After a leisurely lunch on the porch of Nam Phat’s hut, Nam Phat and Gunner went on an inspection tour of his poppy-harvesting operation. The muggy jungle heat continued to pour down on them, almost unbearable due to a lack of wind. Gunner thought about the guide and how his body would already be decomposing. He sniffed the air, testing his sense of smell, searching for the errant aroma of death. He didn’t find it. “You have done well, General. Uncle Vinh will be pleased with my report about your operation.”
“Yes, this has been one of our most productive years. I hope that Uncle Vinh will reward us, even more generously than in the past.”
It sounded to Gunner like the old boy was trying to hit up the organization for more money than he had gotten in past years. “Are you asking if we intend to pay you more per kilo than we have agreed to, General?”
“I think we have worked hard to bring in a much larger crop than usual and it should be worth more to your organization.”
“You have agreed to supply us with opium poppies and transport them down the river to our processing plant in Cambodia. Is that not our arrangement?”
“It was the arrangement, yes, but circumstances are different now.” It did not go unnoticed by Gunner that Nam Phat used the word was. “The political activity of the Communist insurgents has increased significantly in Cambodia. It is more dangerous for my men to travel there. They want more protection and more money. Do you understand, my friend? It is an expense that I hadn’t bargained for, and I should not have to absorb the cost.”
“How much cost are we talking about, General?” Gunner said sharply, while looking into Nam Phat’s shifting eyes.
“I think it could cost an additional 20 percent over what we originally agreed on.”
“Twenty percent of one million dollars is two hundred thousand dollars, U.S. Let me get this straight: you are asking us to pay you another two hundred thousand for transport beyond the confluence of the Mun and Mekong rivers to our processing plant in Cambodia?”
“Yes, that is what I need to satisfy my soldiers and provide them with additional protection.”
“And what happened to your protection agreement with Phu Ho?”
“He is under the same pressure from Communist insurgents, and cannot pledge that his troops will help protect us.”
“You know that I can find out if what you say is true, my friend. It would go very hard on you if you weren’t telling me the truth.” Like a piece of soft wood in a closing vise, General Phat’s knuckles turned white as he gripped the arms of his bamboo chair. The old General took his statement as a challenge to his integrity, as Gunner had intended. Gunner continued to stare deeply into the man’s aging brown eyes.
“I do not take kindly to your insinuation that I would try and deceive you or my Uncle Vinh.” Nam Phat measured his words carefully. “We have had a long and prosperous business relationship which I would not like to see come to an end. But if there is no trust between us, then there can be no furtherance of our continuing business interests. If you think I lie to you to make a few more dollars, than you have misjudged me, and I will be forced to sell my services to others who do trust that I am a man of my word.”
Gunner had listened to this form of what he called “Oriental horseshit” for the past twenty-five years, and he wasn’t buying into it. “As businessmen, Uncle Vinh and I cannot make a profit if our expected expenses are increased by 20 percent. We have only a small profit margin when our product is refined and finally marketed in the U.S.”
Nam Phat squinted hard as the lines in his aging brown face rolled down toward his sagging cheeks. “I think maybe your profit margin is greater than you indicate, my friend, but in any case, that is your business. I must be firm: two hundred thousand dollars more or I will look for another buyer.”
Gunner knew that the old man had him over a barrel. He also knew that Colonel Vinh Ho would not approve of Nam Phat’s business ethics. Uncle Vinh needed the raw product and would approve of Gunner paying the additional money, but he would let Gunner deal with the aging general in whatever way he thought necessary to teach him a lesson.
“It looks like you’ve got us over a barrel, General. I will agree to the extra money. You will be paid off in full on delivery of the raw product to our Cambodian processing plant. I will personally deliver the payment to you when we receive word from Phu Ho that your men have delivered the product.” Gunner stood and held his hand out for the general to shake.
Nam Phat took Gunner’s hand in his and pumped it several times. Then holding both their hands upturned, he turned toward the compound, where his men raised a cheer over the consummation of the deal. “I will call you in Bangkok when the shipment arrives. Do you require a guide to take you back to the airstrip, my friend?”
“No, that won’t be necessary, I found my way here all by myself, I can certainly find my way back. Thank you, General, for the most interesting business lesson.”
“Don’t be bitter, my friend, it’s just the cost of doing business.”
Gunner turned on his heels and strode boldly off the porch, thinking, The next time we meet, old man, you will see just what the cost of doing business is. He smiled as he left the encampment, waved as he passed the outpost guards, and walked into the jungle.
Captain Davis came up to Jerry, acting real excited. “Have you broken the Little Saigon murders case, Jerry, or are these faxes dealing with something else you’ve got going?” Henry had a fistful of papers that he laid on top of Jerry’s desk. “These came in for you last night from Interpol on our secure fax machine. Did you order them up?”
“Sure did, Henry, and I’m getting closer on the Little Saigon murders. Both these guys turned up during my surveillance of the Club Saigon, and I wanted any information Interpol had on them.”
“Looks like a long rap sheet on both of them, but no indictments. The report looks long on suspicion and short on convictions to me.”
“Let me take some time to digest all the data, then I’ll brief you on where I think we ought to go with this.”
“Sounds good to me, Jerry, only let’s be quick with the analysis. It might not be such a bad idea for us to issue our own news release before our psycho strikes again.”
Sure, Jerry thought, let’s spill everything we know to the press. They already have their own informant who seems to know about the murders before they happen. You know—what if the killer is the informant? He held that thought for a minute, then wrote it in a large scrawl with a black magic marker across the front of his Little Saigon murders scoreboard.
The first Interpol rap sheet he pulled up was Michael Shaun McConnell, alias Gunner McConnell, alias, Jaime McCormack, alias Jack McDougal, alias—Gunner had more names than the Queen of England had titles, and as Jerry suspected, he had not been killed in ’68. Jerry wondered who was in the body bag with his personal effects. He made a mental note to try and tie down that loose end. It would take some checking on the Department of Defense computer, but he was sure they’d accommodate him.
The last address they gave for Gunner was in Bangkok, Thailand. According to Interpol, he was observed spending a lot of time in a small flat over a place called the Mu Tai Lounge. It was a place frequented by ex-GIs, mercenaries, and Special Forces.
Interpol listed Gunner’s suspected occupations as gun-runner, mercenary, drug dealer and supplier, businessman, pimp, paid government informant and assassin, murderer, and cat burglar. He had been questioned by the Bangkok Police on several occasions, but they were never able to indict him for any of his numerous suspected crimes. There was a note in his file that said he may have been well connected with the police and local officials. It was never followed up. Gunner had turned into one bad dude since he left the team, but then again, he had been one bad dude when he was on the team.
Jerry kept reading, noting that among Gunner’s associates was a relocated Vietnamese colonel by the name of Vinh Ho. Nothing else, just a mention. Jerry made a mental note to check with the A
merican CIA to see if Vinh Ho was part of the “special” Vietnamese resettlement program that took place after the fall of Saigon in ’75. At that time, it was widely known that the CIA was resettling some of the elite of the Vietnamese government and their families in the U.S. The program was similar to many of the protection programs now used to protect key witnesses in major criminal cases.
The photograph of Gunner that had come in over the wire was right out of his Army personnel file. Jerry had hoped that a more recent picture of him would be available, but then again, Jerry was sure that he’d taken the most recent photos of his old teammate himself. There was no photograph of Colonel Vinh Ho. That seemed odd to Jerry, but perhaps it was not so unusual, in light of Jerry’s suspicions that he was a relocated elite Vietnamese. Jerry wondered just how much Uncle Sam had donated to Colonel Ho to help him start and maintain his profitable and expanding criminal enterprises.
Jerry thought back to 1975. He was working as a patrolman for the LAPD on the day that Saigon fell and the evacuation took place. There he was, sitting in the living room of his spartan North Hollywood apartment, his hand wrapped around a cold one while he listened to Walter Cronkite describing the chaos that was Saigon. He saw the compound that was the American embassy, surrounded by a sea of squirming, screaming, desperate-looking people. It occurred to him at that time that what he was viewing from the comfort of his living room was not real. It was a nightmare, a deathscape of human indignity. It was obvious to him that the few UH-1D helicopters dispatched to remove Vietnamese nationals from the top of the American Embassy could take only a drop of water from this sea of humanity.
As Cronkite droned on, Jerry saw the spiked gates of the embassy straining as the wall of people, hoping to escape the onrushing Communists, surged blindly forward like lemmings marching to the sea. The marine guards held on as the rusty gate hinges creaked and the gates waved like wheat in a Kansas wheat field on a windy day.
Jerry noticed that from time to time, a hand would thrust between the gate posts, frantically waving a sheet of paper. The gate guards would read the paper and, if it was genuine, let the person that had it into the compound. A marine sergeant would quickly escort the lucky pass holder to the top of the embassy roof and an awaiting chopper. That one person was lucky because they were about to be taken to freedom, to escape the insanity that was Vietnam in 1975.
One person out of so many. Jerry remember asking himself what would happen to the rest, but he already knew the answer to that question. Some would die, but not until they went into a concentration/reeducation camp designed to make them rethink their political philosophy. Some would live and become productive citizens of the new regime, but not until after they too were put into the concentration/reeducation camps to rethink their political philosophy.
Neither of the alternatives was pleasant, but that’s what these people had in store for them. No wonder they were furiously trying to escape. It reminded Jerry of a naval aphorism that he had once modified to meet a situation similar to the chaos he was watching: “Women and children first—after me!”
So, there it was right on the television, right before his eyes: the privileged few would escape the fate of the underprivileged masses. That’s the way Cronkite saw and reported it. That’s the way the American public who knew anything about Vietnamese politics saw it. That’s the way Jerry saw it. How many other Vinh Hos were out there? How many of the privileged few became members of American society? How many?
It occurred to him that this was not much different than the Mariel boatlift out of Cuba that took place just a few years ago. The difference there was that Castro sent America all the dregs and criminals of his society, and the U.S. sent most of them back. The dregs of Vietnamese society were given a safe haven in the good old magnanimous U.S of A. They had taken the good with the bad, and now pockets of organized Vietnamese crime bosses, like Vinh Ho, had sprung up in most of the major cities. They had taken the best of a generation of America’s youth and planted them in their soil, and now they reaped the benefits of American soil.
Jerry’s head was beginning to pound as he put the information into his case folder. He really did need a vacation, and Lord knew he had the time coming. He checked with personnel and found out that he had six weeks of vacation time, but knowing Captain Davis’ stance on long vacations, he knew it would be worthless to ask for the time off until he solved the Little Saigon murder case.
Jerry pulled the photo of Gunner out of the folder once more and looked into his eyes. “I know you’re involved, you son of a bitch,” he said under his breath. He looked at the stat sheet one more time, and that was when it came to him. The light in his head winked on like a sleazy, blinking neon sign in a downtown bar’s front window: BANGKOK... BANGKOK... BANGKOK. It sucked him in like a moth to a flame. If Davis would buy into his plan, Jerry would be taking a working vacation in Thailand, all expenses paid by the LAPD.
TWENTY
Gunner had concluded his business in Cambodia with Phu Ho. He had spent three days in the encampment of his boss’s nephew. Three days of detailed planning regarding the next shipment of poppies that would be sent down the river. Three days of silently cursing Nam Phat and his Thai guerillas for the way they had treated him. Three days plotting the revenge he would exact from the aging leader.
Gunner was in his idea of heaven as he sat in the dark, noisy, smoke-filled Mu Tai Lounge. A scantily clad Thai bar girl clung to each of his arms. He flexed his right forearm and looked down at the tattoo he had etched there when he was a senior in high school. A devil with a pitchfork and the words “BORN TO BE BAD.” Boy, how the high school chicks had eaten that up. He had been one of the only guys in school with a tattoo. It had been like a pussy magnet for the athletically built senior.
He’d concealed it for a while, wearing long-sleeve shirts at home, then rolling up his sleeves when he got to school. One day, he was working in the front yard of his parents’ modest home. The sun was blazing hot and the air was as thick as a slice of his mom’s homemade bread. He forgot about the tattoo and took off his shirt. His mom noticed the offensive tattoo artist’s handiwork as she stood at the kitchen window doing the morning dishes. At dinner that night, his dad asked him to roll up his sleeve, which he did. There was some heated debate. His mom told him she hated the tattoo, and his dad told him to have it removed or he would burn it off. Gunner left home that week. but not before putting his old man in the hospital with a broken arm. A necessity, after his dad had gotten his Benz-o-Matic torch out of the garage and began chasing him around the house, yelling “Born to burn in Hell!” Three weeks later, Gunner graduated from high school and joined the Army.
He was heavier today, but still lean and mean. That’s what the guys on the “A” Team had used to call him. “The lean, mean fighting machine.” After his second tour in Nam, they replaced the word “fighting” with “killing.” He wasn’t sure exactly when the voices had begun to direct him, but they had kept him out of trouble and he liked that. With a hot-bodied girl on each arm, though, he didn’t need any voices to tell him what to do. The three of them left the smoke-filled Mu Tai Lounge and went upstairs to his air-conditioned suite for a little adult recreation. As they mounted the stairs, Gunner let his right arm slide down the younger Thai girl’s ass, cradling her well-shaped buns. He looked down at his flexing forearm as he strode toward his room. “BORN TO BE BAD.”
The case seemed to be cyclic. A series of killings, then nothing. To Jerry’s mind, it was not random killing: it was serial in nature. He looked for patterns in all his cases. Patterns could tell you not only when the criminal would strike but where, and even, if you were lucky, who the criminal was. The FBI had a unit that specialized in helping local law enforcement agencies. It was known as the Criminal Investigative Analysis Unit. They worked out of an underground dungeon in Quantico, Virginia. It was a think tank for criminal behavior. Jerry had used them before, and they’d proved beneficial in helping him see patterns that were ri
ght in front of his face. Patterns that he should’ve recognized but couldn’t see. He wanted to send them the information and photographs, but needed Captain Davis’ permission before getting other agencies involved.
He knew the captain like the back of his hand. The captain would ask him the same questions he always did. “Can’t we solve this without them, Jerry? It looks bad when we have to bring in other agencies to help us solve crimes.”
Jerry would stand with his head bowed slightly, and nod his assent to each of his statements. “Yes sir, you’re right, Captain.”
The captain would prod Jerry again. “Have we gotten anything from the surveillance team or other street sources?”
Jerry would shuffle his feet and look at the floor. “No, sir, the surveillance team didn’t turn up anything, so I canceled them to save money for the department. I have some street punks working on getting information, but they haven’t turned up anything either.”
“Good. Thank you for looking out for the department’s budget. The chief will look favorably on me for that. God knows with my retirement just around the corner, I could use all the help I can get with the chief.”
Eventually, Captain Davis would cave in and let Jerry carry on as he saw fit. It was a personality pattern that he didn’t need help discovering and exploiting.
Vinh Ho was still concerned about the killings and the effect they were having on business, but at least he had something to be happy about. As he sat at the rear table in the Club Saigon, his face shrouded by the incessant presence of his large dark glasses, he thought of the telephone call he had just received from Bangkok. An anonymous caller had informed him that his next drug shipment would take place within the month. Vinh was a little discouraged to find out his old friend General Nam Phat was not cooperating like he usually did, but that was to be expected in a high-profile, high-profit business. The call was placed from a telephone booth and took less than two minutes to complete.
Club Saigon Page 15
