The Tears of Autumn (19 page)

Wolkowicz tapped on the desk with the edge of Christopher’s passport. “You’d better hear me,” he said. “These guys can take two or three years just deciding if there’s a case against you. You’ll be eating rice and spoiled fish three times a day, and having a little chat with the
juge d’instruction
whenever he bothers to remember you’re in jail. Believe me, it can go on for a long time.”

“What do you want?”

“The story,” Wolkowicz said. “What in hell was that all about? Your car blown up and five innocent bystanders killed, Luong dead in an alley, shots fired at you in the middle of a crowd. What do you think you’re doing, for Christ’s sake?”

Christopher looked around at the metal furniture, the chirping fluorescent lights, the air conditioner on the window-sill. “There seems to be a lot of American equipment in this room,” he said.

“We’re not going to talk here. I just want to know if you’re going to bullshit me again if I take you out of here.”

Christopher made a gesture. Wolkowicz pressed a button on the telephone. When the major returned, Wolkowicz walked with him back into the corridor. Christopher watched them through the half-open door, talking quietly and nodding.

The major came into the office. “There’s one more formality,” he said, gesturing for Christopher to follow him.

Christopher went with him down the hall and into another room. Honey, wearing her silk
ao dai,
sat on a scarred bench in the empty office. Her joints were locked in fright—fists clenched, neck rigid.

“Is this the American?” the major asked in Vietnamese. Honey nodded stiffly.

“Look at him,” the major said.

Honey turned her head, a quick movement like that of a child forced to look at a corpse, and nodded again.

In the corridor, the major tapped Christopher’s sleeve. “I believe you knew Vuong Van Luong,” he said. “I believe you know he’s dead.”

“Yes.”

“The girl saw you searching the body. You woke her when you came into the room—she believes you killed this Luong.”

“She’s not a very intelligent girl, major.”

“No. But she has the power of speech, Mr. Christopher. We have her statement, and we’ll keep her with us for the time being.”

“I understand,” Christopher said.

“I hope you do, Mr. Christopher. It can be very inconvenient for you if the police decide to take an interest in you. One violent death, and you can maintain that you’re a victim of circumstances. But there have been six in less than twenty-four hours. Even in Saigon, that’s too many.”

The major was carrying a dossier. He held it up so that Christopher could see his name written on its cover. “You’ve formed a great many friendships here,” he said. “Your passport will be returned to you at midnight today at the airport. You are already booked on the UTA flight to Paris. Don’t miss the plane, Mr. Christopher.”

The Continental Hotel was only a short distance from the police station in Tu Do Street. Wolkowicz sent his Marine driver to fetch Christopher’s suitcase from his room and pay the bill. They waited in the car, the windows rolled up, until the driver returned.

At Wolkowicz’s villa, Christopher threw away his bloodstained shirt and washed his face. The police doctor had painted the small cuts on his arms and chest and told him that his right eardrum had been ruptured by the explosion. He ripped the adhesive bandage from his cheek and looked at the cut on his face. His head ached. He took four of Wolkowicz’s aspirin.

The villa was icy; Wolkowicz kept the air conditioning turned up so that his snake would sleep. In the living room, Wolkowicz gave Christopher a glass of bourbon and motioned him into a chair.

“Okay,” he said. “It’s gut-spilling time.”

Christopher told him where he had been. He described the visit to Jean-Baptiste Ho’s church, and his meeting with the Truong toe. He did not tell Wolkowicz what had been said, except to describe the movement of opium into Ho’s church.

“Describe this guy who tried to shoot you,” Wolkowicz said.

“He’s been taught either by us or by someone who learned how to shoot a pistol from us,” Christopher said. “When I turned around, he was in a crouch, bringing the pistol up, wrist and elbow locked, both eyes open, not using the sights. He fired two shots at a time in the prescribed manner. He’s trained.”

“Not very well trained,” Wolkowicz said. “How many times did he miss you?”

“Four rounds that I know of, but I jumped off to the side. He didn’t expect that. He didn’t shift his feet, just swung his arm, so he lost his stance. And then, I was in a crowd and it was dark.”

Christopher described his flight through the apothecary shop. “The kid in the street must have thought I was a burglar when I came out of that crack in the wall” he said. “I hit him to make him let go of my arm.”

“I know these things mean something to you,” Wolkowicz said. “I was bullshitting you about your killing him—all he’s got is some busted teeth and maybe a slipped disc or two in his neck.”

“I know. I saw him get up.”

“And then the car blew up while you were still half a block away from it,” Wolkowicz said. “I don’t understand that.”

“They wired the door on the driver’s side. A Chinese kid ran ahead and yanked it open—he wanted to do me some damage. The priest saw me check under the hood when I was out there last night. You have to open the door to open the hood.”

“The cops think there must have been a kilo of
plastique
in the car. I guess you’re immortal, just like Patchen’s always said.”

“I was surprised that they were so public about it—why not wait until I was asleep in the hotel?”

“Maybe they thought you’d done enough talking. What did you say to them, anyway?”

Christopher’s hearing continued to clear; when Wolkowicz shook his glass, he heard the ice cubes rattle.

“They’re doing something with heroin,” Christopher said. “Jean-Baptiste Ho is an addict, but for some reason his church is the depot. That country is VC-controlled. They bring in the raw opium from Laos, Cambodia—wherever it’s grown. Luong told me there’s a tunnel complex under the village. They keep it there. It’s crazy, but that’s the way they’re doing it. They store it under the church.”

“Did you confirm any of this?”

“The tunnels, yes. I saw the priest’s woman disappear through the floor.”

“Opium isn’t heroin.”

“Tom Webster thinks they’re trying to buy the technology in Marseilles. Have you seen that traffic?”

“Yeah, I read the cables—two million bucks through Lebanon. But why take all the risk?”

“They figure they’re going to have a big market in-country pretty soon,” Christopher said. “The Yanks are coming.”

“That’s speculation—garbage,” Wolkowicz said.

Christopher shrugged. “Okay, Barney.”

“What’s their objective? They’ve got enough money not to have to take chances like that.”

“What chances? Jean-Baptiste is a member of the family— he’s not going to talk,” Christopher said. “If the police or the ARVN come smelling around, they’ll see them coming ten miles away. They can blow those tunnels in thirty seconds.”

“Thanks to you, they’re probably moving the stuff out right now.”

“Maybe. It doesn’t matter. They’ll do it some way—they’re not in it to make a profit,” Christopher said. “They want to send a few thousand junkies back to the States when all this is over. That’s the purpose.”

Wolkowicz tossed melting ice from his glass into his mouth and chewed it. “Why?” he asked.

“They think we killed Diem and Nhu,” Christopher said. “They think we ought to pay for that.”

Wolkowicz walked across the room and came back with a handful of ice cubes and a bottle of bourbon. He dropped ice into the glasses and filled them with whiskey. Handing Christopher one of the dark-brown drinks, Wolkowicz beckoned him to follow and walked out of the house. The garden was surfaced with gravel, so that Wolkowicz could hear footsteps approaching in the night. In the center of the garden was its only ornament, a bed of flowers surrounding an aviary. Wolkowicz paused by the cage and made kissing noises at the sleeping birds.

“You ought to come out in the daylight and have a look,” he said. “Some of these birds are really pretty—they don’t sing worth a shit, though.”

Christopher sipped bourbon; his hands were steadier than they had been in the first hour or two after the explosion.

“Now that we’re in the open air, how about coming clean?” Wolkowicz said.

“You’re the only man I know who goes outside to get away from his own bugs,” Christopher said.

“I think you told the Truong toe and the priest more than you’ve told me,” Wolkowicz said. “I thought maybe you’d feel easier in your mind if we could talk in the open.”

“I don’t care where we talk. Even next to the birdcage. I’ve told you everything I can.”

“Okay, it’s your ass. But I know you’re on to something besides a heroin racket—just remember that. I
know.
I’m going to be on you like a sheet of flypaper, Christopher.”

“I’ll be glad of your company, after tonight.”

Wolkowicz took Christopher’s arm and walked him over the crunching gravel to the back of the garden. “I’m going to tell you something I’m sure you know, Christopher,” he said. “I don’t like you and I never liked your operations. That’s basic.

However, you’ve been around for a long time and I feel I’ve got an obligation to you—do you understand?”

“Perfectly, Barney. Spit it out.”

“I’ve heard some things about you behind Mother’s back. There’s a certain guy in the White House you had some problems with—you follow me?”

Christopher nodded in the dark. Wolkowicz rattled the ice cubes in his glass after each sentence.

“Well, this guy sent me a letter. A Green Beret captain carried it out to me from Washington. In the letter he says you’re around the bend with a crazy idea about something that could have dangerous consequences to national security. What he was asking was this: if you showed up out here, would I get in your way.”

“And have you been getting in my way, Barney?”

“No. Who the fuck is he to tell me what to do in a letter delivered outside channels? However, remember the Green Beret.”

“What about him?”

“Well, they’re gung-ho sons of bitches. And they’re amateurs. They’re setting up all kinds of networks around here. You said the guy who shot at you looked like he’d had training. What kind of a handgun did he use—did you notice?”

Christopher thought for a moment. “It was a .22 automatic with a long barrel and a silencer—a Colt Woodsman or maybe the Hi-Standard that looks almost the same. The rounds didn’t ricochet, they gouged big hunks out of the concrete like heavier ammunition when they hit, so I could have been wrong.”

“Mercury in the bullets,” Wolkowicz said. “Didn’t you think it was funny the Truong toe would try to shoot you and blow you up, all on the same night?”

“I thought it was thorough of him.”

Wolkowicz rattled his ice. “It’s not a pretty thought,” he said. “But I think you ought to consider the possibility that you’ve got people coming at you from two directions.”

“You’re telling me that Americans are trying to do me in?”

“If they are, maybe it’s a case of too much zeal. Soldiers have a way of giving a hundred and ten percent—look at Diem and Nhu. The lieutenant who shot them thought he was a hero. Nothing was supposed to happen to them, the way I understood it.”

“The way you understood it, Barney?”

“That’s what the traffic said—stand back and watch. We had a guy carrying messages between the ambassador and one of the generals in the plot, but that was all. There was no mention of bloodshed. I guess they couldn’t face it in Washington. I could have told the dumb bastards what would happen.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“You know why. I wasn’t allowed to do anything, why should I say anything? The amateurs were running the show.”

“I see,” Christopher said.

“What happened to you tonight was more amateur stuff— shooting in a crowded street, chasing you through houses full of witnesses. I’ll do what I can to shut these guys off—not that I think they’re going to admit anything. That captain is just a kid. Whosis in Washington probably told him just what he told me —get in Christopher’s way. The kid misunderstood—but that’s not going to be much help to you if you end up like Luong, with pudding for brains.”

“That was no amateur bomb.”

“No,” Wolkowicz said. “I’d say that part of it was real life.”

Christopher put his hand in his pocket and touched the sharp edge of the photograph the Truong toe had given him. Molly’s face, as perfect as Cathy’s had once been, moved over the screen of his memory. He knew they would kill her if they thought he needed the lesson.

“What are you going to do?” Wolkowicz said. “The cops want you out of the country in twenty-four hours.”

Christopher looked at the green dial of his watch. “It’s two in the morning now,” he said. “I’ll make the deadline.”

In the darkness, Wolkowicz was chewing ice. “We’ll miss you, baby,” he said,

4

Luong lay in his coffin with a bunch of bananas on his chest to confuse the appetite of the Celestial Dog, devourer of the entrails of the dead. A ring of candles burned around the edge of the coffin, and an oil lamp smoked beneath it. A child of ten, Luong’s eldest son, stood at his father’s feet, welcoming mourners. He wore a straw headpiece and a robe of white gauze, covered with patches to show his wretchedness. Christopher bowed to the corpse and gave the child an envelope filled with piasters, two bottles of Veuve Cliquot, and a satin banderole on which was written a compliment to the dead man.

“I was your father’s friend,” Christopher said.

“Tho spoke about you,” the boy said. “I remember your visit.”

In death, Luong had been given another name, Tho, and no member of his family would call him by his own name again. Probably they had never done so when he was alive. A Vietnamese’s name is used only by officials and foreigners; those who know him call him by nicknames or a number that fixes his position in the family, so as not to provoke evil spirits.

Luong’s son placed Christopher’s gifts with the others on a low table beside the altar at the end of the coffin. No attempt had been made to conceal the bullet wound in Luong’s forehead; his relatives had put rice in his mouth, and a white grain of it was visible between his lips. In his best clothes, Luong looked not much older than his son. Luong had been dead for a full day, and the weeping had ceased; his wife, wearing patched gauze like her children, sat in a group of women with a white veil covering her face.