Of all the ancient wats near Siem Reap, with lotus flowers floating in secluded reflecting pools and stone ramparts broken to pieces by strangler figs, French’s favorite temple by far was Banteay Srei.
Unlike Angkor Wat, Banteay Srei was designed to invite, not overwhelm, with no tower taller than thirty feet and grounds that could be explored in half an hour or less. The reliefs on the lintels and pediments were unusually delicate—carved by women, according to local legend—and a special kind of rose-colored sandstone had been used on the main buildings. When the early-morning sun was just right, like now, the gopuras and sanctuary were as rich and warm as a blushing cheek.
Seriously exquisite, French thought, gazing at the temple. Just perfect.
He and Ramos sat parked at the far end of the temple parking lot, in the old yellow Mercedes that Ramos had stolen earlier in the week. Theirs was the only car in the lot, along with the pair of tuk-tuks waiting near the ticket booth.
“Did you know, old chum,” French said, “that in all of Angkor, all the various temples, no two apsaras are alike? Nuts, isn’t it?”
Ramos didn’t answer. He fired up what the locals called a Buddha: Cambodian weed spiked with a dash of opium.
“Apsaras are the celestial maidens you see carved all over the temples,” French went on. “Thousands of them. Hundreds of thousands. And each and every lovely lady has a distinctive face, a unique expression. It blows one’s mind.”
Ramos held the smoke in his lungs for what seemed like an impossible amount of time. Finally he released it.
“Okay,” he said.
Ramos! The dude lacked even a soupçon of personality. French often felt as if he were trying to have an intelligent conversation with one of the empty-eyed stone heads, streaked with bat shit, that guarded the temple gates at Prasat Bayon.
He checked his watch. Ten minutes had passed since they’d arrived. French decided to wait a few more minutes. The timing of this next stage was critical. He knew they wouldn’t have this opportunity again.
They’d been following the woman since Thursday. Every morning at six-thirty, she hired one of the tuk-tuks waiting outside her hotel and spent a few hours sightseeing. She hit Angkor Wat on Thursday, Angkor Thom on Friday, Ta Prohm on Saturday. Today, finally, the woman’s tuk-tuk had turned onto the highway and puttered north, past the Landmine Museum and into the jungle, toward Banteay Srei.
Banteay Srei was the most far-flung of Siem Reap’s attractions. A lot of tourists skipped it, and those who didn’t tended to visit after making stops at the closer, A-list temples. Until nine in the morning, Banteay Srei was almost deserted.
Perfect.
“We’ll give our girl a few more minutes,” French said.
Their girl. That’s how French had begun to think of her, even though she was in her mid-forties or so, probably six or seven years older than him or Ramos.
Ramos took another hit of the Buddha, then passed it to French.
“Play it cool with your guy,” Ramos said. “Be careful.”
French gave him an innocent look. “Really, Mason?”
“Yeah.” Ramos’s expression didn’t change. French had discovered that irony, no matter how thickly piled on, had little effect on Ramos. He was ridiculously literal, a mule pulling a cart.
Oh, well. French reminded himself that he’d recruited Ramos for his practical experience, not his sparkling personality.
French had met Mason Ramos back in February, in one of the grubby expat bars on Pub Street. The two of them were the only daytime drinkers in the place, both of them American and both blown by ill winds to the other side of the globe. French had abandoned the United States after the university revoked his tenure. He’d seen the move to Southeast Asia as a new beginning, a fresh start, but he’d been abroad a year now, his new novel remained unwritten, and he was almost out of money. Ramos, French learned after he bought him a drink, was from California, where a few months earlier he’d finished “a stretch.”
French bought Ramos a second and a third drink. He hoped Ramos, with his spiderweb tattoos and heavy-lidded watchfulness, might be willing to share a juicy story or two about life in the Life. French was toying with the idea of writing a screenplay (commercial but literate: Ocean’s Eleven filtered through a Proustian lens) and needed some inspiration.
As a muse, though, Ramos kind of sucked. His stories, vague and lacking concrete detail, managed to be both brief and tedious. On the other hand, he was a good listener. And sympathetic to the ordeal that French had gone through—the sexual-harassment committee back home, that lynch mob of shrill harpies and dickless assistant provosts.
So what if French had slept with a few of his female students over the years? He was a young, attractive professor, and the relationships were always consensual. The women in question were adults, responsible for their own choices, and if one or two of them had mistakenly believed that sex with French might improve their grades, then that was their problem, not his.
“You don’t want to spook him,” Ramos said now.
“Ah. I’d better write that down.”
Ramos considered. “Okay.”
Ramos! French checked his watch again. It was past seven-thirty. It was time.
He got out of the Mercedes and strolled across the parking lot. Their girl’s tuk-tuk driver squatted in the shade of a sugar palm, smoking a cigarette.
“So she didn’t wait for me, did she?” French said, greeting the driver with a smile. “Typical. She went inside without me?”
The tuk-tuk driver squinted up.
“My lady friend,” French explained. That was as specific as he could get, since he didn’t know the woman’s name. He didn’t know anything
about her except that she was from the United States, traveling solo, and—Bjorn had assured him—very, very wealthy. “The one you brought here? From the hotel? The American woman.”
Their girl’s tuk-tuk driver nodded warily. “Yes.”
“Yes,” French said. “But it’s okay. You can go now. You don’t have to wait for her. She can ride back to town with me. I have a car.”
The driver shook his head. No. He wanted the fare back to town.
French was prepared for this. He took out a twenty-dollar bill. The driver eyed it.
“Chum reap leah,” French said. Good-bye.
The driver hesitated, then shrugged, snatched the twenty, and mounted his motorcycle. He putt-putt-puttered away.
French’s man, Chan, waited a few yards away, next to the only tuk-tuk left in the lot now. French gave him a discreet nod and returned to the Mercedes.
“Perfect,” French told Ramos, “if I do say so myself.”
“Okay,” Ramos said.
Ten minutes later the woman, their girl, emerged from the temple gate. French took a final hit of the Buddha and handed it back to Ramos. Ramos licked his thumb and snuffed the burning tip. Together they watched the woman stop, remove her sunglasses, and scan the parking lot for her missing tuk-tuk.
She was dressed tastefully and expensively, in tailored linen slacks and a silk blouse the deep aubergine of Cambodian twilight. Dark hair, a long, aristocratic neck. French suspected that their girl was a babe, but he hadn’t been close enough yet to make a definitive ruling.
“What’s he waiting for?” Ramos said.
“Don’t worry,” French said.
He had faith in Chan, a sweet-natured kid, eighteen or nineteen years old, who mopped floors at the fleabag hotel where French was living. In his spare time, Chan drove a tuk-tuk, taking tourists on unlicensed tours of the Tonlé Sap fishing villages. When French said he needed someone to help with a practical joke, Chan had jumped at the offer. He had a wife and three children to support. French offered him more money than he’d earn in a month.
“He needs to make his move,” Ramos said.
“Don’t worry.”
Right on cue, Chan walked over to their girl.
“Tuk-tuk?” he said, his palms open and a big cheerful smile on his face. French had coached him well. “Hello, madam! Need tuk-tuk?”
Their girl scanned the parking lot one last time, then nodded. She followed Chan to his tuk-tuk and climbed in.
“What did I tell you?” French said.
Ramos started the Mercedes. Chan’s tuk-tuk pulled onto the highway.
“When?” Ramos said.
“What?”
“What did you tell me when?”
French looked at Ramos. It was like looking into an empty swimming pool.
“I told you my plan would work,” French said slowly. “I told you it was a
perfect plan.”
Ramos considered. He nodded. “Yeah.”
They followed the tuk-tuk, giving it plenty of space. A mile or so from Banteay Srei, Chan turned off the highway and onto a narrow dirt road. Ramos slowed and turned onto the dirt road, too.
French reached into the backseat for the masks—cheap plastic knockoffs of traditional Khmer masks that he’d bought at a stall in the central market. His was Hanuman, the heroic monkey general who led Rama’s forces to victory in the Ramayana. For Ramos, French had picked a slack-jawed demon soldier with crooked fangs. Ramos, naturally, missed the irony.
The dirt road led into the jungle. They put on their masks. When they reached the clearing, a hundred yards in, Chan had already parked and was standing next to his motorcycle. He scratched his head and pretended, as instructed, to be lost. Their girl climbed out of the tuk-tuk. French didn’t know if she bought Chan’s act or not. At this point, of course, she didn’t need to.
Ramos eased the Mercedes up behind the tuk-tuk.
This, French knew, was it. His Rubicon. The point of no return. The risk was enormous, but so was the potential reward.
Two million dollars. He would be able to start a new life. He’d finally have the life he deserved.
His heart pounded, but at the same time he felt strangely calm. His senses tingled and hummed. He could see the drop of dew on a blade of grass twenty paces away. He could hear the creak of sandal rubber when Chan shifted nervously from one foot to the other.
“You okay?” Ramos said.
French nodded. “Perfectly okay.”
He wished he had some coke. Just enough to make sure he stayed on this fine, bright edge of awareness.
He pushed open the door of the Mercedes and stepped out.
“Good morning,” he said. He lifted the gun Ramos had found for him. The gun, a small black automatic, felt heavier than French remembered. He realized that his palm was sweating.
The woman turned. If she was alarmed by the sight of a man wearing a monkey mask, pointing a gun at her, she didn’t show it. But the lenses of her sunglasses were very dark. French couldn’t see what was happening behind them.
“Drop your bag, please, and put your hands behind your back.” He kept his voice relaxed, friendly. He wanted to maintain the right tone. Restrained. Civilized. “We aren’t going to hurt you.”
Their girl took a moment to consider. She remained unflustered.
“May I ask one question?” she said.
Before French could answer, Ramos stepped forward.
French saw the gun in his hand. “What is that?” he said, startled.
Ramos wasn’t supposed to have a gun. French had been explicit about that. He wanted to avoid unnecessary bluster. The tone, again: restrained, civilized.
“I don’t know,” Ramos said. He glanced at French, then at the gun, then back at French. “It’s Russian, I think.”
“No, for God’s sake, I mean what are you doing with it?”
“You are making a mistake,” their girl said.
Ramos pointed his gun at her sternum.
“Stop talking,” he said. “Do what he said or I’ll put you in the ground.”
Their girl dropped her bag and turned around. She put her arms behind her back. Ramos stuck the gun in the waistband of his jeans. French watched as he cuffed her wrists and gagged her with a krama, one of the checkered scarves almost every Cambodian wore.
It struck French then. This is really happening. He felt almost giddy with disbelief.
“Trunk,” Ramos said.
“What?” French said.
He tossed the car keys to French. “Pop the trunk.”
French unlocked the trunk of the Mercedes. Ramos gripped their girl’s arm, tightly, and steered her over.
“Get in,” he said. “Do it now.”
“We’re not going to hurt you,” French said again. “This will be over before you know it.”
He helped her climb into the trunk. She didn’t resist. She settled on her side, knees tucked up, hands behind her back. Ramos slammed the lid of the trunk shut.
French stripped off his mask and used the sleeve of his linen blazer to wipe the sweat from his eyes.
This is really happening.
“What?” Ramos said.
“What?” French said. “Nothing.”
French saw Chan still standing by his tuk-tuk, in what appeared to be shock. The kid was grinning with horror, one hand clamped to the top of his head, as if to keep it from flying off.
French walked over and gave Chan his most reassuring smile.
“It’s okay,” he said. “You did very well. Everything is going to be fine.”
“No,” Chan said.
“Yes. I promise.”
“No.”
Ramos walked over. He stood next to French, his mask still on.
“You weren’t supposed to have a gun,” French said. “I told you that. Do you remember what I told you about setting the right tone?”
“Yeah,” Ramos said. He watched Chan, who was breathing rapidly, his shoulders rising and falling.
“Don’t worry,” French said. “He’ll be fine. We can trust him.”
French had made certain of that by paying Chan only half the money up front. And French would also explain to Chan that he was an accessory, now, to a very serious crime. If Chan went to the authorities, he’d end up in jail right alongside French and Ramos.
French put a hand on Chan’s shoulder and squeezed it gently.
“I need you to calm down,” French said, “and listen to me very carefully.”
Chan managed to nod. He was still grinning with horror.
“Please stop grinning like that first. Okay?”
“Okay.” But the kid couldn’t do it.
“Everything is going to be fine,” French said.
“He needs to keep his mouth shut,” Ramos said.
French glanced over. “Really, Mason? You think so?”
He fired back up the reassuring smile and gave Chan’s shoulder another squeeze.
“Chan, old chum,” he started to say, but a shattering blast of heat inches from French’s right ear sent him staggering sideways. Chan’s head snapped back, and a spray of blood sizzled against the tin canopy of the tuk-tuk.
For a moment Chan hung suspended, neither rising nor falling, a man undecided. Finally his knees buckled. He sank, a slow droop, to the ground.
French, dazed, his right ear shrieking, turned to Ramos.
Ramos lowered his gun. “Yeah,” he said.
The black-and-white dropped in behind them when they turned onto Indiana Avenue. Bloomington PD.
“Make a right,” Shake said. He pointed. “Right.”
They turned right onto Seventh and swung up the north side of campus. The cop stayed with them. Shake, in the passenger seat, saw Jawad’s eyes flick to the rearview; he saw his hands tighten on the wheel of the Kia Forte.
“Take it easy,” Shake said.
“Yes,” Jawad said.
“You understand what that means?” Shake said. “Take it easy?”
After working with the kid for two weeks, Shake always checked for errors in translation. Jawad knew a lot of complicated scientific terms, but past that his English was hit-or-miss. To be fair, Shake’s Arabic was all miss. He only knew one phrase, “Inshallah.” God willing. You could use it in just about any situation.
“Inshallah,” Shake said.
Jawad nodded and seemed to relax. But then his eyes flicked again to the rearview.
“Easy,” Shake said. He pointed again. “Left on Woodlawn.”
Jawad sped up, slowed down, flipped on his right blinker, flipped it back off, and made a wobbly left. The Forte drifted toward the oncoming lane for a second, and Shake clenched.
He glanced in his side mirror. The black-and-white was still on them, fifteen feet back, a muscled-up Dodge Charger. Shake wasn’t sure how he felt about cops in Dodge Chargers. The Dodge was an outlaw car, wasn’t it? The Dodge. Shake pictured Junior Johnson hauling moonshine through the North Carolina hills in a ’66 Coronet. Steve McQueen chasing down that black ’68 Charger in Bullitt. Which, by the way, could only ever happen in the movies, a Mustang 390 GT fastback ever catching a 440 Magnum.
Shake remembered his first job as a professional wheelman. A quarter of a century ago, a bank in Arlington Heights, Illinois. The car he boosted for the job was a ’71 Dodge Challenger, black on red, with a hood scoop and a hundred thousand miles on the odometer. Not exactly the perfect car for a discreet and reliable getaway. But Shake was young and dumb, just twenty years old, and that Challenger was so dangerous, so sexy, you felt like you’d committed a felony just by sliding behind the wheel.
Jawad had started to sweat.
“Jawad,” Shake said, “the most important rule, any situation, is stay cool. You understand? That’s the only rule. Stay cool.”
“Stay cool,” Jawad said, but high-pitched and panicky.
They hit a red light at the intersection of Woodlawn and Tenth. Jawad pounded the brakes, and they lurched to a stop. A woman dragging two toddlers entered the crossing. Shake figured that gave him a minute, so he clicked off his seat belt.
“Be right back,” he said.
“What?” Jawad said, even more high-pitched and panicky.
Shake walked back to the Bloomington PD patrol car behind them. The cop was a woman, young, probably just a few years out of college. She looked up at him from behind mirrored shades.
“Can I help you, sir?” she said. Polite but all business. A ponytail pulled tight, her face pulled tight.
Shake leaned down. He considered what a new and strange and almost dreamlike experience this was for him—talking to a cop when he had nothing to hide, had committed no
crimes, was just your average law-abiding American citizen.
“You’re about to give the kid a heart attack,” he said. He pointed his chin at the Forte, at the magnetic strip stuck to the trunk:
student driver.
“Which means he’s about to give me a heart attack,” Shake said. “And I bet you thought your job was dangerous.”
A corner of her mouth untightened a little.
“Oh,” she said. “Right. Sorry. I’m turning left here.”
“Thanks. Then we’ll be going straight.”
Shake started to leave, then noticed the laptop mounted to the dash of the Charger.
“I remember police used to always drive Ford Crown Vics,” he said. “Rear-wheel drive, like tanks. And they didn’t have computers.”
The cop waited for him to make his point. Shake realized he didn’t have one.
“I guess times change,” he said.
Charles Samuel “Shake” Bouchon: law-abiding American citizen. He’d been that for one year, three weeks, and change. Close to a personal best, and a streak Shake was determined to keep alive this time, come hell or high water.
“Left?” Karuna asked.
“Left,” Shake said.
His final student of the day was a giggly, dark-skinned girl from India who, after only a couple of weeks, demonstrated all the makings of a first-rate wheelman: nerves of steel, excellent instincts, and a fanatical attention to traffic laws and regulations.
Most of the kids Shake taught were from other countries. The outfit he worked for specialized in international students attending the university. Driving lessons in other countries were expensive, so A-1 Excellent Driving could charge rates no American would ever pay. A pretty sweet racket, and perfectly legal.
Charles Samuel “Shake” Bouchon: perfectly legal. How do you like that?
Karuna’s English was excellent, probably better than Shake’s, and as they drove around Bloomington, she told him all about life in Mumbai. Shake learned that in India girls with dark skin were considered less desirable than those with lighter skin. Many girls, Karuna informed him, used special facial-whitening creams, though she herself thought such a practice was degrading.
“Do you not agree?” she asked him in her perfect, clipped accent.
“I do,” he said.
Shake picked up a lot of information like that from his students. Facial-whitening cream in India, roasted guinea pigs in Peru, how in
Uganda you never stepped over a pot on the ground, you walked around it. It was one of the things he liked about the job with A-1.
And he did like the job, believe it or not. It felt good to start with nothing and make something. A lot of the kids who signed up for driving lessons had never even touched a steering wheel before. Shake took it slow, he was patient, and the kids got better. Jawad, for example, would never be the world’s greatest driver, but that afternoon Shake had finally taught him to check both ways before he pulled in to traffic and to stop running bicyclists off the road. Not bad for an honest day’s work.
A guy playing Ultimate Frisbee decided to run a sudden slant pattern into the street. Karuna braked calmly and checked the mirror before she pulled around him.
“What was that?” Shake said.
She giggled. “That was staying cool!”
“Very good.”
At the end of the hour, Shake dropped her and the Forte back at the office. He’d left his own car at home that morning. The June weather was perfect, and he liked the shortcut across the Indiana campus, past the massive limestone castles, the Gothic arches and bell towers. His favorite stretch was the winding path through Dunn’s Woods, a miniature forest that in the summer was cool and peaceful. Autumn was even better, when the leaves turned and it was like the trees had gone up in flames.
Downtown he stopped at the organic market to pick up lamb chops and a finishing salt from Spain. Bloomington wasn’t big, but there was a good food scene, and more than a few restaurants could have held their own in Los Angeles or New York.
The woman who owned the market knew that Shake liked to cook, ...
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