“Fuck you, son-of-bitch.”
I slowly smiled my best Powder River grin, the one that would’ve made Owen Wister proud. “Smile when you call me that.”
Western Town’s theme was western, but whose was anybody’s guess. The ubiquitous dancing girls wore white go-go cowgirl boots and either cheap costume cowboy hats or multicolored war bonnets, the kind that came from the Woolworth’s back home. In the dim light, I could see the walls were raggedly festooned with western movie posters that were hand-painted with Vietnamese print or maybe Japanese. I could hardly move with the amount of people in the place; nearly all were locals, but the few servicemen who were mixed in with the mass of civilians were mostly enlisted. It looked like we were the brass, for better and probably worse. Mendoza and Baranski were already scouting the crowd but, from their continued craning, it was pretty clear that they hadn’t spotted Hollywood Hoang yet.
Mendoza leaned in and spoke above the music. “You stay here, man, and we’ll walk through and see if we can’t flush him out.”
“What about the back?”
He shook his head. “This your first time to the rodeo? There ain’t no back door.”
I watched as they disappeared into the crowd. There was a dance floor where Jim Ed Brown’s “Pop a Top” warbled through the narrow building and made me homesick. I planted myself against a newel post leading to a stairwell to the basement and a beaded door. I was tired and all I wanted to do was sleep, so I closed my eyes for only a second. When I opened them, there was a teensy Vietnamese woman in a brightly feathered child’s war bonnet who was standing on tiptoes to get my attention. “You like dance?”
“No, thanks.”
“I give special plice?”
“No, that’s okay.” It was easy to see over her; only the tips of the feathers were in my line of sight. With the constant flux of people going in and out, it was hard to keep track, but if Hoang was wearing his trademark powder-blue jumpsuit and white silk scarf, I figured he’d be easy to pick out of the crowd.
She stepped in closer and put her hands on my uniform. “Special plivate dance?”
I blew on the feathers to get them away from my face. “No, really . . .”
“You look for fliend?”
“No...” I glanced down, and her eyes carried a greater intensity than they should have. “What?”
Her voice lowered but still held the same urgency. “You look for fliend?”
I was glancing over her head for either Baranski or Mendoza, neither of whom were in sight. “No, really, I’m a monk.”
She stared at me for a moment, looked back into the main part of the room, and then glanced down the stairs leading to the basement. “Onree you.”
I stood there looking at the sheen of the Southeast Asian night on her skin and thought of Mai Kim. I was assaulted by the hokey music, and the tumblers fell into place. “Do you know Hoang? Hollywood Hoang?”
Her eyes flicked back over her shoulder and then down the stairs again. “Onree you.”
“Is Hoang down there?” Her face remained immobile. “I’m not going to hurt him, but I can’t leave this spot unless he’s down there.”
The feathers bobbed imperceptibly as she nodded. My nod was just as slight. I slipped around the railing and started down the steps and thought about Hoang—how much he’d thanked me for saving his life in Khe Sanh, and how, if he’d really wanted to kill me, he probably would have already. He’d certainly had a bunch of opportunities.
But you never knew.
I unsnapped the strap on my .45 and pulled the hammer back. There was no door, just the beaded curtain, and it was dark. I thought about what a great backlit target I was making, parted the curtain, and stepped through.
The basement was even narrower than the bar. I walked past a dirt shelf that held a bunch of tiny compressors that looked more like gerbil wheels than coolers as they valiantly attempted to keep the upstairs, well, cool. There were boxes to my left, stacked to the ceiling as far as the light from the doorway would allow me to see. Jim Ed Brown had given way to Buck Owens and the Buckaroos upstairs, so I raised my voice a little and rolled the loaded but still holstered dice. “Hoang?”
I thought I could make out the sound of a movement behind me and to my right. I turned slowly and looked into the beer-can barrel of a Walther PPK silenced pistol.
His eyes were wide, and sweat had saturated the powder-blue jumpsuit to a sopped navy. I raised my hands without being bidden. “How are you, Hoang?” He didn’t say anything and scanned to the right for anybody who might’ve been following me. “I’m alone.”
His eyes couldn’t remain still, and I could see the barrel of the pistol shaking in his hands. “Mai Kim...”
“She’s dead.”
His eyes welled, and he half swallowed, like there was something in his throat that wouldn’t go down. He looked at the ground between us, but the pistol stayed where it was. After a few seconds, his voice wavered. “You know who kill her?”
I lowered my hands a little and he didn’t seem to take exception, so I let them drop to my sides and slowly placed the .45 in my duty holster but left the safety off and the leather strap unsnapped. “You know, that’s funny—we had a little discussion about that; your name came up.”
He shook his head vehemently. “I no kill Mai Kim.”
I was developing a hard-fought talent in Vietnam for being able to tell if people were lying to me. He was convincing, and I let the weight of it settle and drift us toward more conversation. “Well, then, who did?”
“I no kill Mai Kim!” The fat barrel faltered a moment then came closer to my face; I turned my palms out and took a half-step back, dropped my gun hand down, and gestured with the other. “All right, all right.” He switched the gun to his other hand. “If you didn’t kill her, then why are you holding a pistol on me?”
His lips compressed, and he swallowed again, the barrel not moving. “You on up?”
“What?”
“You on up?”
I inclined my head. “You mean the up-and-up?”
He nodded. “Up-up.”
I took a breath and sighed. “Yep, I’m on the up-up or else why would I be in a bar basement off Tu-Do Street with my sidearm back in its holster?”
He paused for a moment, took a deep breath that caused his whole body to shudder, and then lowered the Walther. I took another half-step back to show him I’d meant what I’d said, leaned against the dirt shelf, and listened to the rickety compressors and Buck and the Buckaroos. “Hoang, if I wanted you dead, I’d have left you in the mud at Khe Sanh.”
His eyes were steadier now, even with the sweat coursing down his face. “No mortar.”
“What?”
“No mortar.” He said it again, emphasizing each word.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“At Khe Sanh, no mortar.”
I felt cold, and it had nothing to do with the temperature. “You mean the round that hit the helicopter?”
He gestured with the pistol, the barrel coming up and to my left. “No mortar. Timer was . . .”
The shot compressed the confined space, and the spray of blood splattered in my eyes, making me blink. It didn’t feel like I was hit, but something was falling against me and I caught it. It was Hoang, choking on his own blood with a sucking wound that made ghastly noises in his chest. He was already covered with blood, and his eyes looked up at me, imploringly. I lowered him to the dirt floor as Baranski and Mendoza approached with their guns drawn.
I unzipped the flight suit and looked at the wound, blowing air with his breath, the bubbles flowing with the blood as it drained down Hoang’s side. I gently pulled the silk scarf from around his neck and raised him up, wrapping the length of cloth around and under his shoulder to secure the front and rear wounds as best I could.