Dead and Kicking by Geoffrey McGeachin Read Free Book Online Page B

French had also left the Vietnamese an excellent legacy of fine silk lingerie.
    The figure-hugging
ao dai
tends to reveal the lines of underwear, unless said underwear is also quite figure-hugging, and Nhu’s certainly was. It was also quite see-through in a couple of spots that I didn’t even want to think about, given my recent altercation in the alley.
    ‘Miss Hoang,’ I said. ‘Or should I call you Nhu?’
    She stood up and walked slowly around the bed towards me.
    ‘This may seem strange, but I very much like the way you call me Miss Hoang, Mr Murdoch.’
    It did seem a bit strange, but then she stood up on her tippy-toes and kissed me. And I have to say I very much liked that.
    ‘Miss Hoang, in the alleyway —’ I started to say, but she put a finger up to my lips.
    ‘The report of the robbery was quite detailed, Mr Murdoch. I am aware of the circumstances and I assure you I will be gentle with you.’
    And she was.
    Later, when she was sleeping, her long dark hair tossed over the pillow of my once-again rumpled bed, I sat back against the headboard, finished off the whisky and looked at her. Nhu’s skin was soft and golden, her buttocks tight and round, and she had the most exquisitely beautiful, delicate feet I’d ever seen. Having a woman like Nhu in bed next to you made a man glad to be alive.
    I
was
glad to be alive, and bloody lucky, too. When those coppers had pulled me from the crumpled cyclo it had been too dark for them to notice the bullet marks freshly scored into the alley’s crumbling brickwork. The only reason I’d seen the flashes that had flared from inside the jeep was because the muzzle of someone’s silenced pistol had been pointing almost directly at me when they’d fired.
    ‘Silenced’ is the wrong word because silencers don’t actually silence weapons. What they really are is suppressors. In this instance, the noise of the vehicle accelerating away had worked with the suppressor to almost completely muffle the sound of the shots, but luckily for me the movement had also spoiled the shooter’s aim.
    Right now I knew for certain that someone wanted more than just what was in my camera bag. Someone also wanted me dead. And if those two cops had shown up just thirty seconds later, I probably would have been.

TWELVE
    I woke up early the next morning, all by my lonesome, and decided to head down to Saigon’s old Ben Thanh Market. The city was wide awake and well into its day by the time I arrived. The Lunar New Year, called Tet in Vietnam, was approaching, so the fantastic bustle and variety of a great Asian market was even more frenetic than usual. Being a photographer, it made sense that I was constantly looking around, searching for the next great shot. Of course, what I was also doing was keeping a careful eye out for anyone who might want to take a shot at me.
    Ben Thanh is a visual feast for the photographer, and an actual feast for anyone with an interest in food and an empty belly. I was in serious need of a good breakfast; dicing with death followed by some good lovin’ will do that to you. I wandered the crowded aisles for a while, grabbing shots with the Leica and marvelling at the displays of spices, exotic fruit, garden-crisp vegetables and masses of clucking, croaking, splashing and slithering creatures that would be someone’s lunch or dinner before the day was over. I’m with the Vietnamese: fresh really is best.
    There were branches of yellow and pink blossoms to decorate the home for Tet, and specially prepared food for the celebration. Stalls offered
banh tet
, square packages of sticky rice, mung-bean purée and seasoned pork wrapped in banana leaves; a range of salty, slow-cooked meat dishes called
kho
; and
gio bo
, beef and dill sausages. There were pâtés, pickled shallots and leeks to serve on the side, and nuts and watermelon seeds for snacking, plus masses of garishly coloured candied coconut, melon rind and lotus seeds.
    My photo-taking efforts were