The Darkest Little Room (20 page)

‘Xin lỗi
… Excuse me?'

I was reducing my chances by being so forthright but I was tired and angry and I had no time left.

‘Send me a girl tonight. A very young girl.'

The woman stared into my eyes for some time before she spoke.

‘Do you mean my daughter?'

‘We will drop that deceit.'

‘What?'

‘Kin. She's not your daughter. Unless your husband was a Hmong man I don't see how she could be. It is a weak pretence.'

‘Why are you here?'

‘In Bac Ha? I am waiting for a bus.'

‘There are buses every day. You have been here now two days.'

‘There are not even private cars in this weather. But the girl is not your daughter.'

‘You insult me, and I do not tolerate being insulted. I will have you thrown out.'

‘How old is she?'

‘My daughter's age is of no concern to you. And now,' she said, capping the bottle of whisky I had paid for, ‘all of a sudden, I do not like you. You will eat somewhere else tonight. Buoi!' she called.

A middle-aged man stood up and came to the table.

‘This man must leave,' said the woman.

He opened his coat to reveal a hunting knife tucked into his belt.

I laughed.

‘You think I will not use this?' he said.

The blankness in his eyes said he would.

I walked into the hotel intending to ask the clerk to recommend another place to stay and a tall man in a clean well-cut suit brushed rain off his hat and came inside. Our eyes met.

‘Zhuan?'

‘Joe!' He smiled. ‘What a coincidence.'

‘What are you doing here?'

‘Going north on business. At least, I was before the rain set in. Still, could be worse. Did you hear about the southern bridge?'

‘I tried to cross it a day ago. How did you–'

‘It opened for about an hour this morning. I was very lucky. And now I discover the road north has closed also. So you're still out here. Still searching for Thuy?'

‘Yes.'

‘You poor man. But where is Minh Quy?'

‘Saigon I suppose. I had no money to pay him.'

‘And my driver?'

‘He is here, Zhuan. But he doesn't know I know.

‘What do you mean?'

‘He deserted us, wouldn't answer his phone. And now he shows up here. And he seems very much at home. He knows people.'

‘That bastard.'

‘How well did you know him?'

‘Hardly at all. He was recommended by a friend. Have you eaten?'

‘I was just about to.'

‘I know this town a little. I was going to get the hotel to cook me something, but now that I have company there's a little hot pot restaurant around the corner from here that won't poison us.'

He checked into the hotel, put his coat back on and took me by the arm and we walked out into the cold.

We came to a small cafe with a wooden facade. The waiter came to the table with tea.

Zhuan wiped two glasses.

‘So you have had no luck at all finding your girl?'

‘A woman directed us to a track in the woods on which girls are moved in and out of China. Then we met an interesting ferryman who admitted to being in the pay of the gangsters who run the operation.'

‘Did he give you a lead?'

‘Yes. To He Kou. But it ran cold.'

‘He was probably lying. Trying to make out he was – how do the Americans say it? – a big shot. There are a lot of men like that around here. They puff themselves up in front of strangers. Sadly gangsterhood is something they aspire to.'

‘I can imagine. Yet this one did not lie.'

‘You know, there is a mountainous border with Laos that runs a thousand miles.'

‘I know. I've been along it.'

‘No one can follow what goes on out here.'

I shook my head.

‘This is the place alright. I'm sure of it. But no one will talk to me. We got close that one day in the mountains. We were a few hours from surprising a camp of traffickers.'

‘Thuy's captors?'

‘Perhaps. But I have no way to tell.'

‘Anyway, you should thank God that you didn't surprise them.'

‘Well, now they're gone, and I feel like any day I'm going to be shot by some low-tier gangster for asking questions.'

Zhuan raised his eyebrows and lit a cigarette.

My phone rang and my heart pounded in my chest but it was Minh Quy.

‘Have you discovered something?'

‘Not the girl,' said Quy, ‘But I found a man who has heard of a place he called "the darkest little room in Saigon.”'

‘Is he trustworthy?'

‘Perhaps, though he is a criminal. He said that any man who walks into this ‘darkest room' becomes the owner's puppet. The customer is made to know he has been identified, and after that the consequences of anyone taking anyone else to task are too terrible … so all parties remain silent, and the place continues without any police trouble. No one sees anything there.'

‘Hence the “darkness”.'

‘Clever, no?'

‘Is that all?'

‘No. I have something else of great interest to tell you. Something I have just thought of.'

‘Yes.'

‘Is Zhuan with you? Don't say his name – just say yes.'

‘Yes.'

‘I heard he had gone north. He is following someone.'

‘Who?'

‘A foreigner. He was asking questions about you at
Tuoi Tre.
Seeing if you'd checked in with anyone.'

‘Maybe it's an act of kindness?' I said, trying to speak cryptically yet still give my meaning.

Quy was silent.

‘Maybe. But just tonight I thought of something. That photo you showed Thuy, the one of Hönicke at the cafe in Saigon. You said she identified him as the owner of the darkest little room.'

‘That's right.'

‘Did she point?'

‘How do you mean?'

‘Did she point to him in the photograph or just confirm what you said?'

‘She did not point.'

‘There were three men in that photograph, Joe. I remember now. Hönicke, a waiter and one other. Do you remember who? You know, the Vietnamese say that three people in a photo is bad luck. A man I played cards with tonight reminded me of the superstition. And then I thought of that picture.'

‘You're crazy.'

‘Am I? Perhaps. But I would love to get that girl and that photograph together again and ask her to point out the owner of Club 49. And I re-investigated your man Hönicke.'

‘Yes?'

‘He remains a spare-parts dealer from Cologne.'

‘You are too suspicious.'

‘Perhaps. I am sorry. I have been drinking. But I thought I should let you know. Just in case …'

‘In case of what?'

‘In case you are in danger.'

‘Goodnight, Minh Quy.'

‘I'm sorry. I have been drinking. Goodnight.'

I put the phone in my pocket.

‘Who was that?' asked Zhuan.

‘Minh Quy. He has a lead on a job.'

‘Frightening politicians?'

‘That's it.'

‘I told you to quit that.'

‘I know. But this one will not come to much anyway. I told him so.'

Shortly Zhuan asked me to excuse him as he was very tired. I saw him back to his room.

‘You're not staying here?'

‘I was. I've fallen out with the people at the cafe next door and I think they and the management here are close knit.'

‘Fallen out how?'

‘A man pulled a knife on me.'

‘Hell, Joe. What over?'

‘I told you before. Asking questions.'

‘So where will you go tonight?'

‘I don't know yet I'll find somewhere. Keep an eye out for your driver.'

I checked into a room down a narrow alley off the east-west road. I stood on a small balcony beside vases of flowers wired to the balustrade. I looked down to the orange light that marked the entrance to Kin's cafe and I brought Thuy's last message to my phone screen:
I go bac he.
Could it have been a mistake? Could she have meant to write ‘Bac Ha'?

If the roads out of this town had been blocked to me, then they had been blocked to everyone. It might be that whoever had taken Thuy was not far away; that if there was to be an auction or handing over of girls then it had been postponed, and there might be one or two more nights before she left this Chinese border country.

32

I walked back out onto the street and stood on the corner of my former hotel, watching the door. I meant to run into that former driver.

He appeared a little after nine o'clock.

I stepped toward him. He stood still and stared at me with malevolence.

‘Xin lỗi
… I'm sorry,' he said. ‘But you didn't call me. I thought you'd deserted me.'

‘Nói xao
… That is a lie.'

‘Do you wish to provoke me?'

‘I want to buy you a drink. I think there has been a misunderstanding.' I played a card then that I knew might play out very badly. It depended on how ambitious the man was, or how bitter – how melancholy and misunderstood he felt. But he was middle-aged and I thought he might have gotten to the point where a man becomes reflective, perhaps even regretful. I held up a 500 000đ note. ‘Come talk with me.'

He glared at me. I smiled.

‘Nơi nào bạn muốn uống?
… Where do you like to drink?'

We turned down an alley to a concrete box lit by a gaslight and sat down. A waiter poured two thimbles of rice wine.

‘Bạn muốn biết tại sao không có ai sẽ nói chuyện vời bạn?
… You wonder why no one will talk to you? You speak Vietnamese. You are in a tourist town and never visit the markets or the hill villages, only stay in town asking questions. People assume you are some kind of a policeman or government. Even what you are – a reporter. That is bad enough. Whatever they guess, you seem more trouble than you're worth. You should be drunker. Fall in with a crowd of older men. Then you will be taken seriously at the kind of brothel I think you are interested to see.'

‘I didn't have to go far to find one in Bac Ha.'

‘You mean the cafe? That is not a brothel. You mean the girl, Kin? That is simply paying expenses.'

‘So you do have connections up here?'

‘As you see. But many restaurants have a girl or two. Do not be very shocked. She is small but she is more than thirteen. Old enough to bleed. I have seen much worse situations.'

‘And if she fell pregnant, who would pay her expenses?'

The man shrugged.

‘The pregnancy would be cancelled. There are doctors here. Anyway, she is a hill tribe girl. A good thing is done when those girls fall pregnant to clients. Thus we purify the blood of the country. The Hmong are people of low intelligence. It has been proven by biologists. But if you are thinking of trying to
rescue
her too, I would cease in that thinking.'

‘Why?'

‘Let me tell you something. A few months ago a soldier fell in love with a little girl at a brothel in He Kou, say fourteen years old. He had an attack of conscience, and he stole her out of the brothel and sent her home to her village on a bus. Her parents were horrified to see her standing in their doorway. You see, they had sold her for a television set, and sold her to a very bad man. A week later they came home to the house and the girl's head was sitting on their kitchen table. The rest of her body was in a ditch on the side of the highway.'

I clenched my teeth.

‘What do you have to do with the business of girls in this country? Are you a courier?'

The bottle between us emptied and the driver's slits of eyes narrowed.

‘I travel around the area to find … what I can find.'

‘You are a kidnapper?'

He shook his head and looked like he might spit venom.

‘How should I call you?'

‘A recruiter. I was a policeman.'

I refilled his thimble.

‘How does a man become a … recruiter.'

He was near drunk and his eyes were almost closed now, even after four thimbles of rice wine. But I guessed like most alcoholics he could stay on a level now for another two bottles.

I slid another 500 000đ under his thimble.

‘Tell me what you did – exactly what you did – before you became a courier.'

He sighed and put out his cigarette.

‘Now I am not involved. But before, I took girls from Sa Pa to the Laotian and Chinese borders. The border was controlled by a gang. Hundreds of girls each year. Then the gang drove them on foot through forests.' He sneered. ‘You see how bad it can get!'

‘I've seen that already.'

‘The girl Kin came to Bac Ha in a comfortable car. She is a relative of the woman who owns the hotel. The woman does not let her go with more than one soldier at a time and no more than three in a night. Call the police if you like. But if you do, they'll put her in a state home and on the day she turns sixteen, which is not so far away, she'll be out on the street doing the same work in a much worse place.'

‘Does Kin keep any of the money?'

‘Yes.'

‘How much?'

He shrugged.

‘One hundred and fifty thousand a night.'

‘That's less than ten dollars.'

‘And more than five. Like I say, there are worse places. More people than you might think have to be paid from the earnings.'

‘I know not all restaurants in this country keep a girl.'

‘No.'

‘So how does a customer go about finding one?'

‘Seek and you will find – this is the devil's order as well as God's.'

I stared out the window at the first spits of cold night rain and felt as though my soul was withering. The man's eyes squinted and wrinkles spread across his face in the gaslight that hung above us.