A Dangerous Friend

by Ward Just

  Sydney nodded, wondering what the captain knew of this. Most likely nothing, but hoping all the same.

  The commissars don't like our locals, Claude went on. Peasant boys always in need of reeducation, often too independent for their own good, and generally naive. Often politically unreliable. Our locals know who's in charge and don't like it. They're loyal southern boys and don't like being dictated to by the hard-faced northerners. They're proud of what they did a week ago. They took an infantry company out of action and they captured a captain, and not just any captain. And now they're waiting for instructions. Unless they already have their instructions and are carrying them out right now.

  It's been ten days, Sydney said.

  It takes them time, Claude said.

  Will you talk to Rostok?

  Out of the question, Claude said. He looked over Sydney's shoulder, out the window to the lawn and the plantation beyond.

  What should I tell him, then?

  Not much. As little as possible, since these events are unpredictable and he won't be in charge. When I know more, I'll get a message to you.

  Claude, Sydney said patiently. That isn't helpful. Smalley may have only a day or two to live, maybe less. Whatever we can do, we must do. He opened his mouth to continue, then held back. He looked at the bright cover of Paris-Match, a radiant Princess Grace rising to mock him. He took a sip of cognac, the taste sweet and smoky, a man's drink for the end of the day. The coffee had gone cold and he was out of cigarettes. He wondered what Smalley would make of this afternoon, so controlled and civilized; a fine lunch, a rambling, intimate conversation, and binoculars for the birds. So you want me to keep this information to myself, Sydney said dully.

  For the moment, Claude said.

  We don't have a moment, Sydney objected.

  You feel sorry for your big dumb blond, Claude said. You want to help him. But as it happens, so do I. So do I, he said again, fiercely, scowling suddenly. Then he was out of his chair and looking wildly out the window, tapping on it, muttering Oh merde. In a moment he was out the door and striding down the long green slope, Sydney in pursuit. Dede was nowhere in sight. Claude called loudly but she did not answer. They entered the plantation and at once were inside a watery green world. The light seemed to stop at the great overarching branches above them, the air almost viscous, redolent of raw latex and rotting vegetation. Claude hurried along the narrow path between the bare trunks of the rubber trees, leaping now and then to avoid fallen branches, and in minutes they were deep in the wilderness of the plantation, the house invisible behind them. Here and there were signs of occupation, footprints, a scrap of paper; empty tins, animal bones, a plastic sandal, a cold campfire. The sour odor of human sweat hung in the vast silence, along with the intimation of urgent conversations just ended. Sydney's shoes slipped on the slick path and when he steadied himself against the trunk of a tree he noticed the long diagonal cut, a vessel at the base to collect the creamy latex. He fell behind and when he halted, listening for Claude, all he could hear was his own breathing and the rustle of his clothes when he waved his arms to brush the mosquitoes away. The light was an unnerving milky gray, shadowless and without definition. He knew he was hopelessly lost in a place without landmarks. Sydney followed Claude's tracks farther into the symmetry of the plantation.

  He was almost upon the Frenchman before he saw him standing at the edge of a clearing. His wife was kneeling before two gravestones. There were other gravestones round and about. The ones at Claude's feet were from the previous century, the names both French and Vietnamese. At the far end of the clearing were prayer flags, black lettering on white cloth, the cloth frayed and so thin you could see through it. Buddhists believe that the winds carry the prayers over the surface of the earth, consoling the dead and the living. In the flat light the graveyard had the aspect of a surreal painting, things out of place, the flags jittery, the latex vessels overflowing, Dede in white against the green earth, the gravestones standing straight as soldiers and overhead a late afternoon moon, pale as ashes.

  When she rose, Sydney could see the dirt on the hem of her dress. She turned and looked directly at him but gave no sign of recognition; and then she bowed her head to say a final prayer to her children. Claude came up behind her and put his arm around her waist, saying a few words. She took his hand and gripped it, her head moving this way and that, as if she were not in control of her movements. She began to keen in a voice so thin it could not be heard twenty feet away. When a breath of air caught the prayer flags, she fell silent, watching them shudder, their skirts flaring, sighing some kind of fantastic language of the dead.

  Sydney turned away, leaving them alone. He picked his way slowly back down the path. The sound of a helicopter in the distance brought him back to the task at hand. He thought about Smalley all the way to the Armands' house, in deep shadows when he arrived; and by the time he reached the main road, night had fallen and the moon was bright. His heart was cold and he wondered now if that was the cause of his bad conscience or the result of it.

  Pablo's Hat

  PABLO GUTTERMAN sat staring glumly at his Panama hat. The hat rested on the metal table next to the tall glass of lemonade that was sweating in the heat. It was nine in the morning on the all but empty terrace of the Continental Palace. The city struggled to life, the street filled with the racket of engines and exhaust fumes. From the river came the hollow-sounding horns of freighters maneuvering in the narrow channel. Cigarette girls were in place on the sidewalk across the street. Pablo's brother-in-law had complained that they were selling dope along with Chesterfields, and any day now they would be selling themselves. There were so many GIs in town spreading wickedness. Pablo nodded at something Sydney Parade said, then resumed his contemplation of the hat.

  Sydney continued to explain. Even his explanations had explanations.

  Perhaps it was time for a new hat, not that anyone sold genuine Panamas in Saigon; this model, bleached the color of clotted cream, was the one favored by Miami gangsters, and Orson Welles in the sunny summer scenes of Citizen Kane. Pablo raised his eyes to survey the street, damp from last evening's rain. You would think that rain would freshen the atmosphere, bring the tang of the sea inland where it would do some good, serve to remind the population of distant Asian horizons, meaning a sense of possibility. But it never did. The rain was a monotonous peninsular rain that did not even clear the dust from the city's sultry climate, blue with exhaustion. Pablo watched Mrs. Han, the pharmacist, open the door to her shop, step outside, and stare disapprovingly at the cigarette girls on the corner. Then she glared at the ashen sky. A low sheet of cloud moved west to east but at street level there was no breeze. More rain was on the way.

  So that's the broad picture, Sydney said, pausing but briefly before he moved into another digression, a detail he'd forgotten, something about Claude Armand's loyal Vietnamese workforce and trouble with production quotas.

  Mrs. Han disappeared into the interior of her shop, not before glancing at the terrace, raising her eyes fractionally at the sight of Pablo in conversation with the young American in blue jeans. Pablo gave a little nod of his head but she did not acknowledge it. Only the night before, his brother-in-law informed him that a shipment of pharmaceuticals had arrived in Cholon and was being sold on the black market. Penicillin was the most sought-after but it was also the most likely to be adulterated, fabricated in unsanitary conditions or simply bogus, sugar tablets in a counterfeit vial. People were likely to die unless the shipment was seized, and that was highly unlikely because—and here his brother-in-law named the wife of a general in the Ministry of Defense, owner of a successful trading company. Can you find out about it, Pablo? And let us know what you discover? We can give you the location of the warehouse, but the Americans will have to be responsible for the confiscation of the goods. Our own police can't be trusted. This is all the fault of the Americans. If they were not in our country, there would be no black market. So tell them they must do what is righ
t. Pablo said what he always said, that he would do what he could. In this case, everything depended on how much the Americans valued the general's good will. Pablo looked at his watch, waiting for Sydney to finish.

  So I don't know what to do, Sydney said.

  I have a thought, Pablo said.

  Claude thinks there's a possibility they might consider an exchange or some quid pro quo. That's assuming our captain is alive. Claude wasn't specific. Maybe he was only guessing.

  They don't do business that way, Pablo said. They never have. They're back-of-the-head people. You think you see through them and then you understand that you're looking at a mirror; reading your own thoughts. They're patient. They're stubborn. I think you could offer them an atomic bomb and an airplane to deliver it and they'd think about it for a month and say, No, not until you evacuate. Not until every last infantryman is back in California. Then we'll think about your offer.

  Risk-benefit, Sydney said.

  Pablo tried again. He liked Sydney Parade, a man eager to learn but often attracted to the wrong lessons. He said, Listen to me, Sydney. They don't think in terms of benefit. They're concerned with winning, only that. We like to think of them as the inscrutable face of Buddha. We believe that if we discover what animates them, we can outsmart them. But it's all beside the point. They don't care if they outsmart us or not. Outsmarting is not what they do. Fighting is what they do, and they do it well. They've been doing it for a very long time with only the back of their heads to guide them. It's the life they've chosen. They respect it. It's the reason they exist, I suspect. They believe they are in harmony with the universe. They hear its heartbeat. As good Communists they are never plagued by doubt; and in that way they remind me of Dicky Rostok. Marxism is a kind of natural law. When they die, they will die as honored men, welcomed by their ancestors. They have a plan and they will adhere to the plan no matter what we do or don't do. We're irrelevant to them.

  You're a pessimist, Pablo.

  Pablo shook his head sadly and shooed away a fly that had lit upon the brim of his Panama hat, no doubt one of the ancestors visiting, a signal of approval. To believe the revolution would be defeated by Western arms was to believe in the modern world, the superiority of Western virtue and Western spirits, and he knew no Vietnamese who did. They all had their bags packed but they had nowhere to go. He watched Mrs. Han sweep the sidewalk in front of her shop; then he had a sudden image of Captain Smalley underground, wet, wounded, insects feeding on his wounds. He was hurting. He was cold. Captain Smalley did not appear to be a resourceful soldier, and the longer he was in the bush, the worse it would get. If Smalley was still alive, it was a miracle from heaven.

  There's a way, Sydney said. We just have to find it.

  Pablo decided to speak more slowly. He said, They don't like negotiating, Sydney. They tried it twice in Switzerland and it didn't get them what they wanted. Switzerland was very far from Vietnam. They were outmaneuvered by white men in double-breasted suits. In 1945 they tried to enlist the friendship of the United States. That didn't work, either. So they believe they are alone in the world except for alliances of convenience like the one they have with the Soviet Union. They looked at their circumstances and decided on a strategy of unconditional victory, no matter how long it took them or how many died. Any other strategy was unworthy. And the American government decided to oblige them. Am I being clear?

  You still haven't answered my question, Sydney said.

  What have you told Rostok?

  Nothing yet, Sydney said.

  Will Claude talk to me?

  I doubt it, Sydney said.

  You have to be careful with Rostok, what you say to him. He isn't careful with information. Pablo opened his mouth to say more, how you never knew Rostok's angle-of-the-day, how he always had a subtext that was more important than the text, how he let his love of intrigue get the better of him. But he had made these observations before, so he did not make them now.

  Probably I should take what I know to the military and let them handle it. They're entitled to the information.

  He's their man, Pablo said.

  Their responsibility, Sydney agreed.

  They have the ways and means, Pablo said, and did not add that the means were too much and the ways too limited.

  And I have to protect Claude.

  That you do, Pablo said. He's taken risks.

  And meantime, that poor son of a bitch Smalley is somewhere in the rain forest—

  Dead or alive, Pablo said.

  Claude thinks there's a chance he's alive.

  Pablo thought a moment, remembering something his wife had said a few nights before. He was suddenly uneasy. At last he said, We would need evidence. In the absence of evidence, take it to the military. Tell Rostok later. He's tied up anyway with that friend of his, the Washington character, the assistant secretary.

  Undersecretary, Sydney said, smiling because Pablo had no sense of rank or precedence.

  There's nothing you or I can do, Pablo said. Nothing Rostok can do. Nothing Claude Armand can do. Give it to the military.

  All right, Sydney said.

  I know the man to go to. He's discreet. He's not a fool.

  Let's go, then.

  Pablo threw some bills on the table and picked up his hat. The sun was peeking through the sheet of cloud, a kind of fluorescent glow. The city did have its own animal charm, the swish and slither of some creature of the underworld, lawless, unpredictable. He watched the cigarette girls approach two Americans who had emerged from the Caravelle Hotel across the square, journalists from the look of them. They were blinking in the light and reaching for their wallets. Their shirt pockets bristled with pens.

  Then Sydney's hand was on his arm. My God, he said, that's Dede Armand right there. He pointed at a Western woman disappearing into a taxi. Before he could say anything more, the taxi was gliding away in heavy traffic toward the river. Sydney could see her silhouette in the rear window.

  The lady asked me to give you this, the waiter said, and handed Sydney a thin manila envelope.

  How did she know where to find me? Sydney said.

  The waiter shrugged and drifted off. The cab disappeared.

  Well, Pablo said. Someone did.

  Sydney opened the envelope and looked at its contents, a single sheet of paper.

  This changes everything, he said.

  Sydney and Pablo were drinking coffee at the oval mahogany table at Group House when Rostok arrived, his Scout spinning into the driveway, scattering gravel. He had been given bodyguards, four slender Nungs in camouflage gear who carried Swedish K submachine guns. The Nungs spilled from the car, brandishing their weapons at the startled gardeners. Rostok watched the show, then growled some cryptic order that caused the Nungs to retreat to the shade of the plane tree. One stood at attention while the others began to break down their weapons. Rostok hurried inside the villa. Sydney and Pablo heard him loudly issuing instructions to the secretaries. Then he was in the conference room, rubbing his hands and chuckling.

  Had him for an hour, one on one. He wanted it that way, Syd, tête-à-tête with no third parties. He's a good man, knows how to listen, knows what he doesn't know, always plays the hand he's dealt. Now he's with the general in the general's jet, heading to some godforsaken firebase in Three Corps, more briefings with the charts and the bar graphs...

  Rostok poured coffee.

  ...one major for each chart, one lieutenant colonel per bar graph.

  But I got him first, Rostok said.

  One on one, sixty uninterrupted minutes. Sorry again, Syd. But it was his call.

  He went to the door and called for George Whyte, but George wasn't there, an urgent errand in Cholon. Rostok cursed. Whyte was never around when you needed him. Whyte was always off on some always-urgent mission and wasn't it odd that these missions never failed to occur when he, Rostok, needed something done without delay, in this important instance an exact accounting of the annual budget, how much spent,
how much on hand, how much in the pipeline—and the Top Secret wish list because the wish list was about to come true, thanks to the progress made this morning one on one with the undersecretary, who understood the situation at once. Rostok stopped then and took his usual place at the head of the table, smiling sardonically.

  And I'm being promoted to brigadier general.

  How can you be a brigadier general? You're not in the army.

  That so, Pablo?

  That's so, Ros.

  Equivalent rank, Pab. I'm counselor of embassy as of eighteen hundred hours today. So that I can talk to those bastards at MACV eye to eye on a level playing field.

  Congratulations, Pablo said.

  General, Sydney added.

  Sarcasm does not become you, Syd, Rostok said.

  Ros, we have some information, Sydney began.

  But Rostok wasn't listening. He was staring out the window, watching his Nungs fieldstrip the Scandinavian furniture.

  And I have some other news, he said, this news not to leave this room. It looks like sometime next year the President of the United States will pay us a visit. Talk to the troops, it'll be a morale booster. Maybe for him, too, right around the time of the midterm elections. It'll be a snap visit, no advance warning, and I can promise you that Llewellyn Group will be significantly involved. In the planning.

  And the last thing, Rostok continued. The undersecretary was briefed this morning on the efforts to find Captain Smalley. He didn't hear anything positive and he was triple pissed because the boy's uncle is a friend of his and asked him personally to find out what he could and put the heat on, highest priority, et cetera et cetera. Simple truth. They don't know where he is. Captain Smalley has vanished. Hard for them to explain to the undersecretary that while South Vietnam looks small on a map, it's a big country when you're on the ground. Everything looks alike. And the suspicion is they live underground. They're underground men.