Michael Collins - Shadow of a Tiger

“He would probably still be there, as has happened to others, if a new doctor at the hospital hadn’t happened to have worked in North China and recognized a few words Jimmy mumbled at rare times. The doctor found a man who spoke Jimmy’s language, and at last Jimmy could tell his story. He recovered his speech rapidly then, and they released him-with a few dollars, one suit, no skills and no friends anywhere. That was when he began to be an alcoholic.”

I watched the singers and guitar players in the circle. Some of them were dancing now. Some were grabbing each other, getting together for the night to come, and maybe even longer.

“It’s enough to do it,” I said. “Alkie or worse.”

“Since then,” Noyoda said, “he supported himself, taught himself English, took nothing from anyone. A strict, austere, frugal life. Hard-working and never in trouble, not even drunk. Such a man does not steal, and certainly never for pennies. He is not stupid, Mr. Fortune. If he had robbed that shop he would have taken more and not been so clumsy.”

Two policemen had appeared under the arch of the square, and in the circle the ragged youth-sing was breaking up.

“Could he have faked a clumsy robbery to cover murder?”

“What possible reason could Jimmy have? Mr. Marais was his friend and employer. Jimmy liked the job at the shop.”

“What motives does anyone have?” I said morosely.

“I thought that perhaps you could find that out.”

Everyone wanted to hire me. Maybe I could make a career out of Eugene Marais’s death. One small pawn shop owner.

Noyoda said, “The members of our temple have contributed what they can. We wish to help Jimmy. We planned to hire a lawyer for him, but he has one, and we thought that we could use the money to hire you to prove his innocence.”

“Jimmy paid for his own lawyer? How?”

“No, someone else hired the lawyer. I heard it was Claude Marais, the brother. Perhaps he thinks Jimmy innocent too.”

That made me sit up. “All right, but one thing still bothers me-the way Jimmy kept on lying even when Lieutenant Marx had him cold. The way he lied about being there at all that night.”

“Given his life, Mr. Fortune, it is understandable that he is somewhat paranoid, isn’t it? Wary and silent.”

“Maybe it is,” I said. “You can pay me fifty dollars now.”

Money is money, and, with Marty gone, what else did I have to do?

I rode the Hotel Stratford elevator straight up to the fourth floor and room 427. Li Marais opened the door.

“Mr. Fortune?”

She wore a western mini-skirt and blouse now, and I saw again how wrong I had been about her fragility. Her legs were far from fragile.

“Can I talk to your husband?”

“Come in, please.”

The room was a small living room with the usual anonymous furniture of a second-rank but respectable hotel. There was a bedroom and a tiny kitchenette. A suite for more permanent residence. A lot of people in New York lived in residential hotels like the Stratford.

“Claude is not here, but perhaps I can help,” she said.

She sat down, crossed her legs. Her thighs were smooth and full. I sat on a couch.

“Why did Claude hire a lawyer for Jimmy Sung? Doesn’t he think Jimmy killed Eugene after all?”

“Claude did not hire the lawyer, I did,” she said, her dark eyes bright and on my face. “I sold some jewels, Claude gave me some money. It was something I felt I must do.”

“Why?”

“Since Claude and I came to New York, Jimmy has been nice to me, always helping. Small things-favors, errands, services, company when I’ve been alone. Perhaps because I speak his old language, but the reason does not matter.”

“I thought you were Thai?”

“A Thai orphan adopted by a Chinese family in Vietnam. Life is a flux these last long years in Southeast Asia, death and change are what we know. The people who took me in were from North China. Saigon is a crossroad. I speak most Oriental languages now, as well as French and my little English.”

“You speak a lot of English.”

She smiled. It was her first smile, soft and warm. “Thank you, but I do not speak as well as even poor Jimmy. He helped my English, too. He seemed to like to talk to me, a memory of his forgotten past, perhaps.”

“Do you think he robbed the shop, killed Eugene?”

“My help does not depend on what he did or did not do. He helped me in a strange city. A lonely man who understands the loneliness in others.”

“Are you lonely, Mrs. Marais?”

Her expression didn’t change, she had no outward mannerisms, but I sensed a faint change in her whole body. Something in her bright eyes that considered me, probed behind my face. She smoothed her skirt-the universal gesture of a woman aware of herself, of her body. Touched herself.

“My husband was a soldier, a patriot, a man of loyalty and courage and devotion,” she said slowly. “All of this he put into the cause of France, and France lost. That hurt him, but it was not the worst. He came to believe that France had deserved to lose, that the world of France and honor was dead, and now he has no world he can understand. He cannot believe in France, or America, or China, or any country or cause. No pride, no destiny, no purpose.”

“Is he a man who needs a purpose?”

“Most men are. Even you, I think, if only to do your work well. Claude has no work to do well. He works to keep us alive, no more. Sometimes I am sure he does not even know where he is-here or Saigon; Paris or the jungle.” Her eyes seemed to look into me from a hollow inside herself. “He is alone, Dan, can feel nothing. Not war or peace, hate or love.”

Her face told me that she knew she had called me Dan. My mouth was dry. Maybe because of Marty, but I wanted this woman, and in her own way she was saying that her loneliness needed help. What kind of help maybe she wasn’t sure herself.

I said, “How long have you been married, Li?”

“Eighteen years.” She watched me. “I was twelve when I married Claude. A few months before Dienbien-phu. It is not uncommon in Vietnam, as your own soldiers have found. A child is a good wife for a soldier. Better than the brothels, or older women who want only his money and disappear when he goes to fight. A child will not leave him. Children die so easily in Asia, have no food, no medicine, no doctors, no homes. A child must work early, is easily lost in war. Vietnamese love children, and to be married is to be safe, fed, even happy. It is better for a child to be a wife than an ox.”

“Afterward? When you weren’t twelve anymore? Now?”

“I was Madame Marais, I was content. We lived many places, and Claude fought and worked for France. Now he is wasted as the land is wasted, burned out like the villages of Vietnam.”

Her small hands lay flat on her thighs, squeezed.

“Why did you hire me to stop Gerd Exner that night?”

“I hoped you would make him go away, leave the country. He hates to be noticed, watched. I hoped you would scare him.”

“I scared him, but he stayed around. Why? Who is Exner? Is there something he wants from Claude?”

“He is an ex-Legionnaire. Claude worked with him in Vietnam and Africa-trading, arms smuggling, black market. I do not know why he stays. I only wanted to help Claude. Eugene once said that Claude must wipe the past away, forget and start over. I had hoped to make Exner go away, make Claude forget.”

What she had hoped was to have her man back. If it wasn’t too late.

“Could Eugene have gotten in Exner’s way somehow? Maybe gotten in Claude’s way?”

I saw that the thought had occurred to her too. A shadow of possible motives she didn’t want to think about. I saw more on her face-an awareness of me. But she said nothing, only sat like some earth-mother who could only wait, had always waited, silent and still, for what would be done to her.