‘What’s he do, your dad?’
‘He’s a business man.’
‘What kind of business?’ I asked.
‘Oh stuff, he has his fingers in lots of things.’ Giselle flicked her ash on the polished stone floor as if she was sweeping away a bad memory.
‘Where were you born?’ I asked.
‘Massachusettes, near the sea.’
‘So how did you end up in the Orient?’
‘Guess I caught the travelling bug… the first place I went on my own was I India, then on my way back at the airport, I decided I wasn’t ready, I couldn’t face returning. I didn’t want to go back to the humdrum of the States where no one asks any questions, important questions. You know what I mean?’
‘Yeah.’ I didn’t know what she meant at all. ‘So what did you do, instead of going back?’
She looked distractedly out of the window, ‘I took photos of dead bodies and people dying in Indian cities. It became an obsession, dragging myself into the darkest corners to catch the last breaths of people in their struggle; lepers, cholera victims, recovering castratos, untouchables, butchered street children in Bombay. I took it all in as if I was on some kind of crusade. Then it got too much and I had to leave; I started seeing street-children in my sleep.
‘When I got to Bangkok I sat in a bar on Khao San Rd, went through my shots and selected the best ones. Some of them weren’t bad, so I thought I’d see if I could get some work on a magazine,’
‘And the rest is history?’
She exhaled slowly, in the rising smoke she looked as if she were from another time; with her sculpted cheeks and blue eyes she reminded me of an aspara girl sculpted on the side of some Khmer temple. ‘It wasn’t that simple, there are thousands of photographers trying to break in who shoot the same way, you know? I took the cheapest room I could find, lived pretty much on rice and noodles and knocked on every door of every publication I could find. Just as I was about to give up, I sold a three-page spread to Time about starving kids in Calcutta.’
‘Wow, that’s a pretty impressive first gig.’
‘I guess my luck had changed - a Bangkok magazine called me in for another look at my portfolio. Then I got an assignment with them working in travel. I gradually left the sorrow behind and started shooting tourist traps. Anyway, that’s enough about me.’
‘I like hearing about you, it distracts me.’
She squeezed my hand and that was my tipping point in more way than one. I poured the whiskey on to the street. ‘He was murdered, in Bangkok.’ I looked at the floor as I spoke, ‘he should never have come here, I persuaded him and now he’s dead… I got the feeling it was supposed to be me at first but now I know they’re just waiting for their time. I know this sounds strange but,’ I hesitated an instant, ‘my grandmother left me something in her will, I brought it out here with me and… I think someone wants it.’
Giselle bit her top lip with her bottom teeth, knitting her eyebrows together. ‘Jesus! You think you’re in danger too?’
‘That’s why I didn’t want to tell you. I don’t want to get you involved.’
Giselle was shaking her head, ‘But I don’t understand. What did she leave for you that someone would kill your friend to get to it?’
‘It may be unrelated but I don’t think so. It’s a key… I feel as if I’m losing my mind.’
She squeezed my hand again, ‘You’re not losing your mind Alain. You don’t have to tell me anything if that’s what you want, okay?’
I looked at her numbly, ‘I just miss him, and nothing can bring him back.’
Giselle picked distractedly at the plaster on her left ankle, smoothing it down every so often. I thought about taking her to my room and making love to her, anything to escape the loneliness hanging about me.
As she looked at her watch her expression suddenly changed. ‘Shit, I forgot to call Ron, my Editor, he’ll be pissed with me. You want a disgusting coffee? I’ve got to put a call through to the office.’
‘At this time?’
‘He’s an insomniac workaholic and my shots are accompanying a piece that goes online next week. I was supposed to check in this afternoon to see if they needed me to shoot any more Hanoi spots, and I still haven’t sent them through. Will you be okay for a minute?’
There were a couple of dusty computer monitors in the interior of the café; the Internet seemed to be everywhere now, even in the Old Quarter. I waited till a couple of travellers had finished on them then emailed Mum, assuring her I was on my way home and not to worry. When I checked my Inbox I found a letter from Gerald King, there was no ‘subject’. I hurriedly read it before Giselle came back.
Alain,
I want you to leave Hanoi if you haven’t already. If you read this and act on it you may be lucky. You want answers? The more you know, the greater chance you have of never getting back to your real life. Your friend died for a reason, too complicated to go into now, but I’m sure it was you they were after – consider yourself lucky. You want a reason for hauling ass, follow this link and take a look at yesterday’s edition of the Bangkok Post. I hope for your sake we won’t meet again,
Good luck,
Your friend, G.K.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as I re-read the message. Bangkok Post? I felt a hand on my shoulder and instinctively hit the X icon in the corner of the screen before Giselle could read the email. My hands were shaking.
‘Is everything ok, you’ve gone all stiff?’
‘I’ve got to go.’
‘Hold on a sec, you’ve got to go where? Alain?’
‘I need to go and see someone, will you give me a lift?’
I didn’t wait for an answer, my only chance of an explanation was slipping through my fingers, I was damned if I was going let King off the hook this easily. I left the café and walked out onto the street.
- 20 -
Jacques watched the old woman and captured VC being led across the parade ground to the Infirmary and adjoining Interrogation room. The Ferryman’s face was neutral, almost calm. The Infirmary stank of detergent and body odour, men dozed in their cots, some rigged to salines and blood bags, others limbless and doped, blood flowering in patterns through bandaged stumps.
Carabas waited for him at the end of the dorm, meticulously cleaning his hands with alcohol solution. He looked happy. ‘The old woman’s dead – I popped her in front of Charlie, but the little gook’s holding out on me. So far...’
‘She must have said something?’ Jacque’s tooth was throbbing, the nerve exposed, he felt chronically tired between bouts of pain. From his pocket he took a morphine tablet and swallowed it.
‘Oh she said something, she talked about a visit from a phantom silver.’
‘A silver ghost.’
Carabas stared at him impatiently. ‘Even my French can cover that.’
Jacques fought to level his breath so his voice didn’t sound uneven, ‘Perhaps this man you found is the Silver Ghost… he has grey hair doesn’t he?’
Carabas dried his fingers with a cloth, his face expressionless. ‘There’s a problem with that theory. She says he was Western.’ The Colonel shifted his gaze to a muscled soldier shaking in his sleep, his arm amputated at the elbow. ‘He won’t be playing quarterback again. Take a look Jacques, take a deep breath of the misery.’
Jacques knew what was coming, the Devil in the desert seeking his acquiescence. ‘Now come and help me skin this fucker.’ Said Carabas.
The room was soundproofed to stop the injured in the adjoining infirmary from being further traumatized. The door, but for a meshed panel of glass, was solid iron. Naked to the waist the VC sat pinioned to a chair, hands cuffed behind his back. A weak, exposed bulb cast a dim glow upon his wiry, brown form. Carabas shut the door and produced a surgeon’s bri
efcase.
Clearly not Army issue, thought Jacques. He takes his work seriously.
Inside it was a range of stainless-steel scalpels and saws. The Colonel selectively ran his fingers across the blades. ‘Get me a coffee, strong, no milk, four sugars.’ he snapped at the guard on the door. Then back to the Ferryman, ‘You speak English?’
The Vietnamese said nothing.
‘Good, figured you did.’
Jacques lit a Gitanes.
‘I’m going to be straight with you Charlie, you’re going to die in this room, but how and when is up to you. You’re not without an element of control, you have a choice.’ Carabas wheeled around to Deschamps, ‘I’d appreciate if you didn’t smoke, it distracts me.’
The Ferryman’s face was a mask, but he surely knew the pain that would follow. The light flickered, died and a moment later regained its feeble glow. Carabas was right beside the Ferryman now, in his hand a steel saw. Through the darkness he’d crossed the room silent as a cat and selected his preferred instrument, yet Jacques hadn’t heard a thing.
‘Hold onto him for me Scarecrow and put that cube in his mouth. I don’t want him biting his tongue off - least not yet.’
Jacques pushed the rubber mouthpiece into his mouth. There was a hole in it that allowed him to breathe, but not big enough to release a scream. The saw made a sound like crushed oats as it sliced through gristle and bone. Carabas raised himself to full height knocking the light with his head as he did so. In the swinging arc of light Jacques saw the captive’s big toe raised like a trophy and placed on the surgeon’s table.
‘This little piggy went to market, with a bomb and a shoe-shine kit to boot.’ The Vietnamese shook and salivated before he fainted,
‘Do we have to do it this way? He deserves some measure of dignity?’
‘Where there’s a locked door there is always a key. Give him some of this.’
The bottle was covered in blood. Jacques placed it under the man’s nostrils. He came to with a start and began convulsing. As Carabas removed the stopper from his mouth, the Vietnamese tried to bite his fingers.
There was a knock at the door.
‘Who is the silver ghost? You better start talking boy.’ Carabas reached for the saw.
‘He doesn’t know anything, he would have said so by now.’
‘If you haven’t got the stomach for it, then maybe you’d better leave us Scarecrow.’
Carabas was down on his knees, pulling away the soiled trousers from the Vietcong. He bent in close with a long-stemmed scalpel, tracing it across the man’s testicles in playful strokes. The VC twisted in his seat, craning his head to appeal to the Frenchman. Jacques felt his fists bunching, shame and anger racing around his body; he had to do something.
The knock at the door repeated its drill,
‘For God’s sake, let him in!’
The marine stepped in, nearly dropping the tin mug in his hand. Carabas sat on his haunches and took a sip of coffee, spitting the burning liquid into the ferryman’s crotch.
‘I said four sugars soldier. Jesus on the fuckin’ cross how are we going to win this war when I can’t even get a decent cup of coffee? I’ll do it myself.’ He twisted his neck about, rolling his vertebrae with a violent snap. ‘I’m going to piss, get a coffee and when I come back Charlie, I’m going to kill you. Put the rubber back in his mouth, I don’t want him waking the men.’ Then he was gone.
Jacques headed for the supply cupboard, running his fingers down the labelled bottles. He looked around at the sleeping men and emptied a handful of morphine tablets into his pocket, quickly returning to the padded room. The marine on guard was trying not to look at the wounded VC.
‘Soldier, leave us.’
‘But the Colonel said…’
‘I said leave us!’
There was little enough time to force the sedatives into the frightened man’s mouth. Jacques gripped his shoulders, ‘Quick, swallow these!’ There was no malice in the other’s face, only a sense of dread of what was to follow. For a moment their eyes met - he hoped to hell the man wouldn’t squeal. Jacques forced the rubber stopper back in his mouth as Carabas filled the doorway.
As the Colonel laboured through his interrogation, the quest for knowledge was subsumed by a relish for the task at hand. Finally, no questions were asked, apparently it had gone beyond that. The Oriental lost every toe on his right foot and both testicles before his butcher was bored and ready for bed. After two and a half hours’ torture the Ferryman tried to speak. Carabas poked his head out of the door and motioned to Jacques sat on a bunk in the dorm. ‘Scarecrow, he’s ready to talk.’
The Frenchman followed him back in to the interrogation room.
‘Got something to say Charlie? The man’s loses his equipment and the ability to walk and then decides to talk. There’s no reason to you people.’
‘He…’ spoke the VC in laboured rasps.
Carabas shook his head, withdrew his seasoned knife from its sheath and placed it by the artery on the side of the Ferryman’s neck, ‘Who? He… he what? Silver ghost?’
‘He’ll come for you.’ said the prisoner.
Jacques stood by the door and closed his eyes in shame, ‘You’re an animal, how the hell did they ever let you into this army, Carabas?’
The big man paused and pondered the question, his green apron glistening in blood as he sat down on his haunches, a giant forearm resting on the prisoner’s thigh for balance. ‘Curiosity is the second sign of attraction after mutual disgust, Jacques. Maybe we’re going to get along fine after all. You really want to hear how I hitched up with Uncle Sam?’
‘Not really, no.’
Carabas laughed, ‘Oh you’ll like this, it’s about fighting, Frenchman, fists and bone. This might take a minute but we have time, our little fella here isn’t going anywhere and might like to hear a bedtime story. Take a seat.’ Carabas stroked the head of the VC as he talked.
‘Don’t know who my mom or pop was, someone found me on the doorstep of an orphanage in Lafayette Parish. Someone later said it was a woman from the woods had me out of wedlock, I never found out, nor even cared. Lafayette Parish, that’s not a million miles from New Orleans, Frenchman. I grew up there, ran wild in the bayou, hunted pigs, skinned nutrias and ate them with Cajun fishermen. Then at fifteen – hell, I was big for fifteen - I split, and ran the hobo route from Fresno to Portland; living by firesides, stealing chickens, catching sleep in open freight trains… It was beautiful. I felt like a pirate of the railroad.
‘One Spring, I oversleep and find myself rolling into Westpoint, a town full of soldiers. I’m fixing to sneak a ride straight out on the midnight mail train- all those uniforms give me the creeps - when a carnival rattles into town on the opposite line. Guy I’m rolling with says we should wait around, boogie on down the midway, feel a few wallets and cut loose some greenbacks. That’s right baby, your uncle Mason wasn’t always on the right side of Sam.
‘So, I’m carrying three snakeskins crammed with soldiers’ pay as I pass by the exhibits. First up there’s this old guy with a long white beard, he kinda looks like Neptune and he’s in a huge tank full of treasure as if he’s at the bottom of the sea. He has no clothes on and a fish’s tail for legs. He never goes up for breath, just sits there at the bottom of the tank with bubbles coming from his mouth. I drag myself away into the next tent and there’s a couple of geeks in cages eating glass, metal. It’s revolting. After the bearded woman tent I’m figuring this aint your regular carnival, more like a vaudeville freakshow. I step into a gypsy caravan and sit down. It’s dark in there, full of lace ad painted beams. A table lit by a lamp, two chairs. I sit down.
‘A voice calls to me, tells me top open my palm and that it’ll cost me twenty bucks. Twenty bucks? That’s a lot of money. It’ll be worth it she says. So this old dear si
ts herself down opposite me, her face veiled and starts to shuffle a big pack of cards. This is the Tarot she tells me. She’s looking at my hand, then running her hand across them card. Then she spits the pack and tells me to select one from the top of the second deck. It’s the sorcerer. Twenty bucks for that? I tell her she can go to hell.
‘I happen upon a tent full of roaring men with spit flying from their mouths next. They’re watching a big man beat hell out of another man. He’s a soldier by the look of him with an egg bruise on his right brow and a lip that may as well have had a marble sown into it. The gloves are off, but only one man is losing blood, the soldier. My friend’s tugging at my arm, time to leave kid, let’s cut and run with the money we stole; but I haven’t even started yet.
‘I stand there weighing up the opposition; fifty dollars if you go three rounds with this warthog, a hundred if you knock him out for the count. The sign says he’s never been defeated. He’s big, his arms thick as fire hydrants, and he moves with some poise. Me? I don’t feel anything, I never have done. I figure I can take him.
‘The soldier goes down, he’s fucked and he won’t be doing assault courses for a few days. His marines carry him away. The crowd jeers, the undefeated bangs his fists together and scopes the tent for newcomers. It smells of animal feed in there and piss. And someone’s lit a taper in the corner… it’s like going back to the Dark Ages. I put up my hand and whistle a pretty tune. ‘I want to fight you.’ I say and they all laugh at me.
‘The canvas is slippy, covered in blood and mucous. The big man looks at me with a grin. After he’s done with me he can get some chow, go do his squeeze in the Gypsy caravan, relieve himself outside the lion’s cages; after all I’m just small fry.
‘“How old are you boy?” Asks the referee, squeezing my arms to check I’m man enough to last thirty seconds. I tell him I’m twenty and to start counting the hundred bucks. The bell rings and I’m dancing around the warthog like a mongoose round a fat cobra; he shoots, jabs, lunges – he doesn’t even get close. The first bell goes and he’s fighting for breath, men are throwing cigarette at me because I haven’t thrown a punch, not a single punch for a whole three-minute round. I know what I’m doing. We dance and waltz for another three minutes, then the referee comes to my corner end of the second round and tells me I can’t have a penny unless I throw a punch.
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