by Chuck Logan
“Ah,” sighed Bevode, taking a long sip. “That tastes good.”
“How’d you find us?” said Broker.
“These people’d sell their mamma for the U.S. dollar. We spread some money around. Got your visas, port of entry, and your flight number. Easy. Now where were we?”
“Nina Pryce,” said Broker.
“You understand I’m really doing you a favor taking her off your hands,” said Bevode. “If we didn’t have her, we’d have to tickle your gonads with a blowtorch. This way, if you don’t tell us where the goddamn gold is, we just let my horny little brother fuck her till her nose bleeds. Then we use her to bait sharks. I kinda like to pop a shark now and then off the fantail of the Lola. Not much else to do since we’re finding jack shit moving sand around by that helicopter wreck.”
“Do tell,” said Broker.
“Do the right thing, Broker. Just tell us where it is.”
“Don’t hurt that girl,” warned Broker.
“No need. Just a little incentive to get negotiations going. Wow, man,” said Bevode, “dig this. Eel soup. I always wanted some eel soup.” The waiter expertly unloaded three steaming bowls of soup from his tray.
Bevode leaned forward and blew on the broth and inspected the ingredients. “All it needs is a few craw-daddys, eh.” He picked up his chopsticks and carefully tucked them in the chest pocket of his safari jacket. Then he took up the large shoehorn-shaped spoon next to his bowl.
“Cyrus says it’s a good idea to wipe down the flatware before eating. The sanitation department ain’t exactly up to speed.” Bevode lowered the spoon to his lap and began polishing it with the tablecloth. “You know, I told Cyrus not to trust Cousin Willie to track you down. Should have waited for me. I got there eventually. Found the county sheriff and deputies all over that swamp. Ole Jimmy Tuna’s dead, Broker.”
“What’s to stop me from going to the local cops and blowing this thing wide open?” said Broker.
Bevode grinned, his hands busy with the tablecloth and spoon. Then he extended the spoon across the table and tipped it into Broker’s soup.
The earlobe had been severed cleanly with something very sharp.
The silver and jade earring nestled in the bowl, in a swirl of noodles. The pale flap of skin attached to the jewelry was slightly sunburned. There were freckles on it. Beads of drying blood melted to crimson mist in the hot broth.
“You were saying?” said Bevode. He dug into his soup and began eating noisily.
Broker’s stomach tightened. Sweat wormed on his upper lip. The wave of nausea piggybacked on a blind rage and rose to his sternum. He started to spring. A restraining forearm crossed Broker’s chest like an iron bar. Trin’s face was a study in napalmed ivory—two thousand years of perfect hatred.
Bevode appeared unconcerned. Between spoonfuls of the soup, he asked, “So where is it?”
“You touch her again,” said Trin, “you all die.”
“Go play in traffic,” said Bevode, irritated. “I didn’t come all around the world to talk so some itty-bitty yellow nigger.” His lazy hazel eyes swung to Broker.
“You heard him,” said Broker. Calm now.
Bevode shook his head and put down his spoon. “Looky here, goddammit. I got my faults. But my cokehead little brother—well, there’s a word for guys like him. Slips my mind at the moment but basically he hates women, you understand. Something to do with him never fully accepting the idea that babies come from the same place he sticks his dick.” He paused. “Won’t be pretty.”
Then he tipped the bowl up and scooped a last mouthful. “And if you go for the cops, we’ll know. That’s just another phone call. Cyrus is wired in tight with this crowd.” He paused and pushed his bowl aside. “You, ah, going to finish your soup?” he asked.
Broker stared at him.
“Didn’t think so.” Bevode reached across the table and curled his knobby hand around the bowl and pulled it toward him. Casually he plucked the flap of flesh and the jewelry from the bowl and deposited it on the clean, starched white tablecloth in front of Broker. A tiny thread of blood dissolved in the spreading soup stain. Broker couldn’t move. Boulders crowded his lungs. Lava spilled through his heart.
“Jesus Christ, you savage,” said Bevode indignantly. “That’s your girlfriend there. Least you can do is give her a fuckin’ Christian burial.”
Slowly, Broker folded the earlobe and the earring in his napkin and tucked it in his pocket.
Slurping, Bevode finished the soup and smacked his lips. “Not bad. I might even consider eating her pussy.” He grinned. “After I cook it a little.”
He stood up abruptly, fished his comb from his pocket, and ran it through his hair. He smoothed a hand over his ear. “Like I said. Take some time. Think it over on the train. Oh yeah, we know about that too. It’s Tuesday. You got till noon the day after tomorrow. That’ll be Thursday. We don’t hear from you, we’ll feed her to Virgil. We’ll be in the Century Hotel in Hue…down upon the Perfume River,” he sang, then winked. “Ring us up when you hit town.”
Bevode Fret ambled from the restaurant and paused in the lobby at the chair where the Aussie was slouched, mouth open, head tipped, sound asleep. Very delicately he removed one of the chopsticks from his pocket and inserted it in the giant’s upturned ear. Then he gave it a casual shove with his open palm. The Aussie lurched and bellowed as his eyes popped open and his huge hands pawed at his ear. Smiling serenely, Bevode strolled away, unconcerned. The stunned doorman trembled and smiled and started to open the door. Bevode pushed him roughly aside, heaved open the door, and towered off into the crowd of Hanoians.
“I’m going to kill that guy,” said Broker.
“No you’re not,” said Trin calmly.
60
BROKER BRACED HIS HIP AGAINST THE BUCKING wall of the lavatory and aimed a stream of urine at the blue enamel French pissoir set into the dirty linoleum floor. The train lurched and he hit his shoe.
He still had the piece of Nina’s ear in his pocket. He had a headache. They were three hours out of Hanoi, traveling south on narrow-gauge prewar French track behind a Romanian locomotive.
The Australian tour from Air Vietnam was on board, having a party in the hall. Broker gathered that they had been to a snake village outside Hanoi that afternoon and had dined on cobra.
“Archie ate the fucking blood,” crowed a feminine voice down the hall.
“Drank it. With a generous squirt of rice whiskey.”
“Now he’s virile.”
“Poison dick.”
Broker pushed through the revelers and eased into his compartment. Trin sat on one of the beds chatting in French with the young couple, Swiss backpackers, who shared the berth. The woman had a tour book open on her knees. Trin handed Broker a huge unlabeled bottle full of clear liquid.
“Snake wine, a gift from the Aussies,” said Trin. “Go ahead. It’ll help you sleep.”
Broker took a slug of the concoction that tasted like fuel oil mixed with formaldehyde. A shadow fell across the compartment and the hulking Aussie filled the doorway. If his ear bothered him he didn’t show it. Apparently snake wine and cobra blood had given him the gift of speech.
“Hi,” he said in a sleazy high-pitched voice, plopping down on the bed across from the Swiss lady and oblivious to everyone else in the cramped space. He began pulling out a thick wad of dong, Australian currency and dollars. “I was wondering if I could buy Sheila here for the night?”
The young woman reddened and drew closer to her shocked companion. Trin exhaled. Broker took another slug of snake wine.
“You won’t regret it,” said the Aussie, leering. “I’m unforgettable. Whadya say…”
Broker reached over and cuffed him with the bottle on the ear that Bevode had pounded the chopstick in. “I think you better leave,” he said.
Pain moved slowly through the dinosaur nerves. The Aussie vaguely tendered the ear with a massive left hand. “Who do you think you are?” he muttered.<
br />
“The Lone Ranger.” Broker pointed to Trin. “This is my Indian companion, Tonto.” Trin helpfully flicked out his gravity knife and smiled.
“Fuckin’ Yank,” mumbled the Aussie. He staggered to his feet and felt his way back into the hall where the party slowed down to a groan to mark his passage.
The Swiss couple thanked Broker and scurried out of sight into the upper berths. Trin and Broker sat, silent, rocking to the motion of the train. They passed the bottle back and forth. They lit cigarettes.
They’d been over it all for hours, waiting for the train. Broker said it again, “We have to involve the police.”
“No. We get off at Quang Tri City, pick up the van, get some presents, and pay a visit to the militia post at Cua Viet. They’ll be our reaction force.”
Broker, gloomy captive to police methodology, made the routine assumption. “She could be dead already.”
“No.” Trin was obstinate. “She is part of the barter. We barter for the gold. I am good at bartering.”
“Look, I can understand you wanting to keep this in your little circle of influence. But it’s suddenly got pretty fuckin’ serious.”
Trin whispered. “The gold, Phil. If it’s there, we can take some, hide it on the boat. It’s Tuesday. We meet Cyrus at noon on Thursday—”
“You saw that guy. It’s her life.”
“It’s my life too,” Trin erupted. “You just fly in and create this…situation in my life. You can fly away, too. Americans are good at that. Making a big mess and then flying away. What about me? I’m stuck.”
He stood up and furtively hacked the air with his hands. “Since the tourists I’m better off. In a good month with tips I can make three million dong. That’s three hundred bucks. Usually it’s more like two hundred. A bicycle cost thirty. Ordinary people make two million dong a year. Two hundred dollars. I lived like that, after I got out of the camp. Bartender. Laborer. Desk clerk. Dammit, Phil. I don’t even own a car. This is my chance.”
“We won’t ditch her for the gold,” Broker said emphatically.
“No. We do it all. We get some. We get her back. Get Cyrus arrested…we can do it. But if we go to the police—” Trin drew his finger across his throat.
Trin stood his ground in the rocking compartment, stubborn and desperate. Broker turned his head and gazed through the heavy screen on the open window into the inky Tonkinese night. He could barely hold the outline of the sadness that gripped him. Couldn’t penetrate it. If he tried to picture her face and what she was going through right now he started to unravel. He ached from helpless anger. If they had gone to the MIA people she would be…
But he had to go with his hunch. Now he was chained to it.
“Okay,” said Broker. Useless to talk. He rolled on his side and faced the compartment wall. Ghoulishly his hand crept to his pocket where the portion of Nina’s ear and the earring made a tiny lump. Coil by sweaty coil the snake wine choked off the lurching light and he fell asleep to the clack of the wheels.
Broker never dreamed. Now, as he woke drenched in a cold sweat, shivering, he amended that truism.
Except in Vietnam.
He had dreamed that he and Nina and Ray Pryce and Jimmy Tuna were crossing a swift river on the back of a giant frog. Except Jimmy had the body of a scorpion. In midstream, Jimmy smiled and stung the frog and they all drowned.
He stared at his hands. His fingers itched and had broken out in a bubble of raspberry blisters. Fungus. Hadn’t troubled him since 1975. Slowly he peeled the dirty bandages from his injured thumb. All but forgotten about it. Amazingly, the swelling had gone down. With a pink tickle, the stitched edges of the wound were healing. He took hydrogen peroxide and a fresh dressing from his bag and repaired the bandage.
He checked his watch. He’d slept almost nine hours. Be daylight soon. They must be getting close to the former DMZ.
The old neighborhood.
He was familiar with the slim waist of Vietnam that pinched between the Laotian mountains and the South China Sea: 60 kilometers across at its narrowest point. The Ben Hai River ran along the 17th Parallel; the old demarcation line that partitioned North and South Vietnam in the 1954 Geneva Accords. The Demilitarized Zone had buffered the river, 5 kilometers to the north and south.
Broker didn’t know Saigon. He knew the province that lay below the DMZ. Quang Tri. Highway 1 linked the two main towns along the coastal plain, Dong Ha and Quang Tri City. West out of Dong Ha, Highway 9 ran the gauntlet of gory Marine firebases: Cam Lo, Camp Carroll, Ca Lu, the Rock Pile, and finally Khe Sanh. Hue City was 60 kilometers south on the highway from Quang Tri City, into the next province, Thua Thien. The large port city of Danang lay another 160 kilometers below Hue.
Quang Tri was poor and mean tough. It had lepers and bubonic plague and the temperature could hit 120 degrees in the summer. The red dirt had soaked up a lot of blood. It had been Vietnam’s main killing ground for ten years. He remembered a paragraph in a guide book: seven thousand people had died digging for scrap metal in Quang Tri after the war ended. Mines. Unexploded ordnance…
And now Broker was back. To dig.
And his backup and main means of support lay sprawled on the opposite bunk with the empty bottle of rice wine between his knees. A book lay open on Trin’s chest, The Sorrow of War, a novel by a disgruntled North Vietnamese veteran, a black-market English translation the Hanoi street kids hawked along with postcards.
He stared out the grated window. Steaming ground fog, hot as a kitchen stove, obscured the land. A sleepy porter trundled by the door pushing a cart. Broker croaked, “Cafe.”
With a tall, almost clean, glass of thick black coffee he whipped his raw throat into shape with nicotine and watched the dawn come.
The land burned through the wet cotton mist. The ten shades of green furnace he remembered. Brilliant and still vaguely hostile, it hurt his eyes after the smoky, overpopulated inferno of Hanoi. He separated the green into shapes and marveled—not the blasted hills and craters of memory. Pine and eucalyptus trees, planted in orderly farm rows, as far as he could see. Rice fields wandering between them hemmed by dikes of rich red earth. Farmers, hoes on their shoulders, trickled into the fields.
A boy wearing a neat white shirt with a red scarf ran from a farmhouse, schoolbooks under his arm, and raced down the dirt path toward the tracks. Excited, he waved at the passing train. Broker almost smiled. So kids still did that someplace in the world.
The conductor leaned in the corridor, looking out a window. Broker fumbled in broken Vietnamese to inquire when they would cross the river that ran through the old DMZ. “Song Ben Hai khong adoi?”
The conductor pointed to his wristwatch and held up his hand, fingers spread, and said, “Five minutes,” in English. He nodded to the south. “Quang Tri,” he admonished solemnly. Broker leaned back and sipped his coffee.
They had planted a million pine trees in the DMZ.
The sun came up and the heat rolled over him like freeway traffic and left his bones as soggy as Cyrus’s squashed cat. It was Quang Tri all right. The train chugged past a huge military cemetery and its long shadow rippled over thousands of square stone markers laid out in neat rows around a cement spire engraved with a red star.
He craned his neck, looking for reference points. He had operated on every foot of this red dirt along the train tracks between Dong Ha and the DMZ. But now, with things growing everywhere and all the new construction—the war wasn’t just over: it was gone.
Except in America…
Broker shook Trin. “I’m lost,” he said. “A sign just said Gio Linh and I can see a road that has to be Highway One. We must be coming up on Dong Ha but I don’t recognize a thing. There’s…houses.” They crossed the Cam Lo River. A ticky-tacky patchwork of roofs and TV antennas everywhere. Places where he’d fought were now Vietnamese subdivisions.
Trin stared uncomprehending, crushed in the snake wine blues. He shrugged and grimaced and reached for a plastic liter of mineral wa
ter. He rinsed out his mouth, spit out the window, poured some water on his hands, and washed his face. Then he sat with his head in his hands.
Half an hour later the train stopped at Quang Tri City and they got off. A driver and another van was supposed to meet them. “Expect delays,” said Trin with a weak smile. “He lives a few blocks away, we’ll walk. Now we’ll find out if we’re being followed.”
They strolled through a small lorry park and Broker saw that the boxy, thirties-style, French Renault buses were still in operation, painted bright blue and yellow. They continued on toward a small bustling open market. Several kids on bikes circled them, shouting, “Lien So.”
Trin, hungover, grumbled, “They think you’re a Russian.”
Broker thumped his chest and said, “Co Van Mi,” American adviser. The kids’ hard faces broke into smiles.
“We called Russians ‘Americans without dollars.’ They were no fun,” said Trin. He went on to explain how Quang Tri City had never recovered from 1972. Dong Ha had replaced it as the provincial capital. He stopped and pointed to four bullet-and artillery-ravaged walls. Saved as a memorial. “We call this the Lucky House,” he shrugged. “The only thing left standing.”
Broker gazed at the place where he’d been young. He didn’t recognize it. Which was okay. He wasn’t young anymore.
“You want to see where the citadel was?” asked Trin.
Broker shook his head. Looked around. “They can’t use a white guy to tail us, not here,” said Broker.
“More likely a Vietnamese, on a motor bike. Keep a sharp watch.”
They turned down a side street past the market and Trin talked rapidly with a man who sat in the shade of his porch. Trin handed the man some money. “Our driver. I’m giving him the next two days off.” Broker followed him in back of the house and they got in a gray van with Vietnam Hue Tours printed on the side.
“The van will draw attention,” said Broker.
“But it will help us if we get stopped by some unfriendly militia, along with this.” He tapped the travel itinerary folded in his chest pocket.
