The Sixth Man

by Ron Lealos

  In the upper corner, I could see where the camera was hidden. It would take someone who knew it was there to identify the small hole for what it meant. These two guards would be aware that everything was being recorded or else they probably would have begun the beatings themselves. My country was attempting to join the twenty-first century or the twenty-sixth, since it was year 2555 in many Buddhist calendars. Technology was arriving by the boatload, and the security forces got first choice.

  No knock. The door pushed open with a slight squeal of rusty metal hinges and Nguyen walked into the room. He was wearing the same clothes and still looked freshly groomed and pressed like the rock star he tried his hardest to be. He gestured with his hand for the two minders to leave, holding the door open for them.

  “Boys, tell your mother penicillin is the answer,” I said. They left without a look back.

  Nguyen wasn’t in the least entertained. He glared and leaned against the wall, quickly moving away and brushing something grizzly off his shoulder.

  “Cuc,” he hissed. Shit.

  “Too high on the wall for that,” I said. “I think it’s probably brain matter. Or puke.”

  “You can’t stop yourself,” Nguyen said. “Your insubordination has become more boring as time goes on. You somehow believe your remarks are humorous and a diversion. Neither idea is correct.”

  “And if I bowed to your every wish, it would be more fun?”

  “Healthier.”

  “Are you planning to beat me to death? Or be more sophisticated? Nails in the end of the bat? Brass knuckles? Steel toes?”

  “It all depends on you, Captain Fang. Tell me what I want to know and you can walk out of here. Being able to walk at all will be a victory.”

  Not yet bound, I waved a hand in dismissal and smiled.

  “Ask away. I would like nothing more than to cooperate with my superiors in our socialist democracy. It is my duty as a law-abiding citizen.”

  “Where did you go this afternoon?”

  “Bhinh Thanh.”

  “Why?”

  “Following a lead. I am a captain of detectives.”

  “How did you come onto this ‘lead’?”

  “A confidential source.”

  “There is no such person for you. Tell me who directed you to Bhinh Thanh.”

  “If you had listened during our last conversation, rather than admire yourself in the mirrors, you would remember I told you a story about a Degar and our time together in the camps. Where do the Montagnards gather? Could it possibly be Bhinh Thanh?”

  “I recall every word and insult. But why did you disappear? You must be aware there was a shootout not long after you entered the slum.”

  “I was led away supposedly to meet someone who might know about what was going on.”

  “And who did you meet?”

  “No one. My escort heard the shooting and told me to follow him. I had no choice. Another man pushed me down a path, threatening me with a knife. I was frightened they would think I was behind whatever was happening. Were you behind it?”

  “Where did they take you?”

  “Across the river. They held me for a while, then let me go, telling me I was very lucky to still have my duong vat still attached.” Penis.

  Nguyen began to chuckle. It started with just a grin and a sound like he was clearing his throat of phlegm, increasing rapidly to guffaws that threatened to develop into a fit. I had to admit, he was quite attractive when he wasn’t trying to be cool, serious, and aloof.

  “Di an cuc,” Nguyen said. Go eat shit, a common phrase when a Vietnamese felt they were being fed that bodily discharge. “That is the funniest thing you’ve said since I met you. I never thought we’d get anywhere near the truth without taking more profound measures.” He turned toward the door. “I’ll be back soon with someone you wouldn’t want to meet in your worst nightmare.” He walked out, leaving me alone to my terror.

  A pleasant thought. Recently, Human Rights Watch, one of those heathen groups that tried to cast my country as a bunch of cavemen who didn’t differentiate justice and liberty from being tortured to death for spitting on the sidewalk, had published a report on the extent of “police brutality” in Vietnam. For instance, one man had been beaten into a coma with rocks by policemen for supporting Gai Li and not Sai F. C. in the Vietnamese V-League, the country’s highest professional soccer union. Another man was reported a victim of suicide after a dispute with his daughter, the wife of a policeman. The officials told his family he had committed suicide by hanging. His relatives expressed doubts that suicide was the cause of death. They said the man was found dead sitting down, with a leather belt around his neck and no marks on his throat. It seemed, from reading a restricted report I happened to find on a comrade’s desk, that being given a traffic ticket could no longer just result in the loss of your dong, but your life. Numerous speeding offenders had been “beaten to death” by cops for such heinous crimes as not signaling a right turn or blowing through a red light. The statistics pointed to an epidemic of cruelty in the thousands, not the few aberrations found in any civilized country. Outside of the traitorous Human Rights Watch Report, I knew the fatality rate of those taken to this dungeon was “eyes only” data. It was close to 100 percent. I sighed, realizing the next few breaths should be savored. I closed my eyes and attempted to let my mantra settle the goblins threatening to overwhelm my soul.

  The usual tactic was to leave the prisoner alone for an extended period, allowing the captive time to dwell on his devils and soak up the fear, softening his resistance like a mango about to explode with too much distilled sugar. I knew this strategy as well as the “good guy, bad guy” method I was sure would come soon. I had already made up my mind about whose side I was on. The challenge was to get out of here alive and able to help Luong finish his mission.

  It might have been minutes. Or hours. I had succeeded in slowing my heartbeat and breathing to the point I could have been mistaken as dead. Far from it. I was composed and rested when the man entered the room, carrying a large metal briefcase. It was Tran, the in-house torturer and reputed executioner when the time came to finish things. The stories of his barbarism circulated through the building, especially late at night when it was dark and quiet, time for the ghosts to roam the halls. No one knew his name or dared get close enough to ask. They called him “Lat,” a shortening for “slicer,” but never to his face. The reputed contents of the briefcase that rarely left his hand helped make his myth and name appropriate.

  Lat was mostly distinguished by his total physical anonymity. He was the classic master spy who could blend in anywhere because he was so ordinary. Average height, not too thin or fat, black hair and eyes, nondescript clothing, no scars, nothing that would make him stand out. Until you made eye contact. It was as if his pupils sucked in the energy around him. A black hole that absorbed all into the vortex anyone could sense was ultimate pure bottomless evil. He had never been known to smile, and he didn’t now as he stepped near, setting the case on the floor and moving behind me. Not gently, he pulled my arms back and cuffed them together in back, fastening me tight to the metal slats in the chair with plastic restraints. Within seconds, all the mellowness vanished and I began to breathe shallowly. I knew this would be a battle of wits and no one wanted me dead. Yet.

  The legend, more than his bland presence, was what terrified me. During the war with the Americans, a famous female Viet Cong sniper and torturer code named “Apache” became famous for tormenting US prisoners close enough to a firebase that everyone could hear the screams and the blow-by-blow narrative she gave of what she was doing to her captive. Apache operated mostly in the Delta and did the majority of her work in the night where the VC was King. In her case, Queen. She hung the captured soldier naked on a bamboo rack and started by pulling out all of his fingernails, then bending the fingers backward until they broke. From the fingers, she moved on to strategic carving all over the body, taking a lot of time on the eyeballs. While she wo
rked, she chewed betel nut and cooed to her prisoner, occasionally spitting juice into his eyes, reminding him of all the “pussy” they got back home and would never see or feel again. The final act was always the same. She grabbed the naked man’s cock and balls in her hand, shrieked in delight, and cut them off. Not satisfied yet, she released the terminally wounded man and told him to run for it. No one made it more than a few steps with blood spurting everywhere and the horror overcoming even the pain. When the man dropped to the ground, she stuffed his genitals into his mouth and left him strung up in a tree to be found by his fellow GIs. The rumor was Lat was her apprentice and now was more talented than Apache ever was.

  Today’s show began with the slow ritual opening of the briefcase, a serenade of love featuring “oohs” and “ahhs” as Lat fondled his treasures. Inside, each in a separate foam compartment, were a variety of pliers, knives, scalpels, tweezers, hammers, drills, clamps, and spray cans. Nothing looked friendly and I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “You must be used to making house calls,” I said. “Everything the door-to-door Marquis de Sade needs in one small case.”

  Just a sense. It didn’t seem Lat was a man prone to conversation. Most likely, he’d been given a few questions to ask and he wouldn’t waste any energy on chitchat. Surely, they wouldn’t want him to start on my face or anywhere that could be spotted if I was going to see the smog of Sai Gon again. A mangled man stumbling around the city brought too much attention. That didn’t mean a few broken fingers and cuts that would be covered by clothing were banned.

  Mother. At times like these, the moments when we sit bound to a chair, watching a devil sharpen his tools, planning which part of the body to slice first, we tend to think about me, mom. At least I did. The dee chaw, bitch, hadn’t been able to keep her legs closed for the Chinese merchant who came to the door and offered her an old Flying Pigeon bicycle for the use of her vagina. A few years later, I inherited the antique. It was my first bike and I was reminded of my father’s origin every day of my adult life with the barrage of “vang moog.” Yellow ass. And much worse. My mother did love me enough to tell people in my early years that my name was Xau Xi Coc, Hideous Toad, since there is a cultural belief that giving a child the name of something rotten, ugly, or useless will keep the evil spirits away. Not even the demons would want such a pathetic creature as me, and the people I worked with agreed with that to this day. Still, in my heart I had nothing but fondness for the woman who’d nursed and fed me even when a bowl of rice was a feast. We ate after the bottles of snake wine were dry. She preferred the jugs with the floating reptiles still in the glass, fangs exposed like white fish hooks. Trying to regain some of the contentment I’d experienced a few seconds before, I focused on the memory of her decomposed body being dug up a year after her death, the final installment of the year-long mourning ritual. The chopsticks were still between her teeth, the rice gone from her mouth, but the coins still jingling where her tongue used to be. She had successfully reached the next circle and the worms were well fed, assuring her ascendance. I breathed easier, comforted by the warm reminiscence. At least I felt secure for a ksana, or one-seventy-fifth of a second in Buddhist time. Lat was turning toward me, a pair of needle-nosed pliers in his hand.

  “I’m going to skip to the most important questions,” Lat said. “I don’t care about your name, birth date, or address. Or who is your whore of a mother. I want to know what you were doing this afternoon in Binh Thanh.”

  “How did you know my mother was a whore? Who told you?” I was outraged.

  Lat sighed, resigned to another tedious day at the office. He moved behind me, binding my ankles to the chair before he cut the plastic cuffs on my hands, guiding my arms forward and refastening them on my lap. I didn’t resist, knowing it was about as futile as yelling at a mongrel mutt to stop barking at the moon. I needed a rock to throw at Lat. Or a pistol. I slumped forward, trying to void my mind.

  “Again, what were you doing in Binh Thanh?” Lat asked.

  “I was following a lead,” I said.

  “What lead?”

  “From a confidential informer.”

  “There is no ‘confidential’ in this room.”

  “I have groomed many sources in my years as a detective.”

  “I want a name.”

  “She is dead. Her name is Hacmon. She was a Montagnard.”

  The game was always to give up as little as possible based on some grain of truth in order to sacrifice the minimum of fingers. And blood. There was no longer a definition or concept of “lie” in these kinds of interrogations. It was all about survival and keeping secrets without losing an eyeball. At least until the final surrender. They would never find Hacmon in the warren of hootches that made up the Binh Thanh slum and had no idea if she had passed on. Anyone the authorities questioned in that neighborhood would look dumbfounded and reply, “Ai?” Who. The real challenge would be to shield Luong and Morgan. I stared into Lat’s eyes, trying to transmit how totally sincere and forthcoming I was.

  “Did she take you to Luong?”

  Uh-oh. Nguyen must have prepped him well and he wasn’t going to waste any time. He most likely had other patients to chop into mouse food.

  “She tried. He was no longer there.”

  “Why did you disappear?”

  “I was trying to find him and got lost. That place is a real rat warren.”

  “Did you hear the shooting?”

  “What shooting? I went across the river and took a taxi back here.”

  “And you never saw or spoke to Luong?”

  “No.”

  “I know you are lying.”

  He held the pliers in front of his face, twisting them around as if he were inspecting it for ticks and fleas. Next, he began to open and close the pinching end like he was flexing.

  “There’s an old saying in the West that ‘this is going to hurt me more than you’. That’s not true in this case. I will enjoy slowly pulling out all your fingernails, you half-breed. I even have a jar of salt and a bottle of sulphuric acid to spice up your life. After I get done with the nails, we’ll move on to other areas.” He reached for my left hand, holding it by the thumb.

  “Oops,” he said. “Almost forgot.”

  He dropped my hand and turned to his briefcase where he took out a wide web belt. Moving behind me again, he wrapped the belt around my chest and the back of the chair, securing it tightly.

  “There,” he said, “now you won’t hurt yourself jerking around from the excruciating pain you’re about to experience.”

  He stepped in front of me and grabbed my left hand, this time gripping my index finger so only the tip showed. No matter how calming the visions of Mother were, I began to shake, trying to pull my hand back as the pliers got closer to their prey.

  “That won’t do you any good,” Lat said. “I’ll just have to tie you to the arms of the chair. If that doesn’t work, there’re two guys you called mutant names a few minutes ago who would be happy to help.”

  He moved the pliers closer and watched me quiver.

  “Last chance,” Lat said. “And when we get started, please try not to shit yourself. I hate the smell. I think you’ve already pissed.” He nodded toward my stomach.

  I glanced down and saw the spreading darkness on the crotch of my pants, not even realizing I’d let go, the warmth now making it obvious.

  “I told you the truth,” I gasped, finding it hard to make the words come out. “Hacmon said she could take me to Luong. When I got there, another woman told me Hacmon was dead. Then, I tried to find Luong alone. I left Phan to watch the car. He can verify much of this.”

  Without comment, Lat pulled my finger closer and tightened the nose of the pliers on my nail. In one smooth motion, he jerked out the nail like he was pulling a tooth. For added pain, he squeezed the open wound with his fingers, rubbing them together.

  No blood. Just a fireball of pain that shot through my arm and into my head, making me dizzy with t
he intensity. My entire body reacted to the force of the violation. I did try to tighten my sphincter so I wouldn’t be sitting in my own dung. Or maybe it was only a reflex. I opened my mouth, a scream building like a tsunami in my throat. Before it could birth, Lat slapped me. Over and over.

  “No yelling,” he said. “Save it for later.”

  Within seconds, my head slumped to my chest and I closed my eyes, trying to think of anything except the throbbing that was shooting up my arm, threatening to explode my head like a rickshaw on a ripe melon. I couldn’t see Lat and figured he was getting set for the next finger. I’d know soon enough.

  “I’ve got to di dai,” Lat said. Take a piss. “You just relax. I’ll be back soon.” With that, he stood, taking a small shaker out of his pocket. He doused the wound with salt and walked away, leaving me wailing and shaking uncontrollably. It took what felt like a dynasty for the howling to end. It was more likely minutes, but I continued to quiver like I was naked inside the walk-in freezer at Ngo’s morgue.

  After the door opened and closed, I was alone, apart from the camera. And a shiny speckled green gecko that had magically appeared on the wall. I knew Lat was using basic interrogation methods. Allowing me to unwind and think about the pain that had just been inflicted and, more importantly, the depth of what was to come. At least it seemed they didn’t want me mutilated. Not yet. I stared at the gecko and forced my mind to wander anyplace other than the ache in my finger and the bubbling of its juices in the brine, fear lodged like a fish ball in my throat.

  There were over a thousand varieties of geckos in the world. Vietnam was the home to many hundreds, ranging in size from less than an inch to nearly a foot long. The most often seen in my country was the common house gecko, just like the one I was watching as he sat motionless, waiting for an insect. Below the ground, this one must have enjoyed the flies that mysteriously appeared on a lifeless body or piece of meat within minutes, depositing larvae that would soon become adults. The haunted place of horror had seen thousands of corpses and it would be an easy source of food for a silent, stealthy gecko.