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No one steals from Stereo Thay and gets away. I should have known better, but arrogance from years of being his white puppet blinded me to the danger. Sure, I could have hopped the first plane home, blown my cash in a few weeks paying retail for diluted heroin, and ended up breaking into apartments to pay for my fix. That wasn’t much of an option, so I stayed put waiting for my chance at a big score. When Nahwee told me she knew the combination to Thay’s safe, I put together a plan.
The next time Thay traveled to the Laotian border to meet his supplier, Nahwee smuggled the box out of Thay’s villa and brought it to me. Things went wrong almost from the start. Mechanical problems delayed our flight. Nahwee returned to the villa, so her absence wouldn’t arouse suspicion.
Thay was supposed to be gone for three days, but when Nahwee showed up wild-eyed at my door the next day at midnight, I knew we didn’t have time. I got out with the clothes on my back and a rucksack containing my stash, the money I’d hidden in the toilet tank, my nine-millimeter Beretta, and the box.
The airport was too dangerous, so we boarded a crowded bus south through the jungle that still echoed the memories of mortars and automatic weapons fire. Nahwee rested her head on my shoulder and fell asleep. An old man with skin the color of strong tea stared. His dark eyes smoldered with hatred for her for sleeping with a foreigner. The stench of unwashed bodies and diesel exhaust filled the air. We passed abandoned trucks and the flyblown corpse of a water buffalo that had stepped on a landmine.
When we arrived at Koh Kang, I paid a toothless old woman for a room in a hotel with a faŤade of mildew-stained stucco and rusted wrought iron. I went to check the ferry schedule for the quickest way out. Nahwee stayed behind.
I spotted Thay’s henchman. Thin, quick, and deadly as a butterfly knife, he wore sunglasses and leaned against the ferry terminal’s glossy green walls near the entrance. Thay sure must have wanted the box back. Either that or it was a matter of principle. I turned, struggled against the tide of people, and made it to the street before the thug saw me.
With no way out by sea it was only a matter of time before someone ratted us out. Of course we could go overland, but I didn’t relish hiking through leech-infested jungle while wondering if a landmine would blow my leg off on the next step.
By the time I got back to my room, Nahwee had gotten into my works. Wearing only panties and a T-shirt, she reclined on the bed with her unblemished forearm draped over her eyes. Nahwee preferred shooting up between her toes to keep unsightly tracks from her beautiful arms and legs. The syringe lay on the floor beside a burnt spoon and bag of white powder. A languid breeze swayed the gauzelike curtain.
“Nahwee, how many times do I have to tell you to get your own needle?”
She didn’t respond. What did hepatitis or HIV matter, when we’d probably be dead in a few days anyway? I put some heroin in the spoon, added bottled water, and cooked the mixture over a butane lighter to dissolve the solids. A torn piece of cigarette filter removed any remaining sediment from the liquid I drew into the syringe.
I needed a rubber tourniquet to tie off my arm. I removed it along with the silk-covered box from my rucksack. In the panic of our flight I didn’t have time to get a good look at what was inside. I set down the syringe, took the box from the silk wrapper, and removed the golden statue from inside. A full-breasted goddess rode a tiger. Her torso swayed in a delicate S-curve. Eight arms sprouted from her shoulders. In each hand she held a weapon such as a disc or an arrow.
“Durga.” Nahwee rested a warm hand on my shoulder and yawned. “When the gods couldn’t defeat the buffalo demon, they appealed to her for help.”
“What makes it so valuable?” I turned the statue over in my hands.
“It’s one of a kind, over fifteen hundred years old.”
I set the statue on the nightstand, wrapped the band around my bicep, pumped my arm, and tapped the needle into a vein. I pulled back the plunger. Blood swirled into the syringe. As I injected the needle’s contents into my bloodstream, I wondered whether the goddess could rescue me from Thay. I removed the band and felt the golden rush of bliss soothe my troubles away. They shrank to a pea-sized voice babbling insignificance from the left side of my mind. I nodded between dream and reality. The warmth in my veins formed into a woman’s smooth skin. A tangle of arms held my head between her breasts. Something wet and rough tickled my soles. I glanced down at a tiger licking my feet. The room spun, my head felt heavy, and I slept.
The stench of cigar smoke woke me. Somehow I’d made it into bed and had lowered the mosquito net. I extracted myself from Nahwee’s arms, sat up, and rubbed the hallucinations from my eyes.
“You disappoint me, Alistair,” a chilling voice said.
I looked through the mosquito net to where Stereo Thay sat holding a cigar in one hand and the statue in the other. The flap of torn cartilage that had once been his ear begged me to stare. Thay cultivated the rumor that a tiger had attacked him when he was a boy. I’d heard it was a stray dog. I forced myself to look at his chest.
“I could have almost forgiven you for the girl.” He took a puff from the cigar and blew out a stream of gray smoke. “After all, I could buy a hundred like her from the villages. But this.” He held up the statue and set it on the table. “There’s only one. How long do you think I’d remain in business if news of your betrayal got out?”
By now Nahwee was awake. I felt her tremble behind me.
“It’s all a misunderstanding, Thay. I’m just trying to do the right thing.” My hand moved slowly under the pillow. “Nahwee confessed that she’d stolen the statue, but you’d already returned. Since I always had a soft spot for her, I brought her here. Once I’d gotten her on the ferry.” My fingers brushed the Beretta’s stock. “I’d have returned the statue.”
“Sak!” Thay yelled.
In an instant the thug from the ferry held the biggest hand cannon I’d ever seen to my face.
“Remove your hand slowly.” Sak took my pistol from under the pillow and tossed it to Thay’s bodyguard, Yem.
“Get dressed.” Thay stood. “We’re going for a ride.”
The two henchmen marched us down the staircase. Thay followed carrying the rucksack with the box inside. The pistol barrel bruising my floating ribs discouraged me from attempting escape. When we got to the lobby, the old toothless woman looked away. She’d sold us out.
They herded Nahwee and I out the door and into Thay’s black Toyota. Sak drove, Thay rode shotgun, and the rest of us crowded into the backseat. It took forty minutes to navigate the narrow streets and get on the narrow road that led northwest. Soon we left the town behind. The pavement ended and thick jungle sprang up on both sides of the road. Each time we hit a rut I tensed, fearing the pistol Yem held would discharge into my side and splatter a huge chunk of intestines over the upholstery. My bladder ached, but I wasn’t about to suggest a rest stop. It didn’t matter anyway. Fifteen minutes later Sak stopped the car. Yem opened the door and stepped onto the shoulder.
“Out!”
As I climbed through the doorway, he yanked my arm. I lost balance and landed face down on the ground. I spat dirt and struggled to my feet. He shoved me down a path leading into the jungle. Sak hustled Nahwee behind me, while Thay brought up the rear. I never regained my balance. Each time I slipped in the mud Yem pushed me. After a few minutes I stumbled into a clearing, where half a dozen skeletons lay half buried.
While Thay held his pistol to Nahwee’s head, Sak and Yem motioned me toward a small tree. Sak kicked away the bones near the roots, and Yem forced me against the trunk. He cinched my arms around the trunk behind me so I could not escape.
“We used this place when I was in the Khmer Rouge,” Thay said. “It’s private enough that we won’t be disturbed by people coming to investigate your screams. In the old days we took bets on how long a prisoner would live without his skin. Four days was the record, but I think you can last for five. Maybe I’ll start with your eyelids, so you’ll have to watch what we do to Nahwee.”
In a blur of silver Yem flicked open his butterfly knife and held the blade to my nose. I felt something warm and wet in my pants, and realized my bladder had let go. Yem sliced open my shirt, leaving my chest bare.
“It was all my idea, Thay. Why don’t you show mercy to the girl?”
Bang! The bullet from Thay’s pistol sprayed Nahwee’s brains in the air. Her body slumped to the ground at his feet.
I felt a white flash of pain. Yem smiled and held my ear in front of my eyes. My screams crowded out thought.
“You think I don’t know what you call me behind my back?” Thay hissed. “You’re weak. When the tiger mauled my head, I didn’t make a sound.” He patted his shirt pocket, where he kept his cigars, came up empty, and sent Sak to the car to get them.
It looked like my life was all over. I wished I’d never come to this God-forsaken country. The wound, where my ear used to be, throbbed. When I felt the maddening itch of flies landing on my blood-slicked cheek, I rubbed it against my shoulder and set off another round of searing pain.
Gunshots and a scream came from the direction of the car. Pistols drawn, Thay and Yem ran up the path. I struggled to get free. The cords tying my hands burned the skin of my wrists. Something tore in my right shoulder. More gunshots and screams. My hands pulled free. I crashed through the jungle until the execution ground was far behind. Then I stopped. Everything was quiet except for my hammering pulse. I tore a sleeve from my shirt and wrapped it around my head to stop the bleeding. Once I caught my breath I doubled back toward the road. I inched forward clearing the bushes from my path with my arms. I paused behind a stand of bamboo and looked up the road. Three mangled bodies lay in pools of blood by the car. I waited. All I could hear was the middle C whine of mosquitoes. No one moved. I crawled out of my hiding place and approached the car. The footprints of a huge cat led from the carnage into the jungle. Evidently the rumors I’d heard about the extinction of tigers in Cambodia weren’t true.
I got behind the wheel and reached for the ignition. The keys weren’t there. I got out of the car, walked to where Sak’s body lay, and rolled him onto his back. The tiger had taken huge swipes out of his chest and throat. His mouth open in a silent scream, Sak stared at the sky in disbelief. Half expecting his dead hand to grab my wrist, I reached into his slimy pants pocket and removed the keys.
I boarded the Star Ferry at Kowloon and sat up front, where I could admire Hong Kong’s modern skyline and the freighters flying Chinese flags in the aquamarine water of the bay. When we docked at the Central terminal, I flowed down the gangway with the crowd. I walked west on Des Voeux Road to Sheung Wan, climbed the hill, and scouted antique shops until I found one that looked upscale.
A tone chimed when I entered. I wandered among the gold Kuan Yins, huge stone Buddhas, and Kwan Tis with their beards and halberds.
“May I help you?” a Chinese woman with a few strands of gray in her hair asked. Her tasteful clothes and the reading glasses propped on her head gave her an air of wealth and scholarship.
I slipped the rucksack from my shoulders and looked at its worn canvas exterior. The statue inside would bring enough money to keep me in heroin for the rest of my life. I turned the rucksack over in my hands and thought of the horrible deaths of Thay and his henchmen.
“No,” I said. “I’m just looking.”
Some forces are too powerful to provoke. A library would have the address of the Phnom Penh Antiquities Museum, and there was a post office not far from my hotel. I had enough heroin to last a few days, enough for me to hook up with Three Fingers Wang. He was always looking for talent.
