The Price of Blood

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 hell, 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. Hell, 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. Hell, there was more combat experience on that one airplane than in the whole goddamn 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 damn nation. And the plane landed and nobody would get out. Nobody 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 butt 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, numbnuts, 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 balls of his feet, hearing the punk mimic his older brother’s voice. Virgil turned and went back in the door. Shit. 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, goddammit. 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 buttons 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