No-Entry interrupted suddenly from his motionless place by the door. ‘Mr Wilde, any G.I. serving in Vietnam who’s found with even one George Washington on him goes straight to the stockade.’
Murray nodded. ‘Quite so. On the other hand, in nearly two years in Vietnam I’ve never played in a poker school with American troops where I wasn’t offered the option of being paid my winnings in greenbacks, if I asked for them. They’ve all got greenbacks, because outside the PX nobody’s interested in anything but dollars — and that goes for everyone from the Prime Minister down to the shoe-shine boys. You know that even the B-girls down Tu Do Street won’t take anything but greenbacks now — even in tips?’
Ryderbeit shook his head: ‘Poor bloody soldiers. But half a million G.I.’s can’t account for one billion dollars.’
‘It’s not the G.I.’s that have to account for it. I’m thinking of big business — U.S. construction corporations getting some of the fattest engineering contracts in history, building airfields and artificial harbours and whole new towns, all with a ten per cent kickback from the Federal Government. And those boys don’t get paid in piastres or Scrip, or any other kind of Monopoly money. Then there are the other companies — French, British, Thais, Japs, Indians, Chinese, Aussies — not to mention the gold traders and opium smugglers, and those patriotic Vietnamese with numbered Swiss bank accounts, all busy making an indecent, dishonest living till the referee blows the whistle in Paris and the war’s over. Don’t worry, there are probably more greenbacks at this moment in Vietnam than in any other part of the world, outside America itself. And as far as the U.S. Treasury’s concerned, a dollar bill’s a dollar bill — even a dirty one.’
‘Even if Mao Tse Tung’s wiped his arse on it,’ Ryderbeit said, standing up suddenly and fingering his wounded face. ‘But one billion — that’s about four hundred million Sterling. By my reckoning one hundred and sixty times more than your Great Train Robbery. And those poor sods are rottin’ away in jail for thirty years, and all they did was pick up the petty cash!’ He stood in front of the half-shuttered window, staring at a corner of the hot little town outside. ‘I suppose, according to the legal computer, we ought to get about five hundred years each? Under British justice, that is. Or even American justice. Only it wouldn’t be American, would it?’
‘I haven’t consulted senior counsel on the matter. It might be a tricky point in international law.’
‘And rather an important one too — if we look on the gloomy side o’ things. For instance, if we were arrested here in Laos —’ He turned, still stroking his jaw, but smiling now: ‘You know there was a big dollar heist at Vientiane Airport about a year ago? A gang o’ Frenchies grabbed three million bucks as it was bein’ loaded on to one of our Air U.S.A. planes for Bangkok. But they made the mistake of not bribin’ the local police and got picked up at a roadblock. They were tried by Lao law, and d’yer know what they got? Three years each, with permission to go out at weekends — providin’ they don’t leave town. You can sometimes see ’em drinking in the Bar des Amis. Not a bad life — considerin’ half the money still hasn’t been recovered. I mean, if we did get caught, it would be a help if it was out here —’ He had turned back to the window, his voice trailing into thought. ‘What puzzles me though, is why these Yanks are so bloody keen to ship all this money back to the States. Why don’t they just burn the stuff — like Filling-Station does in his back yard?’
Murray had been worried by this too, until Charles Pol had given him the answer. ‘It costs a lot of money to reissue four tons of cash — especially when it’s an international currency. If it was in thousand dollar bills there wouldn’t be so much problem, because they’re all registered. But not fifties and hundreds. Far cheaper and easier to spare one plane and a cargo fee to San Francisco.’
‘And riskier.’
‘So maybe the U.S. Treasury are just mean? Sammy, you and I were both married to rich girls, and you know that rich people have funny ideas about little details. They’ll think nothing of a few Rollses and Renoirs, then they go and economise on cheap sherry.’
Ryderbeit’s face was still turned to the window, but his shoulders were hunched in a curious way so that Murray could see he was laughing silently. ‘I like your reasoning, soldier. It’s so bloody fantastic it might just be true. But what I’d like to know is how many other journalists has this Yank sergeant boy o’ yours told?’
‘He said I was the first journalist he’d ever met.’
‘All right, so he talked to some of his mates in the Military Police, and they talked to their mates, so now it’s all round town — several towns. Bangkok, Saigon, Hong Kong, Vientiane — probably even Tokyo and L.A. and the Bronx. So why haven’t we heard about it before?’
Murray shrugged. ‘Maybe it’s classified information. Maybe he didn’t talk about it.’
‘He talked to you about it.’
‘He’d had too much to drink.’
‘And how often does he have too much to drink?’
‘How would I know? Maybe he’s talked about it before and nobody took much notice. Maybe they were too busy worrying about the war.’
‘To hell with the war! If this sergeant wasn’t just shootin’ his mouth off, and there really is this kind ’o
