Saigon Wife

by Colin Falconer

  “You don’t take sugar or cream, right?”

  “You’re a funny man, Walt.”

  He sat down and folded his hands across his growing belly. “Here’s to America,” he said, taking a mouthful of coffee, and swung his chair around to admire the view over the roofs of Saigon. “So I hear Angel Macheda paid you a visit.”

  “Just two old friends catching up on old times over the cracker barrel.”

  “Nice of him to look you up.”

  “I thought so.”

  Walt turned his chair back around. “What are you going to do, Reyes? It’s been two weeks since they nixed your bar. You just going to sit moping every night or are you going back to the States?”

  “I haven’t decided.”

  “Because I could sure use a guy like you.”

  “I don’t do that kind of work anymore, Walt.”

  “I can pay you good money.”

  Reyes shook his head.

  “Why the hell not?”

  “I’ve become a Buddhist.”

  For a moment Walt just stared, then he got the joke. “You crack me up.”

  “Why is that so funny? I look good in orange.”

  “Don’t you want to serve your country again and fight for democracy?”

  “Not if it means smuggling drugs for the Vietnamese government again.”

  “The end justifies the means.”

  “There is no end, Walt, that’s the problem. It just goes on and on and you end up with a whole bunch of means.”

  “I figured you’d say that.” He took another sip of coffee, winced as the bourbon burned the back of his throat. “You know, I’ve been hearing rumors.”

  “What kind of rumors?”

  “About some scag that went missing out at Tan Son Nhut. Seems there were three staff sergeants who were taking kickbacks from some of Angel’s associates. In return they provided their cooperation in moving some trade goods the Vietnamese air force were flying in from Laos. Trouble is, one of them decided to go freelance.”

  “What were these trade goods?”

  “Number four Double U-O Globe refined heroin, ninety-eight percent pure. Nearly eight kilos of it.”

  Reyes whistled softly. “That’s a lot of product. What would something like that be worth?”

  “Almost two million dollars.”

  “A lot of cash. What happened to this guy, did he get away with it?”

  “Not even close. Seems he was in your bar the afternoon the grenade went off.”

  “Poor bastard.”

  “Yeah, rotten luck.”

  “I hope his family aren’t going to sue. Like I told you, I wasn’t carrying insurance.”

  “He’s a casualty of war. Of more interest to many people is what happened to the missing property.”

  “I admit, two million does seem like a lot to drop down the back of the seat.”

  Walt finished his coffee, whirled his chair around again, and stared through the window at Saigon. So hot out there you could practically see the steam rising. “You wouldn’t know anything about this, would you?”

  “Me?”

  “Reyes, I’ve known you a long time. I’m saying this as a friend. I know you think you’re smarter than Angel Macheda, and you probably are, but you steal from him or any of his buddies and you’re a dead man. You know this.”

  “You know me, Walt, I don’t steal from anyone.”

  “Just sayin’.”

  “Thanks for the advice. And the coffee.” He got up to leave.

  “One other thing.”

  “Another rumor?”

  “No, this is a verified fact. Your old girlfriend is in town.”

  “Which one? I’ve got a lot of exes.”

  “Not like this one.”

  Reyes’ grin fell away. Having given himself away, he shoved his hands in his pockets and tried to shrug it off. “What the hell is she doing here?”

  “It’s a free country.”

  “Actually, it’s not, Walt, that’s the whole point of the war.”

  “She’s married now, thought you’d like to know. Her husband is a hot-shot journalist. He was a correspondent for the New York Times, then he wrote a couple of books: one about the Bay of Pigs, the other about the Kennedy assassination.”

  “Just the kind of nosy bastard you guys don’t want in Saigon.”

  “No, we didn’t roll out the welcome mat.”

  There were a hundred things Reyes wanted to know: how does she look, is she happy, what’s she doing, has she got kids? But he didn’t ask any of those things. He just walked out of the door.

  Walt called him back.

  “Don’t you want to know where she’s staying?”

  He shook his head. “No, that’s all right,” he said and left.

  Chapter 7

  MAGDALENA

  I was in my room at the Caravelle. I’d ordered breakfast from room service, a croissant and some coffee. Connor had already left.

  As soon as he had gotten his press accreditation he was gone every day at first light and usually didn’t come back to the hotel until after the five o’clock press briefing at the Rex, and sometimes a lot later. He was sending back gonzo pieces to the New York Times and several other newspapers in the United States, but what had him most excited was the possibility of another book - ‘corruption at the very highest level’ was all he would say. His two previous books had been highly controversial, and both had been on the New York Times bestseller lists, and now he craved another shot at notoriety.

  There was a knock on the door. My breakfast at last.

  “Hi, baby. Pleased to see me?”

  He pushed his way in before I could stop him. I supposed it would have been pointless anyway, if I’d locked the door he would have just had one of his two goons kick it in.

  He strolled in, hands in his pockets, leaving the door swinging open and his bodyguards standing watch in the corridor. He looked around, as if he was thinking of buying the room. “It’s been a long time.”

  “I wish it had been a bit longer.”

  “See, that’s what I remember about you, what a smart mouth you got. You just crease me up. A regular Bob Hope.” He grabbed me by the jaw and squeezed. I gasped and stepped back. “Just don’t get too smart, baby. Okay?”

  I nodded, as best I could. He released me and I fell back onto the bed, my hands to my face.

  “When was the last time? LA right? Sixty-three? You were going to be a star. What happened with that?”

  He didn’t expect an answer and I didn’t give him one.

  “I guess you didn’t expect to see me here.”

  I shook my head.

  “Same for me, baby. You were the last woman I expected to find in this greasy Asian shithole. What are you doing here?”

  “Why do you ask me questions when you already know the answers?”

  “Because I can’t believe what I’m hearing. The Magdalena Fuentes I know, she wouldn’t play housewife to some newspaper hack.”

  “We all change.”

  He looked pained. “What you done with your life, baby?”

  “Actually, I’m pretty happy, Angel.”

  “Where is this guy you’re married to, anyway?”

  “He’s not here.”

  “I can see that. What’s he doing in Saigon?”

  “He’s a journalist, Angel. He reports on news. This place is in the news a lot, if you’ve been paying attention.”

  “What sort of news is he looking for?”

  “I’d take a wild guess and say it has something to do with the war.”

  Angel leaned in, his face twisted into a grimace. How did I ever think he was beautiful once? “You tell him this from me. You tell him he’d better not be thinking of mentioning me or any of my associates in his next goddamn book or I’m going to bury his goddamn ass in the Saigon river.”

  “You can’t bury someone in water, Angel. They float.”

  “Not the way I’d do it.” He straightened
up and smiled, pleased that for once he had a comeback. “It was good to see you again, baby. What about a drink tonight? We can talk about old times.”

  “I’m afraid I’m busy.”

  “Too bad.” He sauntered to the door. “Tell your prick of a husband what I said. He pokes around in my business, you’re going to be a widow.”

  He passed the room service waiter on the way out; he was standing with his back against the wall in the corridor, terrified. Angel took the croissant off the tray and stuffed it in his mouth. He gave her a half wave and left, his bodyguards shuffling behind him.

  Chapter 8

  It was late when Connor got home. I was in bed with the lights out, but I was wide awake, listening to the muted roar of traffic in the square, the thump of music from the bars on the Tu Do. He undressed and slipped into bed beside me, kissed my shoulder and then rolled away, thinking I was asleep.

  “Where have you been?”

  “Hi, honey. I didn’t know you were awake.” He rolled back. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m lonely.”

  A theatrical sigh. “I told you that you shouldn’t come. This isn’t a holiday, I’m working.”

  “It’s nearly midnight.”

  “The people I have to talk to don’t keep regular hours.”

  I switched on the bedside lamp. “If I find out you’ve been fucking a bar girl, I’ll kill you.”

  “Jesus,” he muttered, staring at the ceiling.

  “Well I don’t know what you’ve been doing. Dios mio, you reek of booze and cigarettes.”

  “I think I’m onto something big.”

  I thought about what Angel had said. I hoped not.

  “I mean it. You want to hear what I’ve got?”

  I didn’t really, but what choice did I have?

  “What is the largest restaurant and nightclub chain in the world?”

  “Is this some sort of game, Connor? I don’t get it.”

  “The largest catering business in the whole goddamn world is the US military. You ever thought about that? Do you understand the potential that leaves for graft?”

  “I thought you were here to cover the war.”

  “The war is a sideshow. The real story is the money, it always is.” He leaned on one elbow. “Yeah, I’ve been at the bars tonight; I was talking to an Air Force staff sergeant who wants to blow the cover off the biggest scam in Asia. There’s people making huge money out of this war, unbelievable money.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Selling Air Force service contracts.” Connor’s eyes shone with that special kind of fever he caught whenever he stumbled onto a story. “See, there’s only a small part of the Air Force that flies missions, a handful of hotshot pilots. But the Air Force is like an iceberg—what you see is the very smallest part. Most USAF guys never leave their base, their job is to make sure the top guns and their ground crew get fed and don’t get bored between missions. To do that, they have to decide which refrigerators to order, which liquor brands to stock in the mess. They’re in charge of buying everything from slot machines to potato chips. In dollars this adds up to huge numbers. My guy says there are four staff sergeants out at Tan Son Nhut taking massive kickbacks on everything from bourbon to Cheerios.”

  I didn’t like this, it sounded like the sort of operation Angel would run, the sort of investigation that could get him killed.

  “Be careful, Connor.”

  “Fuck them all, this has to be exposed. You wouldn’t believe the names I heard mentioned today, the same people whose names kept coming up when I was researching my other books. Winstone, Salvatore, Garcia, it’s like an honor roll from the Bay of Pigs.”

  I didn’t react when he said his name. I knew he was in Saigon, I had known for a long time, even before Connor had told me he wanted to come here. The truth of it was, Reyes was the reason I had insisted on coming with him.

  It made no sense to still feel like this. He was the past now, even if the flame did still burn a little. I was married now.

  But when I closed my eyes I could still feel his hands on me.

  “I had a visitor today,” I said.

  “Here?”

  “Barged their way in just before breakfast.”

  “What visitor?”

  “A man called Angel Macheda. This guy Salvatore you just mentioned? He’s married to his daughter.”

  “What the fuck was he doing here?”

  “He was looking for you.”

  “For me?”

  “I don’t know what Angel is doing in Saigon, but if he’s here, it means the Salvatore family have business here and they don’t like anyone poking around in their little schemes, Connor. You need to take a step back.”

  “They don’t scare me.”

  “That’s because you don’t know them.”

  Connor grabbed her. “You want to tell me what the hell is going on?”

  “There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me,” I said. The irony seemed lost on him. He was peerless as an investigative journalist, but the one subject he was clueless about was his own wife. It hit me for the first that he didn’t know much about me because he didn’t want to know, not until now, anyway.

  “This is all to do with Havana.”

  “I know all those people you talked about, Connor.”

  “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “Because the thing I loved about you was that you weren’t part of that world. It was what I wanted to get away from. I shouldn’t have married a journalist, should I?”

  “You want to bring me up to speed?”

  “Not really.”

  “This Angel Macheda, you knew him in Havana?”

  “Of course.”

  “How?”

  I thought about that, wondered how much of the truth our marriage could stand. “He was a family friend.”

  “Who else?”

  “Reyes Garcia.”

  Perhaps it was the way I said his name, he understood straight away. “Okay,” he said.

  “There’s a lot of things I’ve never told you about myself, Connor. In a way I hoped you’d find out for yourself. It’s your job.”

  “I thought if you wanted me to know, you’d tell me.” His hand slipped beneath the covers, found my thigh. He gingerly moved it up to my hip. “Were you lovers?”

  “It was a long time ago.”

  “What happened?”

  “I cheated on him and he couldn’t forgive me.”

  “Did you love him?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Do you still love him?”

  I hadn’t expected him to ask me that. “I’m married to you now, Connor,” I said, and in that moment I resolved not to see Reyes again, not even to think about him. I couldn’t stand the pain in Connor’s eyes. “Can we go home?”

  “Go back to New York? What the hell for?”

  “Because we’re in danger.”

  “I’m not going to let these guys intimidate me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because once I start doing that, I may as well give up my job. You sure there’s no other reason? Is it because you’re scared? Or because you don’t want to see this Reyes Garcia again?””

  “You don’t get it, do you? I don’t know if this story you’re onto is going to hurt the Salvatore family or not, but if it does, you are in real danger here. They’ll only warn you once.”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  “Well you can take them without me,” I said, and rolled away from him and turned off the light.

  He reached for me in the dark, but I kept my back to him. I’d married him to get away from this world and now he’d dragged me back into it.

  I didn’t sleep much at all that night. He was awake, as he always was, just before dawn. I heard him dress and slip out. After he’d gone I tossed and turned but even though my head ached and my eyes were gritty with exhaustion I couldn’t switch off. Around seven I got up and showered and then went down and had t
hree strong coffees on the terrace. I stared at the bootblacks and the beggars in the square and I realized I had made a terrible mistake. If I wanted to get away from the past so badly why had I come to Saigon, when I knew that Reyes was here?

  As for Connor, if he wanted to kill himself there was nothing I could do to stop him. The best thing to do would be to go home, before I got in too deep.

  Chapter 9

  REYES

  The arrival of the American war machine had destroyed the time-old rhythms of life in Saigon. In the colonial days all the shops had lowered their steel shutters for a few hours in the heat of the day, but now many of the shops stayed open all day. The tawdry neon-lit bars on Tu Do and Le Loi only ever closed for curfew, keeping the off-duty servicemen plied with rock music, sex and beer round the clock.

  Reyes was parked on a stool in a bar called the Pink Pussy. The owner, another Agency old boy known to everyone as Mac, still thought the name was hilarious. He had never been a subtle man.

  He was ten minutes early for his appointment. He ordered a Tiger beer and waited. From his vantage point at the end of the bar Reyes could look across the street and stare at the blackened shell of the Nevada.

  A jukebox screamed to Jimi Hendrix’s “All Along the Watchtower.” The place was breathless and dark, filled with off-duty Marines. A few of them were smoking joints with their beers. The bar girls ignored Reyes, they knew who he was and didn’t waste their time. One of them, tottering on three-inch heels and wearing a crazy blonde curly wig, was pulling a drunken Marine towards the curtained off area at the back for bamilam.

  A man in a camouflage jacket sat down next to him and ordered a beer. There was a white label sewn on his jacket that said bao chi - ‘journalist.” He still looked fresh to Reyes, had the pale-skinned and wide-eyed look of a new boy. He sounded Boston-Irish.

  “Can I buy you a beer?” he said.

  “I like to buy my own,” Reyes said. He didn’t like or trust journalists, had no reason to after the life he had led.

  The guy said nothing for a while, just drank his beer. One of the girls tried to sit on his lap and he pushed her away.

  “You’re Reyes Garcia, right?” The guy held out his hand. “Connor O’Loughlin.”