The Lao had no idea what the couple was talking about but it seemed quite obvious they weren’t getting along that well. Nobody bothered to translate and nobody really cared. But then it was Siri’s turn.
“You!” said the senator.
“Moi?” said Siri.
Vogal called for one of the Thais to translate.
“You tell him he’s the one,” he said. “You tell him what’s about to happen in this room is all down to him. It should have all been really simple. We find the pilot’s body, make sure everything in the chopper was destroyed, the MIA story’s a hoax, Potter kills himself but nobody’s game to report it. We all go home. Everybody’s alive at the end of it apart from some annoying drunk. You weren’t supposed to spoil all that, old man. You know why we insisted on having you on the team? I’ll tell you. Because you’re a flake. Yeah, really. Ghosts and ghouls and travels through hell and back. Yeah, we get to hear about all that. We aren’t completely without intel. You were supposed to be the coroner who knows nothing. You and the team of misfits your minister recommended were supposed to party your way through the week and not have a clue what it was all about. But you get your own team together, don’t you? And you get nosy and you screw it all up. You’re a serious disappointment. I don’t usually like to get blood on my own hands but I’m really pissed at you. None of you other folks need to worry. I don’t want anyone to panic. I’ll just shoot the doctor here to make myself feel better then you can all go home.”
No room was less likely to break out in a panic than the restaurant of the Friendship Hotel. Those who had a clue what was going on were watching it like a movie. They weren’t in it. But Vogal was right about Ethel Chin. She really didn’t know when to keep her mouth shut.
“Yeah? How stupid do you think they are?” she yelled. “They’re all dead. Tell them wh-”
Like its predecessor, the bullet that silenced Ethel Chin sliced through the room and confused everyone. Toua and his wife had been sitting behind her and they were splattered with blood. They knew. But everyone else seemed mystified. Chin dropped onto her side, dead, and Emiliano put down his pistol, resisting the temptation to blow smoke out of the barrel. He looked proud, fulfilled.
“Ah! Peace,” said Vogal. “You know? Murder is such a wonderful tool for discipline. I’m surprised high schools haven’t cottoned on to the concept. Shoot the smart ass in the back row and you’re guaranteed cooperation for the rest of the semester. It’s on my next budget recommendation to the senate.”
With Vogal’s oratory and the henchman’s struggled translation in the background, Madame Daeng turned to her husband and smiled.
“It’s that scene, isn’t it?” she said. “The one in your movies where all is lost, the assassins are about to massacre the innocent hostages-then, from nowhere, the hero swings in on a rope and rescues us.”
“I think you were right up to the ‘all is lost’ part,” Siri laughed. “I knew I shouldn’t have fed Ugly this morning. If he was hungry there’s a possibility he’d fight to the death to save me. Failing that….”
“I was thinking more of Captain Boyd making an unlikely return from the dead.”
“If we had a wish for every noodle we’ve ever eaten, it still wouldn’t be enough to make that happen.”
“He’s dead, isn’t he?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Us too.”
“It’s starting to look that way. If we made a rush for them they might do us the favor of laughing themselves to death.”
Daeng looked around and chuckled.
“We are a ragged lot,” she said. “Most of us wouldn’t make it to our feet before the first bullets hit.”
“When did we get too old for this, Daeng? What happened to those days when we were somersaulting through the air with a cutlass in each hand taking out the enemy twenty at a time?”
“I don’t think that was us, love. That was Bruce Lee.”
“You know, I think you’re right. I often confuse myself with him.”
“I’d sooner have you.”
“And I’d want nobody else but you.”
Their grips tightened.
“It’s been an exceptional eight months together,” she said.
“I’d rather been hoping for several more.”
“Me too.”
Something had happened. The guards were all moving to the same side of the dining room. Siri knew it was the precursor to a firing squad. He wondered what options there were. Rushing the guards was better than sitting back and waiting, but he wondered how many of the stoned hostages were in any fit state to attack. The senator was pointing at him. A guard came wading through the bodies.
“I get to do a solo,” Siri said and gave his wife’s hand a last squeeze before getting uncomfortably to his feet.
“Give them the recitation,” Daeng said. “The really long one you bored everyone to death with at Dtui’s wedding.”
“Madam, that was my own Lao translation of a Marot sonnet.”
“Try that one. It might work again. Siri….”
He stopped and looked back.
“Yes?”
“Did you put clean underwear on this morning?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, that’s something, I suppose.”
He gave her a warm smile and followed the guard who hurried him along with the butt of his gun. From a far room came the sound of the generator starting up. The clattering of the loose washers and nuts was worse than ever. Auntie Bpoo sat erect and strained her ears. At the front of the room, Vogal, with a pistol in his hand, was attempting to force Siri to get to his knees. The doctor refused to do so. The sound of the rattling pipes grew louder.
Bpoo had it.
“Siri,” she called, “put your fingers in your ears.”
She saw Siri smile at the joke.
“Siri, I’m serious,” she called again. “It’s mid-afternoon. There
Siri immediately understood and, to Vogal’s surprise, pushed his fingers into his ears and began to sing.
“I rather doubt that will help him very much,” said the senator, laughing.
“Daeng, you too,” called Bpoo. “Civilai, if you’re at all conscious. Now. Put your fingers in your ears and hum.”
The last sound Bpoo heard before blocking her own ears and humming something from Perry Como, was a rhythmic metal clatter getting ever closer.
Vogal’s pistol was at Siri’s head. He’d given up on his attempt to make the old fool kneel. He had a few biting words to say before pulling the trigger but his tongue suddenly felt larger than his mouth. To his left, the Thai guards were nodding in time to some distant rhythm. Even Emiliano to his right was rocking from side to side and, apparently, dribbling. Vogal put it down to the lasting effects of the old woman’s tea. He attempted to ask the Filipino what the hell he thought he was doing but the words that left his mouth were alien-not even his own voice. He looked at the hostages freaking out like hippies at a folk concert, waving their fingers, lost behind closed eyes. He looked up to see the Down’s Syndrome guy enter the dining room, banging on a beaten-up tambourine with a stick. He had wads of toilet paper stuffed in his ears and the most infuriating smile on his face. Vogal attempted to level his gun in the retard’s direction but it just swung back and forth in front of him like a conductor’s baton. Then his mind left him completely.
Siri let out a nervous laugh and shook his head. Geung really had packed everything but the morgue sink. He’d brought along the shamanic tambourine. Those who could hear it had fallen into a ritual trance just like the children at Thong Pong middle school. No doubt the tea had weakened everyone’s self-control and made them susceptible to its haunting beat. Nobody knew where they were. Not Vogal, not the guards, and certainly not the guests who rocked and drooled and spoke in strange tongues. Those who had blocked out the sound would have a few seconds to act when the drumming stopped. Siri nodded at Geung who ceased his banging. As quickly as he was able, the
