Play the Red Queen

by Juris Jurjevics

  The cardinal had brought a small bouquet of flowers and incense sticks. Moehlenkamp lit the joss sticks for the cardinal and Reverend Crawford. Palms clasped, the two clerics held the stems to their foreheads and bowed before anchoring them on the tomb.

  Looking toward the eastern horizon, the cardinal spoke with regret. “She is an admirable woman. I pray she and her children transitioned peacefully to a better sphere.”

  “And this General Bay Vien?” I said. “The father, was he the one who taught them to shoot?”

  “Indeed. From a very early age, he encouraged them to play with small-caliber aluminum pistols, light and pretty,” the cardinal said.

  “Baby rattles for the baby rattlers,” Robeson said.

  “Hardly that. They were good children. They worked hard to please their father and win his heart. Their mother told me they expended countless rounds on ranges near Chợ Lớn and at Bảy’s headquarters under the Y Bridge. When they were a little older, he took his son and older daughter hunting in the mountains.”

  “He instructed them well,” I said.

  “Yes. He taught them misdirection games and the small duplicities he had learned over a lifetime of illicit pursuits.”

  “Illicit?”

  “The general, though illiterate, was a formidable thief. A bulldog of a man. Half Chinese, half Vietnamese, a cunning, consummate criminal. He taught them to stalk and to survive.”

  General Bay Vien, the reverend explained, had risen from bossing a small-time pirate gang to running the most efficient protection and extortion rackets in Saigon, and the Hall of Mirrors, the largest brothel and gambling hall in Indochina. Gold smuggling, opium refining, document forgery . . . he did it all. “Bay Vien had ambition but no use for ideology. Called it a toy for intellectuals.”

  “My hero,” I said.

  “Bay Vien became wildly rich, the toast of Saigon, even befriended by Emperor Bao Dai, who awarded him his second general’s star and issued him the lease on the Grand Monde gambling complex and then the lease on another institution— the National Police.”

  “Wait,” Robeson said. “The emperor handed control of the National Police to a mob boss?”

  “Indeed,” the cardinal confirmed. “Bảo Đại named the biggest racketeer in the country the head of law enforcement and all the security and intelligence services. Then sanctimonious Diệm came to power to cleanse the country of Communism and sin, openly threatening Bảy Viễn’s lucrative vice empire. But in addition to controlling the police, Bảy Viễn had his own army, forty thousand strong, complete with artillery. He shelled the palace and engaged Diệm’s brand-new Vietnamese army in deadly combat right in the middle of Sài Gòn.”

  The cardinal paused, almost spent.

  “What happened to Bay Vien?” Moehlenkamp asked. “Any chance Mai is in Saigon with him?”

  “General Big Minh happened,” said Reverend Crawford. “Minh burned down the casino complex and the huge brothel. He struck Bay Vien’s gun and mortar emplacements with artillery and outmaneuvered his battalions. Minh drove the survivors back into their old pirates’ lair in the mangrove swamps of the Rung Sat and plunged in after them. He fought them for three months, brought out no prisoners.”

  “Big Minh killed Bay Vien?” Robeson said.

  “No,” the cardinal replied. “Bảy escaped by sea with his lieutenants and dozens of his women and their children. The French flew him to Paris, where he still resides. He left behind his decimated criminal enterprises, a son killed in the battle, and the three sharpshooting children he so prized.”

  Reverend Crawford mopped his brow. “And now his surviving daughter prowls the capital, seeking revenge on her family’s enemies.”

  Robeson looked troubled. I leaned in close. “What?”

  “What do you mean, ‘What’? We’re hunting Al Capone’s daughter.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  When we arrived back at the office to brief Deckle, Blue held out a note inviting me to a cinema in Cholon. Unsigned, but Captain Ting’s scrawl was unmistakable.

  Robeson and I snuck in during the first reel of an old black-and-white comedy. Cary Grant and a knockout blonde were gorgeous ghosts in evening dress, messing with a goofy sad sack in a tuxedo. Like all English-language films, it was dubbed in French, had Chinese characters running down the sides, and subtitles in Vietnamese streaming across the bottom. When the ghosts walked through something or somebody, the audience hissed and sharply drew breath, then giggled behind their hands to cover their anxiety and delight.

  Robeson stood guard at the rear while I edged into the row behind Captain Ting. He offered me his cone of French fries.

  “What’s up, Captain?” I said quietly.

  “You displease boss,” he whispered back over his shoulder.

  “Sorry to hear that.” I wasn’t sure which boss he meant, but like all the cops in the country, ultimately Ting worked for Nhu.

  “Counselor Nhu not renew visa. Same-same Sergeant Robeson.”

  “What did we do?”

  Ting turned his face half toward me. His teeth glowed like his white shirt. “Conspire against Việt Nam. Offend Brother Nhu. He have you investigate.”

  “Investigate for what?”

  “Sacrilege. Crazy New Orleans voodoo murder.”

  “What voodoo? Whose murder?”

  “Man on Con Son Island. Buried in arms of pig.”

  “Who’s investigating? Your guys?”

  “No we. CIO and SEPES. For Colonel Tung.” Ting leaned back and whispered, “Colonel người hủi. You understand?”

  “Yes,” I said, not surprised. Ting was calling the head of the Red Berets and SEPES a leper. Street slang for a cop best to stay away from. Like we didn’t already know. Tung had started his life as a servant of the Ngo family and now served them as chief enforcer and extortionist.

  “You and Sergeant Robeson must take great cautions about your person.”

  “So the surveillance on me and my girl the other day on Catinat—was that part of Tung’s investigation?”

  “They say you make plot with Communist.”

  “For fuckssake. She’s a secretary. She works for the ICC.”

  “Not exactly.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She Polish State Security.”

  “We’re in the crapper now, Mr. Miser.” Robeson and I sat on his balcony, nursing beers. “Nhu’s SEPES operators are some mighty twisted dickheads. And they know I killed that sentry.” He took a swig from his beer can. “I’m officially scared shitless, Ellie.”

  “You got company. We’re not living right.”

  Robeson pressed his temples. “I swear I ain’t gettin’ lynched in no human zoo. God, are you sleeping after seeing the way they did Tam? I’m not.” He took another swallow. “They wouldn’t do that to Americans, right?”

  “Right.” I didn’t sound convincing. “But this ain’t about the sentry, Clovis.”

  “You think finding Tam in that shithole dungeon is why they’re really on us?”

  “That—or Major Furth’s report,” I said. “We’ve gone poking around lots of places Nhu doesn’t want us.”

  “What the fuck do we do? We can’t exactly hop the next flight out like Tuttle.”

  “Xin loi, bro.”

  “‘Sorry about that!’ Sorry about that?”

  “Okay, okay. We tip our friendly night manager to let us bunk in any vacant room when the guest is away. If nothing’s vacant, we double up and alternate between our rooms. Maybe set up some cots in the office. Crash at the Rex. We don’t sleep in the same location two nights in a row. And no sleepover dates with your Malaysian honey out by Tan Son Nhut. You’re easy pickings there.”

  “Got it,” Robeson said, reluctantly. “So much for the nights. What about while we’re out and about the world in br
oad daylight, doing our jobs? It’s not just Nhu’s goons after our scalps. The VC let us know they were pissed off at us for talking to Tuttle. How long before they figure out we traced the Red Queen back to her family?”

  I shrugged. “What can we do? Stay alert. Drive dodgy. Never leave the jeep without kids keeping watch. Pay ’em extra so they don’t let anyone leave us a surprise in the gas tank. Carry an extra piece.”

  “Cannons shackled to my ankles and a .38 on my hip does what? How about we do like Special Forces and President Diem—hire us some Nungs?”

  “If somebody’s of a mind to take us out, it won’t matter how many bodyguards we rent. Need be, they’ll kibosh us with an undetonated Air Force bomb and poof, we’re gone. Wouldn’t be enough left of us to fit in a tea bag.”

  “I guess we can’t put on flak vests and steel pots and hide in some bunker until our tour is up.” Robeson crushed his empty beer can. “Or hole up at Hotel Duc. What a number ten situation.”

  “Look at the bright side,” I said. “We got skin in the game now.”

  “Yeah, our foreskins.”

  I didn’t tell him what Ting had said about Nadja. He already had enough worries.

  The night manager said he’d find Robeson an empty suite to crash in. I found Nadja in her room, her sleeping body cocooned in mosquito netting. I double-locked the door, stripped off my clothes in the bathroom, and stood under the shower, eyes closed, letting the lukewarm water stream over me.

  I wrapped a sandalwood-scented bath towel around my middle like a sarong and went out on the balcony for a cigarette. On a merchant ship docked across from the hotel, a Victrola played a slow familiar rumba, “Bésame Mucho.” A couple danced on the canvas cover of the cargo hatch like it was a giant fight ring without the ropes. Either they hadn’t gotten word of Madame Nhu’s ban on social dancing or they didn’t care.

  Illumination rounds lit up the sky across the river. I thought about the first time I went back to my uncle’s place in Pennsylvania after my hitch in Korea. I sat on the front porch like I had as a kid and willed the lightning strikes to march closer and closer, until the cracks of thunder shook the house. But a lightning storm and a few brews at the VFW hall on a Saturday night just didn’t cut it. I knew eventually I’d come back for the real brimstone.

  Ducking inside, I lifted the netting and slipped in next to Nadja. She stirred, and I stared at her. Her bright red hair, almost black in the dark, fanned out across the pillows.

  Nadja stretched. “You came back.”

  “Yeah, I’m back.”

  “Mmm. Learn anything new on your case?”

  “Not much that can help us.”

  “Too bad.”

  “I did find out who was shadowing us along Catinat.”

  “Mmmm. Who were the rozzers?”

  “Most likely a Vietnamese from the Central Intelligence Organization and his American advisor.”

  The lazy breathing stopped. Both eyes opened. “Why were they following us?”

  “Keeping tabs on our capitalist-Communist conspiracy.”

  “Yob tvoyu mat,” she cursed.

  I said, “Are you really an appointments secretary at the ICC?”

  She shifted onto her side, facing me. “No.”

  “Do you type?”

  “Not terribly well.” Her breasts pressed against each other. “Sounds like I’ve been rumbled.”

  I stretched out next to her. “What exactly do you do there?”

  She rolled onto her back, her eyes on the ceiling. “I’m kind of a border collie. Diligent, obedient, well trained. Faithful to my masters. Not very popular with the sheep. I watch my fellow Poles at ICC, make sure they don’t fraternize with Westerners and dutifully return home when their time outside is up. As long as they respect the limits and no one defects, they get to stay—and I get to stay.”

  “Your masters, who are they?”

  “The Interior Ministry’s Security Service. Służba Bezpieczeństwa. SB-nicks they call us, when they’re being polite.”

  She closed her eyes.

  “We didn’t just happen to meet in the bar that night,” I said.

  “No.”

  “Your bosses,” I said, “wanted . . . what?”

  She opened her eyes and turned to stare into mine.

  “To follow the progress you American military policemen were making, get information on the likelihood of the Red Queen being discovered by you . . . and stopped.”

  “Why?”

  “So my masters could report to their masters, I suppose. They don’t exactly say.”

  “Do they pass your information on to the Viet Cong?”

  “I don’t think so, though I can’t be sure. What I report flows in one direction only. Warsaw. Then Moscow.”

  “Why would the Russians want the information?”

  “I’m sure they worry that she might get through the palace defenses and eliminate Diem.”

  “Wouldn’t that make their day?”

  “North Vietnamese hardliners and their Chinese mentors would be pleased. The Russians, no. The Maoists want baby revolutions. They applaud the Cubans for fanning the flames in South America and Africa, and the Vietnamese for inspiring peoples’ wars of liberation in the rest of Indochina and Algeria.”

  “But not the Russians?”

  “No. The Soviets don’t want Diem removed. They want protracted negotiations with Hanoi. Everything kept as is.”

  “No wars of liberation.”

  “They’re still rattled by coming so close to Armageddon last year over their missiles in Cuba. They don’t particularly wish to find themselves underwriting a long war in Indochina. They appreciate Diem’s resistance to the introduction of actual American combat units into Viet Nam and that he rejects US impositions on the country’s sovereignty. He leans in the direction they prefer to see things go.”

  “Which is?”

  “Toward a deal with the North that will avoid an all-out conflict which the United States would inevitably join. At least that’s what my deputy commissioner says each time he returns from Hanoi bearing confidential messages for the South Vietnamese from their cousins in the North. My boss and the French ambassador have informed Diem they are ready to act as intermediaries at a moment’s notice. They may be doing it already. I haven’t seen my boss since he left for Hanoi.”

  “What do Ho Chi Minh and the North Vietnamese want from the deal?”

  “A reunified Viet Nam,” she said. “All of us gone. Your lot and our lot.”

  “So while we’re financing the fight against Communism, Diem and Nhu are ready to negotiate with the North. If Uncle Ho plays it right, he could win the whole thing without having to fire another fucking shot.”

  “Do you care?”

  “Me? I like all the cards face up, knowing where all the players stand.”

  She laughed. “Please, this is Viet Nam.”

  “Getting this close to me, was that your assignment?”

  “No, and they mustn’t find out or I’m in trouble.”

  You and me both, I thought. I said, “Then why are you with me?”

  “Same reason you’re with me. Don’t make me say it. We’ll only feel worse. Not that it matters at this point, given our situations. D’Orlandi may find it adorable that we are romancing, but my overseers in Warsaw would shut us down in a second if they thought it was serious. Sounds like your superiors would be none too pleased either.” Nadja brushed her hair away from her eyes. “Mrs. Lodge may think you are lucky, but this may be the end of it—us.”

  I closed my eyes. Lucky. I’d been alone with Emily Lodge in her living room when she said that.

  Nadja drifted off. I slept too, holding her fingers close to my cheek, my arm across her waist. It wasn’t a very restful night. When I awoke she was gone.

  Chapter
Thirty-Three

  I went down to my room and pushed open the shutters to take in the dawn traffic on the river. A rust bucket was tying up at the dock where the couple had danced on board the merchant ship the night before. A small ferry crossed upriver, carrying a few cars and a bus with cages lashed to its roof. Freighters were moored midchannel, surrounded by small, nimble wooden craft that moved around the ships like insects, lining up at floating docks beneath the steel hulls to cart away portions of their innards. Booms swung cargo nets over the sides and lowered sacks onto their decks. From what Tuttle had told us, at least half the skiffs and sampans would push west into Cholon where their valuable loads would vanish.

  My civvies were hanging neatly in the armoire but still damp. I carried the pants and shirt on hangers to the balcony to hook on the awning. The tropical heat would finish the drying in minutes. In the bathroom, I lathered up my beard and lifted the razor to my face. The morning sun bouncing off the mirror hurt my tired eyes and I opened the medicine cabinet to shift the angle. The reflected light caught the rod that held up the plain white shower curtain behind me, illuminating something shadowy where it met the wall. Razor in hand, I carefully peered around the curtain, hoping it wasn’t a snake.

  A fat old Russian fragmentation grenade was tied to the bar. Four pounds of hash-marked iron. The thinnest of lines ran from the pin to a shower-curtain hook. The cotter pin’s split ends were straight and even. They’d probably shortened the fuse too, to make it go off right away. The slightest tug on the curtain would draw the pin out. Hell, a wrong breath, a slamming door. I’d never hear it go off.

  Heart in my mouth, I reached up and crimped the ends of the pin so it couldn’t slide out and detonate the fucker, sending shrapnel in all directions and turning me into a colander. With the pin secured, I sat down on the toilet lid and forced myself to breathe steadily. My hands shook worse than Lodge’s. If I had come home to my own room and showered here last night instead of at Nadja’s, there would have been no morning light striking the mirror to reveal the silhouette. I stuck my hands in my armpits and bent at the waist. No way was I going to shave the way my hands were shaking. I sure as shit wasn’t getting in that shower. I sponged off best I could and got dressed.