He escorted her past the line, had a brief conversation in halting Vietnamese with the official at the gates, showed him a sheaf of official-looking papers which the man stamped dutifully, then they were waved on. The luggage turntables were close by, but as they approached, Hannah and Croyd both stopped.
"Quasiman?" The hunchhaek turned. Hannah's suitcases sat alongside him. "Hey, Hannah," the hunchback said, smiling apologetically. "I remember you, but I've forgotten where I am. Awfully hot here, isn't it? I knew where I was, a second ago …"
"Saigon," Hannah told him. "In what used to be Vietnam."
"Oh." Quasiman accepted that placidly. She might as well have said Manhattan.
"How?" Hannah asked, "do you keep doing that? — showing up where I am."
Quasiman shrugged, but one shoulder refused to lift, suddenly hanging limp as if all the muscles had been cut. "I just think about a place, and I'm there. Didn't you know that? I thought I had told you, but I get confused with what I've done and what I'm going to do…."
Hannah gaped, wondering how in the world she could have been so stupid. All those times he'd snuck past or just showed up … "Great. You teleport. What else haven't you told me?"
Quasiman grinned.
At least Croyd seemed to accept Quasiman's presence with equanimity. "Quas with you?"
"He seems to be. You know him?"
"Yeah. I know him and the priest both. He don't exactly need a passport to get by customs. Seems more coherent than normal, for him; you must be a good influence. Come on — I got a car waiting in front." At the car — a ten-year-old Renault whose trunk barely held Hannah's suitcases — Quasiman climbed in back. Croyd opened the passenger side front door for Hannah. "You can sit up front with me," he said. "You definitely got the best seat in the house." His tail lashed the ground. His gaze was not on her eyes.
Hannah got in the rear with Quasiman and curled in the corner.
The short drive into the city gave Hannah some small feel for the land. The area around Saigon was flat and heavily farmed. Rice paddies shimmered in the sun in precise, green rectangles. Workers in conical straw hats worked the fields, the pants rolled up to their knees as they moved through the standing water. Carts piled recklessly with furniture or produce or simply packed with families moved ponderously on the side of the road, pulled by oxen and urged on by children wielding long bamboo sticks.
Then, almost without warning, they were in the city itself: crowded, loud, and dirty. Even with the windows up and the air conditioner's fan roaring, she could hear the sounds of street merchants hawking their wares and the constant blaring of horns in the streets packed with a combination of cars, bicycles, and carts. The city seemed over-full and very foreign — she saw no caucasian faces at all. Whenever they stopped, people stared at their car, pointing and talking. Hannah, already uncomfortable sitting with Quasiman in the back, found herself pressing hard against the corner. Quasiman seemed to have fallen asleep with his eyes open. He swayed back and forth with the car's motion as if he were a test dummy. Hannah had to keep pushing him away from her every time they turned left.
They came out of the warren of small streets and made the turn onto the boulevard leading to the Presidential Palace. The line of cars in front of them pulled out slowly into the traffic. As Croyd turned the Wheel to follow them, a rusting green Corolla rushed out from the curb, wheeled around them, and stopped in the middle of the intersection directly in front of them. More horns blared, Croyd's among them, as the occupants of the car got out and began running.
"Go!" Quasiman awakened suddenly, shouting at Croyd and hammering on the back of the seat. His fists put permanent dents in the headrest. "Get past them!"
Hannah knew that if she'd been driving, she'd have hesitated. She would have turned back to Quasiman to see what in the world the hunchback was shouting about.
She would have been too late.
Not Croyd. He stamped his foot on the accelerator, down-shifted, and yanked the wheel right. The car hit the curb, slalomed across grass in the little park on the corner as pedestrians scattered out of their way. They went over the curb again, the suspension bottoming out with a screech, then fishtailed back onto the boulevard. "What — " Croyd yelled hack at Quasiman.
His question got no further. A sinister, low kah-RHUMMPP! behind them lifted the rear of the car sideways. They landed hard, throwing Hannah against the side with Quasiman on top of her. The car stalled.
Hannah found that she was looking back through the rear windshield. In the intersection, the car that had cut them off was a blazing inferno. She could see bodies in a street littered with broken glass and sheet metal. She felt schizophrenic. Part of her was busily deciphering the mess: thermite fuse, cheap electronic timer, make sure the tank's about half full so you have plenty of room for fumes. You'd need ten, fifteen seconds to get clear….
The other part of her wanted to scream.
"Jesus …" Croyd muttered. He started the car again and jammed it into gear. They lurched away from the scene. "Car bomb. I'm getting you folks to the palace, fast. Hang on." Leaning on the horn, Croyd rushed them away.
Hannah looked at Quasiman. He was frowning. "You're hurt," he said, and reached for her forehead.
She let the stubby, wide fingers touch her, let him brush her hair back from the cut. "Just a scratch," he said, and the relief in his voice was open and gentle. "You'll be okay, Hannah."
"Thanks," she told him. The Word seemed so inadequate.
And then the shakes hit her.
"That's like an incredible bummer. Wow … I mean, I'm just totally wiped out by this. I am really, really sorry. I feel like personally responsible, y'know. I'm just glad you had Quasiman along with you."
Mark Meadows didn't exactly fit Hannah's mental image of a Prime Minister, or for that matter, of a Federal fugitive from justice. Father Squid had explained to Hannah how — with the help of some ace friends — Mark had reclaimed his retarded daughter Sprout from the custody of the state after he'd lost the custody battle in the courts. Hannah had a difficult time picturing the man angry. At first impression, she would have called him — like some of her parents' friends — an "old hippie." He was tall and thin, his thinning hair shoulder-length and pulled back in a pony tail. A scraggly goatee hung like spanish moss from his chin. And his clothing … the only word Hannah had for it was "bright": loose Vietnamese pants cut from a garish paisley cloth, a strident blue and orange striped tunic, and a green silk scarf. He wore open-toed, leather sandals. He looked out across the lawn of the Presidential Palace to where a smudge of distant smoke still burned beyond the walls, shaking his head. "Some heavy shit has gone down out there over the years," he said. "There's still lots of bad karma floating around. But were putting things together again. Weird political shit like this still happens every once in a while — like a flashback on a bad trip. You shouldn't have had to see it, but the violence is there, part of the total scene. It's getting rarer and rarer, though."
Mark turned back into the room. He smiled at Hannah. The man had what could only be described as a radiant smile, Hannah decided. Almost beatific, like the picture of the saints she remembered from parochial school. Hannah touched the gauze bandage on her forehead, grimacing slightly as she probed the throbbing lump there. An unbidden shiver ran through her. "Prime Minister — "
"Mark. I don't really do anything here. This is Moonchild's place, hers and the people's. White folks like us are just guests."