TWENTY

The damp air was steaming in Nashville’s cell, as if it were a part of his punishment to boil like rations in a can. He wasn’t the kind of animal that should be kept in captivity. His eyes had lost their shine.

‘Moreau was outside the bar when I came back,’ Nashville told Shorty.

‘What was he doing outside?’

Nashville rubbed his hair. ‘Sweeping the porch, looking up at the stars, fucking his dogs . . . How the hell should I know?’

Shorty softened his voice, trying to sound less like an interrogator. ‘It’s just I’ve never seen him standing outside Le Boudin at night,’ he said.

‘You’ve never seen a broad open her legs,’ said Nashville. ‘That don’t mean it don’t happen.’

Nashville couldn’t just tell an MP a story and expect it to stand, unexamined. Shorty was a trained cop, exploring Nashville’s alibi, helping him find his own way around it, leading him out of blind alleys and cul de sacs.

‘I don’t remember Moreau going outside when I was drinking with Berger,’ said Shorty.

Nashville always raised an eyebrow when Shorty mentioned Berger. ‘In a room full of high-class, freely available, circus-trained pussy, you were watching Moreau?’ asked Nashville.

‘No,’ said Shorty, ‘but he was talking to us.’

Nashville had been confident in his story and he didn’t have another one. If Shorty couldn’t make it work, the problem was Shorty. He didn’t seem to be acting the way a partner should. Nashville had trusted him from the start, because he’d appeared too dumb to play both sides, but now he wondered if it was an act.

‘What did you have to talk with Moreau about, anyway?’ asked Nashville. Moreau generally spoke past Shorty, rather than to him.

‘Business,’ Shorty replied, and he knew it didn’t sound right.

‘Moreau was talking business with you?’ asked Nashville.

It was even worse when Shorty heard it repeated.

‘Well, with Izzy mainly,’ he said. ‘They were speaking German.’

Nashville stood, locked his hands behind his back, and paced three steps to the wall and three steps back.

‘Do you even understand what Moreau’s business is?’ asked Nashville.

Nashville thought Shorty was still the naïve kid who’d stepped off the plane at Tan Son Nhut, a farmer in uniform. ‘Prostitutes,’ said Shorty.

‘Prostitutes,’ repeated Nashville, as if he’d chosen the wrong word.

‘Bar girls, hostesses, whores,’ said Shorty. ‘He’s a hoon, a pimp.’

Nashville laughed, the way people did when they thought they knew more than Shorty.

‘Have you never fucking wondered,’ he asked, ‘why Moreau is the only Frenchman left in Vung Tau?’

‘Because he’s protected by the Mamasan?’ asked Shorty.

‘What does that tell you?’ asked Nashville.

Shorty waited to be told.

‘You ask your friend Berger,’ suggested Nashville, and sat back down.

Berger, thought Nashville. That fucking hymie leprechaun’s the key to all this bullshit.

‘Izzy went home,’ said Shorty.

There was a long, cold silence in Nashville’s head, a space where he could hardly find a thought. He felt as though something he’d always held tightly was suddenly slipping away. Or maybe Shorty was pulling it from him.

Fucking what?’ shouted Nashville. ‘When the fuck did he go home?

Shorty was hesitant. ‘This morning,’ he said. ‘He had to take the girls back to Australia.’

Nashville had a belly full of bees, and a rat running loose in his throat.

But they were fucking witnesses! ’ he shouted.

‘Witnesses to what?’ asked Shorty.

‘Whatever the fuck is going on,’ said Nashville. ‘They’re a part of it. Did you even question them?’

Shorty admitted he hadn’t.

‘That’s because the only guy who ever gets the third degree from you,’ said Nashville, ‘is me.’

Nashville allowed this thought to settle.

‘I don’t really know who the fuck you are,’ said Nashville, ‘do I? You’re supposed to be some cherry-ripe country boy who turns up at my war with your slow smile and your blue balls and your pussy-wouldn’t-cum-in-my-mouth schtick, and as soon as you fucking get here, men disappear, people die, corpses lose body parts, the whole town goes fucking mad and me – the guy in this war who’s done the least to cause trouble for any man, friend or foe – gets fucking blamed for it.’

‘Are you saying I’m causing it?’ asked Shorty.

‘I don’t fucking know,’ said Nashville. ‘I don’t know who’s causing it. But I’m damned sure it ain’t me.’

Nashville waited for Shorty to leave the cell.

‘There’s another thing,’ said Shorty. ‘A bloke’s had his head cut off.’

‘Of course he has,’ said Nashville, ‘because that’s the kind of shit that happens around you all the fucking time. Who was it?’

‘We don’t know,’ said Shorty, ‘but when we turned him onto his front, he had ears painted on his back. They looked like wings. Like they’d been trying to make an angel.’

Nashville frowned. ‘So that means I’m innocent, don’t it?’ he asked. ‘Or do they think I cut off his head from here?’

Shorty did a thing where he screwed up his eyes and mouth, as if he’d tasted gasoline. ‘They think it happened a couple of days ago,’ he said.

‘What’re you trying to tell me, partner?’ asked Nashville.

Shorty swallowed. ‘They’re going to charge you for it,’ he said, ‘once they find out who he was.’

Shorty drew a convoy-escort detail to the Australian Task Force HQ at Nui Dat, a day trip to nowhere. The Vung Tau MPs rode shotgun with supply trucks to a bridge halfway down the highway, where the Nui Dat MPs took over. The guys from Vung Tau then escorted empty vehicles from the Dat back to ALSG.

The night before the convoy, he lay on his bunk worrying about the coming weekend with Betty. He didn’t want to disappoint his fiancée, but he felt younger than his years when it came to women, younger than his job as a policeman and a soldier, younger than the boys he’d left behind in Bendigo, Victoria, working in hardware shops and wool stores, who walked home girls from milk bars and dances, and led them into fields like cows and dogs.

Shorty knew the diggers went into town to learn about women from the bar girls. He wondered if he would be the only Australian in Vietnam not to sleep with a Vietnamese woman. If he was, that was okay, because he was pretty much the only Australian in Vietnam with an Australian girlfriend in Vietnam, but he wasn’t sleeping with her either. He’d thought that was because he was respectful, but now he knew he was frightened. What if he couldn’t do it?

Then there was Baby Marie. Maybe it was just because he saw her more often, but he felt he imagined her more than he thought about Betty. Betty was beautiful to Shorty but Baby Marie, he knew, was lovely to every man. And she could teach him. If there was a secret, she could show him. Shorty couldn’t admit to himself he wanted her. He knew it wasn’t right, especially with Nashville in jail. But maybe he could get some information from her about the night of the murder. Shorty could think of a dozen reasons to go to Le Boudin and see Baby Marie, and none of them were the kind of excuses other men might have. He wasn’t going to do anything; he was only going to talk to her. About the two things, the two problems that he had.

Shorty walked over to the MPs’ bar and bought a VB. Jack Adams sat alone at a table, writing a letter home to Toowoomba, Queensland. He was going into town later. Did Shorty want to come?

It wasn’t Shorty’s fault. It wasn’t even his suggestion.

They drank a couple of beers. Adams wanted to know all about Nashville, but Shorty wouldn’t gossip, especially as he felt he’d already betrayed his partner by pushing his finger into the small holes in his story and teasing them into wider wounds.

Adams said it didn’t matter what happened, every event in Vung Tau meant the same thing.

‘The nogs don’t want us here,’ he said. ‘Even the nogs who hate the Commies hate themselves more, because they need us and it makes them feel weak. It doesn’t matter what the Yanks do, or how long they stay, if the good nogs can’t hold the country on their own. And they can’t, because it’s not a real country. It’s just a part of Bad Noggyland that we’ve made into a sort of national park for good nogs, but as soon as the park rangers go home, the bad nogs’ll break down the fences and eat all the animals.

‘Also,’ said Adams, ‘the good nogs’re only good compared with bad nogs. The best nogs are the sheilas. They’re tough and hardworking, like Queensland farm girls, but with more talent for rooting. The best thing we could do for this country is pull out now and leave it to the nogs to fight it out among themselves, and each of us take one sheila back with us to America or Oz. Then you’d have the best nogs living in the best countries, and the bad nogs would be left without a root.’

Adams laughed but Shorty couldn’t tell if he was joking or just trying to get him ready, to put the thought of rooting noggies into Shorty’s mind. Or maybe Adams could see the idea was already there. People always seemed to be able to read Shorty. He’d never been able to lie, except to himself.

Adams said he was tired of looking at blokes in the MPs’ bar, and it was time to go somewhere with better scenery. As he and Shorty walked out the door, the barman watched the cop who thought about politics leave with the drainpipe boy who didn’t go with whores, and muttered, ‘Pair of poofs.’

They picked up a Lambretta waiting outside the gates of ALSG. The pig-eyed driver asked for twice the regular fare, but Adams talked him down, in bar-girl Vietnamese.

At Le Boudin, Shorty and Adams chose the same table as Boston and Skokie had, although they didn’t know it. Quyn joined them immediately. She dropped onto Shorty’s knee, as if she belonged there.

Baby Marie arrived quickly, angrily, and took a seat between Adams and Shorty.

Quyn leaned across and whispered to Adams. ‘I fuck you both Aussies, same time,’ she said. ‘Twenty dollars.’

Adams laughed.

‘Okay, half price for cherry boy,’ said Quyn.

Adams didn’t seem surprised Shorty would qualify for the discount. ‘Cherry boys no last long,’ he said, as if he were brain-damaged. ‘Should be very cheap.’

Adams waved at Baby Marie. ‘How about her?’ he asked.

‘She fifteen dollars one man,’ said Quyn.

‘How much for cherry boy only?’ asked Adams.

‘He too tall,’ said Quyn, as if Baby Marie priced by height.

Shorty couldn’t understand why Adams was negotiating for him, or how everyone knew he was a cherry boy.

‘Cherry boy mine,’ said Quyn. She found him with her hand, as if she were Betty in the dark.

‘Ten dollars,’ said Adams, ‘for me and cherry boy.’

Shorty was hard under Quyn’s hand.

‘Okay, okay,’ said Quyn. ‘Special rate for Uc da loi.’

Shorty leaned away from Quyn and eased her off his lap. ‘No,’ he said.

He tramped to the toilet, and teased cigarette butts with a stream of piss.

When he came out, Baby Marie and Quyn had both moved, like pieces on a board. Quyn had taken Adams, won him. She sat facing him with her legs around his knees. Shorty wondered if Adams would kiss her. He knew you didn’t have to kiss them, but guessed you would want to.

Baby Marie had moved sideways, the rook. Shorty, the knight, came to the bar and castled her, so his body stood between her and the coil of Adams and Quyn.

‘You leave me alone,’ said Baby Marie. ‘I not for sale.’ Her lip quavered.

She was soft and gorgeous and small and he wanted to take her, protect her, be a policeman and soldier for her. He loved her eyelids, the tiny crease, the darkness in her pupils, the contrast of her whites, the thin plucked line of her brows, the feathered lashes – all these he had noticed but not known.

He wanted to see her ink-black hair spread out on a milk-white pillow: white square and black square, chess and chequers, eyeball and pupil, man and woman, Aussie and nog.

Baby Marie was lost and Shorty could see it, knew it, felt it like Tommy Callaghan had felt it. He reached for her.

‘You fuck off,’ she said.

Quyn had to get up to fetch more beer.

Adams talked to Shorty out of the corner of his mouth. ‘I know you, mate,’ he said. ‘You’re the bloke who couldn’t get a root in a brothel.’

Baby Marie liked Shorty. She was most comfortable with the quiet ones, the nervous ones, although she knew they weren’t always the gentle ones, and all men changed when they were alone. She would make love to the cherry boy, but not while Adams was paying for Quyn. The old whore would ruin it for Baby Marie if she behaved as if both of them could be bought like drinks. And Quyn knew that. She’d tried the same thing with Tommy Callaghan. Baby Marie thought Quyn hated her because she was young, and Baby Marie hated Quyn because she was old. Each lived as a reminder to the other.

Shorty didn’t want it to happen this way either, and he asked himself what he was doing, flirting with girls while Nashville was mouldering and decaying in jail. Shorty couldn’t waste the night in the bar, or the next day on the convoy. He should be asking questions, getting answers.

Shorty pulled out ten dollars. ‘I’ll tell you what, mate,’ he said to Adams, ‘your night’s on me.’

Timothy James Caution returned to his itsy-bitsy hole in nitty-gritty nowhere in a casket draped in the stars and stripes, as his ma had always known he would. The embalmers at Tan Son Nhut had pumped his veins full of glue. To each side of his head, they’d attached a rubber ear, and you couldn’t tell they weren’t the ears he was born with because they’d matched the skin tones with foundation. Even the funeral director didn’t know.

Caution’s ma sat by the bloodless body of her son for one full day, and she counted 112 people come to peer at him. Nowhere was as big or as small as you wanted it to be, and a lot of folk from nearby parts felt they had a stake in this particular death, because they knew Caution or his family, or they had kin in Vietnam. There was a whole heap of boys from nowhere in Vietnam, wandering around and getting shot.

Caution’s daddy turned up at the undertaker’s too, to curse and sob. All the men at the PMO had heard about Corn Whiskey, and how he used to beat his son when the boy was small, but Caution never told the rest of the story about how, when Corn Whiskey left, TJ had to carry for his ma and chop wood and clean gutters and mend fences and fix walls and scramble down the well. He grew big like an athlete without ever playing a game of sport. He swaggered around nowhere, looking for boys to change, by breaking their noses or blacking their eyes or smashing their fingernails with bricks.

He found a way to damage girls too. He could do something that stopped them from smiling. It enthralled him. He was altering their histories, the courses of their lives.

TJ moved into a barn. It was a good place to take girls, because no one could hear them. The cops didn’t care much what girls got up to on dates, which is what they called it when TJ dragged cheerleaders into the barn. They got off on hearing the stories was all. It made them wish they were young again.

And Mrs Whiskey would come out in her curlers and lie when the cops came calling like Corn lied to her. She’d say TJ had been at home all night, playing cards with his ma. She’d tell them he’d taken seventy-five cents off her. She’d tell them he had two aces and a queen. She’d say he was a good boy, and she didn’t know why folks spread stories about him, but she supposed it was to do with Corn, who had tangled with every family in town at some point in his drinking.

But one day TJ did it to a cop’s daughter. He kept saying, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know.’ But what they did to him gave him a tremble that never left his fingers, only passed for a while like a memory he could suppress but never forget.

TJ was run out of town. He had nowhere to go but the military, and they sorted him out in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. They made him stand up straight and march in line and wait his turn and do his best and clean his shoes and play his part. And when they’d done with the greasy-haired, snaggle-toothed, bandy-legged, redneckedcornbreaddumbshit, and changed him into a soldier, they saw how well he had absorbed the rules so they put him in military police and sent him to Vietnam.

Sergeant Caution had not thought of himself as Corn Whiskey’s son. That boy had gone. All that was left was the shakes in his fingers that made him cut himself around blades, but calmed with concentration when he focused on a gun. He changed his surname from his pa’s to his ma’s, to show he was a changed man, but also because there were a whole lot of folks who had good reason to hate TJ, and there seemed more soldiers in the army from Tennessee than any other state in the union.

TJ’s ma felt proud that so many had turned up to pay their respects. But at the end of the day, when the last of the mourners had left, she had to wipe spit off the cold, still face of her boy.

But it could’ve been a tear, she told herself. It could be someone wept into his eye.