The Price of Blood

by Chuck Logan

“I’m going to tell him,” said Broker.

  Trin listened with a bland smile. His smile was echoed by the hovering bellhop.

  She turned to Trin. “You two have some catching up to do. I’m going to take a shower.” She took her bag from the bellhop and entered her room. Broker and Trin went next door to Broker’s room.

  They waited while the bellhop opened the drapes and turned on the air conditioner. Broker tipped him with a dollar bill and closed the door behind him.

  Trin, watchful, keyed up, hid behind a shrug. “Sorry, Phil, caution is an old habit. Tour guide is my main income when I can get away with it. Explain to Nina that a good guide must be friendly with Americans. But it’s not a good idea to be familiar with them the minute they get off the plane.”

  Broker opened the mini icebox and tossed Trin a chilled green can of Tiger beer, then opened one for himself. They sat in chairs across a low table in front of the window. Below them the Kamikaze traffic coursed through an intersection. Children kicked a soccer ball in a park across the street.

  For a full minute there was silence as he debated how to start. How to span two decades. Outside, cloud cover cut the sun and the window oscillated between transparent and opaque. Their reflections flirted, barely visible in the glass. Then disappeared.

  “So, how is it hearing Vietnamese being spoken again, Phil?” Trin asked slowly.

  Broker stared at the trees around the park. They looked like massive Bonsai, foreign and tortured, like they’d been traumatized by bombs. “Not sure yet. Everybody’s so…friendly. All the signs in English. I’d think they’d hate our guts here.”

  “Things changed,” said Trin with shrill gunshot abruptness. Then his demeanor softened. “Actually, Americans are new to them here in Hanoi. The only personal contact they had with you—besides the bombs—were the Senator John McCain’s falling by parachute into the local lakes, and Jane Fonda. Down south it will be different, where the Lieutenant Calleys left their mark.” He offered a cigarette and as Broker accepted it he saw that they had a ritual to perform. He drew the chain from around his neck and handed Trin the tiger tooth.

  Trin cradled it in his hand. “Thank you. This has been in my family for over four hundred years.” Broker thought, but could not say: Well, it’s been laying in my underwear drawer for almost twenty…

  Broker’s old Zippo appeared in Trin’s hand. Broker took the lighter, turned it to read the sentiment engraved on the side and winced.

  Lt. Phil Broker. Quang Tri City. 1972.

  When I die reincarnate me as a 2,000-pound bomb.

  “You were young,” said Trin. He looked out the window. “I had to bury that for fourteen years.” He smiled bitterly. “I dug it up in eighty-nine when the door opened to the West.”

  Broker tapped the Zippo on the table. “How are you doing, Trin?”

  Shadows gathered in the lumped scar tissue on Trin’s left cheekbone. “What did the girl mean—you have something to tell me? What am I mixed up in, Phil?” he asked softly.

  The Zippo clicked nervously on the table. “You have a family? Kids?” asked Broker.

  “My wife formalized our divorce in seventy-five, after Liberation. She stayed with the winning side. She has never let me forget I didn’t. My son and daughter grew up with her, here in Hanoi. Now they’re both in school, in France.” Trin narrowed his eyes. “No family. No kids. Would it make a difference?”

  Broker clicked his teeth. “Sorry, but I have to ask…”

  Trin smiled sadly. “You’re evaluating me, Phil.”

  “Yeah, sorry,” sighed Broker.

  “The student has become the teacher?”

  “I said I was sorry.”

  “What do you do for a living, Phil?”

  “I’m a policeman.”

  “Really? You hated the army. I’d have thought you were too independent to put up with…structure.”

  “An undercover policeman.”

  Trin took a long meditative drag on his cigarette. “I see. Are you here working on a case?”

  “You could say that.”

  Trin exhaled and his eyes wandered out the window. “Pieces come back. Ever since Jimmy found me. It’s like a bad dream. Cyrus is here…”

  Broker nodded. “In Hue, checked into the Century Riverside Hotel. The Imperial Suite.”

  Trin sagged. “He has a big boat off the coast. I read it in the newspaper. It’s been on the state TV.”

  “You’re getting warm.”

  “Jimmy,” said Trin. He bit his lip.

  “Too bad Jimmy can’t make it to the reunion,” said Broker.

  Trin stared at his hands. “The last time we were together we almost got killed. When Jimmy called he told me Ray did get killed. I saw that helicopter fly off with a heavy load in its sling. There are…crazy rumors.”

  “Not rumors,” said Broker.

  Trin looked up and perspiration beaded on his forehead. He spoke very slowly as his eyes scoured Broker’s face. “A convict in an American prison sends an intermediary to find me six years ago. He sets me up running a convalescent home for disabled Front veterans. He specifies exactly where he wants the home built on a deserted strip of coast in Quang Tri Province. He has me buy a boat. A fairly large boat. Because I am helping disabled Liberation Front fighters I am allowed to do all these things. To spend money. Otherwise, because I fought for the South, I can be a hotel clerk, a waiter, or a cyclo-boy. Or, because I went through the camps, there’s a program for former southern officers. I can immigrate to America if I have a sponsor.

  “And then, when Jimmy is ready to come himself, he develops a fatal disease.” Trin’s eyes were getting hotter. “And a secret policeman comes in his place with the daughter of a dead friend. Is the girl supposed to make it all palatable?”

  They stared across the table.

  Trin took another drag on his cigarette and his wooden eyes kindled. “Once you asked me why my men burned slips of paper before going into battle. I never answered you.” He paused and picked up a sheet off the hotel notepad on the table and took a pen from his pocket. He slapped the pen down on the sheet. “They were writing prayers. Write a prayer for me that tells me why you’re here.”

  Broker squinted, saw that he was serious. “Okay,” he said. He picked up the pen and printed: We know where Ray is buried under ten tons of gold. Cyrus doesn’t.

  Trin sat transfixed, driven into the carpet. Then he inhaled sharply and muttered, “Choi Oui.” He exhaled, grabbed the pen from Broker and wrote furiously on the note: Rumors. He looked up; his eyes lost all caution. Broker took the pen back and wrote: Fact.

  Trin laughed nervously. He picked up the lighter and ignited the note. A tongue of flame and smoke curled from his fingers. Delicately he carried the burning slip to the window, opened the latch, and tossed it out. He pointed to the smoke detector on the ceiling. Then he sat back down and said slowly, “Buddhists write prayers to their ancestors and then burn them because the dead can only read smoke. Like incense.” His voice trembled but his eyes were an inferno. “No bullshit?” he gasped.

  “No bullshit. That famous night? Cyrus used us as a decoy and had Ray murdered to steal that gold from the bank of Hue. Jimmy helped do it, except Jimmy changed the plan. He ditched the gold on the coast. Everybody, including Cyrus, thought it went down at sea. Now Cyrus thinks the gold is in the ocean near a wrecked helicopter. But it isn’t. It’s buried. On the beach.” Broker grinned.

  Trin groped, dizzy. He blurted, “And you plan to do what?”

  “Couple of things. How good’s that boat you got?”

  “Oh God.” Trin explored his burning face with his fingers as though he was establishing his own reality. He swallowed. “It’s a fishing boat, forty feet long, inboard engine. But it’s not covered. Actually, it’s falling apart. They wouldn’t let me get a real oceangoing boat. A lot of people have left…” He shook his head. “I don’t know anything about boats. We never use it.”

  “But it would handle a co
uple tons, say. We could remove some of the stuff before—”

  “Before what!” Trin sat bolt upright. He scanned the walls. “What?” he repeated.

  “Before I lure Cyrus in and arrest the sonofabitch when he digs it up!”

  “Here?” Trin whispered. His eyes swelled.

  “Nina wants to work through the American Mission. I’d prefer to coordinate with the police in Hue. You can help me line up the local cops and—”

  “No. Don’t go to the police…no.” Trin’s palm squashed lumps of sweat on his forehead. “Excuse me.” He got up, moved in jerky steps to the bar set up over the pint-sized icebox, and picked up a tiny airplane bottle of Scotch. He broke the foil seal, opened it, and drank it. He coughed, came back, and resumed his seat. He glanced at the wall, toward Nina’s room, and said emphatically, “It would be a real mistake to contact the MIA office.”

  “Exactly. Convince her.” Broker yanked his head toward the wall.

  “The MIA office is closely monitored.” Trin shook his head. “Something like this…Everybody will,” he grinned tightly, “get out of control.”

  “Can we do it?” asked Broker.

  Trin swallowed and got the words out with difficulty. “Look at me, Phil. I’m not who I was.”

  “None of us are,” said Broker.

  Trin whispered, “Do you have a map?”

  Broker knew he had him. He tapped the security belt under his waistband.

  “My God. Jimmy…” Trin slowly shook his head. “He called me last week and said you had a present for me. I thought he meant a bonus.”

  “Well?” said Broker, opening his hands.

  “He said something else. We were all going to play a joke on Cyrus.”

  “Uh-huh.” Broker reached for the phone and dialed Nina’s room. “I told him,” he said into the receiver. “You better get over here.”

  55

  NINA WAVED HER HANDS, CROSSED THE ROOM, AND opened the window. “It’s smoky in here,” she said. She had showered and wore the cheap plastic shower shoes the hotel provided. Her hair was still damp and stains of moisture glued her T-shirt to her collarbones.

  “He told you,” she said to Trin.

  Trin nodded as he crossed the room to the bar area and returned with all the pony ounces of hotel booze. He sat down and lined them up. Six of them. Hands shaking, he opened two of them, held one in each hand and dribbled them into a water glass.

  “You’re, ah, mixing Scotch and gin,” said Nina, her voice and her eyebrows arched.

  “Phil says you have opposite theories about how to proceed,” said Trin stiffly. He raised his glass and drained it.

  “I thought it might be a good idea to feel out the MIA people at the start.”

  “Why?” asked Trin. Methodically he began opening two more of the small bottles.

  “Maybe I’m lonely for American faces,” said Nina, very concerned.

  “You don’t trust me,” said Trin, smiling wryly as he took a strong pull on the glass.

  “You always drink this much, Trin?”

  “Yes,” said Trin emphatically. “But usually much worse stuff.”

  Broker sat on the bed massaging his forehead in both hands.

  “Just what we need, a lush.” Nina rolled her eyes.

  “A woman of Hue,” Trin said dryly.

  “Pardon me,” said Nina.

  Trin did not smile. “You have the bearing of a woman of Hue.” He finished his drink and began opening two more bottles. “My wife was from Hue. Aloof, smooth as silk. Like the Perfume River, not too deep, not too shallow.” He smiled coldly. “A man could drown.”

  “Wonderful. Folk sayings,” said Nina impatiently.

  Trin grinned. “Here’s another. What did the first water buffalo say to the second water buffalo?”

  Nina’s appraisal, at this point, was not kind.

  “We’re in deep shit.” Trin downed the contents of the glass.

  Nina turned to Broker. “We trust this guy?”

  “We have to. He’s all we’ve got,” said Broker.

  “And you told him everything?”

  “I left out the dead guys in Wisconsin,” said Broker.

  “What dead guys?” asked Trin, swallowing.

  “Jimmy shot this one guy Cyrus had tailing us. She got the other one,” said Broker.

  “Cyrus knows you’re after him,” Trin said fatally.

  “It’s more accurate to say that Cyrus is after us. He knows by now that Tuna told us where it is. He also thinks I’m trying to cash in on his treasure hunt.”

  “Aren’t you?” asked Trin.

  “The way I see it happening, the Vietnamese government will wind up with most of it. But we deserve a little for our trouble,” said Broker.

  “Is there anyone else here with you?” asked Trin.

  “Just us,” said Broker.

  “And you have come halfway across the world to catch Cyrus LaPorte, a famous American, for looking for buried gold?”

  “Look,” said Nina. “I’m here because my dad took the blame for the gold incident. And Jimmy told us there’s evidence on my dad’s remains that proves Cyrus ordered the robbery. I thought you were friends with my father.”

  Trin ignored her and paced three steps, turned and paced back. “Cyrus used to be a very thorough man. Assume he had the airport watched. Possibly with the assistance of the Vietnamese police. Assume he knows we’re sitting in this room right now. We must stay in public places until we make a break for the countryside. Cyrus could try anything,” said Trin in nervous rapid-fire delivery.

  “Listen to him all of a sudden,” said Nina.

  “Please sit down, Miss Pryce,” said Trin in a coiled voice. His face became flat and cold as a stone adder. Nina’s color rose. Broker smiled.

  “What’s so funny?” she demanded.

  “That’s the warm cuddly Trin I remember,” said Broker.

  Trin did not smile. “This discussion may already have cost me whatever future I have. You arrive and in two hours you put my neck on the block. Please sit down, Nina.”

  Nina reached in her pocket, pulled out a slip of paper, and extended her hand toward the hotel phone on the table next to the bed. “Sorry, Broker. I’m calling the MIA office to line up a little assistance, U.S. type.”

  Trin leaned over in a smooth motion and a slim gravity knife opened in his hand. He swept up the phone cord with the blade and held it captive. “You try to call and I’m out that door. You’ll never see me again.”

  “Jesus,” muttered Nina, stepping back.

  Trin closed the knife, put it back in his pocket, and smiled, no longer coldly, now a little drunkenly, at Nina. “The MIA office is integrated at every level with the Ministry of Missing Persons. Their phones are tapped. They are not allowed to drive their own vehicles. They are under surveillance. Anything you tell the MIA office you tell the Vietnamese police.”

  “He’s right, Nina,” said Broker. “We can’t trust the army. They screwed you, remember?”

  “Like you screwed Cyrus’s wife?” she said sarcastically.

  “I did not,” shot back Broker.

  “Ah, another complication,” said Trin philosophically. “You two are in love.”

  “You’re drunk,” said Nina.

  “I drink,” qualified Trin. “I speak English and French fluently. I can read one thousand Chinese characters. When I was twenty-five I commanded a Viet Cong battalion. At twenty-nine I commanded a South Vietnamese regiment. Then I spent five years in a reeducation camp being lectured by morons. In the camp I ate frogs and bugs. All my life I have had this problem of seeing both sides simultaneously. For that, and other reasons, I drink.” He lurched from his chair, grabbed the TV remote, and snapped on the television.

  “Now what?” Nina was not happy.

  “The BBC world business report will quote the price of gold in New York, Hong Kong, and Zurich. It’s a logical question,” said Trin.

  Nina flopped down in one of the chai
rs and folded her arms across her chest. Broker sat on the bed with his elbows resting heavily on his knees. He felt sealed in the hotel room.

  Veiled in air conditioning. Outside he could feel the pressure of three million people, almost all of them poor, most of them touched roughly by war and scarcity. And the only avenue he had into this strange capital and into the countryside beyond was this bitter, and now drunken, man whose thoughts he couldn’t fathom.

  And he wondered how many minds in Hanoi were sorting out their anxieties in English at this precise instant. Perhaps a thousand? He struggled to comprehend the alien process going on in the surrounding ocean of Vietnamese minds.

  Like what the fuck was Trin thinking right now?

  With Nina he had a pretty good idea. He could read her body language, her facial expression; he had some history. He’d even been inside her body. And maybe he was a little bit in love with her.

  She’s sitting there thinking: Am I stuck with two men I can’t trust?

  Nina unfolded her arms and got up. “Phil, I want to talk to you alone.” Broker pushed himself up.

  “Don’t worry. He didn’t show it to me,” said Trin.

  “What?” asked Nina.

  “The map. But I have a general idea where the gold is,” said Trin.

  “You do?” asked Broker.

  “Yeah,” said Trin. He eyed the bottom of his empty glass, rose from his chair in front of the TV and went to the mini-fridge and removed a can of Tiger beer. He popped the top and resumed his seat. His eyes stayed on the muted BBC news report as he lit another cigarette, sipped his beer and said, “The convalescent home is in a deserted area of dunes. Exactly where Jimmy wanted it. The coastline for ten kilometers in every direction is uninhabited. The local people call it the Graveyard of the Iron Elephants. Romantic, isn’t it…

  “In 1968—before your time, Phil—the U.S. Air Force had a plan to end what was referred to as the Ho Chi Minh Trail by Water. The North shipped supplies out of Vinh Moc above the DMZ and landed them along the coast below the zone.” Trin broke into laughter.

  “What’s this got to do…” Nina interrupted.

  Trin pushed himself up and reached over and plucked Broker’s Zippo from the table. He tossed it at Broker and said, with a downward curve to his smile, “Read it again. You may get your wish.”