The Sixth Man

by Ron Lealos

  “I still do not know who the fifth man is.”

  It was Luong’s turn. He stepped beside Liu’s chair and crossed his arms on his chest.

  “Tran Dai Quang.” He didn’t need to say more.

  The Minister of Public Security. In other words, the head spy, policeman, torturer, executioner, and communist puppet in charge of keeping every Vietnamese citizen in his or her place by whatever ruthless means he chose. Demanding we all adhere to the communist party line and worship at its temple. “No mercy” was his rule of thumb. He probably pulled out a few fingernails every morning before his first cup of lotus tea. In many ways, he was my boss, and I had heard his point of view and suffered his scorn too many times. Certainly, he would be leading the hunt for the people in this room. Nothing would be too distasteful to Quang in finding the killers. The number of innocents killed and their guilt was immaterial to him. In the meantime, he would be in hiding, protected by a regiment of guards, Quang screaming and demanding results. He wouldn’t hesitate to call all his sycophants “do ngu,” stupid, or something more descriptive like “lo dit,” asshole. Whatever expletive he used, the message would always be clear. “Find these lo dits or you’re a do cho chet.” Fucking dead dog. If I were more prone to sweating, beads would have exploded on my forehead. Quang was absolutely the worst enemy anyone could have in our socialist kingdom. As Confucius said, not Buddha, “Wherever you go, there you are.” I was here and three pairs of eyes were studying me like I was the crunchy rat tail in their shrimp paste. A detective, I still needed more data and I tried to be unreadable. Keep them talking is always a good investigative strategy.

  “How do you know it’s Quang?” I asked.

  “Are you still with us?” Luong asked. “You know exactly who he is. And how dangerous the next few days will be.”

  “I would like more information,” I said.

  “No,” Luong said. “We don’t have time.” He glared at me with the look I’d seen before he strangled the one-toothed informer who had betrayed several prisoners in the camp. The man was responsible for numerous executions by hanging, the victim’s bodies left dangling on display from banyans for weeks until the flies and crows left only the bones. Luong didn’t hesitate to break the traitor’s neck. It was time to stop the ballet.

  “Just one more question,” I asked and didn’t wait for the pistols to come out. “Do I get to help squeeze the blood from Quang’s black heart?”

  No hugs. Luong moved to an empty old chair that was probably worth more dong than it would take to buy the entire building and every person inside. By the recently passed Decree on Property Ownership, the People’s Committee had allowed foreigners limited rights to own apartments, not land or houses. No one could buy a building in Cholon. Of course, the Chinese inhabitants didn’t bother to ask permission and the market was always open if you had the right contacts and enough dollars, since dong didn’t factor into high-end transactions in this neighborhood.

  Morgan took the lead, edging forward on the couch where he was sitting close to Hatati.

  “I don’t think it wise to tell you everything now,” Morgan said. “Kind of a ‘need to know’ that protects all of us. I will fill you in on what I believe is important. The rest you’ll have to figure out on your own. That’s if you survive.” No smile. He was dead serious. “We’ll also expect complete honesty from you. There are things in your head we need to know.” Now, he did grin. “That’s if all the black tar you inhale hasn’t coated your brain like creosote.”

  It seemed everybody was aware of my habit. Did they also know I used my right hand rather than my left to su thu dam, masturbate, in the rare moments when I went to sleep without riding the magic cloud? The practice of manual stimulation was totally acceptable in Vietnamese society, though I did understand the word and behavior was taboo in the Christian hypocritical West that believed dropping napalm on blameless peasants was more acceptable than pleasuring oneself. If it was so uncivilized, why did these heathens invent the Internet?

  Whenever I crossed the border from Vietnam into the China of Cholon, I drifted away from the Buddha into the arms of Confucius. I could feel a strange transference that was physical as well as theological. I couldn’t stop listening to the great man’s advice that “a man with head up his ass can’t see shit.” I didn’t want to appear stupid to these killers, so I wanted to heed the profound Confucian guidance that “looking at small advantages prevents great affairs from being accomplished.” At least for awhile, I would cooperate and not try any tricks that we half-breeds were famous for. I put on my stern face and tried to look the cagey contemplative Chinaman.

  “Some of the few delights allowed in our socialist paradise are the western movies that are copied and available on the Binh Tay black market,” I said. “Some time ago, I confiscated a box of these pirated DVDs from the criminal gangs who distribute the fakes. Before I turned them into to the Electronic Fraud Department at headquarters, I felt I had to review the films for obedience to communist thought. I think I’ve heard James Bond say ‘need to know.’ Or maybe it was Jason Bourne. Does this mean I’m a spy now?”

  Everyone smiled. Except Luong who continued to believe that smiles weren’t to be casually squandered. Maybe I’d broken the tension. Or they were ready to move on with or without me. Whatever, Liu was the first to cross-examine me. He stroked the arm of his silk robe and watched me like I was the mahjong honor tile he didn’t need to fill his meld.

  “Tell us about your investigation,” Liu said. “Who is involved and what they know.”

  Trying to seem as straightforward and guiltless as a child, I told them about my findings and, in a limited way, the involvement of Nguyen. I stressed how easy it would be to guess the motive behind the murders, even if the investigators knew nothing about Luong. The pictures and the toy cobra couldn’t have been bigger clues to general identities. With names and months to canvass the entire Central Highland Montagnard community, an impossibility in a region where flatlanders were as welcome as malaria, they would be hard-pressed in fingering a specific suspect. I was certain even the highest levels of the security service wouldn’t have access to American military or CIA files and wouldn’t be able to track Morgan. The wild card that might mean my being thrown to the hogs was Nguyen. It was obvious I’d shared too much with him and it could jeopardize the lives of us all. Dancing around this question would take all my skills. Morgan was the first to make me hop.

  “You know Nguyen is aware of me and Luong?” Morgan asked. “And you were the one who told him?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But that was before I met you, Hatati, and Mr. Liu. I was being a detective and didn’t understand what was truly happening. It would have been extremely suspicious if I didn’t have some opinions.”

  “Do they trust you?”

  “About as much as you believe in the communist revolution. Half-breeds are famous for being weasels, not patriots.”

  “Will they let you continue?”

  “We’ll have to invent a good explanation for the hours I’ve spent with you and how I escaped the raid on the river.”

  “What do you think would work?”

  “Well, I was pursuing a lead. It took me across the river and away from Phan. I had no idea what went on with him. By the time I was able to get away from this useless pursuit, hours had passed and now I was back at the office to report.”

  “Sounds kind of lame to me.”

  “You don’t know the dynamic between a Chink-Vietnamese and the Security Services. While they hate me, they’re terrified I know more than them. And I might have some magic powers the Chinese have possessed for centuries. It’s a very useful attitude. I’m a master at using my standing to humiliate them. Usually, they are too moronic to notice.”

  “You really think you can stroll back to your desk and they won’t arrest you?”

  “As the great Sun Tzu wrote, ‘In war, the right way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak.’ Their weaknes
s is their desperation. The pressure coming from Quang and his puppets must be extreme. There is no indication you will stop killing. More likely, you will be coming for Quang soon. They do not have enough time to torture everyone in the country, a dream they have had for decades. I’m their best chance at finding you.”

  “And you can keep quiet even when they burn you with a hot iron? Shove a chopstick up your dick and wiggle it around like they’re trying to hold on to a greasy noodle?”

  “How colorful! But my bosses aren’t so wasteful. They pick up used plastic bags on the road. True environmentalists. They tie the bags over the prisoner’s head until suffocation is the only future. Not so complicated as water boarding. Just as efficient. I think I could make it a few rounds before I give your children up. Mine too, if I had any.”

  “Could be that honesty isn’t the best strategy here. You might try to convince us you’d never rat out your allies and suffer through whatever they invented to brutalize you.”

  “As I’ve been told, ‘we don’t have time.’ I agree with that.”

  “So we let you go, and you just saunter back to your desk? We did already take your pistol, and I’m not quite ready to give it back.”

  “That wasn’t mine. I found it in a drawer at Danh Nguyen’s villa. I’m prohibited from carrying a weapon unless one falls into my pocket.”

  “Convenient, but not convincing.”

  “Again, quoting my master, the Great Sun Tzu, ‘speed is the essence of war’ and I can be of great value in keeping the mongoose from the Night Snake’s throat in the short time we have before Sai Gon is under a blanket curfew.”

  “Are you sure you can help us find Quang? And Nguyen?”

  “Nguyen will be easy. Quang, not so much. I believe I can do it. I will have to be subtle.”

  These kinds of rambling discussions were normal in a culture that was just learning to use their iPods and appreciate that the people behind the TV screens weren’t supernatural demons. Montagnards hadn’t reached that level of incarnation yet. Luong was getting nervous as the wall clock ticked off another minute. He was beginning to sway back and forth and smack his lips.

  “We let him go,” Luong said. “We won’t be here much longer, and the security forces wouldn’t dare raid Cholon anyway. He’s already given them enough information about us, if they didn’t get there by themselves. We do need his help to find Quang if Nutley isn’t successful.”

  Morgan looked toward Hatati. She nodded, and he turned to Mr. Liu. He waited just long enough to add a touch of drama and then nodded too.

  For the next few minutes, we outlined a plan that mostly covered how I was to contact them. My job was simple. Find Quang. Then Nguyen. Their job. Kill them both.

  At the door, Mr. Liu bowed, his hands tucked inside the loose sleeves of his silk robe. There was no need for threats. It was a common understanding between all of us that, if I betrayed them, there would be no further generations of offspring from my loins or anyone I had ever befriended.

  As Mr. Liu closed the door, I could already hear Luong, Morgan, and Hatati urgently planning. I smiled, knowing, for the first time in even my vast fantasyland, I had the resources of MI6, the CIA, and the Triads cloaking me in their veil. This was something new for a humble squint detective raised in a slum and taught lessons in a re-education camp.

  Down the dimly lit stairs and out into the night, I wondered if I had a few minutes to stop at Ma Jing’s on the way to headquarters. Not a chance. A Honda Civic and driver were waiting for me on the street, and the chauffeur was programmed to ignore any of my instructions. Within fifteen minutes, we were parked in front of the Sai Gon police control center on Tran Hung Dao Boulevard. The trip had been uneventful and rather boring, as the city reacted to the massive hunt and stayed inside more than normal, worried they could be pulled into the security cordons.

  My feet were barely on the pavement when I was grabbed by two men in the normal plain-clothes detective uniform of short-sleeved white shirt, brogues, black slacks, and sunglasses even though it was well after sunset. They both might have been on the department power lifting team because they had little trouble raising me off the ground and carrying me into the building with a hand in each of my armpits. I didn’t bother to resist. It would’ve been useless and I’d get to the same place with broken bones rather than unharmed.

  That place was downstairs. The Vault. They didn’t use the lift, but I was elevated below, my feet dangling six inches from the wooden staircase. Two flights and we reached a steel door. It was quiet, except the constant drip of aged water pipes and the scurrying of rats in the walls and screeching as they fought over a toe morsel. Not even screams. I knew there was another door just beyond this one that contained most of the noise behind its bulk. That was a relatively modern remodel. Prior rulers hadn’t been as sensitive about the public’s attitude toward people pleading for mercy or respite from the nipple clamps.

  The man on my left knocked with his free hand, staring straight ahead and not even glancing at me. He actually held me a few inches away from his body as if I were a simmering bag of turds. Or pus-ball Chinese-Viet mongrel. I think he would have used a third hand to pinch his nose tight. The distinction he held was a harelip that curved from the top of his mouth to his left nostril. He “humpphed” with each wheeze, his breathing obviously impaired by the disfigurement.

  Moi sut. Harelip. Cleft lip. Agent Orange. No matter how much this man found me repellant, the abuse he must suffer everyday was almost beyond my appreciation. While I might be mocked as the “offspring of a lice-ridden whore,” this man was ridiculed for having a slime worm on his lip by everyone brave enough to insult him. No wonder he was a bodybuilder. It was no fault of his that his genes had been scrambled by a miniscule fraction of the millions of gallons of defoliant sprayed in Operation Ranch Hand and other quaintly named American bombing raids. The dimethylsulphoxide, diquat, and tordon chemicals supplied by Dow made a nice addition to the company’s bottom line. My captor might have been a lucky one. Other innocents had been born with kidneys outside their bodies, legs where eyes should be, no nose, or other deformities that left them as good as dead the moment they were bred. Many more had learning and mental disabilities not as noticeable as the physical affects. I couldn’t help but think of Phan. And it was a plague that continued to follow the generations of those who lived through the bombing with more harelips per square kilometer in Sai Gon than any city in the world. We waited for the door to open and I studied the man’s defect.

  “You really should go see Operation Smile,” I said. “They repair over two thousand harelips per year. It’s free and it doesn’t matter that you’re older than most of the patients. They’ll have you looking like Lee Byung Hun in just a few hours.” Hun was one of our most popular movie stars, and this man wouldn’t look like him with a complete face lift. Little harm in trying.

  No comment. Only a snort that was hard to distinguish from his other restricted noises. And there was that tightening on my biceps that felt like my arm was being crushed between two armored tanks. It didn’t seem my advice was well-received.

  The door opened and we were ushered into an enclosed space by a woman outfitted in a tan blouse and skirt and sensible black shoes that could have been worn by the Queen of England. I’d heard they were popular now and called Doc Martens, but I was far from a fashionista, a descriptive word I found fascinating when I’d first read it on the cover of Cosmopolitan Vietnam. She was no model, short even for a race closer to dwarves than Watusis, and a face that sported a permanent scowl creasing her mouth and turning her eyes farther downward. Maybe a little makeup would have brightened up skin that didn’t appear to have seen sunlight in many months.

  The man on my left must have been a friend. He moved closer and whispered, “Rat vui duoc gap ban, Mi.” Nice to see you, Mi. He touched her elbow and smiled. She returned the look and struggled to ignore him, making it clear she was trying too hard.

  I hadn’t paid much
attention to this one. He was too normal and the only unique thing was his voice. He sounded more like he was in the middle of his treatments for a sex change and the hormones hadn’t completely heightened the tone of his voice.

  Survival. The next few hours would determine if I walked out of the building on my legs or in a bucket of ashes from the furnace where most of the bodies ended their time in this incarnation. I knew I was trying to shift my focus to these underlings in order to avoid the pain I understood was coming. Somehow, it was working and by the time the next door opened, I was able to stand by myself without fainting.

  We were greeted by screams. The regular employees of this part of the building would be on overtime, asking pointed questions of anyone even vaguely suspected of participation in the slayings of politburo members, an unheard-of and heinous crime in our worker’s Eden where democracy was a title rather than a truth. Again, words and thoughts were there for me to hide behind until the first blow broke a tooth. I was steered down a dimly lit hallway, past closed doors that emitted babbling and shrieks, no light. Eventually, I was led into a small room with only a metal armchair bolted to the floor and a drain below.

  The two men pushed me inside and made me sit, stepping back and crossing their arms on their chests. The woman left, her shoes tapping on the cement. Above me, the light flickered like we were about to have a power outage. It was time to prepare as best as I could for what was about to happen and hope for mercy.

  “Did the two of you come from the same syphilitic mother?” I asked, looking from one to the other. “Or did her vagina bring forth maggots rather than healthy babies?”

  Neither one made a move toward me. They must have had strict orders to ensure I was unharmed until the masters appeared. Both developed tics above their eyes, and I could see the muscles in their arms strain their shirts as they tried to keep all the testosterone in check without imploding.