SAIGON, Billion Dollar Day Minus Two
Wet afternoon heat down Tu Do Street. Children doing a brisk trade along the pavements — five-year-old boys shining Army boots; little girls running on tiptoe to pick the hip pockets of ambling G.I.’s; old men playing hopscotch in the shade of the bars and ‘nite-clubs’.
Murray entered ‘The Four Aces’, pausing to accustom himself to the cold dehydrated darkness. A big notice inside read: ALL WEAPONS TO BE EMPTIED AND SURRENDERED AT THE DOOR. BY ORDER U.S. PROVOST MARSHAL. A girl sat at a counter underneath, busy knitting. Crew-cut men sat musing along the bar; girls in unbecoming miniskirts waddled among them, whispering pidgin promises. He found his man alone at a corner table. ‘Hello Don.’ He was a tall callow youth with spiky blond hair and a bad outbreak of barber’s rash under his chin like a smear of red caviar.
‘Hi!’ The boy almost spilled his beer standing up. ‘I was early. What yer have?’
‘Let me get it,’ said Murray, sitting down. ‘Another beer? Or bourbon?’
‘I’ll have beer.’ He leant over as Murray turned to one of the miniskirted hostesses. ‘These girls, Murray, they been pesterin’ me mad. One buck for a glass o’ that goddam tea they drink. One buck!’
Murray smiled falsely. ‘That’s Saigon for you, Don. You ought to know your way around by now.’
‘Ah sure. Sure I do. Why d’you think I resisted so long?’
‘What would you say to a few more bucks?’
‘Huh?’ The boy’s jaw dropped open and Murray replied with a conniving wink: ‘I’ve got a little deal I’d like to set up with you. Sure you won’t have a little bourbon?’
‘Well — I guess no great harm —’
‘You’re off-duty, aren’t you, sergeant?’
Wace hesitated, then grinned sheepishly. ‘Guess I am — till curfew o’ course.’
‘Now listen, Don.’ Murray placed both elbows on the table, his face very close to the young M.P.’s and his voice hushed, even above the intermittent blare of pop music. ‘We have a small problem. About Sunday night.’
‘You mean it’s not on?’
‘Oh it’s very much on. Photographers — big coverage prepared — the real treatment. My editor’s very keen, Don. He’s even prepared to pay you for it.’
‘Aw now! I mean, Mr Wilde —’ Wace glanced up at a rouged bow-legged girl who was laying two small beer glasses in front of them. Murray paid with a fresh twenty-dollar bill from the bounty that Pol had entrusted to him after the visit to Son Lan.
‘On Sunday night you’ve got official clearance for me and my photographers to tour the perimeter of the airfield? Correct?’
‘Correct.’
‘Don.’ He spun the glass between his fingers, drank it down in one and sat back smiling. ‘Don, I need your co-operation on this. We’ve talked about it a lot of times — about the airfield security and so on — and my newspaper wants to get a really full, unprejudiced story on this.’
‘Unprejudiced?’
Murray nodded slowly. ‘That’s to say, we are not keen on a story that is obviously inspired from official sources. You follow me?’
The sergeant looked dubious. ‘But it’s sure hard to swing without official clearance, Murray.’
‘Have you got the jeep laid on?’
‘Oh, we got a pool of ’em down there on the field. No problem.’
‘And the equipment?’
‘That’s all cleared too. Just that I can’t go short-circuiting the authorities and letting you and your photographers on to the field without permission. I mean, I’d be crazy — I’d stand to go to the stockade.’
‘A tour of the perimeter at curfew, Don. Ten-thirty, Sunday night. With official clearance?’
‘It has to be.’ The boy gulped at his beer, looking worried.
‘And what about guns? M16’s — usual M.P.’s issue? We’ll be carrying them, won’t we?’
‘Oh sure thing! They’d think it pretty suspect if you walked round the perimeter without any weapon at all. Only I must have clearance.’
Murray nodded and they finished their drinks in silence.
Suddenly Wace said: ‘You mentioned money, didn’t you?’
‘I did.’
‘Okay. What makes?’
‘I don’t want an official conducted tour, Don. Just you and me and my two photographers. Without any MACV clearance.’
The sergeant cocked his head: ‘So what’s the price?’
‘Now hold on a minute! This isn’t a bribe. I just want you to do us a favour. If it works out, and the story comes off, we’d like to pay you — quite anonymously of course — a fair share. How do you feel about it?’
Sergeant Wace sat back and smirked. ‘I’d like to see your money, sir. I mean, Murray, I don’t play poker blind with no man — not even a friend.’
Murray passed him an envelope under the table containing two fifty dollar bills. ‘Keep that in your socks for a rainy day, Don. My newspaper pays very well.’ He stood up. ‘See you on Sunday night — at ATCO Three canteen.’
Wace nodded, already ripping open the envelope. ‘At twenty-two hundred hours then,’ he began, then added, ‘Jesus!’ his jaw dropping open even further as he gaped at the two bills in his lap, crumbling them away somewhere under the table. ‘Hey, will you stay for another drink, Murray?’
Murray stood watching him with a slow smile. ‘Yes, Don, I think I will.’
CHAPTER 2
Noon, B-Day Minus One.
The ice-cream parlour was full of the usual Saturday crowd — sleek Vietnamese youths with long hair and the assurance of those with no immediate fear of being drafted; snapping their fingers indolently to the jukebox and drinking iced coffees.
Murray met Jackie Conquest at a table at the back, away from the wire screens across the windows. At first he had scarcely recognised her, sitting over an untouched chocolate sundae, wearing a wide hat and enormous round sunglasses. ‘I haven’t much time. I’ve got to meet Maxwell for lunch at the
