Satori - Don Winslow [102]
They walked across the square, quiet now in the torpid hour before the cool of evening would bring out young lovers, old strollers, people looking for relaxation and those searching for excitement.
In his lifetime Antonucci had seen many things. He had started life as a shoeless shepherd, but soon decided that a life of barefoot labor and drudgery was not for him. So he hopped a freighter to Indochina, jumped ship in Saigon, and within two years turned the gaggle of girls he pimped into a prosperous brothel. He used those proceeds to buy the Croix du Sud, the Southern Cross, which turned a profit of its own but really served to launder the money he made with Mancini smuggling heroin and gold into Marseille.
They bought the heroin directly from the French army. Bay Vien bought the bulk of it, but La Corse purchased the surplus. The profits were enormous, even after the hefty cut that went to Bao Dai. They used the money to buy yet more clubs, restaurants, and hotels. Mancini had the Continental and now the Majestic, Luciani owned the Palace. It wouldn’t be long before the Corsicans had a monopoly on Saigon’s hosting business. Their children, or at least their grandchildren, would be restaurateurs and hoteliers instead of dope and currency smugglers.
It was a good life, and he had survived the French, then the Japanese, briefly the British (who were fools anyway), and then the French again. Now the French, desperate for allies, turned a blind eye to the heroin, and the Corsicans had forged a working relationship with the Binh Xuyen and Bao Dai.
All this could end if the Communists won and took over the country, but still Antonucci thought he could work out an accommodation with them. Asia was Asia, and life would go on as usual. Communist or no, men would still want women and money.
Corsica had been conquered by everybody — Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Turks, Normans, French, Germans — and the Corsicans were used to working out a way of living with all of them. It was a national trait, an innate talent.
But now the Americans were edging out the French, and that was a different story. Les amerloques, the “crazy Americans,” were impractical, puritanical, and moralistic. They would seek to dump Bao Dai and put in their own man, sweep the carpet clean.
And now this young Guibert had turned up and the rumor was that he had sold a shipment of stolen American arms to Bay Vien. “We should find out more about this Guibert. Use the Belgian dwarf, I can’t think of his name …”
“De Lhandes,” Mancini said. “Odd little fellow. But he seems to sniff out everything.”
“Useful.”
“Very useful.”
Guibert might be just what he claims to be, the heir to his family’s gunrunning business. But then again, perhaps he is an agent of French intelligence. The Deuxième Bureau, SDECE, or perhaps the Sûreté. Or does he serve the Americans, as so much of the world seems to do these days? Maybe he is simply a young man on the make. In which case we can make some money together.
“I already did,” Mancini answered. “Even before he arrived. The dwarf says that he appears to be who he says he is. Bay Vien’s people say the same thing. I had his room searched while we were having pastaga.”
We shall see, Antonucci thought. He looked at Mancini and uttered the ancient words. “Per tu amicu.”
“Per tu amicu,” Mancini ritually responded.
For your friendship.
106
HIS ROOM HAD BEEN tossed.
Carefully and professionally, Nicholai observed, but tossed nevertheless. Before leaving the room he had plucked a hair from his head and placed it across two drawers on his bureau, and now the hair was gone.
It didn’t matter — they would find nothing they weren’t supposed to find.
Had Mancini ordered it? Probably, although it could have been the French, who had a veritable alphabet soup of police and intelligence services in Saigon, none of whom were known to be overly respectful of privacy.
And the Corsican mob expects my presence at La Croix du Sud tonight. For what purpose? To be grilled, seduced, observed, threatened, perhaps assassinated?