They piled into the man’s beat up Mercedes van and the driver started talking about all the great places he planned to bring Jake and Alexandra.
Jake had specifically selected this driver for two main reasons — the guy was old enough to know where the bodies were buried in this area, and if a Chinese billionaire and former communist general was anywhere within a hundred miles, this guy would know where he was staying.
As they drove through the sprawling city, where the highest building might reach ten stories, Jake could see that Cambodia was in transition mode. They were moving from the killing fields to making a killing on tourists.
Sitting in the front passenger seat, Jake asked, “What’s the best hotel in town?”
“You don’t like your hotel?” Vibol asked.
“It’s a nice place,” Jake said. “But let’s say I had all the money in the world. Where would I stay then?”
The driver smiled and pointed to a new building up ahead. It wasn’t a huge place, but it looked like it might have just opened recently. “There,” Vibol said. “It is the only five-star hotel in Siem Reap. We’ve had movie stars from America stay there when filming a movie. I hear it’s very nice. My cousin works at the front desk there.”
Perfect, Jake thought. Of course the driver had already mentioned half a dozen cousins since leaving the hotel, so he was either using the wrong word or he had a lot of cousins.
Vibol drove them around all morning, mostly just dropping them off at various wats or temples and telling them how much time to spend there. They spent just two hours at Angkor Wat, but it was enough time. As they drove from place to place, Jake kept looking over various fields and wondered if there were still dead bodies there from the time of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot.
Eventually, Jake had to ask about the communist despot. The driver was very open about that rough time in Cambodian history, almost to the point of tears.
By the end of the day, Jake had gotten almost everything he needed to know out of the driver by simply asking seemingly innocuous questions.
Now, the driver pulled up in front of Jake’s hotel in the downtown region, keeping the engine running.
Vibol turned to Jake in the front seat and said, “Sir, I would like to thank you very much for giving me this job.”
This struck Jake as odd at first, but then he realized that most people providing a service like this failed to thank customers for giving them the opportunity. Jake gave the driver twice the amount he had asked to drive them around all day. Then he waited for Alexandra to get out and close the sliding door.
Jake shook the man’s hand and said, “Thanks for your great information and driving us around all day.” He hesitated, as if he really didn’t want to ask this next question. “Listen, I hate to ask this…but, if someone needed certain pain relief, where would be the best place to find this?”
“Pain relief?” Vibol asked. “Like a pharmacy?”
“Not exactly.”
The driver smiled. “You mean like marijuana?”
“Perhaps. Maybe something a little stronger.” Jake knew that Cambodia was on the rise in marijuana production. And even meth was becoming a hit. But the real game in Southeast Asia was heroin. An old friend had worked for years in Phnom Penh and Bangkok trying to cut the heroin imports to America at the supply side. But that was like whack-a-mole.
The driver looked a little squeamish. “I’m sorry, sir. But I wouldn’t know anything about heroin.”
“You don’t have a cousin who deals with that?” Jake said with a big smile.
Hesitation, as the man considered his options. “I don’t know if this is true, but I have heard about a bar on the outside of town. It has performers there that are same same, but different.”
“I saw that on T-shirts a couple of times today. What does it mean?”
“Lady boys. Same same on top like girl, but different on the bottom, like boys.”
“Gotcha. I’m not looking for that.” Jake turned to see Alexandra behind the vehicle on the sidewalk.
“I know,” the driver said, his eyes shifting to the rearview mirror. “You have a beautiful woman.”
“Right. About the heroin. I assure you I don’t plan on buying any. I’m writing a book about this, and need to have first-hand knowledge.”
“I see. Then go to the Khmer Now Bar. It’s on the way to the airport.”
Then the driver told him the name of a man who would know about the heroin, along with the procedure to approach to guy. For not knowing anything about the heroin trade in Siem Reap, Vibol sure knew a lot about how to acquire it. Jake shook the man’s hand and thanked him again for his help.
By the time Jake stepped out into the late afternoon heat of Cambodia, he was hit by a wall of humidity and the smell of street food. He came around to Alexandra and the two of them watched the driver pull away.
“You get what you need from him?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am. And then some.”
She looked confused.
“I’ll explain later,” Jake said. “Right now I need a shower.”
“You showered this morning.”
“I know. But this could be a two or three shower day.”
They went back to their hotel, showered, and then took a short nap in the cool air conditioned room. Jake had a feeling it might be a long evening, and nothing beat keeping an edge than a quick power nap. But in this case the nap turned into an intimate session, which led to a second nap. When they woke up the second time, the room was nearly dark. Only the lights from the busy street shone through a narrow crack in the curtain.
They went down to Pub Street and found a nice restaurant, soaking down the Khmer dish with two cheap Khmer Beers. Jake guessed that if Bill Remington had planned on retiring in Cambodia he could have done it on the cheap. Food and drink prices here were ridiculously low, which made some sense once Jake found out from the driver that the average income in Cambodia was just a thousand dollars a year. Yeah, Remington would have lived like a king. But now the man was dead, and there was much more to the story than Jake was made to believe.
By the time nine p.m. rolled around, Jake had formed a plan of action. It wasn’t like he could just go to the general’s hotel, knock on the guy’s door, and start questioning the man about his plan for world domination. No, this might take a little more finesse.
Jake and Alexandra went to the Khmer Now Bar as an Austrian couple curious about same same but different. The beer wasn’t as cheap here, since they had to pay for performers with needs, including breast implants. The first performer of the evening was a stunning woman with relatively huge breasts in a short blue dress with sequins. From this distance, a few tables in from the stage, Jake could see the same same, but the different wasn’t readily apparent.
Between musical sets, where the next performers also looked like beautiful young Cambodian women, Jake finally switched from beer to the code drink, a Tom Collins. Jake was amazed that anyone still drank them, or that a bartender in Cambodia knew how to make one.
Their normal waitress didn’t bring them their drinks, though. Instead, the first performer of the night, a same same but different lady boy, dropped off the drinks and sat down with them. Jake had to admit that he or she was stunning.
“Not many people order these drinks,” the lady boy said. He had no discernible Adam’s apple, and his voice was accented and very lady-like.
“It’s an oldie but a goodie,” Jake said, giving the proper phrase to ensure they were both on the same page.
“My name is Chantrea,” she said, putting a French spin on the name. “It means moon in my language.”