Naked in Saigon (14 page)

It wasn’t the ugliest building Reyes had ever seen but it was right up there with some of the worst. The United States Embassy in Saigon looked as if it had drawn on a German machine gun emplacement on D-Day as its inspiration. The whole facade of the Chancery was encased in a concrete carapace that was supposed to protect it from mortar and rocket fire, and there were white pillboxes at each corner of the building manned by US military police in green flak jackets and white steel helmets.

It looked more like a fortress than an embassy, but he supposed that really, that’s what it was. The compound was surrounded by a ten-foot high wall, but none of these fortifications had kept out the nineteen Viet Cong sappers who had mined it during Tet two years before and found their way inside.

Reyes took off his sunglasses and stared hard at the narrow-eyed Marine who examined his Embassy pass. He was polished and gleaming like he was about to step onto the parade ground. Two other guards checked him for weapons. A barely perceptible nod of the head and he was through. He replaced the glasses and went up the steps and into the foyer.

A massive eagle, its wings spread and beak gaping, glowered at him from a cluster of flags in the carpeted foyer. When he announced himself, a uniformed clerk rang upstairs. Walt came down from his office to meet him.

“You’ve got news?” Reyes asked as they went up in the elevator.

“Some,” he said, “but it’s not all good.”

He waited until they were in his office until he told him the rest. First he made them coffee, topping up the paper cups with his private supplies from his desk drawer.

A thin manila folder lay on his desk and he pushed it across to Reyes. “The good news for Mrs O’Loughlin is the Corsicans didn’t get him,” he said. “But I don’t know if his current situation is any better.”

Reyes read through the short typed memorandum from the US Embassy in Vientiane.

“He was in Vientiane for two days,” Walt said. “From there he took a flight up to our airbase at Sam Thong courtesy of the United States government, they want to show off their hearts and minds project up there. Somehow he managed to slip away, don’t ask me how. They think he paid a local guide to take him into the mountains; perhaps he wanted to interview some of the local Hmong villagers himself. Instead he got himself captured by the Pathet Lao. They let the guide go but they’ve still got your friend.”

“Is he alive?”

“I have no idea. They may have shot him on the spot or they may keep him alive for a while. If they think he’s a spy they’ll torture him as a matter of principle and then try and use him as a hostage. When they find out he’s just a journalist, his luck will run out.”

Reyes handed him back the memorandum. Walt slipped it back inside the file.

“I thought you would think this is good news.”

“How do you figure that?” Reyes asked him.

“All you have to do is nothing and all your dreams come true. You get her back. Isn’t that what you always wanted? Just sit back and enjoy the view, fella. He’s chained to a post in the jungle fighting off bats, and you’re screwing his wife. It’s perfect.”

“You paint a pretty picture.”

“Well I practise haiku in my spare time.”

Walt sipped his coffee, but finding it not to his taste he added a little more Jack Daniels. “I wish I knew what it is about her,” he said.

“There are some things you can’t put in a report.”

“It’s damn frustrating. I’m not questioning your judgment, Reyes, certainly not when it comes to women. I’m just trying to understand.”

“You think he’s dead?”

“I think there’s no way of knowing. But I find it highly unlikely he will ever be seen or heard from again.”

“He could still be alive.”

“Possibly, but I don’t think there’s anyone in Vientiane or Washington who are that bothered that they’ll go looking for him. Let’s face it--it’s not only the Salvatore family who want him dead. The guy was making too many waves, no one in here sheds any tears for a dead hack.”

Reyes puffed out his cheeks. “What am I going to tell her?”

“If it was me I’d tell her he was dead and get on with the rest of your life. This guy is crazy, if I had a wife like that I damn sure wouldn’t go running around the jungle begging the commies to come and shoot me.”

“Still, I wonder how she’s going to take this.”

“Maybe she’ll be relieved.”

“He’s still her husband and technically he’s still alive.”

“Only if you tell her he is.”

Reyes stared at his shoes. “She says she was going to leave him anyway.”

“There’s a long way between thinking about it and doing it. Make it easy on everyone, Reyes.” He picked up the folder. “I’ll put this in this file over there, you give her the bad news, hold out your handkerchief and let her fall in your arms. Problem solved, man.”

“I guess so.” He sipped his coffee, held it out for more Jack. Walt obliged. “You ever watch “Tom and Jerry,” Walt?”

“You kidding me? Love that stupid cat.”

“Whenever Tom is about to kill the mouse he has this devil cat on one shoulder telling him to do it, then he gets this angel cat on the other telling him why it’s the wrong thing.”

“Your point?”

“It’s just what you look like right now. The devil cat.” Reyes finished his coffee in one swallow, winced and stood up. “Walt, thanks for your help. I appreciate it.”

“Be smart. Go back to the Caravelle, tell her that her husband’s dead, that I showed you pictures of his body. Then fuck her brains out.”

“And then?”

“Then you get the seven keys of horse you’ve hidden God knows where and you bring it right over to me and let me find us some buyers. We build our little hideaway in Paradise and spend the rest of our lives drinking
mojitos
and eating lobster. What do you say?”

“I say whenever I need a moral compass I’ll come to you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You always point the wrong way, Walt, so I know if I want to do the right thing, I’d just do the opposite of what you’re telling me.”

“I will take that as a compliment to my mental fortitude.”

Reyes opened the door to leave.

“What are you going to do?” Walt said.

“I’ll keep you posted.”

Chapter 21 

Reyes walked head down through the throbbing heat of the afternoon, ignoring the street kids who pestered him to buy cigarettes, cigarette lighters, heroin. They were everywhere, these kids, thousands of them roamed the streets, picking pockets, begging, hawking. The older ones rode motorcycles, snatching bags from the shoulders of westerners who hadn’t been in Saigon long enough to know better. The city was a master class in survival.

He’d been one of those kids once. Instead of snatching bags he stole cars; instead of brown sugar he had sold numbers in the
bolita
. He had done whatever it took to get one more step up the food chain.

But now here he was in a nice white linen suit with a dozen bank accounts around the world and two apartments back home in Miami Beach, and he wondered what it was all for. The best thing about a dream was aiming for it.

And here it was, the final part of the jigsaw; he could steal that, too.

He kept turning it over in his mind. If he told her he was still alive, what good would it do? Connor would never get out of there alive. So what, then? You can’t turn back the clock, he told himself. You’ve thought about her for seven years and now you can have her, she’s yours.

If you lie and tell her he’s dead.

Surely they would have killed him by now. But who’s going to find the body? You’ll just be drawing out the pain for everyone. Maybe they’ll never find the body.

But Reyes, you don’t know that, another voice said. You said you’d never steal a man’s wife and you’d never kill anyone unless they came at you first. But this is like killing him. I know you don’t want to believe that, but it is. Because you know there’s still one more thing you haven’t tried, and God knows, somehow this bastard deserves you to try.

He thought about Connor, what he was going through right now, one hand already crippled, his nose still not mended. The Pathet Lao would beat him up again, of course, with exquisite Asian refinement, because they would want to keep him cowed and also out of principle, he supposed. He imagined him trussed up in a hut somewhere, no hope, no water, just the snakes and bats for company.

Reyes had spent six months in those jungles, helping the Hmong trade their opium, bringing them back weapons and showing them how to use them. That was back in 1962, before the war in Vietnam really got under way. He hated the jungle, that gloomy netherworld of shadows and silence. He had always wondered back then what he would do if the NVA caught him, knowing no one would ever come for him because officially he wasn’t even there.

Poor bastard.

By the time he reached Tu Do, the Chinese and Indian merchants were bringing down the steel shutters against the heat of the day. Even the
siclo
drivers had taken refuge under the trees, dozing in the front of their pedicabs.

When Reyes reached the Caravelle he stalled for a while in the air conditioned lobby, letting the sweat dry under his shirt, rehearsing what he was going to say:
He’s dead, princess. I’m sorry. I saw the photographs myself.

He made his decision and caught the elevator to the fifth floor.

When she opened the door and saw the look on his face he knew he didn’t have to say anything. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

She turned and walked back into the room. He followed.

She sat down on the bed and cried. He put his arms around her and she turned her face up to his. Before he knew it he was kissing her, her cheeks were wet and then she had his face in her hands and was pushing him back on the bed.

Chapter 22