I wouldn’t want to pull that particular tiger’s tail. So keep bloodshed to a minimum. Only the woman dies. No one else.”
“I understand.”
After the man had left, Siang sat alone at the corner table, thinking. Remembering Saigon. Had it really been fifteen years? His last memories of the city were of panicked faces, of hands clawing frantically at a helicopter door, of the roar of chopper blades and the swirl of dust as the rooftops fell away.
Siang took a deep swallow of vodka and stood to leave. Just then, whistles and applause rose from the crowd gathered around the dance stage. A lone girl stood brown and naked in the spotlight. Around her waist was wrapped an eight-foot boa constrictor. The girl seemed to shudder as the snake slithered down between her thighs. The men shouted their approval.
Siang grinned. Ah, the Bong Bong Club. Always something new.
Saigon
FROM THE ROOFTOP GARDEN of the Rex Hotel, Willy watched the bicycles thronging the intersection of Le Loi and Nguyen Hue. A collision seemed inevitable, only a matter of time. Riders whisked through at breakneck speed, blithely ignoring the single foolhardy pedestrian inching fearfully across the street. Willy was so intent on silently cheering the man on that she scarcely registered the monotonous voice of her government escort.
“And tomorrow, we will take you by car to see the National Palace, where the puppet government ruled in luxury, then on to the Museum of History, where you will learn about our struggles against the Chinese and the French imperialists. The next day, you will see our lacquer factory, where you can buy many beautiful gifts to bring home. And then—”
“Mr. Ainh,” Willy said with a sigh, turning at last to her guide. “It all sounds very fascinating, this tour you’ve planned. But have you looked into my other business?”
Ainh blinked. Though his frame was chopstick thin, he had a cherubic face made owlish by his thick glasses. “Miss Maitland,” he said in a hurt voice, “I have arranged a private car! And many wonderful meals.”
“Yes, I appreciate that, but—”
“You are unhappy with your itinerary?”
“To be perfectly honest, I don’t really care about a tour. I want to find out about my father.”
“But you have paid for a tour! We must provide one.”
“I paid for the tour to get a visa. Now that I’m here, I need to talk to the right people. You can arrange that for me, can’t you?”
Ainh shifted nervously. “This is a…a complication. I do not know if I can…that is, it is not what I…” He drifted into helpless silence.
“Some months ago, I wrote to your foreign ministry about my father. They never wrote back. If you could arrange an appointment…”
“How many months ago did you write?”
“Six, at least.”
“You are impatient. You cannot expect instant results.”
She sighed. “Obviously not.”
“Besides, you wrote the Foreign Ministry. I have nothing to do with them. I am with the Ministry of Tourism.”
“And you folks don’t communicate with each other, is that it?”
“They are in a different building.”
“Then maybe—if it’s not too much trouble—you could take me to their building?”
He looked at her bleakly. “But then who will take the tour?”
“Mr. Ainh,” she said with gritted teeth, “cancel the tour.”
Ainh looked like a man with a terrible headache. Willy almost felt sorry for him as she watched him retreat across the rooftop garden. She could imagine the bureaucratic quicksand he would have to wade through to honor her request. She’d already seen how the system operated—or, rather, how it didn’t operate. That afternoon, at Ton Son Nhut Airport, it had taken three hours in the suffocating heat just to run the gauntlet of immigration officials.
A breeze swept the terrace, the first she’d felt all afternoon. Though she’d showered only an hour ago, her clothes were already soaked with sweat. Sinking into a chair, she gazed off at the skyline of Saigon, now painted a dusty gold in the sunset. Once, this must have been a glorious town of tree-lined boulevards and outdoor cafés where one could while away the afternoons sipping coffee.
But after its fall to the North, Saigon slid from the dizzy impudence of wealth to the resignation of poverty. The signs of decay were everywhere, from the chipped paint on the old French colonials to the skeletons of buildings left permanently unfinished. Even the Rex Hotel, luxurious by local standards, seemed to be fraying at the edges. The terrace stones were cracked. In the fish pond, three listless carp drifted like dead leaves. The rooftop swimming pool had bloomed an unhealthy shade of green. A lone Russian tourist sat on the side and dangled his legs in the murky water, as though weighing the risks of a swim.
It occurred to Willy that her immediate situation was every bit as murky as that water. The Vietnamese obviously believed in a proper channel for everything, and without Ainh’s help, there was no way she could navigate any channel, proper or otherwise.
What then? she thought wearily. I can’t do this alone. I need help. I need a guide. I need—
“Now there’s a lady who looks down on her luck,” said a voice.
She looked up to see Guy Barnard’s tanned face framed against the sunset. Her instant delight at seeing someone familiar—even him—only confirmed the utter depths of despair to which she’d sunk.
He flashed her a smile that could have charmed the habit off a nun. “Welcome to Saigon, capital of fallen dreams. How’s it goin’, kid?”
She sighed. “You need to ask?”
“Nope. I’ve been through it before, running around like a headless chicken, scrounging up seals of approval for every piddly scrap of paper. This country has got bureaucracy down to an art.”
“I could live without the pep talk, thank you.”
“Can I buy you a beer?”
She studied that smile of his, wondering what lay behind it. Suspecting the worst.
Seeing her weaken, he called for two beers, then dropped into a chair and regarded her with rumpled cheerfulness.
“I thought you weren’t due in Saigon till Wednesday,” she said.
“Change of plans.”
“Pretty sudden, wasn’t it?”
“Flexibility happens to be one of my virtues.” He added, ruefully, “Maybe my only virtue.”
The bartender brought over two frosty Heinekens. Guy waited until
