by James Aura
“What the hell is he doing?” Tom said.
“I bet the old man told him to come over here if he wanted to ‘meet women’. Just lay low for a minute in case the big bearded guy comes by. We don’t want him to see you, sitting here with me.”
I got no argument from Tom on that. We waited, and after a few minutes Jim came back out, hopped on the Harley and took off. At the top of the hour we went back to the phone booth and waited for a call. It rang, a few minutes late.
“Russell, I didn’t want to go back to the Foxy Lady, thought that might be suspicious, so I drove to another part of town to find a phone booth. “
“What the hell did you do, Jim? We saw you at the motel.”
“Just some basic detective work, my man. The old guy told me to see Nigel at the Slumberland Motel and he’d fix me up with any number of fine young ladies, mostly of the Asian persuasion.”
“Then what?”
“Well, good old Nigel was behind the counter and I told him that Barney sent me.
Nigel talked funny. He had some kind of an accent, maybe Irish.”
“Well, go on. You going to drag this out?”
“Nigel wanted to know if Barney had any other message, and I said, yeah, that I should tell you I wanted a girl with scarlet ribbons in her hair.”
That was a line in one of their letters to Dad!
“So, then what happened?”
“Well, Nigel told me ribbons like that would run me about fifty dollars and I said it better be a real nice ribbon. So he kind of sneered then took me to a room in back and Russell, there were three women in there. They were all wearing baby doll pajamas, damn they were cute! One of them had her arm in a sling. Then I realized I was gonna have to fish or cut bait, so I mumbled something about not what I expected and backed out of the room and Nigel shadowed me, every inch of the way back to the front office. I could feel him breathing down my neck.”
“What did you say?”
“He said, ‘what the hell is your problem?’ and I said, I’d never had an Asian girl before and I would have to think it over. Then he got all pissed off and suggested I come back when I had more hair on my chest, and I left.”
This was a breakthrough. We now knew the Slumberland Motel was ground zero for the blackguards. The next step would be to lure them into our net.
Tommy was elated. “Russell, we did it! We know where the bastards are holding the girls. Call the cops and let’s go home!”
“Tom, we’re not done. For all we know the cops are in on this. These guys have been operating here awhile. If the cops were honest, they’d be shut down by now. They’ve been running this thing for at least three or four years, maybe longer.”
Tom reluctantly saw my point. We met back at the rental house to figure out our next step. I knew I’d probably only have this one shot to convince Tommy to stay around. He had not heard the actual phone conversation between Jim and me. So while Tom took off for a gas and grocery run, I primed the pump.
“Jim, you are a great actor, and I am going to need you to perform well if we are going to pull this off.”
“OK, but I am not going back to that motel. That Nigel guy looked like he’d cut you in a heartbeat and the big bearded guy, Russell; we don’t want to mess with the likes of him. I’d guess he could take out a Grizzly bear without messing up his hair.”
“I want to get at least two of those guys over here for a meeting. There’s some history you don’t know about, but I can give them a reason to think we can supply them with girls.”
“OK, Russell, I’m listening, but this sounds dangerous.”
“I will type out a letter and you can deliver it to the old guy at the Foxy Lady. We’ll get them to call me up at the pay phone down the street and I’ll take it from there.”
“Take a letter to Barney. I can do that. What’s the history, Russell?”
“I’ve got some old letters that have code and stuff in them. We can use these to make it appear we’ve got connections and can bring them some more girls from Vietnam. Actually, it may not be a done deal yet, but I may actually have a way to bring some boat people over here from Vietnam. It wouldn’t be for these blackguards, you can count on that!”
“Is this something your dad was mixed up in? Or your uncle? That Korean gal at your farm, she might have been in that motel room once upon a time ?”
“Yeah, but she got rescued. We need to keep that very quiet. Soo Jin is a nice girl and it would be a shame if people heard that about her. One more thing: Are you any good on the barbecue grill?”
I went over a few more ideas with Jimmy and he was nervous but willing to stay with the plan. Jim even made a few suggestions that were helpful. He knew part of Soo Jin’s story and he had seen that one girl with her arm in a sling.
Tommy got back and I went over the plan, with Jim backing me up.
“You want to invite those crazy bastards out here and cook dinner for them? And I will hide in the attic with the shotgun?”
“The double-barrel 12-guage, Tom. You can set it up so the muzzles come right down through that air vent over the table. I will be counting on you to blast them to kingdom come if the big guy decides he wants to hammer me into the floor. They won’t even see you, Tom. But I can’t pull this off unless you help out.”
“Why dinner? That’s a lot of work and no disrespect, but you and Jim could easily screw that up.”
I pointed to the tape recorder I borrowed from Mr. Hudson.
“We’ll get them liquored up and record them bragging about their business and if we get them on tape the cops will have no choice but to lock them up. Maybe to be safe, we’ll give the recording to the Feds.”
“Damn, Russell; sounds crazy, but you and Jim are the ones that will be cooped up in here with that big guy. I’ll do it. If the tape recording thing works, you could get them locked up for a long time. I feel all right about it, I reckon.”
Then I noticed Tom had grabbed ahold of his left wrist. He really didn’t feel all right. But at least the train was moving a little faster down the tracks, and he was staying on it, for now.
The two of them went up the ladder into the attic to check out the vents and places to hide while I got out the portable typewriter that Dad had given me on my 14th birthday. I ripped a page from a writing tablet and typed a note.
I said we had become acquainted with their endeavors in Clarksville through an associate formerly in Vietnam, and we had an offer. We would soon be in a position to bring an endless supply of young women from Vietnam into the country and we would like to discuss a mutually beneficial arrangement. I told them we needed to meet in person at a time and place of our choosing and if they were interested to call a local number at Noon on Tuesday. I also said we had seen their ‘ribbons’ and we could improve their quality considerably and would have photos to prove it. I ended with “Springtime in Tennessee”, and signed it ‘Benny’, the name on my fake I.D.
I figured a code phrase from one of the letters to Dad wouldn’t hurt. Those letters had been from someone named Jerry. I wondered what had happened to him. I handled the letter with gloves on, and asked Tom and Jimmy to also put on gloves before they read the letter. We wanted to leave no fingerprints. I knew the drill from “Mission Impossible”- keep the odds in your favor whenever possible.
I slipped it into an envelope, wrote ‘Barney’ on it and handed it to Jim. He headed out for the Foxy Lady on the Harley. Tom and I got busy arranging furniture, microphones and the tape recorder and tried recording our voices in different parts of the room. We finally got it arranged so that any normal conversation in the dining room area or the kitchen could clearly be heard on the recording. We ran wires under the carpet and taped the two mikes to the backs of a cabinet and bookcase. We’d get Jim to walk around and see if he noticed anything that might set off alarm bells when he got back.
Jimmy said the Foxy Lady was mostly empty when he got there. He walked to the back, handed the note to the old guy and quickly wal
ked out the front door.
“Strangest thing, Russell, as I was getting on the Harley that big guy with the beard came out the front door. He was carrying something that looked like a corn knife. He just stood there and glared at me while I rode off. I hope to hell he doesn’t show up out here for our little get-together.”
A corn knife! Not a common thing for a person to carry around. It sounded like the weapon Uncle Wallace had called a bolo. One of the hoodlums that attacked him and killed Wonju had been carrying a bolo. Alarm bells went off in my head. What if we had triggered something that might bring the blackguards or their hired hands back to the farm to finish off something they had started months before? I decided I’d better call Uncle Wallace and alert him. This was not going as smoothly as I’d hoped.
I drove to a nearby gas station with a phone booth and called Uncle Wallace. He did not take the news well.
“Russell, what in hell are you thinking? Why do you believe the creeps with the bolo might be connected with the guys who kidnapped Soo Jin? They had a pistol too, Russell.”
“You’re just going to have to trust me on this. Be really careful, Uncle Wallace, they might come back. Remember, Soo Jin thought she heard them come through the house before they found you out back. Maybe you and Soo Jin should stay at your trailer for awhile and just come up to the farm to do the morning and evening chores. And keep that shotgun handy!”
I then remembered I had taken the .12 gauge, all he’d have at the house would be the little .410. Uncle Wallace was not going to be happy. I told him again to be watchful and hung up the phone. He would now be thoroughly confused about things. Evelena hadn’t blabbed- at least, not yet.
I waited until 12 Noon on Tuesday and entered the phone booth a few miles from our rental house in Guthrie. As a precaution Tommy had parked the Mercury in an alley, hidden behind a billboard a couple of blocks away. The phone rang, and I picked it up.
A voice in a not-quite-British accent said,”This is Benny I presume?”
It was the one called Nigel. He was all business, wanted to know where and when we should meet. He was interested, said he had figured out that the bloke who turned down his ‘ribbons’ the other day was either me or one of my associates. I said he was correct.
I told him to come to a gas station at the south end of town at six p.m. and follow the motorcycle to our meeting place. I said we liked to mix business with pleasure and while we wouldn’t have any ‘ribbons’ for them, we’d be cooking steaks on the grill and we’d have some samples of Kentucky’s finest white lightning, in case they were interested in getting into that business, as well.
He seemed intrigued. I asked how many guests we should expect. He said two.
I hung up the phone, stepped out of the phone booth and looked around. A black Chevy van was parked down the street, the windows were darkened, I could not see inside, but as I walked down the street it slowly began to follow me. Obviously they had located the phone booth and staked it out. These guys were not stupid. I ducked down the alley and ran like hell between some apartment buildings, stepped behind the billboard, jumped into the Mercury and told Tommy to just lay low. Minutes later we saw the black van go past. It was headed south, back towards Clarksville.
Tommy started up the Mercury and lit a cigarette, clenched his teeth and eased out onto the street. “I sure as hell hope that big guy doesn’t show up for dinner. Better cook two extra steaks, just in case. He could probably eat a whole cow.”
We had everything set, back at the house. Jimmy would man the barbecue grill, I would whip up my mashed potatoes and peas dish. We had a gallon jug of Kentucky’s finest and four whiskey glasses ready to go. The second shotgun was loaded and fastened to the bottom of the kitchen table with masking tape, just in case. I wasn’t sure what to do about the Bowie knife. What if they insisted on searching Jimmy and me before they came in? Finally I taped it to the bottom of the dining room chair where I planned to be seated. The ladder door to the attic was in the bedroom hallway, in case they searched the house and looked up into the attic; Tom would be under an old quilt on the floor above the vent.
We rehearsed everything. Jim and I went over several phrases we planned to use, hoping to pass as gangster types. I boiled a large bag of big red potatoes; mashed them up with butter and salt and then poured in the seasoned canned peas with some of the juice and mixed them up in heaping bowls with shovel sized spoons. Two big pots sat warming on the stove. I warned Tom and Jimmy that only I should handle the potato dish. The recipe was precise and I didn’t want any slip ups. The steaks were seasoned and ready for the grill and Jimmy took off on the Harley. He would lead the blackguards back to the house.
Tom swept out his spot in the attic one more time. He began to sweat.
“Russell, what if I sneeze up there? Do you think they’ll shoot me right through the ceiling?”
“I’m going to tell them this is a ‘no weapons’ dinner and if they want to do business with us they’ll need to leave any firearms in their vehicle.”
“Good luck with that!”
I wondered if the second person would be Barney, or whether it would be the big guy who would walk in with the bolo. Maybe it would be the guy named Jerry. I began to sweat, too. But if they were willing to meet with us in Guthrie, on our turf, surely they were interested in doing some business. They also couldn’t be sure what we had for back up. If they bumped us off, there’d be no more ‘Viet honeys’ for them. I began to wish that somehow, some way, the real Paladin could be backing us up, patiently waiting with his Colt .45 and Derringer.
At 6:20 I heard the Harley pull up out front, and right behind him were two guys on another motorcycle, a Triumph. It was a monster, as big, or bigger than the Harley 74. The driver was the big guy. He looked plenty mean, all right.
I walked out front, trying not to tremble. Jimmy broke the ice.
“Benny Baumgartner, meet Nigel and what did you say your name was, sir?”
The big guy glared at us. Nigel cracked a toothy smile.
“He is ‘The Brute’; just call him ‘The Brute’. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Benny Baumgartner,” he chuckled.
Nigel was an overgrown weasel. Beady eyes and a scraggly beard, a wiry little guy dressed in black jeans and a gray sweatshirt. The Brute stood at least 6-5 and was shaped like a large brick. He was wearing black motorcycle leathers and black boots that made him even taller. He did not crack a smile. His eyes darted every which way as he checked out our place. He stared at me and did not offer his hand.
“Benny, I asked these fellows to kindly leave any weapons outside and they said they came unarmed, and would need to search us, in return.”
Jim was playing his role well. He sounded like an insurance salesman warming up a group of prospects. I said we had no problem with that and The Brute then did a very quick but thorough search of me and Jimmy. I was glad then I hadn’t taped the Bowie knife to my shin.
We walked through the front door and Nigel cleared his throat.
“As you might suppose, we would appreciate a quick tour of the house. Just basic security for situations like this. Nice place, by the way.”
“Be my guest,” I said.
The Brute made a quick sweep through the whole house and stopped in the kitchen where we had the steaks on the counter top with four steak knives. He waved Nigel into the kitchen.
“I don’t suppose we can enjoy these steaks without these,” Nigel said. He gave a sort of nod to The Brute and I suggested we sit out back while the steaks cooked on the grill.
Jimmy led them to a picnic table outside and I followed with the moonshine jug, potato chips and some glasses. As I headed toward the door I thought I heard a creak from the attic. I began to worry again about Tommy sneezing above us when we sat down to eat.
The night air was cool. We had sprayed for mosquitoes and I tried to be relaxed, a businesslike host, or as I imagined the way such a character as Benny would be.
I gestured towards Jimmy.
“Gentlemen, Elway here is a fine steak chef. How do you like them cooked?”
Nigel said they both wanted medium and asked me about the jug.
“If I do say so myself, this is Kentucky’s finest white lightning. A premium drink and a very profitable product, I might add. Hand crafted from very light, sweet corn and filtered spring water from a very deep well. ”
I poured about two fingers of whiskey into three glasses. Nigel seemed more than a little thirsty. He quaffed the liquor immediately and slammed the glass on the table.
“Damn, that is a fine drink, Bennie! Smooth but a nice kick, I’d say.” He turned to The Brute.
“Try it, sabe bien.”
The Brute had waited, as if Nigel was his taste tester. I began to wonder who was really the ringleader of this group. Perhaps it was Barney who was probably holding down the fort back in Clarksville.
