Willy glanced at Guy, who simply shrugged and looked off in another direction. Drat the man, he was leaving it up to her. “Mr. Ainh,” she said, “about this little tour of the lacquer factory-”
“It will be quite fascinating! But they do not take dollars, so if you wish to exchange for dong, I can-”
“I’m afraid I don’t feel up to it,” she said flatly.
Ainh blinked in surprise. “You are ill?”
“Yes, I…” She suddenly noticed that Guy was shaking his head. “Uh, no, I’m not. I mean-”
“What she means,” said Guy, “is that I offered to show her around. You know-” he winked at Ainh “-a little personal tour.”
“P-personal?” Flushing, Ainh glanced at Willy. “But what about my tour? It is all arranged! The car, the sight-seeing, a special lunch-”
“I tell you what, pal,” said Guy, bending toward him conspiratorially. “Why don’t you take the tour?”
“I have been on the tour,” Ainh said glumly.
“Ah, but that was work, right? This time, why don’t you take the day off, both you and the driver. Go see the sights of Saigon. And enjoy Ms. Maitland’s lunch. After all, it’s been paid for.”
Ainh suddenly looked interested. “A free lunch?”
“And a beer.” Guy slipped a few dollars into the man’s breast pocket and patted the flap. “On me.” He took Willy’s arm and directed her across the lobby.
“But, Miss Maitland!” Ainh called out bleakly.
“Boy, what a blast you two guys’re gonna have!” Guy sounded almost envious. “Air-conditioned car. Free lunch. No schedule to tie you down.”
Ainh followed them outside, into a wall of morning heat so thick, it made Willy draw a breath of surprise. “Miss Maitland!” he said in desperation. “This is not the way it is supposed to be done!”
Guy turned and gave the man a solemn pat on the shoulder. “That, Mr. Ainh, is the whole idea.”
They left the poor man standing alone on the steps, staring after them.
“What do you think he’ll do?” whispered Willy.
“I think,” said Guy, moving her along the crowded sidewalk, “he’s going to enjoy a free lunch.”
She glanced back and saw that Mr. Ainh had, indeed, disappeared into the hotel. She also noticed they were being followed. A street urchin, no more than twelve years old, caught up and danced around on the hot pavement.
“Lien-xo?” he chirped, dark eyes shining in a dirty face. They tried to ignore him, but the boy skipped along beside them, chattering all the way. His shirt hung in tatters; his feet were stained an apparently permanent brown. He pointed at Guy. “Lien-xo?”
“No, not Russian,” said Guy. “Americanski.”
The boy grinned. “Americanski? Yes?” He stuck out a smudgy hand and whooped. “Hello, Daddy!”
Resigned, Guy shook the boy’s hand. “Yeah, it’s nice to meet you too.”
“Daddy rich?”
“Sorry. Daddy poor.”
The boy laughed, obviously thinking that a grand joke. As Guy and Willy continued down the street, the boy hopped along at their side, shooing all the other urchins who had joined the procession. It was a tattered little parade marching through a sea of confusion. Bicycles whisked by, a multitude of wheels. And on the sidewalks, merchants squatted beside their meager collections of wares.
The boy tugged on Guy’s arm. “Hey, Daddy. You got cigarette?”
“No,” said Guy.
“Come on, Daddy. I do you favor, keep the beggars away.”
“Oh, all right.” Guy fished a pack of Marlboro cigarettes from his shirt pocket and handed the boy a cigarette.
“Guy, how could you?” Willy protested. “He’s just a kid!”
“Oh, he’s not going to smoke it,” said Guy. “He’ll trade it for something else. Like food. See?” He nodded at the boy, who was busy wrapping his treasure in a grimy piece of cloth. “That’s why I always pack a few cartons when I come. They’re handy when you need a favor.” He turned and frowned up at one of the street signs. “Which, come to think of it, we do.” He beckoned to the boy. “Hey, kid, what’s your name?”
The boy shrugged.
“They must call you something.”
“Other Americanski, he say I look like Oliver.”
Guy laughed. “Probably meant Oliver Twist. Okay, Oliver. I got a deal for you. You do us a favor.”
“Sure thing, Daddy.”
“I’m looking for a street called Rue des Voiles. That’s the old name, and it’s not on the map. You know where it is?”
“Rue des Voiles? Rue des Voiles…” The boy scrunched up his face. “I think that one they call Binh Tan now. Why you want to go there? No stores, nothing to see.”
Guy took out a thousand-dong note. “Just get us there.”
The boy snapped up the money. “Okay, Daddy. You wait. Promise, you wait!” The boy trotted off down the street. At the corner, he glanced back and yelled again for good measure, “You wait!”
A minute later, he reappeared, trailed by a pair of bicycle-driven cyclos. “I find you the best. Very fast,” said Oliver.
Guy and Willy stared in dismay at the two drivers. One smiled back toothlessly; the other was wheezing like a freight train.
Guy shook his head. “Where on earth did he dig up these fossils?” he muttered.
Oliver pointed proudly to the two old men and grinned. “My uncles!”
A VOICE BEHIND THE DOOR said, “Go away.”
“Mr. Gerard?” Guy called. There was no answer, but the man was surely lurking near the door; Willy could almost feel him crouched silently on the other side. Guy reached for the knocker fashioned after some grotesque face-either a horned lion or a goat with teeth-that hung on the door like a brass wart. He banged it a few times. “Mr. Gerard!”
Still no answer.
“It’s important! We have to talk to you!”
“I said, go away!”
Willy muttered, “Do you suppose it’s just possible he doesn’t want to talk to us?”
“Oh, he’ll talk to us.” Guy banged on the door again. “The name’s Guy Barnard!” he yelled. “I’m a friend of Toby Wolff.”
The latch slid open. One pale eye peeped out through a crack in the door. The eye flicked back and forth, squinting first at Guy, then at Willy. The voice attached to the eye hissed, “Toby Wolff is an idiot.”
“Toby Wolff is also calling in his chips.”
The eye blinked. The door opened a fraction of an inch wider, the slit revealing a bald, crablike little man. “Well?” he snapped. “Are you just going to stand there?”
Inside, the house was dark as a cave, all the curtains drawn tightly over the windows. Guy and Willy followed the crustacean of a Frenchman down a narrow hallway. In the shadows, Gerard’s outline was barely visible, but Willy could hear him just ahead of her, scuttling across the wood floor.
They emerged into what appeared to be a large sitting room. Slivers of light shimmered through worn curtains. In the suffocating darkness hulked vaguely discernible furniture.
“Sit, sit,” ordered Gerard. Guy and Willy moved toward a couch, but Gerard snapped, “Not there! Can’t you see that’s a genuine Queen Anne?” He pointed at a pair of massive rosewood chairs. “Sit there.” He settled into a brocade armchair by the window. With his arms crossed and his knobby knees jutting out at them, he looked like a disagreeable pile of bones. “So what does Toby want from me now?” he demanded.
“He said you could pass us some information.”
Gerard snorted. “I am not in the business.”
“You used to be.”
“No longer. The stakes are too high.”
Willy glanced thoughtfully around the room, noting in the shadows the soft gleam of ivory, the luster of fine old china. She suddenly realized they were surrounded by a treasure trove of antiques. Even the house was an antique, one of Saigon’s lovely old French colonials, laced with climbing vines. By law it belonged to the state. She wondered what the Frenchman had done to keep such a home.