The Price of Blood Part 48

Across the street, "Hotel California" started to play again.

They went into the room and Trin called the desk and requested a six o'clock wake-up call. They were asleep the minute their heads. .h.i.t the pillows.

At six the telephone woke them. Broker, cinder-eyed, stumbled to the bathroom and climbed in the tub and sprayed away grime with tepid water from the hand-held shower. He rubbed his chin whiskers. No shaving kit. He put on the T-shirt Lola had given him at the citadel. It was the only article of clean clothing in sight. He was glad for his short hair, which he combed with his fingers.

At six-thirty they split up. Trin took the van to scout the villa again during Broker's meeting with LaPorte. He'd pick Broker up in front of the restaurant at eight sharp. Then they'd hit the villa.

Broker joined the strollers on Le Loi. A cyclo driver rose lizard-like from his cab and approached. "Buddha cigarette?" he offered in a casual voice.

"Didi mau-f.u.c.k off," said Broker. Apparently smoking gra.s.s had survived the revolution. The disco across the street was still playing the same d.a.m.n song. Maybe it was the new Communist anthem. He hailed a cyclo. The driver nodded when he said La Cafard and they set off.

Hue was still a city of bicycles and some of the old Le Loi ambience lingered; except, now, the clouds of female students on their bikes were dingy from exhaust from all the motorbikes. Now the bursts of flowering frangipani, flamboyants, and the tall old tamarinds squeezed between the new billboards. The same bleached Colonial buildings lined the avenue like the mustard and ivory bones of France and somewhere in the city, according to Trin, the last Vietnamese mandarin sat in the dark behind shuttered windows and chain-smoked and guarded his dusty Imperial mementos.

The cyclo driver's st.u.r.dy legs propelled Broker beneath gaudy neon tiaras strung from light poles. Across the river, the ramparts of the flag tower were decked in more lights that were layered like a wedding cake. The lights popped like flash cubes for the eyes and blunted the dragon teeth in the sunset forming over the Annamite Mountains.

Rock and roll pumped from the cafes and a group of teenage girls strutted to the beat in designer jeans. Some of them wore red pins with little yellow stars.

The rosy early evening air was sticky as cotton candy and Hue swung its a.s.s in American denim and sweated to American music and Broker, way past irony, stared straight ahead as he trundled down the midway of Coney Island Communism.

67.

CYRUS LAPORTE WAITED ON THE GANGPLANK TO LA Cafard dressed in a beige desert shirt, khakis, and Teva sandals over cotton socks. He smelled of talc and shaving lotion and he had the red bandanna tied around his tanned throat. He was smiling. Lola was not with him.

"So what's going to be, another tantrum. Or can we talk?" asked Cyrus.

"Talk," said Broker. His shoulders slumped. He didn't have to act exhausted.

"Good. Let's have a drink at the bar," said Cyrus. "They resurrected some of the old decor as part of the open door policy." They both pulled up stools. "Try a Huda beer, they bottle it here in town," he said.

Behind the bar three mildewed movie posters were framed under gla.s.s. They harkened back to the war, when the old restaurant had been on the riverbank and was an American haunt. Cafard was an expression the French had used to convey being far from home in all this heat. The Blues.

The first poster advertised The Quiet American with Audie Murphy. Then came Marlon Brando in The Ugly American. The third had John Wayne with his love handles on parade in the Green Berets.

Cyrus raised his gla.s.s to the posters and proposed an old toast: "From quiet to ugly to stupid in one generation." He took a sip of beer and glanced around. "Remember how Gaston, the old proprietor, liked the movies. He used to say 'America is a movie the rest of the world watches in the dark.'" Cyrus LaPorte smiled. "Not anymore."

Broker stared into his gla.s.s of beer. They were getting ready to kill him, and Trin and Nina. Maybe Lola was going to help. Maybe she was in harm's way herself. Maybe Trin was being bought off by Cyrus and Lola. Trin was right about one thing: They all had ropes around their necks. Apparently LaPorte thought he had the longest rope, so he was indulging his charming raconteur side.

Where was Bevode?

"How did you get onto this stuff? Jimmy wouldn't say," Broker asked finally.

"Pure accident," said Cyrus. "In seventy-three an ARVN captain brought me a gold ingot he'd found in the river bed near the mouth of the Perfume. He wanted help getting his family to the States.

"We spent the next year combing the river location that captain gave me, just Jimmy and I. And we found it. Maybe when the French looted the citadel one ship sunk, got buried when the river changed course. Or maybe the Vietnamese had hidden it. Who knows?

"We dug it out and crated it, box by box. Bringing in a boat would involve other people. But I could get a helicopter. With Jimmy, and a couple of Air America guys I trusted, I was going to sling it out. Hide it in Laos. Then activity in the sector picked up. We had to move it. We snuck it into Hue. Then we disguised it as an ammo pallet. I was in Danang arranging for the helicopter when the Commies came down and took the city."

LaPorte pursed his lips. "So I was only taking back what was mine by right of discovery. On hindsight, my method was regrettable."

Perhaps he meant that as an apology. Broker used it as a cue. He let his shoulders sag, ground his teeth, and gave in.

"Can you keep Bevode under control?"

Cyrus toyed with his gla.s.s. "Can you keep Nina Pryce quiet?"

The questions pa.s.sed each other in the soft evening air. Unanswered. LaPorte said, "Meet me at seven in the morning, in front of the Century Hotel. I'll be sitting there alone, in the car with Nina. She gets out. You get in."

"A trade," said Broker.

"That way if she talks-"

"If she doesn't, what happens to me?"

"That depends. The girl is a problem. But maybe we can work it out. Cheer up. You might wind up liking hanging out with us."

They ordered coffee.

"So how'd Jimmy do it?" asked Cyrus.

Broker shrugged. "The chopper set down on the coast and they stashed the load in a ravine, blew a small hillside to cover it, and took off again."

Cyrus's pale ice eyes did not waver. He didn't care. Nothing mattered except getting closer to the gold.

"It's worth a lot more than its weight, isn't it?" said Broker.

LaPorte nodded. "You have no idea. There are Cham artifacts mixed in with the gold that are a thousand years old. They're priceless. The trick is to keep it off the market, release it bit by bit to museums all over the world. That's how you make the money. What about the bars I found in the water?"

Broker said, "Jimmy caused the crash at sea. The other crew members drowned because they were weighted down with gold souvenirs."

"Jimmy always was tricky," said Cyrus in an appraising voice. "I could never get into his banking records. That was the key." Cyrus nodded.

"Jimmy thought it should be returned to the Vietnamese."

"Big of him," said Cyrus.

"I thought so, too," said Broker.

"What about Trin?"

"Trin's screwed here. But he went through the reeducation camps, that makes him eligible to immigrate to America if he has a sponsor. I promised to help him get out," Broker ad-libbed.

"So why'd you bring the girl?" Cyrus was moving right along.

"Once I found out what we were on to I thought it was best to keep her close."

LaPorte nodded. "Loose cannon."

Broker paused. "One last question. You've already got it all: wealth, position, a reputation. Why take the chance on losing it all? It's not like you need it."

LaPorte chuckled. "It's not just gold to be exchanged on the market. It's a national treasure. It's going to make my reputation."

"There'll be an international stink."

LaPorte drummed his fingers on the bar. "What the h.e.l.l, whatever they write on my tombstone, it won't be: He showed up on time for work every day."

Broker raised an eyebrow.

"Somebody owes me," LaPorte said with conviction. Some of that old flintlock look came into his eyes. "All the time I put in here. h.e.l.l, I would have used that gold to keep fighting from the hills."

Maybe he really believed that once. Maybe he still did. It didn't matter.

Cyrus LaPorte reached across the bar and took one of Broker's cigarettes. He studied the inscription on Broker's lighter. Then he lit the cigarette, inhaled, exhaled, and studied the smoldering tobacco.

Over his shoulders the clouds, at sunset, looked like a forest fire in the mountains. Sampans with groups of traditional musicians cruised on the Perfume River. Voices and the tremble of stringed instruments carried on the breeze. The boatmen placed paper lanterns, illuminated by candles, in the water. They bobbed in the soft, warm night.

"Nineteen sixty-nine," Cyrus ruminated. "I flew back home between tours. Braniff flight out of old Saigon. We were coming in, making the approach on Oakland.

"Pilot announced that we were coming up on the coastline of the States. Suddenly it became silent on that airplane. And the pilot took some liberties; he swung that big bird, banking left and right so everybody on both sides could get a look of the coast..."

Cyrus took a deep drag on the cigarette, screwed up his lips and blew out the smoke.

"The stewardesses knew. They must of been pros on those flights. They all took their posts in the aisles and every one of them looked down those rows of young guys who were wearing that green with the red dirt fade. They could read the shoulder patches...see the CIBs."

He curled his lower lip. "Nina Pryce thinks she deserves a CIB. h.e.l.l, there was more combat experience on that one airplane than in the whole G.o.dd.a.m.n Gulf War. Those stews knew they were hauling infantry. All those young American men, sitting up, looking straight ahead. Absolutely quiet. Polite.

"And every one of those women began to cry. Silent men, crying women standing at their posts like statues. I pity those girls for the weight they carried. They were sin eaters for the whole d.a.m.n nation. And the plane landed and n.o.body would get out. n.o.body moved from their seats."

Cyrus lowered his voice. "There'd been this incident, see. A mother of a boy killed in the war had greeted a returning flight at Oakland, right out on the runway. According to the story she'd shot the first guy who got off that plane. It was really much more than that. It was...everything.

"Well, I had the rank so I had to get off that plane and walk around. Make sure it was safe. Then I come back in and I go down that aisle and I talked to those kids, told them it was all right...each of them. Face to face."

Cyrus LaPorte let the cigarette drop, like the greatness that had once been at his fingertips. "But it wasn't all right, was it? I never commanded American troops again. From then on I advised the Vietnamese." He ground the b.u.t.t under his sandal. His pale eyes drifted over toward the lights strung on the citadel. "Before your time, son."

Broker stood up and said, "Thanks for the beer. Seven tomorrow morning." For that moment only, they exchanged oddly sincere smiles.

What might have been.

He left Cyrus LaPorte sitting at the bar, staring through the floating lanterns into the past. Broker crossed the gangplank and sprinted across the dark parking lot. The van was waiting. Trin held open the door. He dived in.

68.

"SO?" ASKED TRIN.

"Let's do it," said Broker.

Hue was a small place. It was a five-minute drive to the villa. Trin turned into the shadow of the lot next door. They got out and crept to the hedge and waited. After a few minutes, Save the Whales and another man, with the rugged build of a salvage diver, came out on the front steps. A third guy joined them. He wasn't wearing a shirt. Broker recognized the anemic, sunken-chest muscularity, the red hair.

"You hear that car?" said one of them.

"It's a street, n.u.m.b.n.u.t.s, cars go by all the time."

"I think I'll stick around," said Virgil.

"You idiot, want to be in there? After what you did? Let Lola clean her up, for Chrissake."

"Bevode wouldn't want me to leave them alone, you understand."

Broker surged on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet, hearing the punk mimic his older brother's voice. Virgil turned and went back in the door. s.h.i.t. Broker started to go. Trin held him back until LaPorte's two men ambled off the steps, headed for the gate, and disappeared down the driveway. A moment later an engine turned over and a car drove away.

Trin clamped his hand on Broker's forearm. "It could be bad in there. Be prepared for anything. And no blood. It'll take time to clean up. We have to take the guard with us. Get rid of him in the countryside."

Broker didn't hear. He was through the hedge. Moving with silent springing steps. He mounted the steps where the Cajuns had been a moment before. The double front doors were open. An office was tucked under the porch to the right and was empty. There was a living room area with a couch and two chairs. Beyond that a long dinner table. Two rooms to a side. The second door on the left was 102. It was open. He could see Lola LaPorte with her hands on her hips, dressed in white. Her chin jutted combatively, furious.

"Virgil, G.o.ddammit. Look what you did. I have to get her cleaned up to travel in the morning. Now get out of here."

"Hey, I just want to watch." Virgil's smirky nasal voice.

Broker had a bad moment going through the door. Bevode? Then Virgil looked up and Broker was past Lola and hit him like a linebacker.

Virgil's red hair bobbed and his skinny white ribs convulsed as he flew back across the room. He was barefoot, shirtless. The b.u.t.tons on his jeans weren't done up right. Nina sprawled on one of the two beds, carelessly covered by a sheet that did not entirely cover her bare right hip. Her mouth was open and her eyes rolled in their sockets.

Virgil backpedaled, trying to find his balance. His stoned popcorn punk grin stayed on his sallow face as Broker moved right in on him. Broker, the street student of anatomy, calculated at onrushing synapse speed, what would stun, what would cripple, and what would kill slowly. His right fist smashed deep into Virgil's throat like a pile driver seeking the hyoid bone at the base of the tongue. There was a soft cartilaginous snap.

Virgil traveled horizontally through the air, went over the bed and crashed into the wall. Without breaking stride Broker skirted the bed and caught Virgil as he flopped off the wall with a pinpoint kick, again in the throat, that would have scored a field goal.

Broker spun and realized that Trin was trying to hold him back and he was swinging Trin through the air like a kid's game. "No blood," hissed Trin.

Virgil's dirty hazel eyes were cranked wide and he had both hands at his throat clawing at the knot of mangled tendon and muscle that was shutting down his windpipe.

"Jesus Christ," muttered Broker, going to the bed, throwing back the sheet. Nina's skin had the pallor of a trout dragged in the mud. Her left ear was red with festered pus. Her hips lay in a stale stain of urine. Cigarette burns dotted her chest and made little circles of ash in the copper curls of her pubic hair.

The other earring was still pierced through her right ear.

"Oh my G.o.d," someone said. Not Trin. Broker turned and saw Lola supporting herself, knees staggered, one hand on the doorjamb. "That poor kid."

"We knew it could be bad," said Trin as he came out of the bathroom with a wet washcloth and efficiently wiped Nina down. The cool cloth revived her a little. She moaned and her eyelids fluttered. Trin grabbed a bottle of prescription capsules on the bedside table. "We have to take this," he said.