by Chuck Logan
“Nina wants to work through the American Mission. I’d prefer to coordinate with the police in Hue. You can help me line up the local cops and-”
“No. Don’t go to the police…no.” Trin’s palm squashed lumps of sweat on his forehead. “Excuse me.” He got up, moved in jerky steps to the bar set up over the pint-sized icebox, and picked up a tiny airplane bottle of Scotch. He broke the foil seal, opened it, and drank it. He coughed, came back, and resumed his seat. He glanced at the wall, toward Nina’s room, and said emphatically, “It would be a real mistake to contact the MIA office.”
“Exactly. Convince her.” Broker yanked his head toward the wall.
“The MIA office is closely monitored.” Trin shook his head. “Something like this…Everybody will,” he grinned tightly, “get out of control.”
“Can we do it?” asked Broker.
Trin swallowed and got the words out with difficulty. “Look at me, Phil. I’m not who I was.”
“None of us are,” said Broker.
Trin whispered, “Do you have a map?”
Broker knew he had him. He tapped the security belt under his waistband.
“My God. Jimmy…” Trin slowly shook his head. “He called me last week and said you had a present for me. I thought he meant a bonus.”
“Well?” said Broker, opening his hands.
“He said something else. We were all going to play a joke on Cyrus.”
“Uh-huh.” Broker reached for the phone and dialed Nina’s room. “I told him,” he said into the receiver. “You better get over here.”
55
Nina waved her hands, crossed the room, and opened the window. “It’s smoky in here,” she said. She had showered and wore the cheap plastic shower shoes the hotel provided. Her hair was still damp and stains of moisture glued her T-shirt to her collarbones.
“He told you,” she said to Trin.
Trin nodded as he crossed the room to the bar area and returned with all the pony ounces of hotel booze. He sat down and lined them up. Six of them. Hands shaking, he opened two of them, held one in each hand and dribbled them into a water glass.
“You’re, ah, mixing Scotch and gin,” said Nina, her voice and her eyebrows arched.
“Phil says you have opposite theories about how to proceed,” said Trin stiffly. He raised his glass and drained it.
“I thought it might be a good idea to feel out the MIA people at the start.”
“Why?” asked Trin. Methodically he began opening two more of the small bottles.
“Maybe I’m lonely for American faces,” said Nina, very concerned.
“You don’t trust me,” said Trin, smiling wryly as he took a strong pull on the glass.
“You always drink this much, Trin?”
“Yes,” said Trin emphatically. “But usually much worse stuff.”
Broker sat on the bed massaging his forehead in both hands.
“Just what we need, a lush.” Nina rolled her eyes.
“A woman of Hue,” Trin said dryly.
“Pardon me,” said Nina.
Trin did not smile. “You have the bearing of a woman of Hue.” He finished his drink and began opening two more bottles. “My wife was from Hue. Aloof, smooth as silk. Like the Perfume River, not too deep, not too shallow.” He smiled coldly. “A man could drown.”
“Wonderful. Folk sayings,” said Nina impatiently.
Trin grinned. “Here’s another. What did the first water buffalo say to the second water buffalo?”
Nina’s appraisal, at this point, was not kind.
“We’re in deep shit.” Trin downed the contents of the glass.
Nina turned to Broker. “We trust this guy?”
“We have to. He’s all we’ve got,” said Broker.
“And you told him everything?”
“I left out the dead guys in Wisconsin,” said Broker.
“What dead guys?” asked Trin, swallowing.
“Jimmy shot this one guy Cyrus had tailing us. She got the other one,” said Broker.
“Cyrus knows you’re after him,” Trin said fatally.
“It’s more accurate to say that Cyrus is after us. He knows by now that Tuna told us where it is. He also thinks I’m trying to cash in on his treasure hunt.”
“Aren’t you?” asked Trin.
“The way I see it happening, the Vietnamese government will wind up with most of it. But we deserve a little for our trouble,” said Broker.
“Is there anyone else here with you?” asked Trin.
“Just us,” said Broker.
“And you have come halfway across the world to catch Cyrus LaPorte, a famous American, for looking for buried gold?”
“Look,” said Nina. “I’m here because my dad took the blame for the gold incident. And Jimmy told us there’s evidence on my dad’s remains that proves Cyrus ordered the robbery. I thought you were friends with my father.”
Trin ignored her and paced three steps, turned and paced back. “Cyrus used to be a very thorough man. Assume he had the airport watched. Possibly with the assistance of the Vietnamese police. Assume he knows we’re sitting in this room right now. We must stay in public places until we make a break for the countryside. Cyrus could try anything,” said Trin in nervous rapid-fire delivery.
“Listen to him all of a sudden,” said Nina.
“Please sit down, Miss Pryce,” said Trin in a coiled voice. His face became flat and cold as a stone adder. Nina’s color rose. Broker smiled.
“What’s so funny?” she demanded.
“That’s the warm cuddly Trin I remember,” said Broker.
Trin did not smile. “This discussion may already have cost me whatever future I have. You arrive and in two hours you put my neck on the block. Please sit down, Nina.”
Nina reached in her pocket, pulled out a slip of paper, and extended her hand toward the hotel phone on the table next to the bed. “Sorry, Broker. I’m calling the MIA office to line up a little assistance, U.S. type.”
Trin leaned over in a smooth motion and a slim gravity knife opened in his hand. He swept up the phone cord with the blade and held it captive. “You try to call and I’m out that door. You’ll never see me again.”
“Jesus,” muttered Nina, stepping back.
Trin closed the knife, put it back in his pocket, and smiled, no longer coldly, now a little drunkenly, at Nina. “The MIA office is integrated at every level with the Ministry of Missing Persons. Their phones are tapped. They are not allowed to drive their own vehicles. They are under surveillance. Anything you tell the MIA office you tell the Vietnamese police.”
“He’s right, Nina,” said Broker. “We can’t trust the army. They screwed you, remember?”
“Like you screwed Cyrus’s wife?” she said sarcastically.
“I did not,” shot back Broker.
“Ah, another complication,” said Trin philosophically. “You two are in love.”
“You’re drunk,” said Nina.
“I drink,” qualified Trin. “I speak English and French fluently. I can read one thousand Chinese characters. When I was twenty-five I commanded a Viet Cong battalion. At twenty-nine I commanded a South Vietnamese regiment. Then I spent five years in a reeducation camp being lectured by morons. In the camp I ate frogs and bugs. All my life I have had this problem of seeing both sides simultaneously. For that, and other reasons, I drink.” He lurched from his chair, grabbed the TV remote, and snapped on the television.
“Now what?” Nina was not happy.
“The BBC world business report will quote the price of gold in New York, Hong Kong, and Zurich. It’s a logical question,” said Trin.
Nina flopped down in one of the chairs and folded her arms across her chest. Broker sat on the bed with his elbows resting heavily on his knees. He felt sealed in the hotel room.
Veiled in air conditioning. Outside he could feel the pressure of three million people, almost all of them poor, most of them touched roughly by war and scarcity. And the
only avenue he had into this strange capital and into the countryside beyond was this bitter, and now drunken, man whose thoughts he couldn’t fathom.
And he wondered how many minds in Hanoi were sorting out their anxieties in English at this precise instant. Perhaps a thousand? He struggled to comprehend the alien process going on in the surrounding ocean of Vietnamese minds.
Like what the fuck was Trin thinking right now?
With Nina he had a pretty good idea. He could read her body language, her facial expression; he had some history. He’d even been inside her body. And maybe he was a little bit in love with her.
She’s sitting there thinking: Am I stuck with two men I can’t trust?
Nina unfolded her arms and got up. “Phil, I want to talk to you alone.” Broker pushed himself up.
“Don’t worry. He didn’t show it to me,” said Trin.
“What?” asked Nina.
“The map. But I have a general idea where the gold is,” said Trin.
“You do?” asked Broker.
“Yeah,” said Trin. He eyed the bottom of his empty glass, rose from his chair in front of the TV and went to the mini-fridge and removed a can of Tiger beer. He popped the top and resumed his seat. His eyes stayed on the muted BBC news report as he lit another cigarette, sipped his beer and said, “The convalescent home is in a deserted area of dunes. Exactly where Jimmy wanted it. The coastline for ten kilometers in every direction is uninhabited. The local people call it the Graveyard of the Iron Elephants. Romantic, isn’t it…
“In 1968-before your time, Phil-the U.S. Air Force had a plan to end what was referred to as the Ho Chi Minh Trail by Water. The North shipped supplies out of Vinh Moc above the DMZ and landed them along the coast below the zone.” Trin broke into laughter.
“What’s this got to do…” Nina interrupted.
Trin pushed himself up and reached over and plucked Broker’s Zippo from the table. He tossed it at Broker and said, with a downward curve to his smile, “Read it again. You may get your wish.”
Nina put out her hand for the lighter, read the inscription, and looked back to Trin. “Iron elephants?” she repeated.
Trin smiled. “When farmers dig up old U.S. mortar rounds in their fields they refer to them as iron potatoes. Elephants imply something grander.” His smile broadened. “Jimmy has played a joke inside his joke.”
For a moment Trin relished the suspense of holding them in thrall.
“You see,” he said, “they carpeted the beaches with two thousand-pound bombs. Hundreds and hundreds of them. They were dropped from very high so they would burrow into the sand and they were set with time delayed fuses so they would go off at random intervals…get it?
“Except they didn’t go off as planned. They’ve been going off at odd times ever since. Everybody left. People avoid the place. Jimmy knew what he was doing.”
Alcohol had turned Trin’s nicotine-colored skin as scarlet as a chili pepper. His scars blanched. He directed this molten face at Nina.
“There are two kinds of Vietnamese. If you go out in the street and hail a cyclo and ask him to take you to the Manila Hotel he will smile and say, yes. Who cares that the Manila Hotel is in the Philippines. He will say yes and take you on a merry ride forever.
“If you call the MIA office and tell your story some smiling Vietnamese will eventually appear and say ‘yes’ and you will sit in this hotel until your money runs out and you will call them on the telephone and they will say ‘yes’ and then maybe they will give you your passports and maybe they will let you leave the country. They will be very polite.”
Trin’s scars bunched. Livid. “There is another kind of Vietnamese who lives in a big house and drives a late-model four-wheel-drive vehicle with a license plate with the letter A on it. This is a party official. And he will grab up your gold and then if Ray’s bones are indeed under it, he will then call the MIA office and let the Americans dig-”
“There’s evidence,” protested Nina.
“But if the bureaucrats get there first there will be no crime that involves Cyrus LaPorte today. The remains will be turned over to the Ministry of Missing Persons for verification along with all the items found at the site. If there is evidence it will disappear between the cracks in some ministry office.”
“What makes you so sure?” said Nina.
Trin fumed, gesturing brusquely. “Cyrus LaPorte is dangling millions of American dollars, talking about joint ventures. I work sometimes at the reception desk at the Century Hotel in Hue. All people talk about these days is deals. They won’t jeopardize those deals on the basis of a theory.”
Broker interrupted. “It’s all timing. We have to catch him stealing. Digging it up and putting it in his boat. If we do it right, we can have all kinds of people show up.”
“Correct. It is…policework,” said Trin. “Then we call in everybody so they all arrive at the same time. The press, too. There’s always some Australian reporters around, and the French. CNN has an office here. If we can manage that, it will stink all the way to Washington, which is what you want, Nina.”
“The three of us.” Nina’s voice was grim, unconvinced.
“And my men,” said Trin with an enthusiasm that showed more evidence of alcohol than good sense.
“What men?” said Broker.
“The men at the home. From my old battalion in the Front. You don’t think they’d let me set up a home for soldiers who backed the south, do you?” Trin said indignantly.
“How many men?” asked Nina.
“A dozen.”
Nina’s voice strove for patience. “Trin, I talked to Kevin Eichleay in Lansing, Michigan. He helped you set up the home-”
Trin nodded. “I know Kevin.”
“Those men are paraplegics. Cripples.” She made a face. “I’m sorry. I mean no disrespect, but it’s laughable.”
Trin scowled at her and drew himself up. “I held the flag tower in the Citadel in Hue for twenty-five days during Tet with those men.” His voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “You weren’t laughing then.”
“Okay,” said Broker, stepping between them. “Time out. Take a break.”
“Ah,” yelped Trin, pointing to the TV. “Four hundred and sixty-five dollars an ounce. Twelve troy ounces to a pound. That’s, ah, five thousand five hundred something to the pound times two thousand…”
Nina turned and stalked from the room. Broker followed her.
56
They froze in the hall, paralyzed by the innocent smile of a passing Vietnamese maid. Nina unlocked her door and they quickly entered her room. She closed the door and leaned against it.
“That guy has me jumpy as a coot.”
“He is a little paranoid,” said Broker.
“A little? He drinks too much and he has a grandiose streak.”
“True, Trin always figured there were three sides in the war: the Commies, us, and him.”
“And…” She wagged her finger in a no-no gesture. “He pulled a knife on me.”
She stomped into the room and fell backward on the bed. “No shit,” she said in a disbelieving voice. “Their Vietnam vets are more fucked up than our Vietnam vets! Is that possible?”
“I need him.”
“He’s seriously cracked, Broker.”
“Maybe. But he knows his way around.”
She sat up and hugged herself. “You go out on some deserted beach with Trin and his army of cripples and dig up a fortune in gold and get your throat cut. Not me.”
“We just have to wing it a little. I have a hunch Trin’s all right.”
“Don’t be cavalier. This is serious.”
Broker exhaled. “And I’m serious. Look, it would be great if Trin was sober, industrious, and reliable. But he’s been pretty roughed up. That means he’s had to scramble to survive.” A grim smile played across Broker’s lips. “He’s taken a dive from regimental commander to street hustler, Nina. And I know how to handle street hustlers.”
“Look
out the window. I don’t see the steeples of Stillwater, Minnesota…”
Broker waved her quiet. “I’ll bet he’s doing this tour guide number without a government license. The fact is, with his background, he’s got more to fear from the cops right now than we do.”
“It’s a stretch,” said Nina. Her tone was cautious but no longer adamant.
Broker shrugged. “My kind of scene. Of course it works better when you know the turf and everybody speaks the same language.”
She sat up and folded her legs Indian fashion. “And what really pisses me off is that he makes some sense, especially about the MIA office. Damn.” Frustrated, she sprang from the bed, paced two steps, and spun, one hip pushed out, arms hanging loosely.
Broker studied her. She was so close and eager to take her shot. Like David, she had the guts to cool it in Goliath’s shadow and the murderous concentration to bet it all on one throw.
But she was young and the petticoats of her ambition were showing-as was her need to control events. She wanted to be identified officially with the project from the start; she wanted it documented.
Nina Pryce, mentioned in dispatches.
Yeah, he was probably in love with her and she was a goddamned careerist. She’d be gone the second this thing was over.
“Okay,” she said reluctantly. “We’ll play it by ear with Mister Trin. But if he gets funny, we head for the liaison office. Agreed?”
“Deal,” said Broker.
“You have the map,” she worried suddenly.
“Right here.” Broker tapped his waist.
“Didn’t think I’d be this jumpy,” she said. “We haven’t even left the hotel yet.”
“We’ll do better once we’re in the countryside.”
“Broker, I just had this really terrible image: Bevode Fret in Hanoi.”
Broker grimaced. He hadn’t thought about Fret for a whole continent. “Look, are you hungry or anything?”
She shook her head. “I’m clogged with airplane food. I need some sleep. About fourteen hours.”
“We both do. I’ll check on Trin and be right back. I’m sleeping here.”