by Chuck Logan
Broker said, “Jimmy caused the crash at sea. The other crew members drowned because they were weighted down with gold souvenirs.”
“Jimmy always was tricky,” said Cyrus in an appraising voice. “I could never get into his banking records. That was the key.” Cyrus nodded.
“Jimmy thought it should be returned to the Vietnamese.”
“Big of him,” said Cyrus.
“I thought so, too,” said Broker.
“What about Trin?”
“Trin’s screwed here. But he went through the reeducation camps, that makes him eligible to immigrate to America if he has a sponsor. I promised to help him get out,” Broker ad-libbed.
“So why’d you bring the girl?” Cyrus was moving right along.
“Once I found out what we were on to I thought it was best to keep her close.”
LaPorte nodded. “Loose cannon.”
Broker paused. “One last question. You’ve already got it all: wealth, position, a reputation. Why take the chance on losing it all? It’s not like you need it.”
LaPorte chuckled. “It’s not just gold to be exchanged on the market. It’s a national treasure. It’s going to make my reputation.”
“There’ll be an international stink.”
LaPorte drummed his fingers on the bar. “What the hell, whatever they write on my tombstone, it won’t be: He showed up on time for work every day.”
Broker raised an eyebrow.
“Somebody owes me,” LaPorte said with conviction. Some of that old flintlock look came into his eyes. “All the time I put in here. Hell, I would have used that gold to keep fighting from the hills.”
Maybe he really believed that once. Maybe he still did. It didn’t matter.
Cyrus LaPorte reached across the bar and took one of Broker’s cigarettes. He studied the inscription on Broker’s lighter. Then he lit the cigarette, inhaled, exhaled, and studied the smoldering tobacco.
Over his shoulders the clouds, at sunset, looked like a forest fire in the mountains. Sampans with groups of traditional musicians cruised on the Perfume River. Voices and the tremble of stringed instruments carried on the breeze. The boatmen placed paper lanterns, illuminated by candles, in the water. They bobbed in the soft, warm night.
“Nineteen sixty-nine,” Cyrus ruminated. “I flew back home between tours. Braniff flight out of old Saigon. We were coming in, making the approach on Oakland.
“Pilot announced that we were coming up on the coastline of the States. Suddenly it became silent on that airplane. And the pilot took some liberties; he swung that big bird, banking left and right so everybody on both sides could get a look of the coast…”
Cyrus took a deep drag on the cigarette, screwed up his lips and blew out the smoke.
“The stewardesses knew. They must of been pros on those flights. They all took their posts in the aisles and every one of them looked down those rows of young guys who were wearing that green with the red dirt fade. They could read the shoulder patches…see the CIBs.”
He curled his lower lip. “Nina Pryce thinks she deserves a CIB. Hell, there was more combat experience on that one airplane than in the whole goddamn Gulf War. Those stews knew they were hauling infantry. All those young American men, sitting up, looking straight ahead. Absolutely quiet. Polite.
“And every one of those women began to cry. Silent men, crying women standing at their posts like statues. I pity those girls for the weight they carried. They were sin eaters for the whole damn nation. And the plane landed and nobody would get out. Nobody moved from their seats.”
Cyrus lowered his voice. “There’d been this incident, see. A mother of a boy killed in the war had greeted a returning flight at Oakland, right out on the runway. According to the story she’d shot the first guy who got off that plane. It was really much more than that. It was…everything.
“Well, I had the rank so I had to get off that plane and walk around. Make sure it was safe. Then I come back in and I go down that aisle and I talked to those kids, told them it was all right…each of them. Face to face.”
Cyrus LaPorte let the cigarette drop, like the greatness that had once been at his fingertips. “But it wasn’t all right, was it? I never commanded American troops again. From then on I advised the Vietnamese.” He ground the butt under his sandal. His pale eyes drifted over toward the lights strung on the citadel. “Before your time, son.”
Broker stood up and said, “Thanks for the beer. Seven tomorrow morning.” For that moment only, they exchanged oddly sincere smiles.
What might have been.
He left Cyrus LaPorte sitting at the bar, staring through the floating lanterns into the past. Broker crossed the gangplank and sprinted across the dark parking lot. The van was waiting. Trin held open the door. He dived in.
68
“So?” asked Trin.
“Let’s do it,” said Broker.
Hue was a small place. It was a five-minute drive to the villa. Trin turned into the shadow of the lot next door. They got out and crept to the hedge and waited. After a few minutes, Save the Whales and another man, with the rugged build of a salvage diver, came out on the front steps. A third guy joined them. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. Broker recognized the anemic, sunken-chest muscularity, the red hair.
“You hear that car?” said one of them.
“It’s a street, numbnuts, cars go by all the time.”
“I think I’ll stick around,” said Virgil.
“You idiot, want to be in there? After what you did? Let Lola clean her up, for Chrissake.”
“Bevode wouldn’t want me to leave them alone, you understand.”
Broker surged on the balls of his feet, hearing the punk mimic his older brother’s voice. Virgil turned and went back in the door. Shit. Broker started to go. Trin held him back until LaPorte’s two men ambled off the steps, headed for the gate, and disappeared down the driveway. A moment later an engine turned over and a car drove away.
Trin clamped his hand on Broker’s forearm. “It could be bad in there. Be prepared for anything. And no blood. It’ll take time to clean up. We have to take the guard with us. Get rid of him in the countryside.”
Broker didn’t hear. He was through the hedge. Moving with silent springing steps. He mounted the steps where the Cajuns had been a moment before. The double front doors were open. An office was tucked under the porch to the right and was empty. There was a living room area with a couch and two chairs. Beyond that a long dinner table. Two rooms to a side. The second door on the left was 102. It was open. He could see Lola LaPorte with her hands on her hips, dressed in white. Her chin jutted combatively, furious.
“Virgil, goddammit. Look what you did. I have to get her cleaned up to travel in the morning. Now get out of here.”
“Hey, I just want to watch.” Virgil’s smirky nasal voice.
Broker had a bad moment going through the door. Bevode? Then Virgil looked up and Broker was past Lola and hit him like a linebacker.
Virgil’s red hair bobbed and his skinny white ribs convulsed as he flew back across the room. He was barefoot, shirtless. The buttons on his jeans weren’t done up right. Nina sprawled on one of the two beds, carelessly covered by a sheet that did not entirely cover her bare right hip. Her mouth was open and her eyes rolled in their sockets.
Virgil backpedaled, trying to find his balance. His stoned popcorn punk grin stayed on his sallow face as Broker moved right in on him. Broker, the street student of anatomy, calculated at onrushing synapse speed, what would stun, what would cripple, and what would kill slowly. His right fist smashed deep into Virgil’s throat like a pile driver seeking the hyoid bone at the base of the tongue. There was a soft cartilaginous snap.
Virgil traveled horizontally through the air, went over the bed and crashed into the wall. Without breaking stride Broker skirted the bed and caught Virgil as he flopped off the wall with a pinpoint kick, again in the throat, that would have scored a field goal.
Broker spun and re
alized that Trin was trying to hold him back and he was swinging Trin through the air like a kid’s game. “No blood,” hissed Trin.
Virgil’s dirty hazel eyes were cranked wide and he had both hands at his throat clawing at the knot of mangled tendon and muscle that was shutting down his windpipe.
“Jesus Christ,” muttered Broker, going to the bed, throwing back the sheet. Nina’s skin had the pallor of a trout dragged in the mud. Her left ear was red with festered pus. Her hips lay in a stale stain of urine. Cigarette burns dotted her chest and made little circles of ash in the copper curls of her pubic hair.
The other earring was still pierced through her right ear.
“Oh my God,” someone said. Not Trin. Broker turned and saw Lola supporting herself, knees staggered, one hand on the doorjamb. “That poor kid.”
“We knew it could be bad,” said Trin as he came out of the bathroom with a wet washcloth and efficiently wiped Nina down. The cool cloth revived her a little. She moaned and her eyelids fluttered. Trin grabbed a bottle of prescription capsules on the bedside table. “We have to take this,” he said.
Broker shook his head.
“We don’t know how much they gave her. We may have to use small doses if she gets sick.” Trin pounded Broker’s shoulder. “Find her clothes. And his.”
“See how they are,” said Lola. “That poor damn kid…”
The second “poor kid” did it. And her tanned perfection and the fucking precision-combed hair and the clean white slacks and the white Topsiders and the white silk blouse.
Broker started for her. Trin, the thespian, was on him. “No. She helped us,” he pleaded.
Slumped against the wall like a comic suicide who was attempting to choke himself to death, Virgil Fret did a pasty jig on his butt while caw-hiss sounds-part bird, part snake-squeezed from his strangling throat.
Lola was in front of Broker. “Are you all right?” she asked. Her alarm and shock were palpable, real. And every hair was in place.
“Help,” Trin yelled at her. “Put a shirt on him.” He pointed to Virgil. “We can’t leave him here. Hurry.” Trin was wrapping Nina in a clean sheet from the other bed. “Find her clothes.”
Broker checked his watch. It was thirteen after eight. He tore open the bureau and found Nina’s clothes in a cast-off pile. He put the tennis shoes in her jeans, threw her underthings and shirt on top, and tied the jeans in a knot. He looked across the room.
Lola efficiently yanked a T-shirt on Virgil, batting her way around his struggling arms and hands. She had tears in her eyes. Two lines of mascara dripped down her cheeks. She found one of Virgil’s shoes and began beating him with it. “You hurt her, you bad-”
“Caw-hiss,” sputtered Virgil and Broker saw with satisfaction that the veins had swelled up like worms in his popped eyes. Lola’s voice failed but she continued to hit him with the shoe, like he was a bad dog who had soiled the living room carpet. Susan Sarandon was shit out of luck. Lola was going to win the Oscar.
They really think we’re this dumb? Doesn’t matter how it looks as long as they keep getting closer to the gold. Or what the cost. Sorry about that, Virgil.
Trin lifted Nina without apparent effort and jogged from the room. They were alone with Virgil Fret, who continued to die in breathy slow stages.
“I couldn’t talk today, Phillip. He was having me watched,” said Lola, stepping back from Virgil, who was now madly pumping his elbows. “Caw.” Pump, pump. Maybe he was going to fly away and save them the trouble of disposing of his worthless ass.
Trin dashed back in the room with a horrible grin on his flushed face. “Grab him, quick.” Trin rushed for Virgil. He seized a fifth of whiskey from the night table.
“What now?” said Broker, going with him.
“Inspiration,” said Trin, grinning, taking a quick slug of whiskey and holding the bottle out to Broker. Broker shook his head. Trin shook a dollop of whiskey on Broker’s shirt and then splashed some on Virgil’s inflated face. They yanked him to his feet.
“Quick, he’ll get away,” yelped Trin, dragging Virgil toward the door. They had him upright, his flailing arms over their shoulders, running now down the steps, Broker following Trin’s lead. “You stay here.” Trin waved the whiskey bottle in his free hand at Lola.
Rock and roll spooled in the inky night, neon spun behind dark trees. They galloped down the driveway and burst into the street. Tight lipped, Broker said, “I didn’t see a gun in there-”
“I checked the whole place, no gun,” said Trin.
“This punk would have a gun.”
“They don’t want us to have one. It’s a trap. This piece of shit is a throwaway.”
Several snoozing cyclo drivers spotted them and rose from their cabs. “There,” panted Trin. Down the block Broker saw the bear-walking drunken Aussie. His broad back was naked, streaked with sweat over a sarong. He stumbled down the street, staying upright mainly by the support of his right shoulder bumping on a cement wall. Patient as jackals, several cyclos padded on silent rubber tires, trailing his slow progress.
“Hey, buddy,” shouted Trin as they pulled abreast. “Have a drink.” He thrust out the bottle. “Let’s party.”
The giant yawned and pawed the bottle. Trin quickly analyzed the cyclo situation and selected the oldest driver, who also had the widest seat. He heaved Virgil in. The driver inspected Virgil and began to protest.
“What’s he say?” said Broker.
“He says this American is dying and he won’t ride him. We need dollars.” Broker dug in his pocket. Trin tugged the staggering Aussie and pulled him toward the cyclo. He pointed to Virgil whose protruding tongue was deep purple in the bounce of neon and who was feebly inching his hands back toward his throat. “Hey, mate, he knows where the girls are. Number one boom-boom.”
“Caw,” said Virgil. A newly hatched vulture chick mouthing the air.
The Aussie lit up, having found kin who talked his twittering dialect. Trin steered the giant into the cyclo and grabbed the handful of twenties from Broker. He turned to the agitated driver.
“I’m telling him he’s only had too much to drink,” said Trin who then broke into machine-gun Vietnamese as he counted out bills into the driver’s wrinkled hand.
The driver continued to protest, but his posture and voice had turned sly. The other cyclo drivers craned forward, crowding in as Trin and the older driver argued. Trin turned back to Broker.
“He’s a hard sell. He says, bullshit, he knows a dying American when he sees one.” Trin grinned insanely. “He says he was a fucking guerrilla in the fucking jungle for fifteen fucking years. Give me a hundred-dollar bill.”
Broker handed over Mr. Franklin.
“He says,” said Trin, “that’s the drunkest goddamn American he has ever seen in his life.”
In the cab, the Aussie tenderly poured whiskey into Virgil’s weakly moving mouth. With an evil smile creasing his leathery face, the former Viet Cong bent to his pedals and moved the bike cab out into the street. Virgil Fret disappeared into the teeming bicycles and motorbikes of Hue, wrapped in the meaty embrace of the cooing Aussie, who bent over him like a mama feeding her first child.
Trin spun on his heels and marched back toward the villa. “I told him to dump them in a rice paddy halfway to the coast.” They jogged back to the van parked in the shadows next to the villa. Lola’s outfit made a voluptuous, unmistakable fashion statement in the humid buzzing night.
“White,” said Broker.
“So nobody will shoot her by accident, say in the dark on a confused beach,” said Trin.
“I can’t stay now. I’m coming with you. That was our deal…” Lola, breathless with excitement, coming to meet them.
“I’m satisfied. You satisfied?” said Trin.
“Roger,” said Broker. He pivoted and his sand-busted tennis shoes crunched in the gravel as he put his left fist on stun and popped Lola LaPorte with a short left jab, hard enough to knock her cold, not quite hard enough
to cave in her surgically enhanced, gorgeous right cheek.
They dragged Lola into the van and stretched her out in the aisle perpendicular to Nina. Trin picked up her purse and threw it in after her. Then he dug under the seats and pulled something out and grinned. “Duct tape. The only good thing the American army brought to Vietnam.”
Quickly he taped Lola’s ankles, hands, and ran two strips around her mouth. Then he scrambled to the wheel. “Now, we run like hell.”
69
“It’s all right,” soothed Broker as he cradled Nina in the backseat. She opened one eye.
“Don’t bullshit me, Broker,” she croaked.
“It’s better,” he allowed.
He had sponged her off and opened Trin’s first-aid kit and had attempted to clean up the ear. Then he’d wrapped her in a blanket. Like a morbid footnote to the mad night, he remembered that the rest of her ear resided in a little glass jar, pickled in rice alcohol, in the house on the coast.
He dribbled mineral water on her caked lips and used his bandanna to clean more of the ugliness from her face. He didn’t know what to use to medicate the emotional wounds on the inside.
Unconditional love, maybe.
Fitfully, Lola stirred against her binds and moaned from the floor. Trin drove Highway 1 north out of Hue with agonizing restraint, cautious, now, of drawing attention. The headlights made a weaving tunnel of illumination that was regularly invaded by impassive Vietnamese crouched over handlebars. Occasionally a truck. It took forever to get to the turnoff to the coast. As the black farmland closed around them, Broker entertained paranoid fragments of the past: driving through the countryside at night with the lights on. Unarmed.
They were in the paddies now, going slow. Shadowy bicycles jostled the van. Nina turned in his arms, dug her face against his chest, and used her forehead for leverage to push herself up.
