The Khmer Kill: A Dox Short Story (Kindle Single)

not sure that’s exactly a comfort, under the circumstances.”
    “You’re an honest man, Dox.”
    That hurt. “Actually, no, I’m not.”
    “You are about the things that count. And you’re right. I like you a lot. If you make love to me, I’ll probably get attached to you.”
    He couldn’t look at her. He felt like he’d been exposed as selfish and manipulative, and a hypocrite, too. And he was also ashamed at how Nessie had swelled at the way she’d put it. Not, “if you were to make love to me, I would get attached.” No, it wasn’t hypothetical. It was a straight-up if/then proposition, and entirely up to him, too.
    “But you know what?” she said. “Even that’s not what you’re really afraid of. Not really.”
    He looked at her, reluctant to respond, unsure of what was coming next.
    “What you’re really afraid of,” she said, reaching over and laying the backs of her fingers across his cheek, “is that you’ll get attached to me.”
    She might have been missing some other things, but she was surely right about that. And the only thing that kept him from saying fuck it all and taking her in his arms then and there was the thought of the business he would be taking care of the next night. He was here for a job. It was crazy to get involved in any other way. He wouldn’t let it happen.
    • • •
    Chantrea left for class at eight the next morning. Dox immediately checked the secure site. There was a message waiting from Gant:
Rubie’s, corner of streets 19 and 240, noon.
He checked it out online and saw it was some kind of wine bar. He already knew the neighborhood—a collection of relatively swank houses and upmarket boutiques—from previous reconnaissance. He didn’t have a problem with it, preferring a public place for a meeting like this one.
    On impulse, he Googled
Rithisak Sorm
. No Wikipedia page, but there were a number of news articles about arrest warrants and Uncle Sam pressuring the Cambodian government to extradite him for trafficking. The Cambodians claimed Sorm wasn’t even in Cambodia, he was beyond their reach. More likely, he was being tipped off and protected. Regardless, what was available supported Gant’s story. There were no photos of Sorm—apparently, Khmer Rouge record-keeping wasn’t quite as squared-away as the Nazis’ had been—but Dox was satisfied with what he’d found.
    He showered, dressed in unobtrusive tourist attire, and headed over to the hotel restaurant to fuel up. The staff had long since come to recognize him, and the hostess, the guy making the omelets, and the waitress pouring his coffee all greeted him with a delightful
sampeah
and a cheerfully accented, “Good morning, Mr. Dox.” He liked the
sampeah
, which was similar to the Balinese
sembah
that had become second nature to him on his adopted island. There was something so friendly about greeting someone by pressing your palms together, fingers up, at chin level. The
sembah
and
sampeah
and the Thai
wai
and the Indian
namaste
; the Chinese and Japanese bow; the western handshake…. it was funny how, all over the world, the original function of a salutation was to show the other person you weren’t holding something dangerous. Politeness determined by the eschewal of a weapon. Peace as the absence of war.
    He killed nearly an hour with four trips to the lavish buffet: steamed crabs from Kep; star fruit from Indonesia; a profusion of baguettes and croissants and cheeses, the happier legacies of the French occupation. While he ate, he saw the hostess and a hotel manager seating several foreigners at a large circular table in the center of the restaurant. They were dressed in local business casual: creased pants and pressed shirts, no jackets, no ties. He watched handshakes and business cards exchange; heard English greetings in various accents. German, French, something Scandinavian he couldn’t place more precisely. NGOs, he guessed—nongovernmental organizations, in town to save the country from who knows what. Maybe they were even part of the UN meeting Gant had mentioned.
    A few minutes later, two fit-looking Khmer guys in identical gray slacks, white button-down shirts, and practical-looking black shoes entered the room. They spoke briefly with the manager, who nodded deferentially and then stepped away. Dox noted both guys were wearing earpieces. Obviously security of some sort. They’d scan the room next, and Dox tucked into the last of his star fruit, feeling