Phnom Penh Express (11 page)

“Thank you, sir,” she replies, counting the notes. She hands him back two $100 notes together with a receipt and a plastic key card. “This will cover your first night sir.”

Shit, I’ll have to get to an ATM, the Colonel thinks. If it wasn’t for those retarded Israelis entering my fucking market, I wouldn’t have to go through all this crap.

By the time the Colonel finds his suite, his mood has sunk. He puts the plastic card into the slot beneath the doorknob but nothing happens. He curses inwardly, turns the plastic card and tries again. Nothing. Cursing aloud, he turns the card and inserts it reverse-side up. Finally, the magic click, a green light and the door opens. The bellboy, who had been standing behind the Colonel the entire time but hadn’t dared intervene, shyly enters and carefully unloads the cart. He then, for possibly the first time in his young career, discreetly leaves without pausing for the customary tip.

After setting all the air conditioners to full blast, Colonel Peeters enters the bathroom and takes a cold shower. When he steps back into his suite’s living room, he’s cooled down and his dark mood has leavened slightly. He pours himself a cognac from the minibar and sinks into one of the sofas.

“Time to think,” he mumbles. “Where do I start?”

Before he left Antwerp, he had compiled a file with all the information his agent had gathered to date. He pulls it from one of his leather bags and places them onto the coffee table.

What do we know so far? he tries to order his thoughts. He sips the cognac and picks up a photograph of Phirun e-mailed to him just before he left Belgium. He studies it pensively.

The delivery guy was a Cambodian-Belgian returnee employed at a bakery called The House in central Phnom Penh, the Colonel reads. He will soon be involved in opening a new business producing more Belgian chocolates. Probably to function as a central transit point for diamond shipments, the Colonel guesses.

He empties the cognac, stands up and starts pacing around the living room, hands crossed behind his back.

The origin of the shipment had been easily traced to Tel Aviv. They probably want him to know, the Colonel thinks. Then he speaks out loud:

“They underestimate Colonel Peeters and will fucking regret it!”

The Colonel is all wound up again. He realises that he has miscalculated the extent of the influence he exerts on his local government contacts, obviously. He thought he had them all, but of course, every coin has two sides, even those spent on buying off corrupt politicians. If someone else comes along offering more money, their loyalty is worth as much as that of a horny Bangkok hooker on a Saturday night. Especially if the bribe comes in such a spectacular fashion — handing out free diamonds indeed.

The Colonel plops into the sofa. He knows that he needs to act quickly and ruthlessly if he doesn’t want to lose his burgeoning Cambodian empire. As a paramilitary man he thinks in terms of martial solutions. He hadn’t been shy about all that gung-ho stuff back in Belgian in the eighties, when he had personally trained and organised that elite elimination squad. As a result, his brother-in-law had not only sold arms to Belgium’s
gendarmerie
according to the terms of an unusually lucrative contract, he had also seen his company’s share price increase 43 per cent. But that was years ago. Now we’re talking about much larger sums. But he won’t be shy this time, either.

He takes out a map of Phnom Penh and looks up Street 240. Tomorrow he’ll have breakfast at the so-called House, he thinks. He’ll decide on a plan of action there and then.

AROUND THE SAME time that Colonel Peeters is getting himself wounded up, scrutinising Phirun’s picture, the subject himself is rummaging through the rattan-made basket that acts as his wardrobe.

“Houston, this is ground control, we’ve got a situation here,” he intones in a nasal voice. What should he wear for lunch with Merrilee? He wants to dress to impress; if only he had the money.

He sifts through the heap of fabric, staring at his modest collection of shirts — three items — and feels depressed. He can’t remember the last time he bought a new garment. Now that he’s finally earning some decent money, he should use next weekend to go shopping.

Phirun finally settles for his favourite smart-looking shirt; a cotton number printed with thin stripes in brown, burgundy and silver. He then selects a pair of Martinique-branded black linen trousers and grey cotton socks. Phirun monitors the result in the mirror and is not displeased. His shirt could use an iron but at least its colours nicely offset his brown skin. The shoes are a problem, though — in that he hasn’t got any. No other choice but to wear his old trainers, bought in Brussels years ago.

Moments later he closes the kitchen door behind him, double-locks it and puts the extra padlock on the door. After he quietly descends the outdoors stairs, he reaches the front gate and then gets stopped in his tracks. Something feels wrong but he can’t put his finger on what. He squats down to put his key in the gate’s padlock, only to realise that it’s gone. That’s strange, he thinks. On closer inspection, he then notices the hole in the gate has been welded closed. How the hell is he supposed to lock the gate now, he thinks? Suddenly, it occurs to him what’s causing his unease — it’s Chucky. Or rather the lack of him. The little pest was for the first time silent where he would usually bark his head off the moment Phirun approaches the gate. He looks aside through the neighbour’s fence but can see no trace of Chucky. Had the furry piece of trash barked himself to death? Phirun can only hope.

“One dollar? For buy rice?”

The sudden voice behind Phirun gives him the fright of his life, making him drop his keys. He spins round in shock to see the bored face of a young uniformed security guard.

“What...? Are you a new guard here?”

He realises that his question is rhetorical but doesn’t know what else to say while gradually regaining his composure. He must be the reason the lock has been removed, his landlord having decided to hire a private guard — there had been more burglaries than usual of late. It’s only now that Phirun notices the plastic chair with the guard’s hat on it and his black military-style boots underneath. The young guy that stands in front of him is wearing a pair of slippers instead. He notices Phirun’s gaze.

“Hot...” he explains.

“Yes,” Phirun agrees, and gives him a dollar to buy some rice but which, in reality, will be spent on beer as they both know full well.

“The dog?” Phirun asks in Khmer while pointing to the neighbour’s house.

“Inside,” the guard answers. “After five hours of barking, it got dehydrated.”

“Five hours? And you didn’t shoot it?”

The guard smiles. Phirun still cannot understand his people’s indifference towards excessive noise. They seem to be immune to it. Maybe it’s all that karaoke.

Minutes later, Phirun is driving his rusty motorcycle onto Mao Tse Tung Boulevard. As has become customary by now, at the next intersection he nearly collides with three students driving beside one another while conducting a conversation. Each of them is steering a little white Chaly motorcycle, on Phirun’s side of the road, but coming from the opposite direction, three abreast and totally oblivious to everything outside their gang’s circumference.

After negotiating the Chalys, Phirun nearly smashes into a cement truck but manages — just — to avoid it by sharply turning onto a gas station. From there, he slowly zigzags between the gasoline pumps and assorted parked cars, motorcycles,
tuktuks
and beggars, until he arrives at Sihanouk Boulevard. After driving onto the pedestrian crossing through red traffic lights, he continues his journey southbound. Just after passing Lucky Supermarket, he does as everybody else and reduces speed slightly before crawling through the red lights, occasionally avoiding sideways traffic by sweeping round it in a wide arch.

Twelve minutes and eight near-collisions later, he steers his old bike into Street 136 and parks in front of the Pepper Lounge. The gay-friendly bar had been Merrilee’s choice for a pre-lunch drink.

“So I don’t get too much harassment from men, apart from you,” she had said on the phone.

Phirun hadn’t been quite sure how to respond and enters the bar not knowing what to expect. She hasn’t arrived yet — of course. He makes himself comfortable on the red sofa near the entrance. Michael Jackson’s
The Girl is Mine
is playing while the only three customers, all men, eye him up. I understand why she picked this bar, he thinks, striving to avoid eye contact with the customers — which was not as easy as it should have been. Before one of the waiters comes to take his order, Merrilee walks in, a grin adorning her pretty face.

“
Sok sabay
,” she greets him mockingly in Khmer with a kiss on the cheek.

“A bit more crowded and it would have been hard to spot you. You blend in surprisingly well. Seems like you dressed for the occasion.”

She plonks herself down next to him on the sofa.

“Yeah... thanks,” is all he can muster, wondering whether her remark is a backhanded compliment or that he’d chosen the wrong ensemble.

Merrilee casually rests her hand on his knee while reaching for the drinks list.

“What are you having? Drinks are on me this time,” she says, quickly scanning the menu. “This place mixes some of the best cocktails in town. Do you want a Cambodian Cocksucking Cowboy or a Screaming Orgasm? Creamy White Stuff is my favourite, I think I’ll go for that,” she declares. “You?”

She looks Phirun in the eye, wetting her lips flirtatiously with the tip of her tongue. Phirun just about manages to get his composure back.

“I’ll have a Salty Red Dick,” he says, returning her gaze with what he hopes is a cool, collected smile.

“Old news, I already know that,” she quips with a wink. She orders with a young waiter dressed in extremely tight-fitting trousers and an extra small t-shirt that emphasises his physique.

Excellent start, Phirun thinks. His mind is already drifting towards taking her home after lunch.

“So what have you been up to lately?” she asks.

“Oh... nothing special, really, I’ve been busy making chocolates, helping out Nina with some official stuff, the usual programme.”

“Tell me more about that chocolate shop of yours; when is it opening again?”

Phirun doesn’t want to bore her with chat about work and would rather change the subject.

“The opening? Soon, I guess, we haven’t fixed a date yet. I’ll let you know as soon as I do, for sure. What about you? Been busy?”

“I simply
love
chocolate,” she swerves his question. “You probably hear that from girls’ mouths all the time. Do you import it? Who are you working with?”

But Phirun is not paying attention. The moment she mentioned the words ‘girls’ mouths’, he couldn’t help staring at her full lips, and how they undulated and peeled back to reveal her perfect white teeth when she spoke. He suddenly longs to kiss those sensual lips floating just a few inches from his, challenging him.

“Phirun?”

“Eh? Yes. I er... was thinking of something... shall we go for lunch then?”

***

Twenty minutes later they are seated at a table for two in Pop’s Café, an Italian restaurant on the river front. It had been Merrilee’s choice again.

“Without a doubt, this is the best Italian restaurant this side of the Pacific,” she assures Phirun. Had Merrilee brought him to Kentucky Fried Chicken, he’d still have believed her.

But despite his infatuation, Phirun senses a change in the atmosphere between them. He can’t quite put his finger on it, maybe some sort of attentiveness on her part that hadn’t been there before — he’s not sure. Perhaps he’s just become too sensitive to her words, her moves, her everything..., waiting for telltale clues that might hint that she sees something more in him than mere friendship. Yet, their conversation lacks the spontaneous flow of last time, despite half a bottle of excellent white wine. Whenever he tries to ask about her family, or her interests, she steers the conversation back towards his work. He wishes he had never gone into the chocolate game. He spoons another mouthful of seafood pasta.

“You were right,” he tells her. “This
is
the best Italian I’ve come across so far.”

“Hmm, yeah,” she mumbles with a mouthful of spaghetti dangling from her lips. “Tops your Salty Red Cock, doesn’t it?” she says, making several heads turn which she coolly ignores.

Australian discretion, Phirun thinks, admiring her hair, ears, nose, eyes, cheeks, collar bone, neck and lips. He is trying to calculate the best moment to hand her his poem. He had reread his masterpiece forty-three times before finally convincing himself that it would help him charm her back to his place. And today’s the day — he will make his move.

Phirun seizes the moment after ordering espresso. He reaches for his bag and takes out an envelope that he hands to Merrilee.

“What is it?” she asks, curiously.

“Something I wrote for you.”

Merrilee smiles and opens the envelope. Phirun drinks his espresso in one swift gulp and devours the little chocolate accompanying it. While she’s reading his words her facial expression changes, to surprise and back to another smile.

... her straight hair shines black, like a perfect night without a moon
,

Phirun is reciting the verse in his head while Merrilee’s reading. His eyes fall upon the little birthmark on her right cheek. It looks like the petals of a lotus flower, he thinks. He’d like to kiss it.

playful eyes so brown like a young forest before bloom...

Phirun stops reciting in his mind and waits for Merrilee’s reaction. The more she goes on reading, the bigger her smile grows until, upon reaching the end of the poem, she bursts out laughing. Again, heads turn in their direction.

“What a joke,” she looks up at Phirun. “Boy, your sense of humour is... what’s the word... eclectic? No doubt this is...”

Phirun clenches his teeth.

“... the crappiest poem this side of the Pacific!” she laughs. “Seriously, you didn’t spend any time on this, did you?”