Mekong Delta Blues

by Phil Swann

  Equally, I was certain Clegg didn’t relish the fact the Beaurepaires knew I was on the government’s super-duper-secret undercover payroll, but he knew better than to make an issue of it. Lying was something I was very good at, perhaps the quality Clegg most appreciated about me, but I didn’t lie to Luther and Betsy. It was a deal breaker as far as me working for him or not, so he just swallowed it. Besides, I assured him, Luther and Betsy Beaurepaire could be counted on for complete discretion. I reminded him they ran a nightclub in Las Vegas, for cryin’ out loud.

  “We’re going upstairs to talk for a bit, Luther. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Luther put down his ladle and wiped his hands on his apron. “Betsy, is the club empty?”

  Betsy nodded. “Last customers just walked out the door, Daddy.”

  “Trip, why don’t you fellas go on in there. You’ll be more comfortable. Don’t worry. We’ll leave you be.”

  I wasn’t sure if Luther was being a gracious host or if he just wanted to keep an eye on Clegg and his men, but either way, we took him up on his offer.

  Even though The Jam Jar had been my home away-from-home since before it was my actual home, I was always still taken by how differently—meaning weird—the place looked with the lights up at the end of the night. It was like seeing your favorite movie starlet without makeup on—you’d kind of rather not. The dark wood-paneled walls that boasted pictures of Ella, Satchmo, Bird, and such, looked a tad less wooden and considerably more paneled. The red leather booths and chairs showed their years under the unflattering overheads, and the candle globes on the tables appeared to be more plastic-ee than they looked when candles were flickering inside of them. But the biggest difference, for me at least, was the deafening sound of silence by not having the Eighty-Eight Eddie Quartet on the bandstand filling the air with righteous licks. That alone turned my tabernacle into just another empty room.

  Clegg and I grabbed a small table by the bar. Square Head and Tonto took a seat in an adjacent booth under a picture of Duke.

  “You guys want something to drink? I can yell for Betsy to—”

  “No,” Clegg said before Square Head and Tonto had a chance to respond.

  “So, that private gig you had me play last month. The one where I took all those pictures of the guests with that cool little camera you fitted to my horn. How’d that work out for you guys?”

  Clegg nodded. “You did good.”

  “I know I did, but you didn’t answer my question.”

  Clegg responded with a smile.

  “So, I was wondering, is there any chance I could get one of those little cameras for myself?”

  “No,” Clegg answered.

  “Really?

  “Really.”

  “Because I was thinking—”

  “No, Trip,” he said again, this time a bit sharper. “You can’t have one.”

  “Okay, okay, I just thought I’d ask. It’s a bummer because, I mean, I did do good work, and as a thank you, I thought you might give me a—”

  “You’re being compensated quite enough for your work.”

  “Yes, well, quite enough is a relative term, isn’t it?”

  Clegg only shook his head.

  “So what do you guys want me to do now? Some politician getting too chummy with a casino owner? You want me to see if I can spot them shaking hands and making nice-nice after a show or something?”

  Clegg reached out his arm, and Tonto handed him a large envelope. Clegg opened the envelope, removed an eight-by-ten photograph, and placed it on the table in front of me. “Have you ever seen this man before?”

  The man in the picture was middle-aged, appeared to be Asian, and was obviously stinking rich based upon the black Rolls Royce Silver Shadow he was stepping out of. “No,” I answered.

  “His name is Wu Xiansheng, goes by Charlie Wu. But for those who know him well and do business with him, he’s just Uncle Charlie.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Why do I get the feeling Uncle Charlie’s business isn’t eggrolls and chopsticks?”

  Clegg didn’t offer so much as a grin. “He’s an art dealer specializing in rare antiquities from the orient; paintings, vases, calligraphy, crap like that.”

  “He must do pretty well. That’s an expensive ride he’s got there.”

  Clegg nodded. “He does even better in his other business venture.”

  “And that would be?”

  “Heroin.”

  “Ah,” I replied simply.

  “Charlie Wu is a boss in the Triads.”

  “The Triads?”

  “A Chinese crime syndicate.”

  I shook my head. “Never heard of them. Then again, I’m not really up on my twentieth-century crime syndicates.”

  Again, not even a snicker.

  Clegg leaned back in his chair. “The Triads have been around for centuries. They started out as one branch of an ancient Chinese secret society called the Hung. In ’49, when Moa and his Communist Party took over, secret societies were abolished. The ones that survived, like the Triads, relocated to places like Hong Kong, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, as well as a few Western countries, including here. No longer an innocent social club, the Triads are now a full-fledged criminal enterprise dealing in extortion, counterfeiting, prostitution, money laundering, and most recently, trafficking in—”

  “Heroin,” I interjected.

  Clegg nodded and continued. “There are at least nine sects within the Triads that we know of. One is called the Shing. That’s the one Uncle Charlie is the boss of. He’s what they call the Dragonhead.”

  I laughed. “The Dragonhead? Seriously?”

  Clegg leaned in. “Trip, the Triads make the Cosa Nostra look like a bunch of Boy Scouts. They’re violent, ruthless, and completely without remorse. Initiation into the organization consists of taking an oath of thirty-six promises. The breaking of even the most banal of those promises is punishable by death. And not a nice death, either. A slow, bloody and extremely painful one.”

  “I’m not loving the sound of this, Clegg. What do you want from me?”

  “The Triads are stepping up their game on this side of the Pacific. We know Wu is smuggling large amounts of heroin into the country, but we don’t know how. Infiltrating his organization has been next to impossible. Even the undercover operatives we sent in didn’t have any luck, and these were some of our most experienced agents.”

  “I notice you’re referring to them in the past tense.”

  “Three months ago, Wu moved from San Francisco to Vegas. He bought a sprawling, heavily guarded, five-acre estate out in Rancho Circle. We haven’t been able to get near it, much less into it.”

  “Okay, again, what do you want from me?”

  “You’re going to get us into it.”

  I shot Square Head and Tonto a look to see if they had a reaction to what Clegg had said. They remained typically stone-faced. “I’m going to do what?”

  “You heard me. You’re going to get into that house.”

  “How?”

  Clegg pulled out another picture from the envelope. It was of a woman standing beside Wu. She looked to be much younger and not Chinese, but she wasn’t Caucasian, either. She was perhaps the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in my life. It’s possible I might have even expressed that sincere, though admittedly a bit impulsive, sentiment with an unintentional gasp.

  “This is Wu’s wife,” Clegg said. “Her name is Michelle. We know very little about her but believe Wu met her in Frisco two years ago.”

  I decided in that moment there was no way such a goddess, someone with a face so lyrical it could make an angel weep, should be mixed up with a low-life drug lord like Wu. But I kept that opinion to myself. “Okay, how is she going to get me into the house?”

  “Michelle has a thirteen-year-old son—we can only assume from a previous marriage. His name is Jean-Claude, and word is he’s a musical prodigy of sorts.”

  “On what instrument?”

  Clegg smile
d. “Which one do you think?”

  “The trumpet,” I answered, not smiling back.

  “Wu keeps Michelle and Jean-Claude very protected. When they leave the house, it’s always with security. Even when Jean-Claude goes to school—private, of course—he has a bodyguard. The only person who’s been able to get close to them has been Jean-Claude’s music teacher, a professor from the university named Dr. Hubert Colby. Three times a week for two hours, Colby is let into the estate to give Jean-Claude his music lesson.”

  “You’re not thinking—”

  “Professor Colby is about to take an unexpected, but once in a lifetime, sabbatical in Europe.”

  I fell back in my chair. I’m sure my jaw looked like it had been disconnected from my skull. “You’re crazy. I’m not a trumpet teacher.”

  “You are now.”

  “No, you don’t understand, I really don’t know—”

  “You’re a hotshot trumpet player at the Sands. You play for Sinatra, Dean, and Sammy, you’re the sideman to the stars. That’s all Uncle Charlie needed to hear. Besides, thanks to us, you came highly recommended by the university.”

  “You mean this is already set up.”

  “You start lessons with Jean-Claude tomorrow afternoon.”

  “But—”

  “All we need you to do is get into the house and report what you see and hear. And there’s also this.” Clegg nodded to Square Head. On cue, the government man got up and placed the luggage he’d carried in onto our table. Clegg opened it and took out a trumpet. “This is the horn you’ll be using.”

  “I have a horn,” I said.

  “Not like this one.”

  “What’s so special about this one?”

  Clegg smiled. “Oh, so many things.” He unscrewed the first valve and removed the piston. He turned the instrument over, and a tiny rectangular device dropped out into his hand. He held it up for me to see. “There are two more of these in the bottom of the other two valves. Just pull the tape off the back, like so, and hide them in as many different rooms as you can. If Wu has a private study, which we’re sure he has, try to get one in there.”

  I almost came out of my chair. “You want me to plant bugs in the house? Are you crazy? What if they search me? What if they find these things?”

  “They will, and they won’t,” Clegg replied. “You’ll definitely be searched, but we’re betting on them not taking your instrument apart.”

  “You’re betting?”

  “They won’t, Trip,” Clegg said, dropping the bug back into the cylinder and screwing the valve back in. “Furthermore, this brass is completely shielded on the inside. Even if they use some electronic detection device on you, or it, these little guys won’t show up.”

  Clegg handed me the trumpet. “Go on, see how it plays.”

  I kept my hands glued to my lap. I didn’t want to go near the thing. I stared at Clegg, Square Head, and Tonto in disbelief, praying one of them might come to their senses and realize what a completely stupid idea it was they were proposing. Finally, concluding that wasn’t ever going to happen, I let out a resigned breath and took the horn from Clegg.

  I pulled out the mouthpiece, looked at it, and then put it back in. I quickly fingered the valves for feel and blew air through the horn. I put my lips to the instrument, closed my eyes, and did a quick two octave run up the C scale.

  “What do you think?” Clegg asked.

  “Well, it’s not my ax, but…it’s not bad.”

  “Good,” Clegg said with a smile. He handed me a piece of paper. “This is the address to Wu’s estate. Be there tomorrow at three-thirty. That’s after Jean-Claude gets out of school. They’re expecting you.” Clegg stood. Agent Carson and Stevens did the same. “We’ll talk tomorrow night after you get off at the Sands. With any luck, we’ll have this all wrapped up in a few days.”

  I didn’t respond.

  “Don’t worry, Trip. You’re going to be fine. It won’t be as hard as it sounds. Just keep your eyes and ears open and teach the boy a little of what you know.”

  “I think the first thing I’ll teach him is not to get involved with anybody wearing a dark suit.”

  Clegg finally chuckled. “I’ll see you tomorrow night, Trip.” He nodded to Square Head and Tonto, and the three exited through the front door.

  After Clegg was gone, Luther came in from the kitchen. He looked around the club and then came over to me. “I thought I heard music,” he said.

  “You did,” I replied, holding up Clegg’s trumpet.

  “That doesn’t look like your bugle.”

  “It’s not,” I said. “Clegg gave it to me.”

  “Why?”

  “Long story. But it looks as though I’m a trumpet teacher now, Luther.”

  “Well,” he grunted, “be a good one.” He turned around and walked back into the kitchen.

  Chapter 3

  To be early is to be on time, to be on time is to be late, to be late is to be fired, was one of the first pieces of wisdom Luther ever laid on me. A catchy phrase for sure, and one I immediately added to the arsenal of aphorisms I was amassing for the purposes of catapulting Trip Callaway from being an unknown sideman to the household name and musical juggernaut he deserved to be. There were others I adhered to as well: Like, always dress sharp even when you don’t have to. On that particular day, I chose a gray linen suit with a crisp white shirt and black necktie. Always over deliver even when the bar is absurdly high. Not that hard for someone with my chops. And finally, always appear interested even when you’re not. Without a doubt the most difficult one for me to pull off—boring people bore me. These little maxims might sound trivial, but in show business where the line between being a winner or being an also-ran can be as thin as Ike’s white hair, it’s the little things that can make all the difference. However, in this instance, it was not my admirable work ethic that had caused me to arrive in Rancho Circle forty minutes earlier than I was supposed to, but rather good old-fashioned angst.

  While it was true I had willingly agreed to engage in some light spying for Clegg in exchange for a small stipend and the promise to advance my music career, I also believed this assignment didn’t fall under any definition of the word light. I was being asked to dance into the lion’s den with a T-bone steak tied around my neck, trusting the king of the jungle wouldn’t notice. It was insane. I should have ended our arrangement the minute Clegg told me what he wanted me to do, but of course, I didn’t. That wasn’t my style.

  You see, for better or worse, to Trip Callaway, a deal’s a deal. Ergo, one of my saintlier qualities is once I agree to do something, I’m obliged to follow through, regardless of how extraordinarily stupid it might be. I blame Pop for this inconvenient character trait because to him, a man’s word was his bond—the old fella never backed out on so much as a wedding invitation. That was why, even after a sleepless night envisioning all the barbaric things Uncle Charlie was going to do to me if he discovered the real reason I was in his house, I came to the unhappy conclusion I was indeed my father’s son and therefore had to do what I’d promised to do. I also decided the sooner I got started, the sooner I’d be done with it all. Sort of like closing the ol’ peepers and ripping off a bandage in one painful stroke. But to be early was one thing. To be inappropriately early, or perhaps even suspiciously early, was another. So, to kill some time, I wheeled my Falcon several times up and down Alta Drive and did my best to calm the drum line beating eight to a bar in my gut.

  It was ironic that Rancho Circle was only a few miles away from The Jam Jar—given the income disparity between the two neighborhoods, it might as well have been on the other side of the universe. Known as the Beverly Hills of Las Vegas, RC didn’t look like any part of Nevada I’d ever seen. Not all the homes were hidden behind ramparts, but enough were to signal this was not just another neighborhood in the suburbs. Every lawn was greener than the outfield at Yankee Stadium, and though I’m no botanist, I suspected the trees planted up and down the well
-manicured lanes weren’t remotely indigenous to the southwest. In my book, nothing says you made it like shipped in flora.

  It wasn’t my first time in the area. I’d played a casual at one of the stately manors a couple years before, and though I can’t recall who the party was for, only remembering he or she wasn’t famous, that didn’t mean he or she wasn’t rich. For although Rancho Circle appealed to folks from all walks of life, the one thing they all had in common was money. And not just a little money either, buckets of the stuff. It was said that folks in RC weren’t content with just keeping their money in the bank, they preferred to own the bank. Not that I begrudge rich people, mind you. I like them very much. I plan to be one myself someday. It was just, Land O’ Goshen the houses were big. I was about to learn just how big when twenty minutes after the hour, I screwed my courage to the sticking-place and steered the Falcon up the driveway to the residence of Mr. Charlie Wu.

  At first glance, the estate didn’t appear all that large, but I surmised that was only because most of it was tucked away behind the imposing black wall I started to notice halfway up the drive. A wall polished so deeply I could see the reflection of my Falcon in it. I also didn’t see any signs of guards, cameras, or security of any kind, but I had little doubt I was being watched by someone somewhere. As I came to the end of the driveway, I immediately eyed the black Rolls in the carport off to my left. I also spotted three other cars: a green E-Type Jag, a black Mercedes sedan, and a gorgeous, bright red, Sunbeam Alpine drophead coupé. I brought my rather humble transport to a stop, and to my right, saw what looked to be the front door to the house, and though it was only a front door, it was the kind of front door that implied considerable square footage on the other side of it. I was calculating just how much when a young Chinese man wearing a well-pressed black suit suddenly appeared out of nowhere.