Duty and Dishonor: Author's Preferred Edition

by Dale A. Dye

  “That’s the point, Shifty. That’s what you got to tell them back home. I know the war ain’t ever gonna be over for some people, and so do the refugees trying to make a living out of it. Most of them are Vietnamese who lived with us for ten years. They know which buttons to push. So they pick up old aircraft parts, diaries, IDs, dog tags, or bones they find somewhere in the jungle and make up some wild story that they think we’ll buy for cash.”

  “So what makes you think this one is any different?”

  “Call it a hunch, gut feeling, instinct, I don’t know.” Terranova shrugged and trailed a hand in the muddy water as the taxi pilot steered smoothly into a shallow Mekong tributary. “My people in the camp up here say he’s not run-of-the-mill. The guy found most of his family and he’s OK…but he keeps asking to speak to an American. He says a round-eye gave him a message and promised an American would pay big bucks for it. We’ve heard that before, but my people say we ought to hear him out and take a look at what he’s selling.”

  “What’s your opinion, Bob, personally?” Schaeffer spotted the refugee camp landing in the distance and stood to stretch his legs. “You figure there are still some Americans left in Vietnam?”

  Terranova reached for the bowline and fiddled with the wet rope. “I think the Vietnamese learned how to play poker from the experts, Shifty. I think they know enough to keep an ace or two in the hole.”

  j

  Ngo Xa Dinh bounced his grandson on his knobby knee and eyed the USAID translator sitting beside him in the camp’s clapboard administration hut. The woman was a southerner and spoke an uncultured, accented Vietnamese that marked her as a farm girl from somewhere in the Mekong Delta. He glanced at the two sweaty Americans seated across, the table from him and then asked the woman to insure she translated his words exactly as he’d spoken them in his interrogation.

  She sniffed, opened her notebook, and began to speak to the visitors in English. As he listened to the nasal whine of the foreign words, Dinh marveled at how different these men looked from Di Anh, the only American he had ever seen beside the ones who shot at him on a battlefield. They were thick and hard, wearing the bored expressions of old soldiers. If they had questions, he would answer them directly, like a soldier, with no embellishments.

  “Ngo Xa Dinh,” the translator mispronounced his name, “is 46 years old, born in the northwestern part of Vietnam in Thuy Binh Province. He was a farmer before he enlisted in the Army. He was wounded in 1969 and spent some time in hospital. When the war ended, he joined the People’s Militia and served with a unit guarding a reeducation camp near the borders with China and Laos. Mr. Dinh says he ran away to find his family.”

  She turned to him and switched to Vietnamese. “I have told these Americans of your background. You may say what you wish now. I will translate.”

  Dinh set his grandson on the dirt floor to play with a doll made of rice straw and nodded at the Americans. “I was with People’s Militia unit that guarded a camp—Camp 413—where people went for political indoctrination.” He stopped for the translator and smiled at the cigarette he was offered by one of the Americans.

  “At the camp was an American. He was wounded…in his right arm and leg.” Dinh demonstrated Di Anh’s stiff leg and withered right band before he continued. “He had been in many camps before, I think, since he spoke in Vietnamese. I know nothing more about him except that we became friends and he told me he wanted to get out of the camp. He said I should tell this to any American I meet when I got to Thailand.”

  When the translator finished, the shorter of the two Americans leaned his elbows on the rickety table and spoke directly to him. “How do you know this man was an American?”

  “He looked like you.”

  “That doesn’t mean he was an American.”

  “I know Americans. I fought against them in the war. This man is an American. He has been a long time in the camps, but he is an American.”

  “Many people have told us these stories. Why should we believe you?”

  Dinh understood their concerns. There were many people in this very camp who talked about cheating the Americans out of money with lies they concocted. He shrugged and reached into the pocket of his baggy shorts.

  “You should believe me because I am telling you the truth...and because the American at Camp 413 gave me this.” Dinh placed the gold ring in the center of the table.

  Schaeffer picked it up, stared at the initials and handed it to Bob Terranova. “It’s in good shape. Probably wouldn’t be that nice if it’d been buried in some rice paddy for years.”

  “Maybe…and maybe he picked it up on the black market from some NVA vet who took it off a dead guy’s finger.”

  Schaeffer turned to Dinh and drilled into the old man’s eyes looking for deception. Dinh simply stared back without blinking.

  “When was the last time you saw this American?”

  “Only one month ago…just before I left the camp.”

  “Did he tell you his name?”

  “Not his given name. In the camp he is known as Di Anh. But he wrote his name on this paper.” Dinh reached back into his pocket and placed the note on the table next to the ring.

  Schaeffer picked it up and read aloud. “Cleveland Herbert Emory, Junior. That sounds familiar. Anyway, it’s worth checking out.”

  “Can you describe this man for me?”

  “He is tall...taller than you…but not as tall as him. He has a thin face and green eyes…and he wears glasses.”

  “Was he a soldier? Was he a prisoner of war?”

  “Not a prisoner, no. I think he was a soldier once.”

  “If he is not a prisoner, why is he still in the camp?”

  “I think he wants to be a communist. He goes to all the meetings and lectures with everyone in the camp.”

  Schaeffer glanced at Terranova with raised eyebrows. “Well, that’s a new wrinkle. You ever heard that kind of story?”

  “Nope…and if what this guy says is true, it explains a few things.”

  “You say this man wants to return. Why doesn’t he just leave like you did?”

  “He is under guard now, but he wasn’t before. I don’t know why, but he could not escape from Camp 413. He is not well enough to survive the journey.”

  Schaeffer dug in his briefcase and retrieved one of his large-scale map sheets. He spread it the table facing Ngo Xa Dinh. “This map shows the part of Vietnam near the borders with Laos and China. Do you recognize the area?”

  Dinh studied the map carefully, nodding and pointing at locations he knew. He traced a tributary of the Black River north from the ferry landing at Lai Chau and inscribed a circle with a dirty fingernail. “Camp 413 is near this place. And that is where the American is.”

  Schaeffer circled the spot and refolded the map. He eyed the gold ring still sitting on the table and picked it up, bouncing it in his hand. Dinh spoke a rapid spurt of Vietnamese and the interpreter nodded.

  “He says the man who gave him the ring told him you would pay for it. He needs money to get his family out of this camp.”

  “There’s the bite, Shifty.” Terranova stood and stretched. “What do you think?”

  Schaeffer dropped the ring and the paper with the name on it into his briefcase. Then he dug around and counted out the equivalent of 100 U.S. dollars in Thai baht. He handed it over with thanks and watched as Dinh folded it carefully and stuffed it in a pocket. He said his thanks, picked up his grandson and left the hut.

  As they boarded the water-taxi, Terranova spotted Dinh with the baby on his hip watching from a shady spot near the docks. “Seemed like a pretty straight shooter compared to some others we’ve seen. Maybe you’ve got something this time.”

  Schaeffer nodded as found a seat in the little boat. “Who knows, Bob? I liked the way he looked us in the eye, not like some con artist trying to figure out what we wanted to hear. Anyway, this ring is no knock-off. It’s got a New York jeweler
’s mark, and that shouldn’t be hard to trace. Might turn out it belongs to somebody on the MIA list.”

  “You think we might be talking about a voluntary stay-behind or some kind of turncoat?”

  “I’d really hate to think that’s the case, Bob. I’d really hate to think that.”

  NEW YORK

  Eileen Winter plopped her oversize purse on one of the free-standing tables that dotted the dark interior of the Camelot Bar on West 65th Street and told a passing waiter to bring her a Finlandia on the rocks. The guy who had been following her since she left the office entered a few minutes later, blinked in the gloom, and headed for the bar. He was tall, broad-shouldered, straight and trim. Not a bad looking guy, but definitely not local. Clothes straight out of a Sears basement…maybe a cop or a tourist looking for a little Big Apple action. He doesn’t look like a pervert or a serial stalker…but they never do. So what the hell doesn’t he want with me?

  Looking around at the business crowd gathered to decompress before heading home somewhere out of Manhattan, Eileen decided there was enough beef around to stop any trouble the guy might start. She sipped her drink and watched as the guy headed in her direction carrying a tall pilsner of beer. He was smiling as he stopped next to her table, but Eileen slipped a hand inside her purse to feel for the aerosol can of pepper spray she always carried there.

  “Excuse me, are you Eileen Winter?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  “My name is Willy Pudarski…from Chicago…most people call me Willy Pud.”

  Eileen nodded looking at the man’s loose, loopy grin. She sipped from her drink and decided it couldn’t hurt to listen for a while. She knew the name from several messages sent up to her office by the security guys at the front desk. And she knew Pudarski was a name on Justin Emory’s no admittance under any circumstances list. She just didn’t know why.

  “I don’t want to get anybody in trouble or anything, but I got your name from a guy at building security. He’s a veteran, I’m a veteran…you know…and so I found out you’re Mister Halley’s executive assistant.”

  Now Eileen was really curious. She ordered another drink when a waiter glanced her way. “So, you know who I am and I recognize your name.” She pointed at a stool on the other side of her table. “We can have a drink…but there’s no way I’m gonna get you in to see my boss.”

  “Why not? I just want to talk to him about something that happened in Vietnam.”

  “And that’s the last thing Justin Halley wants to talk about…with you or anyone else. He’s made that crystal clear.”

  “I know he’s busy, but I wouldn’t take up much of his time. He debriefed me after a mission in 1970. I’d really like to talk to him about it.”

  Eileen examined him carefully over the rim of her glass. He really was handsome in an open, airy Midwestern fashion, not at all like the cubicle rats and intense, self-centered men she dated when Halley didn’t have her sprawled on a bed somewhere. She was getting bone-weary of all that.

  “Look,” she reached across the table and tapped his hand with a fingernail. “I couldn’t help you if I wanted to. Halley is out of town and he’s gonna be out of town for at least a week or maybe more. You got that kind of time to wait?”

  “Not really…”

  “Well, why don’t you give me a number or something? We can stay in touch. I’ll give you a ring when he gets back from St. Louis.”

  “Halley is in St. Louis?” He seemed shocked. He stood suddenly as if he was searching for something.

  “He was last time I talked to him this morning.”

  “Oh, shit…oh, shit!”

  Willy Pud spun away from the table digging for change in his pockets and leaving Eileen Winter wondering what she’d said to piss him off so badly.

  There was a payphone in the back of the bar near the men’s room. Willy Pud pulled Eddie Miller’s card out of his wallet, fed coins, and called St. Louis. He left a message with the Dispatcher at Eddie’s precinct and then called the home number. He got an answering machine.

  “Eddie, it’s me. Listen, man, I just found out Halley is in St. Louis. You want to know who’s been screwing with us, it’s gotta be him. He’s right there in the city! Get hold of Spike and be sure he knows to check six at all times. I’ll call him as soon as I hang up here, then I’m headed for the airport. I’ll be back as soon as I can get a flight.”

  ST. LOUIS

  “He be down near Boyle Street now, man. Kids seen him shootin’ flicks like a motherfucker.” Andre Kingston lit a joint, sucked on it, and pointed the wet end at Shack Burton. “Nothin’ else I need to know.”

  “Let me hit that one time, bro.” Burton took the joint and sucked on it noisily. “This ain’t Cambodian Red…but it’ll do.” He spun the cylinder of a nickel-finish Ruger revolver and reached into an open box of .44 Magnum jacketed hollow-points sitting on the coffee table of their tenement apartment. “Fire us up one more, Andre. We just get ourselves mellowed out and then we go on down to take care of business.”

  “Be like old times,” Andre said staring through a cracked window at a swarm of kids was milling around some rusted playground equipment in the Pruitt-Igoe Housing Project’s decaying recreational area. “You and me out on an operation…armed and motherfucking dangerous, my man…just like the Nam.” He fired up a fat joint and passed it to his partner.

  “There it is, dude…and when we got this one done we catch the Freedom Bird…just like in the Nam.” The laughed and smoked, contemplating five grand in cash they had stashed in the car and the trip to Jamaica where they planned to spend it. Andre checked the window again and saw the kid he’d hired to keep tabs on their target signal from the playground.

  “Time to go, dude.”

  Shack moved to a dark corner where two recently stolen shotguns waited to be loaded. “You got your carry piece ready, Andre? We ain’t got much ammo for the scatterguns.”

  Andre Kingston expertly racked the slide on a Smith & Wesson semi-auto and watched a round of 9mm hollow-point glide into the chamber. “Locked and cocked,” he replied.

  “Don’t forget, man. We got to take his cameras and his billfold and anything else looks it might be valuable. The Man said it’s got to look like the dude was rolled and got his ass blown away in a stick-up.”

  “Ain’t no thing…” Andre stuffed his pistol in his waistband and shrugged into the knee-length raincoat that would hide his shotgun until they reached the objective. “Shit like that happens all the time. Just another white boy got his self killed fuckin’ around down in the projects.”

  “I like this motherfucker,” Shack Burton said as rolled one of the shotguns upside down to load buckshot shells and then stuffed it under his coat. “Reminds me of the blooper I used to carry.”

  They slapped hands, took a last hit on the joint and headed for the door.

  j

  Spike Benjamin ducked into the gloom of the alcove covering the riverside access to the Pruitt-Igoe Projects and automatically racked his camera open two f-stops. He kept his eye glued to the viewfinder of a scarred and world-weary Nikon-F, duck-walking forward until a comatose black man drooling heavily on a bottle of Thunderbird wine filled the frame. He let the motor-drive crank through five or six frames. It was a good shot, full of sad imagery about hopelessness and addiction. Somewhere in the film he was exposing for his feature on that subject in the St. Louis low-rent housing project was an image that would make Time Magazine’s cover. And that would elicit a big bonus on top of what he was being paid for the story.

  Spike popped open the back of his camera and reached into his bag for another roll of film when something moving in the gloom caught his eye. He looked up beyond the line of indolent man leaning against a graffiti-painted wall, but he’d lost what caught his attention in the shadows at the other end of the alley. One of the winos stared hate at him through rheumy yellow eyes and gave him the finger. Spike decided he’d just shoot this one mo
re roll as insurance and then split before one of these guys sobered up enough to carve him like a Mississippi catfish.

  He changed lenses and began to shoot, wishing he’d taken Eddie Miller up on the offer of a police escort. But that was the wrong thing to do if he wanted a close look at the despair and desperation that hung like a cloud over this ghetto. A cop had the same effect on the people who lived here as a sudden bright light has on cockroaches.

  On the other side of an angry man jealously guarding a half-pint of whiskey, Spike saw two new arrivals and took a look through the lens. Odd…both of the men were wearing ratty overcoats in the muggy St. Louis heat. And neither of them looked all that drunk. What they looked was angry and determined as they stalked in Spike’s direction. He stood for a closer look just in time to see the bloom of muzzle flash.

  He ducked into the shadows feeling the sting of buckshot in his lower legs and looked around for an escape route or a bolt-hole in the nearby apartment blocks. Winos were rolling on the ground and scrambling to get away from the line of fire when a second shot tore into a line of metal mailboxes near Spike’s head. He could see both men clearly now, advancing and racking the slides of shotguns as they pushed and shoved at a crowd of panicky people.

  There was something familiar about the way the two black shooters advanced in short legs, down in a combat crouch and watching their flanks and rear. These guys had some training, likely former military. Willy decided he needed to chance a run across the open playground area if he was to get away before the men got any closer. He ducked out of sight in the alcove and peeked to judge the time he had left to make his break. One of the men tossed his shotgun and drew a big revolver from beneath his coat. He stared around in the gloom searching for any kind of cover. Spike spotted the door of a maintenance storage area and sprinted for it chased by ricochets and close rounds.

  As he fumbled with the doorknob, Spike felt blood oozing down into his socks. He’d caught a good burst of shot from the initial fusillade, but there was no time to worry about that with two killers advancing on him. He shot another look down the alley where the guy with the pistol was waving it around trying to swat drunken obstacles out of his line of fire. The second man was closer and began to crank rounds from a semi-auto. Bullets tore into the door to his left and right. He had to find cover before one or both of them steadied up and corrected their aim.