“Okay,” Nate said, his voice less confident than Quinn would have liked.
The woman ahead of them finished, and Quinn walked up to the desk. He placed his passport on the counter and held the cover down until the official took it from him. The man opened the passport, glanced up at Quinn, then quickly slipped the twenty into his own pocket. Grabbing a rubber stamp, he pushed it into an inkpad and stamped one of the pages in Quinn’s passport. When he finished, he put the booklet back on the counter without a word. Quinn nodded politely as he retrieved it, then moved on.
He stopped twenty feet away, pretending to search for something in one of his pockets. He looked back as Nate handed his passport to the official. The man seemed to be taking a lot more time than he had with Quinn.
Nate glanced at his mentor, a trace of nervousness in his eyes. But a moment later, the official stamped the booklet and put it back on the counter.
Next was customs, but that was even easier. Nate went first, taking less than a minute to get his bag checked. Quinn’s turn went just as quickly.
The humidity of the Vietnamese morning, even in January, was stifling. Sweat had begun to form on Quinn’s brow the moment he stepped off the plane, and now his shirt was plastered to his back.
Just outside the terminal’s front exit was a waist-high fence that ran parallel to the plate-glass windows of the building, creating a walkway about ten feet wide. Not your typical airport exit, but it was easy to see why it was necessary. On the other side of the fence were hundreds and hundreds of people, standing five and six deep. They were pushing and shoving each other, trying to get closer to the front. They shouted as each new passenger exited the terminal, calling out to them with offers of sodas and water and fruit and taxi rides.
At the end of the fence, the path opened onto a parking lot. There were still many people about, but not nearly as many as lined the gauntlet Quinn and Nate had just come down. A young boy approached them — dark hair, big smile, clothes clean but worn.
“Bag,” the boy said in heavily accented English. He pointed to Quinn’s suitcase. “I help.”
“That’s okay,” Quinn replied. “I got it.”
But the boy either was ignoring him or didn’t understand. He reached for the bag. Quinn moved it out of the boy’s range. “I said no.”
Undaunted, the boy quickly changed tactics, turning his attention to Quinn’s traveling companion. Before Nate even realized what was going on, the boy had a hand firmly latched to the handle of his bag.
“Hey,” Nate said, trying to pull the bag away.
“I help. I help,” the boy said.
“I don’t need your help.”
“Mister. No problem. I help.”
Nate pulled on his bag again. “Come on. Let go.”
But the boy held on tight. Quinn watch the tug-of-war for a moment longer, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a dollar bill.
“Kid,” Quinn said.
Both Nate and the boy looked over. Quinn held out the dollar. The boy’s eyes brightened. He reached out to grab it with his free hand. Before he could, Quinn pulled it back.
“No help,” Quinn said, nodding at the bag, “and I give to you. Okay?”
The boy let go of the bag immediately. “Okay. No help.”
This time when he reached out, Quinn gave it to him. Having received his fee, the boy headed off in search of his next mark.
“Thanks,” Nate said.
“You owe me a dollar,” Quinn told him.
A dozen taxis were parked nearby. Several of the drivers were calling out to them, trying to get their attention. Quinn chose the nearest one, and soon the two of them were settled in the back seat, their bags on the seat between them.
“Hello, hello, hello,” the driver said as he got behind the wheel. He was an older guy, short and skinny. “American?”
“Canadian,” Quinn said.
The driver grinned. “Welcome, Vietnam. Where go?”
“Rex Hotel,” Quinn said.
CHAPTER 9
Quinn checked them into adjacent rooms at the Rex Hotel. As they headed upstairs in the elevator, Nate said, “I think I could sleep for a whole day.”
“But you’re not going to,” Quinn told him.
“What?”
Quinn took in a long breath, reminding himself that Nate was still raw, and still had much to learn. “It’s barely noon,” he said. “You go to sleep now, you’ll never adjust to the new time. Meet me downstairs in thirty. We’ll go for a walk, get a look at the area.”
The elevator door opened, and they stepped out onto their floor.
“You’re joking, right?” Nate said.
Quinn turned to Nate and looked him straight in the eye. “Do you understand what’s going on here?”
Nate was about to respond, but Quinn’s glare stopped him.
“This is it,” Quinn said. “This is what you signed up for. You wanted to get into the game, so here you are. Everything up to the point where Gibson tried to break your jaw was just theory. Not anymore. Understand?”
Nate stared at Quinn, then gave him the slightest of nods.
“This is the real thing,” Quinn went on. “This is dealing with jet lag. This is blending in with the locals. This is watching your back every goddamn second of the day because if you don’t, you’re dead. Do you get it now?”
“I get it,” Nate said, his voice barely above a whisper.
Quinn looked at him a moment longer, then started back down the hall. “The lobby,” he said without turning. “Thirty minutes.”
Nate was waiting for him downstairs when Quinn exited the elevator a half hour later. They were both wearing a fresh pair of clothes. In Nate’s hand was a small silver digital camera. Quinn glanced at it, then raised his eyebrows in question.
“We’re obviously not locals,” Nate said. “People will expect us to carry a camera.”
The corner of Quinn’s mouth raised slightly. “Good,” he said.
Without another word, they headed outside.
According to all the textbooks, Vietnam was a communist country. Though what was communist about Ho Chi Minh City, Quinn couldn’t fathom.
Looking around, he was beginning to wonder if anyone other than members of the government had even heard of Karl Marx. Street vendors and shops and restaurants and clubs and salons and hotels and kids running up and down the streets, hocking souvenirs and knockoff copies of Graham Greene’s The Quiet American—that was the Ho Chi Minh City that greeted Quinn and Nate.
“Postcard…You buy…Very pretty…Look.”
“Mister. Mister. You American?”
“Real lighter. Zippo. From war. Work good.”
“America number one. Spider-Man. Michael Jordan.”
“I hungry. You buy.”
Almost as persistent as the kids on the street were the men on cyclos, bicycle rickshaws. The ones without passengers would slow down as they passed Quinn and Nate and try to get their attention.
“Hello. Tour city. I take you. Two dollars only. Cheap.”
“I know good bar. I get you there fast. Very cheap.”
“Too hot to walk, mister. You ride.”
“You look for girls? I know place. Come, come.”
Quinn had been to Asia many times — Bangkok, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Seoul — but things seemed a little more raw here. There was more energy, more of an edge. It felt like a place that was both ancient and just discovering itself at the same time. Temples that had been around for centuries next door to sidewalk restaurants that had been open for only a few days. The Saigon River that had carved out a path through the land long before the first man had ever arrived now played host to would-be entrepreneurs offering boat rides and tours. And children. Everywhere children. Happy, playful, hungry, excited, curious children. He could only imagine what Nate was thinking.