The Shadow of Arms (19 page)

“So, you're turning Mimi over to him,” Madame Lin said, clicking her tongue.

Toi laughed. “Since you failed as a matchmaker, I had to step in. My friend here has fallen head over heels in love with her. Can't sleep at night, you know.”

The woman cackled loudly. Then she picked up the telephone on the table and punched a few buttons. “Bring me Mimi's address.”

A few minutes later the waiter brought in a piece of paper. As Toi reached for it, the woman raised her fingers and waved them back and forth.

“Not yet. First, I want you to write down your duty station, your ranks, and your names.”

“To report us to the general?”

“No, but if anything happens to Mimi, I'll be losing a good customer.”

“All right.”

Toi quickly scribbled on the paper and Yong Kyu did the same. The woman read aloud from her piece of paper.

“Hotel Thanh Thanh, Room 306. Satisfied?”

“Thank you.”

The woman called out to their backs as they left.

“Come again with Mimi.”

They left the club.

“What a strange woman,” Yong Kyu said as they got in the Land Rover.

“An old fox.”

“She comes all the way from Hong Kong to a battle zone and runs a club like that, we're definitely no match for her. Way over our heads.”

“Why is she protecting Miss Oh?”

“That's obvious. I saw her picture. She's the type white men go for. Madame Lin would never pass by a foreign girl or a white dancer staying at the Thanh Thanh. She probably brokers side jobs for Mimi.”

“And puts her on display at all the club parties.”

They drove straight over to Doc Lap Boulevard. The multicolored awning over the entrance to the Hotel Thanh Thanh was visible from a distance. On both sides of the door stood jagged-leafed cycad plants.

“It'll be the first time in a long while for me to speak to a woman in my own language,” Yong Kyu said.

“And the first time for me to hear your language in a woman's voice,” Toi said, adding, “Korean sounds harsh and stiff to me.”

“And Vietnamese sounds like a parrot choking.”

As they pushed open the glass door with its wire-mesh embedded inside, they could see a brightly lit restaurant just past the narrow counter that served as a front desk. An old man in a clean shirt was sitting there.

“Welcome. Would you like a room?”

“No, thanks.”

Toi presented his ID card before Yong Kyu could and said something in Vietnamese, at which the old man pointed an arm to the stairs. They ran upstairs. When they reached the door, Toi said, “I'm going to speak Vietnamese.”

Yong Kyu nodded.

“
Mo kye hotoi
. . .” said Toi, pounding on the door.

He kept knocking. Then he put an ear to the door and shouted as he pounded again. A sound like a moan came from within, followed by the sound of a glass door sliding, then footsteps approaching.

“Who is it?” asked a woman's sleepy voice.

“
Siloi ko
,” Toi said, glancing back at Yong Kyu.

As the woman unthinkingly turned the knob of the door, Toi and Yong Kyu pushed it open with full force and crashed into the room. The woman stood petrified, pinned beside the door. Yong Kyu flashed his ID with its red slash right in front of her eyes.

“What the hell is this about?”

The woman immediately saw that Yong Kyu was another Korean. Arching her eyebrows, she wrapped her wrinkled robe more tightly about her. Although just roused from sleep, she was still a captivating sight. As the shutters were swung open, the sunlight streamed in and the woman's white neck glistened. She grimaced and covered her head, from embarrassment at her unmade-up face as much as from the glare in her eyes.

“You're asking for big trouble, do you know that?” the woman said.

“Why, shall I call Major Pham Quyen for you? “ asked Yong Kyu, picking up the telephone.

“What do I have to do with soldiers?”

Yong Kyu signaled to Toi with his eyes. Toi hurried into the bedroom. The woman started to follow, but Yong Kyu grabbed her by the shoulder and pushed her down in a chair. He felt a tingling sensation as his fingers touched her skin. The lower folds of her robe were coming apart, revealing her tantalizing white thighs. As her eyes met Yong Kyu's, she pulled the sides of the robe together to cover her legs.

“Sons of bitches,” the woman muttered, shading her eyes with one hand. “Wasn't firing me enough? Why do you keep harassing me?”

“Shall I close the shutters?”

The woman nodded in reply to Yong Kyu's offer. He closed the shutters and the room grew dark. The woman lowered her hand and looked up at Yong Kyu.

“Do you have a cigarette?”

Yong Kyu handed her a pack of Pall Malls and she nervously pulled one out. Her fingernails were unpainted. He lit her cigarette with his Zippo.

“Let's be reasonable. Why are you doing this?”

Toi came back into the room holding something he had found. It was a plastic bag and two pipes.

“Look at this. Opium,” Toi said.

“Why don't you go search your own mother? I bet you'll find some in her dresser drawer,” the woman said in English to Toi. Then she turned and faced Yong Kyu again.

“Too bad if that's why you're here. It's not mine.”

“Miss Oh Hae Jong, do you have a passport?”

“If I didn't, could I be here?”

“Let me see your passport.”

She just drew on the cigarette. Yong Kyu sat down in front of her.

“I asked you to show me your passport.”

“I turned it in . . . to the consulate, to have it renewed.”

“You're lying,” Yong Kyu said. “We know you're stateless. Two months ago your name was deleted from the list of local civilian workers. That means your passport was automatically cancelled when you failed to return home as ordered.”

The woman defiantly looked Yong Kyu straight in the eye and spat out, “My nationality is Vietnamese. You knew it when you came here, didn't you? Besides, my nationality is no concern of yours. Get me the Vietnamese police.”

Toi took two pieces of paper out from his inner pocket and handed them over to Yong Kyu. He unfolded the first piece and placed it in front of the woman.

“Now, this is a copy of your personnel record, and the date of your dismissal, right here. And this is a copy of the fake requisition document you submitted to MAC 36. You sold C-rations in the campside village near the navy hospital, didn't you?”

“So?”

“So, first I have to deal with the offense of selling military supplies. Then, while you're in our custody, we'll get your deportation papers from the Vietnamese police and ship you home. Now . . . is this all clear to you?”

“The C-rations weren't mine.”

“Were they Major Pham's?”

“I don't know. I just rode along.”

“You mean, you just rode along with the C-rations and rode back with the money, is that it?”

The woman leapt up and tried to pick up the phone, but Toi quickly put his hand over the receiver.

“Look, Miss, you may be sent down to Saigon as a convicted narcotics offender before you're deported,” Yong Kyu said as he got up.

The woman turned up her nose as if scoffing. But the quake in her fingers as she extinguished her cigarette revealed how nervous she was.

“Let's go.”

“Go where?”

“To our investigation headquarters.”

“I need to make a phone call.”

“Make it from there.”

“I'll go and change,” the woman said, heading toward the bedroom.

“We'll wait out here.”

She went into the bedroom. As she started to close the door, Toi stuck his foot in the way.

“This is rude and ridiculous,” she said in an irritated tone.

“Don't worry, we won't peek. Just get changed quickly and don't even think of trying anything cute.”

She soon came back out fully dressed, removed a lipstick from her purse and put some on. She was wearing a light blue knit dress, an outfit certain to cause a minor riot if she were to pass by a soldiers' barracks. The two men's eyes widened as they exchanged glances. Under the thin wool the curves of her body were readily visible, and with the sun at her back you could make out her thighs through the fabric.

Once they were in the car, the woman said, “I hope you know what you're doing. You're not going to get away with this, I'll see to that.”

Yong Kyu did not reply. Toi drove straight across the street and in a second they were pulling into the QC headquarters compound. In the parking lot stood an unbroken line of Vietnamese MP patrol Jeeps. At the sight of Oh Hae Jong, the QC staff milling around started whistling and making catcalls.

“Take us to the room,” Yong Kyu said to Toi.

As they walked into the building, Toi popped into an office and shortly reappeared and took the lead. As soon as they entered the room, Toi said something to the corporal and administrative officer inside and the two men left.

“Care for some coffee?” Toi asked the woman.

“Yes, thank you.”

In an effort to exhibit her composure, she then turned to Yong Kyu, saying, “You could offer me some lunch, too.”

“I'll see to that once your custody is decided.”

Yong Kyu started the interrogation with questions about the delivery of the C-rations. She answered, and then gave a statement detailing where, how often, and what quantities she had delivered. Then he questioned her about the opium.

“I don't know anything about that. The stuff isn't mine,” she said.

“That was also your testimony when you were asked by the chief security officer at the PX, wasn't it? I'll get the record of that interrogation and add it to this report, and then my job will be done. They'll make the decision.”

“Who is ‘they'?”

“The Vietnamese Narcotics Enforcement Team.”

“Hmmph, go ahead and call them if there is such a team. More than half the population of Da Nang, every household, would have to be arrested. The stuff belongs to Major Pham Quyen from the provincial governor's staff. Ask him.”

Yong Kyu kept scrawling notes in his notebook.

“Fine. So you have no passport, right?”

Toi brought a tray in with three cups of coffee. The woman sipped it slowly, savoring each mouthful. In the bright sunlight her bare legs gleamed beneath the pale blue dress. She seemed much calmer. Her legs were bouncing up and down ever so slightly. Yong Kyu finished his English-language report and handed it over to Toi.

“Type this and bring it back.”

“All right.”

Toi took the papers and left. Now the two of them, Yong Kyu and the woman, were alone in the room.

“Look, what's your name, anyway?”

Yong Kyu took out a cigarette for himself and offered her one. They lit them together.

“I asked what your name is.”

“Why do you want to know?”

“That's not fair. You know about me through and through and I don't even know your name.”

“Ahn Yong Kyu.”

“Rank?”

“You want to try and make trouble for me?”

“Are you a ‘lifer'? Isn't that what you soldiers say?”

Yong Kyu relaxed a little. He wondered why had he been so hard on her at first. Maybe it was because she was, in her robe, rather sensuous, and he knew she was in the habit of sleeping with foreigners. No, I'm no lifer, he said to himself. In a strange room, so far away from home, this woman was asking him if he was a lifer.

“Why didn't you go home?”

The woman said nothing. They just went on smoking. She looked up at the clock.

“I need to make a call. If it gets any later, these people will take their siesta. I can't wait another two hours in a place like this.”

“Don't worry.”

Yong Kyu also glanced at the clock. He paused, then casually asked her, “Do you know Madame Lin well?”

She responded indifferently. “A little. I worked there a while after I was fired.”

“As a bar girl?”

“Is it a crime?” she retorted angrily. “I can't go home empty-handed. I'm no different than the rest of you. And I'm not a whore.”

Her outburst made Yong Kyu uncomfortable. He hung his head a little. “Why not go to America?”

“What do you care?” the woman asked, fixing her eyes on his. “Stay out of my business. What difference does it make to you if I stay in Vietnam or go to America?”