“Staff Sergeant Pride!” Charlie Heyster screamed, trying to kill the elusive roach. “I thought base maintenance was supposed to spray this place last week! That damned cockroach is still here!”
“Sir,” Staff Sergeant Pride said breathlessly, “they did all they could.”
“This fucking roach probably thrives on Malathion, then,” Heyster said, now looking around for the bug. “He’ll be feeding on cats and small children before long, unless we kill the bastard. That asshole Kirkwood brought it in here, you know. Put it in my pipe tobacco, and now the fucking bug lives in my office.”
“Sir, Major Dickinson had his bouts with that roach, too, when he had your office,” Derek Pride said, reminding the new military justice officer about the screaming and furniture throwing that Dicky Doo had done before he moved into Colonel Prunella’s old office.
“Surely the damned thing will finally die from old age then,” Heyster said, spinning on his toes and swiveling his head 360 degrees, still looking for the roach that the enlisted Marines had come to call Chopper because of his enormous size and vague similarity to a helicopter. “How long do these bugs live, anyway?”
Pride shrugged his shoulders and looked at the major-select as he tied the drawstrings on the top of his dirty-clothes bag.
“Someone told me that big roaches like that can live for several years,” the staff sergeant said. “By the way, sir, I am heading to the laundry myself. Would you like me to drop that off for you?”
“Thanks, but no, Sergeant,” Heyster said, and blushed as he laid the white cotton bag on the floor by his chair. “I have to go out anyway. I’ll drop it myself.”
“HELLO, CAN YOU put me in touch with Bill Walters, please?” First Lieutenant Melvin Biggs said on the telephone, calling the Naval Investigative Service special agent who investigated the Brian Pitts look-alike murder. Gunnery Sergeant Jack Jackson sat in the Criminal Investigation Division office with his feet propped on his desk and a wide smile on his face as he read a copy of the message that had just come from Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii.
“Bill?” the lieutenant said after waiting for the investigator to answer the call. “Mel Biggs here at Three-MAF CID. We just got a message from the forensics lab at Hickam regarding the identification of the body we shipped to them a few months back, supposedly that of a Marine deserter named Pitts.”
The lieutenant nodded and listened as Agent Walters spoke.
“Right. Right, Pitts and Scott both had the same blood types, go figure the odds,” the lieutenant said. “Look here, they finally dug up an X-ray from Pitts’s dental records in boot camp. One of those wraparound films. According to the X-ray, Pitts had an impacted wisdom tooth on his lower left side. This tooth grew sideways into the roots of the molar next to it. The lad’s dental records show they extracted that tooth and another wisdom tooth at San Diego back in 1963, while he was in boot camp. This body has all its wisdom teeth, while Pitts had his pulled. Based on that and a perfectly healthy second upper molar on the right side of this body, compared to Pitts’s dental record showing he had a filling in that same tooth, the folks in the lab at Hickam say this body obviously is not that of Corporal Brian T. Pitts.”
Gunny Jackson laughed and slapped his leg.
“I told you so,” he said, and took a big drink of coffee.
Lieutenant Biggs waved at him and smiled.
“That’s correct, sir,” Biggs said. “They compared dental records of Michael Jerome Scott with those of the body and they have a pretty conclusive match. So the body is that of our missing lance corporal. It just took time to get the dental records in the hands of the forensics people in Hawaii. Didn’t take them fifteen minutes after they ran their comparisons. So, like you guys, we’re focusing our investigation on Pitts and his people as the primary suspects in Scott’s murder.”
Lieutenant Biggs sat up in his chair and looked at the gunnery sergeant seated at the desk across from him.
“Agent Walters, I want to put you on the speakerphone so that Gunny Jackson can hear what you just told me,” the lieutenant said, and flipped a switch on the front panel of a six-inch-wide, slotted, gray plastic box that sat next to the telephone on the corner of his desk.
“Right, Mel,” Walters said over the speaker. “This news of yours, as far as I’m concerned, confirms the identity of a character that the CIA put a tag on in Saigon. Defense Intelligence Agency passed the information through channels, and I got it this morning. This person of interest that they’re watching matches the Snowman’s description to a tee. It seems that our friend Brian Pitts has tried to masquerade as an ICEX operator. Unfortunately for him, Pitts picked the wrong guy to shine on: an actual Phoenix ninja, a navy SEAL. Get this: Pitts tried to recruit the guy.”
“What did they do?” Gunny Jackson said in a loud voice so it would carry on the squawk box. “The CIA folks?”
“One of the senior supervisors of ICEX happened to sit just down the bar at the time, watching the curious meeting unfold, so he put a covert surveillance team on our wayward friend’s ass,” Walters said and laughed. “Pitts is royally screwed, sports fans. Our NIS bureau in Saigon has people going out there now, with a company of soldiers from the Tenth Infantry Division. The surveillance team has indicated that Pitts and a couple of other deserters have linked up with Viet Cong elements, probably dope connections. So forces down south in coordination with our naval investigative people and this Phoenix team will pull a full-out special-operations raid on the location and surrounding area. If the Snowman survives the onslaught, you should have him in custody up here within the week.”
WHEN TERRY O’CONNOR saw Charlie Heyster stroll down the sidewalk toward the wing legal office’s general-use jeep, swinging the laundry bag in his hand, he dashed out the building’s side door and ran as hard as he could to the enlisted barracks, where Movie Star Dean lay on his rack talking to a pair of his buddies from the wing and two divisions’ joint public information office.
“I need a jeep that Captain Heyster won’t recognize if it follows him!” O’Connor said, gasping for breath as he looked at the driver.
“Yo, sir, what’s up?” Movie Star answered, jumping to his feet and grabbing his hat.
“Captain Heyster, I want to follow him, but I don’t want him to see me,” O’Connor said, and looked at the two Marines from the information office.
“Bruce and Russ, they have a jeep out back,” Dean said, pointing to his friends.
“You’ve got a camera, too!” O’Connor said, seeing the green canvas bag piled on the floor by one of the young men’s feet. “What luck! Come on, grab your gear and let’s go!”
“Where, sir?” Movie Star said, running behind the captain, along with his two buddies, who wrote stories and took pictures for the local Marine Corps newspaper, the Sea Tiger.
“Follow Captain Heyster! Like I said,” O’Connor squawked, jumping in the backseat of the jeep, and grabbing Movie Star by the arm and helping him into the rear compartment with him.
“I know that, but where?” Lance Corporal Bruce Dobbs said as he started the vehicle and put it in gear.
“Laundry! Head for the laundry. He had a laundry bag,” O’Connor said, looking and not seeing Charlie anywhere. “Let’s go! Step on it!”
“What’s going on with Captain Shithead?” Movie Star shouted as Lance Corporal Dobbs wheeled the utility vehicle around a corner, sliding against the curb, and nearly flipping the jeep over. “Hey, watch it, man! We about fell out!”
Terry O’Connor gripped the back of the passenger seat where Lance Corporal Russ Sherman rode, holding on to the handlebar on the jeep’s dash with both of his hands and keeping his feet on top of his camera bag to prevent it from flying out.
“Just get us there alive, Dobbs,” O’Connor said to the freewheeling driver, who maneuvered the jeep like a stock car on a figure-eight track.
“That missing dope, right?” Movie Star then said, and smiled at the captain. “Major Dickhead’s trying
to blame the office snuffies for ripping it off. He’s been on our case for weeks.”
“Right,” O’Connor said, shaking his head at the lance corporal. “The shyster has accused everybody, including you guys and all of us in the defense section. He’s screamed just a little too loud, though. You know, the guilty dog barking. His hue and cry have got my suspicions up. Just suspicions, mind you.”
“Hell, sir,” Movie Star said and laughed. “Why don’t you just ask the snuffies in the office? Can’t you smell that shit in his pipe? Not even Cherry Blend can cover up burning weed, man. He’s been sampling the reefer you guys keep in that locked closet all fucking year. Happy Pounds said he even saw Heyster loading some of the shit in his tobacco pouch one morning when my man had the duty and got back early from turning off the night lights and unlocking the side hatches. Old Shithead still had the evidence room unlocked and the door standing wide open when Happy walked in the admin office, and caught a quick peek inside the prosecution section before the captain noticed him. So Hap goes out to his desk and starts rattling crap around, to let Shithead know he was back. He said that Heyster threw some kind of box in his bottom drawer and locked everything up real quick when he heard Happy rumbling around.”
Terry O’Connor looked at the lance corporal and blinked.
“Sounds interesting,” the lawyer said, and then looked at the parking area by the laundry. “However, Lance Corporal Pounds did not see dope. He saw the captain putting something in his tobacco pouch, throw something in his bottom drawer, and the evidence locker was standing open at the time. Very suspicious, but not conclusive. Plus what you guys smell him smoking may only be pipe tobacco. I’ve smelled a Canadian blend that has a very distinct aroma, much like reefer. I can’t say that I’ve noticed any scent of it in Heyster’s Cherry Blend when he’s smoked his pipe around me.”
“Well, sir, you’re the lawyer,” Movie Star said, looking for the captain that the enlisted Marines called Shithead. “As far as any of us low-life nonrates are concerned, Captain Heyster’s been ripping off the evidence locker all year long and smoking the shit. Now with a truckload of dope gone missing from the evidence locker, my bet’s that he’s selling it, too.”
“He’s not at the laundry,” O’Connor finally said after surveying the parking lot. “We either missed him or he didn’t come here.”
“He didn’t come here,” Russ Sherman said, and then pointed through a gap between buildings where he could see the roadway outside the base. “Because he went out the front gate, and looks like he’s headed to the ville.”
“Shit!” O’Connor said, seeing Charlie Heyster driving the jeep eastward toward the bridge that crossed the Han River.
“Ten to one he’s going down to the bar district,” Bruce Dobbs said as he tromped the gas and headed toward the front gate at Da Nang Air Force Base.
“Can we get off base in your jeep?” O’Connor said, grabbing the driver by the shoulder.
Lance Corporal Sherman then reached by his seat and pulled out a clipboard with a white form attached to it, and pointed to the top of the page where in bold, black letters it had stamped on it: “Off-Base Operation Authorized.”
As Bruce wheeled the jeep through the main gate, his pal Russ held up the clipboard for the sentry to see, who, in turn, noticing the captain in the backseat, waved the vehicle through without even asking them to stop. Halfway into a sliding right turn, Lance Corporal Dobbs floorboarded the gas and sped down the main drag where they had last seen Charlie Heyster driving toward Da Nang’s popular section of bars, tourist shops, and restaurants that lined the boulevard that ran along the Han River.
After crossing the bridge and making a left turn, merging into the thoroughfare jammed with bicycles, cyclo-taxis, pushcarts, pedestrians, and little, multicolored taxicabs honking to get through the crush of people and traffic, Movie Star managed to pick out the top of Captain Heyster’s head three blocks away from them.
“Got him, sir,” James Dean said, and pointed at the prosecutor creeping slowly in front of the four Marines.
“Right, I see him, too,” O’Connor nodded, and then stood in the back of the jeep to see his target better. “It looks like he is trying to pull to the curb and park up there. Dobbs, find a spot anywhere along here and we can slip closer on foot.”
Bruce Dobbs sat in the jeep while the captain, Movie Star, and Russ Sherman, with his camera bag on his shoulder, made their way to an open-front restaurant with white wrought-iron tables set out on the sidewalk.
“This will work beautifully,” Terry O’Connor said, pulling out a chair and sitting down. “Grab a seat and get your camera ready.”
A smiling waiter immediately descended on the trio of Marines. While Lance Corporal Sherman focused his Nikon F with an 85-to-250-millimeter f/4 Nikkor zoom lens on Charlie Heyster, who now stood on the sidewalk next to a building, obviously waiting for someone, Terry O’Connor ordered four dishes of stir-fried noodles with pork and vegetables mixed in it, and Cokes all around.
While the three men waited for the meals, Lance Corporal Dobbs managed to pull the jeep to the curb in front of the restaurant, and then joined his cohorts at their outdoor table.
“The way he keeps checking his watch and looking around, I hope he doesn’t see us,” O’Connor said, slouching low in his chair as the prosecutor’s glance turned in their direction, obviously searching for someone. “Clearly, whoever he was supposed to meet is running behind schedule. That has to have old Charlie pissed off. He’s waited, what, more than fifteen minutes now?”
“Something like that, sir,” Movie Star said, scarfing down the fried noodles after he doctored them with a healthy dose of catsup.
“Hold on!” Dobbs said, looking across the street and seeing a familiar person weaving his way through traffic, and whistling to get Heyster’s attention. “That’s fucking Sergeant Randal Carnegie! You know who he is, don’t you, guys?”
“The Chu Lai Hippie!” Movie Star said and laughed. “Now, there’s a dude that crawled out of one flaky bag!”
Russ Sherman began snapping pictures as the captain and the Chu Lai Hippie exchanged greetings. Charlie Heyster walked to his jeep and took a brown package out of his laundry bag in the backseat and handed it to Carnegie. Then the sergeant gave the prosecutor a white envelope. They shook hands again, and Heyster got in his jeep and pulled back into the jam of traffic.
“Do we follow him, sir?” Dobbs said, pushing back his chair.
Terry O’Connor sat silent for a full minute, looking up the street and watching the man Movie Star had called the Chu Lai Hippie now pulling T-shirts off a display from a street vendor’s stand and stuffing them in a large shopping bag that the merchant handed to him. Then he took the package that Heyster had passed to him, dropped it in the sack, and shoved more shirts on top of it.
“I’ve seen enough,” O’Connor said, pushing his half-eaten dish of noodles to the center of the table and then taking a big drink of Coke.
“You not going to eat that, sir?” Movie Star said, grabbing the captain’s meal and raking the noodles and pork on top of what was left of his own dish.
“Go ahead, I lost my appetite,” O’Connor said, taking another sip of the Coke. Then he looked at the three lance corporals. “Tell me about that character.”
“Who, Sergeant Carnegie?” Dobbs said, finishing his food and then lighting a cigarette. “Everybody knows him. He peddles dope. Him and most of his flight crew out of Marble Mountain.”
“How come you call him the Chu Lai Hippie then, if he’s from Marble Mountain?” O’Connor said, watching the man now weaving his way back across the street with the big shopping bag in his hand.
“Hell if I know, sir,” Movie Star said, shrugging and talking with his mouth full. “I suppose he worked out of Chu Lai at some point and got the name there. I guess it just stuck with him. It sounds better than the Marble Mountain Hippie.”
“How about these pictures, sir?” Russ Sherman said, winding the rol
l of film in his camera and taking it out.
“Can you develop them and make me some eight-by-ten blowups?” O’Connor asked, laying a dollar bill on the table as a tip for the waiter.
“Sure thing, sir,” the lance corporal said. “I’ll knock it out this afternoon and tonight, and bring them by your office first thing tomorrow morning.”
“How about I pick them up from you in the barracks, at Movie Star’s rack, say, seven-thirty in the morning,” O’Connor said, considering that he didn’t want the photographs seen by any unwelcome eyes. “Be sure to put them inside a big envelope, too, and don’t show them to anyone.”
“Got you covered, sir,” Sherman said, and finished his drink.
“Whenever you’re ready, gentlemen,” O’Connor said, and looked at his wristwatch and then at Lance Corporal Dean. “I never thought about it when we left, but won’t Major Dickinson be looking for you, Movie Star?”
“Let him look, sir,” Dean laughed, getting the last forkful of fried noodles off his dish and downing a final gulp of his drink. “It’ll be good for him.”
“He’ll give you a hard time if he can’t find you,” O’Connor said, walking to the back of the jeep and climbing in.
“He does that anyway,” Dean said, climbing in the vehicle next to the captain. “Besides, I’m too short to give a shit. Forty-six days and a wake-up.”
“Oh, fuck, if I had that much time I’d jump off a cliff. You call that short?” Dobbs said from the driver’s seat as he pulled into traffic. “I’ve got twenty-seven days and a wake-up, and my pal Russ here, he’s down to twenty.”
“Yeah, man,” Russ Sherman said, looking over his shoulder at the two Marines. “I’m so short that I have to look up to see down.”
“You think that’s short,” Movie Star cackled, not to be outdone. “I’m so short I can walk under a snake’s belly wearing a top hat. Oh, and I’m so short I’ve got to use a stepladder to get out of my rack.”
Jungle Rules Page 45