He would find a way to get to the old man. The invisible Willy could do that. The clever Willy could do that. The warrior Willy could do that. Now he wasn’t the bum, the homeless vet Willy Beal. Now his only demons were the obscure nocturnal creatures of his alcoholic retrospective invention, and he knew that each day without booze he was gaining more and more control over them. He was getting ready to wage war. Sergeant William Baines Beal was in his own element . . . a place where he was king . . . a jungle . . . a jungle called Los Angeles.
Willy was more rational than he’d been in months. Lucidity normally came to him only at those times when his insight reigned supreme. Since the night he was wounded and almost killed in Nam, those times had normally only came to him in dreams. When he was wounded, the bullet that took out one of his lungs and almost pierced his heart brought something other than pain to Willy Beal. It brought a new realization to him. It was a new universal truth that he could keep for as long as he lived . . . and, at the moment, he wasn’t sure how long that would be.
At the instant when the new universal truth surfaced for the first time, Willy was lying on a stretcher at a Mobil Army Surgical Hospital in Kwong Tri. He felt numb. He was in shock. He heard activity going on all around him but, as hard as he tried, he couldn’t open his eyes. He wondered if he was dead, but was too dazed and afraid to pinch himself. If this was a dream, it wasn’t that bad. The pain that had brought him to this place was now replaced with a feeling of euphoria. The morphine and other drugs he had been given were doing one hell of a job. He watched in amazement as his body seemed to float above the chaos going on below. The nurses in their white uniforms scurried back and forth like white ants in an ant farm, while the doctors dressed in hospital greens shouted for more instruments. That’s when Willy first realized that they were working on William Baines Beal. He had a grandstand seat as he laid on a stretcher in a MASH unit, being swarmed over by doctors and nurses. He had a seat on the fifty-yard line at the Super Bowl of his death.
It was like a dream. The simple universal truth came to him like the same shot from the AK-47 that brought him here. DEATH IS A DREAM. That was it, a brilliant observation from a wounded soldier with a fear of the unknown. Death was about as unknown as it gets. That was the moment that the fear vanished and never returned to Willy Beal. After that day, when he lay on the stretcher, his life seemingly ebbing away, Willy realized for the first time that death was a dream state. He wondered at that time whether life was a dream state. He wondered whether waking or sleeping, we were all walking through a planar circus in a state of somnolent bliss. As the days of his recovery turned into weeks, and he got stronger, Willy thought about the night at the MASH. He thought about death and his irrational fear of the unknown. He knew that one day he would dream of death and that dream would take him to a higher plane, a plane free of the pain he suffered in his waking dreams on earth.
The limo left the curb and headed into the twilight traffic. Willy noted the time in his notebook. 6:30 p.m. He knew the driver was off to have dinner and wouldn’t be back for a couple of hours. Willy got up and dusted himself off. He knew he could take some time off from his surveillance. It was time to get out and about. It was time to be semi-invisible and meld in with the gathering nocturnal street people.
The note must have been pushed under his door either late last night or early this morning. Jerry woke up with a pounding migraine headache and a mouth that felt like a herd of camels had defecated in it. He tried to think as he read the scrawl on the small sheet of paper. I’LL PICK YOU UP TWO BLOCKS SOUTH OF THE HOTEL AT TEN A.M. – FRANK.
He looked down at his watch and noticed that it was already nine thirty. “Shit. I wonder what he wants?” he said as he picked up his clothes off the floor. He thought about all the events of the previous day, wishing that he didn’t have to do any police work until his forty-five-year-old body had a chance to recover.
At ten minutes to ten, he was down in the bar choking down a red beer with a raw egg. It tasted like shit, but he knew it would settle his stomach and take away his headache. He noticed that Yin and Yang were nowhere to be seen, and that suited him just fine for the moment. Charley was washing glasses when he looked up and saw that he had finished his drink. “You want another red beer, Mr. Dorn?”
“No thanks, Charley, I’ve got some business to take care of.” Jerry checked his watch: it was nine fifty-eight. If he hurried, he’d be able to walk the two blocks in the two minutes he had left and meet Frank at the appointed time. “I’m out of here, Charley. See you later.”
“See you later, Mr. Dorn. Maybe Yin and Yang be awake when you get back.”
Now there was a frightening thought. Jerry walked out of the hotel and turned south. Two minutes later, Frank pulled alongside the curb and Jerry got into the car.
“What’s this all about, Frank?”
“I got a tip from an informant that I have under deep cover in McConnell’s organization. I think they’re getting ready to move some raw product out of Thailand and into their lab in Cambodia.”
We drove through the heart of the city. With all the noise from the throngs of cars and the crush of humanity that was Bangkok, it was a perfect place for Frank to tell Jerry what was on his mind. “I saw you at the club last night, Jack.” He continued to use Jerry’s cover name, and “Jack” responded to it.
“Then it was you I saw sitting at the end of the bar trying to look inconspicuous.”
“That bad . . . I thought my disguise was pretty good.”
“You looked like the Chinese version of Indiana Jones. Or it was a mix of Indiana Jones, Harry Houdini, or Charley Chan. One minute you were there, the next you were gone.”
Frank looked Jerry over for the first time since he’d gotten into the car. “You look like shit, Jack. Didn’t you get enough sleep last night?”
Frank was beginning to sound like Captain Davis to Jerry. “Two hours’ sleep is more than enough for a grown man.”
“I thought maybe you went home with those bar girls I saw you with. I hear they can suck a watermelon through a straw.”
Incredible. The legend of Yin and Yang was growing by leaps and bounds. They had gone from being “just baby sans” to sucking a watermelon through a straw. “I don’t know who your operative is, Frank, but they’re just a couple of sisters trying to get by in this cesspool of a city. Now why did you ask for this meeting? I’m sure it wasn’t to get the sucks-usual skinny on Yin and Yang?”
Frank got real serious. “When you were in the club last night, did you notice anything unusual going on?”
“Only two things. You were conspicuous by trying to be inconspicuous, and I thought I saw something that I thought was real strange.”
“What was that?”
“Two Thai boys hauling a carpet out the back door. My instincts and a gut feeling told me there was something wrong.”
“My informant was killed and wrapped in that carpet. Her name was Rosy. I followed the Thai boys to a bridge just outside of town. That’s where they dumped the body. I identified her, then sank the body back in the river and let nature take its course.”
“Who do you think killed her?”
“Don’t be stupid, Jack. Gunner killed her. He left the bar for about twenty minutes and went into his office in the back. That’s where the Thai boys got the carpet. He came back into the club and sat down bullshitting with you while they removed the body. George, the bartender passed the message to the Thai boys.”
“Sorry about your informant. Where are you taking me now?”
“We’re going on a short chopper trip. I have another informant working with me on this case. He’s also a pilot. He’ll be taking us on a flight into the jungle.”
“Will we be back in time for happy hour, or is this part of a Thai wilderness experience?”
“I assure you that you’ll be back to your hotel in time for dinner. I intend to do a flyover of the area where I think Mr. McConnell is operating his drug trade. I hope y
ou’re not squeamish about flying in fast helicopters at low altitude?”
“As you probably already know from my dossier, I’ve been involved in extensive air operations in the past.” Jerry’s mind raced back to Nam, as it always did in these situations.
The beating blades of the Huey triggered his memory as they approached the concealed LZ. The distinct sound of a Huey at partial rest, the whump-whump-whump sound of its main rotors took him back to a time best left forgotten in the recesses of his mind. Nam was where Jerry learned his basic survival skills, and every time his mind told him he’d need those skills, it flashed back in time. One minute he was sitting in a car, riding along a crude dirt path, the next instant he was back in Nam. He wondered whether Frank Liu could read the blank expression he now had the way he read Gunner’s last night at his club. Jerry knew that, from Frank’s perspective, Jerry would only be this way for a few moments. From his own purview, it would last for an eternity.
The air was wet; it was always wet. The heat poured into the jump seats of the chopper that was taking Gunner and him into Pleiku with three VC prisoners. The three suspected VC were all dressed in black pajamas. The soldiers had blindfolded them at the LZ where a ground team had turned them over. Their hands were tied tightly behind their backs with a crude hemp rope. Gunner tied them up, making sure that they were secure. To Gunner, secure meant that they would have bleeding wrists and ankles and every vein in their arms and legs would look like a manila rope. They were not only scared but real uncomfortable for their short journey.
To Jerry, this was real exciting. He’d only been in the country for three months, and this was his first prisoner transport. Daiwe told him to follow Gunner’s lead. “Gunner’s been in the country for a couple of tours and knows the score,” he said before he sent them out to the chopper pad.
“Tie these monkeys up real tight, kid. We wouldn’t want them to get loose and accidently fall out of the chopper,” Gunner had said with a sadistic smile.
Jerry was glad when the Huey finally began to rise from the pad, slowly turning west as the camp retreated in their wake. Whump-whump-whump. They steadily rose. Jerry noticed the altimeter had gone past two thousand feet, which seemed odd to him at the time. They usually flew low, barely skimming above the tree line. From his headset, he heard Gunner order the pilot to hold. Jerry looked out at the ground below them. It reminded him of road maps that used to be given away free at the Chevron station. They were so high that the ground relief took on the shape of geometrical patterns. Jungle paths had disappeared, replaced in detail by the meandering rivers that lined their area of operation.
As they hovered, Gunner talked to him through his headset. “You smell it, kid?”
Jerry smelled a lot of things. His own sweat. Aviation fuel. Aircraft exhaust. Jerry wondered which one Gunner was talking about. “Why have we stopped, Gunner?”
“I asked you if you smelled it yet, kid.”
“I smell a lot of things. What are you getting at, Gunner?”
“Fear. I asked the pilot to hover to see if I could smell any fear on these monkeys. I can smell it. Can you?”
Jerry turned and looked at the captives, who were moving in an antsy fashion in their jump seats. They were nervous about something. He sniffed the air, trying to sift new smells through his nostrils. “I smell shit and stinking sweat, Gunner.”
“That’s the smell of fear you’re smelling on these boys. If the rear echelon intel people are going to get anything out of them, they need to believe that they are going to die if they don’t talk. Of course, some of these little guys are so dedicated that they wouldn’t talk under any circumstances. We need to inventory the hard cases from the potential canaries. Which one of these three do you think is a hard case, Jerry?”
Nice, Jerry thought, Gunner finally used my real name and didn’t refer to the prisoners as monkeys. He still wasn’t sure where Sgt. McConnell was coming from.
“Look real hard, kid. You should be able to tell by the eyes. Shark eyes are what I look for, then I sniff the air for the smell of fear. The one that has the shark eyes and hasn’t shit his drawers is the hard case.”
Jerry sniffed the air, then undid the blindfolds of the three prisoners. He looked into each of their eyes, checking to see which one reminded him of Jaws. Then he pointed to the one on the end of the jump seat, nearest the open door. “This one’s the hard case, Gunner,” he said, pointing into the VC’s face with the end of his M-16.
Quicker than a cat gobbles a canary, Gunner grabbed the VC from behind and threw him out the open door of the chopper. “Now sniff the air again, kid. See if we might have another hard case up here with us.”
Jerry was horrified at the suddenness of the action, and mesmerized by the sight of the detainee’s body hurtling through the air, like a stone dropped off the parapet of the Empire State Building. Gunner just grinned at the other prisoners as he took the newly vacant end seat. “Well, kid, what does your nose tell you?”
It smelled like shit in the back of the chopper. Jerry was sure that both of the remaining prisoners had soiled themselves. They both were crying. One, blood coursing out of his mouth, had nearly bit through his tongue when his hard-case buddy got tossed out the chopper door. Jerry had to try and save the other two from a similar fate. “I think you tossed out the only hard case we had, Gunner. Both these guys shit themselves.”
“You’re right, kid, except the one sitting next to you has damn near bitten his tongue off. He won’t be able to tell our intel people anything.”
Before Jerry could protest, Gunner grabbed the front of that VC’s black pajamas and tossed him effortlessly into the void.
“What are we going to tell the intel people in Pleiku?” Jerry said. “We were supposed to have three prisoners!”
“No problem, kid. It happens all the time. It’s only important that one prisoner arrives that is ready, willing, and able to sing like a canary. I think from the look in his eyes and the smell of his pants, this is our guy.”
Jerry tied the blindfold back on the VC as the chopper turned abruptly to the south and began to descend. Whump-whump-whump.
In the present, Frank grabbed Jerry by the shoulder as he pointed out the open door. “Up ahead is the Khorat Plateau. Your friend Mr. McConnell is running a nifty poppy-growing operation for Colonel Vinh Ho. Up until two weeks ago, an old Thai general by the name of Nam Phat was in charge. We heard he was assassinated, but haven’t confirmed it yet. My sources say a younger man is now in charge. He goes by the name Xuan Ti. He was the head of General Phat’s death squad before the coup.”
TWENTY-SIX
Willy hung out in the dark shadows of the alley that ran along the north side of the Club Saigon. It was a chilly night, and he had to pull his tattered, threadbare coat up around his neck to avoid shivering.
From where he stood, he could look out around the corner of the building and watch the entrance to the club. At precisely ten, the limo, driven by the Oriental nose-candy queen, pulled up in front and stopped at the curb. Vinh Ho ambled out of the club, flanked by his gorillas, and got into the limo. Willy pulled out his notebook, checked the luminous dial of his watch and accurately noted the time.
A cold wind blew up the alley, raising papers and other trash in its wake. Willy made his way along the wall of the club, staying in the shadows in spite of the darkness and his lack of company. He remained alert, something he’d learned in the jungles of Nam. The back entrance to the restaurant had an elevated porch with a galvanized iron rail that ran around it. Willy knew what it looked like by heart. He had seen it before. He remembered being in this alley the night the dishwasher was murdered . . . or did he just remember reading about it in the Examiner the next day? He quietly pondered the question as the wind tore through his shabby clothes.
He made his way carefully up the stairs and approached the back door. I’ll bet the new dishwasher stays inside, he thought, as he tried the door knob. Surprisingly it turned easily in his hand and
opened. He looked inside. A single light illuminated the kitchen, and he could see it was empty. From his vantage point in the entrance, he could also see that the washroom was empty. Makes sense, he reasoned, it’s damn near eleven. Not even Vietnamese eat this late at night.
Willy reached for the wall switch and turned the light out to afford him more cover. He noticed a closet near the dining room entrance and made his way over to it. As he passed the wash rack, he pilfered a large butcher knife and a mallet for pounding abalone and squid. He put both of them inside his large overcoat.
Just as he thought. It was a small broom closet, small but large enough for him to stand up in. It contained some low shelves and had enough room for the large, almost empty, paper products boxes haphazardly stacked on the floor. A single lightbulb with a pull chain was on the ceiling. He closed the door and pulled the chain. The sixty-watt bulb flashed on, making him squint from the glare. He quickly bent, and stuffed some paper towels he’d found between the door and the floor to keep the light from shining under it and into the kitchen.
Willy Beal surveyed his new kingdom. This will do nicely, he thought. This was where he would launch his attack. He locked the door from the inside, turned out the light and sat down. He got into a corner and pulled the boxes in front of himself and prepared to wait for the dawn. This fortress was just like his outdoor castle, except in here, Willy Beal had made himself invisible again.
The message was delivered to Jerry in the morning. After yesterday’s long flight, which seemed to him like flying all over the jungles of Southeast Asia, he had been hoping for a day of rest. The courier delivered the message via the American embassy. The consulate officer was told of his cover and location and chose to send a nondescript runner with the telegram.
Club Saigon Page 23