Read Online Floating City by Eric Van Lustbader - Free Book Online
Authors: Eric Van Lustbader
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to Nicholas as he sat beside Bay. The old crate that would have passed for a bus twenty years ago bounced along a potholed tarmac road. The interior stank of animals and urine; at every jounce the dozen or so caged chickens let out a chorus of raucous squawks that made the yellow bird jump in anxiety. The yellow bird was in a tiny bamboo cage beside the driver’s head, wired from the ceiling of the bus. Nicholas had heard it said that Vietnam was the one country where people took birds for walks and ate the dogs for dinner. Shindo had cautioned him never to ask what kind of meat he was being served.
Perhaps this four-wheeled death trap was being used as a truck to transport these chickens to market, for there were no other human passengers and none were waiting for it along the dark, pitted road. How Bay even knew of its existence was beyond him, but it had been waiting for them three blocks from the spot where she had tied up the boat. Twenty minutes later, they were out of Saigon proper, heading southwest.
“Where are we going?” he had asked Bay.
“The Iron Triangle.” By which, he surmised, she must mean Cu Chi. This region had become infamous thirty years ago for its miles-long network of multilevel tunnels that allowed the Viet Cong to control the area just sixty-five miles from Saigon. The Vietnamese had begun the tunnels during the 1940s in their war against the French. The hard-packed red earth of the area made it ideal for digging, and decades later, the network had undergone extensive expansion and renovation until it stretched all the way to the Cambodian border.
Nicholas said, “Bay, I want some answers now. What was your relationship with Vincent Tinh?”
Bay stared out the window. Her hair, bound in a long, thick tail, wound over her shoulders. She seemed a strong, motivated woman—no wonder her pose as a man had proven so successful. She had the kind of face that, though entirely feminine, would need minimal makeup to turn her into a convincing male persona. This almost androgynous nature made her all the more intriguing, especially because she carried it so unself-consciously.
“He never employed me, though he tried,” she said at last. Her head was still turned slightly away from him, but he could see her in ghostly reflection in the dark window. “He tried to make it with me as well. But I knew his reputation, knew that if I said yes to any one of his proposals, I would be sucked wholesale into his world.” Her fingers fidgeted in her lap. “That I couldn’t afford. I’m an independent operator—a kind of go-between, sometimes even a mediator between... factions.”
“By ‘factions’ I assume you mean drug warlords, arms merchants, terrorists, and the like.”
Bay said nothing for a long time. The bus rattled on, the chickens squawked, and the yellow bird hopped from perch to perch as if stung by jolts of electricity.
“Whatever you may think of me, Chu Goto, I have worked very hard to gain an enviable position. I am beholden to no one, yet many people of influence owe me favors. I wonder if you understand the importance of this? Perhaps not. My country is different from all others. It takes time, patience, and acceptance to understand the nature of Vietnam. I promise that judging us by your standards can only end in disaster for you.”
For someone else, perhaps, it would have been easy to dismiss the words of a woman. But for Nicholas, time, patience, and acceptance were three virtues of paramount importance. Also, he had learned the necessity of “seeping in,” of absorbing by immersion the strange, the bizarre, and the frightening. Vietnam was a terrifying culture to the outsider, and terror had a habit of placing its hand across one’s eyes at precisely the wrong time. Bay was right: it would be a disaster for him to judge her as he might a Japanese or an American.
“I appreciate your insight, Bay,” he said carefully. “Can you tell me anything about Tinh’s
Perhaps this four-wheeled death trap was being used as a truck to transport these chickens to market, for there were no other human passengers and none were waiting for it along the dark, pitted road. How Bay even knew of its existence was beyond him, but it had been waiting for them three blocks from the spot where she had tied up the boat. Twenty minutes later, they were out of Saigon proper, heading southwest.
“Where are we going?” he had asked Bay.
“The Iron Triangle.” By which, he surmised, she must mean Cu Chi. This region had become infamous thirty years ago for its miles-long network of multilevel tunnels that allowed the Viet Cong to control the area just sixty-five miles from Saigon. The Vietnamese had begun the tunnels during the 1940s in their war against the French. The hard-packed red earth of the area made it ideal for digging, and decades later, the network had undergone extensive expansion and renovation until it stretched all the way to the Cambodian border.
Nicholas said, “Bay, I want some answers now. What was your relationship with Vincent Tinh?”
Bay stared out the window. Her hair, bound in a long, thick tail, wound over her shoulders. She seemed a strong, motivated woman—no wonder her pose as a man had proven so successful. She had the kind of face that, though entirely feminine, would need minimal makeup to turn her into a convincing male persona. This almost androgynous nature made her all the more intriguing, especially because she carried it so unself-consciously.
“He never employed me, though he tried,” she said at last. Her head was still turned slightly away from him, but he could see her in ghostly reflection in the dark window. “He tried to make it with me as well. But I knew his reputation, knew that if I said yes to any one of his proposals, I would be sucked wholesale into his world.” Her fingers fidgeted in her lap. “That I couldn’t afford. I’m an independent operator—a kind of go-between, sometimes even a mediator between... factions.”
“By ‘factions’ I assume you mean drug warlords, arms merchants, terrorists, and the like.”
Bay said nothing for a long time. The bus rattled on, the chickens squawked, and the yellow bird hopped from perch to perch as if stung by jolts of electricity.
“Whatever you may think of me, Chu Goto, I have worked very hard to gain an enviable position. I am beholden to no one, yet many people of influence owe me favors. I wonder if you understand the importance of this? Perhaps not. My country is different from all others. It takes time, patience, and acceptance to understand the nature of Vietnam. I promise that judging us by your standards can only end in disaster for you.”
For someone else, perhaps, it would have been easy to dismiss the words of a woman. But for Nicholas, time, patience, and acceptance were three virtues of paramount importance. Also, he had learned the necessity of “seeping in,” of absorbing by immersion the strange, the bizarre, and the frightening. Vietnam was a terrifying culture to the outsider, and terror had a habit of placing its hand across one’s eyes at precisely the wrong time. Bay was right: it would be a disaster for him to judge her as he might a Japanese or an American.
“I appreciate your insight, Bay,” he said carefully. “Can you tell me anything about Tinh’s
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