The Deceivers (32 page)

“She hasn't heard from or seen Taksin since?”

“Not since that night.”

I asked whether she knew which art dealers Taksin made pieces for.

After querying her, the driver shook his head. “For a long time he worked for Bangkok dealers, but lately worked only for Cambodians.”

“Do the Cambodians have a local shop?”

No shop that she knew of; the only thing the woman seemed to know was that they were Cambodians. As traditional enemies of Thais, she had a few choice words for them that the driver told me he couldn't translate.

I pointed up at the “signature” on the sign. “Ask her what that means.”

“It's a begging bowl. Taksin had been a monk.”

A begging bowl. How appropriate for a Buddhist monk.

“She says that his work was so good, that if he didn't sign them, no one could tell that they weren't real.”

Unfortunately, his work was so “real” it may have cost him his life.

I paid off the driver and the old woman and meandered in a brown study through the Thieves Market, shaking my head at hustlers as I made my way in the direction of my hotel.

When I witnessed Kirk smuggling Khmer artifacts, I felt like someone had kicked me in the stomach. Now that he might be involved in murder …

I wondered if Taksin was still alive. Good chance that he was. They could have killed him when they killed his friend. Instead they had grabbed him because he had something they wanted. Maybe nothing more than his talent. A man who could create a multimillion-dollar piece of art from a chunk of cheap stone with a hammer and chisel would be an asset for crooks who could market the pieces.

Who “they” were was still a puzzle to me, but Kirk had too many strikes against him: a blond-haired foreigner with connections to Khmer art smuggling, he was a perfect fit for the “boss man.” I just wished I had had a picture to show the woman.

I tried fitting the pieces together.

Kirk, Bullock, and some unnamed Cambodians were stealing Khmer art and smuggling it out of the country. At some point they realized Taksin was capable of making pieces that were much more valuable than the ones they stole. And not only more valuable, but far less risky than smuggling them.

It made sense and no sense at all.

What bothered me was that I couldn't see Kirk involved in both smuggling and dealing with Illya's faked pieces. It took two different talents. Hacking through the jungle to rob Khmer tombs fit Kirk's soldier of fortune personality. Working with the Jimmy Cheungs in Hong Kong, New York, and London was more of a ruthless gentleman's game played by people who spoke art. Bullock, scum that he was, spoke the right language.

Kirk and Bullock. They would make a perfect pair. Kirk the acquisition man—and enforcer when necessary—Bullock the marketer.

I felt I had put more pieces of the puzzle together, even though there were still a lot of empty spaces on the board. I needed to know more about Bullock and what he did in the Russian Market. And I still had some questions for Rim Nol, the curator. I believed he knew a great deal more than he had revealed. I kept thinking about a forger needing to closely examine museum pieces besides photographing them. You couldn't fake a great work of art from a snapshot.

I had to get back to Phnom Penh—and this time not let anyone know I was coming.

Bourey's horrible death lay heavy on my mind as I bought a ticket back to the Cambodian capital. I didn't think his spirit would rest while his killers remained free and unnamed.

P
HNOM
P
ENH

36

I checked back into the Raffles Le Royal. I liked the hotel because it wasn't in the heart of the government area where Kirk and Bullock's favorite drinking hole—the Foreign Correspondents' Club—was located. And I felt safe there.

Now that I was back in the fire from the frying pan, I needed a plan.

Nol was in a position to give access to the Siva. Or knew who did. But he didn't strike me as the type to take a leading role in an art conspiracy. For sure, something was bothering him. Maybe he was feeling guilty. That was my impression—a guy who had done something he regretted but had no control over it.

My instincts screamed that he was a reluctant participant. Someone who had been ordered to let Taksin copy the piece or at least told to look the other way.

Ranar also had the power and position to get the Siva into Taksin's hands for duplicating. He was a high official in a small country noted for its political corruption. The Killing Fields were history, but police and military corruption were still rampant. If I found out he was involved, I'd get back to New York fast and make my accusations from there.

I obviously couldn't just waltz into the Royal Museum and start cross-examining Nol.

I decided on a little deception.

*   *   *

THE NEXT MORNING
I arranged with the concierge to join a tour group going to the museum. Wearing dark glasses, an oversized sun hat, and a poncho, I carried an umbrella for both protection from the merciless sun and to hide under. I felt confident that I blended into the group of teachers from Iowa.

Once I was in the museum, I slipped the tour guide a twenty-dollar bill and asked her to find Rim Nol for me.

While I waited I walked over to the Hari-Hara. A beautiful piece. And completely indistinguishable from the knockoff Nadia had in her possession. I'd need a magnifying glass and more time to make a real comparison, but I had to shake my head in amazement at the work of two great master artists: Taksin, a modern forger, and a craftsman whose name we didn't know and the one who had created the museum piece a thousand years ago. Both were geniuses.

The tour guide came back and reported that Rim Nol had not reported to work that morning. “He's out sick.”

My gut told me something was wrong. And it scared the hell out of me. I suddenly felt alone and vulnerable. And paranoid.

I left the building.

Getting sick when I was about to use him to expose a multimillion-dollar art fraud ring was too convenient. I felt sick myself. My stomach curled into a hard tight knot.

How bloody stupid of me to come here alone! Did I really think I could come back here and set the country on its head? A country with an unparalleled modern history of violence? Was I that naïve?

As I hurried out to the street from the museum to grab a taxi, a policeman suddenly appeared on each side of me.

“What do you want?” I asked.

Their response was in Cambodian, gibberish to me as they grabbed my arms and steered me to a car at the curb. They opened the rear door and pushed me inside.

Bullock was in the backseat.

“Please don't scream or try to jump out and get run over by other cars.” He pulled a gun out of a side pocket just to show me he had it. “I shot a water buffalo once, you know.”

“That was very brave of you. I hear you pick on small children, too. Did you ever look in the mirror and wonder if the existence of a creature like you isn't a good argument for the nonexistence of God?”

He twisted in the seat and jabbed his gun under my ear.

“Don't confuse me with someone who you can bandy words with. I'd like to blow your fuckin' stupid brains out—and I'll do so as soon as I find out what you know.”

He was right—I had stupid brains and a stupid mouth to go with them. I'm lucky he didn't permanently shut my mouth by shoving a gun in between my teeth and pulling the trigger. But that might still be in the cards.

The car took us to the back of Sinn's shop near the Russian Market. Bullock hustled me inside the shop and into a dark room. A little light came from a crack in the wooden shutters.

He left the room, but I knew he would come back. He wanted answers from me. And then he'd kill me. Getting a preamble that I'd be murdered after I talked implied one thing—fessing up and dying would be less painful and more welcome than what he planned to do to me if I didn't cooperate. He enjoyed inflicting pain, and would enjoy hearing me beg for him to stop. And I'd probably fill all his expectations as he applied pain.

I'm going to die.

The realization got me on my feet as I felt around in the dark for a weapon. I found nothing, but cut my finger on a piece of cracked glass on a display case. I used my shoe to knock off a bigger piece of glass, then wrapped my handkerchief around a wedge of glass with a sharp point. Not much of a weapon against a man with a gun, but it was all I had.

Hours later, Bullock came in with no gun in hand, but he was a man, bigger and stronger than me. He probably enjoyed thinking that he was giving me a sporting chance to fight back before he strangled me or whatever he had in mind.

He came close and I backed up. His thin purple lips spread in an ugly grin of power and contempt as he pulled a pair of pliers out of his pocket and slowly opened and closed them in front of my face.

“I have questions to ask you. Don't give answers I don't like.” He put his free hand on my breast and I jerked back, hitting the wall behind me—He snapped the pliers at eye level again. “You'd be surprised what these will pull off. Eyes, nose, teeth—”

“You sick bastard.”

My hand shot up and jammed the jagged glass into the flesh of his throat under his chin. He screamed and staggered back, blood spurting out and onto me from his jugular vein. I ran past him and through the door that led into the shop and out to the marketplace.

It was dark and a downpour had erupted. Most of the shops were closed and I didn't dare run into an open one screaming that they call 911. I not only couldn't speak the language, but the men who had helped kidnap me were policemen.

I hurried through the marketplace, buttoning my poncho and pulling the hood over my head, hoping the rain was washing away the blood.

My most pressing thought right now was getting to the airport and taking the next plane out of here, no matter where it went. But first I had to get to the hotel and check out so I could get my passport back from the front desk.

I grabbed a ride on a moto until I saw that the police had blocked the street. I quickly got off and went inside the first place available.

37

Half an hour later

A damaged person
. That described me perfectly as I lay in a whorehouse with a naked masseuse hovering over me.

I hadn't bothered reading the sign that offered “exotic massages.” And paid twice over for one.

In a strange city, a strange country, terrified of murderers and no where to turn … when the girl caressed my nipple, it got hard.

I was truly a damaged person.

She came down and kissed me on the lips, cupping her hand against my breast. I gently pushed her back and sat up.

“Sweetie, you're a nice person, but it's time for me to go.”

She stared at me with sad eyes.

Poor thing. She lived a cruel life, knowing nothing but poverty, misery, and abuse her entire young life. She was probably lucky to be even alive—in many poor Asian countries, girl babies were murdered at birth because they weren't considered as valuable as males. When girls her age in the West were worrying about whether they'd get breast enhancements for high school graduation and what to wear for college, she had to worry about getting food and shelter.

Thoughts of not casting the first stone, knowing that but for the grace of God go any of us, and never complaining about having no shoes because there are people with no feet—homey little adages my mother was fond of saying anytime she saw me wasting something when I was a teenager—flew through my head as I dug in my wallet after I got dressed.

I calculated how much I'd need to get out of Dodge, including paying the madam, and gave the girl ten twenties. I gave her a quick hug.

She stared at me in complete puzzlement.

“Take care.”

I paused at the door. She had rolled up the bills and was inserting them into her vagina, no doubt to hide them from the bitch outside.

*   *   *

THE MADAM WAS
standing at the end of the corridor as I stepped out of the room. Two policemen were talking with her.

She pointed at me.

They were the same ones who had grabbed me at the museum for Bullock.

38

The officers also didn't speak English, but I didn't need a Berlitz course in Cambodian to tell me I was in extreme danger. And helpless. They had guns and badges.

I was strangely calm as I sat in the backseat of a police car moving through heavy traffic. Maybe calm was the wrong word. More like dazed.

The rain had stopped. Oppressive heat sneaked back in.

The backseat smelled of piss and vomit, fermented by the hot-wet climate. Under ordinary circumstances, I'd be imaging all kinds of nasty critters crawling on me, but I was too numb to get excited about that, either.

I had tried to cleverly press the recall button on my cell phone to contact Detective Anthony almost the moment I was in the backseat, but an officer heard the telltale beep and took it from me.

Resting my head back on the seat, I closed my eyes and prayed.
God help me!
It's not the first time I prayed when I had problems. I was one of those people who forgot about religion unless I was in dire need of divine intervention. I didn't think I was a bad person. For sure, I had screwed up my life royally, but not by trying to hurt anyone. I only killed one person and he was a pervert who hurt children and animals. My only regret was that someone else hadn't killed Bullock long before he laid hands on his first victim. I hoped he was reborn a worm in a boiling cesspool in hell.

The clouds thinned out. I squinted out the window and saw water. We were on a road that paralleled the river. Heading north, I thought, upriver, though with several rivers coming into the city I wasn't sure what the waterway was called at this point. Chantrea and I had headed north out of the city for the Angkor trip, but this road didn't look familiar.