Chapter one: Hot, dark, damp forest dreams

Pham Van Dong wended his way past the world's largest contraption, which, "is more than vicious," he had said before and he'll say it again, loudly, "like a descending spiral." He bypassed invented dangers, also, those of nature's traps, and walked through bewildering valleys of shadows of death crossed everywhere in this jungle journey. Dong was able to discern where chaos would explode from over and under inside and out of the hundreds of kilometres in his path. He had walked through such intense peril for an amazingly long time. His mind traveled in various directions at this moment while the body went south.

The inevitable purpose of such a contraption was to create carnage on 100,000 square kilometers. The belligerent device chafed at and killed a population in an unaccountably dark region of the world. Trappers like Dong fooled the minds and forged a machine to shred the flesh and smash the bones of undisclosed numbers of (scrupulously counted) people.

He was not alone, except at this moment, for a legion of like-minded 'Dongs' carried sinister threads of insider knowledge, each had enough to survive. They struggled to create a preserve that was, however, as much a mystery to themselves as to everybody else.

The countryside was a slaughterhouse of the deceived, and blood was shed in more than one jungle. This jungle in which Dong traveled was soon to be called the Central Highlands, and was formerly the Truong Son of the French Associated States of Indochine. This afternoon he drifted down the invisible paths of this jungle and sweated a lot as anybody would in this heat. He was under the weather of a self-inflicted way and departing a recently generated giant stench in the north, and now heading south to see to another.

Until this very day, July 20, 1956, Dong had been carousing at celebrations in the city of Hanoi. In hindsight he should have foreseen the difficulty that lay ahead and confronted him now, when they had confiscated his fancy coat and top hat when he arrived back from Geneva. He returned today to invisible trails of the Annamite jungle for a miserable trek through the dangers and dense heat, hefting a canvas sack that bounced off an area of thick skin on his hip. He stepped over gnarled flora on valley floors and watched the tightly sprung trap operating around him.

Oh yes it is a moil of trouble, and the trick is to make it fatal. He walked in the snake-infested Annamite Cordillera, a mountainous maze dividing the land of his forefathers into two geographical extremes on an Asian subcontinent possessing neither repute nor disrepute and virtually no world recognition. On this day a third of his native land disappeared and none of the outside speculators knew where it went, but a few blamed the suddenly occurring Central Highlands while others argued whether Annam ever existed. Duplicity and subterfuge of this nature groaned in perpetuity through the mists.

As of today he would propagate new names for 'opposite ends' of this uncommon principality. Elders had talked about this familiar 'nomenclature', a place called, Vietnam, occurring in a previous age. Now, to clarify, the confusion arises from two of them, a North Vietnam would lie to the north, and South Vietnam would lie to the south. Nothing could be simpler, these two extremes each contained their share of most fertile soil on earth. This fact was the most ignored of all during endless overtures onto occult avenues. The way everything grew was a hint of the supernatural fertility, by accidently growing stuff like rice in stupendous yields. Dong ate a big bowl of rice every day (and lately twice a day), nevertheless, it was no simple rice farmer sowing the seeds of a harvest of homicide.

The 'wizards' behind the mechanical contraption ruled North Vietnam and currently raised the spectre of a southward expansion of their communist rule. As a party to the dreary prospects for a forgotten part of the world, Dong reflected on the momentous turn toward communism, and, immune to dread, knew the place contained a tricky image of paradise, including the beauty of the people, the ferocity of nature, and the bounteous harvests from the earth, rivers, and surrounding sea. The ancestors who had once ruled upon these gifts were long gone.

He hiked with an open mouth catching flies, spitting and breathing hard, keeping a steady pace, and occasionally wiping the sweat from his brow, while thinking about the congress of North Vietnamese nouveau-communistes in Hanoi. The north's centurys-old walleyed city had been seized and turned into the capital of the DRV. Leaders to this end included Ho Chi Minh, Le Duc Tho, General Giap, and other fossils who generated the contraption. These ringleaders sat ominously atop a Politburo that just held the First Party Congress. Formerly hidden evidence (that was severely truncated in content) indicated a variety of interlopers had encountered severe misfortune over the centuries by unwittingly entering these parts. (This was new propaganda designed to obscure historic, existing, and future deeds.)

Propaganda was abundant to be sure, but Dong reflected on his own role in the current malodorous century, which so happens to be long after his forefathers originally contracted to build the contraption. Simplicity governed the way it functioned. A strange pragmatism governed the thinking behind it. Dong and his cohorts roamed the countryside free-booting from villagers and decorating the realm with knots of string, fishing line, rope, and wire. They dug holes, pits, and tunnels and fashioned tonnes of bamboo into various shapes of deadly force, or strategically placed punji sticks smeared with shit, and explosives were used on occasions when the comptroller splurged. One way or another, segments of earth and chunks or heaps of creation moved suddenly to take out everything (or one at a time) and the ground quickly soaked up the remains.

The most recent tumult transpired at the end of World War II when the contraption was trained on walleyed and square head barbarian long noses who were known by their deeds and became destined to disappear in IndoChina. Immediately prior to that was a motley crew of Nipponese lured into Jungle traps and fed to the great grinder. It wasn't complicated, simply incredibly evil. The heirs to centuries of genocide had finished the work with the walleyes. Those days are gone. 'Ferme le porte,' on your way out.

Operating the contraption was, despite the havoc of the deeds, still drudgery. The cadres days were filled with arduous, subtle, and tricky tasks. Dong was a rare entity as a long suffering stick-in-the-mud and sure he stood in gore up to his knees, but not as much as he used to. This seniority had launched him onto a world stage only to have the fame pass away instantly. He was made to meander through a nameless jungle with an aching head and bones, regretting a week of smoking, drinking, and carousing that ended abruptly today yet seemed so long ago.

He attended the last day of the First Party Congress this morning. (There had been another first party congress a long time ago that nobody talked about.) The leaders had recently moved from Tan Trao, the hamlet in the jungle, to downtown Hanoi. It was some kind of culture shock. They lived with fewer dreadful bugs and other surprises. His memories of the past week in the city were incomplete but his 'comrades' took over to appraise the assets and suddenly Communists replaced the former French-hating mob called Viet Minh. A new region called South East Asia began to slink in the darkness. North Vietnam's 'Planning Council' administered the Politburo. Some of this was important to pass along.

Higher authorities were accountants and botanists and a few councillors were field engineers and that would never change. Dong belonged on the trails. Equally he belonged at the first (or apparently even a third) party congress. He was a long-time servant of stench and last May this seniority took him to Geneva, in Switzerland, and when he got there nobody knew who he was, or why he came, or from where, or what he was going to do.

Dong journeyed through the jungle where he was important and the contraption knew to leave him alone. He should have attended more sessions of the congress at the Reunification Hotel (formerly Hotel Hanoi). Nobody missed the summary address delivered this morning in downtown Hanoi by the peerless defacto leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV).

On the last day of the first party congress he envied the French for leaving. Uncle Ho began to ruminate about 'borders' and Dong tried to act interested like earlier in the week when he, Dong, chaired a committee called, 'Preparation of a Rudimentary Map of the Annamite Cordillera.' He trudged into a gorge cogitating about Uncle Ho's swift arrival at a high point in the agenda (where he had stayed for a very long time. . . ).

The main topic of peerless defacto leader's speech was the contraption, naturally. It was the rice and salted fish heads to this gang of Viets. A future of gigantic endeavors would surely dry up and disappear without the trap. Ho Chi Minh (aka Nguyen Ai Qouc, Nguyen That Than, Nguyen That Thanh, Nguyen Van Than, C.M. Moo) was the latest in a long line of contraption confederates who spoke to an attentive audience.

"This device was designed for walleyes who have departed and with whom went the old borders . . . ," and everything they could carry. Whispers surrounded Dong who sat looking sympathetic. He didn't miss the stuff that went down river with the huffy French who left the region saying, to anyone who would listen, that they already lost more than their share.

"The time has come," the peerless defacto leader continued, "to dismantle the contraption," then Uncle Ho paused, and in that moment Dong recounted a few enduring summary addresses preceding this all important (second) First Party Congress one. He also recalled contemplating a contraption-less world that existed without stench, until the peerless defacto leader continued, and in that moment made an infamous announcement that stunned the crowd, "And move it!"

Move what? A short burst of laughter broke the silence, but died away instantly, probably at the end of a blunt instrument. An ominous silence fell over the crowd. Dong recalled the moment because that was when his own headache started.

"We will move the contraption from one new country to another new country," said the peerless defacto leader, "from one No-Man's-Land to another one." The peerless defacto .leader's arm was wrapped in a floppy black sleeve that flapped like a black flag in response to a few chuckles. The speech destroyed all doubt in the would-be scorners, simply by luring them out for destruction.

Hundreds of confused councilors including Dong fell
beneath the withering gaze of Ho Chi Minh. No doubt a few withered back regarding the idea in the Nguyen's head. None would suggest it was a delusion that perhaps came from too much celebrating by the peerless defacto leader. Nobody had authority to question Uncle Ho. Nobody knew of any surviving person who had ever questioned Ho Chi Minh to his face.

"Parts of the trap in the Phuong Dong will move to the south end of a new jungle," said Uncle Ho. "Some parts existing on the cordillera do not move far. We trusted the contraption in Tong King and Annam! Those names are gone with the walleyes and now the contraption will be dismantled and restored at the end of a new road. No one doubt that we will build this road through, and sometimes around, the Central Highlands. Down this road at great expense we will move the contraption and at the end will rise a stench to make the world retch."

"Rich?"

"Make the necessary adjustment! And get used to it! There is plenty more real bad shit to come! Make it happen. You can do this, if you really try." He was trying to convince us that the operation would go forward.

On the trails in their spare time (of which they had too much nowadays) a new breed of argumentative types might suggest dismantling the contraption. No one would suggest moving the garrulous and unwieldy thing except the consummate Councillor who had stood in front of the conference room full of killers. No one could say where the peerless defacto leader came by his ideas. The prospect of entering the impenetrable so-called Central Highlands to build a road practically floored everybody. (Nice carpet to land on for a change.) Raising a stench was nothing new.

Dong recalled a glimpse taken of the fancy room and the weary looks he had seen through his own bleary stare. A lot of heads were nodding but there was hissing on a few of those lips. Dong failed to conceal his own look of stupefaction (and probably wore it long into this forest trek.) (There weren't a lot of mirrors out here.)

Peerless defacto leader Ho Chi Minh had glowered in Dong's face, "You are surprised, Comrade Van?" he asked in a lower and slower voice, "We will move the great grinder inside your non-existent lines. There was special criticism of the rudimentary committee that you chaired. I suggest you go make it a real map this time! For that is what we shall require now." So Dong held his breath waiting for the blow to the back of his skull. "Relocate the contraption!"

He figured the cardinal vulture must have stuck his neck in a faraway vault because the money to build a road around here was not found in those wads of francs filling holes in hut walls. Yet why pick on old Dong for hunching too close to the front and behaving as one of the few doubters not hissing and whispering? He had decided to remain silent about his role as cartographer as highlighted by the peerless defacto leader, and the morning dragged like it does for a guy who spends most of his days in the dark.

Uncle Ho had an infamously windy streak, was given to endless speeches filled with malevolent detail. If they knew who to kill it would be the death of a speech-writer. Dong pondered the extraordinary moving announcement. Because of it his day took a turn for the worst. "Yes, Pham Van Dong," the peerless defacto leader hissed, "you would be one of the would-be scorners." For another agonizing few seconds he had waited for the bludgeon to fall.

"This time, gentlemen, we play for higher stakes, although we are accustomed to playing the risks!"
Uncle Ho went off on a reeking tangent. He was the viperous intelligence behind the bewildering trap and a dragon had less blood on its fangs. They needed a guy as smart as him to concoct a plot to put perpetual killing on centre-stage. Worth recalling was the mood of the crowd, however, swayed by an unexpected level of pessimism. Perhaps they were exhausted like Dong after decades undertaking to live in jungles to 'evade' the walleyes.

He recalled an inquiry from a wizened-to-terror (and therefore invisible) neo-Communist, "Is the soil in the south as fertile as the north, Peerless Defacto Leader?"

"What do we know of soil in the south?" another voice echoed, forlornly.

"What does soil have to do with anything?" Uncle Ho replied. "You are now informed that I have issued the orders to cadre to begin dismantling the contraption!"

The new government stuck with a sure bet. Regardless how mercilous the decision this crowd of head-hunters agreed all decisions belonged singularly to Uncle Ho going on many years. He was known for a harrowing episode in the 1930s when he used a sharp red pencil at the railroad station in Kiev, Ukraine, and for later imparting the same starvation economics to Chairman Mao in China who took much inspiration from Comecon's despotic auditor. When famine arrived in Tong King in 1944 and '45 during a brief fling with communism it was not surprisingly the result of a lot of practice, and harkened to the homecoming of the peerless defacto leader. Starvation followed this guy everywhere he went.

Pham Van Dong was alive and outside the inevitable circular dialogue swirling about the peerless defacto leader's decision. Gossip rose about an occlusion on his own horizon, but that was just noise. He heard a surprising amount of opposition to the peerless defacto leader's announcement. To many if not all councilors the idea was preposterous. Moving the contraption depended on building a road through the previously unheard of Central Highlands. The Annamite Cordillera was a barrier that had hardly been explored except by a few tiger hunting expeditions and Dong's peculiar journeys. The trails in the flora were made by the fauna. As for human trails the question had always been, why bother? Suddenly it was, how bother?

The congress this morning contained a bazaar of macro-engineering professionals, each with a lifetime in the design, construction, or maintenance of the meat-grinding contraption. It was built in the northern half of Indo China, mostly in Tong King, but a section operated in northern Annam, so everybody appreciated the difficulty of constructing things on the cordillera. Viets mostly figured it would be redundant to add danger to already imminent danger. Eventually an avid gathering of Viet Minh came to appreciate the harvest on these tiny trails, for such a contraption is not the creation of idlers (who ultimately learned that a long nose would chase you anywhere to kill you).

Dong agreed nobody could imagine life without it, and that the machine itself would somehow fulfill the wrathful wish of Nguyen Ai Qouc, the big Nguyen, the number one (and only) peerless defacto leader. The idea remained hard to imagine. Moving a thing of such monstrous girth, it fighting you all the way down a sinew of non-existent trail through a nightmare of Annamite jungle, (was that asking too much?) the purpose to perpetuate the name of one old man whose passtime was filling rubbers surrounded by naked children.

Dong averted his eyes from the infamously hard gaze that raked over the First Party Congress. Uncle Ho now stood with a row of ringleaders who ominously blinked at everybody. General Nguyen Vo Giap, Truong Chin, General Nguyen Chi Thanh, Le Duan, and Le Duc Tho, all products of the French Surete of the former Associated States of Indochine. They were silent like everybody else but Uncle Ho who raved at the would-be scorners.

"Taking our decision, we asked. . . ," (Oh yeah? Who?), "would it be worthwhile to expand the herds if the possibility existed?"

The peerless defacto leader had known the answer, which was happily shorter than the question. Heads nodded that otherwise would roll, plus they generally agreed the contraption was immaculate and irreplaceable. Uncle Ho in addition blamed the French for a worthless currency that reflected their lackadaisical approach to feeding the possession. "From a technical point of view, we know how perfectly the contraption works. First we agreed," he had paused as at many moments in the summary, "that moving our contraption is a laudable goal. Then fellow Communists we merely faced the job of actual relocation." He had allowed these piercing remarks to sink in.

Ol' Whatzisname (cause he had a few) was expected to employ single-minded purpose in coming to his carnivorous conclusions (the sort of single mind that promotes human sacrifice). Dong had survived long enough to learn a few secrets. One regarded the ownership of the Nguyen contract, about whom Dong avoided further contemplation because an alien hypocrisy cloaked a huge stake in an utterly carnal enterprise. They abided in a rare atmosphere furnished by stratospheric wealth that made Uncle Ho into an agent with a sharp pencil used to cipher the tricky details of contraption harvest.

Dong actually knew his cartography job without any faking, and this was both fortunate and unfortunate circumstance because it kept him alive, but for what?

"Couldn't we just leave it where it is?" asked another invisible councilor.

(Who was this luckier than Dong?) The foolish question failed to recognize the saturation point of the north and exhaustion of the population from feeding old snarly. Nor did it recognize that when deeds like these are done to people it requires a cause, which had been satisfied once the nationalist movement obtained a nation. Naturally the peerless defacto leader had made the old mob break hard on the walleyes. Two things remained after 300 years of French 'colonialism': A legion of long nose ghosts haunted the habitat, and vaults of French francs collected dust (or loads of laughs when offered to the world).

During the past 10 years of inevidable torment the walleyes grew snooty and resentful when predecessors to the Politburo tied together pieces of the modern contraption and perfected the function. Timed with the linkage was the arrival of hundreds of thousands of barbarian long noses who coincidentally agreed with local walleyes called Colons to create an incomprehensible escalation of bloodshed. Viets rose to ferocious scale on their own behalf responding with guerrilla warfare. Behind it all the wizards steered combatants into the contraption which devoured everything, and the walleyes sailed away taking everything they could carry.

"Oh, faceless inquisitor," he replied to the faceless inquisitor, who would remain faceless, otherwise would become headless, "walleyes are gone and never coming back," hardly moving except to blink, delivering every word with terrible weight, except Uncle Ho never needed to say a word to be a menace. "Who else knows the value of our possessions? Have we learned these tricks for nothing? We must invite another, greater long nose!"

Dong imagined his fellow Viets had control over IndoChina these days. His eyes told him everybody was eating lots and no long noses roamed around the countryside stealing the lion's share of an endless supply of rice, best in the world. Of course it was too good to be true. Why not invite another horde of obnoxious round-eyed bastards to create another huge stench, biggest in the world? Uncle Ho revealed a contraption-sized compulsion for baiting the trap for long noses. To Dong (and most of the rest of the council) the issue of an invitation to the United States of America seemed to be an astonishing way to proceed.

Dong trudged from the dark past into a darker future. The old Jesuit's bewildering announcement came along at a time when a number of alarming changes were occurring that included Dong's work on IndoChina's malleable borders.

He recollected the presentation to the 'rudimentary' committee when he had described reactions of the Great Powers to the new map. News from Geneva had been a source of delight to the peerless defacto leader. Long noses were disjointed by what they had seen, and the Frenchman Marshall Pepin had hollered across the table at Pham Van Dong that South East Asia had always been there and nothing had changed. Pepin added that most of the French francs went missing there. (Bankrupt China's Chou En Lai buried a snigger in the crook of his arm during the exchange.)

A vexing American with tombstones in his eyes named John Foster Dulles jostled South Vietnam's Bao Dai away from whores back to the table. Dulles directed the fake emperor of Vietnam to sign documents to separate the two Vietnams, and used what he called "seaman's vernacular" to declare the south would stand with help from the free world. Everybody had to listen, including whisky-slammed Anthony Eden of Britain and the observant Andrei Gromykin of the Soviet Union, who was slammed on vodka.

Rumors swirled in the red dust of the region after Dong's return from the Geneva Conference and the speculation said several principalities would emerge, although fewer than had been in the former Associated States of IndoChina, and some would have familiar names from an ancestral past while others would sport brand new names. Some would be larger, some smaller. Other rumors would follow. Count on it.

Ngo Dinh Diem, a southern situated Viet of some impending importance, spread a rumor full of false promise that told Viets to imagine a day when Vietnam would have more than a wretched reputation for unspeakable odours. This Diem's rumor said a day would come when the region would appear on maps and the whole world would learn about what goes on here (nothing), which rumor nobody believed.

Dong marveled at the startling pace of change much as anybody else. One day he stumbled through an urban grotto searching for the entrance to a sweet-smelling opium den, fresh off the stinking trails after sucking walleyes into the trap. The next day, or so it appeared, he sat in a Swiss hotel room holding up a phoney map nobody wanted to see. A few days later, he roamed an ornate (in a gauche French way) hotel and conference centre. This morning he became the ghostly centre of attention with his bare feet buried in plush carpet in the opulent ballroom of the Reunification Hotel, feeling the terror devised by the mind behind the contraption.

How is that for startling change? Or try this malaria pill "Pham Van Dong! Some comrade! Your pitiful sneer informs me that it is entirely unfortunate that we continue to require your service--" They hit him with a sock filled with buckshot and he fell unconscious.

No doubt The Nguyen went on in hoary detail about the grinding path to the future. The details grew out of a brand new Politburo and pertained to a new agenda. Dong, an accidental Councillor, unconsciously knew it was more of the same old shit.

He was aware again of cadre slapping his face and arguing that he wasn't hit that hard and saying that nobody was going to carry him, and then he was elbowed off the steps of the hotel into the street heading toward the river. Dong knew the luck to be pushed in front of the firing squad when they just happened to be unarmed. On the banks of the Red River they tossed him in the tepid puddle on the floor of the sloop. Three of the gang launched the boat and he heard them muttering about Dong's duty to create a map of a place called the Central Highlands.

They shunted him down the Red River and onto the ocean and the party sailed along the coast until they began to draw parallel with the Truong Son at an indistinct point. Dong forbore a lecture during the hundreds of kilometers. After a number of hours the political dogma ended and turned to a sarcastic discussion about Dong's worthiness as bait. Finally he learned that Ho Chi Minh had ended the summary address by terminating the Viet Minh nationalist movement as if it never existed. They informed that if he so much as mentions the Viet Minh movement ever again and Communists like them would cut out his tongue and mince it and fry it and eat it without sharing one piece with him.

So, the bait changes and now Communists are it. A new political system was born from a litany known as Causal Doctrine. On it went (slap), and goes like this (slap), and like that (slap), and like this (slap). They spat (on him) one point at a time. Long ago he heard Uncle Ho speaking about it, and Dong remembered thinking that it was only slightly more brutal and destructive than the Viet Minh model of social order. In fact, he couldn't distinguish the difference. Past Haiphong the cadre ensued an insane rant about Dong mapping the Central Highlands, an assignment comparable to delivering letters to non-existent people who are never to be found in the most remote corners of the world. The assignment involved traveling the Phuong Dong or Central Highlands of the Annamite Cordillera (which is a chain of severely grumpy mountains that formed a bent spine of the Indo Chinese subcontinent) where even the tigers are scared to roam but do it anyway.

Around noon those snotty young pups had tossed him and a sack at the mouth of a river and departed back to Hanoi. Dong laid down for a spell disgusted by what he had heard and eventually rose from the red muck to doff wet shorts and lean into a tree and take a piss. He saw a trail down which he started this trek. He was off with his tongue, a former Nationalist reborn a Communist, facing a long climb back up the hierarchy, and a long walk to Saigon. This afternoon he will meet a group of jungle-bound Viet-Muh, fellow communist cadre. Then he was off to Saigon City.

In the bowels of mortifying jungle Dong intended to be the most terrifying of all things. He scared the wilder creatures with a frightful image of sunken eyes set in hoods of skin that sun had browned and years had wrinkled into leather. His jutting teeth were black from chewing betel nut, and smoking, and lack of dental practitioners in the Phuong Dong. He was wiry and strong and still the heavy sack was a burden that made him hunch forward and list in the direction of the weight. Clumps of red muck matted his hair from laying on the riverbank, and thinning hair was was graying, for he had seen more than a few ghosts. He always ate a lot of salted fish for breath that smelled like rotting flesh that was bad enough to slam a tiger in the face and send it howling. Years ago, around the turn of the century, a couple of fingers went missing from his strong-side hand.

Dong took great care with a sack full of gifts for South Vietnamese (defacto) President Ngo Dinh Diem that came from the crazed American in Geneva, John Foster Dulles. It was an assortment of colorful long nose American magazines representing something unforeseen, and equal to a fortune in the black markets of Saigon City, South Vietnam, South East Asia, except this collection was clearly spoken for.

A few Viets in the former Associated State of Cochin China, postured obscenely and acted in a completely facile way to attract foreign attention and to placate long noses. These pragmatists were called Catholics and this had always been encouraged, including one named Ngo Dinh Diem. They ran an organization called the Catholic Labour Union that in turn funded a bunch of off-beat sects in the south, the largest of which was called Cao Dai.

He stopped to catch his breath and have a smoke, maybe two. In the widest part of the trail Dong stooped to pull on his shorts and spy a stump in the dark and brush off a place to sit. He retrieved a pipe from the sack and a little purse of cultivated marijuana and fished for a magazine, which he held toward a slash of light and opened to browse the colorful pages, and he lit the bowl of weed.

In an instant the crazed scouts from a colony of flesh-eating ants struck pay dirt at his bare feet and Dong stomped the earth and blew smoke at the ground hoping to cause a retreat. He returned a gaze to mesmerizing long nose nymphs reposing in life-like color. Rather than thoughts of pleasure his head filled with memories of belligerence. He sat astride the trail in the relative dark of day puffing until the bowl was consumed.

Four centuries passed since wallseyes stuck their long noses in the region. Dong's reclusive ancestors had hidden in jungles like this one. Forests were the seclusion for leaders in those centuries of ceaseless and inexplicable carnage perpetrated by walleyed interlopers. In these constricting quarters they escaped fatal inculcation by the French until Gia Long became first Nguyen emperor in the early 19th century. Gia Long was remembered for making the best of a bad situation. Dong's parents conceived and bore him, and Ho Chi Minh conceived an industrial age contraption, in a forbiddingly wild jungle much like this one except found somewhere else in the former Associated States.

Dong pondered his own dedicated service which obviously added up to nothing for him personally, which he now understood was the ultimate objective of communism. He had even missed the glorious point of victory in the tiny village of Dien Bien Phu, being in Tan Trao and then Geneva when the opium growers stood back to watch General Giap spring in action. He used two million Viet Minh to annhilate half a million Foreign Legionnaires. The stench of Dien Bien Phu smelled all the way to Hanoi and was a coup de grace and denouement for the mighty Viet Minh army. Pictures of French officers Colonel Langlais and General de Castries taken on a wharf at Haiphong harbor show them wearing long faces. Now Dong filled his days watching an apparently redundant (and somehow still hungry) contraption.

Others suffered the same monotony and soon they would meet, and would welcome the announcement by the peerless defacto leader. They knew little about the assignment. Dong knew the contraption would take a decade or more years to assemble. More problematic was the choice of long noses who would inevitably take the bait.

His thoughts turned to immediate concerns of meeting this group of Viet, uh, Communists expecting rumors from Hanoi. He tucked away the pipe with the magazine and rose to continue to move southward. The snootful performed magic and the trail was wider and forest more accommodating. The contraption moved back on both sides and ahead and above and below. A short while later Dong's trustworthy senses informed of the encounter coming down the trail, the one he was expecting was now imminent, a meeting with those Viet Mi--er--unists.

Dong decided to remain concealed and wait for the dark figures to approach, to observe the silhouettes passing through ribbons of light. He wondered if there should be more of them and fingered the pistol in the sack while more memories of belligerence flooded his mind. The excitement of potential bloodshed subsided after Dong identified the lead person coming down the trail. Nevertheless he barked from the shadows, "Who goes there?"

Ha Van Lau stood on the trail smirking at the bushes, "Finish up in there, old fella," said the fast rising Viet Min-uh-U'nist, "and I will introduce you around."

Dong stepped out to the chuckles and stared at the hard eyes of Ha Van Lau.

"Who were you expecting?" asked Lau.

Dong replied, "Where are the others?"

"Red dust," replied Ha Van Lau.

Dong said, "Stench first."

Ha Van Lau was youthful, northern, and a future Viet, uh, communist, "Of course," with a destiny of joining the, uh, Politburo. Let's see if he located the body count with proper coordinates. He asked, "How many and where?"

Ha Van Lau bowed his head and spat, "Three in one spot. I have exact coordinates." He held out a little notebook, which Dong waved away.

Dong said, "It continues to be a hungry contraption that discriminates against neophytes. It makes them believers before they know it." New cadre venturing this far provided confirmation of the contraption's functionality.

"I said I marked the spot." Dong gazed at Lau's spit oozing into the earth. "It's amazing," Lau added, "the way it never stops working."

Dong eyed the survivors and nodded to Lau and suggested to everyone they move off the trail. A tall man, Clad from Dien Bien Phu, dripping with inside knowledge of mysterious deeds, was first to light a smoke and sat opposite Pham Van Dong, and held up a sticky piece of opium that tantalized the group. It was fresh stuff too. Dong shuddered when Lau intervened with an authoritarian attitude to insist they hear from Hanoi first. No doubt he was eager for news. He needed rumors to spread, enough rumors of rumors. Sew the net shut, then spread different rumors to hide the deeds behind the first rumors. Whatever the wise council needed.

"I will talk about proceedings at the First Communist Comintern Congress of the Democratic Republic of Viet-uh. . ."

"The wha --? The Minh?"

"Shut up! CCIC of the DRV -- whatever that spells."

Dong announced, "Vietnam Doc Lap Dong Minh League for the Independence of Vietnam, is no more." He said, "You men of the Viet, uh, 'Cong', have built a rapacious device with a gourmand's appetite. It will be fed." No wonder they couldn't get rid of this guy. Dong just invented the word that will save his tongue. Cong. Has a beautiful ring to it. Ha! Fuck you, Ho Chi Minh!

"Who?"

"Call yourselves the "Viet Cong" from this day forward and do not forget or your tongue becomes fertilizer for a stinky seedling." ( There was a collective, 'Huh?')

Dong decided the dwindling crowd should hear a grumbling diatribe, so he wilted the jungle confines with a speech about the day's miserable ordeal. (After all, he did survive to tell about it.) Brows furrowed as they listened to resentful Pham Van Dong curse the boat ride.

"You got a boat-ride?" General Trinh Minh The interrupted at last, envious. He was leader of the Dan Xa army, an offspring of Cao Dai also operating in Tay Ninh. His gang was brutally collecting taxes and using forced labour in a few scattered plantations in east Tay Ninh, a northern province in South Vietnam, formerly Cochin China. Cao Dai or derivatives or other organizations ruled several provinces like Tay Ninh and executed in all of them.

Dong replied, "Yes, one with a motor. That is how important I am. Shut your Cao Dai mouth and listen in the face of my tremendous importance."

"You must have done something to deserve this treatment," Ha Van Lau interjected rudely.

"No trammels?" said Clad of Dien Bien Phu, too amazed, which reeked of insult.

Dong bragged to the re-branded Viet Communist, "They took them off early if you must know. I sneered in his face during the peerless defacto leader's all-encompassing summary address. You cannot imagine how encompassing it was, like a Jesuit sermon and I was sure I was going to drop dead."

"You sneered in the face of the Nguyen?" Lau rejoined. "I cannot decide how close to sit. It must be a lie and you simply resided on this trail the entire week smoking dope and scaring everything. You make up bullshit stories that leave us nothing but false rumors to spread."

Dong replied, "I wish." Since they must know of his reputation with the council they should show respect. Dong sneered in the peerless defacto leader's face and lived, so he ignored Ha Van Lau, and continued to argue, "Old Quoc accused me of disloyalty, and they smacked the back of my head, but to be honest I never heard any mention of communism until this week." Dong knew it was essential to show a repentant side. "He doesn't appreciate the few friends that he has left."

"Your thinking will lead us all in one direction," said the sarcastic Ha Van Lau, "to becoming scary decorative trimming for the contraption or heads on sticks in a Cao Dai parade."

Dong replied "Put mine on the longest stick, one believes the view would be nice from up there. Anyway the contraption will continue to operate, that is the news from Hanoi."

A sneer crossed Ha Van Lau's lips and Dong thought it ought to be a smile. The would-be member of the Politburo strained an ear to listen for sounds of insubordination. Lau failed to recognize Dong's responsibility to lead the way to Tay Ninh, starting by moving the contraption which would take a decade and mapping the way was Dong's duty, and was just the beginning of the descending spiral.

He said, "Operating the contraption is fine. There is first the part about moving it."

"Moving it?" Clad howled, "You can't even see it!"

Sure Clad.

Dong glanced at Ha Van Lau and realized he endured a lot. You could not expect much from lackeys. Most of them feed the great herds. Dong's recalcitrant way might be unexpected because he did in fact rank higher than his breath and was trusted with the highest level intelligence to be delivered with the utmost care. Ten million go here. Five million go there. Ever wonder why he preferred the dark? Ha Van Lau should realize the disturbance for Dong was a lack of disturbance in his normally disturbing fields. It was a problem that Lau might encounter someday.

At the same time Dong knew Ha Van Lau had marched hundreds of kilometers through the most horrifying and death-defying territory in the history of the world. They weathered nightmares all the way from Dien Bien Phu to hear a plan. Lau looked forward to futuristic horrors of his own invention, no doubt. The youthful 'cadre' would not be disappointed except by the aging mentor's rotten attitude. The others, knowing nothing about the nature of the trap, why it was assembled, precise placements for optimum feeding, etcetera, would say it was impossible to move based on its size. They rarely live long enough to understand contraption theory.

"Why not leave it where it is?" asked Clad of Dien Bien Phu.

Dong allowed Ha Van Lau to reply, "Where there is no one to feed it?"

"Why not take it apart," The whispered, "change the game, go on to something else?" Dan Xa displayed a demented southern ignorance regarding the contraption. A militia like Dan Xa lacked the vision of a Politburo but could be used by larger organizations. To southerners like General The creating stench was a pursuit of personal wealth in the past couple of generations. The maximum size of Dan Xa plantations would be derived from 800-member villages of usually backward tribes people, and no contraption was involved. The training of Dan Xa in the 1920s was provided in the form of suitcases of money and the latest firearms delivered by peculiar hooded 'brothers' so neighbouring (somehow non-Dan Xa) hamlets could be massacred. Using whatever currency was in vogue, these 'Dan Xa' and other Cao Dai or Hau Hau sects were funded by the Catholic Labour Union, and they all figured they ruled.

"The Council knows the operation will continue to extract a price," replied the aggressive would-be Politburo member, wise beyond his years if he knew what he was talking about.

"Where will they move it?" asked the Dan Xa general.

Dong saw them turn to face his reply, "The contraption is moving to a place we will call South Vietnam."

Ha Van Lau was a northerner with plenty of intelligence who did not hide his surprise. Lau glanced at Dong and over at the dejected face of Dan Xa 'parade marshall' General Trinh Minh The, fresh from changing sides at Dien Bien Phu and now fresh out of sides.

Clad of Dien Bien Phu shook his head. With the amount of dope he smoked Clad of Dien Bien Phu must feel lucky all the time. The Dan Xa general, on the other hand, was nervous about the northern-oriented trap, a modern version of which never operated in the south.

The general knew the white elephant herds must have been huge in the south long ago, from the beginning of the walleyes arrival in 1666 when they introduced the curious penchant for slaughtering people. They concocted something called a mission civilastrice and before long they had popularized parades that featured heads on sticks. These began when everybody agreed the hair was useless fertilizer.

The southern history of insane carnage was erased a century ago along with deep secrets of the giant herds. General The of Tay Ninh contemplated mainly peace in his home province, or at worst the chaos in his districts belonged to him. Those days are soon forgotten since nobody would be left to pay the various ad hoc taxes in primarily amorphous Tay Ninh, province, South Vietnam. The first transplantation of contraption terror would begin on Dan Xa turf.

"Where are they going to find the long noses to feed it?" General The protested. "In Annam you can count them on two or even one hand."

Dong had the answer and waved his denuded hand at the Viet Cong 'general,' "You complain about the most interesting part of the Nguyen's plot. He is baiting the trap for long nose Americans."

A gloomy silence perrvaded the crowd, gloomier than the surroundings or their current prospects. The richly tanned faces turned white including the normally sanguine cheeks of Ha Van Lau. Nothing would quiet the ghastly forest constantly overrun by screaming beasts and creatures of all kinds being haunted by a hundreds of thousands of ghosts. Everybody in the world knew Americans. Dong recently met one named Dulles, who was proud of his brother for waging atomic war on Orientals. He said his brother was prepared to use it on other orientals, lots more oriental countries, same as Japan. The far east, including the tiniest and remotest island dwellers in the Pacific Ocean, knew about America's exaggerated use of bombing. In the whole world only peerless defacto leader Ho Chi Minh would roll the dice in the face of that. No doubt it hung there because it was the hanging question.

"Would we be smart to call ourselves democratic?" The of Tay Ninh astutely observed.

Said Dong, "Some of us are, and the rest are Communists."

"I would prefer to be democratic," declared Clad of Dien Bien Phu.

"General The is the only democratic person here."

Dong saw the general wearing a grin. "I know there has to be a reason," said Ha Van Lau, "over and above the normal confusion."

Dong replied, "Think it over while you look at this," and let the contents of his sack spill onto the dry moss at the feet of the Viet Cong. The cross-legged trappers reached out and grabbed magazines and flipped pages. The rapacious readers stared at titillating images. They saw only pictures for they did not understand the words therein. They turned to Dong as one.

"Look at these whores," said Clad of Dien Bien Phu, "I would need Indian rubber balls to service one of these."

"When do we start?" Ha Van Lau inquired.

Dong grinned and noticed how they seemed to regret looking too close but attentive they remained and seemed to listen carefully, "You are no longer Nationalists seeking independence. Now you are Communists seeking reunification of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam."

He hoped he got this right or sure as hell it would get back to somebody important, "The DRV is run by Causal Doctrine drafted by Marx Leonix which fits neatly with previous diarectical tendencies. Got it?"

"Remember to roll your 'r's," said Lau.

Dong replied, "I'll leave that to Bao Dai and Ngo Dinh Diem," and everybody laughed. "Uncle Ho ordered the trap to be dismantled in what we now call North Vietnam."

"Huh?" said General The of Tay Ninh.

"Listen close, for I shall say it once. The names Tong King, Annam, and Cochin are forgotten. Lao Dong is dust and a new people's popular front will rise in the south to meet the American interloper head-on. General The, you have two heads. One is head of your Dan Xa army, and two is defacto leader of this new popular front called the Viet Cong." The general barely smiled this time, knowing that enough warlords would descend to steal whatever laurels he possessed on either side.

Dong continued, "As head of the Dan Xa army in Tay Ninh you are surrounded by Viet Cong, and later your army will encounter parts of General Giap's army. As leader of the popular front you lead the Viet Cong and join the general's army in the battle against the Americans. In the meantime Ha Van Lau will take Clad of Dien Bien Phu to recruit Annamites in the jungle called Central Highlands. The task will be to find labor to build a road from North Vietnam to South Vietnam. This road will be called the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Get the pipe ready. The name of this road will honor the Nguyen for the heights he will attain when an American President accepts an invitation to barbarize Vietnam."

The plan involved tonnes of cement for bomb shelters in Hanoi. Dong believed he was hitting his stride, "Do not be pessimistic about a road through the Truong Son," but a disbelieving self found nothing to add.

He provided a few basic instructions, "The of Tay Ninh will return south with me to Con Thein and along the way we will spot locations for the trap. Soon I shall return to the Central Highlands and begin the purpose of drawing a map."

He stared at the sniggering bastards. They were reluctant at Dong's demand to surrender the magazines. Clad of Dien Bien Phu looked at Ha Van Lau and beckoned approval to light the bowl.

It was finally lit and the men sat back to puffed up fantasies of conquest over the world's greatest barbarian, the democratic United States of America. Dream of stench, say peerless defacto leader Ho Chi Minh. Other dreams would be dancing among the group in the dark, hot, damp, jungle forest of the fearsome Annamite Cordillera, er, Central Highlands.

End Chapter One

Chapter 2: Confident, and every reason to be

Major Archimedes Patti (U.S. Army Air Wing - Retired) sat in the waiting-room of a rundown aerodrome slapping the knee of his tan slacks with a rolled-up newspaper. The facility squatted outside the city called Saigon City and he squinted at a sparkle of chrome gleaming in the clear blue sky, and focused heavy, blood-shot eyes on the arc of an airliner winging through the thick air hanging over the French Associated State of Cochin China. Apparently the plane was not lost either because it dropped to the runway of spongy black asphalt. The airliner lumbered across the field toward the Tan Son Nhut aerodrome terminal.

The activity with the newspaper made an ink-stain on his clean trousers, so Archie refrained from whacking the knee any further and folded the newspaper and dangled it from his left hand, and read nothing of what would surely be another lurid account of destruction occurring somewhere nearby, every night occurring somewhere in the region other than here. The apparent vacancy of the local aerodrome meant no officials or airline personnel or police or soldiers, nobody hanging around. It was deserted. Contrary to what the local news people said to dredge up excitement the truth was Cochin China stood face-to-face with the end of worthwhile colonial adventures. A handful of so-called Catholics holding guns owned nothing to brag about, and a good illustration might be this abandoned aerodrome. The previous one hundred years of continuously flowing French francs invested the region with a certain 'nobody-knew-what,' and whatever it was was gone.

He liked the place more than ever, sitting in the dilapidated building at 8 in the morning, and standing stiffly from the wooden bench to walk to the screen-door. Archie had moved to Cochin China during the previous decade out of a desire to disappear. He had been a'centre world conflict and retired from the American Army Air Wing after a glorious ride in close rank with the pale horse during World War II. Locally he knew the luck. Cost efficient labour didn't hurt. For some reason he was completely tuned in with a malaise found in the local denizens, for they were collectively the most fatalistic people he ever met, and a modest effort turned into a sizable enterprise. In the last unmapped region of the world Archie'd performed a disappearing act that required absolutely no effort on his part.

An American entrepreneur about to disembark the big chrome fish was, on the other hand, indefatigably present. Archie thought it was probably an accident the first time Jimmy Doyle found Cochin China. That he would find it twice was laughable. Jimmy persisted in his pursuit of prospects, some of which included business, all of which included money, and on the first trip to Cochin he unearthed a then-tiny factory belonging to Archie. Thereafter they became business associates and the intrepid importer-exporter accidentally and laughably made Archie rich.

The last time when luck ran him into the sub-continent, but not too far in (because nobody comes back from there around here) Jimmy bragged about an extraordinary consumer economy manufacturing the centrifical force that is flushing the rest of the world down the toilet. Unbeknownst to him (because reports of IndoChina reach none but the highest minds in a single, distant, shitmouth-speaking republic) on this day Jimmy arrived in a defunct domain. Look far and wide if you dare, Jimmy, there is nothing to see on the horizon unless you started shopping for opium.

The sub-continent was overcome by misfortune as a result of important pieces of infrastructure having been uprooted and transported on freighters (or otherwise blown up). The currency was worthless, and that was nothing new. Snarly French Colons fled, and that was new, not unexpected, and entirely welcome. They evacuated taking everything they owned, and that was not much. Archie knew a few French Colons cowering in Saigon City who thankfully did nothing to remind anybody of the past. He knew these 'walleyes' were terrified. They blubbered about the inevitable revenge. Supposedly a crude work of suffering waited those who stayed to experience an indescribable hell that will only grow worse. Archie was sure he missed something in translation and enjoyed the eerie peace surrounding the south end of this steaming rump and supposedly everywhere else these days.

Look if Jimmy Doyle isn't here for another visit. Archie stood inside the screen door and watched him walk alone down the staircase wearing a hat, encumbered by luggage. The stocky fellow hustled away from the plane and the staircase retracted and a pilot gunned the engines. The airliner roared and turned back to the runway propelled by hot air whipping Jimmy's coat-tails and pushing him across the tarmac. The thickness of the air or a dizzy head made a brief blur out of Archie's hustling friend.

Sweat erupted in patches on a rumpled grey suit, and his eyes were hidden by the hatbrim, and he wore a dark stubbly beard. His wobbly hustle was hard labor on the oily black surface, and Archie almost felt sorry for Jimmy except he never asked him to come here. Archie shoved the screen door for the breathless fellow who swept through it to meet what Archie meant as a knowing smirk but possibly resembled a grin. The intense heat would probably soon frustrate the American who dropped luggage while the flimsy door slapped shut. Jimmy stood in a cloud of dust, and tipped his hat, a sweaty round face with beady eyes sneered a smile, and Jimmy stuck out his right hand.

The airliner paused ready for takeoff at the end of the runway.

Archie almost felt like smiling but was obliged to shake Jimmy's hand. He found a soaking wet palm and reached for the newspaper under his left elbow, "Here, take a read of this." He wiped his hand on the newspaper and handed it over. "It's something new."

Jimmy unfolded it, "What a fucking headline!" the American importer-exporter exploded. "Hey Archie! Says, 'U.S. bombed the gulf!'"

"Hay is for horses, Jimmy, and there ain't any of those around here. You might have guessed the French ate them all. They called it haute cuisine but everybody called it Genghis' Revenge. Apparently the horses were a Mongolian breed that couldn't carry a long nose anyway."

"An American language newspaper, right here, talking about American shenanigans!" Jimmy declared. The barrel chested banter boomed in the shadowy aerodrome waiting room, "This place ain't all bad!"

"That is absolutely true and with that in mind we of the visitor's bureau hope your stay will be exceedingly short and unproductive," Archie replied.

Instead of looking at the desolate aerodrome waiting room Jimmy stared into Archie's eyes . "Since when do we lay eggs around here?"

"Like that'd ever happen," even though according to reports bombs dropped a few hundred kilometres northeast of Saigon City. Ho Chi Minh used old American planes borrowed from Chairman Mao, a northern neighbour dictating things in Red China who was helping Uncle Ho blow off steam or celebrate something with fireworks.

Jimmy looked confused, and opened his mouth, glancing at the newspaper, "Says it happened on a coast of someplace called North Vietnam that runs smack into a place called South Vietnam, calls it an 'incident' in Tong King Gulf. Apparently both Vietnams were parts of the former French Associates States of Indochina. Oh I think I get it. What's the name of this place, associated state of CochinChina? Did it happen right here?" he exclaimed. "Right fucking here! I can't believe the luck!"

Archie would have to challenge the absurdity that any such conflict was underway, and normally would do so without hesitation, but was hungover, "Nobody is drawing any maps, Jimmy, nobody has a pencil. I presume the French took them when they left, but who am I to know? I just live here." He added, "You ever thought of taking a taxi?"

"Taxi?" Jimmy sneered, "Do you see any of those around here? Next thing you know I'll need a hotel room. Gimme five cents and I'll make the call."

"You will find the phone on a boat going to Marseilles and when it gets there it will spit out my nickel. As for hotels, lots of rooms, no beds or dressers or mirrors of any kind."

Jimmy's mug of unshaven sweat turned into an ocean of sympathy. "I know what's eating you, friend," (as if), "the only help for you would be a drink. I know it's already kind of late in the day for you to get started. Thanks for waiting for me."

"Uh huh."

"Look at me. I forgot how hot it is," he said, "and forgot the stink," Jimmy resumed reading the newspaper, "which I know is not you because you're all cleaned up and obviously still living with that lady. Thanks for bringing me the newspaper. I'll tell you what, this business is some hell." Becoming a source of useless, inaccurate, and purposely incorrect information was right up Jimmy's alley, "Says here your old pals in the US Air Force bombed the High-Fong out of Hell Harbor or someplace close to that. And guess what?" he wheezed, his voice trailing away slightly, "The entire paper is cover-to-cover American," he raised his voice and rustled through it.

Archie rarely contemplated the stench anymore, "I bought it, didn't I?"

Jimmy stared up at the idle fans left by the walleyes yet to be liberated by local demolition experts, which Archie heard was a population of 40 million in the immediate vicinity. "But you did not read it, of course, because you cannot read. Hey, Archie, why are they blowing up the toy factories in Hai-phong? I'm sure the world can live without a few rubber balls. Why not blow up the railroads, coal mines, or fuel dumps? There must be something around here that's useful. It sure ain't you."

It was too early for this bullshit. "What were they doing last time you were here?"

"I don't know."

"Blowing up coal mines, fuel dumps, and everything else."

"This fucking airport is what they should have bombed," said Jimmy suddenly exasperated, "so I never could have talked the pilot into landing." Archie contemplated the pleasant notion couched in a typically surly greeting.

"What if those factories were the only things left?" Jimmy's tone contained a hint of despair. "I hope the US Air Force would show more respect than to fly by and wipe-out my only prospects. I might as well get back on that fucking airplane."

The men turned to see a flash of chrome at the far end of the field that climbed into the air making the plane as good as gone. Archie glanced at Jimmy's straw hat, "Maybe next week Somebody like you has to find it first."

His friend smacked Archie's shoulder with the rolled-up newspaper and turned to face the room and perhaps in a small way the conditions to which it hearkened.

"What if I'm stuck here like everybody but you?" he said, changing his tune, although the noticable echo caught his attention, ". . .the only one who lives in South East Asia because he wants to."

"Where?"

Jimmy tucked the newspaper away, under his arm, "Here, I guess. And it makes me the second person I know to actually come here by choice, or first if you consider this a new place, you know, with the new names and all. But enough about me. Let's get you fixed up, friend. Obviously that is the first order of business this morning. I presume we find the hair of the dog at the Embassy and tipple a few with old Tom, right?" The chubby face grinned at Archie, "Thanks for driving out here this morning."

Archie made another attempt to smile and it really hurt, "Change of ownership, friend." He agreed to the general proposition of drinking, but would prefer drinking alone to drinking with the swarthy corruption that no longer served drinks at the Embassy anyway. Yes he would indeed crawl into the dark and murky confines to tickle his throat.

Jimmy stuffed the newspaper in a jacket pocket and took off his hat. Jimmy left the suit jacket on. He pulled out a hanky from a pants pocket and wiped the dark thinning head of hair and round the inside of the hat. He put the hat on and tucked away the hanky and asked for a smoke.

Archie took out a pack and gave it to Jimmy, "Chesterfields, this is where they went." He opened the box and took one, returned the pack, and found his own match in one of the pockets of his shapeless jacket. He finally inspected the barren room, and lit up. "Spooky," he said, to a blaze that danced in the shadows of an empty room in an empty country, not counting the scrupuously counted 100 million occupants on the subcontinent standing around doing nothing, "a bloody shame too. This could be a useful facility." He tossed the match on the dirty floor.

"Useful? For what? Speaking of which, you're buying."

"Some things stay the same."

A beam of sunlight shot through the door that opened on the east side of the building. A Nguyen in a uniform stalked into the dusky room.

"What's this?" asked Jimmy.

They watched the Nguyen, cream of the local crop, cross the room at a brisk pace until he stood in front of Jimmy Doyle. The man wore the uniform of some kind of officer, no doubt a policeman of some rank from Saigon City who ignored Archie and tipped his peaked cap to Jimmy.

"Are you Mister Jimmy Doyle?" he asked, in a neighborly way. They were the same height but that was of no confusion to Jimmy who managed to look down his nose, "Who wants to know? How did you know I was coming?" he asked, surprised to be standing in this meeting.

A rich, toothy smile appeared under the cop's peaked cap, and he bowed slightly, "Mister Doyle, allow me to introduce myself. I am Officer Lo Van Kim of the Saigon City Gendarmes. We have numerous difficulties in this brand new country of South Vietnam, some of which are very apparent indeed," he said, and continued to smile. "We have sufficient intelligence, however, to follow the arrival of an important democratic person like yourself, Mister Doyle. I am indeed happy to be here all the time." A bald faced lie if Archie ever heard one. Absolutely nobody was happy to be here, more accurately, nobody here was happy.

Archie stayed abreast of the smarmy fellow's greeting. He was one of a local mob said to control Saigon City, a nominal number of Catholics and a few others who were treacherous in any language, although perhaps that had to do more with the teachers of them.

Officer Lo Van Kim stuck out a hand. Jimmy shook it while he gave his head a shake.

He snorted, and nodded to Archie, "You probably know my friend here from all the warrants for his arrest, drunk and disorderly and so on."

"I've heard of another American on the loose," the two men grinned together like old chums. "We will assume your untimely arrival came at the end of a trouble-free journey." He had conspicuously messed up his prefixes and compound words, not to mention his assumptions. Officer Kim chose to ignore hell on earth which Archie appreciated.

"Huh? You're dead right about the arrival," Jimmy agreed.

"No I am not."

"On the other hand the journey was anything but trouble-free. You probably don't know what it's like to be in an airplane lost over the ocean. It's the shits. Everybody starts to panic, even the pilots."

Jimmy took the opportunity to complain. He puffed Archie's cigarette and turned to Archie, "Don't forget that eternal stopover in Hong Kong," smoke trailing out of his mouth and nostrils, "where they argue about bringing you here, telling you it doesn't exist and all that bullshit." He jerked his thumb at the ceiling, cigarette in hand, "Pilot got lost. I saw the same island three times. I went to the cabin at one point and straightened him out. So where did this collaborator learn how to speak American?"

Archie cared not about this (or any) affair. He shook his head and stood back with arms crossed, arched away from the two. Jimmy ultimately implored him with those beady brown eyes. He usually wears horned rimmed glasses. Archie said, grimly, "Well, this is none of my business. He seems to be talking you into something, Jimmy; I think I'll leave you two alone."

Jimmy dropped the smoke and stepped on it, "Did you tell them I was coming?" Archie rolled his eyes and chuckled and shook his head, to shrug off a dizzy spell, and then he started to leave and Jimmy grabbed his shirt, "Hey, wait a minute. I want you to hear this."

Archie would have to stay and watch Jimmy sniff for something to eat at the carcass of a fresh kill. Jimmy snorted and turned to the neighborly cop, crisply uniformed Officer Lo Van Kim, who waited politely. Jimmy was searching for a needle in a haystack. Maybe something would pop up and stick him.

"There was a school in Saigon City, South Vietnam (which used to be called something else). Walleyed Priests taught a few Vietnamese of our choosing who became the Catholics of Vietnam." Officer Lo Van Kim began a half-baked story about a 'metropolitan' education that was supposedly the outcome of a lengthy long nose incursion into the sub-continent. "We were allowed to speak long nose dialects. I preferred English. I don't know why. It was not easy to learn," he seemed to boast. "Remember these priests were walleyes who forced themselves to speak English. I suppose you call it American. They obviously detested this language and always said it makes them spit, but I believe they cannot control their hands when they use it and accidently slap themselves silly . . . ," he concluded as some sort of joke.

"Excuse me, Mister Doyle," he demurred, "I dally no further at the expense of your invaluable time, which is priceless I am sure," as Jimmy would agree, "I represent Ngo Dinh Diem, who you know as President of Saigon Bizarre and Novelty. Soon-to-be-President of South Vietnam Ngo Dinh Diem said he regrets the threats posed to your capitalist intentions and goals represented by destruction in the gulf." (Dally? Siamese teachers.)

Archie knew the rat infested factories in Haiphong hadn't produced a rubber ball since 1930. The U.S. army aircraft borrowed from Chairman Mao were scooped up by the Chinese when they declared themselves in the red, bankrupt, and therefore communist. It came as no surprise that Officer Kim ignored this fact and others. Archie knew for instance that Emperor Bao Dai had appointed Ngo Dinh Diem President on July 7, 1954, a couple of years now. Lo Van Kim's interpretation possibly meant that Diem's importance had slipped, which probably meant that the conspiracy of thieves was falling apart. So soon?

A pair of young eyes twinkled beneath the peak of the cap when the cop produced something in his hand, which was a bulging envelope that he offered to Jimmy. "He told me to give this to you," said Kim, who still smiled too brightly.

Jimmy's mouth hung open when he accepted a package from his new pal. The cop saluted casually, still smiling. Some sort of bright light this guy was, Officer Lo Van Kim. Archie figured if he wasn't Catholic he was at least a member of the Binh Xuyen, an urban sect financed by the Catholic Labor Union. He must be son of General Lo Van Vien who used to be head of a Chinese-Vietnamese coalition in Cholon (sister city to Saigon City). Binh Xuyen was a tough bunch of tax collectors. Kim's dad recently retired to Waikiki, an oft-repeated circumstance in the region: get rich quick and leave. Archie didn't know why and didn't care.

Jimmy watched the Saigon officer spin smartly and march out the way he came raising another cloud of dust. He was staring where the cop had been, left to finger the package and tuck it in the breast pocket of his suit. The jacket might be getting heavy.

"Did'ja see those teeth?" Jimmy remarked to the empty space.

"Don't be digging them out just yet, Jimmy. It's a lot of gold but he's still breathing."

The round face with the hat on top finally turned to Archie, "You kidding, Patti? A guy with a mouthful like that could be a friend of mine. The question is what else would you need? I know where to find a bank in Saigon City. What's holding up his head? I don't know either."

Archie had hardly given the missing bank a second thought.

Jimmy bent to pick up the small suitcase, "Grab one of these, will ya? Let's head for the Embassy. Now it's me who needs a drink," he said, and lunged away carrying the suitcase and a briefcase. "Long nose dialects? Those would be frog teachers, right? Follow the collaborator to Saigon City!" he hollered. "That still has the same name, don't it?"

Archie gripped the heavy bag and straightened with a grunt and followed his friend, "Show you the way? By the way, how long you planning on staying?" The bag seemed heavy. "There is no reason to be here, Jimmy. There is nothing left after the French filled that convoy of slow boats. You should be happy for the walleyes that got away and hope they find nice asylums with fluffy pillows and rubber walls in France. It is quiet for everybody here now. It was until you arrived."

"What do you expect?" Jimmy said, huffing at the shadows. "My friend, it shows how much these people suffered under those ignorant walleyed priests. Everybody in world knows the American language is not a dialect and especially not a dialect of that shitty French." Jimmy shoved the door and walked off.

Archie slipped on his sunglasses and opened the door for himself. "So, august traveling scholar, where did your language come from?" The red dust cloud on the horizon was made by the Saigon City police vehicle.

Jimmy Doyle obviously thought he could lollygag in the brilliant sunshine, "Oh, let's see," he said, "my guess would be Germany," except the astounding heat would continue to take him by surprise.

"This is impossible. What time is it?" he bitched, and pushed his hat forward to shade his eyes, and leaned forward into the curtains of sundrenched hot air. He trudged directly at the sun, "How can it be this fucking hot?" he crabbed. "And what stinks? It smells worse than shit!"

Nice company this guy, no complainer. Archie walked with boots crunching on the gravel all the way to the vehicle wishing he could ignore the stout whiner, but knowing this was just the beginnning. He replied, "Germany is you on your mother's side, right?"

"Patti, I'm pure American!"

Most people would ask if there was any such thing, and Archie strolled past his friend with the argument in mind. He wanted the last word, "Your new police-friend learned it was a mixture of French and German, and who knows what else forced together with aboriginal Brits by a band of burned-out, forgotten Romans, who basically created English out of the mish-mash, and they never expected to call it American."

He might have added that French had the greatest influence in vocabulary, about 70 per cent, but having spent so much time watching these walleyes up close in recent years he hated to give them credit for anything. "The English gave up the language to Americans but we agree where it started," said Jimmy, instantly baked and too spent to argue.

The jeep sat under the frying sun gathering heat and dust. Archie ignored him and threw the suitcase in the back of the squeaking quarter-ton vehicle and dust flew but heat stayed. Jimmy dropped his bag in the back and briefcase on the seat, "For a guy who can't read, you sure know a lot."

Archie climbed into the driver's seat and hung over the steering wheel and watched Jimmy take off the damp jacket, which he folded and placed on the back of the sizzling seat, while staring at the distant countryside or wafting air. Jimmy seemed to compose for moment by feeding off the miasma. He bent to open the briefcase and stuff Diem's letter into it and then threw the briefcase on the floor of his side. He held the newspaper in his right hand, the one that grabbed the windshield to pull himself aboard with a wheezing grunt. "I'll open it later," he said absently.

Archie stepped on the clutch and shoved the long lever into first gear. He pulled the choke, kicked the floor-starter with his right boot, and the engine roared without a muffler.

"Right you will, pal! Your new friend Diem sends the kind of letters that even I can read!" Archie hollered, "The kind that go BOOM!"

He had to laugh, pushed in the choke, floored the gas, and dropped the clutch, and, finally, cranked the wheel.

Jimmy winced and stiffened as they disappeared in a cloud of dust.

Archie continued, "I hate to tell you this from the start here but what a rotten time to find Cochinchina!"

Then he paused to think, do you know of a better time, and jerked the wheel to straighten the jeep out as they shot from a dustcloud onto the road. He warned, "Besides nothing going on around here you get a letter from Ngo Dinh Diem! Glad I never got one of those! Don't open it and you should be okay."

The countryside looked deserted as usual, everybody abiding by a curious habit of hiding. Saigon City was a few minutes distance. Jimmy took off his hat and used it to loosen some of the dust. "I forgot about this bloody red dust!" He pulled it down against the hot breeze. "Ngo Dinh Diem ain't going to blow me away, buddy! He's a business man just like me! He knows what it takes to get a bankruptcy running again, and it ain't communisim!"

With no muffler on the engine Jimmy had to bellow. "Where does a guy find the frogskins to do that, Mister Sole Remaining Taxpayer?" He loved it.

Archie admitted the truth, "American consumers!"

"Ngo Dinh Diem saw what happened to the business when I found your place! He needs that magic for himself!" Jimmy plunged a fat forefinger into the thick air and Archie saw the black hairs waving knuckles to elbow, almost thick as feathers. "He needs a load of spondulics! That's what he needs!"

The truth, the whole truth, "You're the load!" and nothing but the truth.

Jimmy's head bobbed agreeably, "That's right!"

"Of bullshit." The drive was a hot wind which was no relief. The partially paved road went undulating over the landscape entirely cultivated under rice. Jimmy quit reading but no doubt he learned a few things first.

"What's the name of the newspaper?"

"The Dragon Monitor."

He probably learned that witnesses identified the bomber aircraft with the white stars recognized as democracy's most famous fly-boys. The story probably told a contorted version of the Confucian side of course. This would come from the city of Hanoi (Non! Never! Dey mus' change d'name. . .) and it would lay the blame or place the credit for the infernal escapade on the Politburo (formerly Lao Dong People's Party). A rumor circulated that Ho Chi Minh, chairman and defacto leader of a newly transpired communist entity roaming loose in the north, solicited the loan of a few Red Chinese aircraft left over from the days of the Flying Tigers and these were sent to bomb the last rubber ball factories in French IndoChina.

The leader of the nearby principality of committee-run Nationalist Viets had turned into a Communist Insurgent and dictated 'special delivery' actions to be taken to demonstrate the future for corrupt and twisted puppets of capitalism in South Vietnam. The Nguyen said Cao Dai provinces like Tay Ninh and others of South Vietnam will be, "liberated from evil sects by his followers promoting Marxist-Leninist-style programs run by guys in purple pyjamas, worn compliments of the Communist Party of South East Asia's Peoples Liberation Front."

It didn't sound like much but the defacto leader promised to talk more about it and be forthcoming in the future (say 50 or 100 years). And everybody knew that was a lie.

"Purple pyjamas?" Jimmy exclaimed, "What do they do, come around and tuck you in at bedtime? Tell you a scarey story."

"Something like that. Listen, Jimmy, everybody wears those. You sound like this is your first taste of confusion!"

Jimmy sat back chagrined and took in the sight and smell. The sight was green. The smell was impossible to describe without gagging. Jimmy glanced behind the vehicle and beady eyes grew less beady at what probably must be a large red rooster tail of dust back there. He had no rear view mirror, since it was pinched a long time ago. Archie's stomach could take the heaving ride no further and he stopped halfway to the city and stepped out to kneel over in the shallow ditch.

"American fertilizer!" Jimmy cackled, "but you gotta get it in the field!"

This activity was a joyless recreation that left him suitably depressed and in sympathy with no one, certainly not Jimmy, and he slouched back to his seat, and replied, "Cram it," and drove off with his left hand on the steel wheel, trying to wipe the spittle and puke from his right hand onto Jimmy's shirt. This move was rebuffed by a beefy, hairy forearm, "Screw you," and a change of topics.

"On the way to the airport the other day I talked to 'Betty' --"

Archie interrupted, "You never take a taxi?"

"No, I don't! And you know what Betty said?" Jimmy asked.

"No. And I don't want to hear it either," the little truck lurched with a commotion that sent Jimmy leaning to the right. Archie continued, "I don't need to be hearing from Stark," the old assassin who went seriously overboard by wheeling one of his cadavers into a war conference.

"Betty made a great war-time president out of FDR," said Jimmy. "It's hard to knock that achievement." Jimmy bragged about time spent with luminaries of the US Navy cabal that ruled Washington, D.C., including founding pirate and former Chief Naval Officer Admiral Harold R.'Betty' Stark and partner in crime Admiral Ernest King. Former C.N.O. Stark was an ancient mariner who once ran the US Navy coup that originally put Teddy Roosevelt in the highest office in democracy. From there Betty and his consorts forever after held a gun to the President's ear, occasionally executing with absolute impunity. Betty was their only mutual acquaintance.

"They carry h-bombs everywhere," continued Jimmy.

"I bet they do."

"Even on submarines. And the man with a gun to the President's head is Dick Nixon, a US Navy man, with the help of a man named Dulles, formerly from State or the Office of Naval Intelligence."

He knew the Dulles', "Sure Jimmy." There were two of them, just like it sounds: Dulles.

The productive green fields especially wet glistened in a radiance seen nowhere else in the world and went as far as the eye could see, except in one direction. Saigon City loomed on the horizon. Infintismally small was the number of Americans up on geography pertaining to this rotten smelling pit. Archie and his dumpy friend were counted among a smattering of Americans who knew Saigon City as the 'Cultured Pearl of the Disorient.'

The darkness of Cochinchina grew from the banks of the Saigon River here on the western area of the Mekong Delta.. Archie acquired a local interpretation of the truth about what occurred in this corner of the earth. It all began with Jesuit Monsignor Francois Pallu's arrival in 1666 to begin apostolic work of the Society of Foreign Missions. He established the East India Company and soon gangs of walleye thugs congregated in a stronghold they named Saigon City. During the long French interlude the cocky walleyed long noses embarked on missions of civilizing purpose and two hundred years later millions of Viets in Cochin lay in slurry pits, and nobody dared tell the hopeless story or remember the place exists.

A few experts agreed Saigon City was a lonely exhibition of winning French strategy. The 'cultured' back-stop of the 300 year Mission Civilastrice was set in the middle of a fertile basin with wide vistas to afford clear fields of fire to canonize avenging hordes. They might descend on Saigon City from all directions where millions of dead 'ancestors' cried for revenge from the stench that surrounded the place. The city evolved into a centre of corruption that involved everything, most of which was gone.

Archie entered on the northwestern escape and steered onto the main street that bisected Saigon City, called Tu Do Boulevard, and roared down the wide thoroughfare. The boulevard that snaked into heart of the city was sparsely populated, because people with nothing to do were in the countryside. Gone was the usual bustle on bicycles and Archie drove one of a scant number of gas-powered vehicles running in Cochinchina.

Far up the street Jimmy might see a throng of construction workers raising a building. This labour party worked on the strength of a popular rumor circulated by Emperor Bao Dai's henchman, not the prospect of worthy wages, of which there was none. Archie scoffed at the local Catholic or Cao Dai scuttlebutt (or both) that held a peculiar structure like this, roof half-a-sphere, and yes, big finger pointing up, was designed to attract the world's most robust currency. Construction rose above the mud and dust. Catholics said music would echo beautifully under the dome. The 95 per cent Buddhist majority wondered who was Ngo Dinh Diem to enforce rumors and therefore build a strange looking building?

Archie made a breath-taking u-turn in front of the construction site and bumped across the broad median under leafy trees imported from Europe to make the place look homey. He came to a jarring halt in front of the severe-looking edifice that contained the Embassy Lounge. Jimmy demanded the story on the great new building across the street, where, for some reason, nobody worked this morning.

Archie refused to engage in a discussion about the building. He jumped from the seat and loped around the fender, "Haven't you ever seen a concert hall?"

The thick humid air produced a familiar little doorman dressed in a garish yellow-colored suit. "Vow net parkie paw la! Paw la!" he squawked in French. Archie brushed aside the man and his demand for a gratuity,"Let the other guy help you buy another yellow jacket."

The doorman twisted around, "Fucking Vespit."

Archie said, "Can cuss in any language, Jimmy, and I
believe he's latched onto you."

Jimmy stood rummaging beside Archie's dusty vehicle, "What about other friends?" he asked sarcastically, "Are you cutting out any of those?"

Archie snorted at the door and tucked his shades in the breast pocket of the tan shirt, "You're the guy making friends in Cochinchina. Don't forget it."

"I won't if you won't." "I might." He would disappear into the high-walled single storey cinder block structure to see if it was still uglier on the inside.

The sour doorman stood and glowered at this shorter and possibly more corporeal American. Jimmy hinted at sympathy for the sadly attired and decided it was scarcely a variation on the local colour. He waved the disgusted doorman over to the jeep and recalled having five hundred piasters left over from the previous trip. He wanted something in exchange besides an explanation for the oppresssive and turgid odours that wafted through the thick air in this country. In fact, he wanted nothing more than a few hours of the yellow fellow's undivided attention.

The approaching doorman watched him dig in his pants until Jimmy fished out a five hundred piaster note. Oddly, it failed to attract the desired response so he waved it. He stared up and down at the small, squinting, inevitably tanned doorman, raised his eyebrows, and bobbed his head at the truck, and finally they made eye contact. Jimmy Doyle would send a telepathic image of the value of the luggage to the doorman who blinked his fleshy eyes.

Jimmy watched the hairy head slowly nod and the man step closer. The doorman raised a yellow arm to point at the truck behind Jimmy who generously tucked the bill in the lapel pocket under that short nose, and declared, "I'll give you more! Watch the bags!" Of course adding volume did not transmit meaning, but Jimmy heard a sigh, which filled his nose with stench.

He blindly surrendered to thirst and stumbled past a waving hand. He pitched back and took the briefcase and jacket and spun around to face the entrance.

For a moment he could see nothing, but felt something. Air conditioning. He smelled something, a kitchen to be the source of powerful emanations. It almost smelled better outside. He glimpsed Patti's silhouette hopping at the front of the bar exploiting the service as much as the price, working with a bartender in a place that was almost deserted.

Jimmy spotted one customer lit by a wall lamp at the rear of the room. Very convenient if that is American press attache slash intelligence officer Robert Amory. The red-headed Amory sat alone in the far right corner in a booth with his back to the room to hide his shame in morning libation.

Jimmy slung the jacket over his shoulder and strolled past a bunch of stinking terry cloth covered tables and drew close enough to hear the curly-haired civil servant talking aloud to himself, This could be a concern: "Hai-phong? The gulf of Tonkin? No way! The American Air Force has never been there, ever. They wouldn't know where to find it. I'm surprised to find myself here."

Jimmy announced, "They were here sipping opium tea in forty-three."

A tall rumpled Amory showed no inclination to turn. Droopy shoulders might have rolled a bit. The elongated simpleton poked at spectacles and cleared his throat weakly. He dropped his head to look at thin skinned and bony fingers clutching papers on the table. Jimmy stood back to think about dressing down the hapless public servant. He took a deep breath, and bellowed, "Americans know where it is! What the fuck am I? Haven't you seen a fucking newspaper? Aren't you the press attache slash intelligence officer?" He remembered leaving Archie's copy of the Dragon Monitor in the jeep. He dangled his coat over his briefcase clutched under his elbow. He was sorry about forgetting the newspaper in the truck.

Was the idiot not curious to see who insulted him? Amory eventually cranked his head to the left. Oh for god's sake is that a mask?

Jimmy stared at two fuzzy globes that peered past him. Eyeballs danced beside the bridge of a long pointed nose and these exaggerated peepers fluttered behind two broad panes of glass.

Jimmy fixed a grin and decided on a courteous introduction to this poor dissolute fellow and tipped his hat. Robert grinned back, and gestured the visitor ahead, and Jimmy's hopes for a sensible conversation returned, so he stepped forward and took a disconcerting look at the curly- haired buffoon. Close inspection made it too soon for hope.

Beneath magnified eyes, below a long irregular nose, behind a quivering grin that was pasted on his thin lips, Robert's open mouth revealed a couple rows of teeth that belonged in the jaw of canine. This poor fellow needed a conversation from a couch where he does the barking.

Jimmy was far from medically inclined, and said, "So reports are true, South East Asia does get to you in a big way. "

"Where?"

"Here. How long have you been here, Robert? Maybe it's time you told somebody to come and get you."

"Where is South East Asia?"

"Under your ass."

"No, sir. Tell nobody of this place." Amory looked at the dark red wall for a peek at why not. The thirty-ish pantywaist civil servant wore a tweed sports coat and groaned at empty space. Jimmy felt bad for the deteriorating condition of blotchy skinned Amory who had a hairline but no forehead. The long curls of dusty red hair wiggled when Amory moved his head.

"You know how long I've been here, Mister Doyle," Amory stammered. He sniggered at the wall, "You remember we dropped in on the same plane last time you were here? That was a few months ago, right?"

He turned to face the dark room. "I believe I have you to thank," he said, in a whiney and accusatory tone of voice punctuated by a forefinger with a long skewed fingernail pointing uncomfortably close to Jimmy's protruding torso. "They never would have found the place without you on board."

Jimmy agreed, "Isn't that true."

Amory gave the illusion of eye contact with large blurry smears behind broad panes of glass and Jimmy deliberated on a beam of bar light bouncing off the glass in the spectacles. Amory wagged his head and pointed at the opposite bench. "Have a seat. I could use the company. Anybody."

Jimmy sighed and decided to sit. What choice did he have? He knelt to the bench shoving his stuff to the wall, and said, "Do I remember?" settling opposite Amory. "Do I have to?" He kept the hat on for the time being and waved off an anxious waitress who arrived quickly and left a glass of water for Jimmy.

"Nice hat."

"Sure. I remember."

"Is it the same one from the last trip? I think it is."

Solemnly he introduced his right hand to Mister Robert Amory to no response. It was bewildering to stare at those repulsive ophidian-like eyeballs. The bleary slits froze each landscape in a relentless darting search and the face wore a hard, lizardly grimace that stretched into a repulsive grin.

Jimmy purposely held up his hand and continued to stare at the bug eater, but his own uncompromising half-smile was becoming severely compromised.

At length Amory recognized the extended hand and shook it in a suddenly human turn, except he hung on and came within a hairbreadth of a punch in the mouth. He let go and the shoulder-less limb dropped limply to his side. "I am sorry, Mister Doyle," as if the stupid fucking clown was obliged to impart an unwanted explanation, "So disoriented at the moment."

He replied, "Jimmy," and took a drink of cold water.

"I don't think it's serious but I hardly slept a wink last night. I have lots of trouble sleeping for long stretches in the heat, Jimmy." It was more than Jimmy wanted to hear. "I hate the bugs. They're huge!" the tall, skinny man twitched, and used an irritating falsetto voice, and then leaned closer over the table, hopefully to compensate for a lower voice. Instead the invert wiggled on the thin bench cushion, "It happened suddenly this morning," he said, dropping conversation to a more irritating whisper, "and who would have guessed we were involved in Cochinchina affairs?"

He actually continued to squirm until Jimmy pleaded and threatened, "Would you sit back and sit still? I could move to another table."

Amory sat up and made a face like a frown, "No! No! Please!" The bleary globes narrowed by half and he tried to purse his thin lips. A red cocktail glowed in a thin glass on the table. Jimmy said, "Listen, Robert, everything involves America," stating the obvious to the long-stemmed glass, "and it doesn't matter where you are, but I suggest you cut out the local concoctions."

"I never drink."

"Then take it up. Take lessons from Patti," the grizzled air leg vet hunched over the bar. Jimmy hoped he got along with old Tom because Jimmy needed to stay in this air-conditioned comfort. Furthermore Jimmy longed for company in the face of this interview. Bring the hairy dog and feed Amory to it.

"Is it a bad sign if I needed one this morning?" asked the civil servant.

Jimmy encouraged the knave down the path to self-destruction, "Not necessarily."

Robert leaned close again, "We can't wake up Horsey," he hissed, "He was asleep when we heard about the calamity."

"I hear he does that a lot."

"Yeah, he's still snoozing. Everybody at the embassy wants to wake him up and take credit, Jimmy. America was never mentioned in these parts before this morning. You hate the French to say it because it makes them spit."

Amory's awkwardly twitched erect with that haunting grimace painting his face, "Now the newspaper is," he groaned, tossed back his head (and the hairline disappeared), and opened a gaping maw, "in the American language," said with a gasp. Jimmy endured for the sake of intelligence knowing it took a horde of Amorys to gather it, "And who was on the front page?" the civil servant squeaked. At least he gathered that much (who wants to work for the fucking navy anyway?) With rake-like arms Robert leaned on the table and hairless wrists slid out of the garment. "Where did you hear of Cochinchina?"

Jimmy wiggled a pinkie in his right ear until Amory leaned back and the itch terminated. He used both hands to adjust his hat to preoccupy them from hammering into Amory's face. "That," he replied, "is none of your business. I'm the guy who pays your salary. Keep the talk about the sleepy U.S. envoy to yourself. You guys didn't take a vacation to this fucking hole because I can't afford to pay for your vacation."

Amory looked perplexed and slightly guilt-ridden, and ashamed, possibly for lack of intelligence or doing a lousy job. "You make it sound bad," he replied. "Frankly, what did you lose? Those factories haven't been open for two decades. Even if they were the US Air Force didn't put you out of business, Jimmy. In my opinion somebody else bombed the factories, some defacto leader named Ho Chi Minh."

"In your opinion?" Had he grown a spine? He appeared to be sitting straighter. Jimmy repeated, "Ho Chi Minh, the name sounds familiar. Why defacto?"

"I don't know. The story was in an American language newspaper that appeared this morning, which is the first sign I'm in the same world. You cannot believe what goes on around here," he wheezed. "I have no words to describe it except this is the place for nasty feelings."

Jimmy interrupted, "I heard it all before, and Patti said that was over with and who would know better than he."

"Tell the Cao Dai."

"Huh?"

"They have parades of heads on sticks on Saturday nights, always fresh heads on sticks. The people are smiling during these parades. Don't tell anybody. I have no idea why they do it but they sure like the heads on sticks."

Hmm, was this more of what he didn't needed to hear? "Where is this?"

"Uh, I believe the Cao Dai is trying to depopulate the province of Tay Ninh, but I don't know why. And you don't either. The intelligence on Cao Dai is simple: Nice Catholic boys."

"I am one, but listen" said Jimmy who risked personal space by leaning over the table, "I've been around the world," and quickly backed away from a thick garlic smell, and suggested, "This place is no different."

"Yes it is. No place has those kinds of parades and they are major entertainment here, long parades with fresh heads on sticks every Saturday night all over the province of Tay Ninh and elsewhere."

Parades all the time huh. "So it's a great place to be," Jimmy agreed. "Try to remember you are an American, and say no more about the drowsy U.S. envoy."

"Nothing?"

"Does he get up before lunch?"

"He has one of two choices, Jimmy, take credit for what happened in the gulf last night," Amory suggested, "or deny it happened."

Jimmy knew the reputation of Horsey Outerpier. If he could turn back the hands of time he would start every war in the 20th century. "He must deny U.S. involvement," Amory said, "until we hear from Washington. I hope he stays in bed until we get a message."

Jimmy chuckled, "Or reinforcements."

"Oh, we have those," Amory continued, "Horsey has a couple of boatloads of salty Marines in the compound. They came down from Korea loaded with everything. But no word from Washington. We never hear from Washington. The White House doesn't know we're here," Amory complained frantically, "doesn't know where here is."

It was a tough job so get him the fuck out of the way and find somebody who can do it. The unfunny clown stared at a pile of paper and shook his head, muttering forlornly, "The French kept this place a secret. Now they are gone. Did you know it never appeared on any maps and National Geographic never has pictures of Cao Dai parades?"

Jimmy replied, starting slowly, "No. By the way, try to remember that parades are celebrations and stop denying people their joy. The White House knows you're here. You keep getting paid, don't you?"

"Nope. They said they'd pay us if we make it back. (I thought they were joking,)" said Amory. "We have the cooperation of a few gun totting locals but the White House doesn't know anything about this place. I'm still wondering how you found out."

"You really didn't know? I followed you, Robert! They know about South East Asia. I had a recent chat with 'Betty' Stark in Washington D.C. who knows lots about this place. I'm sure plenty of Americans do."

"Oh yeah? Who's she?"

Jimmy blinked, "Huh?" astonished by the lack of this man's knowledge, in a way making him the perfect propagandist. On the other hand, Amory had to remember to keep breathing in order to spew out the endless deception. Jimmy sat back far as he could, pushed up his hat, sighed, and pondered an impossible task. How do you encourage somebody on an assignment as dark as South East Asia? "How old are you, Robert?" Start by telling him he has a long life ahead of him.

Jimmy knew the futility of this ridiculous task and did not get far. The pin-headed red-head glanced back when somebody came through the front door of the lounge. Amory scooped up the papers in one motion and crept to his feet to Jimmy's relief. At the same time he began to cavort between the tables like a bad drunk and carried the papers tight to his chest. Amory nearly ran into Patti who might be feeling sociable after sitting with the demon Tom.

Jimmy yelled, "Hey, Robert! What were you talking to yourself for?"

Patti rounded the last table and took aim at the vacant bench. "For company," he said, "Nobody else can stand him," and slid into Amory's place. "You two got something in common?"

"A thirst for knowledge. He really ain't that bad." Who said that?

Jimmy took off his hat and cupped an ear. "Press conference this afternoon. Be there at two o'clock! Be sure you're on our side of the fence."

Jimmy mumbled to himself, "Say no more."

Patti huddled with a pair of tumblers sloppy with whisky, which were for him. He felt swell enough to smile at Jimmy who smiled back while preoccupied with the sinewy advance of Claude Desautels. The elegant French newspaper magnate was the reason for a swift departure by Amory and a weak attempt by Desautels failed to arrest the furious exit. ("Nothing to add! Nothing to add!") So he must have decided to meet these two Americans who were round-eyes with not a lot of those to look at anymore.

"Do you min' if I join you?" Desautels asked nonchalantly.

Jimmy said, "would you mind sitting over here and giving the man your seat, Archie? Sure, Claude, si'down. I've got a few questions to ask you." Patti sighed and complied with the lassitude of a man on perpetual verge of disappearing. Desautels took Patti's seat and the trio engaged in a round of introductions including brisk handshakes.

"I bed d'envoy will be taking credid for d'bom'bin'," the French was first to speak, "when he wake up. He goin' to be udder'ly erroneous. I'm nod going to dat press conference. I'm going to duck id. Bud I tol' a few frienz aboud id. You gen'l'men were probably tol' dis fac' by Rober' Amory, dat d'envoy 'as a bunch of Marines at d'bank. Apparen'ly, dey are on lay-over from Korea. An' I 'eard tings did nod go well for you Ves'Spit'Yans in Korea."

Jimmy quit hunching over the table and stopped smiling to wipe spit off his face. He glanced away from the shifty-eyed French, and muttered, "I believe we retain the half worth having," and looked sideways at Patti who lifted a glass to parted lips and tipped back his head and poured the contents down his throat.

Patti snorted, a rude warning about joining in. "The world is three quarters underwater, a perfect environment for rubber legs and other pirates to get around," the grizzled air leg vet said. "Well here they found a swamp full of nothing, a total bankruptcy, and things look better anywhere but here, including the Dark Continent. Why don't you go there and scavenge? You ought to forget about this place, Jimmy. You never should have come here because you might have trouble leaving." He raised his glass, "Waitress! Get over here and bring me two more! Jimmy's buying you a drink, Claude."

Jimmy marveled not at his friend's tendency to be obnoxious. He was equally unperturbed by the gall. Desautels shook his head, "Non, merci."

The trio silently admired the hustle of the eurasian waitress. She was a good looker too, who bent over and waved sweet-smelling hair over the table. Jimmy forgot the loss of a couple days in the air. "Qu'est-ce que vous boivrai, ce matin?" she asked.

He replied, "How 'bout your cunt for starters."

The French snorted and Patti glanced at Jimmy like he needed a shower or something.

"She can't unnerstand a word I'm saying." He delicately handed Amory's cocktail to her end of the table. She responded delicately to remove the offensive beverage.

"Neither can we," said Patti, heaving up his empty glassware. He held up two fingers, "Like I said, two more of the same. Mem shows. One for you, pig?" and held up another finger. "Il payez pour troisieme," then he switched to pointing to the source of money. "Claude, sure you won't have one? Tra, Tra, run along now, veet! Veet!"

Jimmy rubbed bare patches at the top sides of his forehead and placed the hat over the expunged itch. It must be his turn to defray conversation.

"I'm going to assume the American Air Force did it, okay? They pretend it's their specialty. After all, why would Viets bomb their own factories?"

"D'eir own, Jiminy?"

"Well whose then?"

"Wad factory? Dere had bedder nod be any such ting aroun' SomeWhere Disorien'al, an' I mus' insis' dat if you 'ear of any, beside dis doom Ves'Spit'Yan's ill-conceive factory, you will tell me im'edia'ly, an' I will 'ire d'freelancers to blow id to shid."

Jimmy blinked and thought, here was an affable personality, a man who must have enjoyed the benefits of a handsome face that a lot of folks might envy for a straight length of nose between wide-set blue eyes. There was no light in them, however. The eyes were ringed with dark circles and stone dead except they flitted perpetually. The hair was ash-coloured and neatly trimmed and this included a close-cropped beard. He spoke with a soothing, sonorous voice.

Claude Desautels obviously possessed some wits. He was okay for a French. He tried to speak American, whereas usually the French made no effort. Evidently when talking about one particular subject Desautels lost his mind. That would be anything to do with local affairs. It would be a mistake to think he had anything at stake. That impression was just the strange propensity French had for mime. Jimmy rubbed his left temple under the hat.

The voice was disturbing the way it cracked with unusual frequency. Complaint was the only thing on his lips after once-extensive French investments had come to nothing. Still, he looked a wealthy French. How did he keep up the charade? "Patti, give me a smoke, will ya?"

It was a sign of Desautels's desperation that all of a sudden the Dragon Monitor appeared in freedom's most imposing language, the one he could hardly stand to speak. No doubt Desautels's life was spent promoting colonialism on Indo China. The end must have mystified this French more than any hereabouts.

It was reputed that Desautels witnessed the debacle in the Dien Bien Phu battle zone escorted by Free French Forces Commander General Navarre, thus leaving the safety of a place like Saigon City. They said this insanely impulsive act that nobody in his right mind would have taken nearly cost him his life. Such was the level of his despair, the man returned to Saigon City was utterly consumed by bitterness. Even better, he had been deprived of a trunk full of treasure.

"Pilots to fly airplanes. Where did those Viet Minhs learn how to fly or find navigators and bombardiers who can hit targets? Even French have some idea about that, don't you?"

"Nod enough, and we begged you Ves'Spit'Yan