Jake Fonko M.I.A. (25 page)

The joke’s on Poon, I thought. Sonarr’s charade fooled even him. At least that gross advance overpayment now made better sense—he thought he was buying his way into the CIA. Well, Poon got full value for his money, even without that—we all came out ahead on this deal.

“That Major Smith bring tickets today?” Soh Soon asked. “He say he would. Sending me to States tonight.”

“You knew about that?”

“Yes, but he tell me not tell you. Jake, I scared. Too much hurry, no want go so quick.” She was silent for a moment, and her mood turned glum.

“I thought you were looking forward to it. Your father told me you thought it would be a great adventure.”

“Jake,” she said with dead serious voice, “you believe everything my father tell you, you wind up big loser every time. I never want go to States in first place. That father’s idea, good for business. Always father’s idea, every time, and business come first. He make me go Cambodia with him, I want stay in Hong Kong. Leave mum in Hong Kong, have to watch him take all those sexpot Khmer ladies to bedroom. What about mum? Then he make me join Khmer Rouge, good for business. Want me marry top Khmer Rouge boss, until he find out what losers Angka guys are. Now make me go to States, learn electronics. Good for business.” She sighed. “That Major Smith say if I do well in school, maybe work for him. I don’t know. He give me plastic card, but he not nice man. Maybe work for him bad idea?”

“You don’t want to go to the States?” I asked. “Maybe we can arrange something else.”

“Got no choice, do what father says. We Chinese have word for it, 
siaw
, means filial piety, absolute loyalty to father. Worst thing is be 
pu siaw
, disobedient. Just getting sick of always being good for his damn business, that’s all.” She lay there quietly, then started to brighten up. She was still holding on to me. I could feel those slender fingers starting to wander.

“Is the Little Jungle Dragon feeling better now?” I asked.

She went wide-eyed. “Oh no,” she gasped. “How you find out? I hoping keep that secret, leave Angka all behind me, not lady-like. Oh, Jake, you still like me, even if was jungle dragon?”

“Cutest little jungle dragon I ever met,” I told her.

“Jake, you say so sweet things!” and she nuzzled my neck.

“Do you want to model another new dress for me?” I suggested, letting my own fingers do a little walking.

“Good idea,” she whispered breathily in my ear. “First how about you undo me out of this one?” Ah, Soh Soon. If she was typical, I could understand why there were more Chinese than anybody else. 

We had a
somber dinner, our last one in Bangkok. Even the best food the Oriental could offer tasted like Charlie Rats. We piddled around until packing couldn’t be postponed any longer, then took her stuff down to the lobby and sat waiting for her ride to show up. The string quartet, while pleasant, wasn’t enough to cheer us. Suddenly she blurted, “My gosh, forget something in your room. Give me key, I run up and get it!” She scurried off to the elevators. By the time she got back, the white Chevrolet was parked out front, and Kevin had come in to get her. She seemed flustered.

“Everything okay?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah, okay,” she said. “Ride here already? Oh, Jake, so sorry to go. You one great guy, do so much help for me. Don’t think me bad person. Come see me in L.A., as soon as can, okay?” She gave me a big hug and a kiss. Kevin shot me a thumb’s up and then carefully stowed her brand new Louis Vuitton luggage (courtesy of Major Smith’s credit card) into the trunk of the Chevy. He gallantly ushered her into the back seat and drove off. I watched the car disappear into the traffic, missing her already.

Feeling a little weepy and wistful, I returned to my room, where I found my red silk pouch laying on the floor, opened and empty.

11

Soh Soon had
opened the red silk pouch and left it there on the floor when she ran up to my room. Fortunately, I’d emptied it myself the day before. Was my 
schmardt
 finally catching up with my 
oldt
? Or had luck pulled me through once again? Either way, I’d settle for the result. But why had she done it? She didn’t need the money. Had her father put her up to it—take the bribe back once I’d delivered the goods, and what could I do about it? That made no sense. Then why? And why had she been so stupid as to leave it lying there, out in the middle of the floor, where I couldn’t help but notice it right away, and no doubts about who’d done it? If she’d just stuck it back where she’d found it, I’d have never known a thing.

Well, if I ever saw her again, I’d ask her about it, not that I’d have any reason to believe her story. One thing I could be thankful for, at least—it made the parting easier. I’d be missing her a lot less than I’d thought a few minutes before. Who can you trust any more?

Did I have a surprise waiting for me when I finally found out the truth.

I’d taken the diamonds out of the purse the previous morning because Sarge had told me about a new line of business of his since he arrived in Thailand. He was posted near a big refugee camp. “Them refugees from that Cambodia,” he explained, “some of them come across that border with rubies, sapphires, diamonds. It was all the wealth they could bring with ‘em, what they could carry, don’t you see? So I’m in the jewel business now—folks ain’t so anxious for gold here as they was in Nam. I buy those jewels and stones and such for American dollars, he’p those refugees start a brand new life. I give ‘em a good price, just take my usual profit, and you know them Chinamen would cheat ‘em blind if they got the chance.”

“You do diamonds?” I asked him. “I brought a few of those out myself.”

“Lemme take a look at what you got,” he said. “Mebbe I can do a little business for you.” So we walked back along the river to the Oriental. I’d put my silk pouch of diamonds in the hotel safe—good procedure for valuables wherever you’re traveling—without mentioning it to Soh Soon. I shook those uncut diamonds out of that red silk purse, put the biggest one and the smallest one back in the safe, and took the other fourteen out to show Sarge. He held one in the sunlight between two big fingers and squinted at it. “Son of a gun,” he breathed, “them’s investment grade!” Inspecting the rest, he added, .”..and not a one of ‘em will cut to smaller than two carats! You been pullin’ down a mighty paycheck somewhere, Jake, you surely have.”

“Any market for them here in Bangkok?”

“Lemme see what I can do,” he said. “There’s a Jewish feller in town I’ve done a little business with. He might give me a good price. You know, them Jews just love them diamonds! I’ll pay him a visit later in the day.”

So I gave him those fourteen diamonds to sell. I had plans for the other two still in the safe. I’d put the empty silk pouch in my pocket and later, when changing my clothes, stuck it amongst the things in my duffel, where Soh Soon found it.

Sarge joined me for dinner the evening after she left. He came bearing good news. “You should have seen his eyes light up, Jake! Never seen a jewel dealer do that before, usually they’s as cold as a dead flounder when you’re tryin’ to sell ‘em something. You brought some high quality stones out with you, that you did. We dickered around for a while, but we done enough business together, we both knowed what a fair price was.” He took a brown-paper-wrapped package out of the briefcase he was carrying. Holding it in my lap down out of sight, I ripped an end of it open and took a peek. It was a thick brick of U.S. $100 bills. I tugged a bunch free, made a little roll of them and reached it over toward Sarge. “This an okay commission for your trouble? It looks like about ten percent, I think.”

Sarge backed away as far as he could go without pushing his chair away from the table. “Oh, no, Jake! No way. This was strictly a favor, and I don’t take no commissions on favors. You put those right back where you got ‘em!”

“Well, come on, Sarge. You sold those diamonds for me. You gave me all that gear for Cambodia. At least let me cover that gold you gave me.”

“That little bit? Just some old worn out extras I had lying around, thought you might be able to bring me in some business. Hadn’t been for them Khmer Rougers, no tellin’ how many customers you might have lined up. Not your fault, not at all. I’m just glad for the way things worked out for you.”

Just what I was afraid of. How do you repay a guy like that? Maybe I’d find some way later. I had an idea how to do it, but there was something else on my mind. “What do you think about me signing on with the CIA? Todd Sonarr’s been coming on real strong. He doesn’t want to take no for an answer, but I’m having a hard time coming up with yes.”

“Say, lemme tell you a piece of interesting news I found out today. I had some friends check into a few things, and what they tell me is that you got into OCS fair and square and on your own. There ain’t no evidence of any outside string-pulling, your test scores and ratings and recommendations was top of the line. Sonarr must have picked you up for his mole project 
after
 that, not before like he claimed. You’re a genuine officer, not some kind of set-up like he said.”

“Well, that isn’t the only lie that sonofabitch told me. So maybe you’re right then, he’s using that to pressure me into coming aboard the Company. I don’t know—he seems to want me pretty badly. He seems to think I’d be good at covert ops.”

“Look at it this way, Jake. From what’s happened over the last few months, you got a good look at that CIA, and now you know a few things about ‘em. You know the kind of work you’d be doing. You know the way they’d have you going about it. You know the kind of people you’d be working 
with
. And you know the kind of people you’d be working 
for
. So you just ignore all that pressure. I think you must know enough about it to make up your own mind.”

Sarge sure had a way of getting right to the heart of a matter.

I told him about Soh Soon’s little going away present the night before. “I don’t know,” I said. “Sonarr and his scams and cons. The CIA pulling shit all over Indochina, messing over these people’s lives without a second thought. Commie spies every time you turn around, and the agents we recruit either doubled or worthless con artists. Arms and drug dealers everywhere. Driffter and his munchkins up in the hills running a slave labor camp. Mousey Gracie spying for him in the Phnom Penh CIA station. South Vietnam full of corrupt politicans and military officers. Even worse in Cambodia—Lon Nol and the Khmer Rouge make our Mafia look like a bunch of Halloween pranksters. Poon and his smuggling, and to cap it all, Soh Soon tries to rip me off. Is it my imagination, or is everybody in Asia some kind of crook?”

“I can’t rightly answer that, Jake. There’s a billion or so of ‘em I haven’t met yet. But mebbe they ain’t so different from folks back home—most mostly good, a few mostly bad. How many folks in the U.S. pays all their taxes if they can get away with not doin’ it? You think our politicians is squeaky clean—how do you suppose the Kennedys come by all that money? And how about ol’ LBJ—retires a multimillionaire after a lifetime on public servant salary? Businessmen makin’ inside deals right and left, riggin’ contract bids, all them little tricks they have. I hear some of our finest, most upstandin’ citizens—doctors and lawyers and bankers—are makin’ their share outta the drug business. Man, we even had a gang of sergeant majors taking Mafia kickbacks on servicemen club contracts—Army guys cheatin’ their own troops, can you believe it? You know anybody who never stiffed the telephone company? How many of your friends never did no shoplifting, or no vandalizing just for the hell of it? If folks somewhere was any different, you might find a place in the world with no preachers and no religions and no policemen and no jailhouses—I’ve traveled some, and 
I’ve
 never found any place like that.”

“Maybe I just overdosed on sleaze these last couple months. Back in the LRRPs, out in the jungle, things were simpler. It was just you and your team, and you knew you could trust them. You got your orders, and you carried them out. You knew who the enemy was, and what to do about him. Not so clear cut when you get mixed up in the civilian side of things. I guess I’m feeling a little down today—after all we’d gone through together, why would Soh Soon do something like that?”

“Yeah, that’s a real puzzle,” Sarge reflected. “What I seen of her, I wouldn’t have thought she was the type to pull that kind of stunt. Mebbe it wasn’t her own idea. If I was you, I wouldn’t judge her too harsh until I found out more about it.”

Sarge was probably right, but I was having a hard time being objective just then. I’d almost have rather lost the diamonds, than lost Soh Soon like that. “You know, the more I think about it, the more I’m sure I can’t throw in with the CIA. But supposing I turn Sonarr down, what then? I’m out of the army, and that’s all I’ve done since 1969. I can’t picture myself selling insurance.”

Sarge leaned toward me across the table. “You know the way it looks to me, Jake?” he said conspiratorially. “It looks to me like you’re way ahead of the game right now. You got that fat check from the government. You sold them diamonds for a pretty penny. You’re playin’ with 
house money
 now! You got more in your hand than you’d earn from twenty years of soldierin’. No need to hurry into anything. Go back to L.A., get back with your folks and your friends. Spend some time with that Dana you told me about. Enjoy yourself for a while. See what turns up. You might even think about going into business for yourself. You’ve seen the kind of money a man can make by helpin’ other folks out. The kind of job you did down there in Cambodia, why there’s lots of folks in the world’d pay top dollar for help like that. You could do it as well as anybody, better than most others I’ve seen. Asia may be full of sleazeballs and scumbags, but you managed to deal with ‘em and come out on top. No need for no damn CIA job. Freelancers can do okay in that line of work.”

Okay, I had him cornered now. He’d left me the opening I’d been looking for. “Business for myself? That’s an idea worth considering. In fact,” I said, “I already had one idea for a business.” I reached into my pocket. “I’d been thinking of going into the diamond business. I wonder if you could do me one more little favor?”

“Any time, Jake, you know that.”

“Here.” I pressed one of my last two diamonds, the biggest of the entire lot, into his palm. I planned to keep the smallest one as a souvenir of my recent adventure, along with my Khmer Rouge black pajamas and red ball point pen. “This is one of my samples. I want you to hang on to this, just in case you run into some business. You know, to show them what the goods look like. Will you do that for me?”

Sarge broke out into a big, billowing smile. Jews weren’t the only ones who loved diamonds. “Jake, count on it,” he said, tossing that glassy chunk of carbon crystal up and clutching it tightly as it dropped back into his grasp. “Any business I run across, I’ll surely direct it straight to you.”