Naked in Saigon (19 page)

“You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here,” Connor said.

“Your wife asked me to find you.”

“Magdalena? Why did you agree to do a damn fool thing like that?”

“I like you.”

“You don’t give a damn about me. Stop fucking with me, Reyes, and tell me the truth.”

They heard a commotion outside, someone shouting orders, and the door was thrown open. The sunlight hurt his eyes and Reyes had to squint to see what was happening. An angry little man with a potbelly marched in and started shouting some questions at Tou. He guessed their visitor was the group’s commander, he looked like he was in his forties or fifties and he wasn’t armed. He pointed his finger at Reyes and then turned and walked out again.

“What did he say?” Connor asked him.

“He called me a big ape,” Reyes said. “Then he threatened to shoot us.”

Connor groaned. “Some rescue.”

“It’s all right,” Reyes said. “Look at it like the first bluff in a game of poker. If they were going to shoot us they would have shot us already. If they say they’re going to, he’s waiting for us to make them a better offer.”

“How do you figure that?”

“These guys didn’t become communists because they wanted a better life for everyone, they wanted a better life for themselves. I heard this guy was a professor once, at the university, he’s not some pig farmer. I figure he’ll be open to negotiation. I’ve been in and out of scrapes like this all my life, Connor.”

Connor believed him. It showed just how green he was.

Chapter 30

MAGDALENA

I stood under the shower, wondered where he was, what he was doing. Was there some way I could have stopped either of them from leaving? They were both headstrong men, I had done my best to talk sense into them, but what else could I have done?

Every possible scenario ran through my head: what if he found Connor, what if he didn’t? I even thought about what I would do if Connor came back and Reyes didn’t.

I knew I couldn’t stay married to him now, no matter what happened. Perhaps it was true you only really loved anyone once in your life. Connor had been my compromise with life; I couldn’t keep up the sham anymore.

I walked out of the shower still drying myself with the towel. Angel was sitting in a chair in the corner of the room, smoking a cigar. He smiled. “Hey, baby. You are looking really fine. Look as good as you did when you were eighteen.”

I wrapped the towel around me as best as I could and tried to recover. “How did you get in here?”

“How can you ask me that question, baby? You still don’t realize who the fuck I am, do you? I go anywhere I want these days.”

He drew on the cigar and looked at me slit-eyed through the smoke. “I hear your husband’s dead. I warned him, you warned him. What you gonna do? You can’t help some people.”

“What do you want, Angel?”

“I came to commiserate, like friends do. What are you going to do now? Widow at your age, it’s not right.”

“I’ll get by.”

“You never had kids. Now why is that?”

“How is that any of your business?”

“See, I look at Esme and me, we got four kids now, things are pretty good for her. Italian girls understand about what men need, they know how to make a marriage work. She gave me three good boys and a baby girl and no trouble. She didn’t mind about you, not really. I could have set you up for the rest of your life, pink Caddy, apartment overlooking the beach, all the luxuries that come from being married to a rich, successful guy and none of the downside, no stretchmarks, no extra pounds, no babies squawking around. You ever think about that?”

“Not once.”

“Yeah? Maybe you should think about it, because where are you now? Stuck here in this hotel room in this shithole, your husband…well he ain’t coming back.You’re thirty years old already and what are you going to do?”

“I’ll be just fine, Angel. Don’t worry about a thing.”

“Well I hope this husband of yours had good life insurance. You don’t want to end up back in the diner. Could have been a movie star once. What happened with that? You never could take a break, huh?”

“Anything else you want to say before you leave?”

“I want a favour. You owe me favours.”

“How do you figure that?”

“You forgotten about Miami already?”

“You were the one who ruined my movie career.”

He made a face. “I wouldn’t have hurt you, you know that. Don’t be stupid.”

“Get out of here.”

He drew on the cigar, flicked the ash on the carpet. “Reyes has something I want. I know he’s lying to me and I want you to find out the truth. If you don’t, I’ll kill him, and I know you like him better alive, isn’t that right?”

“Go ahead and kill him. If you can find him.” For the first time he didn’t look so cocksure of himself. Something finally he didn’t know. “He’s left Saigon.”

“He’s fucking what?”

“Didn’t you know? He’s gone back to America.”

“You better not be lying to me!”

“Or what? You just said you’d never hurt me.”

“I fucking lied.” He jumped up and ripped the towel off me. He grabbed me by the throat and pressed me naked against the wall. “You let me down once, I let it go. I don’t do favours a second time.”

“You’re hurting me.”

“This ain’t nothing yet. Where’s he gone?”

“I don’t know.”

He kissed me hard, bruising my lips. When he finally pulled away he drew back his hand and slapped me. Angel, he was my beautiful boy once. “I’ll fucking kill both of you if I don’t get back what’s mine,” he shouted and walked out.

Chapter 31

REYES

Pot Belly sat on a bamboo mat in the middle of what looked to be their parade ground. He had a wispy beard like Ho Chi Minh and John Lennon glasses. He had it all going on, this guy, and straight away Reyes figured he knew what he wanted. He saw the chink of light he was looking for.

They were led out, single file, guns trained at their heads. He got his first look at Connor in the light and it wasn’t encouraging. He had several days of stubble and his face was a mess from a fresh beating. The fingertips protruding from the filthy bandages on his right hand were swollen and red. He looked feverish and stumbled every few steps. He needed a hospital.

Pot Belly looked at Tou and told him to tell the American spies that he was going to shoot them.

“We’re not spies, sir,” Reyes said before Tou could answer. “I’m a journalist for a big American magazine and he’s my guide. The man you have beaten is my colleague. Why would you do such a thing? It’s uncivilized. I thought only Americans abused their prisoners.”

This shook them up. They all started talking at once. He has to be a spy one of them said, why else would he know how to speak our language.

Besides, what were they doing so close to our camp if they’re not spies?

Reyes started talking over the top of them. “My brother is married to a Hmong woman who came to America,” he said. “That’s why I’m here. I want to tell your side of the story. Look in the pocket of my backpack if you don’t believe me. I want to show the world the Pathet Lao’s brave struggle for freedom.”

Pot Belly told one of his soldiers to fetch the backpack. When they brought it back he emptied out the contents onto the bamboo mat in front of him. He picked up the crumpled back issue of
Time
magazine and stared at it like he was holding a sacred relic.
The communists might hate Americans
, Reyes thought,
but everyone loves Marilyn Monroe
. He had brought his 1959 edition with a picture of her on the cover.

The mood changed almost at once. Pot Belly pointed to her breasts and chuckled. Several of his soldiers smiled along.

“I write for this magazine,” Reyes said. “In America I am a very important man.”

Pot Belly picked up his accreditation and stared at it. If he really was a university professor he knew what a writer was. For the first time he looked a little less sure of himself. Then he found the photograph of him from Palm Springs back in the early sixties, he was in the back of a large group of people behind Marilyn and Frank.

They all stared and pointed over Pot Belly’s shoulder.

“Do you know Marilyn Monroe?” Pot Belly asked.

“Yes I do, sir. I took her out on a date a couple of times.”

Pot Belly made a circle with the thumb and index finger of his left hand and used the index finger of his other hand to make the universal signal for intercourse.

“Three times,” Reyes said.

“What was she like?”

Reyes leaned towards him and grinned, like he was about to tell a dirty joke in mixed company. “She’s not really a blonde,” he said.

Pot Belly liked that. He repeated the joke to his men and took credit for it. Reyes turned to Connor. “Look at that. There’s Jack Kennedy, Bobbo Salvatore and Jack Ruby in that photograph but the only one he recognizes is Marilyn Monroe.”

“That photograph must be worth a fucking fortune,” Connor said.

“I got a feeling it’s going towards part of your ransom.”

Pot Belly flicked through the rest of the pages of the magazine and now everyone was straining for a look, a couple of them even put down their guns so they could get closer.

“We could walk out of here right now and they wouldn’t notice,” Connor said. ‘Is it true, by the way?”

“Is what true?”

“Did you really sleep with her?”

“You’d love to know, wouldn’t you, Connor?”

“What were you doing in the photograph?”

“I got invited out to a few of Frank’s parties at Palm Springs.”

“How did you that happen?”

“I knew some people.”

Connor shook his head.

Pot Belly looked up and pointed to a picture of Richard Nixon. “You know this man?” he said.

“He’s number ten. I wrote some bad things about him in my magazine and he sent men after me with guns.”

“Bad man,” Pot Belly said.

“I never voted for him,” he said, and at least that part was true.

He asked if Americans all owned a refrigerator and two cars. No, Reyes said, it’s all propaganda they put it in the magazines. Suddenly there was a collegiate feeling; they were all just buddies together, kvetching about the evils of the world.

“I want to do a big story on the communist struggle in Laos,” Reyes said. “You’ll be on the front cover of
Time
as a big hero. Look in the side pocket.

They hadn’t searched the backpack thoroughly; there was a waterproof pocket at the back and Pot Belly unzipped it and took out the other copy of
Time
that Reyes had brought with him, it was from 1954 and there was a picture of Ho Chi Minh on the cover. He handled it like a sacred relic.