Jungle Rules (26 page)

The narc shifted his eyes down at his clipboard, pausing for his prisoner turned star witness to consider what he said. Then he looked back at the snitch.

“You don’t testify,” the narc then added, staring straight at James Elmore’s eyes, “you go to the brig. Case closed.

“Rest assured that we will toss Brian Pitts and James Harris in that same brig. They may not get much time on the petty charges we manage to prove without your testimony, but they will go to jail. Same jail with you. Think about that for a moment. Cooperate, and you go home alive, administrative discharge from the Marine Corps, free as a breeze. We have a deal?”

 
“CAPTAIN O’CONNOR, SIR!” Staff Sergeant Pride shouted anxiously, stepping through the doorway of the small office space assigned to the five defense section lawyers. “Major Dickinson wants you to drop what you’re doing and get over to the cop shop pronto. CID has a prisoner, and they want to make a deal in exchange for his testimony. They want to make the bust on his supplier in the next few days, and can’t do anything until you meet with the prisoner and advise him accordingly.”

“He just now getting counsel? How long have they had him?”

O’Connor asked, putting on his starched, green utility hat and grabbing his briefcase.

“They arrested him last night,” Pride said, grabbing his cover, too. “You’ll probably need me to record any depositions or statements, so I’ll drive, if you don’t mind.”

“Be my guest,” O’Connor said, walking toward the legal center’s two jeeps parked side by side in front of the office complex.

“Apparently this character is the main distributor for most of the dope sold along the flight line,” Pride continued, climbing in the driver’s side of the general-use vehicle parked next to Lieutenant Colonel Prunella’s jeep. When he pressed the starter, the engine lay quiet, and only a clicking noise came from under the hood.

“Doggone it. I think maybe the starter’s gone bad or the battery’s dead, sir,” the staff sergeant groaned. “We can maybe push it and get it going, or I can run inside and call the base taxi to pick us up.”

“Forget that,” O’Connor said, tossing his briefcase in the backseat of the colonel’s jeep.

“Sir! Major Dickinson will write us up for violating his written order!” Pride said, his face quickly draining of color. “Look what he did with Lieutenant McKay for going off with his friend on that disastrous patrol at Con Thien.”

“His fucking do’s on the wall of his office do not constitute a written order,” O’Connor said, honking the horn. “Besides, nearly four months and McKay’s charge sheet’s growing mold at the bottom of the colonel’s in-box. Dicky Doo wants to burn me, I will supply him the matches. Besides, I am the one taking the colonel’s jeep and driver, not you. So sit your ass in the backseat and let me worry about Major Dickinson and the colonel.”

Then the unblushing lawyer cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted toward the hooch where he knew that Lance Corporal James Dean most likely lay with his hand in his pants and his eyes on the latest
Penthouse
centerfold.

“Movie Star! Get your ass out here now!” O’Connor bellowed, his voice echoing among the buildings.

In a moment the blond-headed lance corporal came dashing from his quarters, buckling his trousers as he ran. In the doorway of the staff judge advocate’s office, Lieutenant Colonel Lewis Prunella stood and casually waved at O’Connor.

“Battery’s dead on the office jeep, and I’ve got to get to CID right now, so I’m taking yours,” O’Connor called to the colonel.

“By all means, Captain,” the colonel answered. “I have an appointment at seventeen hundred, so please make sure that Lance Corporal Dean has it back to me before then.”

“Not a problem at all, sir. I’ll make sure he gets back well ahead of that time,” O’Connor shouted, sitting in the passenger seat while James Dean climbed behind the steering wheel. Then he looked over his shoulder at Staff Sergeant Pride. “See Derek, no problem at all. The colonel’s a reasonable man.”

“Sir, Colonel Prunella never says no to anything reasonable,” Pride said, and then sighed. “It’s Major Dickinson. He will still rip you and me both for whatever he can dream up. Now he’ll be doubly pissed off because we went around him and got permission from the boss.”

“Fuck him and his
dinky-dao
Dicky Doo don’ts,” O’Connor snarled, resting his right foot in the door well and motioning for James Dean to hit the gas.

“Right on, sir,” Movie Star said, happily tromping the throttle and sending gravel flying from under his rear wheels.

“Keep your opinions to yourself, Dean,” Pride said, crossing his arms. “Sir, looks to me like after the past few months that you’ve been here you’d know by now that Major Dickinson will stick the knife in you any way that he can. Sir, I know that you’re not staying in the Marine Corps, so you don’t care what he writes on your fitness report, but I care what he does to mine. You’ve got a career waiting for you back in New York. My career is right here, sir. Dicky Doo has my future on the tip of his ink pen.”

“You think Colonel Prunella would ever let him get away with slamming you with the velvet hammer?” O’Connor said, looking over his shoulder at the staff sergeant. “You know he has to review anything that Major Dickinson writes on the fitness reports. You’re A-J-squared-away, Johnny on the spot. I bet you even iron your boxer shorts. You think the colonel would let him write anything less than outstanding on you?”

“We’ll have to see, won’t we,” Derek Pride said, sighing again as he tipped his hat back and stretched his arm across the back of the seat.

“Speaking of wait and see, any news on that notorious charge sheet that Dicky Doo wrote on Lieutenant McKay?” O’Connor said, again looking over his shoulder at the staff sergeant.

“Sir, you know I am not supposed to discuss personal matters like that with anyone except authorized personnel,” Pride said.

“Bet you talk to Major Dickinson about it,” O’Connor said, and let out a sarcastic chuckle.

“I only talk about it to Captain Carter, the defense attorney in fact, or Lieutenant McKay himself,” the staff sergeant countered.

“Well, I heard some scuttlebutt,” O’Connor said, smiling at Derek Pride. “I thought you might be smiling about it, too.”

“Sir, nothing has changed yet,” Pride said. “You know that the charge sheet went to Colonel Prunella the day after Lieutenant McKay refused nonjudicial punishment, three months ago. That’s as far as it has ever gone, at the moment.”

“I heard the colonel tell General Cushman that he was damned proud of Lieutenant McKay, and that he had commended him for his heroism,” Lance Corporal Dean said as he wheeled the jeep to a stop in front of the military police headquarters. “He said he’d like to see more of his staff out with the fleet Marines, sharing their meals and seeing how they live. I also heard tell that Lieutenant McKay has got the Bronze Star with Combat V awarded to him for what he did up there by Con Thien, back when his buddy got killed on that patrol he went on. First sergeant told the guys at formation this morning that we’re going to have a MAF ceremony and General Cushman will pin it on him Friday afternoon during the wing parade.”

O’Connor looked at Pride in the backseat.

“I heard exactly the same news, and that Lieutenant Colonel Prunella has the Officers’ Club locked on for a luau in McKay’s honor, day after tomorrow, right after the ceremonies,” the lawyer beamed, taking his briefcase and stepping out of the jeep. “Bet Dicky Doo is choking on that charge sheet about now. Like to see how the motherfucker two-faces his way with Colonel Prunella on this one.”

“Sir,” Pride said, climbing out of the jeep, “I suspect that Major Dickinson has choked on the charge sheet ever since he got the telephone call from the squadron office last week that Lieutenant McKay would get the Bronze Star with Combat V. I think he choked on it for several days before he finally addressed the colonel with it. Probably choked even worse when the colonel told him he already knew all about it days ago from General Cushman.”

“Like I told you,” Movie Star said, smiling as he slouched back in the driver’s seat, relaxing for the wait, “the colonel’s cool with things. So don’t sweat the small shit, man. He knows what’s happening.”

“Even still,” Pride sighed, walking toward the building at the left of the captain, “it doesn’t stop the major from exacting his revenge in other ways. The major may well drop his disciplinary action against Lieutenant McKay, but nothing else has changed. Except maybe, after today, after this stunt, you moving to the top of Major Dickinson’s shit list.”

“Hey, Derek,” O’Connor said cheerily, swinging open the door to the provost marshal’s office, “think about it this way: We’re on top now. Number one, man. Number one!”

 
“WE GOTTA KEEP driving, Snowman, don’t even want to fucking slow down,” James Harris groaned to Brian Pitts as they sped down the narrow street that ran behind their villa in Dogpatch in the early afternoon two days following their suspicious meeting with James Elmore, and a day after the seedy lance corporal had picked up his shipment of dope at the laundry. He had missed their noontime appointment today, when he was supposed to make good on the cash he owed. When Pitts noticed the Marine who had gotten the light off Harris on Wednesday, watching them from down the street, they left fast.

“Fucking rat Elmore, I knew it,” Pitts said, looking over his shoulder and seeing a shaggy-haired white man standing casually on the corner wearing brown slacks and a yellow, square-tailed sport shirt untucked over his belt with a poorly hidden pistol under it.

“That’s the dude that busted me on the flight line,” Harris said, making a sharp right turn and speeding out of Dogpatch.

“They’ve got the ranch covered, too, then,” Pitts said, slinking down in his seat. “Can’t go back. I got a stash of money down south of town, we can go there. I’ll give you half. Then we split up. What we got in this bag won’t last long, so we need the stash. Couple two, maybe three hundred grand. It’ll get us out of the country. Set us up. You like Bangkok?”

“Yeah, man,” Harris said, cracking a nervous smile as he drove. “Good pussy there.”

“Like there was ever any bad? Easy to get lost in Bangkok, too,” Pitts added. “Benny Lam and Major Toan, they’ll fuck us over soon as they know we’re running, so we can’t depend on anyone outside you, me, and my cowboys. Come to think of it, that fat son of a bitch Major Toan acted awfully sweet when I paid him his cut Wednesday. Guaranteed he and his cops helped CID stake us out. Benny Lam’s probably backing him, too. Both those assholes would love to see me gone.”

“Let’s go kill the motherfuckers then,” Harris said, steering the jeep through the back streets of Da Nang, weaving his way south to Pitts’s emergency stash.

“Tell you what, I’ll give you your split, and you stick around here and kill the motherfuckers,” Pitts said, lighting a cigarette. “While you’re at it, you can kill that waste of skin Elmore, too. Shit, kill him first, the fucking rat.”

“He a dead man now,” Harris said, biting his lip and steering the jeep along the winding, narrow roads. “I ain’t going no place till I drop the cocksucker to his knees, make him beg, and then I put a round from my .45 through the top of his head.”

“We get down here, you keep your cool,” Pitts said, watching the homes along the roadsides change from block buildings to shacks and huts. “Got this stash with some Viet Cong. They’ll take two hundred grand as commission. That leaves us with about three hundred thousand. One-fifty each.”

“They ain’t spent it all and not tole you?” Harris said, wondering at Pitt’s trust in the VC.

“It’s there, believe me,” Pitts said. “These are Huong’s family.”

“Fucker slapped me with his gun first time he see me,” Harris said, and rubbed the side of his head. “He never tole me sorry or shit after it, either.”

“You pissed about it? I’ll let you settle it with Huong if you are,” Pitts said and laughed. “He’d probably kill you, but you’d have your chance at satisfaction.”

“Naw, I ain’t pissed,” Harris said, turning the jeep onto a dirt road that led along an irrigation canal toward a small village of thatched huts. “Huong did his job. All the time serious. He think your shit don’t stink, too. He’s okay.”

“I treated him and all the others fair and square, just like you,” Pitts said, lighting another smoke. “Give what’s right, do what’s right, loyalty automatically goes with it if you pick right guys.”

“You sure you picked right guys?” Harris asked, slowing the jeep to a crawl as he entered the village that looked deserted of life.

“Yes, I am,” Pitts said, relaxed in the passenger seat, smoking his cigarette. “Loyalty goes two ways, my friend. Those not right, we killed. Huong saw to it. He believes in loyalty and trust. Just like I do.”

“So he got your six covered in case the bust came down,” Harris said.

“Exactly,” Pitts said, looking at the end hut, where he saw a familiar-looking dog. “We knew this day would come, so we prepared. Every few weeks Huong took cash to hide here, in case of emergency. In case we have to run. Huong and all the others scattered their stashes down in this ville, too. Our money is here, don’t worry. So is Huong.”

“How you know he here, man?” Harris said, pulling the jeep to a halt behind a large wooden house with a thatched roof and a wide porch.

“Look at that mutt coming to greet you,” Pitts said, laughing.

“Turd!” Harris said, and jumped from the jeep and wrapped his arms around his ugly brown dog. “I figured CID done shot my boy, Turd, cause he not about to leave the ranch for nothing. I had heartache the whole time driving down here, my dog getting left back. Huong got you out with him, didn’t he, boy.”

In the edge of the trees, Huong stood and nodded at Harris, and cracked a fleeting smile.

 
“TOMMY! HEY, BOY, you about dressed? Hell, they’ve got a photographer from the Associated Press and another one from
Time
magazine out there, wanting to take your picture. General Cushman’s already cooling his heels in General Anderson’s office, and they want you front and center before the two of them come outside. Tommy? Yo, T. D. McKay!” Terry O’Connor shouted as he stormed into the barracks with three enlisted Marines from Third Reconnaissance Battalion striding at his heels.