LITMIR.BIZ

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was smart not to use any makeup; it would only cheapen that girl-next-door face. He’d never before had any interest in the girl-next-door type. Maybe the girl down the street or across the tracks. But this one was different. She had eyes the color of smoke, a square jaw and a little boxer’s nose, lightly dusted with freckles. She also had a mouth that, given the right situation, could be quite kissable.

      Automatically he asked, “So how long will you be in Bangkok?”

      “I’ve been here two days already. I’m leaving tomorrow.”

      Damn, he thought.

      “For Saigon.”

      His chin snapped up in surprise. “Saigon?”

      “Or Ho Chi Minh City. Whatever they call it these days.”

      “Now that’s a coincidence,” he said softly.

      “What is?”

      “In two days, I’m leaving for Saigon.”

      “Are you?” She glanced at the briefcase, stenciled with U.S. Army ID Lab, lying on the seat. “Government affairs?”

      He nodded. “What about you?”

      She looked straight ahead. “Family business.”

      “Right,” he said, wondering what the hell business her family was in. “You ever been to Saigon?”

      “Once. But I was only ten years old.”

      “Dad in the service?”

      “Sort of.” Her gaze stayed fixed on some faraway point ahead. “I don’t remember too much of the city. Lot of dust and heat and cars. One big traffic jam. And the beautiful women…”

      “It’s changed a lot since then. Most of the cars are gone.”

      “And the beautiful women?”

      He laughed. “Oh, they’re still around. Along with the heat and dust. But everything else has changed.” He was silent a moment. Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, “If you get stuck, I might be able to show you around.”

      She hesitated, obviously tempted by his invitation. Come on, come on, take me up on it, he thought. Then he caught a glimpse of Puapong, grinning and winking wickedly at him in the rearview mirror.

      He only hoped the woman hadn’t noticed.

      But Willy most certainly had seen Puapong’s winks and grins and had instantly comprehended the meaning. Here we go again, she thought wearily. Now he’ll ask me if I want to have dinner and I’ll say no I can’t, and then he’ll say, what about a drink? and I’ll break down and say yes because he’s such a damnably good-looking man…

      “Look, I happen to be free tonight,” he said. “Would you like to have dinner?”

      “I can’t,” she said, wondering who had written this tired script and how one ever broke out of it.

      “Then how about a drink?” He shot her a half smile and she felt herself teetering at the edge of a very high cliff. The crazy part was, he really wasn’t a handsome man at all. His nose was crooked, as if, after managing to get it broken, he hadn’t bothered to set it back in place. His hair was in need of a barber or at least a comb. She guessed he was somewhere in his late thirties, though the years scarcely showed except around his eyes, where deep laugh lines creased the corners. No, she’d seen far better-looking men. Men who offered more than a sweaty one-night grope in a foreign hotel.

       So why is this guy getting to me?

      “Just a drink?” he offered again.

      “Thanks,” she said. “But no thanks.”

      To her relief, he didn’t press the issue. He nodded, sat back and looked out the window. His fingers drummed the briefcase. The mindless rhythm drove her crazy. She tried to ignore him, just as he was trying to ignore her, but it was hopeless. He was too imposing a presence.

      By the time they pulled up at the Oriental Hotel, she was ready to leap out of the car. She practically did.

      “Thanks for the ride,” she said, and slammed the door shut.

      “Hey, wait!” called the man through the open window. “I never caught your name!”

      “Willy.”

      “You have a last name?”

      She turned and started up the hotel steps. “Maitland,” she said over her shoulder.

      “See you around, Willy Maitland!” the man yelled.

      Not likely, she thought. But as she reached the lobby doors, she couldn’t help glancing back and watching the car disappear around the corner. That’s when she realized she didn’t even know the man’s name.

      GUY SAT ON HIS BED in the Liberty Hotel and wondered what had compelled him to check into this dump. Nostalgia, maybe. Plus cheap government rates. He’d always stayed here on his trips to Bangkok, ever since the war, and he’d never seen the need for a change until now. Certainly the place held a lot of memories. He’d never forget those hot, lusty nights of 1973. He’d been a twenty-year-old private on R and R; she’d been a thirty-year-old army nurse. Darlene. Yeah, that was her name. The last he’d seen of her, she was a chain-smoking mother of three and about fifty pounds overweight. What a shame. The woman, like the hotel, had definitely gone downhill.

      Maybe I have, too, he thought wearily as he stared out the dirty window at the streets of Bangkok. How he used to love this city, loved the days of wandering through the markets, where the colors were so bright they hurt the eyes; loved the nights of prowling the back streets of Pat Pong, where the music and the girls never quit. Nothing bothered him in those days—not the noise or the heat or the smells.

      Not even the bullets. He’d felt immune, immortal. It was always the other guy who caught the bullet, the other guy who got shipped home in a box. And if you thought otherwise, if you worried too long and hard about your own mortality, you made a lousy soldier.

      Eventually, he’d become a lousy soldier.

      He was still astonished that he’d survived. It was something he’d never fully understand: the simple fact that he’d made it back alive.

      Especially when he thought of all the other men on that transport plane out of Da Nang. Their ticket home, the magic bird that was supposed to deliver them from all the madness.

      He still had the scars from the crash. He still harbored a mortal dread of flying.

      He refused to think about that upcoming flight to Saigon. Air travel, unfortunately, was part of his job, and this was just one more plane he couldn’t avoid.

      He opened his briefcase, took out a stack of folders and lay down on the bed to read. The file he opened first was one of dozens he’d brought with him from Honolulu. Each contained a name, rank, serial number, photograph and a detailed history—as detailed as possible—of the circumstances of disappearance. This one was a naval airman, Lieutenant Commander Eugene Stoddard, last seen ejecting from his disabled bomber forty miles west of Hanoi. Included was a dental chart and an old X-ray report of an arm fracture sustained as a teenager. What the file left out were the nonessentials: the wife he’d left behind, the children, the questions.

      There were always questions when a soldier was missing in action.

      Guy skimmed the pages, made a few mental notes and reached for another file. These were the most likely cases, the men whose stories best matched the newest collection of remains. The Vietnamese government was turning over three sets, and Guy’s job was to confirm the skeletons were non-Vietnamese and to give each one a name, rank and serial number. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant job, but one that had to be done.

      He set aside the second file and reached for the next.

      This one didn’t contain a photograph;

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