There Will Be Killing (19 page)

The stars were bright overhead, but the explosions brighter as the concuss of the rockets and mortars carried across the calm waters of the bay to the mission's veranda, where Kate, Nikki, and Shirley waited—for what, none of them were sure.

“I feel like I should be there, not here,” Nikki said, nervously shaking her foot.

“There is nothing you can do really,” Kate reminded her. “Except take care of yourself now so you can be there when they need you after this is over.”

“I guess you're right. It's just that almost everyone I really care about is in some kind of danger over there.”

Kate knew the feeling. But she refused to think of anything bad happening, especially to Gregg or J.D. Instead she asked Shirley, “Do you think there's any chance they might attack here, at the mission?”

“No.” Shirley shook her head. “We have more than God on our side.”

Kate realized she must be referring to their “turn no one away” policy which included Professor Nguyen. The relief Kate had felt when she realized J.D. had no intentions of turning him in had been too profound to continue pretending she could actually be some kind of informant for Phillip. The Mission was like Switzerland refusing to take sides and ratting anyone out contradicted everything the people she worked with stood for. These were good people with a purpose. They had made her start wondering about her own purpose in life.

Far off they heard a siren.

“That's the all clear,” Nikki said, a sigh of relief.

“Finally,” breathed Kate.

“No, not finally,” Shirley corrected. “Maybe. Sometimes they stop and then wait for the all clear and once the Americans go out to get their wounded and come out of their bunkers, they attack again.”

“I wish Rick was there to help them,” Nikki said. “All those Viet Cong would skedaddle and quick if he and his men showed up.”

Kate was happy to take that ball and run with it; anything to keep her mind off what could be happening this very moment across the bay.

“So, are you and Rick an item now?”

“Too soon to call it that, but. . .” A handwritten letter along with a snapshot of her very handsome new pen pal materialized and Nikki fanned herself with the letter while clearly mooning over the other. “Let's just say he sure does have a way with words. I wrote him right back and he even called me at the Red Cross yesterday. He's got such a dreamy voice, too, I could've listened to him talk for hours.”

“Should I take that to mean that Major Peck is out of the picture?”

Nikki took a moment to answer. She traced a line on the letter she held, something that was clearly special to her. “My relationship with Don is complicated but I do realize it is unwise. He hasn't made it easy to break things off.” She lifted her left wrist, flashing a bracelet.

Kate had wanted to compliment Nikki on it earlier but with Gregg around, she didn't want to risk the attention boomeranging back to her own new piece of jewelry.

“That's lovely, Nikki.” Kate looked closer at the stones, the setting.

“Don said it was elegant, like me. Nobody ever called me elegant before. And no one ever gave me a diamond bracelet before—a platinum one, too! It is beautiful, isn't it? He said it came from Cartier.”

Kate nodded even as she weighed the importance of telling Nikki the bracelet couldn't have possibly come from Cartier. To the untrained eye it could pass as a fine piece of jewelry. However, she detected a few tiny bubbles a real gemstone would never have, the craftsmanship was less than perfect, the platinum was almost certainly sterling silver, and the line Nikki had been fed, total bullshit.

“Really? Cartier?” Kate delicately put the possibility out for Nikki to consider. “I wouldn't have guessed that.”

“I know, it's amazing, isn't it?”

Nikki clearly wasn't wanting to let go of the notion she had a Cartier bracelet. Since Kate didn't relish the idea of prying it from her dream pool, she went at it another way.

“I can see how Major Peck is making it hard to break things off when he gives you such extravagant gifts, but Nikki, is he really the man you want to be with?”

“Yes, gifts are very nice,” Shirley chimed in. “But something like this suggests a more long term commitment than mere dating.”

“I know you mean well, Kate.” Nikki looked over at Shirley. “You too, Shirley. And yes, you are right about thinking ahead—which I've been doing a lot of lately since Don proposed. Can you believe that? I mean, look at where I come from, and then look at him. He actually said he wanted to marry me, buy me a big, fancy house once we get back to the States, and put a ring on my finger to match all the fine furniture and fancy clothes a wife befitting a man in his position should have. I don't expect either of you ladies to understand but, coming from where I do, what Major Peck has offered me is an awful lot to walk away from.”

“Except?” Shirley prompted.

Nikki traced the line on Rick's letter again. Her smile was so radiant she glowed. “Like I said, Captain Galt sure does have a way with words. I feel like he respects me and women in general, in a way that Don just doesn't. Maybe it has something to do with the way they were raised, but they sure do have different choices when it comes to calling me something other than my name.”

Kate waited a beat. “And what would that difference be?”

“To put it politely, it's the difference between a sweet little cat and a female dog.”

That did it. “Nikki, I hate to tell you this, but that bracelet isn't—”

Before Kate could blow the whistle Dr. Donnelly rushed out of the mission, joined by a renewed onslaught of mortar blasts raining from the sky and guns going off like firecrackers across the bay. It was all mesmerizing in its own crash and burn kind of way even as he delivered the latest news.

“We already have some casualties on their way. Shirley, Kate, we need to get scrubbed up and plan on an all-nighter in surgery. Nikki, I know you aren't a nurse but—”

“I can do more than hold hands and pass out cookies.” Nikki was already off the sofa. “I can give out meds, even poke somebody with a needle and stitch in an emergency as long as they don't cry when I do it.”

Overhead the stars were bright. The sound of the surf on the beach followed them up the lawn and toward the wounded who would come since they turned no one away.

Nikki felt dirty. And, not from the blood and frenzied aftermath of the wounded, many of them children, which had been brought to the mission. She had come to Vietnam as an escape, only to learn you could take the girl out of the hills, but not the hills out of the girl.

She had tried to better herself by doing well enough in school to get accepted to community college, only for her daddy to scoff at the notion since all she apparently needed was a degree from The School of Hard Knocks. Well, she had countered, feeling a bit full of herself she supposed, she should already have a PhD from that particular school considering how many times she had been backhanded for daring to speak up and want more than milking cows, tending fields, and a flour sack for a Sunday best dress.

Her daddy didn't know what a PhD was, so that just made him madder. Made him even more sure she thought herself too good for the rest of them, her third cousin who wanted to marry her included, and since that was the case—
whap—
then she'd better pack her things and not show her face again until she had one of them PhDs herself.

Nikki knew she wasn't nearly as stupid as what she had been told, but she also knew attaining a PhD was beyond her mental ability and fiscal means to manage. It had taken her seven years to work her way through night school for the bachelor's degree she needed to sign up with the Red Cross to “bring a touch of home in a combat zone.” She had gotten so excited upon seeing the recruitment ad, asking “Are you creative? Could you develop an interesting program on travel, holidays, sports, music, or current events? The American Red Cross needs qualified young women who are willing to serve one year overseas.” Then it said among the qualifications the job required considerable ingenuity and a capacity for hard work under far less than ideal conditions.

Well heck, that made her qualified and then some, and here was the opportunity to make a yearly salary of $4800 and get paid to see the world! Then the next thing she knew, she had landed herself something even higher than a PhD: a psychiatrist whose family included a US senator that could have surely gotten him out of serving in Vietnam—only Dr. Donald Peck the Third had wanted to sign up.

Don said it was because he wanted to be valued for himself and what he could contribute to humanity rather than be constantly judged by what everyone perceived his family to be and therefore him.

She could relate to that.

He said that they were kindred spirits that way. That their families didn't understand them, but they understood each other.

Agreed again.

Don had said a lot of things that she could relate to. So when he pushed her around the first time, she told herself it was just a little accidental shove and nothing compared to what she had grown up with. The second time, though, was more than a shove. That's when she began to wonder if a psychiatrist could work other people's brains to make them believe things they shouldn't. Like when he called her a bitch and she protested, he turned it around to make her seem like a prude because he liked that kind of talk in bed.

Still, despite it all, she wanted to believe in his good intentions, even if the truth probably was that she just didn't want one more man to let her down.

Meeting Rick had made her stop and think, but Don's surprise proposal reminded her she had practical matters to consider:

Wasn't a bird in hand worth two in the bush? And who knew where anything with Rick would end up, she hardly knew him.

Nikki looked at the clock in hers and Margie's apartment, the one they had bought together at a local market and hung up over the entry door as a joke because on the hour it chimed “Cuckoo-cuckoo.”

Margie said it was a reminder that once she clocked out and walked in the front door, she could be as crazy as she wanted minus the patients. She loved that clock.

But she couldn't stand Don. Margie was taking her turn working the night shift and wouldn't like it that Don was showing up without her here. She didn't want much to do with him, almost nobody did, which had a lot to do with Nikki not rebuffing his interest. She knew how it felt to be an outsider.

The Cuckoo clock signaled 8 p.m., that was 20 hundred hours in military time, and she could see why Don, despite his faults—
and didn't everyone have them?—
actually liked being in the army. He liked precision, and being a stickler for punctuality, sure enough there he was, doing a “Shave and a Haircut,” right on time.

Nikki still wasn't quite sure how she was going to go about this. She opened the door anyway since, after all, she had done the inviting once the onslaught of casualties had died down.

“Baby!” he greeted her, and before she could say a word he was bending her back against a strong, supporting arm while his free hand held aloft a spray of flowers and some very fine wine he had introduced her to.

Nikki knew she should immediately break the kiss, but darn, he was an awfully good kisser and this would probably be the last one she was getting from Don. Meanwhile she used the time to consider the best approach to keep things civil.

Mad as she was for him giving her a fake piece of jewelry and claiming it real, it was still the nicest piece of jewelry anyone had ever given her before.

And could be someone had sold him a bad piece that he had paid too much for and lacked Kate's knowledge to realize he was being taken for a fool. Yes, that could definitely be.

Having decided she was going to politely return the bracelet rather than throw it in his face, Nikki broke the kiss.

“Don, we need to talk.” She said it firmly, taking control of the situation before he could since he had quite a way of doing that.

“But I'd much rather make love, not war. God, you are the best thing I've seen since all hell broke loose. I've missed you so much.” He was smoothly moving toward the couch, trying to take the conversation in a direction she was not going. “C'mon, baby, we can talk later. About my grandmother's ring, getting you all dolled up to meet my family, about—”

“Don, I've decided that's not a good idea.” She kept her feet planted. Unlatched the bracelet, extended it. “I'm really sorry, but I shouldn't have accepted this. You should take it back and ask for a refund. Or save it and give to another girl who can properly return your affections.”

“Return my affections?” His face turned beet red all of a sudden, like a light switch that got flipped. “What, are you kidding? You didn't have any trouble returning ‘my affections' on the island. Or the night after that. What's gotten into you?”

Nikki instinctively backed away, closer to the door. She did not want an ugly confrontation or to put him on the defensive. That much she had learned from her backhanding daddy. She also knew that even if Don hit her in retaliation, she had to end this. She might never have one of them PhDs much less MD's herself, but she was not so stupid, or so ambitious, as to agree to marry a man she didn't really love just to shove the equivalent of a Whoopie Pie into her daddy's face by marrying up into a family who would probably hate her on sight.

When she took too long to answer the sound of exploding glass hit the cuckoo clock with such force it fell from over the door and almost hit Nikki on the head.

She surveyed the burgundy splash of wine, looking way too much like blood, all over the front door, the damaged clock at her feet, and demanded, “Why'd you do that? Margie loves that clock! And that's a waste of good wine.”

“Did Galt get into you? Huh? Did he get into your pants while I was saving lives in the E.R.? I'll kill that son of a bitch, I'll—”

“No he did not, and no you won't.” Nikki flung open the front door and pointed in the direction of the best decision she felt certain she had ever made. Even if she never got married, Don had just verified she was better off being a spinster than married to him or anyone like him. “You will leave now, Dr. Peck. I tried to do this nicely. You don't want to be nice. And I don't want to marry any man who lacks kindness. Or class.” She shot a scathing look at the bracelet he had thrown on the floor. “Good night. And goodbye.”

He stared at her with his eyes kind of wild and his breathing fast, for endless, heart-palpitating seconds. Then he kicked the clock so hard it exploded with a final “Cuck…coo” and died before he nearly took the door off its hinges with his exiting
slam
.

Nikki quickly locked the door. She shut every open window and locked those too. She didn't care how hot it got in the apartment.

Then she went and poured herself a tall, icy glass of lemonade and hit it up with a big shot of gin straight from the bottle, no jigger. She would pray for whatever forgiveness was due for her vices or misjudgments later, but for now she was celebrating.

Major Doctor Donald Peck was out of her life, and this time for good. That called for some Elvis on the record player while she reread Rick's latest letter as proof that a bird in the bush was far better than anything from Donald Peck on her hand.

Izzy had never needed a letter from home more than he needed this one. In the days that had passed since the attack he had been immersed in mangled, burned bodies. He could not even imagine the additional damage and loss of life from an actual ground attack when so much was lost and beyond damaged already.

Margie would physically heal, and she was resilient, but a lot of other damage on top of more damage had been done and he hadn't been around much to lend what support he could. Mostly he'd gotten his information from Gregg who was in not such good shape himself. Even Robert David seemed to have had something vital leeched from his internal resources. The only thing that seemed to have been spared was their villa; miraculously untouched again. And the mission, but that was “sanctuary” and so Izzy supposed that didn't count on some level.

The letter from home counted. Thank god the military found a way to keep the mail trucks running since the letters were sanctuary for him and every other GI in desperate need of some assurance that there was still a place waiting for them “back in the world.”

He'd been beyond exhausted until Rachel's letter arrived. Just the sight of the envelope had the effect of a B-12 shot to keep him going until he could properly enjoy his reward for being as faithful to Rachel as she had been to him.

A few times he had been too desperate to hold off for his little ritual that had expanded to reading the two previous letters to build up to the big event. Today, though, he was doing this right, making it an extra special date.

Izzy showered, shaved, even put on some cologne instead of the usual Coppertone lotion. It was a pleasant early evening at the beach when he arrived, and actually rather deserted. The peddlers and beggars had left. The mama-sans in their woven conical hats selling pineapples, the peanut man, the amazing little man who was a walking BBQ shop with his meats and skewers, he barely caught them before they all went home. Then it was just him and his favorite spot under an Ironwood pine.

Izzy cleared the area of debris, put down a clean towel for his picnic. Then he placed the last two letters on top of the new one, making the moment last.

He already knew where this would take him: in bed, jerking off; at least sometimes, okay often. He had not masturbated this much since junior high. Did war make you horny? He felt a little guilty that somehow Margie kept intruding into these steamy fantasies. He had to try to do a better job of censoring her out; she was a colleague, a friend he truly cared for, and . . . anyway he had a new letter. And he did not just tear into something so precious.

Izzy opened the oldest of the three letters. While he had tested at reading over a thousand words per minute, the letters he always read out loud, slowly, like a love song. He wanted to feel like he was really with her, listening to her talk about someone named Janis Joplin and. . .

It made him a little anxious, Izzy realized, not for the first time. Like the picture with the Indian headband, where she looked younger, happier, and this “everybody is against the war now” bothered him because she had never been political before. . .or maybe what really bothered him was it sounded like the world was changing and he was completely, absolutely out of it while the real world was going on and—

“Stop it,” he ordered himself harshly. “You have to stop this right now. Deep breath.”

He took several deep breaths, got his ridiculous anxiety under control, and then read on, aloud, until he got to the best part at the bottom, “My dear, sweet, brave man. I love you dearly, madly. . . ”

Izzy relaxed, laughed softly at himself, moved on to the second letter, the one that had arrived before this latest. He pretended he hadn't read it countless times already and knew each word by heart.

But the new one, ah, it was a virgin letter and the two before it, foreplay.

There was a right way to do this and this was the ritual he had perfected:

He would look over the entire letter. He would look at the way her handwriting was either fast or slow, what pen had she used; he would look at the postmark, the kind of envelope, and his silly APO address where the stamps should be. Every little thing was a piece of her and it was all that he had of her here. He would smell it and sometimes there was perfume or lipstick. He would hold it then and weigh it in his hands to see if it was a big or small letter, if it contained a photograph or a news article. Sometimes she would send him things she knew he would like from the
New York Times.
Once there had been a wedding announcement of a couple they knew, another time a book review of a friend's new novel. There was news of people he had studied and worked with during his internship, appointed to positions at the New York hospitals. He especially liked the ads she circled for apartments they might like to live in someday. Sometimes there were little drawings she made or sketches from Central Park.