M&C-Return of Ba Lin Diep Thu's Cherry

MOSES AND CURIO AND THE RETURN OF BA LIN DIEP THIEU'S CHERRY







         "Still up for paintballing Sunday?"  Marko Goldstein leaned into his friend Ratif's office in the Boggs Federal Building in New Orleans.  Per usual, Ratif looked up from an open binder of archived documents on his desk.

         "Yeah, I'm in.  Just no shooting at my balls this time, asshole."  His thick Egyptian accent tickled Marko. 

         "I told you the gun was just out of C-O- two.  I aimed higher than I hit."

         "Sure."  Ratif smirked at that.  Marko had a mischievous streak.  "My ass."

         "I'll hit that next then.  What about tonight?  Head down to Tip's with me."

         "You and Sarah, right?"  Ratif looked at him knowingly.  Marko was having an affair with an Israeli woman, Hedda.  For any number of reasons, Ratif did not like the girlfriend.

         "Julie?  No.  She hates crowds.  You know that.  I'm thinking about meeting up with Hedda, though.  Probably gonna cut her loose soon. She's getting clingy."  Marko walked into the office and checked his coif in Ratif's mirror.  "Can't have no clingy ones."

         "You know, you could just not have ones period.  You are going to get caught, you know."

         "I've been lucky enough so far.  But this little minx..." Marko adjusted his tie and primped.  "She wild as hell when you get her stirred up.  Something about her being in the Army back in Israel does it for me.  She's fun."

         "It won't stop Sarah from cutting out your nuts.  You are heading for a serious divorce, Marko.  When was the last time you spent time with your children?  With your wife?  Is she so bad to sit with?  I like her much more than this harlot you are with."

         "Relax.  I got it covered."  Marko waved a dismissive hand and smiled his best shark in the courtroom grin.  "I got court in a few hours.  When you headin' out of this jail cell?"

         "I'm leaving at five."

         "Good! Want me to pick you up?"

         "Better to be pulled over drunk in a Benz than a Honda, is it not?"

         "Haven't had the pleasure of either.  I'll hit you at about seven-ish, then.  Okay?"

         Ratif put his nose back into a file jacket, his pen jotting notes as he read.  "That's good.  Only make her take her own car.  Her music sucks."

         "That's the plan.  Find you some criminals yet by the way?  Word has it you had a meeting with Randy Jowanski a few days ago.  Care to share?"

         "It's nothing, now.  Maybe it something pans out though, I may have an in with him."

         "Yeah, well a word about him, Ratif.  He's a prick, man.  He's a self-serving, egotistical prick who wants Reno's job so bad he's modeling women's eyeglasses.  You watch out for him if you got anything he wants.  What's he into you for, anyway?  You find an old Gestapo dude panhandling over on Canal?"  He snickered.

         "No.  Maybe a Vietnam incident involving some local shrimpers."

         Marko was on his way to continue proceedings in a Federal civil suit involving the family of a black man from Covington Parish who had been killed by the son of a KKK Grand Wizard.  It was all over the news, just as Marko wished.  Seeing his friend Ratif hunkered in his tiny office, without any paralegals or junior counsel to help sort through the boxes of archived records he was studying made Marko shake his head in disgust.

         "Vietnam?  Who even remembers that?  Been twenty years since a bomb fell there.  We got bombs here, bro.  Modern times."  He snapped his fingers.  "Come with me to 1994, homeboy.  There's plenty to do now.  Quit lookin' up that old crap and sue some rednecks with me."

         Ratif raised his eyes to look at his Jewish friend.  "Twenty years to you.  To those whom the bombs fell, the need for retribution for those who were bombed is no less diminished by time."

         "Shrimpers, though?  Who's interested in some..."  He glanced out the office door for Ho Lee, the resident Asian paralegal. "...some rice farmer who got their pig shot in '69?" he whispered.

         Ratif looked again at some particulars in his file jacket.

         "You would be surprised, my friend.  See you at seven."

         "Seven-ish!"  Marko pointed out the clarification and left with a muttered, "Oy vey, man."



         "I make it seventy five yards."  Behind a 6x Leupold, Moses Holliday sucked on a Winston and observed the window on an adjacent apartment building.

         "That's about what I paced it out at.  Slope being what it is, it won't drop hardly at all that close.  Easy tap, right?"

         "You tell me.  Is it easy?"

         "I done harder.  And not shooting from as nice a perch, I may remind you."  Curio Phelonie looked away from her own rifle's scope and took a sip of red wine.  "That mean I get to take him?"

         "If you want."

         "Of course I want.  Why wouldn't I want?"

         "I didn't know if you felt like it.  It don't hurt laying on your belly too bad, does it?"

         "It's okay.  I can hack it.  I can hack it."  She hoarsely imitated the dying Sgt. Cowboy in Heartbreak Ridge.  "My belly is about done hurtin'.  Except once a month of course."

         Moses laid his rifle down and sat up to stretch, his eyes steadily watching the window.  "It's cold as hell outside." 

         "I'm glad we ain't working out in it."  Curio closed the caps on her scope and laid the gun on her pillow.  Rolling over on the bed, she laid her head in his lap and pulled up her t-shirt to examine her new tattoo on her belly.

         "It's healing good."  A four-inch surgical scar, the result of a hit gone wrong four months prior, was now transformed into a smiling pink caterpillar.  Moses looked at the skin.  He had many tattoos spanning the course of his forty-three years.  It was Curio's first.

         "Looks good, baby."  He tickled it.  "Neat how he hid it like he did."

         "Lemme see yours." 

         He unbuttoned his black oxford and pulled it aside.  An exact replica of her lips was needled in ink on his heart.

         "Awesome!  It looks weird next to the others though."

         "Not many see 'em though."

         She beckoned for her wine and craned her neck up to finish it.  "I like wine more than I used to."  She recalled Vito Corleone. 

         After nearly four years working alongside Moses doing the retirements for the mobster Bertrand Fontenot, she understood what the old Don meant more than she thought possible.  Looking up at Moses as he sat watching the distant window, a Winston smoldering between his still fingers draped over a bent knee, she saw endless bottles of Rebel Yell whiskey.  Kissing him on the tattooed lips, she knew why he was a lot of things.

         "You and Griz have been mighty weird lately."  She said.

         "Gotta’ love an observant woman."  He picked up the rifle and looked at the apartment again.  "We had some shit on our minds lately is why."

         "You really think this guy has got something on you two?"

         "Given the who, what and where and why it seems reasonable.  For sure, we know the lady talked to the guy.  We know the guy talked to Jowanski and they both want to talk to the lady again in a few weeks.  They don't know we know that or how."

         "Mind telling me how?"

         "The mob is wise to hide some secrets from the hired help."

         "Not from you when it pertains to you."

         "They got a bug on Jowanski some kinda way.  I don't rightly know.  He ain't my business til he is my business.  Just you and I hope that never happens."

         "He's just a Fed.  I'm surprised Grizzly ain't got rid of him."

         Moses looked at her, suddenly ashamed at her ignorance.  "The enormity of that statement."  He shook his head and again looked through the scope.  "Poppin' a Federal prosecutor is the work of a dead man walking.  Sometimes dealing with an enemy is like dealing with whether or not to leave a woman.  Like they say, sometimes the crazy you're used to is better than the new crazy you're not."

         "That why you keep me around?  You afraid of a crazy you cain't handle?"  She pinched his thigh, giggling.

         "Like I handle you."  He smirked.  "I keep you around because I love you."

         "Good to know."  She rolled over on her belly and laid the rifle across his thighs.  "I can use you as a rest."  He picked up her barrel and slid a pillow under it. 

         "Now you can."  They sat and watched the empty apartment.

         "You and Grizzly talkin' about me again lately, huh?"  She dry-fired the rifle and worked the bolt a few times.

         "We talk about a lot.  He's got a lot of shit to tell lately.  He may be lookin' at time on one of the indictments if Aaron don't get 'em loose of that laundering charge.  They let Albie's snitchin' ass run around the house long after he shouldna' been there, apparently."

         "What about the big 'un?" 

         "Pete is gut-deep in it, too.  When they start droppin' bombs on a house, everyone in it feels it."

         "Ohhh, Big Love, too?"  She mewed and shook her head empathetically.  "They make jump suits to fit him inside the jailhouse or just stitch a coupla’ full-size sheets together and dye 'em orange?"

         "Ain't no full size sheets in a prison, baby."

         "Guess they'll have to get out of it then."

         "There's a lot of things folks jump into and find out they can't jump back outta."  He looked at his watch as the streetlights came on outside.  "Our boy's workin' late today."

         

         "Damn!"  Ratif looked up and saw the clock read six o-five.  Looking at his watch to verify it, he swore again and began throwing selected items into his briefcase. 

         Once again, he had been caught up in the tedium of an investigation that he thought may well earn him a meal ticket back to New York.  He was needed in New York for a more important mission than what he was tasked for in New Orleans.  For the better part of two weeks, Ratif had been doggedly researching the claims of a war crime in Vietnam.  Working as a liaison between the US government and the UN group tracking atrocities committed during war, he was nominally tasked to dig up whatever dirt he could on the Reagan administration's dealings with the Contras during their war with the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.  It was busy work given to him, by the Clinton people, but he took to it well.

         Two weeks to the day before, a middle-aged Vietnamese woman by the name of Lin Diep Thu had knocked politely at his door.  He marveled at her manners; much like the women of his youth in Egypt, she had waited at the door for him to open it. 

         "What can I do for you?" He asked after they exchanged pleasantries. 

         She sat for a moment and said simply, "I'm here to talk about the massacre my husband did."

         Ratif got out a pad and a tape recorder.  "Continue please."

         Countless times he had listened to their talk on the cassettes. 

         "My husband was Captain in South Vietnam army.  His name was Coh Luang Thu.  He die yesterday."

         "I'm very sorry.  Was it an accident?"

         "He run shrimp boat.  He have a stroke on way back into port.  He die before boat make it back in."

         "And this was yesterday?"

         "Yes."

         "I am very sorry."

         "Don't be.  Man was pig.  He killed a whole village."

         The particulars followed.  Lin explained in detail that she was in love with the chieftain of an adjacent village, a man by the name of Trim Van Goc.  Trim was a communist sympathizer, however.  She was young, of course, not political.  In fact, she admitted, had she a choice, she would have allied herself with the North, since the war had been going on with American support for almost as long as she had been alive by the time she was old enough to know love.

         She was betrothed to Coh.  Her father was aware of the "Vietnamization" policy.  He figured he could marry off his daughters to ARVN officers so they could have a chance to immigrate to America and avoid the slaughter he knew the advancing communists would undertake. 

         "He thought he do best for us."  Lin shrugged.  "He could not know what it would cause."

         Coh was a hard man.  He was a liaison between his ARVN Ranger company and a small group of Marines, known as Lurps to them even though the regular Marines called them Recon, stationed near their village.  She told her father Coh was a pig and a corrupt man but he would not hear of it.  Her father knew she was enamored with Trim and chalked up her refusal to that. 

         Before they were married, she went to see Trim and they made love, she admitted while blushing.  On their wedding night, Coh knew she was not a virgin immediately and knew who it was who had her.

         "He annihilate whole village because of my selfishness."  She cried softly as she related that.  "I love Trim.  I wanted him to be my first.  Not Coh.  But Coh, he swear he get even."

         Coh, she explained further, set up a mine that killed an American sergeant.  He blamed the attack on infiltrators hiding in Trim's village.

         "Sad thing was," Lin covered her face.  "Coh was probably right.  Trim hide VC after his father shot by Thieu's soldiers for doing the same thing.  But it was Coh who killed the Marine man.  And one dead soldier not justification for what happened."

         Ratif could concur with that.  As a child, he watched Israel launch countless retaliatory raids near his home in Manzilah, near Port Said.  They would bomb a city block to avenge a dead soldier.  It made an impression on young Ratif.

         The hamlet of Soo Bin Thap was hit by the Lurps and their ARVN Ranger counterparts less than forty-eight hours after the Marine was killed.  Supported by token ARVN air support, the units went in and razed the village.  Some seventy people were killed, mostly women and children.

         "The men were all either dead or in an army by then," Lin explained.  They found one actual NVA soldier in one of the huts.  He was a private who had the unlucky break of being home on leave.

         "I do not particularly blame the Americans."  Lin dabbed a tissue.  "Coh knew he could drive them crazy by killing the sergeant.  They already knew Soo Bin Thap was hostile to them.  It was easy for him to use them as he saw fit.  They operated far from any authority and they were ruthless."  She looked at the wall and whispered, "They were heartless, too.  Some more than others though, I think."

         Ratif let her collect herself as he jotted down some initial thoughts.

         "I sympathize with you, ma'am.  But the war was a long time ago and the incident was probably investigated thoroughly then.  I do not mean to be trite about it and forgive me if I sound dismissive, but why do you think it bears further investigation now? 

         "Coh worked for one of the men in the Lurps.  The man arranged for Coh and a number of his men to come here to Louisiana after war.  Coh been smuggling narcotic for man on shrimp boat ever since."

         Ratif folded his hands and looked at her.  She was a tiny woman.  Probably beaten many times, he knew the look of shame on her.  Some looks transcended cultures.  It was not in her nature to lie offhand, he figured.

         "Do you know this man's name?"

         "His name is Bertrand Fontenot.  He is criminal.  A very bad man."

         It was a name many in New Orleans knew, Ratif included.  After a number of questions, he asked if she could come in at a later with some other men who could better use the information she related to him.  She agreed, thanked him for his time and left as quietly as she arrived.

         Without hesitation, Ratif got out a phone book and found a number for Deputy U.S. Attorney Randall Jowanski.  Jowanski was in the midst of a trial, but listened intently to what Ratif had to say.

         "Hold what you got, look up what you can find in the archives, and as soon as I convict Derrick Lacredo for being a dumbass, we'll get together with your lady friend and see how it goes."  Jowanski told him.

         So Ratif did just that.  The research into the forgotten episode was amply time-consuming.  He frequently got caught up in the reading of the official accounts of the incident.

         Like that day.

         Fumbling with his briefcase and slipping on a thick trench coat, Ratif Ali al-Manzilah exited the Hale Boggs Federal Building, stopping briefly to look up at its fourteen stories.  He did not notice another man behind him until the man spoke.

         "The Twenty-sixth of February."  The man said in Arabic as he walked past.  Ratif paid him no noticeable heed.  He casually walked to the parking deck, nonchalantly got in his car and drove safely home. 

         Inside his clothes, however, he was a trembling wreck.

         

         "That him?"  Curio pointed with a pair of chopsticks as a tiny silver Honda pulled into the parking lot of the apartment building. Illuminated perfectly by a streetlight as it parked.

         Moses picked up a spotter scope.  "That's our boy."  He leaned forward and slid open the door.  The cold slipped inside immediately.

         They set aside their dinner and grabbed the rifles.  Both were armed with Winchester Model 300s chambered in a 30.06.  Moses handed her a round and slid one home in his as well.  The rifles had long silencers screwed to their muzzles.

         Ratif got out of the car and hurried inside.

         "Our boy must have the trots."  Moses sat up and twirled the sling around his arm.  Curio laid her rifle across the pillow on his lap and flattened out on the bed. 

         The bed was the only furniture in the rented apartment.  There was no utilities cut on, no lights except a battery-powered lantern Moses flipped on and off occasionally.  The bed was slid to the edge of the door leading to a patio balcony that overlooked the target's own balcony.  Ratif being a devoted follower of Islam, he faced into the east on a prayer rug laid in the middle of an otherwise empty room.  It was assumed it was a spare bedroom, but there was no bed.

         A few minutes passed and suddenly lights began to flip on inside the apartment as Ratif entered it. 

         "Come over here and meet God, asshole."  Moses whispered behind his scope.

         Curio said nothing.  She only held her sight on the empty room and waited.

         Six minutes passed.  Finally the door to the room opened and an arm reached in and turned the light on.  No Ratif, though.

         "What the hell."  Moses mumbled, miffed.  "Come on!"

         "Maybe he ain't in a praying mood."  Curio glanced at him.

         "Maybe.  Sit tight.  He might only give you a split second shot."

         "I'm good.  Just hang on, baby.  He's gonna come in."

         Ratif did almost as soon as the words left her mouth.  He was naked.

         "Oh shit!  Homey is a nudist!"

         "Homey believes in being clean before he prays to Allah."  Ratif opened the patio door.

         Curio snickered.  "Shrinkage ain't somethin' he gives a damn about tonight.  I think I could skipped the fresh air tonight.

         "Saves me wondering if the bullet would shatter that glass or not.  Get him clean."

         Ratif had barely flipped the prayer rug on the floor flat before she breathed and fired.  The rifle only chirped as it discharged. 

         The big bullet punched through Ratif's chest, driving him backward.  He grabbed his chest briefly and contorted as they watched through the scopes.  Moses shot him in the head.  The head burst against the bare wall behind him.  Ratif lay still.

         "Let's go."  They pulled the barrels loose from the receiver and tossed the two pieces of the rifle into a duffle bag.  Dressed to leave already, Curio folded the take-out boxes closed and placed them in the bags in which they came.  Moses slid the bed into the middle of the room and got out a spray bottle of kerosene.  He sprayed the entire bottle on the bare bed and pillow.  The mattress was bought at a secondhand shop, but he intended to torch it anyway.  They had barely had any time spent in the room and wore gloves and hairnets the entire time.  An overabundance of caution was never a bad thing.

         He sat a crude incendiary device rigged to a garage door opener on the bed as she checked herself in a compact mirror after jamming her hair net into a pocket.  She was sporting a red wig and flame-red lipstick struck out fiercely from the heavy coat of pale tone base she purposely slathered on to mask her dark complexion in case they were seen.  Clad in Goth leather and a long black trench coat, she scarcely resembled the normal sexpot she fancied herself.

           Moses was wearing padding to make himself look forty pounds heavier along with a frumpy hairpiece, a walrus moustache and a heavy Green Bay Packers jacket.  As they walked out, they looked like a worn out old daddy tagging along with his freak of a daughter.  No one noticed them except a six-year-old who watched them cross the street from inside the warmth of his first floor room in the target house.

         They took the stairs to the fourth floor and cautiously walked past three doors until they reached 406.  Moses tried the door.  It was open.  They went in and closed it behind them.

         Wheel of Fortune was blaring.  Curio looked at the puzzle beside Vanna White.  "It's not for the faint of heart."  She mumbled the answer as a contestant bought an E.

         "I agree."  He replied.

         Ratif's briefcase lay open on a desk in his study.  Moses found it quickly and began rummaging through it.  Curio stood against his couch and watched.  He knew better than she what he was looking for.

         "Baby, check the back rooms for anything that looks like tapes or folders.  And close the blinds back in the dead guy's room.  Hurry!"  She nodded and rushed down the short hallway to the spare room.  Stepping across the body gingerly, she yanked the cord to shut the vertical blinds.  There was a large gun safe sitting to the left of the balcony door.  It could not be seen from their perch.  There was nothing else in the room except a side table with a cordless phone and phone book seated atop it. 

         The entire apartment was not very cluttered, she noticed as she searched the rooms.  She figured it had to be a Muslim thing against having too much stuff.

         "There's a gun safe back there.  It's got a key lock on it."  She reported as she found Moses seated at the desk, flipping rapidly through file jackets.  "I didn't see anything that looked legally."

         "He keeps it all here."  Moses rummaged through drawers.  "No keys."  He got up and went to the kitchen.  A set of keys were on a wall hook.

         A key opened the gun safe.  As he pulled the door open, Moses whistled loudly.  Curio leaned around him.

         "Holy shit!"  Her eyes turned to the dead naked Egyptian, incredulous.

         "Mmm hmm."

         A Soviet-made light machine gun known as a RPD stood up in the safe next to two AK-74s.  To the side of the RPD was a stack of three hundred-round drum magazines, all loaded, Moses could see.  Beside the assault rifles was a stack of ten thirty-round banana clips gleaming with bullets at the open end.  A box that was somehow familiar to Moses sat on its side behind the AK's.  He pulled the Kalashnikovs out and stood them against the wall so he could open the box.

         Six U.S.-issue fragmentation grenades sat in the box.  He examined the interior of the safe further.  There was a map of the Boggs Federal Building, some literature written in Arabic and a few videotapes, also with Arabic scrawled on the label.

         "Still got the Cosmoline on 'em.  Nothing like a new gun smell."  Moses closed the box and laid it back inside the vault.  He then stacked the rifles back and closed it all back up.

         Curio scratched her forehead with a thumbnail.  "I thought he was a war crime lawyer."

         "Moles, baby.  We dug up a mole.  Ain't our fight, though.  If he wasn't careful, someone is probably watching him from a van outside.  Let's hope to God they weren't watching him from the room next to ours with a pair of binoculars..."  He never got his thoughts finished.  A man knocked loudly at the door.

         "Ratif!  It's Marko!  Open up, I gotta take a piss!"

         "Shit!  Door ain't locked!"  Curio reached into her purse and pulled out her Luger 9mm.  Moses shook his head sternly and pulled out a silenced .22 from the inside pocket of his overcoat.

         "Knife!"  He whispered and slowly pushed the door closed.  Curio jammed the pistol into her pocket and pulled out her four-inch diving knife.  They took positions on either side of the door and waited.

         Marko Goldstein rapped again at the door.  "Dude, if you're naked you gonna' have to get over it!"  He turned the handle and it opened.  "Cover your dick, amigo!  I'm about to pull out mine!"  Clutching his crotch, he dashed through the living room and straight into the open bathroom, unzipping and unbuttoning frantically as he ran.

         "Sorry, man!"  He called through the door.  "I about had to let off an emergency squirt just running up the stairs!  You ready to go?"  Hearing nothing, he shut up immediately. 

         You dumbass!  He thought to himself.  He's probably praying.

         "Hey, I'm an asshole for yelling!  I should have known.  You praying?"  Marko flushed and washed his hands.  He heard an indistinct rattling noise from the study and was relieved. 

         "Let's get going, man!"  He opened the bathroom door.  Wearing a balaclava, Moses met him with a pistol under his chin.

         "Don't yell, don't talk, don't move."  Marko stood as tall as Moses and thirty pounds heavier.  He thought for a second about resisting.  A tiny girl in leather wearing a facemask appeared from the study.  She held a gun in one hand and a knife in the other.  Marko swallowed hard.

         Robbers.  Oh man, Ratif!  His first instinct was he was about to be a dead witness.

         "Move forward to the living room and sit in the rocking chair."  The man ordered him.  Marko immediately placed him from Texas or Oklahoma.  He looked his captor over before the girl threw him a towel.  There was no way that twang matched up to a Cheesehead.

         Packer fan, my ass, Cowboy.

         "Cover your head with that."  Curio told him.  Marko wrapped the towel around his head and was marched forward to the chair.  As he walked he felt his wallet lift from his back pocket.  He sat in the chair by feel and held the towel to his eyes.

         "You're a lawyer, too?  Is this ID real?"  The man talked.  He sensed the girl close to him.  It was confirmed by her pistol pressed to the side of his head.  To his horror, the man told her to switch off guns with him.  The man's pistol had a silencer on it.  Her gun disappeared and then she pressed the other to his temple. 

         He was glad he had just pissed when he realized she was wrapping the loose ends of the towel around the already silenced barrel to stymie the sound further, if need be, while she kept it pressed against his head.

         Only the fact that they had not just shot him outright as he stepped from the restroom gave him hope.  Marko Goldstein, litigator, knew he was in the negotiation of his life.

         "I'm an attorney.  Yeah."



         Randall Jowanski nibbled at a lamb chop baked in a spiced rum and caramel-apple butter sauce at Emeril's restaurant.  Across from him, his girlfriend and frequent co-counsel, Ellen Prudeaux, talked animatedly to her mother on her new cellular phone.  He was already beginning to regret buying her the thing.  It seemed to have been welded to her ear as soon as she added the first five hundred minutes. Now that the hour was after seven and talking was free, the phone hung like a hideous earring on her.

         For the moment it was a good thing to have her occupied.  His mind was focused intensely on incarcerating one Derrick Lacredo for money laundering and narcotic distribution.  Lacredo absentmindedly left a gym bag on the Amtrak heading from New Orleans to Houston that happened to have a kilo of cocaine and amazingly enough, a ledger with addresses to where he was to divide it up.

         To his credit, Lacredo, a Crip, refused to divulge a thing.  To Jowanski's chagrin he would not plead out so he could move on to his pet project- convicting the mobster Bertrand Fontenot for any number of felonies Jowanski could prove.

         Fontenot was coming up on the docket in seven months for six counts each of racketeering and bribery.  Jowanski felt he could convict on two each of them but brought all six just to cost his foe some extra money.           

         Fontenot's attorney was Aaron Guilbeau, whom Jowanski thought was total scum and probably guilty of murder himself if the tally of vanished witnesses in prior cases was any indicator.  Guilbeau was proving to be more than adequate at delaying information and extending the trial date.  Jowanski thought the judge was probably on Fontenot's take, but there was not much he could do about it until he got some kind of evidence to show the judge he knew about the corruption and make the old fart play fair.  It was what it was in any court system tasked with policing the sewer that was New Orleans.

         While Ellen continued to jaw on about her sister's kid getting knocked up before graduating high school, Randall stabbed a fork into fried sweet potatoes and wondered about the Egyptian guy who may have stumbled onto Fontenot running dope in through the Vietnamese shrimpers who worked the gulf alongside the Cajuns.  If it panned out, Randall immediately saw the possibility for some extensive television exposure.  It practically begged for Morley Safer or Geraldo to dribble some of their time on him.

         A war crime...there were pictures of the scene and official documents.  Randall added up the selling points he could take to his meeting with the network producers.  The forgotten hardships of the boat people as they made their way to distant America.  Some were adopted or sponsored in some way by fine, upstanding Americans and prospered.          

              Some decided to take up with a coonass mobster and run in narcotics under the guise of being mere shrimpers or fisherman.  Jowanski figured he could throw in some racism.  Certainly there were tensions between the Cajuns whose time netting the gulf spanned centuries and the Vietnamese.  It was assumed immigrants got breaks on loans that natives were not privy to receiving.  The newcomers were populous in their midst almost immediately and were a frequent source of ire as they completed for the spoils of the bountiful gulf.  Jowanski knew if he asked enough natives what they thought about the Vietnamese not only getting cheap operating loans and were running in dope to further subsidize their boats, he would get the right sound bite. 

         It was a golden moment handed to him by a little Vietnamese widow who came in to throw her dead husband's name into the manure pile almost as soon as she found out he was deceased.  The Egyptian said they were married around twenty years and as near as he could discern, the dead man was a mean old bastard.  Randall looked at Ellen.  Dressed in her usual power suit, her dirty blonde hair was the usual perfect mix of hot-rolled respect-me and flippant sex-me. 

              The widow Lin took shit from a man she could not stand for twenty years, but stuck it out due to familial obligations and a sense of honor American women could scarcely fathom.  Jowanski respected the little Asian mamasan for that.  He doubted Ellen was even tolerate him leaving the toilet lid up.  She was that high-strung.

         He listened in as Ellen changed subjects from her knocked-up niece to their plans for Christmas, braying endlessly about her distaste for artificial trees.

         Up the chain finally, Randall... he smiled and chewed on sweet potatoes.  Merry Christmas to me.

         

         "What kinda law?"  Moses was nervous as he motioned for Curio to get the duffle bag and Ratif's briefcase.

         "I'm a civil rights advocate."  Marko replied.  He forced himself to sound unafraid.  "I work for the Southern Poverty Law Center."

         "Morris Dees' outfit?"  Moses found a business card with Dee's home number scrawled on it.

         "Yes.  That would be the one."

         "Y'all do good work.  Sometimes."  Moses flipped through the wallet.  Finding nothing beyond what he thought was usual, he tossed it into Marko's lap.  "What's your business with Ratif Manzilah?"

         "We're friends.  I'm picking him up to go to Tipitina's."

         "He's dead."

         Marko swallowed hard under his towel.  "Dead why?  He doesn't have anything to steal really.  He was a good man.  You just killed someone for no good reason at all."

         "Good is relative, is it not?  Counselor?  I thought you guys only thought in legal and illegal.  There's plenty that's legal but ain't good."

         "He was quiet.  He was a good lawyer who worked to bring a voice to the dead."

         "The dead have no voice.  They're dead."

         Marko shook his head.  "What's your business here?  Why is he dead?  You shot a friend of mine, man.  For no good reason, I think."

         "You think what you think based on what your facts are."  Moses unwrapped the towel.  Marko kept his eyes closed.  Curio returned, clutching the briefcase as she slung the duffle bag clumsily over her shoulder.

         Marko waited for a bullet.

         "How can you be a friend to that guy?"  The girl asked him.  There was the distinctive Cajun lilt in her tongue. 

         "He's just a good guy.  We hit it off the day we met."

         "You're Jewish, though."

         "It's allowed.  I don't ask him to temple and he doesn't ask me to his mosque."

         "You've been a dupe."  Moses said.  "He's planning something harsh."

         "All Arabs aren't terrorists, okay?  He looked into war crimes, for God's sake."

         "Open your eyes."  Marko did.  Moses gestured for him to rise.  "Walk with me."  He put the pistol in his back and walked Marko down the hall.  Pushing the door open, Marko startled as he saw his dead friend, naked in a pool of blood that was spreading still across the hardwood floor.

         "My God!" He paused and began to kneel down to check a pulse.

         "No need for that.  He's down.  You ever been in here?"

         Marko rose and shook his head no.  He looked around the empty room.  "He prays here, he told me."  Pointing at the rug, he sniffled.  "You shot him praying?"

         Moses handed the lawyer the safe keys.  "Open that safe over there."

         Curio flanked the men to the right, nudging the blinds aside and looking around at the sniper perch across the street.

         Marko found the key and opened the safe.

         "What the hell?"  He looked back at his captors.

         "Seems self-explanatory, Mister Goldstein.  You read enough books about the notion of secret agents in your day, I assume."

         "Your boy smiled to your face, didn't he?"  Curio giggled as she watched the stun completely overtake the tall lawyer.

         Marko felt sick.  "He was more than that.  He's been to my house.  He knows my wife.  Hell, he knows my mistress!"  His captors chuckled at that. 

         "Wait a minute.  This doesn't mean anything.  So what if he had some guns?  It ain't illegal.  What?  Just because he had guns he's a criminal.  I hear that accent, sir.  I'm bettin' you know some fine good ole boys that have guns just like these.  So what?"  Marko was trying to convince himself, not them, he realized.

         "Christ almighty you're a dense motherfucker!"  Curio grumbled.

         Moses walked up and pulled out the RPD.  He handed it gruffly to Marko.  "That's a RPD, Marko Goldstein.  Standard light machine gun, nothing fancy about it, you'll notice.  Old-school Mother Russian durability. If you know guns, that is."

         "Not really.  Guns aren't really a big Jewish thing."  He stared at the foreign object in his hand.

         "Good thing for your tribe then that Jews know guns in Israel where it counts.  You can live ignorant of guns here because those rednecks your boy Morris hates so much?  They don't mind signing up to shoot folks."  He pulled out an ammo drum.  "Hundred rounds in this can, Marko Goldstein.  That gun'll run about six hundred rounds a minute on a good day.  Not exactly deer huntin', are we now?" 

         "I guess not."

         Moses pulled out the AK's.  "AK-74's.  Standard Soviet-bloc assault rifle.  Fully automatic, I'm betting.  No reason to have one if it ain’t, right?"  Moses flipped the bayonet up into the use position.  "Bayonet alone makes it illegal."

              When he pulled out the grenade box and opened it to display the goods, Marko's eyes really widened.

         "Six U.S. standard issue M67 fragmentation grenades.  Again, not exactly under the NRA's cold dead hands aegis, now is it?  You get the picture now?  All those tapes and stuff..." Moses pointed at the VHS tapes.  "I'm bettin' them ain't funniest home videos."  He pulled out the map of the Boggs building.  "He works in this building.  Why does he need a map, then?  Same reason he has three machine guns.  You can't carry but one at a time, right?"

         "My God!"  Marko looked at his captors.  "Are you government contractors?"

         Curio laughed and covered her mouth.  "Yeah. Bonafide CIA, bro."  She struck a judo pose in her Goth getup.  She hated the disguise.

         "We ain't here to tell you no more.  I think all this speaks for itself.  Question is,” Moses cocked his .22. "Where does an officer of the court fall into this?"

         "Look, I'm outta here.  I mean, shit.  We was friends and all..."

         "You were his friend."  Moses cut him off.  "Clearly he thought contrary."

         "I don't want none of this.  I'll be asked enough questions when they find him already.  Man, no wonder he wanted to paintballing so much.  I thought he just liked to get out of the house, man.  Oy vey!  Shit!"

         "You know what he was working on in his legit life?"

         "War crimes.  I told you that.  He was trying to dig up dirt on Reagan back in the Eighties.  It was bullshit work but it was work.  He was trying to get something done here so he could go to New York.  He said that was where the action was."

         "Nothing about Vietnam?"

         "He said something about that today.  I asked him what he was doing.  Something about shrimpers.  I wasn't listening, I mean, it was in passing, you know?"

         "He prone to take his work home?"

         "We all do.  It's a tedious job a lot of times.  Just because we punch out doesn't mean we always leave it at the door.  Especially a guy like him.  He took everything home."

         "Including his secrets."  Moses looked at Curio and made a show of wiping his brow with a wink.

         She nodded and cocked her head, asking, "Kill him?" without a word.

         Moses wrinkled his nose, indecisive at first.  Then he shrugged.

         "Well," he said.  "It's time to mosey."  He returned the weapons and closed the safe, placing the keys on the top of it.  Quick as a whip, he turned and shot Marko twice in the forehead.

         Curio winked at him.  "That oughta muddy the water."

         "Naked Muslim terrorist dude all buddy-buddy with one of Morris Dee's guys ending up dead together?  It'll give Jowanski the shits for a month.  Especially since we got the goods and the widow ain't gonna collect the insurance for long."

         "Too bad.  The Jewish guy was kinda cute."

         "Strange bedfellows."  Moses coughed.  The room was cold. 

         "Let's go, baby.  I got us late dinner reservations at Mosca's."

         "Mosca's?" She nodded as she walked by him.  "How apropo."



         "Best case scenario, we end up at Texarkana, Maxwell or Pensacola."  Pete Fontenot flipped through some pages their attorney had delivered earlier in the evening.  "Worse case, Oakdale, Bastrop or somewhere a lot farther if he tries to make it a point to separate us from any local control of da fellas here."

         "I don't wanna go to Oakdale."  Clad in silk New Orleans Saints pajamas, his brother Bertrand drug a razor across his cheeks.  Pete was leaning against the doorway to the bathroom at his Madisonville home.

         "Don't let that be said no mo' den."

         "I'm serious!  Near about anywhere but Oakdale!  We got too many enemies sittin up in that damn place."

         "You prolly' right.  Pensacola be da best.  It's spozed to be a right sharp place.  Eglin, too.  But dat too far to do much good back home."

         "Just not Oakdale."  Bertrand finished up and inspected his work in the mirror.  "I'm too purty to be up in Oakdale."

         "Eddie's up in Oakdale."

         "Eddie and me don't see eye to eye.  You know why."

         "You shouldna' got a handful-a ole Candy's titty."

         "I was drunk. Fuckin' hell, I gave him a forty thousand dollar check.  That oughta rate a ‘are dey or aren't dey’ inspection.  Am I right?"

         "The governor didn't think so."

         Pete chuckled and drank a sip of scotch.  "Well, he ain't da fust husband ole Grizzly done pissed off in his day."

         "Well, he prolly’ done forgot it by now."

         "Candy ain't."  Bertrand smiled and limped out of the door past his larger brother, catching a glass of scotch from Pete's hand as he passed.

         "Dat chick still call you?"

         His brother winked at him.  "When she wants someone nice to tell her how purty she is all nekkid on da phone late at night."

         "Damn."  Pete followed him into the living room.  "I didn't know."

         "Yo brotha' done got himsef' a few secrets, even from da all-knowing, all consuming," He pointed at Pete's huge gut with a grin, "and all-seein' Pete Fontenot."

         

         "You wanna be shocked?"  Grizzly Fontenot sipped scotch and belched.

         "Ain't I had enough-a dat lately?"

         "Happy shocked, Pete.  Smoke outside with me."  They walked outside onto the balcony overlooking the moonlit Tchefunte River. 

         "Hot damn it's cold!"  Grizzly lit a Chesterfield and danced in place.

         "It's December."  Pete lit a joint.  Grizzly turned on the radio and cranked up the volume.  Pete leaned in to hear him whisper, "I hope dey dumb as we hope.  We get sent anywhere but Oakdale we in some deep shit."

         "I got guys tryin' to get us set up in Pensacola.  Gonna cost a lot if we gotta go dat route but it's easy time and near as I can see we got friends we can make over der.  But yeah, Oakdale is best case."

         "Aaron got his work cut out fer him on dis one dis time.  I could kick my own ass fo' not sendin' Albie packin'.  I'm gettin' soft in mah old age.  Ole Mo rubbin' off on me."

         "He purty sho he can knock down most of it.  Dem papers he got doh, dem thangs worth two years he reckon."

         "Dammit."  Grizzly palmed the cigarette and finished his scotch.

         "What you got so quiet fo' me out here in the blessed cold?"

         "Ole softie."          

         "What he do?"

         "'Bout da dumbest damn thang.  He thinkin 'bout retirin'."

         "He been talkin' dat shit since he met her.  Ain't happenin'.  Hell, she prolly’ won't let him."

         "Her gitt'n herself near 'bout iced set him in a new path, I reckon.  Man, dat girl must have a pussy made-a soft, wet paradise.  Only thing I can figure."

         "She's a piece-a work for damn sho.  Ain't no secret he been thinkin' 'bout cuttin' out of da life and why."

         "I spoze.  But I dunno.  It's a damn strange world when we got a charge we cain't beat or buy off and Moses Holliday decides to make dat cute lil alley cat-a his an honest woman tonight."

         Pete's pager went off in his pocket.  He checked it casually and slid it back in his trousers.

         "Speak of da devil.  Job's done."

         

         "Moses, what's on your mind, baby?  You so jumpy tonight.  And you so quiet!  Demons got you by the tongue?"  Curio Phelonie spoke softly into Moses' ear as he twisted a pasta fork into his linguine.  “You ain’t never been such a Scrooge on Christmas before.”

         "I whip a demon's ass, ma'am."  He chuckled.  "It's just the job today. A lot of stuff goin' in my head, I guess."

         "Tell me about it?'

         "It's just war stories.  Warn't any of them worth tellin'.  Just another day of bullshit I just as soon forget but lo and behold forgettin' is a luxury I don't get all the time."  He pushed the plate aside. "Blah, I'm full.

         "I'm sorry, baby."  She kissed him on the cheek.  "Thank you for taking me to dinner tonight.  I love this place.  Mister Johnny is so damn cute."

         "He's old school.  If you know what I mean."  Mosca's was a mobster haven during the days of Chicago mobster Carlos Marcello's reign in New Orleans.  "It's why Grizzly comes here.  Johnny and Mama Ruby went waaay back."  He winked at her.

         "That kinda' way back?"

         "Rumors last decades in some circles.  She definitely worked in them circles back then.  Only the best for certain men, right?"

         "Wow."  She watched Johnny Mosca shaking hands and back-slapping men in dark suits as they sat in low-lit corners of the famous tavern.

         "Just a rumor.  Who knows?"  Moses touched her on her chin and turned her face to his.  "Wanna’ hear another?"

         "Good one I hope."

         "I love you dearly, Curio." He murmured.

         "That's a good rumor."  She kissed him.  He sneaked a hand into his Stetson sitting upturned on the table.

         "I got another one I've heard about you."

         "About me?  Who the hell talkin' about me?"  She parted from him a bit, her brow furrowed.

         "My heart, Baby." He produced a tiny black velvet box from thin air, it seemed.  "It wants to know if you would marry me, Lemarie."  He flipped the box open.  Her eyes saw the impossible beauty inside it, beheld the future, and absorbed their past.  Trembling, she swallowed hard.

         Lemarie Leblanc looked into his eyes.  He flashed that delectable half-cocked grin at her and clasped her hand.

         The entire restaurant jumped when she screamed, "Fuck yes I'll marry you!  Ooooh baby!"  She went wild, smothering him with kisses, crying, loving him.

         Johnny Mosca chuckled as his wife came flying from the kitchen, crying out, "What in the hell is that?"

         "That's amore."  He kissed her as he pointed at the call ball of elation in the booth.

         Moses got her calmed to a state of panting, ebullient sobs before he pulled out the ring and slid it on her finger.  The ring was simple yet the stone was opulent.  It was large, too.

         "Oh my God!  Moses!  It's so damn beautiful!"  She panted, fanning herself frantically.  The restaurant realized what happened and the patrons began clapping and raising glasses to toast the anonymous couple in the booth farthest from the door. 

"Oh my God.  Oh my God."  She kept fanning and repeating in between kisses.

         "Merry Christmas from your Scrooge, Baby."  Noticing a great many people staring at them, he waved at a passing waiter.  "Think I'll be taking the check, my man."



         Around eight the next evening, Moses heard a strange vehicle rolling up the driveway.  Customarily, he retrieved his rifle, Cletus, from beneath his couch and rushed outside in the dark.  Taking a position behind the stone wall that lined the walkway leading from his garage to the front door, he sighted in on the final bend in his nearly mile-long driveway before any driver could see his home.

         "Don't make me go off the reservation on Christmas Eve."  He mumbled as he readied himself to fire.  A white Buick showed itself casually.  It flipped its lights and a hand clutching a white towel and a champagne bottle stuck out from the driver's window.

         "Friendly!"  Grizzly Fontenot yelled and tooted the horn.  Moses stood up and waved as he slung the rifle.  Fontenot pulled up and cut the car off.

         "You catch me like that the wrong night it could suck for you."  Moses shook his head as he helped Grizzly out of the car.

         "Damn these low-ass cars."  Grizzly struggled to get stood up on his artificial leg.  "Hello to you, too.  Here."  He handed Moses the bottle and used the free hand to hold the door until he got his balance.

         "Move along, Crip. It's cold out here." Moses laughed.

         "Eat me.  You been a lil’ faster yellin’ at me, I mighta’ still had my leg."

         "Somehow I think I’ve heard all that before.  You need a new set of excuses.  Glad you're here, though.  I've been lookin some stuff over tonight."

         "Grab dem bags in the back seat."  Grizzly leaned in and got his cane.  "My damned hip ain't no good in dis cold nowadays."

         "I know the feeling."  Moses found some barbeque takeout and a paper bag with both a bottle of Glenlevit and his favorite Rebel Yell.

         "Audrey's?  How did you know I was in the mood for ribs?'

         "Hell dem's all mine.  I save you da bones though."

         "Mmm hmm."  They went inside.  Moses sat Cletus by the door.  He laid out plates and got some glasses as his friend and employer sat down at his table. 

         "You done built on since I was here."  Grizzly looked around the place

         "It'll make the sale go better."  Moses attempted to toss the champagne in the fridge.

         "Hell, pop dat cork, Tex!  Congratulations are in order!  Where's yo' lil' cheri at?  I figured I catch you two cuddled up by a fire."

         "She went to a concert at over at the Cajun Dome.  Some kinda face-peeler rave shit."

         "Nine Inch Nails."  Grizzly nodded.  Moses looked queerly at him.

         "How did you know?"

         "A man in my profession needs to know when to boost supply when demand comes, sir.  Ten thousand folks listening to a techno band on Christmas rates some ecstatic preparation.  Ya’ girl get hers taken care of?"

         "Yeah.  She said thank you."

         "I aim to please."  Moses found two flutes and popped the cork.  He poured up some Pommery.

         "I'm proud of ya, Tex." Grizzly accepted the glass as Moses sat down.  "You found you a one.  Findin’ da One is a rare thang."

         "Don't let her hear you call her a one or she'll stab you."  Moses chuckled.  "The girl can get a complex right quick if she wants to."

         "I love her."  Grizzly grinned.  "She's a hoot.  Cheers to bon temps!"

         "Bon temps."  Moses took a drink and winced.  "I bet you spent way too much on this French piss, didn't you?"

         "Might as well spend it on something fun."  Grizzly drained his glass and set it aside.  "I'm starvin'.  I done been smellin' dem ribs for thirty minutes."  They dove into the takeout.

         They spoke little as they inhaled food and drink.  Near the end of the feast, one of the six new cellular phones sitting on the counter rang.

         "Curio."  Moses went and answered it.

         "Hey baby!" Curio yelled from the line to get at the Cajun Dome.

         "Howdy lil' lady.  You about to get inside?"

         "If these sons of bitches will move the line, I am!" She cupped the phone and yelled, "It's cold out here, assholes!  Stamp it and move 'em along!"  She put the phone back to her mouth.  "Sorry.  I'm over it."

         "You be careful in there.  Enjoy yourself."

         "Planning on it.  I love you, baby!  So much!"

         Grizzly motioned for the phone.  "Hold on."  Moses handed it to him.

         "Bon soire, mon cheri!  Congratulations on the big move!"

         "Heeey sexy!  What y'all doin?  Y'all out someplace?"

         "I'm at yo man's house.  We eating ribs."

         "Anything wrong?"

         "Not especially.  I just wanted to come say hey to y'all.  You down at da show?"

         "If I ever get inside.  Thank you by the way."

         "You thank me by making my friend a happy wife and we be all s

         "I'm so happy already.  He surprised the shit outta me."

         "He been known to do dat from time to time.  You have fun and watch out for all dem wishy-washy types in der.  You know what I mean?"

         "I think so."

         "Here's yo man back." 

         Moses got on the phone.  "You have fun and be careful.  See you when you get back?"

         "I'm coming there, of course.  It's Christmas Eve with my new fiancé.  You think I'm going home?"

         "Okay.  Ignore the snoring coonass if he's still here."

         "Will do.  You just tell him to ignore us when I get home loaded on some feel-good and I'm all sweaty and happy."

         "He'll survive."

         "I'm headin' in.  Bye, Moses.  I love you."

         "Love you, too.  Bye now." 

         "Bye!"

         He slid the phone aside and cocked an eyebrow.  "You stayin'?"

         "If I ain't intrudin'?  I wanna’ talk to y’all a bit."

         "Mi casa, su casa."



         Randall Jowanski shook hands with FBI Agent Charles Gill in the stairwell of Ratif's apartment building as crime scene technicians scurried about.  The building was chaotic.

         "It figures like this." Gill led Jowanski up the hall.  "Fire department gets a call about eight last night.  They got an apartment blaze across the street.  One unit damaged.  It was empty except for a bed that got torched on purpose."

         "Just a bed?"

         "Yeah.  It tested positive for accelerant and there's some kinda’ detonator on the bed.  It's melted down but looked like a remote detonated igniter.  I looked in there. I swear it reeked of diesel or kerosene even after it burnt."  He let a photographer by as the men entered Apartment 406.  "It just seemed like a weirdo over there until this call came in."  He pointed down the hallway as the men entered the living room.  They could see two bodies in the far room of the apartment.  Detectives knelt over them and various techs worked all over the place.

         "Who called it in?"

         "Old lady downstairs.  Blood seeped through her ceiling about three this morning and dripped on her bed.  She was shook up bad.  We called you when we found his phone records and saw you talked to him."

         Jowanski nodded.  "How does the fire tie up?"

         "Preliminary shows he was shot twice with a rifle.  We think he was sniped from the burnt place.  We checked with the landlord.  He's a piece of work.  Rented it to a guy he figured was some junky.  Vague description.  We're got the paperwork at lab to check prints and such.  Signed the lease as,” He read from his notepad. “Jow, Yuphuc Minzasse.  We figure it’s an alias."  Gill looked at the U.S. Attorney and smiled.  Jowanski was pale.

         "No shit." Jowanski said and shook his head.  Apprehension began to seize his chest.  He had spoken to very few about what Ratif was researching.  Immediately, he realized there was a massive leak in his office, probably a wiretap.

         "The other guy got two to the head.  Probably a twenty-two up close."

         "Pros then."

         "It's seems so.  Weird though.  Your lawayer guy is some research guy from Egypt.  The other guy is a hitter for Morris Dees... and he's Jewish."  He walked Jowanski down the hall.  "We think we place the homeowner shot down first.  Got the other guy's heel print in blood to carry that.  So somebody shot your guy..."

         "He wasn't my guy.  We were going to discuss a possible mob connection in a few weeks but I don't know the guy." Jowanski cut him short.

         "Okay then..." Gill smiled. "The victim is sniped from across the road.  Then either another hitter is in here waiting on this other guy or maybe the shooter comes across the road after he pops him and either gets surprised or is waiting for the Jewish guy.    His briefcase is missing by the way and someone went through his desk in the study.  It's gonna be hard to shake it out.  There's some big problems I see already."

         They got to the threshold.  Jowanski looked at the naked and very dead Ratif al-Manzilah.  "I hate this is the first time I met the guy."

         "Sucks, don't it?"  Gill shook his head.  "There's a complication to the whole thing.  Gonna be hell to prosecute whoever we catch."

         "What's that?"  Jowanski already knew who the killer was.  He seethed inside as he looked at the corpses.

         Gill pointed at the gun safe.  An agent was inspecting the weapons and tapes.

         "Your guy, sorry...the victim...?  Looks like he had a few war crimes of his own in the pipe."

         "Oh shit."  Randall Jowanski looked at the technicians who looked at him when Gill said, "your guy."  There was no hiding it from the press.

         Dead Jew, dead terrorist.  No evidence to tie to a mobster who is probably sitting at home with a hooker right now for Christmas dinner.  So much for New York, Randall...

         "Merry fucking Christmas." Randall Jowanski felt his stomach sour.

         "Neither celebrated it, ironically."  A technician chirped up beneath them as he wrapped plastic bags around Ratif's dead hands.



         "Man, looka’ you, boy.  Did you evah’ eat?"  Grizzly and Moses took turns flipping through the trove recovered from Ratif.  Grizzly found a pack of pictures taken by an AP photographer two days after the sweep and clear of Soo Bin Thap.  A regular Marine company was tasked with cleaning up behind the Recon unit.  The men who razed the town were called in by the brass to account for the action and occasionally were caught in a photo.

          Moses looked at himself in a faded color picture, sweating and shirtless as he dug a hole in 1972 in front of the smoking ruins of the tiny hamlet.

         "Ah!  Looka’ dis one here!"  Grizzly flipped another to him.  "Gunny Fawkler!"  Moses nodded and remembered a fine Marine with a casual drink of his whiskey.

         "Man, we was some shutterbugs!  If'n' I'da' knowed I was gonna' be who I am I would accidentally a-shot dat cameraman dat day."  Grizzly handed a stack of pictures to Moses and looked over some mimeographed after-action reports.

         Moses flipped through a few and stopped.  He slid them aside.  "Too much buzz kill for a Christmas Eve."

         Grizzly shrugged.  "I find it good readin'.  We done told dat JAG boy one heap-a bullshit dat day.  Where did we git dem weapons we put in the ville?"

         "The ARVN's had 'em."  Moses drained his glass and poured it full again.

         "You see da one where you standin' on dat dead NVA fella?"

         "I recall it good enough.  I can smell it, for that matter."

         "Gawd, I can, too.  How we make it through dem days, Moses?  You evah think about dem times much?  I kinda do evah now and again.  Not so much dat day in da village.  I think about me seeing Chris Bunny blowed all to hell by dat charge.  When I found out dat fucking Coh done worked fo me damn near fifteen years knowin' he killed Bunny and done been pullin' one ovah on me all dis time, I like tah shit mahsef.  When I found out why he done it da other day, I coulda cried.  How many people we kill dat day on account of one lil ole gook woman's cherry?"

         Moses glanced at a picture of Sergeant Holliday, Moses T. , standing with venerable M-14 rifle.  All of twenty-two years old.  He was cradling the weapon with a look of menace in his eyes.  A cold fixed gaze that meant death.  Next to him was a beaming Lance Corporal Fontenot, Bertrand L. sitting atop a berm as a bulldozer pushed limp bodies into the pit behind him.  Something in the way Fontenot was smiling and Moses was looking like an impassive centurion was unnerving.  Bertrand may have uttered his regret for being used as an unwitting vengeance weapon by an ARVN captain, but Moses could only wonder how many men and women he sent to hell at the behest of his friend's similarly selfish whims.

         "Bunny was a good Marine.  It does seem that much more of a waste now, knowin' what we know.  Wastin' Thap definitely ain't sittin' right knowin' it."

         "I been doin' a lotta thinkin deez last few months, Mo."  Grizzly stuffed some papers into their folders.  "I'ma probably be goin' away for a while on dis latest Fed bullshit.  One way or another, I'ma hafta set out a few.  I ain't gonna say I coulda done things a lil different evah now and again while I been runnin' the rackets down dis way.  But I know when we went into dat ville, we wanted to be doin' what we did.  We all did.  It wasn't no damn good den.  And it sho ain't now bettah' now dat I knows what prompted it.  I sit out deez coupla years behind a wire, it's about as good a penance fo' what I done as I'ma allow, if I got anything to say about it, anyhow."  He lit a cigarette.

         Moses nodded.  For the first time, he saw age and fatigue in his friend's normally cherubic, laughing eyes.

         "I know what you probably thinkin' though."  Grizzly smiled slightly.  "How much money I done made knocking off dat coonass peckerwood's folks he don't like no more and how many was it?  Well ole Tex, da answer to both is fuckin' plenty.  But I'ma tell you what I told mahself just now while I was in here talkin' 'bout regrets.  Whether it was us Marines, some other ARVN bastards, or some other outfit, dem hooches was gettin' the Zippo put to 'em 'cuz dey plenty of men in a war zone dat capable of it and does it when it needs to be done."

         "Yeah but having me in particular in this slot was quite the score for you, if I do say so myself."

         "True, but it don’t make you or me special.  Whether it was me callin' dem shots around here or some other asshole, day would be a man somewhere who would make things happen as a buyer wanted.  Jess so happen it was you and me.  But down here in da Big Easy, dey gonna be someone after me just like I was after a long line of folks.  It is what it is down dis way.  And dat's how I can still function.  I do what I do and will keep on doin' it til I go up on a sentence I can outlive or I meet the bullet dat got my name on it.  The life is what it is.  Game don't change, just the players.  You about to retire.  I might be, I dunno."

         "I'm sorry to hear it.  Guess it is time for me to head off and away then."

         "I know it's been on yo' mind.  I can't blame you.  You a friend but you still just an employee and an employee can quit anytime."

         "It ain't easy for me, brother.  Or her.  She liked to be in until it bit her a few times."

         "She like to do anything you do, Tex.  You get loose-a all dis here nasty business and go plant yams up in Hessmer, she be right der with you.  You can be a plumber or a car salesman.  She won't care.  She loves you."

         "That she does."

         "Moses, you lucky you alive long enough to meet her.  I wasn't lyin' when I said I'm happy fo you two.  I'm happy for you fo real.  And I'm tellin' ya to get loose of me and all dis while you still got yo health and yo slate is clean."

         "It's what I want.  Her, I'm not so sure about but I think once she's away from it, she won't miss it."

         "You got money?"

         "A shitload."

         "How you get a shitload?  You and her freelancin'?"

         "No.  I just been frugal.  And I had some windfalls in the oddest places."

         "Well good.  I'ma still get you some seeds planted in the woods best I can befo' I go inside.  Pete and Henri done been stashin' loot left and right in case it don't go our way.  I'ma make sure you get a sack of it."

         "I'll miss you, old buddy.  We damn sure had a run of it.  I'm surprised we lived as long as we did."

         Grizzly raised his scotch.  "Dem Irish got a toast I heard once.  It go like dis.  If I should live to be a hundred, shall I never have heard of your passing.  It's been good knowin' ya, Moses.  Bon temps et mauvais mon ami. "

         "Happy trails, amigo.  What a long, strange trip it’s been."

         





*  *  *



THE END