Big Mango (9786167611037) (30 page)

The narrow alleyway inside the gate was lined
with concrete parking bays, each hung with a green vinyl curtain.
Above every bay was a red light bulb; some of them lit, and others
dark. The attendants stopped at a bay about halfway down where the
light was off and motioned the driver toward it. After he pulled
inside, the curtain was quickly shut, leaving the taxi and its
passengers hidden from view.

“Okay, boss?” One of the attendants bent down
close to the window. Bar nodded and the boy bowed deeply before
stepping back and opening the taxi door.

“Back in a minute,” Bar murmured to
Eddie.

He then spoke a few words to the driver in
rapid-fire Thai and stepped out. Slipping through a crack in the
curtain, he disappeared.

The others watched as one of the teenage
attendants walked to a metal door at the end of the parking bay. He
pushed it open, gesturing for them to enter. Lek and Winnebago
glanced at Eddie, and when he got out of the taxi and followed the
boy inside so did they.

They all examined the room beyond the metal
door in silence while they waited for Bar to return. It contained a
large round bed with yellowed sheets; a single brown naugahyde
chair with a jagged rip across its seat; a metal stand opposite the
bed with two thin towels, two tiny bars of soap, and a plastic
comb; and a small black plastic television with a crack down one
side on which music videos with Chinese subtitles flickered
soundlessly. On the ceiling above the bed, mirrored tiles were
arranged in a square outlined in tiny white lights.

Before anyone could say anything, Bar came
back and beckoned them outside. They followed him out past the
taxi, through the curtain, and around behind the building. Hidden
out of sight behind the parking bays, a weathered wooden deck was
pitched up like a pier, hanging just above the brown waters of the
Chao Phraya River. It was narrow and nearly rotted away in some
places, but what there was left of it still stretched along the
river for thirty yards or more. A large table and four wooden
chairs were arranged at one end where the boards appeared to be the
most solid. Two young girls had just finished setting out bowls of
food and one of them was spooning rice from a big silver serving
dish onto the plates set in front of each chair.

Eddie looked amused. “Just part of the usual
service, Bar?”

“I’ve got a few friends here and there.”

They were tired and ate quickly without much
conversation. After dinner, they all filled coffee mugs from a big
vacuum flask one of the girls had set up on a side table and pushed
their chairs around until they faced out toward the river.
Winnebago struck a match as he lit a Camel.

Across on the opposite bank of the Chao
Phraya was a nightspot of some sort draped in strings of brightly
colored lights. Looking at them made Eddie think for a moment of
the Christmas lights his father had made a ritual of stringing
around their front door every year in New Jersey where he had grown
up; but that had been in a time that was probably as much myth as
real memory for Eddie and now when he tried to bring it back into
focus from half a world away he found himself wondering if it had
ever really happened at all.

Eddie shrugged aside his memories and turned
to Lek. His voice was soft and without inflection. “We have to know
everything you can tell us about Captain Austin. I know you might
not want to talk about it, Lek, but we have to know.”

“I’ve already told you everything I
know.”

“Have you?”

Lek looked at Eddie and said nothing.

“We need to know who he hung out with; how he
spent his time; where he went.” Eddie went on. “Somebody knows
that. If it’s not you, it’s somebody else. Who would that be?”

Eddie’s question hung there in the damp,
night air. It bubbled and swirled, mixing with Winnebago’s
cigarette smoke, and then it was carried away with the smoke into
the darkness. The others shifted in their chairs and Lek shot a
quick look at Bar, but he was studying his coffee as if something
totally absorbing was floating there on its surface.

“You haven’t been honest with us, have you,
Lek?” Eddie’s voice was still soft, but it had taken on an
unmistakable edge.

Lek returned Eddie’s gaze without flinching.
“I think you had better tell me exactly what you mean.”

Across the river, a motorcycle engine coughed
to life. The unseen rider played with the throttle and the engine’s
roar rose and fell in a wave that washed back and forth over them.
The wave crested, broke, and rolled away. They all sipped their
coffee and listened to the sound until it faded in the
distance.

When Eddie nodded at him, Bar reached into
his shirt pocket, took out a small red booklet, and flipped it onto
the table. It hit on one corner, teetered there briefly as if
trying to decide how much to show of itself, and then flopped over
on its back.

They could all see it was a passport, the
gold stamping clearly visible even in the dim half-light seeping
from the nearby buildings. On the cover was a wreath with a large
five-pointed star and beams of light radiating from it. Above the
wreath were the words SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM. Below it, in
smaller letters, it said PASSPORT—DIPLOMATIC.

Lek glanced at the passport without
expression and looked away quickly. “How did you get it out of my
bag?”

Winnebago started to say something, but Eddie
waved him into silence.

“I can’t force you to tell us anything, Lek.”
Eddie said. “It’s up to you.”

Lek shifted in her chair, pulling her legs up
and tucking them under her. As she smoothed her skirt and adjusted
her tiny feet so that her body rested comfortably against them,
Eddie thought briefly of the possibilities he had once imagined.
Lek remained silent, staring at the river.

Eventually Bar’s impatience got the better of
him. “You were never married to Austin, were you?” he asked
her.

She shook her head slowly. “No.”

Bar’s face clouded and he started to say
something else, but Eddie held up his hand.

“Did you ever meet him?” Eddie asked.

“I’m good, Eddie,” Lek laughed, “but not that
good. We were together a few times.”

Eddie leaned back in his chair and clasped
his hands behind his head. He thought he might finally be getting
on top of things and he started to feel good about it, almost
downright confident he was on the right track.

“Why did McBride tell us you were Austin’s
wife?” he asked Lek.

This time when Lek laughed it was so sudden
that it startled Eddie and he almost lost the delicate balance he
had assumed on the back legs of his chair.

Winnebago flung up his hands. “Would somebody
tell me what the fuck is going on here?”

Eddie let that pass, but he slowly lowered
his chair until it was flat on the ground, and then slouched down,
affecting an indifferent posture.

“McBride’s not DEA, is he?” Eddie watched Lek
carefully. “He’s CIA.”

Bar shook his head vigorously and waved both
his hands in little jerking motions. “No way, man. I’ve known Chuck
for years. He’s DEA.”

Eddie gave Bar a look like the one the kid in
the nursery rhyme must have gotten right after he told his mother
he had traded their cow for a bag of magic beans.

“That’s right, isn’t it, Lek?” Eddie shifted
his eyes back to her. “McBride’s a spook.”

“How did you know?” she asked him.

“I took a wild shot that accidentally hit
something.”

Lek nodded as if that was exactly what she
had already decided herself.

“Oh, man,” Bar muttered and consulted the
pattern of wrinkles on the back of his left hand, studying them
like they were the key to some kind of a code.

“So who the hell are
you
, lady?” Eddie
asked. “You’re CIA, too, aren’t you? McBride is using you to keep
an eye on us.”

“No.” A trace of a smile danced across Lek’
face. “You couldn’t be more wrong about that.”

Lek almost seemed to be enjoying his
interrogation, Eddie suddenly noticed, and that unsettled him. His
self-confidence eased off a bit, hid behind one ear, and developed
a twitch.

“Then why did McBride throw us together?” he
asked.

“He thinks I was married to Harry. He told
you exactly what he knows.”

“You convinced a CIA field agent that you
were married to Harry Austin and he never even bothered to check it
out?”

“Of course he checked. Everything was in
perfect order: my employment history, our marriage records,
everything.”

Eddie adjusted his indifferent look, turning
up the volume a little. But now he knew for sure that he was either
losing control of the situation or, far more likely, had never had
any control in the first place. Maybe Lek was American. Maybe she
was Vietnamese. Maybe she was one and working for the other. Maybe
she was both and working for neither. How the hell was he supposed
to know unless she wanted to tell him? His self-confidence turned
tail and fled, not even pausing to kiss him goodnight.

“I’m sick of guessing games, Lek,” Eddie
said, folding his arms and shifting in his chair. “Just spell it
out. Who are you and what do you want from me?”

Lek’s eyes became flat as mud. “I am the
special deputy to the general secretary of the
Hai Ba
Trung
.”

She looked sideways at Bar and then back at
Eddie, holding his eyes with hers.

“In English, you call it the Vietnamese
Intelligence Service.”

SOMEWHERE
across the river a
radio played a Thai love song. The melancholy voice of a young
girl, heartbroken and mournful, spread over the black water like
river fog.

The air was unnaturally still. The world was
wrapped in a thick, breathless darkness and no one moved for a long
time. Eventually Bar raised his right arm very slowly until his
hand was just above his head. Four young, bow-tied attendants like
those at the front gate appeared out of the shadows and two of them
took up positions at each end of the deck. Their movements were
languid, like boys walking under water.

Lek laughed under her breath. “Don’t you
think this is a little melodramatic?”

“No, I don’t think this is a little
melodramatic,” Eddie said.

“Are you going to interrogate me now?” Lek
seemed to be amused by the prospect. “Are these little boys going
to torture me if I don’t tell you what you want to know?”

“The pictures you said were in the safety
deposit box…” Eddie broke off, wishing he didn’t sound so tired,
but there wasn’t much he could do about it. “What was the point of
sending them to us?”

“I had nothing to do with the pictures and I
don’t know who sent them to you. The ones I showed you were in
Harry’s safety deposit box just as I told you they were. I imagine
yours came from the same person who sent them to him.”

“I’m supposed to believe that?”

“Believe what you want.”

“And I suppose you had nothing to do with
those thugs waiting for us outside the Stardust either?”

“Not really.”

Eddie thought he caught a tone in Lek’s voice
that had not been there before; something that sounded like
frustration, even embarrassment. He stayed silent until she
explained it, as he knew she would.

“When we were at the Oriental, I used my
mobile phone to check while I was in your bathroom.” Lek seemed to
consider briefly how much she should tell Eddie. “Yes, those men
were ours, but I didn’t arrange for them to be there.”

“Who did?”

“My superiors are very thorough men. They use
many different tools for their work. I am only one.”

“What about the general? Is he one of those
tools?”

“Yes, but I have nothing to do with that
either. Someone else is running him.”

“Why did they kill Harry Austin?” Eddie made
a little fist and rapped it against the table. “Maybe that time the
tool just slipped?”

Lek looked away and said nothing.

“How did you get on to Austin, Lek?”

“The usual way. We worked hard and bit by bit
we put it together.” Lek gave a little shrug. “Eventually we found
out that Harry had devised the original security plan for moving
the money. We’re not sure yet how he did it, but we know he got it
out of the country somehow on his own before Saigon fell. After
that, he just kept it.”

Eddie realized that Lek was looking at him
now with something on her face that seemed almost like sadness, but
he couldn’t see her eyes in the dark so all he could make out was
the outline of it. Why was she looking at him like that, he
wondered? He didn’t know and he didn’t ask.

From out on the river there came the low
thrump thrump
of a boat engine leaping to life. Lek turned
for a moment toward the sound and her motion caused her white
blouse to twist and snatch up what light there was drifting in the
dimness and draw it into the fabric. For a moment, the sudden flare
of luminescence made Eddie almost giddy. He could see nothing but
her skin against her blouse, rich honey against the radiance of the
light.

“Do you really think that Austin kept the
money hidden all these years?” Bar asked. He could see he was
interrupting Eddie’s thoughts, although he wasn’t exactly certain
what those thoughts were, but he was too impatient to sit
quietly.

“We know he did,” Lek said. “Most of it at
least. We just don’t know where.”

“So they traced Austin to Bangkok and sent
you here to reel him in, huh?”

“More or less. Yes.”

“That was pretty cold, wasn’t it? Romancing a
lonely old guy so you could steal his money? Did you have to tell
him you loved him?”

“Steal his money?” Her eyes flashed with
anger. “I cannot steal something that he stole from my country in
the first place.”