Cambodia Noir (3 page)

“What happened?”

Never look at the eyes, they'll go into a frenzy. I'm trying to push past, face to the floor, following the twisted vine of computer cables over frayed carpet—

“What happened?”

Flashback: that stretcher getting shoved down the steps. For drug dealers, the cops don't always bother with a sheet, and there was my eating money: the only shots the local tabs will actually pay for.

Snap, snap.

By the time it was done, the city was turning hot and brown. It took me ages to get out of there: rush hour, sweating, gridlocked between the aid agencies' giant Land Cruisers and the swarms of motos buzzing around them. My bang-bang high had gone south, and all I could think about was how to get another. The paper wasn't open yet, so I hit the twenty-four-hour Internet shop, bought a six-pack of Beerlao, and spent the next hours uploading the digital shots. An act of contrition, mostly: it may be war now, but it's not a war anyone cares about.

I should have called the office at some point, but I just sat there smoking, staring at the little gray bars as they ticked across the screen and wondering what I just saw. It wasn't until the pictures were mostly done that I noticed I was still covered in blood. Decided a shower was in my best interest—to prevent exactly the kind of scene I'm in now, surrounded by cutthroat children looking for war stories.

“What do you think this says about Cambodia's political stability?” one of the little monsters asks.

What the fuck is he talking about?

Ray saves me. He leaps in and starts screaming at them, some stuff about integrity and restraint. He's got his voice cranked up to fever pitch and the bloodsuckers scatter, cowering back into the shadows and crawling under desks, and then Ray's shoving me into the back hall—

“Hey, man, hey, where you been? Gus is eatin' the fucking walls, man, says he's gonna break your goddamn fingers.”

Not necessarily an idle threat. On top of running the paper, Gus is now the informal manager of a Khmer kickboxing club. I piss him off, he'll be rattling my cage at dawn, dragging me out to the club's shed by the lake for some concussion therapy. I've got reach on him, but he's still two hundred pounds of angry Argentine, and he goes down hard. Worse is when he makes me fight Khmers: fast little fuckers, love a go at a big guy. After sparring with them you're lucky if you can stand, never mind walk away.

“What time is it?”

“Man, it's, like, two thirty already,” Ray says.

Shit. I think back through the hours; can't account for them. What happened to today? “Here.” I shove my memory card into his hand. “Get a layout from that, then tell Gus I'm in the darkroom.”

Turn to go, trip over another bunch of cables. Sparks; shouts from the newsroom as computers go black. “Christ. Somebody's gonna die in here someday.”

“No shit, man.” Ray stares at me. “We got a pool goin'.”

The art is good. Digital's all right for flash and bang, but you want the real thing, you need film. For some reason I loaded color this morning, which is pointless for the paper, but I'm not regretting it.

Here's the captain, haggard and red-lit by dawn, looking down at the charred pavement, glinting gold with spent casings. Behind him, smoke from the burning car obscures the sky. He's got a face like one of Rodin's burghers: satisfaction barely registering in his eyes, in the set of his mouth. But there's disgust, as well, with what he's had to do and what it cost him.

Here's the ambulance man, a cigarette dangling from his lips as he wraps gauze around a cop who took shrapnel in the side. He's smiling, making a joke, but you can see the hollowness in his eyes.

Here are the uniforms, pushing down the stairs with those great bricks of heroin on their shoulders: faces blank, eyes glazed and terrified. Actors who've forgotten their lines. They don't even know what the play is anymore.

Been a while since I did anything this good.

Shame no one will buy them.

Behind me, I hear something like a gorilla try to tear the door off its hinges. Then there's Gus, shoving himself into the tiny room, breathing in my ear as he stares at the luscious brown bundles.

“Khieu says that's ninety ki's prime Burmese heroin,” he whispers. “Pulled it out of the fuckin' walls. That's millions by the time it hits Sydney or Hong Kong. Someone fucked up big.”

There's no space to turn around, but I can feel him looking: he thinks I'm up to something. It was drug shit this morning, so he's been waiting, wondering what story I'll tell. He doesn't actually care what I do, he just gets his kicks giving me a hard time. You make your own fun in Phnom Penh.

“This isn't a fuckup,” I say. “You don't catch the head of the army's drug business in a house with half the country's product just 'cause someone was careless. Those cops didn't know what they were gonna find, but someone did.”

“You think Hok Lundy's trying to push out the competition?”

I mull it over. The cops mostly deal internal, small-time stuff, but the head of the police has his own outfit. One of the few who can: his daughter's married to the prime minister's son. Over time, Hok Lundy's built himself up into a major player. He's strong in Phnom Penh—maybe he thinks he's got strong enough to tell the generals to get off his turf.

“Could be,” I say.

“He's a brave guy.”

“Brave has a short shelf life.”

“He could take it quite far, though.”

If he tries a coup, we'll have blood in the gutters by nightfall.

We're both quiet a minute. Finally, Gus: “These are good shots.”

“Fuck off. You're gonna use the shit I gave Ray, the guy shooting over the car.”

He doesn't bother denying it. “It sells papers. These are better.” Unspoken accusation in his voice:
Why don't you get out of the sticks, Will, go do something real? Go to Iraq like everyone else—

“Fuck you,” I say too loud. “And your war. I'm fine here.” Now I do turn around, forcing him back against the door. “You really gave a shit, you'd gimme a little time out of this fuckin' city.”

For a second I think he looks surprised. “What do you want to do out in the provinces?” Suspicious bastard.

“Take pictures I can fuckin' sell. It's Phnom Penh no one cares about, fuckin' politics. They'll buy KR. They'll buy
landscapes
. Shit, I can take pictures of kids with big, hungry eyes and hawk 'em to Oxfam for brochures, but this—”

“So it's money.” He's done being surprised. “I thought you went to Vientiane for money. A week back, you're broke already?”

“I was broke when I got back. Vientiane went bad.”

“I don't want to know! And I can't pay you to fuck around in the trees when there's a war about to start.”

“There's always a goddamn war.”

I feel my jaw clench. See it in his eyes:
A good war is just what you need.

I want to hit him in the face. Reach for a cigarette instead.

He grabs it out of my mouth.“
Hijo de puta,
what's wrong with you?”

Fucker went to Georgetown, speaks better English than me—he just swears in Spanish because he likes the sound.

“Don't be a baby. I won't burn the place down.” Take another one from my pack, light it.

Gus's eyes are narrow, bloodshot. He runs a huge hand through three days of beard. “You just fogged everything that wasn't fixed.”

“Who cares? No one'll use 'em, anyway.”

“Do what you like,” he says finally.

The scum are still floating around as I leave, excited looks on their pasty faces as they chew over all the things that could go wrong between now and tomorrow. I'm dizzy from hours in the dark and too much developer. Gus is off in graphics, so I stop at his desk and steal the cigarettes he keeps for emergencies. Then I'm back on the street, dazed by the afternoon sun. The Cambodia theme song starts playing:

“Moto? Moto?”

“. . . need a ride?”

“. . . want a girl?”

“. . . come and eat—”

“. . . anywhere you want—”

“. . . where you go, handsome guy?”

“. . . she very pretty—”

I pass by and they sink back to their perches, waiting for the next mark.

Trees line the block outside the office, curving overhead like a roof and splashing the ground with dappled light. Even in the shade it's hot, and my shirt is stuck to my back in seconds. Day workers sleep on the grass next to the snack carts. It's quiet: you wouldn't think a war was about to start.

I'm only going a few blocks, but the state I'm in, not sure I'll make it on foot.

I stop to buy a fried banana from an ancient woman with a table by the side of the road. It's the tiny, sweet kind—tastes of woodsmoke and honey, and I savor the rush of sugar.

It's not enough.

The country can go to hell without my attention. I need a beer.

“Moto, mister? Moto?”

“Sure. Take me to the river.”

The Foreign Correspondents Club will be rammed: anytime a gun goes off, all the journos and aid workers get thirsty. I don't want to hear more people talking about how thrilling it all is, I just want a drink.

There's a new place just across the road—an open-air pub on the corner, looking out over the quay and the water. Posh, empty; the neon over the awning says
THE RIVER'S EDGE
. I go in. A hardwood bar carved with twining snakes, and a girl behind it: black eyes, face like a temple statue, busy doing nothing. She smiles as I step off the sidewalk and tells me I am very pretty. Then she says I look like I need a drink.

“Those things don't go together.”

“I not see you yet,” she says, whatever that means. “How long in Cambodia?”

“Nine years.”

“Oh!” She grabs my hand in both hers, like I've just told her about Ma's tragic death in that threshing-machine accident. “You want a lot beer.” She smells of cheap soap and whiskey. “I am Chantrea. You call me Channi. I work before at Ms. Pong bar, but I not see you there. I think you new, but you old.”

“Don't flatter me.”

She giggles. She's still hanging on to my hand, and I'm not minding it too much. Force the feeling down with a pint of cheap beer. Chasing girls in a place like this is a good way to get knifed: managers don't like it. I case the joint as I finish my drink. Shiny: fresh paint, wooden chairs—no plastic lawn furniture here. Someone had cash to play with.

A wiry thirtysomething with little scars all over his hands pops up next to me as Channi pours my second. He's the manager, he says. Terry. He asks if the girls are paying attention to me. “Lip service,” he calls it, with a little
Mona Lisa
smile, “they giving you lip service?”

“Channi's keeping me in peanuts.”

Terry used to work in steel in the Midlands, but there was no future in it; then he did travel for a while, but that didn't suit him either, so now he's moving into food and beverage—hey, everybody's gotta eat. He winks like we're in it together now. He's bringing some class to this place, there's a second floor, I must try the snooker table—

“If the beer runs out,” I say.

He puzzles over that. I turn away and he dives for the sidewalk, and fresher-smelling punters.

I have a third, then a fifth. A truck roars by in the distance, ancient engine clanging. Outside, the streets are coming alive: blaring horns, slamming blinds, people finishing errands and scurrying for cover. Time to wrap up what you're doing; to get home, if you have one. Time to take shelter. A final door bangs shut and for a second there's perfect quiet—like someone's clicked a shutter and we've been caught, frozen in this moment forever.

Then the monsoon hits. Sheets of water rip across the world beyond the awning.

Terry doesn't seem to notice the rain. He's busy smiling his
Mona Lisa
smile at me over his shoulder. Channi's smiling, too, as she tops off my beer and slides over more peanuts. It's like I just won some fucking award.

Something's happened, but nobody else notices, they just keep grinning. The moment passes. Not even a snapshot: just a rumble in the distance, then the rain.

Back at the house; unsteady on the narrow stairs. Almost night now. I rattle Gus's gate in the dark; no answer. Up to my floor, stumble over the suitcases on the landing. When I was in Vientiane, Gus put one of those American vampires in here. Girl left her shit while she went on some backpacking jaunt, and here it is, still in my hall, waiting to kill me. Consider trashing the stuff, but it's too much effort. I'll make Gus deal with it later.

I thought the beer would get me to sleep until it was time to go out, but I just lie there in my cage, listening to the rain. Pictures keep flashing in my mind: men in dark uniforms with plastic-wrapped bundles on their shoulders. The general and his aide crumpled into the back of a police van like yesterday's newspaper. The police and the army, facing off. Why now? The Eastern drug trade is peanuts these days. Ten years ago, maybe, it was big—four times as much dope coming out of the Triangle, all headed for the States. But times change: a few warlords crash and burn, supply declines. The US invades Afghanistan and a new supply appears, traveling west through Turkey and Europe. Cambo gets left with the scraps, again.

But out here, we're hungry. Even scraps are worth fighting over.

Phnom Penh airport is tiny, made of cinder blocks and glowing with yellow sodium light. Border officials wear uniforms embroidered with pagodas and elephants. . . . Stamps, visas . . . and then waiting, and more waiting. I'm not sure if the men here make a fetish of blond girls the way they do in Japan, but I don't much want to find out. I wrap myself up and fade from view. It is one of life's little consolations: realizing I can choose whether or not to be seen.