‘Yes,’ answered Muir. ‘I never realized there were so many ways to disappear inside a combat zone. But anyway, they finally caught him.’
‘Maybe he forgot to get a haircut,’ joked Condley.
‘Indeed,’ laughed Professor Muir. ‘After twenty-seven days you may be right. So our man was reduced to private, with forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and sentenced to two months in the Third Marine Amphibious Force brig, Da Nang. His next offense: commanding officer’s nonjudicial punishment, 15 April, 1968, for disrespect to a non-commissioned officer. Fifteen days’ confinement, loss of all pay and privileges. Next offense, or shall I say the final straw: absent without leave, 6 May, 1968, never seen or heard from again, whereabouts unknown.’
‘He probably disappeared inside Dogpatch at that point,’ mused Condley, remembering the thicket of tin-roofed shacks near the First Marine Division headquarters where hundreds of errant Marines once hid. ‘That’s where they ended up when they fell in love.’
‘Really?’ said Muir, amazed at Condley’s instant certainty. ‘If it was that logical, and if they believed he was in this Dogpatch, why didn’t they just go in and get him?’
‘Picture an inner-city neighbourhood where everybody is carrying an M-16, Professor. Would you want to be the one to go in there and get him? War is hell, but intramural firefights are definitely a bitch. The MPs tried to sweep through Dogpatch every now and then, but there were a few hundred guys in there with weapons who knew they were heading for jail and then a bad paper discharge if they were caught. Not to mention that they’d be leaving their honeys behind, probably forever. The shacks were packed close together and the alleyways were about five feet wide. I was in Da Nang once when the generals tried to send the MPs in. It sounded like the battle for Hue City for about an hour; then the MPs called it a day. Can you blame them? Those were trained soldiers and Marines in there. They may have gone AWOL, but they did know how to fight.’
Muir stroked his full beard. ‘The generals knew where they were, and they just let them stay?’
‘If they came out they could be grabbed. But how’d you like to write the letter to the family of a Marine killed fighting the great battle of Dogpatch?’ Condley grinned ironically, composing it in his head. ‘Dear Mrs. Evans. I regret to inform you that your son died in a valiant effort to capture a group of soldiers and fellow Marines who left their posts and were shacked up with their girlfriends in a ghetto inside the city of Da Nang.’
‘All right, I take your point.’ Muir shrugged, returning to his pages. ‘So here it is. Final entry, classified as a deserter on 5 August, 1968.’ He looked up again. ‘Another question, Brandon?’
‘You mean, do I have one?’
‘No, I do.’ Muir seemed slightly puzzled. ‘Weren’t Marines sent to Viet Nam for thirteen-month tours? How can he still be there in May, 1968, when his tour should have ended in April?’
‘Ah, but brig time doesn’t count on your tour, Professor. If it did, half of the malingerers in Viet Nam would have figured out a way to get themselves locked up until the clock ran out and they could be sent home. Think about it. What’s a few months’ jail time compared to living in the mud, drinking wormy water, and getting your ass shot off?’
‘So, on to Dogpatch,’ mused Professor Muir, intrigued with the irony of it all. ‘Marvelous. A place to run to, inside the combat zone. Let’s call it the poor man’s Canada.’
‘Not to mention Cho Lon in Sai Gon, where our friend Deville first disappeared,’ said Condley. ‘And don’t forget the Que Son Mountains.’
‘No, we shall definitely not forget the Que Sons.’ Muir held up an eight-by-eleven-inch photograph of the late Private Smith. ‘Does this man look familiar?’
Condley stared at the picture for several seconds, his insides tightening around a futile agony. The bulky neck, the thick shoulders, the rounded face, all leapt tragically out at him from the old photograph. No, he thought. It could not be a coincidence, particularly since this man’s bones were found so close to the ambush site itself. ‘That’s him.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘I’m sure.’
‘Can you testify to that under oath?’
‘Yeah.’
‘In the papers? In court? In front of a congressional hearing?’
Muir continued to hold the photograph in front of his face. Doubts clouded Condley’s anger as he stared at the blank young face of a man who, despite all the later disrespect and rebellion, at least had stepped forward those years ago and offered to serve his country before going bad. Unlike with Deville, there had been no positive identification of Pepper after that long-ago ambush, only reports that the other attacker had been black. Could he now provide it with certainty, based on quick glimpses during the madness of combat more than thirty years before? What if there was someone else after all, someone who got away, even a Cuban adviser? What if Alphonse Smith’s greatest crime was indeed merely having fallen in love and abandoned his post, then drifting up into the mountains to live harmlessly in a remote village?
‘Is this Pepper?’ asked Professor Muir relentless in his objectivity.
‘Yes, Professor, that is Pepper.’
‘You’re absolutely positive?’
Finally Condley threw his hands up into the air. ‘Look, I know it’s him, OK? But how can I be absolutely positive, like I’ve got some strand of DNA under a microscope, when I’m staring at a thirty-year-old picture and a fucking skull?’
‘Well, you have to be, Brandon, if we’re going to take this forward. Probably isn’t good enough. Probably doesn’t work in a court of law. Not when we are condemning a dead man to an eternity of retribution.’
Condley sighed, suddenly deflated. ‘OK. Enough of this shit. I mean, I know that’s him. I have no doubt. But you’re right.’
‘I’m sorry, Brandon.’ Muir lowered the picture, putting it back into the manila folder where he kept the pages from Smith’s record books.
‘So what do we have now, Professor? What are we taking forward from here? Answer me that.’
Muir pondered the skull. ‘For the sake of public consumption, all we have is a deserter who ran up into the mountains and hid for thirty years until he died. An interesting two-day story if the media did obtain the facts from us and then decided to print a story on them, but not exactly a modern-day Benedict Arnold. We are looking at a lost soul who eluded American and Vietnamese authorities in order to live out the remainder of his life up in the mountains. That’s it. Unless some famous producer wanted to turn him into a hero and make a movie about him. You know, sacrificing his country to be with the woman he loved.’
‘Don’t say that too loud, Professor. The thought scares me.’
Muir shrugged, touching the skull. ‘He lost five teeth. I almost feel sorry for the fellow.’
‘I’m not exactly shedding any tears here. You didn’t see him when he was busy shooting my Marines.’
‘Well, now you’re the one who’s right.’ Muir let out a breath. ‘I’m sorry I said that, Brandon. I must have sounded like one of those whiners who gather outside the courtroom when a hardened criminal is being tried for murder. Consider the poor man’s deprived childhood, and that he fell in with the wrong crowd, and got involved with a woman, and was scarred by the cruel military process when they made him do a little time for insubordination. Poor fellow. He was entitled to a few ambushes to help balance out his psyche, wasn’t he?’
‘So we’re both right, Professor. How comforting to our fucking egos. And we haven’t solved a thing.’
The remains from Ninh Phuoc rested on another gurney thirty feet away from where they stood. Muir nodded toward them. ‘Don’t be so pessimistic, Brandon. We’ve solved a lot, no matter that none of it does us any good just yet. We do know who Salt is, even if we can’t find him anywhere in the known universe. We don’t know who the poor fellow is that he murdered, but we have his remains, and sooner or later science will prevail. And we have Pepper, or at least w
e have his head, with a positive identification from the dental records. So there may come a time – perhaps when we find Salt – that we can obtain a confession and implicate this man as well.’
‘What are the odds on that?’ Condley glared malevolently at Pepper’s skull. ‘That fucking head cost me five thousand dollars too.’
‘I’ve filed a request for reimbursement. I’m sure they’ll pay you back. It was a judgment call and you certainly were within the regulations.’
‘I’ll tell you what, Professor. If they don’t reimburse me for that skull it’s mine. I’m taking it home and turning it into an ashtray.’ He paused. ‘Maybe a urinal.’
‘It’s an important piece of evidence.’
Condley emanated a bland, cynical disgust. ‘Evidence for what? Do you think anybody in our government even wants to find out the answer to this question? Who’s going to pick off that scab, huh? If he were alive they’d have to face the truth of what he did, but the man is dead.’
‘We could always convince the village chief to buy it back from us. A reimbursement of sorts, what do you think?’
‘Now, there’s a laugh. First of all, I doubt the village got more than a hundred bucks out of the deal once everyone along the government food chain took their cuts. And second, I’d be surprised if the old man really cares one way or the other about Nguyen the Black American’s head. They’re great entrepreneurs, the Vietnamese. They’ll sell you anything. But they aren’t into buying things back.’
Muir held up his hands in mock surrender. ‘Just kidding, Brandon. But we will file a report on all of these findings, so don’t think the matter will be pasted over by the bureaucracy.’ Muir now gave him an empathetic look. ‘You’ve already had a small revenge, don’t you think? I mean, you’re standing there looking at his skull. He’s not in the mountains, gloating over yours.’
Condley grunted, gazing absently at the skull and then over to the remains of the man killed by the elusive Deville. Despite himself he felt oddly attached to both sets of remains, as if he and they had been rubbed into the same earth so fiercely and so completely that the dirt inalterably connected them, however bitterly. Mud brothers, he thought. Sharers of a truth that could never be defined by the labels that had been created by outsiders. After all, what tiny fraction of America had ever even seen that nasty, vicious little corner of the war, that corridor of terror and sorrow that had so devoured the few who had?
‘I’d like to know one thing about him, Professor. Only one thing.’ He thought about that and reconsidered. ‘No, maybe two. The first is whether he really believed in what he was fighting for when he shot my Marines. Because if he did, whether I like it or not a part of me has to respect him. I mean, that makes him a soldier, doing his duty as he understood it.’
‘And the second?’
‘Did he use any information that he gained as a Marine in order to help the other side? Because if he didn’t, he was just accepting the risk of the battlefield. Taking it as he found it, just like we did.’
Muir pursed his lips, watching Condley’s face. His words now danced delicately, as if Condley’s emotions were like a balloon about to burst. ‘And what do you think about that, Brandon?’
‘This guy was nothing. He was a supply pogue. What the hell did he know about the battlefield?’ Condley thought about that for another moment, remembering again the first few seconds of the ambush all those years ago, and suddenly changed his mind. ‘No, Professor, I can’t go with that. He and Deville were wearing American uniforms and carrying American M-14s. He shot one of my men who thought we’d stumbled into an American unit. Good people are dead because their first instinct was to protect the lives of what they thought were two fellow Americans. I can’t slide on that. No forgiveness.’
Without even deciding, Condley found himself sauntering slowly toward the lab’s doorway. Muir chased him with yet another question.
‘What about Deville?’
He stopped walking and turned toward Hanson Muir. ‘Deville’s in a class by himself. He’s not only a turncoat, he’s a murderer. He killed a man in cold blood and ran from the Army. He killed another man in cold blood and ran from the Viet Cong. There’s no honor there. Pepper was a scumbag but at least what he did was on the battlefield, and at least he stayed with the other side after the war. Can’t you see the difference? Pepper was a treasonous asshole, but Deville is downright evil.’
‘Calm down, Brandon.’
‘I am calm,’ muttered Condley. ‘But let me make you a promise, Professor. I’m going to find that motherfucker. And if he’s still alive I’m going to kill him.’
‘Not a very good career move, I’d say.’
‘Well, hey, let’s hear it for my brilliant career. What’ll they do, send me to Viet Nam?’
‘Think jail, Brandon. Think jail very hard. Homicide has that effect on certain juries.’
‘The possibility of jail is why Deville is never going to see a jury.’
‘I was talking about you.’
‘If I find him I will do him, Professor. And if I do him, no one will ever know.’
‘Unless I tell them?’
‘Who said I’m going to tell you?’
Condley headed again for the door, and Muir called again to him. ‘Where are you going now?’
‘To get laid.’
‘Where can I reach you?’
Condley opened the door, not even looking back. ‘Where do I usually get laid?’
‘That’s hard to keep track of, actually,’ said Hanson Muir with a laugh. ‘Maybe when we get back to Viet Nam I can check with Colonel Pham.’
Chapter Eighteen
Maria loved Waikiki Beach. It matched her dream of what America should be. Outrageously dressed people from all over the world, of every age, physical description, and social class, walked elbow to elbow along the park-like sidewalks, played games on small stretches of grass, or lay motionless on towels along the beach as if they were fish sticks, baking in an oven. The hot, swirling air reeked wonderfully of tropical flowers and suntan oil. The turquoise ocean was pristine and majestic. Its far horizon reinforced the romantic isolation of this island paradise, and its near waves were dotted with the timeless image of young surfers waiting for the perfect wave. Elegant hotel complexes filled with shops and restaurants sprawled along the beach, sending cool wafts of perfumed air toward the water, mixed with tinkles of laughter from happy tourists sitting at the outdoor bars.
Oh, Hawaii, oh, America, Maria’s dark, dancing eyes proclaimed happily each time she spent an afternoon on Waikiki. Play station for the universe. A land of boundless beauty, glorious excess, conspicuous waste, unapologetic fatness, shameless exhibitionism, and delicious anonymity.
They had parked her green Mercedes in a lot just off Ala Moana Park. Now Maria and Condley walked side by side on the walkway behind the Hilton Hawaiian Village, heading slowly along Hotel Row toward the distant beauty of Diamond Head. Green was Maria’s favorite colour. She was wearing her finest chartreuse thong bikini, which not only displayed her supple, muscular legs and ample curves but also was a showcase for the bright gold and green butterfly that was tattooed on her left buttock. Her long black hair was pulled tight and twisted into a knot on top of her head. Maria knew she looked regal with her killer bikini, her two-hundred-dollar Serengeti sunglasses, and her million-dollar body. She glowed with pride as she strode past the glassy stares and listened to the secret whimpers of idle, dreaming men who looked up from their beach towels or halted their volleyball games to watch her pass.
‘Brandon,’ she almost whispered, her face happy and playfully distracted. ‘Do you think they think we’re married?’
‘Well, I guess we were,’ mumbled Condley, who himself cared little for strolling in the hot sun among thousands of broiling, coconut-oiled strangers. ‘For a few minutes, anyway.’
His answer seemed to make her happier still. She took his hand for a while as they walked, showing him off as her possession. He played t
he game just to keep her happy, his face emotionless and his eyes faraway, staring past the hotels and the beaches toward the haunting crags of Diamond Head. His mind was as removed as his gaze. He felt sullen in the midst of all this opulence, oppressed by old memories of this same beach, memories that now stretched back more than thirty years to the first time he had visited it, hard-bodied and wide-eyed on the way into his first tour of combat in Viet Nam. And irritated by other more recent thoughts, the swirling uncertainties and muted disappointments that would not go away.
‘You should have worn a bathing suit,’ insisted Maria, glancing at the ever-present blue jeans and T-shirt that seemed to comprise Condley’s modern-day uniform.
‘I burn like a lobster, Maria. Who needs that? If you want cancer bad enough, go smoke a Marlboro.’
They neared a loud, packed beachside bar. Inside, the patrons were drinking and laughing as they watched a basketball game on four wall-mounted TVs. ‘Will you buy me a pina colada?’
Despite himself, he snorted. ‘Haven’t you had enough of bars?’
His casual dismissals were landing on her ears as sharp rebukes. She suddenly let go of his hand. Now she frowned at him. ‘You’re not being nice today.’
‘When is the last time I was nice?’
She thought about it for a moment and then took his hand again, changing her tactics as they strolled through a stretch of ankle-deep sand. ‘You’re always nice. I wouldn’t even be here if you weren’t so nice.’
‘I wasn’t being nice. You were just smarter than I was. What the hell did I know about green cards?’
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