Chuck Logan - The Price of Blood

“What’s to stop me from going to the local cops and blowing this thing wide open?” said Broker.

Bevode grinned, his hands busy with the tablecloth and spoon. Then he extended the spoon across the table and tipped it into Broker’s soup.

The earlobe had been severed cleanly with something very sharp.

The silver and jade earring nestled in the bowl, in a swirl of noodles. The pale flap of skin attached to the jewelry was slightly sunburned. There were freckles on it. Beads of drying blood melted to crimson mist in the hot broth.

“You were saying?” said Bevode. He dug into his soup and began eating noisily.

Broker’s stomach tightened. Sweat wormed on his upper lip. The wave of nausea piggybacked on a blind rage and rose to his sternum. He started to spring. A restraining forearm crossed Broker’s chest like an iron bar. Trin’s face was a study in napalmed ivory-two thousand years of perfect hatred.

Bevode appeared unconcerned. Between spoonfuls of the soup, he asked, “So where is it?”

“You touch her again,” said Trin, “you all die.”

“Go play in traffic,” said Bevode, irritated. “I didn’t come all around the world to talk so some itty-bitty yellow nigger.” His lazy hazel eyes swung to Broker.

“You heard him,” said Broker. Calm now.

Bevode shook his head and put down his spoon. “Looky here, goddammit. I got my faults. But my cokehead little brother-well, there’s a word for guys like him. Slips my mind at the moment but basically he hates women, you understand. Something to do with him never fully accepting the idea that babies come from the same place he sticks his dick.” He paused. “Won’t be pretty.”

Then he tipped the bowl up and scooped a last mouthful. “And if you go for the cops, we’ll know. That’s just another phone call. Cyrus is wired in tight with this crowd.” He paused and pushed his bowl aside. “You, ah, going to finish your soup?” he asked.

Broker stared at him.

“Didn’t think so.” Bevode reached across the table and curled his knobby hand around the bowl and pulled it toward him. Casually he plucked the flap of flesh and the jewelry from the bowl and deposited it on the clean, starched white tablecloth in front of Broker. A tiny thread of blood dissolved in the spreading soup stain. Broker couldn’t move. Boulders crowded his lungs. Lava spilled through his heart.

“Jesus Christ, you savage,” said Bevode indignantly. “That’s your girlfriend there. Least you can do is give her a fuckin’ Christian burial.”

Slowly, Broker folded the earlobe and the earring in his napkin and tucked it in his pocket.

Slurping, Bevode finished the soup and smacked his lips. “Not bad. I might even consider eating her pussy.” He grinned. “After I cook it a little.”

He stood up abruptly, fished his comb from his pocket, and ran it through his hair. He smoothed a hand over his ear. “Like I said. Take some time. Think it over on the train. Oh yeah, we know about that too. It’s Tuesday. You got till noon the day after tomorrow. That’ll be Thursday. We don’t hear from you, we’ll feed her to Virgil. We’ll be in the Century Hotel in Hue…down upon the Perfume River,” he sang, then winked. “Ring us up when you hit town.”

Bevode Fret ambled from the restaurant and paused in the lobby at the chair where the Aussie was slouched, mouth open, head tipped, sound asleep. Very delicately he removed one of the chopsticks from his pocket and inserted it in the giant’s upturned ear. Then he gave it a casual shove with his open palm. The Aussie lurched and bellowed as his eyes popped open and his huge hands pawed at his ear. Smiling serenely, Bevode strolled away, unconcerned. The stunned doorman trembled and smiled and started to open the door. Bevode pushed him roughly aside, heaved open the door, and towered off into the crowd of Hanoians.

“I’m going to kill that guy,” said Broker.

“No you’re not,” said Trin calmly.

Broker braced his hip against the bucking wall of the lavatory and aimed a stream of urine at the blue enamel French pissoir set into the dirty linoleum floor. The train lurched and he hit his shoe.

He still had the piece of Nina’s ear in his pocket. He had a headache. They were three hours out of Hanoi, traveling south on narrow-gauge prewar French track behind a Romanian locomotive.

The Australian tour from Air Vietnam was on board, having a party in the hall. Broker gathered that they had been to a snake village outside Hanoi that afternoon and had dined on cobra.

“Archie ate the fucking blood,” crowed a feminine voice down the hall.

“Drank it. With a generous squirt of rice whiskey.”

“Now he’s virile.”

“Poison dick.”

Broker pushed through the revelers and eased into his compartment. Trin sat on one of the beds chatting in French with the young couple, Swiss backpackers, who shared the berth. The woman had a tour book open on her knees. Trin handed Broker a huge unlabeled bottle full of clear liquid.

“Snake wine, a gift from the Aussies,” said Trin. “Go ahead. It’ll help you sleep.”

Broker took a slug of the concoction that tasted like fuel oil mixed with formaldehyde. A shadow fell across the compartment and the hulking Aussie filled the doorway. If his ear bothered him he didn’t show it. Apparently snake wine and cobra blood had given him the gift of speech.

“Hi,” he said in a sleazy high-pitched voice, plopping down on the bed across from the Swiss lady and oblivious to everyone else in the cramped space. He began pulling out a thick wad of dong, Australian currency and dollars. “I was wondering if I could buy Sheila here for the night?”

The young woman reddened and drew closer to her shocked companion. Trin exhaled. Broker took another slug of snake wine.

“You won’t regret it,” said the Aussie, leering. “I’m unforgettable. Whadya say…”

Broker reached over and cuffed him with the bottle on the ear that Bevode had pounded the chopstick in. “I think you better leave,” he said.

Pain moved slowly through the dinosaur nerves. The Aussie vaguely tendered the ear with a massive left hand. “Who do you think you are?” he muttered.

“The Lone Ranger.” Broker pointed to Trin. “This is my Indian companion, Tonto.” Trin helpfully flicked out his gravity knife and smiled.

“Fuckin’ Yank,” mumbled the Aussie. He staggered to his feet and felt his way back into the hall where the party slowed down to a groan to mark his passage.

The Swiss couple thanked Broker and scurried out of sight into the upper berths. Trin and Broker sat, silent, rocking to the motion of the train. They passed the bottle back and forth. They lit cigarettes.

They’d been over it all for hours, waiting for the train. Broker said it again, “We have to involve the police.”

“No. We get off at Quang Tri City, pick up the van, get some presents, and pay a visit to the militia post at Cua Viet. They’ll be our reaction force.”

Broker, gloomy captive to police methodology, made the routine assumption. “She could be dead already.”

“No.” Trin was obstinate. “She is part of the barter. We barter for the gold. I am good at bartering.”

“Look, I can understand you wanting to keep this in your little circle of influence. But it’s suddenly got pretty fuckin’ serious.”

Trin whispered. “The gold, Phil. If it’s there, we can take some, hide it on the boat. It’s Tuesday. We meet Cyrus at noon on Thursday-”

“You saw that guy. It’s her life.”

“It’s my life too,” Trin erupted. “You just fly in and create this…situation in my life. You can fly away, too. Americans are good at that. Making a big mess and then flying away. What about me? I’m stuck.”