Anarchy and Old Dogs (Dr. Siri Paiboun) (22 page)

"Go ahead."

"The dentist's wife."

"What about her?"

"She's a sow." Siri once again exercised his eyebrows. "Or, at least, her blood wasn't human."

"You don't say. The test came back from Bangkok?"

"Pure one hundred percent pig."

"So her murder was staged."

"The whole marriage was staged. I went back to Dong Bang and asked around. The dentist was a bachelor. They said the woman only turned up a few months before his death."

"When the letters started."

"Right. And it appears she only came to the village on certain days. The neighbors assumed she was a nurse or housekeeper. On the day we went there, she just happened to still be around. She was probably trying to figure out a way of getting her hands on the latest note. Waiting for the authorities to send his things home."

"And we brought it right to her."

"Remember, she took a while to read it? I wouldn't be surprised if she was memorizing it."

"So she was just a courier, there to pick up the week's code."

"She just put the old fellow on the bus on letter days and waited for him to bring it back."

"But why on earth go to all that trouble? Surely she could have just taken his key and picked up the letter herself."

"She probably would have preferred to do that, but something was stopping her."

"What?"

"Let's ask your Inspector Migraine. What do they have at post offices?"

"Stamps?"

"Think of something that might stop her wanting to be seen inside one."

"Being seen ...? I know. Wanted posters. Her picture's on the wall of the Bureau de Poste."

"Very good."

"What did she do?"

"Espionage. She didn't look it but that lady's caused a lot of trouble for the new administration. I noticed the poster when I went to ask about Dr. Buagaew's post box. The Security Division has a file on her a foot thick. The dentist had a little file of his own but only as a suspected Royalist sympathizer. I imagine they didn't see him as much of a threat, what with his disability and all. He'd had the PO box under a false name for over ten years. I can't imagine what he was using it for during the old regime."

"Sleazy dental material from Europe, I wouldn't wonder. But the woman? Is she still at large?"

"She always seems to be one step ahead of the authorities."

"How intriguing, an aging adversary. She did a marvelous job of faking her own death to put us off the trail. She deserves a code name. Something to do with the devil, perhaps."

"Sorry, the Security Division's already christened her."

"Probably some very dull name. They don't have much imagination up there. 'Woman 17B'?"

"They're calling her 'the Lizard.'''

"Ooh, she must have really upset people in high places. Good for her."

"Siri, she's the enemy."

"Oh, right. I forgot."

"Five thousand
kip."

"What? I'm not asking you a question."

"No. You want a conversation. That's five thousand
kip."

Siri sat beneath the Aeroflot sign with a peaked cap pulled down over his face. Auntie Bpoo was wearing a hideous skintight cowhide-pattern dress that rode up her thighs. Fortunately, she had on khaki Y-fronts to preserve what little dignity she had. A light drizzle was falling and the fortune-teller held up a red-and-white polka-dot umbrella. Siri just got wet. Everyone passing along Samsenthai that evening felt sorry for the two crazy people.

"All right, so if I did give you five thousand
kip,
would you indulge me?"

"That was a question. To answer that I'd need another ten thousand."

"Oh, come on."

"All right. I'll give you a discount. You can have a question and a ten-minute conversation for six thousand."

"God, man. It's cheaper to bribe a treasury official."

"Take it or leave it. And it's 'Miss.'''

"All right. I'll take it. What I want to talk about--"

"In advance."

"Look, if you can see the future, you know I'm not about to run off without paying." Auntie Bpoo looked away and twirled her umbrella. "All right. All right."

He handed over two bricks of fifty
-kip
notes. Since the devaluations, people in Laos had dispensed with their purses and wallets and taken to carrying cement bags for their small change. Auntie Bpoo counted each wad and decided he'd given her enough.

Siri considered this to be one of the most foolish investments he'd ever made. He could see her at the morning market buying a new leather miniskirt with his hard-earned salary. But the big female impersonator was good, he had to give her that. He'd even go so far as to say "gifted." Siri had so little contact with freaks like himself, he often hungered for company. There were still a million questions he needed answers to with regard to his unwanted and poorly utilized abilities. He hoped Auntie Bpoo might be able to help. Mysticism produced strange bedfellows and there were few stranger than the couple seated on plastic bathroom stools on Samsenthai that evening. Auntie Bpoo took great pains to secrete the money in an enormous handbag.

When she was satisfied it was safe, she said, "All right, Dr. Traitor. You have eight minutes left."

"But I haven't ... Very well. What I want to talk about is ... our connection to the spirit world."

"Our connection?"

"Yes, you see, I receive messages from the dead."

Auntie Bpoo's eyebrows nearly clinked against the wooden shop sign above her head before returning to her face. "Oh, really?"

"Yes, I get messages that tell me how people died."

She yawned. "Look, Granddad, perhaps you ought to cut back on the MSG."

Siri laughed to cover his irritation. Why was it that so many obnoxious and infuriating people were blessed with gifts? Perhaps one was a counterpoint to the other. But he was determined to lure this brilliant transvestite into a discussion on the paranormal. Perhaps she'd respond to aggression.

"Listen, young man or young lady or both, if you prefer. I am Dr. Siri Paiboun, the national coroner, but of course you know that. I host the spirit of a thousand-year-old shaman." Auntie Bpoo started to collect her cards and charts and pack them into a number of plastic bags. "Are you listening? Through him I am able to communicate with the dead. I have come to you because--"

"Prove it."

"What?"

"Prove to me that you can communicate with the dead."

"How?"

"Tell me what my uncle Sithon was wearing when he passed away."

"What he was wearing? I don't know. I don't do tricks."

"No? You should learn. Even the shadiest mediums down at the old ferry crossing can do that one. They chat with dead people all the time, relive some funny event only departed Granny Ting could have known."

"Well, I can't."

"I didn't think so." Auntie Bpoo stood and nodded in the direction of the other stool beneath Siri. "Time's up. I have a mud-pack sauna appointment."

Siri refused to vacate his stool. "You can't just take my money and leave," he said. "That's abuse of a senior citizen. I can bring the Aged Union down on you just like that."

The fortune-teller leaned forward and squared up to Siri. His scent was a mix of lavender and lighter fluid. "Look, Granddad. I'll be honest with you. I get a lot of crackpots coming down here trying to elbow in on my action. They think they can get me to show them my tricks. Next thing you know, they'd be setting up shop all the way down Samsenthai, and I wouldn't have any customers for myself."

"Customers? But you don't charge for your normal service. It's only senile old fools like me you hit up for money. What does it matter how many customers you get?"

Auntie Bpoo put the back of her hand against her forehead and looked to the puffy heavens. It was an action made famous by a popular Thai screen actress. A gamut of emotions played across her face.

"It's true," she said in the soft, female version of her voice. "I don't really need money, you see. I have all I want. But money can't buy companionship. No matter how many kilograms of
kip
you have, it can't bring you true respect. Why else would people come to listen to someone like little me? I need a gimmick."

"It's much more than a gimmick."

"No, it isn't. It's just a party trick."

"It is not. You know things. You knew my name."

"It's a small town."

"No. You were able to tell me things nobody else has access to. That's why I'm here. I know you're in contact with the spirit world."

"Look, it's great that you're in touch with dead people." Her voice had returned to basso. "It means you'll have contacts up there when you kick the bucket. That always helps in the first couple of days when you're finding your feet, looking for a place to sleep, somewhere to eat. But don't expect me to say, 'Wow, you too, eh? Let's compare notes.' Because there is no connection. Get it? I don't want to disappoint an old coot like you who looks like he's had more than his fair share of disappointments in his life. I wouldn't know a spirit if it bit my titties. There is no supernatural. I don't get messages. I just guess. Got it? I just say the first thing that comes into my head. Half the time I haven't got a clue what I'm talking about. But people keep coming back, so I keep doing it. It's just a bit of fun. Nobody buys it. You gonna give me back my stool now?"

Siri stood and sacrificed his little white perch. Auntie Bpoo slotted it together with her own stool and put them in a black plastic garbage bag. She tossed her big mauve handbag over her shoulder and hoisted her other luggage. Siri stood dripping in front of her.

"You know why I've been charging you and no one else?" she said. "It's because I didn't want you to keep coming back. There's something weird about you, old man. I get a funny feeling in my bladder when you come around. It puts me off. This is just a bit of harmless amusement, but people like you take the fun out of it. Lighten up, why don't you?"

She turned and headed toward the black stupa.

"Wait," Siri called after her.

The transvestite turned back with attitude. "What?"

"You owe me a prediction."

Auntie Bpoo splashed back to him in her platform sandals.

"After everything I've just told you, you still want me to see for you?"

"Once more and I promise I'll leave you alone."

"Is that so?"

"Coroner's honor."

"But you know I'm just going to say the most ridiculous thing that comes into my head."

"I'll take it."

There was something static about the Mekhong that evening. Of course it was moving. It had a thousand communities to feed downriver, rice to water, pretty ladies to wash. But to the naked eye it seemed to sit like a long, broad pond. Already it was beginning to swell from the rains in China and overwhelm the vegetable allotments along its banks. As the retreating sunlight cast its shadows, Siri sat alone on his log and imagined that the mighty river had stopped. He'd learned all its secrets and it was prostrated before him, seeking forgiveness for all the lives it had taken.

His feet danced back and forth to stop the mosquitoes settling on his ankles, and his mind danced in time with them. He wondered whether there would be any more lunches here with his best friend, whether Civilai would survive retirement, whether he'd done the right thing. He wondered whether he was right to give his blessing to a pressured marriage, and whether Judge Haeng might allow him to retire now after he'd helped to rescue the republic from anarchy. He wondered whether the Odeon might consider showing the odd Bruce Lee film on special occasions. He would have wondered himself into oblivion if his thoughts hadn't been drowned out by the sudden screeching of cicadas.

A sliver of lightning and a groan of thunder across in Thailand made him think of Pakse and this brought him full circle to Daeng. The cream-colored
champa
flowers sat at his feet in a bunch, wrapped in mulberry paper. He'd performed surgery with bullets whistling past his ears and confronted malevolent ghosts, but neither had made his stomach churn as it did now. Would she have him? He wasn't much to look at, half of one ear was missing, and goodness knows there were a thousand other reasons to turn him down. But Auntie Bpoo had confirmed what he'd already known in his heart. The first part of the fortune-teller's prophecy had already been in his plans: that by the end of the monsoons he'd be married. And there weren't that many prospective brides to choose from.

He took a deep breath and began the walk along the river's edge that would take him to Daeng's new noodle shop. The trumpet trees that once lined the bank had been cut down by the army for security reasons. The trees had obscured the view of their enemies across the Mekhong. If the Thai military had been observing at that moment, they would have seen a nervous seventy-three-year-old shuffling his sandaled feet along the Lao bank, indifferent to any thought of being shot. He had two things on his mind that were more worrying: the first, what words he could use to convince Daeng his intentions were honorable; the second, Auntie Bpoo's other prediction, that by the Lao New Year, Dr. Siri and his new bride would have two bouncing baby boys.