The Spy Who Loved Us_ The Vietnam War and Pham Xuan An's Dangerous Game ( PDFDrive )

The Spy Who Loved Us 159
market traffic in American goods,” writes Shaplen. “Here, despite
occasional crackdowns by the police, one can buy anything
available at the American post exchanges and a wide range of
other foreign products as well, including Japanese cameras and
high-fi sets. Because police roundups have been more frequent
in the past year or so, the more expensive items are no longer
displayed, but they can be bought on a C.O.D. basis; that is, a
Vietnamese woman running a stall will ask a customer whether
he wants such-and-such a camera, and if he is interested he will
give her his address and she will come around the next morning,
camera in hand, and bargain. Almost all the goods are perfectly
genuine—except the whiskey, which is usually diluted
with rice wine. The markup on black-market goods ranges
from forty to five hundred percent, but some things remain
cheaper at the black-market dollar rate (now about four hundred
and fifty piastres to the dollar) than they are at the post exchanges.
It all depends on the subtle process of supply and
demand, and on one’s ability to bargain. Some of what is sold has
been pilfered from the docks on its way to the post exchanges,
and then the price is ordinarily kept low, but usually something
like a case of beer, which sells for three dollars at the
PX, will cost six or eight dollars on the black market. A carton
of American cigarettes, which costs a dollar-seventy at the PX,
will cost four dollars on the black market.”
Having worked up an appetite by now, An and Shaplen
stop for lunch. “In the same vicinity are a number of restaurants,
each catering to a different clientele, and to these An took me
in his search for tidbits of information. The Victory, a spacious
place on Ham Nghi specializing in Chinese food, has much
the same atmosphere in the morning that Givral has in the afternoon,
but is not so crowded. Politicians, journalists, and
important businessmen exchange information there every
morning over tea or Chinese soup. The nearby Do Thanh is
more of a middle-class place, for officials of sub-cabinet rank,
field grade officers, and the second-rung diplomatic set. An,