“The information I need is an emergency, lady. Now do I need to call for your supervisor?”
At that, her voice changed. “That won’t be necessary. How may I help you, Detective,” she paused momentarily, “Andrews?”
She finally must have looked at my badge, he thought.
Just then, they wheeled in a gurney with a guy screaming at the top of his lungs, “I’ve been shot! I’ve been shot!”
Jerry paused, waiting for Rita to take care of admitting the guy. She came out from behind her desk and bent down near his ear. “Sir. What is your name? Who are you insured by?”
“Jesus, lady, I’ve been shot! I can’t remember my name or if I even have insurance.”
Rita walked back to her desk. “Now, Detective Andrews, what can I do for you?”
Jerry was shocked but not surprised. “Have you admitted a patient by the name of Mr. Vinh Ho?” he said.
“Yes. He’s in the cardiac care unit, room 410.” She looked longingly up at him and he realized that she was about to make a pass. “Is there anything . . . anything else I can do for you, Detective? It would be my pleasure.”
Rita may have looked good to him at some other time, say when he was dead drunk, but just now, he had to locate Gunner. Hopefully, he could do it without being spotted. “Maybe some other time, Rita,” he said politely, not wanting to tell her that he didn’t eat pork.
Mondo was surprised to see Willy again, still clean-shaven and sporting his polyester threads. “Yo, Willy, long time no see, amigo. You come in for another Crown Royal bag?”
“How’d you guess, Mondo, my man?” They gave each other the high five like a couple of long-lost brothers. “Jerry been around looking for me?”
“Yeah. He sure has. He came in to pay his bar tab and asked about you; asked if he’d seen you. You haven’t met up with him in the last couple of days?”
“No, but I haven’t been looking real hard. Did he say anything about the big tab I ran up before I quit drinking?”
“No. He acted happy that you’d quit drinking and just paid his tab with a smile.” Mondo reached under the counter and came up with a velvet Crown Royal bag. He handed it to Willy. “You look real sharp, Willy. Nice polyester.”
“Yeah, thanks, I can tell you’re real impressed. Mondo, if Jerry comes in, you can tell him I’m doing okay. I even got me a job.”
“What kind of job, Willy?”
“I’m a brain surgeon at Santa Monica General Hospital.” They both laughed. “See you around Mondo. Don’t forget to let Jerry know what I’m up to.” With that, Willy took his purple bag and left the 44 Mag, the same way he came in, through the front door.
Mondo was still laughing and wiping the bar as Willy left.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Room 410 in the cardiac care unit was a pleasant, airy, single-patient room usually reserved for VIPs, Very Important Patients. Jimmy Tranh had arranged for LAPD security on the door, and a Vietnamese cook to provide food for his beleaguered boss. Vinh Ho’s doctor, Dr. Warren Phun, had been called to the hospital right after Vinh was admitted. He served with special dispensation as a consulting physician, even though he had not been accredited by the hospital to practice there.
Dr. Phun had set up a proper diet for his patient, arranging for some preparation space to be made available in the hospital kitchen. The hospital administrator was more than eager to please his new patient, remembering the five-thousand-dollar donation made on behalf of the businessmen of Little Saigon.
Jimmy Tranh sat at the foot of the old man’s bed, wondering what else he should do. He had made all the security arrangements, notified Mr. McConnell and sent a driver for him, called in Vinh Ho’s personal physician, and contacted the chef at the restaurant, telling him to close down the place and get over to the hospital kitchen. Jimmy was proud of the way he had taken the bull by the horns and taken charge. Now, seated at the foot of his boss’s bed, he waited, the heart-lung monitor tracing eerie trails of garish green across the cross-hatched monitor. The steady BEEP-BEEP-BEEP of the auditory channel rang in his ears, reminding him of his own fleeting mortality.
Jimmy heard the noise of voices raised in anger coming from the hallway outside the room. He got up to check and found Gunner McConnell nose to nose with the police officer who was guarding the door. The cop was pissed, spitting his words into Gunner’s face. “I have orders not to let anyone in without Mr. Tranh’s permission. You and Mr. Moto here better get the hell out before I turn you both into chicken sushi.”
Gunner came back at the cop with the venom of an agitated pit viper. “You and what army’s going to keep me from seeing the boss, PIG?” Gunner stepped back a couple of paces so he had room to let fly with some karate moves. Nguyen reached behind him into the waistband of his pants and cradled the Berretta 9mm that he had concealed.
“Easy, gentlemen,” Jimmy said as he entered the hallway. “I’m sorry, officer. These two gentlemen have permission to visit Mr. Ho, anytime.”
“Anything you say, Mr. Tranh. My chief told me to do as instructed by you and Mr. Ho. But you can tell your friends here that the next time I’m addressed as PIG, all bets are off.”
“I understand, officer. Now, if you’ll stand aside, Mr. Ho would like to see these gentlemen.”
The cop sat back down in his chair next to the door. As Gunner walked past him, he said only one word . . . “OINK!”
The disguise was good enough to get him into the hospital, but once inside, Jerry needed to look like he belonged. He took a wheelchair from the emergency room and began pushing it down the corridor of the first floor. He pointed it in the direction of the hospital laundry, where he stopped long enough to obtain a set of hospital greens, a blue bathrobe, and a pair of paper slippers. He sat down in the wheelchair and became a patient.
As Jerry toured the bottom floor of the hospital, looking for an elevator, he noticed that nobody perceived him as anything other than just another patient. It was apparent to him that his new disguise was working perfectly. Because of his recent undercover activities, he had become a master of disguise. He thought about Willy for a moment, remembering how Willy used to talk about being invisible. It came to Jerry just then that Willy wasn’t talking through demented lips. He didn’t mean invisible in the sense of not having a physical manifestation. He really meant that in his own way he could meld into his surroundings concealed by disguise, chameleon-like, not physically vanishing like particles dispersed by the transporter in a Star Trek adventure.
Jerry found the elevator and wheeled inside, pressing the button for the fourth floor. As the doors closed he mouthed the words, “Beam me up, Scotty.”
After leaving the 44 Magnum, Willy joined some of his street pals, the same guys that were at the demonstration in front of The Little Saigon, and revealed his plan to them. He swore them to silence as he passed an old fedora around the circle. “Pretend it’s the collection plate at your favorite place of worship, boys. Help an old altar boy out, won’t ya?” Willy cajoled them on. “Pretend you’re shelling out for a good piece of Saigon ass. Send old Willy off in style.” The hat went around several times. Each time, more change was coughed up grudgingly by the vets who had become winos. A few bills showed up, and that’s when Willy pulled in the hat and put the contents into the pockets of his polyester threads.
“I don’t know how to repay your generosity, boys, but someday I will.” He pulled out the velvet Crown Royal bag and showed it to the group, holding it as high as his arms would allow. “The next time we see each other, this bag will hold his . . . ” his voice trailed off.
One of the drunks slurred out, “Nuts. It’ll hold the VC’s nuts, right Willy?”
“Yeah, that’s right. I’ll be bringing you boys back a little memento from this operation. I want you to know that I appreciate what you’re giving up so I can ride in style over to that hospital and complete my mission. When it’s done, I’ll be back to join you for a little drink and some damn good war stories. Until
then, adios, brothers.”
Willy arrived at Santa Monica General by taxi, paying the fare with money collected from his vagabond veteran friends. Willy paid the six-dollar fare with a ten-spot, taking the four bucks in change back and stuffing it in his coat pocket, giving no tip to the driver. The taxi driver gave him the stink-eye, but Willy could care less. He noted that he still had lots of change left over from the collection hat; hopefully, he’d have enough to buy his buds a jug when he returned.
Henry Davis was beside himself. Sure, Inspector Fitzsimmons was more than capable of carrying on the investigation, collecting the physical evidence, photographs, and the like, but he hadn’t been at the heart of the slasher murders since they started. The one officer capable of briefing the mayor and the chief was off somewhere, breaking police procedure and his balls by not notifying his supervisor of his whereabouts. Davis was heard several times that day yelling around the precinct house, “I’m going to have Andrews’s ass for this. Who the hell does he think he is going off half-cocked, leaving a green team to investigate one of his homicides.”
It was three hours after Jerry’s last radio transmission. The phone in Captain Davis’ office rang. “Davis here. How can I help you?”
“Sorry about being out of touch for so long, Cap. It’s Jerry, I’m on another stakeout. I can’t talk too long, but I’m getting close to solving the case.”
“Where the fuck are you, Andrews? The chief and the mayor are screaming for information and all I can do is direct them to the newspapers.”
“Look, Captain, it’s because of the leak that I don’t want to say anything. I’m deep undercover right now.” Jerry wasn’t lying about that little detail, but this was a “need to know” basis and he figured the captain didn’t need to know. Rita had arranged for him to have the room right across the hall from Vinh Ho’s. He could observe everything and everyone that came and went into room 410.
Nothing in this life comes for free, and Jerry had to promise “Big Mama” some prime time in his room in order to get her to assign it to the department. Back at the station, he was known as a team player, but this was really stretching it to take one for the team . . . the good old LAPD. In the airborne, they used to call girls as big as Rita “Heavy Drop.” That put them in the same class as trucks and tanks which they hooked up to parachutes and dropped out of C-130s. Still, she promised Jerry a good time, so who was he to refuse her advances? She was no Yin and Yang, but what the hell.
The officer guarding the door to 410 leaned back in his chair and didn’t notice Jerry as he wheeled another chair into 409. Jerry tried the door from the inside several times, noting that he could open it ever so slightly, place a paper obstruction under the door, turn out the light, and observe everything across the hall without being seen.
Room 410 looked like a Vietcong convention. Jerry noted that two Vietnamese, one much larger than the other, came and went into the room several times. He assumed they were family or bodyguards. A bulge gave away that the bigger one carried a gun in the waistband of his pants, partially obscured by his sports jacket. The smaller one seemed to be giving all the orders. Jerry saw a Vietnamese doctor come and go. He had a chart and was writing on it. Another Oriental, dressed in white, and wearing the tall white hat of a chef, brought a tray of food into the room. He was the chef at the Club Saigon. Jerry recognized him from his last visit. Last but not least was Gunner McConnell; He left only once, returning within thirty minutes. As the door to the room opened, Jerry briefly noticed that Gunner sat down next to Colonel Ho and bent to whisper something in his ear. Colonel Ho grasped his hand as the door terminated Jerry’s view.
Jerry went to his room phone and called the precinct house. “Captain Henry Davis, please.”
Fitz was on the phone. “Is that you, Jerry?”
“Get Davis on the line pronto, Fitz. I don’t have time to talk with anyone else.” The line went dead for a moment.
“Jerry, this is Henry. You all right?”
“Fine, Cap. I need a phone tap and a wire put into the cardiac care unit, room 410. You think you can do that for me?”
“I could if I had justification.”
“How’s this for justification? Room 410 contains the head of the Little Saigon Crime Club. One of his major dealers is in there with him, and I think they’re involved in the slasher killings.”
“Sounds like you have plenty of reasons to get the okay for a wiretap and the bug. I’ll get with the chief and let him and the mayor politic this one through channels. When do you need it?”
“Yesterday, Cap . . . yesterday. See if you can get me a line into this room so I can follow their movements better.”
“What room are you in, Jerry?”
“This is just between you and me, skipper. Remember we still have a leak in our department. If McConnell gets on to me, I’m dead meat this time.”
“I understand, Jerry. It’s between us. Nobody else will know.”
“Room 409, cardiac care unit. Oh yeah, run a background check on the cop that’s stationed on Colonel Ho’s front door. His badge said he was from Parker Center. Shield number 2513. Make sure you use some of your political juice to secure my telephone line in this room, Cap.”
“I’ll do the best I can, Jerry. You really feel like you’re close to solving this one, don’t you?”
“I can taste it, Cap. Trust me on this one. Neither one of us will have to retire just yet.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
The smell of the Oriental food wafted out of the basement kitchen, curling his nose in disgust. He could smell the overpowering MSG and his skin began to feel greasy. He wiped his forehead and confirmed it on the back of his hand. He followed his nose until he reached a double aluminum swinging door. The sign over the door read HOSPITAL KITCHEN.
The door had a small round window in each half. He lifted it up and looked in. Just as he suspected, a VC was cooking rice and vegetables in a large wok. He noticed that the VC didn’t have the same clothes on as other hospital staff working in the kitchen. It wasn’t too hard to figure out that the VC was a celebrity chef, and it didn’t take a nuclear physicist to figure out who he was cooking for.
The dreaded headache began to come on again. He knew that there were too many people around and he would have to make himself scarce until he felt better. It bothered him to know that someone might see him and be able to identify him. He would keep an eye on the VC cook, follow him at a distance and find out where he was delivering his meals. He also figured that the VC was residing at the hospital. If that was the case, he’d find out where his room was located. He thought about poisoning the food and letting the VC chef take the blame, but that was not his style. Poison was for snakes and cowards—chickenshit, backstabbing lowlifes that were afraid to die. He wasn’t afraid! He had already died once. In a sick sort of dichotomy, death made his life worth living. Made life more fulfilling. He preferred to face death over and over. Without facing it, he couldn’t see the fear in their eyes. He couldn’t feel the exhilaration of the chase. Face to face. Victim after victim. He knew that eventually the hunted would become the hunter and he would be bathed in the white light again. He knew, as all of us do, that he would not be given another chance at life, nor did he want one. He would go willingly into that inevitable peaceful place. He would not show fear, because he had already visited the unknown place and been allowed to return. He knew firsthand that there was nothing to fear from it. That’s why he was so dangerous.
The doctor’s lounge was easy to find. Willy Beal, now dressed nattily in his polyester suit, followed the signs. Hospitals did a great job at signage. Willy had spent a lot of time in VA hospitals and he noted that you had to be an idiot to get lost in a hospital. There were signs that directed you to ADMITTING. Signs that directed you to the WAITING ROOM. Signs that showed you where the RESTROOMS were, MEN on the left, WOMEN on the right. And if that weren’t enough, the door to the can even had a sign with a little blue man on one door and a girl in a dress
on the other. There were signs that showed you where the KITCHEN was. Signs that directed you to the CHAPEL. Willy always noticed that families of the patients in surgery at the VA hospital always hung out in the chapel. The Army never hired the most motivated doctors. A steady line of interns with scalpels in their hands was what you could expect at the VA Hospitals; thus, there was a real need for chapels.
Willy thought back to Nam. The team had a field doctor who was assigned TDY, temporary duty, for a short time. Bacsi was out on field operations most of the time, and Daiwe thought they needed someone to mind the dispensary while he was out in the field. His name was Specialist Fifth Class Birden. The men nicknamed him “Birdman.”
Birdman made an interesting contribution to the war effort. Blaster was the first to note and report to the team that the number of indigenous people in the camp had begun to decrease proportionally to the number of days Birdman had been in charge of the dispensary.
Blaster made his findings public at one of the after-dinner team meetings. Well, needless to say, the team was flabbergasted. Daiwe said, “The kid’s just had some bad luck lately. How could he know that the chlorine in the camp water system had all gone bad and the camp would come down with an epidemic of cholera?”
Willy remembered asking if the Yards and their families had been inoculated the way we had been before we went overseas.
“The Birdman must have forgotten about that,” was all Daiwe said.
Willy remembered asking how many casualties the Birdman had on his hands.
“Thirty-five patients so far, with four deaths. The Birdman is getting more KIAs than the rest of us are getting in field operations. He also lost a mother during childbirth and a striker with a burst appendix.”
Blaster thought for a minute. “The kid needs to be recognized for his heroic war effort. I mean, you never know which one of these people is friendly. I think Daiwe should count them in our body count at the end of the month. That ought to put us on Westmoreland’s radar.”
Club Saigon Page 34