Thirty-Three Teeth (12 page)

Inspector Phosy decided enough was enough. He’d given the doctor plenty of time to solve the mystery of the royal chest that still sat unopened at the Department of Culture. Siri had asked for a few days, but had said nothing upon his return other than “Be patient, Phosy. Be patient.”

Well, his patience was used up.

He went by the hospital to see Constable Nui, who was now sitting up in bed and talking but could remember nothing of the day he had tumbled down four flights of stairs. Neither could he recall the women gathered around his bed, nor the face of the person now asking him questions. His memory slate had been effectively wiped clean.

Phosy rode the lilac Vespa the few blocks to Nam Poo fountain and looked up at the ministry building, black and ominous against the purple sky. He felt the adrenaline pumping and was annoyed he’d let the talk of curses get to him. Like on all Vientiane nights, there was hardly any noise and precious little light. He took a clunky Russian flashlight from his pack and climbed down from the bike.

As the top two floors of the building were officially his crime scene, he was in possession of keys for the main door and the access door to the sixth and seventh levels. There was never an armed guard on duty in front of the building, as the authorities still believed they were in control of crime and insurgency in the capital. At ten, an elderly watchman would arrive from his fishing duties and camp down on the ground floor. It was a small and futile attempt to discourage trespassers.

Phosy was about to cross the road when he heard a rustle from the bushes that circled the waterless fountain behind him. He turned sharply and shone his flashlight there. He didn’t say “I know somebody’s in there” or “Come out with your hands up,” because the shudder in his voice would have given away his fear. Instead he ran the beam along the crispy brown leaves and saw nothing. He heard something, though. It was the burp of a toad. He lowered the light and thought to himself: “So now you’re afraid of frogs. If you jump a mile at every lizard and rat and moth, Officer, you might not even make it to the seventh floor.”

He turned his back on the embarrassment and started to walk across the road. This time he ignored the leaves that rustled behind him and the continued burping. In the near distance, he could see the spotlight of a Thai surveillance helicopter skirting the far bank of the Mekhong. The river was a block away, the only natural water to be had in that dry city in March. The fountain had spouted nothing but Morning Glory blossoms for a year. “So why…?”

The question of why a toad would be so far from water should probably have come to him sooner. It wouldn’t be answered. There were more urgent questions: What was it running barefoot behind him? How did it get so close without his noticing?

Before he could turn, the strong arms had hold of him. Before he fell, he recognized the distinctive scent.

At about the same time, Siri was in his office at the morgue. He’d neglected his duties for too many days. One corpse had come and gone, collected in pieces by her distraught husband who wanted to know why there had been no autopsy.

To avoid the loud glare of the fluorescents, he read Dtui’s reports by candlelight. She was very precise and neat, and she’d doubled the size of her letters so Siri could read everything. He laughed at her account of the visit to Silver City and her description of the fat Soviet with a head like uncooked noodles. She was wasted on morgue reports.

He read of her suspicions on the similarities between the two previous attacks and the killing of Mrs. Ounheuan. He was certain his nurse would make a very fine coroner, but it was unlikely to happen. The Health Ministry would never consider sending a nurse on one of the valuable Soviet scholarships. She had a certificate that was a long way short of a medical degree, and, rightly or wrongly, Party members appeared to get most of the plum placements. She was bright, but it would take her over a year just to make head or tail of the Eastern European textbooks.

He was about to reach into the drawer to take out the three sets of tooth prints when, in the flicker of the candle flame, he saw the same old woman sitting at Geung’s desk. She startled him at first. Chewing on her betel nut, red saliva dribbled like blood down her chin. He was no longer afraid of the spirits but could still get a jolt when they appeared suddenly. This old lady had been showing up unannounced in the office for months. In all that time, she’d done nothing but chew.

“If you want help,” he said calmly, “you’ll have to give me some sort of sign.”

But she did nothing. He didn’t recognize her from his dissection table. He’d never met her alive. She wore a Lao phasin and a white halter blouse. This gave him no clues as to from whence she came. Women in the country had been wearing this style for centuries.

“All right, my love. You just make yourself at home. I’ve got some work to do here. Yell out if you need anything.”

He smiled, and to his surprise she smiled back. It was a gory smile, showing some five teeth stained black from the betel nut addiction. More bloody saliva dribbled, and she was gone.

“’Bye, then.”

Before going home, Siri stopped off to see Constable Nui, who seemed convinced that the doctor was his father, long departed. His tearful wife sat on the bed beside him.

“He’s been doing that all day, doctor. He thinks I’m his dog.”

Siri examined him briefly.

“I wouldn’t worry,” he said. “I suspect it’s just concussion, and if that’s the case it’ll slowly wear off as his mind puts the bits back together. His reflexes are fine. That’s a good sign. It takes time.”

“That’s what Inspector Phosy said.”

“He was here?”

“A bit earlier, Doctor. He tried to get some sense out of Nui about the job he was doing at the Ministry when he had his accident.”

“Well, as long as he doesn’t go there himself.”

“But that’s just what he planned to do, sir. He said he was off to get something to eat to build up his strength to open some box.”

“My God, no.”

Siri was out of his room faster than a man approaching his seventy-third birthday had a right to move. Nui’s wife and her sisters looked at each other in disbelief.

Nui looked up.

“’Bye, Dad.” He then looked angrily at his wife. “And you. What have I told you about not getting up on the bed?”

Dtui had waited long enough. She wasn’t the kind of girl to be standing around on a dark corner in the middle of the night. Her appointment with Phosy had been for nine. It was now nine-forty, and even by Lao standards that was long enough to wait.

She asked the neighbors for directions and found her way to the pretty house that had a feel of the old regime about it. She creaked open the tall wooden gate and walked into the dirt yard. An overly friendly little dog came up to her and took an immediate fancy to her ankles. She trod carefully so as not to crush the fellow and called out as she neared the house: “Sorry. Is anyone home?”

There was a light inside.

“We’re home,” came a woman’s voice. “Come on in.”

Dtui had the feeling this lady was used to visitors dropping in at all hours. She got as far as the unlocked door, and still nobody had come to meet her. She knocked and eased the door open.

“Excuse me.”

“Welcome.”

A middle-aged couple sat on either side of the mat, on which a simple meal was spread out. They looked up and smiled.

“Have you eaten yet?”

“Already, thanks,” she lied.

“Come. Just have a little bit to keep us company.”

This was the way Dtui remembered neighbors being. Even the poorest family would invite you to eat the last few scraps with them. This couple didn’t know who she was. She hoped socialism wouldn’t destroy all this.

“I’m sorry to arrive like this,” she said, sitting at the mat on the loose parquet floor. “My name’s Chundee Chantavongheuan, but people call me Dtui. I’m a nurse at Mahosot.”

“Good health, Dtui,” said the wife as she pushed the small plates of vegetables and fish to within her reach. She removed the lid from the sticky rice container and put it near the other food. The man spoke for the first time. He and his wife had interchangeable masculine and feminine qualities about their faces.

“I assume you know I’m Dr. Vansana. This is my wife, Sam.”

Dtui nodded and smiled and helped herself to a small pinch of rice from the wedge.

“Good health to you both.” She dipped the rice into one of the sauces and popped it into her mouth. Sam went off to the back room.

“I work in the morgue,” Dtui said, breaking off more rice. “I work with Dr. Siri Paiboun.”

“Yes, I’ve heard of him. Most of his practice was in the jungle, I believe.”

“That’s him. I’ve come to ask for a little help on one of the cases we’re working on; a recent spate of killings.”

“The bear?”

There really were so few secrets in Vientiane.

“Yes. Except I’m starting to believe it wasn’t the bear at all.”

“Is that so?”

“Dr. Vansana, you’re the visiting physician for the internment islands on Nam Ngum Reservoir?”

“That’s right. For over a year.”

“You must have come to know the inmates quite well by now.”

“Those that want to be known, yes.”

“Can you think of anyone there who might be capable of killing women violently? Any psychopathic murderers escaped lately?”

“Ahh, Dtui. People don’t escape from Don Thao. Virtually the only way to get off is in a bag with your name written on a tag. There are some psychotics there, and a number of murderers. But the really serious violent criminals all seem to have been…removed from the general population.”

“Removed? Do you mean executed?”

“I’m not even sure I should be discussing this. I’m really in no position to make such a claim.”

“But it’s possible?”

“I suppose.”

“And the ones they kill, do they do it on the island?”

“I haven’t said they do such a thing and I haven’t seen it happen. But the conditions there are barbaric. People die all the time of malaria, dysentery, and the like. The facilities are quite basic, and I don’t have enough medicines to treat even the most treatable illnesses. I go twice a week, and there’s a new pile of bodies every time I get there. I don’t have time to look at the cadavers, but I do hear rumors.”

“What kind?”

“Just comments like ‘You won’t have to check so-and-so’s lungs this week, Doc. He won’t be using them no more. He upset the warden last week.’”

“That’s terrible. Surely you’ve reported this to someone?”

“It’s in the weekly report I submit to the Health Department. They pass it on to Corrections. But I doubt if anyone reads them. Conditions haven’t improved at all, and I’ve been pushing for better sanitation and mosquito coils since I started. I just go there and do what I can. It isn’t much.”

Sam returned with some newly cubed papaya on a plate. She put it on the mat in front of the guest.

“Thank you.”

“Straight from the tree. I hope it’s ripe enough.”

She joined them on the floor and watched Dtui try the fruit.

“M’mm. It’s lovely. I wish we still had trees. My mom misses the fresh fruit.”

“There you are. I must be psychic. I’ve cut down a couple more for you to take home with you. They’re out back.”

Dtui thanked her and ate some more of the fruit before continuing her questioning.

“Dr. Vansana, how did you get this job? It sounds simply awful.”

“I suppose it’s my reward for not escaping to Thailand,” he laughed. “They probably think anyone with a degree who stuck around has to be a spy.”

“Why did you stick around?”

“We’re Lao, Dtui. We love our country. You don’t help a place you love by running away when times get tough. Sam’s a teacher. I’m a doctor. We didn’t choose these professions because we thought it would make our lives more comfortable. I’m quite sure you didn’t either.”

“No. But I wasn’t expecting it to be this difficult. Do you still feel like you’re contributing? All you see are patients dying because you haven’t got the resources to help.”

“I don’t kill all of them. There are those that I can help. Some get better. I focus on them.”

“But none get off the island.”

“I didn’t say that. I said none escape. There are those that are judged to no longer be a threat to society. Some of the addicts survive. Some of the petty criminals repent.”

“And they let them go?”

“It costs money to feed them all.”

“Don’t you think the really clever con-men get through the net, pretend to play the game just to get their backsides off the island?”

“I dare say some do.”

“Do any crazies get off?”

“Not the type of crazy you’re looking for.”

“What types?”

“Some people with mild retardation, some memory disorders, some with delusional conditions, some—”

“Any of these delusion victims released recently?”

“Dtui, these aren’t dangerous people.”

“Give me an example.”

“There are a few. There was an elderly lady who thought she was sixteen. She was flirting with all the male guards. Then, last week there was a young man called Seua. He’s probably the most placid man you could meet. He’s a big chap but calm as a catfish. He was very popular there. He was polite and helpful, so they decided to let him go.”

“What was he in for?”

“Like a lot of them, it was just a petty crime. He stole food because he was hungry. He just had the misfortune to steal it from a shop that belonged to an army officer.”

“What type of food?”

“Pardon?”

“What food did he take?”

“If I remember correctly, it was meat from a butcher’s stall.”

“And what was his delusion?”

“Dtui, this isn’t the man you’re looking for. I knew him and liked him very much. His disorder hadn’t reached the stage of schizophrenia. I think I can recognize latent violence.”

“What did he believe, Doctor?”

He looked at his wife, then at Dtui.

“He believed he was the host to an evil spirit. He always talked of it very matter-of-factly, as if he were talking about a loose tooth or a tattoo.”