Ivory Nation, Andy Maslen [e manga reader .txt] 📗

‘Hello! How are you?’

‘Bonjour! Ça va?’

Only closing the window when the heat became oppressive, he took a right on Quai Fa Ngum towards the Beau Rivage. The street in front was thronging with tuk-tuks, mopeds, ox carts and taxis, all fighting for a few square metres of roadway. He was forced to slow the big coupe to a crawl amidst the chaos.

White-feathered chickens clucked from the confines of a blue plastic crate lashed to the seat of a Honda 50. On another, a woman with a baby strapped to her front clamped a bulging string basket of melons between her knees as a toddler standing up on the seat behind her dug its pudgy fingers into her shoulders. Yellow dogs with grey muzzles darted in and out of the traffic, occasionally snapping at the bare calves of moped riders and earning angry kicks for their troubles.

A sharp rap on the glass by his left ear jerked him to full alertness. He turned his head to see a round brown face surmounted by a beige and green peaked cap looking in at him through the darkened window. He thumbed the switch.

The traffic cop’s face wasn’t just the beautiful shade of caramel all Laotians bore; it was overlaid with a reddish tinge, and sheened with sweat. Poor bugger. I’d be hot, too, if they made me wear that get-up. Over the cop’s shirt, beneath which a white tee-shirt was visible, he wore a zipped-up pocketed vest and a hi-vis TRAFFIC POLICE tabard. White nylon gloves, tight at the wrist, completed the uniform.

Gabriel smiled up at the sweaty cop.

‘Suh-bye-dee.’

‘Americaine?’ the cop asked.

‘Non, monsieur. Anglais.’

The cop nodded, beaming.

‘Princess Diana. Very pretty lady.’

It was hard to disagree. Did the cop know Diana was dead? That her distant relative by marriage was, also? He decided not to find out.

‘Is there a problem, officer?’ he asked.

‘Today market day. Traffic very, very bad.’

‘Yes. I can see.’

The cop favoured Gabriel with a long look, directing his gaze in the direction of his inside jacket pocket.

‘You want go faster?’

He leaned his right arm on the Merc’s windowsill so that his hand, fingers opening like a flower, draped inside.

Gabriel nodded. From his wallet he fished out a five-dollar bill. It vanished inside the curling petals. Smiling, the cop withdrew his arm then turned and marched into the centre of the knot of stationary mopeds, carts and tuk-tuks in front of the car.

He reached down to his hip. For one horrific moment, Gabriel imagined he was about to pull the black pistol from its polished leather holster and start shooting.

Instead, it came up gripping a silver whistle. Several long, shrill blasts followed. All eyes were on the cop. In a voice loud enough to wake the dead, he began bellowing, first in Laotian, then French, ordering the assorted road users to clear the way.

Little by little, and with much good-natured jostling and bantering, they parted before the Merc’s predatory grille like the Red Sea before Moses.

Waving his thanks, and praying fervently they didn’t take him for what he so obviously was, an arrogant, rich Western tourist, Gabriel eased the car onwards until he escaped the jam and found the relative freedom of an uncongested part of the road.

Before leaving for the ivory market, Gabriel and Eli changed into the outfits they’d bought especially for the trip. They’d decided to make an impression rather than going for anything subtle. In Gabriel’s case, a pinstriped suit, canary-yellow tie and matching pocket square and polished black Oxfords.

‘Well?’ he said. ‘What do you think?’

She pursed her lips.

‘Merchant banker.’

‘OK, then, let’s see how you interpreted the brief,’ he said.

Eli disappeared into the bathroom. Ten minutes later, as he was checking his watch for the third time, the door opened and she emerged.

Gabriel’s eyes widened, involuntarily.

‘Wow!’ was all he could manage.

Eli stood before him, one hip cocked like a fashion model. She wore a black silk flying suit, zipped up the front and fastened at the neck with press-studs. On her feet, calf-length black leather biker boots with stainless-steel toecaps. She’d pulled her abundant hair back into a bun fastened high on the back of her head. Heavy black eye makeup and red lipstick added to the combination of sexiness and menace.

But it was the item dangling from her leather belt that captured Gabriel’s attention.

40

An eighteen-inch black polished baton lay along her right thigh. From its tip protruded two stubby metal contacts.

‘Is that what it appears to be?’ he asked.

‘Amazing what you can find if you know how to ask nicely,’ Eli said. ‘Four thousand volts. From a very nice man called Monsieur Nam. Apparently his main customers are in farming. I got this, too,’ she said, reaching behind her back and pulling out a short folding knife with a thin blade the shape of a claw.

‘Karambit. Very nice. I don’t suppose you got anything for me?’

Eli pouted.

‘Aww, did Gabwiel think I’d forgotten his pwesents?’

She disappeared into the bathroom and emerged clutching a black plastic carrier bag.

Gabriel accepted it and emptied the contents out onto the bed. A second karambit, a blued-steel knuckle duster and two small canisters about the length of his palm.

He pointed at the canisters.

‘Mace?’

‘PAVA. According to the manager of Vientiane Police Supply Store, the cops here have to buy their own PPE, sorry, personal protection equipment. It’s a very concentrated pepper spray. Incapacitation guaranteed if you can hit them in the eyes, severe restriction of action if you get them in the nose or mouth. One each.’

Feeling much more comfortable knowing that between them they had enough hardware to be deadly in any close quarter encounter, yet hoping they wouldn’t need it, Gabriel led the way to the car.

He took a seat in the back, while Eli sat behind the wheel. She twisted around in her seat.

‘Let’s go over it one last time.’

‘I’m the buyer,’ Gabriel said. ‘Representing Russian interests in England. You’re my driver-slash-bodyguard.’

They’d argued it back and forth over the preceding couple of days, but