Thirty-Three Teeth Read Online Free PDF Page A

taken them off before the jump. So the chaos had apparently not yet occurred. Phosy stuck his head out the window and looked either side. There was no way an assailant could have left the room via the window and escaped without a parachute. He turned back to see the others starting to clean up the mess.
    “All right. Nobody touches anything till my people have had a chance to look around. Now, Mr…. what’s your name?”
    “Santhi.”
    “Mr. Santhi. Who works in this office?”
    “Mrs. Bounhieng. She’s off having another baby. And Mr. Chansri. He’s the director of the archives. And Mr. Khampet.”
    “And do either of those two gentlemen fit the description of the chap in the morgue?”
    “Oh. Mr. Khampet. Definitely. Mr. Chansri’s an older gentleman, and a little overweight.”
    “And where might we find the director of the archives?” Santhi shifted uneasily and looked at the ground. “Did you hear the question?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well?”
    “He could be at Tong Kankum market.”
    “I take it he isn’t on ministry business.”
    “He sells fish.”
    “Right.”
    “I probably shouldn’t have told you. But you understand. We don’t get paid a lot here, so some of us supplement….”
    “Mr. Santhi. I’m not a government inspector.” Phosy looked across to see Siri on his haunches looking beneath the heavy wooden workbench. “What’s that?”
    “You see this?”
    The detective walked across and looked under the bench.
    “An old chest.”
    “No. It’s a lot more than an old chest. Look. It has the royal seal.”
    Embossed onto a solid teak box, an improbable three-headed elephant stood on a podium like some circus freak at the That Luang Festival. It sheltered beneath a multi-tiered umbrella. Only time had removed its glitter. Siri lowered his voice. “The chest has a lot of energy, too. Whatever’s in there is giving off a lot of aggression.”
    “Siri, you aren’t having one of your supernatural moments?”
    Very few people knew of the extent of Siri’s mystic connections. In fact, only Civilai, Dtui, and Geung, in his own way, knew just how weird the doctor was. Siri had only recently become aware of his gifts himself. On the same visit to his birthplace in Khamuan when the Phibob had been roused, he’d been informed of something remarkable. In truth, he still didn’t believe all the things he’d heard. According to the elders of one small village, Siri was the re-embodiment of Yeh Ming, a powerful Hmong shaman who had lived over a thousand years ago. Since the discovery, Siri had become aware of amazing powers that lurked somewhere deep inside him. As yet, he was unsure of how to use them, and in many ways they frightened the daylights out of him. He’d never directly informed Phosy of his unbidden gifts, but the policeman’s instincts told him all he needed to know.
    Siri reached out his hand toward the chest, and then withdrew it suddenly as if a shock had warned him off.
    “I’d tell your people to be very careful of this, if I were you. Very careful.”
     
    Siri’s dream that night didn’t answer any questions for him. Mr. A, now positively identified as Khampet, was floating slowly down through the air toward Nam Poo fountain. He floated like a hawk but had a look of horror on his face. The ends of long staves of wood were nailed to his hands and feet. Another entered the back of his neck and appeared to go up into his head. But these didn’t seem to worry him. He was more concerned about what was behind him, and whatever that was, it didn’t appear in the dream shot. The occult cameraman wasn’t giving anything away.
    But just for a brief second, not long enough to be certain, Siri may have seen a line of witnesses on the roof above. They seemed happy—or perhaps satisfied would be a better description. In that brief second, he had a feeling they were old performers, the type that wore thick makeup and traditional Lao costumes. They may also have been applauding, but