In Dalat, Ray Baker had been awakened by yet another noise, again outside his door. He quietly got out of bed to check, his feet crunching the dead cockroaches that had fallen victim to the protective line of boric acid he’d put around the bed, and opened his door. A small fleeting shadow was going down the exit stairwell at the far end of the hall — a huge, gray rat, one of the hundreds that staked out the moderate- to low-income hotels.
It wasn’t till Baker stepped back into the room that he saw the piece of paper, some kind of note written on the back of a can label. Even those who could afford it couldn’t easily get their hands on writing paper, one of the casualties of the Vietnam War and Agent Orange having created enormous deforestation of parts of the country. The note said, “MIA — come market.”
It told Baker that the ever-vigilant Dalat police force must still be at work regarding MIAs, that someone dare contact him only in this way, that despite all the officialese about more mutual understanding and more economic aid since the U.S. had lifted the postwar blockade, there was still reluctance among the lower regions of the Communist bureaucracy to aid Americans, or at least a reluctance to be seen aiding Americans seeking MIAs and those who some Americans thought might still be POWs hidden in the jungles of ‘Nam.
No one who wanted to help, it seemed — for a price, of course — would be seen lingering around hotels to make contact. It had probably been considered a great risk by the note writer just to try to get the message to Baker’s room. Baker slapped himself on the forehead. “Stupid!” He wasn’t properly awake. It wouldn’t have been the man who made contact who left the note, but a runner — a kid — one of those thousands left homeless by the war with those who had been their enemies and were now their allies.
Baker collected his expired passport from the front desk and went out in search of a good coffee and pastry, one of the better legacies of the French colonial era. He found what he wanted at a sidewalk café. He sat first enjoying his trai quit juice. He had no intention of squandering the U.S. taxpayers’ money, but damned if he was going to hurry. He’d been chasing shadows for years and hadn’t found one of the more than two thousand MIAs or POWs.
At the same time, because of his lack of success, his search to find at least one MIA or, less likely, a POW to justify all his efforts had now become an obsession. He ate the pastry, which was filled with fruit, and lingered over the remains of his coffee, watching the new Vietnam roll by.
At a glance nothing much had changed — the ever-present fish sauce smell, more scooters, more noise, only now the sound, instead of coming from jukeboxes, came from a jungle of video games emitting horrible screams of victory or defeat. So absorbed was he by the hustle and bustle of Dalat that it took Baker a couple of minutes to realize he was being watched intently by a boy of about twelve, in dirty T-shirt and ragged blue shorts, who even at this age appeared to be addicted to betelnut, now and then spitting out arcs of bloodred saliva on the sidewalk.
Whether it was the good weather, the pastry, or the rich, dark coffee he had lingered over, Baker was in no mood for a complicated day. He made a writing gesture to the waiter and at the same time with a dollar note he signaled the boy to come over to his table.
“You speak English?” he asked the boy.
“Sure.”
“Who are you watching me for?”
The boy either didn’t understand or didn’t want to answer. Instead he looked covertly at the dollar bill Baker was holding like a lure. “Who sent you?”
“A man.”
“Really,” Baker said. “Listen, boyo, tell me or no money.”
“Two dollars, okay?” the boy interjected.
Baker nodded.
“A man in the—” The boy couldn’t think of the word in English. “Cho.”
“Market?” Baker said. “There are a thousand people in the market. I want you to point him out to me.”
“Okay,” the boy said, holding out his hand.
“Khong,” Baker replied. No. “Not until you show me who.”
“One dollar now,” the boy said, spitting out another jet of saliva and betel juice, his smile a brownish gash, his teeth already stained by his addiction.
“Okay,” Baker said, and gave him a dollar. For any Vietnamese, it was good money — for a boy, a small fortune. As they walked past the Red Tulip restaurant toward the Mai Building, Baker wondered if they were being followed by either the police and/or the person who had hired the boy, who perhaps wanted to make sure that he, Baker, wasn’t being followed by someone else. As Baker followed the betel-spitting boy toward the market, he had no chance to double back or stop to see whether or not someone was following him. Just before they reached the market the boy glanced back at Baker, made eye contact, spat, and walked toward one of the stalls selling every kind of fruit from green dragon fruit, lychee, jujubes, and Chinese dates, to water apple. The boy leaned across the counter and said something to the woman serving the customer, her hands full of cherries she was dumping on the scales. She said something quickly to the boy, and he made his way back to Baker.
“You go now,” the boy said. “Ask her for chanh—lemon, you understand. She will tell you she has none but to come back tomorrow. She will have some. Other dollar.”
“What? Oh yeah. Here.” He gave the boy the dollar. “Am I to come see her tomorrow?” Baker asked.
The boy shrugged with an insolence that had broken out once he’d secured the second dollar, his shrug saying, How the hell do I know? “You go see her,” he said, spat once more— perilously close to Baker’s shoe — and melted into the crowd.
Baker asked the old woman for a lemon.
She promptly gave him one and held out her hand for payment. It had happened so fast, so unexpectedly, that he barely had time to think, but he immediately looked about for the boy. The woman repeated the price impatiently. The boy was gone.
“Damn!” Baker said, counting out the money and giving it to the woman. “Damn, I’ve been had.”
“Eh?”
“What?” He turned on the old woman, realized he was childishly taking it out on her. “Cam on”—Thanking you — he said, and walked back to his hotel, every youth he saw raising his ire. “Chia khoa phong!” he all but shouted at the desk clerk, who, despite the American’s bad temper, took his time getting the room key and sliding it across to Baker.
The room was a shambles, every drawer of the small chest pulled out, what few clothes he had strewn about the room, white streaks of boric acid all over the floor, the mattress upended and slashed open, its stuffing oozing out. Also strewn about the floor was the distinctively sweet smell, not at all stale, of an American cigarette, in itself signifying that whoever had hired the kid must not have been long gone. Had he or they left satisfied? Did they suspect him of having information on POWs or MIAs, or whatever it was that they could sell for a high price to more parents of an MIA, or were they looking for something else, or was all this mayhem among the dead roaches and boric acid simply for effect, a warning to quit his trip to the hamlets of Lat village below Lang Bian Mountain? As he looked out the window that framed the warm gold of morning light, Baker felt clammy and cold.
LaSalle, none the worse from the champagne he’d consumed, wanted to make love again. Marte Price didn’t. Once a night, she figured, was quite sufficient for any nice girl. Besides, no matter what all the sex manuals said, the second time more often than not proved to be a huffing, puffing affair— more a measure of fitness than passion — and plain wore you out, but not in that wonderful, satisfying, spent way. Besides, she was still languorous, in a warm, safe cave mood, and wanted it to last, and she told Pierre to leave her alone, she wanted to sleep. The Frenchman was happy to oblige, and rolling away from her, surveyed the tent with a more discerning eye, namely to see where she might hide her most prized photos.
Almost asleep himself, LaSalle had to concentrate hard to stay awake, his eyes searching the small tent, looking for something that would withstand the rigors of war. His gaze settled on a gray metal box about a foot square and a foot high. He’d seen that kind of box before. Usually they were asbestos-lined-and waterproof. Problem was, there was no key in the lock. The more he thought about it, the more certain he became that the photos he wanted to see were in the gray box. Or did she play the fox and keep the photos in some very ordinary place — her Army-issue passport side pouch that he could see hanging from a suction hook on the tent’s center pole? Easing himself off the bed, looking back to make sure she was still asleep, he took down the pouch and quietly unzipped the rear passport section. Apart from the passport, Army press pass, and a sheaf of two thousand dollars’ worth of American Express traveler’s checks in hundreds and fifties, there was nothing.
The second, smaller section of the pouch contained Chap Stick, lipstick, a two-pack container of tampons, a card of Midol capsules, Band-Aids, and assorted hairpins. The front section, which LaSalle left till last, it being no larger than a change purse, contained a hodgepodge of American quarters and tight bundles of red ten-thousand-dong bills, each bearing a flattering portrait of Ho Chi Minh, the man, LaSalle was reminded by the picture, who had started life as a waiter in Paris and ended up as the president of the republic. Then LaSalle saw a small safety-deposit-type key taped to the inside of the change pouch. In his eagerness to undo the tape, several quarters dropped out, clanging against the tent pole.
“Merde!” he hissed as he heard her moan and roll over toward him. He replaced the pouch.
“Pierre?” she called.
He was pulling on his pants. “Oui?”
Her eyes looked over at him dreamily. “I—” She yawned and stretched. “I thought you’d gone.”
“No, chérie. I fell asleep.”
“Hmm,” she murmured, happy that it had been good for both of them. “What time is it?” She yawned again.
“Eight o’clock, or twenty hundred hours if you’re military.”
“Christ!” she said, flinging the sheet off.
“What in—” LaSalle began.
“Freeman’s giving a press conference in half an hour.”
“I know — so?”
“So, mon cher, it takes us gals a little longer to get ready, especially after being violated.”
“Violated?”
“Just a joke, honey. I have to be ready for hookup in fifteen minutes. I’m doing a spot for CNN.”
“What’s wrong with their reporter?”
“Down with the runs. Too much tit.”
“What?”
She was dashing into the shower stall. “I wish you’d stop saying ‘What?’ every time I say something. Too much tit.”
He still didn’t get it, or at least if he did, he wasn’t saying anything.
“Banh bao,” she called out. “Pastry stuffed with veggies and meat. Looks like a boob — nipple and all. You must have had it.”
“Yes…” There was a pause as if he was thinking about it. “Probably.”
He was trying the key in the gray box. Bien! It fit, and he dropped it in his pocket.
“Probably what?” she called out above the noise of the gravity rinse that came in a torrent over her body.
“Probably I have eaten it, yes.”
She was out of the shower, and her nakedness aroused him again.
“Oh no, you don’t!” she said, throwing his shirt at him. His Gallic shrug told her there would be another time. “Probably.” She shrugged playfully in return. “Maybe.” He forced a smile.