“I’m sorry, Don Imbroglio.”
“I imagine you are. Explain to me again how you think that might have happened.”
“Well. Me an’ the boys went down there, just like you said. We made the marks, and then laid low till nighttime. We see them goin’ off in some truck, so we follow and they head out into the sticks, which we figure will be a good place to take care of ‘em. Then it looks like things are working out real good, cuz the people that they’re with leave them two alone, saving us the trouble of offing the others. Anyway, Joey gets a little anxious, and lets fly too soon. They hop into their wheels, and try to make a break for it, but we put a few rounds into the truck, and the broad runs it into a tree, so we got them, see? Then just as we’re just about to do the deed, these hicks start blazing away from the trees. They nail everybody except me, although they wing me pretty good in a coupla spots. I’m down but not out, so I crawl away into the water, and hide under some trees. While I’m sitting tight there, is when I hear the broad say sumthin about this guy Baby Joe, and him knowin’ what to do, and something about Vietnam. Anyway, soon as they pull out I walk back the nearest town, boost a set of wheels, and get back here as soon as I can, to tell you.”
“I see. And what conclusions do you draw from all this?”
“I figure it was a setup, Don Imbroglio. The way these guys collected the cases, and stripped our guys, I figure them to know what they’re doin’, whereas they wouldn’t if they was just a bunch a hicks.”
The Don considered what had been said in silence. The man could feel the days of his life being weighed in the balance. Sweat ran down his face and when the Don spoke he could barely hear the words for the pounding of his heart.
“How long to you expect to be incapacitated?”
“Inca-what?”
The Don sighed. “How long before you will be well enough to be of some use?”
“Oh, I’m ready now, Don Imbroglio. This ain’t nothing. I can…”
“That won’t be necessary. Go home, and stay by your telephone.” The Don dismissed the man with an abrupt flick of the wrist, and Liberty wrenched him from his seat and propelled him towards the door.
“Bring the other two incompetents.”
Stratosphere manhandled Poxy Purdy and Bender into the room and compelled them into a kneeling position by main force.
“Do you know,” asked the Don, “how much they charge to clean carpets these days?”
Poxy managed a whimper but Bender, who was apparently suffering from an attack of St. Vitus Dance, contented himself with quivering uncontrollably.
“Quite obviously you do not. But if you did, you would realize that it is only the exorbitant cost of stain removal that prevents me from having my associates here splatter the sheep offal that serves you for brains all over the room. Let me ask you an easier question. How is it that, between the two of you, you were not able to overpower and subdue an ancient man with one foot in the grave?”
“There wuz a dog, Don Imbroglio, a really big dog. It bit me in the—”
“The nature of your wounds are of no concern to me whatsoever. My only regret is that it was not your puerile head that was removed. What became of your conqueror?”
“I don’t know anyone by that name, Don Imbroglio.”
The Don sighed again, deeply this time. “What happened to the old man?”
“Er, well, we dunno, Don Imbroglio. After I got my heinie stitched, we went back to the Mirage, but the old geezer checked out.”
The Don decided that he did not owe humanity the favor of removing these two halfwits from the gene pool and motioned for their removal. He pondered that he had, in his rage, almost extinguished more inconsequential lives, but it was a question of simple economy. He was getting short-staffed. This drug nonsense was getting entirely out of hand. It had seemed such a simple and risk-free affair, and now it was not only infringing upon his other activities, and threatening to undermine his credibility, but it was seriously depleting his workforce. And it wasn’t like he could just put an ad in the Revue Journal: “Wanted. Stone-faced assassins. Unsociable hours. Previous homicides an advantage.”
Radical measures were required. He was going to have to recruit from outside, which he was loath to do. And now there was apparently a further complication. He had quickly sensed that Mr. Young was not the beer-soaked Irish donkey that he appeared, but this latest development was unexpected and not a little suspicious. Our boy from Boston had coolly accepted a commission, while simultaneously and knowingly assisting the quarry. That would explain the efficient demise of the late-and-not-lamented Maxie Grimmstein. What game are you playing, Mr. Young? Well, whatever it is, you are about to get a suspension. A very long suspension. The ringing of the phone interrupted the Don’s thoughts.
“It’s overseas, boss. Vietnam.”
“Mr. Merang, I presume?”
“No, boss, some foreign guy. One of them.”
Curious, Don Imbroglio held out his hand for the receiver.
Baby Joe had felt better. A school of salmon were spawning in the pit of his stomach, and the bears that were chasing them were trying to burrow in through the back of his head. Somebody important must have died, because every time one of the kids ran past on the deck overhead a twenty-one-gun salute went off in the roof of his skull. Bjørn Eggen, on the other hand, looked and felt ridiculously good, as if he had spent the previous day and night drinking milk and honey instead of rotgut whisky and piss-barrel beer. Furthermore, he was being distressingly cheerful as they sat, cross-legged, on the large raffia mat on which they had lain throughout the night in an alcohol-induced coma, attracting the attention of every mosquito, midge, gadfly, and cockroach between there and the Cambodian border. One of the kids had bounced into the cabin and deposited in front of them a large bowl of coffee and two elongate brown objects, oozing grease, which looked like the fried scrapings from the bottom of Rodney’s paddock. A bite confirmed Baby Joe’s suspicions and he tossed it through the adjacent porthole, half expecting it to come flying back in.
“I vould haf eaten that. Is not good to vaste food, ja.”
“Oh, I agree. Wasting fricasseed elephant turds is a different matter.”
The mat that served as a doorway to the tiny cabin flapped open, and Wally’s woolly noggin poked through. He wore his habitual piratical grin, and if he was feeling even the slightest effect of the previous day’s excesses there was nothing in either his appearance or manner to betray it.
“G’day, mates. Sleep all right? Bangin didn’t keep you awake I ’ope,” he added, with a salacious wink.
“Ja, ja. I haf very gud the sleep. Dream about me son.”
“What about you, cobber? Jeez, you look rough. Eyes like piss holes in the snow, mate.”
“You should see them from my side. How much did we fucking drink?”
Wally pushed through the matting and sat next to them. “Heaps, mate. Fucken plenty. Hair of the dog’s what yer need.”
“I think you might be right.”
“Vat dog is this? I very much like to see the dog.”
“No, Bjørn Eggen, it’s just an expression.”
“I see, ja,” Bjørn Eggen said, not seeing at all.
“Come on, then. ’Ands off cocks and on socks. Let’s go up top and I’ll get somethin to fix you blokes up.”
They followed Wally up onto the already-hot deck. The sun stood at about eleven o’clock, and Baby Joe calculated that they had slept for about four hours, if that. Wally appeared with a case of Foster’s lager. Tossing one to each man in turn he cracked his own with a loud hiss and stuck it to his mouth, where it appeared to adhere to his lips by force of suction. He swallowed loudly, his pronounced Adam’s apple bobbing in stark relief, as if some small creature scurried beneath the skin.
He finished his beer, opened another, and said, “Good on yer, mates. Crack a bladdy tube. She’ll be right.”
Baby Joe regarded his tin with suspicion, wondering if his churning sto
mach could accommodate it. He watched Bjørn Eggen, who entertained no such reservations, empty his tinny and reach for another. Baby Joe took the plunge, sucked down a deep draught, and instantaneously felt better.
“I bin thinkin ‘bout what you blokes were telling me yesterday. I reckon I’ll round up a few of me Billy lids, and send ’em out on a recce, so to speak. Don’t reckon it’ll take too long to bring this grandson fella to heel. What do ya reckon?”
“That would be a great help, Wally. Thanks.”
“Ah, no worries. I’d go meself only I got a show to put on with Rodney in an hour. What about if we meet up at the bar, say six, for a couple of sundowners.”
“Last time was the sun-uppers, ja?”
“Too right, mate,” Wally said, clinking tins with Bjørn Eggen.
A fuzzy head popped up at the top of the stairs leading down into the bowels of the junk. “Hey, dad, there’s a Sheila on the phone wants to speak to Baby Joe,” the boy said, before disappearing back down the hatch.
Baby Joe jumped up and followed the kid. It could only be Asia. After speaking to Wally he had called her and told her where he would be staying, in case she had tried to call the hotel where they were originally booked and been worried not to find them. He had been trying to keep her out of his mind and, given how emotive his return to the ‘Nam had been, had expected it to be easier.
Putting the still-warm receiver to his ear, he could tell she was upset before she even spoke, as if her fear was somehow transmitting itself down the line.
“Asia?”
“Oh, Baby Joe.”
Her voice broke down, and Baby Joe murmured to her, soothing her, giving her time to gather herself. He listened to the quiet sobbing.
“Asia, are you hurt?” he said, finally.
“No, no, I’m all right. I’m just so very frightened. They tried to kill us.”
“Who did?” he asked, already knowing, and already feeling the long black veil descending behind his eyes.
“I don’t know, some men. We were out in the bayou. They followed us. There was a big fight. The people I was with killed them.”
“How many?”
“Three.”
Why the fuck would the Don send three men to blow away a young girl and a singer? He should have thought it through better. He should have known it wasn’t far enough away. It had been stupid to think the Don wouldn’t find them. What had he been thinking?
“What about Crispin?”
“He’s all right, but he’s badly shaken up. He hardly speaks. He got a nasty cut over his eye that we had to stitch, and they shot two holes in his pompadour.”
Baby Joe laughed. He couldn’t help it.
“It’s not funny.”
“I know. Forgive me. I’m sorry. Where are you now?”
“I’m at a bar, close to where my mother lives. I’m worried about her too, now, and my family. I want to leave. It’s not safe here, it’s not safe anywhere.”
Asia broke down again, and Baby Joe let her cry. Listening to her weeping, he made himself a promise. He promised himself he was going to cut that pompous little greaseball fucker’s heart out and piss into the hole.
“Asia, stop crying. What do you want to do?”
“I want to be where you are. I want to come there.”
Baby Joe’s serious-error-of-judgment alarm went off, and rang long and hard. This was not right. Everything about it was wrong. There was no provision in his plans for this scenario. He was too close already, and he knew it. This was when you made mistakes. If you got involved, you couldn’t see clearly. Sooner or later you would make a bad call, a professional decision on an emotional basis, and that would be it. Walking a fucking tightrope, on ice skates. There was absolutely no way he could do what he needed to do, either for her or for himself, if he had her to worry about. It was a distraction he didn’t need. How could he watch his ass, if he were continually watching hers?
He pushed the mouthpiece closer to his lips and said, “Okay.”
“I knew that’s what you would say. Crispin wants to come, too.”
Oh, well, bring the dog then, bring your mother, bring a couple of friends, bring Larry, Curly, and Moe, bring Uncle Tom and his fucking cabin.
“All right,” he said.
“Are you sure? You don’t sound it.”
“How do I sound?”
“You sound angry.”
He had tried to keep it out of his voice. He was angry, but not with her. With himself. It was a bonehead play, and there was no way to see it other than as it was.
“I’m not angry,” he lied, “I’m just concerned. Tell me exactly what happened, right from the beginning. Give me as much information as you can remember.”
Baby Joe concentrated as she spoke, watching the changing images in his mind like an action replay, assuming the different roles, asking himself questions and answering them. When she had finished, he said, “Is there anything else that you can remember? Some detail that you left out that you didn’t think was important, but that might be?”
“No. That’s everything I remember. It happened so fast. And I was scared.”
“I know, baby. I know. So there were no survivors, and no witnesses other than your friends?”
“No.”
“You’re sure.”
“I’m sure.”
“Okay. Listen to me. Leave there now. Tonight. Don’t worry about your family. The Don will send somebody to find out what happened, but will figure on you being smart enough to have left. Send your mother and sisters to stay with friends for a few days, just in case. Make all your arrangements, and call me at this number. If I’m not here, leave a message with whoever answers the phone. They all speak English. I’ll be at the airport to meet you. Put the phone down now, and do as I told you.”
“Baby Joe…”
“Yes?”
“Baby Joe, I…”
“Asia, tell me when you get here, okay? Don’t worry, it will be all right. Now get going. I’ll see you soon.”
“Okay. Bye.”
Baby Joe walked slowly back up to the deck, to where Bjørn Eggen and Wally were laughing. His face was bleak. He was thinking about Asia lying naked with those men’s hands on her. He was thinking about Don Ignacio Imbroglio. They looked up as Baby Joe’s shadow fell across them.
“All right, Blue?” Wally said.
“Yeah.”
“Vas Asia, ja?” Bjørn Eggen wanted to know.
“Yeah. She’s coming out.”
“Here. Something has happen?”
“Yeah.”
“I tell you, my friend.”
“I know.”
“You got trouble, mate?”
“It’s all right.”
“No, it ain’t. It may as well be painted on yer kisser in big fucken letters. I seen too much agro not to know it when I see it starin me in the bladdy mush.”
“You’re right, Wally. But I don’t want to get you involved.”
“Listen, mate. This old barstad ’ere was Phil Parker’s dad. I owe it to Phil’s memory to lend an ’and, if I can. If you don’t wanna tell me, it’s all right. If you wanna tell me it’s none a me fucken business, fair dinkum, that’s all right, too. But let me tell ya somethin’. When you put yer ’and in Woollomooloo Wally’s ’and, that means yer ’is mate. An’ if yer ’is mate, your trouble is ’is trouble. Okay?”
Baby Joe smiled. “Okay, Wally. Thanks.”
“No worries. Now let me go an’ sort these little barstads out. What are you two blokes gonna do?”
“We’ll go and have a scout round ourselves. We’ll be back at the bar about six.”
Wally nodded, tossed his can into the boat, and let out an unearthly cackling sound. Fuzzy heads immediately began to materialize from every corner.
Wally grinned. “Me fucken kookaburra impression,” he said.
With the sun almost directly overhead, Bjørn Eggen and Baby Joe walked down an alley divided into equal sections of light an
d darkness by the ruler edge of black shadow that ran along its center. A gaggle of silent children followed a few paces behind them, stopping when they stopped and proceeding when they moved on. Baby Joe was following the directions on a map, a mental map etched so dimly on the fabric of his brain that he struggled to recall its true contours.
“I know it’s around here somewhere,” Baby Joe said.
He paused, looking around him, half in sun and half in shadow, bisected by the sun line into some kind of harlequin, a dweller between night and day. One of the older children detached himself from the group and approached, smiling shyly.
“America,” he said.
Baby Joe smiled and nodded. “America.”
“Me Hung.”
“Congratulations.”
“Me can very good the America.”
“Good man.”
“You lose you fren.”
“What did you say, son?”
“You look you fren. Crazy man.” The boy drew circles around his temple with his finger and crossed his eyes.
“Yeah. You know where he lives?”
“Sure. You wrong street. You follow.”
Hung walked towards the open end of the alley with Bjørn Eggen and Baby Joe behind, followed at a few paces by the silent posse of solemn children. Just before the intersection with the street another passage intersected with the alley, a passage so narrow that Baby Joe could easily touch both sides with his outstretched hands.
Hung stopped at the foot of a bamboo ladder that was propped against an opened second-story window and pointed up. “You fren here.”
“Sure?”
“Sure.”
Watched by his silent audience, Baby Joe climbed the frail ladder until his face was level with the window. He could hear wind chimes and guitars.
“Hazy?” he shouted. “Hazy Doyle?”
Machine Gun Jelly (Big Bamboo Book 1) Page 25