Lawrence Osborne - Hunters in the Dark

It was now midday. The cop was reading a paper in a deck chair under the shade of a monkeypod and, lowering the paper, he looked up with a calm, cynical clairvoyance as the ancient car rattled its way toward his two-lane bridge. He stood, like the others, and sauntered out into the heat and held up his hand. His two men were off on an errand and he was alone for an hour — all the more reason to assert himself with a certain amount of firmness. He stepped in front of the Saber and brought it to a halt and, without smiling, induced Simon’s face to protrude through the opened window.

Davuth Vichea spoke enough English to wring a modest profit from a passing foreigner, and he knew enough to do it unobtrusively.

“Good morning,” he said, and dipped his head to catch sight of the Khmer girl in the seat next to the barang. So that was an inconvenience. “Where are you going?” he said in Khmer to Sothea.

But it was Simon who answered in that same language.

“We’re going to a lodge up the mountain.”

“You speak Khmer?”

Simon smiled and that was enough.

“What is that place called?” Davuth asked.

“It’s called Moonrise Lodge.”

“The Scot?”

“The Scot is my friend.”

“Ah, so the Scot is your friend.” The policeman rocked back on his heels and laughed. “His name is Michael, na?”

“Micky, yes.”

“Yes, Ta Mick. A dangerous man!”

“He’s a little odd.”

“And he is your friend?”

“Yes. Did you know — he has a piece of shrapnel lodged in his head?”

“A piece of shrapnel?”

“Yes, a piece of shrapnel. It is why—”

Davuth rubbed his chin. “I did not know that Ta Mick had a piece of shrapnel in his head.”

“In his frontal lobes, na. It is a war wound.”

“A piece of shrapnel — in his head. It would explain his behavior.”

They exchanged a manly laugh.

“Well,” Davuth went on, “what is your name, friend of Ta Mick?”

“My name is Robert O’Grieve.”

“Are you going there with your girlfriend?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is she legal age?”

“Of course she is. She’s twenty-five.”

“And you?”

“Twenty-eight.”

“Well, you’ll have to pay the toll anyway. It’s ten dollars this time.”

Simon didn’t object at all.

“Are you staying the night at Moonrise?” Davuth asked.

“Maybe a night or two. We like the nature. My girlfriend likes the woods.”

“Is that right?”

Davuth smiled at the girl. She was, indeed, quite pretty and definitely under twenty-five.

“Is that right, miss?”

“Yes,” she said, not looking back at him.

“Well, isn’t that fine?”

Pocketing the ten dollars, Davuth stepped back from the car and looked down its length, taking in the scratched doors, the dusty hubs and the fenders about to fall off. There was a smell of drugs about the whole thing. He thought for a moment of making this wretch open the trunk and show him the contents and he was sure he would find the goods. The bribe then would be astronomical. The barang would beg and sweat. It would be gratifying, but the sun was now on his back and he felt an angry weariness and an indifference even to the prospect of quick money. The irritation of heat and weariness. One never knew with these people. They often had the strangest connections in higher places, one had to tread lightly with them. Whites were bags of tricks. They could die like a fly or kick up a fuss. His commander back in the day had killed one once with a pickaxe and it did not feel right. Now they were still rich but Davuth made his calculation and stepped back from the provocation. He waved at the road, and there was a curt permission in his hand, a tired relaxation of his authority. Yet his eye didn’t miss anything.

“He’s the bastard to watch,” the girl said as they went past him and she looked quickly over her shoulder and caught the sun shining on his pitted face and the leather of the holster.

The man even smiled at her.

“Never mind him,” Simon said.

“No, he’s watching us.”

“He’s just a cop like all cops. They don’t pay them.”

The girl knew better, she knew her own people better.

They came into the upland woods. The road ran past a large house with a dog tethered in the yard and shiny black chickens and a Land Rover too grand for its surroundings. Farther on there was a sign for Moonrise. The road there was like a mud footpath, the trees vaulting it.

At the top the forest cleared and they could hear the sound of a forceful river. In the clearing were a handful of wooden buildings and a tree house with vines falling down from it. When the engine cut they heard the river even more clearly, its rippling suddenly loud in the silence, and they saw the main house which must have been made from scratch by the owner himself. It was wide open with a kind of loggia festooned with wind chimes.

The Scot was in the sunlight in the middle of his property cutting blocks of wood with an axe. He was naked but for a Khmer sarong and his sweat glistened on the tattoos covering his white skin. He had noticed them but continued with his task. The axe came down and the splinters flew and then finally he stopped and turned and looked over at the Saber now parked at the edge of the clearing.

—

They got out and walked over to the loggia and the Scot came over with his axe and, after a delayed reaction, smiled at the American whom he now recognized. It was the shabby outfit that had thrown him. He took in the lovely but run-down Khmer girl and he got the picture at once and called over to his maid to make some tea and bring it out onto the loggia.

“We need to hang out for a couple of days,” Simon said matter-of-factly. “I can pay this time.”

“I’m glad of that.”

“I got a lucky break and some cash.”

“Did ye now?”

“Yeah, I got a lucky streak at the Diamond.”

“Fuck ye, I cannae believe it.”

The bright heat of the day had reached its climax and now the rain would come back. They sat on cushions, in a vast woodland loneliness, and Sothea looked up at the homemade lamps that were hung above the tables. They were made out of old tank shell casings.

“Aye,” the Scot said to her, “everything’s made from munitions I found on my land.”

“You’re crazy,” she said in Khmer.

“That’s the truth,” he said in the same language.

“Look, Mick,” Simon began at once, “I got some stuff as well which I might want to keep here. Are you gonna mind?”

“The wife says no to drugs from nae on.”

“The wife? You’re married?”

“Got married last month to a farm girl. She’s a right-on Buddhist.”

“Fuck. You don’t say.”

“I do say and she says no drugs on the premises.”

“Well, Christ, Mick, look — I can’t risk running around with bags of that shit, not after my win at the Diamond. You know how word gets around. Every punk in the neighborhood will know it’s me. It’s like having a price on my head. You know that. Explain that to your missus.”

“There’s no explaining anything to her. No drugs is no drugs.”

“All right, so you want us to die?”

Mick had his laugh and eventually so did the other two.

“Who’s talking about dying, ye little prick? Just cart it around with ye. And don’t get high every fooking day.”

“At least we can stay here two nights, no?”

“As ye can see, there’s no one here. Though we’re expecting an English couple tonight.”

“An English couple?”

“Aye, in case ye didn’t notice, it’s a fooking hotel.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter. They’re foreigners anyway.”

“You can stay as long as ye like. Just keep a lid on it.”