Conspiracy

59

Madonna was a blonde — not natural of course, though all her parts matched. She was older than the girls who had been downstairs. She wore a tight-fitted vinyl bodice and leather boots over fishnet stockings, apparently imitating one of the singer’s many incarnations, though the resemblance was distant at best. Karr couldn’t tell if the subdued belliger-ence she met him with was part of her act.

“Who are you?” she said, almost angrily.

“Just a guy.”

“Just a guy.” She picked up a cigarette pack from the nightstand next to the bed and knocked one out. “What do you want?”

“The obvious,” said Karr.

She smirked. Karr scooped the lighter from the table and lit it, holding the flame for her. Madonna hesitated, then leaned in. She took a long drag and blew the smoke in his face.

“You like that, huh, Joe?” she said.

“Name’s not Joe. And no, not really.”

“Strip.”

“You first.”

Madonna took a long puff from her cigarette. “All right,” she said.

Karr sat down on the bed, watching as the hooker unbuttoned her top. Her breasts sprang free with the last button, round oranges each topped by a pert red cherry. She raised her boot and put it on Karr’s leg.

“Lick it,” she said.

“I don’t think so.”

Miss Madonna pretended to pout. Karr took hold of the boot and helped her pull her foot free. He did the same with the second, then got up and brought the shoes to the side of the room. As he straightened them, he positioned a video fly on the wall just under the window.

The prostitute threw one of her stockings at him as he turned back around. He caught it, and waited for the second.

But instead of tossing it, Miss Madonna dropped it on the floor.

She rose, then tugged at the zipper of the vinyl girdle she was wearing. The garment fell away, revealing a white lace thong.

“Tommy, Cam Tre Luc is in the building,” said Rockman in Karr’s ear.

“And we were just getting to the good part.” Miss Madonna gave him a quizzical stare.

“Well, don’t stop,” Karr told her.

She pushed her arms back and let her vest slide off her shoulders. Then she paused, taking another drag from her cigarette.

“The madam’s on her way up in a frenzy,” warned Rockman.

“Mmmmmm,” said Karr, as Miss Madonna hooked her thumbs into the panty’s thin strings.

Before she could get any further, the madam’s strident voice was heard in the hallway.

“Mister, mister, big mistake. You go quick. Right now, quick.”

“His bodyguards are right behind him, Tommy,” said Rockman. “Get out of there.”

“Charlie, I’ll talk to him,” said Karr.

“No, I’m on my way over,” said Dean. “Hang out there and back me up.”

The madam burst into the room. “You go,” she told Karr.

“Right now?”

“Get dressed quick,” the madam told Madonna, adding something in Vietnamese that prodded the whore into motion.

The madam grabbed Karr’s arm.

“Come with me,” she told him, tugging him out the door and then pushing him down the hallway toward the back stairs. One of her bodyguards trailed silently behind.

Cam Tre Luc, meanwhile, was diverted at the top of the opposite stairs by a girl from another room who sensed trouble. Though out of view, Karr could hear her attempt at seduction and Cam Tre Luc’s protests.

“Where are we going?” Karr asked the madam as they reached the stairs.

“You done.”

“I didn’t get my money’s worth.”

“No charge. Full refund. Come back tomorrow.”

“How about a substitute?” he asked as she pushed him into the stairway. “Someone who doesn’t smoke.” dean circled around the back of the building and came out in the alley directly across from Saigon Rouge. Cam Tre Luc had left a single bodyguard in his SUV; according to the Art Room, one of his men was in the “reception” area and another had gone up to the third floor, waiting discreetly by the stairs while his boss conducted his business.

The original game plan called for Dean to go down the block to a four-story building next to the Saigon Rouge.

He’d climb the fire escape, get on the roof, jump down to Saigon Rouge, and then go down the stairs. The guard there would be disposed of with a shot of fast-acting anesthesia; Dean would then have a clear path to the room. While Karr was supposed to be back in the other building watching him, Dean decided there was no reason it wouldn’t work with him inside the whore house.

“Tommy’s in a room on the second floor,” said Rockman as Dean pulled down the fire escape and began climbing up the side of the building. “He convinced the madam he’d take someone else.”

“What’s Cam Tre Luc doing?”

“What do you think?”

Cam Tre Luc was not a fool. He knew that someone had been with his whore before he arrived, and he did not like it. Even though he had come earlier than normal, he expected that the girl would be ready and available — and alone. He paid considerable money for her attention and he was, after all, an important member of the government.

But achieving his position had required considerable dis-cipline. Cam Tre Luc realized that things had to be dealt with at the proper time, and in the proper order; placing emotions above rational thought doomed one to failure. His first priority was to be pleasured; he would deal with Miss Pu, the proprietor of Saigon Rouge, when that was accomplished.

Cam Tre Luc had first visited prostitutes during the American War, when he was still a young man. He was in fact married at the time, but his wife was a world away across the border in North Vietnam. While seeing prostitutes was frowned on by his superiors, Cam Tre Luc had had no difficulty justifying it to them — when living among the corrupt, one must wear their clothes.

Justifying it to himself would have been more difficult, so he did not bother doing so.

Things were now considerably different. His superiors, much higher now in government, would certainly not be as understanding — but there was no need for them to be, as he had more than enough information on any of them to do significant harm should they use this against him. As for his wife, she was here in Ho Chi Minh City. But their years of separation had conditioned her to accept completely their separate lives. If she knew that he visited prostitutes — he suspected she might — she did not say.

Miss Madonna slipped her hands around his chest from behind and began unbuttoning his shirt. He began to breathe more quickly — which was unusual. Generally the stroke of her fingers relaxed him.

Perhaps he was becoming too old for this.