A Lotus For Miss Quon (12 page)

At a few minutes past noon, two uniformed policemen opened the double gates of the garage yard and walked briskly down to the far ends of the lane. There they stood with their backs to each other, separated by fifty yards of dusty gravel roadway. They had been given strict orders to stop anyone using the lane for the next twenty minutes.

While they were taking up their positions, another uniformed policeman, thin and boyish-looking, got into a police jeep and started up the engine. Anyone looking at him closely would have seen that he was sweating profusely and his brown face revealed a tension that seemed unnatural for the simple job he appeared to be doing.

At exactly fifteen minutes past twelve, just as Blackie Lee was paying off the Mousse-pousse boy, My-Lang-To who had been sitting in a hot dark cell for the past three hours, heard a key grate in the lock and the lock snap back.

She got to her feet as the steel door swung open. A uniformed policemen beckoned to her.

"You are no longer required," the policeman said. "You can go home."

"Is there no news of my fiance?" she asked. "Has he been found?"

The policeman took her thin arm in a hard grip and pushed her down the corridor and into a courtyard where a number of police jeeps were parked.

"When we have news of your fiance, you will be told," he said and pointed to the open gateway. "That is your way out. Be satisfied that you have your freedom."

There was something in the man's voice that frightened the girl. She suddenly felt an urge to get away from this place: a frantic urge that stifled her and made her quicken her steps into a near run.

She made a neat and charming figure in her white tunic sheath, her white silk trousers and her conical straw hat as she hurried across the sun-filled courtyard.

The policeman sitting in the jeep, its engine running, shifted the gear stick into first gear. Sweat from his face fell onto the white sleeves of his immaculate jacket.

My-Lang-To passed through the open gateway and into the lane. She turned to the right and began the long walk to the main street. Ahead of her, she saw the back of a policeman who was standing at the top of the lane.

She walked rapidly for some twenty yards before she heard the sound of a fast moving car coming up behind her. She looked over her shoulder at the police jeep that had swung out through the open gateway and was coming straight at her.

She stepped to one side and leaned against the wall to give the jeep room to pass. It was only in the last brief seconds of her life that she realized the driver of the jeep had no intention of passing her. He suddenly swung the wheel and before My-Lang-To could move, the steel bumper of the jeep slammed into her, crushing her against the wall. Neither of the policemen at the far ends of the lane looked around when he heard My-Lang-To's scream. They had been told not to look around. They heard the jeep reverse and drive back to the courtyard, then there was a long silence in the lane.

Following instructions, they moved off into the main streets and went about their daily routine, but neither of them could blot from his mind the shrill scream of terror they had heard.

My-Lang-To's body was found ten minutes later by a passing peasant who was hurrying to the market with a load of vegetables skilfully balanced on a bamboo pole which he carried on his shoulder.

He stared for some horrified minutes at the crumpled figure and the white nylon sheath dyed red with blood before he dropped the bamboo pole and ran frantically to the gates of Security Police and hammered on them as he wailed out his discovery.

While My-Lang-To was walking to her death, in another quarter of Security Police, Dong-Ham was also about to die.

He was sitting in his small cell, nervously picking at the lump of hard skin on his hand when the cell door opened.

Two men, wearing only khaki shorts came in. One carried a large bucket of water which he set down in the middle of the cell. His companion beckoned to the old man to stand up.

Dong-Ham knew he was going to die. He stood up quietly and bravely. He allowed himself to be up-ended by the two men who handled him with the skill of experienced executioners. He didn't even attempt to struggle as they inserted his head into the bucket of water and held it there. He drowned after a few minutes with scarcely a movement. He was a man who accepted the inevitable with the belief that death was a release into a better world and that at his age, this release should be welcomed.

The man who had caused the death of these two simple people was lying full length on three narrow planks of wood, staring bleakly up at the wooden ceiling and smoking a cigarette. Jaffe kept looking at his watch. It would be another three hours before Nhan came with some news. He could hear her grandfather moving about in the downstairs room. He hoped the old man wouldn't come up and start talking again. He had had more than enough of him.

Anyway, Jaffe told himself, he was lucky to be here. The house stood alone. The nearest building was fifty yards down the road: a big lacquer factory. He had looked out of the window during the morning while the old man had been talking to him. Very few cars had passed: the majority of them full of tourists going to see over the factory. He thought he would be reasonably safe here so long as he didn't show himself.

He now turned his mind to the problem of getting out of the country. He had already decided reluctantly that he would have to ask Blackie Lee to help him. He wished he knew how far he could trust the fat Chinese. There was a chance once Blackie knew the reason why he was in hiding that he would attempt to blackmail him.

He rolled on his side, grimacing at the hardness of the planks and took from his pocket the tin box containing the diamonds. He opened the box and examined the diamonds, feeling a surge of excitement run through him again at the sight of their brilliance. He counted them. There were fifty large stones and a hundred and twenty smaller ones. There was no doubt they were the highest quality. Carefully he picked one out of the tin and held it up to the light. He had no idea of its value, but it couldn't be less than six hundred dollars. It could be considerably more.

While he lay day-dreaming of how he would spend the money once he had sold the diamonds, Blackie Lee was busy using the telephone. He rang several numbers before he finally tracked down Tung Whu, a newspaper reporter who wrote for the local Chinese newspaper.

Tung Whu didn't sound very pleased to speak to Blackie Lee, but that was of no importance to Blackie. Tung Whu owed him twenty thousand piastres which he had borrowed to meet an urgent gambling debt. He was therefore under an obligation to Blackie who up to now had told Tung Whu there was no hurry for the money.

Over the telephone, Tung Whu said he was very busy. Blackie said a busy man should be a grateful man. It was the man who had no work and no money (stressing the word) that he was sorry for.

There was a pause, then Tung Whu, now that the word 'money' had been mentioned, asked in a much milder tone if there was anything he could do for Blackie.

"Yes," Blackie said. "You can come here and lunch with me. I shall expect you," and he hung up as Tung Whu began to protest.

Thirty minutes later, Yu-lan ushered Tung Whu into Blackie's office.

Tung Whu was an elderly Chinese, wearing a shabby European suit and clutching a worn leather briefcase that contained a battered camera and a number of notebooks.

Blackie bowed to him and shook hands. He waved him to a chair and nodded to Yu-lan who stood waiting at the door.

Tung Whu said he really couldn't stay long. He was extremely busy. Something unexpected had occurred and he had as yet to write his article for tomorrow's edition.

Blackie asked innocently what had happened. Tung Whu said an American had been kidnapped by Viet Minh bandits.

While he was speaking one of the club waiters came in with a tray containing bowls of Chinese soup, shrimps in sweet sour sauce and fried rice.

While the two men ate, Blackie drew all the known facts about the kidnapping from the reporter.

"It is puzzling the American authorities why this man Jaffe should have driven on the Bien Hoa road with his houseboy when he told his friend he was going to the airport with a woman," Tung Whu said as he gobbled up his soup. "It is thought the American was passing the police post when the first grenade was thrown. Both Security Police and the American police think the American might have been killed by the shrapnel from the grenade and the bandits have taken his body and hidden it somewhere. A search is going on for the body."

"So there is no truth that the American went to the airport with a woman?" Blackie asked casually.

Tung Whu nipped a large shrimp between his chopsticks and popped it into his mouth. He shook his head.

"It is thought this was an excuse the American made to persuade his friend to lend him his car. It is puzzling why he wanted the car because his own Dauphine has been found and examined. There is nothing wrong with it but he told his friend the car had broken down. There are a number of puzzling features to the affair."

At this moment the telephone bell rang and when Blackie answered it, a voice asked excitedly if Tung Whu was there.

Blackie handed over the receiver and watched Tung Whu while he listened to the explosive chatter at the other end of the line. Tung Whu said, "I will come at once."

He replaced the receiver and got to his feet.

"There is a new development," he told Blackie. "The house-boy's girl went to Headquarters for questioning. As she was leaving, she was hit by a car and killed."

Blackie's eyes went suddenly dull.

"And the driver of the car?"

"He didn't stop. The police are looking for him now. I must get back to the office."

When he had gone, Blackie lit a cigarette and stared thoughtfully into space. Ile was still sitting motionless when the waiter came in to clear away the remains of the meal and he waved the waiter impatiently away.

A young Vietnamese lolled against a tree, watching the traffic move up the stately avenue that led to the Doc Lap Palace. He wore a black and white striped coat which he had had specially made from a picture he had seen in an American newspaper. It was a bad imitation of a 'Zoot' coat: exaggerated, heavily-padded shoulders, narrow cuffs, and cut so that it reached to his knees. He wore black drain-pipe trousers, a dirty white shirt with a string tie, and on his head, a Mexican hard straw hat.

This youth was known by the name of Yo-Yo. No one had ever heard his real name nor had anyone ever taken the interest to find out what it was. He was called Yo-Yo because a yo-yo was never out of his hands. He was an expert with this wooden toy which he spun endlessly at the end of its string to the fascination of his friends and the children of the neighbourhood.

Yo-Yo was thin, grubby and vicious looking. He earned a few piastres by working for Blackie Lee. When he wasn't working for Blackie Lee, he augmented his precarious income by picking pockets and extorting protection money from some of the
pousse-pousse
boys.

As he spun his yo-yo, his glittering black eyes half closed against the glare of the midday sun, a dirty little urchin ran up to him and breathlessly told him Blackie wanted him.

Yo-Yo looked at the little boy. He reached out with two thin bony fingers and pinched the boy's nose. His dirty finger nails made half crescents in the boy's flesh and made him scream out with pain. As the boy ran away, wailing and holding his nose, Yo-Yo signalled to a
pousse
pousse
and told the boy to take him to the Paradise Club.

There, Blackie told him to go immediately to Nhan Lee Quon's apartment and to wait outside. He was to follow the girl wherever she went, but was to make sure she did not see him. He was given forty piastres. As he handed over the money, Blackie told him he expected a report in the evening.

A little after two o'clock, Nhan left her apartment, unaware that YoYo was behind her. Further up the street she entered a tobacconist shop where she bought a carton of Lucky Strike cigarettes.

Yo-Yo followed her to the bus station where she bought a newspaper and got on the Saigon-Thudaumot bus. He sat at the back of the bus and played with his yo-yo while the peasants sitting around him watched the spinning wooden reel with fascinated eyes.

The bus stopped at the lacquer factory and Nhan got off, brushing past Yo-Yo without noticing him. He followed her and pausing under the shade of a tree, saw her walk briskly down the dusty street and enter a small wooden villa, its walls covered with pink and violet bougainvillea. He watched her rap on the door and enter, closing the door behind her.

He lit a cigarette and squatted down with his back against the tree and began flicking the yo-yo to the length of its string, bringing it back with a little snap of his wrist into the palm of his dirty hand.

Nhan ran up the stairs and threw herself into Jaffe's arms. He kissed her impatiently, then taking the newspaper from under her arm, he went back into his room and going over to the window, scanned the headlines. Finding nothing there, he turned the pages rapidly until he satisfied himself. He tossed the paper away, thinking he shouldn't have expected any news yet. Well, at least, it meant the search for him hadn't begun, and he let himself relax.

He looked over at Nhan who had taken off her conical-shaped hat and was arranging her hair in the mirror on the wall. Her doll-like beauty moved him, and he went over to her, picked her up and sat her on his knees. He felt her flinch and stiffen as he handled her and he looked at her, puzzled.