A Dangerous Friend (30 page)

I think he gave up, Sydney said suddenly. I think he didn't see the point to massive resistance. He just said the hell with it and—passed away. That was the difference between him and us. He said the hell with it and we haven't.

We're not terminal, Syd.

Yes, we are. We just can't believe it. Sydney had a vision of a handsome corpse, The Effort rouged and barbered, well tailored, lifelike in its repose. Why, he looks just like he's asleep!

Rostok stared across the eddying surface of the river. A sampan was making its way upriver, hugging the opposite shore. He said, Mine died when I was a kid. Damn fool stepped in front of a train.

Sydney nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

We're taking casualties, Syd. Pablo off in the boondocks with the Swiss, your dad dead, our wives God knows where. And now you're leaving. Give my regards to Broadway. Sydney did not reply, remembering the letter from Otto Kis that had arrived on Monday. He had not opened it owing to the press of business, a file that had been lost or stolen. He had slipped the letter into his desk drawer intending to read it later. And he had forgotten it entirely. It was a certified letter, heavier than usual, four pages at least. The envelope was marked Urgent and bristled with importance. The hell with you, Kis.

I'll miss you, Syd, Rostok went on, filling the awkward silence. We've had good times along with the bad. God, you were green. Remember that first dinner in the café at Tay Thanh? I thought, Jesus, I've got one who's younger than springtime. But I knew you well enough to know you'd catch on. You're a quick study. You'd learn about Cao and the advantages of a bum leg. You'd get used to it. You'd learn the ropes because you've got ambition same as I do, only not quite so obvious. You've made a mistake leaving now because things are going to get interesting. We're in it for keeps. We're in it the way the French were in it, but we're not French so we have an advantage. We have no territorial ambitions, none whatever. So it's not anywhere near terminal, Syd. I'd call the odds even-up.

Rostok continued to handicap the odds. One of the prostitutes raised her leg to inspect something on her calf. She was smooth as suede, small-boned, probably no more than fifteen years old though it was hard to assess the ages of Vietnamese women. They all wanted to look fifteen; anyway, the ones on the street did. Sydney had wanted to go with a prostitute but never did and now never would. He had slept with one of the network reporters and one of the academics on tour, the academic on a government grant administered by Sydney's old foundation; the director had told her to look him up. He and the academic had gone to Guillaume Tell for dinner and drank Scotch after Scotch, disclosing their life stories, then trading anecdotes of the war, leaning across the table, their fingers just touching. We're into it now, she said as they were leaving the restaurant. The director feels we must do what we can for the effort, and you wouldn't believe the money that's available.

He had taken the reporter to one of the private upstairs rooms at Les Affreux. He had worn his ice cream suit and he remembered the hush in the restaurant as he and the reporter mounted the stairs to the second floor, closing the door of the private cabinet behind them. They found a bottle of wine on ice and hors d'oeuvres on red plates. No sound reached them. They sat side by side and toasted each other under an impressionist landscape, Ajaccio at dusk.

Where did you find this place? she asked. She was blushing.

Do you know Pablo Gutterman? he said in reply.

It was too dangerous to drive back to Tay Thanh, so he had returned with them to their rooms, the academic in the Caravelle and the journalist in the Continental Palace. Sydney had an idea that neither woman was accustomed to alcohol and that he was in the category of a reckless adventure, something that was expected of them in the war zone and could be forgotten for that reason; forgiven, too. Each was married and had children. They had paid for dinner; since they were on expense accounts and he wasn't. And you're a bona fide source, Sydney. Tell me again about nation-building, where it goes from here. He believed they wanted a souvenir for their scrapbooks, something to remember beyond the briefings. Still, they were pleasant enough evenings with no harm done and no regrets, at least on his part. He wasn't sure about them.

Pretty girls, he said absently.

Remember that night? You said they carried fifty-seven varieties of clap.

They didn't then. Probably they do now.

More propaganda, Rostok said.

Is this the voice of experience I'm hearing?

God damn right, Rostok said. Young girls and their flutter. Young girls and their happy smiles. They know tricks you wouldn't believe, they're naturals at bedtime. I think their mamas were French taught.

Sydney watched the stevedores scramble up the gangway to begin the offloading. They were carrying cartons by hand and he moved closer now to see what the cargo was. The ship was too small to carry heavy munitions. The first consignment was whiskey, the Cutty Sark label unmistakable. The stevedores brought the whiskey cartons down the gangway and laid them neatly on the dock where other stevedores transferred them to the quayside warehouse. He noted that the two prostitutes had disappeared, and he guessed they were inside with the whiskey.

Reminds me, Rostok said. What's happened to Armand?

No idea, Sydney said.

You haven't seen him?

Not lately, Sydney said.

Damn shame. You try to cross every
t
and dot every
i
and sometimes you can't. I tried to keep him out of it, you know.

You did?

Yes, for Christ sakes. After they saw that big dumb blond—

Captain Smalley, Sydney said. Let's use his name. At least he had one, Sydney thought. The villagers at Song Nu did not, so far as the Americans were concerned. The men, women, and children of Song Nu were as anonymous as farm animals. His head began to spin and for a moment he thought he would be sick.

Yes, Smalley. They demanded to know where our information came from. And why it came to us and why we acted as we did. They were grateful to Pablo and to you, too, Syd.

Me? They were grateful to me? So they could incinerate a village?

They needed to know for their after-action report, you see. It was important to them, in the event there were inquiries. They were relentless. So I told them on an absolutely confidential eyes-only basis. Pablo didn't fool anyone with his cock-and-bull story. The map was Claude Armand's, you were the messenger, and Pablo the retriever. And the army promised there wouldn't be any reprisals, and why should there be? Armand helped us out. Of course they were miffed because civilians were involved. They lost a man and failed to find him and needed us, and that wounds their pride. So the army said they'd try to be a little more careful with the bombing runs in Armand's neighborhood, maybe try to look out for him in other ways. They sent a team to interview him, but no one was home, no Armands, no workers. They wanted to know if he had any other useful bits of information that he might want to share in return for—whatever he needed.

Sydney's head was still. He wondered which was worse, provider, messenger, or retriever.

Pretty place they have, isn't it? The door wasn't locked so our people had a look around, sat on the verandah for a while hoping they'd return. Then they decided things were too quiet for their liking and left. On the way out one of the choppers took a hit, small arms. So they circled back and hosed things down but didn't see anyone. They said it was real Indian country. They wondered how those Frenchies survived, year to year.

They went in with helicopters?

Of course. How else?

Did they take a brass band, too?

Rostok smiled. He said, Our people were impressed, seeing how the Armands lived. None of the modern conveniences, like a TV or a dishwasher, but it looked to them like a nice life, a big house with plenty of servants, a fine green lawn, everything so quiet you could hear the clocks tick. You have to wonder what it is that drives people to a colonial life unless it's an attraction to solitude along with the servants. That, and feeling superior to the natives.

Sydney listened to Rostok's version of la vie coloniale, remembering the downpour on the iron roof, so deafening he thought it was an artillery barrage. And it seemed to him that in a certain sense the Armands were prisoners, unable to move freely, caught between the skirmish lines of foreigners, and this in a country once ruled by Frenchmen, and loved by them. Not loved in return, however. Despised, though despised a little less now that the Americans were here. He thought that on balance messenger was the greater crime. The messenger was the croupier who sent the ball spinning.

He said, How much did you tell them about Pablo?

Not the whole story, Syd. Pablo wanted his name kept out, and I kept it out except to say that he'd been helpful. Everyone knows Pab has special contacts in the community. God knows Smalley was in no condition to confirm or deny anything so I had it pretty much my own way. You had a nice mention in dispatches, too. I kept it vague and loose and the reporters are still trying to figure things out. Security's been pretty good, all things considered. Saigon leaks like an infant. Thing is, no one has any interest in telling the whole story. What a circus!

So you took the credit, Sydney said.

Someone had to. Smalley couldn't very well have walked out of Song Nu by himself, could he? It was a subtle operation, thanks to Pablo. And the credit wasn't for me, it was for Llewellyn Group. And it's ancient history now. No one gives a damn because of the changing nature of the effort. Rostok gestured grandly at the vessel in front of them.

The whiskey had been offloaded and now they were starting on file cabinets, one cabinet after another, sturdy gunmetal gray, all with combination locks. Some had two drawers, others three or four drawers. They were heavy enough so that each file cabinet required two stevedores to manhandle it down the gangway. Once they were on the quay the ground crew moved them into the same warehouse where the whiskey was. They kept spilling from the hold like fruit from a horn of plenty. Sydney counted two dozen file cabinets and then gave up, thinking instead about the paper that would go into them, the copies and the originals. Two dozen file cabinets would not hold five minutes' work from the various American commands.

We need those, Ros said. Thank God for the combination locks.

The military will have priority, Sydney said.

Maybe not, Rostok said. Maybe not this time. Maybe this time Llewellyn Group's on those invoices. I wouldn't be surprised. This isn't public yet, Syd, so keep it under your arm, but we're getting an additional ten men and. He paused there, evidently uncertain whether to finish the sentence. Then he looked sideways at Sydney and continued, I've been invited to attend mission council meeting on Fridays. Deputy ambassador heads it up, as you know. That's where the thinking gets done. It's where the effort comes together, and as of next week I've a place at the table. My name will be on the cables along with all of theirs. So, Syd, Llewellyn Group's in the first foursome.

Congratulations, Ros.

These meetings. They're principals only.

You've been waiting a long time.

Even Boyd Llewellyn sent me a telegram, en clair so that everyone could read it, even the secretaries. Boyd and I are getting along much better now. I may have misjudged him. Fact is, he can squeeze money from a stone.

So you're staying on, Sydney said.

I owe them one more year. One more year, then I'm gone.

Where, Ros?

Maybe the private sector, because we'll be doing business here for—well, years and years. Maybe an ambassadorship. You burn out, you know. You're the man who's seen too much, knows too much. So you need a period of decompression. Maybe I'll write a book describing how we did it.

Sydney looked at him. Did what?

Survived, Syd. Survived those early days of confusion and uncertainty, when we didn't know where we were going or how we would get there. We didn't know where "there" was. We didn't know what we wanted really, so we went in one toe at a time thinking the Vietnamese could do it themselves, with our support and know-how. It was an illusion. We live by illusions. Anyone who knew anything knew we'd have to come in full fig. We'd have to take over. We'd run the war and run their economy and stabilize the government and secure the countryside. We knew we could do it, we didn't have the will to do it then. But we have the will now. Those early days, we're lucky we weren't thrown out like the French were. Simple fact, we came in with too little. Not making that mistake again, he concluded, gesturing again at the freighter at quayside.

The horn of plenty was momentarily empty and the stevedores were taking a break. They were lounging, smoking cigarettes and drinking tea. Now and then one of them would disappear into the warehouse and remain for a few minutes, then reappear. When someone on board yelled a command they all rose and sauntered back up the gangway to see what else was in the inventory. Their nonchalance reminded Sydney of the cabin boys and stewards aboard the yachts on Long Island Sound, the crew immaculate in white, balancing trays of drinks or pulling on a jib sheet, never using more energy than was necessary. A fine way to spend the summer his father had warned, so long as you don't get used to it. He realized he was homesick for the crisp New England air, and the empty beaches when the children had gone back to school.

What happens to you now, Syd?

I'll try teaching for a while. Vietnam doesn't prepare you for much, does it?

Teaching? Rostok laughed. I'd never figure you for a teacher. You're a doer. And you're wrong about the preparation. You have some practical experience, some knowledge of the way the world works. That's what the classroom needs more of, someone who's worked close to the fire. Has watched things burn. What university will it be?

Prep school, he said. Some boys' school not too far from New York City. That's where my daughter is.