The Fear Artist (11 page)

They pass four of the five booths. In each, three or four men, their faces pasteurized by the gloom, glance up at him with the impatient air of people whose conversation has been interrupted. To the men in the third booth, the Russian says, “You right, Arnold is dead.”

One of the men in the booth raises his glass in a toast and says, “Good.”

Two men wait in the final booth, the one to which the Russian leads him. Rafferty’s eyes are adjusting to the darkness, and as he sits, he sees that one of them affects the ever-stylish Dr. Evil look, with a shaved head, a mustache, a goatee, and a single earring above a pale garment that might be the grandchild of a Mao jacket, while the other is simply part of the scenery, a man with no distinguishing characteristics whatsoever. A written description would read, “Medium everything.” Like the man with the cleft chin, these two appear to be in their sixties or early seventies, but preserved in something potent and perhaps poisonous. Rafferty slides in beside Dr. Evil as the man with the Russian accent says, “You buy, yes?” and shouts something to the bartender without waiting for an answer.

“Vladimir,” the man says, pointing at himself as he sits. “Pierre,” he says, indicating Dr. Evil. “And, um …”

“Janos,” says the man without any characteristics.

“Always I forget,” Vladimir says. “This is why you genius.”

Janos nods modestly, and everyone waits, looking at Poke.

“Ummm, Poke,” Poke says.

“So this one,” Vladimir says, tilting his head at Poke, “who says name is Ummm Poke, he was friend with Arnold. Arnold now he slip with the fishes, but friend who says name is Ummm Poke is here. Friend want something, yes?”

“Yes,” Poke says. “And my name really is—”

“Poke,” Vladimir says with the weary air of someone who knows much, much better. The bartender appears with a tray on which he has crowded a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black and three glasses, plus another megabottle of Singha, apparently to replace the one Vladimir drank. He slams the whole thing on the table, prompting a startled hiss from the next booth, and shimmers off into the gloom.

“I’ve got a description of someone,” Rafferty says when everyone’s glasses are full. “Someone about your age. I need to know whether any of you recognize him and, if you do, who he is.”

“This is big job,” Vladimir says automatically. “You have money?”

“Sure.” Rafferty pulls all the bills from his front pocket and counts them out, with every eye in the booth following his hands. “Eleven thousand three hundred baht,” he says. He pushes it into the center of the table and then cups his hands over it and waits.

“We need contract,” Vladimir says. “Werbal contract. Ewerybody listen, ewerybody talk. Anybody know anything, we split up even, okay?”

“No,” says Janos. “Whoever knows most gets half.”

“We can do without you,” Vladimir says. “Plenty other guys in here.”

“Okay, even,” Janos says.

Vladimir says, “Good.” He mimes a handshake with each of them without reaching out very far, then takes a hundred-baht note and hands it to Poke. “For taxi,” he says, turning it into “texi.” “But why you think we maybe know him?”

“He’s in your business, he’s your generation, and his taste in clothes says he’s been in the region for a long time.”

Dr. Evil says, in a dry, wispy voice that reminds Rafferty of the dry rustle a T-shirt makes when he pulls it over his head, “Reason is always refreshing.”

“He’s American,” Rafferty says, pocketing the hundred baht. “Maybe sixty-five now, short and thick, with a big gut. Red hair going gray, bright red face.”

“You talking before about his clothes,” Vladimir says.

“Right. Dresses awful. Jeans and a Hawaiian shirt. Wrinkled. Like a tourist who’s spent ten years in a suitcase.”

All the spies look at all the other spies. All that’s needed for atmosphere, Rafferty thinks, is a ticking clock. The silence stretches out as he tilts his glass back and lowers the beer’s level. Dr. Evil starts to open his mouth, but Vladimir shakes his head a quarter of an inch, one time. They look at each other some more.

“What else?” Vladimir says.

“Hair coming out of his nose. If he was Rapunzel, he could lower his nose hair to let the prince climb up.”

Vladimir nods sadly and says, “More money.”

“Where’s the nearest ATM?”

“Around the corner,” says Dr. Evil in his frayed voice. “I’ll go with you.”

Vladimir says immediately, “We all go.”

“Nobody goes,” Rafferty says. “First you tell me a little more, and if I decide I want you to keep talking, I’ll go get the money.”

Vladimir says, “You no trust us.”

“Sure I do. I just don’t want to have to get up if it’s not necessary.”

Vladimir nods at Dr. Evil, and Dr. Evil says, “Maybe Murphy.”

“Maybe?” Rafferty says.

Vladimir fingers the cleft in his chin and looks disappointed. “Please,” he says. “You think my name Vladimir? Him, you think his name Janos? This one Pierre? We think your name really Poke?”

“Of course not,” Dr. Evil says. “But Murphy, that’s what he called himself then. Sometimes Murph.”

“Where? When?”

“Wietnam.” Vladimir is watching Rafferty’s eyes. “American in Wietnam, not always white hat, you know?”

“I know.”

Dr. Evil leans in and lowers his rustle of a voice to the point where Rafferty has to strain to hear him. “Murphy was Phoenix.” He straightens a bit, watching for a reaction. “You know about Phoenix?”

“Targeting?” Rafferty says. He read something about this years ago. “Targeting … targeting what? Collaborators, Vietcong sympathizers?” He knows he’s about to hear something he doesn’t want to hear.

“Arnold, he know Murphy,” Vladimir says sleepily, his eyes half-closed. “Arnold say Murphy hard-core. Wery hard-core.”

Dr. Evil says, “To be hard-core in Phoenix is to be very,
very
hard-core.”

Silence falls again. The three men gaze at Rafferty as though they’re waiting for him to wave his hands and materialize their dinner, and Rafferty says, “Back in a minute.” He gets up.

“Thirty thousand,” Vladimir says. “Ten, ten, ten.”

H
E PLUNGES INTO
the thickening dusk, the fumes of the beer clouding his head. Part of him wants just to keep going, not return to the dark bar and what he’s about to learn. But instead he rounds the nearest corner to make sure he can’t be seen from the bar, grabs a huge, anxious breath and blows it out, then pulls his remaining money from the hip pocket of his jeans. He’s got forty-seven thousand left of his combined assets, plus a salad of small bills. With a quick glance over his shoulder, he counts out thirty thousand, all in thousand-baht bills. He puts the remainder back in his pocket, then pulls out five thousand more to cover the bar tab they’re running up. Heading back to the bar, he wonders where he’s going to sleep this evening and what he’ll use to pay for it.

He nods at the bartender, who looks straight through him, and moves toward the booth. When he gets there, the three of them are huddled together over the table, all talking at once. They fall silent and sit back as he slides in. He makes a show of reaching into his pocket and counts out the thirty thousand, putting a stack of ten in front of each of them. Janos reaches for his, and Rafferty says, “Ah-ah. Leave them there for now.”

Vladimir says, “Okay. I talking, everybody else keeping mouth closed. If I make mistake, Janos, Pierre, you fix.” Vladimir puts his hands on the table on either side of the money, palms down, as though preparing for a magic trick, and clears his throat. “The
Phoenix Program,” he says. “Some of it wery bad. Murphy maybe the most bad. Ewen some Phoenix guys, they tell boss, no, they not working with him no more.”

“How would you know that? Phoenix was military, right?”

“Under CIA,” Vladimir says. He touches the side of his beak with a straight index finger, a gesture that’s apparently full of meaning that Rafferty doesn’t understand. “William Colby, yes? Later head of CIA. Right now,” he says, “we have two CIA here, in this bar.”

“Maybe you should bring them over,” Rafferty says, “and we’ll split the money five ways. Six thousand each.”

“Or maybe,” Vladimir says, “you pay twenty thousand more.” He smiles like a man braving pain.

“What do they know that you don’t?”

“I was other side,” Vladimir says. “Pierre was working with Chinese. Maybe we know more than CIA.”

“I’m going to listen,” Rafferty says. “And if I feel shorted, I’m going to start peeling bills off the stacks, and then we’re going to get the CIA guys.”

“You know,” Vladimir says. He knocks back half of his drink and picks up the thought. “You know, when you talking, you not learning.” He makes the other half of the whiskey disappear and refills the glass. “So. Looking for Wietcong supporters, yes? Problem in Wietnam is, nobody know who is this side, who is other side. Ewerybody Wietnamese, ewerybody have family ewerywhere, have family in north, have family in south. Ewerybody wear black pajama. Gowernment in South wery unpopular. So who is who, yes? Difficult question.”

“Okay.”

“The Phoenix Program, big project. America think big, always think big. So CIA decide, ewery month, find secret traitor. How many, Pierre?”

“Eighteen hundred,” Dr. Evil says.

“Only eighteen hundred? In the whole south?” Rafferty asks.

“Ewery
month
,” Vladimir says, tapping the table with his fingernail on each syllable. “Eighteen hundred ewery month. One year more than twenty thousand.”

“And do what with them?” Rafferty asks. He gets a flat look from all three of them, and it makes him feel ten years old.

“Supposed to double some of them,” Vladimir says, the tone of his voice making it clear what he thinks of the notion. “They work for Hanoi but supposed to be they work for U.S., but
really
you know they work for Hanoi, ewen if they take U.S. money. U.S. never get one good double in whole war. We have hundreds, you don’t have none. You was on wrong side.”

“So,” Dr. Evil says, with an impatience that suggests he wants to pocket his money, “since they couldn’t double them, they took some of them out of the picture.”

“I see.”

“No.” Vladimir is looking at the center of the table, which has nothing on it. “You don’t see. Not so nice like shooting. Not ‘Hello, you are traitor,’
bang
. Nothing nice at all. Not Murphy. First, have problem, find Wietcong guy. Wietcong spy is name Nguyen, yes? And he live in this willage. Ewerybody in willage is name Nguyen. Have five willage same name. Ewerybody in all of them name Nguyen. So Murphy, he find somebody, maybe working in rice paddy, maybe walking with buffalo. Murphy and three or four ARVN—South Wietnam troop—they beat the guy up, hurt him bad. Then they say, ‘You tell us what house is Nguyen or we kill you.’ So man say, ‘That house, ower there.’ Maybe right house, maybe wrong. Maybe house is mother-in-law, maybe somebody guy owe money to. How can Murphy know?”

“Well,” Rafferty says, “how could he?”

“He don’t care,” Vladimir says, waving the question away. “Somebody say, ‘This is Nguyen,’ okay, no problem. He can play game. He like game. Wait until dark, use makeup and make his face look bad, like dead for long time. Old clothes, many hole. Smell like dead animal. Puts around his neck—” He draws a broad U dangling from his shoulders.

“A necklace.”

“Made from these.” Vladimir tugs on his right ear. “Two rope full. Like Elizabeth Taylor, but with ear. Ewen ARVN soldier afraid. Murphy go alone into willage, make woices—”

Fighting the image of the ears, Rafferty says, “Woices?”

“Voices,” Janos says. Dr. Evil is drumming his fingers on the tabletop; he’s heard the story already.

“Many woices. Man woice, lady woice, ghost woice. Talk Wietnamese, talk English. Woice come from ewerywhere.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute.”

“Ventriloquism,” Dr. Evil says. It’s nearly a snap. “This is the most famous part of Murphy’s legend. He was the Voice Man.”

“I am talking again now?” Vladimir asks from an affronted height.

“All yours,” Rafferty says.

“Ewerybody run inside. Dead man in willage, ghost woices, bad smell, ewerybody run. Murphy goes to Nguyen house—maybe, maybe not—and kick open door. Then he kill ewerybody inside. Babababababa.” Vladimir mimes a machine pistol with a jerky right hand. “Ffffft,” he says, and blows on his finger. “Murphy goes home, makes line through name Nguyen.”

“Seventeen hundred ninety-nine to go,” Janos says.

“Helicopter,” Dr. Evil says.

Vladimir says, “I don’t think—”

“Maybe the CIA does,” Rafferty says.

“He’s just trying to pry a few more baht out of you,” Dr. Evil says, leaning in again. “But you really should know all this, since the guy you saw is probably Murphy. Sometimes they don’t want to turn Charlie or kill him. They want information. What does the double know? Any operations coming up? Where are the village’s weapons hidden? Where are the supply trails? What’s the chain of command? Who else should they be talking to?”

“Right.”

“And let’s say the old electric clips on the scrotum or getting beaten half to death doesn’t open the man up.”

“Cuts,” Vladimir says. He sounds like he’s sulking.

“Or cuts. Murphy loves to cut. He was the best America had at making very long, very shallow cuts that hurt forever. Some people who can handle being punched and kicked for days go all jelly inside when somebody takes a knife to their skin.”

“Eyes,” Vladimir says.

“More of the same,” Dr. Evil says, “but worse. One thing
Murphy liked to do was try to frighten villagers out of keeping Charlie’s secrets. He loved to cause fear. His favorite trick was to cut off Charlie’s eyelids and then haul him into the middle of the village and announce, ‘This man closed his eyes to what the Vietcong is doing here. He closed his eyes when I looked into them to see if he was telling the truth. Now he’ll never close his eyes again. Don’t close your eyes, or I’ll be back.’ That was one of the things that made other people in Phoenix refuse to work with him.”

“One of many,” says Janos.

“Okay, helicopter,” Vladimir says, reclaiming center stage. “Wietcong won’t talk, yes? Nothing is working. So Murphy send ARVN for somebody, anybody, some farmer or carpenter. Take both men, farmer and Cong guy, up in helicopter, beat both of them up, ask questions, beat up some more. Other man, he don’t know shit, don’t know nothing, but Murphy still ask question, beat up more and more. And then open door of helicopter and throw other man out. Maybe one hundred, two hundred meters up. Scream all the way down. Take first man and drag him to door. Suddenly he talking. Tell ewerything, tell about soldiers, guns, wife, children, ewerything.”