reached into his shoulder bag for his traveling doctor kit.

“Actually, I haven’t been in the morgue all day. I hope Dtui’s looking after the show for me.”

“Must be, Doctor. She left here bright and early this morning. Can’t think where else she’d be, unless she took off across the river.”

This was a long-standing joke in Vientiane. If so-and-so was late or his brother missed a day at work, they’d talk about him taking a swim to Thailand. It was only partly said in jest, as there were very few of the population of 150,000 who hadn’t given it a thought.

“No plans to go and have her hair done, manicure?”

“Goodness me, no. Can you imagine Dtui with a permanent wave?”

Damn. So, whatever came up was sudden and unplanned. Before leaving, as was his habit, he gave the old woman a checkup. They chatted, and he left some herbal tea to help her sleep. There were the constant cries of babies, the yelling of neighbors, the dogs. He wasn’t sure tea would help her sleep through that. He really needed to get her into a better place.

He was on his motorcycle, heading at last to Silver City. It was like riding into the blast of a hair-dryer set on hot. The sweat that had soaked him at Manoluk’s dried the moment he stepped out into the sunshine. Now his shirt was burning his skin. The heat didn’t help his troubles at all. There was one thing he couldn’t get out of his mind. Dtui was one of the world’s great carers. She knew about Geung’s condition and that he’d be frantic with worry about her. She wasn’t the type to be away all day without getting word back to him. Siri was sure something had happened to her.

For the first time, his wrinkled letter didn’t impress the guards at the gate of the Secret Police hq one little bit. The man on his stepladder looked down through the peep hatch and read it while Siri held it up to him.

“No. Nothing to do with us. Sorry, Comrade. Can’t let you in.”

After a good deal of contrived pouting and hammering and threatening from the doctor, the guard brought his commanding officer who, in turn, brought Mr. Phot, the interpreter. They still wouldn’t let Siri inside, but they did allow Phot to go out and talk to him. He brought out a large white parasol and opened it over their heads.