The Orange Curtain by John Shannon Page A

lying,” and he had pretended to like the joke more than he did. Lies were never a good thing, he knew that, even when they were necessary. They just never went away once you sent them out into the world. Lies were like wild animals running in all directions. You couldn’t tell who they’d stir up.
    One day soon he’d go check on the tiger-man at Phillipe’s and see about that.
    On his way east on Bolsa, an Asian woman driving a brand new Toyota did a left turn right across his path from the far right lane at about ten miles an hour, and he had to cram on the brakes. Jack Liffey tried very hard not to think in stereotypes for the next minute or two. He tried, instead, to imagine the fears that beset a woman who had grown up in a rural Asian village and had never directed a big chunk of steel machinery along an urban street, learning one day to her horror that it was the only way to get to the store to buy what she needed for dinner. The rest of the cars seemed to be driving at normal speeds and making the accustomed maneuvers.
    That morning he’d got Maeve home in one piece, only a few minutes late, and he had even had a few pleasant words with Kathy at the door. It reminded him a little of what it had been like caring for her at one time, and then the question of money came up and he was reminded of the rest, the whole grand opera.
    The little stucco building fronting Bolsa had two tenants, at least judging by the parts of the sign he could read. Frank Fen, General Contracting and Engineering, Fast Track Work a Specialty was one, and the other was Sleepy Lotus Import-Export, Tien J. Nguyen, prop. Both parts of the sign were duplicated, or maybe amplified, by Vietnamese phrases that didn’t do him any good at all.
    There was one big room inside the door with a number of rooms off it, but it was not immediately apparent which related to general contracting and which were import-export. Five desks sat out in the middle and a dozen hard chairs along the walls were inhabited by an exactly equivalent number of patient Vietnamese women of various ages. A couple of the women wore loose cotton trousers, but most wore Western skirts. Only one desk had an occupant, a young Vietnamese woman so over made-up she looked like she was headed for a Kabuki play.
    “Hello,” Jack Liffey said. “I’m here to see Mrs. Nguyen. I was sent by Mr. Minh Trac, about his daughter.”
    The young woman finished putting nail polish on a pinkie and looked up but made no indication she had heard him. It was a neutral reaction he remembered well from the service—as if by simply waiting out anything unusual you could make it go away. It was a simple enough method that in his experience had come very near paralyzing an entire alien administration.
    “I’d appreciate it if you’d let her know I’m here. About Phuong Minh.” He wondered if he should have left the name in its accustomed Vietnamese order, but she budged at last and pressed a button on a fantastically complicated digital console and spoke into it in Vietnamese. At least, he thought, this receptionist would only see another thong miao —the expression meant gook in Vietnamese—whose existence had no import at all, and she wouldn’t be judging him by the cost of his shoes and his wristwatch, which in his experience was a whole course in most American receptionist schools.
    A little boy squealed and jumped off his mother’s lap, then thought better of it and climbed back on. The women seemed pure emblems of patience, neither reading anything to divert themselves nor talking among themselves. They were trying hard not to stare at him, but he had the feeling that the moment his gaze drifted away, two dozen eyes would be fixed on him in flinty attention.
    “You wait,” was the whole message, translated back selectively from a long run of tonal Vietnamese that had come out of her machine.
    He nodded and for want of anything better to do, he went to the side wall of the room where a