Chuck Logan - The Price of Blood

“None of us are,” said Broker.

Trin whispered, “Do you have a map?”

Broker knew he had him. He tapped the security belt under his waistband.

“My God. Jimmy…” Trin slowly shook his head. “He called me last week and said you had a present for me. I thought he meant a bonus.”

“Well?” said Broker, opening his hands.

“He said something else. We were all going to play a joke on Cyrus.”

“Uh-huh.” Broker reached for the phone and dialed Nina’s room. “I told him,” he said into the receiver. “You better get over here.”

Nina waved her hands, crossed the room, and opened the window. “It’s smoky in here,” she said. She had showered and wore the cheap plastic shower shoes the hotel provided. Her hair was still damp and stains of moisture glued her T-shirt to her collarbones.

“He told you,” she said to Trin.

Trin nodded as he crossed the room to the bar area and returned with all the pony ounces of hotel booze. He sat down and lined them up. Six of them. Hands shaking, he opened two of them, held one in each hand and dribbled them into a water glass.

“You’re, ah, mixing Scotch and gin,” said Nina, her voice and her eyebrows arched.

“Phil says you have opposite theories about how to proceed,” said Trin stiffly. He raised his glass and drained it.

“I thought it might be a good idea to feel out the MIA people at the start.”

“Why?” asked Trin. Methodically he began opening two more of the small bottles.

“Maybe I’m lonely for American faces,” said Nina, very concerned.

“You don’t trust me,” said Trin, smiling wryly as he took a strong pull on the glass.

“You always drink this much, Trin?”

“Yes,” said Trin emphatically. “But usually much worse stuff.”

Broker sat on the bed massaging his forehead in both hands.

“Just what we need, a lush.” Nina rolled her eyes.

“A woman of Hue,” Trin said dryly.

“Pardon me,” said Nina.

Trin did not smile. “You have the bearing of a woman of Hue.” He finished his drink and began opening two more bottles. “My wife was from Hue. Aloof, smooth as silk. Like the Perfume River, not too deep, not too shallow.” He smiled coldly. “A man could drown.”

“Wonderful. Folk sayings,” said Nina impatiently.

Trin grinned. “Here’s another. What did the first water buffalo say to the second water buffalo?”

Nina’s appraisal, at this point, was not kind.

“We’re in deep shit.” Trin downed the contents of the glass.

Nina turned to Broker. “We trust this guy?”

“We have to. He’s all we’ve got,” said Broker.

“And you told him everything?”

“I left out the dead guys in Wisconsin,” said Broker.

“What dead guys?” asked Trin, swallowing.

“Jimmy shot this one guy Cyrus had tailing us. She got the other one,” said Broker.

“Cyrus knows you’re after him,” Trin said fatally.

“It’s more accurate to say that Cyrus is after us. He knows by now that Tuna told us where it is. He also thinks I’m trying to cash in on his treasure hunt.”

“Aren’t you?” asked Trin.

“The way I see it happening, the Vietnamese government will wind up with most of it. But we deserve a little for our trouble,” said Broker.

“Is there anyone else here with you?” asked Trin.

“Just us,” said Broker.

“And you have come halfway across the world to catch Cyrus LaPorte, a famous American, for looking for buried gold?”

“Look,” said Nina. “I’m here because my dad took the blame for the gold incident. And Jimmy told us there’s evidence on my dad’s remains that proves Cyrus ordered the robbery. I thought you were friends with my father.”

Trin ignored her and paced three steps, turned and paced back. “Cyrus used to be a very thorough man. Assume he had the airport watched. Possibly with the assistance of the Vietnamese police. Assume he knows we’re sitting in this room right now. We must stay in public places until we make a break for the countryside. Cyrus could try anything,” said Trin in nervous rapid-fire delivery.

“Listen to him all of a sudden,” said Nina.

“Please sit down, Miss Pryce,” said Trin in a coiled voice. His face became flat and cold as a stone adder. Nina’s color rose. Broker smiled.

“What’s so funny?” she demanded.

“That’s the warm cuddly Trin I remember,” said Broker.

Trin did not smile. “This discussion may already have cost me whatever future I have. You arrive and in two hours you put my neck on the block. Please sit down, Nina.”

Nina reached in her pocket, pulled out a slip of paper, and extended her hand toward the hotel phone on the table next to the bed. “Sorry, Broker. I’m calling the MIA office to line up a little assistance, U.S. type.”

Trin leaned over in a smooth motion and a slim gravity knife opened in his hand. He swept up the phone cord with the blade and held it captive. “You try to call and I’m out that door. You’ll never see me again.”

“Jesus,” muttered Nina, stepping back.

Trin closed the knife, put it back in his pocket, and smiled, no longer coldly, now a little drunkenly, at Nina. “The MIA office is integrated at every level with the Ministry of Missing Persons. Their phones are tapped. They are not allowed to drive their own vehicles. They are under surveillance . Anything you tell the MIA office you tell the Vietnamese police.”

“He’s right, Nina,” said Broker. “We can’t trust the army. They screwed you, remember?”

“Like you screwed Cyrus’s wife?” she said sarcastically.

“I did not,” shot back Broker.

“Ah, another complication,” said Trin philosophically. “You two are in love.”

“You’re drunk,” said Nina.

“I drink,” qualified Trin. “I speak English and French fluently. I can read one thousand Chinese characters. When I was twenty-five I commanded a Viet Cong battalion. At twenty-nine I commanded a South Vietnamese regiment. Then I spent five years in a reeducation camp being lectured by morons. In the camp I ate frogs and bugs. All my life I have had this problem of seeing both sides simultaneously. For that, and other reasons, I drink.” He lurched from his chair, grabbed the TV remote, and snapped on the television.

“Now what?” Nina was not happy.

“The BBC world business report will quote the price of gold in New York, Hong Kong, and Zurich. It’s a logical question,” said Trin.

Nina flopped down in one of the chairs and folded her arms across her chest. Broker sat on the bed with his elbows resting heavily on his knees. He felt sealed in the hotel room.

Veiled in air conditioning. Outside he could feel the pressure of three million people, almost all of them poor, most of them touched roughly by war and scarcity. And the only avenue he had into this strange capital and into the countryside beyond was this bitter, and now drunken, man whose thoughts he couldn’t fathom.

And he wondered how many minds in Hanoi were sorting out their anxieties in English at this precise instant. Perhaps a thousand? He struggled to comprehend the alien process going on in the surrounding ocean of Vietnamese minds.

Like what the fuck was Trin thinking right now?

With Nina he had a pretty good idea. He could read her body language, her facial expression; he had some history. He’d even been inside her body. And maybe he was a little bit in love with her.

She’s sitting there thinking: Am I stuck with two men I can’t trust ?

Nina unfolded her arms and got up. “Phil, I want to talk to you alone.” Broker pushed himself up.

“Don’t worry. He didn’t show it to me,” said Trin.