Monkey on a Chain

by Harlen Campbell

  “I don’t know who it was. But it wasn’t a friend.”

  “Are you scared?”

  “Aren’t you?” Her attitude didn’t make sense.

  “Not as long as you’re here. You’ll take care of me.”

  “If I can,” I said grimly. “But we have to leave. The trouble followed us. Somehow.”

  She stared at me over her cup. “Doesn’t Roy know where you live? He wouldn’t have had to follow us.”

  I liked that. She was thinking, maybe for the first time since she had walked back to her house and found the place torn apart. “He could have found out easily enough,” I admitted. “Besides, it doesn’t look like this trouble followed us. It preceded us.”

  “So where do we go now?”

  “We find Roy. But first, we’ve got some errands to run.”

  “You’re the errand boy,” she said.

  I grimaced. “Watch your tongue. And hit the shower before you make me mad.”

  “Are you going to watch again?”

  That surprised me. She must have seen me in her room when I searched her luggage the day she arrived. “No,” I told her. “I’ve got better things to do.”

  There was no way I could trust the phone, so my calls would have to wait. While April showered, I burned some of my records, packed up others, and erased a few computer files. I pulled a package from the safe under the house. I threw everything that might spoil in the refrigerator into a box and carried it to the car. I packed another suitcase, this time for an extended trip. By the time April was dressed, I was ready to go.

  We locked the house and took off. I pulled into the driveway next to mine, the one with MURPHY on the mailbox. Jenny came to the door looking surprised to see me, but she took the groceries with a smile when I told her I would be going out of town for a couple of weeks and didn’t want them to spoil. I didn’t have to ask the question I’d really stopped to ask. She asked me if my friends had gotten in touch with me.

  “What friends?”

  “They didn’t leave names,” she said. “They came by yesterday. Two of them. Short and dark.”

  “Mexican?” I asked. She wasn’t sure. They could have been, but the accents weren’t right. She thought they might have been Filipino. They had asked how to find the house and had thanked her when she told them, then driven off down the road.

  She looked at April a couple of times, but I didn’t introduce them and she politely ignored her after that. I looked as puzzled as I could manage. “Well, they didn’t leave a note,” I said. “They’ll probably get in touch with me later.”

  “They might come back,” she said. “Can I tell them where you’re going?”

  I told her Los Angeles, for a short vacation. I drove off feeling sick. Filipinos.

  Thirty minutes later, my records were in a safe-deposit box and we were checked into the Albuquerque Howard Johnson’s. Camouflage. Blend in with the family types. We were Roy and Dale Evans. I shouldn’t have done that, but I was getting sick of being run around the country. And anyway, I didn’t plan on using the room for more than one night.

  I made a couple of calls to Phoenix from a pay phone about a mile away. There was no answer at either Johnny Walker’s number or at his Peacemaker Investments office.

  I took April to the Coronado Mall, bought her two suitcases, then turned her loose in a department store with my credit card. She managed to fill the cases without much trouble, once she quit trying to duplicate the things we’d abandoned in Phoenix. She made a point of consulting me on her choice of brassieres and panties. It made me uncomfortable until I realized she was having some fun with me. Then I started voting for the skimpiest things on the rack, and she soon left me alone.

  On the trip back to the motel, I pulled into a gas station and made another call to the same number that had gotten me the pistol in L.A. This time, my problem was more difficult. I had a couple of passports I could use if necessary. One of them, Harold Stephenson’s, was rock solid. But April had no ID she could use in case the LAPD had a warrant out on her. It wasn’t even clear that she was in the country legally. She needed a birth certificate, passport, driver’s license, everything. Fortunately, my man regarded such difficulties as opportunities for negotiation. The price went up. The paper would be forthcoming. All I had to do was get him some recent photographs.

  That was more of a problem than the negotiations had been. Taking a picture was serious business for April. We went back to the motel and spent an hour deciding which of her new clothes would look best. Then it was back to the mall for shoes that matched. I pointed out that her feet wouldn’t be in the picture. It didn’t matter.

  I might have enjoyed the afternoon if Jenny hadn’t said my two friends looked kind of like Filipinos. Well, I might have enjoyed it more. It wasn’t so bad. By the time we found a restaurant, I was feeling almost boyish. Full of vim, vigor, youthful enthusiasm. Not myself, in other words.

  Dinner was pleasant. We had a couple of steaks and a bottle of wine in Old Town. Parts of the restaurant were almost three hundred years old, according to the advertising on the menu. That impressed April. The food was good. The chile was hot. The wine was smooth. We talked about April’s school. She wanted to go back as soon as possible, and I pretended that she might be able to. We didn’t talk about Roy, or Toker’s death, or the fact that I couldn’t go home. The evening was—well, we stretched it out. We didn’t want it to end.

  After dinner, we drove to the airport to use a pay phone, just in case. I called Johnny Walker. There was no answer. Just in case, I dialed Peacemaker Investments. There was no answer there either.

  My mood was not so good when we returned to the motel. I was worried about Johnny. April tried unsuccessfully to bring me out of it. Eventually she gave up. She sat on the bed and asked where we were going next. I told her El Paso. She said she didn’t realize you needed a passport to go to Texas. I told her you didn’t. She lay back against the pillows and stared at me until I gave in.

  “Okay. The papers are insurance. In case we can’t find Roy. Or in case something happens to me. You will be legitimate, as long as you don’t attract too much attention.”

  “Nothing will happen.”

  “Maybe Toker thought the same thing.”

  “He didn’t have any warning!” She looked angry. “You know something is wrong. And you’re…more careful.”

  “If I’d been careful, I’d never have gotten into this thing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “How I got involved. I was at China Beach, taking an in-country R&R, when I met Roy. I was there because I caught a piece of shrapnel in a firefight out of Chu Lai. I was stupid, rash. They gave me a medal for it and two weeks of R&R when I got out of the hospital.”

  “You got a medal?”

  She had the same look on her face a lot of them got. There were only two looks, unless they’d been there. The one on April’s face now and the older one, back when the faddish slogan was BABY KILLER. Both of them make me sick. You can’t talk to either face. And even if you could, it wouldn’t make any difference. You wouldn’t feel any better, and they’d never understand. Ask Buddha what nirvana’s like and he smiles. Ask a vet what ’Nam was like and he shrugs. You can’t describe the important part of either thing. If you try, you’ll just lie to people. And to yourself.

  “Yeah, I got a medal. Last time I saw it was in a drawer in the kitchen, I think.”

  There I go, lying again. I know exactly where the damned thing is. I’ll never forget where it is. But it’s not like I’m proud, exactly. Half proud and half ashamed. Like a hick who buys a piece of the Golden Gate Bridge. Sure, he knows he got ripped off, but by God, he got a piece of the Golden Gate! Biggest damned bridge in the world. He’s a fool, but he’s not a little two-bit fool. He bought a piece of the best, and if it was a rip-off, maybe that says more about the con man than it does about the poor schmuck who was dumb enough to believe in something.

  April was waiting. I tried to
remember where I was in the story. China Beach. One of the most beautiful beaches in the world.

  “I was drinking bau-mi-baums. Beer 33. Vietnamese beer. Pretty good. And watching the surf. A lieutenant came along with a cooler, and we just sat there for a couple hours. After a while, we got to talking. He asked what I was doing, and I told him I was getting ready to go back to my unit. Just saying goodbye, sort of.

  “He asked a lot of questions about what sort of unit I was with, what kind of action I had seen, that sort of thing. Anyway, the upshot of it was that he offered me a deal. He’d get me a transfer to the Military Police in Saigon, under his command. I knew there would be a payback, but I thought about it for a while, and then I said sure, why not.”

  “You were afraid to go back to your unit?”

  “No.”

  “Then, why?”

  I shrugged and lied. “I was in a hospital in the Saigon area. I got out on passes a bit, and I saw what was going on there, what the REMFs were up to. And I felt embarrassed, I guess. Like I was being played for a sucker.”

  She asked the obvious question first. “What are REMFs?”

  “Rear Echelon Mother Fuckers.”

  “Oh.” She was frowning. “A sucker,” she said. “You mean you thought you were fighting for the oil companies?”

  That made me impatient. “The only people I ever met who believed Vietnam was sitting on a pool of oil,” I told her, “were the peace freaks. The guys who went over there believed they were doing the right thing, helping people, saving the world, defending America, whatever. Even the officers I knew believed that.”

  “Then why did you feel like a sucker?”

  “When I got there, everything was simple,” I said. “Charlie was the bad guy. He wore black pajamas and hid in the jungle and cut off the heads of old men and little babies just to make a point. We were the heroes. We wore jungle fatigues and had clearly defined free kill zones and protected the old men and babies, no matter what we had to do to them. But in Saigon, I met people who didn’t believe anymore, who had quit saving the world and were trying to make a living in it. People who asked what difference the old men saw between us and Charlie.”

  “You’re saying there was no difference between us and them.”

  “No. There was a big difference. Charlie never asked if he was doing the people any good. He knew the answer. And he was going to fight the evils of capitalism with the last drop of blood in the last kid’s veins.” I looked at April sitting on the bed, and I felt very tired. “Look,” I said, “all this is ancient history. It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference to what’s happening now, and it isn’t going to help us find Roy. I wanted to tell you about how I got involved, but if you don’t mind, I want to stop telling you now. I want to get some sleep.”

  “So get in bed.”

  “Are you going to stay in your own bed?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  I showered quickly and turned the bathroom over to April. I called the desk for a seven-thirty wake up and crawled between my sheets. She came out wearing a towel.

  I asked her why she hadn’t bought any nightgowns. She said she didn’t wear them. She always wore Toker’s old T-shirts. They were softer. I told her I’d buy some T-shirts tomorrow. She said it wouldn’t work, they had to be real old. She dropped the towel and slipped into her bed. I made a note to buy her some nightgowns and turned off the bedside lamp. I lay in the dark, trying not to think about Saigon. She was doing some thinking of her own.

  “Tell me about the passport.”

  “If anything goes wrong, really wrong, you take off. Get out of the state. Don’t go back to California. Maybe Washington or Oregon. You can use the papers for identification for a while. You’ll have some money. Get a job, start school under your new name. You’ll have to let go of UCLA and the rest of it. But you’ll be alive.”

  “I don’t have any money.”

  “I’m going to leave you some.”

  “You mean if you die.”

  “If things don’t go well.”

  “But you’re going to be careful?”

  “Very careful.”

  After that, we lay in silence for a very long time. I thought she’d gone to sleep, but then I heard her covers stirring and she slipped in beside me. She put her lips next to my ear and whispered, “Tell me about the passport.”

  I cursed. “I just did.”

  “No. You told me about the birth certificate and the other stuff. The passport isn’t necessary for identification. Why did you get me a passport?” She lay her head on my chest and waited.

  I didn’t answer her. Eventually, she said softly, “I can’t help you if you won’t tell me what’s going on.”

  “I’ll tell you when it’s time,” I said, “but it isn’t time yet.”

  “Promise?”

  I promised. We lay together, listening to the infrequent noises from the parking lot and to each other’s soft breathing. My hand was on her back, high on her ribs, and I caressed it gently. I was getting sleepy. I asked if she’d answer a question. Her hair tickled a bit when she nodded.

  “What happened? Yesterday, you were crying all the time. You were like a little girl. I had to do everything for you. And now you’re more here. It’s like you got over Toker, or quit grieving, or something.”

  “Yesterday there was only me. I mean, all I had to fight for was my life, and that wasn’t worth anything. Even Dad thought so, or he would have adopted me. But I’m not alone anymore. There’s Johnny Walker in Phoenix and his wife. What was her name? Joyce? And there’s you.”

  “That brings up another question.”

  She yawned. “What?”

  “Why won’t you stay in your own bed?”

  “You’re warmer.”

  “It isn’t cold in here.”

  “I’ve been cold for the last week. What’s the matter, don’t you like sleeping with me?”

  “It’s a little hard on me.”

  April laughed softly. “It’s more than a little hard on you,” she said.

  I smiled, but took her hand and pulled it away from me. “What about you?”

  “It’s hard on me, too.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I know.” She rolled away from me.

  Just before I fell asleep, I said, “Don’t think you’re worthless, April. You don’t know why Toker left you out of his will. I don’t know. But I know it wasn’t because you’re worthless.”

  When the phone woke me the next morning, we were sleeping back to back, only our buttocks touching. I had to reach over April to get the phone. It was the desk with my wake-up call. I poked her and told her to get up. She grumbled, but climbed out and walked toward the bathroom. She was good to look at. I found myself smiling at my reflection in the mirror.

  We had breakfast in the coffee shop and then came back to the room. I made a couple of calls and we checked out. It was good to get out from under the Roy and Dale aliases. Someday my sense of humor was going to get me in trouble.

  Our first stop was to pick up April’s new identity. She waited in the car while I went in for the papers. When I came out and tossed a thin envelope on the seat, she scooped it up and opened it. A block later, she said, “What the hell is this? Who is Holly Carter?”

  “You are. Get used to the name.”

  “But Holly? And Carter? Why didn’t you let me pick who I wanted to be?”

  “I didn’t think it mattered. Next time, you can pick the name. I just picked one that sounded pretty.”

  “You think Carter is pretty!”

  “Holly is pretty. And there are lots of Carters around. It’s a good name.”

  She was quiet for a couple of blocks, then asked, “Did you ever know a Holly Carter?”

  “I knew a girl named Holly once,” I told her. “She was very beautiful.”

  April studied me carefully. “How well did you know her?”

  “Fairly well.” I kept my face expressionless.
“She went to school with me, after the war.”

  “Did you sleep with her?”

  She looked dangerous. I decided this wasn’t a good time to tease her. “No,” I said, “but I wanted to.”

  She smiled. “That’s okay, then.”

  The next stop was the bank. I transferred twenty thousand to a joint account with Holly Carter and got April to sign the card on that account and on one of my safe-deposit boxes. I picked up another ten in hundreds. It made an awkward bundle. Finally, I got a letter of credit for fifty thousand, and we were done.

  Next was my lawyer’s office. I hadn’t made an appointment, so we had to wait half an hour. Lewis came out to the reception area smiling. I knew that smile was going to cost me, but it couldn’t be helped. I introduced April as Holly, then told her to wait for me.

  It took about forty-five minutes to explain what I wanted, convince Lewis that my reasons were really none of his business, and get some papers signed. When I stood to shake his hand again, April was covered in case things really fell apart. He followed me back out, as much to get another look at April as to say goodbye.

  The final stop was a pay phone across town. I tried the numbers in Phoenix again. Walker’s telephone had been disconnected. The smooth voice at Peacemaker Enterprises assured me not only that there was no one named Coleman at that number, but that he had never heard of anyone by that name. And there were no messages for anyone with an improbable name like Rainbow.

  I tried not to let my concern show as I walked back to the car, but April picked up on it. She made a questioning face.

  “Walker’s skipped,” I told her.

  “He’s gone?”

  “Like his mama died a virgin. Like he never was.”

  “But why?”

  “Something spooked him. He had too many chips on the table, I guess. He’s grabbed them and run.”

  She had nothing to say to that.

  There are a number of fenced parking lots on Yale Boulevard, near the airport. The security isn’t perfect, but it’s better than at airport parking. I picked the lot farthest away and we took the shuttle to the airport. By one o’clock, we were Steve and Mary Davidson, waiting for our flight to El Paso.