Paul Theroux: Saint Jack

“AND GET THIS—” Shuck rattled on, itemizing Andy Gump’s waywardness with such gloating and sanctimonious fluency he could have been lying in his teeth. Still, the image of the man, whose proper name was Andrew Maddox, rank major general, was a familiar one to me — so familiar that twice I told Shuck I had heard enough to antagonize me: it was not the man I was after, but the job. I did not need convincing; my mind was made up. This effort of mine, a last chance to convert my fortunes in a kind of thrusting, mindless betrayal, had required a number of willful deletions in my heart.

But Shuck was unstoppable. He ranted, pretending disgust, though the man he described was of a size that every detail, however villainous, enhanced. Shuck’s accusations were spoken as the kind of envious praise I always thought of when I overheard someone in a bar retailing the story of a resourceful poisoner.

“You name a way to make a fast buck, and he’s tried it,” said Shuck. And he added in the same tone of admiring outrage that General Maddox had a yacht, smoked plump cigars, sported silk shirts, went deep-sea fishing off Cap St. Jacques, and stayed in expensive hotels.

“I know the type,” I said.

The stories were not new — the fellers at Paradise Gardens had told me most of them without naming the villain, and Shuck had alluded to him before. But while I had taken all of it seriously, none of it had given me pause. I had lived long enough to know how to translate this bewilderment. I heard it as I heard most human sounds — Leigh’s pastoral retirement plans, Yardley’s jokes, Gunstone’s war stories, my old openers ( Years ago —and I once knew a feller —), and especially the exultant woman’s moan of pleasure and pain, half sigh, half scream, while I knelt furiously reverent between her haunches — all this I heard as a form of prayer.

Vietnam stories throbbed with contradiction, but were as prayerful and pious as any oratorio. Like the tales of murder and incest associated with Borgia popes — horror stories to compliment the faith by supposing to prove the durable virtue of the Church — the song and dance about corruption in Vietnam never intended to belittle the bombings and torturings or the fact of any army’s oafish occupation (the colonial setup, with Maddox as viceroy), but were meant as a curious sidelight on a justly fought war in which Shuck maintained, and so did some of the fellers, we had already been rightfully victorious: “But human nature being what it is—”

“I’ll tell you another thing about him,” said Shuck. He screwed up his face. “He’s got a finger in the B-girl rackets.”

“So he can’t be all bad,” I said. The Kachang , turning to port, pitched me close to Shuck’s face. “Ed, I’ve got a whole arm in those!”

“He’s a general in the U.S. Army,” said Shuck. “You’re not.”

Shuck then set out to describe what he took to be the darkest side of General Maddox, his operating a chain of Saigon brothels, and his involvement with the less profitable skin-trade sidelines — which I knew to be inescapable — wholesaling massages, pornography, exhibitions; forging passports, nodding to con men, and smuggling warm bodies over frontiers — for the servicemen. Without wishing to, Shuck convinced me that, murder apart, this general was a more successful version of myself, his charitable carnal felony a fancier and better-executed business than “Kinda hot,” the meat run, or Dunroamin. I hadn’t bargained on this; warm wretchedness thawed my resolve.

“I don’t get it,” I said. “Your objection to this feller is that he’s ungallant.”

“He’s a creep,” said Shuck. “A disgrace.”

“Tut tut, you’re flattering yourself,” I said, and went on, “Still, he’s no stranger to me. If you called him a hero I’d find him ten times harder to understand.”

“That’s what you say.”

“Heroes aren’t my department,” I said. “You want to end the war, so you try to unmask the villain. Me, I’d unmask the hero — he’s your feller. Especially war heroes. If I was in charge I’d have them shot.”

“You’ve got some screwy ideas,” said Shuck.

“I haven’t had your advantages,” I said. “See, I don’t know very much about virtue.”

“ I do,” said Shuck.

“Good for you,” I said. “Virtue is the distance that separates you from your favorite villain, right? It’s an annual affair — every year there’s a new American villain. Ever notice that? Virtuous people like you elect him, and then stone him to death. It’s a sign of something.”

“Maybe it’s because we’re puritanical,” said Shuck.

“I was going to say bankrupt, and pretty fickle.”

Shuck gave me a sour laugh. “So Maddox is an angel.”

“Maddox is a hood, obviously,” I said. “But you think he has a complicated motive. I know lots of fellers like him who behave that way because they’re middle-aged and have bad teeth.”

“Suppose he really is evil,” said Shuck. “Think what a service you’ll be doing by nailing his ass to the wall.”

“Don’t give me that,” I said.

“You know what I think?” said Shuck. “I think you don’t want to do this.”

“I don’t always want what I need,” I said. “Why else would I have so little?”

“You’re losing your nerve.”

“Only when you try to justify this lousy scheme.”

“Who’s justifying? I told you the whole thing stinks.”

“Now you’re talking!” I said.

Not a job — an exploit, blackmail, an irrational crime with an apt rotten name; it was what I needed, the guarantee of some evil magic I didn’t want to understand. Like a casual flutter at the Turf Club with an unpromising pony, and then a big payoff; the single coin in the fruit machine for the bonus jackpot; anything for astonishment, no questions asked. Then I understood my fantasies — they were a handy preparation for making me bold; little suggestions made my tattooed bulk jump to oblige. As a young man I often dreamed of a black sedan pulling up beside me as I sauntered down an empty street, the door swinging open, and the exquisite lady at the wheel saying softly, “Get in.”

My fantasies provided something else: method, and a means of expression.

So: “ Follow that car ,” I said to the taxi driver at the airport. The fantasy command, immediately suspicious to any native English speaker, I could use in Singapore. I had wormed a copy of the passenger list from May Lim, a fruit fly turned ground hostess. From behind a pillar near the Customs and Immigration section, not far from the spot where I had first recognized Leigh, I watched the general arrive — a tanned, well-shod, barrel-chested man who walked with the easy responsible swing of a man accustomed to empty hands. He strode past me, followed by a laden porter, and got into a waiting taxi. Now, in my own taxi, I was saying, “Don’t lose him— keep on his tail. ”

At the Belvedere I stood next to him while he checked in. He signed the register with a flourish, then straightened up. He untangled the springy wire bows of his military sunglasses from his ears and glanced around the lobby: that look of lust, the prompt glee of the man about to deliver a speech. I caught his eye.

“Kinda hot.”

He agreed. “Muggy.”

“This way, sir,” said a costumed porter to him. He said, “See you around,” and overtook the porter with long scissor steps.

I scribbled my name in the register, noting that Maddox had omitted his rank, that he was in room 913 and was staying for a week.

“Here I am again,” I said to the Chinese clerk. “Remember me?”