Charles Mccarry - The Tears Of Autumn

“No. I would have given them to you.”

Phuoc gave his sputtering laugh. “I see.”

“Do you know them?” Christopher asked.

“How should I know them? They look like boys.”

“So did Luong when I found him.”

“Tho.”

“All right, Tho,” Christopher said. “Phuoc, have you ever seen them? If you have, tell me.”

Phuoc slapped his palms together twice, sharply, in the dark. “Yes,” he said, “they were outside Yu Lung’s, drinking in the street when Tho and I came out the other night.”

“You went with him to Yu Lung’s?”

“Yes, I know Yu. His father taught me horoscopy.”

“Did you sit with Yu and your brother while they talked?”

“Yes,” Phuoc said, “but Yu said nothing of value. He wanted money, that’s why my brother was coming to find you. He thought you would have it.”

“What was Yu going to tell your brother in return for the money?”

“That wasn’t clear to me. Yu can talk like a fool when he wants. When Tho spoke about Le Thu, Yu became very alert. He talked about a voyage. Tears must be carried in a special vessel,’ Yu said.”

“What voyage? What vessel? He spoke to me in a very brisk way, like a French psychiatrist. Why should he talk to your brother in riddles?”

“I’ve known Yu since we were boys-he suits his approach to the client. He’s Chinese.”

“He said nothing more?”

“Oh, yes,” Phuoc said. “He leaned across his desk and whispered, ‘Five thousand dollars.’ Then we went away, Tho to get the money from you. I came here-I sleep nearby.”

Christopher touched the brake pedal twice, to signal Pong. Pong came out of the shadows, walking in a slight crouch, his head moving from side to side as if to catch a scent. Christopher was reminded of the drowned men, following him through the crowd in Cholon.

“I won’t see you again,” Christopher said.

Phuoc opened the door and seemed startled that his action bathed them in light. He still held the photographs in his hand; he glanced at them again before he closed the door, and gave them back to Christopher.

“One thing I know,” Phuoc said. “This Lê Thu-it was the death name of one of the Ngo women. She was killed in ‘54, by the French or the Viet Minh, no one ever knew which, as she was coming down from the North. The Viet Minh brought her child, a small girl, to the Ngos. Their Truong toe raised her. It’s said he loved her mother.”

“The child was Dao, the one who calls herself Nicole?”

“Yes, Dao. It means ‘peach blossom.’”

“Who was her father?”

Phuoc opened the door again. Sitting in the light with his face turned away, he said, “Do Minh Kha. Do went with the Viet Minh in the early days, and after they won, he gave up his wife to stay in Hanoi. She and all the other Ngos who were Catholics came south after Dienbienphu. The Truong toe had a great passion for this woman-Ho Chi Minh himself wrote a poem about it, how she had chosen a brave fighter over a rich man. Do chose the revolution over Lê Thu and the revolution killed her. So the Truong toe got the women he lost to Do after all-he keeps her altar, and he has her daughter.”

Christopher called Wolkowicz on the car radio and, speaking German, asked him to bring two things to their last meeting. An hour later, he found Wolkowicz waiting in his Mercedes on the Yen Do Road, near the airport.

Wolkowicz walked from his car to the Chevrolet and got into the back seat. When Christopher told him what had happened, he showed his teeth.

“What did you do with the bodies?”

“Put them back in the paddy.”

“The cops’ll think it was the VC.”

He handed Christopher an envelope. “Is this what you wanted?” he asked.

Christopher opened the envelope and looked at the photographs of Nicole and Do Minh Kha that Luong had taken in Vientiane.

“Yes. Thanks.”

“You’ve identified the girl, right?”

“Yes. She’s a relative of the Truong toe’s.”

“The chick you had lunch with?”

“Yes.”

“What’s the connection with Do?”

Christopher put the photograph back in its envelope. “She’s a courier,” he said.

Wolkowicz grunted. “All in the family. The generals would like to know that.”

“Do this for me,” Christopher said, handing Wolkowicz the envelope. He had addressed it to the Truong toe.

“I’ll mail it in the morning,” Wolkowicz said.

Christopher opened the car door. “Did you bring the Green Beret?” he asked.

“He’s in the Mercedes.”

Christopher walked to the other car and rapped sharply on the roof. Peggy McKinney’s brother, wearing khakis, got out. Planes flew overhead, descending toward the airport with then-landing lights on. Christopher had to shout above the noise of the jet engines.

“Come around in the headlights,” Christopher said.

He handed the boy the Polaroid pictures of his dead agents. The young captain crouched so that the light fell on the pictures. He wore a heavy Rolex watch and a West Point class ring. He was very slender in a sinewy way and he had his sister’s mannerisms: he held his body so as to display it to best advantage, but he had less control over his face.

Staring at Christopher, he stood up and held out the photographs. Christopher took them back. He handed him the pistols Pong had taken from Luong’s killers.

“You’ve lost your amateur status,” Christopher said.

Christopher did not imagine that the Truong toe would be immobilized by a photograph of Nicole. He’d hide the girl, as Christopher intended to hide Molly, and try again to kill Christopher. But he would have to adjust his operations. All this would take time. Time was what Christopher wanted, and Molly’s life.

It was raining in Rome and the Christmas decorations were up. The taxi driver let Christopher out by the door of his apartment on the Lungotevere. Christopher looked up and down the curving street and saw no one. One side of the street was open to the Tiber and the other was lined with old buildings whose heavy doors, built to accommodate horse-drawn coaches, were always locked. There was no place for surveillance to hide; that was why Christopher lived in this street.

Christopher’s training told him it was better to see the opposition than not to. He did not know how quickly the Truong toe could move. He felt the beating of his own heart as he went inside and climbed the stairs. Molly should be asleep. He used his mind to make his body stop trembling.

Letting himself into the apartment, he walked across the marble floors, hearing his own footsteps. Molly had decorated a small Christmas tree and placed it on a table in front of one of the windows. The paintings that had been in the bedroom now hung in the living room. She thought that pictures should be moved from one wall to another so that the eye would be surprised to see them in a new place each day.

It was not yet six o’clock in the morning, and the rooms seemed cold in the wintry light that filtered through the windows. Christopher went into the bedroom. Molly was not in the bed. The clothes she had worn the day before were draped over the back of a chair, and a book she had been reading lay open on the bedside table.

Christopher pushed open the bathroom door. It was a windowless room; he turned on the light and, hesitating for a moment, pulled the shower curtain aside. The tub was empty and the tap dripped on a brown stain he knew was only rust. He was still wearing his raincoat and its hard material whistled softly on the door frame as he brushed against it.

Christopher looked at the bed again. There was a small lump in the center of the mattress. He threw back the covers and saw a bottle of champagne lying on the sheet; there were beads of moisture on the cold glass. He stared at the bottle.