Peter Straub - Koko

‘I understand, Tina,’ Koko said to the little anxious man in the picture.

The article said that Saigon served some of the most varied and authentic Vietnamese food in New York. The clientele was young, hip, and noisy. The duck was ‘heaven-sent’ and every soup was ‘divine’.

‘Just tell me this, Tina,’ Koko said. ‘What is this shit about “divine”? You think soup can be divine? ’

Tina blotted his brow with a crisp white hankerchief and turned back into a picture.

And there it was, the address and the telephone number, in the soft cool whisper of italics.

A man sat down beside Koko in the fourth row of the first-class compartment, glanced sideways, and then buckled himself into his seat. Koko closed his eyes and snow fell from a deep cold heaven onto a layer of ice hundreds of feet deep. Far off, dim in the snowy air, ranged the broken teeth of glaciers. God hovered invisibly over the frozen landscape, panting with impatient rage.

You know what you know. Forty, forty-one years old. Thick fluffy richboy-blond hair, and thin brown glasses, heavy face. Heavy butcher’s hands holding a day-old copy of the New York Times. Six-hundred-dollar suit.

The plane taxied down the runway and lifted itself smoothly into the air, the envious mouths and fingers fell away, and the jet’s nose pointed west, toward San Francisco. The man beside Koko is a rich businessman with butcher’s hands.

A black-naped tern flies across the face of the Singapore one-dollar note. A black band like a burglar’s mask covers its eyes, and behind it hovers a spinning chaos of intertwined circles twisting together like the strands of a cyclone. So the bird agitates its wings in terror, and darkness overtakes the land.

Mr Lucas? Mr Bundy?

Banking, the man says. Investment banking. We do a lot of work in Singapore.

Me too.

Hell of a nice place, Singapore. And if you’re in the money business, it’s hot, and I mean hot.

One of the hot new places.

‘Bobby,’ the stewardess asks. ‘what would you like to drink?’

Vodka, ice-cold.

‘Mr Dickerson?’

Mr Dickerson will have a Miller High Life.

In Nam we used to say: Vodka martini on the rocks, hold the vermouth, hold the olive, hold the rocks.

Oh, you were never in Nam?

Sounds funny, but you missed a real experience. Not that I’d go back, Christ no. You were probably on the other side, weren’t you? No offense, we’re all on the same side now, God works in funny ways. But I did all my demonstrating with an M-16, hah hah.

Bobby Ortiz is the name. I’m in the travel industry.

Bill? Pleased to meet you, Bill. Yes, it’s a long flight, might as well be friends.

Sure, I’ll have another vodka, and give another beer to my old pal Bill here.

Ah, I was in I Corps, near the DMZ, up around Hue.

You want to see a trick I learned in Nam? Good – I’ll save it, though, it’ll be better later, you’ll enjoy it, I’ll do it later.

Bobby and Bill Dickerson ate their meals in companionable silence. Clocks spun in no-time.

‘You ever gamble?’ Koko asked.

Dickerson glanced at him, his fork halfway to his mouth. ‘Now and then. Only a little.’

‘Interested in a little wager?’

‘Depends on the wager.’ Dickerson popped the forkful of chicken into his mouth.

‘Oh, you won’t want to do it. It’s too strange. Let’s forget it.’

‘Come on,’ Dickerson said. ‘You brought this up, don’t chicken out now.’

Oh, Koko liked Billy Dickerson. Nice blue linen suit, nice thin glasses, nice big Rolex. Billy Dickerson played racquet-ball, Billy Dickerson wore a sweatband across his forehead and had a hell of a good backhand, real aggressor.

‘Well, I guess being on a plane reminded me of this. It’s something we used to do in Nam.’

Definite look of interest on good old Billy’s part.

‘When we’d come into an LZ.’

‘Landing Zone?’

‘You got it. LZ’s were all different, see? Some were popping, and some were like dropping into the middle of a church picnic in Nebraska. So we’d make the Fatality Wager.’

‘Like you’d bet on how many people would get killed? Buy the farm, like you guys used to say?’

Buy the farm. Oh, you sweetheart.

‘More on if someone would get killed. How much money you carrying in your wallet?’

‘More than usual,’ Billy said.

‘Five, six hundred?’

‘Less than that.’

‘Let’s make it two hundred. If somebody dies at the San Francisco airport while we’re in the terminal, you pay me two hundred. If not, I’ll give you one hundred.’

‘You’ll give me two to one on someone dying in the terminal while we’re going through customs, getting our bags, stuff like that?’

‘That’s the deal.’

‘I’ve never seen anyone kick off in an airport,’ Billy said, shaking his head, smiling. He was going to take the bet.

‘I have,’ Koko said. ‘Upon occasion.’

‘Well, you got yourself a bet,’ Billy said, and they shook hands.

After a time Lady Dachau pulled down the movie screen. Most of the cabin lights went out, Billy Dickerson closed Megatrends , tilted his seat way back, and went to sleep.

Koko asked Lady Dachau for another vodka and settled back to watch the movie.

The good James Bond saw Koko as soon as he came on the screen. (The bad James Bond was a sleepy Englishman who looked a little bit like Peters, the medic who had been killed in a helicopter crash. The good James Bond looked a little like Tina Pumo.) He walked straight up to the camera and said, ‘You’re fine, you have nothing to worry about, everybody does what they have to do, that’s what war teaches you.’ He gave Koko a little half-smile. ‘You did well with your new friend, son. I noticed that. Remember now –’

Ready on the right? Ready on the left? Lock and load.

Good afternoon, gentlemen, and welcome to the Republic of South Vietnam. It is presently fifteen-twenty, November three, 1967. You will be taken to the Long Binh Replacement Center, where you will receive your individual unit assignments.

Remember the darkness of the tents. Remember the metal lockers. Remember the mosquito netting on the T-bars. Remember the muddy floors. Remember how the tents were like dripping caves.

Gentlemen, you are part of a great killing machine.

This is your weapon. It may save your life.

Nobility, grace, gravity.

Koko saw an elephant striding down a civilized European avenue. The elephant was buttoned into an elegant green suit and tipped his hat to all the charming ladies. Koko smiled at James Bond, who jumped out of his fancy car and looked Koko straight in the eye, and in quiet clear italics said, Time to face the elephant again, Koko.

A long time later they stood in the aisle, holding their carry-on baggage and waiting for Lady Dachau to open the door. At eye level directly before Koko hung the jacket of Billy Dickerson’s blue linen suit, all correctly webbed and criss-crossed with big easy-going, casual-looking wrinkles that made you want to be wrinkled yourself, as easy and casual as that. When Koko glanced up he saw Billy Dickerson’s blond hair ruffling out over the perfect collar of the linen suit. A pleasant smell of soap and aftershave emanated from good old Bill, who had disappeared into the forward toilet for nearly half an hour that morning while no-time turned into San Francisco time.

‘Hey,’ Dickerson, said, looking over his shoulder at Koko, ‘if you want to call off that bet it’s okay with me, Bobby. Pretty crazy.’

‘Indulge me,’ Koko said.

Lady Dachau got the signal she was waiting for and opened the door.

They walked into a corridor of cool fire. Angels with flaming swords waved them forward. Koko heard distant mortar fire, a sign that nothing truly serious was happening: the Tin Man had just sent out a few boys to use up some of this month’s quota of the taxpayers’ money. The cool fire, frozen into patterns like stone, wavered beneath their feet. This was America again. The angels with flaming swords gave flaming smiles.