I pictured Tran Van Vinh sitting in the marketplace downtown, smoking and reading the local Pravda, and he’s staring at a photo of Edward Blake, and a little bell goes off in his head, and he says to himself, “No… can’t be. Well, maybe. Hey, Nguyen, this guy who’s president of the Imperialist States of America is the guy I told you about — the guy who blew away that lieutenant in Quang Tri.”
But then what? Would he report this interesting coincidence to the local authorities? And if he did, what would come of it? That was the question.
Susan asked again, “What do you think, Paul?”
I looked at her and said, “I can see why some people in Washington could be nervous, and why Edward Blake may be losing some sleep, assuming he knows about all of this, including Paul Brenner’s mission to Vietnam. In any case, the chance of our host here making the ID and reporting it is very slim.”
“Better safe than sorry.” She added, “I feel a little better now that we’ve got all these war souvenirs.”
“And if you kill this guy, you’ll feel even better.”
She didn’t reply to that, but said, “He sort of recognized the photo. I mean, he’s not going to put a name to it right away, but someday he may. Like when he reads about a visit from Edward Blake in one of the national newspapers. In fact, Vice President Blake is right now in Hanoi on an official visit.”
I replied, “What a coincidence.” I asked, “Does Blake know that he’s got a problem? Is that why he’s here?”
“I really don’t know… I think if he doesn’t know now, he’s going to find out from his aides, if and when we get to Hanoi. That’s my guess.”
“So, we don’t know if the people who sent us on this mission are trying to cover for Blake, or blackmail him?”
She didn’t respond to that and continued, “The rural newspapers are weekly, so the next one will have something about Blake’s visit, with accompanying photos. The Viets often show wartime photos with a current photo, and they always mention wartime duty, so they’ll say that Edward Blake fought at the battle of Quang Tri in 1968, but has since become a friend of Vietnam. They love that.” She looked at me. “What do you think? Would our friend here put it together if he saw side-by-side photos of Captain Blake and Vice President Blake?”
“Am I defending this guy’s life?”
She didn’t reply.
I said, “This man did not go through ten years of hell to be whacked by you in his own home because he may remember something someday.”
Mr. Vinh continued to smoke as his guests spoke in English. He probably thought we were very rude, but he was polite enough not to mention it. I wondered, too, if he could recognize the name Edward Blake whenever Susan and I said it. I asked Susan, “Can he understand the name?”
Susan replied, “No. It would be read and pronounced differently. Not so Anglo-Saxon as we pronounce it. Without accent marks, it reads differently to him. But we need to take that roster so he can’t match the name in a newspaper… plus, our presence here will be recalled by him, and so will that photo pack.”
I stared at Susan and thought about all of this. Time to take a Susan reading: Did I still love her? Yes, but I’d get over it. Did I trust her? Never did. Was I pissed? Yes, but impressed. She was very good. And, finally, Was she about to do something rash and violent? She was thinking about it.
She puffed thoughtfully on her cigarette, then said to me, “I really wish you hadn’t been so damned nosy.”
“Hey, that’s what I get paid for. That’s why they call me a detective.”
She smiled, then realizing we’d been ignoring our host, she chatted with him awhile about God knows what. Maybe she was asking him where he’d gotten his dirt floor. She gave him another cigarette, then she found the bill from the Dien Bien Phu Motel in her pocket, and wrote something on the back as she spoke to Mr. Vinh. Maybe they were exchanging pho recipes, but then she said to me, “I’m getting Mr. Vinh’s cousin’s address in Dien Bien Phu so we can mail Mr. Vinh’s letter back to him.”
“Why? You or someone else is going to kill Mr. Vinh.”
Susan didn’t reply.
Mr. Vinh smiled at me.
I said to Susan, “Let’s get out of here before the fuzz shows up.”
Susan said to me, “We’re okay. You’re not going to believe this, but Mr. Vinh is the district Party chief.” She nodded toward the poster of Uncle Ho on the wall. “The soldiers won’t come unless Mr. Vinh summons them.”
I looked at Mr. Vinh. My luck, I’m in the house of the top Commie in the county. That aside, he seemed cooperative, and if Susan had translated my questions about what transpired on that day he’d seen Captain Blake shoot Lieutenant Hines, Mr. Vinh would have answered. I asked Mr. Vinh, “Parlez-vous français?”
He shook his head.
“Not even a little? Un peu?”
He didn’t respond.
Susan said, “Okay, maybe we should go, Paul, before Mr. Vinh starts to smell a rat.”
“I’m not finished.”
“Leave it alone.”
“Tell me, Susan, why it’s important that Edward Blake be covered.”
“You should read the papers more, and I told you, Edward Blake is well connected here. He’s made lots of friends in the Hanoi government — the new people who want to be our friends. Edward Blake is close to a deal on Cam Ranh Bay, as well as a trade deal and an oil deal. Plus, he’ll stand up to China.”
“Who cares? It looks to me like he committed a murder.”
“Who cares about that? He’s going to be the next president. The people like him, the military likes him, the intelligence community likes him, and the business community likes him. I’ll bet even you liked him ten minutes ago.”
In fact, I did. War hero and all that. Even my mother liked him. He was handsome. I said, “Okay, let’s give Edward Blake the benefit of the doubt and assume that he killed Lieutenant Hines for a good military reason. Now you ask Mr. Vinh, without any bullshit, what he saw that day. Now.”
Susan replied, “We’ll never know the reason, and it’s irrelevant, and Mr. Vinh doesn’t know.” She stood. “Let’s go.”
I said to her, “You know. Tell me.”
She moved toward the back wall near the roofline, and she was much closer to the gun than I was. She said to me, “I don’t want you to know. You know too much already.”
Mr. Vinh was trying to figure this all out and looked from me to Susan.
I stood and kept my eyes on Susan.
She knew that I knew where she was heading, and she said to me, “Paul… I love you. I do. That’s why I don’t want you to know any more than you already know. In fact, I’m not going to even mention that you discovered the name of Edward Blake.”
I said, “I’ll mention it. Now you ask him what I want to know, or you tell me what you know.”
“Neither.” She hesitated, then said, “Give me the keys.”
I took the keys out of my pocket and threw them to her.
She caught them, looked at me, and said something to Mr. Vinh. Whatever she said caused Mr. Vinh to look back at me and start talking.
I saw Susan reach into the thatch and take the pistol. She held it behind her back. I wondered if a shot could be heard in the village. Or two shots.