The Vets (Stephen Leather Thrillers) (19 page)

Carmody picked the bag up by its bottom and spilled the dong on to the table. He picked up one of the small piles and examined them. “They’re okay,” he said.

“Try another.”

Carmody looked at a second pile. It too was made up of ten 5,000 dong notes.

“Another,” said Tyler quietly.

Carmody pushed the piles around with his claw and then took a third wad of notes. “This one’s cool …” he stopped mid-sentence and glared at Ricky. “You cheating fucking slope!” he hissed. “You stinking fucking cheating bastard!”

“What’s up?” asked Lewis, walking over to the table with his beer in his hand.

Carmody held up a handful of bills. The one on the top and the bottom and the one that had been folded around it were 5,000 dong bills, but the rest were five dong notes. “This fucking gook was trying to con me,” he said, and threw the notes in Ricky’s face.

“Count them, Larry,” said Tyler. “Let’s just see how much the little fuck was trying to stick you for.”

Carmody went methodically through the untidy stack of banknotes, putting the ones which were all 5,000 dong bills on one side, the ones containing five dong on the other. The genuine bills accounted for less than a third of the total.

“Well, Larry, I reckon that young Ricky here was trying to get your 250 dollars for about one million dong, give or take a few. About half the rate he promised you.”

“Bastard!” shouted Carmody. “Give me my fucking money back you slant-eyed little shit.”

Ricky made as if to slip his hand into his back pocket but at the last minute he thrust it instead under the table and pulled a black-handled knife out from one of his boots. He pushed Tyler away and held the knife out in front of him, the other outstretched for balance. He shuffled away from the table so that his back was against the wall. Lehman heard the commotion and looked quickly over his shoulder.

“Everything’s just fine, Dan,” said Tyler calmly. “Just keep your eyes on Tonto there. We’ll handle the Lone Ranger.”

Ricky waved the knife under Tyler’s nose and made short, sharp jabs at his face, but the American didn’t flinch.

“Let me have him, Joel,” hissed Carmody, stepping around the table. Ricky kept the knife moving between the two men, bending forward at the waist as if preparing to spring.

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea, Larry,” said Tyler, keeping his eyes on Ricky. “He looks as if he knows how to handle that knife.”

“Yeah, well I’m not exactly defenceless,” answered Carmody. “I can look after myself.”

“No offence meant, Larry,” said Tyler, stepping away from the Vietnamese. Tyler motioned to Lewis and Horvitz to move back.

Ricky grinned when he saw that he was being given the opportunity to fight one on one and he focused all his attention on Carmody, who eased himself into a fighting crouch, his claw forward. He made small circling movements with it as he made soft, animal-like grunting noises. Ricky moved away from the wall in shuffling steps, swishing the knife left and right at stomach level. Carmody sniffed and jabbed with his claw and then spat into Ricky’s face, a shower of saliva that sent the Vietnamese’s hand automatically up to protect himself. Carmody stepped forward and kicked Ricky between the legs, sending him smashing into the wall. Carmody kept moving forward and brought his arm down with enough force to plunge the points of his claw deep into Ricky’s hand. Ricky screamed and the knife clattered to the ground. Carmody swung him around and pulled his arm up behind his back, blood streaming from where it was still impaled by the claw. Tears were streaming down Ricky’s face and he was shrieking with pain. Carmody wrenched the injured hand up higher and then rammed his knee into the back of Ricky’s leg so that the Vietnamese almost collapsed. With his good hand Carmody grabbed Ricky’s hair and began to pound his face into the wooden panels of the wall until they all heard cartilage crunch and the man’s screams stopped. Only then did Carmody let go of his hair and let him slump to the ground. He had to bend with the fall because his claw had become entangled in the bones and tendons of Ricky’s hand and he knelt down to twist it out of the torn flesh. He stood up and took a paper napkin from one of the tables and used it to wipe the blood from his claw, then screwed it up and threw it to one side.

He grinned at Tyler and walked to the entrance of the bar to stand by Lehman. The man on the moped stared at Ricky’s limp body, then gunned the engine into life and sped off, his feet dragging on the road as he fought to control the bucking handlebars.

Ricky groaned. Carmody walked back over to him and pulled the US dollars out of the man’s back pocket, then kicked him in the ribs.

“That’s enough, Larry,” said Tyler. “We don’t want a dead gook on our hands. Not now.”

Carmody nodded and left Ricky alone. “Whatever you say, Colonel.” He picked up the carrier bag and scooped the dong back into it.

Lehman turned to look at the two men. He was no longer surprised at the ease with which Tyler controlled the actions of the group.

“I think we’d better all saddle up and move on out,” Tyler said and the vets headed for the door where their cyclo riders were already climbing into their saddles.

“Hey, GIs, what do we do with him?” Annie called after them.

They ignored her and swung themselves into the cyclos.

“Where shall we go, Joel?” asked Lewis.

“Gentlemen, how about a race?” suggested Tyler.

“A race?” repeated Carmody.

Tyler turned to speak to the five cyclo drivers. “Do you all speak English?” He was greeted with five smiling, nodding faces. “Right then.” He took out his wallet and removed a twenty dollar note. He waved it in the air. “We want to go from here to the Rex Hotel, then along Le Loi Boulevard to the statue of Tran Nguyen Hai, down Pho Duc Chinh Street and along Ben Chuong Duong Street and then to the Floating Hotel.”

He looked across at the rest of the vets. “I reckon that’s the best part of a mile.”

He turned back to the drivers. “We’ll only be paying one fare, and that’s this twenty dollar bill. The winner gets it all. Okay?”

The men all nodded eagerly. It was more than they normally earned in a month.

“Are you ready? Get set. Go!” Tyler shouted, and fell back in his seat as his driver accelerated. The drivers pounded their legs around and around, bending low as they pushed their rusty cyclos along the roads, steering with one hand and ringing their bells with the other to warn cyclists they were coming through. They varied in age from late twenties to early fifties but all were fit and all appeared to want to win the prize. By the time they reached the Rex Hotel they were all perspiring heavily and the pace had slowed with Lehman slightly in the lead, followed by Tyler, Horvitz and Lewis virtually neck and neck. Carmody was last and he was rocking backwards and forwards trying to get more momentum and to encourage his driver, the youngest of the group. Lehman leant over and waved his fist at Carmody as they rounded the corner into Le Loi Boulevard watched by curious pedestrians who wondered what the crazy Americans were up to. Lewis and Horvitz were yelling at their drivers to increase the pace and they rose up out of their saddles to get greater leverage on the pedals. Lehman’s driver kept looking over his shoulder to see if they were gaining.

“No problem. We win,” he grunted at Lehman, who could see that he was barely out of breath. His upper body was bathed in sweat and water was dripping off his forehead but that seemed to be more to do with the hot, clammy night than with the physical exertion. A small Yamaha motorcycle cruised up next to Lehman and a teenager with a pudding-basin haircut and thin moustache shouted over to his driver, obviously asking what was happening. The driver shouted something back in Vietnamese and the teenager laughed and whooped and then fell back to taunt Carmody and his driver for lagging behind. Tyler’s cyclo began to draw away from Lewis and Horvitz, probably because he was lighter than they were and the slight incline of the road was starting to tell on the drivers.

By the time they reached the statue of Tran Nguyen Hai Lehman’s lead had been narrowed by Tyler, who was urging on his driver. Lewis and Horvitz were neck and neck and risking life and limb by reaching over and trying to pull the rear brakes of each other’s cyclos, narrowly escaping getting their fingers chewed up in the wheels. Carmody had taken a ten dollar bill from his wallet and was screaming to his driver that if they won he could have that, too. The man was nodding and grinning and doing his level best, but he was clearly not as fit as the other four drivers and Carmody slumped back in his seat, grinding his teeth in frustration. The teenager on the Yamaha revved his engine and laughed until Carmody lashed out with his leg and knocked the machine into a roadside hawker’s noodle soup stall which promptly collapsed amid a cloud of steaming broth.

As the cyclos turned into Ben Chuong Duong Street and raced parallel to the Saigon River, Lewis finally managed to jam the brake on Horvitz’s cyclo and it skidded to a halt by the side of the road. The driver cursed at Lewis and jumped off to free the back wheel while Lewis’s driver put on a spurt and managed to catch up with Tyler who was still waving his twenty dollar bill in the air. With the drivers of both cyclos matching each other pedal for pedal the two cyclos began to gain on Lehman. Carmody’s driver had managed to increase his speed in response to his passenger’s cursing and shouting. Lehman’s driver was gasping for breath and rocking in his saddle as his thighs pumped up and down and Lehman could feel his hot breath blowing against the back of his head. The hotel came into view in the distance and in front of it he could see bicycles circling the statue of Tran Hung Dao in Me Linh Square. Carmody had grabbed a bicycle pump from his cyclo and was trying to jam it in between the spokes of Lewis’s near-side wheel.

“Leave it alone, man,” yelled Lewis. “You’ll turn us over.”

Carmody laughed harshly. “Screw you!” he shouted. He jabbed the pump at Lewis’s face and then threw it at the cyclo driver. It bounced off the driver’s head, but he ignored it, concentrating on trying to catch Lehman.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” shouted Lewis.

Carmody was about to reply when Horvitz’s cyclo drew level. Horvitz began to kick at Lewis. “That was a bastard trick back there,” shouted Horvitz, each word coinciding with a hefty kick at Lewis’s cyclo. While Lewis was distracted, Carmody leaned over and clipped him around the head with his claw, drawing blood. Lewis put his hand on his injured ear, his eyes blazing at Carmody, then he lurched forward as Horvitz kicked the wheel brake. As the cyclo squealed to a halt, Lewis leapt out and chased after Carmody who raised his good hand and gave him the finger. “Up yours, Lewis!” he yelled, then turned and urged his driver to pedal faster.

Realising that he wasn’t gaining, Lewis stopped and waited for his own cyclo driver to catch up. His stomach ached and he bent double, trying to ease the pain.

“Can’t take it any more, bro?” jeered Horvitz.

“Fuck you,” said Lewis. He climbed back into his cyclo and rejoined the race.

Lehman was still in the lead. “Nearly there,” gasped his driver.

“Go for it,” said Lehman, suddenly embarrassed by the man’s enthusiasm for the race. He wasn’t doing it out of any competitive instinct, any desire to be first, he was doing it purely and simply so that he could put food on the table for his family, as opposed to the Americans who seemed to want to win for the sake of victory itself. Lehman sensed with a tightening of his stomach that Tyler was manipulating the Vietnamese the way an animal trainer can make sea-lions do tricks by tempting them with pieces of fish. He folded his arms across his chest and settled back in his seat, his lips tight together, not caring any more whether or not Tyler and the rest were catching up. He was still sitting like that when his cyclo screeched to a halt in front of the hotel, closely followed by Horvitz and Tyler. Carmody was a full thirty seconds behind them and he glared at his driver while putting his ten dollars back into his wallet. “You weren’t fucking trying,” he said to the man who was bent double over his saddle and panting. Carmody climbed out of the cyclo and stormed off towards the entrance to the hotel where a young Vietnamese in a sailor suit opened the glass door for him and wished him a good evening. “Fuck off,” Carmody muttered and jabbed at the lift button with his claw, hard enough to scratch the plastic.

Outside, Lewis arrived, his ear still bleeding, and Tyler made a big show of handing the twenty dollar bill to Lehman’s driver, then the four vets walked after Carmody.

“I thought that would get them going,” said Tyler.

“Yeah, that was some ride,” agreed Lewis. “I think Carmody was taking it a bit too seriously.”

“Just goes to show that capitalism gets results,” said Tyler.

Lehman smiled ruefully. “How do you explain that, then?” he asked, pointing back to the parked cyclos. The five Vietnamese men stood together and Lehman’s driver was handing out money to the other four. “They’re sharing the prize,” said Lehman. “It didn’t matter who won, they all get a piece of it.”

Horvitz frowned. “Now why the hell would they do that?” he mused.

Tyler shook his head and snorted disparagingly. “Who knows?” he said. “Looks like they haven’t quite got the hang of the free market after all.”

The four Americans walked together to the lifts. Carmody had already disappeared upstairs.

“Drink?” asked Tyler.