Hanoi Blue

Crime Fiction by Sean O ‘Leary

Lonnie was a criminal in Hanoi for a drug deal. He had got word of a new operation set up by Bao (Bill) Nguyen, a criminal and big-time drug dealer from Sydney’s inner Western Suburbs. Lonnie had approached Bao and convinced him he could be the go-between. Told Bao he’d been there four times before, had never been touched by the local police. He flew under the radar as a dumb tourist, which he was. He hadn’t ever done drug business there before, that’s why he was right for the job. He was low-level, true but solid. Crime bosses trusted him to get jobs done. He never let them down.

His four previous trips had been by his own steam. He viewed himself as a bit of a traveler within Asia. He was forty-four years old, in good shape, didn’t drink or smoke, well he had a joint now and then, but nothing else. Ran every day, did some weights, stretches, the plank and so on. If he felt bad about anything he would run it out. It always worked. He worked things out in his head when he ran. Tore apart the puzzles in his mind and put them back in good order. He wasn’t an intellectual by any stretch but he read more books than most. Was smarter than people thought. They saw the standover man, the thug, who would beat you badly if it was his job. And he could think on his feet. Some of the other guys in his line of work, if things went sideways, they couldn’t think on their feet. Lonnie could and that’s why Bao took him on for this job.

He was staying in an Airbnb in Truc Bach, a small island suburb within West Lake, surrounded by food and coffee places. It was a big studio apartment, nice and airy, with big windows and on the third floor. It was private but you could still hear the car horns, and motorbikes and talk and laughing and yelling from the street below. The traffic was constant during the day and eased at night to nothing.

The first couple of times he’d been in Hanoi he took motorcycle taxis everywhere, Grab (like Uber but also with motorbike taxis) or local guys hanging out on a street corner. But on the last trip, he started walking everywhere, and found that he got to know the small city better than ever.

Vietnamese gangs began dealing drugs in New York in the ’80s, mostly in Chinatown (supplied from Vietnam). The biggest gang was the Canal Boys, which later morphed into the BTK (Born to Kill) Gang which got its name from the slogan American soldiers used to write on their helmets. They mainly operated in Chinatown. Lonnie would be dealing with guys who had been part of BTK. They were loosely connected to the old 5T gang from Cabramatta in Sydney, that gang like the Canal Boys in New York had gone under and Bao was now in Sydney in charge of a drug gang. Bao wasn’t after notoriety he wanted to make money and selling drugs was what he knew. He had been in New York in the 80s and had associated with 5T in Sydney in the early 90s, so that was the connection. The 5T gang members often had a tattoo with 5 T symbols, meaning Tinh (Love), Tien (money), Tu (Prison), Toi (crime) and Thu or Tra (revenge). Bao had a reputation for extreme violence if things didn’t go his way. These guys were ruthless, Lonnie knew it. These were the risks he had weighed up before he left Sydney.

It was going to be a big payday.

Lonnie walked out of his apartment on P Ngue Xa, the street alive with noise. There were cafés and bars close by but the bars weren’t open now, it was early, just after 7 am. Out the front of a café, a guy in his twenties smoked a huge long opium pipe. Lonnie didn’t say anything. Maybe it was just tobacco. None of his business.

He had to meet the connection in a small tailor’s shop in The Old Quarter. He was to transfer the funds via electronic banking to an account and then pick up the heroin and put it in the backpack that he had worn constantly since his arrival a week ago. Twelve kilos was the order. In two separate pick-ups. He would also leave with a new suit each time. Just a tourist buying inexpensive but high-quality suits from a local tailor, carrying the small backpack he’d worn all week. The big problem was there were no direct flights from Hanoi to Sydney. He had to get the heroin to Danang, where a baggage handler from a discount airline had been paid to turn a blind eye, as had their counterparts in Sydney. Lonnie wouldn’t be putting it on the plane but he would be delivering the goods to a connection in Danang. He would travel by train from Hanoi to Danang. It was a slow trip but safe. One of the railway supervisors had been paid to make sure he was not searched (it would be highly unusual anyway) and he had a sleeper cabin all to himself. There were two beds but he had paid for both of them, again not unusual for a western tourist.

He walked along P Ngue Xa, wearing khaki cargo pants, a loose green t-shirt, and a black cap with a Vietnamese flag (shouting tourist) he bought off a girl selling them in the street in the Old Quarter. He was tall, with a slim, wiry build. But he was tough. Could fight like a madman. He walked along beside West Lake now, up to, Hiung Vurong, turned left and walked in a straight line along the busy street, past a small park where people exercised, doing aerobics-type activities to the sound of a ghetto blaster playing western pop music. Other people, single or in small groups were doing Tai Chi or other types of stretching. He walked by local coffee shops, bakeries, and a shop that only made cakes and nothing else. Also, there were chain stores like Highlands Coffee and Aha Coffee, plus little local coffee shops that sold coffee and nothing else. There were clothes and shoe stores and every other kind of place and food stalls right there on the sidewalk, woks on fire, along with small street vendors selling fruits and vegetables and flowers and all kinds of things. It was the energy of the street that attracted Lonnie as a traveler both here and in Bangkok and other cities and towns in Asia.

You hit the street and it was alive.

He wound his way through the side streets to the Old Quarter, a constant puzzle for tourists, almost impossible to navigate on your first or second or third visit but Lonnie felt sure he had come the right way to the shop. He walked down a little dead-end side alley and found the shopfront with the correct number on it. He hadn’t used Google or Apple maps or other such devices at all on this trip. Currently, his cell was switched off. He didn’t want to leave any kind of trail.

Inside the store was a little counter, Lonnie felt his heart beat faster, his hands get a little sweatier. There was a woman behind the counter. A beautiful Vietnamese woman. Her eyes were the blackest, black, like coal, shaped like diamonds. Her dark hair had been shaved to a number one cut all over her head. She was smiling at him. A small, shy smile, her skin light brown. She wore a yellow t-shirt, that brought her face alive and a black leather waistcoat, with three small buttons down the middle. There was a small, handwritten sign on the counter that said in English, Mr Tran-Tailor. She said,

‘You are Mr Lonnie?’

His heart beat faster again. It wasn’t what he had been expecting. He thought it would be someone else, a tough, strong, scary fucker from the interior of Vietnam with a vicious face and a gun at hand, here to do business the hard way, the only way. But here was the woman calling him by his name.

She lifted a small compartment within the desk, and said,

‘Come through, Lonnie.’

‘Uh, this isn’t what I expected.’

‘What did you expect? A man with brown skin and fierce eyes holding a machine gun? She laughed gently, and said again, ‘Come through, Lonnie, I have coffee, we can do business inside, away from prying eyes.’

Lonnie hesitated, and said,

‘What’s your name?’

‘People call me Blue, Hanoi Blue.’

‘Are we good?’

‘What?’

‘Is it here?’

‘Come through, Mr Lonnie, relax, please, people can see from outside. They will think I am measuring you for a suit.’

Lonnie’s shoulders were tight but he went through the break in the counter, followed her into a small back room. She pointed to a small stool, and said,

‘Please sit.’

He did. She said,

‘Today we measure you for the suit. Tomorrow, you pick it up, understand?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then next week another suit.’

‘Yes,’ he said, understanding what was happening now. He could do that. A slight change in plan, but nothing major.

‘You’re more handsome than I imagined. Like you, I pre-judged the situation. I heard you were a protection gangster, hear to make sure nothing went wrong. You look kind to me.’

‘What’s that perfume your wearing?’

‘It’s a local thing, you wouldn’t know it.’

He thought that after this day he would always know it, instantly.

‘Would you like Vietnamese coffee?

‘Yeah, be good, thanks.’

‘I’ll be a few minutes,’ she said and went out through another curtain to a room further inside. Lonnie didn’t sweat, he relaxed. Bloody hell, she was beautiful he thought. Like no one else he’d ever seen before.

She came back holding a cup and saucer, a tiny spoon, and a small pot, which she put on another stool next to him. She went to a cupboard, took out a can of carnation milk, poured some into the cup and then poured coffee from the pot over it.

‘Let it rest,’ she said to him, ‘You stir it…’

‘Yes, I know but thank you.’

She meant you stirred the milk through the coffee. It was warm and sweet.

She walked out again and came back with tea in a small glass, like what they serve a latte in, in Melbourne or Sydney and put it next to him. He smiled, and said,

‘Yin and Yang.’

She laughed and covered her mouth, and said,

‘Of course. You have beautiful eyes, so green, so alive.’

‘Thanks.’

‘I need to go out to the counter. After you finish, I’ll measure you for a suit.’

Lonnie nodded. Drank his coffee and tea.

She came back in and he stood up. She took a tape measure from a sideboard and told him to relax. She measured across his shoulders, the lengths of his arms, and said, ‘You’re bigger than I thought.’

Her closeness, how small she was, and her wild perfume, made him uncomfortable. She measured his thighs, his legs, and said, ‘All done now. The suits will be ready, tomorrow. You come back at the same time.’

‘Thanks. Can I ask about your name? How did you get it?’

‘Oh, it’s a long story,’ she said and shook her head, ‘You might get bored.’

‘No, I…’

He saw the shy smile again and said,

‘Can we meet, later? After you finish work.’

She shook her head and said,

‘It’s not in the plan, Lonnie. It would be a mistake. Powerful people are in Hanoi. They want this to be the start of something just as Bao in Sydney does, you understand?’

‘I get it.’

‘Tomorrow, then.’

‘Yes.’

Lonnie walked out, his mind hazy from the encounter. Not in the plan. You changed the plan he thought. He thought of her though, how close she came to him. That beautiful scent. She was inside his head. He walked on. He would need to go for a run. He turned on his cell, a message from Bao, but nothing else. Then his cell began to ring, the ID unknown. He answered the call.

‘Hello.’

‘It’s Bao.’

‘I had my cell off, I didn’t want to be tracked.’

‘Is it done?’

‘No, a slight change to the plan. Tomorrow, it’ll get done.’

‘What happened?’

‘Nothing. Nothing happened. It’s fine.’

‘Nothing can go wrong with this. There’s a lot…’

‘I understand. You trust me, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Relax, I couldn’t pick up suits if I hadn’t been measured for them, right? That’s what happened. I’m a tourist, remember? I can’t pick up suits if I haven’t been measured for them. This is the plan. Nothing to worry about.’

‘I’ll call you tomorrow at the same time from a different number.’

‘I’ll be waiting.’

Lonnie walked on, Bao had a lot riding on it. Not just for this shipment but for the future. This was the test case. If it went well, there’d be many more shipments. He got to his apartment, punched the code into the pad. Someone grabbed him by the arm, his normal reaction would be to throw an elbow back but he didn’t he stopped and turned around slowly. There was a guy in an old grey suit, with threads hanging off from the wrists. He wore a white shirt and cheap black shoes.

Lonnie said,

‘Do I know you?’

The man put up his hand, said, ‘wait,’ and reached into the inside pocket of his suit, pulled out a wallet, opened it slowly, showed it to Lonnie, and said,

‘I’m a police officer. A detective here in Hanoi.’

‘What can I do for you?’

‘Where have you been?’

‘I’m buying a couple of suits. I was in the Old Quarter getting measured for them.’

‘I see.’

A beat.

Two beats.

‘That’s all?’

‘Yeah.’

‘People around here talk a lot. They see you walking around. They wonder what you’re doing here on your own. No friends, no girlfriend. No family.’

‘I’ve been to Vietnam four times before. No one ever bothered me.’

‘I think you are a tourist but you better be careful. Sometimes tourists get into trouble here with gangs and so on and before they know it, they only have one way out. They get blackmailed. You understand?’

‘I think so.’

‘Be careful, ok?’

‘Alright, thanks.’

‘Remember, people are watching,’ he said and walked off.

Lonnie got inside, put his back against the door and breathed in and out a few times. Slowly, slowly breathed and he was calm again. He couldn’t work out if the cop was threatening him or if he was part of Bao’s grand plan, bought off with Australian money and doing a kind of, I know, it’s cool thing. His head was messed up. He changed into a pair of running shorts and put on Adidas running shoes and a t-shirt, and went quickly back out and walked to the path around West Lake and started running at a good pace.

When he returned, he wasn’t much better. He showered and changed into black jeans and a dark blue t-shirt. Lay on his bed. Could he trust Hanoi Blue? Where did the cop come from? Bao still wanted the deal done. The fly in the ointment was the cop. Lonnie still couldn’t work him out. He rang Bao.

‘A cop stopped me outside the apartment today. Have you paid anyone here? Any cops?’

‘Yes. Look, the tailor is a player, a big player, the cop wasn’t sent by me but nothing’s wrong. I’ve paid the right people. You know me. I’m thorough. I do the due diligence on everything.’

Bao ended the call after Lonnie assured him everything was going ahead. He went out and ate a big bowl of lemongrass chicken and noodles, and drank a coke zero. Walked home. Calmer now.

People are watching the cop said.

He fell asleep listening to some classical music through headphones from an app on his cell phone. He woke up to someone knocking on the door. He got up, groggily, and thought, hang on, the keypad, how’d you get in? He went to the door, and said,

‘Who is it?’

‘It’s me, Blue, from the tailor today.’

‘Is anyone else with you?’

‘No.’

Lonnie waited, listened, could hear nothing, opened the door. There she was in baggy, light blue, see-through harem pants, and a brown t-shirt, smiling the shy smile, lowering those coal-black eyes. She said,

‘I couldn’t stop thinking about you.’

He smiled, and said,

‘Me either. Come in.’

He opened the door wide, poked his head out, and looked around, said to her,

‘How’d you get in?’

‘A guy was leaving on his bike, I said to him, please hold the door for me and he did. And here I am.’

‘Here you are.’

When he turned back into the room, he shut the door behind him and she looked up at him and he said,

‘Your eyes, they’re something, you’re something.’

She closed her eyes and he leaned down and kissed her on the mouth, she returned the kiss pushing her tongue softly into his mouth. He lifted her up and carried her to the bed. She pulled off her t-shirt and was naked underneath. He kissed her breasts and it began and they made love for hours, each feeling like it was nothing they’d ever experienced before. Ecstasy upon ecstasy. Afterwards, he said to her,

‘Where’d you get that name?’

‘It’s stupid. At school one day I wore a blue hat and I didn’t take it off when the teacher asked me to. I was very young but I loved the hat and my classmates called me Blue after that. And then over the years, it changed to Hanoi Blue, maybe because my family has been here for many generations.’

He saw a three-dot tattoo on her inner arm, and said,

‘That’s a gang tattoo. I’ve seen them in Sydney.’

‘Yes, it means, the crazy life, or in Vietnamese Toi o can gi ca.’

‘Have you lived that life?’

‘Ha, ha, yes, always, I think.’

They talked for a while and he told her about the cop waiting for him. She said she couldn’t explain it, that the deal was going through, police had been paid off. Both parties now had confirmed it to him. She drifted off into sleep and Lonnie fell asleep not long afterwards.

In the morning when he woke up to his cell phone alarm ringing she was gone. It was 8.00 am. The cop worried him. The heroin not being there yesterday worried him but there was a reason for that at least. Blue had been truthful to him or was she brainwashing him with sex? He knew it had been real. He knew it. The prison here was called the Hanoi Hilton and he wasn’t going to check-in. He made a decision. Opened his laptop. Went to the bank account Bao had set up for the transaction and transferred the money to his own account then deleted the other account. He called Blue.

‘Lonnie, hi, I’m sorry I left, I had to get…’

‘It’s off.’

‘What?’

‘The cop. I don’t like it. I’m not going to jail, not here, not anywhere.’

‘But the deal? I’m going to be in trouble if you don’t show up. Please, Lonnie.’

‘Come with me.’

‘Oh, no. I mean…I need time, ah, yeah, I need time.’

‘Those three dots. What do they mean?’

A beat.

‘Come with me,’ he said, ‘Get a motorcycle taxi now. Don’t bring anything with you. Just come.’

‘Alright, I’ll come.’

He put the laptop in his bag. Walked out down the stairs. Turned left along the street towards West lake, when he got there, he looked around, checked no one was watching, and slid the laptop out of the bag and down into the deep water. Walked back. Took the sim card out of his cell phone, and put in a local one he’d bought at the airport on arrival. He booked two tickets on Scoot to Singapore. Drug dealers don’t go to Singapore. Then he booked another two tickets a week after arrival on Emirates to Bangkok. Scoot was a budget airline, Emirates high class. Mix and match, blur the truth. Their final destination would be, Pattaya. He knew people there.

He and Blue would have two gangs after them but he had money and he had information. He had names and dates and places. Plenty of people had reinvented themselves in Thailand. They would just be two more. Thailand had crime and drugs and Russian gangsters, the Chinese Triad and the local organized crime gangs known as The Chao Pho or Jao Poh meaning Godfather.

He knew that world and so did Blue.

It was the crazy life.

Bio: Sean O’Leary is a writer from Melbourne, Australia. He writes crime and literary fiction and has published novels, novellas and short stories. He likes to walk, take photographs like crazy, travel often, enjoys art and writes like a demon.

Read More From Sean on The Yard

Purchase his book through the affiliate button below