Rosy had been on the streets for years and considered herself streetwise. Being street smart is an acquired talent. It takes years of practice to be good at it. She realized the predicament she now found herself in and had to choose the lesser of two evils. From the way she saw it, there was no choice. It was easy to choose between death and a beating, so she lied. “I find me a new man for the times you are away. He likes to fuck me and he takes care of me. He Thai like me. I figure that maybe he wants to marry me. Maybe I have babies with him. It nice to be part of a family. I’m sorry Mac San. I no want to hurt you. I didn’t know you care for me so much.”
Gunner felt his anger rise. He hated it when people lied to him. It made him think that they questioned his intelligence. He sent his closed fist crashing into her solar plexus. She gasped, as her breath was sucked out of her diaphragm like one of her hasty blowjobs. She could not speak. Too bad: he wanted to hear another lie. Her brown eyes grew big and her cheeks puffed up from the punch. Her eyes closed and she passed out from the pain and lack of oxygen.
There is a netherworld of time that seems, to the victim, to be endless, but to the interrogator is but a few short seconds. For the victim, the time of unconsciousness seems endless. A painless dream. Blackness without fear. But upon reawakening, the reality of the inquisition brings the victim’s situation back into clear focus. The pain returns along with the fear. The inquisitor is in her face ready to ask the next question. A simple choice. Lies or the truth. Lies equal pain, truth equals death. At some point, the pain will be worse than death. At some point, the truth would have to be told and death would surely follow. Rosy was streetwise. She knew that there was always a chance that Gunner would eventually tire of punishing her. For now, she would continue to lie. “Please, Mac San, I no go see him again. Please don’t hit me anymore. Please, I fuck only you from now on.”
The fear was back from the edge of unconsciousness. He continued to play on it. “Give me the name of the guy, bitch, or so help me, I’ll kill you an inch at a time.”
She knew his name but little else about him. He was a voice on the telephone, an envelope full of cash under her door. She had never seen him. She couldn’t describe him. She didn’t even know who or what he did for a livelihood. Sure, she suspected he was a cop of some kind but didn’t know for sure. She opted for the truth as she cowered, shaking, on the floor. “His name Frank,”
“Frank. Frank who, bitch? What’s his last name?”
She didn’t know. All she knew is he paid off like a Bangkok slot machine. She tried the truth, hoping she would not be punished any further. “Frank. He never tell me his last name.”
“You expect me to believe that, and you’re fucking this guy regularly? You’re thinking of having kids with him and settling down to the straight life, and you don’t know his last name? You’re insulting my intelligence again, Rosy.” The back of his hand slashed across her face. His death’s-head ring left a furrow of blood and tissue where her blemish-free cheek used to be.
Rosy put her hand to her cheek feeling the warm oozing blood that was coursing down her face. She remembered how her mom, who was a nurse, once told her that the hands and face have a greater number of capillaries than other parts of the body and bleed more. Why was she thinking about something her mother once told her? She had no idea why that thought popped into her bleeding head. Even as she bled, the thought of her nurturing, kindly mother calmed her and pushed the thought of what might come next out of her head. The fear had left her, at least for the moment, and she was content to just lie half on the couch and half on the floor and bleed. She looked up and saw three Gunner’s looking down at her. She focused on the one in the middle. Her ears were ringing like a firehouse bell and she felt like throwing up. It was still not yet time for the full truth. There was still a possibility that he would tire of this beating and leave her alone to nurse her wounds. “I no mean to hurt you, GI. I love you. I sorry. I just try to make you jealous so you marry me.” She felt the fear return with her words. Before the next punch, her mind told her that her deception wasn’t working.
The blood had momentarily stopped and was coagulating on her pitiable-looking, once-beautiful face. Gunner saw the fear again but tired of the dull story she was telling. Why can’t she be more innovative in her storytelling? he thought as he reached into his pocket and removed his switchblade.
At the sight of the knife, Rosy’s fear turned to terror. As it snapped open, she wanted to scream but nothing came out of her mouth but a whimper. She got down on her knees and clung tightly to Gunner’s legs. “Please,” she begged. She had reached the moment of truth. “Please don’t kill me, I will tell you what you want to know.”
Gunner pulled Rosy’s hair, jerking her to her feet. He looked down into her moon-shaped face, which was badly bruised, severely cut, and covered with dry blood mixed with her tears. “Enough of your bullshit, Rosy. Who’s the guy you’re seeing when I’m not in town?”
She almost choked on her words. “His name is Frank, really that’s all I know.” She knew her next words would sign her death warrant, but the beating had taken away her will to live. “I think he is some kind of cop. Not local. He pays me good money to tell him when you’re not in Bangkok. That’s all. He pays me enough money so I do not have to work the streets when you are not in Bangkok. I’m able to save myself for you that way.” She thought those last words might save her, but with her rearranged face and battered body, she’d be lucky if she could get a job cleaning toilets.
As Gunner looked down at the quivering girl, he felt some small measure of empathy for her plight. He knew she had come face to face with the truth and, in telling the truth, felt relief. In her mind, she was doing nothing wrong, in fact, she was demonstrating love and devotion to him. Nobody had ever done that before, not even his own mother. Rosy had stopped sobbing now, perhaps realizing what came next. Gunner knew from past experience that she was ready to accept her fate. She had told the truth and relieved her soul. She had accepted that she could do no more to change the course of events. Her destiny was in the hands of Gunner McConnell and she had pronated herself before his justice.
Justice came swiftly in the psychopathic world of Gunner McConnell. His inner voice was unmerciful. It shouted out for him to kill her. It reminded him that she had gone to the cops. His head began to pound with the resounding sounds of his inner voice. Gunner jerked Rosy’s head up, pulling hard on her hair until she faced him. He kissed her hard on the lips and felt the blood and tears roll off her face and into his mouth. He savored the taste and it turned him on. For the briefest moment, Rosy felt relieved as Gunner’s lips touched hers. She had told him the truth and he would not harm her further. Or so she prayerfully thought.
Her body went limp in his arms. But his inner voice would not let it rest. Gunner reached out with his free hand and, with the expertise of the trained killer that he was, drew the switchblade across her throat. A look of surprise crossed Rosy’s face as her lifeblood pumped onto the carpet. He held her away from himself for another minute until he was sure she would bleed to death, then threw her onto the floor. Her eyes glazed over then closed for the last time. The velvet curtain signaled the end of Rosy’s performance.
The political gerrymandering of the twenty-sixth district, Little Saigon, had occurred in large part due to the generous contributions of Colonel Vinh Ho to the local Democratic party. Little Saigon had now been set aside as a Congressional district, in spite of a huge outcry from the marginal number of white middle-class voters still left in the district. They were now the minority, and the writing was on the wall.
The day the new Congressional district was proclaimed was the day that Vinh Ho registered as a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives. Signs and banners began to appear all over Little Saigon. The November election was only six months away and only token opposition had declared their intention to run. The Republican candidate would likely get few votes in the district, and monetary support for a sure l
oser was negligible. Vinh Ho knew that it was money that won elections, and he had all the money.
Willy Beal had seen the campaign posters going up all over the district. Seeing the smiling face of the former ARVN officer looking out from every lamppost and billboard made him want to puke. It was coming full circle. First, it was the politicians that had flushed Willy and the rest of America’s finest down the toilet in Vietnam. Now it was the Vietnamese that were becoming the politicians. The next logical step, in his mind, was the White House.
It was on that day, the day he first saw the political posters, that Willy first became aware of the political aspirations of Vinh Ho. It was on that day that Willy began to formulate a plan to eliminate him. It would not be easy getting close to him. His henchmen were still looking real hard for Willy. But he would find a way. No matter what happened he had to stop this power-hungry VC from becoming a political force. In the minds of many people that had seen him recently, Willy Beal may have been a homeless bum . . . But he could become the man that he once was, a Special Forces gladiator; and if all else failed, he could always become invisible.
So it was that Willy Beal took up residence in a narrow alley directly across the street from the Club Saigon. He built himself a shelter out of cardboard boxes and began to spend the daylight hours watching the front of the restaurant and taking copious notes. After a week, he knew everyone that regularly went into the club. He could identify all of Vinh Ho’s soldiers. He could differentiate gang members from patrons. He knew what kind of cars they drove. He knew when Vinh Ho arrived in the morning and left at night. He knew all the consorts of his gang members. He knew the hookers that regularly worked the club.
This was after a short self-imposed detox. Willy could not have been so meticulous except by stopping his drinking. He knew he had to do it to complete his mission. Sure, he continued to act like a rummy when he came out at night, but it was all an act, a charade made up for the locals. He made himself almost invisible just by maintaining his cover. He only came out of his shelter at night and only for short periods of time. Willy was a hunter now, and his prey was the man on the poster. The poster was constantly on his mind. It was in front of his waking eyes and behind his sleeping lids. Willy Beal was once again a highly-trained soldier on a mission.
The man known as Jack Dorn sat in a booth at the back of the Club Bangkok. It was dark except for the candle in the center of the table. He had brought Yin and Yang with him as part of his cover. They flanked him and were happily enjoying the loud band as they sipped their paper umbrella Kool-Aids. “Jack” continued to look around the club, his eyes searching for his former teammate.
“Jack” had been in the club for over an hour when he noticed the office door in the far corner of the club open. A large man came out, but it wasn’t light enough to make out any details. The man stopped at the bar and whispered something to George, who nodded his head in agreement. The big guy found an empty booth near the dance floor. He remembered that Gunner had been a big guy. He had the muscular lean physique of a bodybuilder. The guy “Jack” saw come out of the office was the right height, but considerably larger in girth than he remembered Gunner being. Still, it was possible. “Jack” looked down at his own body and noticed that he was significantly larger in girth than he was twenty-two years ago.
“Jack” got up from the table and told the girls to sit tight. They misunderstood him, and as soon as he got up, they squeezed next to each other and began to hug. He just shook his head and moved to a seat at the bar. George came over and asked what he wanted to drink.
“How about some Chevas, George, and some information?”
“Chevas I know we have, Mr. Dorn. The information part of your order, I’m not sure of.” George poured a generous two fingers of scotch with no ice into a rocks glass and pushed it and the bar tab in his direction.
“Jack” signed the bar tab and slid it back to him. “Say, George, I’m looking forward to meeting the club manager. When’s the best time to be here for a meet and greet?”
“Most every night after nine, sir. He’s here now, but doesn’t wish to be disturbed.” “Jack” left a five-spot on the bar and went back to his booth.
On the way back to his table, he noticed Frank Liu sitting at the far end of the bar. He was drinking beer from a large pitcher, and wearing a felt hat pulled down over his eyes. He was obviously trying to look inconspicuous, so “Jack” pretended not to notice him. It was difficult and he had to stifle a laugh, because Frank looked like the winner of the Indiana Jones Look-a-Like Contest. If this bar had been in L.A., Frank Liu would have been inundated by teenage groupies trying to get a Harrison Ford autograph. “Jack” was half tempted to send Yin and Yang over to him with a bar napkin and a pen, but knowing them, they’d probably believe he was a big American movie star. At that point, he was sure they’d forget about the autograph and just give him a hasty blowjob instead. Since he didn’t want to upset Frank’s cover, he decided to just sit awhile and hope to reacquaint himself from afar with his old teammate. I wonder what Frank’s cover story is and how he managed to successfully infiltrate this group, he thought.
George went over to the large guy at the table near the dance floor and whispered something in his ear. The big guy looked “Jack’s” way and nodded his head.
It’s now or never. Take the bull by the horns and introduce yourself, Jerry’s intuitive inner voice said to him. If he recognizes you, play on the good old days and tell him Dorn is my alias. If he doesn’t, I just play Jack Dorn, the international gun runner. If things got bad, he was sure that Frank Liu would jump in and help out. He nodded back in Gunner’s direction and, without saying anything to the girls, got up and went over to his table.
“My name’s Jack Dorn. I trade in international arms,” he said as he extended his right hand as an invitation to shake hands and placed a business card in front of Gunner with his left.
Gunner shook his hand. There was no initial sign of recognition in his eyes or mannerisms. “I’m Mac McConnell. I manage this club. George said you wanted to meet me.”
It was dark in the club, but Jerry could now feel his eyes prying through the darkness like a coastal lighthouse on a foggy night.
“Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?” Gunner said as he made and held eye contact.
Two Thai boys that looked to be about eighteen years old approached the table. Gunner got up just before they got there and met them, whispering into one’s ear. They both nodded their heads and went back to the office behind the bar. Gunner sat back down and he and “Jack” made small talk. “Jack” told him he was looking for connections to the arms market and the gorilla twins had said that he might be interested in doing some business. George brought them another drink. Jerry noticed that the two Thai boys came out of the office carrying a roll of carpet. They went out the side door as inconspicuously as possible.
Gunner noticed him watching them. “I stained the carpet in my office. The boys will take care of the mess tonight and have my rug cleaned and back before the start of business tomorrow.”
“Sorry to hear that, Mac,” Jerry said. Jerry looked over at the end of the bar and noticed that Frank was gone. He probably went to the can, Jerry thought. He had first noticed Frank’s absence right after the Thai boys left by the side door.
After so many years of police work, your intuition becomes your best ally. Jerry’s intuition told him to come clean with Gunner, to let him know who he was before he found out for himself. Have a reunion of sorts. Celebrate the good old days in Nam. Tilt a few to the living and a few more to the dead. As they said on that TV game show, “Jerry Andrews, AKA Jack Dorn, come on down.”
Frank followed the two Thai boys out the back door, being careful to keep a respectful distance. The roll of carpet leaving in the middle of a busy night at the club was too suspicious for him to pass it up. The Thai boys pitched it into the back of an old run down ford pickup truck they had parked in the alley. Frank watched them turn left
out of the alley and followed on foot for one short block before jumping into his car. He continued to shadow them as they turned away from the crowded downtown area and headed out into an area known as the marsh.
He wasn’t sure what had made him follow the Thai boys. He just had a gut instinct that they were another piece to the Gunner McConnell puzzle. Instinct is like adrenalin to a good cop. It is the difference between good cops and bad cops, live cops and dead cops. The Thai boys began to slow as they crossed the Sun Tao Bridge. Frank saw them slow. He turned off his headlights and pulled to the side of the road. He reached into his glove box and removed a pair of night vision IR binoculars.
The Thai boys waited, pretending to be taking a piss while two cars passed in the opposite direction. Then they went to the back of the truck and took out the carpet roll. They shouldered it, straining under the weight. It was at that moment that the light went on inside Frank Liu’s head. An eight-by-ten area rug couldn’t possibly weigh more than forty pounds. He watched as the two Thai boys struggled with their burden. With great difficulty, they hefted it over the side of the bridge. Frank watched and listened. It took three seconds from the time the carpet roll went over the side until he heard the splash. He figured in his head. Vertical drop, at least sixty feet. The light inside his head went off again as he watched the Thai boys drive quickly over the bridge and out of sight. The splash, it was so pronounced. An eight-by-ten area rug didn’t sound like the great white whale slapping the shit out of Captain Ahab. It had a gentle, subdued splash . . . This splash sounded like Chubby Checker doing a cannonball into a swimming pool.
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