Lawrence Block - The Scoreless Thai (aka Two For Tanner)

“You must sleep,” he assured me. “You must spend a week doing nothing but sleeping and drinking the tea. Or you will die.”

And then I had told him why I couldn’t sleep, not the medical reasons but the immediate, practical ones. A Senegalese princess and a Thai agent of France were under sentence of death in Tao Dan. It was my mission to rescue them and rush them to safety in Paris. In their hands, I said, they held the future of the French colonial empire in the Orient.

Perhaps, I suggested, he had comrades in the area, other men who had known the glory of French leadership, other men whose thoughts and feelings were akin to his own. Men who would help us in our noble task, men who would join with us to…

As rhetoric goes, it certainly went. I don’t think I could do it justice in English, but the French language is an ideal vehicle for the expression of such sentiments. The speech fired the old man’s blood – it was even beginning to rouse me, for that matter – but at the end he merely shook his head.

“I am such a man,” he said unhappily, “but I know no others. This is a nation of slaves and fools and traitors, and the times are bad. Here there are only knaves who bow down to those in power and peasants whose thoughts never rise beyond their rice bowls and their yokes and plows. If the Communists seize a man’s bullock, he puts the yoke upon his wife’s shoulders. If they beat him, he apologizes. If they kick him, he polishes their shoes with his tongue.”

“If we had just a few men-”

“But there are none but myself.”

I sank back on the straw pallet. I had succeeded only in wasting more precious time, the time I had spent walking from the village and the time it would take me to return to it. It was hopeless, and I should have known as much, but there was nothing else to be done and no one else to whom I could turn.

“You say that this son and daughter of the beautiful France are in the command headquarters?”

I gulped herb tea. Hopeless, I thought. Better to stay on the old man’s floor until the fever either ran its course or killed me. Better to keep out of Tao Dan entirely and later to make my way back through Thailand to Bangkok. Better to let them lop off Dhang’s head and Tuppence’s head. If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you –

“My young friend, are you awake?”

“Yes, why?”

“You did not seem to hear me. I asked if your allies are being held in the command headquarters.” I nodded. “And there is how much time until the murder?”

“A few hours.”

“If you could gain access to the command post, if you could manage to slip inside, would you have any chance of success?”

“Possibly, I don’t know. But the guards-”

“Perhaps I can dispose of the guards.”

“How?”

He held up a hand and waved the question aside. An odd smile played on his thin old lips. I finished the tea, and he dipped my cup into the pot and filled it again. I sipped it and looked up at him. He was humming the “Marseillaise.”

“Le jour de gloire,” he sang softly. His eyes flashed at me. “Perhaps the day of glory has indeed arrived, my little friend. Perhaps it is so. Do you think it is possible?”

“I don’t understand.”

“We must return to town,” he said. “Finish your tea, there is time. I will lead the animal, and you must ride in the cart. You will need your strength later in the day. The day of glory. When you leave the building, how will you flee the town? Have you a plan?”

“No.”

“There is a river east of the town. If you had a small boat moored at the bank, it would be a great asset to you, would it not? Gold will buy a boat. There is enough left of what you have given me.”

“But-”

“No time, not now. Finish your tea, that is a good boy. Can you get to your feet? I will help you-”

“I can manage.”

“Good, very good. And now we will go to town, but first you must darken your face once more. Was it my tobacco that you used?”

“Yes.”

“I hope there is enough left to do the job. Go ahead, it is all right. I will not need more now. Go ahead.”

The taste of the tobacco almost made me sick again, but I chewed it and rubbed the resulting liquid into my face. I gave my hands and forearms the same treatment. It didn’t take so long this time, perhaps because the fever was beginning to endow me with a yellowish color all my own.

“And now we go,” he said. “You will mingle with the crowds, you will stay close to the entrance of the command headquarters. I will see to the rest.”

“What time-”

“You will know when it is time, my friend. I only hope that it can be done before it is too late.”

I don’t remembervery much of the ride to town. I kept telling myself over and over again that I couldn’t have plague or cholera and that I had not yet been bitten by a rabid skunk. Nor had I walked through any caves cluttered with bat crap. I would tell myself this, and then the fever would pick up steam again, and I would become slightly delirious. I was in fairly good control of myself, however. Each time I had to vomit, I managed to lean over the side of the cart.

In Tao Dan the old man parked the bullock and took me to a little restaurant. He knew the proprietor and spoke rapidly to him before leading me to a small booth at the rear. Then he pressed a few well-creased little bank notes into my mind.

“I have told him to continue bringing you cups of herbal tea,” he said. “I have said that you have a weakness of the brain and cannot speak clearly. Thus it will not be necessary for you to say anything, and you may remain here until I return. No one will disturb you.”

I nodded.

“I will be back shortly. I will arrange for a boat. I had thought to take you with me, but it may be more readily done this way. Then I will tell you how to find the boat after I return. You will wait here? You will not move?”

“There is little time-”

“I know. I shall not be long.”

He left. I looked down at the table top. It was wooden, and the finish had long ago been worn away. My eyes saw intricate patterns in the scarred surface, patterns alive with aesthetic implications. Fever does weird things to one’s mind.

Then the waitress was bringing my cup of herb tea. She was a tiny thing and looked to be about twelve years old. I thought at first that she was a very pretty child, but when I looked more closely, I saw that one of her eyes was missing. The empty socket was black inside. She smiled shyly and set the tea down before me. I tried not to look at her face. I felt tears welling up behind my own eyes and blamed them on the fever. The world, after all, is filled with blind children who envy the one-eyed ones, and legless men who envy cripples, and millionaires who envy billionaires. One has to maintain a sense of proportion…

I smiled at the girl. I held my thumb and forefinger an inch apart, brought them to my lips, and made chewing motions.

“You are to have only tea,” she said. “You are not to have food. The man said.”

I shook my head, smiled again, and went through the routine once more. This time I made motions of chewing and spitting, chewing and spitting.

“Not food?”

I shook my head.

She smiled, pleased with the game. “Show me again.” I did. “Betel nut? You wish betel nut?”

I smiled and nodded enthusiastically. “I will get it for you. I ask my father if you may have. You wait.”

She rushed away. In a few moments she came tripping back with a slice of betel nut wrapped in the usual leaf. The flavoring agent was different from that used in Dhang’s betel but by no means unpleasant. I smiled my thanks, chewed, spat. The girl giggled happily, made a small but very courtly bow, and scampered away.