Chuck Logan - The Price of Blood

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.

Trin’s battalion died on that tower during Tet, left behind to burn in the bombs. That’s when Trin quit the revolution. And when he discovered that the Communists had rounded up three thousand of Hue’s intellectuals and officials, and their families, including his own father and mother, and marched them into the jungle. Beat them to death with shovels after forcing them to dig their own graves.

My Lai had been worth a Pulitzer. The Hue massacre never made the front pages.

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.