Murder on the Rue Catinat

By John Charles Gifford

It is 1950the Year of the Tiger. Saigon, once the Pearl of the Far East, is now a city spinning out of control. Down every tree-lined boulevard, on every outdoor terrace, in every nightclub, dance hall and restaurant, the French colonials fear for their lives. The communists are waging a war and have clandestinely infiltrated the city. Deadly bombs and grenades are now the daily norm. Spies from all sides are everywhere.

French intelligence officer Pierre Bertrand has formed a secret pact with the ruthless crime syndicate that controls Saigons illegal and immensely lucrative gambling halls, brothels, and opium dens. In return for ridding Saigon of communists, Bertrand legalizes their businesses and begins sharing the profits.

American journalist and former OSS officer Jack Shaw has been hired by the CIA to investigate the unholy alliance and expose those involved. As Shaw confronts Saigons most brutal criminals, he knows a victory will send shockwaves throughout France, crush the criminal enterprises, and pave the way for greater American involvement in Vietnam. If he fails, it could mean his life. But when a woman becomes torn between the two men, they form a love triangle of passion and deception that will lead to the moment of truth and a deadly decision for all.

In this fast-paced Cold War thriller, two spies on opposite sides in their quest to control Saigon become immersed in love and betrayal as the future of French Vietnam hangs perilously in the balance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: May 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9781491791486

John Charles Gifford

John Charles Gifford earned two degrees from the University of Minnesota, served in the Peace Corps in the Republic of Liberia, and taught high school for twenty-eight years in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He currently lives and writes full-time in Saint-Hubert, Quebec. Lovingate is his ninth novel and the fourth book in the Montreal Murder Mystery series.

Book preview

Chapter One

La Danse Macabre

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.

But it did.

Gradually. Over time. Imperceptible, like nascent weeds growing in a garden, among the purple clematis, among the wild red ginger, among the yellow daisies—mixing memory and desire.

Someone asks, That corpse you planted last year in your garden, has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?

There is no reply.

So you ask yourself those selfsame questions.

But your thoughts are frozen like jagged, splintered ice; your lips are metamorphic rock, chiseled in green marble, fixed for eternity.

You’ve been immersed in the beauty of the flowers, so much so that you hadn’t seen the weeds hidden among them, until it was almost too late. Suddenly, you realize the threat—palpable and pulsating—so you act. You grab a knife and plunge it deeply into the soil, and you uproot the weeds to save the flowers, the beauty of the flowers.

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Sighs, short and infrequent, are exhaled.

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She took a napkin and gently brushed the crumbs from her mouth. He watched her and smiled. They had eaten some pastries and had drunk espresso at Brodard’s café and had talked for an hour. It was late, and they were the last to leave.

They crossed the intersection and walked up rue Catinat toward the Continental Palace. He glanced to his left and saw her profile, partly in shadows, as they walked under a tall tamarind tree, one of thousands planted by the French decades ago to bring beauty and shade to the city. A soft breeze soughed through the branches, causing the leaves and pods above them to dance.

He was taking a risk.

They were taking a risk. They shouldn’t be seen together. They stopped two blocks short of the hotel, and he took a handkerchief from his back pocket, wiped his forehead, and then replaced it.

He was well used to risk. He’d lived with danger for so long that he’d forgotten what it was like to live free of it, where menace and threat were nonexistent. Danger first came to him as a boy, not like a spotted leopard edging forward on all fours, its underside rubbing against dirt in the cover of the thickness of a jungle bush, readying itself for the pounce, but like a bolt of lightning coming out of a clear and blue sky above. Danger had taken his parents, and he had never forgotten the lesson.

Now he was taking a risk again, but this time with a few decades of experience behind him. He stole a glance at her, a shy wisp of a sad smile on his face.

The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone.

Sweet voice, sweet lips, soft hand, and softer breast.

A Vespa scooter sped by them, its whine gradually being enveloped by the night.

Tonight was as hot and steamy as it had been during the day. He looked back over his shoulder and then up ahead again, as he had been trained to do, looking for anything that seemed out of place, for anything that shouldn’t be where it was. With his eyes diverted from her, focusing on nothing in particular but on everything around them, he said, Go up to your room. I’ll be there shortly.

She didn’t press her hands to his chest.

She didn’t lean up to kiss him.

She knew better than to do that in public. All that would come later. She turned and walked up rue Catinat without looking back.

His eyes followed her until she crossed the street and entered the Continental and disappeared from sight. He imagined her entering the building, rushing across the wide lobby—her shoes clattering on the marble—ascending the stairs to the second floor, and waiting for him in her room.

Warm breath, light whisper …

Bright eyes, accomplished shape, and languorous waist.

He reached into his inner jacket pocket and pulled out a pack of Cotabs—La cigarette de l’élite. He shook one out, pulling it out farther with his lips, and lit it. A shiver ran through him. His carefully planned life was beginning to unravel. He was beginning to become undone. He inhaled the smoke deep into his lungs and then released it through his nostrils. He watched the smoke as the breeze caught it, sending it up among the branches of a tree before it disappeared. He wondered when it had begun—this spiral, this descent. All his life, he had been careful. He had to be. It was the nature of his job. He wouldn’t have gotten as far as he had, being otherwise. Then, all of a sudden, it had changed for him; and much as he tried, he couldn’t pinpoint when it had happened—the decision that led him to where he was now. However, he believed that he still had a chance to reverse it, to set things right again—to save himself.

And he would start tonight.

He looked around him. The streets were still full of people and traffic, although it was starting to steadily dissipate. Europeans, Vietnamese, a few Americans—they were all out and about, enjoying the nightlife. At first, he had had contempt for himself when it happened. He should’ve seen it coming, because—after a great deal of reflection, after reconstructing previous actions, events, and decisions—the signs were all there. Now it was as if he were seeing it for the first time, when, in fact, all along, it was staring him in the face. It was at that point he realized that his contempt for himself was nothing more than self-pity, and that, he would never tolerate. Besides, if he’d continued to have contempt for himself, he’d have to have contempt for everything else in life. If it ever came to that, he would just as soon put a bullet in his head.

He puffed out a stream of smoke and looked around the area again. Storefront businesses—closed now—on the street level; small apartments on the second level, some windows with muted light from candles or paraffin lanterns. His training told him to look for someone who was watching his movements. He did so, but he found it difficult to concentrate on anything in particular. His thoughts were now on how much he loved her. It was a love forged out of passion and purpose.

The ground, the cement sidewalks, the paved road—everything around him—was radiating the stored heat from the day. Not bothering with his handkerchief this time, he wiped his forehead with the palm of his hand, and then he brushed it against the leg of his pants.

His eyes darted up rue Catinat. A few drivers had parked their cyclos at the curb ahead of him, near an intersection. They had been deep in conversation, until a small group of people walked by them. Then they began competing for customers, coaxing them to ride with them instead of walking. There were few cars on the streets, but their drivers laid on their horns for reasons he couldn’t understand. A few local boys were standing across the street opposite the Continental, looking for trouble. Or women. He breathed in the putrescent odors that were not unique to Saigon. All tropical cities had them.

Coconut milk! Coconut milk! Refresh yourself with some coconut milk!

He looked down at an old woman in black pants and rubber sandals, squatting near him on the sidewalk, selling coconut milk, her teeth a deep shade of purple, almost black, made so from years of chewing betel nuts, a tradition as old as Cochinchina itself. She looked up and smiled at him. Disgusting, he thought, but he smiled back.

Saigon was no more righteous or wicked than other cities. In the daytime, she’s an exuberant hostess, minding the colonials and moneyed Chinese and Vietnamese with fine cuisine, tennis rackets, flashy cars, and Paris fashion. In the evening, she slips on a black dress and jade jewelry and becomes a lady, in the restaurants, in the nightclubs, and in the casinos. Deep into the night, she transforms herself into an old hag, wandering from place to place with a dagger in her hand. She becomes a broken image, a dead tree that gives no shelter. She is fear in a handful of dust.

He had acknowledged to himself long ago that Saigon was a dangerous place. He should have known that he couldn’t trust anyone. Spies were everywhere, working for all sides.

He knew before he looked up at the moon what phase it was in. It was a waxing crescent, partly illuminated but increasing in intensity, on its way to becoming the splendor that was the full moon. This was a time of regeneration, a time to reassess and to refortify. In this phase, as the moon was growing, it was a propitious time to begin anew, to discard what was no longer needed, to eliminate what had become an obstacle, a danger.

He dropped the cigarette onto the sidewalk and ground it down with one good twist of his shoe. He looked around him one last time to be sure it was safe, and then he walked up Catinat, crossed the street, and went into the side door of the hotel. He stopped at the hallway that led to the lobby and peered around the corner, making certain to conceal himself. The clerk was assisting a late arrival. Several people were milling about and had their backs to him. He passed the hallway and then took the stairs leading up the back to the second floor. He twisted his head around the corridor. It was quiet. No one was there. Dappled shadows, created by the shaded wall lamps spaced apart every ten feet, splayed across the marbled floor. He walked on the soles of his shoes so his heels wouldn’t make noise and went to room 202. He knocked twice, lightly. The door opened, and she was facing him now, dressed in a sheer violet negligee with long laced sleeves. He stepped in, shut the door behind him, and flipped the lock. He placed his hands on her waist as she laced her fingers around the back of his neck. Like so many other times, they kissed long and hard.

I should have appreciated you more, he thought, then maybe, just maybe …

Je t’aime, mon chéri d’amour, she whispered in his ear.

She released him and then walked to a dresser and poured some brandy into two snifters. As she did that, he walked up behind her and placed one hand around her stomach and began kissing the side of her neck. He then ran the palm of his other hand up the front of her negligee, relishing its softness. He moved it upward between her breasts and then along her neck. Finally, he cupped her chin lovingly.

She set the bottle down, picked up a letter opener, and slipped it up her sleeve, keeping her hand firmly on the end. Then she leaned back into him and moved her head up and slightly to the left and moaned with pleasure.

How he cherished moments like this. They had never come often enough. He had never loved anyone the way he loved her.

Faded the flower and all its budded charms,

Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes,

Faded the shape of beauty from my arms,

Faded the voice, warmth, whiteness, paradise—

He gently freed one hand and reached to his waist and pulled out a knife. Then with the speed and skill of an assassin, he swung it around and up, plunging it deep into her exposed neck.

A weed uprooted.

Just as he felt her warm blood ooze over his hand, just as he was about to fight off the pain of regret, and while still holding her upright with her weight pressing against him, someone began knocking on the door.

Chapter Two

The Man in the Panama Hat

Ten Days Earlier

Day 1

July 8

Jack Shaw sat inside a small café just off Francis Garnier Square, within sight of the Continental Palace where he was staying, and looked through the wire mesh out onto rue Catinat. The silvery glare of the sun shimmered, wavering and flickering in his eyes as if taunting him. He looked away and adjusted his chair slightly to avoid the rays. At times, he felt like a prisoner in the city. The goddamned communists saw to that.

He preferred to be sitting on the terrace of the Continental, free of the protective wire mesh, which he likened to the steel bars of a prison. He would usually spend a few hours of each day on the terrace, shaded from the sun and listening for bits and pieces of gossip. The members of the foreign press—bless their souls—who were covering the war referred to it as Radio Catinat, because that’s where they would pick up whispers of rumors that would then spread across the city like fire in dry grass, eventually ending up in the Saigon scandal sheets and beyond to their respective international papers. Not much for making the effort to seek out news beyond the confines of the terraces, nightclubs, and cabarets, journalists in Cochinchina favored the herd mentality, and the Continental was their preferred feedlot, sitting in the shade with cool drinks, fattening up on the gossip.

Jack Shaw liked it that way. As much as it was possible, he wanted to keep the war at arm’s length.

There was also another reason Shaw would rather be on the terrace of the Continental right now. Even though it didn’t have a wire mesh, it was probably the safest place in Saigon. He had surmised long ago that the owner must have paid off the Việt Minh for protection against a grenade being lobbed at it, because it had never been the site of an explosion, at least not since he had been in the city. The communists were ardent supporters of revenue sharing, and in this instance, they could be trusted. As long as the revenue flowed into their pockets, the owner of the Continental got what he paid for—no inconvenient explosion to disrupt business.

Besides, the war had become one huge propaganda campaign, disseminating from the pens of journalists like Shaw. Both sides, the French colonials and the communists, courted them graciously in their attempts to enlist them for good press. Reporting the news became a delicate balancing act. God forbid that one of the reporters was blown to bits by a grenade or a bomb (an act that would surely elicit bad press). Instead, both sides would rather have journalists alive and well, reporting on, for example, a child who had been blown to bits, with each side pointing a finger at the other.

But who knows? Saigon had become a city of uncertainties. And with any given uncertainty, there was risk, which one had to assume by just living here. The more uncertainties, the more risks one had to take.

But that was water under the bridge.

Jack Shaw had some time ago calculated all the probabilities, rolled the dice, and decided he would much rather be sitting in the open air of the Continental’s terrace than inside some café, looking out at the world through wire mesh.

Which was exactly what he was doing now.

The note Shaw had received yesterday, slipped neatly between the pages of a book that was wrapped in a sheet of newspaper and tied with plain twine, specifically requested he be at this particular café at this particular time. So he drank his coffee, perused a copy of L’Union Française (he never read the newspaper that he wrote for), smoked his pipe, and waited, occasionally glancing through the mesh at the curb in front of him.

Fifteen minutes after the appointed time, the man who had served him the coffee—a short Vietnamese gentleman with refined sensibilities, a keen sense of humor, and a potbelly—walked to his table.

M. Shaw, your ride is waiting for you, he said in French.

Shaw looked up from his paper at the man and then through the wire mesh. He knocked the dottle of tobacco from his pipe into an ashtray and reached into his pocket.

No, monsieur, that’s fine, he said, thrusting a hand in Shaw’s direction as if he were a traffic cop. There is no need to pay.

Shaw nodded at the man and left the café. Waiting for him at the curb was a cyclo, essentially a metal rickshaw with a driver sitting behind his fare on a dissected bicycle, the back half of which was welded to the frame of the rickshaw in front. The driver looked in Shaw’s direction.

Mr. Shaw, come. I will take you, he said in English.

Shaw climbed in without saying anything. Suddenly, everyone knows my name. Straddling the seat, the driver used his legs to back the cyclo a few feet and then sat down and started to pedal up rue Catinat, leaning forward on the seat, trying to gain enough speed to keep up with the other cyclos and bicycles going in the same direction. After three blocks, he turned left at boulevard Norodom, and then after another block, he turned right onto General de Gaulle. When he arrived at rue Chasseloup-Laubat, he turned left and followed the length of Parc Maurice Long. When he circled the park for the second time, Shaw got bored, unfolded his paper, snapped it in place, and began to read. He should have known. Anything involving Archimedes had to be complicated.

When the book with the note between its pages had arrived at the front desk of the Continental yesterday, he was more than surprised. The second he saw the book, he knew exactly whom it had come from, even though the note was not signed. The second-to-the-last thing he did when he had last seen Archimedes five years before was to give him his copy of The Razor’s Edge. The last thing he did was to shake his hand and wish him luck. He’d thought he’d never see him again.

Especially in Saigon.

And now he was taking an obviously circuitous route through the city to meet him. He wondered why. Archimedes could have easily walked into Shaw’s hotel, gotten his room number from the front desk, climbed the stairs to the third floor, and knocked on his door. But nothing was ever easy when Archimedes was involved. Perhaps he was still in the business. That could account for all the subterfuge. If he were, then—no, he stopped the thought. That would not be good for Shaw. Shaw was out of the business and had been for five years. He was finished with it. Forever.

Done.

And he didn’t want any connection with it either. What was Archimedes up to? This was certainly not a Hi, how are you? Fancy meeting you here kind of visit. He had been the best in the business. Had he made the transition to the new agency, as so many others had? If so, he was probably bumped up the ladder fast. Archimedes had been that good.

When he’d unwrapped the book in the lobby of the Continental and read the note, Shaw’s first response was to ignore it. But first responses weren’t always the wisest. He quickly discounted that idea, because he knew Archimedes would pursue him. No, the best thing for Shaw to do was to meet him, hear him out, and get it done with. Whatever he wanted, Shaw’s answer would be no. He had admitted to himself that he was a little curious about the whole thing, but that curiosity made him feel somewhat ill at ease. Whatever Shaw had had in his bloodstream in the past that infected him—call it the business or whatever you want—could still be there. The parasite of the vector Anopheles that causes malaria can lie dormant in the liver. Years later when you aren’t even aware of its presence, it enters the bloodstream and fries your brain. He cringed at the idea, horrified by the thought.

The cyclo driver continued to turn right or left after every four or five blocks. After about thirty minutes or so, he pulled into a narrow street with little traffic and stopped. A small blackbird swooped down at them and then lifted upward, riding a current of warm air. After gaining height, it became a black dot in the sky and then disappeared. Another cyclo was waiting for Shaw. The second driver looked at him and smiled, showing three missing teeth.

You change now, he said in Vietnamese.

Shaw got out, brushed the wrinkles out of his linen pants, unsuccessfully, and climbed onto the other cyclo, and off they went. The second driver did not speak to him but zigzagged around traffic, turning left or right as the other driver had done, careful to avoid mopeds, bicycles, cars, and pedestrians. The sun was high in the sky, and the cyclo’s canvas top only partially blocked out its rays. Shaw closed his eyes, hoping for a little catnap.

Twenty minutes later, the driver pulled alongside a black Renault that was parked on a side street. Shaw opened his eyes and looked around. He recognized that he was somewhere on the outskirts of Chợ Lớn, the Chinese section of the city, quite a distance from where he had started.

Mr. Shaw, I will take you to where you need to go, the man who sat behind the wheel of the car said. Like the cyclo drivers, the man was Vietnamese but spoke academic French. Shaw got in the passenger side of the car. Both men did not speak until they arrived at the final destination.

Please go inside, in the restaurant, and have a cool beverage, the driver said. He won’t have you waiting long.

Shaw got out and leaned down toward the driver.

Merci, he said, and he wondered whether to tip him.

The driver looked around him in all four directions, turned back to Shaw, nodded, and drove off.

Shaw turned around and looked at the facade in front of him. The Hotel Majestic sat at the end of rue Catinat, at the corner of Le Myre de Vilers embankment, fronting the Saigon River. He had spent nearly an hour traveling about five blocks from where he began.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a gray Citroën sitting at the curb to his left, idling. A man—European, perhaps—wearing a Panama hat sat behind the wheel, reading a newspaper. He could see only the back of the man’s head and the paper resting on the steering wheel. He made a mental note of the license plate. Old habits die hard. Shaw was here at Archimedes’s request. If Archimedes were still in the business, someone in the city could very well know about it. He figured there was a subtext in this somehow. He tucked the information neatly into a manila file folder and placed it in one of the many drawers of his brain, and then he gave it no further thought. Gingerly, he made his way into the hotel.

Once Shaw was inside the hotel’s restaurant, a waiter came to his table, and he ordered a cà phê sua dá, a strong iced coffee made with sweetened condensed milk. He looked around and saw mostly suited men, Asians and Europeans, sitting in twos and threes, some leisurely talking and laughing; others in the serious discourse of commerce. Whether the commerce was of the legal kind, Shaw couldn’t say. He didn’t know how long Archimedes would have him sitting here, or whether he’d be off again zigzagging throughout the city, so he decided to fill his pipe and dig into his paper again. He realized early on not to second-guess his former boss.

After Shaw had gone through two bowls of Dunhill’s My Mixture tobacco blend, the same waiter who had served him his coffee came over to his table.

Mr. Shaw, please go to room 309 now. He is waiting for you.

Shaw got up to leave, and as he passed the window, he noticed the same gray Citroën at the curb. No one was in the car.

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He had followed the black Renault from Chợ Lớn and once nearly lost it in the heavy traffic. As the Renault pulled up to the entrance of the Hotel Majestic, he pulled up in front of it and parked a suitable distance away so as to not be too conspicuous. Through the rearview mirror, as he pretended to read a newspaper, he watched the target get out of the car, lean into the open window, and then turn around and enter the hotel. He waited for five minutes and then went into the hotel lobby, looked around for a shop, and bought a pack of cigarettes. As he was paying the clerk, his hawkshaw eyes spotted the target sitting in the restaurant having coffee. He walked over to the public phone a few feet from the shop and dialed a number. While he waited for the connection, he angled his Panama hat and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

Chapter Three

The Man in the Seersucker Suit

Pierre Bertrand walked out of the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Saïgon into the sun, raised his arms, and stretched. He wore a white seersucker suit, one of six he owned of different colors. He liked the way they were woven, that some threads bunched together, causing the fabric to be mostly held away from his body, facilitating heat dissipation and air circulation. But today was hotter than usual, and the suit didn’t help much. His shirt clung to his body, beads of sweat coursing down his face.

Bertrand was a man of prayer. Prayer had been thrust upon him as a child, but he nurtured it as an adult, allowing it to become second nature. He could say short prayers anytime—and in fact often he did—but he felt more comfortable saying them inside the cathedral. As his office was nearby, whenever the urge struck him to commune with his God, instead of sitting at his desk, he simply put on his jacket and walked the short distance. There was something about feeling his knees on the hard wooden hassock in a pew that seemed to make his prayers more authentic.

But, of course, there was another reason he liked being inside the cathedral. The French had built it long ago to give the colonial mission a place to worship and to show the natives, through architecture, the strength of French civilization. Never mind that the church was built on the sweat and blood of the Annamites. They should be grateful that the French were and are willing to share their culture. Worshipping there gave Bertrand the feeling of being connected to history and tradition.

He crossed to the Pigneau de Béhaine Square to a bench, sat down, and sighed.

It’s goddamn hot today, he