Anarchy and the Old Dogs

You’re Only Dead Once

It was somewhere between 2 and 3 a.m., and only Dtui, Siri, and Phosy still remained beneath the canopy of dark leaves in the temple yard. Twice, the abbot had risen, bleary-eyed, to remind them that his monks had to be up at five to collect alms, so could they keep the noise down? Twice, the mourners had apologized and continued their anecdotes in respectful whispers. But large quantities of rice whisky tend to play havoc with a body’s volume control. It didn’t take long before they were laughing and singing and shouting messages to Manoluk, who lay shrouded in cloves and tobacco leaves in the prayer chamber just behind them. You’re only dead once, and the guests wanted this to be a good send-off for their old friend.

The last of the other mourners had staggered home before 1 a.m. and, although they were exhausted, the three comrades felt obliged to maintain a vigil. They were huddled together around the last inch of an orange candle. There was no breeze to disturb the flame or cool the sticky night.

“You’d tell me, wouldn’t you, Doc?” Dtui said through lips she couldn’t quite feel. Rice whisky doesn’t numb, it anesthetizes.

“Tell you what?”

“If she comes to see you.”

“Manoluk? Don’t be silly. The spirits only contact me if they’re restless. What’s your ma got to be unhappy about?”

“Well, the fact that she’s dead,” Phosy suggested.

When you’re drinking with a corpse, there’s no such thing as irreverence. Comments like that had them all rocking with laughter. They heard a loud cough from the abbot’s hut.

“All right,” Siri whispered. “I concede she might not be too delighted about being dead, but she certainly has no grievances about the way Dtui looked after her all those years. No mother could ask for more love and dedication from a daughter.”

They toasted to Dtui.

“Well, just in case she does,” Dtui said, “even if it’s to say hello and tell you what her new teak house in Nirvana’s like. You’d let me know, eh?”

“I promise.”

Phosy staggered off to water the gooseberry bush beyond the temple gates. There was a blissful silence, which in Laos can incorporate a lot of noise. There’s the humming and buzzing of insects and the distant howling of dogs. Somewhere a wind chime is disturbed by a lizard. House timbers stretch and groan. Water drips from a leaky tap into the huge stone temple pot. But, as any Lao would tell you, these are just musical accompaniments to make silence more interesting.

“I knew, you know?” Dtui confessed.

“Knew what?”

“That she was going.”

“Of course, we all had an idea.”

“No. I mean, I knew exactly when. Last night. I hurried home to spend the last few hours with her. That’s why I wasn’t at the vegetable co-op.”

“Auntie Bpoo told you?”

Dtui smiled at her boss. “You went to see her, didn’t you? Didn’t I tell you?”

“There was something disconcerting about her. I have to admit she may have certain… gifts.”

“She told me not to waste my time sitting there with her.”

“Just like that? She didn’t force you to sit through a poem?”

“Oh, there’s always a poem first. Nobody has the foggiest idea what they’re all about. Yesterday was something about magic tinderboxes you can speak into and hear voices from faraway lands. Still, it makes her happy. She only asks that you listen. What did she tell you?”

“Me? Just a lot of bunkum.”

Dtui giggled. “Really? So why do you suddenly think she’s legitimate?”

“I didn’t say that exactly. I just…”

Phosy had returned from his garden adventure and decided now was as good a time as any to fall across one of the trestle tables. It collapsed beneath his weight and its empty glasses and bottles crashed to the ground. If the rolling of eyes had a sound, it would certainly have been heard from the abbot’s hut at that moment. Siri and Dtui helped Phosy back to his seat even though they were no more coordinated than he. They all agreed they needed a drink to calm their nerves after the excitement.

“It’s a resounding pity Civilai couldn’t be here tonight,” Phosy said. He sounded remarkably sober for somebody who’d just broken a dozen rented glasses and a previously untouched bottle of Vietnamese snake hooch. Civilai was their only friend on the politburo and a kindred spirit. The fictitious date of birth Siri had conjured up for his official documents was May 21, 1904. It coincidentally turned out to be two days after Civilai’s actual birthday, so Civilai took delight in calling him “younger brother.” They’d studied socialist doctrine together in Vietnam, had been there at the founding of the Pathet Lao, and each had alienated about the same number of senior Party members. They were undiplomatic old coots who were too stubborn to play the political game by the rules. For Civilai, who was on the Central Committee, this was a major disability. Nobody in any position of authority bothered to listen to him anymore. He only had Siri to vent his frustrations on. That-and their love of food and a good stiff drink-was what made the two men so close.

“Where is he anyway?”

Phosy’s question had already been answered several times throughout the course of the evening.

“He’s back in the USSR,” Dtui reminded him. “Like the Beatles.”

“Who?”

“He’ll be back tomorrow or whenever the Soviets let him go. I’m not telling you again.”

“They have beetles in the USSR?”

“Never mind.”

“Poor old fellow’s become a cocktail Party member,” Siri lamented. He shifted his chair backward so he could see the sky but found there were no stars in the muggy soup above them. He wondered whether storm clouds might be gathering at long last and completely forgot his point.

“I don’t think I understand that,” Dtui said.

“All right, just look at him. He’s the one they send to attend conferences but they don’t let him speak. They put his name down for all the shows and concerts and he’s always the first one up on the dance floor. He has to meet all the visiting big nobs and take them to dinner and on to whatever tickles their fancies. He’s become so adept at small talk he’s lost the ability to make big talk. He said he feels like the comedian who warms up audiences before the star comes onstage.”

“So why doesn’t he retire?”

“Oh, Dtui. If they let us retire from the Party, do you think either of us would still be here? We’re symbolic old relics. They need people like us around to impress the young fellows coming up through the ranks. A statue would do the job better because stone doesn’t answer back. But we aren’t enough of a threat to justify an assassination so they have to put up with us.”

Siri stared into his drink as he contemplated that point and suddenly felt sorry for himself. There followed another period of Lao silence during which he realized he and the abbot were the only ones still conscious. Phosy and Dtui lay with their heads on the bare wood of the tabletop, snoring back and forth. Siri smiled at the bodies. He felt victorious, like the last man standing in a battle. He took his glass of whisky to the prayer-hall steps and held it in front of his face.

“Manoluk,” he said. “Looks like just you and me. These young folks today have no idea how to have a good time. Want to dance?”

There were always good arguments against going to work directly from an all-night drinking binge at a temple. One-

perhaps the only one-in favor was that after opening the morgue doors to make it look as if business continued as usual, one could always retire to the Mahosot Hospital canteen, where they served the muddiest and most evil coffee in the country. On top of the congealed brown sediment sat barely a mouthful of liquid coffee. No sooner was it cool enough to drink than it was necessary to order another. But that mouthful would be remembered deep into old age and could cut through a hangover like a cyclone through a barn.

Siri, Dtui, and Phosy had defied a hundred deaths balanced on the Triumph and arrived at the morgue at five. Now, at seven, their minds were buzzing like hornets in a jam jar. They’d lost the ability to blink, and they had smiles painted across their faces just like those contented people in the propaganda posters: UNITED WORKERS ARE HAPPY WORKERS. Four Mahosot coffees could do that to a person, too.

Finally, they found themselves back at the morgue.

“I feel like bathroom mold,” Phosy said, his voice like a plow dragged over rocks.

“Never mind,” Siri told him, “only ten hours and we can all go home and get some sleep.”

Dtui was squeezing her own wrist. “I’m afraid there may be some blood left in my alcohol stream. We’re medical personnel; we should know better. Stimulate my brain, someone, before it pickles. Give me a job.”

“I’m afraid the morgue is devoid of murder,” Siri told her.

“Then give me some old case to go over again. See if I can solve it quicker this time.”

“Perhaps you could help us with our dentist mystery,” Siri suggested. “Our own investigation was somewhat lacking.”

“Lacking?” Phosy said. “Didn’t I find the house… the wife?”

“Indeed you did,” Siri said. “And brilliant detective work it was, too. But I fear the whole story we heard was as convoluted as the note.”

“You didn’t believe her?”

“Have you ever played chess, Phosy?”

“Most certainly. Once we’d castrated the pigs and plucked the chickens, and as soon as we’d worn our hands raw digging ditches, me and the other orphans would rush home for a quick game of chess before stacking the rice husks.”

“A simple no would have sufficed.”

“Then no. But I take it you have.”

“It was one of the few distractions in Paris that didn’t cost any money. They played in the parks. I started off watching, fascinated. Then I began to play myself. I didn’t ever make it to the position of grand maоtre, but I won the odd game. The thing is, in the winter when we couldn’t play outside, there were competitions in the newspapers. They’d plot out the game in symbols and you had to work out the next best move. So I know the abbreviations, and not one item on the dentist’s list has any connection to chess.”

“So, the widow was lying,” Phosy said.

“Or her husband lied to her. She hadn’t learned chess so he could have told her anything. And didn’t the invisible ink story seem just a little too pat? His friend was playing a prank? Come on. He may have been able to con his wife, but not a team of hardened cynics like us. Let’s take another look at the list and see what else we can come up with.”

Siri went to the cutting room and stood in front of the blackboard they used to chalk up weights and lengths. With one eye on the note, he copied the list noisily. The generously donated Chinese chalk snapped itself into fractions as he wrote, leaving him with a tiny stub between his thumb and forefinger as he scratched the last symbols. He stepped back between Dtui and Phosy like an artist admiring his work. They stood there studying the list before them: standing, studying, staring, swaying. The characters merged and curled together like clothes in a spin dryer and the three would probably have stayed there all day transfixed by the meaningless letters if they hadn’t been interrupted by a shrill cough. They turned but there was nobody behind them. The sound had come from outside the morgue.

“Who’s there?” Siri asked. But he had to wait for a reply.

“I have a note for Dr. Siri Paiboun,” came a young voice.

“That’s me,” Siri said. “Come on inside.”

“Er, I think I’ll just leave it here,” said the voice.

When Dtui went to the front step she found a white envelope on the welcome mat and saw a young girl in the black phasin skirt and white blouse of the lycйe fleeing across the hospital grounds.

“Looks like the kids at the lycйe still think this place is haunted,” Dtui said, handing the letter to Siri.

“Can’t imagine why they’d think that,” said Phosy. He looked over the doctor’s shoulder. “Is it from Oum?”

“Well, I’ll be…” Siri smiled. “Our Australian spy has cracked it.”

“Thank God for that. I was going giddy staring at this list.”

“She says it came to her in the middle of a geography lesson. She hasn’t had time to work out the whole thing but she says she knows the key. It’s here, at the top.”

“The number 22?” Dtui asked. “I was going to say that.”

“Of course you were.” Siri retrieved another stick of chalk from the drawer and wrote “Biweekly” beneath the first set of characters. “Oum says that if we count back twenty-two places in the English alphabet from each letter in the note, words are spelled out. You go back twenty-two places with the numbers too. This is all she had time to establish. All we need is an alphabet and a little patience.”

Dtui copied out the English alphabet on a sheet of paper and taped it beside the blackboard. Letter by letter Siri wrote out the cipher as Phosy counted back and Dtui called out the correct characters. Once they’d reached the bottom, Dtui looked at the latest version of the note. It had three distinct parts. She translated the first.

22

xesaaghu iaik bnki qhb

BIWEEKLY MEMO FROM ULF

oo ykjbeniaz bkn 241i

SS CONFIRMED FOR 2PM

jk kxf bnki ll

NO OBJ FROM PP

“Well, if it’s a message, it’s still in code. It looks more like a laundry list. There aren’t that many actual words here. It starts by saying this is a biweekly memo and it’s from someone called Ulf. Or maybe it isn’t a someone, could be a place. I’ve never heard of it. The first line is mostly abbreviations. ‘SS confirmed for 2PM’ I suppose could mean something with the initials SS is due to start at two in the afternoon. Then it says, ‘No obj from PP.’ ‘Obj’ could be objection, I guess. No objection from someone with the initials PP, unless PP’s a place-Phnom Penh?”

She concentrated her attention then on the second part. “After the first part, there’s just a list of letters and numbers under the heading ‘New Players.’ ”

jas lhwuano

NEW PLAYERS

x26a/ywxo ykjbeniaz

B4E/CABS CONFIRMED

x28a/iwoo ykjbeniaz

B6E/MASS CONFIRMED

iwzx ykjbeniaz

MADB CONFIRMED

x24oa/cjgl ykjbeniaz

B2SE/GNKP CONFIRMED

x28o/cjol qjzayezaz

B6S/GNSP UNDECIDED

ywgg ykjbeniaz

CAKK CONFIRMED

ywlg ykjbeniaz

CAPK CONFIRMED

x30o/ykzg qjzayezaz

B8S/CODK UNDECIDED

x32o/iwog ykjbeniaz

B1 0S/MASK CONFIRMED

iwgg ykjbeniaz

MARK CONFIRMED

“Could be some kind of game. After each set it says either ‘confirmed’ or ‘undecided.’ So, for example, this first one says, ‘B4E/CABS confirmed.’ Mean anything to you fellows?”

“Not a thing,” Phosy confessed. “Is there any more?”

“Just the last bit.”

z zwu lnklkoaz wqc52

D DAY PROPOSED AUG30

“‘D day?’”

Siri said, “I believe it’s the name the allies gave to the invasion of France in the Second World War.”

“We’re about to be invaded by the Americans again,” phosy said.

“I doubt they’d be bothered,” said Siri, and turned back to Dtui. “What about the last lines?”

nalhu zenayp

REPLY DIRECT

“It says to reply directly to the name at the bottom.”

“And that is?”

A big Dtui smile spread across her face and her rosy cheeks puffed up like the bottom of an orangutan. She read it aloud. “Reply direct to the Devil’s Vagina.”

pda zareh’o rwcejw

THE DEVIL’S VAGINA

“The what?”

“I just call them like I see them, boss,” she said. “And that’s exactly what it says.”

“What the hell is a devil’s vagina? I don’t understand any of it. It’s even more confusing decoded. Can you make any sense out of the letters and numbers?”

“Let’s see. Inspector Dtui can do this,” she said unblink-ing, still wired from the coffee and drained from the emotions of the past twenty-four hours. “Focus. This might take some time. Bear with me. What do we see here?” She was talking to herself, as Siri and Phosy could see nothing. Almost everything on the list starts with a B. Only the third line that begins with B has two letters after the number. I get a feeling that’s the way in. Always look for an anomaly.”

That was where she focused her coffee buzz and where, after five minutes of staring, she had her brain wave. She turned and raised her arms to the clueless men behind her.

“What?” Phosy asked.

“Southeast,” she said. “That’s it. SE is southeast. The others are south and east. That’s all it could be.”

Of course, that wasn’t all it could be, but caffeine has a way of making a person see the obvious even if it isn’t there.

“So,” Siri said. “Something in the east, the south, and the southeast that has numbers. Roads? Postal codes? Mountain elevation?”

“Army units!” Phosy said. “Could it be referring to military bases?”

Siri scoured his French vocabulary and came up with only one B.

“Bataillon. Dtui, is it the same word in English?”

“There wasn’t a lot of military vocab in my medical textbooks, Doc. But I wouldn’t put it past the French to steal words from English. Totally untrustworthy people the French.”

Siri nodded at the policeman. “What made you think of army units?”

“Only that I know for sure the Eighth Battalion’s in Sekong and the Sixth East is just outside Bolikham.”

“That’s it,” Dtui said. “It fits.”

Phosy was certain, too. “It won’t take much to match up the rest. I’ve got a feeling we’re on to something. What about the letters after the slash?”

Dtui went down the list: MASS, MADB, GNKP, all the way to MAKK, but inspiration escaped her. She copied them onto a sheet of paper and went off to work on it at her desk. Phosy rode his lilac Vespa to temporary police headquarters on Sethathirat, where he could phone around to his old army colleagues. The word “classified” didn’t apply in friendly, for-old-times’-sake chats. A day that hadn’t exactly started with a bang for them had suddenly dawned into something exciting. Inspired by the industry of his colleagues, Siri went directly to the ward of private rooms, found one empty, and lay back on the starched sheet for a brief rest. He woke four hours later. He considered this his contribution to the project. A team needs an alert, conscious leader. To make himself even more qualified for the job, he stopped off at the canteen for noodles. These were the leadership qualities he most admired in himself.

He reached the morgue at 1 p.m. to find his entranced colleagues swaying in front of the blackboard.

“What have I missed?” he asked.

They didn’t even turn to look at him. He had the feeling neither had noticed his absence.

“We’ve got it, Siri,” Phosy said.

“What?”

“Your Dtui, she’s a phenomenon, a genius in white. Tell him, Dtui.”

Dtui strode up to the blackboard with a fresh stick of chalk and drew a line between the first two and second two columns of letters.

CA | BS

MA | SS

MA | DB

GN | KP

GN | SP

CA | KK

CA | PK

CO | DK

MA | SK

MA | KK

“It was the military reference that did it for me,” she said. “Like I said, the only English I know I got from my medical studies, so I had to spend some time with my nose in the dictionary. But I wondered whether the letters…” She jabbed at the column too enthusiastically and snapped the chalk. “Darn. I wondered whether the letters might have something to do with rank. So I looked up all the ranks and, sure enough, the first two letters in the column correspond: major, general, captain, and colonel.”

“Ho, well done,” Siri said, stepping forward.

“That leaves the other column, and I thought logically the letters could have been the initials of the person holding that rank.”

“And they were,” Phosy joined in. “I spent the morning finding what battalions were stationed in what provinces. They all match this list. When Dtui told me her theory, I called back to get the name of the general attached to Southern Battalion Six. The army isn’t big on giving out names but my contact owed me a favor.”

“And his initials just happened to be SP,” Siri said.

“Souvan Phibounsuk.”

“Goodness.” Siri sat on the sink unit and put his hands on his head. “We have a confidential list of military placements and the names of ranking officers-sent in code and written in invisible ink. Are you two thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Some plot’s being hatched,” Phosy said. “This is a list of the officers they’ve talked into joining them.”

“D-day,” Siri said, half to himself. “That’s it. It’s a coup d’йtat. August 30 is the date set for an uprising.”

“It has to be,” Phosy agreed.

“But this is enormous,” Dtui said. “What do we do? Who do we tell?”

“Good question, Comrade Dtui,” said Siri, staring at the list on the board.

“Well, obviously the Security Division,” Phosy said. Unconsciously, their voices had dropped to whispers. “They’re responsible for things like this, aren’t they?”

“It isn’t that easy, Phosy. Look at the list. They have generals. We don’t know how high this thing goes. If we disclose what we think we know to the wrong person…”

“They’ll find the three of us tied to rocks at the bottom of the Mekhong. There’ll be river crabs living in our…”

“Thank you, Nurse Dtui.” Siri smiled. “A little dramatic but the drift is there. The fact is we don’t know whom to trust. And, to be honest, we don’t have any hard evidence that what we’ve found here is actually what it seems to be.”

“Come on, Doc. What else could it be? Birthday invitations?”

“I admit it looks ominous, but I think we should go at this delicately.”

“So what do you propose we do?” Phosy asked.

The policeman was still swaying like a palm tree in a strong breeze. Siri looked into his friends’ faces, ceramic with fatigue.

“The first thing I suggest is that you two go home and get some sleep. We need all our wits about us and there’s no urgency. If the note is to be believed, we have until the thirtieth. That’s two weeks. Inspector Phosy, perhaps when you’re refreshed we could take another trip out to Dong Bang tomorrow to see whether the dentist’s wife has kept any of her husband’s notes. Comrade Civilai should be back from Moscow later tonight. I want to run all this by him before we do anything rash. He’ll know how to handle things and he can put us in touch with his inner circle. If nothing else, he knows which people are on his side.”

There were no objections from Phosy or Dtui. They collected their belongings and trudged to the door. Dtui stopped in the doorway and looked back at Siri.

“You know?” she said. “I don’t understand how you do it, Doc. Look at you. Older than Angkor Wat, up all night boozing, and you still look as frisky as a prawn on a hot plate. What’s your secret?”

Siri considered telling the truth, but only briefly. “What can I say? A life without impure thoughts,” he said. “Look and learn, Dtui.”

It was an odd afternoon. The thick, puffy clouds squatting low over Vientiane weren’t particularly convincing. They were like stage scenery clouds that could be pushed aside at any time to reveal the sun. What Laos needed was rain, not the promise of it. Siri had stopped by Civilai’s office and been told by his typist that he’d be arriving at some unearthly hour the following morning. Siri figured it would be at least lunchtime before his friend was in any fit state to quash a coup. So he scribbled a quick note to say he’d made a lunchtime booking at their riverside log for 12:30- and Civilai should bring enough packed lunch for both of them. He added, “This is urgent so don’t come up with any lame excuses.”

Siri’s next stop was the Department of Justice, where he was hoping he’d be able to drop his reports on Manivone’s desk before her boss, Judge Haeng, could railroad him into his office for a quick burden-sharing tutorial. There was no love lost between Siri and his much younger boss. Siri didn’t take orders and Judge Haeng didn’t do much of anything other than give them. The national coroner was the only man in the country remotely qualified to do the job, so dismissal wasn’t a threat Haeng could wield with any conviction. Siri dreamed of retirement, of inactivity and peace. He would have loved Haeng to kick him out and the young man would have been delighted to do so. The judge, with his iffy Soviet qualifications, was consumed by the need to maintain face-and Siri had smashed that face to smithereens once or twice. But, as of this week, a shadow even darker than Siri had been cast over Haeng’s department.

In July, Laos had signed an agreement of friendship and cooperation with the government of Vietnam. Although it was packaged as a way to facilitate trade and exchange information, in fact, it gave the Vietnamese a green light to station military units on Lao soil and to have an even greater influence over Lao policy making. Vietnamese “advisers” had been billeted at Lao government departments, some even being bold enough to have their own desks moved into the offices of the department heads. Such was the case at the Department of Justice, and Judge Haeng didn’t like it one little bit.

His office mate was a toothless but ever-smiling man who wore his hair greased flat on his head like a matinee idol. Although he sported a large, charcoal gray suit rather than a uniform, he was a colonel in the People’s Army of Viet nam and a senior lecturer in law at the new institute in Hanoi. To Haeng’s chagrin, he could read and write Lao, and under the agreement, every document that passed over Haeng’s desk, “in” or “out,” had to pay a visit to Colonel Phat. Although the colonel hadn’t yet made any direct comments, Haeng watched him out of the corner of his eye as the man shook his head and tutted repeatedly as he pored over the reports. As a result, the judge concentrated doubly hard on his grammar and spelling. He also tried to be out of his office whenever Phat was in, which was most of the time.

So, to make a long story no less long, that was why Haeng bumped into Siri at Mrs. Manivone’s desk in the typing pool that day.

“Ah, Siri,” Haeng said, as if he were actually glad to see the coroner.

“Judge Haeng.”

“What are you doing?”

“Just delivering my reports for the week. I was on my way to-”

“Good. Glad I caught you.”

“You are?”

“Absolutely. There’s a little matter I might get you to take care of for us.”

“That depends. When?”

“‘When?’ That’s hardly the reaction we expect from a soldier of the revolution, Siri.” Haeng cast a glance toward the clerks sitting around the room. He seemed to know instinctively they were hungry for some homegrown socialist wisdom. “A true warrior would say, ‘Let me at it.’’’

“He would?”

“Yes, Siri. A dedicated socialist plunges headfirst into the troubled waters without testing the depth.”

“Isn’t he likely to bump his head on the bottom?” Siri asked.

“What?”

“If it’s too shallow.”

“I don’t… No. He wouldn’t care. He would-”

“What if he can’t swim? Like me.” Siri and Haeng both heard a muffled chuckle from behind them.

“It’s not literal, Siri. It’s a… Look, never mind. Come with me. We have something to talk about in private.” He headed off toward the exit. Siri knew why.

“Isn’t your office this way?”

“Yes, but it’s… occupied. We can talk outside.”

As he led them toward the door, Haeng grabbed a small red book from a large pile beside the souvenir cabinet. He didn’t stop till he reached the edge of the basketball court. Once a happy after-work recreation spot for the American imperialists, the concrete rectangle was now in the process of being reclaimed by nature. Undernourished ivy and morning glories crisscrossed the backboards and curled wreathlike around the rims.

There came a belch of thunder from overhead that rolled languidly across the stodgy clouds.

“Looks like rain at last,” Haeng said. It was the first decorous comment Siri could remember hearing from the spotty young man. He was too surprised to respond. “But, anyway,” Haeng continued, “we’ve had a bit of an embarrassment in the south.”

“Souths are notorious for embarrassing their northern neighbors.”

“Quite. It appears a deputy governor has managed to get himself electrocuted in the bathtub.”

“Clumsy.”

“Yes, I suppose you could say that. But there are complications. I was on the phone with the governor for an hour this morning. He seems to think there are political implications.”

Siri laughed. “About a man electrocuting himself in the bath?”

“Siri. Please restrain the levity. The deputy governor was up here recently paying a courtesy visit to the Soviet embassy. I’m sure you recall how their ambassador likes to give away those horrible Soviet-built appliances as souvenirs: irons, fans, soldering equipment, all that type of stuff. Most of it’s built to withstand missile attacks-no removable parts. When any of it breaks down, you have no choice but to sell it for scrap and buy a new one. Well, the deputy governor got a water heater as a souvenir. You know the sort: thick wooden handle with a hook and a long metal element curled into a loop.”

“I’ve got one. You hook it onto the side of the bathtub, plug it in, and it heats up your water.”

“That’s the one. It would seem the deputy governor was in the bath while the heater was still live. Stewed himself. I tried to convince the governor that it sounded like his deputy’s own stupid fault, but you know what they’re like down there. He’s accusing the Russians of assassinating his deputy. He believes the heater was rigged, and he’s threatening to write his accusations in a letter to the Soviet authorities if the case isn’t investigated. We certainly can’t have that. I just need someone to go down there and put his mind at ease.”

“Why me? And I don’t need the warrior speech again.”

Judge Haeng had tried the line “Don’t question my instructions” before, and knew it didn’t work on a man like Siri. “Because you’re the national coroner, Siri. You’re the only one who can convince him it was an accident. He’ll have to believe you.”

Siri had become selective about the long-distance cases he accepted these days. They invariably got him into trouble. Traveling to the other end of the country for some ridiculous water-heater accident seemed pointless. There was only one thing that might entice him.

“What province?” he asked.

“Champasak.”

“I’ll go.”

“You will?” As usual when Siri agreed to obey one of Haeng’s directives, a look of astonishment appeared briefly on the judge’s face. Siri enjoyed watching it arrive and his fight to erase it.

“Jolly good. Here, take this for the journey.” Haeng held out the book.

“What is it?”

“It’s Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book. We’ve had it translated into Lao.”

“What on earth for?”

Haeng stifled his frustration and forced the book into Siri’s pocket.

“A good socialist is not a dustbin, with a closed lid. He is a letter box, always open to receive news.”

“Well, that explains everything. I’ll do my best to keep my slot open.”

“Good man. Right. I’ll book you on a flight early tomorrow morning.”

“No. Can’t get away till the evening. Say six?”

“Siri, you know there are no scheduled flights at that time.”

“Judge, that’s when I’ll be free to go.”

“There’s no way to…”

“Have you told the Soviet ambassador what they’re accusing him of in the south?”

“Of course not.”

“Then I suggest you do. With the Soviets and the Chinese and the Vietnamese all jockeying for some kind of role in our humble land, it would surprise me if the ambassador didn’t make his old Yak available for a special little trip south. You might mention that the Champasak governor’s threatening to write to Moscow.”

“I don’t…”

“Trust me, son. It’s high time the puppet started pulling back on the strings.”