The Three-Nine Line

by David Freed

  “That’s why you’re doing this,” I said, realization dawning on me. “It’s not about the money. It’s about you returning a kindness.”

  He stared out at the street and asked me about the types of planes I flew in the air force.

  “Mostly the A-10 Warthog.”

  “No F-4?”

  “They’d pretty much retired the F-4 by the time I got my wings.”

  He sipped his beer. “Who would have won? You or me?”

  “In a dogfight, you mean?”

  Phu Dung nodded.

  “The A-10’s a tank buster. It wasn’t designed to be an air superiority fighter like the MiG-21.”

  “So you are saying I would win.”

  I smiled. When I was getting too cocky during air combat training, one of my flight instructors, a nervous little guy with big jowls and even bigger ears named Waylon Bixby whom everybody called “Yoda,” asked me what I thought the difference was between God and a fighter pilot, then answered his own question before I could. “The difference,” Yoda said tersely, “is that God doesn’t believe he’s a fighter pilot.” Could I have told Phu Dung that, all planes being equal, I would’ve easily spanked his butt in the air? You bet. One doesn’t strap in to a heavily armed warplane and set off to kill the aviators of other nations miles above terra firma without a surplus of self-confidence. But the truth was, I hadn’t been in the cockpit of a single-seat fighter in more than fifteen years. I was also an aspiring Buddhist, and the Buddha was all about humility. Moreover I was on a covert intelligence-gathering mission; the last thing I needed, especially in a place as potentially dicey as Hanoi, was to get into a dogfight of egos with my interpreter.

  “Whatever you say,” I said.

  “I think you would have won, Logan,” Phu Dung said.

  I’d forgotten: he was a Buddhist, too.

  We clinked bottles. Our food arrived. With the possible exception of Mrs. Schmulowitz’s secret family recipe, I have to admit it was about the best chicken soup I’d ever had.

  V

  Phu Dung dropped me off three blocks from the hotel. He said he wanted to maintain distance between the two of us as well as a low profile, which made sense and didn’t. How can a man who tools around Hanoi on a Harley, looking like the Vietnamese version of Kojak, ever hope to maintain a low profile? I said I’d check in with him the next morning, slipped off the back of his motorcycle and walked the rest of the way. The traffic in the Old Quarter seemed especially heavy, an endless procession of mostly motorbikes coming and going. Getting from one side of the street to the other was like being in one of those old computer games in which the cartoon frog gets killed if he mistimes his crossing from one lane to the next. Miraculously, I avoided getting splattered.

  The doorman with the Elvis hair smiled while holding the big glass door for me. The clerks behind the front desk stood and smiled as I approached the elevators. Nothing in the lobby conveyed anything amiss, nothing to suggest that the whole sixth floor had been cordoned off by Vietnamese paramilitary personnel and that two former American servicemen were being held there against their wills. I pushed the button to the fifth floor.

  Back in my room, I again swept for electronic bugs but found none. The red digital numbers on the nightstand clock read 7:46 p.m. It was bedtime somewhere. I secured my wallet, phone and passport in the plastic bag behind the toilet, undressed, climbed in between the sheets, and was soon fast asleep. Two hours later, I was just as soon fast awake. Consciousness returned to me with a violent start and I realized I was lathered in sweat even though the air conditioner was blasting. The nightmare I’d been having began to fade even before I opened my eyes, but I remembered enough to know I had been dreaming of Savannah and the moment I first saw her corpse. I tried to scrub the image from my head, went to the sink, and cupped cold water on my face. A glass door led to my room balcony, more of a widow’s walk really, fronting Gia Ngu Street, five stories below. I wrapped a towel around my waist and stepped outside.

  The night was warm but not excessively so. The damp, heavy air felt good on my skin and in my lungs. Long after the sun was done for the day, Hanoi remained alive with the pounding of hammers and the high-pitched whine of circular saws, an ancient, restless city constantly rebuilding itself, even as the rest of the world slept. I found odd comfort in the aural stew. It helped drown all the noise inside my head.

  “Insane, isn’t it, this city?”

  I glanced to my left, at the balcony adjoining mine. A woman was leaning on her elbows against the wrought iron railing, taking in the night air and admiring the lights of the city as I was. I’d seen her earlier in the day—the same beautiful Asian woman with the British accent I’d teased about her dinosaur of a BlackBerry while she waited for the elevator. She’d since changed out of her dress-for-success suit and into jeans, spiked heels open at the toe, and a coral-colored tank top. Her long glossy hair reflected the lights of the city, while her eyes made their own light.

  “Define insane,” I said.

  She smiled. “Chaotic. Unpredictable. A bit dangerous, perhaps.”

  “You forgot cognitively discordant.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “It’s a psychological term.”

  “Are you a psychologist?”

  “Some people say so.”

  Her face conveyed mild amusement mixed with skepticism. “Quite frankly, you don’t look like a psychologist to me.”

  “I find that psychologically intriguing. What do psychologists look like?”

  “Well, for one, they tend to be appropriately dressed when they step outside their hotel rooms.”

  “Let’s just say I’m a different kind of psychologist.”

  Another smile. She turned and took in the view. “Such a lovely evening, isn’t it?”

  “Very.”

  “I wouldn’t mind a drink. Perhaps you’d care to join me upstairs?”

  The last time a beautiful woman had asked me to join her for a drink was, well, I couldn’t remember when. I found myself torn between intrigue and guilt. To accept her invitation would be disloyal to Savannah’s memory—I wasn’t really ready to be with another woman. But Savannah was gone and I was very much alone in the world. What ill could come of an innocent drink? Buddhists aspire toward mindfulness when faced with a decision—the ability to recognize signals in one’s own body that can guide him to the correct choice. How do you really feel, Logan? I realized that what I felt at that moment, more than anything, was a kind of fluttering inside, the kind of butterflies you get before a first date.

  “You seem conflicted,” she said. “If you’d rather not . . .”

  “Give me ten minutes to put something on other than a towel. I’ll meet you up there.”

  “Lovely.”

  She went back inside her room, leaving behind the faint scent of perfume—some exotic flower, I’d probably never heard of.

  V

  Singapore was where she was from. Her name, she said, was Mai Choi.

  “Beautiful name.”

  “And yours?”

  “Bob Barker.”

  We were alone on the bar’s outdoor veranda. She shook my hand with a firm confidence like the successful international businesswoman she appeared to be. I took the cushioned, fan-back rattan chair next to hers.

  “Bob Barker. Your name seems oddly familiar to me.”

  “What a coincidence. Me, too.”

  Mai smiled and sipped white wine.

  The bartender came over. Oversized ears. Middle-aged. White shirt. Black slacks. I ordered club soda.

  “Nước ép ổi,” Mai said to him.

  The bartender nodded curtly. Mai finished off her wine and handed him her empty glass. He went to fetch our drinks.

  I asked Mai the nature of her work.

  “I’m an attorney.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Her smile told me she didn’t mind being teased. “A nonpracticing attorney,” she said. “I’m actually a regional vice presi
dent of sales and marketing for Kia Motors. We’re hoping to build a new manufacturing center in Hanoi, near the harbor.”

  “Yet another coincidence. I have a good friend who drives a Kia.”

  “I hope he finds it suited to his taste.”

  “To the extent he finds anything suited to his taste.”

  The lights of the city sparked below us. A quarter mile to the south, a crescent moon shone down on the lake where earlier that day I’d searched the shoreline for clues in the murder of Mr. Wonderful.

  “So, tell me,” she said, “what brings you to Hanoi?”

  “I came in to counsel a couple of clients.”

  “There are no other English-speaking psychologists living in Hanoi?” she said, her turn to tease me.

  “None they apparently trust.”

  “You must be very good at what you do.”

  “What can I say? It’s a living.”

  I gazed at the side of her face. Some women exude a kind of raw sensuality they’re incapable of masking even if they tried. Mai was one of those women. I couldn’t help but be drawn to her. She asked me how long I planned to be in Vietnam.

  “A few days,” I said. “You?”

  “A few days.” There was a pause, then, “Are you married?”

  “. . . Used to be.”

  She studied my eyes. “I believe you.”

  The bartended returned with her wine and my club soda. Mai watched him set the glasses down, waiting until he left.

  “In case you were wondering,” she said, “I was, too. Once.”

  “I believe you.”

  We finished our drinks, taking our time, saying little. Mai insisted on paying, saying she was the one who’d invited me out. I didn’t fight her for the check. We bade the bartender good evening and rode the elevator down to the fifth floor. If she suspected anything amiss as we passed the sixth floor, where the two former POWs were being held, she didn’t say. I walked her to her room, neither of us speaking. She slid her card key into the lock and turned the lever handle. I held open the door for her and she turned toward me, her head tilted upward, her lips within easy range of mine.

  “Would you like to come in?”

  We both knew what it meant. I wanted to go in, I really did, but I couldn’t.

  “It’s not you,” I said.

  She reached up and kissed me softly on the cheek. “I understand, love. I’m free tomorrow evening if you are.”

  “I have no plans.”

  “Good. It’s a date, then.”

  I smiled.

  “Good night, Dr. Barker.”

  “Good night, Mai.”

  I walked down the hall to my room, undressed, got in bed, and turned off the light, thinking of Savannah, remembering the first time we made love, the way we made the walls sweat. An hour went by, maybe longer, before I finally drifted off.

  NINE

  My phone rang me from a dead sleep.

  “What time is it there?” Buzz demanded.

  “You’re running a big-time, secret squirrel op and you don’t know what time it is in Hanoi?”

  “I can’t be bothered with minor operational details, Logan. I’m running a big-time, secret squirrel operation.”

  It was too early in the morning to humor him. I glanced at the digital clock beside the bed. It was 0403.

  He’d telephoned Virgil Stoneburner’s wife in Boca Raton, he said, to personally assure her, based on an expert, onsite evaluation by psychologist Bob Barker, that her husband was in good mental health. Mrs. Stoneburner was greatly relieved by the news.

  “But that’s not the reason I’m calling,” Buzz said. “My analysts spun up some good dope on the RFI we ran system-wide on your boy, Sean Hallady. I thought you might be particularly fascinated from a pretend psychologist’s standpoint.”

  “Sean Hallady.” I tried yawning the cobwebs from my brain.

  “The kid who accompanied his grandfather to Hanoi,” Buzz said impatiently. “Wake the hell up, Logan.”

  “I’m awake. Sean Hallady. Grandson of former prisoner of war, Billy Hallady. So what did your request for information come up with?”

  “Seems young Sean got booted out of the Marine Corps for being too violent. I mean, let’s face it, you gotta be pretty goddamned dysfunctional to get your ass kicked out of that organization for any reason.”

  “Not that you’re biased, Buzz, being an old army guy.”

  “Laugh all you want, Logan, but it’s the truth. You know what you get when you cross a jarhead with a gorilla, don’t you?”

  “An intellectually challenged gorilla. You’ve only told me that joke a hundred times.”

  “Okay, so sue me. I need a sit-rep.”

  “I’m chasing a few leads, hoping to have something more definitive for you by tonight.”

  “That’s not a situation report, Logan. That’s a blow job.”

  “I’m doing the best I can, Buzz.”

  “Yeah? Well, do better. We got three days before the commies ship Stoneburner and Cohen off to prison, and right now, I got exactly diddly-squat from you to pass along, up the chain. POTUS’s people are breathing down my neck. They need answers, like, yesterday. I e-mailed you Sean Hallady’s file. Get on it.”

  The line went dead.

  I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and checked e-mails on my iPhone. They were all to Dr. Barker. There was spam offering fake Rolexes for sale and two promising the lowest prices on erectile dysfunction medications to be found anywhere. I wondered what sort of crazy demographic the good doctor and I had fallen into.

  Also in Dr. Barker’s in-box were the results of Buzz’s request for information from various intelligence databases detailing Sean Hallady’s personal history. I stretched, stuffed a pillow behind my head, and read.

  Following a few minor run-ins with law enforcement in high school, Hallady had gone to Reed College in Oregon for about a year before being expelled following a fistfight in which he broke his roommate’s jaw over a dispute involving whose turn it was to clean the bathroom. Under threat of jail time, he then enlisted in the marines. Adhering to requirements in basic training proved a challenge. He was recycled through boot camp after mouthing off to drill instructors, and eventually posted to a rifle company at Camp Pendleton where he was deemed to be a disciplinary problem. After assessments by marine psychiatrists determined that he was bipolar with borderline personality disorder, he was summarily discharged from military service.

  A series of menial civilian jobs followed: busboy, construction worker, shopping-mall janitor, stacking shelves at a grocery store. At twenty-seven, he’d ended up moving to Utah to live with his then-girlfriend. Their relationship ended after they got in an argument in the parking lot of Salt Lake City’s Gateway mall and he shoved her to the ground, an act for which he later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor battery and served five days in the Salt Lake County Metro Jail.

  Records showed he’d also been fined $1,000 and sentenced to one hundred hours of community service after being found with half an ounce of marijuana. In his probation report, Hallady claimed that many of his emotional issues stemmed from the rage he felt over the way his beloved grandfather, a war hero, had been tortured at the hands of the North Vietnamese. An enlarged photo of Sean’s Utah driver’s license showed a heavy young man with angry brown eyes and blond hair that hung unkempt to his shoulders. Tattooed in cursive script on the right side of his neck was the Marine Corps’ motto, Semper fidelis—always faithful.

  I got up and took care of the normal morning ablutions, dressed, and went downstairs for a quick plate of eggs and rice noodles from the breakfast buffet before heading out. Elvis the doorman shot off of his stool and held the door open for me as I left the hotel, nodding pleasantly.

  Outside the dawn was cool and fresh. Hanoi was awakening with the new day. Not that the Old Quarter ever really slept. Shopkeepers raised the metal grates of their stalls while restaurateurs stood outside their open-air eateries, haggling prices with pushcart v
endors selling fresh vegetables and live chickens. No one seemed to notice me. Certainly, nobody followed me.

  Even at that early hour, motor traffic around Hoàn Kiếm Lake was heavy. I picked my way lane-by-lane through the glare of motorbike headlights, all but daring drivers to hit me. Somehow, none did.

  The lakefront itself was tranquil. Old folks dawdled along the shoreline, men and women, hands clasped behind their backs. Others practiced the exercise regimen known as tai chi. Their slow, graceful movements reminding me of ballet dancers. Not far from the bridge where Mr. Wonderful’s body was found, I stopped to watch a fisherman try his luck.

  He was about my age, with a full dark beard. You don’t see much facial hair in Hanoi. His pole was bamboo and he cast his line with a practiced elegance, alighting his feathered lure on the water without as much as a ripple. He sensed my presence and glanced over his shoulder. I waited for him to reel in and cast out again.

  “Catching anything?”

  “No.”

  “You speak English?”

  He smiled without looking at me. Dumb question.

  “You come here a lot?”

  “Yes,” the fisherman said.

  “This time of day?”

  “Best fishing, this time of day.”

  “A man was killed near here a few days ago. His body was found floating below the bridge. It was about this time of morning, maybe a little earlier. You didn’t happen to see anything, did you?”

  His back was to me. He didn’t respond directly, but the quickness with which he reeled in told me he’d heard my question.

  “He was famous, the man who died.”

  The fisherman quickly secured his hook to the cork handle of his pole and gathered up the wicker basket that served as his tackle box.

  “I don’t see nothing.” Jaw set. Eyes to the ground. He was a bad liar.

  “What are you so afraid of?”

  He left in a hurry and didn’t look back.

  I decided to walk the half mile or so to the Metropole, where the reconciliation dinner had been held that night. Maybe someone at the hotel had seen something.

  On Hang Dau Street, I passed two blocks of shoe stores, each selling knock-off Nikes and other counterfeit name brands for a fraction of what they’d go for back home. The proprietors, mostly women, sat on impossibly tiny red or blue plastic stools out in front of their shops, some reading newspapers, unwilling to make contact, others staring off at nothing. A sinewy man in a green pith helmet pedaling a three-wheeled cyclo for hire pulled up beside me.