“Who else has been killed?” Guy asked.
“A Saigon policeman,” said the minister. “Murdered last night on routine surveillance duty.”
“I don’t see the connection.”
“Also last night, another man dead. Again, the throat cut.”
“You can’t blame us for every murder in Saigon!” said Willy. “We don’t even know those other victims-”
“But yesterday you paid one of them a visit. Or have you forgotten?”
Guy stared across the table. “Gerard.”
In the darkness outside, the cicadas’ shrill music rose to a scream. Then, in an instant, the night fell absolutely silent.
Minister Tranh gazed ahead at the far wall, as though divining some message from the mildewed wallpaper. “Are you familiar with the Vietnamese calendar, Miss Maitland?” he asked quietly.
“Your calendar?” She frowned, puzzled by the new twist of conversation. “It-it’s the same as the Chinese, isn’t it?”
“Last year was the year of the dragon. A lucky year, or so they say. A fine year for babies and marriages. But this year…” He shook his head.
“The snake,” said Guy.
Minister Tranh nodded. “The snake. A dangerous symbol. An omen of disaster. Famine and death. A year of misfortune…” He sighed and his head drooped, as though his fragile neck was suddenly too weak to support it. For a long time he sat in silence, his white hair fluttering in the fan’s breath. Then, slowly, he raised his head. “Go home, Miss Maitland,” he said. “This is not a year for you, a place for you. Go home.”
Willy thought about how easy it would be to climb onto that plane to Bangkok, thought longingly of the simple luxuries that were only a flight away. Perfumed soap and clean water and soft pillows. But then another image blotted out everything else: Sam Lassiter’s face, tired and haunted, against the sky of sunset. And his Vietnamese woman, pleading for his life. All these years Sam Lassiter had lived safe and hidden in a peaceful river town. Now he was dead. Like Valdez. Like Gerard.
It was true, she thought. Wherever she walked, she left a trail of blood. And she didn’t even know why.
“I can’t go home,” she said.
The minister raised an eyebrow. “Cannot? Or will not?”
“They tried to kill me in Bangkok.”
“You’re no safer here. Miss Maitland, we have no wish to forcibly deport you. But you must understand that you put us in a difficult position. You are a guest in our country. We Vietnamese honor our guests. It is a custom we hold sacred. If you, a guest, were to be found murdered, it would seem…” He paused and added with a quietly whimsical lilt, “Inhospitable.”
“My visa’s still good. I want to stay. I have to stay. I was planning to go on to Hanoi.”
“We cannot guarantee your safety.”
“I don’t expect you to.” She added wearily, “No one can guarantee my safety. Anywhere.”
The minister looked at Guy, saw his troubled look. “Mr. Barnard? Surely you will convince her?”
“But she’s right,” said Guy.
Willy looked up and saw in Guy’s eyes the worry, the uncertainty. It frightened her to realize that even he didn’t have the answers.
“If I thought she’d be safer at home, I’d put her on that plane myself,” he said. “But I don’t think she will be safe. Not until she knows what she’s running from.”
“Surely she has friends to turn to.”
“But you yourself said it, Minister Tranh. She can’t tell her friends from her enemies. It’s a dangerous state to be in.”
The minister looked at Willy. “What is it you seek in the North?”
“It’s where my father’s plane went down,” she said. “He could still be alive, in some village. Maybe he’s lost his memory or he’s afraid to come out of the jungle or-”
“Or he is dead.”
She swallowed. “Then that’s where I’ll find his body. In the North.”
Minister Tranh shook his head. “The jungles are full of skeletons. Americans. Vietnamese. You forget, we have our MIAs too, Miss Maitland. Our widows, our orphans. Among all those bones, to find the remains of one particular man…” He let out a heavy breath.
“But I have to try. I have to go to Hanoi.”
Minister Tranh gazed at her, his eyes glowing with a strange black fire. She stared straight back at him. Slowly, a benign smile formed on his lips and she knew that she had won.
“Does nothing frighten you, Miss Maitland?” he asked.
“Many things frighten me.”
“And well they should.” He was still smiling, but his eyes were unfathomable. “I only hope you have the good sense to be frightened now.”
LONG AFTER THE TWO Americans had left, Minister Tranh and Mr. Ainh sat smoking cigarettes and listening to the screech of the cicadas in the night.
“You will inform our people in Hanoi,” said the minister.
“But wouldn’t it be easier to cancel her visa?” said Ainh. “Force her to leave the country?”
“Easier, perhaps, but not wiser.” The minister lit another cigarette and inhaled a warm and satisfying breath of smoke. A good American brand. His one weakness. He knew it would only hasten his death, that the cancer now growing in his right lung would feed ravenously on each lethal molecule of smoke. How ironic that the very enemy that had worked so hard to kill him during the war would now claim victory, and all because of his fondness for their cigarettes.
“What if she comes to harm?” Ainh asked. “We would have an international incident.”
“That is why she must be protected.” The minister rose from his chair. The old body, once so spry, had grown stiff with the years. To think this dried-up carcass had fought two savage jungle wars. Now it could barely shuffle around the house.
“We could scare her into going home-arrange an incident to frighten her,” suggested Ainh.
“Like your Die Yankee note?” Minister Tranh laughed as he headed for the door. “No, I do not think she frightens easily, that one. Better to see where she leads us. Perhaps we, too, will learn a few secrets. Or have you lost your curiosity, Comrade?”
Ainh looked miserable. “I think curiosity is a dangerous thing.”
“So we let her make the moves, take the risks.” The minister glanced back, smiling, from the doorway. “After all,” he said. “It is her destiny.”
“YOU DON’T HAVE TO GO TO Hanoi,” said Guy, watching Willy pack her suitcase. “You could stay in Saigon. Wait for me.”
“While you do what?”
“While I do the legwork up north. See what I can find.” He glanced out the window at the two police agents loitering in the walkway. “Ainh’s got you covered from all directions. You’ll be safe here.”
“I’ll also go nuts.” She snapped the suitcase shut. “Thanks for offering to stick your neck out for me, but I don’t need a hero.”
“I’m not trying to be a hero.”
“Then why’re you playing the part?”
He shrugged, unable to produce an answer.
“It’s the money, isn’t it? The bounty for Friar Tuck.”
“It’s not the money.”
“Then it’s that skeleton dancing around in your closet.” He didn’t answer. “What are you trying to hide? What’s the Ariel Group got on you, anyway?” He remained silent. She locked her suitcase. “Never mind. I don’t really want to know.”
He sat down on the bed. Looking utterly weary, he propped his head in his hands. “I killed a man,” he said.
She stared at him. Head in his hands, he looked ragged, spent, a man who’d used up his last reserves of strength. She had the unexpected impulse to sit beside him, to take him in her arms and hold him, but she couldn’t seem to move her feet. She was too stunned by his revelation.
“It happened here. In Nam. In 1972.” His laugh was muffled against his hands. “The Fourth of July.”
“There was a war going on. Lots of people got killed.”