“I don’t -”
“Get in.”
Haverford got in.
When he turned back around, Hel had disappeared.
111
YU RECEIVED THE MESSAGE from Saigon.
Hel had made contact.
You are an interesting man, Nicholai Hel, he thought.
112
HAVERFORD SAT in the back of the cyclo-pousse and contemplated the state of Nicholai Hel’s mind.
Had he come to Saigon for Solange?
Or for other reasons?
And, if so, what were they?
As for Solange, how – and why – had she come to Saigon, and what was she doing? He recalled Singleton’s orders back in Washington. You’re clever young men. Lure him in.
Well, it looks like we both did.
113
NICHOLAI FELT AT EASE in Cholon.
The Chinese quarter of the city, it reminded him of a damper, poorer Shanghai in the old days. The little stands and small shops were the same, the neon signs the same, the smells of cooking over charcoal, the incense wafting from temples, the shouts, the laughter, the crowding – it all reminded him that the Chinese were great wanderers, pilgrims who took their culture with them and replicated their old cities in the new.
He walked along Lao Tu Street, the main thoroughfare, and felt right at home. Cholon was reputed to be dangerous at night, particularly for a kweilo, but Nicholai had never felt threatened even in the worst slums of Shanghai and he didn’t feel in jeopardy here, even as he turned off the street and walked up narrow alleys into a neighborhood of four-story tenements.
Again, they all looked the same – rectangular wooden structures with tiny balconies from which laundry was hung. Men in sleeveless T-shirts leaned against the railings, smoking cigarettes, women inside yelled domestic questions in an attempt to engage their husbands in at least some form of conversation.
On the street itself, young toughs in brightly colored shirts and tight slacks gathered on the corners watching for opportunities, but didn’t see one in the tall colon who walked as if he knew where he was going and what he was doing. And he greeted them in Chinese as he walked past. They left him alone.
Nicholai found the address he was looking for.
The tiny lobby reeked of stale opium smoke.
Nicholai walked up the creaking, slanting staircase to the second floor. The hallway was narrow and slanted, as if it was tired and wanted to lie down. A door opened and a woman, clad in the tight red silk dress of a prostitute, looked at him for a moment, then continued down the hall.
Nicholai knocked on the door of Room 211.
No one answered. He knocked twice more, then opened the unlocked door.
Leotov sat dozing in a rattan chair by the small window. The room was sweltering and tight, and Leotov’s bare chest was shiny with sweat. He wore a pair of khaki trousers and sandals, his face was sallow, and he hadn’t shaved for several days.
The opium pipe was in his lap.
He opened his eyes and saw Nicholai. His eyes were yellow and runny, but wide in the dreamlike state of the opium addict.
“Where the hell have you been?” he muttered in Russian. “I thought you were probably dead.”
“There were moments when we shared that opinion.”
“I’ve been here for weeks,” Leotov said bitterly, clearly blaming his opium habit on Nicholai’s lack of promptness.
“I was detained,” Nicholai answered. “I didn’t count on being so seriously wounded. It delayed me by weeks. Nevertheless, I apologize – it is good of you to have waited.”
Leotov slowly pulled himself up from the chair and shuffled around the room, as if looking for something but unable to remember what or where it was. “You don’t know what it’s been like,” he whined, “being on the run, having to hide in this hovel, never knowing when… I took recourse in the local vice.”
Nicholai could virtually smell the fear and paranoia coming off him. “I see that.”
“Superior bastard,” Leotov spat. “You and him, both superior bastards.”
The “him,” Nicholai supposed, referred to the late Yuri Voroshenin. But he was already bored with Leotov. “Do you have them?”
“I have them,” Leotov said.
As arranged in their encounter in Beijing, Leotov had taken Voroshenin’s passport and personal papers, including his deposit book at the Banque de l’Indochine in Saigon, where the Russian had not only an account but a safety deposit box.
“So?”
“I’m looking, aren’t I?”
He shoved aside some clothes on the floor and came up with a small leather portfolio that he held up in triumph. “Here you go. Here’s your precious papers. Bastards, the both of you.”
Nicholai took the portfolio and flipped through it. Voroshenin’s passport, several bankbooks, scribbled notes.
“Where’s my money?”
Nicholai took bills from his pocket and handed them to Leotov.
“Where’s the rest of it?” Leotov demanded.
“Our arrangement,” Nicholai reminded him, “was one-third now, the rest when I successfully gain access to the safety deposit box.”
The documents looked authentic, but there was no telling until they were put to use.
“When will that be?” Leotov asked.
“Tomorrow. I’ll meet you somewhere.”
“I can barely get organized to make it out of this room.”
“You get out to buy opium, don’t you?” Nicholai asked.
“A boy comes.” Leotov chuckled. “Room service.”
I should kill him, Nicholai thought. That would be the smart thing to do, and perhaps the kind thing as well. An opium addict is a loose cannon, a mentally incontinent creature who will open his mouth and tell anything to anyone.
He doubted that Leotov could, in fact, make it across the river to collect the rest of his fee for delivering Voroshenin’s documents, but a deal was a deal. “I can wire you funds here if you prefer. A neighborhood bank.”
“If I prefer,” Leotov mumbled, “if I prefer. Where is that damn boy? Do you happen to have the time? I seem to have misplaced my watch.”
Nicholai knew the watch had been “misplaced” at the pawnshop, or simply taken by the opium delivery boy or any other resident of the flophouse while Leotov was in an opium dream. He looked at his watch and answered, “Eight-thirty.”
“Where is that boy?” Leotov asked. “Doesn’t he know I need… I need that money to get out of this shithole, find a safe place, not looking over my shoulder every second…”
“I recommend Costa Rica,” Nicholai said.
Leotov wasn’t listening. He sank back into his chair and stared out the window. Nicholai took the bills clutched in his hand and stuffed them into his trouser pocket, giving him at least a chance of retaining them.
Then Nicholai took his leave.
He walked past the boy coming up the stairs.
114
THE FRENCH SAXOPHONE PLAYER licked her lips, glanced at Nicholai, and then wrapped them around her mouthpiece and blew.
Nicholai, seated at a front-row table at La Croix du Sud, couldn’t miss the unsubtle gesture, smiled back, and sipped his brandy and soda, the club specialty. The all-female band – twelve Frenchwomen in high-cut sequined gowns – were quite good at the Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey swing tunes.
Then Nicholai saw a gnomelike man, a dwarf with long hair, a red beard, and an enormously corpulent stomach, waddle his way toward the table on short, bowed legs. Sweat poured down his fat cheeks, and he looked like nothing more than a small, hirsute locomotive about to derail.
“No hunting there,” he said amiably as he sat down and jutted his chin toward the band. “That’s Antonucci’s private reserve.”
“All twelve?”
“He’s a virile little man.”