Gaijin Cowgirl (15): Help wanted

"Japanese war gold is a myth. Everybody wants to believe in it, everybody wants that easy fortune. No such luck, darling."

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HONG KONG

MARCH 2001

Lights winked on around the hills as dusk fell over the serene bay. Val could imagine relaxing in a comfortable apartment overlooking the beach, pouring a glass of wine and listening to a Coltrane album while chatting with the host in the kitchen. Or perhaps she could be one of the lovers now strolling along the quay, holding hands and watching the waters turn indigo. Maybe she could even be one of the crew of that long rowboat now heading toward her on the beach. Hard exercise with your rowing buddies, followed by a friendly drink. That looked to be a fine way to pass the evening.

Val observed the approaching boat and its crew of rowers with a feeling of unease. The intense fear of her final days in Tokyo had abated, but without being replaced by the tranquility she could see around her. That was destiny, there in that rowboat, as certain as the whitening scar on her cheek, as tangible as the silver locket around her neck – a gift from her father, passed to her in his limousine on the way to Narita. He had brought it from America as a peace offering; it opened to reveal a faded photograph of her as a baby, cradled in the arms of her mother.

“Just wear this for your old man, snowflake,” he had said. “Wear this and we’ll always be together.”

Val didn’t know what to make of it, but she kept the locket around her neck.

She could now hear a drumbeat from the rowboat. A small, dark-skinned woman in a red bikini stood at its prow, rhythmically beating the drum with a pair of thick sticks as the two dozen rowers, sitting two abreast, struggled to keep pace with her rhythm.

One of those rowers, Val hoped, was an ex-treasure hunter named Muddy McKenzie.

She watched them clamber out of the boat to push it onto the beach, ignoring the layer of muck that blanketed the water along this corner of the beach and disperse toward the warm lights of the cafes. The rowers were a mix of Westerners and Chinese, men and women, speaking a polyglot of English-speaking accents, from Sydney to Glasgow to Vancouver.

Her scrutiny must have been obvious. “Hallo,” said a trim man whose gaze she had held a second too long. “Looking for someone?”

“Do you know a guy named Muddy McKenzie?”

“Jammy geezer.”

“See, I don’t know what he looks like.”

The man laughed. “Prepare yourself for disappointment, then – that’s him. Now that you’re devastated, any chance you’d care to join me at the bar?”

In another world, maybe she would have. The man was good looking, seemed like fun – no Mr. Dour like Charlie. But thinking of Charlie reminded her that she wasn’t here for a laugh. “Some other time.”

Val walked toward McKenzie, a bird-like man, tall and gangly, with a meatless ribcage revealed by a sweat-soaked yellow tank top imprinted with ‘Wallabies’ in green. He was headed for the line of cafes with one arm around the shoulders of the dark girl in the red bikini.

Val stepped in front of them. “Hi, excuse me, I’m wondering if your name is Muddy.”

The couple stopped in surprise.

“Who’s asking?” he asked.

Val extended her hand. “My name is Valerie Benson. I believe you know my father, Congressman Fred Benson.”

He let her hand go unrequited. “I met him once.”

“Honey, who is this?”

“Don’t really know what you want,” Muddy said to Val.

“I’d just like to talk with you for a little bit.”

“Don’t see how I got anything to talk about.”

“Mr. McKenzie, I’ve come to you for help.”

“Well,” he said, “I’m just popping over to the pub to chat with my mates.”

“I’ll buy you a drink,” Val said, falling into step with them.

“That’s all right,” Muddy said. “I’d rather buy my own.”

“Honey,” said the girl, “maybe we should go home now.”

“It’s okay, love.”

Val followed them to a pokey pub with white stucco walls and sagging furniture, a place about as comfortably worn out as the 1970s classic rock anthems playing on the jukebox. Most of the customers were rowers, gathered outside or reclining in dark booths drinking pints of San Miguel or Boddingtons. It wasn’t as private as she would have liked.

She stood at the bar beside Muddy who ordered two Cokes. He hesitated, looking at Val, and with a sigh, as if disappointed to see she had followed him inside, asked her what she wanted to drink.

“Do they have any wine here?” she said.

“I think here it’s graded plonk.”

“Then one of those’ll do.”

“Another Coke, mate. Cheers.”

The three of them sat knees touching in a corner. McKenzie put his arm around his girlfriend, who looked at Val with unleavened hostility. “So,” he said, “Miss Benson, what’re you after?”

“Gold,” she said with a smile.

His demeanor turned to stone. “Then I can’t help you.”

“My father said you could.”

“Your father doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Excuse me,” he continued, rising, “it was very nice to have met you but we’re going home now.”

“Wait, please, Mr. McKenzie,” she pleaded. “I need your help. I know you’ve quit treasure hunting—”

This made him only move faster, pulling the girlfriend up after him. “Good-bye.”

“Please, can’t you just give me a few minutes?”

He headed for the door.

Val leapt after them. “But I’ve got the map!”

Muddy glanced back and saw her holding it up. He froze. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“This is real,” Val said. “Just hear me out.”

“Come home, Muddy.”

“Put that away, for Chrissake.”

“Sorry, I just—”

“I’ve seen people get killed by doing that.”

“Just ten minutes.”

The girlfriend cried, “Muddy—” but he grabbed her wrist and pulled her down beside him, back in the booth. Val joined them again, ignoring the woman’s dismay.

Muddy wasn’t finished scolding Val, although he kept his voice subdued. “That was very stupid. You realize that some people would murder you for that, real or not?”

“Some have already tried,” she said, tapping her scar.

He took this at face value and nodded. He looked around, visibly nervous. “How did you find me, anyway?”

It had taken her three days after touching down to figure out where he worked, after hours on the hotel room’s telephone, quizzing any company she could find that employed engineers.

That afternoon she had passed herself off as an old girlfriend and had learned that Muddy was out with colleagues, practicing for dragon-boat races out at Stanley, on the south side of Hong Kong Island. She had taken her chances and instructed a taxi driver to go there.

Stanley had turned out to be a small town packed with little shops and stalls selling tourist trinkets. It ended with a row of bars and restaurants along the quay facing the beach. Here she had waited, watching the sea.

“Christ,” he muttered.

“Why, are you supposed to be hiding?”

“Keeping a low profile.”

“It did take me three days. By the time I figured out where Stanley was, I saw your boat coming in.”

He craned his neck to look around again. “Any chance you’re being followed?”

“No.”

The girlfriend interjected: “Can we just cut the bullshit please?”

“Take it easy, Jodie.”

“No, Muddy, I won’t take it easy. I don’t know why you let her talk to us. She’s nothing but problems.”

“Honey—”

“Don’t ‘honey’ me,” Jodie hissed. “You promised me you would let it go, Muddy, you promised me no more stupid trips into the jungle!”

“Keep your voice down. I haven’t broken that promise.”

“Then why is she here?” Jodie covered her face and began to cry. Muddy tried to console her, but she batted him away. “Don’t touch me. Go fondle your new girlfriend.”

“Hey,” Val protested.

Muddy cut her off. “Just leave it,” he sighed. “Look, we shouldn’t talk here.”

Val had the notion that a Western engineer would have it pretty good in Hong Kong, living in a deluxe flat somewhere on the Peak overlooking the crescent of glittering skyscrapers ringing the shore and the postcard harbor.

But Muddy dwelled in a pokey 600 square-foot box – he warned her– off an alleyway in Sheung Wan, a neighborhood just west of glamorous Central but with the feel of a dirty lane off Canal Street in New York: low on glamour, but high on grim buildings, noxious bus fumes and skinned chickens hanging in shop windows. Jodie unlocked the metal gate, stomped off to the bedroom and slammed the door.

“She really doesn’t like me.”

“Don’t worry about her,” Muddy said. “She’ll come round. Soft drink?”

“No thanks.”

“Afraid I can’t offer you anything harder. I’ve quit.”

He emerged from the closet-sized kitchen with a carton of cold tea and gestured for her to sit on the sagging leather sofa. “Well, my dear, you have an interesting map, and your Congressman daddy sent you to me. Why?”

“I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

“Orright, Valerie,”

“Just Val.”

“Val. You wanted a few minutes of my time; here you are.”

She told him. She told him everything. It took longer than her allotted time, but he was intrigued, asking the occasional question to clarify things. When she had nearly finished, telling him about how she had learned of Charlie’s murder, she had to stop, stand up and look somewhere else.

Jodie picked that moment to storm out of the bedroom with a bulging suitcase. “Good-bye,” she said.

“Now where do you think you’re going?” Muddy said.

“Like you care.” She struggled to open the front door, giving him the moment to insert himself between her and the exit.

“Darling, it’s not what you think.”

“Oh it’s not?” She cast a red glare at Val. “You think I’m that stupid, Muddy? I’ve heard every word she’s said. Maybe it’s true, maybe she’s full of crap. I don’t care, all I know is she has one of those maps and she’s going to make you go chasing after another imaginary pile of gold that’ll get you nothing but shot.”

“Who said anything about me going anywhere?”

“Come on, don’t play games,” Jodie said. “Now get out of my way.” When he slammed the door to stop her from leaving, she kneed him in the crotch – a real leap for the diminutive woman. She barreled into the hallway, suitcase in tow, and pushed the elevator call button.

“Honey, I’m not going anywhere,” he gasped, but it was too late. The elevator doors shut, leaving Muddy to face an elderly Chinese woman across the hall, who stared at him with severe disapproval from behind the bars of her door. “Boo.”

He returned and flopped on the sofa. “Never cross a Filipina.”

“I didn’t mean to make trouble,” Val said, “but she’s overreacting.”

“Too right.” He sucked hard on his straw, contracting the carton of tea. He didn’t seem to notice the tea was all gone. “Well, I’ve heard your story. I’ve seen the map and as far as I can tell it is genuine. But I’ve seen plenty of genuine maps and they don’t always work out the way you want them to.”

“I want to find the gold, Muddy.”

“No, you don’t. Forget it. Your dad was right.”

“Look, Mr. McKenzie, these men will find a way to track us down, get us to tell them where it is, whether I hold onto it or not. These are spies and dirty cops, so I can’t go to the police. The only thing to do is to make the map so useless that it’s not worth chasing us. And the best way to do that is to find the gold, make it public, and let the Thai authorities figure out what to do with it. It probably belongs to them anyway.”

“You’ve got it solved then, have you?”

“No. But I don’t see another choice.”

“Sorry, Val, can’t help you.”

“But I don’t know anything about reading these maps or digging it up, and I don’t know who to trust, except you. Look, I don’t want any gold, but you’re welcome to a percentage.”

He laughed. “That’s generous of you.”

“I didn’t mean it to sound so…presumptuous.”

He looked again at the map and shook his head. “Look, Val, let me tell you a few things. These treasure hunts are mostly hoaxes. Now, don’t interrupt. I’ve spent fifteen years around the Philippines, and I know what I’m talking about. Japanese war gold is a myth. Everybody wants to believe in it, everybody wants that easy fortune. No such luck, darling.

“Tell you a story. Just a few months back, a member of the Thai senate declared to everybody that he’d found Japanese war loot near the border with Burma. For years there’ve been rumors and stories about imperial gold around there, because of the railroad they built, the Death Railway. The senator had evidence, and he even showed it to the prime minister, who then flew out to this little border town to see for himself. The PM told reporters he would pay off the national debt with the haul. So what happens? Turns out the senator got scammed. No treasure, just fake US Treasury bonds. Made the government a laughing stock. So if the prime minister of Thailand gets fooled in his own country, what makes you think you’ll do any better?”

“But Maxwell knew,” she countered. “He and Takahashi had some kind of deal. Didn’t you listen to anything I said?”

“Sure I listened, just like I’ve listened to stories from reliable witnesses for years. And in each case the witnesses turned out to be not so reliable. Some were deluded, some were liars, some were worse. I don’t know your angle, sweetie, but I’m not interested in flying back to the Phils or wherever to find out.”

“But what about this map? You agreed it’s real.”

He looked at the tawny wax paper in his hands. “Yeah, looks real.” A cloud crossed his face.

“So can you figure out where the treasure is?”

He pointed to a few scribbles in Japanese katakana script. “This says Thailand, plain as day,” he said. “This thing here that looks like a clock is a type of compass the Japanese invented. One hand points to location, the other to depth. If I had a good map of the country, I could get you right there.” He walked to a musty bookshelf and pulled out a book of geological charts. He glanced at the treasure map’s clock, then flipped through a few pages and nodded. “Yeah, somewhere along the Burmese border, I reckon. Using these directions, any other country – China, Indonesia, Phils – it wouldn’t work.”

The rest of the map consisted of a skeletal sketch of a main passage and two connecting ones. “What is this?” Val asked.

“This swirl here indicates stairs. This is the entrance. See this writing? I’ve seen this many times before, it’s katakana script that reads ‘to-ra-ku-a’. Tractor. Here, on this end of the site, it says, ‘to-ru-ka’ or truck. This mark, the dot inside the box – that’s gemstones, probably, and this one, this X inside a box, represents stacks of gold bars, perhaps in these trucks.”

“And what’s this one?” she asked, pointing to a single box with both an X and a circle inside.

“Gold Buddha statue. The ripper.”

“And these circles?”

“Vent tubes. They would have been drilled while the site was being created, and sealed at the end – often with laborers still trapped inside.” He snapped his atlas shut. “But even if the gold exists, it won’t do you any good.”

“Why not?”

“You have to ask yourself a few things, Val. First, on whose land is the gold? If it’s government land, forget it. Chances are the military got there long ago. If they didn’t, anything found would go to the government. You said you didn’t want that, right?”

Val shrugged. “Not the Japanese government, or America’s. But it’s Thailand’s treasure. It’s for their people.”

Muddy snorted. “You have a generous idea about how things work in Thailand. Another alternative is that it is private land. In which case you make some arrangement with the owner. You can’t just move in excavation equipment into the middle of the jungle without someone noticing. The owner has to be willing to let you be there, and it’s London to a brick he’s going to want to know all about it. Of course, this assumes there’s an owner at all. A lot of those border areas are low-grade war zones, controlled by Mon or Karen ethnic armies who shoot it out with the Thais and Burmese. These lads control most of the passes and the trade in drugs, teak, gemstones, you name it. You’d need an army of your own to be secure.”

“I see.”

“Then there’s a lot of financial issues,” he said. “You need labor. You need equipment. It costs money. You need someone to back you up financially, and that person or group is going to demand results and a big share of the proceeds. The kind of people who give money to treasure hunters… they’re not the sort of blokes who take it kindly when you tell them it ain’t there.”

“How much money do you need, in general?”

“Depends on the terrain, on ownership, on local costs and on how long you’re stuck there. A simple dig gets messy very quickly, particularly if it’s booby-trapped. Half a million US to get started, but it always drags on.”

Val sighed. “It’s pretty complicated.”

“And at the end of it all,” Muddy said, “you spend half your life chasing this dream, getting yourself deeper and deeper into shit you never even knew existed. One day you look at yourself in a mirror and realize you’ve gotten old.”

They fell quiet. Val gazed out the window at another apartment building, at a sad man sitting in the blue glow of a television. The shabbiness of Muddy’s apartment felt oppressive.

“Jodie saved me,” he told her. “Don’t know how but she made me see the choice between being a drunk arsehole digging for gold, or her. She wasn’t the first to waste her time on me, but after fifteen years…So a little while back I chose her, and I chose sobriety. She cleaned me up and we came here. I found a job on the airport, then the bridge, and now the tunnel. I hate my boss and I’m underpaid but I’m not wasting it all on drink, and I’ve got her. Well, had her, at any rate.”

“Maybe she’ll be back,” Val said.

Muddy nodded. “She will be. She needs me as much as I need her. Look, I’m sorry about your boyfriend. Sounds like you’ve gotten mixed up with some bad people. I know what that’s like. If I were you, I’d just walk away from this.”

She shook her head. “I can’t do that. This isn’t about money.”

“You got a queer idea about revenge.”

“I… I’m a pretty useless person, Muddy,” she said. “I know it. Instead of working hard at something I learned how to get by on my looks. And for a while, that was okay. But recently things have been pretty mixed up for me and…I’ve been feeling this way ever since I met Mrs. Kishi, and really began to understand Charlie’s work. I don’t know why, exactly, but I feel like if I just go back to America or wherever, I’ll just shrivel up. I close my eyes and I think about Charlie, and Mrs. Kishi, and all those poor women. And then I think about Takahashi. Those assholes he’s with. And those American guys, I still have nightmares about my face getting cut. But mostly it’s that I hate this whole situation and the weird thing is I loathe myself for being such a…”

“Party girl?”

“I guess so.”

“You think that verifying this treasure and making it public, and telling people who put it there in the first place, will somehow clean the record?”

“Um, I wouldn’t use the word clean, but something like that.”

“Or maybe you’re just running an errand for your father.”

“The hell I am.”

“I remember him. He knows how to play people. And he’s guilty, Val. Of what, I can’t say. I’m sorry, I know he’s your father; hate me all you like for saying it.”

“I’m not going to go into it with you. Let’s just say I don’t trust him either. But I got us into this mess; he had nothing to do with it. Maybe my ideas are stupid. I’m tired. I don’t know.”

“You’re not stupid,” he said. “Maybe a little naïve. You want to go on a wild goose chase? You don’t need me. Go find a reporter in Bangkok. Get them to find the gold. They love a good story.”

“I’ll think about that. But I’ll still need someone who can help find it – and who can read that dumb map. No matter what you say, Muddy, my dad trusts you.” She picked up her purse. “But I guess that’s it. Guess I should get going. You don’t want me around if Jodie gets back.” She extended her hand. “Can I have it back?”

Muddy paused, looking at the map one last time, and then returned it to her. “What’re you going to do now?” he asked.

“Suki and I are going to Bangkok. I guess we’re going tomorrow. We’ll need to figure out Plan B when we get there. Ask around.”

“Broadcasting yourselves. Not a wise move.”

“It’s the only one I’ve got.”

“Do you have any contacts in Thailand?”

“No. Well, one, Suki’s new boyfriend, this English guy who’s an amateur kickboxer.”

“Mention that map to the wrong people, Val, and you will only invite trouble.”

“Thanks for your time, Mr. McKenzie, and for filling in some of the details. They’re useful points; I’ll keep them in mind.”

“Well, it’s your decision,” he said. “Sorry I can’t be of much help. But I’ve got a different kind of life now.”

“I understand. It’s okay.”

“If I think of anyone who can help you, is there a way to contact you?”

She took out a pen and scribbled her e-mail address and new cell phone number on a notepad by the telephone. They shook hands by the door.

“I don’t need to tell you to be careful,” he said. “I will warn you to not let this thing consume you. It takes a certain type to dedicate your life to hunting for treasure. You don’t seem like the type to me – and that’s good. Stay that way.”

She smiled. “I will.”

Val’s smile wore off once she left the apartment building. Grief had hollowed out a space in her chest. Her brittle ribs circled emptiness, not heart and lungs. A vacuum was easy enough to carry when she was busy, occupied with tasks like tracking down Muddy. But any pause and the faces of the dead would fill her thoughts.

What to tell Suki, whom she had assured that Muddy would take care of everything? Her friend’s initial stoicism had turned to hysterics about fleeing her home. She’d begun to irritate Val in their shared room. It was Val who had gone out and bought her the sedatives. There she was now, snoring in one of the twin beds, half the mini bar’s contents empty on the nightstand.

Val shut the drapes, cutting off the blazing lights of Causeway Bay, and slumped on her own bed without bothering to undress. Maybe Muddy’s refusal was a good thing. Put a stop to this mad quest. Suki would try her luck with the English kickboxer, although that didn’t seem like much of a plan, either: they’d known each other for what, three days? But there was no going back. She and Val had the map. They had seen too much. Somewhere, Val knew, hard men were scheming, tapping networks, marshaling resources, thinking round the clock about two foolish hostesses on the lam and all that they possessed.

Bangkok it would be.

* * *

The dull roar of the minibus from the road; the creaking of furniture upstairs; the dim bass line from a neighbor’s stereo: every whisper amplified a thousand times in the middle of a sleepless night. Lying alone in his bed, Muddy McKenzie’s thoughts flitted between composing a plea to Jodie and the still-electric feel of wax paper in his fingers.

He got out of bed and, for the second time that night since Val had left, looked through the window blinds at the café below. Across the street from his dingy apartment building was a 24-hour noodle dai pai dong, a fluorescent-lit greasy spoon frequented at night by taxi drivers and garbage men. Earlier there had been a foreigner, a trim, bald black man, who had sat in the harsh light drinking Cantonese milk tea and pretending to read the gossip papers.

Muddy’s heart skipped a beat. Now, just an empty plastic stool stared back.

His sixth sense for being watched had been dulled by his comfortable, paranoia-free life in Hong Kong. Muddy couldn’t tell if the sight of the man was waking his instincts, or if he was just too tired and excited. There were, after all, tens, hundreds of thousands of foreigners in Hong Kong, many of whom liked a cheap meal before going home or going out to drink.

Usually not wearing a snazzy blue suit. He cleared his head. You’re losing it, sport.

Feeling his raised hackles made him think about the Philippines, the place that had honed his survival instincts. And thinking about the Philippines made him bitter and scared.

And outside his window, the dingy restaurant had only two customers, a pair of taxi drivers on break, and no sign of a sharply dressed black man.

Muddy ached for a drink. Just one shot of whisky would do. Just one. He could control it. It had been years, a decade, since he had tasted the stuff. Just one. Just to touch that wax paper, just to think about it – that map had been damned genuine. Gold. Gold! My God, gold! Just one drink, and then he’d be on his way, Jodie would understand, it wouldn’t take long, just a quick visit to Bangkok, just to help Val, who obviously had no idea what she was doing. She seemed smart, and Jesus what a looker, but out of her depth. Muddy owed it to these women to protect them, save them from trouble, point them in the right direction. But Jesus Christ, gold!

And then he’d be back, back to safe, cozy Hong Kong, back to his job working on the new tunnel, back to good old Jodie, his old Jodo, back and maybe rich, maybe having finally found the great strike that had been so close all those years in the Philippines, and she would forgive him and love him forever.

He couldn’t sleep. He switched on the light. There was Val’s number. He picked up the phone and dialed. It was three in the morning.

(Next chapter.)