connection to the spirit world. Yet so far she’d played dumb. He wondered whether, here in the wilds of Phonsavan with no escape, he just might be able to get some sense out of her. All that could come later. For now they had to convince her to put on something respectable and take a ride with them to Spook City.
8
The two choppers were nearing Long Cheng. They’d just flown over Sam Thong, ten minutes to the north. It was deserted now but in the early seventies it had housed 150,000 refugees. The US would fly journalists there to view the USAID humanitarian program. They wanted the world to see what a solid job they were doing to help the masses of poor people displaced by the fighting-fleeing the Pathet Lao, they called it. What the administrators didn’t mention was that the refugees were actually fleeing US bombing. Entire areas were evacuated so the CIA’s Hmong fighters had an empty playing field for combat. Chased from their homes, all these displaced people had become dependent on US airdrops. Another thing the journalists didn’t know was that a few kilometers over the ridge was the real war effort, the launch pad for the forward air arm leading up to a thousand sorties a day-Long Cheng.
The choppers crossed over a saddleback mountain and were careering down into the Long Cheng valley. The highlight of the macadam airfield was a drastic limestone karst at the end of the runway. Fliers called it the vertical airbrake because if you overshot, it was a most effective method of slowing down, albeit terminal. Many of the surrounding huts had been stripped of their tin roofs, and bamboo shacks, victims of neglect, extended far up into the surrounding hills. But there were signs of domestication here and there, suggesting that life might return to the place one day. The helicopters landed beside the old runway. A few dozen ponies were tethered to pipes and shrubs. Already, several hundred people were milling around the ruins of Spook City. They’d probably heard the erroneous rumors about the Americans paying a thousand dollars for old bones and wreckage. Some had traveled for days to this isolated outpost. The theory had been that only the really serious claimants would go to that much trouble. If they’d set up their camp in a town on a main road the searchers would have been inundated. And, as Commander Lit had rightly said, if the explosion of Bowry’s helicopter had been heard from Long Cheng, he really couldn’t have gone that far. The villagers approached the two helicopters and stood with their eyes closed as the rotors kicked up dust. The teams carried their equipment down a shallow dip and along a narrow path. For convenience, they would be working out of General Vang Pao’s old residence. It was a concrete, two-story outer- suburb motel of a place, as incongruous as the shirt-and-tie spooks who’d built it. Although the furniture had been removed, it wasn’t that much less comfortable than the Friendship Hotel. And, as most of the bombing in the region had originated from here, it was quite possible to stroll around without the fear of being blown up.
Siri remained at Auntie Bpoo’s heels on the walk across the compound, looking for an opportunity to get her alone. When they passed the shell of a concrete hut, he grabbed her arm and dragged her through the open doorway.
“I could scream, you know,” she told him.
She made a move for the doorway but Siri blocked her path.
“They’re used to screams up here,” he said. “Nobody would notice.”
“Well, what if I smacked you one across the chops?”
“Smacked me? Really, Bpoo. There are times when you aren’t feminine at all.”
“Whatever makes you think I’d want to be feminine?”
“You’re wearing a sarong and a brassiere.”
“You forced me to dress in a hurry. I had a frock laid out for today.”
“And that isn’t feminine?”
“They’re merely garments. Outer coverings. Clothes do not a gender make. If you wore a saddle, would you be a donkey?”
“If I had a wardrobe full of the things, I’d expect to be called an ass, yes.”
“Honestly, Dr. Siri. Ancient as you are, you still care what other people think of you. You’re so vain.”
“Why are you here?”
“You threw me into a helicopter.”
“I mean Xiang Khouang. What possessed you to stow away?”
“I’m very fond of Americans.”
Siri turned and headed out through the doorway. The word
He turned back and smiled.
“Madame Daeng and I have already picked out the coffin. It has a battery controlled fan inside in case it gets stuffy. That’s an extra expense, of course, but I think I’m worth it.”
“I mean in the next five days.”
“And you’ve come to watch?”
“I’ve come to stop it.”
“Where were you all the other times I died?”
“This isn’t an “almost died.” This is the real thing; dodo, doornail, dinosaur … that kind of dead.”
“Real? But I thought you were a charlatan. You told me you make it all up.”
“I am. I do.”
“So?”
Auntie Bpoo sighed, hitched up her sarong and sat untidily on a pile of breeze blocks.
“Siri, you are so annoying. You and all those heebie-jeebie spirit characters you drag around with you. They know you’re too dense to talk to them but they’re stuck with you. How do you think they feel when their portal to the living is boarded over with a very thick plank and padlocked?”
“How do you know about them?”
“I get the odd message.”
“Then teach me. I’m willing. I want to communicate with them. I want to know what they’re trying to tell me. I’m tired of their cryptic clues. I want to sit down over a cup of instant ether and learn from them.”
“Honey, you’ve either got it or you haven’t. I’ve got it with bells on. They show me things I’d really rather not see. You? You haven’t got it at all. Your spirit shaman fellow really blew it when he set up shop in you. You’re a dead end for the spirit world.”
Siri came over and sat cross-legged on the dirt floor in front of Bpoo.
“Who are they? Who have you seen?”
“A whole lot of them.”
“For example.”
“Oh, dull, dull. All right. Your mother, your ex-dog, a dozen or so confused spirits you’ve picked up along the way. And there’s some really old character who stinks of history.”
“Yeh Ming. My shaman spirit. Do they talk to you?”
“Every now and then. I mean the ones that used to be people. The dog just snarls and drools a lot. I have no idea what he wants.”
“Can you tell me what they say?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to be your telephonist. “Oohoo, Dr. Siri, there’s another call from your mother. Will you accept the charges?” Come on. I have a life.”
“Not much of one.”
“Bastard!”
She stood and stormed to the door.
“I’m sorry,” he called after her. “Really I am. I didn’t mean it. I’m sure your life’s grand.”
