‘Again, I must apologise.’
‘Simply apologise is not enough, Mr Carlisle. You are the guarantor for Mr Higgs, is this correct?’
‘He is my business associate. We work together. We all do,’ Trent said, motioning towards Shanti.
‘Yes. You are making something for the computer?’
Trent nodded towards Shanti. ‘Here is our Chief Programmer.’
‘Architect,’ Shanti corrected.
‘Chief Architect,’ Trent continued.
‘So pretty, and clever as well. Why you even need this one?’ asked the General, pointing towards Trent. He smiled at Shanti like an oversized reptile surveying a much smaller mammal.
‘Mr Carlisle has vision. He’s a leader. Much like you, General Trung,’ Shanti smiled back.
The General smiled a fraction. Trent realised Shanti held the stronger hand. He edged backwards in his seat.
‘Why do you come to Vietnam to make this computer program, clever girl?’ the General asked. ‘You don’t have enough computers in America?’
‘Well yes, but we want to be part of a new industry in Vietnam. We see a bright future here. Many talented people,’ said Shanti, eliciting another slight smile from the General.
‘Yes, we have many internet business in Saigon. I also invest in these things.’
‘Really? Perhaps you would consider looking at our business as well?’ Trent leaned in again.
‘I doubt that. Without your associate, maybe your business is not good investment,’ the General smiled.
‘May I ask where Mr Higgs is now?’
‘That depends,’ said the General, his smile vanishing. ‘On his guarantor.’
Trent shifted in his seat. ‘This sounds expensive,’ he said to Shanti under his breath.
‘Right now, Mr Higgs is in one of my department vehicles. I am yet to decide where that vehicle will take him,’ said the General as crossed the room. ‘I could choose to send him to the airport or… somewhere else.’
The General took a small notebook and a pencil from his top pocket, scribbled on the top page and tore the sheet out. He rose, crossed the room and handed it to Trent while smiling broadly again at Shanti.
‘Can I ask you what this number represents, General Trung?’ said Trent, holding the sheet of paper between his finger and thumb like a snake of unknown toxicity.
‘That is the total of damages and fines owing.’
‘I see. And would that be in Dong?’ asked Trent.
General Trung laughed without humour as he strode back to his desk, taking out a Marlboro softpack and fishing for a lighter in the top drawer.
‘You have the funds available?’
Trent looked back down at the scribbled figure. He most certainly did not have these funds available. At least not in this time zone. Even then, they wouldn’t be his funds. They would be borrowed and then repaid, endlessly and incrementally, through a series of low-level administrative jobs in a far-flung corner of his parents’ medical equipment empire, assuming they ever let him back in. He would commute from his one-bedroom apartment in a bland yet affordable part of New Jersey that was increasingly acknowledged to be almost safe, at least during daylight hours. He would live in this apartment for most of his adult life. He would never own anything of significant monetary value. His car would be second-hand and only intermittently reliable. He would never get laid again.
‘General Trung, how long have you worked for the government?’ Shanti asked, in a voice clear and bright, shattering Trent’s Hallmark-esque nightmare.
‘And you look after the finances as well as the computers?’ asked the General, ashing his Marlboro on the floor. ‘Impressive.’
‘I’m in charge of Operations, General Trung,’ replied Shanti with growing confidence. ‘Do you know what type of software we’re building here in your beautiful country?’
‘I was not so interested to find out.’
‘I don’t blame you, General. Most software is very dull, but we’re not building most software,’ Shanti crossed the room to the General’s desk and pointed at the Marlboros with her thumb. ‘May I?’
The General took the pack, belted the base of it and thrust it forward to offer a stick, which she allowed him to light.
‘What would you rather be doing, right now, if you didn’t have to be here, dealing with troublesome foreigners?’ she waved back across the room towards Trent.
‘There are a few things I can imagine,’ smiled the General, warming to the flattery.
‘I’m sure there are, but I wasn’t thinking of just going to a bar or a hotel across the street. A General can do that any day he wants, can’t he? I was thinking of something far more exciting.’
‘How exciting?’ the General looked over Shanti as if he were assessing a brood mare.
‘What’s the most exciting thing you can think of, General?’ Shanti took a long drag and let the smoke fall upwards into her nostrils. ‘Where is the one place in the world you’ve always wanted to go? What would you do when you got there?’
The General tapped his cigarette pack on the desk and stared at Shanti. She held his gaze. Trent thought he might take up smoking himself if the tension got any higher.
‘Maybe I would go to America, ride across the desert like a real cowboy. Share a smoke with the Marlboro man,’ the General laughed savagely, waving his cigarette to underline the point. ‘But why would you want to know such a thing, clever girl?’
‘I want to know because our software can make that possible,’ Shanti looked for somewhere to ash. ‘We can let you be that cowboy, General, riding across those plains. Sitting around the campfire at night, telling stories and smoking your Marlboros.’
The General took an ashtray from his drawer and placed it on the desk. ‘Would I have a gun?’
‘Two guns.’ Shanti took a long drag on her cigarette, eyes narrowing against the smoke. ‘A shotgun and a six shooter, if that’s what you wanted.’
The General tapped the softpack against the desktop and glanced at Trent. He leaned back in his chair and examined his cigarette closely.
‘Tell me how does this software of yours work?’ he asked.
Trent took the small sheet of paper holding the scribbled number, crumpled it into a ball and slipped it into his pocket.
***
Trung pulled the door of the van open and motioned for Gavin to climb inside.
‘See, your friends are here,’ the landlord clapped Gavin on the shoulder then gave a gentle push. ‘We go now.’
Gavin stumbled into the seat as the door slammed behind him. He looked around to see Trent in the seat behind him and Shanti in the back row of the passenger van.
‘Yay. You’re alive,’ said Trent from the back seat. ‘Now I can fucking kill you.’
‘Oh, man. Thanks for picking me up, although I probably could have got a cyclo or something. It’s not that far,’ he started to scoot across the seat to get comfortable. ‘Wait. What’s with the luggage? Are we going to a pitch fest or something?’
‘Didn’t they tell you?’ Shanti asked from the back as the van pulled out into the clogged arteries of Saigon’s roadways.
‘Oh man, if one more person tells me about some scratched paint on a stupid Harley Davidson I’m gonna explode.’
‘Do you realise how much shit we are in because of that bike?’ said Trent.
‘Do you realise that I just spent almost twenty-four hours in a filthy jail cell where no one spoke English?’ said Gavin, rising out of his seat.
Trent stopped typing on his phone to look at Gavin properly. Gavin looked like shit. He also looked scared and confused. As angry and frustrated as Trent felt, he realised it couldn’t have been a pleasant experience for Gavin either.
‘Look, man, I’m sorry. You OK?’
‘Yeah. I think so. I just need some sleep,’ said Gavin, sniffing his armpit. ‘And a shower.’
‘I don’t think we have time for either of those. Thanks to your little adventure last
night, we now owe the son of the Minister for Forestry and Agriculture a mint Harley Davidson Fatboy.’
‘That was absolutely not my fault,’ Gavin started to protest.
Trent cut him off with a raised palm. ‘Unfortunately, the son of the Minister for Forestry and Agriculture doesn’t see it that way. And now we also owe a senior official from the Ministry for Home Affairs a week in Nebraska, living the life of the Marlboro Man.’
‘What? You’re not blaming me for that, too, are you?’
‘No, Shanti’s responsible for that one,’ said Trent, returning to his phone.
‘You’re welcome,’ Shanti folded her arms and sank into her seat.
The van lurched to the right. The chaos of overhead power cables, signboards, street vendors, motorbikes and two-stroke fumes fell away as they ascended a ramp and joined a parade of overloaded lorries and unregistered Mercedes barrelling along the highway to the airport.
‘Where are we going?’ Gavin craned to get a look at the scenery as it rushed past.
‘Not sure yet. Still working on the leaving part,’ said Trent without looking up from his phone.
‘Leaving where?’
‘The country. Mr Trung has a family friend who works at immigration. If we can get there before her shift finishes, she’ll stamp our passports and we can leave tonight, but she won’t enter the details in their system until she clocks on again tomorrow. Say goodnight Saigon.’
‘Are you fucking serious?’ Gavin threw his hands in the air. ‘What if we get caught?’
‘Caught is where you were about half an hour ago, remember? Or did you get so drunk that it’s all just a blur?’
‘Is that what you think happened? Is that what Shanti told you?’
‘Nope, all she said was that you went to the seven eleven to buy a razor,’ Trent turned to study Shanti for a reaction. Shanti pretended to study the traffic outside.
‘I actually went out for a walk, to clear my head. It had been kind of a long day,’ Gavin shot Shanti a glance. ‘I walked past this dude who asks me if I like motorcycles. He’s showing me his bike, then I get shoved from behind and I fall into the gutter. When I get up, all these bikes are lying on each other, the dude is yelling, girls are screaming and a couple of cops appear from nowhere. Next thing, I’m in jail. I think I got set up.’
Trent studied Gavin for a long while before placing a hand on his shoulder.
‘Well, I’m glad you’re okay. Really.’
Half an hour later the van turned off the main road, swept past the terminal, sped along a narrow laneway and came to a stop beside a series of hangars. Trung opened the driver’s door and slid out. The noise from the hangar flooded the van’s interior: shrieking whistles, shouting men, the insistent whine of reversing indicators, the dull throb of grinding machinery.
Trung slammed the door and shuffled out into the commotion. The whistling and shouting became handshakes and greetings.
‘I swear Trung knows every single person in this town,’ said Trent, shaking his head with admiration. ‘Okay, get your stuff and be ready. This is almost certainly going to be surreal.’
The three of them watched through the aubergine window tint as Trung arranged himself in an old plastic chair beside one of the dock supervisors and handed around a pack of cigarettes. He was telling the story of his tenants, the ShelfLife founders, annotated with hand gestures, to the small crowd of airport workers.
Trung’s hands made a typing motion and Shanti began a running commentary.
‘He’s explaining what we do,’ she began, sounding more like David Attenborough than she had intended.
Trung’s finger walked up and down an imaginary set of stairs several times, followed by a shrug of the shoulders. The whistleblower nodded for Trung to continue.
‘He’s saying we never complained about all the stairs we had to climb to get to the third floor.’
Trung cupped his hands together, grabbing something and brought them up to his mouth. He flapped his jaw a few times.
‘Ha! That’s Trent eating Bahn Mi. Every. Freaking. Day.’ Gavin joined in.
Trung held one finger up on his left hand. He held up two fingers with the other. Then the single finger moved up and flew away, the whistle-blower following its imaginary trajectory.
‘That’s you, flying to Hong Kong a couple of days ago,’ said Gavin, ‘and us two staying behind to…’ His enthusiasm evaporated as Shanti shot him one of her looks.
Trung made one hand into a loose fist and bumped it into the open palm of the other hand several times.
Trent turned to look at Gavin, then at Shanti. Neither returned eye contact.
Trung’s hands flew up, fingers outstretched like a small explosion, and then drifted apart. He mimed wearing handcuffs, grasping iron bars, offering a salute and someone asking for money. The finale was a series of fingers tip-toeing gingerly along his own thigh, then flying away. He brought the curtain down by slapping his thigh. The laughter of the crowd could be heard inside the van.
‘I think I get the picture now,’ said Trent.
‘Trent, look, it wasn’t meant to – ’ Shanti started, but was interrupted as the van door opened with a grinding moan. The supervisor gave the three a loose salute and a wink. He spoke into a walkie-talkie as Trung led them towards a large opening in the wall of the hangar, obscured by a hanging set of industrial plastic strips.
Shanti jogged a little to catch up to Trent. ‘Are we getting smuggled out as freight?’
‘I. Don’t. Actually. Know,’ Trent replied without moving his lips, eyes scanning left and right, trying at least to act calm, as it was no longer possible to remain inconspicuous.
Through the plastic strips and into a high-roofed warehouse, they snaked around a collection of refuelling trucks and baggage carts in various states of repair. Men in overalls stopped to stare as the founders rolled their luggage through the workshop. The wall on the other side of the cavernous space was punctuated by three regular-sized doors. Trung paused to read the Vietnamese script on each one, talking quietly to himself as if pondering a riddle. He settled on the left door, pushed it open and waved them through.
Trent glanced back at Shanti then Gavin, took a deep breath and strode into a small white office containing one large desk and one Vietnamese woman in a military uniform. Trung greeted the woman with a warm embrace and much nodding. They spoke for a short while, holding each other’s hands and ending the conversation with a gentle laugh.
‘I leave you now, Mr Trent Carlisle,’ said Trung, stepping over their luggage.
‘Thank you so much, Mr Trung. See you again,’ said Trent, shaking his hand.
‘I think perhaps not,’ said Trung, closing the door behind him.
‘Passports please,’ said the woman.
The three founders scrambled for their documents and rushed to place them on the desk, like a border-crossing version of snap.
‘One thousand for exit fee, please,’ she said with a pleasant smile, like a shopkeeper toting up the milk, bread and papers.
Trent retrieved several notes from his satchel, placing them next to the passports.
‘Each, please.’
Trent started to protest, then stopped. He peeled off more notes. The official placed both her hands on the stamper and pushed it onto each passport, making a sound like an oil drum being dropped from a balcony. She made some notations in a small notebook and handed each passport back with two hands, arms outstretched, bowing slightly each time.
‘This way, please,’ she said, gesturing to a door behind her desk. The three founders stepped through to find themselves airside of the immigration counters.
‘I’m so sorry. Your flight today is cancel,’ she said brightly. ‘Please check with service desk to arrange another flight. That way.’ She pointed along the corridor and was gone.
‘I guess that’s it,’ Shanti turned her passport over in her hands, perhaps hoping it would reveal an answer, the way a magician’s deck conjures u
p the exact card you were thinking of. ‘Time to say goodbye and go home, right?’
‘If that’s where you want to go. Back to your comfortable job debugging confirmation pages in Munich,’ Trent folded his arms and lifted his chin. ‘Or resizing banner ads for some grocery chain in Melbourne.’
Gavin looked up, realising he’d just been dragged into a conversation that was fast heading towards an argument.
‘Look, I’m sorry about what happened. I really am. But I quit,’ he said.
‘You can’t quit,’ Trent started to puff up. ‘Because I’m going to fire you first.’
‘No, man. I mean I already quit – past tense. Before I even came here,’ Gavin put his hands up. ‘There are no banner resizes waiting for me in Melbourne.’
‘I thought you were on sabbatical like Shanti?’ asked Trent.
‘I got so excited about your idea, about working with you guys, I walked out of a review meeting with my douchebag Creative Director and never went back.’ Gavin stared at the passport in his hand. ‘Boxed up my things. Sublet my room. I think my housemates prefer the new guy; he’s even freelancing at my old agency.’
‘Wait, some guy is living in your house with your friends and working at your old job?’ Trent started to laugh. ‘You realise you’ve basically created a ShelfLife booking already?’
‘When you put it that way.’ Gavin thrust his hands in his pockets and stared at the floor. Shanti kept turning her passport over. Travellers wafted past, staring at schedule boards, mouths agape.
Trent broke the silence. ‘I had some very promising meetings in Hong Kong. I was close to getting us to the next stage.’
‘I completely forgot that’s where you were,’ Shanti looked up at Trent. ‘Did you meet up with your mentor as well?’
‘He wanted to introduce me to a couple of investors, but he needed to see something working first. We couldn’t show him a bunch of code in different pieces. The timing of all this,’ he threw his hands up and looked around the airport, ‘couldn’t have been worse.’
‘It’s not in pieces,’ said Shanti. ‘The site, I mean. It’s actually close to being functional. I went on a code binge while you were in Hong Kong. The matching algorithm is working, so the site now pre-qualifies the applicants, gives the life-rentals a higher probability of success in the real world. That’s why I was up all night.’
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