Hours of Gladness (2 page)
Authors: Thomas Fleming
I
n another six blocks of cautious driving, Mick reached the west side of Paradise Beach, where houses clustered along the shore of the great bay, and the slope-roofed bulk of the Paradise Beach Yacht Club, shuttered for the winter, loomed against the expanse of dark whitecapped water.
n another six blocks of cautious driving, Mick reached the west side of Paradise Beach, where houses clustered along the shore of the great bay, and the slope-roofed bulk of the Paradise Beach Yacht Club, shuttered for the winter, loomed against the expanse of dark whitecapped water.
Over the causeway Mick boomed and down the straightaway through the pines, letting the motor's rpms mount, his mind deep in the engine he had rebuilt to Ferrari specifications on his own time. His gift to the Paradise Beach Police Department. Had anyone even bothered to say thank you? Of course not.
About ten miles down the road Mick slowed the car from its 90 mph pace. It gave him time to glance through the pines at a white mobile home there in the moonless, starless darkness. Trai was sleeping beside Phac inside that freezing tin box. Where he would never sleep, thanks to the Catholic Church and the Communist Party.
Hit it,
Mick told himself, slamming the accelerator to
the floor. Get out of here, out of the past, the stupid double-crossing past. Into the double-crossing present.
Mick told himself, slamming the accelerator to
the floor. Get out of here, out of the past, the stupid double-crossing past. Into the double-crossing present.
It did not mean anything anymore, Vietnam. It was gone like World War I and World War II and Korea. Like high school football and basketball. Only the trophies were different. The high school gave you golden statues for your mother to park on the mantel. Vietnam gave you a dishonorable discharge. That was what everybody had gotten, when they finally figured it out. Only some discharges were more dishonorable than others.
Up the parkway ramp Mick roared onto a sheen of ice. The squad car slewed like a boat in a heavy cross sea. Mick rode it out until he found concrete under his tires and headed south for the devil's new playground, Atlantic City. A four-year-old could drive the parkway, with its wide empty lanes and carefully calculated curves.
In the monotonous darkness, memory stirred like a VC in the bush. Slowly, inevitably, Mick was in Binh Nghai again, twelve thousand miles and fifteen years away from this frozen Atlantic landscape, strolling across the dusty, sunbaked marketplace with his M16 on his shoulder.
There sat Trai in her father's doorway with that round straw hat on the back of her neck. “What's up?” he said.
She giggled, revealing the whitest, brightest smile in Quang Tri province. “Nothing is up, Marine,” she said. “But something is soon down.”
“What?” he said, already knowing the answer.
“Soup, hot soup is soon down, Marine.”
He hunkered beside her in the doorway and she gave him a bowl of fish soup, full of shark's fins and octopus eyes. Incredibly delicious. While he ate, he practiced his Vietnamese with her. “I hear you're going to marry President Thieu.”
More giggles. “Oh, no. I must save myself for the marine who kills Le Quan Chien. In Vietnam, you know, we believe the gods come down in human form to play the part of heroes. I want to marry a marine god. I will know who he is when he brings me Le Quan Chien's head.”
“Why don't you sell my head to Comrade Chien? He'll pay you five thousand piastres for it.”
“Oh, no. Then who would drink my soup?”
Those delicate hands fluttered, the slim body beneath the black cotton tunic moved in small, subtle ways. Mockery danced in those almond eyes. Woman, whispered the voice in Mick's body, his mouth full of soup, yet somehow dry with desire.
Stop, stop, stop, Mick told memory. But memory was impossible to stop. It kept unreeling like an old movie on television. He had seen it 120 times but he could not stop looking at it.
Worse, you never knew where memory's movie was going to start. Sometimes it was in the middle. Sometimes it was at the beginning, sometimes at the end.
The wind boomed against the squad car's windows, the sleet crunched beneath his tires. Winter sounds. In Vietnam there were other sounds. The swish of a bush, the crack of a twig in the darkness, the splash of a foot in a rice paddy. Each meant death was out there in the night.
He was back in the cemetery, the night they killed Lam.
Ap Nguyen Lam, the tired, chain-smoking joker who had given Mick his first training as a cop. Lam, who taught Mick that a good cop never lost track of himself. He always held something back, no matter what he was doingâkidding, arguing, even screwing. A cop was always watching, analyzing, judging. If Mick had remembered that lesson with Trai, his life would be a lot different. But that white smile, that small, lithe body, had blown it out of his mind and he was paying the price.
Lam had also taught Mick the kind of war they were fighting in Binh Nghai and a thousand other villages like it. Mick would never forget the night Lam showed him his doomsday book. It contained the names and ranks of sixty-nine VC leaders that he had personally killed in the previous five years. On the next page was a list of eighty-nine friends and relativesâvillage headmen, schoolteachers, aid workersâthat the VC had assassinated.
That night while Mick crouched among the graves with Sullivan and Lummis and Page and the two Popular Force Vietnamese, Khoi and Luong, Police Chief Lam was having dinner with his mother and nine leaders from nearby villages. Mick had objected to the visit. He said the VC were probably watching the house. Lam said his mother was old and sick and would not live much longer. She was his only living relative. Besides, the marines had the Cong on the run. The night no longer belonged to them.
For once in his life, Lam was being too optimistic. The night belonged to no one now. The VC were surprised to find the marines, the PFs, challenging them for it. But they had not yet surrendered it. Scarcely a week went by without a firefight between a marine patrol and a VC detachment.
Mick had no authority over Lam. Mick only commanded the eleven marines who had volunteered to join him in Binh Nghai as part of a program to beat the VC at their own game instead of in set-piece daylight battlesâthe army's approach to winning the war. They had spent the last three months living in the village, patrolling the roads each night, ambushing the startled VC a half dozen times.
Among the Vietnamese, Lam had been one of the strongest supporters of this new policy. Thatâand his doomsday bookâmade him a primary assassination target. Lam was just beginning to slice the juicy duck his salary had enabled his mother to buy when the four-man VC team came in the door shooting. Lam was the only man with a gun, and he could not fire because he was afraid of hitting his mother or one of the guests.
Lam was hit by at least ten bullets. For good measure, the VC dropped two hand grenades on his body. Mick was on his feet, starting to run for the house, when the PF, Luong, grabbed his arm. “No. Ambush,” he hissed.
Nobody had much use for the PFs. For one thing, they had M1 rifles, unable to fire more than one bullet at a
time. Most of them were terrified of the VC and ready to do almost anything rather than fight them. Mick had discovered Luong was the exception. He was a potbellied little guy with protruding teeth, not much bigger than his rifle. He had fought the Japanese and the French on the Cong side and had for some obscure reason switched to the Americans. He was a PF for the $20 a month he got paid, which enabled him to avoid farming or fishing, both of which he detested.
time. Most of them were terrified of the VC and ready to do almost anything rather than fight them. Mick had discovered Luong was the exception. He was a potbellied little guy with protruding teeth, not much bigger than his rifle. He had fought the Japanese and the French on the Cong side and had for some obscure reason switched to the Americans. He was a PF for the $20 a month he got paid, which enabled him to avoid farming or fishing, both of which he detested.
Mick followed Luong out the back gate of the cemetery down another path that took them to the river. They got there in time to hear the assassination team paddling away. Mick fired sixty rounds in their direction, the M16's red tracers winging over the dark water, Luong's M1 banging beside him.
Back in the cemetery, almost in syncopation, Sullivan and the other marines opened fired on the VC detachment who had been waiting to cream them if they had charged down the main street to help Lam. The VC had tried to come through the cemetery and use the same path to the river Luong had used with Mick. The marines had four bodies to display in the marketplace the next morning. Around noon, one of the assassination squad washed up with the high tide.
None of that brought Lam back to life. His body was a piece of mangled meat. They buried him in the cemetery while his mother wept and clawed at her eyes. The VC had now killed her husband, all four of her sons, and five of her nephews.
Ten days later, Nguyen Thang Phac arrived to take Lam's place as district chief of police. One look at his elongated frame and lean, haunted face and Mick knew the jokes were over. Lam was a killer who had laughed at death. Phac was a killer who no longer laughed at anything.
WELCOME TO ATLANTIC CITY. The billboard displayed towering casinos, a sun-swept beach and ocean, svelte
women and handsome men beside gaming tables. Past more billboards urging you to lose your shirt at individual casinos Mick roared, his mind, his body, recoiling from what he was going to see and hear in this bedeviled town. But it was better than the unreeling. Better than another night in Binh Nghai.
women and handsome men beside gaming tables. Past more billboards urging you to lose your shirt at individual casinos Mick roared, his mind, his body, recoiling from what he was going to see and hear in this bedeviled town. But it was better than the unreeling. Better than another night in Binh Nghai.
T
he clock on the dashboard read 4 A.M. as Mick rolled into Atlantic City's wet, deserted streets. The usual dozen bums were huddled in doorways freezing to death. One or two of their ragged friends rooted in garbage cans looking for Christ knows what.
he clock on the dashboard read 4 A.M. as Mick rolled into Atlantic City's wet, deserted streets. The usual dozen bums were huddled in doorways freezing to death. One or two of their ragged friends rooted in garbage cans looking for Christ knows what.
The last time Mick had come down here, he had spotted an ex-marine, Minus One Haines, around the garbage cans. Minus One was the nickname the drill sergeant had pinned on him in boot camp because he could not do anything right. Mick had tried to help Haines, a runty loser from Bayonne who thought becoming a marine would make him six feet six. Mick had gotten him through boot camp. He had learned a lot about being a leader, working on Minus One.
Haines had wanted to come to Binh Nghai with Mick, but he had turned him down. Mick had picked only the best for Binh Nghai. He remembered the hurt look on Minus One's face. He had stepped forward with twenty
other volunteers when he saw Sergeant O'Day was in command. Was that why Minus One was rooting in garbage cans? Did he have him on his conscience too? Mick wondered.
other volunteers when he saw Sergeant O'Day was in command. Was that why Minus One was rooting in garbage cans? Did he have him on his conscience too? Mick wondered.
At the boardwalk and Delaware Avenue, Mick parked the car and took off his badge, slung a shoulder holster under his arm, and shoved his .38 in it. Without his hat and with his dark blue jacket zipped, he might have been a bus driver. Sometimes in the summer, ferrying drunks to Paradise Beach police headquarters, he felt like one.
In the casino, the freezing wind and rain that had lashed him on the boardwalk ceased to matter. He was in the warm, glowing world of the Arabian nights. On the ceiling were a million tiny, twinkling stars; in a dim corner a swing band blared and a fat black singer in a white sequined gown wailed about her lack of love. She was singing to mute rows of blank-eyed slot machines, like a humanoid performing on a
Star Wars
asteroid. The slots sluggers had long since boarded their buses and rolled home to Allentown and Paramus. Only the big bettors were still on duty, watching the cards slither from the draw poker machine, the roulette wheel spin, the craps dice dance.
Star Wars
asteroid. The slots sluggers had long since boarded their buses and rolled home to Allentown and Paramus. Only the big bettors were still on duty, watching the cards slither from the draw poker machine, the roulette wheel spin, the craps dice dance.
Not a few of these insomniacs were women. It was amazing how many women came here alone. In front of the first baccarat table, with a pile of chips high enough to ski down, stood a shapely blonde about forty in another all-white outfit, down to her shoes. What was her name? Mick reached into his cop's memory and produced it: Jacqueline Chasen, granddaughter of old Marcus Teitlebaum, who had once owned all of Leeds Point. His heirs had subdivided it into sleek, modern houses on tiny lots and made a bundle.
Jacqueline Chasen looked at him and some sort of recognition seemed to flicker in her mascaraed eyes. She had been a brunette the last two times Mick saw her. Remember me, baby, from your beach-blanket-bingo days? Mick was tempted to ask the question but he
decided against it. She was class. Everyone in Paradise Beach had talked about making a pass at her, but no local had ever got close. She was still looking classy, if a bit long in the tooth. The white outfit, the pearls, probably meant a heavy escort was around somewhere.
decided against it. She was class. Everyone in Paradise Beach had talked about making a pass at her, but no local had ever got close. She was still looking classy, if a bit long in the tooth. The white outfit, the pearls, probably meant a heavy escort was around somewhere.
“Hey, Mick, how you doin'?”
The voice forced Mick to turn his head to the left. He did not want to do it. He did not want to see the owner of the voice. He was the main reason why Mick hated to come to Atlantic City. At another baccarat table, beside a pile of chips even bigger than the one Jacqueline Chasen was handling, sat Mick's father, Harry Alexander O'Day, known to everyone as Buster. Every time Mick came to Atlantic City, Buster was at the baccarat or the craps table, dropping another twenty or thirty thousand as if it were Monopoly money, sneering drunkenly that there was lot more where it came from.
There was too. Back in Jersey City, the northern factory town where Mick had been born, Buster ran the biggest numbers operation in the state. He had inherited it from his father and built it even bigger with help from the Mob. But Mick was never going to see any of the money. Neither was his mother. About a year after he was born, Barbara and Buster had gone their separate ways, and neither had ever explained why to him.
Not that he had ever asked. He had been taught to despise this small, balding man with the mouth that twisted into a sneer even when he tried to smile. It had been easy because as far as Mick could see, there was nothing about Buster O'Day that anyone could like. All he had was money, piles of it that he waved in Mick's face every time he saw him.
“Hey, you wanna try your luck?” his father said, clutching a wad of $100 bills.
“Nah. No thanks,” Mick said. “I'm here on business.”
Buster sneered. Not even a try at a smile this time. “Yeah. I know. He's playin' craps.”
Mick's cousin Rose Gargan grabbed his arm. Her
crotch-tight, feather-trimmed dress looked like it was going to split her in half. Mick still wasn't used to seeing Rose Gargan wearing that kind of dress. Rose had been pretty when she was in high school. She did not seem so pretty now. Her red hair was twisted into something that looked like the strands of a mop. She had about three inches of lipstick on her mouth.
crotch-tight, feather-trimmed dress looked like it was going to split her in half. Mick still wasn't used to seeing Rose Gargan wearing that kind of dress. Rose had been pretty when she was in high school. She did not seem so pretty now. Her red hair was twisted into something that looked like the strands of a mop. She had about three inches of lipstick on her mouth.
“He's down at least twenty thousand,” she said. “You better get him out of here.”
“I'll see what I can do,” Mick said.
Mick knew exactly where to go, the craps table nearest the casino credit window. There sat three hundred pounds of Irish beef known as William P. O'Toole. Lately, he seemed to get fatter every time Mick looked at him. A bar girl was serving him a dark brown Scotch. Mick took it out of her hand and drank about half of it. He grinned and patted her sequined behind. “I'm a relative,” he said.
Mick watched Bill O'Toole lose $2,000 on a pass nine. “Not goin' too good,” Mick said.
“It'll come back,” Bill said. “It always comes back.” There seemed to be some truth to that. Uncle Bill had won amazing amounts of money at these tables last year. But nothing had gone right since September. This was the third time Mick had been told to ride to the rescue.
“Maybe you ought to give it a rest,” Mick said. “Maybe the date's against you.”
“What day is it?”
“March thirteenth.”
“That's my mother's birthday, you idiot.”
“Maybe you still ought to give it a rest,” Mick said as his uncle bet another $2,000 on a straight seven and lost so fast it sent needles of pain dancing through Mick's forehead. He knew exactly what Uncle Bill got paid to be chief of the Paradise Beach Police Department, $26,000 a year. Mick also knew how much he got paidâ$16,000. Uncle Bill had just blown a quarter of Mick's salary.
He was tempted to throw an arm lock on Uncle Bill and drag him out of the place. He was messing up what was
left of the small but beautiful deal the Monahans and the O'Tooles and the McBrides had worked out in Paradise Beach. Even without Dan Monhan's $5 million in bearer bonds in the cellar, it was a lot better than no deal at all.
left of the small but beautiful deal the Monahans and the O'Tooles and the McBrides had worked out in Paradise Beach. Even without Dan Monhan's $5 million in bearer bonds in the cellar, it was a lot better than no deal at all.
“Hey, Chief, how's it goin'?”
Joey Zaccaro inserted his swarthy fox face between Mick and his uncle. Joey's eyes were straight from the zoo, glittering, wary, stupid. But his mouth smiled in a way that was almost human. According to the laws of New Jersey, Joey was not supposed to be allowed in the door of any casino in the state. He had Mob connections two pages long in the FBI printouts. But New Jersey tended to stop enforcing the laws after midnight in Atlantic City. Maybe even before midnight when a guy rolled as high as Joey Zip.
“I'm goin' lousy. How you goin'?” Uncle Bill said.
“Couldn't be lousier. I'm down forty.”
“See what I mean?” Mick said. “It's a bad-luck night.”
“Who's this?” Joey Zaccaro asked.
“My nephew.”
Joey introduced himself. It was the third time they had done this turn. Joey had a lousy memory for faces. He slapped Uncle Bill on the back. “When this guy's hot, he takes the joint home. Never seen nothin' like it.”
Suddenly Joey's eyes jumped from the craps table, where Uncle Bill was losing another $2,000 on a pass four, into the middle distance. “Jesus Christ!” Joey snarled.
He hurtled away from them as if he were on wheelsâacross the carpet past the roulette tables and the draw-poker players to the baccarat table where Jacqueline Chasen was still playing with her mountain of chips. Without even breaking his stride, like a quarterback throwing a pass on the dead run, Joey belted her in the face.
She flew about twenty feet and landed on her back under a draw-poker table. Joey Zaccaro went after her like a linebacker going after a fumble. She rolled away,
out the other side of the table, and started running, total terror on her face. Nobody so much as moved. Nobody wanted to mess with Joey Zip even though he was obviously about to commit murder.
out the other side of the table, and started running, total terror on her face. Nobody so much as moved. Nobody wanted to mess with Joey Zip even though he was obviously about to commit murder.
As Joey passed the craps tables, Mick stuck out his arm and the Zipper stopped like a man running into a turnstile from the wrong side. His legs churned, his arms flailed, but he did not go anywhere. “Lemmy loose!” he screamed. “I wanna kill that broad. I wanna wipe her out.”
Mick looked over his shoulder. Jacqueline Chasen was semi-collapsed against a pillar, sobbing hysterically. Security guards were lumbering toward them from three directions.
“You better get the hell out of here,” Mick said to Joey Zaccaro. “We better do the same thing, Unk.”
With a half nelson on the flailing, cursing Joey Zip, Mick guided a lurching Bill O'Toole across the block-long swath of gold carpet to the door. Buster O'Day watched from the baccarat table, his sneer practically neon across his puffy face.
In the lobby Mick released Joey. “You got some muscles, kid,” Joey said. “You got any brains to go with them?”
“A few,” Mick said.
Joey had regained his self-control. “What the hell did that dame do to you?” Bill O'Toole asked.
“Never mind,” Joey said. “Hope the old luck comes back next time.”
“Same to you,” Bill said.
“I never worry about luck,” Joey said. “When I need it, I make it.”
“That proves you ain't Irish,” Mick said.
Mick drove home slowly, carefully. He always drove slowly and carefully when he had Uncle Bill in the car. He had taught Mick to drive. He was the closest thing to a father Mick had ever had in his life. At the same time he was not his father. Mick used to wish he could forget that.
He used to wish there were no real son in Uncle Bill's life, no family golden boy, no James Patrick O'Toole, known to everybody as Ace. Even before he became a marine pilot, he had been called Ace, because he did everything right: hot student, great athlete, devout altar boy. Jimmy had been shot down over Hanoi in his F-8 Crusader in 1969. Mick had joined the marines to avenge him.
He used to wish there were no real son in Uncle Bill's life, no family golden boy, no James Patrick O'Toole, known to everybody as Ace. Even before he became a marine pilot, he had been called Ace, because he did everything right: hot student, great athlete, devout altar boy. Jimmy had been shot down over Hanoi in his F-8 Crusader in 1969. Mick had joined the marines to avenge him.
“How much did you lose tonight?” Mick asked.
“Don't worry about it.”
“Just interested.”
“It'll come back.”
“Sure.”
Silence until they were off the parkway, driving down the road through the pines. Lights were on in Trai's house. Phac was up, stumbling around the kitchen, hungover probably. He drank hard during the winter. You could not blame him. He worked on the SS
Enterprise,
Paradise Beach's biggest commercial fishing boat, owned by another of Mick's uncles, the mayor of Paradise Beach, Desmond McBride.
Enterprise,
Paradise Beach's biggest commercial fishing boat, owned by another of Mick's uncles, the mayor of Paradise Beach, Desmond McBride.
Crazy, the way a man gets stuck doing things. Phac had started out as a fisherman in Vietnam. The war turned him into a cop. When he makes it to the United States of America, land of freedom and opportunity, what happens? He goes back to fishing.
“I'm down sixty grand at least,” Uncle Bill said as they roared over the causeway.
A reddish glow was tinting the gray sky over the Atlantic. Out to the horizon the ocean was flecked with foam. The northeast wind was still churning down from the Pole. Mick wondered what Phac thought about that wind when the SS
Enterprise
dug its nose into the freezing swells. There was no wind like that in Vietnam. Over there, things cut to the bone in other ways.
Enterprise
dug its nose into the freezing swells. There was no wind like that in Vietnam. Over there, things cut to the bone in other ways.
Phac did not deserve that wind. Trai deserved it. She should be out there on that icy, pitching bow, gaffing tuna, for what she had done in Vietnam. But Phac froze instead.
That was the way the world turned. Women got away with things because they were women. Maybe Joey Zip had a reason for belting Jacqueline Chasen.
That was the way the world turned. Women got away with things because they were women. Maybe Joey Zip had a reason for belting Jacqueline Chasen.
“But I'm good for it. They know I'm good for it,” Uncle Bill said.
“Sure.” Mick did not know what Bill was talking about. Did he think old Dan had another stash of bearer bonds somewhere?
Whuuuuuh,
moaned the northeast wind as Mick drove over the causeway that separated Paradise Beach from the rest of New Jersey. At the end a big sign urged everyone to vote for Walter Mondale for president. “Goddamn Democratic Party,” Uncle Bill said. “Collection of shit shoveling draft dodgers.”
moaned the northeast wind as Mick drove over the causeway that separated Paradise Beach from the rest of New Jersey. At the end a big sign urged everyone to vote for Walter Mondale for president. “Goddamn Democratic Party,” Uncle Bill said. “Collection of shit shoveling draft dodgers.”
Uncle Bill talked that way a lot. He had a whole library full of books on Vietnam. He could tell you how Kennedy screwed it up and how Johnson screwed it up. He particularly hated some guy who had gotten a Pulitzer Prize for a book that claimed the South Vietnamese deserved to lose because they were corrupt. That idea would naturally blow the mind of anyone from Jersey City (or Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Kansas City, San Francisco, and New Orleans, to name a mere handful of places where chicanery is as American as apple pie). Mick tried to tell Uncle Bill it was better not to think about Vietnam, but he never listened. Mick finally realized it was the only way Uncle Bill could feel close to Jimmy.
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