Bleeding in Black and White

by Colin Cotterill

  “There was some guy hanging around.”

  A familiar shudder came over Bodge.

  “Hanging around?”

  “Yeah, probably nothing, but he could of been up to no good. We was working late, and my boy, Dave, he sees this guy over here in the shadows between you and your…girlfriend’s cars. He was probably up for stealing something out of ‘em. We come running over with wrenches swinging and he was gone like a fart in a tornado. Lucky we could see your room from the workshop.”

  “Yeah. That was lucky. Did you see what he looked like?”

  “Hard to say. Big guy. I thought it might of been you at first. Dark clothes. He was wearing some kind of a hat, a helmet maybe.”

  “Thanks for intervening.”

  “Shit. It’s my car.”

  Bodge had thought about it on his journey in to the briefing. Like Stephanie he was starting to think there was no such thing as a coincidence any more.

  “You’re late,” Palmer said very matter-of-factly when Bodge arrived at Casually Yours as if being late was no big deal.

  “Where’s my wife?”

  “She’ll be at records all day. They’re putting together a paper history for you two. Besides, she’s seen what we’re going to look at here. How are you two getting along?” If he’d looked up from his slides he would have seen the color in Bodge’s cheeks.

  “Pretty good. We were convincingly bland at deLattre’s talk last evening.”

  “Did you learn anything there?”

  “That with the right interpreter, a blatant lie can be transformed into a subtle one.”

  Palmer laughed. He was slotting the last of a box of slides into the carousel.

  “There. Get the light, would you?”

  Bodge went to the wall and flicked the switch. The windowless room vanished into blackness. There was a slight whir and the face of a distinguished looking Asian filled the screen. He was in his late thirties and wore a ceremonial jacket and wrap-around sun glasses. Bodge returned to his seat and looked up at the face.

  “Today you’ll be meeting all the actors, from the stars all the way down to the extras,” Palmer said as he attempted to line up the photo with the screen. “You’ll have a chance to see their faces again and again until they start to appear in your dreams. Who do you suppose this surly looking fellow might be?”

  “Bao Dai.”

  “Ten points. Excellent. Emperor Bao Dai himself. The poor man is such a political football he probably has laces on the back of his head. He’s been kicked around by the pre-war French, the Japanese, and now the French again. It’s always wise to have a monarch in your pocket if you’re trying to control a people. Warranted or not, Royalty does have the effect of bringing together its citizens. It would surprise me if the communists didn’t have a long term plan to bring Bao Dai in as advisor to the Party.”

  There were several shots of the emperor at parties, hunting, on state trips to Europe. Then there were other members of the royal household and the chamberlain council. Bodge looked, studied, memorized and took notes. He’d remember them for as long as necessary. He knew he could. When they stopped serving a purpose in his memory, he’d erase them. But then a slide appeared with a face he doubted he could ever forget. It was the studio portrait of a girl in her mid twenties. She stared off into a space above the cameraman’s shoulder and had just the faintest curl of a smile on her lips. Her eyes sparkled in black contrast to her porcelain skin.

  “Oh, man.”

  “Down, Bodge. Down.”

  “Who is she?”

  “You have excellent taste, Robert Leon. Obviously the same taste as Bao Dai. She is Her Highness Mademoiselle Nguyen Von Hong, second consort to the emperor. Let us hope you don’t run into her when you’re there.”

  “Why on earth not?”

  “Because, if any of the imperial eunuchs were to catch you drooling at her like you are now, you could immediately give up any hope of siring children.”

  There were two more slides of the second consort. In one she was a respectful step behind the first consort who in turn was three steps behind the Empress. She walked with her head slightly bowed and Bodge read a hundred emotions into her expression. She seemed to be embarrassed, sad even, to be where she was, being who she was.

  The third slide caused Bodge’s heart to thump.

  “I probably shouldn’t be showing you this one,” Palmer laughed. Von Hong, in a one-piece bathing suit, lounged beside a swimming pool with two other contestants in the Miss Mekhong Delta beauty pageant. But the competition was over and the second consort already wore the sash of victory across her chest. The runners up were boys in wigs compared to her. She was the most amazing looking woman Bodge had ever seen. Everything about her captivated him. Oh, she wouldn’t have made the qualifying rounds of Miss Tennessee. She didn’t have the curves or the chutzpah or the lacquered hair style of her American cousins. But she was Bodge’s ideal beauty, slightly self-conscious, smiling, not from happiness but because the cameraman had ordered her to, modest about her exquisiteness. He groaned when Palmer clicked to the next slide and she wasn’t on it. He could remember little of the following dozen actors. The consort had rinsed him out like color from a painter’s rag. It was the feeling he and Lou, in their debates on love, had doubted existed. But now he’d experienced its allure there was no Lou to call up and boast to.

  The slide show progressed into its fourth box. Somewhere along the way they’d paused for lunch. They’d been through the royals, the French, and the minor celebrities of Ban Methuot. Bodge had regained his composure and was again committing the faces to lower echelons in his memory.

  Palmer had saved the communists to last. The first face in box five was one Bodge had seen on TV, in government anti-Red alerts. Senator McCarthy himself had held that same photo in front of the cameras there in DC and told the viewers that this was their nightmare. This frail old man was the embodiment of the red terror, the most barbaric of Asian communists. Yet to look at him, you’d never know.

  “Now,” McCarthy had said, “you can understand our dilemma. They blend in. There is no physical sign to show us who’s a commie and who isn’t. There’s not a horn in sight. It could be the man who does your laundry, your favorite movie actor, even your own lover.”

  Ho Chi Minh’s face was living proof that there were communists under your bed. But the more Palmer spoke about him, the more Bodge felt his host harbored not a small pocket of admiration for the Viet Minh leader.

  “Our own government’s doctrine,” Palmer said “is as clear as day. Communists are bad — end of argument. Colonialists are ill-advised and should, in this enlightened age, be phased out. Nationalists are our friends and must be encouraged, and (he said in a quieter voice) eventually dominated by us.”

  “One small hiccup in this master plan is our refusal to accept that someone like Uncle Ho could be a communist and a nationalist. But that really messes up the categories. Because you have your general coming along claiming the French are just there to protect the nationalists in their civil war with the communists. And let’s not forget this so-called nationalist force was actually set up by the French to protect its colonial interests.”

  Bodge laughed. “So, whose side are you on?”

  “Side? We’re on whatever side our government policy tells us to be on. Never forget that.”

  The show went on in spite of two bulbs burning out in the projector and one slide of the Viet Minh commander in the Delta actually catching fire. But Bodge was starting to find the communist boxes hard going. Either his visual memory store was full, or Vietnamese faces got more and more similar as one worked down through the ranks. He felt a kind of relief when the knock came at the door and one of the neat lady secretaries came in.

  “Sorry, Mr. Palmer, you’re wanted on the phone.” To Bodge’s ear it sounded as if that were not true.

  “Can’t you plug it through to this extension?” Palmer asked.

  “The Director would prefer
to speak to you on the main line, at reception.”

  “Damned ridiculous. Who does he think’s going to be listening in? All right. Sorry, Bodge.”

  Palmer left the room and Bodge leaned across to the slide box marked “number one”. As he replaced three pictures in the tray, he looked back over his shoulder to the door like a schoolboy hiding exam answers in his desk. He slid forward the manual control and Mademoiselle Nguyen Von Hong hung from the ceiling by her feet like a beautiful bat. He turned over the slides and found her again, upright this time and every bit as remarkable as his first viewing. He walked to the screen with his heart thumping, feeling slightly ridiculous. No picture had ever had this effect on him. He was close now to her tranquil smile, could look into her eyes, black as polished coal.

  Palmer’ voice came to the door, talking hurriedly to someone outside, barking orders further afield. Bodge rushed to the carousel and scooped out the three slides of the concubine. The door opened and he had no choice but to drop them onto the pocket of his jacket. Palmer was visibly upset but he tried to keep his voice calm.

  “Bodge, I need you to come with me.”

  “Okay, I’ll just shut down the—”

  “No. I need you to come with me this second.” Bodge grabbed his bag and stuffed his papers into it as he walked to the door. Beyond the doorway stood a tall man with charcoal hair.

  “Bodge, this is Agent Ramos,” Palmer said. “You will go with him and do exactly as he tells you.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “I’m truly not sure. But as soon as I know, I’ll tell you. In the meantime you’ll have to put your faith in us. I’ll need your car key.”

  “But I—”

  “And that faith begins now. Get him out of here.”

  “Yes, sir. Agent Leon?” Agent Ramos took Bodge by the arm and led him with surprising strength to the exit. The guards waved them through without a bag or body check. Ramos’ urgency was contagious and Bodge found himself taking the steps three at a time. A Casually Yours van was parked out front of the building with the passenger door open. Ramos and Bodge headed straight for it. Bodge felt uneasy as if the whole of Special Operations was on edge and he was the cause.

  A large black Lincoln, traveling at speed crossed over from the far lane and skidded to a stop with its headlights flush against those of the van. Ramos reached for his gun holster but then had second thoughts as two men jumped from the car. Bodge recognized Jansen and Tuck as they marched quickly over to stand toe to toe with him and Ramos. Bodge hadn’t yet forgiven them for the way they’d handled the investigation of his friend’s disappearance, but everything now was happening so fast he had no time to think.

  “Going somewhere in a hurry, Bodge?” Jansen asked, tapping Bodge’s lapel with a rolled sheet of paper.

  “Agent Leon and I have to be somewhere urgently,” Ramos told them, and attempted to dance around the two Security men.

  “I’m sure you do,” Jansen smiled. “But I’m afraid we have to reroute Agent Leon here.”

  “We have an emergency on our hands. You can talk to him some other time.”

  “Oh, I wish we could. You see, we have an emergency on our hands also. And I have an intra-agency warrant here that gives our emergency priority over yours. I’m so sorry.”

  Ramos looked nervously along the street then grabbed the paper out of Jansen’s hand. He scanned down it and read the signature. “Then, I insist on accompanying Agent Leon.”

  “You insist, do you? But what about your emergency? You shouldn’t let a little thing like this interrupt you.”

  “Like you say, your emergency takes precedence over ours. Agent Leon has the right to representation at an interview.”

  “What makes you think the agent’s coming for an interview?” Tuck asked.

  “You don’t take out a warrant and break city traffic ordinances if you intend to go and have a coffee and a donut for old time’s sake.”

  “Would someone care to tell me what in tarnation is going on here?” Bodge asked in frustration.

  “Be patient, Bodge,” Jansen smiled again. “All will be revealed soon enough. But you don’t want Agent Ramos here to waste his valuable time holding your hand, do you now?” Ramos squeezed Bodge’s arm.

  “I think he should be there,” Bodge said unsurely.

  “These Special Ops guys, Fred. Always want someone there backing them up. Very well, let’s go for a drive.”

  “Wait,” Ramos insisted. “I have to let my people know where I’m going.”

  “Sure. You can do that. But I’m afraid you’ll miss the bus because our departure is imminent. Let’s go, Bodge.”

  22.

  Ramos and Bodge had been sitting alone in the room for over half an hour. It was some kind of low-budget boardroom. There were eight chairs round a scratched table and another thirty round the yellow walls like in a dentist’s waiting room. The minute they were left alone, Ramos had gestured for Bodge to keep his mouth shut. He too assumed a place like this to have electronic ears everywhere. So, Bodge, in his increasingly dense fog of confusion, sat in silence.

  A door opened. Jansen, Tuck, carrying a thick file, a woman with a notepad, and a man in a long brown coat carrying a tape recorder paraded in single file into the room like a Confirmation procession. The technician set up the tape and stayed there to operate it. As usual, Jansen did most of the talking. For the benefit of the tape, he gave the date, named the people present, and introduced Bodge as the interviewee. Jansen was obviously enjoying himself which made Bodge increasingly testy.

  “Could you state your name and your position.”

  “My name is Robert William Leon, and I’m sitting down.” The stenographer looked up and smiled, but she was the only one who saw it as funny.

  “Agent Leon,” Jansen said slowly, “this is going to be a very very long interview if you insist on making immature statements like that. I would recommend you respond with the seriousness this situation deserves.”

  “Well, Agent Jansen. Perhaps if you’d be so kind as to tell me just how serious this situation is, I shall adjust my immature statements to match it.”

  “It’s you that needs to be answering questions, not me.”

  Ramos intervened. “Bodge, I think we should let the Security agents get their questions out of the way so we can get out of here.”

  “Very well,” Bodge agreed. “But I would like it to go on record that even muggers in the Bronx hear the charges against them before they’re interrogated.”

  “So, you expect to have charges brought against you?” Jansen asked.

  “My name is Robert William Leon and I am a grade three official of the Central Intelligence Agency. My badge number is D23.”

  “At last,” Jansen sighed. “Are you, or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?”

  Bodge snorted a laugh through his nose. “Come on, guys. That’s what this is about?”

  “Bodge, just answer,” Ramos said calmly.

  “No.”

  “Are you now,” Jansen continued, “or have you ever been a homosexual?” A number of conflicting emotions ran through Bodge’s mind. He was beginning to see where the interview was going but he was amazed they’d ask him such a question. He looked at Ramos for support but got nothing.

  “No.”

  “Are you aware that your partner, Louis Vistarini, was a practicing homosexual?”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Just answer the question.”

  “If Lou was homosexual, Willie Mays is a…a geranium.”

  “So you were not aware?”

  “There’s nothing to be aware of. I knew the man for seven years. Don’t you think I’d know if he was a queer or not?” Bodge felt a painful wrenching, a conflict within him. He’d seen the magazines in Lou’s apartment. There was enough of a doubt in his mind to stop him from being wholehearted in his defense of his friend. But he had to make it look like he had absolute faith. These men had interviewed
enough liars in their careers.

  “He never married,” Tuck said.

  “There are plenty of single men in the world.”

  “You, for example,” Jansen added.

  “Hey. What in blazes is that supposed to mean?”

  “You and Louey were very close.”

  “You son of a bitch.” Bodge got to his feet. “If you want this tape-recorder shoved up your—” Ramos stood also and grabbed his arm. He nodded toward the lady even though she’d probably heard a lot worse. Bodge sat and considered his performance. It might have been a little more than was called for. But he’d visualized how Jansen might have acted in the same situation.

  “A slight overreaction, Leon,” Jansen goaded further. “I thought you people were trained not to show emotions in interrogations.”

  “I’m new at the job.”

  “So it seems. Now, perhaps you could, in a calmer state, think back over the time you knew your friend, and try to recall incidents, statements, any peculiarities, that may have caused you to doubt Mr. Vistarini’s masculinity.”

  “You mean, did I walk in on him wearing a tutu and dancing the Sugar Plum Fairy on his coffee break?”

  “Agent Leon. I’ve warned you about your frivolity.”

  “Frivolity? The man’s only been dead a week and you’re painting him pink before the body’s cold. Based on what?”

  Agent Tuck looked up from his file. “We have irrefutable physical evidence.”

  “Bullshit. Show me.”

  “We aren’t obliged, or at liberty to do so.”

  “You’ll just have to take our word for it that there’s no doubt on this earth that Miss Vistarini was a faggot,” Jansen said.

  “…and as such,” Tuck interrupted with one eye on the recorder, “a threat to the security of our agency and to our country. You see, Agent Leon—”

  Jansen cut back in, “You get pictures of some government queer cavorting around with his boyfriend, and he’ll do or say just about anything to stop that picture getting around. Get the idea? The communists have a list of all the nancy boys in positions of responsibility, and they’re just waiting for the day they can milk our government dry of information.”