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 God,” 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.
Broker shook his head.
“We don’t know how much they gave her. We may have to use small doses if she gets sick.” Trin pounded Broker’s shoulder. “Find her clothes. And his.”
“See how they are,” said Lola. “That poor damn kid…”
The second “poor kid” did it. And her tanned perfection and the fucking precision-combed hair and the clean white slacks and the white Topsiders and the white silk blouse.
Broker started for her. Trin, the thespian, was on him. “No. She helped us,” he pleaded.
Slumped against the wall like a comic suicide who was attempting to choke himself to death, Virgil Fret did a pasty jig on his butt while caw-hiss sounds-part bird, part snake-squeezed from his strangling throat.
Lola was in front of Broker. “Are you all right?” she asked. Her alarm and shock were palpable, real. And every hair was in place.
“Help,” Trin yelled at her. “Put a shirt on him.” He pointed to Virgil. “We can’t leave him here. Hurry.” Trin was wrapping Nina in a clean sheet from the other bed. “Find her clothes.”
Broker checked his watch. It was thirteen after eight. He tore open the bureau and found Nina’s clothes in a cast-off pile. He put the tennis shoes in her jeans, threw her underthings and shirt on top, and tied the jeans in a knot. He looked across the room.
Lola efficiently yanked a T-shirt on Virgil, batting her way around his struggling arms and hands. She had tears in her eyes. Two lines of mascara dripped down her cheeks. She found one of Virgil’s shoes and began beating him with it. “You hurt her, you bad-”
“Caw-hiss,” sputtered Virgil and Broker saw with satisfaction that the veins had swelled up like worms in his popped eyes. Lola’s voice failed but she continued to hit him with the shoe, like he was a bad dog who had soiled the living room carpet. Susan Sarandon was shit out of luck. Lola was going to win the Oscar.
Trin lifted Nina without apparent effort and jogged from the room. They were alone with Virgil Fret, who continued to die in breathy slow stages.
“I couldn’t talk today, Phillip. He was having me watched,” said Lola, stepping back from Virgil, who was now madly pumping his elbows. “Caw.” Pump, pump. Maybe he was going to fly away and save them the trouble of disposing of his worthless ass.
Trin dashed back in the room with a horrible grin on his flushed face. “Grab him, quick.” Trin rushed for Virgil. He seized a fifth of whiskey from the night table.
“What now?” said Broker, going with him.
“Inspiration,” said Trin, grinning, taking a quick slug of whiskey and holding the bottle out to Broker. Broker shook his head. Trin shook a dollop of whiskey on Broker’s shirt and then splashed some on Virgil’s inflated face. They yanked him to his feet.
“Quick, he’ll get away,” yelped Trin, dragging Virgil toward the door. They had him upright, his flailing arms over their shoulders, running now down the steps, Broker following Trin’s lead. “You stay here.” Trin waved the whiskey bottle in his free hand at Lola.
Rock and roll spooled in the inky night, neon spun behind dark trees. They galloped down the driveway and burst into the street. Tight lipped, Broker said, “I didn’t see a gun in there-”
“I checked the whole place, no gun,” said Trin.
“This punk would have a gun.”
“They don’t want
Several snoozing cyclo drivers spotted them and rose from their cabs. “There,” panted Trin. Down the block Broker saw the bear-walking drunken Aussie. His broad back was naked, streaked with sweat over a sarong. He stumbled down the street, staying upright mainly by the support of his right shoulder bumping on a cement wall. Patient as jackals, several cyclos padded on silent rubber tires, trailing his slow progress.
“Hey, buddy,” shouted Trin as they pulled abreast. “Have a drink.” He thrust out the bottle. “Let’s party.”
The giant yawned and pawed the bottle. Trin quickly analyzed the cyclo situation and selected the oldest driver, who also had the widest seat. He heaved Virgil in. The driver inspected Virgil and began to protest.
“What’s he say?” said Broker.
“He says this American is dying and he won’t ride him. We need dollars.” Broker dug in his pocket. Trin tugged the staggering Aussie and pulled him toward the cyclo. He pointed to Virgil whose protruding tongue was deep purple in the bounce of neon and who was feebly inching his hands back toward his throat. “Hey, mate, he knows where the girls are. Number one boom-boom.”
“Caw,” said Virgil. A newly hatched vulture chick mouthing the air.
The Aussie lit up, having found kin who talked his twittering dialect. Trin steered the giant into the cyclo and grabbed the handful of twenties from Broker. He turned to the agitated driver.
“I’m telling him he’s only had too much to drink,” said Trin who then broke into machine-gun Vietnamese as he counted out bills into the driver’s wrinkled hand.
The driver continued to protest, but his posture and voice had turned sly. The other cyclo drivers craned forward, crowding in as Trin and the older driver argued. Trin turned back to Broker.
“He’s a hard sell. He says, bullshit, he knows a dying American when he sees one.” Trin grinned insanely. “He says he was a fucking guerrilla in the fucking jungle for fifteen fucking years. Give me a hundred-dollar bill.”
Broker handed over Mr. Franklin.
“He says,” said Trin, “that’s the drunkest goddamn American he has ever seen in his life.”
In the cab, the Aussie tenderly poured whiskey into Virgil’s weakly moving mouth. With an evil smile creasing his leathery face, the former Viet Cong bent to his pedals and moved the bike cab out into the street. Virgil Fret disappeared into the teeming bicycles and motorbikes of Hue, wrapped in the meaty embrace of the cooing Aussie, who bent over him like a mama feeding her first child.
Trin spun on his heels and marched back toward the villa. “I told him to dump them in a rice paddy halfway to the coast.” They jogged back to the van parked in the shadows next to the villa. Lola’s outfit made a voluptuous, unmistakable fashion statement in the humid buzzing night.
“White,” said Broker.
“So nobody will shoot her by accident, say in the dark on a confused beach,” said Trin.
“I can’t stay now. I’m coming with you. That was our deal…” Lola, breathless with excitement, coming to meet them.
“I’m satisfied. You satisfied?” said Trin.
“Roger,” said Broker. He pivoted and his sand-busted tennis shoes crunched in the gravel as he put his left fist on stun and popped Lola LaPorte with a short left jab, hard enough to knock her cold, not quite hard enough to
