Assignment Bangkok (12 page)

“Sir? Durell?”

One of the men in the straw hats shouted at him over the heads of the two women. Durell dodged aside from a bullock cart that all but blocked the narrow street and walked fast, back toward the wat. He did not know if the men were Savag’s or from the Muc Tong. Maybe it was all one and the same. Mike Slocum had the answers, somewhere in the mountains to the north. Maybe coming into Chiengmai was a mistake; maybe the dynamite wasn’t important. Maybe Benjie had spent the time sending the two goons after him.

He shook the questions from his mind. The straw hats were as persistent as flies. He could see the throngs of worshipers near the wat again, the crowd accented by the saffron robes of several hundred monks. Some sort of religious festival was being celebrated.

The straw hats had closed the gap. Their brown faces were ugly. One had his hand inside his jacket.

“This way, mister.”

A teen-aged Thai boy in the robe of a dek wat tugged at his sleeve. Durell roughly shrugged him off. The boy persisted. “No worry. Holy Kem sends me. Bad men be lost.” A small swirl of worshipers intervened between Durell and his pursuers for a moment. The boy said, “In here, sir.”

It was a musty apothecary shop, devoted to Chinese herbs, pickled snakes, strange jars filled with muddy-colored powders. The proprietor bobbed his head and ducked out of the way. The boy led Durell to the rear. The two men in straw hats were on the sidewalk outside, and the lighted street cast their shadows against the cluttered, fly-specked window.

“All right,” said Durell. “Lead on.”

They ducked behind a fringed curtain in the rear. The Chinese apothecary chattered something in Cantonese, but Durell did not look back. The rear door gave on an alley, hard by the monastery. He heard the deep-throated clang of bronze bells, the tinkle of silver ones, the heavy chanting of priests; he smelled incense, the odor of food offerings. The alley was backed on the other side by two and three-story wooden houses, decked with verandas, poles with paper lanterns agleam, and a teeming huddle of tenement dwellers. Durell felt tall and conspicuous among them as he went up rickety wooden steps, through a bedroom where a startled woman sat upright with a sigh of surprise. The
dek wat
grinned and said, “My mama.”

From the alley came angry shouting. The woman did not get up from the bed. There was a single, tin-shaded electric light in the room, casting deep shadows.

“Come. My papa.”

The man in the other room was thin and brown, wearing a striped lavender shirt, khaki slacks, and sneakers. He sat at a porcelain-topped table next to a large cooking stove. The overhead light cast deep shadows on his face. He did not smile. He was busy laying out pots and jars and bits of theatrical hair on a newspaper spread on the table, and something bubbled on the stove.

“Where is Kem?” Durell asked.

“He comes. My papa helps in the wat—he helps the priests in ceremonies. He also works for Chin Lee theater on Hapagongwe Road. He is genius,” said the boy.

The father looked dour. Durell listened for more sounds from the alley, but the shouting had ended. The Thai looked at him with grave eyes. “Sit,” he said. “I make you look like Northern man. Part Chinese, maybe. I study your face.”

“I haven’t much time.”

“I do not take long. Twenty minutes.”

Durell looked around the small, hot room. The boy hovered near the door, grinning happily. The father kept working with his pots of pigments and creams and wads of coarse black hair. Durell wondered if he’d been mistaken in the single glimpse he’d had of Miss Ku in General Savag’s car. Then, amid the primitive clutter of the tenement kitchen, his eye caught on an anachronism. A black telephone stood among the painted, peasant pots on the kitchen shelf.

He stood up quietly. The father lifted thick brows and pointed with a silky paint brush. “You sit. I am ready.” “Where did you get the telephone?”

“It belongs monastery. I work for
bhikkhus
. They need me, they telephone.” The man smiled for the first time. “Very modern, up-to-date, first class. Gives me much importance.”

“Can you call anyone in the city?”

“No.”

The boy said, “My father means he has no other friends in Chiengmai who own telephones, so he can’t call anyone but the abbot or the monks in the wat.”

“But it’s connected to the regular system?”

“Oh, yes, sir. You wish to use? Please do so.”

Durell tested the black telephone. There was a humming in his hear. He heard more noises from the street growing louder again. The two straw hats out there were getting frustrated. All at once the telephone clicked and a woman spoke in Thai, asking what number he wished to call.

He gave James D. James’ number in Bangkok.

The operator was appalled. “It is long distance, very expensive.”

“I’ll pay,” Durell said.

“You not Thai. You not speak good Thai,” the woman said in English.

“Just get me the number.”

It was a risk, of course. He did not know how far-reaching was either Savag’s intelligence system or the Muc Tong’s. Nor did he know if James’ phone was being tapped.

The father of the temple boy got up and began to apply pigment to his face while he waited at the telephone for the connection to go through. He heard a sing-song radio playing in the next apartment, another radio blasting Western soul music. There was shouting and argument in the alley. Kem did not appear. The telephone seemed to have gone dead. He felt the brownish makeup going on his face, in his ears and down his throat and across the back of his neck. The telephone crackled and then he heard a distant ringing. He wondered if there would be trouble for the make-up man and the young temple boy. If the call were traced by the Muc Tong or Savag, it might also uncover Kem as a sleeper agent put on active duty. But there was no help for it. He wouldn’t have come into Chiengmai at all, if not for Mike’s urgent plea for explosives. The odds in the gamble were not too favorable, Durell thought. “Hallo?”

Suddenly Jimmy James’ voice was in his ear. The makeup man added hair to Durell’s eyebrows with spirit gum.

Durell said, “Red Fish here. I’m on my way to Brooklyn Omega.”

There was a long pause. Then, “Is your phone secure?” “No.”

“Then hang up.”

“I need some answers.”

“Then I’ll hang up,” James said flatly.

“Are you being bugged?”

“I’ve been questioned. You’re ordered out of the country. Understand? They’re on to you, they’re out to get you. I’ll send someone else in after Mike.”

“It will be too late, by then,” Durell said. “Is Miss Ku there?”

“What?”

“Your little helper.”

“Yes, of course she’s here. Why?”

“Put her on the telephone,” Durell said.

“Well, she’s not actually in the house. But I expect her back any moment. Look here, old boy, I don’t know what you’re doing, you should be at your destination right now. Where are you?”

“When did you last see Miss Ku?”

“A few hours ago.” James’ voice sharpened with irritation, anxiety—perhaps fear. “Why are you interested?”

“I just saw her in Chiengmai with General Savag.” “She’s in Bangkok. I tell you, she’ll be back any moment. We have a supper party planned for some Embassy people. She acts as my hostess, since I’m a bachelor.”

“Are you sure she’s in Bangkok?”

“I’d stake my life on it.”

“You may have to,” Durell said, and hung up.

“You look fine,” Kem said. “Tall, of course, but you can pass for a Chinese mixture anywhere up here. A man from Yunnan, perhaps, with Russian blood? No problem, Sam.” Kem paused. “At the temple, I inquired about the Muc Tong. The Sangha brothers were very helpful. But come, we must go.”

“What shall I pay the make-up man?”

“Nothing. He makes
tarn boon
—much merit—by helping the
bhikkhus
. He will say nothing. In any case, he is an
acharn
, a wizard, and the people are still superstitious and believe in
phis
, spirits, and wizardry. They will not bother an
acharn
."

They left the tenement by way of the rickety stairs to the alley. Two solid-looking men sat on the bottom steps, as if on guard, and they jumped up respectfully as Kem led the way. There was no sign of the two men in straw hats.

“I wish we could take a
samlaw
,” Kem said, “but it would not look right for a
bhikkhu
to ride that way.” He bobbed his bald head. “We must walk back to the hotel, but not too fast. I wish to meditate.”

“Flivver,” Durell said, “I don’t doubt your sincerity, but we have work to do.”

“I do the Lord Buddha’s work,” said the monk. His black eyes twinkled. “But sometimes the way is most mysterious.”

As they walked back to meet Benjie, Kem told him that the Muc Tong was everywhere. An alert had gone out for a tall American—Durell, obviously. There was also a police alarm throughout the city. Kem did not know if it was military or civil police. In the dark makeup and bushy brows put on by the
acharn
, Durell felt as if any of the hundreds of night passersby could see through the fraud. But no one looked at him twice. Now and then a woman gave Kem a quick
wai
, a smile, and hurried past. A police car hooted by, but did not slow or give the monk and the tall Chinese their attention.

Benjie, waiting nervously in the hotel room, was startled by Durell’s appearance. “Lordie, you’ve changed over for sure, Cajun. It’s a good job. There are plenty of mixes like you up in the mountains.”

“Did you get the dynamite?”

“It’s in the jeep, behind the hotel. But I think some security people followed me here. I’m nervous.”

“We’ll go out the back way.”

The jeep was parked in deep shadow under slender palm trees. The explosives were in a small wooden box in the back. Durell pried it open and examined the sticks and the detonator and battery quickly. Everything seemed in order.

“I hope it’s enough,” Benjie said. She looked pale and wan in the gloomy shadows behind the hotel.

“It will have to do.”

The exit from the parking lot came out on the main street fronting the hotel. Bicycles and cars flowed by in a steady stream. Lights shone in most of the back windows of the hotel, but some of the bamboo shades were drawn. The sweeping overhang of the Thai roof kept the upper windows in shadow. He couldn’t tell if anyone watched them from up there, or not. The jeep, easily identified as Benjie’s, could trap them on the road back to the logging camp. Benjie and Kem were also uncertain. Durell walked into the shadows of the lot to examine an old flat-bodied truck parked near the kitchen entrance. The kitchen was closed and dark at this hour. The truck was empty.

Kem stood beside him. “We must not steal it, Sam.”

“The jeep is dangerous,” Durell said.

“I would not sin against the Way of the Sangha.”

“We’re fighting an evil thing, Flivver.”

“True. Perhaps I can rationalize the move. I agree about the jeep. I’ll get the dynamite.”

The truck was an old rattletrap, with a simple ignition system that Durell shorted in a moment. Kem brought the explosives and Benjie helped him stow it on the floor of the cab. The wheel felt greasy and the cab smelled of old sweat and stale food. The gas tank looked to be half full— just about enough to get them the fifty miles back to the logging camp and the plane.

The engine started with a fearful racket that echoed back from the walls of the hotel; but no one came yelling as Durell backed and then turned toward the exit and the traffic on the boulevard. He thought he glimpsed the two straw hats again, near the lobby entrance. For a moment he was sure they had spotted him, but their eyes passed over him without interest.

In twenty minutes they were on the road heading east into the mountains again, leaving Chiengmai behind.

At midnight, they arrived at the camp. It was deserted. The elephants were gone, the sheds were empty, and fire had burned down the machinery shack. The embers still smoldered, a dark and evil glow in the black night. A warm wind blew up the valley and made the charred beams flicker and spark. The racket of the truck’s engine echoed back and forth from the black mountainsides, and Durell shut off the engine some distance from the camp, the moment he spotted the fires.

“Oh, God,” Benjie murmured. “I’m cleaned out.”

“All the people have gone,” said Kem. “I pity them.” Durell said, “The Muc Tong may still be around.”

He got out and listened to the wind in the black forest around them. The trail ahead was empty. From what he could see of the main street, only a single lost dog ambled about, sniffing at the ruins and under the stilted houses.

The bungalow across the creek had been burned down. “The plane?” Durell said.

Benjie’s face was pale. “Maybe they missed it. The airstrip is a bit away from the village, remember. Do you still think I’ve got a hand in the Muc Tong, Sam?”

He didn’t reply. He probed the ruined village without seeing anything except the dog that now trotted away into the brush, holding something in its jaws. He started the engine again. “They were here an hour ago, at least.”

“Is it not a risk to drive through?” Kem asked mildly. “We make a good target.”

“Better than on foot,” Durell said.

He forced the old vehicle into gear and tramped on the worn gas pedal. The truck creaked and rolled forward, into the main street. He drove faster, dust rolling up into the blackness behind them. In the glow of the dying fires he now saw two or three bodies, sprawled in front of different houses. Benjie sucked in her breath, but said nothing. Their headlights flared and touched on the pitiful wreckage of the logging compound. Momentarily, Durell expected a hail of bullets from the shadows; but nothing happened. They were through the village in less than a minute, and bounced recklessly down the jeep trail to the landing strip. The stench of burning oil and exploded grenades still lingered in the air. The trees blocked out the valley for some moments, and then Durell saw the glimmer of the river, silvery in the starlight. In another minute they came out of the woods and roared onto the landing strip cleared on the shelf of the mountainside.