Stephen Leigh - Card Sharks

They came out of the warren of small streets and made the turn onto the boulevard leading to the Presidential Palace. The line of cars in front of them pulled out slowly into the traffic. As Croyd turned the Wheel to follow them, a rusting green Corolla rushed out from the curb, wheeled around them, and stopped in the middle of the intersection directly in front of them. More horns blared, Croyd's among them, as the occupants of the car got out and began running.

"Go!" Quasiman awakened suddenly, shouting at Croyd and hammering on the back of the seat. His fists put permanent dents in the headrest. "Get past them!"

Hannah knew that if she'd been driving, she'd have hesitated. She would have turned back to Quasiman to see what in the world the hunchback was shouting about.

She would have been too late.

Not Croyd. He stamped his foot on the accelerator, down-shifted, and yanked the wheel right. The car hit the curb, slalomed across grass in the little park on the corner as pedestrians scattered out of their way. They went over the curb again, the suspension bottoming out with a screech, then fishtailed back onto the boulevard. "What — " Croyd yelled hack at Quasiman.

His question got no further. A sinister, low kah-RHUMMPP! behind them lifted the rear of the car sideways. They landed hard, throwing Hannah against the side with Quasiman on top of her. The car stalled.

Hannah found that she was looking back through the rear windshield. In the intersection, the car that had cut them off was a blazing inferno. She could see bodies in a street littered with broken glass and sheet metal. She felt schizophrenic. Part of her was busily deciphering the mess: thermite fuse, cheap electronic timer, make sure the tank's about half full so you have plenty of room for fumes. You'd need ten, fifteen seconds to get clear ….

The other part of her wanted to scream.

"Jesus …" Croyd muttered. He started the car again and jammed it into gear. They lurched away from the scene. "Car bomb. I'm getting you folks to the palace, fast. Hang on." Leaning on the horn, Croyd rushed them away.

Hannah looked at Quasiman. He was frowning. "You're hurt," he said, and reached for her forehead.

She let the stubby, wide fingers touch her, let him brush her hair back from the cut. "Just a scratch," he said, and the relief in his voice was open and gentle. "You'll be okay, Hannah."

"Thanks," she told him. The Word seemed so inadequate.

And then the shakes hit her.

"That's like an incredible bummer. Wow … I mean, I'm just totally wiped out by this. I am really, really sorry. I feel like personally responsible, y'know. I'm just glad you had Quasiman along with you."

Mark Meadows didn't exactly fit Hannah's mental image of a Prime Minister, or for that matter, of a Federal fugitive from justice. Father Squid had explained to Hannah how — with the help of some ace friends — Mark had reclaimed his retarded daughter Sprout from the custody of the state after he'd lost the custody battle in the courts. Hannah had a difficult time picturing the man angry. At first impression, she would have called him — like some of her parents' friends — an "old hippie." He was tall and thin, his thinning hair shoulder-length and pulled back in a pony tail. A scraggly goatee hung like spanish moss from his chin. And his clothing … the only word Hannah had for it was "bright": loose Vietnamese pants cut from a garish paisley cloth, a strident blue and orange striped tunic, and a green silk scarf. He wore open-toed, leather sandals. He looked out across the lawn of the Presidential Palace to where a smudge of distant smoke still burned beyond the walls, shaking his head. "Some heavy shit has gone down out there over the years," he said. "There's still lots of bad karma floating around. But were putting things together again. Weird political shit like this still happens every once in a while — like a flashback on a bad trip. You shouldn't have had to see it, but the violence is there, part of the total scene. It's getting rarer and rarer, though."

Mark turned back into the room. He smiled at Hannah. The man had what could only be described as a radiant smile, Hannah decided. Almost beatific, like the picture of the saints she remembered from parochial school. Hannah touched the gauze bandage on her forehead, grimacing slightly as she probed the throbbing lump there. An unbidden shiver ran through her. "Prime Minister — "

"Mark. I don't really do anything here. This is Moonchild's place, hers and the people's. White folks like us are just guests."

"Then I'm Hannah," she replied. "That bomb. I have to think it was meant for …" Hannah swallowed. She couldn't finish the thought.

Mark had. "I know," he said sadly. "But you gotta believe that it also wasn't meant to be, y'know, like fate had a hand in things and made sure you were safe." Mark patted her on the shoulder, like a brother might. "My friend Moonchild'll make sure that you stay that Way, too. Nothing else will happen to you while you're here. I promise. Moonchild's going to make Free Vietnam a Land of Peace. Man, so much evil has come from here. I figure that the cosmic balance has got to be restored. When a place has been this fucked up for so long, imagine what it's going to be like when it turns around. When that happens, this will be like a paradise."

He was so earnest that Hannah could only smile back at him. He seemed to be one of those people who had an eternal innocence in their souls — despite all that life had dealt Meadows, he'd kept that.

"So why don't you tell me about everything's that's going down?" he said.

"I'm not sure where to start, but I'll try." For the next half hour, Hannah gave Meadows a synopsis of what she had learned. He was a good listener, interrupting only to ask a few questions or to clarify something, otherwise nodding sympathetically and shaking his head.

"Far out," he said afterward. "It's like a downer, y'know — all that energy wasted on hating. Fucked up, just totally fucked up." He gave a deep, ponderous sigh. "I can help you, sure. I'll arrange for you to go anywhere and do anything you need to do here. You can go to Xuan Loc yourself and dig around — you know what you're looking for, and that's as safe a place as any. You want to find out about this Faneuil dude, no problem; I'll ask Ai Quoc's staff — he's the Interior Secretary — to look up all the records we have on him. I know Pan at WHO — he's at good guy. I'll give him a call and prod him."

"I'd appreciate it."

"Hey, here's your guardian angel now," Mark said. Quasiman had entered the room, hand in hand with a lovely, dark-haired child — a girl on the verge of womanhood. "I want you to meet my daughter, Sprout…."

"How did Faneuil die?" Hannah asked.

Ngo Dinh Yie, one of the elders of the village, pursed his lips and nodded as Croyd translated, then closed his eyes as if remembering. "He was old," Ngo said. "His heart burst. That is what the nurse told us."

"Margaret Durand?"

"Yes. She was with my son, Bui, who also lived in the doctor's house, and said that they had found him dead in his bed. He had died in his sleep, peacefully."

"Did you see the body?"

The old man frowned, pressing his lips together again. Ngo's face looked like a crumpled brown paper sack. "No … The nurse, she and Bui took care of the body, wrapping it in a sheet and putting it in the coffin the village woodcarver brought for them." Ngo shook his head. "Western customs. Wasteful."

"Then. how did you know it was Faneuil?"

Ngo looked at her as if she were crazy. "I saw his hand, outside the sheet. The doctor always wore a ring, a big gold one with a blue stone and little diamonds set around it. I saw his hand, the doctor's hand, and I saw the ring. We buried the doctor that evening. There — " The elder pointed to the field where a green mound swelled just before the jungle claimed the land. "Everyone grieved. Everyone loved the doctor. I would do anything he asked me to do. Anything."