The Man Who Walked Out of the Jungle

by Jeff Wallace

  “Sir.”

  I nodded to Simone, whose lovely smile compounded my sense of the surreal. In her black silk dress, she was one of the few women present and far and away the most spectacular. For some reason, to be in her stare was not discomfiting. She created the impression that I knew her better than I did, the kind of illusion you pry yourself from with reluctance. She said, “What a pleasure to see you, I hope you’ll join us for a drink.” A conventional statement, but nothing from her sounded conventional. Her voice and accent harmonized like violins.

  “Sit, please,” said Cobris, stabbing his fork at the third place setting.

  The waiter tucked the chair beneath me, and I felt myself falling into it as if from a great height. Simone and the general, the pool, the lit trees—all gyrated. The waiter hovered at my shoulder while I stared at the drinks menu. Too disoriented to focus on the print, I bobbed like the turd that lands in the punch bowl. Finally I just pointed at something. When he reappeared a minute later, I was relieved to see that I’d ordered a Scotch. Cobris and Simone seemed to be working on gin and tonics. No fool’s drinks at this table, no dainty cocktail umbrellas.

  She mewed, “Poor George. You’ve had a rough time these last few days.”

  Wasn’t much I could say. So, how did you two meet? Finally I replied, “Some others have too.”

  Her lips pursed slightly, her rebuff to a droll statement. Cobris curled a thin sliver of veal expertly around his prongs. He said, “You’re good at your game, Tanner. Now, Deke Vangleman is a fine staff officer, an intellectual to an extent, but he’s young and rattles too easily. You, on the other hand, have an impressive instinct for mental poker.”

  Gazing around the club, Cobris seemed relaxed, his eyes slightly watery. I wondered how many gin and tonics he’d put down. Not enough to make him drunk.

  As stunning in her dress as the moon over the Mekong, Simone patted the general’s hand as if he needed comforting before he dealt with the likes of me. “Could you excuse me a minute?” she said. I didn’t catch the cue. Maybe there hadn’t been one; these two understood each other. Cobris and I stood as she left the table and went off to socialize, striding beside the pool whose shimmers caressed her, a jewel held up to the light.

  “A woman like her comes along once in a lifetime,” Cobris commented. “When she does, you cannot bargain, though the price may stagger you. In case you’re curious, I have informed my wife I will be filing for a divorce.”

  From his tunic he slid a cigarillo, unwrapped it, lit its tip with a pewter lighter engraved with a brigadier’s star. “You know, Tanner, anyone who aspires to be a general can look forward to solving about one hundred problems every day. Of these, about ninety are perfunctory solutions; to resolve them is a matter of giving an order or answering a question. Another nine are what I call grapplers, cases that involve research, deliberation of secondary effects, the apportionment of finite resources, taking from one to give to another—the nexus of calculation and seasoned judgment. Those nine problems eat my energy from before dawn until late into the night. You work long hours, Tanner, but mine are longer.” He smiled indulgently. “Keeping track?”

  “You’re short one problem.”

  “Yes. The hundredth. A different sort of problem, not necessarily some intractable conundrum, it might even be simple, but unique for the reason it cannot be solved. What do you do with such a problem?”

  “If it can’t be solved, it’s not really a problem.”

  He waved the cigarillo. “Precisely. So the best course of action is to get rid of it, pass it on, toss it to Washington for rework or further study—a number of deflections avail. If I can’t jettison it bureaucratically, I try to reduce it—break it into component parts, or feign that it’s under control and create the illusion of progress, the way we’re doing with Vietnamization.” He leaned back in his chair, and across the smoky air I saw myself reflected in his ceramic blue eyes. “You’re thinking that my explanation refers to you.”

  “Doesn’t it?”

  “Don’t take this too hard, but I’ve had plenty of experience with people who cannot recognize futility. I’m hoping you won’t be one of them. If you are, the fact is, you won’t take me more than a few minutes to sort out.”

  Which wasn’t true. I could create a scandal that would cost him more than that. Perhaps a lot more. He knew it too, but he was playing his hand through, maybe to see who he was dealing with.

  “You are transparent, Tanner. You think that I lied to you. That I allowed you to pursue a frivolous effort because I knew about this fellow Gerard all along. That I engineered a property scam so I could give a woman free rides over Vietnam.”

  Now it was my turn to be impressed, by how fast he shifted from banter to a cold challenge, which I would answer directly or fall apart, fumbling out a denial. Slowly, as slowly as I could without being blatantly insubordinate, I sipped my Scotch and replied, “You did lie to me. You also lied to Crowley and Larsen. You interfered in my investigation. You misappropriated government property for personal reasons. You let me walk blind into a situation that almost got me killed.”

  His normally piercing eyes had gone vacant, as if my commentary had bored him past his limit of concentration. “I have a story for you,” he said. “It’s a bit of a metaphor. You up for it?”

  “Sure.”

  At an adjoining table, somebody shrieked raucously, and Cobris glanced over to reassure himself that the club’s decorum wasn’t at risk. When he spoke, his voice was uncharacteristically soft, and I had to lean forward to hear. “There once was a woman who lived in a country at war. She was not a participant in the war, and so she was able to travel, and the place she visited from time to time was a house on a fine piece of land her parents had left to her. They’d died many years ago; you might say that the place was the last vestige of their existence. Through the long conflict she tended it like a shrine, and to do so inspired her inner peace. Getting there was difficult—she had to pass through military checkpoints, navigate the warring forces, even cross an international border. But both sides came to recognize her and to leave her alone, for she portended them no harm.

  “The woman was married, by law. In reality the couple had fallen apart long before. The marriage should have been over, yet for selfish reasons, her husband clung to her in a way that was closer to obsession than to affection. She asked him to grant her a divorce. He refused. He had no reason other than a cruel compulsion to intrude upon her life, and this he accomplished.”

  I lit a cigarette, and in the flame I saw André lost in his kepi drink, his indignation when I’d pointed out that he was still married.

  “Though they’d been living apart for years, her husband approached her with a request. He said that when she visited her sanctuary, a stranger would arrive. The stranger would hand her a parcel, and she was to carry it to her husband. For this simple chore, she’d receive a generous sum. She needn’t concern herself with what the parcel contained. At once she comprehended what she was being asked to do, and it filled her with revulsion. She refused, but her husband persisted. He threatened her: If she wouldn’t help him, she wouldn’t be allowed to cross the border.

  “How could he do this? You see, in the country at war, the military ruled the checkpoints. One of the local generals was her husband’s ally. This corrupt officer had an interest in the parcel—of which there were certain to be many more—and his soldiers could keep her from passing through. It was extortion, at which her husband and his ally were well practiced.”

  Now I understood why Cobris hadn’t fired me after the complaint from General Huang.

  “The woman would have been under her husband’s thumb, but she too had an ally, likewise a general, though not the kind who sought to profit from his position. Her ally was powerful, and he gave her wings so that she no longer needed the road. It was a way to free her from the tyranny and manipulation of evil men.” Cobris sipped his gin and tonic. “I served a tour in Special Forces. You kn
ow their motto.”

  “De oppresso liber. To liberate the oppressed.”

  “Correct. It’s an expression of virtue, why we’re here in this country. You, me, all of us, are called upon to act virtuously.”

  I tapped my cigarette ash into the dregs of my Scotch.

  “I don’t usually sketch things out for people, but I wanted you to understand why it happened this way. The helicopter, the other activities—sure they’re against regulations. But what would I be if I didn’t use my power to save this woman? To liberate her, if you will.”

  “The shrine you referred to, that would be her father’s old estate in Cambodia?”

  “You knew about that already. You are good, Tanner.”

  “I had only fragments. Like the radio and the helicopter. And Simone. When I flew over your patio at Vung Tau, I saw her.”

  “That was careless of her.”

  “Not as careless as I’ve been.”

  He blew out a mouthful of smoke. “State your point.”

  “This investigation has put some friends of mine in danger. I got them in trouble and I want to get them out of it.”

  “Friends.”

  “Two Saigon cops, my girlfriend Tuyet, and a club dancer. There’s a murder contract out on the dancer. General Huang is behind it, I think. The other three are in the line of fire in one way or another.”

  “You’re straining at the leash because of your girlfriend, two Viet cops, and a showgirl.” Cobris laughed. Then his smile fell away, and he dabbed a napkin at the corners of his mouth. “Christ. Here I was thinking you were some kind of fanatic, and all you’re trying to do is fix your own problem. You might have come to me earlier.”

  “It wasn’t so easy.”

  “You’re right, it wasn’t.” He sat quietly for a minute, drawing on his cigarillo, occasionally glancing to Simone a few tables over, as if balancing her against everything else on his mind. “You must have a proposal. Let’s hear it.”

  “I want a safe haven for the dancer at a U.S. military facility until the danger to her is over. And I want you to use your connections to get Huang to call off the murder contract and the pressure he’s putting on the cops. Once that gets resolved, the rest of it, your arrangement with Simone, can slide.”

  He wiped his hands on his napkin. “The safe haven is easy. Is tomorrow soon enough?”

  “Yes, but it can’t be later than that.”

  “As for the other part, dealing with General Huang, that’s where you have to let me be the judge of how to proceed. I should tell you that we share the same problem.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Mind you, I didn’t know about the contract on the girl. But there are pieces you are unaware of. Surely you have asked yourself why a despot like General Huang would want to harm her.” A master at systems analysis, he’d pinpointed the question that had clanged in my head for days. “You’ve met Simone’s estranged husband, André.”

  “Why would André care about the showgirl?”

  “He doesn’t. His object is Simone. You remember my metaphor, about what he’s trying to do.”

  “How he wants to coerce Simone into running drugs for him?”

  “Correct. And he can’t. I beat him. He is a bad loser. A blunted thug. He would kill me if he could, but that is beyond his scope. Even his friend General Huang can’t do anything against me. So he has a single recourse—to inflict pain indirectly. He knows Simone was very fond of her pilot Gerard, but Gerard too is beyond his reach. So he strikes out at Gerard’s fiancée, the wrath of a cruel and petty man. Petty, but not without venom through his corrupt ally.”

  I clenched my jaw to keep it from dropping. “I’m not sure he’s capable of what you just described.”

  “Oh, he is capable of that and more. He is my hundredth problem, you see.”

  The tinkle of glasses was in my head, and for an instant I closed my eyes. When I opened them, the general was picking up a fresh drink. Classy, sophisticated, he licked his lips, tasting the gin, and when his eyes settled on me, they shone with a diamond’s hardness. “You understand that this conversation never happened.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “A promotion might suit you.”

  “That’s not necessary, sir. My tour is over. I just want to get my friends off the hook and to keep the dancer safe, then to leave and take my girl with me.”

  He acknowledged this with the slightest nod. When he spoke, empathy laced his tone. “Wise and reasonable.” He glanced at his watch, and for an instant I felt the burden of his rank and those hundred decisions a day. He said, “I don’t know why I bother to wear one of these. I always know what time it is, to the minute. Time stalks me like a hellhound.”

  So she’d gotten it from him, the hellhound expression.

  He asked, “Where is the dancer?”

  “Tucked away in a shanty house, in a little ghetto of refugees.”

  “Where?”

  “Off Pham Van Chi Street in lower Cholon.”

  “I’ll need a few hours tomorrow to line up a place for her on post. Plan to bring her to the gate in the late morning or early afternoon. Vangleman will convey the details.”

  His expression changed, and I perceived I’d been dismissed. Cobris and Simone were alike in that way. I stood, but already he’d shifted his attention to Simone, who was working the tables expertly, holding the partygoers transfixed as they buzzed in the privilege of her presence.

  Above, the flies made frenzied patterns around the lights.

  Vangleman waited in the sedan. The air conditioner hadn’t saved his starched khakis from crumpling in the mushy air. His face looked as withered as his uniform. He asked, “Did it go as you’d planned?”

  “Just read from your script, Vangleman.” Stretching across him through the window, I took my pistol from the seat. “The general has an errand for you tonight. Make sure you don’t fuck it up.”

  “Such a hot shot, Tanner. You thought you were going to outplay him.”

  “I thought that, did I?”

  “You figured you were going to pressure him because you’d found out about Simone and the helicopter. Here’s a fact for you to collect—don’t go out to Tay Ninh Province and expect to find a chopper hanging in the trees. Did you think we were going to leave it there?” Eyes squeezed nearly shut, he resembled a weasel with a duckling in its mouth. “A lot of guys want a place at the general’s table, but they’re only prepared to play one time. At his table, you’ve got to play the game day in, day out, and that is infinitely beyond your skill. You’re a loser, and you don’t have any cards. So heed your own advice. Don’t fuck up.”

  Day 12

  __________

  I woke up alone. Where was Tuy? The stiletto point of terror was at my throat. Then through the flimsy curtains I saw the aluminum-framed windows and the airfield lights beyond. After leaving the O-club, I’d gone to my BOQ room at Tan Son Nhut, the one I kept but rarely stayed in, and fallen asleep.

  The air conditioner panted at my sweaty chest. In the distance, a C-130 revved its engines. The noise had wakened me. Looking over at my PX-bought bedside clock, I saw the digital figures flip from 4:43 to 4:44, triple pitchforks. How appropriate. Closing my eyes, I tried to hurry back to oblivion, to stay ahead of reality, but I was too slow. The forks skewered me.

  I could have brought Cobris down. Instead, I’d cut a cheap deal.

  He’d said I amounted to little more than a nuisance. His game had been to suppress my confidence, my willingness to push what I guessed on top of what I knew. I hadn’t challenged him. What would have happened if I had played a better hand? Demanded that he resign within 48 hours? Instead I’d sat like a toady and given him a few conditions, which he would meet with perfunctory solutions: To resolve them is a matter of giving an order or answering a question.

  Vangleman was right: I was a loser. Cobris had sorted me out in quick strokes. He’d intimidated me, appealed to my nobility—that was why Simone had been th
ere, so I could behold her in her evening dress, a beautiful woman, what men live to protect. The general’s unvoiced corollary—how could I bring myself to hurt her? And I’d bought it. To save my people, I’d swallowed the baited hook.

  It wouldn’t amuse Trong to learn that I’d joined the ranks of the corrupt. He’d assumed I was immune, untouchable, and yet I’d fallen. Naiveté was not the trait to show off in this city where to succumb was easy, all it took was to want something, or to have something you couldn’t afford to lose, and Saigon owned you. The best you could do was to nurture the scraps of integrity that remained, the way Trong did. It was why he kept me as his friend. It helped him preserve his sanity.

  How would I preserve mine?

  Tuy and Kim Thi were safe, I reminded myself. Nothing else counted.

  I thought of the music and the lights, Cobris across the table with his cigarillo playing like he had a few drinks under his belt, all an act—his mind had been as clear as the swimming pool water. He’d staged it perfectly.

  How had he dismissed me, when he knew he’d won? A glance at his watch and one of his pompous lines, I don’t know why I bother to wear one of these. I always know what time it is, to the minute. Time stalks me like a hellhound.

  Time.

  I sat up in bed.

  They said I was good at my work. They were wrong. I’d learned the tricks and then forgotten to use them.

  On the nightstand lay a memo pad. I picked it up and began to sketch out a chart.

  * * *

  By zero nine hundred, I was at the hideaway, delivering bottled water and freshly cooked rice and fish that I’d bought at Cholon’s market stalls. Bent over the steaming tin containers, the four of us ate with relish, even Giang, who balled the rice in his bony fingers. I’d picked up newspapers for Tuy, one each in Vietnamese, French, and English. The papers featured front-page stories of a shooting at Kent State University. The Ohio National Guard had gunned down protesting students, killing four, the latest fallout from the Cambodian incursion.