Club Saigon

by Marty Grossman

  “No, sir. Information is 411.”

  Willy hung up the telephone, grinning like a Cheshire cat. Some things never change, he thought.

  The bar at the Cam Po Nam was empty except for Charley. Jerry knew he would be getting on a plane in the morning and planned on spending his last night in Bangkok with Yin and Yang. He walked in after the long ride from the government heliport located on the outskirts of town. Frank had told him he’d meet him at six the next morning to take him to the International Airport for his flight back to the states.

  “Yo, Charley, how about a scotch rocks for my parched throat?”

  Charley looked him up and down. “Mr. Jack, is that you?”

  “Of course, it’s me, Charley. Who did you think I was?” Jerry looked into the back bar mirror. The man staring back at him from the booze splashed mirror looked like a sunburned “sweat hog” in jungle fatigues. Now he understood the question, even if his sensibilities were offended by it.

  “Mr. Jack. Is that you? I hardly recognize you. No offense, Mr. Jack, but you look like shit.” Hearing that from Charley made him realize that his looking like shit had become an international truth.

  Charley was beginning to sound like Jerry’s old pal Mondo. He poured him the drink Jerry ordered, then another after Jerry quickly downed the first one in a single gulp. “Oh, it burns so good, Charley. Keep them coming, my man, until I tell you to stop.”

  “Yes sir, Mr. Jack.”

  “Where are the girls, Charley? I figure after I take a shower, I’ll be ready to party hard before I head back to the States.”

  “You mean Yin and Yang, Mr. Jack?” Charley had picked up on the new names Jerry had given the girls.

  “Who else would I mean, Charley? Do you know where the girls are?”

  “After you leave, their mamma san tells me her daughters have no future here. She took them uptown and sold them to another GI for his use while he in Bangkok. So sorry, Mr. Jack. You want me to find you other girls?”

  Shit, just my luck, he thought. I was hoping for some safe sex before I went back to the States.

  “You go back to America soon, maybe tomorrow, Mr. Jack?”

  Jerry didn’t like the way Charley zeroed in on his reference to leaving. He thought it would be better to have not let him know his plans. Now that Charley knew he was leaving Bangkok, he was sure that Gunner would find out. The law of supply and demand was alive and well in Bangkok and he was sure Charley was into it. Charley would supply Gunner with information, and politely request payment for that information. He was lucky when Gunner and he were last together out in the jungle. He’d be damned if he’d let Gunner kill him in his sleep the night before he left for the USA. He was also sure that it would only be a short time before Gunner knew that he hadn’t gone over the falls.

  “I don’t know when I’ll be leaving, Charley.” Jerry thought about his offer for a second. “I think I’ll take you up on your offer. Give me about four hours to clean up and get some sleep, then send up a girl.” He grabbed the bottle of scotch off the bar. “Put this on my bar tab, Charley. And Charley, make sure the girl you send up doesn’t look like my ex-wife.”

  “You have a picture of your ex-wife, Mr. Jack?”

  “Why do you ask, Charley?”

  “If I see what she looks like, I no send girl that look like her.”

  “Forget it, Charley. I was only joking.” Actually, it would be nice to have a woman that looked like his ex. He could pound her into the mattress and take out years of pent-up aggression on a lookalike. He thought about what he had just said to Charley and the thought that had entered his mind. It was a sick thought. Sick, but true. He definitely needed to spend some time on Simon Cohen’s couch when he got back to L.A.

  It was morning. His loud and obnoxious but effective travel alarm was ringing itself off the night stand. He rolled over and looked in the bed. There was nobody there. The last thing he remembered before passing out on his last night in Bangkok was partying with the Oriental version of his ex-wife. She did everything his ex used to do, everything except divorce him. It was actually a good thing she hadn’t stayed the night. She was coyote ugly. He’d have had to cut off his arm, the one he last remembered cradling her head as they briefly slept . . . and sneak out of the room if she’d stayed.

  His head was pounding from a migraine as he swung his feet over the side of the bed and made his way to the basin. The face staring back at him from the mirror looked like the Beast from Hell. His eyes looked like two cherries floating in a sea of fur. He ran a wet comb through his hair, but it didn’t do much good. He still looked like shit. He looked at the alarm clock. It read five thirty-eight. He had to hurry if he was going to be on time meeting Frank.

  He reached into his shaving kit and found his last four aspirin tablets. He ate them while he dragged a three-bladed disposable razor across his forest of facial hair. He hoped that after a shave, the handsome gentleman that was hiding under all that fur would appear. Wrong. His eyes still looked like two pee holes in the snow and now his face was bleeding from several self-inflicted cuts. Maybe he’d try detox when he got home.

  He looked over at the clock again. Five fifty. Time to get downstairs and settle his hotel bill. He thought about last night. The girl Charley sent up, unlike his ex-wife, had wanted to get married. He remembered telling her that he never got married until after the honeymoon. And he remembered how pissed off she was when he told her the honeymoon was over. He threw his remaining possessions into his suitcase and checked to see if he still had his passport. He put it into his shirt pocket and headed downstairs.

  As he descended the stairway, he noticed Frank was in the lobby, facing Charley. Charley had his hand on the telephone and Frank had his left hand clamped tightly over it. As Jerry got closer, he noticed that Charley didn’t look well.

  “I see you two have already met,” Jerry said as he approached them.

  Frank was squeezing Charley’s hand real hard. Charley’s knuckles were white and his face was all red and sweating.

  “This scumbag was about to call your friend Gunner and blow the whistle on you, Jack.”

  It was then that Jerry noticed Frank’s nine-millimeter Beretta was stuck up into Charley’s nose. “A little hard for you to breathe, ain’t it, Charley?”

  Charley didn’t answer. His eyes were looking straight down at the barrel of Frank’s gun. It was obvious to Jerry that Frank Liu’s intelligence network was collapsing around him. He had seen it happen before over in Nam. Once you were on the outside and all your contacts had dried up, it was akin to being dangled over a pool of hungry great white sharks.

  Jerry walked over to the checkout desk and removed his pocket knife, opening it slowly for emphasis. Charley didn’t know whether he was going to be stabbed or shot at this point. Jerry found the telephone cord and cut it through in one quick slice. He held the knife in front of Charley’s tearing eyes for emphasis, then put it back into his pocket. “I came down to pay my hotel bill and bar tab, Charley.”

  Frank interrupted his response. “I think he should not have to pay . . . right, Charley?”

  Charley rapidly nodded his head in agreement. Frank pushed the gun further up his nose. “This trip was on Interpol, Jack. I hope you enjoyed your stay.”

  “It was great, except for the nightlife, Frank. The girls all looked like Oriental versions of my ex-wife, and they all wanted to get married to me. I didn’t know I was that good looking.” Jerry turned and headed for the front door. He looked both ways as he exited the hotel and entered Frank’s car. Frank appeared to have hung back to cover his exit. Jerry wasn’t sure what made him so cautious, but he knew as long as Gunner was still alive, he’d be looking over his shoulder and always expecting Gunner to be there.

  As Jerry slammed the car door closed, he heard two muffled shots and he knew that Frank had just blown Charley away. It was the same thing Jerry would have done. Frank was just protecting his backside. He looked in Frank’s eyes as he got b
ehind the wheel. They were ice blue . . . cold and staring. Frank Liu was in flight or fight mode. Adrenalin was all that was keeping him going. He planned on putting Jerry on the afternoon flight to L.A. and Jerry knew instinctively that Frank wouldn’t be far behind him.

  As Jerry sat in the speeding car, waiting to be whisked away on the big bird, his mind floated back to the war. It was like déjà vu all over again. It was happening to him again, just the way it had back in ’67. He was standing a late watch on guard one particularly black night. His post was at the door to the team house. Daiwe always posted a guard to keep the VC from infiltrating the team house and blowing the team away. They wouldn’t have been the first ones that had happened to. “Better safe than sorry,” Daiwe used to say.

  He heard a noise. It sounded like footsteps moving quickly across the compound. He had a flashlight, but didn’t want to use it for fear of giving his own position away and becoming a target for the VC. He crouched low next to their water tower, positioning himself so he could see the front door of the team house without being seen, and waited.

  Jerry heard it again. The sound of a different set of feet running at high speed across the compound. There must be more than one of them, he thought. He made himself one with the water tower structure. A piece of wood. A piece of wood with an AR-15. He thumbed his weapon off safety and waited. He saw two shadowy figures moving quickly toward the team house door. A shadowy hand reached for the wooden door handle, and as it did, he leveled his AR at chest height and chambered a round. The loud “CLICK” as the round chambered stopped them in their tracks. He shone his flashlight into their faces while he held his AR on them. He didn’t recognize either one of them, but he did recognize the fear that was on their faces.

  “Who goes there?” he barked out at them.

  No reply. Dead silence except for the pair’s labored breathing. “Password,” he shouted at them. The password for today had been “Meatballs.” Jerry would have settled for “Spaghetti,” but he didn’t even get that.

  They looked at each other, then at him. They didn’t say a thing. They just turned slowly, looked at each other again, and said something in Vietnamese.

  “I don’t understand. Give me the fucking password or I’ll blow you away.”

  The guy with his hand on the door handle said something to the other Vietnamese, then they turned and ran back the way they’d come. He caught both of them with a short burst after they’d reached the middle of the compound. They never knew what hit them. He ran inside the team house and threw on the lights, checking to see if anyone else had penetrated their perimeter.

  The house was clean. Daiwe was already awake and asked him what had happened. He told him about the two VC trying to get into the team house. Daiwe asked him if he’d met the new ARVN cadre that was staying with them for a few days. Jerry told him he hadn’t. That’s when the lightbulb in his head went on. The captain looked at him with downcast eyes as he said, “It looks like you just killed a couple of friendlies, Jerry.”

  Jerry was in shock. Not because he gave a shit about the ARVNs, but because he knew that they would put him on their hit list. They’d probably pull a few strings and grease a few palms and his own CIA would come after him and terminate him with extreme prejudice. “What do I do now, Captain?”

  “You’re in deep kimchee, Jerry. I need to get you out of camp for an extended period of time. I’ve got some friends in Force Ten that owe me a favor. I’m sure we can hide you there for a few months, then, if you live through that, you can come back here after this mess blows over. You know the ARVN colonel is going to be shouting for blood.”

  “Yeah. I figure once the word gets out they’re going to put a price on my head.”

  “I plan on whisking you out of here at first light, Jerry. After that, I’ll report the chopper overdue at Kontum. Then I’ll phony up a report that the chopper went down and exploded after being engaged by ground fire. Meantime, you’ll be traveling in the opposite direction to Force Ten’s camp in the Ia Drang.”

  “Should work, Captain. I appreciate you doing this for me. Those two ARVNs never identified themselves. I gave them the chance. They never gave me the password.”

  “I know, son. The ARVNs ain’t worth a shit. We all know that. These two were no different than the rest of them. You best pack so we can start this charade.”

  Just like the captain said, Mike Force Ten took him under their wing. Four months later, just before the Tet holiday, Captain Jackson called him back from his temporary duty with Force Ten.

  It was like 1967 all over again, only this time, he was being whisked away on a 747 jetliner and Captain Jackson had been replaced by Frank Liu. There was one other difference. There was no way that he would be coming back. He was done with Bangkok. He had seen what he came to see. His prime suspect was in Thailand, but as soon as he stepped off the plane at LAX Jerry would be on him like one of his bad dreams. The message he’d received from Captain Davis said there was another murder while he was gone. He indicated it was similar. Similar, but not exactly like the other serial killings. He wasn’t about to rule Gunner out, knowing that he traveled freely and frequently between L.A. and Bangkok. The suspect list now contained two names. Gunner McConnell and Willy Beal—but he was still leaning toward Gunner.

  THIRTY-TWO

  What had started off as a nice political fundraiser had turned uglier than the bride of Frankenstein. The loudspeaker sounded the end of the party as Vinh Ho’s spokesperson sauntered up to the dais and announced with no fanfare, “Mr. Vinh Ho has decided that, because of the activities of the veterans outside the club, he will be unable to speak to you today. He sends his regrets, and hopes that you will still favor his campaign with your financial support and your votes.” A large jar was circulated, and checks started filling it up like water flooding into a rain barrel.

  Willy pulled his ledger from inside his coat and checked his notations. He would make himself invisible and wait. He slipped past the servers with their trays of canapes and iced champagne. He slipped past the chefs that were busy in the large kitchen, preparing more food for the affluent crowd. He slipped past the maitre d’ and slid into the broom closet. Once inside, Willy checked for the equipment he’d left in the closet on his last visit. He found the cardboard box. It was still covered. He removed the rag. His flashlight and mallet were still inside. He pulled the 8” butcher knife out of a sheath he had fashioned on the inside of his polyester jacket and threw it into the box. He checked the luminous dial of his dumpster watch. It was five thirty. He knew he’d have a long wait, and might have to put off the operation until the next day. He settled into a mindset that would allow him to go with the flow and adjust to the changing conditions. He became a human chameleon. He locked himself into the closet from the inside and waited for nightfall.

  The small box stuck out like a neon sign. It winked on, saying, “Open me . . . Open me . . . Open me first.” Gunner had gone to his mail drop and found the plain wrapped package amongst his regular mail. At first, he breathed a sigh of relief when he didn’t see any postcards, but then his eyes found the package. He scrutinized the handwriting. It was the same, all right. He carefully checked the wrapping for signs that it was rigged to explode. In his business, you couldn’t be too careful.

  Finding no hidden wires, and feeling nothing unusual, he carefully opened each seam of the brown wrapping with his pen knife. From the size of the package, it could have been a jack-in-the-box. He halfway expected a clown on the end of a spring to jump out at him with a sign dangling from its lips, reading, “B A N G.”

  He was wrong. It was just an ordinary white box. He removed the lid and saw the purple velvet bag sitting in the bottom. He carefully looked it over before picking it up. It was light. It couldn’t have weighed more than an ounce or two. He inserted his fingers into the gullet of the bag and carefully pried the drawstrings open. There was a small piece of paper inside. He opened the crumpled sheet and began reading. It was “HIS” handwr
iting—it wasn’t a postcard this time, but it was “HIS” handwriting. A chill ran through his body and made his skin crawl. He felt like he did when he was eight years old. His old man had gotten drunk and been pounding on his mother. His old man had unceremoniously thrown him into his room. He locked himself in and listened at the keyhole as his mom got her ass kicked. He had waited tensely, knowing that his turn would come.

  After about an hour, he retreated to a spot under his bed. Just when he thought it was safe, just when the noise on the other side of the door subsided, just when he felt relieved, that’s when the door flew open and the light snapped on. “It’s your turn now, young Mr. McConnell. Don’t make me come after you or it’ll go harder on you.” He knew if he stayed hidden, he would eventually be found: after all, the room was only ten by twelve and had only one small closet. He was halfway out from under the bed when he was jerked out by his hands. He now stood in front of his father, barely able to keep from throwing up at the foul, liquor-reeking breath close to his face. His nose twitched as he stood at attention waiting for his punishment. What he couldn’t remember was why he was being punished. For that matter, what had his mom done to be beaten up? That’s when he looked up and saw his dad’s red, swollen eyes staring at his ant farm.

  Even as a young lad, Gunner had the instincts. He knew what his dad had in mind for him. Before it even happened, his hands and arms began to crawl, like spiders on a web. It felt like thousands of little feet were marching up his arm, down his chest and into the front of his pants. The hair on the back of his neck at full attention. That’s what he imagined it would feel like. His friends at school called it the “heebie-jeebies.” He wanted to run but he couldn’t. He wanted to hide but he couldn’t. It was that night that the heeby-jeebies became reality. His drunken father tore off the top of the ant farm and thrust Gunner’s hand deep into the tunnels. The ants stung and bit, protecting their turf. They crawled up his arms by the dozens, looking for a way out while protecting their queen. His dad laughed as the surging ant army coursed over his arms and headed south of the border for his belt. Thousands of little feet touched lightly on his skin and made it crawl.