“My name? What did I do?” Ebberhardt asked, and then laughed. “Like I give a shit.”
“Speaking of not giving a shit, where’s McKay?” Taylor asked, opening himself a beer.
“Drunk, no doubt, by now. He got an early start,” O’Connor said, and then looked at Ebberhardt. “You didn’t happen to look in the barracks for him?”
“Yeah, he’s there,” Ebberhardt said, and then frowned. “He and those recon guys. They threw me out of my own cube. They weren’t drunk or anything. No booze. Nothing. Just talking. Sitting on my rack, shooting the shit. Personal stuff, I guess.”
Archie Gunn sucked down three beers without saying a word and then belched as he said, “Ole T. D.’s got the bugaboo.”
“Bugaboo?” O’Connor asked.
“Yeah, he hates living,” Gunn added. “Maybe those recon boys that was with him in the shit can help him shake it off. Hope so. Two weeks ago, he went flying over Charlie Ridge with me, and we dropped half a box of grenades on some gooners running down a trail. Dumb motherfucker tried to jump out the door on top of one of them. Like Gene Autry or something. He’s got that bugaboo bad.”
“He did come out and get his medal today, that’s something,” Ebberhardt said, pulling a beer from a six-pack that Gunn held under his arm.
Kirkwood, O’Connor, Buck Taylor, and Lobo sipped beer in their circle of friends and said nothing.
“COME, LET ME tell you what that dog you name shit do for you,” Huong told Brian Pitts and James Harris as he led them to the back of the house. When he pushed open the door, the two Marine deserters saw half a dozen four-foot-long, olive-drab duffel bags stuffed tight with American green-backs: The same six canvas satchels filled with the majority of their nearly three-million-dollar fortune that Brian Pitts had thought they had lost to the CID raiders who invaded the ranch.
“All the cash!” Pitts sang out and hugged Huong. “You got the money out!”
“This dog name shit make it so,” Huong said, kneeling by the mangy beast and putting his arm around him.
“He have some kind of CID radar?” Pitts said, still laughing at the sight of their loot.
“You make joke, but he do,” Huong said, putting a pan of roasted pork ribs on the floor for the mutt. “We owe him plenty ribs, rest of his life.”
“If he’s responsible for getting our money out, I say treat him like one of the family,” Pitts said, and then looked at James Harris, who now sat on the floor smiling at his dog.
“I tole you he’s good to keep around,” Harris said, watching Turd chomp on the bones as he gobbled the cherry-colored, fire-roasted meat.
“That our dinner you feeding him?” Pitts then said, looking for more roast pork on the wood-burning stove that stood in the back corner of the thatched-roof farm home.
“We eat rice and bean,” Huong said, walking to a pot. “This Turd, he need to have the meat.”
“Well, that’s a lot of meat. Four whole racks of ribs,” Pitts said, studying the dog’s rapidly expanding belly.
“He eat his fill now,” Huong said, “then he come back later for more. We save for him. You okay with this, boss?”
“Oh, sure!” Pitts answered, walking to the pot and taking a bowl from the shelf and filling it with the rice, beans, and some variety of seasoned meat dinner that sat steaming on the stove. “You got some
nuc-mom
and chili peppers to throw on this?”
“Take cover off that dish, you see
nuc-mom
,” Huong said, pointing to a red and white ceramic bowl with a yellow ceramic lid, and a small ceramic ladle inside it. “It plenty hot, boss. I no think you want more chili with it.”
James Harris, famished, had thought of stealing one of Turd’s giant helping of pork ribs, but when he reached for an untouched rack of the meat, the dog snapped at his hand, and raised the hair on his back at him, showing his teeth.
All three cowboys in the room and Brian Pitts laughed watching Mau Mau scoot across the floor, dodging the dog’s slashing choppers.
“You better get a bowl of this shit, my man,” Pitts said, and looked at Huong. “With three million bucks laying on the floor, I hope we can afford something to drink.”
“Chung got some 33 Beer, but we no have ice,” Huong said, pointing to his brother, who took the lid off a tub of water and pulled out two bottles of the Vietnamese brew. “It taste best when you drink like this anyway. American make taste bad with too much cold.”
“Fuck, this piss?” Harris said, taking a bottle and knocking the lid off on the edge of the counter. “You can’t get it cold enough to make it taste good.”
Huong glared at the black Marine deserter and then walked back to the dog, whose belly now took on the appearance of a dirigible, hanging beneath his bony but now wide-spread hips and ribs. When he knelt by the ugly brown mutt, instead of it growling at the Vietnamese cowboy as he had done to Mau Mau, the beast wagged his tail, and welcomed the man stroking him on the head.
“We take Turd to Saigon with us I think. Okay, boss?” Huong said to Pitts, and then smiled at Harris, who frowned at his pet, who seemed to have betrayed his loyalty to another man. “He still love you, Mau Mau. Turd just no like to share his food. He starve too much his life.”
“Yeah, I know how he feels,” Harris said, and sucked down more Vietnamese beer as he filled a bowl with rice.
“So tell me how Turd saved the day,” Brian Pitts said, taking a wicker-bottomed, straight-back chair from a row of them set against the wall, and sat on it while he ate his dinner.
“This morning, maybe thirty minutes after you go to meet that no-good shitbird Elmo,” Huong began, “Turd, he start cry and whine like he need go ca-ca bad outside. So I hurry open door, and he run to gate, look out, run back, and go hide. Then he start bark and bark like he always do when rocket attack come. You know, he no like thunder or rocket.”
“That all he did?” Pitts asked, shrugging. “From how you described it at first, it sounded like he told you the spooks were on their way.”
“He do tell me that,” Huong insisted. “I close door, he run to it again, cry, cry, cry, I open door, he run to gate, bark and run go hide, and bark, bark, bark. Then he run door again. Pretty quick I go take look at what make him bark. No thunder, no rocket. But I see white van down street. Then I see Benny Lam and Major Toan standing on rooftop. They watch us with what you call these thing?”
“Binoculars,” Pitts said, helping his top cowboy find the words as he held his hands around his eyes, mimicking the field glasses.
“I know we got set up. That no-good shitbird Elmo,” Huong hissed, and then spit on the floor after saying James Elmore’s name.
“I tell Chung to take Ty and Bao, get in black Mercedes, and go where you meet Elmo,” Huong said, and then spit on the floor again. “We know CID watch us, so we take suitcase, valise, box, all pack full of junk, clothes, what we can find, and we put in backseat and boot of car. That way they maybe follow them so I can get out with our money.”
“Good thinking, Huong,” Pitts said, scraping the last of his rice from the bowl.
“We lucky that old man Tran Giap Nguyen come today and clean courtyard for party you plan tomorrow, you know?” Huong said, smiling.
“Oh, yeah, I almost forgot about that,” Pitts said. “Should be interesting when the guests start arriving.”
“Yeah,” Huong said and laughed. “Maybe Nanna and some girls still be there. Benny Lam, he probably already put them working for him.”
“So old man Tran is there with his boys?” Pitts said, putting his empty bowl in a pan, and then fishing out another 33 Beer from the tub of water.
“He there with his two boys,” Huong said, now getting himself one of the beers. “They cut bush along outside wall and patio. I tell Tran to back his three-wheel truck onto porch and then start cut leaf off palm tree.”
“Yeah, that big date palm by the back door, sure,” Pitts said, sitting back in the chair and sipping the beer.
“While he have that little truck park by door, I go inside and get cash and lay in back of truck,” Huong said, squatting on his heels and sipping the beer. “I put in all six seabags, and then we pile dirt and trash, and palm leaf on top. Hide money good. I give Tran ten thousand American cash so he help good. No talk, nobody.
“While CID go follow Chung in Mercedes, maybe take look at your laundry,” Huong laughed, “I put on work clothes, straw hat, and get in truck with old Tran. His two boys get in back with this dog, Turd, and sit on top palm leaf and trash. We drive out like we go dump. We look like worker no matter much. Two Marine MP and two cop belong Major Toan they stop us at corner. We no talk English, just Vietnamese. We play dumb, good. Look at truck. Look at me. Look at two boy and Turd in back, then wave past.”
Huong smiled and shrugged, “That dog you name shit, he do good. I no see CID before too late. This way we get out, get money, and all okay now.”
“Yeah,” Harris grumbled, crouched in the corner, looking at his spit-shined boot toes.
“What you be piss about?” Huong scowled at Mau Mau. “You always piss off. Why? We got money, we okay.”
“James Elmore got me pissed, man,” Harris said, looking up at Pitts.
“When I said you stay here and take care of him, I was only kidding,” Brian Pitts said, looking at Harris scowl. “Benny Lam has already taken over the house, and like Huong said, probably got the girls and Nanna working for him now, too. I guarantee you that as soon as CID went through the place, he moved in. He’s wanted the ranch ever since I killed Tommy Nguyen. Meanwhile, I guarantee Major Toan and Benny already had our business split between them last Wednesday, when they knew CID was taking us down. We don’t have a fucking thing to prove by killing James Elmore, that sack of worthless scum. No way I’m going back there.”
“Like I done tole you,” Harris glared, throwing his beer bottle, shattering it in a sack of trash, “I want to put that motherfucker on his knees while I drill a .45 through the top of his head. I don’t want to go to Saigon or Bangkok or anyplace else until I kill that son of a bitch.”
Brian Pitts stared at the floor and looked into the top of his beer bottle, as though the answer to how to handle his cohort’s anger floated in the suds drifting across the top of the yellow brew. Then he looked at Huong.
“What if Harris stayed back with you, helped you take care of that business we talked about, should I need to disappear,” Pitts said to Huong.
“Sure, he stay,” Huong said, and looked at the dog. “Turd stay, too. We ride Saigon, the three of us. I think this dog be happy that way. Ride Saigon with his friend.”
“Tell you what, Mau Mau,” Pitts said, and looked cold-eyed at the angry man, “you go to fucking up, and Huong or Bao will kill your ass. My orders. Discipline, my man. That’s how to win. Discipline. The Marines taught me that much, and I believe it. You go off half-cocked, running on a rampage, slinging lead in the ville, killing people all sloppy and shit, then you become a liability. Understand?
“I want you, Huong, and Bao all three in Saigon with me in two weeks. Got it? Two weeks. You can help them take care of this business. I’ll explain what we aim to do. You can kill Elmore if you get the opportunity. That’s if you get the opportunity. We will not compromise what we have going to Saigon by some blind hunt for rabid vengeance. Fuck, man, he only ratted us out. We’re sitting on nearly three million in cash right here, plus that small change we got stashed. Huong and the boys got their stash down here, too. All that in Saigon, man, we’ll take over down there.”
Harris looked at Brian Pitts, smiled, and nodded his head, agreeing.
“You right, boss,” Harris said, and then looked at Huong. “Just tell me what we need to do. I get it done. Me and old Turd here.”
“Discipline, Mau Mau,” Pitts said. “Anytime you feel the urge to rebel, you just remember, discipline. And Huong with his .45 in your ear.”
“I got that, man,” Harris said, rubbing the side of his head where the Vietnamese cowboy had slapped him with the pistol nearly four months ago.
“So you leave to Saigon tomorrow, yes,” Huong said, looking at Pitts and his brother, Chung.
“Say,” Harris asked, clearing his throat and looking at the six seabags full of money, “how you going to haul that much cash down there without some inspection finding it?”
The light-skinned Marine deserter laughed and tilted his head sideways, giving Harris a smug glance.
“After all we’ve done here, you wonder how we can haul six seabags of money to Saigon?” Pitts asked, still chuckling. “We’ve shipped hundreds of pounds of heroin to the States, and never a hitch. Getting this money down south is nothing.”
Harris looked at the floor, feeling stupid.
“I’m sorry, Mau Mau,” Pitts said, seeing the man’s embarrassment for asking the question. “Look, I keep forgetting that you have no scope of what kind of business we did. You just got a glimpse at the very surface when we had to yank up the stakes. You saw that old blue dump truck outside?”
Harris, feeling a bit of his pride returning, looked up and nodded, “Yeah, I saw it out there.”
“It has a three-yard bed,” Pitts said, raising his eyebrows to emphasize the capacity of the dump truck. “That’s a lot of topsoil if you don’t know how big three square yards of dirt is. We lay the duffels full of money on the bottom of the bed, zipped inside some rubber body bags we have stashed, and then pile pig shit on top of it. A few square yards of pig shit on top will stop about any cop from digging to the bottom of that truckbed.
“We get to Huong’s family out west of Saigon, and we dump the shit, and the money lands on top. Unzip the body bags and take it to the hooch.
“I’ve got a bank in Bangkok, set up the account a year or so ago. I got a friend, who owes me a big, big favor, and he flies a puddle jumper for Bird Airways in Cambodia. You know, they’re what Air America is over here. Anyway, when we get going in Saigon, we will ship a large part of our capital on his plane to Bangkok. There, my bank will wire it to a Swiss account in Zurich.