The Tears of Autumn - Charles McCarry [64]
“There are 175,000 piasters in the envelope.”
“Very generous. In dollars or piasters?”
“In piasters—it’s an odd sum, but it equals five thousand dollars.”
“Piasters will be less embarrassing,” Phuoc said. “It will be a great help to his widow. She must stay indoors for two years, as you know. She worries about the children—Tho insisted on expensive schools.”
“He was right in that, of course.”
“He was right in most things. He put money away, I believe more than a million piasters. My brother expected to die young, he often told me so. His was not the sort of life that lasts very long in a country as troubled as ours.”
“He lived his life with courage, at any rate.”
Phuoc laughed again, opening his eyes and his mouth wide and letting shrill notes escape from his throat; it was a mannerism of grief.
“For your friendship and your money, you should have something in return,” Phuoc said. “Come with me for a moment.”
He led Christopher down the hall and into his dead brother’s bedroom. Closing the door behind them, he went to the window and looked out, then leaned his back against the wall. Incense burned on the dresser in front of a photograph of Luong.
“My brother was going to meet you when he died,” Phuoc said. “Did you know that?”
“Yes. I found his body.”
“Did he speak to you?”
“That doesn’t happen,” Christopher said. “He died instantaneously—you saw his wound.”
“Can you tell me anything more about his death?”
“I saw the men who killed him. They walked past me as I entered the street where he lay. I did not, of course, know then what had happened.”
“Would you know them again?”
“I saw them again. They shot at me.” Christopher gave Luong’s brother a description of the two men. “Both times they were in Cholon. I’d look for them, if I were looking, around
Dong Khanh Boulevard. They’ll have money to spend, and that’s where they’d go to spend it.”
Phuoc absorbed the information. “Have you any idea what my brother wished to tell you?”
“No. I asked him to find a person named Lê Thu. Before he went out for the last time, he told me he had one more source to question—nothing more than that.”
“Then he went to his death for you?”
“Yes,” Christopher said.
Phuoc did not laugh again. “My brother always did as he wanted to do. It wasn’t your fault. He thought highly of you. As it happens, I know where he went.”
Christopher waited. When Phuoc did not speak again, he said, “Would your brother have wished you to tell me?”
“Oh, I think so,” Phuoc said. “You paid, after all. He went to see a Chinese named Yu Lung. You know the name? Yu Lung is a respected astrologer and geomancer. He knows the stars and all the rest very well—it’s a gift as well as a science. Very expensive. Yu Lung serves the famous in secret, he won’t deal with ordinary men.”
“Thank you. Where is Yu Lung’s house?”
“In Cholon, near the Tat Canal, by the racetrack. Ask anyone. Yu’s house is poor outside, rich inside—he’s a Chinese.”
Christopher rose, hesitated, held out his hand. Phuoc gripped it tightly and, holding it for a long moment, threw back his head and laughed again. “Luong—Tho should have asked Yu Lung about his own future, eh? Instead of asking questions for you, Craww-ford. Do you know what the Vietnamese name Tho means?”
“Longevity.”
“Yes, my brother will be dead for a long time,” Phuoc said. “Tho is also the word for a coffin that’s purchased well in advance of death. We thank you again for the money.”
5
Wolkowicz had given Christopher a car and a driver. “It’ll save us both trouble,” Wolkowicz said. “You don’t seem to care who knows where you go, and I can’t spare three men to sur-veille you until you get on the plane tonight.”
“Who’s the driver?”
“Pong’s his name. He’s a Thai, so he’s disinterested. He’ll take you where you want to go and wait outside—but don’t go off and leave him. I’m responsible to the cops until you get out of the country.”
The car was an air-conditioned Chevrolet with a two-way radio and local license