The Sixth Man Page 17

  Green with red spots, my new friend clung to the wall as if he had glue on his feet. He didn’t. I knew it because I used to collect the little lizards. It was his toes and not some kind of adhesive liquid squirted out that kept him attached. The explanation was called the van der Waals force, named after some Dutch scientist who had nothing better to do than watch geckos and create mathematical equations. One of the observations was that gecko’s toes bent in the opposite direction of humans’ and that trait allowed them to grip on nearly any surface whether upside down or level. Along with the many ridges on their feet, geckos could stay unmoving for hours until a meal showed up. At least I had this trivia to try to distract the crashing in my head as my hand began to swell and stink. I attempted to keep from focusing on my misery and what terror was to come. That was as easy as becoming the next premier of China.

  Before I could witness if my gecko comrade was going to find a succulent fly to dine on, the door opened and Lat strode into the room, his chest pumped up like he was competing in the Mr. Vietnam contest. He evidently loved his job. Without hesitating, he swaggered over to me and grabbed another finger. I began to shriek immediately, even before he could rip out one more nail. When he did, the tears began to flow down my cheeks. Lat stepped back and put on a pair of leather gloves. Not wasting any time to tell me to quiet, he slugged me on the right ear, then the left. Now, my head was filled with the sound of my own screams and crashing of a thousand cymbals. Lat shook me until I opened my eyes.

  “You were telling me a fairy tale about a woman named Hacmon,” Lat said. “I want the real story. More importantly, I want to hear where Luong is hiding.”

  At times, when I became dehydrated at Ma Jing’s after hours of riding the waves, a burning sensation would overwhelm my esophagus, the acid rising from my stomach and emptying the sludge in my mouth. It tasted like battery acid and felt the same. Now, a river began to flow up my throat, and I retched, trying to get as many of the toxins as possible on Lat as I spit it out. He was too experienced and moved away as soon as he saw what was about to happen. All I succeeded in doing was dripping the scum on my chest. I closed my eyes and tried not to hyperventilate.

  The next thing I saw was Lat picking up different size scalpels in his briefcase, scrutinizing each one as if he were about to make a momentous decision. I could only imagine. Eventually, he seemed satisfied and turned back to me, holding a surgeon’s tool that was so sharp it seemed to be cutting the air. The blade was little more than a centimeter wide. Steel handle and all, it was about the length of a chopstick, and there was little doubt Lat knew how to use it. He came close and began to cut off the buttons on my shirt, popping them like they were sesame seeds on a hot plate. When my chest was exposed, he held the blade against my left nipple.

  “Anymore,” he said, “I tire of the fingernail method. I find it much more rewarding to begin cutting. I tend to start with a nipple.”

  The room really did begin to spin and my breathing had the rhythm of an AK-47 firing on automatic.

  Before Lat could begin the nipplectomy, the door opened and Nguyen walked inside, flanked by the two syphilitic guards.

  “That’s enough, Lat,” Nguyen said. “We have more urgent plans for the captain. You’ll surely get to finish later. For now, I need him.”

  Lat scowled, but didn’t object. He moved aside.

  Love. My life had been mostly barren until this moment. If I could have gotten out of the chair, I would have kissed Nguyen and become his sex slave like any of the harlots on Tu Doa Street. I began to cry, the tears of joy mixing with the drops caused by the pain and flowing freely down my face.

  Nguyen nodded to the men and they cut off the bindings, helping me to my feet.

  “You reek,” Nguyen said. “We’ll stop by the bathroom before we go upstairs.”

  I waved good-bye to the gecko, who seemed completely unimpressed by all the drama, and we went into the hallway. I was about to break out in a Chinese Wushu dance, feigning the use of throwing knives and martial arts moves, steps recently made popular at Cholon nightclubs. In the moment, it seemed more advisable to act meek and thankful.

  “Did your mother’s clap cause the rot between your ears?” I asked the man holding my right arm. “And your brother’s too? I think I can see the pus for brains leaking out your nose.” I looked at the one on my left. “No, that’s snot. Your brains got flushed.” Immediately, the pressure on my biceps increased to that of a boa constrictor squeezing the life out of a baby alligator, a video I’d seen recently on YouTube. I smiled. I was alive, reminiscing, and insulting. Life couldn’t get peachier.

  At the end of the hall, Nguyen opened a door and my handlers pushed me inside. It was a big room, completely empty other than a drain hole in the middle of the sloping floor.

  “Dai,” Nguyen barked. Strip.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Dai,” he said even louder.

  “You want to see my buoi?” I asked in total amazement.

  One of the guards pushed me in the room. From behind the door, the other one brought out a fire hose and began turning a bulky black faucet.

  “Your choice,” Nguyen said. “You can shower in your clothes and be soaked for hours or take them off. I really don’t want you dripping all over the building. Still, this country has freedom of choice.”

  Gagging with laughter at this absurd political comment, I began to undress. Abruptly, I stopped, smelling the odor from my pants as I bent over. I stood up, spreading my arms.

  “Go ahead,” I said. “Shoot me.”

  “Good choice,” Nguyen said. “Your clothes are as rank as your mother’s pussy.”

  The first blast almost knocked me to my feet, pushing me back against the far wall. After only a few seconds, I couldn’t stand any longer and dropped to my knees, hugging my chest and trying to keep my head down, eyes closed.

  The strength of the water felt like thousands of darts penetrating my body simultaneously. It wasn’t all that unpleasant, except I worried the force might break an arm or leg. I knew the guards wouldn’t mind in the least if they had to carry me out screaming, making sure to pinch any fractures with glee.

  When I was suitably cleansed, Nguyen motioned for the man to stop. I shook like a wet dog and began to tremble in the cold.

  “We’ll just wait a moment,” Nguyen said. “Press your clothes with your hands. Get as much of that water out as you can before we go. I’d hate it if you leave slug trails.”

  I did as I was told, sheepishly feeling like one of the dead giant rats floating down the drain every morning before the market on Chau Van Diep Street opened. They were infamous and as big as the hairless street mongrels. Before they ate the Aminopterin poison, the huge rodents had been even fiercer than the freakish dogs who roamed the neighborhood in packs, carrying off unattended babies and licking the entrails. I pressed my pants and shirt as best as I could, the water dripping into the drain, and looked up, still completely soaked and feeling moistly vulnerable. Now would be the time to give them a hangdog look and attitude. I bent toward Nguyen, shivering.

  “If your breed sprang from apes,” I said, “you didn’t jump far enough.”

  “You’re as dumb as a river carp,” Nguyen said. “Just shut up and follow me. Your escorts will make sure you don’t get lost.”

  We shuffled out, climbing flights of stairs until we reached the fourth floor. At no time was I able to walk without my two minders holding on and steering me. Every once in a while, I tried to make a right turn when Nguyen went left. Not a chance, but I relished the cretins’ scramble to keep me on the straight and narrow. A few times, I acted as if I were about to faint, relaxing all my muscles and slumping. The men were forced to prop me up. After a few minutes, we walked down the top floor corridor and ended up in what I assumed was Nguyen’s office.

  “Leave him,” Nguyen said. “Wait outside.”

  The two morons left and I staggered quickly to a chair in front of the desk, not waiting for Ng
uyen’s direction. Sitting, I cradled my throbbing hand close to my chest, wondering if Nguyen had a bandage anywhere near. Or some Queen Morpheus.

  The office was utilitarian, probably quite different in luxury from the mansions his level of bureaucrats went home to with their swimming pools, Laotian slaves, and chandeliers. Even the walls were painted gray to match the gunmetal desk and unpadded chairs. The required picture of Uncle Ho hung just behind Nguyen’s head when he sat, and he adjusted a few papers in front of him, making sure they were perfectly square.

  “Anal, eh,” I said. “No piece of paper out of harmony and no half-breed left with all his traitorous fingernails.”

  “The ‘anal’ part comes later when you’re alone with your so-called syphilitic guards,” Nguyen said. “For now, I want you to keep silent until I tell you differently.”

  “I wouldn’t dare open my mouth around someone with your obsession.”

  “That’s the last words I want to hear. I don’t care how valuable some think you might be. If you disobey, I’ll just let your new best friends outside share some special time with you. And Lat.”

  I nodded, Lat’s name the clincher.

  “I heard what you said in the interrogation room. While some if it was likely true, most of it was pure lies, dishonesty a talent you chinks have made an art form. You’re almost as untrustworthy as a Cambodian. Or a cobra.”

  No response required. He stopped and looked at the papers on his desk with a blank stare, while I tried to plan the next moves in the lethal Xiangqi game that had just opened with his first move. I couldn’t let Nguyen capture my General with his army.

  Since I’d just had a shower, it wasn’t me that stank so badly. The smell was a combination of sweat, wheezing air conditioners, fear, and prawns with nuoc mam fish sauce, the spicy kind made with garlic, vinegar, and hot Thai peppers, a paste no Vietnamese could live without for long. Life without nuoc mam was survival without blood. But there was another ingredient in this building that had more to do with decay than life. Years of body fluids drained, chunks of flesh severed, and bodies dragged limp to the incinerator, had coated all the walls with the stench of pain, agony, and death. I tried pinching my nostrils shut, waiting for Nguyen to push another pawn forward.

  For the next half hour, Nguyen questioned me, and I stuck to my story, adding very little. It was becoming clear he and his bosses wanted more from me than my bumblings. I parried, waiting for Nguyen to get to the point. He didn’t get ruffled in the least, finally winding down and pushing his chair back.

  “First,” Nguyen said, “we’ll get those fingers treated. Then, you’re going to go back to Binh Thanh or wherever you think you can find Luong. We want you to make contact and find out who’s helping him. As normal, Phan will accompany you. We will assume they know how you operate.” He sat up straight, fiddling with the buttons on his starched shirt. “If you cooperate, we will forget all the criminal revisionism you have demonstrated. Agreed?”

  It didn’t take me long to answer. I wanted out of this stinking building. Fast.

  “I would be honored to join the revolution and our eternal class struggle, comrade,” I said. “Simply give me my marching orders and I’ll goose step into the worker’s state.”

  Nguyen studied me like he had discovered a tumor, but couldn’t decide if it was malignant. He nodded, unconvinced, but not wanting to spread the cancer.

  “I will call for a nurse,” Nguyen said, reaching for an old black rotary dial phone on his desk.

  Within minutes, a stunning beauty in a white uniform appeared at the door. My taste in women tended more toward my Chinese side, but this striking Vietnamese female might make me change my appetite like Hatati had. Nguyen snapped instructions to her, ignoring the massive bac mas, tits. She silently raised my fingers and applied cream, wrapping them in a thin covering. It seemed she was used to the kinds of wounds I exhibited. Maybe because of her immense cleavage or the analgesic swab, the pain rapidly diminished.

  Watching Nguyen and making sure my elbow made as much contact as possible with the remarkable nurse’s bac mas, I wondered why Nguyen and most Vietnamese men didn’t appreciate the artistry of a pair of gigantic vus. Breasts. Often, I’d heard big boobs linked to water buffaloes rather than exquisite females. The tendency in this country was to idolize vus the size of lemons rather than bitter melons. For one, I was, grateful to fondle a pair of pillowy bac mas and transport myself to the days when my tramp of a mother held me to her vus. Because of our cultural bias, most breast augmentation procedures performed in Vietnam were on “tit tourists,” foreigners looking for cheap surgery. As my voluptuous nurse bent over, I turned toward her, accidentally getting my nose between those Michelangelos.

  As in everything spectacular in life, it all ended too soon. She dropped my hand back into my lap and walked out, not having uttered a word. Nguyen was ready for my discharge and only waited for the door to close.

  “I’ll expect a report by morning,” he said.

  “The focus of this investigation is to find Luong and anyone who could be helping him?” I asked. “That’s assuming he’s the killer.”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you willing to tell me who the next victim may be?”

  “No.”

  “You must believe there is one?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Like the man who took the picture that’s been left on the other target’s chests?”

  “No comment.”

  “I’ll have to spend some time on my computer. I believe there is intel there that will help me reach Luong.”

  “You have an hour. Then I want you on the street.”

  “Yes, comrade.”

  The subservience always rankled me, and I made sure I underlined this with a bow. Apparatchiks like Nguyen rarely read the cynicism and that was true now. He waved me away.

  “Di di,” he said. Go

  My fingers began to burn and ache again. That was nothing compared to the joy of getting away from Nguyen and heading toward my office on the third floor.

  Upstairs, Phan was waiting outside my office. For once, he wasn’t on his cell, battling with Sheldon J. Plankton. In fact, he was staring down at his scuffed shoes, looking like he’d just soiled his trousers. Having just experienced such an event, I knew how shameful that was and I resolved to try to help him get over the hangdog look and embarrassment.

  “Is that a boil on your face or a nose?” I asked. “Whatever it is, wipe that sore. It’s leaking.”

  Phan looked up and smiled, giving me a “finally you’re home and you haven’t changed a bit” look of joy. I walked past quickly before he could hug me.

  On the computer, it took only minutes to see there was no picture or real description of Luong in the files, nor of Morgan or Hatati. Of course Nguyen needed my help. No one would recognize Luong. Those who knew him wouldn’t say a word to any flatland Vietnamese.

  Surprisingly, there was nothing on Mr. Liu. Being one of the few Mandarins in Cholon should have generated a huge amount of information. Either the authorities didn’t care about Chinese gangsters or Liu had insiders’ help to keep his file sanitized.

  Tran Dai Quang. There was much about the minister of public security. My task was to figure out if there was anything that would lead us to where Quang must be hiding. He would have known immediately about the murders and the photo, coming easily to the conclusion he was the next target. I read on, paying particular attention to his recent personal life and gaining a few nuggets that could have value.

  It was evident Nguyen was lost in his search. I was one of his last chances and he was willing to risk my escape to catch the killers. On the other hand, he could kiss my skinny yellow dit before I ever gave him anything of significance. I would betray him and everyone in this department before I aided in the capture and execution of Luong. Too many years and sneers for me to forget or forgive. I switched off the computer and stood, anxious to talk to Luong and Morgan as soon as possible. And gaze up
on Hatati again.

  Outside, Phan led me to a different car, mumbling something about “bullet holes” in the other one. No one was about to spoil me. This was a Renault that looked like it had been left over from when the French were our masters. The Department had a number of these junkers to be used by the lower levels, while the new SUVs were reserved for the real officers. It was hard to tell the color of this one, but I remembered watching a mamasan on a bus change a baby’s diaper once. The squealing infant had diarrhea and it was the same earth tone as the wreck Phan pointed out. It did have flecks of coppery red where it was rusting through and the dents gave some character to the overall putrid green. When Phan opened the back door, the hinges screamed in protest. I slid onto the burlap bag that covered the board over the springs and sat. At least there were no windows to keep out the breeze. Phan got in the driver’s seat and turned the key. The engine made a few clicks and whirs and started with a pop that exploded out of the tailpipe, cloaking the Renault in blue. I began to cough, and Phan pulled away into the traffic that had parted to keep its distance from this monster.

  “Where to, Captain?” Phan asked.

  “Back to Bhinh Thanh,” I said.

  There was something not right with the front end of the car. Phan wrestled with the steering wheel, trying to keep the Renault in a straight line. It drove like it had a flat tire.

  “Keep it on the road, cuc cho,” dog shit, I barked at Phan, slapping him on the back of his head. While I knew it wasn’t his fault, there was no point in giving Phan and his minders any slack. Too bad for him and SpongeBob. For now, he had to carry the basket of dung I was about to unload.

  They would be following and I didn’t even try to pick out which of the Japanese-made cars was our tail. Once we got to the realm of the Montagnards, it didn’t matter. No flatlander could track me inside the warren of hootches in that neighborhood. Nguyen surely didn’t believe my fibs and probably predicted I would head to Bhinh Thanh anyway. I wasn’t going to disappoint. It was already arranged that, if I survived, I’d meet Luong there. The fallback was Cholon, both areas that weren’t welcoming for the police.