What had she done to get on the C-130 in the first place?
Didn’t everybody else walk out of Pleiku?
What about the fucking address?
Jack Lovett had offered him a ride into Saigon and the helicopter maintenance instructor had wanted to make one stop, to check the address with a bartender he used to know at the Legion club.
Which was where Jack Lovett found Jessie Victor.
Serving drinks and French fries at the American Legion club on the main road between Tan Son Nhut and Saigon.
Still wearing her tennis visor.
An ao dai and her tennis visor.
“Hey, no sweat, I’m staying,” Jessie had said to Jack Lovett when he told her to sign off her shift and get in the car. “This dude who comes in has a friend at the embassy, he’ll get the word when they pull the plug.”
Jessie had insisted she was staying but Jack Lovett had said a few words to the bartender.
The words Jack Lovett said were Harry goddamn Victor’s daughter.
“You know this plug you were talking about,” Jack Lovett said then to Jessie. “I just pulled it.”
3
“YOU’RE looking for a guy in the woodwork, the Legion club is where you’d look,” Jack Lovett said when he finally got through to Inez in Hong Kong. “Christ almighty. The Legion club. I covered Mimi’s, I don’t know how I missed the Legion club.”
He was calling from the Due.
He had left Jessie for the night at the apartment of a woman he referred to only as “B.J.,” an intelligence analyst at the Defense Attaché Office.
B.J. would put Jessie up until he could get her out.
B.J. would take fine care of Jessie.
B.J. was even that night sounding out the air lift supervisor at Tiger Ops about the possibility of placing Jessie on a flight to Travis as an orphan escort. These orphans all had escorts, sure they did, that was the trick, the trick was to melt out as many nonessentials as possible without calling it an evacuation. They might or might not be orphans, these orphans, but they sure as hell had escorts. The whole goddamn DAO was trying to melt out with the orphans.
Which was what they didn’t know at the Legion club.
Which was where you looked if you were looking for a guy in the woodwork.
“About these flights to Travis,” Inez said.
“Looking, hell, look no further.” Jack Lovett could not seem to get over the obviousness of finding Jessie at the Legion club. “This is it. This is the woodwork. American Legion Post No. 34. Through These Portals Pass America’s Proudest Fighting Men, it says over the door to the can. Through those portals pass every AWOL and contract cowboy in Southeast Asia. Guys who came over with the Air Cav in ’66. Guys who evacuated China in ’49. Dudes. Dudes who think they’ve got a friend at the embassy.”
“That was an orphan flight to Travis that crashed,” Inez said. The connection was going and she had trouble hearing him. “Last week.”
“There are other options,” Jack Lovett said.
“Other options to crashing?”
“Other flights, Inez. Other kinds of flights. She’s fine with B.J., there’s no immediate problem. I’ll check it out. I’ll get her on a good flight.”
Inez said nothing.
“Inez,” Jack Lovett said. “This kid of yours is one of the world’s great survivors. I take her kicking and screaming to B.J.’s, half an hour later they’re splitting a bucket of Kentucky fried and comparing eye makeup. The lights go off, Jessie tells B.J. she knows where they could liberate a Signal Corps generator. ‘Liberate’ is what she says. She got here any earlier, she’d be running the rackets.”
Inez said nothing. The connection was now crossed with another call, and she could hear laughter, and sharp bursts of Cantonese.
“She’s as tough as you are,” Jack Lovett said.
“That never stopped any plane from crashing,” Inez said just before the line went to dial tone.
After Inez hung up she tried to call Harry at the apartment on Central Park West. Harry’s private line rang busy and when she tried one of the other numbers Billy Dillon answered.
“This is pretty funny,” Billy Dillon said when she told him about Jessie. “This is actually funny as hell.”
“What’s actually funny about it?”
“I don’t know, Inez. You don’t find it funny we’re sending bar girls to Saigon, I can’t help you. Hey. Inez. Do us all a favor? Tell Harry yourself?”
Inez had told Harry herself.
“I see,” Harry said. “Yes.”
There had been a silence.
“So,” Inez said. “There it is.”
“Serving drinks. Yes. I’ll get hold of Adlai at school.”
“What’s he doing at school?”
“What do you mean, ‘what’s he doing at school’? You think Adlai should be serving drinks too?”
“I mean I thought he was doing this internship with you. I thought he didn’t have to be back until May.”
“He wanted to organize something,” Harry said. “But that’s not the point.”
“Organize what?”
“Some kind of event.”
“What kind of event?”
Harry had hesitated. “A vigil for the liberation of Saigon,” he said finally.
Inez had said nothing.
“He’s eighteen years old, Inez.” Harry had sounded defensive. “He wanted to make a statement.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Very eloquent. Your silence.”
Inez said nothing.
“Jessie’s tramping around Saigon, you’re off with your war-lover, Adlai tries to make a statement and you’ve got nothing to say.”
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.”
“Fine then,” Harry said. “Pretend what you want.”
All that night Inez lay awake in the apartment that belonged to somebody in Vientiane and listened to the short-wave radio that Jack Lovett had left there. On the short-wave radio she could get Saigon and Bangkok. Jack Lovett had told her what to listen for. Jack Lovett had also told her that it was too soon to hear what he had told her to listen for but she listened anyway, whenever she could not sleep or wanted to hear a human voice.
“Mother wants you to call home,” the American Service Radio announcer in Saigon would say when it was time for the final phase of the evacuation, and then a certain record would be played.
The record to be played was Bing Crosby singing “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas.”
“I could do better than that,” Inez had said when Jack Lovett told her what to listen for. “I mean in the middle of April. Out of the blue in the middle of April. I could do considerably better than ‘Mother wants you to call home’ and ‘I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas.’ ”
“What’s your point,” Jack Lovett said.
“It’s not just the best secret signal I ever heard about.”
“It’s not going to be just the best evacuation you ever heard about either,” Jack Lovett had said. “You want to get down to fine strokes.”