by John L. Hart
Missy, he could never forget. But he might have to if he took Vo up on his offer to climb onto his magic carpet ride of a chopper and never look back.
“Listen, Colonel Vo, this seems like a great opportunity to meet The Man and work directly with him full time, but first I gotta clear it with my Uncle Louie. Then there’s this shitload of product I’m scheduled to pick up in the Highlands day after tomorrow. If I don’t, ain’t Uncle Louie or The Man going to be happy with me. Or you. Tell you what. Just give me a few days to take care of business and we’ll work something out.” Yeah, best way to approach it. Buy some time, be respectful, and try not to piss anybody off. Especially since he really wanted to keep his balls for Missy.
“I see.” Vo started to reach for his chin with his stumpy bandage, but then quickly switched to his right hand. “Besides these immediate responsibilities deferring your agreement, might there be anything, or rather anyone, else? A woman, perhaps?”
Mouse blinked against what felt like a brass knuckle fist to his stomach. How could the colonel know about Missy? Could he have called local operations, talked to her on the phone? Had word spread up the ranks that he had a new assistant helping him run both the office and a home?
“I, uh . . .” Mouse cleared his throat and forced a laugh. “You gotta be kidding me! We got a saying back home. Why buy a cow when you can get free milk? ’Course, it ain’t exactly free when you’re paying for it, you know what I mean, but getting a little on the side for some pocket change is a way better bargain than buying the whole farm. You know where I’m coming from?”
Vo stroked his chin some more and studied Mouse too long. So long that Mouse tasted blood before he realized he’d been chewing his stupid damn lip. Fuck! He stopped in mid-gnaw.
“You have come from America,” Vo informed him, as if that was a fact they needed to get squared away before he added, “but perhaps you do not know where I am coming from?”
The little demo with the Willie Pete had been like acing kindergarten compared to the act Mouse struggled to put on now. If only he could make like a banana and split, if not one way then the other, but he couldn’t run and the mojo wasn’t kicking in on demand. So here he was feeling like a stupid dick because he’d fooled himself into thinking this was some nice, follow-up visit, just cake like everything else, when he should have paid attention to that bad-smelling something, instead of getting a little too cocky and not being prepared for the shit now hitting the fan.
“Aw man, you got me,” Mouse bluffed, adlibbing the best he could. “Yeah, there was a girl, but she took a powder. Found herself another sugar daddy and left me high and dry. Women, I’m tellin’ ya. Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em.”
“That is to be determined,” Vo replied, and while Mouse wasn’t exactly sure what he meant, he knew a threat when he heard one.
Vo abruptly stood, grimacing as he did. “Three days, Mr. Gallini. You may have exactly three days to see to your Highlands pick-up and clear the channels with your American uncle, who I am sure would not want to jeopardize his nephew’s good standing with a refusal, especially when you are so far from home. I will have my personal transport pick you up here.” Vo clapped Mouse hard on the shoulder with his good hand. “And I will come with them to welcome you aboard.”
As the RVN colonel got into his chopper, Mouse knew two things: the colonel had not bowed or imparted any friendly advice this time before leaving. And something bad had happened to bring him here with part of his hand missing—that something being The Man who wanted him to bring in The Mouse.
*
Mouse nearly had a wreck in the jeep he was driving. He was so out of his mind to get home, make sure Missy was safe. He couldn’t be sure since it hadn’t happened yet, but since Missy had such a hold on his heart, if he lost her then KRZY just might take over. He could hear Janis in the distance already with only the sound of ba-dump, ba-dump between his ears to drown her out.
Racing into the little bungalow Missy had quickly turned into a home he shouted, “Missy! Missy! Where are ya?”
Heart jack-hammering in his chest he nearly sobbed with relief when she emerged from the bathroom in a kimono, her long, silky black hair streaming wet.
Janis shut up. KRZY clicked off.
“Mike.” Missy greeted him in that sweet, comforting voice. He hadn’t realized how much he had come to rely on it. He’d thought he would die, even worse, go bat-shit psycho, if she wasn’t here. He knew the Nam made guys crazy. Everybody seemed to drink more or use some kind of drug to hold it together. But his drug was Missy. She placed gentle hands on his shoulders and he felt so much steadier, just like that. “What is matter? You . . . Why you shake like this?”
“Missy, we got trouble.” He didn’t have time to dress this up. “You know that Colonel Vo?”
“Yes. You meet with him today.”
“Shit, Missy, he is one bad-ass cat and the one he reports to is worse than bad. I mean, it’s not like I’m a saint or nothin’ close, but . . . Tony told me not to get anywhere near, and you know when I said something don’t smell right? It’s smelling like rotten meat now. They’re gonna use you to get to me if they have to. You gotta pack, clear out. Meet me somewhere after I figure everything out.”
“We see. First, we talk.”
Then Missy led him to the fancy, scrolled rattan couch her parents left behind for her when she wouldn’t go north with them. His parents left him behind, but not because they wanted to; and Aunt Rosa, Uncle Jimmy, they didn’t leave him behind for the foster-care system to pick up. Family was family. Even gooks should know that. Especially gooks who had a girl as special as Missy.
“Here, you drink this and feel better.” She handed him a beer and he no sooner gulped it down than she handed him another. Once he downed that one, she planted a full bottle of sake on the fancy, carved table she had brought along with the couch, and poured them a round in some of her little sake cups. Not that he liked the fermented rice-wine that much, but at the moment he wasn’t picky about the alcohol as long as it helped calm him down. Anything she did for him made him feel . . . better. Yeah, just better.
“Better?” she asked, settling beside him and making everything seem not quite so out of control just with her voice.
“Yeah, thanks, Missy. You’re the best. But that don’t solve the problem.” And with that he gave her the basics—leaving out, of course, what seemed to make him so interesting to The Man who liked the kind of theatrics that Vo said The Man wanted to see in person. After skimming over that part Mouse repeated what Vo had said. If The Man liked him he wanted to bring Mouse along as a personal “attaché”—whatever an attaché was—to an important meeting at a place that had once belonged to Madam Nhu. Whoever she was.
Mouse had no idea. But judging from Missy’s wide eyes and little gasp, she sure did.
“You must not provoke anger,” Missy advised him. “These very powerful people. They hurt you if you not abide by their wishes.”
“But I’m not worried about me. I’m worried about you.” So, he fudged that a little. He was worried about Missy. He just happened to be even more worried about landing in a nut ward if he lost her. “These guys don’t mess around. Trust me, I know how these things work. You and me, we need to make a plan. You pack up, take off tonight, don’t even tell me where you’re going, okay? It’s the safest for you. Once you get settled, send some kryptonite message to my cousin Tony. Here, I’ll give you his address . . .”
Mouse was in the process of scribbling it down on the back of a receipt when Missy laid a hand on his thigh. It was the closest she had gotten to his goods unless lap sitting counted.
“Mike? Stop. Please.” She said it as clearly as a girl from Jersey who wasn’t ready to go all the way. “We are . . . How you say it? In this together. You and me, kid . . .” She knuckled his fucked-up chin, and then hid her face against his neck. He c
ould feel the curve of her lips, melting him so deep he didn’t care if she never gave him head . . . But yeah, man, head from Missy would be like being President of the United States or something while planting a flag on some big-ass mountain.
She ended up giving him something almost as good—a plan he never could have come up with himself.
He would do his run into the Highlands, right on schedule, but he wouldn’t come back to Nha Trang. He had a passport and a big wad of even bigger bills he could roll up, plant in several places in case of getting searched, and high tail it to Australia where no one would think to look or have a phone bugged. Once there, he could contact Uncle Louie and explain the whole fucked-up mess that had him seeking shelter. Kinda like hitting the mattresses in an undisclosed location, which Uncle Louie would completely understand. He wouldn’t be so understanding with The Man who’d tried to mess with The Mouse nearly ten thousand miles away from Jersey.
Uncle Louie had a long reach. He had let Vinnie’s ball-offing go since the stupid shit had fucked up by putting his nose where it didn’t belong, but Uncle Louie didn’t take kindly to other big bosses slapping his best boys around, no matter how far he flung them. This Mouse knew to be truer than communion wafers and wine.
Missy assured him that come tomorrow morning, she would be goner than gone from their sweet little bungalow in Nha Trang. She would find a way, as she always did, and they would get back together as soon as the coast was clear.
Mouse pulled out a big wad of bills from his personal stash that she didn’t want to accept, but he made her take the dough anyway. And he didn’t want nothing in return, other than meeting her as soon as possible in Australia where they could set up house again while they figured out how to get to Jersey once it was safe.
The potential complication of Uncle Louie’s big, fat niece wasn’t even a consideration at this point for Mouse. He’d worry about that later. For now, his only concern was getting the hell out of Dodge and making sure Vo didn’t use Missy to bring The Mouse to The Man.
The RVN colonel was right on the money about one thing: against strong positions, play safely.
The (Go) board is a mirror of the mind of the players as the moments pass. When a master studies the record of a game he can tell at what point greed overtook the pupil, when he became tired, when he fell into stupidity, and when the maid came by with tea.
–Anonymous
White Flowers in Moonlight
The First Girl
The first thing I learned about the monastery was that every girl or boy who ever entered there was dead. Every last one of us had suffered some horrible accident or catastrophic illness. Many students had been drowned in rivers, ponds, lakes and seas. Others had been run over by horses, eaten by wild animals, fallen from rooftops or trees, or possibly cliffs while picking berries. Some were flu and brain-tumor victims. But however the death came about, there would be a very public, actually tragic funeral with devastated families bitterly mourning their loss. A child’s funeral. It does not bear to be described, just imagined. Small bodies in coffins . . .
Then they were brought to the monastery. No identity, so they might then be reborn and given a different name.
Of course, none of us had ever really died. It was the unique way the monastery kept a deadly, quiet confidentiality for any family that had managed to have their child enter the school. The child officially died and was buried. It was theater for public consumption—a necessary precaution. In the kind of work most of us would be trained for, no one could have anyone traced back to a family that could then be blackmailed or made to suffer for the work of The Order.
I myself drowned. My father wept at my graveside. I’m sure they were tears of joy, since the monks only agreed to take me after Zhang and his grandfather—both graduates of The Order—lobbied heavily on my behalf. It was they who secretly took me to the monastery gates and had fed me very well in advance, knowing I would be required to wait as a test with only water and whatever I could find nearby to sustain me. Zhang showed me where a lychee tree grew in the shadow of the gates. There were avocado and Asian pear trees as well. Even if I could not jump high enough to take what I needed, I could scale a tree fast as Baloo in The Jungle Book (which I secretly brought with me, along with my mother’s comb. I left her other small treasures behind, hidden in the sandalwood box, carefully wrapped, then buried beneath a protective root of my “Jungle favour go with thee” tree).
I was to eventually learn in my studies that when it comes to humans, there are ways, and then there are other ways, to pluck the desired fruit from those from whom we need something important. Things can be taken by force, by coercion, or they can be given freely when properly wooed from the possessor, particularly when it comes to secrets. Like money, power and prestige, physical attractiveness is a tool that can be worked, much like the twig to the lock in the cave where, in my eagerness, I tipped over the soup and tea that were waiting. Ah, but You must become like the soup and tea another wishes to hungrily consume, Teacher would eventually tell me. And so began the lessons.
I learned that the art of seduction is just that—an art. And it is a science, as well, for in all things chemical there is an alchemy that must transpire to achieve the desired results. Scent. Touch. Sound. Taste. Sight. All the senses work together and yet separately, just as they must be harnessed while tempting others to let their own roam free. At first I thought this should be so easy. All one had to do was smell good and look pleasing and have a nice voice, while knowing the way others liked to be touched, or not, and realize much can be accomplished when offering delicious food.
Teacher found my assumptions quite amusing and gave me the task of gaining the interest of an older girl in The Order who obviously knew more than I about making oneself an object of desire. Almost every boy there vied for her attention, and yet she was most interested in a boy named Ho who treated her kindly and teased her like a sister, but made no attempt to compete for her affections. He was very bright and given to deep thoughts, while also having a gift for making others laugh when they were out of sorts, or making them feel better about themselves if they did not perform well on a test. He was the most compassionate, intelligent, and universally liked student in the body of The Order. And he was the most homely. Ho’s teeth were crooked, his glasses thick, and his voice, while not unpleasant, was nothing remarkable. Despite our rigorous training in the martial arts he had a tendency towards plumpness, and you could imagine him becoming a very round monk one day, especially since he often smelled of whatever was baking in the kitchen. He relished everything about food—the taste, the texture, the colors and presentation. Indeed, he could take a simple meal and arrange it like a canvas of edible art. He excelled at origami and trimming bonsai, and even created amazing costumes for the plays in which we honed our acting skills.
Ho was my competition. Or I could look at him another way. As someone to emulate, much as I had the shoeshine boy. I soon learned, however, that there is a difference between emulation and actually possessing certain talents and qualities, and the discerning amongst us will almost instinctively sniff out an imposter. (The predator who was my first official assassination was clearly not very discerning.) I tried to be Ho, but just as I was more physically graced and excelled in certain activities, I lacked much of what made Ho so attractive to the girl in question. This is when I also learned that sincerity is as much a virtue as any, and it was Ho’s sincerity I was unable to capture. I was stupefied as to how I might win the girl’s attention and recalled how Teacher had chuckled upon giving me that task. I did not want to admit defeat, and if I did have a “virtue,” it was a willingness to take risks. So, I did something daring.
I talked to the girl. I was completely honest and told her of my task, admitting that I had failed abysmally at winning her interest. And that’s when she looked at me differently and offered me my first real lesson about the opposite sex. She told me that
many of the girls gravitated to Ho because he was actually interested in what they thought and felt, beyond what that interest might gain him. At first glance he was not handsome, but the more she got to know him, the more attractive he became—it was almost as if he had physically transformed before her eyes to match the beauty he carried inside. In fact, almost all the girls came to agree that Ho was really cute! And funny! But he never made himself available beyond friendship. He was romantically unattainable, which only served to make him even more desirable to all the girls.
I asked the girl if she could help me learn how to be more like Ho—when of course what I really meant was how could I achieve his status amongst the female population in school. She looked me over and actually laughed. Of course I could never be like Ho, no matter how hard I tried. He was like pure water bubbling over rocks in a brook and begging to be drunk to quench one’s thirst for all that is healthy and good. I was more like wind and fire, unpredictable and potentially dangerous. Some girls liked boys like that, but she was not one of them. Besides, I was too young for her.
I thought about the predator who was much older than her but had wanted me in ways that made plunging the blade into him much easier than taking the life of the thief in the cave. I thought of how some girls looked at me, the ones that must be drawn to wind and fire more than pure spring water. While I lacked the maturity to understand the scope of what desire could summon in a woman or a man, or the weapon it could be in the right or wrong hands, I was aware that dynasties had been toppled and history changed by what must have started with no more than a look or a kiss.
Suddenly, for reasons that had nothing to do with my failed assignment, I wanted to kiss this girl who had told me so much. For a moment, I considered stealing a kiss and running, which was at least one thing I was better at than Ho. But I knew that would be the only kiss between us. Now, if only I could find a way to make her want to kiss me, that would be an accomplishment beyond the task Teacher had cleverly assigned. Unfortunately, such a goal was as close to my grasp as China was to France.