Cambodian Book of the Dead by Tom Vater Read Free Book Online Page A

the exit. The old general made no effort to move. His son had got up and walked a few feet away from the table, behind the fashionable rebel who stood on his chair, turning round and around, levelling his gun more and more towards the surrounding tables. From the floor, Maier had a perfect view of the young man’s next moves.
    Pop, pop, pop.  
    The tourists screamed in panic. The playboy skinhead was dead by the time he hit the table in front of Maier, which collapsed in a hail of bottles, cans and cigarette butts.
    Tep’s son had shot him in the back.
    Blood, beer, pills and broken glass spread across the tiled floor. The dark red was striking on the immaculate white silk. That’s how easy it was to die in Cambodia.
    The boy helped his father get up and made a path for the old man to get behind the bar.
    â€œFollow them.” Maier grabbed Carissa. “There must be another exit.”
    Â 
    The muggy night air felt good after the two beers he shouldn’t have drunk and a murder he hadn’t wanted to witness. But outside there was only Cambodia. Shots rang down the street. Car windows were smashed. A small gang of motodops raced down Rue Pasteur, into the darkness. Girls screamed. Saturday night in Phnom Penh.
    â€œSo this is the most popular nightclub in the country,” he said, more to himself than anyone around him.
    The windows of the police station that stood, hidden behind a high wall, directly opposite the Heart, remained dark, despite the gunfire. No policeman who earned twenty dollars a month would get involved in this weekend orgy of adolescent violence unless there was money to be made. The situation would eventually bleed itself to death.
    The general pulled his polo shirt straight and stared down the road, an expression of faint amusement on his flat features. The old man did not seem overly concerned about his son’s state of mind, after the youngster had just killed a man in cold blood in front of several hundred witnesses.
    â€œThanks, Mr Tep, your son saved our lives.”
    The general looked at Maier for a moment, his eyes fixed and devoid of message.
    â€œKep is a quiet town. You can relax. Come and visit on my island. Ask local fishermen how to get to my villa on Koh Tonsay. Germans always welcome. And forget what happen here tonight.”
    His car pulled up.
    Carissa had freed her 250 from the chaos of parked bikes in front of the Heart and Maier lost no time jumping on the back. A few seconds later, they crossed Norodom Boulevard.
    â€œFucking hell, Maier, as soon as you turn up, the bullets start flying. The article I’m going to write about this tomorrow will be sensational. Son of former KR general shoots son of oil executive in Cambodia’s most cosmo nightclub. That’ll make waves. You’ll have to drink beer without me tomorrow.”
    â€œI don’t like beer.”
    Â 

 
    CHRISTMAS BAUBLES
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    Carissa’s heavy breasts floated above Maier’s equally heavy head, as seductive as the baubles that his mother had fastened to the Christmas tree forty years ago. In his drunken state this absurd association made passing sense, a few heartbeats before sunrise. Gram Parson’s “HickoryWind” was playing on Carissa’s laptop. The song, which she’d always liked, took Maier back to his early assignments in Cambodia. Another job, another life. Dangerous thoughts percolated in his mind.
    â€œThe nights were never long enough with you.”
    â€œWhat nights, Carissa? Mostly we did it on the roof of your villa in the mornings, because we were working at night or because we were too wasted.”
    â€œNothing much’s changed with ten years having passed then.”
    â€œProbably not.”
    â€œThen I still turn you on?”
    â€œYes, you do.”
    â€œEverything’s alright then.”
    Carissa rolled out from under the mosquito net and stretched in front of the open window of her