Lawrence Osborne - Hunters in the Dark

He said, “If you ever say anything I’ll come down there and shoot you myself. I’ll blow your head off like a chicken. I’ll come and shoot you in the head and say you were a suspect in a murder and that’s all, you’ll be forgotten.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We’re clear then.”

Davuth relaxed. The worm was a worm now, but he was not yet properly crushed.

What about the barang?

“Where did the barang get all this money?”

Ouksa said he had no idea.

“No idea? You’re a liar, you—”

Davuth stepped up to him and took him by the throat. He had been a policeman all his life, since he was thirteen or fourteen. He knew how to make fear abundant. He knew how to shake them up and make them think of the afterlife in a mass grave.

“Where did he get it?”

Faltering, Ouksa said, “He stole it.”

“He stole it? Who was he? Who was that rich fuck?”

“He was a drug dealer, sir.”

“From where?”

“American.”

“American—”

“Yes, sir.”

“And he stole it from who?”

Now Ouksa found a petty courage.

“I don’t know. From a barang.”

“You don’t know? Then how do you know he stole it?”

“I heard from the boatman.”

“You’re a liar.”

“No, it’s true. They said—”

“What did they say?”

“—he took it from a barang.”

“Where is that other barang?”

“He left.”

“Who was that boatman, brother?”

“His name is Thy.”

To Davuth it seemed probable enough. He relaxed his grip and the tension ebbed. His point had been made and the driver had been shaken down.

“I’ll give you a hundred,” he said. “For digging that hole and burying their belongings. It’s fair.”

“It’s not much of a deal,” Ouksa dared answer.

“You little worm. You’re the one who did it. You deserve nothing. I could shoot you now — nothing would be said.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Shut up and get digging.”

Davuth went to his car and took out a shovel and threw it at him. He turned on the Saber’s headlights and sat on the bonnet and lit a cigarette. In response, Ouksa looked up at the sky: three hours of dark remaining, maybe two or less. He didn’t know what time it was. He went to the barang’s car and took out all the stuff that was in it and rolled it into the suitcase and dragged it out. It was a task intended to humiliate him and he knew it. Before the belongings were disposed of, however, Davuth sifted through them one last time. There were two shirts and he turned the collars and saw that they were from a tailor in Phnom Penh called Vong.

“Dig the hole properly,” Davuth said, “and don’t be lazy. Dig it a good way in and make it deep.”

—

The rain had now lessened but the ground was soft and sticky. Ouksa went into the cane a fair way and threw down the shovel, then went back to the ditch and began to drag the suitcase over to the same spot. It was an infuriating struggle. His feet slipped in the mud and he was not strong enough to drag it effectively. He couldn’t understand why it was so heavy. It took him the better part of ten minutes to pull the thing out of view of the road and close enough to the shovel. He cursed the policeman and his devious and well-timed arrival and picked up the shovel and began to drive it into the sod between the thick sugarcane stalks. It was a bestial task even if the rain had ceased. When the hole was finished he was exhausted and wiped his face and stood still with his ears alert. Far out in the sugarcane he could hear a distant, tiny sobbing. It was almost like the wail of a small animal, but it was certainly human. The girl, lost and bewildered and alone out there in the sea of cane. He wondered if Davuth heard it too. It was only now, surprisingly, that he thought of the Ap and a cold fear gripped him and he rolled the suitcase into its grave with a furious urgency. He filled it in with the same earth, smacked it down with the back of the shovel and dragged himself to the verge as the light was beginning to change. The policeman was still sitting coolly on the hood as if lost in thought and around him lay a circle of cigarette butts. His cowboy boots had been polished and they had not lost their luster. Ouksa went up to the SUV and laid the shovel against its side and said that it was done.

“Did you pat it down?”

“It looks like nothing’s there.”

Davuth threw the cigarette he was smoking to the ground and then said, “Pick up all the butts and put them in your car. Burn your shoes when you get home. I’m going to say I found a car by the roadside.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ouksa crawled about picking up the butts. Like a dog, the policeman thought. Like a vulture.

Davuth said, “Did you hear something out there?”

“I heard an animal — an animal was crying.”

“There it is again.”

The policeman slid off the hood and walked up to the cane. The sobbing, again. But now so far off they could hardly hear it.

“There was someone else,” he said sharply.

He went back to Ouksa, who had stood up, and slapped him hard in the face.

“There was someone else here.”

“Yes, a girl,” the driver stammered.

“She ran off?”

The driver nodded.

“That’s not very good news.”

“She didn’t see my face.”

“How the fuck do you know what she saw?”

Davuth remembered. The cute Khmer girl who was under twenty-five. Did it matter that she had seen Ouksa’s wretched face?

He pulled out his pistol and walked yet again to the cane and thought about going in and finishing it. But it would be impossible to find her. It was going to have to be the way it was and by and large it would work well enough. It might be more practicable to dispose of Ouksa. He considered it. But no. It would only complicate things further. He reholstered the gun and strolled back to the SUV and smiled at the muddied youth and told him to just drive away and pretend that nothing had happened. He wasn’t very smart, he said to him, but it was better than being the American. He should thank Buddha for being alive and with all his limbs.

“And a hundred dollars better off.”

“Yes, sir.”

“It could have been you,” Davuth said, looking down at the ground to make sure that Ouksa had picked up all the butts. “You’d be reincarnated as a cockroach.”

“I understand,” Ouksa said and bowed his head.

“Now help me carry the American into my car.”

—

They struggled down into the ditch. With difficulty they dragged the body back to the SUV and rolled it into the back. It had a leaden sadness, a pointlessness. Davuth covered it with a towel and then he walked Ouksa over to his car and shone the torch into his face. He saw how colorless and soulless it had become, how his fear had grown and was now uncontrollable. It was gentleness that would seal the affair now. He turned off the beam and sighed and gave Ouksa a cigarette.

He said, “That was a stupid thing you did. Now you’ll have to live with it. Go to the temple and ask forgiveness. Pray and make merit.”

“I will, sir.”

Ouksa was now sobbing, his whole frame shaking.

“I didn’t do it for me—” he began.

“It doesn’t matter who you did it for. You have to make merit.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Make merit and think about your sin.”

“Yes, sir.”

It’s pathetic, Davuth thought, and walked back to his car. Pathetic and necessary.

He took out the passports and looked them over. He had expected one to be the girl’s, but it was not. An Englishman. He turned to Ouksa.

“Who is this?”

“Don’t know, sir.”

“ Robert . You know this one?”