When Saigon Surrendered

by James Aura

  I hoisted my glass and tried a little Spanish.

  “Brindo por una asociación rentable!” (I drink to a profitable partnership.)

  The Brute actually cracked a smile, then shook his head, took a sip of the moonshine and muttered something in Spanish to Nigel in a voice that sounded like a gravel truck. I couldn’t quite make it out.. something about the moonshine.

  Nigel laughed. “He says your Spanish is awful but the moonshine is a treasure.”

  Nigel got up to take a look at the steaks on the grill, and The Brute muttered "baño" and walked inside. I took the opportunity to toss out what remained of my drink then refilled all three glasses when Nigel returned to the table.

  Nigel took an appreciative sip and said, “The Brute is Cubano, he was a big operator in Havana before Castro.”

  By then I had figured out Nigel’s accent. He was an Australian. A Cuban and an Aussie in Clarksville, Tennessee. How strange.

  “How did you guys wind up in Tennessee?”

  Nigel studied his glass. The Brute returned to the table.

  “Let’s just say I met some mates whilst on duty in Vietnam and leave it at that. What about your tribe, Bennie? Where do you come from?”

  “We operate out of Louisville, mostly. Got connections overseas, sell moonshine all over Kentucky, but not in Tennessee. You interested?”

  “We might be. It’s a good drink. Tell me about the women.”

  The Brute emptied his glass and wiped his mouth. He seemed bored. A hot coal bounced out of the grill and singed Jimmy on the hand. He jumped and yelped. The Brute flew off that table and was next to Jimmy in an instant. The big guy could move like a cat. I refilled their glasses.

  Jimmy reassured us. “It’s OK, sorry, gents. Just a little loose fire. All OK now, and the steaks are ready, I think.”

  The Brute glared at Jimmy and returned to the table. Any trace of a smile was gone now. I had a feeling they wanted to press on into serious business, but I wanted to move the conversation to the dining room, where the tape recorder was rolling.

  “Let’s head inside for dinner. And wait until you try my mashed potatoes, old family recipe.”

  I asked them to take a seat at the dining room table, and unfortunately Nigel took the seat where I had the Bowie knife taped underneath. I dished out the servings and brought the plates to the table. I brought the moonshine jug along with sweet tea.

  I was happy to see they accepted another round of Kentucky’s Finest instead of the tea. I began talking about all the beautiful women we had coming from Vietnam and Nigel, paused while cutting up his steak.

  “How about pictures, mate? Oh and nothing personal, but before we go any further can we see some I-D?”

  Jimmy and I whipped out our driver’s licenses: Benjamin Baumgartner with an address in Louisville, KY and Elway Gore, also of Louisville, both 21, the fake I-D’s looked perfect to me. But Nigel pored over them carefully, then pulled out a small flashlight, shined it toward the ceiling and looked at them with the light. It reminded me of our silent guardian above who hopefully, would be able to remain silent for the rest of the evening.

  He handed them back and tore into the steak. The Brute was shoveling down the steak, mashed potatoes and peas as if he was famished. He greedily swigged the rest of his drink. They had already consumed a good portion of that high test moonshine.

  It seemed to loosen Nigel’s tongue. He began to chatter like a magpie. I brought out more garlic butter mashed potatoes and peas and The Brute scooped out another large serving to his plate. I began to fear all those potatoes might lessen the effects of the booze.

  “I must say your little ruse to get into our motel was rather clever. But where is the Mustang? Surely that was you cruisin' around town last week?”

  I ignored the question and sensed I had an opening.

  “I have photos of some of the girls who will arrive within the month. But before we get to that, tell us more about your operation. How many would you be interested in and how about finances?”

  The answer was revealing.

  “Barney, who I think you’ve met, is the money guy. You’ll have to take that up with him later. We’ve got customers here and in Dallas, Saint Louis and Chicago. So you boys have stumbled into a gold mine, if what you say is fair dinkum!”

  Nigel was getting sloppy now, spilled a bit of his drink on his belly. But he wasn’t giving us any clear incriminating comments for the tape recorder. If anything, my comments were more incriminating than his, not that it would be a problem later.

  “We know you have honeys from Korea and ‘Nam. Tell us how that works and I will tell you more about our operation.”

  The Brute glared at me, then at Nigel, as if to say, “Shut up.” But Nigel was oblivious.

  I dished him up another big scoop of mashed potatoes which were swimming in garlic butter and juice from the peas. He finished off his steak with a flourish. Jim poured him another drink and he shoveled the mashed potatoes and peas into his mouth and emptied his booze glass.

  “We take the girls in here and we train them to be whores. Then we keep a few at the motel, but the big money is in our other markets. We drug them and haul them like cattle, every few months.”

  “How in hell do you train them to be whores? We are experts at the moonshine business but the rest is new to us. Must take a lot of skill.”

  Nigel roared with laughter, held out his glass for another shot of Kentucky’s Finest.

  “Oh yes, yes! Skill all right!” He glanced at The Brute. “Nothing to it really, a gentle nudge with a baseball bat and the occasional night trip to the landfill, if you know what I mean, and those shielas sing like little birds! For some a little nose candy does the trick. It all depends. But our success rate is very high!”

  Suddenly I was glad not to be sitting on the Bowie knife. If it had been in reach I would have been tempted to grab it and stab Nigel in the throat! I remembered how Soo Jin looked with no teeth and those scars on her face. And how she shivered with fear when she talked about them.

  I thought about the Underground Railroad, and how slaves used to escape to the North. It seemed like an Underground Railroad now was taking poor, unfortunate girls to the big cities. I wondered what happened to them in Dallas or Saint Louis. Were there more Brutes there with baseball bats? Were the landfills in Chicago holding bodies of girls who would not cooperate? What would Opal think about all this?

  Nigel leaned forward and slapped his hand on the table top. The Brute was slouching, picking his teeth with a fork, his eyelids seemed to be drooping.

  “Nice feast, but where are the goods? You have pictures?”

  He was grinning, licking his chops in anticipation. Like a wolf. I reached into my shirt pocket and pulled out a copy of the photo of the sisters from Huế, Linh Dao and Anh Dao. Jimmy started to lean over and grab a look, then caught himself, and sat back in his chair.

  Jimmy said, “Mighty nice ‘ribbons’ right there, and three or four hundred more just like them, if you guys think you can handle that.”

  I pulled out a second photo. This one was a fake; it showed three cheerleaders from a Saigon high school who were probably dead by now, for all I knew. I had clipped it from a magazine and Tommy’s fake I-D guy had turned it into a realistic looking snapshot.

  Nigel cradled the photos in his weasly hands. He was barely able to sit upright. The Brute seemed uninterested. Probably just baseball bat material to him.

  I said, “You can keep the one with the three honeys, but the other one, I must have back, we’ll need that to identify them when they come off the boat next week.”

  He handed me the photo of the sisters from Huế. “Next week, you say? When could we take delivery, and how many?”

  “Week and a half, I’d reckon, but there is still the money to be worked out.”

  Apparently the photos did the trick. “Barney says I can offer you five hundred for any over the age of 20 and eight hundred for any under 20.”

&nbs
p; “Call it six hundred and nine hundred and we’ve got a deal.”

  “Done, he said, and rose unsteadily from the table.

  I said, “Lots more details to be worked out. Locations and times. Can you pay in cash? My people will need all of that information.”

  Then, I stupidly said, “One of our associates mentioned a guy named Jerry. Is he still around?”

  Suddenly Nigel didn’t seem so drunk.

  “Oh, you blokes aren’t the only ones who can take off or put on identities. Yes, Jerry’s around, still. You boys might work a bit more on those fake I-D’s, they’re not very convincing.”

  He gave me a sneer like he’d just gypped me out of a king’s ransom.

  “That’s enough palaver. Call it a night, blokes. We’ve got to be on our way.”

  They headed for the front door. Nigel seemed to be dragging a leg behind him. He was unsteady on his feet.

  I said, “Call the phone booth at noon tomorrow. We will have to work out those details.”

  My skin began to crawl. What had I done? Had I blown the deal?

  Nigel said, “Oh yes, you and your ‘associates’ will definitely hear from us tomorrow.”

  The Brute nodded over his shoulder, as if in agreement. They quickly got on the Triumph and roared down the road. A whoop came down from the attic, and I heard Tommy head for the door ladder.

  “Wait, wait! Give it five more minutes in case they come back for some reason!”

  Tom wouldn’t have it. He came down the ladder and slapped me on the back. He shook Jimmy’s hand. Jim was grinning ear to ear.

  “That was the damndest thing Russell, you guys should be working in Hollywood!”

  I turned off the tape recorder and looked again out the front door. The blackguards were long gone. The train was pulling into the station and I felt like another shot of Kentucky’s Finest. Hell, I felt like Kentucky’s Finest! But I had a gnawing feeling about Nigel’s last comments.

  We toasted one another with a sip of moonshine. Then we got busy and packed everything up, and wiped down any possible fingerprints in the house, with a wet towel.

  Tom and Jimmy had everything collected in the front room ready to load in the car, and I told them to hold up.

  I turned off the outside lights and slipped out the back door. A sliver of moon in the sky gave me enough light to avoid tripping on sawed-off stumps and a neighbor kid’s tricycle. I looked for any signs that the house might be watched. I walked a little ways down the block, in both directions. I saw nothing. No black vans.

  We left the house key in the mailbox and were out of Guthrie and on the road back home by midnight. There was a lot more to be done but we wanted to put some miles between us and Clarksville, Tennessee.

  I had a fire burning in me by the time we got to Evelena’s place. The blackguards were going to meet their fate, and soon. We unloaded some of our gear into the basement and I sat at a card table with my typewriter and began to whack out a letter to the Feds with two carbon copies. I remembered to put gloves on before I handled the paper. There would be no fingerprints on anything.

  Tom and Jimmy fell asleep on the sofa and a bed. But I heard someone stirring upstairs. The door opened and down came Evelena in a house robe.

  “Russell Ray Teague!” She whispered, “What in the world? You’ve scared your uncle and Soo Jin half to death! What are you doing down here? It’s four o’clock in the morning!”

  I smiled at her and said. “We did it, Evelena! We nailed them! But I’ve got to finish this up and get it to the FBI first thing this morning.”

  Then I remembered the tape recording. I was hoping Mr. Hudson might be able to help me get that edited and included as evidence. As it turns out, Mr. Hudson was staying the night at Evelena’s and he got the incriminating sections of audio ready to go in just a few minutes on a snazzy dual cassette recorder. He said the FBI would have these new kinds of machines. It was a lot smaller than the big reel to reel tapes we used.

  In the morning, Jimmy took off on the Harley and delivered the letter and tape to the FBI office in Louisville. Tommy and I drove to Nashville and I dropped a copy of the letter and another tape cassette with a woman at the front desk at the U.S. Marshal Service in Nashville. We put the last copy in the mail to the FBI in Memphis.

  By this time I felt like I had burned a candle on both ends and the middle. I got a little shut eye on the two hour drive back from Nashville, but woke up quickly when Tommy pulled the Mustang up to the farm. For the second time, it looked like all hell had broken loose.

  “Gosh Russell, I don’t think they’re here for your uncle’s moonshine, this time.”

  Two sheriff’s cars and an ambulance were parked out front. Two stupid looking guys I had seen around town were in the back seat of one of the squad cars, handcuffed. Sheriff Parker was talking to my uncle on the front porch. He was shaking his head, as if amazed.

  “Damn good thing you got you that mail order bride, Wallace. I still can’t believe she took that guy out that way. This was your lucky day, is all I’ll say about it.”

  The sheriff got into his car and drove off with the two men in back. The ambulance and second squad car also pulled away. Tommy and I stood and waited, not sure what was going to come next.

  “Russell, I don’t know where you boys have been, but I sure am glad you at least left me the .410. Soo Jin and me would probably be back in the creek, dead by now, otherwise. It was those same two damn hoodlums that came and killed the dog and attacked me. I don’t know what made you think they’d be back.”

  He and Soo Jin had worked out a plan. He carried the .410 at all times and they kept the front door and windows locked. The two hoodlums had showed up just as Uncle Wallace and Soo Jin were walking out to milk the cows. They saw the two cats, running in a mad dash for the barn loft and figured something was up. Soo Jin ran through the back door upstairs to the canned goods. They heard the marauders trying the front door. She watched Uncle Wallace who was peering around a corner of the barn. When he nodded she started throwing jars of green beans and peas out the window, a hail of canned vegetables from above. One hit the guy with the pistol on the head and knocked him out. Uncle Wallace came around the corner with the shotgun and held the other guy while Soo Jin called the Sheriff’s office. And sure enough, the second man was carrying a bolo. That stunt seemed like something Paladin would do. Sneaky and clever.

  “What I want to know, how’d you figure they’d be back, Russell?”

  I shrugged and glanced at Tommy. He looked like he was about to bust with what we had done, but he kept quiet, managed to wear a blank look.

  “Oh I saw a nasty-looking guy walking with the bolo the other day, Uncle Wallace, and I just got a bad feeling. I guess it paid off.”

  At least I knew by then Evelena hadn’t spilled the beans.

  Uncle Wallace looked me up and down suspiciously.” Well Soo Jin is out there milking Daisy, why don’t you get the other one? Tommy, can you take a look at the engine on the Bel Air? It’s been running rough lately.”

  Just like that, back to life on the farm. I headed out back and met Soo Jin coming out of the barn, carrying a bucket of milk, trailed by the cats. She was beaming, holding her head high.

  All day long we had been listening to a Clarksville radio station for news. There had been nothing. I was exhausted, getting ready for bed, when the phone rang. It was Mr. Hudson at the radio station.

  “Russell, get over here. I have something that just came in on the wire. I think you will find it highly interesting.”

  “Mr. Hudson, if you don’t mind, I’ve had about two hours sleep in the last day and a half. What is it?”

  “Well it says police in Clarksville found two guys dead in the Red River this morning. Their motorcycle ran off the road near the bridge and apparently plunged right down into the water during the night. One victim was a Nigel Marr, second one not identified. It says alcohol believed to be a factor. Evelena said you and Tommy had been listening for new
s out of Clarksville. Any of that ring a bell?”

  “It sure does, Mr. Hudson, sure does. That is amazing news. Thanks so much for the information.”

  “Well, I will save the wire copy for you, and any updates that come across.”

  “That would be great. Can I come over tomorrow; will you be at Evelena’s?”

  “In case you’ve forgotten Russell, school is back in session. I won’t be working at the radio station much longer. But I’ll be at Evelena’s by late afternoon.”

  I hung up the phone and fell into bed. As I drifted off to sleep I remembered what Grandma always told me about the canned peas:

  “Whenever there’s a bulge in the lid Russell, throw those away. That means there’s a horrible poison in those jars. It is called Botulism. It can kill you. Always check the lids before you eat any canned vegetables, especially peas.”