PRATT LOWERED HIS reading glasses and sat back in a bamboo chair. Raising the glass to his lips, he took a small sip of his white wine. Enjoying the taste, he noticed a hedge-like tree in a huge black planter that had been cut to resemble an elephant. The fashion was for businessmen to drink wine on a terrace garden decorated with tropical plants, flowers and birds. He had ordered a glass of 1987 La Tour, a Sauterne, a little on the sweet side, he thought, but not too bad. No doubt the waiters had taken note that he had asked for a glass out of two hundred bottles of wine. What was the English word for trimming trees into the shape of animals and birds? he asked himself. He studied the leafy elephant trunk, taking in some bare spots in the leaves and he could see the branches underneath. The word, what was the word? asked Pratt. All around the outer edge of the rooftop bar were plants cut into a zoo of green animals looking out at Le Loi Boulevard on one side and the square, with a large statue of Ho Chi Minh with a child under each arm, across the street from the entrance to the Rex. The bartenders wore the same uniform: black trousers, white shirts with bow ties, and vests. One of the waiters came to Pratt’s table and set down another glass of wine.
“Topiary,” Pratt said.
“Excuse me. What language do you speak?” asked the waiter. “Topiary is Latin for trees trimmed into animal shapes,” he said.
The bartender blinked, followed Pratt’s eyes over to the elephant trimmed plant. He shrugged and walked away without another word.
Pratt ignored the bartender, making a note of the conversation as he returned to the bar. He reached into his briefcase and pulled out a copy of the Asian Wall St reet Journal and turned to the editorial page. Markets in emerging Asia were bullish. Hedge bulls cut from potted financial derivative plants. Stockbrokers had taken the ancient craft of topiary and adapted it to a new stage of ornamental art, he thought. He already missed Manee and remembered that anguished look as he left the house.
“Go well, come back well,” she had said in Thai. “Pai dii, maa dii.”
She had had a bad feeling about this trip to Vietnam. She had pleaded for him not to go but once she saw that he had made up his mind, she lapsed into resignation, as if to say, okay, go. But look at my face, this is my widow’s face. The face that you will leave behind to confront the world which no longer includes you.
******
WITHIN the span of three hours, Calvino had been to the law firm twice. After his meeting with Douglas Webb, he had gone back to his room, stuffed five grand into a plastic bag, then waited a couple of hours before returning. This time he had asked to see a Vietnamese lawyer. Webb had sat in on the meeting just in case Khanh, the Vietnamese lawyer, needed any translation help. Believe that and you will believe that his billings are accurate, thought Calvino. But it didn’t matter. He had the chance to see her again. He was already mixing Saigon with Ho Chi Minh City, and forgetting that Hanoi figured strongly into the equation. She didn’t seem all that surprised when he reappeared, as if she halfway expected him to return that day.
He stood in front of the elevator. His hand covered the buttons so that she couldn’t call the elevator.
“You make it difficult to get an elevator, Mr. Demato,” she said.
“Vincent, please. And I want to make it difficult. Because I want a few more minutes. You know, to talk.”
“About what?”
“I want to learn about Vietnam,” he blurted out.
“There are many guidebooks,” she said.
“I want to learn from you.”
“I think that I am a very bad teacher.”
“Let me be the judge. How about dinner.”
“That is difficult.”
“Lunch, breakfast,... a snack.” “You make me laugh.”
“You stop me from breathing.”
She looked at him, her mind doing that woman thing.
“Lunch,” she said.
“Tomorrow.”
“Yes, I can.”
Calvino couldn’t remember stepping into the elevator or the journey down. All he felt was a floating sensation. How can a guy be in Southeast Asia and fall in love like this? he said to himself as the door of the elevator opened on the ground floor. And how to keep this from getting in the way of the job? It was Pratt’s fault, he told himself. Seeing him in the garden with Manee, just watching how happy two people could be. The image had stuck in his mind. Then he found the woman he wanted in his garden telling him not to go, not to leave. Just stay by her side.
******
GETTING off the elevator on the top floor—the fifth floor—of the Rex, Calvino still had the Hanoi girl on his mind, distracting him. He walked into the carpeted foyer, turned to his right, and found himself in front of a small newsstand with foreign newspapers and guidebooks. He stopped and looked for a Bangkok newspaper. There was nothing like going out of town to give an expat an addiction to his hometown newspaper. It was late afternoon by the time that Calvino looked through the papers at the newsstand; all the copies of Bangkok Post and The Nation were a day old. As he glanced around he saw a young Vietnamese woman sitting behind a school desk. She was about eighteen or nineteen. Like Mai at Winchell & Holly, she wore an ao dai—a blue top with sheer white pants—and she wore her black hair back over her shoulders. She had not noticed him, lost inside her own world.
She had the innocence of a child; her mouth slightly parted, her eyes vulnerable and concentrated. She sat erect behind a small desk, reading a thin, worn book. He could see from his angle that it was a book in English. He took a step and glanced over her shoulder, and watched for a moment, as she read lyrics to herself from a song book. She ran her finger down the words to “Lost in Love” and then continued tracing the words on the next page to the song titled “Love is Blue.”
“You are learning English from a song book?” Calvino asked. His voice startled her, she blushed, looked at him, and then over at the newspaper rack.
“It is a good book,” she said, shutting the book as she folded a bookmarker between the pages.
“When do you get today’s Bangkok Post?”
“After six, Sir,” she said.
“You like to learn English?” “Yes, I like so much.”
“And you study love songs in English?”
“Sometimes after university,” she said. “I want to know everything about English.”
Learning the English language of love from a song book made about as much sense as learning the Thai language of love from a bar.
“What’s your favourite song?”
She smiled and stared hard at the book and pointed at the title which was “Lost in Love.” There were romantics in the ruins of Saigon, young girls who dreamt of love in the English language. He watched her reading the lyrics, her lips moving as she read. He pulled a day-old copy of the Bangkok Post off a rack and stuck it under this arm.
“One dollar, Sir,” she said.
“A dollar. Everywhere in the world are people lost in love with the American dollar. And here I am paying money for day-old news.”
“I think you are wrong. That’s not the kind of love the song’s about,” she said.
“Is there a Vietnamese love song book?” he asked.
“Yes, there are many.”
“Maybe that’s how I can learn Vietnamese,” he said. “It is a good place to begin.”
They looked at each other for a moment, then he walked away from the newsstand, leaving her to read her song book. She would remember him coming to disturb her in the middle of her English lesson. And that’s what he wanted: a girl to see him coming in alone, having all the time in the world before going to the bar. Whoever was watching and whoever would question the girl later would come to the conclusion that when Vincent Demato wandered out onto the rooftop, he had already started to read the newspaper. His mind wasn’t on the newspaper, but on Mai, as she stood beside him before the elevator arrived.
******
MOST of the tables on the Rex rooftop garden were occupied with tourists, expat businessmen, and some people who fell between the cracks of tourism and commerce. Nursing drinks, reading papers, talking—nothing out of the ordinary, thought Calvino. Half of the crowd looked like those at the Fourth of July picnic: large, awkward, out of place. Tropical caged birds were hung around the bar area. A large Macaw beak opened, releasing a loud scream, and it flapped its wings as a French tourist, tiny chin beard, dressed in a gray silk shirt and jeans, teased it with a peanut. Calvino kept on walking, wishing that Macaw had the chance of throwing the French asshole over the side of the Rex. He wanted to shove the peanut up the guy’s beaklike nose. But he was playing the role of a Brooklyn businessman and that meant he had to forget about the bird abuse, better yet, he should find a way to sell the bird to the guy, to turn a profit. That was business. Taking the advantage faster than the next guy. He had to tell himself that he was on stage and people in the audience might be taking notes. As he passed several tables, he wondered why he had bought the Bangkok Post. It was a small detail, but it amounted to a stupid mistake. A businessman from Brooklyn wouldn’t buy a day-old Bangkok newspaper; only a resident lamenting his time away from Bangkok would bother. It was too late. The paper was tucked under his arm.
Calvino looked around before sitting in the chair opposite Pratt.
“Birds, don’t you love ‘em,” Calvino said. “They make a hell’va a racket.”
A waiter came over to the table and stood a foot to the left and behind Calvino.
“Bring me a 333,” said Calvino, taking out the business section. “And make it real cold.” Pratt sat opposite with his nose in the newspaper.
“Do you speak English?” asked Calvino, bending forward and taking a handful of peanuts from a small bowl.
Pratt lowered his newspaper. “Do you?”
Calvino cocked his head, narrowed his eyebrows.
“Does it sound like I’m speaking French?”
“Topiary French,” said Pratt.
He had scored a direct hit, he thought. Calvino didn’t know what topiary meant and wasn’t even sure whether it was Thai, English or French. And he was dying to ask but knew that it was something he should leave alone. Already Calvino was thinking this idea of pretending not to know each other was not going to work. You might be able to get away with that act, say, with a wife, but with a friend you have known for a lifetime in two countries, that was asking a great deal.
“I’d like to have a look at the Asian Wall Street Journal when you’re finished. I bought this Bangkok newspaper by mistake. I thought it was the Journal. Funny, when you’re jet-lagged how all the newspapers look the same.”
Calvino was behaving himself, thought Pratt. “Like all Asians look the same,” said Pratt.
Conflict. Pratt was provoking one and putting on a good show.
“My mistake,” said Calvino, starting to rise.
“Stay, it’s okay. I have finished the paper,” said Pratt.
“The Bangkok Post is one day old. I don’t want you to think I am trying to cheat you. But I paid a dollar for it.”
In the exchange of newspapers,they nearly knocked over Calvino’s can of 333 beer. The can wobbled on the table but Calvino caught it before it could fall.
He held up the can and shouted at the bar for another beer. Calvino opened the newspaper, put the can of beer to his lips and finished it off. He set the empty down and, without looking at Pratt, began to talk as if he were lip-reading the newspaper.
“The farang lawyer at Winchell & Holly is a guy named Douglas Webb, I can handle him. You should start with a Vietnamese lawyer named Khanh. He’s their guy from Hanoi. We had a little boc phet.”
Pratt flinched. “What’s boc phet?”
“Vietnamese for bullshit session. Now we’re even for topiary,” said Calvino.
“He tell you anything useful?”
Calvino shrugged. “Not really. Not so far anyway. He asked if I was an American and I told him, ‘Yeah. But I didn’t kill anyone. I gave the war a miss.’ And he said he was a kid during the war. His father was a colonel or something. He’s got relatives in one ministry and school friends in another so he’s got all the right connections in the government. The firm uses him to grease the wheels. My guess is the entire office is full of Hanoi lawyers and staff. They did win the war. Whoever would have thought law offices were part of the spoils of war?”
“Did he bring up Mark Wang?”
“No way. But I did throw in the fact that I didn’t think much of how the Chinese did business, and that seemed to please him. I asked him about the Chinese. Whether they would give me a problem. Or who was running the business side of things. The Chinese or the Vietnamese.”
“And?”
“He said that he hated the Chinese. The Vietnamese would never let them run the show like in Thailand. That’s what he said.”
“He sounds like a sweetheart.”
“You’re gonna love him. His rap on Thailand is that it is the land of crooks and pollution.”
“Unlike Vietnam where, so far, they have only crooks,” said Pratt.
“He said corruption was an Asian disease. That observation could earn him sixty days of in-house hospitality in Singapore,” Calvino said, smiling.
Calvino took out some American dollars and put them on the table.
“Thanks for the Wall Street Journal,” said Calvino.
“Thanks for the day old news,” replied Pratt.
“Careful you don’t get hurt,” said Calvino.
As Pratt watched him disappear from the roof garden, he thought about how much pressure the force was under to solve the murder of Mark Wang. If they hated the Chinese so much, then why didn’t they have the common decency to murder them in Saigon? Instead, they had a dead American in Saigon and a dead Hong Kong executive in Bangkok linked in death by a common thread—the billable hour at the same law firm.
******
THE streets were congested with traffic outside the Rex. The moment Calvino walked down the steps from the front entrance on Nguyen Hue Boulevard, a heavy wall of street people threatened to collapse on top of him. Some vendors waved toy helicopters crafted from empty 333 beer cans, others sold the usual street food—fruit, soup, fried pork, and still others carted fans, books, maps, and postcards; some wanted to change money, others offered to sell themselves. As a group they were on the move and they homed in on Calvino. One hundred meters away from the Rex, he crossed Le Loi Boulevard and Calvino found himself heading a parade of beggars, children in rags, then as he kept walking, a wall of shoe shine boys joined the black market money changers, cripples, and amputees. H e turned a corner and nearly tripped over the twisted fragment of a human form stretched out stomach down on a flat cart with wooden wheels. Calvino caught his balance and saw this face staring up at him with a smile. How could this guy smile? His skinny, naked legs and bare feet were knotted behind his ass. On his hands he wore dirty pads to propel himself along the pavement, looking for a parade to join. Here was the world at ankle level. All one had to do was to keep the eyes above knee level to miss the last link of the food chain on the streets of Saigon. Calvino recovered himself and dug out some money. He knelt down on one knee as the rest of the crowd gathered around him and stuck a five-dollar bill inside one of the guy’s ragged hand pads.
“Thanks a lot, Mister Vincent,” said the man in a perfect American accent.
“You not only speak English. But you know my name. How is that?” Calvino couldn’t believe his ears.
“I picked up some free English lessons during the war. You a vet?” Calvino shook his head.
“Who told you my name?”
“Marcus, who else? Are you an American?”
Calvino nodded, thinking, what had happened to this guy? What marriage of incomprehensible evil and madness had torn his body apart?
“Marcus Nguyen?”
“Colonel Marcus. Me. I stepped on a landmine two months before April 30, 1975. That’s what the communists call Liberation Day,” said the man, reading Calvino’s mind. It wasn’t difficult to do. Most foreigners thought the same thing first time they laid eyes on him.
“What’s your name?”
“My friends call me Tan. Marcus wants you to meet him for dinner at the Saigon Central Mosque on Dong Du Street. He’s waiting for you now. I didn’t think you were ever coming down from the Rex. You got a whore up there or what?”
“How did he know I would come this way?” asked Calvino.
“Marcus knows because you don’t exactly make yourself invisible. You could use some friends like Marcus and me.”
“I could use a friend,” said Calvino. “Someone who knows what happens on the street. Listens. Watches. Can remember what happened.”
Tan smiled at the fiver. “I’m your man. But Marcus is the dude in the know. Believe it. Tomorrow, if you are interested, I’ll be at the noodle stand just before the Central Market on Phan Bol Chau. See you around, buddy.”
He whipped around Calvino’s right-hand side and disappeared into the crowds on the sidewalk. It was the way Tan said Liberation Day that made him think this wasn’t exactly the word he would have chosen to describe the NVA entry into Saigon. And the guy spoke English better than the Vietnamese staff at Winchell & Holly. Marcus Nguyen’s messenger had been the message: Marcus could have used a dozen ways to send a dinner invitation but instead he chose Tan, a street freak, with perfect English. Why would Marcus do that? Harry had said that he was emotional, a bit of a loose cannon. In this case, Marcus was showing that he had a presence on the street, the lowest level was often the most reliable level to plug into and listen for the advance of the enemy. Marcus was plugged in. Tan was his eyes and ears on the street and he had delivered Calvino to him. Marcus had made his point. And Tan had made his, no one was going around Saigon saying that he should be referred to as physically challenged. The challenge was never physical, it was always mental and Marcus had sent the perfect messenger to deliver that message.
******
THE bronze plaque on the side of the Mosque on Dong Du Street said that it had been built in 1935. This would have been during the time of French rule. What the mosque needed was another plaque saying it had survived the intervening sixty years in one piece. Calvino walked down a passage and into a courtyard with outside brick ovens and a few tables. Cooking smells of curried goat, beef and chicken were in the air. He saw a middle-aged Vietnamese man stand framed in the doorway of a room in the back. The man was smiling and waving to Calvino. This was Marcus Nguyen, ex-Marine Colonel, thought Calvino, trying to reconcile the image formed in his mind at the Fourth of July picnic in Bangkok with the reality inside a mosque in Saigon. Of course, there had been the nightmare Marcus Nguyen whose severed head had been held high by Drew Markle. Neither Calvino’s conscious nor unconscious imagination had been sufficient. In real life, Marcus had black, gray-flecked hair which was cut short. He looked perfectly ordinary, dressed in a white shirt, dark trousers, and wore gold-rimmed glasses. Marcus would have blended into any group of people; he might have been a government official or a school teacher. What he didn’t have was the look of a jungle fighter. Then what did such a person really look like? Not the guys in a Hollywood film, he thought.
“Vincent,” said Marcus, extending his hand as Calvino entered the small, private room off the main courtyard. “I have been waiting for you. A friend of Harry Markle is a friend of mine. I saw Harry last week. Not in the most pleasant of circumstances, but then, Harry and I never seem to find circumstances pleasant whenever we get together. It has something to do with our karma, as the Buddhists say.”
“Then you know why I’ve come to Vietnam.”
“To find who killed his little brother. Not that Saigon is any more Vietnam than Bangkok is Thailand.”
Calvino looked hard at him.
“Nothing personal, Mr. Nguyen, but next time you want to arrange a meeting, you should make a phone call.” He glanced at Marcus’s mobile phone on the table.
“The phones in your hotel are bugged,” he said. “Is that a fact?”
“It’s a fact.”
“I’m curious about facts.”
“Such as?”
“Where were you the night Drew was killed?” asked Calvino. Marcus’s mobile phone rang. He answered it and spoke in rapid
Vietnamese.
“Harry said you were a man who came straight to the point. And so am I. I was sitting right here on that night. That’s a fact,” said Marcus, switching off the mobile phone.
“You can ask the waiter...any of the staff. We heard the explosion.”
Smooth, planned, flawless, thought Calvino. Marcus Nguyen had brought him to his alibi, a courtyard inside a mosque. If you wanted a back-up story for a murder then a mosque had to be an inspired piece of forward planning.
Several bowls of steaming rice and curry had been placed on their table. Marcus helped himself to the rice, spooning it on his plate.
“Do you like curry?” asked Marcus. “This mosque is famous for its curry. Pre-1975, I came here often with friends. The old grandfather knew me and he brought me beer in a brown bag. Beer in a mosque. Another fact. But we Vietnamese are pragmatic people. And the Indians who have been living and working more than four generations have picked up on this small adaptation which has allowed for all of us to find a way to survive. For every rule there must be an exception.”
“And for every murder there should be a revenge,” said Calvino. “Yes, you are right in theory. But, in practice, when there is so much murder, you have to be selective in your revenge or you wouldn’t have time to clean the blood off your hands before meals.”
“The Chinese have a saying, if you set out to get your revenge against another man, dig two graves,” said Calvino.
“But Harry’s not Chinese. Besides, as Harry knows, in Vietnam, we would dump Chinese bodies in both holes.”
Calvino had, despite himself, started to like Marcus. Committed, self-assured and guarded, he thought, as he faced the window looking out onto the courtyard. It had metal bars like a prison, and a cob-webbed screen covered the bars. A cover on a cover on a cover, he thought. The room was small, protected. It was a perfect meeting place. The possibility of the government having an agent or listening device inside seemed remote. Beside the window was an old mirror with a red plastic comb wedged onto a rusty nail. How many faces had looked into that mirror over the past sixty years, how many men had combed their hair, walked out and died? After Marcus spooned more curry onto his rice, he turned his attention back to Calvino.
“Harry asked that I help you in any way that I can. And I said that will be up to your friend. Some people want help. Some ask for help. Others prefer to do things on their own. So I said to Harry, ‘I’m here. I will contact him, and let him know that, if he wants help, then all he has to do is ask.’ You phoned while I was Singapore and I took that to mean that you wanted to ask me something.”
Marcus spoke with an American accent.
“How long were you in the States?” asked Calvino. “Eighteen years.”
“Why did you come back?”
Marcus smiled. “To help my country.”
Bullshit, thought Calvino.
“Who do you think killed Drew?”
“The communists killed him. Of course.” “How do you know that?”
“When you are Vietnamese you know things.”
“They arrested an ex-RVN sergeant for the murder,” said Calvino.
Marcus nodded, then sighed. “A crippled vet who bore the scars of violence, the helplessness of being on the losing side. He was a soft target. Nothing can save him from losing this war again and again. Sometimes I look at the cadres from the North. The winners. And I ask myself, how could such people have defeated us? Curled in the mud, the rain on their necks, they knew they had a larger capacity to absorb damage, to accept injury and pain. It’s given them a hangman’s conscience. After a while you no longer notice who is dropping through the hole in the scaffold. An ex-RVN sergeant was no more involved in the killing than you or me.”
“Did you become an American citizen?” asked Calvino.
Marcus nodded. “But inside,” he pointed at his chest, “the heart is Vietnamese. You know what I am saying?”
Harry was right about Marcus being emotional. He had an emotional stake in the communists being the bad guys, the collective fall guy for every misery, death, and fucked up thing. He had fought against them with all that he had and they had won. That he had come back to help his country was a good line, but Calvino wasn’t buying it.
“You know anything about overseas investors and a fund being launched this week in Saigon?”
“It’s not a state secret. It’s called the Vietnam Emerging Market Fund. Their timing has been perfect. This is the twentieth anniversary of the communists marching into Saigon. Confiscation and re-education camps. That’s how they celebrated their victory,” said Marcus, sounding, for the first time, a little bitter. He polished off the rest of the beef curry.
“No beer in a brown bag?” asked Calvino.
Marcus looked up. “In the old days, I knew the old man who ran the restaurant. He knew how to turn a blind eye. He was their grandfather. He died a long time ago. The new generation, well, let’s say they are different. Not so pragmatic.”
“You think that Douglas Webb had a reason to kill Drew?” asked Calvino, nursing his drink. One of those compact, crude questions flying out of the blue.
Marcus shifted his head from shoulder to shoulder, weighing the possibility.
“He’s not the murdering type.”
This was spoken casually by someone who appeared confident in his judgement on who was capable of murder. Again, Calvino asked himself what emotional agenda was Marcus playing out. If he was going to rely on this ex-Marine’s assessment of an American lawyer practicing law in Saigon, then he wouldn’t be doing the job Harry Markle had sent him to do. Harry could have left the job to Marcus but didn’t do that. He had his reasons and Calvino had to trust his gut feeling that Harry had enough experience of Marcus to back his decision.
“You and Harry go way back,” said Calvino.
Marcus’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah, you can say all the way to hell. Let me tell you something about Harry Markle. He never called me a gook or a slope. He never called any Vietnamese those kind of names. Even when we were in the shit. We were human beings to him. I thought all Americans were like Harry Markle. But after eighteen years in America, I didn’t find many like him. People who saw me as one of them. This acceptance, tolerance, whatever you want to call it, I think it was what kept Harry from ever fitting back in the States.”
“What were you doing in Singapore?”
Marcus cracked a smile.
“Making money.”
******
CALVINO returned to his hotel after leaving the mosque. He was asking himself how he was going to play the case. This was an abstract question and the image of Mai flooded back into his mind, getting in the way of an answer and making him feel frustrated and foolish. How many farang had arrived in Bangkok and, twenty-four hours later, were sucked into some ice castle inside the Zone, and had fallen “in love” with a local girl over a lady’s drink? Many (he answered his own question) and the failure rate pushed the hundred percent marker. She wasn’t a bar girl, he told himself. Forget about Ho Chi Minh City, but not even Saigon had anything approaching the Zone. He was starting to sound to himself like Marcus Nguyen justifying his world view according to who were communists and who were not. He decided to leave it alone, took the elevator down to the reception, pushed through the hotel entrance and walked twenty meters to the Q-Bar.
Like his hotel, the Q-Bar was part of the Municipal Theater Complex which under the old regime—the term the communists used—became the National Assembly. Cyclos and motorcycles were parked on the walkway between the bar and a concrete fountain. Across the street was the Caravelle Hotel and floodlights illuminated a giant construction crane driving piles. The earth shook each time the pile driver hit the top of the pile. On the wall of the theater complex he came to a large, bronze Q, and pushed the door.
The Q-Bar might have been downtown New York City on a rainy night. On one side a couple of Vietnamese women floated in and out of the shadows like a couple of cobras protecting their nests, as if warning you never to take your eyes off the eyes around you, the position of the next person’s head, you kept alert waiting for a strike. There were Aztec copper light fixtures keeping the lights dim, murals on the walls, jazz playing and a crowd at the bar. The clientele was overwhelmingly farang with a few Vietnamese women in cocktail dresses, high-heels and heavy make-up standing around the bar, others seated at some of the tables. He was running half an hour early because he wanted to check out the place. He heard his name called.
Douglas Webb got off his stool and walked over to him. They shook hands. Caravaggio figures had been painted on the wall. To choose the images from this Northern Italian painter was like an inside New York joke. Caravaggio was an alcoholic, gay and a fucking genius; a high Renaissance painter, in the early baroque style. He was a painter who loved street people and used them as models for saints, immortalizing the most flawed as the most sacred. There were Caravaggio’s street men, young, brooding, sullen men embedded in dark reds and greens, their flesh illuminated by overhead lights. Their doomed eyes, staring back at people standing two deep inside a Saigon bar. If there were a Caravaggio’s law it would be: Look for the face of the saint among the faces living in the back alley, the bars, the gutter. Webb’s eyes followed Calvino’s to the wall paintings.
“Caravaggio is the painter. Bar owners love his images. And why not? How many painters have the claim to fame of getting themselves killed in a barroom brawl?” asked Webb.
“Caravaggio’s an icon.”
Calvino had that moment where he almost slipped, and said, “No, people who know nothing about art say Caravaggio was killed in a barroom brawl. Not true, though the record was shrouded in doubt, he died on the 18th July, 1610, sick, feverish, broke. He died at a young age. Some said he was about the same age as Jim Morrison when he died. Others said he was older. Whatever his age, Caravaggio was definitely in the running for the original rebel without a cause.”
A wiseguy from Brooklyn would say what Calvino said, “Yeah, killed in a bar fight. When I open a bar, I don’t want that kind of trouble.”
Calvino was thinking that working undercover was a lesson in humility, you stayed the course by keeping to your role, not showing off. Webb was a guy who turned up late for his appointment but early for a drink.
“What are you drinking?”
“Beer,” said Calvino. Behind the bar and below the Caravaggio figures was a glass shelf with the premium bottles lined up: Glenlivet, McAllans, Cardhu, Black Label. Better stick to beer, thought Calvino.
“If you want to run a bar, you have to set a good example for the customers by drinking premium whisky. Then you get the right crowd. A beer crowd isn’t where the money is. They vomit on themselves, get drunk, fight, spill beer. That kind of thing.”
Calvino wondered how long after he had left the offices of Winchell & Holly, Douglas Webb had waited to phone the New York phone number listed on his card to check him out. Did he phone after the first time or after Calvino had returned a second time with the five grand deposit? Would he do it himself or go through his New York office? That was the fork in the road. You either made a left into light or a right into darkness.
“Glenlivet. So long as it doesn’t come out of my deposit,” said Calvino.
“This is on the firm,” he said, smiling. “Why the generosity?”
“Getting a lunch date with Mai. Impressive. A Hanoi girl, too.” He had obviously reassessed placing Calvino in the Forrest Gump category of clients.
“She’s attractive,” said Calvino, wondering whether Mai had volunteered the information or if Webb had asked her. “You’ve got a point about attracting the right crowd. I have something to learn about Saigon and the bar trade. But that’s why I have hired your firm.”
A bartender with a scarf tied around his neck and a large white Q on his black T-shirt set down before Calvino on the bar a neat shot of Glenlivet. Douglas Webb raised his glass for a toast and as Calvino followed, their glasses touched. “Here’s to success, Vincent. In the bar business. You appear to be a lucky man. With women and with money. Hopefully your luck will rub off on your Saigon bar.”
“How do you know that I’m lucky?” asked Calvino, sipping the Glenlivet.
“I’d say winning two hundred and fifty grand in a lotto is running with luck blowing in your sails,” said Webb.
“How’d you know about that?”
“I made a discreet inquiry. I’ll be honest with you. When you practice law in Southeast Asia you have the reputation of the firm to consider. Today, when you came into the office and started talking about moving large sums of cash, well, it was only natural,” and Webb let his sentence trail off into silence as he drank from his glass.
“Like running drugs,” said Calvino, flashing an innocent smile. Webb exploded into a cough, some expensive whisky spilling
down the side of his face which was turning red at the same time. On his business card, Calvino had used his brother-in-law’s address and phone number. Frank Demato had been briefed to expect some overseas phone calls, and that Vincent was his brother and the two of them had won two hundred and fifty grand in the New York State lotto but Vincent, the asshole, had split for Asia with the entire amount of money, and that Frank was going to personally kill the sonofabitch and anyone who withheld information about where Vincent was hiding out.
Webb drank from a glass of water the bartender brought. He took a deep breath, then took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face. Calvino stopped himself from making a crack about how beer drinkers throw up while whisky drinkers just coughed themselves to death. Fortunately Webb had recovered before Calvino said anything.
“I spoke with Frank. He’s pretty upset with you.”
“You didn’t tell him where I am?”
Webb shook his head, coughed into his hand.
“Attorney-client privilege. I couldn’t do that without your prior written permission.” This fell out of his mouth like one of those tape- recorded messages heard inside a high-rise elevator.
Webb had made a right at the fork in the road. He hadn’t gone to his New York office but had phoned directly, keeping things private. It didn’t necessarily mean anything. He might have done both. Faxed New York and phoned Frank Demato directly to double check that New York had done the required due diligence. What mattered was Webb was satisfied that Calvino’s story checked out.
“Thanks, counsellor, I guess I owe you one.”
“That’s what I’m here for. To help in any way that I can. And, of course, we must stay within the law.” Webb ordered another round of drinks as one of the Vietnamese girls with long hair and in a red cocktail dress came over and planted a kiss on his cheek. He spoke to her in Vietnamese, she giggled and slipped away.
“Your girl?” asked Calvino.
“No, she’s a working girl. Nice, but expensive. A Saigon girl.”
Calvino watched the hooker go and sit at a table with two other girls.
“You speak the language well.”
Webb gave a crooked smile. “I try to practice every chance that I get.” He paused for a second, rolled the ice around the inside of his glass.
“I am concerned about your funds, Vincent.”
“The lotto money?”
“That’s a lot to be carrying around Saigon. Where is it?”
“In my hotel room,” said Calvino.
“Bad idea. You should deposit the money in a bank.”
“I heard the banks here are a risky place to keep US dollars. I might not ever get the money out of the country.”
“So the conventional wisdom goes,” said Webb. “I can arrange to keep your money in our office safe. We do this for some of our clients. You put it in the hands of a local partner, and you might as well not have bought the lotto ticket.”
“I’m starting to feel better already,” said Calvino.
He was thinking about the bag of counterfeit hundred-dollar bills that Pratt had arranged to borrow from the evidence deposit room of the Crime Suppression Division of the Department. It was only a loan, Pratt had told them. Sometimes they used the notes to pay ransom demands. Sometimes they used it to trap drug dealers. Sometimes they tried to trap bad actors who had gone too deep inside the honey ice. The money had many uses, many lives; died and was reborn over and over again and had found its way to Saigon. Stashed in a plastic bag in Vincent Calvino’s room at the Saigon Concert Hotel and soon it would be in the possession of Winchell & Holly. A Vietnamese girl, mid- twenties, came in without warning on his blind side and wrapped an arm around his waist.
“You like me?” she asked.
Webb was watching him closely.
“How would you like to work in a classy bar for me?” he asked her.
Before she could answer, another Vietnamese stepped between Webb and Calvino. The other girl melted away into the crowd. Her replacement was dressed to kill in black ao dai with gold sequins fashioned in flower petals. This was no ordinary bar girl. She carried herself like a boardwalk model, with confidence, elegance, and the way she made a small half-smile suggested she had some inner strength to deal with Saigon and a whole lot of other places just as ugly.
“How’s my little toc dai?” asked Webb. Toc dai, long-haired women Viet Cong soldiers, was not a term this woman liked.
“Toc dai means a woman Viet Cong,” she said to Calvino. “Webb likes showing off his three or four words of Vietnamese.” She sounded agitated, hostile.
“Unlike most Viet Khieu who can speak five or six words of Vietnamese,” said Webb, not letting the slight go past without a rebuttal.
“So who is your new friend, Webb?” asked the Vietnamese woman, who looked to be late twenties.
“A new client,” said Douglas Webb, looking nervously away at the bartender.
She turned to face Calvino. “Webb doesn’t like me that much. Ever since Drew was killed, Webb hasn’t missed a night at the Q-Bar. He did come to Drew’s funeral but he didn’t stay around long, did you, Webb?”
“Jackie, give it a rest,” Douglas Webb said under his breath.
“Vincent Demato’s my name. I am from New York. I’m staying just around the corner at the Saigon Concert.”
“A fellow American,” she said. “My name is Jackie Ky.”
It was dark in the bar but he remembered that oval face. She was in the snapshot with Drew Markle. He was holding an M16 in one hand and had his arm around Jackie Ky with the other and the barrel of her AK47 was touching the barrel of his rifle. If ever there was a look of contentment it was on Drew’s face. Every man should experience that feeling once before he died. Drew Markle had his one shot and this was the woman who had shared the moment with him.
Douglas Webb got off his stool. He grabbed Jackie by the arm and started to move her away from the bar. “I’m trying to have a private conversation with a client, if you don’t mind. Phone me tomorrow. We can talk.”
“I want to talk now, Webb.” But she didn’t stop him from leading her across the room and then outside. Calvino watched through the door as they argued outside. She burst into tears and Webb came back into the bar, sliding back onto his stool.
“Sorry about that. She’s Viet Khieu and, like most of them, she’s a nut case,” said Webb.
“She hung around poor Drew like a bad smell. He certainly had better taste than to go for a Viet Khieu like Jackie Ky. None of the Vietnamese trust the Viet Khieu. They cause trouble. They make problems for themselves. Misfits. They don’t fit in the States. They don’t fit here.”
“What’s she do?” asked Calvino. He wondered if Douglas Webb knew about the photograph at the Cu Chi Tunnels with the dead lawyer and his girl.
“Some kind of bullshit interior design business.”
“A bar needs interior design. Otherwise, you get all those damn vomiting beer drinkers,” said Calvino, peeling off a twenty and then a ten from his wad of notes and putting them on the bar.
“See you later, counsellor.”
By the time he was out the door, Jackie Ky had vanished into the night. Street people were sleeping on the lip of the concrete fountain. Other figures leaned against motorbikes. People of the night on their patch of turf. On the short walk back to his hotel he heard a distant sound closing in on him. The sound of bamboo sticks keeping a jazzy beat.
“That sound, it has a meaning,” said Jackie Ky.
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning, soup’s ready,” said Jackie Ky, stepping out of the shadows.
“Basic, isn’t it? You’re hungry. You can eat. You hear the sound and your stomach moves. You can’t help yourself because this sound is so deep in your blood.”