“Yeah, sure, uh-huh. I take you now?”
“How far is it?”
“Three, maybe four hour. Road pretty good. No rain. Not so good in rain.”
“Are there hotels up there?”
“Sure, uh-huh. Plenty good hotels.”
“Well, then,” Sam said, “let’s get going. The day’s not getting any younger.”
They piled into the SUV and the engine started with a cloud of ominous black smoke and then began idling roughly on its three remaining cylinders. Sam silently wondered where Kendra had gotten the tip for their new friend.
Analu pulled into traffic with a casual disregard for the oncoming vehicles—an effort that was rewarded with ample honking. He floored the pedal and made a gesture through his open window that Sam interpreted as a sign of friendly acceptance. The little SUV lumbered forward like a losing boxer at the end of the eleventh round after swerving to avoid a delivery van by a matter of inches, which didn’t faze Analu in the least.
Ten seconds later, a black Nissan sedan rolled from the curb half a block behind and took up a trailing position, the two Laotian men in it serious, their attention focused on the SUV. The passenger made a call, as their quarry took the on-ramp to Route 13, and, after a terse discussion, gave instructions to the driver, who dropped back another fifty yards.
Once out of the Vientiane area, the road became a flat, two-lane strip in marginal condition, with swarms of motorcycles buzzing past each time the Isuzu neared a town. As far as Sam could tell, there were no discernible rules of the road and by the second hour he’d grown accustomed to near misses and kamikaze riders racing toward them in the wrong lane, pulling to one side to safety moments before impact.
To their surprise, lush farmland with almost neon hues of green stretched for miles on either side of the highway. They’d been expecting jungle and rain forest and instead seemed to be in a tropical agricultural strip that went on endlessly, the wind blowing twisted waves of ripples across the fields.
For all their misgivings, Analu avoided killing either them, or any other drivers, and offered a running commentary on the various communities as they drove north. Some of his asides were humorous, some sad, but all world-weary, the result of living in a society where poverty was endemic and corruption was an expected aspect of any form of authority.
As they neared their destination, Remi pointed to a string of mountains thrusting into the sky. “Oh, look. That’s really beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Karst formations. Limestone eroded away by the river over time,” Sam said.
“It’s like something out of a movie.”
Traffic increased as they drew closer to town and soon they were part of a long line of cars inching forward like a frustrated concertina as they waited for a herd of cattle to cross the road ahead of them.
“What first stop? We almost there,” Analu chirped, leaning on his horn occasionally to break the monotony.
“The police station.”
Analu stared at Sam with wide eyes in the rearview mirror. “You sure?”
“Never more so. And we’ll need you to translate if they don’t speak English,” Remi said.
The expression on Analu’s face clearly indicated he wished he’d asked for more details about their errand before accepting the job. As a native, he’d been raised to understand that going to the police station was right up there with juggling hatchets in terms of prudence. Still, he put on a brave show and nodded as though he hadn’t a care in the world. Which would have been more convincing if his face hadn’t blanched at least three shades lighter.
When they reached the town center, Analu made a right turn and drove up a block, then parked in a muddy lot in front of one of the few concrete buildings, the rest fashioned out of wood and painted gaudy colors. He shut off the engine, which wheezed like a chain-smoker before expiring with a shudder, and they climbed out into the muggy swelter. Sam eyed the building, which seemed barely large enough to house a few desks and a cell. He motioned for Analu to lead the way.
Inside, two wiry men with thick heads of greasy black hair sat behind a counter, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes, their uniforms stained with sweat despite the fan blowing a tepid stream of air their way. A portable radio on one of the desks blared a pop song that would have been insipid in any language. They looked up with drooping eyes as Analu made a cautious introduction. One of the officers stood, went into the back, and emerged after half a minute with a short, plump man in his forties who looked like he’d just woken up. The man buttoned his uniform shirt with clumsy fingers and then barked an annoyed question at Analu, who smiled with trepidation and embarked on a rambling explanation of why he’d interrupted the captain’s afternoon rest.
The captain mopped at his perspiring face with a soiled cloth handkerchief and grunted and then asked another question, this time with a distinct tone of menace. Analu nodded like a buffoon and turned to Sam.
“He want to know what you looking for. I tell him you important guests of Laotian people and have questions, yeah?”
Sam cleared his throat. “Tell him that we’re looking for a British man who was either in custody or owed money to the police here about a month or so ago. The gentleman’s name is Lazlo Kemp.”
The plump man’s eyes narrowed at the mention of Lazlo’s name. Analu translated and the captain waved him away with an abrupt gesture, then fixed Sam with a calculating stare.
“What you want with him?” the man demanded in fractured English.
“We’re friends of his. We haven’t heard from him for months. We’re worried. And we have news for him,” Remi said. The official ignored her, waiting for Sam to speak.
“We need to talk to him and we were hoping you might know how to reach him,” Sam said. “I’d be extremely grateful if you could help. Extremely.”
The man glanced at Remi and returned his attention to Sam, his expression now more one of cunning than annoyance. “You friend?”
“Yes. A generous friend whose problem you might be able to solve.”
“How generous?”
“A hundred American.”
The Laotian official scoffed and the negotiation began. “A thousand.”
Sam shook his head at the preposterous figure. “Hundred fifty.”
Three minutes later, Sam counted out two hundred fifty dollars and handed the bills to the captain, who showed absolutely no concern at his extortion being viewed by his subordinates. He took the money and fingered each note as if suspicious that Sam had printed them that morning and then they disappeared into his pants in a blink. He pulled a pen from his shirt pocket and scrawled an address and a name on a scrap of notepaper.
“Talk to Bane. Maybe he see English,” he said, and handed the slip to Analu, who looked at it like it was a live scorpion.
Back in the car, Analu turned to them with concern etched across his face. “This not good.”
“No, my suspicion is it won’t be,” Sam said. “But we need to find our friend.”
Analu coaxed the engine into life and they set out up the highway, turning toward the river onto a rutted dirt road after a hundred yards. They bounced along before they stopped at a complex of structures that looked ready to collapse under their own weight at the slightest breeze. Analu stared at the entry and shut off the motor with a shake of his head.
“We here. Need to pay again for information. Man who owns this very dangerous.”
“Remi, why don’t you stay here this time?” Sam said as he swung his door open.
“And miss all the fun?”
“I think I’ll pay a lot less if I don’t have a beautiful woman with me.”
“Always looking for the bargain, aren’t you?”
“It’s my nature.”
“Fine. Just don’t get yourself killed. I’d have a lot of explaining to do to Selma and the gang.”
Analu knocked on the flimsy slab of plywood that served as a door and after a full minute a wizened man with long white hair and a scraggly beard peer
ed at them from within. Analu spoke in Laotian and the man grunted. After scrutinizing Sam, he pulled the makeshift door open and stepped back to let them enter.
Sam could barely make out the bodies lying on filthy cots along the walls in the gloom. The interior was broiling, but the sleepers seemed not to notice. They passed into another room, where two men sat at a folding metal card table with a metal lockbox and an array of pipes. Analu bowed respectfully and stated his case, and the elder of the two, an ancient birdlike man with scarcely any muscle on his bones, pursed his lips and looked Sam up and down.
After extended haggling, during which Analu almost walked away three times, Sam presented a hundred-dollar bill like a first-class ticket to New York. The opium dealer reached out with an emaciated arm, held it up to the light filtering through a filthy window, and murmured to his companion. The man who’d shown them in smiled in a way that reminded Sam of a Komodo dragon. Analu shivered involuntarily.
The old dealer leaned forward and spoke in raspy but understandable English seasoned by fifty years of smoking opium. “Crazy Englishman hang out at Lulu’s. One klick north. Probably there now,” he said with the solemnity of a clergyman delivering a eulogy.
Sam turned to Analu, who looked terrified. “Do you know Lulu’s?”
“It bad place.”
Sam nodded at the dealer and thanked him for his assistance. Sam and Analu could make out the men inside cackling through the paper-thin walls as they returned to the Isuzu.
“I’d say that went well,” he said to Remi as they slid back inside the baking steel box.
“I thought I heard laughter. What was the joke?”
“Who was it that said that if you’re sitting at a poker game for fifteen minutes and you don’t know who the patsy is, it’s you?”
Remi glanced at the building. “A wise man.”
The engine caught on the third sputter, and, a few minutes later, they were easing to a stop in front of a long rectangular shack with a thatched roof that made most of the hovels in the world look like palaces. Two motorcycles rested on rusting kickstands near the door, where a rooster stood, head swiveling, searching for anything edible. Music drifted from inside, and female laughter pealed over the melody, which to Sam’s ear sounded like an out-of-tune children’s recital with an aggravated bird of prey screeching over the din. He and Remi exchanged glances and then Sam took her hand and led her to the darkened doorway. A shabby pale green sign overhead announced that they’d arrived at Lul’s—the last u having rubbed off at some point.
The interior was no surprise, given the curb appeal of the roadhouse, but, even so, Remi was taken aback. Soiled straw littered the dirt floor, which was dotted with six white plastic tables, all devoid of patrons. A wood-and-bamboo bar lurked at one end of the gloomy room, where a rail-thin man in his fifties sat watching a black-and-white television, behind which stood two decrepit refrigerators. At the other end, a local woman in garish red stretch pants sat drinking at a wooden table littered with empty beer bottles. Her companion was a Caucasian man with the unhealthy jaundiced complexion of a hobo, who stared at the newcomers with the blurry, unfocused gaze of a man who thought he was hallucinating.
“Lazlo. Nice place you’ve got here,” Sam said, fake cheer in his voice as he approached the table.
“Good heavens. Most remarkable. Sam . . . Fargo. What on earth are you doing here?” Lazlo asked with a slur. “And if I’m not mistaken, with the lovely Rami?”
“Remi,” she corrected. “And no, you’re not mistaken.”
Lazlo made a valiant attempt to stand, an ambitious act that appeared to exhaust him. He sensibly downgraded his chivalry to a wave of his limp hand. “Please, have a seat. Bartender, drinks all around!” he called. The man behind the counter looked up as if registering the newcomers for the first time and raised an eyebrow.
“A beer,” Sam said over his shoulder, while Remi shook her head. Analu stayed at the door, looking ready to run at any moment. A creaky fan with cracked plastic blades suspended from a beam twirled overhead, blowing Lazlo’s cigarette smoke at the young woman, who appeared to be twenty-something going on sixty.
The bartender opened the nearest refrigerator and extracted a bottle of Beerlao Original, then padded over on bare feet and placed it on the table in front of Sam, showing no interest in clearing away Lazlo’s empties. Lazlo raised his half-full beer in a toast. Sam clinked his bottle against it, taking in Lazlo’s dilated eyes as he did so, as well as the three drained shot glasses next to the dead soldiers.
The beer was surprisingly cold. Sam took a long pull before setting it down and waiting for Lazlo to ask what they were doing there. Lazlo drank the rest of his beer in three gulps and dropped his smoldering cigarette down the neck, watching it extinguish with a damp fizzle before setting the bottle next to its empty brethren. Remi shifted uncomfortably on her hard chair and Lazlo finally got the hint. He regarded his female friend and rattled off a rapid-fire sentence in passable Lao. She finished her drink, rose, and teetered off toward the bar on high heels that left little doubt as to her vocation.
“So good to see you, old chap. Really. Whoever would have thought . . .” Lazlo began, but quickly seemed to deflate. “Bit under the weather at present, though. Not my usual effervescent self.”
“I can see that, my friend. But it’s good to see you, too,” Sam said as he leaned back in his chair. He fixed Lazlo with an amenable look. “What’s a nice Brit like you doing in a place like this, Lazlo?”
Lazlo offered a humorless grin and fumbled in his shirt pocket for his smokes, then lost interest. “It’s a long and sordid story. As are most involving yours truly.”
“We traveled halfway around the world to find you, so take your time.”
Lazlo cleared his throat. “You’ve obviously heard about my little . . . indiscretion.” He shot Remi a cautious glance. “Yes, of course you have. A monumental mistake by anyone’s yardstick. But no matter. Once I got that all . . . reconciled, I decided to, well, sort of reinvent myself. Opportunity knocks often for the curious among us—and I’d been looking over some scrolls from the Khmers. And I’d always intended to get out into the world someday and make my fortune, but it didn’t work out, so here I am.”
“Here you are,” Remi echoed.
“What happened, Lazlo?” Sam asked softly.
Lazlo felt in his breast pocket and pulled out a crumpled packet containing a solitary cigarette. Both Sam and Remi noticed that his hand trembled as he lit it.
“It all started well enough. I had some promising locations mapped out and three chaps to help me in the brush. We spent a few months searching . . . but nothing. But I still kept at it. I mortgaged the flat to pay for this expedition, so I had to make it work. But that wasn’t quite what the gods had in store for me.”
“What were you looking for?”
“Treasure. What else? When the Khmer empire imploded in the fifteenth century, a remarkable store of gold and jewels was spirited out of what’s now Cambodia and hidden in a cave somewhere in Laos. At least that’s what I gleaned from the accounts, and I was convinced I could find it. Turns out that was a little optimistic,” Lazlo said, his voice brittle. He seemed to collapse in on himself, empty. “So here you find me . . . for my sins . . .”
“Why here?” Sam asked.
“Why not? It’s as good a place as any to wrestle with your demons. Why not in the wilds of Laos? What better place?”
“And that’s it? You gave up? Or you discovered there was no treasure?”
“It wasn’t so much that I gave up as my nature caught up with me. I had everything under control, but as my funds ran ever lower and I was no closer to finding the Khmer treasure than I was at the outset, I returned to the embrace of my waiting mistress: the bottle. It wasn’t long before my passion for the treasure metamorphosed into smoking the local opium and chasing it down with a bottle of the natives’ rice whiskey—lao-lao, it’s called, and an absolute bargain at less than a quid a bot
tle.” Lazlo gave Sam a hunted look. “Two quid a night for a guesthouse room, a handful of coppers for a night’s supply of dragon smoke . . . A man can get lost for a long time at such enticing rates.”
Sam hunched forward. “You’re better than that, Lazlo.”
Lazlo shook his head. “Not anymore, I’m afraid, not anymore. The old days are over. Can’t take back the ticking of the clock.”
Remi cleared her throat. “We have a proposition for you.”
Lazlo wheezed a lusty laugh. “I’m truly flattered. Or, at least, I think I am . . .”
Remi ignored the clumsy innuendo. “We have a project. Something we need your help with. But you need to be straight. You’ll be of no use like this.”
“A project?”
“An ancient Spanish manuscript,” Sam interjected. “We got it in Cuba. But it’s in code and we can’t crack it.”
“There are few codes that can’t be cracked.”
“This one doesn’t resemble anything we’ve seen.”
Lazlo blew a cloud of nicotine at the fan and closed his eyes. “I sincerely doubt I have it in me anymore, Sam.”
“Nonsense. Of course you do. You’re just throwing yourself a pity party,” he said. “Killing yourself—one of the brightest minds of its kind—because you drink too much and do stupid things.”
Lazlo opened his eyes and smiled again—a maudlin apparition. “Guilty, old friend. Guilty as charged. And better that you leave me to serve my sentence in this backwater of purgatory. I’m just not up to snuff.”
“Meaning you’re too far gone to be able to solve the riddle? Or you won’t because it will take you away from all this?”
“A little of both, I expect . . .”
“Lazlo, look at me. I said we have a proposition. Don’t you want to hear it?” Remi asked.
He stubbed out his cigarette and his eyes finally met Remi’s. “Fine, young lady, fine. What have you come to discuss, assuming it’s not my spectacular fall from academic grace?”
“Help us with the manuscript and we’ll assist you with your Khmer hunt. Help us find ours and we’ll help you find yours. Whatever it takes. Funding, personnel . . . We’ll even go into the jungle with you. It’s a no-lose proposition. Give us what we need and we’ll give you what you need. Look at me, Lazlo. Listen to what I’m saying. Do this and we’ll do what we have to in order to make your dream come alive.”