Club Saigon

by Marty Grossman

  Gunner looked first at the old man, lying in a stupor on the bed, then into the eyes of Dr. Phun. “That is correct, Doctor. You will be rewarded, as you say, with 25 percent of the money obtained as a result of your efforts.”

  The doctor took his seat next to the bed again, gently touching Colonel Ho’s arm with his fingertips. “Uncle Vinh, this is your friend Dr. Phun. You should be able to hear my voice. It is like a gentle whisper on the wind. I have some questions to ask you and you will answer them honestly. You will hear nothing but my voice. When I am done, I will clap his hands three times, and you will awaken. You will be refreshed and remember nothing of our conversation.”

  The old man nodded his head. “I understand,” he said slowly through his half-closed lips.

  Gunner sat next to the bed, poised, pencil and writing tablet in hand. He reminded Jerry of a vulture sitting comfortably on a cactus, waiting for his prey to die of thirst. Dr. Phun continued. “Your business empire is rather far-reaching, is it not, Colonel?”

  “Yes, it is,” he replied numbly.

  “What kind of businesses do you have?”

  “I own a restaurant in the United States, some farms in Thailand and Cambodia, and a men’s club in Bangkok.”

  “Do these business ventures bring in lots of money to you and your family?”

  “Yes; lots of money,” he droned on.

  “Where do you keep your money, Colonel, in a bank?”

  “Yes. Much of it is in several banks. The accounts are numbered, and in the name of Little Saigon Incorporated.”

  “What banks do you have accounts in, Colonel?”

  Colonel Ho paused, his lips pursed, and his eyes crinkled as if in pain. “Banco Suisse, account number LS-6978666. National Bank of Switzerland, account number LS-47485980. Deutsche Suisse International Bank, account number LS-69407698. I also have an account with the Bank of America, Little Saigon Branch. It is not numbered and is primarily a flow-through, an account in the name of the corporation.”

  “Are there any others that you can remember?” asked Dr. Phun, as Gunner furiously copied the information.

  “Yes, one other. It is with the Bank of Thailand. It is in the name of the Club Saigon Corporation. I use that bank to launder money for my farming operations in the interior. The money is laundered through a club I own.”

  Jerry sat entranced, watching as the old man spilled out his guts. The money that Vinh Ho had amassed during his entire life would soon be history. It wasn’t sad, in fact, it was laughable to Jerry. He saw it as poetic justice in a way, although he knew that he’d try to stop Gunner, who was, after all, a suspect. Watching how easily Dr. Phun extracted the information made Jerry wonder just how much he had told the Army during the two lost months in his life.

  Phun looked back at Gunner who was folding the paper and putting it into his shirt pocket. “Will there be anything else, Mr. McConnell?”

  “No, Doctor, that should do it.” Gunner went to the phone and called down to the cafeteria for Jimmy Tranh and Nguyen. “You wait here until the boys get here, then you can leave. I’ll contact you soon about your cut of the money.”

  Phun took his hand off the Colonel’s arm and clapped his hands together three times. Colonel Vinh Ho awakened, his eyes popping open for a brief moment. It was then Jerry noticed the opalescence of cataracts forming over his eyes. The old man wore those dark glasses to hide his infirmity. It was obvious that he would soon be blind as well as broke. Life’s a bitch, then you go blind, Jerry thought smilingly to himself.

  The corridor camera showed Gunner going down the hall in the direction of the elevator. Jimmy Tranh and Nguyen passed him as they went into the room to tend to the Colonel. No words passed between them, or to the officer who continued to sit and nap outside room 410. As Gunner passed the nurse’s station, Jerry got into his wheelchair and left the relative safety of room 409. Hiyo, Silver, Jerry thought as he began to wheel the chair in Gunner’s wake.

  THIRTY-NINE

  It was late by hospital standards, nine o’clock, and the kitchen was empty except for Vinh Ho’s personal chef. He had served his boss’s last meal at seven and had returned to the kitchen to prepare vegetables and rice for the next day’s lunch.

  He wasn’t aware of the ominous presence that watched him from the shadows. He couldn’t feel the eyes that, at that very moment, bored holes through his back, searching for a weakness to tantalize his innermost nerve endings and tickle his scrotum like good sex.

  He crouched in the shadows until he became one with them. The fan in the kitchen hummed and circulated cool air. It was difficult to smell the fear with the fan going. He found the wall switch with the small black plastic tag that said FAN. He reached up and switched it off. The chef hadn’t noticed the cool air was not circulating anymore, but stopped his cutting momentarily as the unit squeaked to a halt. He looked up at the ceiling unit for a brief second, then went back to his cutting board.

  Without the fan, the VC began to perspire and give off a pungent odor. He was easy to track just by the smell of him. Even the onions he was chopping could not mask his human scent. The man moved in the shadows of the huge ovens and refrigerators until he came to a bank of wall switches marked LIGHTS, L1 L2 L3 L4. He stealthily reached up and switched off L1. The fluorescent lights over his head went off. He liked being in the dark. It made him feel like a strong jungle cat as he crouched in the darkness, waiting and watching his prey, closing the striking distance between them.

  His inner voice began to talk to him as the chef was startled by the light going out. The chef was directly under a bank of lights, and continued to work even though he began to feel another presence in the room. The chef looked over his shoulder once, then turned quickly again, in hopes of catching someone in the act of turning the lights out. Then he turned back to his work.

  The voice spoke up again. The killer’s head began to explode with pressure from within. It was always that way. Right after the voices started, his head began to pound. Pound like a kettle drum in the middle of a John Phillip Sousa march. It told him to turn out the other light banks and he obeyed. It took just a few seconds for his keen senses and night vision to become used to the darkness.

  As the lights went out, he heard the frightened Oriental voice call out, “Who is there? Is there someone in here?”

  He quickly took to the shadows again, moving around the outside perimeter of the kitchen while his victim stood frozen in front of the inner island of ovens. Getting no answer, his victim stopped his cooking and looked around once more. He saw nothing, but he began to feel his body filling with the adrenalin that accompanies extreme fear. The chef moved cautiously toward the double doors that were now bathed in the shadows of semi-darkness. “I know somebody is in here,” he said through shaking lips.

  They had moved through the kitchen like a shadow at sunset. His lower self crouched in front of the doors, having cut off the VC’s escape route, the other hovered above. The voices were getting louder now directing the ambush. “When he gets to the end of the oven and moves toward this door, quickly stand and block his exit. It will make him wet his pants.” The voice was laughing as it spoke to him.

  He wished he could stop, but he couldn’t. He didn’t need any more vengeance. All he wanted to do was find a place to sleep and forget the war. He felt so helpless. The voice drove the man on the ground. All he could do was hover and watch. He had seen too many horrors in his lifetime and wished it would end—the visions, the nightmares, the voices, his life. Death, that was the sleep he really wanted.

  As the VC slid past the end of the oven, he was startled by a large figure, made even larger by his fear of the dark. The figure stood menacingly in front of him, towering over him. He felt terrified, and at the same time ashamed, as his bladder let go. His legs were bathed in his own piss. It was warm and foul and quickly soaked his canvas deck shoes. He jumped back, the urine squishing out through the metal grommets in the side of his shoes. The chef smelled his own
urine and his fear level increased. He cried out, “Whoever you are, please don’t hurt me. I’m a frail old man with many grandchildren.”

  “He is old enough to be a VC. Just as I thought.” said the voice. “Then your funeral should be well attended, old man.” The fear was complete as the chef’s legs gave out from under him and he crumpled to the floor in a crying heap. A tear fell from the eyes of the hovering self. He could do nothing, but he still had feelings. He could not stop this, but he had some compassion for the old man crying on the floor. The tear was not felt by those below. It fell from his eyes but never splashed onto the floor.

  He smelled the fear mixed with piss and moved forward to complete his mission. “Kill him quickly. We are in danger here,” the voice directed. It was over quickly after that. He drew his case-hardened knife and tested the blade on his finger. He drew blood, which he eagerly tasted. He loved the salty taste of blood. He was like a shark swimming in a sea of vital fluid. His eyes got bigger, and his throat constricted, as he swooped down on his quivering victim. The old man’s throat was cut with gusto and his right ear removed with surgical precision. It was over just that quick. They became one at that moment, and the one slid back into the shadows, and out the rear door.

  Dr. Beal walked with a happy gait this particular morning as he exited his living quarters in the doctor’s lounge and headed for what he laughingly called his date with destiny. Tucked under his arm was the Wednesday morning edition of the L.A. Times which contained two stories of particular interest. The banner proclaimed in large eight-point type, COLLEGE STUDENT IN SURPRISE ELECTION WIN. The sub-head read, in slightly smaller print, TRANG TI NAM WINS HOTLY CONTESTED RACE IN LITTLE SAIGON DISTRICT.

  One of Willy’s new doctor pals had brought the paper down to the lounge and offered it to him. He sat and enthusiastically read the article, which told of the young graduate student’s ascent to the Congress over the aging business mogul, restaurateur, and retired military hero, Colonel Vinh Ho. This ought to set back the old man’s health after he reads it, thought Willy with a smile. The Sol Friedberg story about another slasher victim being discovered in the kitchen of Santa Monica General Hospital ran on page two.

  Willy felt inside his waistband for his knife, as he slipped into the basement elevator, looking more like a doctor than ever. It wasn’t there! Then he remembered, as his heart rate picked up over his misplaced friend, that he’d put it on Dr. Blood’s tray last night. During the night, he had obtained a serology technician’s tray, which he stashed on a table in the doctor’s lounge. A great prop, he thought. It was part of his grand plan for Vinh Ho’s final day on earth. He carried the tray, which was covered with a hospital green linen towel. His knife, he remembered, was laid neatly next to the hypodermic syringe on top of the tray. His heart rate returned to normal as his memory communicated the information to his brain.

  He got off on the fourth floor, turned right, and jauntily walked past the nurse’s station, nodding to the duty nurse as he passed. As he got to room 410, he saluted the officer at the door, who acknowledged him and walked into the hospital room. Vinh Ho sat up in his bed, talking in Vietnamese to Jimmy and Nguyen. He looked up with his dark glasses. Looked right into Willy’s face. He looked puzzled, like he had seen this man before. He tried to place him, but the surgical mask covering Willy’s face left the Colonel without a clue. Only a feeling, a premonition, but not a real clue. Willy looked at Jimmy and Nguyen, “You gentlemen will have to leave the room until I’m done with this procedure.”

  The goons began to vehemently protest. “Hospital rules, gentlemen. Leave or I’ll have the officer remove you,” he said with a feigned but stern expression in his eyes.

  Vinh Ho raised up weakly on one arm. “It is perfectly all right. Go down to the cafeteria. I will call you when the procedure is complete.”

  The two bodyguards left the room. “Thank you, sir,” Willy said as he handed the newspaper to Colonel Ho. “Perhaps you would care to read the morning paper while I get set up?” Willy wanted to inflict more mental and physical pain on the old man, just like the pain he’d felt when he was in the tiger cage. The old man stared intently at the headlines. They leaped out at him and grabbed him by the throat. As he read the election story further, the veins on his neck began to swell and pulse like a garden hose with an obstruction. His head fell back onto the pillow. Willy took the paper from his quivering hands. “If you think that story is good, try this one on for size.” Willy had turned the newspaper to page two and pointed to the Friedberg article, LITTLE SAIGON SLASHER STRIKES AGAIN. “I guess you’ll have to eat regular hospital food from now on,” he said with a smirk.

  Willy reached down and pulled the paper from Vinh’s clenched hands. The old man was gripping the newspaper so tightly that his hands still had torn newsprint on them even after Willy ripped it from his grip. The old man’s facial muscles had contorted into a rigor-like grin and his hands had tensed into a white, tight-fisted ball. His breathing became labored and his complexion began to change to an ashen gray.

  Willy reached over and turned off the heart monitoring equipment, and with the flip of a switch, placed it in test mode. The nurses at the nurse station were used to a certain amount of equipment testing by technicians and doctors and were trained to not put out a code blue alert when heart equipment was in test mode. He unhooked the nurse’s call button and let it fall to the floor. Willy then waited a calculated thirty seconds to make sure he wouldn’t be interrupted. He threw the curtain on the bed, pulling his mask down as he did. “Time for our blood work now, Colonel VC,” he said through snarling teeth.

  Colonel Ho tried to rise up but he couldn’t. He felt his heart pounding out of his chest like a bass drum at a Memorial Day Parade. The bed held him like a magnet. He reached up and feebly pointed, as his brain finally recognized his protagonist. “It is you. I thought I recognized you. The restaurant, I saw you there.”

  “Give the man a Kewpie doll! Right you are, Colonel, I’ve been looking for you for a long time. That day at the restaurant was just a test. I was just testing your security, playing a game to see how close I could really get to you. I hope you liked the demonstration that my friends and brother war veterans put on for you?”

  Vinh felt weaker and weaker as his chest began to tighten and his brow began to rain sweat onto his pillow like a Vietnam monsoon. “I know you before that?” he said through weak uncontrolled lips.

  “Pleiku, Colonel. Over twenty years ago. You remember—the Vietnam War. You and your ARVN pricks were assigned to support our “A” Team. You and your rice eaters did one hell of a job feathering your own nests at the expense of a lot of American boys that would never see their mommas again. Remember real hard, Colonel. That’s the thought I want you to hold while I’m slowly killing your ass.”

  He did remember. In that instant, as his left arm went number and his chest constricted harder, Colonel Vinh Ho transported himself back over twenty years of memories and he remembered. His mouth fell open and he pulled his dark glasses off, exposing his failing eyes. He looked hard into the face of Willy Beal. He remembered the party at his Pleiku Club. He remembered the murder of his lieutenant in the alley. He remembered how he had betrayed the “A” Team and supplied Gunner McConnell with explosives, free passage, and an escape route through Cambodia and Laos. In that instant, he remembered it all, as his chest tightened like a fist squeezing a banana.

  Jerry almost fell out of his bed as he watched the green-clad figure of Henry Davis waddling down the hall toward his room. It was really him. “Dr. Davis, I presume,” I laughed as he walked into 409.

  “What’s so goddamn funny, Jerry?” Davis exploded. “That bitch Rita got me this disguise, but I had to promise to let her have her way with me before she would.”

  “Sounds like Rita all right, Cap. Why’d you take a chance on breaking my cover?”

  “You probably haven’t seen this yet, Jerry.” Henry dropped the newspaper onto the end of the bed where Jerry was s
itting. It was open to page two and the slasher story.

  Jerry glanced down through the text. “Shit, another murder right here in the hospital. Are you sure it was the Slasher, Cap?”

  “Yeah. I put Fitzsimmons on it, and he confirmed that there are too many similarities to have it be anyone else. The victim was Vietnamese. Had his throat slit deep, and his right ear cut off.”

  “I followed Gunner out to the front door yesterday, but don’t know where he went from there.”

  “Yeah, we know. Fitz picked him up and spent the day following him around. Gunner must have gotten on to him, though. Gave him the slip just after dark. We still don’t know where he is.”

  Davis looked up at the TV monitor. The drape was drawn around Colonel Ho’s bed. “What’s going on with the crime boss?”

  “Don’t know, Cap. Another doctor came into the room carrying a lab tray. The next thing I know, they’re behind the curtain.”

  “You want to read something funny, Jerry, read page one.” Jerry turned the paper to page one as the captain continued. “The old boy lost the Congressional election to a college kid. I bet he was pissed when he found out.”

  “Yeah, it would probably be enough to give the old boy another heart attack.”

  As they talked, the curtain in room 410 opened and Dr. Willy Beal rolled the bed, with Colonel Vinh Ho in it, out into the corridor. He nodded to the officer on duty as he walked past him. “Mr. Ho is having trouble breathing. I have to take him into surgery to establish a better airway. If his friends come back, tell them to wait for my call in the cafeteria.” The cop nodded and went back to sleep.

  Captain Davis had been watching the monitor while Jerry read the articles in the newspaper. “Jerry, who was that doctor in Vinh Ho’s room?”