The Vets (Stephen Leather Thrillers) (37 page)

“Of course it’s tea,” said Lewis. “You know the way it works. That’s how they make their money.”

“Just once I’d like to see one of these bitches have a real drink,” said Carmody.

“Come on, Larry, it’s just a way of buying their time, you know that. They’ve got to live. And it’s not as if their drinks are expensive,” said Lehman.

Carmody laughed. “Yeah, and it’s not as if we can’t afford it, is it? Not with the money we’re going to get, huh?”

“I’ll drink to that, all right,” said Lewis, raising his glass. Lehman, Horvitz and Carmody did the same and they clinked glasses above the centre of the table. It was the first time any of them had mentioned the reason why they were in Hong Kong. There had been an unspoken agreement that the subject wouldn’t be raised until Tyler had rejoined the group. Before they’d left Thailand, Tyler had told Lehman and Lewis not to mention Doherty or the Huey. Lehman had assumed that Tyler had revealed to the other three as little about the forthcoming operation as he himself had been told: that it was a robbery, that it was a big one, and that it was to be in Hong Kong. He didn’t even know what sort of money they’d been promised. Lehman had given a great deal of thought to what the mission might be, but he couldn’t think of any way in which their four individual skills could be used. One helicopter pilot, a helicopter mechanic, a doorgunner, and a Special Forces killer. It was a potentially dangerous team, but Tyler had promised that nobody would get hurt.

His thoughts were interrupted by a bony finger running down his spine. He turned to look at the cadaverous woman sitting on his right. She smiled at him. “You want massage?” she asked in a voice as dry as a death rattle. His mouth fell open as a horrific image of being given a rub down by the old crone flashed through his mind.

“Oh no,” he said. “Oh no. I couldn’t. I mean, it’s a very tempting offer, but no. No thanks.” Carmody giggled and urged him to take advantage of the woman’s offer. “Carmody, you can be a real pain sometimes,” said Lehman.

“Yeah?” replied Carmody, the smile vanishing from his face. “You wanna do something about it, Danny Boy?”

Lehman could tell from Carmody’s tone that he wasn’t joking.

“Don’t be so fucking touchy, Larry,” said Lewis, moving quickly to defuse the situation. Lehman was sure he could handle the man if they came to blows, but he had no wish to get into a fight. He was grateful for Lewis’s intervention because he had no intention of backing down. He’d met enough characters like Carmody to know that if he didn’t stand up to him then he’d keep pushing him into a corner and that sooner or later they’d be trading punches anyway.

Carmody looked at Lewis, and then at Lehman. Lewis poured more beer for Carmody and gestured at the glass. Carmody’s smile returned and he shrugged. “No offence,” he said to Lehman.

“None taken,” said Lehman, and he clinked his glass against Carmody’s. Lewis looked at both men as if to confirm that they’d both cooled down and then announced he was going to the toilet. He winced as if in pain when he stood up. One of the women sitting on the stools swung her legs to the side to make way for him.

Carmody did his cigarette lighting trick with his claw and the women watched, entranced. They took it in turns to stroke the shiny metal and discussed it in Cantonese with much nodding and face-pulling.

Horvitz was as quiet as usual and as Carmody amused the women he sat with a faraway look in his eyes. His hand gripped his glass tightly and Lehman could see the muscles in his arm tightening up. His left eyelid began twitching, a barely noticeable flicker as if he were subconsciously fighting to control it. Lehman wondered what was going through his mind.

“You okay, Eric?” asked Lehman.

Horvitz didn’t react so Lehman spoke to him again. This time Horvitz’s eyes seemed to refocus as if he were awakening from a dream, and he relaxed the grip on his glass. The muscle in his eyelid continued to twitch, however.

“Sorry,” he said to Lehman. “What did you say? I was miles away.”

“I asked if you were okay, that’s all.”

“Oh sure. This is one hell of a bar.”

“Brings back memories?”

“Not really, no. I was never much one for Rape and Run. I only took R&R when the medics insisted.”

“Insisted?”

“Stress, they said. Combat fatigue, that sort of crap. They didn’t know what the fuck they were talking about. The nearest they ever got to a bullet was holding one with a pair of forceps. Stress is what keeps you on your toes. Keeps you alive. Take away the stress and you’re nothing. You’ve just got to wait until your body adapts to it, until it accepts that the stress is normal. Necessary even.” The twitching intensified and then suddenly stopped as if Horvitz had become aware of it and had, by an effort of will, put a stop to it.

Lehman nodded, but he didn’t agree with what Horvitz had said. Continual stress was totally destructive, and he had no doubt that that was why Horvitz was as tense as he was now. It was the first time he’d seen Horvitz like that; before he’d always appeared calm and relaxed. Lehman could only imagine the inner tension that had gripped the man. Carmody wore his heart on his sleeve and his flashes of temper were just that, quick outbursts that disappeared as quickly as they flared, but Horvitz was always so tightly controlled that when he exploded it would be devastating.

“When they eventually forced me to take a break, I stayed in Nam. Hung around the beaches, went swimming, stuff like that. Never much cared for the bars or what went on there. Never seemed real, not after the jungle. Nothing has seemed real since. You know, sometimes I think that I died back in Nam and that everything since has been some sort of dream. Or a nightmare.”

“That’s why you went back?”

Horvitz shrugged and took a drink from his glass. “It wasn’t my idea. A guy from the US-Indochina Reconciliation Project in Philadelphia got me on the trip. Paid for the whole thing. Some sort of project they’ve got going to help vets with PTSD.”

“PTSD?”

“Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which I guess is just a fancy shrink’s term for combat fatigue. They reckoned that by going back I’d maybe come to terms with it. With what happened.”

“Do you think it worked?”

Horvitz looked at Lehman, his stare even and empty. “Too much happened to me back there, Dan. I think about Vietnam every day of my life. Every hour. Too much happened for me ever to forget.”

“No one’s saying forget. Just accept.”

Horvitz smiled grimly. “The things I did aren’t the sort of things a man can ever accept. Not if he wants to stay sane. It’s safer just to pretend that they happened to someone else. A twenty-year-old kid who didn’t know any better.”

“Maybe you should try sharing it with someone.”

“You, Dan? You wanna share some of my memories? You wanna go rooting around in the black bits of my mind and see what I’ve got hidden there?” Horvitz dismissed Lehman’s offer with a snort and took another pull on his beer.

They drank for a while, listening to the songs that crackled out of the antiquated stereo system, all of them from the late sixties and early seventies. The Rolling Stones. The Doors. Leonard Cohen. Each and every one brought back memories for Lehman as if the music offered a direct line into his subconscious. He kept recalling faces of men who were long dead, places he’d been, missions he’d flown, until the bar faded away and he was back in his Huey flying low and fast over the jungles of South Vietnam, the roar of the turbine filling his ears, the fear and excitement turning his bowels to liquid, feeling more alive than he’d ever felt before. Music often had that effect on him, wiping away the years the way a sponge removes dirt, leaving only streaks behind. Smells worked the same way, too. The sweet smell of pot always took him back to the Nam, as did hot oil fumes and shit. And burnt meat. Burnt meat was the worst.

Often an odour seemed to be even more effective than music in stimulating his memory, catching him unawares with its force. There was a logic to the memories that flooded back with the songs of the sixties and the seventies but the smells often took him by surprise. He’d drive into a filling station and open his hood and the oil fumes would billow out and he’d be standing next to his Huey with George Lambert, his crew chief for six months until his face had been blown apart by a sniper’s bullet. Lambert had been holding a monkey wrench, his hands caked in grease which he’d also managed to smear across his left cheek, and he’d been laughing with Lehman about God knows what when his face had exploded in a shower of crimson blood and white bone fragments. Lehman didn’t remember hearing the crack of the bullet but he’d never forgotten the feel of the wet blood on his own face and how it had felt gritty and sticky as he instinctively reached up to wipe it off. Lambert hadn’t died immediately because the bullet hadn’t gone through the skull. It had just taken away most of his left cheek and he hadn’t been able to talk or even scream, he’d just thrashed around a lot and thrown what was left of his head from side to side as Lehman had held him in his arms, screaming for a medic but knowing that there was nothing that could be done. All it took was the smell of oil, and it all came back.

Lehman blinked and looked up, realising that Carmody had spoken to him.

“Say what?” said Lehman.

“I said, do you wanna drink?” Carmody repeated.

“Sure,” said Lehman. The glass in his hand was empty, but he didn’t recall finishing his beer.

“Should I get Bart one, too?”

Lewis’s glass was half full where he’d left it before going to the toilet. It had been almost fifteen minutes since he’d left the table.

“Yeah, I would,” said Lehman, getting up. “I’ll go see if he’s okay.”

“Maybe old Bart can’t hold his booze,” laughed Carmody. “He’s certainly not keeping up with us.”

Lehman went through the bamboo curtain that led to the toilets, and pushed open the swing door that had a small figure of a man on it. There was nobody at the urinals and for a moment Lehman thought that Lewis had gone back to the hotel, but then he saw that the door to one of the stalls was shut, but not locked. He went over to it and stood by the side. He bent down and could see the soles of Lewis’s shoes. The man was obviously kneeling in front of the bowl, and as Lehman listened he could hear retching sounds.

“Bart, you okay?” he called.

He heard Lewis clear his throat and spit, and then the toilet flushed. Lewis began to get to his feet but he groaned and threw up again.

“Bart?” repeated Lehman.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” Lewis said, spitting again.

There was a scuffling noise and then the door to the stall opened and Lewis came out, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “That burger didn’t agree with me,” said Lewis, grinning sheepishly at Lehman. “Or maybe I drank too much beer. I was just throwing up, that’s all.”

“Yeah?” said Lehman. “Maybe you should take a look in the mirror.”

“What do you mean?” asked Lewis. He turned to look at his reflection in the ageing mirror which was screwed above the wash-basins. His lips were red with blood. Lehman pushed open the door of the stall where Lewis had been sick and he lifted the black plastic lid of the toilet. The water there had turned red.

“What the hell’s going on, Bart?” asked Lehman. “Are you sick, or something?”

“I’ve just thrown up, that’s all,” said Lewis, turning on the cold tap and splashing water on his face. It streaked redly down his chin.

“Bullshit,” said Lehman. “You don’t throw up blood just because you’ve had a bad burger. Have you seen a doctor?”

Lewis looked up and studied Lehman in the mirror. “Just forget it, Dan, all right?”

“Does Tyler know about this?”

Lewis shook the water off his hands and turned round to face Lehman.

“This is none of your business,” he warned.

“Bart, you’re sick. You need help.”

Lewis threw back his head and laughed. “You’re telling me,” he said, his voice bitter.

Lehman walked up to Lewis and put his hands on the black man’s wide shoulders. “How sick are you?” Lehman asked. He felt the big man’s shoulders shrug.

“The big C,” said Lewis.

“Oh Christ,” said Lehman.

“Yeah. Oh Christ,” agreed Lewis.

“What sort of cancer?” asked Lehman.

“You know that sort that they can treat with chemotherapy?” said Lewis. Lehman nodded. “Well it’s not that one,” said Lewis. He laughed and then his laugh turned to a wince and he put his hands on his stomach. “Get outta my way,” he groaned and rushed back to the toilet. He leant over and retched again, his hands against the wall as if preparing to be frisked.

Lehman stood by the mirror feeling quite helpless and intensely sorry for Lewis. He really liked the man. When Lewis returned to the wash-basins and cleaned himself up again, Lehman asked if there was anything he could do to help.

Lewis shook his head. “It’s in my stomach and my pancreas, and God only knows where else,” he said. “They can’t operate and it’s too far gone for chemotherapy or radiation treatment. It’s my own fault, I guess. For months I thought I just had a bad stomach, you know? I used to take stuff to settle my stomach every morning, and I was swallowing painkillers like M&Ms. If I’d gone to the docs five years ago, then maybe they could have done something. Maybe. But not now.”