by Don McQuinn
“I’m tired of fooling, Bobby,” he said. “You get to your man, tell him me and my partner have got everything set. We’re ready. If you all can’t make this deal, we gone.”
“Shee-it.” Mantell made a sentence of it. “Who you deal with if you don’t deal with us? You saw my man. You talked to him. People cross him die, Willy. You ready for that?”
Miller nodded, having no trouble indicating fear. “I give you that. He’s a hard sucker, I don’t doubt it. But I’m short, Bobby. We don’t see some action, quick, I’m gone, not lookin’ back, and no hard feelings.”
The matter-of-fact attitude seemed to disturb Mantell. He looked away. “You really think you can deal with someone around here and get away with it? You buy one little joint, we know about it before you drop the butt, man.”
“We don’t need you,” Miller said. “This ain’t the only place in the world that grows poppies.”
Mantell tried to sneer, but he was clearly no longer sure of himself. “You know who’s got that part of the world sewed up, man? You think you can deal with them? A black? You crazy?”
A rank wave of old sweat masked by perfume struck Miller with almost physical force as Mantell leaned toward him. He swallowed and forced a smile.
“You ever hear of South America, man? A man with ideas, they don’t give a rat-fuck what color he is. And the governments there protect friends. It’s a business.”
“They sell low-grade shit,” Mantell defended, “and some of them mother-fuckers is communists. They catch some nigger messin’ with dope, they put your ass under the jail.”
“Not if you make money for them and sell the stuff where they want it sold. And they got more to offer than heroin. They got marijuana by the ton. I mean, by the ton. And cocaine like nothin’ you ever saw. It’s a candy store, baby.”
“If it’s so fuckin’ good, why you even talk to us poor folks?” Mantell sneered. “If you so fuckin’ smart, why ain’t you rich?”
Miller put his elbows on the table and spoke to the scarred surface, knowing the lowered tone would bring Mantell forward as if on a string. He braced himself against the smell and wished he had a drink.
“Not everybody in the operation is a brother. Might be we could get a piece o’ that action, use the muscle from this business to push in. Might be.”
In the darkness Mantell’s tongue flickered wet as he ran it across his lips. “You talking about runnin’ stuff from here and other stuff from there? You sound like the boss. And what about your honky partner?”
Miller raised his head, fastening his eyes on Mantell’s. The latter met the stare, held it, and crumbled. He scuffled for a cigarette to hide his discomfort.
“You tell your boss what I told you. He’s the one wants to build a fucking empire. All I want is to get rich while he does it. I got to know we got a working deal or I do my thing someplace else. Like I said, man, no hard feelin’s, OK?”
Mantell nodded absently and Miller left, breaking into a broad grin only when he’d made the turn back onto Tu Do. Mantell had been so busy dreaming of world conquest he’d forgotten to deny he could reach his boss.
Chapter 38
Taylor sat on the chair opposite the woman and struggled with embarrassment. The cell was a special one, reserved for prisoners of importance, a fact that, in itself, always aggravated him and in this instance gave him an indistinct sensation of decadence. It was clean and neat, with three chairs and a small table and curtains at the window. They were pulled open now, admitting the day, but exposing the bars. He had the feeling that the forthright woman in the cell might have arranged the effect intentionally, determined that you understand she had no need for dissembling.
The institutional smell of the place was unpleasant but hardly overpowering and the sparse furnishings were probably better than any Binh’s wife had ever owned. Yet it was a cell, with the feel of a cell that says the walls cannot protect, but, perversely, carry a threat that protection may be begged for and denied.
The woman, correct to the point of anonymity, with her hair pulled back in a tight bun and clothed in black pajama pants and faded blue blouse, gave no hint of being inconvenienced.
Her composure rattled his.
Worse, the child stood beside her, bright in her red print skirt. She rested a hand on her mother’s thigh and fixed her uncompromising attention on Taylor’s face.
“She is a beautiful child,” he said, stumbling over the words. His face grew warm.
The woman appeared not to notice and nodded thanks without smiling. “You speak our language well.”
He thanked her and she nodded again, asking, “How many children do you have?”
“I have none,” he said, thinking this was one hell of a way to run an interrogation, but consoled himself that a rapport might grow from the small talk.
She said, “I have only this one.” Her hand reached automatically to the exact height and distance to touch the child’s head and pull it to her. “There was a son, older. We lived in a village. The planes came.” She looked away from him, cherishing the miniature at her side.
A helicopter hacked its way over the compound. He waited until it was past. “I am sorry.”
She looked up sharply. “Why? Did you drop the bombs?”
“No. It was us, however, we who fight your husband. I wish this other thing had not happened.”
A door slammed somewhere in the building and her eyes leaped that way, instant tension broadcasting her fear that the sound had significance. When nothing followed she turned back to him.
“It was not your fault. It was not the fault of my husband. In all time, men have killed and called it love or peace or a better plan. It is a madness.”
“Have you said this to your husband?”
She smiled and her entire being changed, magically dispelling years and cares. “Do you mean does he know I can be a reactionary female who does not completely support the will of the Party? How can you know us so well and have to ask me such a question?”
He laughed, stopping short at the child’s small-animal expression of alarm. “It was useless. I am sorry. What does he say to you?”
“What can he say?” Her humor burned off at the rhetorical question. Bitterness moved back into her features as if claiming a heritage. “He knows I am right. He knows the killing will never stop. If the people win, they will put the oppressive running dogs in prison and kill them. If the government wins, they will put the liberation fighters in prison and kill them. There is no peace. There never was and never will be. There is only killing.”
“Would you believe me if I said I dislike the killing?”
“Of course. None of you like the killing. But you find reasons to continue. If you cannot kill enemies, you turn your friends into enemies so you can kill them.”
Disdain curled her lip and she turned away to look out the window. At the edge of his vision, he saw a movement of the hand holding the child to her. It was gently brushing the glistening hair. The sight triggered the anomalous reaction that he had never seen a picture of Ly as a child.
He forced himself to the present.
“You could protect your husband, you know. You know of the Chieu Hoi program. If a man of his importance rallied to the government—”
She shook her head, the movement so fast and so tightly controlled it looked almost like vibration. Continuing to stare out the window, she said, “He will never renounce the revolution. Perhaps you will kill him. Perhaps you will capture him. He will never join you or inform on his comrades.”
Her hand might have moved involuntarily, he thought, and started stroking the child to cover it. She could be more wrought up than she shows. His instincts dictated taking a chance.
“You mentioned his comrades. Are they all as loyal to Binh as he is to them?”
“The revolution is his life. Everyone knows that.” A vein, dusk-blue against a smooth temple, expanded and commenced a fluttering activity. “Then why must he hide? What will happen w
hen they find him?”
“His friends in the revolution will protect him.” She faced him, haughty.
“They will not protect him from the ones who call him traitor. There will be a People’s Court. We both know what that means.”
She continued to face him unmoving. He could see no sign of changed posture, but felt the different cast of her body. He wanted to hold his breath, afraid of the fear smell. He pressed ahead.
“Your husband is powerful. He has enemies within the revolution, men who envy his power. They will show him no mercy.”
“That is why he must hide!” Her voice rose and the child crowded against her, the solemn eyes never failing in their intent to keep on him.
The woman said, “His friends are preparing the way for his return. The traitors Tu and Trung must be made to tell the truth!”
He ostentatiously stared at the child, letting his gaze wander from her features to the mother’s arm, thence to her face. He fastened his eyes to hers, staring through them.
“Trung and Tu will never help your husband on this side of the grave. I promise you that. And why has not Trung already cleared Nguyen Binh?”
She drew back, watching him from almost a profile attitude. “Trung plays the colonial lackey game.” She had difficulty with the words and her hands moved restlessly. “He uses each faction within the revolution against the other for his own gain. He uses you, as well.” She drew a deep breath and almost blurted, “If you think he is going to help my husband, you would kill him?”
“Without a thought.” He shook his head. “No. That is not true. I said I did not like the killing, and that was not absolutely true. I would kill Trung with pleasure. Some men help the world only by dying. He is one. Your husband is not the same. He would understand.”
She interrupted him, laughing. The effect was not the same as it had been earlier. “You speak of my husband understanding as if I would not. Believe me, Major, I understand you both.”
Ruefully, he conceded her point. In fact, he suspected, she could give lessons to either of them. He decided to wait for her to speak. For a long time she accepted the pressure with no apparent sign. After a few minutes, she glanced at him irritably before inspecting the room. Once that was done she looked at him even more angrily and turned her head to stare out the window with a determined flair. Taylor was beginning to wonder which of them would break when the child forced the issue by trying to climb into her mother’s lap. The woman took the distraction as opportunity and as soon as the child was still, spoke with resignation.
“You are a friend of the one they call Winter?”
He failed to hide his shock. “You know him?”
Her smile was tired. “We know of him. You are friends?”
“He is my commanding officer.”
She dropped the smile. “It is not the same thing.”
“I am his friend. I believe he is mine.”
Her body moved as if she sighed, but her voice was surer. “I am lucky, then.” Her weak gesture indicated the cell. “I do not think other people would treat me this way. I thought I would be tortured.”
He said, “I promise you no one will hurt you.”
She raised her voice. “You cannot promise, so you must not. I know this Winter will try to stop them, but no one can say what will or will not happen to the wife of an official like my husband. But Winter will try and I hoped to reach him.”
“You hoped—?” Taylor stammered, not finding words to finish.
Her voice brightened. “My nephew is the first link in a chain that carries messages between my husband and myself. When he was arrested he was asking his uncle how to help me get a message to your Colonel Winter.”
“For Christ’s sake,” Taylor marveled in English, then, “Why?”
The woman dropped her head to kiss the child’s head and when she spoke, her lips still brushed the hair. “My husband was afraid his enemies would discover us and force him to come to them.”
“Why does he think we will not do the same thing?”
“It is not the way of this Colonel Winter.”
“It is not his way. It is not my way. There are others.”
Light from the late sun planished her facial structure as she nodded and he consciously admired the deep-set eyes above the molded cheekbones. The child twisted to look up at her, sensing the storm in her mother’s body.
“I must hope it does not happen.” The words were heavy with fear, and she added, “I swear I do not know where my husband is. I cannot tell you.”
They sat in mutual silence until the sun had fallen far enough to stream directly into the window across the woman and child. The child put a chubby hand to the side of her face to shield it while she still looked at Taylor. When she spoke it startled both adults.
“Are you going to hurt us now?”
The question, ripe with the innocent curiosity of a child and spoken with the flat assurance of ingrained knowledge nearly unnerved him. For an instant he feared he would vomit.
“No one will hurt you. No one will hurt your mother.” The woman’s head jerked and her look at him was a swirl of hope, suspicion, and further warning. He said, “You have my word.”
Suspicion won the struggle. “Why do you do this?”
He got to his feet, stretched. “Because I believe you. Because I want to believe you. There is no reason to make you suffer because we cannot find Nguyen Binh.”
The answer seemed to enrage her and she shrieked at his back when he opened the door. “Do not think I need your pity! I am as good a soldier as my husband!”
He turned slowly in the opening. “Woman, I know what a soldier you are. Because I am a soldier I will not let you be tortured. Because you, Binh, and me are all soldiers, if we must fight, I will kill you. Think of that, and if you can help me protect him as I will protect you—” The door closed on the unfinished sentence.
He was almost out of the hallway when the guard turned the key in the lock. The echoing rasp caught up to him and raised the hair on the back of his neck.
Chapter 39
It was dark by the time Taylor reached the villa. He parked the jeep and sat for a moment, listening to the sounds of the metal cooling, savoring the brief sense of having nothing to do, no matter how false he knew the feeling to be. He closed his eyes, letting the cool night wash him, mind and body, until a sound from the porch distracted him. A figure stirred to the left, outside the glare of the headlights. He turned them off and stepped to the ground as Miller spoke.
“Evening, Major! You’re out late tonight. Trouble?” More than curious interest colored the greeting, triggering a warning pull between Taylor’s shoulder blades.
He made his way up the steps. Miller fell in beside him, following him inside.
“No trouble,” Taylor said. "I was late leaving the interrogation building and got fucked up in the traffic. Stopped to have some pho while it cleared up. Either Loc or the Old Man aboard?”
Miller shook his head. “No, sir.”
They went into Taylor’s office and Miller waited until the other man was seated before saying bluntly, “Major, my ass is in a sling. Can I talk to you?”
Taylor repressed a sigh. “Sure. You know that. What’s wrong?”
Even as he asked, he told himself he should have been expecting this session and should be glad Miller had come to him. Instead, he was wishing there was a way he could weasel out. Miller didn’t look well. The confident ease smacked of bravado.
Miller’s answer came quickly, well-rehearsed, but still stiff. He’d thought the words too frequently and they fell with the delivery of a bad actor.
“I know I should go to Colonel Winter if I think I have a gripe, sir, but if I do, even if I’m right, I end up with a reputation for bitching, you know? But I do have a gripe, Major.”
“Not enough soul food in the rations?” He was pleased to see a residue of relaxation hang on after Miller’s fleeting smile.
“Not a personal matter.” Mi
ller shook his head. “I’m supposed to be working for Colonel Denby, you know? Major, he don’t give a shit if we never do a thing! He just fucks with his papers up there and ever’ goddam thing comes down, that’s more important than my operation. He just don’t give a fuck!”
In his anger, Miller’s accent thickened and his hands flailed anger. Finished for the moment, he glared as if daring contradiction.
Taylor said, “I can speak to him. Hint around, not make big waves. But if he doesn’t want to push it and the Old Man doesn’t want to push him, then there’s nothing I can do. And even if you go to the man, you’re awful short. Can you get anything done before you rotate?”
Miller leaned heavily against the door jamb. It was obvious he was weighing his answer and Taylor wondered exactly what was opening up in front of him. The suspicion that Miller was selecting what he could tell and what he would not tell was too strong to swallow.
“Listen,” he said, cutting off whatever answer was forthcoming, “there’s more heat here than I know about, I think. You and Denby are in some kind of love knot and I don’t need that. I’ll goose him on the op plan, but if you want my advice, you’ll take an even strain and let the whole fucking problem slide. Your shot won’t win the war. Be reasonable.”
Miller smiled. “What if I told you I got a lead’d blow the local scene to shit?”
“Do you? Don’t play games with me.”
“Yes, sir, I believe I do. I honest-to-God believe if I can get Winter to back me, I can set up a deal that’ll hurt the Major and anybody ever sold dope in Vietnam. Maybe in this whole fucking part of the world. But if I make a move without it lookin’ like it come from Denby, they’ll all go up my ass for going outside the outfit’s rules. It’s a ballbuster.”
This time Taylor did sigh. “I’ll see what I can do. I still think you’d best go to parade rest, but I’ll see if we can build a fire under Denby.”
