Satori

“It’s a bit late to stunt my growth.”

“Buy cigarettes.” The man jutted his chin at a tobacco shop and then he melted into the crowd.

Nicholai walked over to the tobacconist’s. The owner, an old man, handed him the pack. An address was scrawled on the back.

“Take a cyclo-pousse,” the old man snapped.

Nicholai went back out on the street to hail one of the bicycle-powered rickshaws. The first one in a long queue hurried to pick him up, Nicholai gave him the address, and the driver pedaled out into the swirling Saigon traffic.

Nicholai noticed the police tail get into the next in line, but the driver argued with him, with much yelling and hand-waving. By the time the police tail found a driver who would take him, Nicholai’s rickshaw had disappeared into the current.

The route led across the Dakow Bridge, over the Saigon River into Cholon, and Nicholai recalled the sad joke that there is a Chinese quarter in every city in the world except Shanghai.

This one was no different. Three-story tenement buildings painted in vivid greens, blues, and reds, their tiny railed balconies decorated with drying laundry, leaned over the narrow streets as if they might imminently collapse onto them. Every other block seemed to have a small Buddhist temple or a shrine to a lesser Chinese god.

The driver navigated the vehicle through the clogged, noisy streets and pulled up alongside what appeared to be a tailor’s shop, then refused the payment that Nicholai offered as he got out.

Nicholai went into the shop and was immediately hustled through a door into a back room. His proximity sense was on high alert, but discerned no danger. Apparently, the Viet Minh had not brought him there to kill him. Was it possible that they didn’t know about his transfer of the weapons to the Binh Xuyen?

The man who had met him near the pool was already there. He did not give a name, but said brusquely, “You did not make the rendezvous in Luang Prabang.”

“No,” Nicholai answered, “you did not make the rendezvous in Luang Prabang.”

“Our man was murdered shortly before.”

“I can hardly be held responsible for his negligence,” Nicholai answered.

“You have no feeling.”

“See that you remember it.”

The agent frowned at the distasteful necessity of dealing with this mercenary creature. “Where are the weapons?”

So, Nicholai thought, either they do not know or they are not certain. He needed time and space to complete his maneuvers on the board, just a little space to move the stones into position. “Where is my money?”

“When we get the weapons,” the Viet Minh agent answered. “Where are they?”

“In a safe place,” Nicholai answered.

“We have heard rumors…”

So the Viet Minh had heard about his airplane ride with the Binh Xuyen and the French into Saigon. Yet his making contact through the stamp shop had confused them. Otherwise they would have tried to kill me immediately, he thought. “You shouldn’t listen to rumors. It’s a morally debilitating habit.”

“You are playing a dangerous game,” the agent said. “If you have sold the weapons to the Binh Xuyen, you will answer for it.”

“I answer only to myself,” Nicholai responded. “In addition to the money, I believe there is also the matter of a new passport?”

The agent said, “You will get your money when we get the weapons and your new papers when the weapons reach their destination.”

“That would be to this Ai Quoc person?”

The agent didn’t answer.

Which is answer enough, Nicholai thought. He knew he had to take the offensive. “You will give me the money and the papers when I deliver the weapons to you.”

“That is inconceivable.”

“Nonsense,” Nicholai responded, “as I just conceived of it. You might think it improbable, inconvenient, perhaps impossible, but inconceivable? No.”

“I will pass along your request,” the agent said stiffly.

“It is not a request,” Nicholai said. “It is a nonnegotiable demand.”

Nicholai knew that he was acting far too Western – confrontational and direct – but he didn’t have the time for elaborate Asian courtesy. And he needed them to believe that the papers were crucial to him.

“Do not contact me again,” Nicholai pressed. “I will contact you within two days to tell you where and when we can make the transfer. If you do not have the money, the deal is off. If you do not have the papers, the deal is off. Do we understand each other?”

“I understand you far too well.”

“Good,” Nicholai said. “Now I have an appointment.”

He took a cyclo-pousse back into the city and had it drop him off near the Cine Catinat.

127

SHE WAS SILVER in the reflected light of the screen.

Solange sat two rows in front of him, arranged her long legs in the narrow aisle, lit a cigarette, and looked up at the screen.

Simone Signoret starring in Casque d’or.

The film was a Belle Epoque crime story that held little interest for Nicholai, and he was glad when, after twenty minutes, Solange got up and left the theater. He waited a few seconds and then followed her out onto Rue Catinat. She walked quickly, with long strides, and didn’t look behind her until she came to the Eden Roc Hotel, where she checked her image in the glass doorway and saw his reflection.

Nicholai waited until she went in, then followed her into the small lobby, where he saw the Vietnamese desk clerk smile in recognition and hand Solange her room key. So he knew that this was her official address, although he suspected that she spent most of her nights at the palace.

She went into the elevator and Nicholai stood off and watched the brass arrow above the doors indicate that she went to the second floor. He went over to the small shop, purchased a Journal, and perused the headlines before he allowed himself to walk over to the stairway door to make sure that neither the desk clerk nor the concierge were watching, then went in and took the stairs up to the second floor.

He walked the corridor and found that the door to room 231 was ajar. He stood outside for just a moment, allowing his senses to confirm that the perfume was hers.

He went in and shut the door behind him.

Solange stood in the small living room.

“That was foolish,” she said, lighting a cigarette. “Foolish and jejune.”

“What was?”

“Your behavior last night.”

She’s beautiful, Nicholai thought. Her golden hair, a casque d’or indeed, soft in the muted afternoon light, one hip cocked in anger, her muscled leg set off by the high heels. She turned away from him, pried the bamboo window shades open with her fingers, and looked out onto the street.

“What did you want me to do?” Solange asked. “Starve? Live on the street?”

“I make no judgments.”

“How worldly of you,” she mocked. “How tolerant you are.”

Nicholai knew that this verbal slap was deserved. He asked, “Did Haverford send you here?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “A different one. He called himself ‘Mr. Gold’… he arranged for me to meet Bao Dai. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if you were alive, or dead…”

Diamond, Nicholai thought, is as unimaginative as he is brutal. He has all the subtlety of a bull. And yet bulls