CHAPTER FIVE
In Ho Chi Minh city — once called Saigon — the night was filled with the sounds and smells of scooters and vendor stalls, for even with galloping inflation, enough of the 4.5 million Vietnamese in the city had been able to buy the three-thousand-dollar, two-stroke-powered motorbikes, no doubt sacrificing much along the way. To own a scooter in Vietnam was like owning a car anywhere else.
Despite familiar odors of gasoline fumes mixed in with the pungent smell of cooking and spices, it was still nothing like Saigon used to be. It lacked the excitement and zest of the old Asian “Paris” nightlife. Still, even though it was more than twenty years since Vietnam’s defeat of the Americans in ‘75, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam had failed to kill the entrepreneurial wiles of beggars and ladies of the night. It was simply more organized. Many of the beggars in good health had been sent to reconstructive labor battalions, a move that U.S. Army captain Ray Baker, assigned to the U.S. legation office, endorsed as he walked through the dimly lit city with a mixture of nostalgia and anger.
It had been difficult enough to accept the defeat. Every American alive at the time — and not only those who had fought in ‘Nam — had that picture frozen in their memory: the sight of a lone chopper poised atop the American embassy, a string of frantic people falling from it, trying to board, those already aboard shoving them off — everyone for himself. Americans and South Vietnamese in panic. And then there was the sight of Huey choppers heading out from the delta over the South China Sea like so many angry gnats dotting the sky, fleeing, again in panic, landing atop a Seventh Fleet carrier, and once the human cargo had been disgorged, not going back again but being pushed overboard — three million dollars a pop. And when the carriers couldn’t provide any more deck space, the helo pilots cut off the engines, coming down in a semi-controlled crash, pancaking on the sea with about thirty seconds to escape before the doomed chopper began its slow then sudden dive to the bottom, bodies floating up and swimming soundlessly beneath the noise from the six-thousand-man carrier, as many on deck as possible — against orders — just standing there, witnessing the historic humiliation and debacle of me awesome American defeat.
This evening Ray Baker wanted to evict that image from memory, but the more he tried, the more persistent and nagging it became, and for a moment he was glad it was nighttime, as if the darkness could somehow hide his private sense of humiliation. But on second thought, what the hell did he have to be ashamed of anyway? He’d done his bit, hadn’t he? Or was he unconsciously harboring the secret torment that if he’d done that little bit extra during the war — if enough of them had done more, gone that extra mile — it might have been enough to turn the tide? For some vets who had fought in the Iraqi War, a full measure of self-respect had been reclaimed, but Baker had not been with Schwarzkopf’s winning team. While many of his buddies had been racing over the desert destroying Saddam Insane’s armor and closing on the Republican Guard — when the most terrifying phrase for the Iraqi combat pilots was “Permission to take off!”—Ray Baker was sweating in the shirt-clinging tropical climate of the Mekong Delta, still trying to find out after twenty years what had happened to all those unaccounted-for MIAs and POWs who some believed were still held prisoner deep in the jungles of the north.
Tonight he was going out to meet yet another “lead,” the follow-up to yet another informant’s phone call about yet another POW-MIA tip — another 100,000 new dong, ten U.S. dollars — just for the meet. Another ten for whatever his informant told him, even if it was bullshit — otherwise the informant might not come back if he did find something more concrete at a later date.
At the U.S. legation office they told Baker he was wasting his time, and he knew they were probably right, but if after all these years he could bring even one American out, bring one American home, it would be worth something. For himself, yes — for the man’s family it would be everything. It was worth doing.
He lit another cigarette and made his way toward the heart of Cholon, the big market district largely populated by Chinese, once a thriving capitalist community but now much less so, after the anti-Chinese purges of the late 1970s. Now and then amid the gasoline fumes of the scooters, Baker could smell the freshly made French bread, croissants, and coffee from the sidewalk kiosks. There were dozens of them, the people of old Saigon refusing to give up the habits and civilities that had once made this vital part of the old city one of the busiest capitalist enclaves in all Asia. The Communists had realized their mistake in ostracizing so many Chinese, and were now letting many of them back to revitalize the ancient city of French Indochina, but many had already escaped through Hong Kong or been killed by pirates who boarded the boat people’s sailboats to steal, rape, and murder.
Baker walked down an alley lit by Chinese lanterns, heading for Hung Vuong Boulevard. He passed the electronics market, with radios blaring, turned onto Ngo Gia Tu Boulevard, and passed the Nha Sau Church. Although he was over a quarter mile from the Kinh Tau Hu Canal to the south, he could smell its garbage mixed with gasoline and dust, and the odor of more baking in the hot, sticky air. Still, he would rather meet whoever had made the phone call here than at 28 Vo Van Tan — in the War Crimes Museum — where the last Vietnamese who supposedly had a “hot tip” had insisted on meeting him. Baker had been compelled, then, to see the black and white photographs of atrocities by American “imperialists,” specifically the American photo of the My Lai massacre and Lieutenant Calley, and some fuzzy shots of “China’s imperialist aggression” against some of the “Vietnamese islands” in the Paracels and the Spratlys.
It was a softly spoken hello, filled more with apprehension than warmth.
“What isn’t far?” Baker asked, not bothering to hide the irritation in his voice. “Where are we going?”
“Not far,” the other man said, and Baker realized that he was probably just a go-between and would cost him another 100,000 dong.
“If this turns out to be nothing,” he told the man as he walked more quickly, now passing stalls smelling of fried rice and spices, “you get nothing. Understand? Zero. Zilch.”
“Good,” Baker said.
They made a sharp right turn onto Nguyen Tri Phuong Boulevard, heading toward the canal. Down by the waterway, the Chinese pointed to a sampan with an old man aboard, among dozens of others, then held out his hand.
“Not so fast,” Baker told him in English. “Let’s hear what grandpa has to say.”
“I go now,” the man said urgently, his hand outthrust.
“Well, off you go, buddy,” Baker told him. “But you don’t get one dong until I hear from Uncle Ho here.”
The elderly chin-bearded Chinese on the sampan gave no indication that he knew what was going on. He merely stared out from the boat at the black water.
Baker touched his cap as a sign of respect for the elder and said,
The old man nodded, the white taper of his beard barely visible for a second as he turned to watch a police boat chugging by, its searchlight darting here and there, momentarily illuminating the scores of sampans and other houseboats.
“No,” Baker replied, getting more irritated by the second. Why in the hell was he wasting his time by the fetid canal when he could be enjoying a good drip coffee and croissant back at his office?
The old man raised his head in the direction of a younger Chinese nearby — perhaps his son — indicating that he should go away. The young one didn’t like it and said something sharp to the old man, who in turn barked a quick rejoinder and waved him off. The young man walked sullenly along by the canal, and in the habit of the Chinese, paused for a long spit, standing there, letting it dribble down his chin before he moved on, casting a faint shadow on the lanterns’ silken reflections as they undulated over the wake of the passing police boat.
“I know a secret,” the old man said.
