Free Naked in Saigon by Colin Falconer

Jean-Luc to fly it.”
    Things were heating up on stage. The girl had seen the boy spying on her and she looked shocked. She tried to run away but he caught her. The rape, if that was what it was intended to be, did not last for long. Soon she was kneeling in front of him, and had taken him in her mouth. Now they proceeded through the usual calisthenics of every sex show he had ever seen, a monotonous ballet increasing in dexterity.
    “Why are you telling me all this, Walt?”
    “All I need to build it is the money. If I can find a partner we can retire there ourselves, live in paradise the rest of our lives. I’ve got plans drawn up; I’ve worked out the figures. In five years my investor makes their money back and after that it’s all cream.”
    “And what’s your part in this?”
    “I do all the work, organize the construction, the management, everything.”
    “It sounds great, but I don’t have that kind of cash. That sounds like a seven-figure operation.”
    “But you do have that kind of cash, Reyes.”
    Suddenly Walt’s voice had an edge to it. “I know you got that heroin. I can feel it in my bones.”
    Reyes turned back to the stage. He admired the couple’s athleticism, but it wasn’t sex. He thought about the times he had made love to Magdalena. There had been such urgency to it, like they were trying to find a way inside each other’s skin. Sometimes he found long welts along his back where she had torn him with her nails; other times it was so slow and languid they hardly moved, everything happened in their eyes.
    There was no performance to what they did. It was like being shaken in God’s fist, that was how she had described it to him once. She was still the only time he had ever lost control.
    This? This was just ballet; it was impressive, but there was no temperature.
    “Even if I did have it, Walt, and even if I was of a mind to cash up, there’s no way to sell it.”
    “You may not have the contacts anymore but I do.”
    “Even if I did have this shit, which I don’t, I’m not going to fund the rest of my life on a drug deal. I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of, but I wouldn’t do that.”
    “You think the guns you smuggled in to Castro didn’t hurt as many people as a few keys of heroin? You think the opium you flew out of the Triangle didn’t end up in a needle somewhere? Is that what you’re telling me?”
    Reyes knew he was right. So he told him the truth: “I’m through with all that, Walt. I want to be a better man.”
    “Jesus fucking Christ. Are you serious?”
    “You don’t think I can be?”
    “I think you need to take a reality pill.”
    “You’re probably right.”
    They had finished on the stage. The house lights went up. A group of servicemen jeered and whistled; they had expected more.
    “If you have trouble finding buyers, come and see me,” Walt said as he climbed into a siclo outside.
    “Buyers for what?” Reyes said.
    Walt shook his head. “You’ll come around,” he said. “You know I’m right about this. A better man!” He shook his head and laughed. “You are some piece of work, you know that?” He turned around as the siclo driver pushed off from the side of the road. “You want to sell dope, why would you go to anyone but the CIA?”
    He actually shouted it aloud down the street.
     
     
     
     

Chapter 17

     
    MAGDALENA
    The barbers were at work under the tamarind trees; a shard of glass used as a mirror flashed in the sun. There were betel nut stains in the dirt, like bloodstains.
    A fortune teller squatted against one of the trees with her soiled pack of cards laid out on a little bamboo mat. For a moment I was tempted; so many roads led from here and I would like to have known which one was intended for me. But instead I ignored her and hurried on.
    Reyes’ apartment was two blocks from the Tu Do, down a leafy green boulevard. I could see him sitting on his wrought iron balcony reading the newspaper, but he still