The Price of Blood

The upright pig-giant had twinkling gimlet eyes and spoke an accented dialect of the English language known only to his drunken tribe of one. He could have been Bevode Fret’s libido unchained and walking around…

But he was an Aussie, stoned on nitrous oxide maybe.

He chirped, leering at Nina.

“Fuck off, mate.” Broker stabbed a sharp finger into his bloated midsection. The pig-giant fluttered his left hand in an inebriated incantation and backed off and rolled deeper into the plane, a blue hazard that the Vietnamese hostesses steered adroitly to a berth.

Nina and Broker flopped to their seats. The frantic tempo of Hong Kong dissipated on Air Vietnam. Only half the seats were filled. A hostess handed Broker a steamed perfumed towel with a forceps.

He wiped the grime from his face and felt time slow down. It’s going to be different now…

Australian voices. Broker glanced back and saw them crowd the aisle. A tour. He gathered that the snoring piggiant was one of their number. He dozed for a while. Woke with a start and wondered if he had dreamed the episode with Jimmy Tuna. They were served a meal. Broker drank a cup of coffee and studied a map of Vietnam in a glossy Air Vietnam magazine.

The country was shaped like an S hook hanging off the belly of China, wrapped around Laos and Kampuchea: fat on the ends, thin in the middle. They’d land in Hanoi, near the top of the S and then head for the skinny panhandle in the center. To Hue City on the Perfume River. And in Hue there would be a police station.

He’d only accepted one cliche in his life: that cops were cops the world over. They understood each other. But they were Communist cops where he was going. And they worked for the only government in the world that had whipped the United States of America in open warfare.

He tried to put himself in the place of a Vietnamese cop listening to a wild story coming from the lips of an American tourist. They probably would have an office guy assigned to hearing complaints from the tourist trade. An office guy would phone his boss. And on up the line until someone who had LaPorte’s money in his pocket would hear the story.

It was like everything else. Cops were cops. Except when they weren’t.

So it all depended on Trin. And the minute they opened their mouths their lives would be in his hands. With this disconcerting thought for a lullaby, Broker dozed.

And then. Not that long. The now familiar sensation and pressure in the ears. The jet grumbled in the air and slowed for descent. Looking down from an aircraft together with the word Vietnam had always meant an aerial view of a smashed landscape. Lunar craters. Broker took a look. Just green fields, treelines. Not one crater. Rustic farmland.

“Any advice?” asked Nina.

“Don’t touch the kids on the head, don’t wave at people, don’t put your feet on the table.”

“How’s it feel coming back?”

“Not coming back. Going to,” said Broker.

Nina poked his shoulder and then pointed out the window. Three stubby MiG 21s lined up on a black cement apron. Green rice fields and red dirt stretched on either side. Broker saw the tiny conical straw hats, the women stooped in shiny black pantaloons. Then, reality tapped his eyes. A Communist flag fluttered over a tiny mustard- walled colonial-style terminal.

Hong Kong was a movie he’d watched. Just colored lights. Down there it was going to be sweat, orangebrown bazen dirt, and buffalo shit. Hard core. Third World. Real.

Nina leaned back in her seat and stared straight ahead. Getting ready. Broker supplied the word like he was lighting a fuse.

“Trin.”

54

A red flag with a yellow star fluttered under a dirty brass sun.

Broker stepped into the climate with one hand clenched on Jimmy Tuna’s map inside his security belt. The paradoxical heat and humidity wilted right through him like radiation and made him feel young. Excited, he took in the iron land that monsoon rains had turned to rust. The airport was in the middle of nowhere. Just fields, bicycles, and water buffalo.

Two buses pulled toward the aircraft. As they turned and opened their doors to admit the arriving passengers, Nina leaned against his shoulder and laughed. Absurdly, garish blue Pepsi logos adorned their sides.

The bus drove them across the runway and, slow motion, in the heat, they entered the terminal. On scuffed tile floors, they queued up for the customs station and the ragtag X-ray machines beyond. Weary officers wore brown uniforms that were too tight or too loose. They stood behind antique wooden counters and shuffled papers and stared mainly at their hands. Broker didn’t see a single gun being worn in the building.

A crowd of Vietnamese taxi drivers pressed against the doors and windows. Broker searched for the face of a man he hadn’t seen in twenty years.

Nina pulled him by the arm toward a hand-held sign floating above the crowd. Phillip Broker/Nina Pryce. Vietnam Hue Tours greets you!

“Huh?” said Broker.

Nguyen Van Trin, at five feet four inches, needed the sign. He came up to the top of Nina’s ears but his grin was six feet tall. Trim down the nose, slant the eyes and Trin could have posed for one of the stone faces on Easter Island. He’d picked up a few more scars on his drum-tight kisser since the last time Broker had seen him.

“Trin, you sonofabitch.” Awkwardly, they clasped arms.

“It’s me,” said Trin and his easy English came through the foreignness of the place like hope. But his voice had lost its deep resonance. Now sardonic, cautious. The old military fire had long extinguished.

“How are you?”

“Ah, well…” He affected a Gallic shrug. His once intense brown eyes now reminded Broker of tired wood, still hard, but flat and brittle. His body was husky and durable, round with muscle and deeply tanned, like he’d been working outside. He wore baggy cotton slacks, loafers, and a black T-shirt; his black hair was a little shaggy. Unmasked in this intimate moment, he was frail around the eyes. Studying the ashes of Trin’s smile, Broker gauged: They broke him.

“Jimmy Tuna sends his regards,” said Broker.

“How is he?” asked Trin, confused but smiling.

“Dying.”

Trin nodded politely, then, sensing Nina’s scrutiny, he turned to her, touched his cheek, and pointed. “Freckles,” he said. “Like Ray.”

Nina pursed her lips. She accepted Trin’s solemn handshake.

“We have to talk about my dad,” she said frankly.

“Yes,” said Trin casually, “but not here. Do you have other bags?”

“Just what we’re carrying,” said Broker.

“The car’s over here,” said Trin, making a display of taking Nina’s shoulder bag and leading them to a gray tourist van with Vietnam Hue Tours stenciled on the side. The driver was a lean, waspish northerner in a dark shirt and slacks who nodded enthusiastically. “This is Mr. Hai, our driver for Hanoi,” explained Trin. “Mr. Hai speaks English; he used to listen to Americans talk on the radio all the time, right, Mr. Hai?”

Hai nodded and declaimed, “Alpha Bravo Charley.” He held the door open for Broker and Nina. “Uniform Victor Whiskey.”

“So how was your flight?” asked Trin.

“Quiet,” said Nina. “The plane was only half full.”

“Yes and no. Air Vietnam makes room for ghosts,” said Trin.

A man in NVA green and a pith helmet came straight at Broker on a bicycle. His stomach tightened. The man smiled broadly and rode by and Broker’s eyes began to absorb the visual judo chops. Red flags draped like bull-