Bleeding in Black and White

by Colin Cotterill

  “Is that why you did nothing to investigate his disappearance?”

  “What?”

  “Was it because you suspected him of being homosexual that you ignored the case?”

  Jansen looked at the tape. “We pursued the disappearance of Agent Vistarini with vigor.”

  “Really?”

  Tuck took up the defense, “Besides, we didn’t get our evidence until after the body was recovered.”

  Bodge wondered whether there were more magazines. Did they do a more thorough search after they found the body and come up with others?

  “Well, if you’ve dragged me down here to get evidence against Lou, you’ve wasted a warrant. I doubt anyone knew him better that I did. We drank together. We double-dated. We talked about women.”

  “If that’s true, it was a front,” Tuck insisted.

  “Then it went all the way through to the back yard. I don’t know what evidence you think you have, but I guarantee it was planted. Lou was framed.”

  Jansen laughed and was really spoiling for a crack in the snout. “Some types of evidence you can’t fake, Leon. But thank you for your assistance today.” He clicked off the recorder and leaned even further across the table to Bodge. “We’ve got a picture of him getting his dick licked. How do you fake that? Your buddy was a queer... and you know what? I bet a month’s salary you are too. What do you have to say about that, fairy?”

  The nose was close enough, and the agent sure as hell deserved it. So, quicker than Jansen could react, Bodge shot forward and planted a kiss on that big schnoz of his. It took all of Tuck’s strength to stop his partner taking off across the table. Bodge smiled, stood calmly, and asked whether they might be excused.

  “I’m gonna find my proof, Leon,” Jansen yelled after him. “And you’ll be out of this agency and in jail faster than a run in a stocking. You hear me, you queerboy?”

  23.

  Ban Methuot

  Hong was shown into General LePenn’s large office at the southern garrison. He looked up at her over the rim of his glasses and was immediately warmed by her calmness and natural beauty. He smiled a sincere greeting.

  “Your Highness,” he said, rising from his seat. “This is most unexpected.”

  He’d seen her with the Emperor on many occasions but had never spoken to her. He had no idea whether her French would be fluent enough to catch his accent. So he was delighted that her reply was grammatically correct and only lightly accented. “I have a habit of doing the unexpected, General.”

  “Please take a seat. The Emperor isn’t with you?”

  “He’s off massacring innocent wildlife.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I know you’re busy so I’ll come to the point. One of the Montagnard servants in the missionary’s house was killed by a Frenchman. I would like you to do something about it.”

  The violence in her words was intentional. She was looking for an indication that she’d touched a nerve. But this old general had been through too many campaigns to give up his emotions cheaply. He raised his fluffy white eyebrows and assumed an expression of mocking superiority.

  “Mademoiselle, surely this is a matter for the gendarmerie.”

  “The police have chosen not to pursue this matter.”

  “I assume they have good cause.”

  “They are choosing to protect one of their own.”

  “So may I ask who you’re accusing?”

  “You.”

  The general laughed with a little too much enthusiasm.

  “Me?”

  “More directly, the men under your command. A general is responsible for the actions of his men, is he not?”

  “And why do you suppose I would want to murder a Moi?”

  “I don’t think that was your intention. I believe your men just got a little too rough.”

  “And what exactly was my intention?”

  “I believe the point was to kidnap the two girls from the missionary’s house. But one of them fought. Your soldier hit her to bring her into line and the blow killed her.”

  “You were there of course to see all of this?”

  “No.”

  “Then how do you know it happened?”

  “There was a witness to the beating. A third girl.”

  “So she could identify the insignia of the soldiers she is accusing?”

  “There was no insignia. The men weren’t in uniform.”

  General LePenn smiled annoyingly. At that moment Hong would gladly have walked around his expensive desk and slapped him. But it was to her advantage to remain calm.

  “But you have irrefutable proof that these men were soldiers? Perhaps they confessed to the girl?”

  He knew. Now she was certain.

  “They wore civilian clothes,” she said. “ — all but their boots. They each wore military issue footwear.”

  “It hadn’t occurred to me the Moi would know a boot from a chamber pot.”

  “You’d be surprised General. You see she had plenty of time to study them. She was on the floor at their feet being raped at the time. She’s fifteen.”

  The general paled noticeably. His armor was down. He looked at his papers and took hold of his pen. “Of course, that is very regrettable. I find rape in wartime particularly repulsive.”

  “I shall pass on your repulsion to the girl. I believe you have a daughter of around the same age.”

  “Perhaps you should speak with the police.”

  “I did. But, as you’re aware, the Montagnard are under military authority, as are French soldiers.”

  “As I say, there’s no evidence…”

  “No. But I’m a little disappointed you’d dismiss the accusation so readily. If it were my army, I’d be keen to launch an investigation to clear my men.”

  “I think you should leave military affairs to those who understand them, my dear. During a war it’s important to maintain morale. If the men thought their own superiors were accusing them of a crime it would certainly upset them.”

  “Upset them? I see. Much better to condone rape and kidnap than to upset the men. The new lady missionary was right. I think I should do what she recommends.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “She believes that as the girls were servants at her house, there’s an argument for involving the Americans. She believes the embassy would be happy to launch an inquiry.”

  It was immediately apparent the general was full to the brim of talk of an American presence. “The damned Americans will not be involved in my region.”

  “I’m afraid, if the Emperor invites them, you won’t have any say in the matter.”

  He looked at her now with sad resignation. She’d arrived as pretty and delicate as a glass bauble on a Christmas tree, but she turned out to be made of iron. The Emperor’s young whore had defeated him. It seemed an appropriate insult to compound the series of humiliations he’d suffered this awful year. There were no greater depths for him to plumb.

  “He sent you to tell me this?”

  “Would it make any difference?”

  “Very well. I shall begin an informal inquiry and let your household know of the results.”

  “You’re too kind.”

  “You may leave now.”

  Her smile was so sweet it broke his old heart. “You seem to forget, General. I am a member of the Royal Household — not a servant. Whether you believe in the institution of royalty or not is irrelevant. It exists. Whatever you think of my role within it, I exist also. So, as long as we are all on our respective rungs of this hierarchy, you would do well to treat us with respect.” She looked around the room calmly. “I think I shall leave now.”

  She stood, returned her chair to its original position, and walked elegantly out of the door. She knew there would be no inquiry just as she knew the general was responsible in some way for the murder and kidnapping. The only question now was its purpose. She was pleased to have this distraction from her own scheme. If it p
anned out as she hoped, it could occupy her through the rainy season, until her escape.

  24.

  Bodge had been in the safe-house in Delaware for a little over a month. Once they’d walked out of the gay inquisition, Ramos had engineered two cab changes before arriving at a car parked at a pre-designated spot. From there, they’d driven out to this isolated wooden house. Ramos’ silence during the trip had been exasperating. Bodge knew something serious had happened, but once the agent had told him he wasn’t at liberty to discuss anything, he’d shut up like a Cape Cod clam. The only joy he allowed Bodge, after three volleys of asking, was to agree he’d do what he could to get him a copy of the photo Jansen had been so proud of. In the mean time, Bodge was to lay low and wait for instructions. Under no circumstances was he to leave this house. Ramos assured him all would be made clear to him in due course.

  But there he was a month later and not a damned thing had been made clear. The old house had been readied for him. There was a stack of wood beside the potbelly stove in the living room, and enough food in the larder to wait out an atomic holocaust. There was a typed sheet of instructions on the table. He was to read them, commit them to memory, and burn them in the stove. But, as there was no note from Palmer, he was completely in the dark as to why he was there.

  Although the house was set away from the road, Bodge was not to walk around outside in daylight. He most certainly could not leave the compound or talk with neighbors (not that he ever saw any). There was no phone so he could only wait for someone to come to him. Wisely, there was also no booze in the larder so he wouldn’t turn into a lush during his stay. There was a small but efficient generator out back, a radio set to keep him in touch with the world, and a small tape recorder with a dozen Vietnamese language tapes. That was his world. For the first couple of days he didn’t get into a routine. He truly believed someone would come by with news. But nobody did.

  He started to listen to the tapes on the third day and work his way through the text. When the sun went down, he’d go into the field behind the house and exercise. He started by marching, and that slowly turned into a clumsy kind of jogging. After a week he was doing something pretty close to a run.

  He was able to use the old swing frame for chin-ups, and bench-press an antique truck axle. Even when the snows finally came he was out in the yard exercising away his frustrations.

  News on the radio was like something happening in a different world and time. The communists rejected a prisoner exchange in Korea, England’s King George IV died of lung cancer, a guy called Emmet Ashford became the first Negro baseball umpire, and they started to use three-colored traffic lights and “Don’t Walk” signs in New York.

  He still couldn’t figure why Palmer hadn’t been in touch. The man knew Bodge had to be going nuts alone there in the house. The solitude started to eat into him toward the middle of the second week. It was then the fixation took root. In the pocket of his jacket he still had the three slides of Her Highness Nguyen Von Hong. He hooked up a bedsheet screen in his bedroom, extended the electric light flex by four yards so the bulb could sit on the table, and set up a cone of broken mirror glass around it.

  Although the focus was never quite right, he was able to get a big enough image of the concubine on his wall to have someone his own size to talk to. He wasn’t sure what their relationship was, although it had to be unhealthy. She was a picture, goddamit. But this wasn’t like a smuggled girly magazine. That wasn’t the way he felt about her. He liked what he saw in the slide but it wasn’t sexual. Not in the beginning anyway. He talked to her and she stared vacantly over his shoulder.

  “Honey, you probably won’t believe this, but a few weeks ago I was a clerk.” He was swinging on the back legs of a chair propped up against the bed. “Yes, I was a well-paid government, secret clerk, but a clerk nonetheless. And I volunteered my stupid ass out of that sweet job and into this — this crock of shit I find myself in today. Excuse my French.” She thought that was funny and he noticed her smile. With the mention of French, it occurred to Bodge that Her Royal Highness probably had no idea what he was talking about. She’d been educated in Francophile schools. That would be her foreign language. From that moment he only spoke to her in French.

  “You see, a friend of mine got himself killed, probably because they found out (he didn’t mean to say found out but obviously something deep inside him had already convicted Lou.)…they suspected he was homosexual. I’m still not sure how I feel about that. The thought of guys getting it on with each other turns my belly. I can’t pretend it doesn’t. But Lou was my friend and, well, if that’s what his chromosomes had him do I don’t think it’s right to deny him my support. Do you? (She didn’t.) Someone then tried to kill me, perhaps for the same reason. It looks like my country can be very unforgiving if it thinks you’re a pervert.”

  “I have a boss who lies to me, people following me, and now something’s happened so serious they can’t even tell me what it is. They hide me away with no phone and nobody to talk to but you. For all I know the entire government’s been overthrown by communists and no one knows I’m here. What do you think of that?”

  That thought stayed with him as he ran laps around the perimeter of the field that evening — his breath froze in the air in front of his face. While the canned stew boiled on the stove, he wondered where he’d be if anything had happened to Ramos and Palmer. What if there really was no one who knew he was there? How long should he stay here?

  It was about seven at night when the light from headlights on full-beam flooded through the living room window. Bodge had been listening to a tape through headphones so he hadn’t heard the car pull up. His momentary relief at being contacted quickly reverted to panic. Something about that month had fine-tuned his instinct for self-protection. “Assume the worst,” he told himself.

  He quietly unwrapped himself from the blanket and ran to the alcove by the front door out of eyeshot of the window. He heard footsteps on the gravel, then silence. The thump on the front door made him jump out of his skin. He ignored the first knock. The second was followed by a gruff voice,

  “Hello. Someone in there? This is the police. Open up.” Bodge edged along the wall to the bedroom door and slipped inside.

  “Just a minute,” he shouted. “I’m not dressed.” He tiptoed to the bedroom window and looked through a crack in the curtain. The Delaware Troopers’ Ford Cruiser was glimmering in the moonlight. “Be right with you.” He put on his thick lenses and shuffled to the door.

  On the step, two troopers with matching moustaches stood with their hands on their hips.

  “Evening.”

  “Could I ask you to identify yourself please, sir?” the taller cop said.

  Bodge wasn’t sure what to say. The only ID he had on him were his CIA identity card and his driving license. But Ramos had instructed him not to give his real name to anyone unless they came from Special Operations.

  “Rogers,” he said, hoping they wouldn’t ask for proof.

  “Robert Rogers?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Okay, this is for you.” He handed Bodge a thick, sealed package with ‘FYO ROBERT ROGERS’ printed on the front. The two officers looked at him then down at the package as if they expected him to show them what was in it. But Bodge just held it at his side.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “You aren’t going to open it?” the shorter cop asked with a hint of disappointment in his voice.

  “Was there something else?”

  “Well, yeah,” the tall cop said. “They told us we’re supposed to take you out to Washington National.”

  “What, now?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “Who’s ‘he’?”

  “Some detective from New York. Said you should be there by 21:30.”

  That was two-and-a-half hours away.

  “Any idea where I’m going?” Bodge asked.

  “If you open the damned package, maybe we’ll al
l know,” the cop said. He seemed embarrassed as if he’d just realized anyone important enough to get a police escort to the airport had to be someone. He added, “Sir.” and even managed a smile.

  “You want to wait inside?”

  “Thanks. We’ll be in the car.”

  Bodge took the package to the kitchen table and opened one end with a meat knife. He shook the contents onto the table and found himself looking at a pile of fake IDs: passport, driving license, registration of ordination as a minister, all in the name of the Reverent Robert Rodgers. There was an air ticket via Los Angeles and Hong Kong to Saigon, a thick wad of hundred dollar bills, a stiff sealed envelope and a note which he unfolded. He was expecting it to be from Palmer or Ramos but it wasn’t. The initials at the end were DD.

  The fact that the New York detective didn’t use his full name suggested he was interfering in something that didn’t concern him. But his involvement did explain the courier service.

  ‘Hello, Bodge,

  I’m sure you were expecting this to be from our mutual friend. All being well he’ll meet you at your final destination and explain the changes in plan. There’s a warrant out for the arrest of Mr. Leon and things could get nasty if he’s caught. Everything should be explained in Saigon.

  Good luck, DD.’

  It was a careful note, nothing given away if the cops got nosy. But that was all there was. Bodge didn’t know what to think. A warrant? What the hell had he done? Who was after him? They were sending him half way round the world without explaining a damn thing.

  He slit open the stiff envelope hoping for more information but the contents chewed him up and spat him out like a cow’s lunch. Inside was a single eight inch by six inch black and white photograph. It showed some kind of club. There was a sofa and soft easy chairs. On the sofa sat an overweight, elderly man with thick gray hair. One arm was draped around the shoulder of a boy in his late teens. The boy wore heavy mascara and a sequined top, but nothing else. The old man grasped the boy’s penis in his free hand oblivious of the camera. At the other end of the couch sat Lou. His shirt was open and his pants were down around his ankles. He was smiling and holding up his glass to someone just out of shot. Kneeling on the ground before him with his lips around Lou’s erection, was a naked man whose muscles glistened with sweat. The room seemed dark, but the flash of the camera had left no doubt as to Lou’s identity.