“Nothing basic about anything I did,” he says with a self-satisfied sniff, taking a drink.
“I’d say everything about you is basic.”
Somehow, that gets to him. Touches too close to trailer-park siding. Dogshit in a dirt backyard. “Maybe I’ll start asking you questions,” he says, face flushing a deeper shade of rose. “How’d you like that, smart ass?”
“No, just one more from me, then the floor is yours.”
“Shoot,” he says, leaning back and throwing out his crotch.
“What does the inside of a man look like?”
This takes him by surprise, slides his groin back into the folds of his chair. He stumbles backward through the booze-soaked chemicals of his brain, looking for any movie, book, or science text to come up with the proper answer, to shut this crazy motherfucker down.
“Red,” he says finally in a low voice. He hopes it has the effect of past pain, but I know it’s the whimper of defeat.
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “It’s black.”
Less than two minutes later, the table is empty, his beret left on the table.
I regard that hat, sitting among the empty glasses. Dead soldiers, the civs call them. We wouldn’t dare. Maybe I’ll trade this hat for mine back in the cave. Maybe I’ll move what’s inside that bush hat into this new cover, if it’ll fit. If it’ll stay. Maybe I’ll just keep drinking right here and never go back to the cave again, because something in there is eventually going to eat me.
There’s something behind me now, watching me. Maybe I never left the cave, and I’m still sitting in that chair. Maybe it followed me here, but it never has before.
No, what’s behind me isn’t a thing, my new eyes tell me. It’s just a man. Which means I am where I think I am, I did drive a table full of playtime assholes into the street, and I am sitting at that same table with a man watching me. I’ve had enough of men tonight. Let me watch, then move the fuck one. Petting zoo is close.
“Handy work with our friend,” the man says, his voice bemused. He was closer than I thought.
“He ain’t my friend.” I look at the man standing just behind me to the right, note his pale skin, the dark circles under his black eyes that seem like they’re all pupil, so dilated they eat up the light. I’ve seen him before, and he’s obviously seen me. Somehow I knew he’d talk to me some day, and I’d just given him the perfect in. “He isn’t my friend, either.”
“May I?”
I shrug. I honestly don’t care, and now I have to catch up on my buzz before the money runs out.
He sits and smiles at me, almost with pride. “American, just like I thought.”
“What else would I be?”
“African. Yemeni. Hell, you could have been Haitian.”
“Maybe I’m all those. Haitian-born African who grew up in Yemen.”
“No, you’re not. You’re an American through and through. Hard to place your accent, though.”
I don’t know how to take this, nor do I know how to take him. He’s coming on like he knows me, and that he might is what scares me. I don’t want anyone to know me anymore, especially not here, and especially not someone on Uncle Sam’s payroll, which this dude obviously is.
“I’ve seen you around,” he says.
“I kind of stick out.” I motion to the bartender for another drink.
“What brings you to Bangkok?”
“I was born here.”
“Reborn, maybe,” he says with a plastic grin, proud of himself. He’s probably proud of himself a lot.
“Nah, I was reborn out in the jungle.”
“Vietnam?”
“Sure wasn’t the Congo.”
“So what brings you to Bangkok?”
“Are we going to have a problem?” I shoot him a look, almost daring him to answer the question a certain way. I’m still pissed from the jive-ass turkey in the hat.
“I certainly hope not,” he says, not the least bit worried. “That’s not why I sat down.”
“Then why did you? Reminisce about the red, white, and blue? Talk some Yankees? Cleveland Browns?”
“No, no. I don’t need that. Not from you, certainly.”
The drink arrives. The bartender looks at the man, who pays for my drink and ignores the offer of change.
“I don’t trust nobody who doesn’t drink,” I say.
“I don’t trust anyone, period.”
“Smart move.”
“The only move.”
I gulp my drink, faster than normal, because I want to get out of here, away from this self-satisfied cadaver and his weird eyes who keeps looking at me like he knows me, or has a secret. Maybe some combination of both.
“I’m going to ask you for a favor,” the man says. “You don’t have to do it, but I’m going to ask anyway, because that’s what I do, and I’ve been wanting to for a while. Is that okay?”
“No harm in asking, I guess.”
“That’s not always the case, but I hope in this one it is.”
I finish my drink and push the glass to the center of the table, joining the rest of the empties. Only one dead solider here.
“I know who you work for,” he says.
“No you don’t.”
“Yeah. Yeah I do.”
I look him in the eyes. “No, you really don’t, and it would be better for you if you didn’t, you dig?”
“Okay, let’s do it that way if you’d like.”
I get up, looking around to see who is watching me. Everyone is and isn’t. Same old. Blind eyes watching you everywhere, shadows in every corner, waiting inside spider webs. “I gotta go.”
“But I haven’t asked my favor yet.”
“I don’t do favors.”
“Maybe for me you will. I’m a very appreciative person, with lots of friends. Doing a favor for someone like me could be quite beneficial to a stranger in a strange land without many friends of his own.”
“I don’t need friends.”
“Everyone needs friends, Mr. Broussard.”
I drop back into my seat. “How do you know my name?” I know how he does, but in the moment, I can’t help but ask.
“How does anyone know anything?” The reflections of the bar lights in his flat black eyes flash like midnight quartz. He’s now deep in his game, and loving every move of it.
I stare at him, noting his smile, his stiff posture, the way his hands don’t move as they rest palm down on the table. He could be a ventriloquist dummy. Might be. The bartender is watching me, and I signal for another drink. However this goes, I know I’m going to need it.
“My favor is simple,” he continues. “Tiny, in fact. All I’m asking is that during your normal workday, if you happen to run across some interesting information that can’t be traced back to you, that can help me out just a bit, get something on the books, justify my existence in this strange little town, then I’d surely appreciate it, and be obliged to return a favor to you.”
“You CIA? Military Intelligence? One of those Nixon drug hounds?”
The man’s face betrays nothing. Just that same, unwavering smile. The rest of his body doesn’t move a muscle.
“Yeah, okay. I heard through the grapevine that the military is backing certain ex-generals and current warlords in the drug game, positioning rooks and knights based on who’s down with the communists and who still digs Uncle Sam.”
“This grapevine of yours sounds a tad unreliable.”
“This grapevine is making all the wine that brings out all the drunks, and you know that. That’s why you sat down, and that’s why you’re in this ‘strange little town.’”
The man studies me as my new drink arrives. He doesn’t pay for it this time. I reach into my pocket and toss whatever I can find in it on the table. The man notices it’s the last bit of cash I have. Shouldn’t have reached into my pocket.
“Do you like living here, Mr. Broussard?”