Two For Tanner

Page 26

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“What you can do in the meantime,” I said, “is lend me a hundred dollars U.S. ”

“I’m a little short-”

“Whatever you can spare, then.”

He gave me seventy dollars in crisp tens. “And the Siamese kid?”

“I’ll take care of him. I’m going to keep a promise.”

“Eh?”

“I’m giving him the hero treatment,” I said, “right here in Saigon.”

The madam was a fat little Vietnamese with gold teeth and a permanent smile. Several soldiers had assured me her house was far and away the best in Saigon. The rooms were nicely appointed, the girls were clean and lovely, and the price was only ten dollars. She bowed us into the parlor and rang a little bell, and seven pretty things in slit skirts and high heels came tripping into the room and bowed before us.

Dhang was drooling, and his eyes were so bugged out that he looked like a frog. Maybe if one of them let him sleep on her pillow, he would turn into a prince.

He said, “For me?”

“You’re supposed to pick the one you want.”

“I want them all.”

“Well, pick the one you like best.”

“I like them all best. Purick in cunat…”

I counted the girls and recounted the money. Seven girls at ten dollars a girl was seventy dollars, which, providentially enough, was the sum Barclay Houghton Hewlitt had given me. That seemed too clear a sign from the gods to be ignored. But was it possible that little Dhang could possess seven women one after the other?

Anything was possible, I decided. Anything at all. With what Dhang had been through, it was conceivable that he had built up a stock of frustration that all the whores in Saigon couldn’t cure. Anyway, he wanted all seven of them, and he deserved a shot at whatever he wanted. The son of a gun had paid his dues.

“He wants all seven of them,” I told the madam carefully. “They are to go to him one at a time.” I gave her the money. “Tell them to go in whatever order they wish. He loves them all.”

“He is Superman?”

“Perhaps.”

“Seven girls? Ho, boy!”

She relayed the instructions to the girls, who giggled and squealed at the prospect. I sat down, and one of the girls took Dhang in hand and led him away. The madam sat down beside me.

“And you, Joe? What you want?”

I thought it over. “Do you have any betel nut?” I said finally. She frowned and said that she did not. “In that case,” I said, “what I’d really like is a nice cold glass of milk.”

He managed it. All seven of them, one right after the other, and when the last one went up to him, I began regretting that I hadn’t saved a few dollars to bury him. But before long the girl came down, shaking her head in astonishment, and a few moments later down came Dhang. He was positively gorgeous in a Laotian Communist Army uniform. He swaggered like a drunken sailor and beamed like a lighthouse.

“I will never go back to Thailand,” he said. “I will stay here in Saigon forever.”

“What will you do here?”

“Phuck,” he said succinctly.