The Feiquon Heist Read online

  When Nelea returned from the market, Kheng told her that the previous night he’d had an interesting dream. Before he could get any further, Nelea insisted on fetching Mama Tae from next door to listen to Kheng’s description. Before standing near the small bush that demarked their close boundary and calling loudly for her neighbour, Nelea explained to Kheng that she was a bit handy at identifying the numerology aspect of dreams and it usually led to her buying a lottery ticket. However, Mama Tae was the one who had many more years’ experience in understanding the true underlying meanings. Kheng was aware that this was the group dynamic. It had been made clear many times before. However, he had really just wanted to share his burden a little with his wife, rather than seek to benefit from the full service for dreamology that was locally available.

  Kheng pulled an ‘I should have seen this coming’ expression and complained that he wasn’t sure he wanted Mama Tae involved. He pointed out that she could be a bit over the top when doing this sort of thing and it always seemed to involve praying to tree spirits. He’d rather keep it within the family for now. Neighbours and tree spirits were a secondary priority. However, so far as Nelea was concerned, Kheng’s argument held very little weight. Between the three of them, Mama Tae was by far the most likely to come up with a plausible explanation for a dream that needed one. Also, Nelea could already hear Mama Tae calling back to her from the back of her house. She was saying that she was on her way once she’d finished plucking the chicken her sister-in-law had given her earlier that morning in exchange for a rattan rice basket.

  Having been duly alerted to an exciting opportunity of impromptu dream interpretation, Mama Tae appeared from the side of the building, a few small feathers caught in wisps of her long and slightly unkempt hair, confirming the reason for her slight delay.

  “Well, we can’t do this out here! The spirits don’t like to let their secrets be shared under the bright glare of the afternoon sun. We must go inside.”

  Mama Tae ushered her neighbours into their home and then climbed up the short ladder into the house behind them, a bright gleam shining in her aging and wizened eyes.

  Kheng sat down near to the cooking fire to the rear of the large wooden room. He’d been a distant observer of dream interpretation before and so was resigned to the fact that it would have to take place in the darkest, smokiest corner. Nelea sat near him. Mama Tae lowered herself inelegantly on the opposite side of the fire place.

  “So, I hear you’ve been dreaming, Mr Kheng.”

  Her voice had a wise and knowing tone, with a slight gruffness that had developed from years of drawing thick smoke from bamboo pipes and listening contentedly to the water gurgling in the pipe’s base as she did so. It was as if she’d understood long ago that this dream would be the pinnacle of Kheng’s being, and that fate had moved him in next door especially so she would be on hand to interpret it. This was completely contrary to Kheng’s assessment of the situation, and his years of neighbourly experience of Mama Tae told him there was nothing wise or knowing about her at all.

  “Let us see if we can work out what journey this vision will take you on.”

  Mama Tae’s gravelly tones became, at least superficially, even more wise and knowing. Nelea seemed delighted that Mama Tae was so into it. It was very rare that Nelea had something so special to contribute to their regular gossiping and deliberations on the spiritual. Normally, she was only able to talk about what she’d seen at the market that day and any gossip she’d heard about others. She never had any real good first-hand juicy information. Meanwhile Mama Tae always had stories about the strange goings in on her village from when she was a child, the mystical implications of what had come to pass, and how the tree spirits would play their tricks and needed to be appeased.

  “It is wise that you have chosen to sit around the fire, Mr Kheng. Before we can understand about the visions from your sleep, first we have to call upon the tree spirits to help us on our journey.”

  Mama Tae had specifically positioned herself by the cooking pots and where the cooking utensils were stored. She began poking with a large knife at the embers that remained from where Nelea had prepared lunch earlier in the day. Her efforts filled the room with a cloud of thick grey smoke and ash that was captured and swirled in the shafts of light that penetrated the gaps in the wooden planks of the walls.

  Kheng reluctantly manoeuvred himself closer to the fire and sat opposite her. Nelea gathered herself in closer as well, but with rather more enthusiasm.

  “Now!”

  Mama Tae’s yell almost made Kheng jump out of his skin. As she called out and dramatically waved her arms at the fire, her aged and bony fingers spread out as much as her arthritis would allow. There was an obscure sense of an eccentric pterodactyl about her. The flames of the fire flicked to life from the gust of air generated by Mama Tae’s flapping about, and Kheng’s legs became covered in a thin layer of ash. The old lady leaned forward muttering incantations, no doubt checking that the relevant spirits were on hand, before they delved into the essence of the reading. She stared Kheng in the eyes with fiery intensity, and dramatically whispered through her broken teeth:

  “Now, Mr Kheng. Speak to me of your dream.”

  She sounded like she was trying to channel the voice of a spirit from beyond the grave. It was all a bit theatrical for Kheng’s taste. Nelea grinned like a small child who was riding a bike without falling off for the first time. This was the most exciting thing to have happened in ages. Kheng was a little more wary of the whole thing. He’d also grown up in a village where tree spirits were part of the cultural fabric. He knew very well about the mischief and trouble they could bring, as well as the mischief others made on their behalf. He was a little unsure that he really needed to get them involved at this stage. However, seeing how much Nelea was enjoying herself, he felt compelled to explain his dream to the entire gathering, both human and spiritual.

  Mama Tae seemed to be in a sort of possessed trance for much of Kheng’s story. When he’d finished she looked down at the fire, muttered some more incantations and then stood up and kicked ash from the edge of the cooking area at the flames until they reduced again to smouldering embers. Once the dust had cleared and Kheng had stopped coughing, he could see Mama Tae walking across the room, silhouetted by the smoky light shining through the open door.

  “I’m just going next door to get my pipe. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  Kheng and Nelea decided some fresh air would be the way to go as well, and so followed her through the door and descended down the small ladder at the front of their wooden stilt home. They sat on the wide bamboo framed bed beneath the house waiting for Mama Tae to return. Eventually she emerged, pushing her way through the thin shrubbery that formed the nominal boundary between their properties, making bubbling noises with her long bamboo pipe as she did so. Mama Tae’s mannerisms suggested that she was back to her normal non-possessed self. This was the version of the old lady that was always around at their house and gossiping incessantly with Nelea, much to Kheng’s annoyance. She sat down next to Kheng and gurgled on her pipe a bit more. Kheng was trying to decide if the smoking was helping her deliberate further about the meaning of his vision, or if, in line with her higher status as dream interpreter, she was simply waiting to be consulted. Before long she looked up from her pipe with a thoughtful expression.

  “Well, that was certainly an interesting dream. Clearly the tree spirits have gathered around you and are trying to tell you something important, Mr Kheng.”

  Kheng had already seen this coming. He’d passively experienced a number of dream interpretation conversations between the two women. It was a small house, his wife was a naturally loud speaker and Mama Tae’s hearing was not what it had been, making most conversations at their place difficult to avoid. Interpretations could vary wildly, but there was one thing you could rely on without fail. Whatever the dream was about, at the centre of the whole thing there was always going to be a mischievous tree spirit
causing as much trouble as possible.

  “So what is your interpretation then, Mama Tae?”

  Kheng was a practical man. He just needed to get to the key facts and then he could move on. There was no need to drag this out into a lengthy discussion.

  “Your husband has never been one for patience has he, Nelea.”

  Mama Tae cackled a gravelly smoky cackle. She was always more cackly after a tree spirit encounter. It seemed to bring out the amateur dramatics side in her.

  10. Meaning

  Mama Tae took one last bubbly drag on her bamboo pipe before starting her analysis:

  “We’ll begin with the golden moon, Mr Kheng, as that was the first image in your dream. The moon could symbolise that something is becoming stronger in your life, or more dramatic. Meanwhile, gold can be about seeing new possibilities or opportunities. Of course gold is always about wealth as well.”

  Nelea was delighted with this, and let out a small ‘whoop’.

  “I knew it! Something becoming stronger, Kheng! Strength is always associated with the number four, and everyone knows that wealth is represented by the number eight. Four and eight. We’ve got our first two lottery numbers!”

  Nelea could barely contain her excitement. Mama Tae waited for her to calm down a bit and stop shuffling around so much before continuing. It was really distracting from the delivery of mystic and intrigue that she was trying to capture.

  “So, the starting point is strength, drama and opportunity. Let’s move now to the next phase of the dream.”

  Kheng raised an eyebrow. He’d not re-told his dream as a series of phases, and so was surprised that ‘phasing’ was now becoming part of the interpretation process.

  “The wild boar can represent behaviour that is intentionally disagreeable. It spoke to you of a buffalo and a triangle. Buffaloes tend to represent procrastination, and triangles are about creation.”

  Nelea saw an opportunity to leap in:

  “Number three. Triangles. Three sides, three corners. The cycle of life has three phases: birth or rebirth, life and death. However you look at it, triangles in a dream give you the number three.”

  Mama Tae shot another withering look at Nelea, which seemed to capture a sense of frustration combined with the indulgence that a wise and learned master might condescendingly direct toward an eager but disruptive student.

  Nelea was looking smug again. The hopes of a big win in the lottery were really picking up and with her big toe she started scratching the numbers into the soil below where she was sitting.

  “Now, Mr Kheng, let’s talk aunts. Aunts can be tricky at the best of times, even more so when it comes to dreaming about them. On the one hand they can bring a heightened sense of luck, or they can mean that your instincts about something are unusually accurate. On the other hand the presence of an aunt might mean that you are unlucky or perhaps that your gut feeling about something is wrong. They can be very contradictory things, aunts. And let’s not forget she asked you to get whisky. The whisky in the dream suggests that you may go too far with an idea or things could get out of hand. However, combine this notion with the link to the aunt, and then taking something too far could be lucky for you. Or just plain wrong. Depending on why the aunt is there, which is hard to tell.”

  Mama Tae put down the pipe on the bench behind her and put her hands in her lap.

  “So there you are, Mr Kheng. That was my interpretation of your dream.”

  Kheng thought about it for a while before answering.

  “So what we are saying is that something strong and dramatic related to wealth is coming up in my life involving disagreeable behaviour, procrastination and/or the cycle of life. This may be either lucky or unlucky, depending on whether my gut feelings are right or wrong, and then it will all go too far and get out of hand.”

  Mama Tae nodded sagely.

  “Well what on earth does that mean then?”

  Mama Tae paused for a moment and then breathed a deep and knowing sigh.

  “I am merely the vessel by which the spirits have allowed you to elaborate on your vision. How you use this new knowledge that you have been blessed with is very much part of your own destiny.”

  Kheng frowned a long and hard frown. There was a good reason why he never told his dreams to Mama Tae from next door and he was annoyed for allowing himself to be tempted to change this well established routine.

  Nelea could see that Kheng was about to get frustrated with Mama Tae and so decided to intervene.

  “What it all means is that we need to buy a lottery ticket with the numbers four, eight and three. We also need a fourth number or it won’t work as well. Are you ‘in’, Mama Tae? What number do we get for Kheng’s Aunt Kaylin?”

  Mama Tae collected her pipe from the bench and stood up.

  “Off course I’m in, Nelea. Why wouldn’t I be? We’ve not had a good set of numbers like this for weeks. Aunts are very difficult when it comes to assigning numbers. Whisky can be a bit tricky as well. However, don’t forget the pig or boar or whatever that animal was that was going on about the buffalo in the triangle. A pig can be either a seven, forty-seven or eighty-seven. However, we’ve already got the four and eight so I think we’ll just add the seven. So then that’s four and eight, and three and seven. I’m probably good for about ten tickets. We’ll have to stop at the house first though so I can get some money.”

  With their satisfactory four-figure conclusion the two ladies stood up to get started on their mission.

  “Grab an umbrella for me while I’m at the house as well, Nelea. I lost mine a few weeks back. It’s a hot day and we’ll need some shade while we walk down to the market and buy the tickets.”

  Before long the two ladies strode off in the direction of town under the shade of their colourful umbrellas and Kheng was left beneath his house to ponder over the riddle that Mama Tae had given him. Common sense told him that a dream as complicated as his didn’t hold any spiritual weight. It was just a series of images to enable his mad neighbour to conjure up four numbers and whisk away his wife for the afternoon to waste all their money on lottery tickets. That’s what common sense should have told him. Meanwhile, instinctively Kheng knew there was far more to his vision than that.

  11. Security

  “Afternoon, Mr Tann. Good day at work?”

  It had been a week since the staff lunch at the Sou-Rehn Restaurant. The already uninspiring face of Mr Tann had fallen considerably in recent days. Kheng assumed it was a result of Mr Tann’s learning that he was to become the servant of some youthful and green city dweller rather than take over the reins of the old master himself. The slumped demeanour that had alighted on Mr Tann after the staff outing still hadn’t risen back up. Kheng wondered if it ever would. Mr Tann seemed to have the sort of face that would only ever deteriorate. It was unlikely to alternate regularly between a grey haggardness and a youthful glow depending on the mood at the time. However, Mr Tann’s despondency wasn’t going to deter Kheng from his routine of afternoon pleasantries. As was the case with the well-established morning attempts at verbal interaction, Kheng would always engage Mr Tann in a little light banter as the man made his way out of the bank as well. The event coincided with Kheng’s arrival as night guard and had almost become part of his job over the years.

  In order for Kheng to save up his variations on the morning weather conversation, in the afternoon he would normally ask about the day’s goings-on at the bank, pry for a bit of gossip or as a last resort enquire about an update of the fiscal state of the country. In return Mr Tann would usually offer up a brief snippet of irrelevant financial information or have a whinge about someone who had annoyed him. He would then offer an appeasing conclusion, like ‘oh well, another day under our belts then…’ and shuffle out of the gate and head listlessly home. Seven years’ worth of brief semi-insightful snippets had given Kheng a surprisingly good understanding of the inner workings of the bank. He had a good awareness of banking procedures, cash flows, which
staff were allies, which were not, and most other general gossip about people and their families.

  “Afternoon, Mr Kheng. Did you see that the technicians came down from Khoyleng today? They put the new video cameras in. There are four of them dotted about the place. New-fangled technology. Waste of money of course.”

  Mr Tann made a ‘hummph’ kind of noise to further emphasise his displeasure with the ‘new-fangled’.

  “Cameras, Mr Tann?”

  “Yes. One of Mr Hua Lin’s latest ideas. It should be of interest to you though, Kheng. Extra security, you see. This is what Mr Hua Lin has been telling us all anyway. Look, one of them’s up there on the side of the wall pointing at the gate. It sends a live picture to the computer inside Old Papa Han’s office, sorry Hua Lin’s office, so he can watch everything that’s going on. He says it’s how they do things in the capital, so we should do the same. It’s the policy, we are told.”

  Kheng had already observed the arrival of the new technology before Mr Tann had felt obliged to point it out. However, to fain ignorance seemed a good way to draw Mr Tann into the conversation. Kheng had also assumed that the new manager was the driving force behind the change. After all, in the past seven years there had been no real changes at the bank at all, apart from Mr Hua Lin’s arrival. The new security measures had all happened without any consultation. Kheng was a little put out by the lack of communication on this new investment. Particularly considering that he was technically the primary member of the bank’s security team – if indeed the only person whose job was 100% dedicated to security.

  Mr Hua Lin had organised for a support visit from the security technical team at head office. The security system with the closed-circuit cameras was a well-established initiative in Khoyleng but hadn’t ever filtered down to Maklai, mainly because Papa Han had never requested it. Having arrived mid-morning and having made their presence known as important people from the central office, the city slickers had produced four security cameras, which had since been set up in strategic locations. Two were placed outside, with one of them screwed onto the corner of the building aimed at the front gate. Another peered down from near the guttering and was watching the front of the building, including the main entrance. Two more cameras were positioned inside the bank, monitoring the customers and cashiers as they moved money forward and back across the counters. Hua Lin wanted the bank staff to know that the lax days of Papa Han were well and truly behind them. They all had to follow bank procedures and policies now. The Maklai staff were judged to be an archaic institution from a provincial backwater, but all of that was about to change. Not only did that include doing the right thing, but it included being seen to do the right thing, and that included being seen on camera. Inside the manager’s office was a new computer where the screen was divided into four squares, each one showing the action from a different security camera. Before the day was out the system was in place. The technical team had departed back to Khoyleng looking smug and feeling grateful that they had enough time to get back to the comforts of the capital without being stuck for the night in provincial Maklai. Mr Hua Lin was left to study various dull and uneventful angles of his bank from the confines of his office.