The Shadow of Arms (38 page)

“Hey, I paid for all the goods. To be honest, I was working with your man, the chief sergeant. OK, I'll wash my hands, but why come down on me all of a sudden? We know you guys work hard and we were about to show our appreciation, you know. We've got to make a living together, am I right?”

“Let's talk later, the three of us,” said the chief sergeant, who, until then, had turned his face away from the two of them.

“So, you, this is how it's going to be?” Pak said to the sergeant. “You shake, and the dust'll be raised for both of us.”

After checking every room, Yong Kyu reported back to the captain.

“Nobody else in the house, sir.”

“We'll take all of you in to the Da Nang police station,” said the captain. “Yesterday you did illegal transactions involving a pallet of Salem cigarettes at the air force PX and four pallets of beer at the pier. We've got photos from the scene, so I hope you won't try to lie about it. Let's go.”

“What about the storehouse, sir?” asked Yong Kyu.

“Give him the key,” the captain said to Pak. “If you don't, we'll just break the lock.”

Pak pleaded with the captain. “Think of my position, please. If we're to go after each other's throats, both of us will lose. Me and your commander, we're like brothers, you know. And our seniors from school are sprinkled in important posts all over Vietnam. Go down to Saigon and see for yourself, you'll see I'm not the only reserve officer doing business here.”

“Let's go. We can talk later.”

The men got dressed and were led out of the house. The captain and the chief sergeant each took two of the men and an armed guard in their respective Jeeps. As they were leaving, the captain said to the other private, “You and Toi stay here and house sit. And Sergeant Ahn, check out all the goods in the place and then take a little rest.”

Once they were gone, Yong Kyu said, “Shall we have a look in the storehouse?”

He unlocked the metal bar fastening the galvanized iron gate and went in first. In the middle of the floor were pallets of Salem cigarettes and Hamm's beer, and further inside electric appliances were piled up. As for the Korean beer, it seems they had been intending to deliver it direct from the pier. Out in the market, Yong Kyu estimated that the beer and cigarettes alone would be worth close to half a million piasters.

“I'm starving, let's get something to eat,” Toi said.

They went back into the house and headed for the kitchen where the found some sausages, canned fruit, and milk in the refrigerator.

“Take a look at this,” the private called out from the living room. “There's a ledger here.”

Yong Kyu thumbed through the palm-sized spiral notebook with a black vinyl cover. The sesame seed figures scrawled in ballpoint pen revealed all the details of revenues and expenses, and memos were jotted down here and there as well. Yong Kyu hunched over one of the living room tables and started transcribing the information from the notebook. Toi brought in a plate of food.

“What are you doing?” Toi said as he placed the plate on the table.

“Copying a list of the Vietnamese dealers. And the Americans, too.”

“A lucky find.”

“Yeah. Never know, maybe we'll find a good American connection among these names.”

 

 

25

Pham Minh was waiting for his brother in Lei's room. He had gotten a call from him that morning. Minh hadn't left the house since going out to Son Tinh to meet Hae Jong. Quyen had asked him to stay put, and until Minh's status was resolved he didn't really feel like being out and about. He had a meeting with Nguyen Thach planned that day, and the first rendezvous with his cell of the organization was scheduled for Wednesday. He had to make sure matters were settled before then. Orders from the committee would be handed down to him that afternoon through Thach.

The excitement his return had aroused within the family gradually subsided after the first day. His mother started her usual nagging and Mi no longer made any effort to conceal her disdain for him. Lei was still very kind but she no longer talked with him like she did with her classmates. Before he had left, she often confided in him what others at her school had said, or, with a twinkle in her eyes, she would report the latest gossip about some incident on the outskirts of the city.

Now Lei did not even bring Minh any word of Shoan. If things went on that way, he thought, then Lei would be as openly contemptuous toward him as Mi in a matter of months. For Lei, the legend of her brother the patriot was gone for good. Still, during his training Minh's ears had been calloused by the incessant repetition of the rule that, whatever the circumstances, he could never reveal his true colors nor was he to run his mouth about the political reality in Vietnam. An urban guerilla had to be a man of ordinary occupation, enslaved by daily life, a good-for-nothing slacker, or else camouflaged as a defeatist. In short, the less one was trusted by others, the more his safety would be assured. He had to implant in the minds of those surrounding him the belief he was a man so weak, lazy, and degenerate that he could not possibly commit an act requiring conviction.

When Lei was due home from school, Minh would make sure she found him sprawled out and snoring on the living room couch. When she was away, he would hole up in her room. His own room was now occupied by Mi and her children. Nobody was using Quyen's room, but it was cluttered with a lot of household stuff. In the evenings Minh would linger about the living room, sipping beer bought from a neighborhood restaurant. When Mi cleaned the house in the morning, she made a point of avoiding the area around him and she did the sweeping and dusting without uttering a word to him.

Minh looked at the clock. It was ten a.m. He heard a car pull up outside followed by the heavy steps of his brother's combat boots.

“Minh, where are you?”

The door opened. Lying on his long narrow wooden bed, Minh gazed up at his brother with a tired look. Quyen sat in front of the desk and faced him. He removed a slip of paper from the upper pocket of his jacket and held it out to Minh.

“Here's your transfer order confirmation.”

“Transfer? But how can I be transferred when I'm not even enlisted?”

Pham Quyen frowned. “Let me tell you it was a real pain to get this. Would you prefer to enlist and go through boot camp training? You're supposed to have joined the service two years ago and completed all required training. Your rank is sergeant and you were assigned to duty at Nha Trang before coming here. It cost me thirty thousand piasters to slip your military and personal records into the files at air force battalion headquarters here in Da Nang. Now go report for your transfer. They'll assign you to an air base detachment unit. Then you just go and see the major at that unit, and then you can come back home and that'll be the end of it After that, all that is left to be done is for you to deliver a duty fee of five thousand piasters to that major every month and you can be exempted from roll calls and inspections. This time next year you'll be able to go and pick up an honorable discharge certificate. That's all.”

“Do I have to report today?”

“No, you're going with me tomorrow to headquarters. I know the battalion commander pretty well.”

Quyen exuded confidence. He had come to believe that of all the family members, only Minh could understand him.

“So how do you like life now that you're resting at home?”

“Well, I'm afraid I'll be a burden to the family.”

“You went to Son Tinh, didn't you?”

Pham Minh hung his head.

“I just wanted to see her once. To see what kind of woman she is. I didn't want to be like Mother or Mi and blindly hate her.”

“So, how do you feel?”

“What do you mean?”

“After meeting Mimi . . . do you still think she is one of those cheap women?”

“No, I don't.” It was an honest answer. “Except . . .” Minh went on, “I can tell she's a good woman, but . . . she's not your type. How do I put it . . . She seems temporary.”

“Temporary?”

“Like a soldier's lover at a new post. That's probably how she thinks of you, too. She doesn't look like a woman who would lie.”

“Mimi said I should find a job for you. When I asked whether you had put her up to the request, she said you're too proud to spill your guts . . . that's a feature you and I share, she said. You seemed to have made a good impression on her.”

“I'm glad to hear that,” Minh said truthfully. “A year is a long, boring hour. If all I do is hang around at home, I'm not sure I won't do something silly again. I want to make some money, too. Until I go abroad to study, until I leave this country, I want to work and earn my travel expenses on my own.”

“I understand. I've thought it over, and I think you can be of some help to me. There's somewhere I want you to come with me . . . so you want a job?”

“I'll do any kind of work.”

Minh peered up at his brother, who avoided his gaze and replied, “Get the family to accept Mimi as one of us. Talk to Lei, to begin with. I'm sure you can change her mind. If you and Lei are on my side, Mother in time will soften. As for sister Mi, I don't care either way. You only need to earn enough for your own spending money. I'll take care of the family and all other expenses we'll need. As I told you, before two years pass we'll be out of this loathsome place. We'll be living in a foreign country.”

“She's become your wife, and now has Vietnamese nationality. But I don't think she loves you. I'm only following your wishes. Our family is all on your side. Your heart is now set on her, but you never know how long it'll last. I'll treat her as my sister-in-law. Will that satisfy you?”

“I want Lei to do the same.”

“I know. She'll change her attitude in time.”

“I'd like you to help me with my work. I'm dealing with a merchant, Nguyen Cuong, in old Le Loi market. He's in charge of all the trading for the provincial government office, including purchases. From now on I'll have a lot of gigantic transactions with him. We have two enormous projects underway, and they'll probably change the fate of this family.”

“What business is that?”

“One is the phoenix hamlets project for the entire Quang Nam Province. The other is cinnamon. We'll be building three hundred new hamlets and resettling people in them. It's the last chance for the general as well as for me. Soon the general will have to take off his uniform. He may need me even after he joins the Saigon government, but when that happens he and I may take separate roads, you never know. He'll have plenty of secretaries available in Saigon, some more capable and with better connections than me.

“Anyway, I would hate to let this other opportunity slip through my fingers. You know that cinnamon grows in abundance on the far side of the highlands? I'll issue an operations order and promote a pacification program in the cinnamon region. That way I'll corner the market on a traditional Central Vietnamese commodity that has grown scarce due to the war. With those two projects alone, I can easily make more than a million dollars in one year. Of course, the general's share will be greater.”

With wide eyes and big gestures, Quyen went on bragging to his younger brother. He firmly believed that Minh was now on his side and that he would come over to his advantageous position of his own accord.

“How can I help you?”

“Well, I've already spoken to Cuong on the phone. I asked him to let you work in his office as my representative. He agreed. Your job will be simple enough. When the goods are delivered to him under my instructions, you'll help him with the sales, checking that the payments agree with the prices negotiated in advance, and making rounds for collections in his stead. That's all. I'm sure you'll be able to handle the detail work. Now, come with me to see Cuong.”

Though inside he was greatly pleased, Minh showed no sign of excitement and instead asked in a monotone, “And what sort of salary will I get?”

“Kid, the salary is not the point. This is our family business. If you need money, you can request all the money you want after checking accounts for the transactions, as long as you don't squander it.”

They left the house together in high spirits and drove to Le Loi market. They passed through the alley and the line of vendors along the parking lot, on the inner edge of which there stood a brick building that Minh knew well. It was the same building Uncle Nguyen Thach had guided them to on the night Minh returned to Da Nang. Quyen opened the sliding glass door and went in first. A female clerk rose from her seat and bowed. Nguyen Cuong gestured for the two of them to sit down.

“This is my little brother.”

“Ah, you look very different from your big brother. I'm Nguyen.”

“I'm Pham Minh.”

“Well, what do you say? Had any experience with business?”

“We're sons of a family that used to run Da Nang's biggest medicinal herb house,” Quyen said.

“True, I knew your late father very well. A man of excellent business tact, he was.”

“In business it's less a question of tact than of trust.”

“But of course,” Nguyen said, chuckling. “Trust comes first and foremost for a tactful merchant in dealing with others.”

Then he turned to Minh and said, “There's not a whole lot for you to do, Mr. Pham Minh. For starters you'll work in my warehouse and be in charge of checking the incoming and outgoing flows of stock. Later, you can keep an eye on our transport connections, since our trucks are sent on a lot of runs outside the city.”

“Is the warehouse across the river still operating?” Quyen asked.

“Major, you should know that better than I,” Nguyen said with a grin. “Once the cinnamon starts flowing in, that warehouse will be extremely useful. The goods will head straight to the pier from there.”

“I'll have everything set within two months.”

“Let's go out to the warehouse.”

Nguyen got up first and walked out through the back door, then down a pathway that led to the side gate of the brick building. Minh remembered that he had used that side gate to enter the warehouse. When Cuong opened the aluminum door, the workers who had been moving goods out through the main entrance bowed to the owner. Cuong summoned a sturdy-looking man in shorts.

“This is Mr. Pham Minh. He'll be your immediate superior. Mr. Pham Minh, this is our foreman.”

The man bowed politely and Minh extended his hand to shake. Inside the warehouse there were piled heaps of rice, cement, fertilizer, slate slabs, and plywood sheets. The workers had been lugging big sacks of fertilizer outside and loading them on a waiting truck.

“This fertilizer just came off the pier yesterday. We're shipping it out to Quang Nai.”

“So his job will be to manage and release the goods here?” asked Pham Quyen.

“It's best to start with that so he can get a feel for the business,” Cuong replied.

“Well, what do you think?” Quyen asked Minh.

“Fine, I'll give it a try,” Minh answered.

Upon their return to the office, Nguyen Thach was waiting for them. He glanced at Pham Minh and greeted Pham Quyen with a smile.

“Ah, Major, long time no see, sir.”

“What brings you here?” asked Thach's older brother, Cuong.

Thach scratched his head and said, “Well, there's a payment I need to make today, and I'm a little short on cash.”

“How much?”

“Two hundred dollars. I need it in military notes.”

“You mean you don't even have that small sum on you?”

“I've got plenty of piasters and checks, of course. But they want it in military notes, and if I change money on the market it'll cost five piasters for every ten dollars, you know.”

“Introduce yourself. This is Mr. Pham Minh. As of today, he works here as warehouse manager. He's Major Pham's younger brother.”

Cuong casually introduced the two men. Minh unassumingly shook hands with Thach.

“Ah, is that a fact? Wonderful. Have you been discharged?”

“He's on active duty. He was a student at Hue University,” Quyen answered, apparently bursting with pride for his little brother.

“That's great. I'm a graduate of Hue University myself, which makes us alumni. Well, lunch is on me. What do you say? Let's talk about our alma mater.”

Pham Quyen checked his watch and said, “I've got to head back to my office. What about you?”

“Well, you don't need to work today,” Cuong declared. “Why don't you start tomorrow?”

“No, tomorrow we've some business to attend to concerning his military service . . . how about the day after?” Quyen said.

“Whatever you say, Major,” Cuong replied, opening his arms wide. “To tell you the truth, it's an honor to have your brother come work for us. From now on our business will be more alive than ever.”

“Let's leave our big brothers behind and the two of us can go along to get to know each other,” Nguyen Thach said, patting Minh on the shoulder.

Quyen put his military hat back on and, as he left the office, said to Cuong, “I'm leaving him in your hands. There's nothing to special to learn, I suppose. He'll soon get used to the work.”