in upstate New York. Ortega had been Victor Spitalny’s only friend in the platoon, and now Spitalny would have no friends. Pumo realized that this didn’t matter, Spitalny would get killed with the rest of them. Spacemaker Ortega’s screams gradually sank into the dark, as if he were being carried away. “What are we going to do, what are we going to do, oh God oh God,” Beevers wailed. “Oh God oh God oh God, I don’t want to die, I don’t I don’t I can’t die.”
Peters crawled away from the dead Ortega. In a sudden loud burst of light Pumo saw him moving toward a twitching man ten or twelve yards off. Another land mine inaudibly went off, for the ground shook and the dead man swam a few inches nearer Pumo.
A soldier named Teddy Wallace announced that he was going to waste that fucker Elvis, and a friend of his named Tom Blevins said he’d follow. Pumo saw the two soldiers rise into crouches and take off across the field. Before he had gone eight steps, Wallace stepped on a pressure mine and was torn apart from crotch to chest. Wallace’s left leg blew sideways and seemed to run above the field for a short time before it fell. Tom Blevins got a few steps further before he pitched over as neatly as if he had tripped over piano wire. “Rock ‘n roar!” Elvis shouted from up in the trees.
Suddenly Pumo became aware that Dengler was beside him. Dengler was grinning. “Don’t you think God does all things simultaneously?” Dengler asked him.
“What?” he asked. Life doesn’t make sense, he thought, the world doesn’t make sense, war doesn’t make sense, everything is only a terrible joke. Death was the great secret at the bottom of the joke, and demons watched the world and capered and laughed.
“What I like about that idea is that in a funny way it means that the universe actually created itself, which means that it goes on creating itself, get me? So destruction is part of this creation that goes on all the time. And on top of that is the real kicker, Pumo—destruction is the part of creation that we think is beautiful.”
“Get fucked,” Pumo said. Now he understood what Dengler was doing: talking nonsense to wake him up and make him capable of acting. Dengler didn’t understand that the demons had made the world, and that death was their big secret.
Pumo became aware that he had not spoken in a long time. His eyes were filled with tears. “Are you awake, Maggie?” he whispered.
Maggie breathed on easily and quietly, her perfect round head still resting on his shoulder.
“That bastard stole my address book,” Pumo whispered. “Why the hell would she want my address book? So she can steal clock radios and portable televisions from everyone I know?”
In a carrying voice, Underhill said, “The demons are abroad and Dengler is trying to convince Pumo that death is the mother of beauty—”
“No, I’m not,” Dengler whispered, “you got it wrong, that’s not it, beauty has no mother.”
“Jesus,” Pumo said, and wondered how Underhill knew about the demons, he must have seen them too.
Another great light exploded in the sky, and he could see the surviving members of the platoon lying as if frozen in a snapshot, their faces turned to Underhill, who seemed as calm, peaceful, and massive as a mountain. There was another secret here, a secret as deep as the one the demons had, but what was it? Their own dead, and the booby-trapped dead of the other company, lay sprawled all over the field. No, the demons are deeper, Pumo thought, because this isn’t just hell, this is worse than hell—in hell you’re dead and in this hell we still have to wait for other people to kill us.
Norm Peters scurried back and forth, plugging sucking chest wounds. Then darkness enclosed them again. When another giant light illuminated the sky a few seconds later, Pumo saw that Dengler had left him and was following Peters around, helping him. Dengler was smiling. He saw Pumo staring at him, and grinned and pointed upwards. Shine on, he meant, shine on, remember everything, the universe is making itself up right now.
Late at night the NVA began dropping in 60-mm shells from the M-2 mortars that had been taken from the American company. Several times in the hour before morning Pumo knew that he had gone stone crazy. The demons had come back, and roamed laughing through the field. Pumo finally understood that they were laughing at him and Dengler, for even if they lived through this night they would not be saved from dying senseless deaths, and if all things were simultaneous their deaths were present now, and memory was a twisted joke. He saw Victor Spitalny sawing the ears off Spacemaker Ortega, the former ruler of the Devilfuckers, and that made the demons dance and cackle too. “What the fuck are you doing?” he hissed, and picked up a clod of earth and threw it at him. “That was your best friend!”
“I gotta have somethin’ to show for this,” Spitalny said, but he gave up anyhow, shoved his knife back in his belt and scuttled away like a jackal surprised at his feast of carrion.
When the helicopters finally came in the NVA company had disappeared back into the jungle, and the Cobras, the gun-ships, merely slammed a half-dozen rockets into the canopy and fried a few monkeys before wheeling grandly in the air and returning to Camp Crandall. The other helicopter descended over the clearing.
You never remembered how almost tranquil a UH1-B was until you were in one again.
3
“To tell you the truth, we’re New York City policemen,” Beevers said to the taxi driver, a gaunt, toothless Chinese in a T-shirt who had just asked why they wanted to go to Boogey Street.
“Ah,” the driver said. “Policemen.”
“We’re here on a case.”
“On a case,” said the driver. “Very good. This for television?”
“We’re looking for an American who liked Boogey Street,” Poole hastily explained. Beevers’ face had turned red and his mouth was a thin line. “We know he moved to Singapore. So we’d like to show his picture around on Boogey Street to see if anybody knows him.”
“Boogey Street no good for you,” the driver said.
“I’m getting out of this cab,” Beevers said. “I can’t stand it anymore. Stop. Pull over. We’re getting out.”
The driver shrugged and obediently switched on his turn signal to begin making his way across three lanes to the curbside.
“Why do you say Boogey Street is no good for us?” Poole asked.
“Nothing there anymore. Mister Lee, he clean it all up.”
“Cleaned it up?”
“Mister Lee make all the girl-boys leave Singapore. No more—only pictures.”
“What do you mean, only pictures?”
“You walk down Boogey Street at night,” the driver patiently explained, “you go past many bars. Outside bars you see pictures. You buy pictures, take them home.”
“Goddamn,” Beevers said.
“Someone in one of those bars will know Underhill,” Poole said. “He might not have left Singapore just because the transvestites did.”
“You don’t think so?” Beevers yelled. “Would you buy a jigsaw puzzle if the most important piece was missing?”
“See points of interest in Singapore,” the driver said. “Tonight, Boogey Street. For now, Tiger Balm Gardens.”
“I hate gardens,” Beevers said.
“Not flower garden,” the driver said. “Sculpture garden. Many style Chinese architecture. Depictions of Chinese folklore. Thrilling scenes.”
“Thrilling scenes,” Beevers said.
“Python devouring Goat. Tiger ready for attack. Ascension of White Snake Spirit. Wild Man of Borneo. So Ho Shang trapped in Spider’s Den. Spider Spirit in form of Beautiful Woman.”
“Sounds good to me,” Conor said.
