Palace Council

by Stephen L Carter

  Eddie could hardly search for Perry from the outside. And so he changed his ways. He became conversant in the details of the war. He learned who could be quoted, who could be believed, whom to avoid. Once he learned who was who, he changed hotels, moving on to the Duc, considerably lower in the pecking order, because he heard that the guys from the Central Intelligence Agency hung out there, but they gossiped even less. He saw no sign of Perry Mount. In his innocence, he had imagined blundering into the golden boy in the hotel restaurant.

  Not much going on, he wrote to Aurelia, his mother, and whoever was intercepting his mail. The best stories have all been told. Probably a wasted trip.

  He was surprised by the heat. He was surprised by the dust. Nothing was shiny but the cars of the rich, which must have been washed and waxed several times a day. Yet the city was bursting with energy. Everyone seemed to be employed by the war. The American buildup filled coffers, but also wrecked the economy, because the local currency became worthless: everybody wanted dollars. Inflation was uncountable. The traffic was impossible. Small-time businessmen and big-time pimps glided through crowded streets in late-model European sedans. Motorcycles, from Honda to Vespa and most brands in between, wove through the snarls. The fighting seemed very far away, except at night, when you heard the distant whump of artillery, and sometimes not so distant; and in the morning, when you found freshly burned planes at the airport, or abandoned tanks on the ragged city outskirts. Now and then, a squadron of National Police would barricade a house, rush inside, and drag off some poor soul who, within days if not hours, would certainly confess to giving aid and comfort to the National Liberation Front, whether or not it was true.

  The Americans had barricaded the center of the city, yet the safe zone they had thereby created was anything but. There was a morbid pecking order among the hotels. The Caravelle, owned by the Catholic Church, was widely acknowledged as safest: rumor said management had done a side deal with the NLF to avoid the terror bombings that intermittently shook other buildings. But rumor said lots of things. It was rumor, as much as anything, that had led Eddie here in the first place.

  “He can’t say for sure,” Aurelia had warned, the two of them walking on the Cornell campus, where anybody could see.

  “I understand,” Eddie had answered, carefully not touching her. “But I still have to try.”

  “I know. Eddie?”

  “Yes, Aurie?”

  “You be careful, okay?”

  “I will,” he deadpanned. “But only because you asked me.”

  She walked him to his car, parked in Collegetown, at the edge of the campus. “Keep in touch,” she said.

  “I will.” He stroked her cheek. She allowed it. “I’ll miss you.”

  “I’ll miss you, too.”

  “Aurie, about what happened—”

  “I know,” she said, and, briefly and lightly, kissed him.

  He smiled in delight, and promptly ruined the moment. “I’ll write you. If you can’t reach me, try through Mindy.”

  Aurelia stiffened. “Certainly,” she said, and left him.

  (II)

  EDDIE WAS RUNNING OUT of things to do. He kept spotting Perry in the crowded streets but he was always wrong. To settle himself down, and further establish his bona fides, he decided to act like a real war correspondent. He spent a week traveling along the McNamara Line with a company from I Corps, and wound up caught in a firefight on the Hill of Angels near Quang Tri. Shells landed right on top of them, blowing Eddie’s brain to bits, except really they were nowhere near. Constant strafing fire meant nobody dared stand up. It had never occurred to Eddie that bullets were invisible. In the movies they always sparked when they hit metal but in real life they just knocked pieces out of objects and men and ricocheted on. Helicopters angled in through the fusillade to pick up the wounded and drop off ammunition.

  When the shooting abated, a bespectacled lieutenant named Cox helped Eddie up. Eddie asked him what happened next. The lieutenant said the North Vietnamese needed the hill and would, sooner or later, try to take it. Eddie asked what that meant for the unit. We’re not gonna let it happen, the lieutenant said. He looked at Eddie’s empty hands.

  “Ever fired a gun, Mr. Wesley?”

  “Not really. No.”

  “Well, we’re not really allowed to give you a weapon, but if they come hard, you find me and I’ll see what I can do, because nobody’s neutral. Know what I mean?”

  But the real assault came weeks later, after Eddie was safely back in Saigon. One afternoon he visited a club Perry had been known to frequent. He did not find Perry, but he did find Lieutenant Cox. Eddie bought him a drink.

  “What was it like?” Eddie asked.

  The lieutenant took off his glasses. The eyes were fiery and empty at once, as if he was furious and had forgotten why. “We kept the hill,” he said.

  (III)

  MONA’S JOURNALIST FRIEND RETURNED in early May: a bearded, pudgy Santa of a man, whose jolliness seemed to Eddie a concealment for the near-unraveling evidenced by the tremble in his fingers and the spittle on his fleshy lips. His name was Simon Pratt, and he told Eddie to take the direct approach. If you want to find somebody, said Pratt with his desperate smile, the best way is to ask. Oh, but how is the lovely Mona?

  Thriving, said Eddie. If Mona had not told the Britisher about her recent marriage, it was hardly Eddie’s place to disclose her secrets.

  Nevertheless, he followed Pratt’s advice, weaving past the walls and sandbags and machine-gun emplacements protecting the United States Embassy to ask for Perry Mount, only to be assured that nobody of that name worked there. A grinning Pratt, writing his eighth or ninth war, suggested Eddie try some of the other American agencies, but the answer was the same. Though Eddie wandered the city, he found no journalist who had heard of Perry; no landlord who had rented to him; no restaurateur who had served him.

  Pratt had another idea. He positively bristled with them. He also possessed sources Eddie could never tap. Pratt was willing to do a bit of hunting, in exchange for what he called a share of the take. Eddie agreed. Pratt came up with a rumor that Perry Mount had set up housekeeping with a Vietnamese girl from one of the shantytowns that ringed Saigon. Pratt had no location or name, just the rumor, and the rumor was not well sourced. Nor could he ride along. All the correspondents in town were always on the way to someplace else, and Pratt was leaving at once for the Central Highlands, where American forces were interdicting North Vietnamese forces moving in from Cambodia. On his own again, Eddie hired a driver and poked his nose into the city’s dank corners, where the poor sat blank-faced in front of tiny slanting houses that might sleep a dozen to a floor. His cover was a story for the magazine, and he even thought he might write one. He wanted the shantytowns to be America’s fault, but the slums had been there forever. His driver refused to stop. Too dangerous, he said. Eddie gave the man ten dollars extra. Grudgingly, the driver pulled over at a shack. He argued with the people inside. They got back into the car, drove to another. And another. The same thing happened each time. Eddie asked what they told him. The driver shrugged.

  “They don’t know your friend. They say you all look alike.”

  At one of the shanties, two men ran out the back as the car approached, and another emerged from inside, holding some kind of knife. The driver talked to him more respectfully, and without alighting.

  “He says you’re American police. He says you’re far from home.”

  Eddie could not tell whether he was being taken for a ride. They returned to the city.

  Back from the Highlands, chubby Pratt dragged him to the sites of a couple of terror bombings, and at one of them, a bar that had catered to American soldiers, Eddie stepped on rancid chicken bones while craning for a better look and heard them crack beneath his boot, except that they were pieces of a shredded human hand. On the way back downtown, Pratt assured him that everybody vomited the first time. Eddie said nothing. He was thinking of the boys Scarlett had
tortured into talking in Harlem long ago, and how for a few weeks he had skipped the newspapers to avoid learning their fate. He felt small, and morally obtuse. The next day, he filed a short piece on the compensation paid by the American military if a soldier accidentally killed a civilian. The leftish magazine that credentialed his trip happily ran the story, which was picked up by the wire services, and made Eddie more friends in some circles, more enemies in others.

  The going rate for a dead Vietnamese was thirty dollars.

  (IV)

  IN THE CITY, the locals took him for an off-duty soldier. As he walked the crowded streets, or rode in a cyclo, they offered to sell him most things, including guaranteed North Vietnamese military secrets and genuine ancient Buddhist artifacts made of plastic. Young men whispered the tricks their wares would play on his mind. Young women in skirts of breathtaking shortness shouted out prices as he passed. He bought souvenirs for Aurelia and his mother and Marcella but could not find a story worth telling. Eddie prowled for his American Angle, and almost glimpsed it. Nobody in Saigon thought defeat was possible. The city was too thrilled, too drunk on American dollars, which everyone mistook for American power. But there was more to the country than Saigon. In reality, said Pratt, the combination of American troops and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam controlled only the major cities and a few key roads. By day you could drive from one town to the next. By night you partied behind high walls, or huddled in your bed, assuring yourself that if you closed your eyes it would be morning.

  Eddie made notes but could not work the idea into an essay.

  Three days after visiting the bombing site, he hit pay dirt. At the end of the “Saigon follies”—the unofficial name for the official military briefing, usually held on the rooftop of the Rex Hotel—a writer for one of the news magazines pulled him aside to ask if it was true that he was looking for Perry Mount.

  Eddie said he might be.

  The black CIA man?

  Possibly.

  Amused, the reporter pointed to a woman standing near the edge of the terrace as if in a fog.

  “She’s a freelance photographer. She’s won a couple of awards. She’s his girlfriend, or at least used to be.”

  (V)

  HER NAME WAS TERI, and she was white and tangled and skinny as a refugee. Eddie’s magical name impressed her. They went to the bar. She told her story dictation-style, the words evenly spaced, like a confession at the end of a long bout of torture. No, she said. She was not Perry’s girlfriend. They were friends, she supposed, and in war a lot of things happened, but “girlfriend” was a little strong. It was only a fling, Teri insisted. The look in her war-weary eyes said she was willing to have another. But Eddie wanted Teri’s facts, not her flesh. Worried about a setup, he asked if Perry still ate Milky Way bars by the bushel. Teri seemed confused. No, she said. She never saw him eat a Milky Way. But he scarfed one Baby Ruth after another, man. So she really did know him. They went to another bar and talked. Perry was genuine State Department, Teri told him—not Agency. She seemed very certain of it, although, pressed, she could not say what made her so sure. Except that he was so determined to help people. He was a good man, said Teri, eyes empty. He wanted to change the world a little bit at a time. He was involved in all these food programs. Working with the farmers. Oh, and he was totally committed to nonviolence, man.

  Great. But where is he now?

  He has a house in Hong Kong.

  Is he there now? Or is he in Vietnam?

  Those wide eyes that had seen too much darted around the room. “No idea,” she muttered, into her drink.

  “I’m staying at the Duc,” said Eddie. “If you see him, will you tell him I’m looking for him?”

  “I won’t see him. Nobody sees him. He’s the spooky kind of spook, man.”

  “Will you tell him?”

  Teri might have nodded. She might not have. But she remembered, very suddenly, that she had to make an urgent call. She said she would be right back. As Eddie watched her every move, she used the barman’s phone. She seemed to wait a very long time for whoever was on the other end. The whispered conversation was short.

  Teri was back. And more nervous than before. She tried to nibble at a fingernail, but they were all bitten to the quick. Now she was sure Perry was no longer in the country. Eddie should try Hong Kong. She had to get going. She had forgotten an appointment. Out on the street, she asked Eddie if she could take a couple of shots of the great writer. She posed him near a street market, then shook her head and said she wanted a better backdrop. She posed him beside a brightly colored funeral wagon with its fake pagoda. No good. She hurried off, waving at Eddie to follow. She took a sharp corner, then another, and left him behind. Or thought she did. Teri climbed into a dusty Chevy about a thousand years old and drove like a maniac. Eddie knew this because his cab driver was following her. She did not look in any shape to spot a tail. The center of town was an ultra-low-rent version of Times Square. Bars were crowded, although most of the outdoor patios were closed: you never knew when a grenade might roll out of the swarm of humanity and ruin your dinner. Teri’s Chevy blew past delivery trucks and sidewalk stalls. A traffic policeman in his white gloves stared from beneath the golden canopy that marked his stand. He did not interfere with the weaving caravan. He knew Americans when he saw them.

  The Chevy pulled up to a gate. She said something to the guard, and the gate was raised. Eddie got out of his cab. The sign said LE CERCLE SPORTIF SAIGONNAIS: the swankiest country club in the city. He watched Teri hand her key to the valet, who stared at the rusting car in disbelief.

  Eddie waited until she had vanished within the walls. He walked up to the gate, waved his expired White House pass, and bluffed and boistered his way inside.

  He had heard of the glamorous Cercle Sportif, he had passed it many times, but he had never been inside. The club stood in the shadow of the heavily fortified presidential compound, just past the American military dispensary. With its green lawns and jacketed waiters, the place was a breath of European luxury in the midst of war. Teri was heading for the clubhouse. Everybody stared. At Eddie, not Teri. Slender white women were a dime a dozen at the club, but Negroes were not generally seen on the grounds, even in service. Le Cercle was home to Saigon’s remaining beautiful people, mostly Caucasian, some Eurasian, or, in a few cases of absurd wealth, full Vietnamese. All the beautiful people seemed present and accounted for this morning, sunning themselves by the shimmering pool. Everybody was excited, because earlier this morning a pair of well-heeled guests at another private club, Le Club Nautique, had rented a boat and motored up the Saigon River, only to be shot dead, probably by the NLF. Can you imagine? Really, you would think the police could protect us.

  Teri climbed the steps to the veranda with its gilded rails. Eddie lingered below, figuring there was no place for her to escape to. After a few minutes, he followed her up. The headwaiter stopped him, but Eddie smiled and said he was meeting a lady. He pointed to Teri, who had settled at a table in a shaded corner, between the pool and the tennis courts, partially shielded by a kiosk—not the most prestigious spot, but one of the least visible. Eddie wove his way past Saigon’s beautiful people. When he was a half-dozen yards away, he realized that he had erred. It was only what she had reported, an urgent appointment, because the man sitting across from Teri was not Perry Mount. He was white, and thin, and wore a thick black beard. Eddie slowed. The man’s superior way of inclining his head was somehow familiar. He looked prosperous, and Eddie thought he might be one of the European traders who flocked across Saigon like carrion eaters on a carcass. The man looked up. The haughty eyes met Eddie’s.

  And stared in terror.

  Teri turned around.

  The man rose to his feet. Not to run. To extend a hand, as if they were old friends. The stranger’s natural hauteur, nurtured through years of performance in cavernous law-school classrooms, swallowed the evident fear. An instant before he spoke, Eddie recognized him.

 
; And was too startled to shake back.

  “Welcome to Saigon,” said the late Benjamin Mellor.

  CHAPTER 42

  Various Counselors

  (I)

  LOCKE GARLAND, age nine, had been in another fight. His mother sat through a lecture from the friendly guidance counselor, who kept telling her how wonderfully sweet Zora was—the same Zora who had moved on, early, to junior-high school and no longer fell under the jurisdiction of the counselor, whose duties ended at sixth grade. If only Locke could be more like Zora, the counselor sighed, fingering the stems of the glasses she wore on a faux-gold chain round her beefy neck. No, no, no, she was not blaming the boy—of course not. Probably the other boys taunted him. He was scrawny, he was bookish, and he was a Negro—what would you expect? The other Negro kids were not on the honors track. Well, except Zora, and she was gone. Naturally they would make fun. They were good boys. The counselor wanted Aurelia to understand that. They were good boys, just as Locke was a good boy, and good boys got into fights sometimes. Part of learning to be a man.

  Then why are we having this conversation? Aurelia wanted to ask, but did not.

  “I’m a liberal,” said the counselor, having decided to put the glasses back on. Behind the thick lenses her emerald eyes seemed kinder, or maybe just larger. “I believe in integration. And I’m so glad you moved to Ithaca, and we got your kids onto the honors track.” We: as if their mother had not been forced to do fierce battle over every inch of ground. “They’re wonderful children, Mrs. Garland. You should be very proud of them.”

  “I am.”

  The smile wavered a bit. “But I believe what they may need is the firm hand of a father.”