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bar.’
    â€˜I know. I’ve been there.’
    â€˜Really?’ he smirked.
    I forced a smile.
    â€˜Something illegal may be going on at this place – I mean properly illegal.’
    â€˜Joe, if you see three Saigonese together there is something illegal going on. The Vietnamese do not view the law so much as a code to live by as a problem of circumvention.’
    I smiled.
    â€˜Truly, Joe. Crime is a mode of survival here. See that restaurant across the street!’ He pointed with his cigarette. ‘You can be certain something illegal is happening there right now. A bribe being paid to someone to extend a lease; illegal importation of cigarettes or meat; a waitress looking for a man to take care of her tonight. I hope you don’t think you are going to surprise anyone by reporting that Vietnamese brothels are not completely wholesome places.’
    â€˜Finished?’
    â€˜Sure.’
    He took up a glass of dark bittersweet iced coffee.
    I told him what Hönicke had told me of the girl and the darkest little room.
    â€˜It’s troubling,’ he said. ‘But the place in your man’s story doesn’t sound like Club 49.’
    â€˜Not to me either. And then he described the way to get there.’
    â€˜That’s simple enough.’
    â€˜It should be shouldn’t it?’
    â€˜What are you getting at?’
    â€˜He spoke of a giant bridge that landed in dark outskirts. Hovels and dirt roads where you could see the city across the river?’
    â€˜The road to Vung Tau. The girl on the river bank …’
    â€˜The wounds he described were nearly the same.’
    â€˜But why does he say Club 49?’
    â€˜Maybe he’s lying. Maybe he began at Club 49 and was so drunk by the time of his next taxi ride he did not know where he was, only remembered some landmarks along the way.’
    â€˜How would you go about this?’ I asked.
    â€˜How well do you like being alive?’
    â€˜I have nothing to compare it to.’
    â€˜You know how dangerous this kind of thing is. To persuade the police to raid a place, you would have to have concrete proof. The kind that is more persuasive than the protection money the brothel is paying the authorities. To get proof you would have to make your own investigation – you know that no policeman will go renegade and back you. If you survive that, you can be certain that the man who owns the place will have been made suspicious by something you’ve done or something you’ve said to one of the girls. After that, he might close up operations for a while. Move the girl. And it would all be for nothing. That is one of the better scenarios.’
    â€˜Who owns Club 49?’
    â€˜I don’t know.’
    â€˜How is that?’
    â€˜Men like that don’t appear in the business sections of newspapers.’
    â€˜This is why I hire you.’
    â€˜I’ll try to find out. But you must realise that the brothel and nightclub owners are often nameless; some are known but are untouchable.’
    â€˜In the meantime, I’ll go to 49 posing as a customer and try to see some sign of what Hönicke saw.’
    â€˜What else can you do?’
    â€˜And I’ll talk to Zhuan again.’
    Quy rolled his eyes. I should not have mentioned Zhuan.
    â€˜Hönicke claimed the girl was less than seventeen.’
    â€˜Probably kept for the Chinese. Don’t they believe deflowering a virgin will keep them young?’
    â€˜Some of them.’
    â€˜Fine place to find a virgin too, a brothel. And would a madam lie about such a thing? No wonder they believe they are intellectually superior to we poor Viets.’
    I smiled. I guess Quy took offence to the fact that Zhuan provided me with information at no cost.
    Quy’s wife was visiting her mother and he suggested we go out for dinner.
    â€˜To that new bamboo barbecue place off Nguyen Dinh Chiểu.’
    I had arranged to meet