Mrs. Pollifax and the Golden Triangle Page 4

  "What did he look like?"

  'Tall," she said. "Very big, with—" Her glance moved across the street to a dingy blue van which two men were loading, and as her eyes fell on what they were loading she screamed, "Cyrus!"

  Without a glance at traffic she plunged into Thapae Road to the cacophony of blowing horns and squealing brakes. "Stop!" she cried. "Stop!"

  There were startled glances from the men loading the van; they had been clumsily lifting an inert Cyrus so that he could be crammed into the back of the van but he was large and they were small. At the sound of her screams they shoved him brutally inside, slammed shut the doors, raced to the front, jumped into the van and before she could reach it the van was in motion, nearly running her down.

  She stopped in the street and stared after the van, trembling with rage and frustration. "Oh, how dare they!" she cried. "What is happening here?"

  Her companion caught up with her and grasped her by the arm. "Get out of the street!" he said. "That was your husband?"

  She nodded with tears in her eyes.

  "Then quick—come!"

  CHAPTER

  4

  "Come where?" she cried angrily. "What do you want of me? That was Cyrus! "Quickly—to follow!" he cried, pulling her along the sidewalk.

  "Oh, thank God," she gasped, and ran with him up the street.

  "Here," he said, tearing open the door of an ancient truck and she raced around to the other side and jumped into the cab beside him. Wrestling with keys, he started the engine, turned in a broad arc and careered across oncoming traffic, barely avoiding being run down by a bus, a move made even more unnerving because Mrs. Pollifax had forgotten that in Thailand cars drive on the left side of the road.

  "Can you see them?" she shouted into his ear as they took off in pursuit of the blue van.

  "Yes, they have turned right," he shouted back, and ignoring a stop sign he swerved recklessly across traffic to turn right.

  "I see them!" she cried, crouching on the edge of her seat. "They've turned to the left."

  They followed to the left, one wheel of their truck bouncing over a curbstone; they turned right and then left again, motorcycles, scooters and bicycles parting in front of them like the Red Sea, cars screaming to a halt, people racing to the side of the road, her companion huddled over the steering wheel with one hand on the horn, the blue van remaining tantalizingly at a distance. It was a perilous neighborhood in which to give chase because it was the old section of town where people slowly crossed the street, even pausing to gossip until van and truck raced down on them and scattered them. She was aware of street stalls, narrow alleys, open-air markets selling cotton fabrics, baskets, cooking pots, heaps of fish and greens, tiny shops bright with gilt Buddhas, incense, paper flowers, votives, men squatting over sidewalk braziers. Suddenly they were back on a road that broadened into a boulevard, passing a school, a college, a bridge over the river Ping and a marker on the edge of the road that announced route numbers.

  "They're getting away, we're losing them!" she cried, leaning forward. "Can't you go faster?"

  He murmured something unintelligible.

  "What?"

  "My truck, it can't go faster—it's old."

  He was right, of course, it had made horrible noises from the very beginning, reducing them both to shouting, but she refused defeat. After all, Cyrus was in that blue van, for what reasons she couldn't conceive, and to lose sight of the van was to lose Cyrus. "Go faster anyway," she begged, biting her lip in frustration. Faster, faster, she whispered over and over to herself, but as she whispered her incantations the blue van added a burst of speed and sped around a curve out of sight.

  "Damn," she cried, and the man beside her turned his head and gave her a startled glance.

  The road narrowed now as they headed north, and having left the outskirts of the city the villas and the thatch houses thinned out and the trees moved in closer to the road. Looking ahead, she realized there would be still more curves as they began climbing toward the hills, and the truck was making fresh sounds of protest as the grade steepened. If Chiang Mai had been higher in altitude than Bangkok she began to understand that even higher altitudes lay ahead, and that the mountains in the hazy distance were precisely where the blue van was heading. It was not a comforting thought.

  It was at this moment that Mrs. Pollifax realized the odds against their catching up with the van in this noisy, rattling old truck. It was also the moment when it first occurred to her that she was rushing off into the unknown with a man about whom she knew nothing except that they'd met over a dead body, which was scarcely a recommendation, and her recklessness suddenly appalled her: how could she have done it? It was true that this man had shown a remarkable presence of mind—rather too remarkable, she thought now, uneasily—but he was a complete stranger to her, and she'd certainly joined forces with him very casually and without so much as a thought. No, not casually, she amended: desperately. But still, when she considered the circumstances under which she'd met this —this brigand in the My Fair Lady hat—there was little doubt that she was traveling with a killer, and with him she was being taken farther and farther away from Chiang Mai. At this thought a new wave of panic swept over her to add weight to her panic over Cyrus.

  She forced herself to breathe deeply and to concentrate on objects. She thought, The truck rattles, the dashboard is orange with rust, there are hollows in this seat under me as if a dog has been digging for a bone he buried there... Stealing a glance at her companion's profile, she found his face grim but determined, and since she was equally as determined she told herself that whoever he was he seemed as eager as she was to catch up with the blue van and this was what mattered the most just now. After riding in silence for nearly half an hour she cleared her throat and shouted at him, "What do we do if we find the blue van?"

  He shrugged. "Do? I have the knife in my pocket."

  "It was a strange knife," she shouted back at him. "Made by hand, wasn't it? The handle had string or fishing cord wrapped around the wood."

  "Around bamboo," he shouted back. "It was a Shan knife."

  A Shan knife. She gave him a startled glance but said nothing—shouting was tiresome and in any case a knife made by Shans seemed no more bizarre to her than her circumstances. Checking her wristwatch, she saw that it was already half past nine and she decided that if they did not spot the blue van again soon she would insist on being taken to a police station. With this thought she opened her purse and checked money and passport; the police would want to see her passport but what would they make of her story, she wondered, and how much dared she tell them? There was also the pressing question—she could not avoid it indefinitely—as to whether this man would allow her to go to a police station or whether she herself had been made a captive. She returned the passport to the zippered inside pocket of her purse and was appalled to feel the shape and weight of the gold-laden votive concealed there. She thought wildly, Perhaps I can use it now to ransom Cyrus ... if this man doesn't rob me first. To distract her thoughts from such unpleasant speculations she shouted, "Where does this road go?"

  "Chiang Rai," he shouted back.

  Chiang Rai... and they had just left Chiang Mai, which made for rather a lot of Chiangs. She brought out and unfurled the map she'd crumpled into her purse that morning and set out to make sense of where they were going. She found the Chiang Mai they'd left behind them, and moving her ringer northward, she discovered the Chiang Rai toward which they were heading, and at the top, near the border, a town called Chiang Saen. Three such Chiangs were almost more than could be dealt with: Mai, Rai and Saen, she repeated to herself, memorizing them, and put the map away with a sigh.

  Deprived of conversation she began to examine the countryside through which they were driving, thinking how thrilling it would be if Cyrus were beside her and they were tourists again. They were now in real country, climbing steadily, with hills rising all around them and jungles of palm and secondary growth on either s
ide. There were no houses: tall grasses lined the road, and beyond them the palms, thick undergrowth and then the jungle. The hills scalloping the horizon looked like cutouts from an ancient Chinese print, as if watercolor had been roughly splashed over their peaks to run raggedly down the sides, leaving an impression of unkempt fur. Up ahead a man suddenly walked out of the tall grass and crossed the road. He wore a blue shirt and pants and a round white shoulder bag that crossed his shoulder to rest against his thigh, a circle of artistic white against the blue. Over his shoulder he carried what looked like a very long thin pointed fishing rod. As they swept past him she turned to look and saw that it was not a fishing rod.

  "Was that a rifle?" she shouted at her companion.

  "Single-shot—pern yao" he shouted back. "Farmers allowed them for hunting here in North."

  Watching the man disappear, her head still turned, she saw a motorcycle behind them at some distance and was relieved to find this not quite so lonely a road after all.

  Nevertheless, having not caught a glimpse of the blue van for a number of miles she decided it was time to confront her companion and demand a police station.

  "It's after ten o'clock," she told him, and when he didn't hear her she repeated in a shout, "It's nearly quarter past ten and we've lost the blue van, I want to talk to you!"

  'Talk?" He turned and gave her a measuring glance that she found sinister. "Soon," he shouted back, and pointed to a rushing mountain brook on their right. "Stop soon, up ahead."

  A mile down the road he slowed the truck and pulled into a clearing. Several other trucks were parked here beside an open thatch-roofed building; beyond, down near the stream of water, stood more huts. The ignition was turned off, the engine gave a last sputter, a gasp, and Mrs. Pollifax could hear again. 'Ten minutes," he said, climbing out of the truck.

  "But why are you going, and where? We'll lose the van," she cried. She was seeing him full-face again and he looked no less dangerous and intimidating. Perhaps it was the scar, she thought, as well as his bulk, but she found that she preferred the profile that she'd been seeing for the past hour and ten minutes.

  "This is Hot Springs Development," he told her. "We may as well use lavatory and pick up food."

  "And talk," she reminded him, giving him a hostile glare.

  She waited outside the truck while he strolled over to the thatch hut; when he came back he was carrying a wire basket with half a dozen eggs, a handful of bananas and three bottles of cola. With a jerk of his head he summoned her to follow him down to the mountain stream where a shallow cistern had been placed in the water. To her surprise she saw steam rising in clouds: this really was a hot spring. Lowering the basket of eggs into the cistern, her companion nodded to her and walked away, presumably to a lavatory.

  Mrs. Pollifax paced up and down beside the stream and the eggs, feeling that a great deal of time was being wasted and then, deciding to be sensible, she went off in search of a lavatory, too. When she emerged he was waiting, the eggs apparently cooked; he led her to a shaded table, sat down on a bench and handed her a boiled egg.

  Fingering it without appetite, she said, "I don't even know your name."

  He bowed his head slightly. "Bonchoo."

  "Bonchoo what?"

  "Well—the rest of it is Chalermtkarana," he said dryly, "but we do not bother with two names here. You also have a name?"

  "Oh," she said. "Emily Pollifax." Thirsty, she stretched out a hand for one of the colas and took a sip. "Mr. Bonchoo—"

  "Just Bonchoo will do."

  "All right... Bonchoo, we have lost the blue van with my husband inside it and now I wish to be taken to a police station, please, to report this."

  He was peeling an egg with expert fingers. "We passed one ten miles back."

  "Ten miles—" She looked at him, exasperated. "You must realize my husband's been kidnapped, why didn't you stop?"

  "We were following the blue van."

  "Which is now far ahead of us," she pointed out indignantly. "And for that matter," she added, unleashing all of her uneasiness in a burst of anger, "for that matter why is it that you want to follow the blue van? You didn't lose a husband."

  Bringing out the Shan knife, he sliced his egg neatly and efficiently in half. "This is difficult situation," he said, "and we are losing time. As a good Buddhist is it not possible I wish to gain merit by helping?"

  "Well," she snapped, "you can gain merit by taking me now to a police station. They can send out an alert, and find and stop the van."

  He said with a shrug, "Maybe so, yes, but I know the men in the blue van—"

  "You know them?" she gasped.

  "You understand not personally," he said, "but since I know where they come from I know where they will go. As for you—" He shrugged. "You go to the police and by the time you explain everything the van will have passed the police check up ahead and will be in Chiang Rai. Also by the time you have explained where and how your husband was kidnapped," he added casually, "and about the dead man you found, it will be very late."

  He meant, of course, that she was guilty of not reporting Ruamsak's murder at once. Pure blackmail, she thought scornfully. "And how would you propose to find my husband?"

  He said evenly, "I would look for the peoples who drive the van."

  "How would you know where to find them?"

  "I told you, I know the country where they go."

  "How?" she demanded. "Why?"

  "Because I live there, I come from the north."

  "Did the dead man live in the north, too?" When he didn't reply she said, "You killed him, didn't you?"

  He shrugged. "He's dead, does it matter?"

  She said angrily, "It matters very much your knowing the men who kidnapped Cyrus and I think you're deliberately delaying my visit to the police so those men in the van can get away. After all, once I tell the police about the murder you'll be the first person they look for, isn't that true?"

  He sighed heavily. "You want to know why not the police?"

  "I would love to know why not the police," she said bitterly. "If, that is, you can possibly find a reason."

  He said calmly, peeling another egg, "Because the man who was killed in the house in Chiang Mai was not a nice man. Because the men who took away your husband are not nice men. The police do not always find such men— not here in the north, anyway. And when they look it takes time, much time, and sometimes much—" He hesitated and then said, "much push," but she did not believe that was the word he'd been going to use.

  She said abruptly, "And you—are you also not a nice man?"

  He said calmly, "Not a nice man at all."

  She thought he was deliberately baiting her. "Why were you in Chiang Mai?" she asked.

  He shrugged. "I told you, my name is Bonchoo, I went to Chiang Mai with a friend on business, I leave now for home." He looked at her almost with sympathy; certainly he seemed to find her amusing. "But you had better make your choice because I cannot wait, I have waited long enough, the ten minutes passed five minutes ago."

  She gave him a furious glance. She was in over her head and she knew it: she was being asked to trust—or not trust, but accompany—a man who appeared to know a great deal more than she did and who was probably a murderer, which made it impossible to trust him, but if Cyrus had been kidnapped by men who were not—as this Bonchoo put it—nice men, then it was possible that a man like Bonchoo really could find Cyrus. What was being suggested was that she ignore conventional avenues of help and continue on with Bonchoo, who was no better than he should be, all on the theory—doubtful, surely—that he knew the men who had abducted Cyrus.

  She thought, Don't be a fool, Emily, go to the police.

  She was remembering Hong Kong now, and the enormous confidence with which she had walked into what had turned out to be a trap, and she was also remembering the consequences. Bonchoo could very well be working for the men in the blue van, and this too could be a trap.

  She said accusingly, "You'r
e asking me to trust you?"

  He looked astonished. "Trust? Why should you trust me?"

  His reply was so reasonable that she gaped at him— what a frustrating rascal he was!—yet at the same time his words shocked her back into her old self with a glimpse of a world that she recognized, a world that she'd entered before, a world without rules, guarantees or trust in anyone but herself, where choices were a gamble, as choices always were, but in this case heavily scored with risk. It was an underground world. If what Bonchoo said was true, then the van and Cyrus were speeding north while she sat here tiresomely debating the character of this man and looking for guarantees.

  There were no guarantees. There never had been and there never could be.

  She said crisply, "Then let's go." Picking up her purse, hard-boiled eggs, bananas and cola, she added, "But if we can't find the blue van in Chiang Rai then I warn you—I go to the police."

  "Who's to stop you?" he said mildly, plucking his last egg from the table and rising.

  She gave him one last indignant glance and strode back to the truck. At the long thatch-roofed hut where Bonchoo had purchased food a young man turned his head to watch her. She gave him a brief sidelong glance: a mop of dark hair framing a dark face made darker by his bright red shirt, so young she guessed he was not out of his teens. His companion slouched next to him, his back turned to her, his shirt a bright yellow. Their motorcycle—and this she glanced at admiringly—stood parked beside them.

  Joining her in the cab of the truck Bonchoo inserted his key in the ignition and then froze, his eyes fixed on the rearview mirror. He looked suddenly grim. "I thought they passed us—they did pass us, they have come back, the naklengs."

  "The who?" asked Mrs. Pollifax.

  "The two hoodlums on the motorcycle."

  She looked at him in surprise. "Those two boys? Why do they bother you?"

  He said evenly, "Because they have been following behind us since Thapae Road in Chiang Mai... They take much care to not pass us, which is not so easy with such a motorcycle. I am thinking when they do pass us they plan mischief to us..."