Christopher sipped bourbon; his hands were steadier than they had been in the first hour or two after the explosion.
“Now that we’re in the open air, how about coming clean?” Wolkowicz said.
“You’re the only man I know who goes outside to get away from his own bugs,” Christopher said.
“I think you told the Truong toe and the priest more than you’ve told me,” Wolkowicz said. “I thought maybe you’d feel easier in your mind if we could talk in the open.”
“I don’t care where we talk. Even next to the birdcage. I’ve told you everything I can.”
“Okay, it’s your ass. But I know you’re on to something besides a heroin racket-just remember that. I know. I’m going to be on you like a sheet of flypaper, Christopher.”
“I’ll be glad of your company, after tonight.”
Wolkowicz took Christopher’s arm and walked him over the crunching gravel to the back of the garden. “I’m going to tell you something I’m sure you know, Christopher,” he said. “I don’t like you and I never liked your operations. That’s basic.
However, you’ve been around for a long time and I feel I’ve got an obligation to you-do you understand?”
“Perfectly, Barney. Spit it out.”
“I’ve heard some things about you behind Mother’s back. There’s a certain guy in the White House you had some problems with-you follow me?”
Christopher nodded in the dark. Wolkowicz rattled the ice cubes in his glass after each sentence.
“Well, this guy sent me a letter. A Green Beret captain carried it out to me from Washington. In the letter he says you’re around the bend with a crazy idea about something that could have dangerous consequences to national security. What he was asking was this: if you showed up out here, would I get in your way.”
“And have you been getting in my way, Barney?”
“No. Who the fuck is he to tell me what to do in a letter delivered outside channels? However, remember the Green Beret.”
“What about him?”
“Well, they’re gung-ho sons of bitches. And they’re amateurs. They’re setting up all kinds of networks around here. You said the guy who shot at you looked like he’d had training. What kind of a handgun did he use-did you notice?”
Christopher thought for a moment. “It was a.22 automatic with a long barrel and a silencer-a Colt Woodsman or maybe the Hi-Standard that looks almost the same. The rounds didn’t ricochet, they gouged big hunks out of the concrete like heavier ammunition when they hit, so I could have been wrong.”
“Mercury in the bullets,” Wolkowicz said. “Didn’t you think it was funny the Truong toe would try to shoot you and blow you up, all on the same night?”
“I thought it was thorough of him.”
Wolkowicz rattled his ice. “It’s not a pretty thought,” he said. “But I think you ought to consider the possibility that you’ve got people coming at you from two directions.”
“You’re telling me that Americans are trying to do me in?”
“If they are, maybe it’s a case of too much zeal. Soldiers have a way of giving a hundred and ten percent-look at Diem and Nhu. The lieutenant who shot them thought he was a hero. Nothing was supposed to happen to them, the way I understood it.”
“The way you understood it, Barney?”
“That’s what the traffic said-stand back and watch. We had a guy carrying messages between the ambassador and one of the generals in the plot, but that was all. There was no mention of bloodshed. I guess they couldn’t face it in Washington. I could have told the dumb bastards what would happen.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“You know why. I wasn’t allowed to do anything, why should I say anything? The amateurs were running the show.”
“I see,” Christopher said.
“What happened to you tonight was more amateur stuff- shooting in a crowded street, chasing you through houses full of witnesses. I’ll do what I can to shut these guys off-not that I think they’re going to admit anything. That captain is just a kid. Whosis in Washington probably told him just what he told me -get in Christopher’s way. The kid misunderstood-but that’s not going to be much help to you if you end up like Luong, with pudding for brains.”
“That was no amateur bomb.”
“No,” Wolkowicz said. “I’d say that part of it was real life.”
Christopher put his hand in his pocket and touched the sharp edge of the photograph the Truong toe had given him. Molly’s face, as perfect as Cathy’s had once been, moved over the screen of his memory. He knew they would kill her if they thought he needed the lesson.
“What are you going to do?” Wolkowicz said. “The cops want you out of the country in twenty-four hours.”
Christopher looked at the green dial of his watch. “It’s two in the morning now,” he said. “I’ll make the deadline.”
In the darkness, Wolkowicz was chewing ice. “We’ll miss you, baby,” he said,
4
Luong lay in his coffin with a bunch of bananas on his chest to confuse the appetite of the Celestial Dog, devourer of the entrails of the dead. A ring of candles burned around the edge of the coffin, and an oil lamp smoked beneath it. A child of ten, Luong’s eldest son, stood at his father’s feet, welcoming mourners. He wore a straw headpiece and a robe of white gauze, covered with patches to show his wretchedness. Christopher bowed to the corpse and gave the child an envelope filled with piasters, two bottles of Veuve Cliquot, and a satin banderole on which was written a compliment to the dead man.
“I was your father’s friend,” Christopher said.
“Tho spoke about you,” the boy said. “I remember your visit.”
In death, Luong had been given another name, Tho, and no member of his family would call him by his own name again. Probably they had never done so when he was alive. A Vietnamese’s name is used only by officials and foreigners; those who know him call him by nicknames or a number that fixes his position in the family, so as not to provoke evil spirits.
Luong’s son placed Christopher’s gifts with the others on a low table beside the altar at the end of the coffin. No attempt had been made to conceal the bullet wound in Luong’s forehead; his relatives had put rice in his mouth, and a white grain of it was visible between his lips. In his best clothes, Luong looked not much older than his son. Luong had been dead for a full day, and the weeping had ceased; his wife, wearing patched gauze like her children, sat in a group of women with a white veil covering her face.
Musicians played at the end of the room, and male relatives with white mourning bands tied around their foreheads were drinking and laughing at jokes. They stared at Christopher, who stood alone by Luong’s coffin, and went on with their loud conversation. Luong’s widow made no sign that she saw him. When he turned away from the corpse, an old woman approached and gave him a bowl of food. He thanked her in Vietnamese and she bowed.
Christopher ate the food. Guests continued to arrive, crowding into the small house and filling it with a babble of voices and laughter. Luong’s picture of Christ with a burning heart had been brought out of the bedroom and hung beside a portrait of Buddha on the wall nearest the coffin.
A man detached himself from the group of male relatives and came toward Christopher with a cup of rice wine in either hand; he gave one of the cups to Christopher.
“You are my brother’s friend Crawford,” he said.
“Yes, I’m sorry for your family’s sadness,” Christopher replied.
“You speak Vietnamese.”
“Very badly,” Christopher said in French. “You are Tho’s brother? You look a great deal alike.”
“Yes, I am older by five years. My name is Phuoc.”
“I don’t want to intrude here. I only wished to pay my respects. I knew your brother well.”