A Lotus for Miss Quon

1

As Jaffe walked over to the Dauphine, Nhan looked anxiously at him through the open car window.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ve got the keys. Come on. We’ll leave my car right here.”

She got out of the Dauphine and stood by his side while he wound up the windows and locked the door.

“You’ll have to bring the Chrysler back here,” he said, putting his hand on her arm and hurrying her across the road to Wade’s car. “Do you think you’ll be able to find your way back here on your own?”

“Yes.”

“Good girl. It’s a dead easy car to drive.”

He opened the door of the Chrysler and she slid across the bench seat to the far side and he got in under the steering wheel. He put the key in the ignition and explained to her how to start the car.

“There’s nothing to it. The gears are automatic. You just shift this lever to drive, take off the brake and give her gas.”

He moved the car from the kerb and started slowly down the road.

“I’m going to drive past my place,” he told her. “Keep a look out on your side. If that girl’s gone, I want to get some clothes. I don’t know how long it’ll be before I can get away. I must have a change.”

She didn’t say anything. She sat as if she were stunned. He looked sharply at her. Her face was a blank mask of misery.

“Did you hear what I said?” he said sharply. “I’m relying on you, Nhan. If I’m going to get out of this mess, neither of us can make mistakes.”

“I understand,” she whispered.

It took a few minutes to reach the street where he lived. As he turned into the dimly-lit, tree-lined street, he said, “Watch out! You look right. I’ll look left. She’s wearing white.”

As he passed his small villa, he saw the place was in darkness. He could see no sign of anyone.

“Okay?” he asked, slowing down.

“I saw no one.”

He swung the car into a side street and pulled up.

“Wait here,” he said. “I’ll walk back and have another look. If it’s still okay, I’ll go in and pack a bag. I won’t be longer than ten minutes. Just wait here.”

He set off back to the corner where he paused to look down the long deserted street. Then walking quickly, aware that his heart was beginning to thump, he advanced towards his villa.

He thought: this may be a stupid move. I could be walking into a trap. For all I know, that girl has called the police and they’ve found Haum and are waiting for me. But I’ve got to have a change of clothes and my shaving kit. I just don’t know how long I’ll be holed up in Thudaumot.

As he approached his villa, he looked searchingly for the girl or Dong Ham, but the street was empty. He paused at the gates and again looked to right and left. Then he gently lifted the latch, pushed open the gate entered and closed the gate behind him. He walked silently up the drive and to the back of the villa. Here he paused, keeping in the shadows and looked across the courtyard to the servants’ quarters. No light showed. The door to the cookhouse was closed.

He thought: they’ve got fed up with waiting. She’s gone home, and he’s gone to bed.

He returned to the front door. Taking out his key, he unlocked the door and stepped into the stuffy darkness. He shut and locked the door, then paused to listen. There came “no sound to alarm him, and without turning on the light, he groped his way up the stairs and to his bedroom. The door was locked as he had left it. He inserted the key, pushed open the door and paused to listen. The cold air from the air-conditioner came out and greeted him, cooling his sweating face. He entered the room, shut the door and turned on the light. The room was exactly as he had left it, and he grinned sheepishly as he realized how frightened he had been on the way up the dark stairs.

He looked at the clothes closet. His clothes were in there and so was Haum. This was no time to be squeamish. The quicker he got out of the villa and back to the Chrysler, the better.

He took a leather and canvas holdall from the top of the closet and tossed it on the bed. Then he went into the bathroom, collected his toilet kit, soap and two towels which he put in the holdall. From his chest of drawers, he took handkerchiefs, socks and three shirts. As he picked the shirts out of the drawer, he saw the gun. He looked at it for a long moment, startled.

He had bought this gun from a newspaper man who had been in Saigon during the early air raids. He had told Jaffe he had taken the gun from a soldier who had been killed by bomb blast.

“I’m going home now,” the “newspaper man said. “You never know in this place. A gun can come in very handy. You can have it for twenty bucks.”

Jaffe had bought it. He had never anticipated having to use it, but at that time hand grenades were still occasionally being thrown and everyone was still pretty jumpy and it seemed the sensible thing to do to buy the gun.

He picked up the gun and balanced it in his hand. It was loaded, but he had no idea if it would be in working order after all this time. He was suddenly glad he owned the gun. In the spot he was now in, a gun might be very useful. He put it in the holdall, then with a conscious effort, he went over to the clothes closet, took out the key and unlocked the door.

He kept his eyes up so he didn’t see Haum on the floor, but he was aware of the faint but unmistakable smell of death, and he felt slightly sick.

Hurriedly, he grabbed from the clothes rack a dark tropical suit, khaki drill trousers and a khaki drill coat-shirt. He shut the closet door and locked it.

He folded the clothes and put them in the holdall. He was now ready to leave. He picked up the holdall and left the room, turning off the light. He paused to lock the door, then he groped his way into the darkness.

The contrast between his cold bedroom and the oven-heat of the hall brought him out into a violent sweat. He suddenly needed a drink and that reminded him he had a bottle of Scotch which might come in useful.

He entered the sitting-room and turned on the light. It was while he was putting the nearly-full bottle of whisky into the holdall, after a quick drink, he became aware of the sound of voices in the street.

Hastily zipping up the holdall, he stepped to the window and peered through the shutters. What he saw gave him a paralysing shock.

Under the dim light of the street lamp, standing close together and looking at the villa, was Haum’s fiancée and a policeman.

The girl was pointing to the sitting-room window and Jaffe realized they could see the light coming through the shutters. The girl was talking excitedly, making chopping movements with her left hand while she continued to point with her right.

The policeman slouched at her side, his thumbs hooked into his gun belt, looking from her to the villa and back to her again.

Jaffe watched them, his heart now pounding violently.

For some minutes the girl continued to talk, but Jaffe, watching the policeman, realized she wasn’t making any headway. This wasn’t surprising, Jaffe thought, slightly relaxing. She was urging this little man to enter property belonging to an American and the policeman was thinking this could spark off an international incident with him on the receiving end of trouble.

Suddenly the policeman turned on the girl and began to jabber fiercely at her. Jaffe could hear his harsh voice raised in anger, but he had no idea what he was saying.

His words, however, had a startling effect on the girl. She cowered away from the policeman and by her gestures, Jaffe guessed she was trying to excuse herself. The policeman continued to berate her until with a further outburst of words, he motioned her violently to go away.

She looked once more at the villa, then turning, she began to walk reluctantly down the street while the policeman, nibbling at his chin-strap, glared after her.

Jaffe drew in a long breath of relief. He watched the policeman pull out his notebook and begin to write laboriously in the book. Having completed his notes, the policeman stood on the edge of the kerb and stared at the villa.

Jaffe wondered what Nhan was doing. He had now been gone over twenty minutes. He hoped she wouldn’t panic and show herself. How long was this goddam monkey going to stand staring? Suppose he walked up the street, spotted the tail-lights of the Chrysler and poked his head into the car? He would give Nhan such a scare, she would probably have hysterics, and he would guess something was wrong.

Jaffe was just wondering if he should slip out the back way, climb the wall and get to Nhan through his neighbour’s garden when the policeman seemed to lose interest in the villa, and turning, he slouched off down the street, following the direction of the girl and going away from the Chrysler.

Jaffe snatched up the holdall, turned off the light and let himself out into the dark garden. He locked the front door, then went cautiously to the gate and looked down the road. He could just make out the white figure of the policeman still moving away from him, and opening the gate, he ran silently to the Chrysler.

Nhan was standing in a tense attitude beside the Chrysler, looking towards him as he rounded the corner. He waved her back into the car, but she waited until he reached her.

“It’s okay,” he said, tossing the holdall into the back of the car. “Sorry I was so long. Come on, get in. We’ve got to get moving.”

“I thought something terrible had happened to you,” she said in a quavering voice as he bustled her into the car. “Oh, Steve! I’m frightened! If only you would go to the police! I’m sure…”

“Don’t start that again!” he said as he started the car. “I know what you’re doing. I’ve got to get out of Vietnam!” He drove fast down the street, heading out of town. “Do you think I can trust Blackie Lee to help me? You know him better than I do. Would he be likely to give me away to the police?”

She wrung her hands.

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything about him!”

Exasperated, he thought: why should she know anything about anything that could possibly help me? She’s just a beautiful brainless doll! Damn it! I might just as well ask advice from a child!

Immediately he realized the injustice of this. Wasn’t she taking him to a hiding place and wasn’t she returning Wade’s car? Without her he would be in a hell of a fix.

He put his hand down on hers and patted it.

“Relax, kid. It’ll work out all right. In a couple of months when we are in Hong Kong, we’ll be laughing about it.”

“Oh no! We’ll never laugh about it. Never!”

He shrugged his shoulders. She was probably right, he thought but he wished she didn’t sound as if the end of the world was at hand.

“There’s one important thing you have to watch out for, Nhan. When the news breaks, Blackie will remember you spent this night with me. He’ll probably question you. There’s just a chance even the police will question you. You are to say I drove you to the river and talked to you for a couple of hours. You know that place where we go sometimes: where that old sunken junk is? That’s where we went. I drove you home around eleven and left you. Will you remember that? It’s a story they can’t check.”

She nodded. She was twisting a rag of a handkerchief in her fingers, and glancing at her, Jaffe thought despairingly: she will make a hopeless liar. No one will believe her.

“For God’s sake, Nhan, don’t let them trap you into telling them where I shall be hiding,” he said roughly.

“I’ll never tell anyone! Never!” She stiffened and spoke fiercely. “No one will ever make me tell!”

“And another thing; you mustn’t tell anyone about the diamonds; not even your grandfather. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure your grandfather will help me?”

“He is wise and kind and he would never do anything to make me unhappy,” she said proudly. “When I tell him we love each other, he will help you.”

Jaffe thought irritably: if he’s all that wise, he’ll guess you’re my mistress and he’ll probably hate my guts and run to the police.

As if reading his thoughts, she said quietly, “It will be necessary to explain to him that shortly we are going to be married. When we arrive in Hong Kong, it is better for us to be married, don’t you think, Steve?”

This rather jarred Jaffe. He had never seriously thought of marriage after his first unhappy experience. He had been perfectly content to have Nhan as a mistress, but it had never occurred to him to marry her. Once he had sold the diamonds, he would be rich and he would be returning to America; a Vietnamese taxi dancer could be a hell of a hindrance in America, especially if she were his wife, but there was time to think about that: damn it! He wasn’t in Hong Kong yet! He hadn’t sold the diamonds yet!

But he realized it might be fatal to his plans if her grandfather wasn’t told they were going to be married so he said lightly, “That’s right, Nhan. You tell him that, but I want to explain to him personally the trouble I’m in. You just tell him I want shelter. I’ll explain why. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” She leaned against him, resting her small head on his shoulder. “I’m not so frightened now. Perhaps after all it will be all right.”

She remained silent as if lost in a dream while Jaffe uneasy with his conscience, drove along the winding road where the rice fields, the odd thatched farmhouse on stilts and the occasional buffalo wallowing in swamp mud appeared and disappeared in the fast moving headlights of the Chrysler.

2

Four days previous to Jaffe’s discovery of the diamonds, three peasants, dressed in their working black with grimy rags tied around their heads as protection against the sun, squatted in a semi-circle before a little brown man, wearing khaki shorts and shirt who sat on the stump of a tree and talked earnestly to them.

This man had come silently out of the forest and had entered the screened patch of ground where the young rice seedlings were sheltered from the wind. The three peasants who were working there had joined him immediately with a mixture of fear and excitement. They had seen him several times before. He was the leader of a guerrilla band of Viet Minh communists whose work was to spread alarm and despondency among the Vietnam farming community. Whenever he appeared, these three peasants, Ho Chi Minh sympathizers and indoctrined with a hatred for the Vietnam regime, knew he had a job for them.

The little brown man told them it had been decided to stage a demonstration of power as close to the Vietnam capital as possible. No undue risks were to be taken and as few lives as possible should be lost. This was a demonstration, not an operation, but it was necessary to shake the authorities in Saigon out of their complacency, and this could only be done if the demonstration was staged alarmingly close to the capital. The farm of the three peasants was situated in a rice field a half mile from the Saigon-Bien Hoa highway. The little brown man reminded them that they were conveniently placed to make an attack on the police post at the Bien Hoa - Thudaumot road junction.

This police post was to be destroyed and with it the three policemen who guarded the post. The demonstration was to take place on Sunday night at fifteen minutes past twelve. The day and time had been selected to ensure no passers-by nor vehicles would suffer.

The three peasants, he went on, must work out for themselves how the job was to be done. It was a perfectly simple demonstration, but they were to remember the timing was important.

When he had disappeared once more into the forest, after eating a bowl of rice with them, he left behind him a string bag containing six hand grenades.

It so happened that Jaffe, driving the Chrysler, approached the police post a few minutes before the attack was due to take place.

The three peasants lying in a ditch within fifteen yards of the police post saw his approaching headlights and looked blankly at each other: uncertain what to do. They had been lying in the damp ditch for over half an hour, and this was the first car they had seen on the road.

The three policemen, playing a form of Fan Tan with matches, also saw the approaching headlights and immediately got to their feet. While one of them swept up the matches, the other two snatched up their rifles.

The senior member of the three stepped into the road and began to flash a torch fitted with a red lamp.

Seeing the red light flashing some two hundred yards ahead of him, Jaffe slowed down, cursing under his breath. He hadn’t expected to be stopped. He had hoped he would have been able to drive past the police post, the C.D. plates giving him immunity, but it now looked as if he would have to stop.

Questions would be asked if the police saw he had had a Vietnamese passenger and to avoid complications, he told Nhan to squat on the floor.

He reached over the back seat and pulled his holdall on top of her, screening her from sight. He was rattled, and without considering the consequences, he took the gun from the holdall and pushed it under his thigh nearest the door.

By now, the car was barely moving. The powerful headlights lit up the policeman who was pointing his rifle at the car.

As Jaffe pulled up, the luminous hands of the cheap watch being studied by one of the hidden peasants showed exactly fifteen minutes past twelve…

The other two policemen came out of the post and separated: one standing at the head of the car, the other at the tail. Both of them levelled their rifles at Jaffe who could feel the sweat running down his face and hear the heavy thud of his heartbeats.

As the policeman with the torch began to move towards Jaffe, one of the hidden peasants with an indifferent shrug of his shoulders, pulled the pin from the grenade he was holding and lobbed it through the open window of the police post.

He had been told to make the attack at exactly twelve-fifteen, and no one now could accuse him of disobeying an order.

The grenade dropped on to the table at which the three policemen had been gambling and exploded. It went off with a blinding flash and a bang that woke many of the farm workers, sleeping in their thatched huts in the neighbourhood.

A fragment of the grenade sliced into the neck of the policeman with the torch, cutting his jugular vein. The force of the explosion sent another of the policemen reeling against the shattered wall of the post. It also splintered the windshield of the Chrysler and knocked Jaffe half silly.

The remaining policeman at the rear of the car, although shaken, threw himself face down in the road and began to crawl under the car.

One of the peasants seeing this move, rolled his grenade along the road and into the policeman’s face. The grenade blew the policeman’s head from his shoulders and shrapnel tore the back tyres of the Chrysler to ribbons.

The third grenade was lobbed into the police post, killing the third policeman who had darted in there for cover and completed the destruction of the jerry-built building. Stunned and bleeding from a cut in his forehead from a flying stone, Jaffe sagged in his seat, too dazed to realize what had happened.

The three peasants had risen cautiously, from their hiding-place and were surveying the scene in the bright moonlight with satisfaction mixed with apprehension. They were pleased to see the grenades had done their work so well, but it seemed that the European driver of this big American car had also suffered, and that would be a bad thing for them once the little brown man heard about it.

Motioning the other two to stay where they were, the peasant with the watch who was the leader of the band moved forward cautiously.

Jaffe saw a dark shape coming towards him. Keeping still, he eased the gun from under his thigh and as the peasant came within six feet of him, Jaffe lifted the gun and fired at him.

The.45 soft-nose bullet smashed into the peasant’s face and he went over backwards like a shot rabbit. He lay in the glare of the car’s headlights so that his two companions saw with horror the brains, bone and blood: all that was left of his head and face.

Jaffe had no idea if there were any more of them out there in the darkness and he crouched down in the car, peering just over the door.

One of the peasants pulled the pin from a grenade and was about to lob the grenade at the car when his companion grabbed his arm.

Unfortunately for them both, the one who had caught hold of the other was a slave to orders. He had been told to kill the three policemen but to avoid hurting anyone else. His instinctive reaction was to stop the other from throwing the grenade. His panic-stricken jerk on the other’s arm caused the grenade to drop from his hand into the ditch where it exploded, riddling the two men with shrapnel and killing them.

Shrapnel flew over the top of the Chrysler and Jaffe ducked. He heard a soft moaning sound close to him and cursing, he swung his gun around only to remember that Nhan was by his side and it must be she who was moaning.

“Shut up!” he snarled at her. “There may be more of them out there!”

He waited for five painful minutes, then seeing and hearing nothing, he cautiously opened the car door and slid out onto the ground. He listened for several moments, then decided the danger was over and stood up surveying the scene.

He picked up the torch that was still alight and lying by the dead policeman and moving cautiously, he walked down the road until he came upon the two dead peasants. He made sure they were dead, then he came back.

“It’s all right,” he said shakily. “You can come out,” and he opened the off-side door and helped Nhan on to the road. He had to support her. She leaned heavily against him and she was shivering with terror. “Okay, okay,” he said impatiently. “It’s all right. Pull yourself together. We’ve got to get out of here.”

But her legs weren’t able to support her, and when he released her, she slumped in the road.

Leaving her, Jaffe went over to the Chrysler and inspected the damage. When he saw the condition of the back tyres, he realized so far as he was concerned, the car was a complete write-off, and he cursed.

He was seventeen kilometres from Thudaumot and was now without transport. Although his head had stopped bleeding, it ached violently. He was badly shaken and shocked by the force of the exploding grenades. The thought of having to walk that distance made his heart sink.

But he knew they would have to leave immediately. Any moment someone might arrive to investigate. The sounds of the exploding grenades would have carried far in the quiet stillness of the night.

He went back to where Nhan was sitting in the road, holding her head between her hands, whimpering. He squatted down beside her.

“The car’s out of action,” he said. “We’ll have to walk. Come on, Nhan, pull yourself together. We’ve got to get going. Someone may come along any moment.”

He put his hand under her arm and hoisted her to her feet. She leaned against him, trembling.

“It’ll take us the best part of three hours to get to your grandfather,” he went on.

“There will be bicycles at the post,” she said, her voice quavering.

He stared at her: wondering why he hadn’t thought of that.

“Do you think so? I’ll see.”

He hurried over to the shattered police post. At the back he found three bicycles, lying in the long grass. He wheeled two of them onto the road.

“That was a brainwave of yours. They’ll save us a hell of a walk. Do you feel like riding or would you like me to take you on the bar?”

Moving shakily, she came over to him and took one of the machines.

“I’m all right.”

He felt a surge of love for her run through him. He thought: Damn it! She’s got guts! I’m a lucky sonofabitch to have her with me!”

“Well, let’s go,” he said, and collecting his holdall from the car, he swung his leg over the cycle.

He watched her mount her cycle, expecting her to fall off, but although she wobbled perilously for the first six or seven yards, she got the machine under control and seemed fairly steady.

He caught up with her and together they began to pedal down the road to Thudaumot.

“If we see any car coming,” he said to her, “we get off at once and lie in the ditch.”

She didn’t say anything. He could see by her strained expression, it was as much as she could do to ride the machine.

As they rode along, he switched his mind from her to his own problems,

He thought: I’m making a bad start. When Sam finds his car’s missing, he’ll charge around to my place. He said he wanted it by seven a.m. When he finds I’m not there at that hour, he’ll imagine I’ve had an accident. He’ll go to the police and tell them I borrowed the car to go to the airport, but will he tell them I was with a girl?

He glanced at Nhan who was pedalling away, the split sheath of her tunic floating behind her.

The chances are, he went on thinking, the police will find the car before Sam knows it’s missing. They’ll get onto the Embassy. Hell! This is really going to start something. The Embassy will try to find Sam. They’ll jump to the conclusion it was Sam driving the car. When he does turn up, maybe he’ll have to tell the police he spent the night with that Chinese girl. He’ll love that! How he’ll curse me!

Then with a slight pang of regret, he realized it now didn’t matter what Sam would think of him. He would probably never see Sam again if he had any luck. Then he had another thought that excited him.

When it’s known I was in the car and the car’s found, he reasoned, they’ll all jump to the conclusion I’ve been kidnapped by the Viet Minh. It’s the most obvious conclusion they could jump to.

He remembered two American tourists, some months ago, who had driven to Angkor and had never been heard of since. Their car had been found, but there had been no trace of them. The Vietnamese authorities had said they had been kidnapped by Viet Minh bandits and had regretfully told the Embassy there was nothing they could do about it.

Jaffe suddenly felt much more cheerful. This could mean the hunt for him would be very half-hearted. Once the Vietnam police had convinced themselves he was in the hands of the Viet Minh, they weren’t likely to exert themselves, looking for him. They would put on a face-saving show for the benefit of the American Embassy, but it wouldn’t last long.

For the first time since he had found the diamonds, he felt quite light-hearted.