Despite its hotchpotch mix of Corsican opium smugglers, professional gamblers, warlords, militia, arms dealers and CIA spooks, Vientiane had a much more relaxed atmosphere than Hong Kong, Gorilla mused to himself. It was a city where "people watching" was the norm and an unwritten code of rules governed the many disparate personalities from spilling over into violence. It was a city where Asian good manners were played out in a colonial French setting, and it seemed to work perfectly.
Gorilla and Trench walked through the busy side streets on their way to the meeting. They"d stopped in for a quick beer at the bar of the Constellation Hotel an hour earlier, partly because they were early and partly to get the pulse of early evening Vientiane. The patois mix of Chinese, Laotian, French and
