“I was more perceptive. I sensed there was something wrong with Henry. Unlike you in your penthouse suite and endless rounds of cocktail receptions here in the capital, I’ve been living in the jungle on and off for the past twenty years. Nature leaves scars. Some medical conditions are unavoidable, especially if you’re in the open air and unprotected. But he looked too . . . too hale and hearty. If he’d been tortured as he claimed, why were there so few historical wounds? And some lies are obviously lies. His arm had been broken as he said but not from parachuting from a plane six years ago and left untreated. There was little evidence of trauma. The bone had clearly healed when he was a child and had continued to grow. The break was at least twenty years old. It was arrogant of him to think we wouldn’t have qualified people here who’d notice things like that. I thought if he could lie about that, what else was he lying about? The liver disease could have been a result of hepatitis, but I have a nose for alcoholism.”

“It takes one to know one, little brother.”

I didn’t think a lot about Henry for the next few months because I was too busy getting bombed by Nixon. Christmas was celebrated in style with the heaviest bombing raids since World War Two. Hanoi took the brunt of it. For the first time, the hospitals had more civilians being put back together than military personnel. There was something desperate about the attacks, like a boxer down on points in the last round coming into the ring with a machete. And it did promise to be the beginning of the end. I was back in Hanoi for New Year’s, and I found a Christmas card in my mail pouch. I have no idea how it got there. It began pleasantly enough with the words Season’s Greetings in glitter on the front. But when I opened it, the message became a little less agreeable:

To you and your loved ones. With nothing but unnatural death to look forward to. I shall kill you all. I’ll be seeing you, Siri Paiboun. I promise you that.

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

Mindless Assassin of the Century

“So, there are our three top contenders for mindless assassin of the century,” said Daeng. “If the line in the first note, I have already deleted one of your darlings, refers to your lovely Boua, that would rule out contestant number three. Boua died in ’65. You destroyed Henry’s life in ’72. Have you had any other loved ones bumped off since then?”

“Not including dogs?” asked Siri.

They heard a mournful howl from the street.

“No,” said Daeng.

“Then I can’t think of any,” he said.

“What about the bread woman?”