Nina punched him softly on the arm, then she raised her hand. “Listen,” she said.
Broker cocked his head and heard music in the trees. A PA speaker played Hanoi Muzac near the tomb. The procession of Young Pioneers marched away to a twanging rendition of “Oh Susannah.”
Broker stared at Trin. Trin shrugged and shook his head. “On traditional instruments, too.”
Nina laughed, really starting to enjoy herself. “I’m beginning to see how this place could screw up your mind.”
Trin reverted to tour guide, leading them past an opulent French Colonial building to the contrasting austere wood house on stilts where Ho had lived, pointing out the pool where the carp would come when he clapped his hands.
“There’s a debate in the party,” said Trin on the way back to the van. “In his will President Ho specified that he wanted to be cremated and have his ashes scattered on three mountain tops. Maybe he will finally get his wish and be liberated from that Russian meat locker.”
“Now what?” asked Nina.
“The military museum,” said Trin, giving directions to Mr. Hai. The museum was a few minutes away, through the swarm of bicycles. Nina sat up abruptly and said, “Hello! Is that what I think it is?”
“Absolutely,” said Trin. “The last statue of Lenin in the world, I think.” The statue dominated a square directly across from the museum.
“I should have brought a camera,” said Nina. Trin immediately dug in his bag and produced an Instamatic.
“I want you two in front of the statue,” said Nina. Trin had Mr. Hai pull over and explained the simple camera mechanism to Nina. They got out and a swirl of street kids surrounded them like blown gum wrappers. Selling postcards. Trin brushed off the kids and they walked up the shallow steps into the paved park toward the obstinate charcoal-gray statue. Paralyzed in larger-than-life bronze and contradictions, Lenin clasped his right lapel in one hand and knit his sooty devil’s eyebrows.
Nina, camera in one hand, shooed a group of kids playing soccer out of her way. She directed Trin and Broker to stand back a few paces, took several snapshots, and then moved down the steps to get a wide-angle shot.
Broker put his arm around Trin’s shoulder. It was very warm. A spoon band of cicadas clacked in gaps in the traffic. Foliage swooned in the breeze. A bright trickle of sweat ran from Trin’s hairline down his temple and into his scars. Mr. Hai wove across the busy street toward the military museum ticket booth. A tall tourist meandered, adjusting his direction so as not to interfere with the picture-taking. Nina was bent forward, her purse dangling from her shoulder, camera extended, elbows out. A spear of sunlight pierced Broker’s eyes from one of her earrings.
He blinked sweat.
They both sensed it ahead of conscious thought. Something in the languid summer tempo on the square showed its teeth. Trin and Broker dropped to a slight forward crouch. Broker’s right hand flashed instinctively to the small of his back.
The anonymous black car angled from a cloud of bicycles and rolled over the curb. At the same moment the tall Caucasian in sunglasses, floppy shorts, and a tourist cap accelerated from his amble across the square. The car and the trotting man converged on Nina. Not fast, but very smooth. Professional.
Broker and Trin were moving. Starting to shout.
Too late.
The rear door of the car swung open and the jogging man wrapped Nina in his arms and toppled with her into the open door. The car revved its engine, the window on the driver’s side rolled down. Broker, running flat out, saw Virgil Fret, patches of his sweaty scalp showing through his stringy red hair, lean out from the driver’s side. Grinning like a Bicycle deck joker, Virgil flipped Broker the bird. They could make out a struggle in the back seat through the windows. The door was not quite shut. An object flew out the door and flopped on the paving stones. Then Virgil popped the clutch and the car burned a squealing double track of rubber off the cobble apron.
Broker and Trin collided in a cloud of exhaust where the car had been a second before. Broker stooped and snatched up the purse Nina had thrown from the car. Trin whipped off his sunglasses and tried to catch the license plate as the car disappeared into a tornado of traffic.
“Did you get it?” yelled Trin.
“No,” panted Broker. He opened the purse and saw that it contained the copy of the U.S. Code, her passport and money. Then-
“
Across the street, down a block, he saw a lean raw-boned man wearing a safari shirt round the corner. Hatless, his head and shoulders bobbed, fearsome as a Roman eagle, above the crowd of Vietnamese pedestrians.
“Be cool,” said Broker. “They’re sending someone to deal. We don’t want to draw any attention to ourselves.” He pulled a wad of currency from his pocket and passed fifty thousand dong notes out to the kids who had been playing soccer and who now stood wide-eyed in the vacuum of the kidnapping. The kids grabbed the bills; fifty thousand dong was the biggest denomination of Vietnamese currency, worth five bucks. They squealed and raced away.
The man paused and leaned on a wall in a patch of shade. When he saw the kids leave, he heaved his shoulders off the wall of the Dien Bien Phu Military Museum and casually raised a comb and thrust his hips in a posture that only American narcissism would strike. The long, oiled blond hair glittered in the sun.
Broker could hear Trin’s tense breathing. He saw Hai coming across the street at an urgent trot.
“Send Mr. Hai back to the car,” said Broker in a calm voice.
Trin barked in Vietnamese. Hai reluctantly stopped and walked back to the van, looking over his shoulder.
The American barged across the street, coming straight toward them. A bicycle skidded and overturned, brakes screeched.
Trin made a low contemptuous sound in his throat that sounded like a guttural “Meeow.” Broker’s memory placed the word. It was a derisive reference, an insult. The worst thing a Vietnamese could call an American.
And he remembered the traditional screens that the Vietnamese employed to block the doorways to their houses and their tombs so you had to zigzag to enter. The screens warded off evil spirits, who, like Bevode Fret, could only travel in straight lines.
59
It was winter in Hanoi where Broker stood. As Bevode approached, he saw that the Cajun had used cosmetic base to disguise some of the bruising on his puffy lip. His face was contorted, absent its easy smile and one of its front teeth.
Broker’s smile, by contrast, was chilly as an autopsy slab. “Well, I’ll be dipped in shit. How you doing, Bevode?”
“You and me got some personal stuff, but it can wait,” said Bevode straight-faced. He stared with fixed interest at the purse Nina had thrown out the window. Broker tightened his grip on it.
“Du ma…” began Trin.
“Wazzat?” asked Bevode.
“Not sure, something about your mother,” said Broker.
“Tell Gunga Din to wipe the stupid grin off his face,” said Bevode.
“They smile when they’re nervous,” said Broker.
“So why’s he nervous?”
“He just saw an American citizen kidnapped in broad daylight in downtown Hanoi.”
“Nah, just some friends gave her a lift,” said Bevode. He glanced around the square. “Sorta hoped you’d have that big nigger along. Want to meet him again, yes I do.”
“Just us,” said Broker.
Bevode squinted. “You had to get tricky and bring the cunt.” He shook his head. “Went and got yourself on Cyrus’s shitlist.” He brightened. “Lola’s moved up from hind tit; she got herself off the list to make room for you.
