Colin Cotterill - Slash and Burn

“I’m really in a tough situation here,” Bounchu said softly. “The prime minister really wants this mission to go well and he insisted I do everything humanly possible to convince you. I don’t want to put any pressure on you, comrade. I know what you’ve been through. But, surely for old time’s sake you could help me out just this once. Five days in the north? Is that too much to ask?”

Siri shook his head slowly.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“I’d consider it a personal favor.”

“There might be a way.”

“Name it.”

“So, tell me again,” said Madame Daeng.

“No matter how many times I tell it, the story won’t change,” Siri assured her. “Unless of course you ask me again in three weeks by which time I will have forgotten the original story and be forced to come up with something far more entertaining to tell you.”

Siri was attempting to understand American culture by reading Henry James’s The American , translated into French. But either the translator lacked the ability to extract the precious ore from the dense seams in James’s prose, or James learned his craft writing radio scripts for Thai soap operas. Either way, Siri’s confidence was beginning to ebb. He doubted the book would help him understand Americans in the three weeks he had left to familiarize himself. He was thinking of switching to Melville. He had other translated works in his secret library: Harper Lee, even Scott Fitzgerald. He firmly believed that you could learn most about a people by reading the works their academics convinced them were worthy of the title “classical.”

“Then let me just see if I’ve got the facts right,” Daeng continued. She was standing in the doorway of the Paiboun memorial library-their back bedroom-with her arms folded. “Call me cynical if you like….”

“I would never dare.”

“But, for some reason, none of this seems to ring true.”

“Then I must be lying. I’m hurt.”

“Siri, I would never accuse you of lying even if I know for a fact that you were. It’s not what a good wife does. But you do have the ability to leave out strategic parts of stories and what remains, although not exactly a lie, plays a substantially different tune to the truth.”

“So sing me what you have.”

“Minister Bounchu calls you into his office and asks you to lead a team-”

“Technically, General Suvan’s the team leader.”

“Right. But he drools a lot and forgets where he is. He’s obviously only on the team as a charitable political appointee. His name was next in line for a junket.”

“A fair appraisal.”

“And, with no pressure whatsoever from you, no coercion or bribery, the minister accepts the list of names you put together for a task force to head off into the jungle with the Americans. And your list just happens to include your wife, your nurse and her husband, your morgue assistant and your best friend.”

“And Commander Lit from Vieng Xai.”

“Who you befriended on a case.”

“He’s a good man.”

“And Minister Bounchu said, “Good one, Siri. Nice choices.”

“Something not unlike that, yes.”

“Siri?”

“Yes?”

“Did you blackmail the Minister of Justice?”

“How could you even suggest such a thing?”

“Threaten to expose something from his past? Things only a doctor would know?”

“I told you about that?”

“Siri?”

“Absolutely not.”

“You know I’ll find out eventually.”

“Yes, but I enjoy your interrogation methods. Come on, Daeng. We’ll have a grand old time.”

“Which brings me to the purpose of this mission; what you’ve been calling our group vacation to the northeast. We are to team up with a bunch of American professionals and head off into the jungle to look for the remains of a downed aircraft.”

“And its pilot.”

“And you believe this trip won’t be stressful? You do remember you’re convalescing?”

“A stroll in the cool forests. A little scoop here and there with a trowel. Lunch and a little rice whiskey with friendly local hill tribesmen. What better than a week in the cool fresh mountain air of Xiang Khouang? In Europe they pay huge sums of money for alpine spa retreats and here we are getting paid to attend one. Explain to me how that could be a bad thing, Madame Daeng. Nothing to worry about at all.”

“I’d like to believe so. Because it might have escaped your memory but not two months ago you were knocking on death’s door … from the inside. And trouble finds you, Siri Paiboun.”

“Trust me. Nothing can go wrong this time.”

5

CUEBALL DAVE

Cueball Dave still insisted on the ponytail. He got comments about it all the time. They called him pathetic. Guys over fifty don’t put their hair in a ponytail, they said. It’s an act of desperation, they said, especially when the top of your head’s as white and shiny as a cue ball, hence the nickname. But Cueball Dave didn’t care what they thought. He didn’t want to look like all those other old fogies. It gave him a style. Told them all he wasn’t a bank manager. Told them he had a wild background. And the girls in Pattaya loved tugging on that little tail of his.

He had a comfortable life. He’d lived in Thailand for ten years and couldn’t speak a word of Thai. Waste of time. Stupid tones he couldn’t get his tongue round, and besides, all the night people spoke some kind of English. He had a condominium room he’d bought and paid for, had shares in a restaurant he ate at, a regular bar he drank at, and a dozen or so regular serious night-time relationships. He had a wife and kids somewhere back in Boston, and a pilot’s licence, canceled, in some bureaucrat’s drawer in DC. Life had become very simple for Cueball Dave. There were those who could only dream of such a life. But Dave was always looking for more. Always had his eye open for something better. And then, in a moment of brilliance, he made it happen. Things were about to change.

He was out on the town celebrating his good fortune. He was in a Johnny Walker atmosphere vacuum where everything outside the bubble wasn’t really happening. He might not have been in that bar at all. In front of his nose were the ankles and too-large stiletto heels of a girl in a bikini, dancing-kind of. Some sixties rock was bellowing out of the speakers and there was a sweaty stale strawberry-tinted smell in the air. A dozen cheap air-fresheners hung behind the bar like decorations. A well-groomed homo was making eyes at him from across the stage. There was a gibbon on a chain begging drinks. Someone had rung the free-shots-for-everyone bell by accident earlier and the bar stewards had beaten him up when he refused to pay. Dave was on his third beer mat. The first two were his fretwork initials now. The drunk he’d been talking to had vanished. He wondered how long he’d been alone. He held on to his glass as if he might tip backwards off the stool should he let go of it. Then someone stepped inside his vacuum.

“Excuse me.”

Cueball Dave swiveled his neck around slowly as if it was starting to rust and saw the homo standing there. He was dressed as a man but any Asian in a place like this was after something.

“Look, son. I don’t-” he started.

“I’m sorry to trouble you, but aren’t you David Leon?”

“I might be.”

“You don’t remember me? I was one of your flight mechanics at Udon. Manuel Castillo. Manny. From the Philippines?”

“Well, yeah. Sure,” said Dave. He had no idea who this boy was but he didn’t want to make himself sound like he thought all Asians looked the same. Young for a field mechanic though. Perhaps he’d met him. Too much of a coincidence for it to be a pickup line.