Free Digger 1.0 by Michael Bunker Page A

in particular, six thousand of
Mr. Vo’s money. Mr. Vo stared at him without hatred. Without
contempt. Without emotion. Just a vacant-eyed stare. A look Jim had
seen before. Cold. Tired. Some VC tunnel fighter facing him with a
knife or a sharpened punji stick, resigning himself to live just a
little longer, no matter what it took to do so, down in the tunnels
for just another day.
    He’d seen that look before.

Chapter 12
     
     
     
     
    Jim Howard and Mr. Vo sat across from each
other later that week in one of south Orange County’s only five
star restaurants, Chez Cary’s.
    “So, here we are Mr. Texas,” said the small
Vietnamese man. “Duck a l’Orange ordered. Wine poured. All very
French. All very nice.” Mr. Vo leaned back in the ornate chair,
cushioned in crushed red velvet, pulling a cheap silver case from
his jacket and tapping out a cigarette on the table. “All very
nice,” he said to himself.
    Jim took a sip of his wine, leaned back and
folded his hands in his lap.
    The silver lighter Mr. Vo snapped open with
a sudden eruption of butane disappeared back inside his coat
pocket, and he leaned forward, drawing a heavy glass ashtray on the
dining table toward himself. Then he drew on the cigarette and
exhaled after a brief moment. White smoke spilled across the table
as Mr. Vo fixed Jim with a glare.
    “What all this about Mr. Texas?”
    Jim smiled to himself.
    “You smoke back in ‘Nam?”
    Mr. Vo leaned back. No one talked about
Vietnam. Even Mr. Vo’s fellow Vietnamese never talked about
Vietnam. Vietnam never happened.
    Then, “Yes. I smoke since I was a boy.”
    Jim closed his eyes.
    “I never smoked.”
    Mr. Vo narrowed his eyes for a fraction of a
second. Then, “Good for you, Mr. Texas.”
    “Which was a good thing down in the
tunnels,” continued Jim, watching Mr. Vo’s face and his eyes in
particular, “‘cause you folks could smell that smoke on us. You
guys didn’t smoke at all down there, did you?”
    Mr. Vo took a deep drag of his cigarette and
exhaled through his nose. He looked like a tiny angry Asian dragon
sitting in a chair in a fancy French restaurant.
    “You assume all Vietnamese VC, Mr. Texas?
You not consider that only Vietnamese in America are losers. Ones
who lost to the VC and the North, Mr. Texas. So if I am in America
now, and not home being victorious winner after long struggle
against tyranny and oppression, how is it that I am VC and not
American friend?”
    Jim smiled, reached forward and took up the
gaudy crystal goblet in front of him from the heavily starched
white tablecloth. It rose above a dizzying and glittering array of
tableware, ready soldiers, waiting for the battle to commence once
the main course arrived.
    “Well, I’ll tell you my friend.” He took a
drink. “ I don ’t rightly
know. It’ s just a
guess. ”
    Mr. Vo snorted and smoked.
    “You live all alone. No woman. No big family
like all the other Vietnamese,” said Jim flatly.
    “Maybe
family die in war, ” shot back Mr. Vo, his face as toneless
as Jim’s voice.
    “And the other Vietnamese don’t like you
very much, Mr. Vo. I could tell by the way they play cards with
you. The way they act when you’re around.”
    “They don’t like anyone, not even
themselves.”
    “You have no money, other than the money you
make at cards. Hence the pay by the week motel you live in.”
    “Maybe I’m cheap. Save money in mattress or
better yet, put in Great Western Savings with John Wayne, all
American hero.”
    Jim smiled.
    “No, Mr.
Vo. I don ’t think any of that’s true. I think you were part
of the 9 th Viet Cong Division serving at Cu Chi and
eventually Black Mountain. I think somehow you got captured, and
you informed. You told the CIA a lot, maybe more than you needed
to, and they gave you a ride out of the country as a favor because
you knew once the South fell, you were in deep trouble if the
“winners” ever found you. Or
maybe you were a prisoner of war and, once again