Targets: A Vietnam War Novel

by Don McQuinn

  “Oh, I hope you got enough! I want make love you too much.” She put her head on his shoulder. Her right hand snaked under his forearm and clutched at his crotch.

  His eyes leaped in their sockets as though they would leave him. He started to rise from his chair, but her grip sharply arrested his progress. His mouth formed an amazed circle and issued an “Oooh!” composed equally of surprised delight and agony. The wallet flew from his hand onto the table. He sat down quickly and covered it with trembling fingers. A trickle of sweat ran past his ear.

  “I got enough,” he croaked. “I know I got enough. Let’s go!” He reached to unclench her hand.

  “How much?”

  He whispered in her ear and her eyes gleamed. She shouted to the bartender in Vietnamese.

  “Bring me a bottle of whiskey and the bill. I am taking this one home.”

  She turned back to her soldier, stroking his cheek. “I tell him you buy whiskey. I get my purse. You not leave before I come back?”

  He giggled again and she spun around, discovering Taylor with a great show of surprise. “I not see you!”

  She whirled back to the instantly suspicious soldier. “This man my friend. His girl friend not here tonight. I be just minute.” Her smile placated him and his frown faded until he read the check. “Jesus,” he muttered and began counting out bills.

  Tuyet put her hand on Taylor’s arm. “Good deal you come tonight.”

  She indicated the three men in the back. “They talk about have party, go Mr. Trung apartment. Have beaucoup food, whiskey.” She gave his arm a squeeze. “Girls be there, too. Play cards, maybe something else. They think maybe ask you but they afraid ‘cause you officer, they not speak good English.”

  Taylor looked dubious. “I don’t have much money with me. I might lose all I’ve got.”

  She laughed. “You not worry. I come later, give you good luck. You want talk them?” She tugged gently on the arm.

  “I thought you were taking him home?” Taylor gestured covertly at the fidgeting soldier.

  “Pretty soon he sleep good. No trouble. You want talk Mr. Trung?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” He slipped from the barstool, bumping into the soldier. He excused himself.

  “ ‘S all right.” A gentle sway contrasted with the challenging scowl. “I come over for Tuyet.” His head swiveled to fix on her, the eyes seemingly locked directly forward. “You ready, honey?”

  “I get purse.” She rustled off, hips pumping under the red material.

  “She’s takin’ me to her pad,” the soldier confided. “Really hot, y’ know?” He grinned hungrily, hostility forgotten. “I’m really lucky, man. This the first bar I come in and right off I find a broad really likes me, y’ know? Some guys spend hunnerds o’ dollars here in Saigon and they never find no broad really likes ‘em, man. They end up with some whoor just wanted their money.” He leered toward the darkness where Tuyet had disappeared. “She’s just a cheap bar girl, but she likes me. ‘S different, like.” He executed another turning movement to look at Taylor again. “She does this for money for her mother and sisters.”

  His eyes went out of focus again, boring through Taylor. His mouth bowed downward. “Y’know, ‘at’s a fuckin’ shame, man.”

  “It certainly is,” Taylor sympathized. “It’s a total fucking and a shame.”

  Tuyet popped out of the darkness wearing a miniskirt and blouse. She had scrubbed off most of her makeup. It wasn’t the first time Taylor had seen the metamorphosis from hooker to demure miss, but the transformation took the young trooper by storm. His jaw sagged.

  “Hey, man! Shit! That’s cool!” he whispered.

  Taylor stepped away. Cool’s not the word, kid, he thought. Try polar. Or absolute zero. I hope she leaves you enough money to buy that souvenir you promised someone back home.

  He dismissed them from his mind as he came abreast of the table where the three men sat. Trung and An smiled greetings. Tu, glancing up, moved his head in a minute nod. Trung gestured at the vacant chair and as Taylor sat down, he asked, “Miss Tuyet speak you?”

  Taylor said she had. “I thank you for the invitation.” He spoke slowly and clearly. “I have little money to play cards. Very small money.” He held his hand out, miming something small between thumb and forefinger.

  Trung smiled. “No sweat. Play poker. American game. We pay.” He indicated shoving something across the table at Taylor and laughed.

  Taylor joined in. “I hope so. We play poker in BOQ. I lose beaucoup. Be good I win.”

  Trung and An exchanged glances, ferrets on the same scent. Tu noticed.

  “What did he say?” he demanded.

  “He’s already in debt,” Trung explained.

  “The fool is perfect,” An gloated. “We will get anything we want from him, and at no cost.” He rubbed his palm across the knuckles of his opposite hand in nervous rhythm.

  Tu twisted his head to smile at Taylor, who returned it with the bland American expression that tells the world that a friend is at hand. Then he looked to Trung.

  “Mr. Tu ask if you come. He glad,” Trung said.

  Continuing to smile idiotically, Taylor thought, I know how glad the little sonofabitch is. Wait until he sees how glad I am to get my hands on his throat.

  Trung stood up and gestured toward the door. The four of them moved through the tables. Taylor dropped to the last in line where he could shed the aching false smile.

  Chapter 10

  The sound of violent retching boiled out of the darkness behind Ordway and Miller. It irritated the shorter man, standing further into the alley than his partner.

  “If that sumbitch don’t die in the next minute, we’re gonna all have to walk past him to get to those back stairs.”

  Miller nodded, the movement barely discernible against the night. “You’re right. Get rid of him.”

  “I don’t want him puking on me!”

  “I don’t want him puking on nobody, but if he does, it’s going to be on the Corporal, not the Sergeant. Get rid of him.”

  A moment later Ordway passed, supporting a shambling figure at arm’s length. When he returned, he tilted his head back toward the side street. “They’re coming. Chi on this side, Tho over yonder.”

  Miller straightened. Chi came first, identifying them as he passed. Tho followed shortly, stopping in front of them.

  “The street has been empty?”

  “There was a drunk, sick. Ordway moved him.”

  Tho’s eyes swept the alley again before resting on Ordway’s blondness. “He was drunk? You are certain?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We careful, all same. I go now. You wait two minutes, follow.”

  He faded into the darkness. When the time was up, they moved after him, staying close to the walls across the alley until they were opposite the foot of a long flight of stairs where Tho watched a door at the top. Light flashed into the night as it opened and closed. They crossed quickly and he led the way upward.

  Chi greeted them from a comfortable chair, an automatic pointed at the prone figure of a man on the floor. Another chair blocked the door opposite the one they had just entered. Ordway immediately blocked that one with the remaining chair in the room. Tho smiled approval, then moved to Chi’s side. Incongruous music, loud and insistent, throbbed into the room from the bar downstairs. Laughter, so frenetic it suggested dementia, soared and died. Tho grimaced at it before speaking to the man on the floor.

  “We must ask you some questions. We wish no trouble, nor do we wish to disturb you more than necessary.”

  The man moved to look at his interrogator and Tho quickly blocked him with a foot. “It is best if you not see me,” he said conversationally, the very normality of it sinister. The man on the floor began to tremble.

  Tho said, “You have been investigated. You are an honest man, yet you work with this filth. Why is that?”

  “I must work somewhere. I am not involved with them. I am only the manager. I
—”

  “I have said you are honest. You are in no danger yet. But I must know more about the American Major who owns this place and what he does with the money it makes for him.”

  The man’s head rocked from side to side. Ordway could see his nose wrinkle and fold and wondered if it hurt. An unexpected chill gripped him and passed. He wished he could understand what they were talking about.

  “They will kill me,” the man said, almost comically shrill. “They are cruel. I am afraid.”

  “We are all afraid,” Tho said. “And we are all the victims of such men while they live among us. No one will ever know we were here. Help me and I promise your name will never be mentioned.”

  Suddenly the tremors ended. The man went limp and Ordway tensed in unconscious imitation of Tho’s reaction. Then the words started.

  “The money the Americans call MPC—the Military Payment Certificates—are delivered to the Major. He pays other men to spend them for PX merchandise to resell, but he is looking for a better way. The Thai and Korean units have their own informants in the PX and they take whole platoons to buy up the stereo sets or televisions when they come in.”

  “I know about the black market,” Tho interrupted gently. “What I must know is how the profits are banked and where they are invested and how the money goes from our country to another.”

  A new shudder made the man’s clothes stir as though a breeze had entered the room. “The bar is part of a company,” he said. “The American is a small part of it. The money goes from here to the company account in the bank. I do not know who owns the company. I do not want to know. All I can tell you is that the company buys supplies for the government and builds roads and other things of great size. Because it is international, the government lets them bank in other countries and do business there. I have heard them say that certain politicians have an interest in the company.”

  “Perhaps,” Tho commented dryly. “Now, let us speak of details. How much money does this place make in a month?”

  Ordway watched Tho relax as the questioning fell into form, the questions short and infrequent, letting the story unwind of itself. He turned to Miller.

  “Is he asking about the dope yet?”

  Miller frowned. “I don’t think so. Tho talks so damned fast and the other cat’s got his face buried in the rug. I ain’t up to this shit. Tho knows what I’m after, though.”

  “That’s another thing—why you reckon he’s doing this? The Old Man’ll bust our nuts if he finds out we’re looking in on the Viet side of an operation. And can you feature what Tho’s boss’d do to him?”

  “Don’t sweat it. Nobody’ll rat on anybody. I’ll write up a report that says I got my information from some other source. Winter’ll never know any different and we’ll both be happy.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then, goddamit, we’ll see some asses stacked in the slammer.”

  “Shee-it.” Ordway drawled the word out to a tune of disbelief.

  Miller glared back. “You watch. I’ll put together a case nobody can argue with. And once we get some of these mother-fuckers, you know they’ll blow the whistle on everybody else to save their own ass. One good case, that’s all we need.”

  Stifling further argument, Ordway concentrated on the interrogation, catching one word in twenty. His mind wandered. He marveled at the single-mindedness of his buddy and at his own increasing involvement in his cause. Sometimes it amused him—it was pretty far out for a redneck to team up with a black, much less become buddies, but heroin? Heroin had always been something they talked about on TV or in the movies. Right up until the whisper about the Assistant DI ran through the boot platoon at Parris Island. For the real country boys, like himself, it was unimaginable that a Corporal who owned a Bronze Star could be an addict. Then one day he was gone and the DI answered the first man to ask about him with a belt in the mouth that sent the silly bastard spinning right through the window. The Corporal’s name was never mentioned out loud again, and when the platoon had a routine drug lecture the DI stood behind them and afterwards they told each other how they could feel that mean fucker’s eyes.

  And Miller had lived in a world full of drugs. Ordway had tried to imagine what it must have been like, but he gave up. He remembered Willy, drunk, crying, talking about his sister cursing him, begging him to find a trick for her so she could buy a fix. Thinking about it made Ordway’s stomach tingle, like standing on the edge of a cliff. His sister! Jesus, if you said something funny about somebody’s sister in Gantry, her brothers or cousins or daddy or somebody would kick your ass. He’d wondered once if maybe blacks didn’t care about family the way whites did, but dropped the notion. That was Daddy talking, that’s all. Well, Daddy was right about most things, but if he got to know Willy, he’d find out he was wrong about blacks.

  “What you want ask him?”

  Ordway jerked out of his reverie at Tho’s question.

  Miller said, “Ask him if this Major’s into the dope business, and if he is, how it works, where’s it come from, who buys it.”

  Tho nodded and stepped back in front of the prostrate form.

  “A few more questions,” he said, “and then we shall leave as quietly as we came. I want to know about the American’s connection with drugs.”

  The man’s head moved convulsively. “I know nothing of any drugs. I am only the man—”

  Tho tapped him with a foot. “Please, do not lie. You are an honest man living in evil times. Anyhow, drugs are an American problem. What do we care for their foolishness?”

  “I agree, I agree completely.” The man squirmed his anxiety. “But I truly know nothing. I can only tell you he is interested. He has made contact with a large distributor. I know only that the distributor is black and he is large. That helps?”

  “A little. Now I will speak to my friends. Please do not move.”

  The man tried to nod in a prone position. “I will not look, I swear.”

  Tho walked to Ordway and Miller, summarizing what had been said. Miller listened intently and thanked him. Tho returned to the prisoner.

  A sudden welling mix of shouts and screams erupted from below, freezing each of them momentarily. Chi appeared to fly to the side of the prone man, pressing his automatic firmly against the base of the shaking skull. From Ordway’s position he could see the prisoner staring at the floor as if he would see through it and by sheer force of will put an end to the disturbance that was draining his life away.

  The shouting changed from anger to complaint to discussion. In less than a minute, the only sound in the small room was heavy breathing and the pulse of the music. Tho gestured Chi away and resumed speaking to the prisoner, who began to shake more violently than before.

  Ordway bent to Miller’s ear. “You didn’t get much. You reckon the Major’s clean?”

  Miller shook his head, then cupped a hand to Ordway’s ear. “I’m afraid to push it. If he thinks I made him lose face, I’m done. Gotta be patient. I got enough.”

  Tho straightened, pointing at the door. As Chi removed the chair, Ordway hurried to darken the room and a sudden view of stars was the only way he knew Chi had opened the door and was out on the landing.

  A moment later the chunky body of the Vietnamese Sergeant loomed in the frame, a darker form against the night. He grunted softly and Tho touched the Americans, indicating they should leave.

  The prisoner’s voice startled them. “Remember,” he said, “you promised silence. My life is on your hands.”

  Tho closed the door softly.

  At the foot of the stairs they split, the Americans moving to the right, the Vietnamese to the left. In seconds they were around the opposite corners and the alley was empty, only muffled music from the bars rupturing its stillness.

  After a few minutes, however, something stirred in the shadow of one of the ramshackle buildings opposite the Plantation Road businesses. These smaller buildings were actually houses, mean places, existing in the lee of t
he neon-spangled moneymakers whose back ends they faced.

  The thing stirring at the side of one of them could have been a dog, but it rose, man-high, and when it moved out into the alley, resolved itself into a short man who rolled his shoulders and deliberately stretched his legs, one at a time, before moving off.

  Chapter 11

  When Taylor and Duc entered Winter’s office they found him flanked by Loc and both executive officers.

  Taylor faked surprise. “Is everyone so interested in our plan, or does the Colonel want enough people here to beat up on us if it’s a bad one?” Winter chuckled. “I hadn’t thought of it, but it’s a good idea.” His smile hardened. “You’d understand, if you knew how badly Colonel Loc and I want this Binh.”

  Taylor decided to go directly to the point of the meeting. “Duc has the written plan. I can brief you on the way we’ve set it up.”

  “That’s what we’re here for,” Winter said.

  Denby added, “We’ll review the written plan later.”

  Awareness of that painful truth brought quick color to Duc’s cheeks. Taylor kept his head bent over his papers.

  When he was ready, he began, “The most likely prospect is to go with their idea and let them run their blackmail scheme. They know I gamble. We’ve played some penny-ante and there’ve been some hints about higher stakes. They’re thinking it over and sniffing around.”

  “These high stakes, Thieu Ta,” Tho interrupted, “has any figure been mentioned?”

  “No, Trung Ta.”

  Tho smiled thinly, writing in his notebook. Taylor knew the matter of the stakes would come up again. Tho was meticulous in the interest of effectiveness. Denby would scrub the operation because an appendix was mislettered. When Tho looked up from his pad, Taylor continued.

  “They believe I have access to ammunition. Basically, we want to give them some.”

  Denby lowered his chin to peer at Taylor over the rims of his glasses. “Which will be used against us at the first opportunity.”