“What next?” Yong Kyu said, and went on in a joking tone. “Shall I bring in the staff sergeant from the supply corps and the master sergeant from the brigade canteen and punch them in the nose?”
“Hey,” the chief sergeant said, “they’ve only been dealing in order to put a little cash away for when they take off their uniforms. They haven’t committed any serious crimes, have they? Fight when you have to fight, and make money while you can, that’s what I say. We came here to make some stinking money, and nobody stole anything, we just did a little business, that’s all.”
“Listen, you: you’ve got to figure out your right foot from your left. Blue Jacket Ahn is trying to cover for you. He’s got the detachment by the throat, isn’t that right?
“When the pictures are developed, it’ll be more than enough,” Yong Kyu said.
“From now on all the Korean beer is yours,” the captain said to the chief sergeant. The latter started to sulk.
“What do you expect me to do, go out and sell it myself door to door? I don’t speak the language and I don’t know any Vietnamese merchants.”
“Don’t worry about it. I wrote down all the dealers that Lieutenant Colonel Pak was using.”
Yong Kyu took out his notebook and showed it to them.
“What do you know, that slimy woman who owns this place, that raccoon, she’s one of Pak’s customers, too,” the captain said in a low voice.
“Sure. She charges us four fifty or even five dollars a can for beer she buys at a buck-fifty a can.”
“That’s a wholesale price. The retail price goes as high as six dollars at the moment, you know,” the chief sergeant said.
“For a guy so much in the know, how come you’ve been spinning your wheels without getting anything done? You better come with me to say hello to Colonel Cao. So much for the beer. As for that canteen sergeant at brigade headquarters, you should collar him, too. There’s liquor and cigarettes.”
“I understand.”
“And take good care of the boys, look after them. And rent a truck, too.”
“The owner of the place where I’m working now, he rents vans. Get one from him for now.”
“Well, that’s one more thing taken care of,” said the captain in a better mood. “What remains is the matter of the beer. It’ll leave us in an awkward spot if we end up clashing with the US side again.”
“We can solve that problem by reaching a compromise with the Vietnamese police superintendent. The basic information must have come from there. Korean beer was pushing out American PX beer all through the Da Nang circulation network. That was their way of irritating the US forces so that they would interfere with the marketing of our beer.”
“Right, we can arrange something with Cao. Anyway, since all the deals on the US side are made either at the harbor or in their warehouses—that is, within their compounds—the final responsibility was bound to fall on third-country nationals. We’ve got to get detailed information on the black market activities of the US economic operations team.”
Yong Kyu explained again what he had copied from Pak’s records. The captain listened for a while with his brow furrowed into a frown and then thought deeply.
“That’s it, A-rations are the goods least connected with the war. If stored too long, they turn into garbage, but fresh meat, fruit, and vegetables are daily necessities in central Da Nang. It makes price manipulation very easy. It’s produce consumed by the privileged of the city, but it raises problems of its own, and not just a few, either. If we pull the wrong thread, we might find ourselves holding a snake’s tail instead of a sack of potatoes. Once bitten, we lose.”
“The B-rations we pull out from Turen have little impact on the prices of other goods and the transactions are easy. I’ll try to dig up some details on the A-ration trading. I have a feeling something will turn up.”
“Will you begin with MAC?”
“No, sir. I’ll start at the opposite end,” Yong Kyu said with a smile. “Le Loi market.”
“Fine. If worse comes to worst, we’ll find ourselves back at square one. Why not take a look at the Americans’ turf? Just don’t get them upset.”
The captain agreed with Yong Kyu’s idea of digging up details on A-ration dealings. Once they understood the mechanism of price-fixing in the black market, other valuable information would fall into their lap as well. It was their best bet.
“The underground trade in dollars is important, too,” the captain went on.
“It’s not just military currency, sir. You can change anything: money orders, francs, deutsch marks, yen, you name it. Everything is quoted in piasters, though. They say money changers have been coming here all the way from Cholon and Saigon.”
On Wednesday afternoon, Yong Kyu made his regular rounds and drove a rec center Jeep through the convoy traffic to the Turen supply warehouse. He met Leon in front of the warehouse. The American looked worried and quickly ushered Yong Kyu inside.
“There’s a big problem.”
“What is it? Something gone wrong with our business?”
“No, that wouldn’t be so serious. You know Stapley, don’t you?”
“So, he’s the one in trouble?”
Yong Kyu had once enjoyed a night on the town with Sergeant Stapley, Leon’s best friend. Stapley was a blonde from New York, handsome as a French movie actor. He was always talking up his plans to become a cartoonist when the war was over. In some ways he was very different from Leon. He used the most imaginative swearing among the GIs to denounce the Vietnam War. He had something of an artistic gift and was in the habit of making medallions and bracelets by engraving sayings he composed himself in Gothic lettering on coins and strips of metal or plastic. He had given Yong Kyu a yellow plastic emblem with red lettering that read: “Do Not Crumple or Trample before Disposal!” Other creations of his said things like “God-Damned War” or “Fucking Murderers!” or “Baby Cookers” or sometimes titles or lyrics from popular rock songs. That night Leon had vanished early with a woman and Yong Kyu had spent the whole night drinking whiskey with Stapley. He remembered their conversation.
“I was a helicopter gunner. Even got a medal. That’s how I got to be a sergeant. Now I’ll never be a cartoonist. Listen to me, you smelly Asian boy, I’m gonna stay put right here and get promoted to be master sergeant with a moustache and then I’ll give a hell of a time to my men. You know that guy named Silverstein, right? He writes poems and illustrates them. What if we brought him over here and made him a sergeant, what d’you think?”
“You idiot, you don’t even know what would happen, do you? Either he’d sell the entire stock of Turen to fill his belly, or live on, like you, throwing a tantrum over the killing on the battlefield, or maybe just get killed himself,” Yong Kyu had said.
“Stapley’s disappeared,” Leon said.
“Maybe he’s just gone to China Beach again, to play poker and now he’s sleeping it off?”
“I wish that was all. But he took off with a truckload of poncho liners. Must be worth three thousand dollars.”
“Why the hell would he take poncho liners?”
“Because that warehouse was just finished inventorying. There were also jungle boots and tents.”
“How long’s he been gone?”
“Five days. An AWOL report already went up the chain.”
AWOLs were everywhere. Sometimes they would fake a transfer and show up at a foreign barracks, or loiter around one of the ARVN city detachment posts. Once in a while an AWOL American managed to hole up for months in a Vietnamese civilian household.
“Can’t you do something?” Leon asked. “I want to help him.”
“Me?” Yong Kyu rolled his eyes. “You must be out of your mind. We’re different from you guys. And this is your installation. How can I help you? Leon, I can tell you know where he is.”
“More or
less. Probably trying to get some help from the AWOL Rescue Society.”
“What’s that? A group that helps out AWOLs?”
“It’ll be harder than down in Saigon, but I’m sure there’s also a group here. Please find him a civilian house where he can hide for a month. You know the locals. All of us boys in Turen love him. We don’t want to see him thrown in jail.”
Yong Kyu tried to come up with an idea. Leon again spoke. “The reward is no problem. Just tell me what kind of goods you want.”
“Shut up. I’m not after a reward. Let’s just find him and talk to him.”
“I have a feeling he’ll get in touch with me after a few days. We need to find him a hideout before then.”
Yong Kyu talked it over with Toi, who undertook finding a private home to take Stapley in.
“It’s interesting,” Toi said with a smile, “to see people proclaiming their neutrality like this.”
“Not to me. I have no position. I’m going home as soon as I can and then I’ll forget about all this.”
They emerged from Nguyen Cuong’s warehouse after stacking the goods they had delivered. Nguyen Thach pushed open the door leading into the marketplace and stepped out.
“What do you have today?” Thach asked.
“Canned pork and potatoes.”
“Boring, yet again,” Thach said. Then he turned to Toi and said, “Bring me some raisins and spices.”
“They haven’t done the inventory yet, that’s why. We’ll go back on Friday, so why don’t you let them know directly what you need?”
“Ah, all right, then.”
“I guess the money for last week’s been collected?”
“Yeah, about eight hundred dollars so far.”
“We need to rent one of your cars. Mr. Nguyen Thach, let us use one of your box vans. How much do you charge for a day?”
“I’ll let you have it for twenty-five dollars, gas not included. Others will charge you thirty, but since we’re a family here I’ll give you a discount.”
“We only need it after siesta, not the whole day.”
“Fifteen, then. But you people have vehicles, don’t you?”
“They’re all marked with company names. My friend, a sergeant, and I are going to use it. Ten dollars, what do you say?”
“All right. But have it back before dark. There’ll be another five dollars charged if you use it until late tonight.” Thach was an excellent haggler.
“Ask him about the A-rations,” Yong Kyu said to Toi.
“What about them?”
“Well, prices, what’s in demand, that sort of thing.”
“Mr. Nguyen Thach, what kinds of A-rations are selling well these days?” Toi inquired.
“Can you get some?” Thach countered with a sparkle in his eyes.
“Well, we can try . . .”
“Onions are good and so is beef . . . apples and oranges are doing especially well.”
“Which command the best price now?”
“Hard to tell. I’ve never handled them. Go over to the new market and find out for yourself. There’s also one dealer here, a very large operation called Puohung Company, right over on the next alley. The owner is an even bigger trader than my brother.”
“Sergeant, I could smell it,” Toi said to Yong Kyu. “We were right, it’s Puohung Company after all. They handle A-rations, he says.”
“No more questions for him now.”
Thach went back over to his desk and sat down. He punched his calculator for a while and then, out of the blue, asked Yong Kyu, “My understanding is that only American soldiers can lay hands on A-rations, and there are none at Turen, is that right?”
“They store them across the river.”
“As I said, Puohung is the only one around here handling A-rations. As for me, I’m more interested in medical supplies. My brother says antibiotics are in great demand, and mosquito repellant and disinfectants for purifying water are going for high prices.”
Yong Kyu gazed at the man in silence, then said, “I can see why antibiotics are needed, but the other items are only required in the jungle, eh?”
“I see you obviously don’t know the unwritten law of Le Loi market. A merchant with a firm political stance is disqualified as a business partner.”
“Of course, we can take an unlimited amount of medical supplies out of Turen.”
After a period of silence, Yong Kyu opened his mouth again, carefully gauging Thach’s reaction. “If we’re talking about something like Terramycin, there is little bulk, since a box holds a dozen bottles containing a hundred pills each. What do they charge for a pill?”
“I’m not sure, one hundred piasters, perhaps.”
“Outrageous.”
“You certainly can’t compare the margin with B-rations,” Thach said, taking from his drawer a package of razor blades. “Something like this, for example. Do they manufacture razor blades of this quality in your country?”
“Well, not yet, not razor blades,” Yong Kyu said, shaking his head.
“See what I mean? Same is true with fingernail clippers or fruit knives. They can be copied, but the problem is tempering the blade. If we work on it hard enough I’m sure we’ll also be able to make them in time. But you can’t make guns when you’re being driven by a war. And as the war has come from outside, so have the guns. In the jungle they make do with bows, bamboo spears, and drums, but they need guns, too.”
Tired of Thach’s stiff speech, Yong Kyu yawned and asked, “What exactly are you trying to say?”
Once more Thach picked up the package of razor blades and showed it to him.
“This. This represents the lifestyle of a country that has the technology and matériel to reduce the entire territory of Vietnam to ashes. That lifestyle is woven into a single razor blade, like the knots in a net. Take a box of these with you when you go back home, and it’ll bring you a nice pile of cash. That’ll be the case in Korea, I imagine. But here this is no commodity for earning profits.”
“Why is that? Because the NLF doesn’t use razor blades as weapons?”
As soon as he spat out these words, Yong Kyu realized he had gone too far. He had been too direct. However, Thach’s expression did not change. He was still smiling.
“Ah, that slipped out. Because of your clothes . . . if you were in uniform I’d have been more careful. You see, I was not speaking with any political or military allegiance in mind. After all, I’m a businessman. To know what items are selling best is all that’s important to me. There’s a limit on the goods that are in demand only in US-occupied areas. There’s a downside to A-rations selling well. It’s true that you can dispose of them quickly, the customers are steady, and the profit margin is good and stable. It’s a business dealing with a special class of customers.
“For medical supplies, on the other hand, especially antibiotics and mosquito repellant, those are commodities whose customers are spread far and wide. Whether they end up being used by farmers or by jungle-dwellers is of no concern to a businessman. You see, in Vietnam, nobody dies from not having his face cleanly shaven. All the small merchants in this market live off the trade generated by the US military warehouses and PXs. But with the big merchants it’s different. Take my brother, for instance. He knows what items have the broadest range of consumers. Remedies for indigestion may not be popular, but antibiotics or first aid treatments for external wounds are definitely in great demand here and now. If I may be more blunt, carbines make more realistic merchandise than fruit knives. But then, of course, I have no intention of dealing in merchandise of that kind.”
Yong Kyu decided to step out of his role as an army man. “You seem to be taking the words out of our mouths. What nationality are you, anyway? As for me, I’ll be back home as a civilian in a few months.”
“Isn’t war the most merciless form of
business? You people, not to mention the Americans . . . when you all leave . . . when the war is over . . . the style of life you brought here with you will vanish, too. In any case, in a pandemonium where people are bleeding and their wounds must be dressed, the desperate demand for medical supplies not only makes me money, it gives me a sense of personal gratification to supply those needs. After all, these are my fellow countrymen.”
Toi said something to Thach in Vietnamese. A gentle smile wrinkled the corners of his eyes as Thach replied.
“Oh, how thoughtless of me. You said you’re hungry and lunch is on me today. I’ve been talking at you so much for only on reason: I want to buy medical supplies.”
“Let’s go have lunch,” Yong Kyu said, looking at Thach, then at Toi.
“There’s a place I know down by the pier. Famous for fried fish. And . . .” Thach said, counting the military notes he had removed from his pocket, “here is the eight hundred dollars for last week.”
“Four hundred is left, then. Here’s the ten for the van.”
They finished settling the accounts. Toi got behind the wheel of the van and Yong Kyu and Thach sat side by side in the back. Yong Kyu asked Thach, “Do you plan to sell the medical supplies only here in Da Nang?”
“That’s a tricky question. I’ll sell them in Da Nang, but I can’t be responsible for where the goods end up.”
“I will supply the goods on one condition.”
Thach smiled and leaned back to wait for Yong Kyu to go on.
“I want you to give me detailed information on the transactions of Puohung Company. I want to know who the American soldiers are, their ranks and units, the kind of items they’re supplying, quantities, and prices, and so on.”
The Shadow of Arms Page 42
