Barry Eisler
The Khmer Kilclass="underline" A Dox Short Story
Dox sat on one of the stone benches at the edge of the open-air courtyard in the center of Phnom Penh’s National Museum, insects buzzing in the tropical vegetation, the December air agreeably hot. The broker had told him to be there at noon, but Dox had arrived just after eight, when the museum opened. Back in his oo-rah days, he’d sometimes waited through a half-dozen sunsets in a sniper hide — cold, wet, whatever it took. A few hours on a cool and shady veranda was nothing by comparison, just a cheap and easy insurance policy that might prevent an unpleasant surprise.
Not that he was expecting trouble. After all, how many other operators could deliver a headshot at all distances, and under all conditions, as reliably as he could? Some active-duty military, sure, but there were all sorts of jobs Uncle Sam wanted done but didn’t want to be associated with, and for those, nothing beat the private sector, and ideally a discreet sole proprietor instead of one of the big contractors with all their bad publicity. To the powers-that-be, an operator like him was more useful alive than dead.
On the other hand, he’d learned the hard way that people who had no particular beef with him might take an interest just because of his known associate John Rain, who despite his doubtless good intentions had a habit of riling the people he did business with. “Act as if” was a pretty good maxim in his line of work, here meaning “act as if a passel of nameless badasses is looking to punch your ticket even if you yourself can’t imagine a single thing you’ve done to deserve it.”
Which is why he’d arrived in the city ten days ahead of schedule. Doing so had given him plenty of time to get the lay of the land and to build up some credible cover-for-action. He’d already been to the National Museum twice, and to the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda. He’d snapped pictures of these and the other tourist attractions, such as they were, and of the streets he’d been methodically exploring. He was staying at Raffles, the best hotel in town, and he’d brought a different bargirl back with him every night. By now, the hotel staff must have concluded he was some kind of off-the-charts western pussyhound, taking advantage of Phnom Penh like it was a cut-rate version of Bangkok. Well, maybe there was a kernel of truth in all that, but hell, the best cover was always the one that kept closest to the facts. He’d been generous with the girls, during and after, and he imagined if the shit ever really hit the fan and they were questioned by the police, they’d corroborate his story. Not ideal, of course, but “All right, it’s true, I came for the local ladies” was preferable to “Shit, you got me, I’m here to assassinate some hombre I never even heard of until after I’d arrived.”
Despite the cover-for-action usefulness of tail-chasing in Phnom Penh, though, and despite its other, more obvious attractions, he was ambivalent. He didn’t want to wind up with anyone other than a freelancer, and he certainly didn’t want to give his money to anyone involved in child prostitution or anything else coercive. Cambodia was notorious for that kind of thing. In fact, twice late at night in some of the seedier parts of town, he’d seen several very young girls sitting in front of a dim storefront. Their cheeks were rouged and they looked doped up and vacuous, and he had a feeling they were for sale. But what could you do? Once, when he was still green in Asia, he’d punched out a punk in a Bangkok bar for slapping a woman. It turned out the punk was her pimp and was affiliated with the bar’s management, and Dox had wound up running for his life from a bunch of security goons with truncheons who were doubtless themselves hooked up with the local police. Probably after he’d been forced to hightail it, the pimp had beaten the woman even worse, no way to know. And he’d given cash to seemingly half the street people in Jakarta when he’d first arrived in Indonesia, without any noticeable effect. At some point it just started to feel like you were beating back the tide. The truth was, there was nothing you could do, and it was best not to think too much about it. The world could be an awful, ugly place.
He glanced unobtrusively at his watch — a Traser H3, accurate, tough, and functional, but not as obvious a tell as the giant G-Shocks some of your soldier-of-fortune types seemed to fancy like black ops bling. A half-hour to go, assuming the broker was punctual. He stretched out his legs and relaxed, letting himself feel like a tourist. He was dressed for the part, naturally — sneakers, jeans, and a short-sleeved madras shirt — extra-large to accommodate his size 48, and untucked to conceal the clip of the folder he’d picked up at legendary Cambodian knife-maker Citadel Knives. He preferred not to turn a bag into a hostage for the airlines when he traveled, which meant gearing up locally. Well, with an institution like Citadel on hand, that was fine. It was a beautiful specimen, too, handmade with a kukri blade and horn handle. Maybe he’d ship it home when his work here was done.
He noticed it felt a little odd being alone. He’d been spending more and more time with a nice Khmer girl named Chantrea, which she’d told him meant “light of the moon.” He thought the name was pretty, though not nearly as pretty as she was. He’d taken her back to the hotel five nights earlier after making her acquaintance in a place called Café Mist. He was planning to take the night off, and had stopped in after an evening’s urban reconnaissance just to relax over a beer. But he’d noticed her on the other side of the bar, black shoulder-length hair loose around her shoulders, eyes slightly over-large and skin honey-brown, and he was intrigued at the way she averted her gaze when he caught her looking at him, rather than coming over the way your typical bargirl would. She was slim, even for a Khmer, but he thought he saw enough curves where you’d hope to. One by one, he’d shooed away a half-dozen other girls, but she stayed put, glancing at him with an appealing combination of curiosity and shyness. Finally, he got up and walked over.
“Darlin’,” he said, smiling, “if you don’t speak any English, it’s going to break my heart.”
She’d smiled back and cast her eyes down, then looked back at him again. He thought he’d flustered her, somehow, and his interest grew.
“I think your heart should be okay,” she said.
They’d talked for a long time in the bar. She told him she was a student at the Royal University, a psychology major. He told her he worked for an American real estate company and was in town for a few days to assess the desirability of some joint ventures the company was considering. The story was thin, but not every tale had to be fully backstopped and he didn’t think this one would ever be put to any kind of a stress test. He didn’t know whether she believed him, though he supposed she had no reason not to, but either way she asked him no questions and he told her no further lies.
He wasn’t sure what to make of her. On the one hand, her English was good and he was inclined to believe her about being a student — anyway, there was no reason for her to lie about that. On the other hand, Mist wasn’t the kind of place a girl would hang out alone if she weren’t a professional. On the other, other hand, if she was a pro, she seemed to be in no hurry to get him to take her out for a night on the town, or back to his hotel where she could make some money. He decided to classify her as what he called semi-pro — open to the possibility of some kind of remuneration, but only from the right client.
When he told her he was getting ready to call it a night and asked her if she’d like to come back to the hotel with him, she’d looked down as though embarrassed, and he wondered if maybe his diagnosis had been off, and he’d been too forward. But then she’d nodded yes. He was still so unsure what to make of her that he didn’t even know whether to pay a bar fine. He decided to finesse that issue by leaving an extra big tip with the bill for their drinks.