Authors: Elmore Leonard
"What's NVA?" Rosen said.
"North Vietnamese Army. The regulars, not th
e VCs."
There were shadows outside on the patio, in
a haze of moonlight; the living room was dark wher e they sat in flowered easy chairs: Rosen with a Scotch, Davis with a can of beer and the Kreighof f next to his chair.
"See, sometimes we'd go in, we'd put up poster
s that said, 'The First Recon Marines are in you r area. Drop your fucking weapons and surrender.'
But this one was a sneak-and-peek mission and I
w as the patrol leader."
"How many men?"
"Twelve that time. We lost four. What we'd do
, we'd radio our position before we settled in for th e night, give the artillery four coordinates--wha t was called a killing cross--with us in the middle.
We'd key the hand set. Then later on, when th
e NVA got on us, we'd give our signal, like"--almos t whispering then--" 'Magic Pie Two, this is Swif t Scout,' then click twice and they'd know we neede d artillery cover."
"What happens if they're off a little? The artillery," Rosen said.
"Yeah, some fuck-ups smoking dope lay it o
n you by mistake," Davis said. "You get fuckin g killed is what happens. That time on the suppl y trail the cover was fine, but there were too many o f them. They kept trying to run over us, and ou r heavy stuff, our M-60 and our grenade launchers , were out, so we called back to let up on one coordinate and we slipped out that way and met our extract. That's the helicopter that pulls you out. I mean it yanks you out. They drop a cable an d you're wearing like a parachute harness with a rin g you snap on the cable and it jerks you out of ther e with everybody on the line banging into each other.
But you're so glad to get out you don't care."
"What'd you get the Silver Star for?" Rosen said.
"For that. I was the patrol leader," Davis said.
"We killed a bunch of the NVA, held them off, an
d I picked up an NVA field officer, brought hi m along. The guy was hanging on to me, he had a death grip around my neck all the time during th e extract, flying out of there. But you know what th e worst part of it was?"
"What?" Rosen said.
"The guy's breath. All the time he's hanging o
n me, strangling me to death, he's breathing in m y face with a breath like he'd been eating fuckin g garbage and hadn't brushed his teeth in fiv e months."
"I can't imagine living like that," Rosen said
, "doing it every day."
"That time we did a job, I guess," Davis said:
"We brought the NVA officer out and we brough
t out our dead. That was something you could coun t on. We always brought out our dead."
"You said you were wounded, got a couple o
f Purple Hearts," Rosen said. "Was one of them o n that patrol?"
"No, it was another time, an emergency extract," Davis said. "This Medevac landed to pick up our wounded and I ran out with a guy over m y shoulder. I got him inside all right, I looked down , there was all this blood pouring out of my leg. I d idn't feel anything at the time or hear anything because of the rotors, all the fucking noise they were making. As the Medevac was rising up, I banged o n the door and yelled at them, "Hey, shit, I'
m wounded too! Open up!" Davis shook his head , thinking about it, and had a sip of beer.
"What was the other time?" Rosen said.
"It was practically the same time. We got up i
n the air and the fucking helicopter was shot down. I h ad my feet caught in something and when we hit I t ore the tendons in the backs of my legs. That wa s my second Heart in about five minutes."
"But you got out."
"I'm here," Davis said.
"And you're worried about what you're gonn
a do. I mean when you're discharged," Rosen said. "I d on't understand that. All you've been through , situations you've handled, what're you worrie d about?"
"I told you. I don't have a trade. My military occupational specialty is infantry, and I don't think there's much call for infantrymen in civilian life."
"Learning a trade, doing one thing the rest o
f your life, that's for clucks without imagination,"
Rosen said. "You don't, in the business world, yo
u don't prepare yourself for a certain job and that's it , like a bookkeeper, a tax accountant. You hire thos e people. What you do, you keep your eyes open, yo u use a little imagination seeing how you can fit int o a situation or how you can bend the situatio n around so it fits you. What did I know about rea l estate and the mortgage business? Nothing. But I s aw an opportunity, a chance to get in, talk to th e right people and convince them they should be doing business with me."
"Okay," Davis said. "But I'm not worth a shit a
t talking to people. They'd see right away I didn'
t know what I was talking about. I mean if I tried t o fake it, tell them I'm some kind of an expert."
"No, they wouldn't," Rosen said. "It's how yo
u do it, your tone. They're busy thinking about themselves, what hotshots they are. They're thinking what they're gonna say to impress you. If you star t right off, they see you've got confidence, you loo k right at them, you compliment them, bullshit the m a little, they think ah, he's got good judgment, h e must know what he's doing. That's all. Don't b e afraid of people--Christ, I'm telling you not to b e afraid. I mean in a business situation. Don't let people scare you; because nine times out of ten they don't know any more than you do. Or even less.
They got there pushing and shoving, acting, conning, bullshitting. If they had to get by on basic intelligence alone--most of the people I've done business with--they'd be on the street selling Goo d Humors and probably fucking up the change. . . .
How old are you?"
"Thirty-four," Davis said.
"I didn't get into the mortgage business till I wa
s thirty-eight. No, thirty-nine. I didn't even kno w there was such a thing--lining up a shitload o f mortgages and selling them to banks. A hundre d million dollars worth of paper at one percent.
What's that?"
"A million dollars," Davis said.
"You bet it is. A year," Rosen said. "With not a
n awful lot of overhead, either. Don't worry abou t the type of business, it's all pretty much the same.
Take your time, talk to people, decide what you'
d like to do, then start doing it. What I always say is , making the decision's the hard part. All this time, I m ean for three years, I've been thinking I want t o go home, back to the States. Then something lik e this happens, I have to look at my life closely agai n and make a decision. Why do I want to go home?
Or, do I really want to go home? No, it turns out
, after I analyze it, I'm happier here than I've eve r been in my life. What do I want to go home for? . . .
You like it here, don't you?"
"Yeah, it's all right. I guess I've had a pretty goo
d time," Davis said.
"Palling around with Kissinger at the Kin
g David Hotel, I guess you have," Rosen said. "Tha t reminds me, you never said who it was let the far t that time. Do you know?"
"It was me," Davis said.
"People look at you?"
"A few. There wasn't anything I could do abou
t it, so I didn't do anything. I stood there and looke d back at them."
Rosen liked that. He sat up in his chair an
d turned to Davis. "See? What do you mean yo u can't handle a situation with people? That's th e whole idea, be natural, be yourself, you can't miss.
Your only problem, as I see it, is making the initia
l decision. That's why you're here. You know that?"
"That's why I'm where? You mean sitting here?"
"Right. You're afraid to make the decision to g
o home."
"I'm going home," Davis said. "I just don'
t know what I'm gonna do."
"Yeah, but this is like delaying it. Also it's a confidence builder, it's something you know how to handle. I couldn't figure it out at first. Why you'
d want to risk your neck. What're you getting out o f it? You haven't said anything about money. Now I s ee why you got involved. You're putting off making a decision. You're sticking to what you know as long as you can."
"That's what I'm doing, huh?"
"Take my word," Rosen said. "Also believe m
e when I say you've got nothing to worry about dealing with people. Forget what I said about bullshitting anybody. In your case, look right at them and play it straight and you'll win. You've got a nic e natural style."
The security man with the green baseball cap an
d the submachine gun came up to Rashad the nex t morning at about eight-thirty--after he'd spent th e night in the airport--and asked him what he wa s doing here.
Rashad said yeah, he was supposed to meet
a friend coming in from Ben Gurion, was suppose d to be yes terday, but shit, he didn't know when hi s friend was gonna get here now. He just had to wait.
He also had to show another security man--
d ownstairs in one of the private security booths--
h is passport and empty his pockets and explai n again no, he wasn't an Arab, man, he was a Muslim, born in Dalton, Georgia, lived in Detroit, and had never been to any Arab country in his life.
They still watched him. He'd walk over to th
e Arkia counter and look at the TV screen of arrival s and departures--almost every hour of the day between here and Ben Gurion--and then walk over to the lunch counter and have a cup of coffee and g o look out the window or stand by the stairs goin g down to the lower level and look in the big mirro r mounted on the landing that showed the securit y booths and the departure waiting area.
The arrivals didn't come in through the terminal.
They'd get off the plane, pick up their luggage fro
m the train of baggage carts, and walk through th e gate to the street. At ten o'clock, outside for som e fresh air, watching a group of passengers that ha d just gotten off a plane, Rashad saw a familiar face.
A woman. A nicely dressed woman with a grou
p of women laughing and carrying on, acting like little girls. Americans. Maybe from the Hilton. Or the Pal. He might've seen her in the lobby one time.
Staring at the woman he made himself remember. It wasn't in Tel Aviv, it was Jerusalem. And not in a hotel, but coming out. With the man, Mr.
Rosen. Walking to his car.
All the women were crowded around the entrance of a red-and-white Egged Tour bus while their luggage was being loaded on. Rashad waited.
He was the last one to step aboard, jumping in jus
t as the door was about to snap closed. When th e driver looked at him funny, Rashad handed him a ten-pound note.
"You going to the hotel, aren't you?"
The driver nodded.
"I just want a lift, man. I'll stand right here ou
t of the way."
That was how Rashad got to the Laromme o
n the south beach road and how he came to be hanging around the lobby, watching the woman friend of Mr. Rosen's, when another friend of Mr.
Rosen's, the Israeli chick with the nice ass, Tali
, walked up to the woman and started talking to her.
On the phone a few minutes later, when he hear
d Valenzuela's voice, Rashad said, "You gonna lik e what I got to tell you."
WHAT GENE VALENZUELA LIKED was the view of all th
e cement work going on.
At half past ten, when the phone rang in the cafe
, Valenzuela was on an upper-level terrace not mor e than a half mile from Rashad. The terrace, whic h ran along in front of the cafe in a clean new complex of mini-mall shops and fast-food places, got the sun directly and was hot at midmorning, but i t gave Valenzuela a treeless view of everything. Directly below him, the road came curving in from the south beach and fingered out in three directions: across open, undeveloped land to the North Beach hotels; to the airport; and up the hill to town.
The cement work was done in a hurry; it didn'
t have a nice finished look. But it was new and clean.
He'd think about the old, gray-peeling cement a
t Lewisburg (with the highest homicide rate of an y federal prison), hard motherfuckers fighting ove r the queens. He'd watch the Israeli girls walk by i n their jeans with their Jewish asses. There was a crowd of young stuff here and enough cemen t work--a guy with half a dozen transit-mixer s could make enough to retire in three years.
When the phone rang in the cafe he thought o
f his wife and pictured her talking on the phone i n her smart-ass voice to her mother--"I don't kno w where he is, the sonofabitch. Who knows? He neve r tells me where he goes and I personally don't care."
She'd never find him, either. She'd never eve
n heard of Eilat. Shit, who had? He'd bet Harr y Manza had never heard of it. But if it was a moneymaker, it wouldn't matter to Harry where it was.