by Don Winslow
“This is most irregular.”
“Monsieur Laval,” said Nicholai, “the Banque de l’Indochine is most irregular.”
Laval looked insulted. He sat back in his chair and then ran his long fingers across his high forehead. “Do you have any additional identification that might authenticate your identity, monsieur … whoever you are?”
Nicholai nodded, removed an envelope from his jacket pocket, and handed it to Laval. The banker took it, opened it, turned ghostly pale, and sputtered, “This is outrageous.”
“I agree,” Nicholai said. “I imagine Madame Laval would agree as well.”
“How did you get these?” Laval asked, stunned by the photographs of him in bed with a young Cambodian girl.
“Does it matter?”
“This is hardly the act of a gentleman.”
“Again, we are in perfect harmony. Those copies are for you to keep, I have others safely stored away. However, if this is not adequate identification” — he slid a stack of piastre notes across the desk — “perhaps these pictures might suffice.”
Laval hesitated. Then he took the stack of bills and stuffed them and the photos inside his jacket pocket.
He grudgingly led him to the vault and handed him the key.
Nicholai opened the steel box.
Bankbooks for accounts in Switzerland and the United States. In addition to the accounts were stocks and securities — a bit ironic for a Communist, Nicholai thought. He knew nothing of such things, but could hope that Voroshenin did, and had invested the Ivanov fortune wisely. Then there were codes to other safety deposit boxes. In Zurich, Bonn, Paris, New York, Buenos Aires.
Of course, Nicholai couldn’t know what they contained, but there was already enough money to fund what he wanted to do and for he and Solange to live in reasonable comfort and safety.
And, on the subject of safety, Nicholai was delighted to find what he had hoped to find, and what a man of Voroshenin’s profession would surely store in a secure place —
Passports.
One French, another German. With unintentionally exquisite irony, one was Costa Rican — the same nationality that the Americans had promised him. And, speaking of the Americans, Voroshenin had even provided himself with an American passport.
One “Michael Pine,” resident of Park Avenue in New York City.
Nicholai took the contents of the box, put them in his briefcase, and walked out of the vault.
Laval was waiting for him.
“Now I wish to open an account, please,” Nicholai said, handing him the American passport, “in this name.”
The account was opened. Nicholai kept enough for immediate expenses, deposited the rest, and instructed Laval to wire it to their branch in Marseille.
Laval obediently did so.
Nicholai wished him a pleasant day and left.
124
THE MEN SAT in Antonucci’s office.
Mancini, Antonucci, Guarini, Ribieri, Sarti, Luciani — the whole leadership of L’Union Corse sat around the table and listened to what Captain Signavi’s guest, the amerloque who called himself “Mr. Gold,” had to say.
“The so-called Michel Guibert,” Diamond said, “is an asset of an American anti-narcotic unit sent to infiltrate the Indochina— Marseille—New York heroin connection.”
The men were silent for a minute.
Finally, Mancini said, “This is what comes of doing business with outsiders.”
“He seemed like a respectful young man,” Antonucci responded. He took a cigar from its humidor and carefully lit it, not showing his fury at having been deceived by the young Guibert.
“It’s the times,” Guarini offered consolingly.
“There’s more,” Diamond said. “His handler is an American working in Saigon under USIS cover.”
“Haverford,” Mancini said. “I knew it.”
More silence ensued, more sipping of espresso, more slow, deliberate smoking. Then Mancini said, “The Haverford thing has to look like something else. A robbery … use some of the local boys.”
“What about Guibert?” Antonucci asked.
Signavi interjected, “He’s something different. He can handle himself.”
The men took this in.
Antonucci said, “I’ll give it to the Cobra.”
125
A DOUR, OVERWEIGHT FRENCHMAN was waiting for Nicholai in the lobby of the Continental. He slowly unfolded himself from his chair and approached Nicholai as he waited for the clerk to retrieve his room key.
“Monsieur Guibert?”
“Yes?”
The man’s suit hung off him like laundry. Dark circles under his eyes gave an impression of even greater colonial lassitude.
“Patrice Raynal,” he said. “SDECE. I would like a word.”
“The bar?” Nicholai suggested.
“Perhaps your room?” Raynal suggested. “For your privacy?”
They repaired to Nicholai’s room, where Raynal refused the offered drink, lowered himself into a chair, and got right down to business. “I don’t like you, Guibert.”
“Ah,” Nicholai responded. “Most people wait a day or two until they decide to dislike me.”
“They have not had the advantages,” Raynal said, “of receiving hostile wires from Moscow and Beijing demanding your immediate arrest and extradition, nor equally strident inquiries from Norodom Palace inquiring about the identity of a Frenchman who insulted the emperor and made improper advances toward his escort. Nor have they received the reports that you sold a cargo of extremely lethal and probably stolen weapons to the Binh Xuyen and that you took an extremely ill-advised airplane ride to Cap St.-Jacques.”
“The Binh Xuyen are your allies,” Nicholai said pleasantly.
Raynal’s voice was tired. “You see, publicly they’re not. The French government does not consort with pirates and dope smugglers. And just this morning, Guibert, before I even had a chance to spike my coffee with a fortifying jolt of cognac, I received word that a certain, admittedly minor Soviet functionary, formerly of the Beijing delegation, was dead in a Cholon flophouse, an apparent suicide but, jaded cynic that I am, I can’t help but wonder if your presence in the same city is merely coincidental. You do seem to have a habit of being in the vicinity of dead Russians.”
Leotov dead? Nicholai wondered, keeping any sign of it off his face. An overdose or the Russians, or the Chinese? “I suppose I have that in common with any number of, say, Germans.”
“Witty,” Raynal said. “I dislike you more every minute.”
“So are you arresting me?” Nicholai asked, tired of the jousting. Obviously, extradition to either of the Communist capitals would be the end of the game.
“No,” Raynal said. “We don’t take our orders from Moscow or Beijing. Not even from Washington, yet. But your business in Saigon is concluded. You managed to make a nice little lagniappe at the casino last night. Leave, Guibert, as soon as possible.”
“Bay Vien told me the same thing.”
“He was correct,” Raynal said. “I really don’t care what happens to you, I just don’t want it happening in my little garden. Not to put too fine a point on it, get out. Va t’en.”
He pushed himself up from the chair, looking even more wrinkled than he did when he arrived.
“One more thing?” he said as he walked to the door. “Leave His Excellency’s woman alone.”
Nicholai stepped over to the note that was set on his table. If Raynal had noticed it, he hadn’t let on.
He opened the envelope.
Ciné Catinat? À deux heures?
Unsigned, but in her hand.
He looked at his watch.
He had just enough time to make his rendezvous at Sarreau’s and then go meet Solange.
126
NICHOLAI WALKED up to the counter at Sarreau’s and asked for two packets of enterovioform.
“You are sick to your stomach?” the clerk asked.
“Otherwise I would not have as
ked.”
He paid for the pills and then went back onto Rue Catinat and walked down toward the Neptuna Swimming Pool.
The Vietnamese who had followed him from the hotel was still on his tail.
Whoever he works for — the Viet Minh or the French — should be informed of his ineptitude, Nicholai thought. Unless the point is to be discovered, in which case he should be promoted.
Nicholai strolled to the pool.
It was a blistering hot day and the pool was crowded. Children splashed and annoyed the serious swimmers attempting to do disciplined laps in the marked lanes. Nicholai lingered under a plane tree at the edge of the little park, lit a cigarette, and watched.
His tail made a show of “disappearing” into the crowd.
So many games, Nicholai thought, to market the instruments of death.
He waited for fifteen minutes, grew bored and irritated, and decided that enough was enough. As he was walking away from the Neptuna, a Vietnamese fell in at his side. The man was especially short, and clad in khaki shirt, shorts, and rubber sandals.
“You brought the police,” the man said.
“They brought themselves,” Nicholai answered.
“I could lose him easily,” the man scoffed. “But you …”
“I apologize for my stature.”
“Buy cigarettes.”
“It’s a bit late to stunt my growth.”
“Buy cigarettes.” The man jutted his chin at a tobacco shop and then he melted into the crowd.
Nicholai walked over to the tobacconist’s. The owner, an old man, handed him the pack. An address was scrawled on the back.
“Take a cyclo-pousse,” the old man snapped.
Nicholai went back out on the street to hail one of the bicycle-powered rickshaws. The first one in a long queue hurried to pick him up, Nicholai gave him the address, and the driver pedaled out into the swirling Saigon traffic.
Nicholai noticed the police tail get into the next in line, but the driver argued with him, with much yelling and hand-waving. By the time the police tail found a driver who would take him, Nicholai’s rickshaw had disappeared into the current.
The route led across the Dakow Bridge, over the Saigon River into Cholon, and Nicholai recalled the sad joke that there is a Chinese quarter in every city in the world except Shanghai.
This one was no different. Three-story tenement buildings painted in vivid greens, blues, and reds, their tiny railed balconies decorated with drying laundry, leaned over the narrow streets as if they might imminently collapse onto them. Every other block seemed to have a small Buddhist temple or a shrine to a lesser Chinese god.
The driver navigated the vehicle through the clogged, noisy streets and pulled up alongside what appeared to be a tailor’s shop, then refused the payment that Nicholai offered as he got out.
Nicholai went into the shop and was immediately hustled through a door into a back room. His proximity sense was on high alert, but discerned no danger. Apparently, the Viet Minh had not brought him there to kill him. Was it possible that they didn’t know about his transfer of the weapons to the Binh Xuyen?
The man who had met him near the pool was already there. He did not give a name, but said brusquely, “You did not make the rendezvous in Luang Prabang.”
“No,” Nicholai answered, “you did not make the rendezvous in Luang Prabang.”
“Our man was murdered shortly before.”
“I can hardly be held responsible for his negligence,” Nicholai answered.
“You have no feeling.”
“See that you remember it.”
The agent frowned at the distasteful necessity of dealing with this mercenary creature. “Where are the weapons?”
So, Nicholai thought, either they do not know or they are not certain. He needed time and space to complete his maneuvers on the board, just a little space to move the stones into position. “Where is my money?”
“When we get the weapons,” the Viet Minh agent answered. “Where are they?”
“In a safe place,” Nicholai answered.
“We have heard rumors …”
So the Viet Minh had heard about his airplane ride with the Binh Xuyen and the French into Saigon. Yet his making contact through the stamp shop had confused them. Otherwise they would have tried to kill me immediately, he thought. “You shouldn’t listen to rumors. It’s a morally debilitating habit.”
“You are playing a dangerous game,” the agent said. “If you have sold the weapons to the Binh Xuyen, you will answer for it.”
“I answer only to myself,” Nicholai responded. “In addition to the money, I believe there is also the matter of a new passport?”
The agent said, “You will get your money when we get the weapons and your new papers when the weapons reach their destination.”
“That would be to this Ai Quoc person?”
The agent didn’t answer.
Which is answer enough, Nicholai thought. He knew he had to take the offensive. “You will give me the money and the papers when I deliver the weapons to you.”
“That is inconceivable.”
“Nonsense,” Nicholai responded, “as I just conceived of it. You might think it improbable, inconvenient, perhaps impossible, but inconceivable? No.”
“I will pass along your request,” the agent said stiffly.
“It is not a request,” Nicholai said. “It is a nonnegotiable demand.”
Nicholai knew that he was acting far too Western — confrontational and direct — but he didn’t have the time for elaborate Asian courtesy. And he needed them to believe that the papers were crucial to him.
“Do not contact me again,” Nicholai pressed. “I will contact you within two days to tell you where and when we can make the transfer. If you do not have the money, the deal is off. If you do not have the papers, the deal is off. Do we understand each other?”
“I understand you far too well.”
“Good,” Nicholai said. “Now I have an appointment.”
He took a cyclo-pousse back into the city and had it drop him off near the Ciné Catinat.
127
SHE WAS SILVER in the reflected light of the screen.
Solange sat two rows in front of him, arranged her long legs in the narrow aisle, lit a cigarette, and looked up at the screen.
Simone Signoret starring in Casque d’or.
The film was a Belle Epoque crime story that held little interest for Nicholai, and he was glad when, after twenty minutes, Solange got up and left the theater. He waited a few seconds and then followed her out onto Rue Catinat. She walked quickly, with long strides, and didn’t look behind her until she came to the Eden Roc Hotel, where she checked her image in the glass doorway and saw his reflection.
Nicholai waited until she went in, then followed her into the small lobby, where he saw the Vietnamese desk clerk smile in recognition and hand Solange her room key. So he knew that this was her official address, although he suspected that she spent most of her nights at the palace.
She went into the elevator and Nicholai stood off and watched the brass arrow above the doors indicate that she went to the second floor. He went over to the small shop, purchased a Journal, and perused the headlines before he allowed himself to walk over to the stairway door to make sure that neither the desk clerk nor the concierge were watching, then went in and took the stairs up to the second floor.
He walked the corridor and found that the door to room 231 was ajar. He stood outside for just a moment, allowing his senses to confirm that the perfume was hers.
He went in and shut the door behind him.
Solange stood in the small living room.
“That was foolish,” she said, lighting a cigarette. “Foolish and jejune.”
“What was?”
“Your behavior last night.”
She’s beautiful, Nicholai thought. Her golden hair, a casque d’or indeed, soft in the muted afternoon light, one hip cocked in anger, her muscled leg set o
ff by the high heels. She turned away from him, pried the bamboo window shades open with her fingers, and looked out onto the street.
“What did you want me to do?” Solange asked. “Starve? Live on the street?”
“I make no judgments.”
“How worldly of you,” she mocked. “How tolerant you are.”
Nicholai knew that this verbal slap was deserved. He asked, “Did Haverford send you here?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “A different one. He called himself ‘Mr. Gold’ … he arranged for me to meet Bao Dai. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if you were alive, or dead …”
Diamond, Nicholai thought, is as unimaginative as he is brutal. He has all the subtlety of a bull. And yet bulls can be very dangerous when they turn, hook, and gore.
“It’s all right,” he said.
“It isn’t,” she said. “They sent me here to lure you, didn’t they? Even if we get out, they can use me to track you. You should leave me, Nicholai. Walk away now and never come back.”
“No.”
She looked back again toward the window, and Nicholai realized that she was afraid she’d been followed from the cinema. “I need to get back before the film is over.”
“To learn how it ends?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I’ve seen it three times. The first two times, I cried.”
“And this time?”
“I will probably cry again.”
He pulled her to him and kissed her. Her lips were soft and warm.
Nicholai brushed the hair away from her neck, kissed her there, and was rewarded with a moan. Encouraged, he unzipped her dress and ran his hand down the warm skin of her back.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” she murmured. “This is crazy.”
But she shrugged the dress off her shoulders and let it slide down her hips. Then she unsnapped her bra and pressed her breasts against him. “You feel so good.”
Nicholai picked her up and carried her into the bedroom.
Setting her on the bed, he peeled the dress down her legs, revealing her black garter and stockings.
