Derek strove to sound shocked and surprised. “His… skin?”
“Yes. You see, in the end, Chhith had my father flayed. It was the only way to be sure of preserving the mandalas intact, I suppose. Then when the Vietnamese took Phnom Penh, Chhith escaped but lost the skin. This man said he had been imprisoned beside my father in Tuol Sleng and had befriended him there.”
Etienne began to chuckle, looking over at Nina, who was laughing too. But Derek did not consider at first why they were laughing so hard. He was thinking: My God! It must be Huon!
“Excuse me, but that was the final irony,” Etienne said. “This man who said he was a prisoner of the Khmer Rouge, himself a victim of torture, I felt very bad for him. I thought he must have suffered as my father suffered. And I still thank him, you know, for setting me on the path that led me to the mandalas. He showed me a few of the designs—I first had them through him. It is all very funny, really.”
“I don’t follow you.”
Etienne put his thumb down on a line of Khmer script. “Here, my father is writing directly to Chhith, thanking him for his interest and protection, sympathizing with his own losses in the service of the Khmer Rouge, ingratiating himself. It is my father’s brief and touching homage to the man who was about to murder and skin him. But when I finally read this passage, I recognized him.”
“Recognized who?”
“My father’s so-called friend, the one who sought me out. He was terribly scarred, you see, and missing one ear.”
Yes, Huon!
“And here,” Etienne said, emphasizing lines that Derek could not read, “my father calls Chhith, fondly, ‘my one-eared fellow sufferer.’ “
Etienne and Nina convulsed into laughter again. It did not sound ironic in the least—it was good-natured, almost whimsical. But Derek could take no part in it. He felt as if the room were sliding away from him; as if some livid wheel were even now appearing in the center of his chest, flooding him with awful insight. Huon was Chhith, the concentration camp interrogator, the torturer and sacrificial murderer. He was still on the trail of the mandala skin, and it had brought him to Derek. He had narrowly deflected the monster… but for how long?
“You do not look amused, Mr. Crowe,” said Etienne.
“I—I know this man,” Derek blurted, because now there could be no joking, nor could he keep this a secret. He must warn them. He swallowed nervously, as if ashamed before Etienne’s look of astonishment, and went on. “He came to me the other night. I think now he was looking for your father’s skin. He thought I had it, but I didn’t know what he was talking about. I pointed him in your direction. I even gave him your number.”
“No!” The couple looked at each other again, and Derek expected horror and dismay; but instead the news sent them once again into hysterics, whooping with laughter.
“Chhith is here!” Etienne cried in jubilation.
“He called himself Huon,” Derek said.
“Yes, Huon! The name he used when he said he was my father’s friend.”
Nina said, “I told you! I’ve been getting strange calls, someone hanging up when I answer. He must be waiting to hear your voice.”
“I don’t believe it! Well, it is all coming together.” Etienne looked almost smug. He sat back in the booth, arms crossed, beaming.
“You’re not… nervous?” Derek asked.
“Goodness, no.”
“I mean, if this is the man you think… he tortured and murdered your father, and how many others besides?”
Etienne made a dismissive gesture. “I am ready for him this time. He doesn’t know what we know about him. And he still persists, apparently, in wanting the mandalas to himself. He is pathetic, really.”
“He says he’s a councilman in Orange County.”
“That would be like the Jews nominating a Nazi as their spokesman. Chhith is too well-known. I think he must be traveling inconspicuously. I wouldn’t worry about him, nor should you. The mandalas will take care of us.”
Derek sat rubbing his temples now. He rose with his coffee cup, went to the counter, and waited for them to refill it. When he returned to the table, he felt he had resigned himself to this alliance—this partnership—whatever it was. Well, at the very least, he had saved himself a great deal in legal fees.
“You know,” he said, “I still don’t know what you want with me.”
“From you? My God, nothing! Or I should say, your blessing.”
“My blessing?”
“Yes. For Club Mandala. The opening is near. We could all benefit from this—our club will boost your book, and your book has no doubt drawn attention to us.”
“No doubt.”
“I think when you see the place you will be impressed. It is a tribute to my father. It will do the mandalas’ work in a very modern way, we like to think.”
“You must come by and see,” Nina said emphatically clutching his hand. “We feel very close to you, Mr. Crowe.”
Derek did not bother retrieving his hand. Resignation mixed now with thoughts of inflated profits. Maybe they were right—he hadn’t really hit the club-goers with his book, which was too much limited to the New Agers. Besides, he thought, she was pretty sexy. He enjoyed her cool fingers, and found himself suddenly thinking of Lenore Renzler.
A sharper pang ran through him then. These two were like the Renzlers in a way, but so much more polished. Etienne’s demeanor spoke of money—old money. How else could a young kid come up with the cash to open a club in the city? It was odd, because their conversation was, if anything, even more insane than Michael Renzler’s babble; but it was grounded in reality, and he had no problem separating the obvious fantasies and falsehoods from the kernels of fact at the center of those hallucinations. In Michael Renzler’s case, everything had been equally improbable. Lenore was a lost soul, attached to another weaker, unmoored soul; Nina had found a solid place beside Etienne. Nor did he have that sense of losing his mind, which conversations with Elias had always given him; Etienne lacked the psychotic’s edge. They seemed like reasonable types, businesslike, determined. They were getting things done, making their mark on the world. He found to his surprise that he liked them very much.
“You will consider it?” Etienne said. “We will happily acknowledge our debt to your book, if you like. Let’s leave the actual history in the dust. I think your approach is more consumer-friendly; it has a much wider appeal. No one wants to hear about prisoners of war! You needn’t do any work with us, nothing like that, but it would be a great honor to have you in attendance for the opening. Our special guest of honor. Our mentor. What do you say?”
Derek shrugged. “Why not?”
“Wonderful!”
“I should really call back poor Mr. Strete for his interview,” Nina said with mocking sorrow. “Do you have a little longer, Mr. Crowe?”
“I… have nowhere to go.”
She pulled a phone from her purse and quickly punched a number. “Hello, Nicholas? Yes, we’re ready for you now. Oh, let’s do it, yes. We’d really like to see your article in time for the opening.” She looked up at Derek and gave him a wink. “Yes, Mr. Crowe is here too. Come back, darling. We don’t mean to be fickle. We want you. We need you.” Her eyes slid past Derek, out the window, and she waved. “Very good. Hello! Bye-bye!”
Derek twisted around and saw that Strete was sitting across the way, on the steps of a church, waiting with his laptop in his hand, phone to his ear, his hangdog expression turning joyous as he rose and started into traffic.
“Poor little puppy dog,” Nina said. “I told him to stay, and you see how long he obeyed? He’ll write whatever we want.”