\u201cI knew things were bad when the second whore shook, seized up, then slid sideways off of me like a concussed jockey falling out of the saddle.\u00a0 Shot right through the breast.\u00a0 I\u2019d thought the other one just fell or something, you know?\u00a0 She was dicking around with the radio in the corner of the room.\u00a0 I rolled opposite the one who\u2019d just been riding me, landed on the floor on my chest, and swept my arm across the roach hovel underneath the bed to retrieve my Colt, connecting with its handle just as the fuckers outside gave up on exploratory potshots and started up with the automatics.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 I guess they figured if they shot it enough times the brick wall of the hotel would perforate and collapse.\u00a0 You gotta understand, these people in third world countries are used to the slow pace of cooking over open fire and fishing eels out of rivers with reed nets.\u00a0 They just don\u2019t get modern firepower.\u00a0 All they know is it\u2019s fast, hot, and messy.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
This was Brave Captain Harvey.<\/p>\n
Regular patron of the Black Wave bar.<\/p>\n
He paused to order a pint of Abita and slowly drink the entire glass at one go, something he did every hour on the hour when the bell high in the tower of Our Lady of Humble Vengeance across the street rang its stern reminder than humans are confined to time but the church is eternal.\u00a0 Now, for the intervening hour, Brave Captain Harvey would sip a tumbler of Wilkes Booth Whiskey and confess.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d done errands all morning in the hot May humidsphere, and when my barber invited me to lunch around the corner in the Black Wave after he\u2019d tamed my hair, I decided to go with him.\u00a0 Now, with two cartons of spicy fried shrimp gone and feeling four beers the wiser, Cristo and I were caught in the thrall of the old veteran of some vague service to our country, a thin and oak bark-skinned man.\u00a0 A man who always knew what he wanted for breakfast.\u00a0 A man, unlike ourselves, with a Past.<\/p>\n
Brave Captain Harvey always wore heavy khaki chinos with a red bandana strung through his left hip belt loop and a spattered, dusty undershirt with a v-neck that neatly bordered an untended garden of black hair.\u00a0 Because of the heat his usual outer garment\u2014a leather bomber jacket that looked older than Jesus but somehow still felt like a lithe, young calf when you touched it\u2014hung from a hook on the pillar behind him.\u00a0 The sleeve that faced us had that ghostly dark spot, perfectly round, where some unknown patch had been detached.\u00a0 Brave Captain Harvey always liked to talk, but never about what insignia or emblem that patch used to bear.\u00a0 \u201cName and rank, only,\u201d he always said to new people he met.\u00a0 \u201cThey recycled my serial number.\u201d<\/p>\n
I leaned forward to look at Cristo, sitting on the other side of the captain.\u00a0 He\u2019d undone his bowtie and was staring at the veteran between us, holding onto the last words like a commercial slogan, conflating the whores and the guns: fast, hot\u2026and messy.\u00a0 Cristo was chronically undersexed and easily overexcited.\u00a0 Between the chili powder in the shrimp and the Jaegermeister he\u2019d mixed into his cocktail sauce, a man without Cristo\u2019s composure would\u2019ve been humping the captain\u2019s leg.\u00a0 But Cristo is a gentleman and he reserves such enthusiasm for behind closed doors.<\/p>\n
Harvey slid the last ounce of beer down his throat, set the glass down, and continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first whore who\u2019d been dropped was clumsily crawling towards me, glass raining down on her back.\u00a0 She was shrieking, \u2018Help me, G.I., save me, G.I.!\u2019\u00a0 I cocked my gun and aimed it at her, told her I wasn\u2019t no dumbshit G.I. and that she better stay the fuck down.\u00a0 It was all the tenderness I could muster at the moment.\u00a0 She started to cry and cough blood.\u00a0 She turned back and headed for the other side of the room.\u00a0 I got my back up against the wall and could feel the bullets popping off chunks of plaster on the other side.\u00a0 I saw the whore\u2019s hand reach up and land on the nightstand, searching for the money I\u2019d set aside for both of them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI yelled at her that now wasn\u2019t the time to get greedy, but it was too late.\u00a0 Two rounds zoomed through the window and caught her right through the ring finger and her tiny little wrist.\u00a0 She would bleed out in minutes then join her partner and all her ancestors in the shadow canopy.\u00a0 It was right about then that I decided I didn\u2019t want to be in Hanoi anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cristo pulled his spear of olives out of his martini and bit one off.\u00a0 \u201cCass, do you believe this shit?\u201d<\/p>\n
Brave Captain Harvey turned towards me, looked me up and down with a look perfected over decades, a look that had no doubt preceded a couple dozen knife fights.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah,\u201d he answered for me.\u00a0 \u201cHe believes as long as I\u2019m the one buying the drinks.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bartender set us up with another round and took a few bills out of the pile splayed in front of Harvey.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomething I always wanted to ask you, Captain,\u201d Cristo said.\u00a0 \u201cIs that social security money or blood money?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIs there a difference?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, there\u2019s no shortage of it, that\u2019s for sure.\u00a0 But you\u2019re unemployed.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked away just in case a homicide was imminent.\u00a0 Harvey slammed a fist down on the bar.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m fucking retired!<\/em>\u00a0 This fuckhead barber of yours is paying for his own from now on!\u201d\u00a0 He sipped from the whiskey, slid his palms across the bar until his back unclenched and shook his head rapidly.\u00a0 \u201cNow.\u00a0 I\u2019m stark naked, holed up in a cramped room with two dead whores, my radio is shot to shit, and I\u2019m blue-balled all to hell.\u00a0 Twelve shots in the clip.\u00a0 I\u2019m estimating there\u2019s at least seven of \u2018em outside, and they ain\u2019t all going down with one bullet.\u00a0 My options were severely limited.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHeadshots?\u201d\u00a0 Cristo asked.<\/p>\n \u201cSeven headshots in a row?\u00a0 That\u2019s a wet dream even for Clint Eastwood.\u00a0 No.\u00a0 I just had to wait them out.\u00a0 Or so I thought.\u00a0 These weren\u2019t your regular gook gendarmes or even VC.\u00a0 These were some real deep country, bloodthirsty wolves brought in on some colonial power\u2019s payroll.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t know which one, but I knew what they wanted.\u00a0 My tattoo.\u201d<\/p>\n