The Price of Blood (37 page)

T
RIN’S LATEST MOOD SWING TOOK HIM, TARZAN fashion, clear across his personal jungle. When he spoke to Trung Si and Broker as they loaded the gold, he sounded just a little bit like he was talking to more than two people. Like maybe he caught glimmers of his entire old VC battalion lined up there on the beach. And this weird light came in his eye, like he was communing with the whole mystic Vietnamese nation: living, dead, and unborn. All convened there by the sea, as numerous and without end as the faded stars.

It was just a little weird, and maybe it was just being balls-out exhausted, but it put Broker a tad on edge. Not that he could tell for sure in the shape he was in. Working like maniacs, they had filled in the pit.

It was midmorning when they finally got underway to the hallucinatory Rube Goldberg thump and fart of the improbable sampan motor. They slumped on the smelly deck. They had loaded thirteen heavy crates into the boat, using a winch that Trung Si had rigged from the mast. Now the old peasant sat at the tiller, his pigtail snapping in the wind, a cheroot clamped in his teeth throwing sparks, his one eye fixed off the bow.

It might work if they could get Nina clear. And Lola was the only hope of that. On the other hand, they’d just found ten tons of gold. They weren’t thinking that clearly. Broker tried to hold the plan in his head. The militia post was a good hour’s drive on a bad road. No telephones. And once they involved those guys it could get, like Nina had said, hairy. A bunch of teenage farm-boys let loose with automatic weapons.

Broker had one ingot in a burlap sack along with the top to the first ammo box Trin had dug up. Chips. To bargain for Nina.

They unloaded the first box they found, the one with rings, gold leaf, and taels, at the vet’s home. Trin told Broker and Trung Si, with that faraway look in his eye, that the stuff in the pit belonged to the People of Vietnam, and the People of Vietnam would not begrudge them setting aside an additional hundred pounds of gold rings for their trouble.

Then Trung Si chugged off to hide the boat and their piece of the treasure. They cleaned up, sort of, washing in the sea, pulling on a change of clothing. Tripping with fatigue, they got in the van and headed for Hue City. They left the treasure of the Nguyen emperors in the keeping of a one-legged, half-blind, ex-Viet Cong peasant sergeant who had one old French bolt-action rifle and eight rounds of ammunition. And an uncommunicative, legless flute player. The rest of Trin’s vets still had not returned with the truck.

Trin sped down the sandy track looking out at the dunes. He grumbled, “I knew we should have buried some weapons out there, in Vietnam it just makes sense to have some weapons buried out there…”

Then Trin launched into an impromptu discussion of Trung Si’s curse. Dramatically, he thrust the tiger tooth under Broker’s nose. “It’s like your native Indians. Except with us it’s the Chams. In the fifteenth century we conquered and annihilated them, our Manifest Destiny. The March to the South.

“One of my ancestors rode an elephant through the Emperor’s Gate in the Hai Van Pass on that invasion. He brought this tooth back among his booty. The gold in Vietnam was mined in Champa, south of Danang. Still is. So if you find gold it’s probably Cham gold. Therefore cursed with their blood.”

Broker shrugged, he was way past curses. And things like reasonable doubt and probable cause, not to mention consequences. They were inappropriate Western concepts anyway. His dad always said he didn’t have the sense that God gave a goose, so he wasn’t particularly afraid. He liked the…velocity.

Trin, who probably had acquired the wisdom in middle age to be afraid and who had probably waltzed, a few times, with little green men on various bar counters, hunched over with his eyes level with the top of the wheel like a ninth-grader, elbows raised and driving sixty, sometimes seventy, miles an hour, sending bicycles and water buffaloes scurrying toward the ditch.

They sped through Quang Tri City. In the market, the sun ricocheted off a thousand conical straw hats and pounded platinum knitting needles into the raw sun spots Broker had on loan for eyes. He had never been so tired in his whole life. He had ten tons of gold on one shoulder and Nina Pryce’s life on the other.

Trin looked just as crushed and Broker hoped he was carrying the same load but he wasn’t 100 percent sure. Not even close. And for today’s work they needed 120 percent.

Trin skidded onto Highway 1 and aimed the van south, toward Hue City, down the center of the road, and stepped on the gas. He did not budge for anything on wheels.

“You got any speed?” asked Broker.

“All out,” said Trin.

They turned and grinned at each other. They had always been unsuited for ordinary life. They were probably rushing headlong toward doom.

They were probably happy.

Broker must have fallen asleep with his eyes wide open because suddenly a huge Tiger Beer billboard leaped in the windshield and Trin swerved left. Vaguely he noticed the dusty russet limestone walls of the Imperial Citadel rise across a muddy lotus-choked moat. Different now, masked by new houses.

Broker blinked back the reverie when he saw a red flag the size of a fucking basketball court flutter from the citadel’s famous flag tower.

It was 11:30
A.M.

Trin turned again. An exuberant cluster of hammers and sickles burst on another billboard. Happy Worker, Happy Soldier, Happy Student, Happy Farmer. Oh boy.

They roared across the bridge toward the right bank. Trin pointed to a floating restaurant. “Cafard,” he said. Their old hangout. Used to be on the shore. Now on the water. Where Broker hid in the cellar. They ran the stoplight on the other side, whipped another right onto Le Loi Street. Trin scattered bicycles and leaned on his horn. Little pops of recognition struggled in the swampy fatigue behind Broker’s eyes. Colonial gingerbread along river-front. The grassy promenade along the river. A monument to Annamite troops who served in World War I. That’s where he and Trin had hid on that rainy night twenty years ago and took their swim in the river. Now stands were set up and women were selling stuffed animals, videos, postcards.

They pulled through a gate and stopped amid the carefully tended gardens of a Colonial monstrosity. Trin smiled. “Five Le Loi. The last stop on Jimmy Tuna’s itinerary. C’mon.”

Smiling, they confirmed reservations. Broker handed over his passport and for fifty bucks, U.S., Trin got it right back. No sense letting the cops know they were in town. They were led to the single round room on the third floor. Broker tipped the bellboy who had nothing to carry and sat on the bed and stared at the phone. It was 11:49.

His numb filthy fingers pawed his wallet from his jeans and smeared the snowy white card Lola LaPorte had given him in New Orleans a million years ago. He dialed the switchboard at the Century Hotel. Trin opened the icebox and found it stocked with Huda beers. He tossed one to Broker.

“Connect me to the Imperial Room,” said Broker.

He opened the can and took a swig and didn’t miss a beat when the cool, husky voice of Lola LaPorte came on the line like magic.

“Hi, Morticia, kiss any alligators lately?”

“It’s him,” she said, aside. Then, directly into the receiver, “Where are you?”

“Wherever it is it’s hotter’n shit and they go in for really big red flags with yellow stars.”

“I’m looking at the same flag.” She paused. “Broker, we had to detain Nina. We didn’t know what you were up to. She’s…all right.”

“Sure she is.”

“Okay. Bevode got carried away as usual. Cyrus has apologized to her and even discussed plastic surgery. She’s here. Okay.”

“At the hotel?”

“In Hue.”

“Where’s Bevode?”

“Cyrus thought it would be a good idea to keep you and him separated so he sent him…away. On the boat. You’ll be dealing with us.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Do you have anything to tell us?” She sounded like she was holding her breath.

“Tell Cyrus I got something with sand on it, not salt water.”

“He says he found it,” she said, offstage again. Her voice was like being on the beach again, Pandora’s box springing open: imprisoned Cham curses fluttering out like monarch butterflies.

Cyrus LaPorte came on the line, breathless with excitement. “Just what have you got?”

“Ming Mang’s mad money, in a hole in the sand on the beach,” said Broker.

“How?” Incredulous.

“Easy, we followed the map.”

“What map?”

“The one we got from Jimmy, dummy,” said Broker.

“You didn’t need to kill those boys,” Cyrus said hotly. “I don’t buy this story the Wisconsin cops put out. Jimmy Tuna in his last gasp nails two men.”

Broker yawned. “Fuck you, Cyrus. You should have stayed home.”

“He’s dead, Jimmy, the cancer got him,” said Cyrus.

“Yeah, well. Look, we have to work out some ground rules,” said Broker. “I want to see Nina, then you can have a look.”

“When?”

“Thirty minutes.”

“Jesus. Where?”

“Right under that big red flag across the river. Bring Nina. And bring a shopping bag. We’ll do a switch.” Broker hung up the phone. He didn’t like not knowing where Bevode Fret was.

“Now…” said Trin, intently inspecting the pop top in his beer can.

“It all depends on Lola LaPorte. If she won’t give up Nina, we’re screwed. Cyrus’ll probably try an approach, to feel us out,” said Broker.

“Try and split us up.”

“Yeah,” Broker squinted, “try to get you to betray me.”

Trin smiled. He looked like a Vietnamese Dead End Kid with a partially washed face. But it was still an exquisite Vietnamese smile that masked Vietnamese thoughts and it didn’t reassure Broker one bit.

The Imperial Citadel was overrun with foreign devils. French, Germans, Aussies, Kiwis, Americans, Canadians: unloading from vans like retarded, wrinkled children in Bermuda shorts and herded by tour guide terriers. Mostly they headed through the gate to the Forbidden City. The direction Broker and Trin took smelled like shit. Someone had taken a dump next to the paved ramp that led to the flag tower. A squalor of pop cans and paper wrappers fouled the patchy grass. Trin handed him a blue baseball cap with Hue Tours printed on the crown and pointed to the sun. A fresh wave of sweat streaked the dirt on Broker’s arms. They’d done a poor job cleaning up. How many other things had they overlooked in their condition?

What was probably the only rental Mercedes in Hue City screeched to a halt perpendicular to the ramp. A blue van almost rear-ended it.

Trin and Broker started down the ramp. A rangy sixfoot-two redneck in an absurd Save the Whales T-shirt got out from the sliding side door of the van. He could have been the tourist who had snatched Nina in Hanoi. With the help of another guy inside he held Nina Pryce up in the door. A white dot of tape marked her left ear. She was dressed in the same jeans and white blouse she’d worn in Hanoi. Save the Whales had to brace her shoulders to keep her upright. Cadaver pale in the bright sunlight, she stared ahead unblinking. Her hair was wet-cat damp and stuck to her temples, like someone had run a clumsy comb through it.

“A look,” cautioned Save the Whales. He had turpentine eyes under a painter’s cap, flat muscles, and the golden hair on his corded forearms looked like wood shavings. He raised a hand.

“She’s drugged.” Broker started to come closer.

“Better’n tying her up. She’s feisty, this one.”

Nina swooned on rubbery legs and tried to open her mouth. Broker wondered if she recognized him. Save the Whales eased her back in the van, got in himself, and closed the door. The van backed up, lurched, and accelerated. A chalky arm poked from the driver’s side, middle finger extended. Fuckin’ Virgil.

The passenger door on the Mercedes swung open. One smooth beige fashion model leg swung out, then the other. Lola popped from the gleaming German metal. An American Beauty thorn.

Okay. Bevode Fret was nowhere in sight.

“Remember Madame Nhu? That’s her big sister,” Broker said. “They’ll sell out anybody, including each other. A real happy couple.”

They exchanged grim smiles. All they had was sheer bluff. It all depended on Lola. The main thing was Nina was still alive. “You go off with Cyrus and talk business. Get me alone with her,” said Trin.

Broker didn’t like it. Trin strutted the Imperial grounds as though
he
was planning to ride an elephant into Champa. But it was happening.

Lola looked cool and poolside in her long dark hair and a white cotton skirt, blouse, and a broad straw sun-hat. Sunglasses hid her eyes. She raised a big shopping bag in her left hand. Cyrus, tanned to perfection and wearing a blue yachting cap, a desert shirt and a rakish red bandanna around his throat, emerged from behind the wheel.