The Sixth Man Read online

  “Children’s?” Luong asked, shaking his head back and forth. “I am too old and have seen too much for the trivial. Bleeding out Vietnamese is about the only thing that makes me laugh.”

  “Remember when we rescued Tran from the firefight?” Morgan asked. “We watched the Southern Cross from a rice paddy, surrounded by NVA. To keep the baby quiet, you let him suck on your finger while I stood guard. I caught you smiling. Do you recall what it feels like to enjoy anything but killing?”

  “Yes. Not all of them have to die. Only crawl on the earth blind, deaf, dumb, and wailing for mercy. They’ll not get any from me.”

  “You sure know how to ruin the party.”

  “I’ve never been to a ‘party.’”

  The mood had changed. There would be no more banter, and my destiny would soon be known. It was time to focus on my continued existence, not silly and boorish teenage behavior.

  “Speaking of parties,” I said. “What is a one-word party joke?” Everyone looked blank. “Communism.” It fell as flat as it sounded. It was time to focus on seeing the next Chinese New Year, coming up in a few days, and one I might not witness unless our tactics were sound and I was the model of cooperation. Coincidentally, it was soon to be a Year of the Snake.

  “You know that in America, you can always find a party,” I said. “In Vietnam, the Party finds you.” I waited for a response. Silence. “So, I can do karaoke too.” Stares. “Or should we decide how you’ll let me free so I can get to Nguyen and Luong can strangle him?”

  “Yes,” Luong said, showing the face of a doctor giving the diagnosis of lung cancer caused by inhalation of Dow Chemical. “What do you propose?”

  The choice was to continue playing the buffoon or demonstrate I could be of value as a player on this Murder, Inc. team. I crossed my hands on my lap and tried to look as grave as Luong.

  “Of course,” I said, “I can’t just shuffle into headquarters as if nothing has happened. I don’t know where he lives or much about him and don’t think I can find where he is. If the goal is ultimately to get to Nguyen, I have an idea. “

  “Go ahead,” Luong said, finally showing some interest in anything that came out of my mouth.

  “I have his cell number,” I said. “He told me to stay in contact. I haven’t. One fundamental reason is, I don’t have a mobile phone. Nguyen forgot that he and his masters never trusted me with one. Or a weapon. Phan made all my calls.”

  There was an infestation of geckos in Vietnam. For some bizarre reason, they seemed to appear in every room where I sat, even the ones where I was losing a fingernail. It could be I rarely paid attention since they were as common as bamboo. This one had more yellow spots and a thin red line on his green crinkled side. Maybe he was one of the new local variety recently identified by a German scientist and named “Cryptus” for the lizard’s bent toes and scales. This one was as still as Luong. I brought my eyes back to the Montagnard, knowing he was the one I had to convince.

  “Let me use a phone,” I said. “You can monitor the call. I’ll set up a meeting; Nguyen will object, but he’ll be even more frantic after Quang’s killing. I think he’ll go along with it, believing he’ll be able to trap me. We’ll make sure he has a surprise.”

  Luong sat forward like he was waiting for the punch line.

  “Where do you feel most comfortable in Sai Gon?” I asked.

  “Binh Thanh,” Luong said.

  “He’ll be under so much stress,” I said, “Nguyen won’t be able to refuse. You know the area. You tell me what you want. I’ll make the call.”

  Luong, Morgan, and Hatati traded glances. It appeared they at least temporarily agreed to discuss my strategy.

  Over the next half hour, plans were formed. I didn’t contribute unless asked. The three of them had participated in operations like the entrapment of Nguyen now being thrashed out. I was a homicide detective, not an assassin. Or spy.

  It was getting to be midmorning, and I was worn out. Not even the occasional question kept my eyelids from flickering like a firefly. I was resigned to whatever was coming in the next level of my earthly incarnation, even if I had hopes and dreams that it meant a few more dead Vietnamese who had tormented me and their countrymen for too many years. My head slumped onto my shoulder and I was already into REM.

  “Wake up, Kung Fu master,” Morgan barked.

  Eyes open, the room was way too bright, and this gwailo ghost was standing above me, shaking my shoulder as if he were testing to see if I was a spirit or just another passed-out overdosed dog eater on the couch. I grunted, letting him know I was still in the kingdom of the living.

  “Please step away,” I mumbled. “There’s too much light bouncing off all that white skin. It hurts my eyes.”

  “Now, now, Captain Fang,” Morgan said, “don’t be such a bigot. Even I know the Chinese are the most racist people on the planet. I’ll let your slander of whites pass for now. Only because you can be of help. The minute I change my mind, you’ll be providing the protein in a bowl of spicy pho. Your people wouldn’t know the difference between your meat and a Labrador’s.”

  We must have a little time or this tap dance would have ended much quicker, and Luong would have commanded us to stop the infantile sparring. I made up my mind to move things along and not cheapen the scheme with my thin skin.

  “I have just one question,” I said, looking at Morgan and slowly sitting up. He nodded for me to go ahead. “What do you call a white man with a sheep under each arm?” He shook his head. “A pimp.”

  This time, Luong didn’t bother scolding. He stared back and forth between Morgan and me, with one glance at a chuckling Hatati.

  “If Morgan is correct,” Luong said, “even the dinosaurs of the Vietnam People’s Security Forces may have the ability to track cell phone locations. Do you have Nguyen’s private number?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I believe so.”

  “You will not call from Binh Thanh,” Luong said. “Since we will not be here much longer, this area of the city would be better. Please go downstairs and call him. Say you’ll meet him in Binh Thanh in an hour. In the same place he knows you were dropped off before. Since we no long care if they track the phone, don’t worry about how long it takes. Be convincing.”

  “He will ask questions,” I said.

  “Tell him all will be told when you meet.”

  “He will most likely bully me. At least I have no living relatives he can threaten me with.”

  “Don’t worry. He’ll try to organize a trap as fast as he can. Tell him he must come alone and will be watched. This is all so obvious. He knows he will have armed police or military with him, but all we care about is getting a clean shot. After he’s dead, there’s no chance for them to catch us in Binh Thanh, no matter how many men and helicopters they have.” Again, a rare smile. “There are many tunnels, and, just like the Americans, they won’t find them all. Or even a fraction.”

  “But won’t all the people who live there be severely punished?”

  “They will know nothing. And, all my Degar brothers and sisters would gladly die to avenge years of persecution in our homeland. Besides”—he turned to Morgan—“he has contacts in the Western press. There will be newsmen around. Morgan’s alerted them, tantalizing the reporters with details of the ones who’ve already been killed.”

  “So this needs to happen soon?”

  “Yes. Make the call. I’ll come along. Morgan and Hatati are going to the car. We’ll meet them on the street.”

  The hesitation was only the time it took me to get over my amazement about the length of the speech Luong had just made. Even in the middle of a dark monsoon night, his stories were told in quick, quiet staccato with little background. He conveyed the horrors without embellishment and rarely spoke during daylight hours when the guards would have rather clubbed us into the mud than allow even a short conversation. I couldn’t remember when Luong had used so many words. Never in English. I would by no means lose my trust in t
his man. That didn’t mean it could stop from shocking me that an illiterate hill tribesman had become comfortable in the language and customs of the capitalist West. He could drive a car and use a satellite phone, skills I barely had myself. Luong was now like the popular Vietnamese legend Tru’o’ng Chi, a poor, lowly, and forsaken fisherman who was transformed into a nobleman in order to find the love of the princess My Nu’o’ng. This Montagnard had mutated out of hate, not love. Still, he was a different, but still dangerous, spirit. I stood up, wanting to quickly get to the next skirmish of this battle.

  “Lead the way,” I said. “If I’m going to die, I can’t think of any other Degar I’d rather be with.”

  “You don’t know any others,” Luong said.

  “Sooo, am I lying?”

  “Just follow me. And shut up. For once.”

  We went out the door and down to the street. Around the corner, in front of the Hurmes authentic leather bag shop, where everything was made of plastic and sold for less than ten dollars, I wondered what variety of pig the purses came from and if it took more than a gallon of petroleum to manufacture. Luong brought out his mobile and I gave him Nguyen’s number, the one I’d memorized.

  “Xin chao,” Nguyen said. Hello.

  He wouldn’t have recognized the number. If he’d known it was me, he would have growled out some kind of scorn, like, “speak to me, cho cai.” Bitch.

  “Now I’m your bitch too?” I asked. “And here I thought we meant so much more to each other.”

  “Where are you?” Nguyen asked.

  “Not as important as where I’ll be in an hour.”

  “Where?”

  “Binh Thanh. Where I’ve been since I was released.”

  “You were not in Binh Thanh.”

  “Oh. And I thought I was. Must have been someone else.”

  “No wisecracks, fool. Where have you been?”

  “I told you. Did you miss me? Have you been looking? And I didn’t know you cared after pulling out my fingernail and giving me a cold shower.”

  “You will pay for this.”

  “I don’t make much salary, about a quarter of what other detectives are paid, but I do have a little money hidden away.”

  “It will be more likely a few body parts and blood.”

  “And so I would want to meet you why?”

  “Because, if you don’t, eventually we will find you. Then, it will be worse. In the meantime, we will interrogate every family member and friend. We will not be delicate.”

  “Good. I don’t much care for my remaining relatives. If I had any. Feel free to start with their toes and move upward. As for friends, I can’t think of any except for a few on the police force. You can have a go at them too.”

  “We will destroy you. You will never be able to walk, let alone work.”

  “My, my. I can hardly wait to see you.”

  “Where?”

  “I have conditions. First, you come alone. Second, you will give me your oath I will not be harmed. Third, I can continue in my detective position. There may be more. Those will do for now.”

  “You’ve heard there’s been another killing? This one was mass murder, not just a commissar.”

  “No. I’ve been out of touch lately.”

  “Is Luong involved?”

  “Who?”

  He waited, and I could hear him spit. There were cars in the background and that incessant meep meep of the cyclos. Nguyen must have been on a street, waiting to get into a chauffeured car and make arrangements to have me killed while he drove to the rendezvous.

  “I will expect you to tell me everything. Anything less, and it will go hard for you.”

  “Well, it’s been a while since I’ve been hard. I’ll be looking forward to it.”

  “Time is getting short. I want to know the meeting place. Now.”

  “Binh Thanh. Where Phan dropped me. You know the spot. I’ll be there in one hour and will only show myself if you’re alone. The rooftops will be watched and the sky, too, if you plan on sending a helicopter.”

  “Will you come with me?”

  “If I trust you and what you have to say. I think that could be like praying the cobra doesn’t strike.”

  “I’ll be there. Make sure you are.”

  “Can hardly contain my glee.”

  Nguyen disconnected, and I threw the cell into a rubbish can next to the sidewalk. Luong had stood beside me the entire time, keeping guard in case of a passing patrol or anyone suspicious. There had only been two girly-boys in thigh-high, leopard ao dis, blonde wigs, and fake, pointy tits. Luong hadn’t bothered to respond to their, “Hey, big boy, wanna have a swell time? Two for one day” chirps.

  We moved quickly around the corner, away from the TOT NHAT BUOM at Hurmes. BEST SAIL. Morgan and Hatati had already pulled the SUV from the garage and were parked on the street, waiting. When they saw us approaching, Hatati jumped out of the driver’s side, and Luong replaced her. I got in the back and Hatati followed, leaving Morgan in the front passenger seat. Luong immediately steered us into the maddening afternoon traffic, headed southeast toward Binh Thanh, and I wondered if it would be Buddha or Confucius who got me through the next few hours with at least a few bits of my body still functional. For some reason, I felt the need to pray. One way or another, my “miserable” life was about to change dramatically.

  While the call of Buddha was closer to my heart, as the years drifted by in an opium blur, I seemed to be floating more toward the teachings and philosophy of Confucius, that Chinese master Kong who died nearly five hundred years before Christ but a few hundred years after Buddha. It could be only an attempt to connect with my northern Mandarin ancestors. Again, as a half-breed, I was torn between two religions and cultures. It wasn’t as if I spent hours of every day trying to get in touch with my true self. Still, there were fundamental questions that bothered me. While Confucianism is a philosophy, Buddhism is a religion. Anything that smacked of the doctrinaire or political was creeping further away as the time passed, replaced by suggestion or discourse. Too much time being told exactly how a true pure socialist Vietnamese should think and behave.

  While it was my experience, I couldn’t quite get my head around the idea that “life is filled with pain and sorrow.” If I followed that tenet, there was no reason to leave Ma Jing’s. Sure, I did believe “the cause of all suffering is people’s selfish desire for pleasure.” Besides, Confucianism didn’t promise or teach anything about the afterlife. No earthly sacrifice or worship was described like “ending all suffering by ending all desires,” a major principal of Buddhism. I was still too alive to abandon every one of my cravings and joys. For this adventure, I’d stick with my Chinese roots and keep homage to the last of the Five Confucian relationship values, “friends.” Still, I was in the dark about what would happen next in this drama. Like Confucius, I knew that “faced with what is right, to leave it undone shows a lack of courage.”

  At least the years spent drifting in the clouds at Ma Jing’s gave me experience in the realm of imagination. Nguyen would meet me, and he may or may not be protected by a squad of heavily armed men, ready to shoot me down like a rabid monkey. We needed to be prepared for an assault and neither Luong, Hatati, nor Morgan had chosen to share their plan with a lowly Chinese junkie. I fidgeted in my seat, finally unwilling to let my future be so vague.

  “Morgan,” I said, “I believe it was your former commander, General Westmoreland, who said, ‘In Vietnam, I was participating in my own lynching, but the problem was I didn’t know how I was going to be lynched.’ I feel exactly the same.”

  “A student of war, eh?” Morgan asked. “You quote Sun Tzu, Mao, and Westmoreland. I’ll bet you have a lot more dung in that oversize brain of yours.”

  “You’re avoiding,” I said. “Please be so generous as to tell me your strategy. I will be risking my life, too, even if you have little belief in its value. I think you owe me that small courtesy.” I bowed.

  “Tell him,” Hatat
i said. “It could be the last act in his chuangi.” I knew that was a form of traditional Chinese play that rarely ended in anything but a tragedy.

  “We have people watching,” Luong said, “and will know if the number of police grows and exactly where they are. We should arrive before most of Nguyen’s people. If not, we’ll have identified their locations.” He looked at me in the rear-view mirror. “You’re the bait. If I were hunting a rare duoc in the forest outside Dalat, you’d be the rotten banana. Like you, those monkeys are almost extinct.” No smile, just the facts.

  “How fun,” I said. “I get to be the main course, while you lurk in the bushes, diddling yourselves.”

  “That about sums it up,” Morgan said. “I will guarantee if or when you are shot, there will be a few dead policemen, including Nguyen, bleeding out on the road.”

  “Is there some objection to giving me the details?” I asked. “I feel like I’m back in the camps. Kept in the dark and fed cut.” Shit.

  “At least cut has a tiny amount of protein,” Luong said. “There were nights where we would have given up our lo dit, asshole, for a bite of shit. Unfortunately, we would have had to drink it, since the dysentery never left and eating leaves only made the diarrhea worse.” His focus was back on the road chaos in front of him. Surprisingly, Luong was a good driver, able to avoid the slow-moving carts and crisscrossing cyclos that appeared out of nowhere, seemingly more intent on suicide than reaching any destination.

  “Spare me the memories,” I said. “I was there groveling beside you.” I sat back and watched a beautiful Eurasian woman, her head covered with a white umbrella, strolling on the sidewalk as if she were in summertime Paris. “What I’m asking is simple. Like, do I get to carry a pistol? Where and when do I get out of the car? What do I do when I meet Nguyen if that happens? If things go bad, is there a hiding or meeting place?”

  “Stop torturing him,” Hatati said, a stern look on her gorgeous face. “If you won’t tell the captain, I will.”