by Peter Colt
“These are unmarked?”
“That is true.” He looked at me and at the coins again.
“I cannot sell these.” His Germanic sense of order would not allow him to use contractions in his opening gesture in the haggle.
“Yes, you can, it’s gold. One can always sell gold.”
“They have no markings.” The currency market likes to be able to know where the gold is coming from. They don’t love the idea that it is Nazi gold that was taken from the camps.
“They are an ounce each. They are pure. And you know they have a value that is intrinsic.” He was known to help the value of his antiques by making them seem older than they were. Now he was looking at twenty chances to make rare, antique coins out of gold blanks.
“I might be able to dispose of them, but it would be at a loss.” He was hooked. We haggled. In the end, I ended up with $8,000 in cash and a meerschaum pipe that caught my eye.
I walked out of the store. The Marconi’s bag was getting heavier. There still wasn’t any sign of the cream-colored Ford T-bird. He probably assumed that I would blow myself up at the office. Everything still ached as I walked. It had been a rough couple of days. My garage was near the river and just off Mass Avenue, not very far from my apartment.
I was in luck. Carney was there. I had helped him out years before, and he was always good to me. He had been in the army during Korea. Tall and barrel chested, he always had an unlit cigar in his mouth. After we shook hands, he said, “I heard your Karmann Ghia blew up?”
“Yeah, how’d you hear?” He shrugged. Carney had one foot in the underworld. He liked me because I had been in a shitty war in Asia, too.
“Good, it was a piece of garbage. You’re better off without it.”
“The heater never worked well.” I had loved that car. It was the first nice one I had ever owned.
“Yeah, exactly what I mean. What can I do for you?”
“I need a car . . . something older, nondescript . . . and with a working heater. It’s gonna get driven here in town, so nothing fancy.”
“I got just the thing. Actually, thought of you when I bought it.” He turned and motioned me to follow him. We went through the bays and out in the back. There was a breeze off of the Charles River that seemed to push the smell of motor oil around. He stopped at a two-door Ford that was painted a shade of blue so nondescript it defied description.
“It’s a’75 Ford Maverick 302, the Grabber. It has low mileage and a paint job no one will remember. It is fast and nimble. Pound for pound, I would take it over a Mustang.” He got in and started the engine. It roared, not rumbled, to life. “I’ve tweaked the suspension and brakes. I had a fellow who was looking at it for a job but his parole officer got him first.” He smiled around his cigar and pushed the gas so I could appreciate the roar of the engine.
We took it out for a test-drive. It was fast and nimble, like he said, and I had to pay attention driving it. The 302 was a lot of engine for a car that size. I didn’t have to mash the gas pedal. We scared a lot of nice Bostonians before we made it back to his garage. We agreed on a price. I peeled several hundred-dollar bills of my coin money and handed it to him. We agreed that he would install some sort of lockbox in the trunk and put in a discreet compartment behind the glove box. He’d leave the dealer plates on, and I could park it at his place for the near future.
I borrowed his phone and called Brenda Watts and invited her to lunch. She, being a humble civil servant, agreed to lunch at the Union Oyster House if I was buying. Carney loaned me a beater while he was working on the lockboxes.
I made my way through the twists and turns of Boston’s streets and found parking not far from the Union Oyster House. It is one of the oldest operating restaurants in America. The list of notable patrons is long and includes U.S. presidents. The food was priced commensurably.
Brenda Watts was waiting for me in a booth. Her honey-colored hair was back in a simple ponytail. She was wearing a cream blouse and a simple, dark pantsuit. I sat down next to her and put the Marconi’s bag in between us. There was a club soda with a wedge of lime in front of her. The waiter came and I ordered a Lowenbrau.
“Roark, you look like shit warmed over.”
“Thank you, Watts. Getting beaten up and blown up will do that to a fellow.”
“What’s in the bag?” I reached in and pulled out the smaller bag. She opened it and looked inside.
“Cute. What am I supposed to do, scare someone with its popping noises?”
“The bullets have been modified. Looks like they were drilled, then filled with mercury, then capped with lead or maybe solder. Pretty nasty thing: the bullet is fired, the mercury is thrown to the rear, and then when it hits, it is thrown forward and pops the soldering off. It causes vicious wounds that have mercury floating around in them. Quite messy.”
“Where did you get this?”
“It was in the jacket pocket of the girl who took my car. She had that and a silenced Czechoslovakian .32 copy of a Walther. I was thinking that you could run it or test it in your lab and see if it has a history. Probably a long shot, but we don’t have much actual evidence of anything.”
“The Colt .25 isn’t such a rarity, though I haven’t ever seen rounds like this. There was nothing left of the gun in the car we could use. The fire was hot. Maybe the metallurgy could tell us something, but we aren’t looking. No one seems to care.”
“The bullets are an old KGB trick. They usually use cyanide. The .25 is an assassin’s gun.”
“What does a PI from Boston know about the KGB?”
“Oh, Watts, I have been around.” I drew the last word out to give it emphasis. She sipped her club soda. It was done demurely, and she looked up at me while she sipped at her straw. If I was standing, I would have felt weak in the knees, but that also could have been an aftereffect of the explosion.
“What did you do during the war, Andy?”
“I was in Army Special Forces. I served in Vietnam.” It is funny that what I did a decade ago was still a secret, such a secret that I had signed a bushel of nondisclosure papers, that I was still subject to their ink-crafted chains. What was even funnier was that outside of the guys who were in SOG or directly supported it no one knew about it.
“Then a cop here, and now a PI. You don’t strike me as the type to rub elbows with Vietnamese KGB assassins or have your car blown up.” Her tone was a teasing one, almost flirty. I was being interrogated but for once didn’t seem to mind.
“We didn’t actually rub elbows . . . a bit lower actually.”
“Roark . . . !”
“How did the car blow up?”
“There was a Claymore mine. There wasn’t much left to work with, but they think it was in the rear wheel well.” The Claymore mine was a favorite in Vietnam. One pound of C-4 plastic explosive in a curved plastic shell, 750 ball bearings. It wasn’t meant to be used in a car. It was meant to be used in the defense against human wave assaults or to initiate an ambush. It was like lining up fifteen 12-gauge shotguns side by side and firing them at the same time. In the case of the Claymore, the curved case angled the ball bearings into a fan that blasted anything in its path. The blast from the pound of explosives was impressive, too. These guys were lazy or believed in overkill and seemed to have access to military ordnance.
“Roark, are you paying attention? I was explaining the Claymore mine.” Gone was the flirty interrogation technique.
“Watts, I used them so often in Vietnam, I could set one up in my sleep. I have blown hundreds of them. Putting it in my car was excessive.” They wouldn’t have needed a pound of C-4 to touch off the gas tank. They wouldn’t have needed the ball bearings ripping through the car.
“Watts, what do you think of this?” I showed her the grenade in the bag.
“Is that what I think it is?” The neat thing about hand grenades is that there was no mistaking them for anything else.
“Why do you want that? It is a federal offense to have it.” S
he was all business until she pushed some honey-colored hair out of her eyes and sipped more club soda.
“Someone left it for me in my office. Booby-trapped my front door. Watts, there is a theme to this thing that has me worried.”
“What is that, Roark?” She had nice eyes, and I was aware that her blouse was open one more button than Mr. Hoover would have approved of. Her lips were moist from the club soda, and I was a mess.
“Nam. It starts with two dead Vietnamese, Pham and Lieu, one here in Chinatown and one in Quincy. Then a Vietnamese woman shows up and hires me to go look, then she takes me to bed, turns out to be the Vietnamese version of the KGB and gets killed by a Claymore mine, a staple of Vietnam, which was no doubt meant for me. This morning I went to my office. Something didn’t seem right, and then I realized my door was booby-trapped. Taped to a trip wire was an M26 grenade, rigged to blow up instantly. It is like Vietnam—three tours, ten years later—is still fucking trying to kill me.” I finished my Lowenbrau, wished I had chosen whiskey, and ordered another. It arrived, cold and in its green bottle.
“Andy, what are you going to do with it?” She was serious, her brows knit. I wanted to bite her lower lip and make promises that I could never keep. Maybe it was nearly being blown up and killed that brings out the romantic fool in me. She was attractive and not a Vietnamese spy, which suddenly was a lot more appealing than I would have thought.
“Take it to a friend at Fort Devens. Have him check the stock number and see if we can track it down.” What I was thinking and should have said was, Stuff it in the mouth of the murderous fuck who killed the girl, my Ghia, and was trying hard to kill me. “Then have him take it out and have the Explosive Ordnance Disposal boys blow it up. Or just toss it in the Charles—you can’t do much more to that river.”
We ordered. We started with oysters. Probably the least romantic time a man and woman sat across from each other and slurped them down. I feel bad for people who don’t like oysters on the half shell. They are chewy, taste like the ocean, and with a little cocktail sauce, so much the better. Although I have never found them to live up to their reputation as an aphrodisiac.
“Andy, are you going to tell me what this is about? Really about.” She looked at me with pretty eyes and concern, and I almost did.
“Watts, you know that I am radioactive. You know, metaphorically. You seem like you like your career. You might want a little deniability.”
“Why? I’m not afraid.” She raised her chin at me. It was cute and I could see that if I spent more time with her, I would lose a lot of arguments. I could see how she ended up in the bureau. There was a fierceness to her.
After the oysters came a much less sexy New England boiled dinner for me and a Cobb salad for her.
“Did you ever wonder why you got the call in the middle of the night to tell you to stay out of it?”
“Sure.”
“Did it occur to you that they are serious about you and the bureau not being involved?”
“So what? You can’t blow people up in Boston.” She was on her second martini.
“Watts. I am not sure what it is exactly, but I have stumbled into some sort of Company operation. That is why the deputy director is waving you off the case.”
“The Company,” she said.
“The Company,” I confirmed.
“The fucking Company.”
“Yep, which means, for you, nice Fed lady, I am radioactive.”
“Radioactive . . . Jesus, I don’t even like you that much.”
We finished and she ordered the chocolate mousse. I ordered a coffee. There wasn’t much more to talk about. I paid, we left, and on the sidewalk she looked at me and said, “Be careful, Roark. You are seriously out of your league.” I thanked her and drove to the office. Out of my league? I was wondering what league I was in. I certainly wasn’t playing in Fenway anymore. I left Watts with the serial number of the Colt, asking her to see if it had any history.
I parked a street over and a few blocks away out of an abundance of caution. I went in the back door of Marconi’s. There was a cream-colored T-bird parked in back. The hood was cold. I stopped debating whether to go in. I needed information more than anything. I stopped in Marconi’s bathroom and removed the tape from the grenade and put it in my right outer pocket. A smart man would have left.... I was frustrated with being pushed around and blown up.
I made my way upstairs and walked into my office. The same pair who had been arguing with Nguyen in the kitchen of the Blue Lotus were now in my office. Asian Run-DMC was there, holding what looked like a small .45 in his hand. He quickly pointed it at me. It was a Llama, a small Spanish .380. Unlike the larger Colt pistol, this had a ventilated rib down the slide. He had on his silly hat and Adidas tracksuit. Standing next to him was the guy who dressed out of a ten year old catalog. He was holding a Smith & Wesson Model 10 snub nose, with its thick six-shot cylinder, in his right hand. Sitting at my desk, looking like he owned it, was a well-dressed Vietnamese man in his fifties. Unlike the other two, who were pointing their guns at me, his, another Llama .380, was on my desk in front of him.
“Hello, Trung Si Roark.” He had the Vietnamese habit of over pronouncing the Rs in my name. It amused my teammates in-country to no end that the Vietnamese thought that I was Sergeant Rock, like the comic book character. “I am Colonel Tran.”
“Good evening, Colonel. I appreciate your coming in person instead of just blowing me up from a distance.” I slowly stepped further into the office. Ten-year-old catalog guy gestured toward my waist with his .38. I held the raincoat open, and he stepped in, snub nose unwavering, and took the Colt .45 out of its holster and put it on the desk.
“Yes, it is regrettable that things have gotten to this point. Please understand, we merely thought you were an annoyance until you and the communist agent went to Global Sea Transport. That made us nervous, and now, so much unnecessary killing. Did you know she was a communist?”
“No, I found out a few minutes before you blew her and my car up.” I had felt tense, the type of tension that is in the jaw where it meets the neck, before I walked in.
“Dad, we should just off this guy and be done with it.” This from the kid in the tracksuit. His father barked at him in Vietnamese. Salvation Army realized that my hands were still in my pockets. He gestured toward them with his thick revolver.
“I really liked that car, too.” I ignored Asian Run. Colonel Tran smiled, revealing gold teeth in front. It used to be quite the fashion among wealthier Vietnamese soldiers to get gold teeth. Gold teeth and tailored, skin-tight uniforms. I never understood that.
“She was here to disrupt my work with the Committee and to kill you. You see, the communists still consider you a war criminal, whereas the Committee, men like me, we see a hero. It is just unfortunate that things have gotten so disharmonious. You should be working with us.”
Salvation Army pointed his .38 at my midsection, then at my left pocket. I looked at him. “It’s a gun. I am going to take it out slowly.” Using my thumb and index finger, I took the Chief’s Special out of my pocket and held it out to him butt first. He took it, his eyes straying from the gun to the ring from the M26 fragmentation grenade. He backpedaled, putting my .38 on the desk next to my .45. and said something in Vietnamese.
“Dad let’s just kill this loser and split,” Tran barked at him.
“Trung Si Roark, what is in your other pocket?” I eased my hand out of my pocket. In it I was the fragmentation grenade, holding the spoon down with my thumb. I felt happy for the first time in days.
“Oh, you mean this. You left it taped to my chair. Would you like it back?” Salvation Army said something in rapid Vietnamese.
“Let’s just shoot this loser. The grenade has, like, a five-second fuse. We’ll be downstairs before it blows up.” Tracksuit was full of good ideas. His father barked a short command at him. I looked over at Tracksuit.
“Boy, this grenade has a smoke grenade fuse, not a regular timed f
use. If I let this spoon go, it blows right away.” I smiled at him.
“You’re lying.”
“If you think that, then you are actually dumber than you look, and you look pretty fucking stupid.” It would have been worth being shot, blown to smithereens just to see the look of surprise on his stupid face.
“Trung Si, please, let’s be civil. He is my son. I wanted to raise him as an American and not the way I was raised. Clearly, that was a mistake. You see, he is like you Americans, impetuous and self-indulgent.” He smiled, like we were dads at the playground sharing parenting tips.
“Self-indulgent?”
“Yes. You would think that you were the only ones in the war, that your small sacrifices of blood have any bearing on what happens in and to Vietnam. We Vietnamese lost so many more than you. We lost our whole country. Yet you Americans act as though the war only touched you. It didn’t. You would come and fight for a year and leave—war tourists. We stayed, we fought the Chinese, the Japanese, the French, and then you came for a little bit.” I have seen cobra snakes spew less venom.
“It is funny, Colonel, but I left my blood on Vietnamese soil; most of my friends and brothers died there. We did it because we believed we were there to fight against a horrible enemy trying to enslave you and your country. We were sacrificed a great deal to defend the Vietnamese people. What was difficult, nearly impossible to watch was the sheer greed and laziness of the ARVN officers we dealt with. The ones who would steal the humanitarian aid we gave out. The ones who were to cowardly to go out on missions with us. Not all of the ARVN or politicians, just a lot of them.” I was angry. I had seen so many fucked-up ARVN officers that I was still angry. I had known some great ones, but they were as rare as they were brave. The King Bees, the Vietnamese helicopter pilots who supported us, were braver than brave. They would fly into the mouth of hell to get us out of the shit if that is where we were. I loved those guys like brothers.