Seeds Of Fear (26 page)

The old woman spit again.

"No wan Mickey Mouse money . . . that not good for nothing." She held out a scarred palm and slapped it with the fingers of her other hand. "Five dollah American. Real money."

"It's worth it, man," a husky voice said.

Gil turned to watch the black grunt, chest glistening with sweat beneath his web gear, arm tossed casually over the bamboo curtain rod less than a foot above his flattened Afro. His eyes were half-closed beneath chocolate brown lids, thick lips hanging open in a loose smile.

He looked more stoned than fucked over.

"Five dollars worth?" Gil asked.

"Fuckin'-A, man." Tipping forward at the waist, the grunt planted a sloppy, openmouthed kiss on his whore's puffy lips. "An' I was even in
Vung Tau.
Shit, these ladies could suck the eye out of a needle.
Damn!"

"Five dollars."

The black grunt shot Gil a thumb's-up, then staggered to and out the beaded doorway. The flat rattling sound continued as Gil flipped back the pay certificates to the
real
stuff. He, like every other grunt who'd passed the Turtle Test, and lived to see his dark OD fatigues fade, always kept at least a cool hundred in U.S. currency.

For emergencies.

like this one

"She'd
better
be worth this," Gil snarled, taking a relatively crisp five-dollar bill and dangling it before the
mammasan's
jaundiced eyes like a baited hook. Her stares were more like grubs than leeches. "If she's not, there's going to be beaucoup hell to pay. You understand?"

"Yes, yes, understand good. She berry, berry good, GI, you see. If no think so, you can beat. Beat, just no fuck. She virgin, worth more than five dollah Ameri-can when war finished."

Gil could almost feel the steam rising as she pulled the bill from his fingers.

"You see, she numbah one girlfriend. If you like, I no let her give suckee any other GI but you. You see, you like whole hell'a lot. Come, you sit. . . she suckee you good."

Gil let himself be steered toward the chair and sat down, the woven bamboo squeaking beneath his ass in protest.

"You wan me take that? Keep it plenty safe, for sure."

Gil followed the
mammasan's
hand to the record clutched to his chest and shook his head.

"No. I'll keep it. Here. With me."

"No worry, GI," the old woman said as her fingers closed over the record and pulled it from his grasp. "This be plenty respectable place. We no steal. Oh . . . record. You like me play?"

Gil watched the old woman slice the plastic cover with a ragged nail and slide the real virgin out of its tissue paper protector.

"Have plenty good record player, GI. You like play?"

She turned without waiting for him to answer, shuffling away from the curtained cocoon as fast as her bandy little legs would carry her. Gil stood up and took a step forward when he saw that the
plenty good record player
was one of those claw-lidded things he'd had as a kid. The kind that left scratches the size of the Grand Canyon.

oh shit

Gil took another step when Mitch Ryder's voice (sounding a little like Donald Duck) filled the room, singing about the
Devil with a Blue Dress.
The
mammasan
looked up from the phonograph and nodded as the other whores clapped happily.

shit shit shit

"You wan suckee now, GI?"

Gil glanced back over his shoulder. She was standing next to the chair, the blue pants bunched around her ankles.

"You come back, GI. I no bite."

The curtain
swooshed
closed as he sat back down. Gil thought he heard a soft chuckle as she kneeled in front of him but wasn't sure. Couldn't be sure of anything but her cool fingers moving swiftly to his belt buckle ... to the buttons of his fly.

"I be your numbah one girlfriend Vietnam, okay?" She was watching his face as her hands parted the heavy cotton and lifted him out. "You see, I give good suckee . . . make you forget. You not want me do this with other GIs, I not do.

"Just you, GI.

"I be just for you. You see."

you see

Her lips went taunt as she slipped down over his engorged prick. Every muscle in Gil's body tightened. It was unbelievable ... a feeling like cold fire sweeping upward from his cock and engulfing him . . .

. . . swallowing him . . .

. . . eating him . . .

watching

Gil felt his pubic hairs twitch as he opened his eyes.

She was staring back at him—black-almond eyes wide and locked on to his face. Studying him. Filled with hate. A wave of heat raced down his spine, meeting the cold fire somewhere near his belly.

And turning it to steam.

"You
like
to watch, don't you?"

Without waiting for an answer, Gil arched his back and forced more of himself into her waiting mouth— digging his fingers into her thick black hair, rubbing his thumbs against her sweating temples. She grabbed his wrists and pulled away, exposing the purple heart-shaped tip of his cock.

"No do . . . too beaucoup big . . . you choke me. Too big."

"Liar," Gil whispered, and moved his thumbs closer to the epicanthic folds that shaped her eyes. "I'm not any beaucoup bigger than any other grunt, am I?"

She smiled up at him and ran her tongue slowly over her lips. How many other grunts had she smiled at like that? How many others had she
watched. Like that?

Like
they
were the enemy?

Like she was watching him right now.

Gil felt the steam inside his gut reach his brain. He'd fucking had enough.

Scooting forward, he grabbed her chin, wrenched it to one side, and thrust himself back into her mouth.

She gagged and pulled back, her black hair shimmering as she began to shake her head—back and forth, back and forth. Gil felt her teeth rake the tender flesh of his cock.

"You trying to
bite
me, bitch?" he screamed, grabbing and jerking her chin down toward her quivering breasts. "You said you wouldn't bite!

"What are you lookin' at, cunt?"

Her eyes widened an instant before Gil raised his free hand and jammed two fingers into them, popping them while Mitch Ryder howled in the background about a blue-dressed devil.

Setting the beat.

"Yeah . . . you ain't gonna bite and you ain't gonna
watch.
Your whole fucking country likes to watch, don't it, cunt? You gonna watch me now, dink?" Gil hissed as he tightened his grip and scooted to the edge of the chair. "That's what you people like to do, isn't it? Watch GIs until you think we don't see you anymore and that's when you get us, isn't it?

"Well, watch
this."
Gil shoved himself still deeper and felt the tip of his cock slide down into her throat. "Watch it all, bitch. Watch it! WATCH IT!"

Forgetting, for the moment, that she had nothing left to
watch
him with. But that was okay . . . that was fine . . . that was fuckin'-A, man!

Because she wasn't nothin' but a dink, anyway.

Blood-tinted goo dripped down the sides of Gil's hands as the
Devil
pummeled his thighs, his belly, his chest, with her fists; losing the music's beat as pink foam bubbled around the inch of his shaft that still protruded from her mouth.

As Gil worked on her . . . still shouting
watch me, you goddamned whore, watch me NOW!
until he felt her body go limp.

one less gook to watch

"What you do?" someone yelled. "You
dinki dau
GI? Crazy? You stop—
dung ltd.
No do this."

The fire continued to build, destroying the fear that had been building in his belly since the moment he'd felt the first stares burrowing under his skin.

"I call MP! They come quick, shoot you dead!
Dung lui,
you summa beech!"

The orgasm tightened, pulling him forward, driving him down to the hilt. Gil felt the sides of his cock scrape against her back teeth. Felt her body match his shudders as the cold fire exploded like a Claymore.

This side toward enemy.

Panting, sweat burning his eyes, Gil scooted back in the chair and let the dead whore collapse backward onto the mud-streaked floor. At his feet. As flaccid as his spent cock.

"That really was great," he said, nodding to the gaping
mammasan
as he reached for the side arm and licked his lips. His mouth tasted like the whorehouse smelled.

"Really numbah one." Gil nudged the
virgin's
naked thigh and watched her head loll back over her shoulder. Empty, blood black holes staring up at him.

Still
watching him.

Gil tried to stand and felt the chair slide backwards under the weight of his frantic shuffling until it collided with the wall. And propelled him up and out.

Toward the dead woman on the floor.

watching him

The Wheels broke into another driving piece, but Gil didn't notice it any more than he did the whimpering screams from the other virgin whores or the
mammasan's
threats.

"You crazy man," the old woman screamed at him, clawing at the front of his fatigues. "You
dinki dau! Dinki dau!
I call MPs ... I call MPs make plenty trouble. You wait, you
dinki dau
crazy American GI, you wait and they come, make plenty beaucoup trouble. For sure!"

Gil stuffed himself back into his pants with one hand as the other pulled out the money clip. Began pulling off the
real
bills until the old woman stopped screaming.

The going price for a dead
numbah one suckee girl
was twenty-six dollars.

American.

Gil left Mitch Ryder to the purgatory of a cheap turntable and 98 percent humidity . . . knowing that in a few weeks both the musical version of the "Devil with a Blue Dress" and its human counterpart would be unrecognizable lumps of melting goo.

Knew
it.

But could still hear the song playing over and over and over in his ears.

The way he could still feel her empty eyes staring at him

in the reflection of cool San Francisco glass.

Come Back to Vietnam

Come back.

Gil watched the dead whore slide her hand into the crook of his arm, trembling when the cold seeped through the layers of textured fabric and years.

"You wan me suckee you good, GI?"

Her voice suddenly had a soft, mushy quality to it. . . like fruit that had been left out in the sun too long.

"I be you numbah one girlfriend Vietnam. Come back, GI. I no bite."

She smiled at him from the glass—the empty eye sockets deep shadows in the reflected streetlight. . . receding gums black against strong, white teeth.

Gil heard them clicking together as she tightened her grip on his arm.

"I not finish last time, GI. . ."

She smiled and twin blue flames, like misplaced gaslights, suddenly glowed from the depths of her empty sockets.

This time be more beddah, GI. . . this time I suckee you good.

You
watch,
GI. This time gonna be more beddah, for sure!

The sound of tires hissing against damp asphalt snapped Gil's attention to the street. A three-wheeled, surrey-fringed Lambretta "taxi" whispered past, the American-made transistor radio hanging from the motorcycle handlebars bouncing against the driver's bare knees as it played something soft.

Something familiar.

Something about a devil in a blue dress.

And he ran to it.

Gil saw the driver's eyes through the windshield an instant before the cab's right bumper crushed his rib cage . . . heard the "What the FUCK?" a moment before he slipped beneath the good Detroit wheel.

He came outta nowhere,
someone was shouting over him.
Just run right out in front of me like he was crazy or something.

Musta been drunk,
another voice said.

Or high.

Anyone know who he is?

Seen 'm come out o' that fat-assed restaurant
—
guy was a real pervert, y'know.

The last voice was familiar and Gil wished he could open his eyes to make sure. But it really didn't matter because he knew she was still there.

They were
all
still there.

Watching him die.