Club Saigon

by Marty Grossman

  Back in the present, Willy moved through the door with no more fanfare than a breath of cool air on a summer’s day. He moved left like a nocturnal chameleon, blending into his surroundings as he moved closer to his prey. He crouched, moving along the long length of the bar until only two tables separated him from the VC. It was a game he was playing. See how close I can get before the VC knows I’m there. Shit, not a chance. I’m invisible. The tune popped into his head again. Like a bad dream, he couldn’t get rid of it. “When Johnny comes marching home again hurrah, hoorah.”

  There weren’t any “hoorahs.” That was the problem. Willy had been through hell and a “grateful” nation didn’t want to be reminded of the unpopular war. Willy Beal was ostracized like thousands of returning vets. Made to feel somehow inferior because the U.S. didn’t win. How many fights had he been in with veterans of “the Big One,” World War II? There was something fundamentally wrong with veterans fighting veterans. It took over twenty years for the wounds to heal, but that didn’t help the thousands of displaced, homeless men that now made up the majority of the street people. “Johnny, I hardly knew ya!”

  Willy took a chance and slid into a chair at a table right behind the unsuspecting Nguyen. Boy, was this kid unaware. Willy got his wire out as Nguyen blew another stream of smoke toward the front window. Willy breathed the smoky air into his lungs and became one with it. He ducked as another car came down the block, its headlights streaming into the restaurant. Willy popped up like a jack-in-the-box, his wire at the ready. Johnny, I hardly knew ya! he thought as he sprung on the unsuspecting VC.

  It was Preacher that had found out about his capture first, then got the word to Daiwe. The captain mobilized the entire team and put Jerry Andrews in charge of the mission to bring Willy back. Only two members of the team weren’t there. Daiwe had to stay back and man the radio because Gunner was laid up in the dispensary with a roaring case of the clap. Pleiku radio gave the team a locate based on Willy’s last radio transmission. He had notified the “C” Team that the ARVN’s had split on him and he was terminating the operation.

  Two days later, the Hueys swept the Ia Drang Valley and found Willy’s last location. They lifted off and followed the trail until they were hovering over the village where Willy was now imprisoned. The VC hadn’t had a chance to move him into the interior. They just had time to beat him, interrogate him, and kick the living shit out of him. The villagers had spit and pissed all over him as he lay in the cramped confines of his tiger cage. As the helicopters approached, the VC went into hiding in the village. The gunships could see the tiger cage sitting in the middle of the compound. Jerry Andrews directed his gunship to strafe everything in the village and turn it into dust . . . everything except the tiger cage. Then he landed next to the cage. Five of their guys inside the chopper got out and surrounded the gunship, their M-16s at the ready. Jerry jumped out and released the bamboo thong that held the cage door locked. He pulled Willy’s crumpled frame up to him and hugged him tightly, tears streaming down his face as he looked at the condition of his beaten comrade in arms. He gently put Willy into the chopper, and the rest of the guys got back in and flew up into the sun where they hovered with the other gunship.

  As they flew off toward the river, the beat-beat-beat of the rotor blades drowned out Willy as he mumbled over and over again, “When Johnny comes marching home again.”

  “Flight leader, this is Andrews. Fly up to the river for a few minutes and let the VC come out of hiding, then sweep back into that little hamlet again and nuke it.”

  “When Johnny comes marching home again . . . ”

  Being captured by an armed and dangerous enemy is a real reality check. Willy was forever changed on that day. It made him a better soldier, that’s for sure, but what it did to his mind is a question better answered by his shrink. Many Army psychiatrists had tried, after that day, to get into Willy’s head, but they had all failed. It was soon after his capture that Willy’s migraine headaches had started in earnest. “Johnny, I hardly knew ya.”

  He didn’t have a headache now, but he knew it would eventually come. He had just a little voice in the back of his head, whistling his favorite tune, and directing him toward Nguyen’s throat.

  Nguyen suddenly felt the stillness of the room change. A chill breeze nipped at his exposed neck. He whipped himself around and stood up, half expecting to see Gunner, but saw nothing. He drew in on his cigarette and blew a stream of smoke out in the direction of the bar. He was getting jumpy. Being alone in a dark room could always conjure up images of evil and foreboding if you let your mind take over your reason. Sit back down. Relax, he thought. Nguyen turned his back on the table where Willy sat as if not being able to see him. He sat back down and faced away toward the door once more.

  Willy had the magic going for him. He could feel it. It was a mystical feeling of exuberance. The VC had looked right at him but never saw him. He was as invisible as a ninja in the night. He also had his voices going for him and they had never let him down. Damn, it felt good to be alive when you had this much going for you.

  Willy snapped his wire out in front of him, silently testing, for the last time, the metal of his killing tool. The handles felt as smooth as a baby’s ass in the palms of his hands. His fingers caressed them lovingly as he moved the last two feet between him and the VC.

  Killing with a wire is not as easy as it looks. All kinds of things can go wrong if you’re not careful and precise. The victim can sense you are behind him and get his hands on the wire, he can turn and face you, or you might not get the wire all the way around his neck. Worse yet, part of the wire might get hung up on his face or nose. That’s when it gets real ugly.

  It was Jerry that had showed Willy how to use the garrote. Jerry had learned the art from Sgt. Judd during his martial arts training at Ft. Bragg, and felt compelled to pass on his skills to the other team members who were interested in learning another deadly art. Willy remembered that he and Gunner were the only ones to take Jerry up on his offer. Willy remembered the hours they spent practicing and the hundreds of Vietnamese squashes they killed before they became an expert at killing with a wire. Willy recalled fondly that the three of them were laughingly called the “Fruit Killers” by the rest of the team. Those were better days. That had been then, and this was now.

  Gunner couldn’t sleep. Try as he might, he just couldn’t relax enough to fall asleep. More than once he was tempted to take to the streets and find some pussy, but his survival instincts were in overdrive. Pussy could wait until he was safely in Sydney, Australia and all of Vinh Ho’s assets had been transferred to his own accounts. His flight would get him out of town during the elaborate funeral procession scheduled for nine in the morning. He planned on using the commotion of the funeral as a diversion to cover his departure from L.A. As far as paying his last respects to the Colonel, “Fuck him and the horse he rode in on.”

  It was a matter of conscience that now kept his mind churning and his brain awake. Conscience and a migraine. He thought back over the years, back to when he was a member of A-255. The faces of Willy Beal, Preacher, Daiwe, Blaster, and Jerry popped into his head. They had had some good times together. He always had a twinge of regret that Blaster and Daiwe were in the bunker, but it was something he had to do. It was his life or theirs, and he couldn’t let his dead compatriot’s memory cloud his instinct for survival.

  Jerry was another matter. Jerry had gone from being a soldier, which he could respect, to a cop, which he couldn’t. Cops of one sort or another had dogged his footsteps ever since he left Nam. He had a nose for cops that stood him well in the drug and smuggling trades. As for Jerry, he had never really liked the prick, but he had taken care of that. He’d left the son of a bitch for dead in that tiny dugout canoe and was sure that what was left of the body was now rotting in small pieces at the base of the falls.

  Gunner filled his tumbler with two fingers of scotch and tried to rest. The memories made it impossible but the voices hel
ped. Somewhere in the back of his head, his inner voice kept saying, “Forget those guys. Tomorrow you’ll be rich.”

  Easy for him to say, thought Gunner.

  Willy. Willy was another matter. Willy Beal was the motherfucker that had tormented him all these months. Gunner’s eyes shot open and his breathing came in short deep bursts. His nostrils flared as his anger rose. Willy was some unfinished business that Gunner had meant to take care of. He thought about going out looking for the schmuck but his inner voice told him to relax and forget William Baines Beal. “Tomorrow you’ll be rich and have all the pussy, and power, big money can buy.”

  Gunner smiled inwardly then reached into his shirt pocket and removed the piece of paper with the bank codes. He smiled as the series of numbers jumped off the paper and danced in his eyes. He folded it back up and put it back into his pocket. “Yeah. I can forget that little shit. There’s pussy for the taking, and bigger fish to fry when I get to Australia.”

  FORTY-THREE

  Being captured by the VC left a lasting impression on Willy. He had finally gotten a reality check and was willing to admit to his mortality. He had learned the true meaning of pain in the three days he was in captivity. Before his capture, he had no real fears. After two days in the hands of the VC, he feared pain. Not just any pain, but real pain. The excruciating kind of pain that you get when electrodes are hooked up from a hand-cranked generator to your balls. The kind of pain where that first surge of juice leaves you pissing all over yourself, making an even better electrical connection than when your captors threw the bucket of water over you. The kind of pain you feel from a white-hot branding iron that slowly burns your flesh, while you smell the acrid stench of your bodily fluids going up your nostrils as smoke. Willy felt the right side of his chest, remembering the physical scars that had been left there by his captors’ branding iron. It was nothing more than a half-inch straight poker, but it left a lasting blue-black scar that he would take to the grave. Through all the torture he never said more than “William Baines Beal, Sergeant, RA-19 857 834.”

  Willy had talked for hours during his rehabilitation with the Army shrinks about his experiences when he was captured. They tried to convince him that his problems were not associated with capture, but were a result of his early childhood. He played their game. Told them what they wanted to hear. They finally let him out of the hospital and pronounced him cured.

  Willy had briefly thought about getting married and having a family after the war. The doctors at the Army Hospital told him to go for it. What they didn’t tell him was he had been rendered sterile during his torture. His balls didn’t work anymore. Okay, no problem. There were a lot of women out there that didn’t want kids or were willing to adopt. A lot of fine women, he was certain, that just wanted a good man with a good job and a career. He’d find one of those. But the doctors failed to mention that he might not be able to maintain an erection as a result of his torture, and in fact, he couldn’t. No matter what he tried, he couldn’t raise a hard-on. So much for a meaningful relationship. So much for marriage. So much for family. It was a troubled Willy Beal that was finally released on society, and like many of his compatriots, he found the street life more to his liking. At least on the streets, he could be with his kind. At least on the streets, all men were equal.

  Willy hated the doctors almost as much as he hated the VC. They didn’t want to hear about Agent Orange, captivity, PTSD, or how your prosthetic leg felt. They didn’t want to hear about any of that crap. The government didn’t want to spend money on rehabilitation or mental illness caused by the war. They had better use for the limited funds they received from a Congress unwilling to recognize the sacrifices that were made by these men. Yes, Willy hated the system as much he hated the VC.

  Nguyen had been easy. He knew that Gunner would be more difficult. He moved slowly up the darkened staircase. His head was pounding, but he was a driven man. He scratched his nuts, hoping that they would come back to life. They were numb, just like they had been for over twenty years. “When Johnny comes marching home again . . . ” Damn, he wished he could put that tune out of his head, but like raising his nuts, it was something he hadn’t been able to do for over twenty years.

  Jerry eased up the back stairs with his gun at the ready. The alley was as quiet as a grave since the alley cat had gotten scared of him and run from the trash bin. There was no light coming from the lower floor of the restaurant. He hoped that Captain Davis had gotten his message and provided backup, but he couldn’t wait to confirm it. If Davis had gotten his message, he was staying real clandestine about providing support. Jerry’s ears picked up as he got to the top step. He thought he heard a noise coming from inside the restaurant. He stopped moving and listened more intently. He heard it again. It was a scraping sound like a rug being dragged across a floor. It made him think back to Bangkok and the Thai boys removing Frank’s informant from the club.

  Jerry had no idea whether he’d have to break down the door to get inside. Or perhaps, he thought, it might yield to some heavy pressure. The latter was more desirable in order to maintain some semblance of silence and maintain the element of surprise. Shit, for all he knew Willy was watching him from a window. Try to remain calm, he told himself as his hand reached for the doorknob.

  Jerry was as nervous as a whore in church as he turned the knob hard and pushed against the door. To his surprise, it gave easily. He remembered the layout of the restaurant from his investigation reports and knew that the back door entered directly into the kitchen. It was darker inside than it had been in the alley. He was being seduced by his natural fear of the dark to turn on the lights, but he pushed back the temptation in favor of darkness. If it was good enough for Willy, it was good enough for Jerry.

  He thought back to the time in Nam when they mounted the mission to get Willy out of captivity. It was a hasty mission, one fraught with danger and many unknowns. They took it on because they knew that if their fortunes were reversed, Willy would do the same for them. They were lucky to find him so quickly. For once their intel was accurate. Jerry only wished they could have got to him sooner, before the son-of-a-bitch VC tortured him. Two days, that’s all the time they had him, but from what they saw in his eyes and what the doctors told them about his injuries, it was two days in purgatory for Willy.

  Willy had returned to the team, and never talked much about his captivity to any of them, but Jerry used to find him sitting alone in his bunker in the dark. He asked Willy about it one time and Willy just said, “Jerry, I can never thank you guys enough for saving me, but I can’t talk about it. I’m sitting in the dark because I’m more comfortable in the dark. I spent forty-eight hours with a bright light in my face and people beating on me. I feel safer in the dark.”

  Daiwe never had to ask for a volunteer again for night missions. Willy Beal was the team’s dark man. Maybe it would be better if I put on the light, Jerry thought. The dark is definitely Willy’s element.

  He moved forward as his eyes fine-tuned themselves to a darker shade of black than they encountered in the alley. He could make out the swinging set of kitchen doors and moved silently toward them. The quiet was absolute. Jerry’s head began to pound as he felt inside his pockets for some Tylenol. There was nothing there but some lint and a few pennies, and they had no therapeutic value. He found himself wishing he’d retired last month before his trip to Bangkok. He wondered if the cavalry had arrived and would run in and save him if Willy was in here. So many variables, and none of them seemed to be in his favor.

  Gunner’s eyes popped open. He looked at the face of his Rolex watch. Twelve thirty. Shit, he thought, I’ve only been asleep for an hour. The voices kept calling to him, telling him that he was in danger. “Fuck you,” he mumbled as he turned over and tried to go back to sleep. Try as he might, his mind would not let him alone that night. The fucking postcards kept coming up in his head like a recurrent nightmare. Willy Fucking Beal and his fucking postcards, he thought. Give me a break and I�
�ll be out of your hair tomorrow.

  It wasn’t really what had become of Preacher. Shit, the guy used drugs when he was on the team, what made anyone think he would be different on the outside? Dextroamphetamines at first just to stay awake on field operations, then after he was wounded, heavy-duty prescription painkillers. He went on using them even after he had recovered. Gunner remembered Bacsi telling Daiwe about it and trying to have him removed to the “C” Team for rehab. Daiwe told Bacsi to try and bring him down gradually so it wouldn’t show up on his record. The stupid fuck deserved to die. Why should Willy blame me for Preacher’s death? If Willy wants a piece of me, he’d better get it tonight or he’ll never get another chance. I wonder if Willy’s still pissed at me for not taking part in his rescue operation? he thought. Gunner sat up in bed and turned on his bedside lamp. He poured himself two fingers of scotch. “That’s it. The little fuck is still pissed about me not being there when he was captured by the VC. Shit, I couldn’t help it. It’s not like I didn’t show up because I hated the little shmuck. Shit, I had a roaring case of the drippy dick that I’d got from that Saigon whore. She looked really good but her pussy was poison.”