Up Country (14 page)

She said, “Ten dollar—Okay?”

“Uhh . . .”

She smiled and nodded encouragingly. “Yes?”

Give this hotel another star.

Moral considerations aside, the words “sexual entrapment” popped into my head. That’s just what I needed—Colonel Mang coming through the door taking a video of me getting a blow job in the massage room of the Rex Hotel.

I sat up and found myself face-to-face with my new friend. I said, “Sorry, no can do.”

She made a big pout with her lips. “Yes, yes.”

“No, no. Gotta go.” I slid off the table and slipped into my shower clogs.

Miss Massage sat on the table and kept looking at me, pouting.

I took my robe from the hook and said, “Great massage. Give you big tip. Biet?”

She was still pouting.

I put on my robe, left the massage room, and went to the reception desk where I signed a hotel chit for the ten-dollar massage, then added another ten for a tip. The reception lady smiled at me and inquired, “You feel good now?”

“Very good.” I would have felt even better if I’d gotten the CID to pay for a blow job.

Anyway, that little Southeast Asian interlude over, I went back to the locker room, got dressed, and left the health club, realizing that Colonel Mang wasn’t part of that deal. I recalled that M never instructed James Bond to steer clear of sexual entrapments. The Americans, on the other hand, especially the FBI, were very puritanical about sex on the job. Maybe I should look into a foreign intelligence service for my next career. I mean, I was having so much fun already.

I went to my room, got a cold Coke, and collapsed into an armchair. As I sipped my Coke with my eyes closed, an image of Cynthia materialized. She seemed to be staring at me as if I’d done something wrong. I am basically monogamous, but there are times that try men’s souls.

So, I sat there, deciding what I should wear to my seven o’clock rendezvous on the rooftop restaurant.

Then I noticed something. At the head of the bed near the pillow was the snow globe.

I
took the elevator up to the rooftop restaurant and exited into a large enclosed area that held a bar and cocktail lounge. Mr. Conway hadn’t been specific about where to meet my contact—the more unplanned it is, the more unplanned it will look. Right. But this was a big place, and through a glass wall, I could see a wide expanse of tables out on the roof itself.

I gave the bar and cocktail lounge a once-over, then went out to the roof, and a maître d’ asked me in English if I was alone. I said I was, and he showed me to a small table. Service people all over the world address me in English before I even open my mouth. Maybe it’s how I dress. Tonight I wore a blue blazer, a yellow golf shirt, khakis, and docksiders with no socks.

I looked around at the rooftop garden. There were enough potted plants to simulate a jungle, and I wondered how anyone was going to find me. The roof was paved in marble tiles, surrounded on three sides by a wrought iron railing, and the fourth side by the rooftop structure I’d just come out of. About half the tables were full, from what I could see, and the crowd looked divided about evenly between East and West. The men were dressed well, though no one wore a tie, and the ladies looked a bit overdressed in light evening gowns, mostly floor length. I hadn’t seen much leg since I’d arrived, unless you count Miss Massage. There was, however, one middle-aged American couple in shorts, T-shirts, and running shoes. The State Department should issue a dress code.

There were hurricane lamps on each table with lit candles, and colored paper lanterns were strung around the garden.

Toward the far end of the rooftop was a huge metal sculpture of a king’s crown with the word
Rex
in lights. Not a very socialist symbol. On either side of the crown stood a big sculpture of an elephant rearing up on its hind legs, and beneath the crown, a four-piece combo was starting to set up.

A waiter came by with a menu, but I told him I just wanted a beer. I inquired, “Do you have 333?”

“Yes, sir.” And off he went.

I was glad they were still making Triple Three in the Socialist Republic—in Vietnamese, it’s Ba Ba Ba, and it’s a good luck number, like 777 in the West. I needed a little good luck.

The beer came in the bottle that I remembered, and I poured it into a glass, which I’d never done before. I noticed for the first time that the beer had a yellowish cast to it. Maybe that’s why some of the guys used to call it Tiger Piss. I sipped it, but I couldn’t recall the taste.

I looked out into the city. The sun was setting in the southwest and a nice breeze had come up. The lights of Saigon were coming on, and I saw that they stretched nearly to the horizon. Beyond the lights had been the war, sometimes close to Saigon, other times not so close, but always there.

The four-piece band started playing, and I could hear the mellow notes of “Stardust.” There was a small dance floor near the band, and a few couples got up and tried to dance to this somnolent tune.

I don’t know what I expected to find here, and I guess I was prepared for anything, but maybe I wasn’t prepared for “Stardust” on the rooftop garden of the Rex Hotel. I tried to imagine the American generals and colonels and staff sitting here each night, and I wondered if they looked out to the horizon as they were dining. From this height, no matter how far off the war was, at night you could see the artillery and rockets in the distance, and maybe you could even see the tracer rounds and illumination flares. Certainly you could hear the thousand-pound bombs, unless the band was playing too loudly, and you surely couldn’t miss the napalm strikes whose incandescent fire lit up the universe.

I sipped my beer, felt the breeze against my face, listened to the band, which had segued into “Moonlight Serenade,” and I suddenly felt very out of place, like I shouldn’t be here, like this was somehow disrespectful toward the men who had died out there in the black night. What was worse
was that no one on this roof knew what I was feeling, and I wished Conway, or even Karl, was with me right then. I looked around to see if I was alone, then I spotted a guy my age with a woman, and I could tell by how they were talking and by how he looked that he had been here before.

I was halfway into my second beer, and the band was halfway into “Old Cape Cod”—how did they know these songs?—and it was twenty past the appointed hour, and still no contact. I fantasized about a waiter giving me a fax message saying, “The murderer has confessed—Tickets to Honolulu at the front desk.” But what about my passport?

While I was lost in my reverie, a young Caucasian woman had approached my table. She was dressed in a beige silk blouse, dark skirt, and sandals, and she was carrying an attaché case, but no handbag. She seemed to be looking for someone, then came over to my table and asked me, “Are you Mr. Ellis?”

“No.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I was supposed to meet a Mr. Earl E. Ellis here.”

“You’re welcome to join me until he arrives.”

“Well . . . if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.” I stood and pulled a chair out for her. She sat.

She was about thirty, give or take a few years, with brown hair, which she wore long and straight, parted in the middle, like the Viet women. Her eyes, too, were brown and very big, and her face was lightly tanned, as you’d expect in this climate. She wore no jewelry, just a sensible plain watch, and almost no makeup, except a light pink lipstick, and no nail polish. Despite the Vietnamese hairstyle, she gave the impression of a business lady who you’d see in Washington, a lawyer or maybe a banker or stockbroker. The attaché case reinforced the image. And did I mention that she was well built and pretty? Irrelevant, of course, but hard not to notice.

She placed her attaché case on the empty chair, then reached her hand across the table and said, “Hi, I’m Susan Weber.”

I took her hand, and thinking this was a James Bondian moment, I looked her in the eye and said, “Brenner. Paul Brenner.” I thought I heard the band playing “Goldfinger.”

“Thank you for letting me intrude. Are you waiting for someone?”

“I was. But let me buy you a drink while we both wait for our parties.”

“Well . . . all right. I’ll have a gin and tonic.”

I signaled a waiter and ordered a gin and tonic and another beer.

Ms. Weber said something to the waiter in Vietnamese, and he smiled, bowed, and moved off.

I inquired, “You speak Vietnamese?”

“A little.” She smiled. “How about you?”

“A little. Things like, ‘Show me your ID card’ and ‘Put your hands up.’ ”

She smiled again, but didn’t reply.

The drinks came, and she said, “I think they use real quinine. Something to do with malaria. I hate the malaria pills. They give me . . . well, the runs. I don’t take them.”

“You live here?”

“Yes. Almost three years now. I work for an American investment company. Are you here on business?”

“Tourism.”

“Just arrived?”

“Last night. I’m staying here.”

She raised her glass and said, “Welcome to Saigon, Mr. . . . ?”

“Brenner.” We touched glasses.

Her accent, I noticed, had a touch of New England in it, and I asked her, “Where are you from?”

“I was born in Lenox—western Massachusetts.”

“I know where it is.” Lenox was one of those picture-perfect postcard towns in the Berkshire hills. I said, “I drove through Lenox once. Lots of big mansions.”

She didn’t respond to that, but said, “Summer home of the Boston Symphony—Tanglewood. Did you ever go to Tanglewood?”

“I usually summer in Monte Carlo.”

She looked at me to see if I was jerking her around, couldn’t seem to decide, then asked me, “How about you? I think I hear a little Boston.”

“Very good. I thought I’d lost that.”

“You never do. So, we’re both Bay Staters. Small world and all that.” She looked around. “It’s nice up here, except in the summer when it’s too hot. Do you like the hotel?”

“So far. Got a great massage this afternoon.”

She caught this right away, smiled, and replied, “Did you now? And what kind of massage?”

“Shiatsu.”

She informed me, “I love a good massage, but the girls only make about
a dollar from the hotel—they make more by offering extras, which is why they don’t like to massage women.”

“You could tip.”

“I do. A dollar. They like men.”

“Well, FYI, I just got the massage. But this is a loose place.”

“You need to be careful.”

“I’m doing better than that. I’m being good.”

“That’s very commendable. How did we get on this topic?”

“I think it was me.”

She smiled, then said, “About the hotel—it was once owned by a wealthy Vietnamese couple who bought it from a French company. During the American involvement here, it housed mostly American military.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Yes. Then when the Communists came to power in 1975, it was taken over by the government. It remained a hotel, but it housed mostly North Vietnamese party officials, Russians, and Communists from other countries.”

“Nothing but the best for the winners.”

“Well, I understand it became a pigsty. But sometime in the mid-1980s, the government sold an interest in it to an international company, who managed to get rid of the Communist guests. It was completely renovated and became an international hotel. I always book this place for American and European businesspeople.” She looked at me. “I’m glad you like it.”

We made eye contact, and I nodded.

She looked at her watch. “I can’t imagine where this Mr. Ellis is.”

“Try the massage room.”

She laughed.

I said, “Have another drink.”

“Well . . . why not?” She said something to a passing waiter, then reached into her attaché case and took out a pack of Marlboros. She offered the pack to me.

I said, “No, thanks. But you go ahead.”

She lit her cigarette and while lighting it, she said softly, “I have something for you.” She exhaled a stream of smoke.

I didn’t reply. I hadn’t expected a woman, but I realized it was less conspicuous.

She said, “I received a fax from your firm. I marked what you need in a newspaper, which is in my attaché case. The crossword puzzle. They said you’d understand.”

“Offer the newspaper to me when you leave.”

She nodded, then said, “I faxed your firm last night that you’d checked in here. I told them your flight was delayed because of weather, but that you’d checked in an hour and a half after you’d landed.” She asked me, “Was there a problem at the airport?”

“They misplaced my luggage.”

“Really? There are not many flights arriving, and there’s only one baggage carousel. How could they misplace your luggage?”

“I have no idea.”

Her gin and tonic came along with another beer. The band was playing “Stella by Starlight.” There seemed to be a sky theme in these selections.

I asked Ms. Weber, “Do you really work for an American company?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Have you ever done anything like this before?”

“I don’t know—what am I doing?”

Clever reply, but I needed an answer, so I asked her again.

She replied, “No. I was just asked to do this favor. First time.”

“Who asked you?”

“A man I know here. An American.”

“What does this man do for a living?”

“He works for Bank of America.”

“How well do you know him?”

“Well enough. He’s my boyfriend of the moment. About six months. Why are you asking these questions?”

“I’d like to be sure you’re not on the watch list of the local KGB.”

She nodded, then said, “Everyone here is under surveillance by the Security Police. Especially Americans. But the Viets are not very efficient about it.”

I didn’t reply.

She added, “Three fourths of the Vietnamese police force are in plainclothes. These guys at the next table could all be police, but unless I light a joint and blow smoke in their faces, they’re more interested in their beers than in me. It’s all very random. I get stopped and fined two dollars about once a month for some stupid traffic violation.”

I didn’t reply.

She continued, “It’s all about money. This city is full of high-priced imported consumer goods, and the average Nguyen makes about three hundred a year, but he wants everything he sees, so if he’s a civilian, he works close to Western tourists for the tips, his kid brother begs in the streets, his sister turns tricks, and his brother, who’s a cop, extorts money from the tourists and the expats.”

“I think I’ve met them all.”

She smiled and informed me, “It’s a corrupt country, but the bribes are pretty reasonable, the people are basically nice, street crime is rare, and the electricity works in Saigon, even if the plumbing is a little unreliable. I wouldn’t worry too much about police state efficiency here. It’s the inefficiency, the government paranoia, and xenophobia concerning Westerners, trying to convince them you’re just here to make a buck, or take pictures of pagodas, or have cheap sex, and that you’re not here to overthrow the government. I’m no hero, Mr. Brenner, and not a patriot, so if I thought there was any danger to me in doing this little favor, I’d say no.”