The staked Goat

to be present at an interrogation because the prisoner, doubly damned as VC as well as black marketeer, supposedly spoke good English. He therefore would be able to give me names of American servicemen providing products from the PXs, either through the front door (by discount purchase) or through the back door (the ultimate discount). My National Police guide escorted me down into the basement to the interrogation section.
    You’ve heard sitcom laughtracks? Well, if the producers of a horror movie ever wanted a screamtrack, they really missed their chance back then. Name your scream and the NP would provide it, on cue. A seventy-year-old woman’s long, piercing wail. A thirty-five-year-old father’s gasping outbursts of anguish as he realized he would be fathering no more. Perhaps a sixteen-year-old girl for whom permanent disfigurement must have seemed a vague and distant concern compared to the cause of her shrieking and gagging hoarseness.
    ”This room,” said my escort, smiling brightly. ”Please?”
    He swung open the door. The smell of disinfectant was very strong. There were three NP men in the room. One was seated at a table taking down machine-gun sentences in Vietnamese. The speaker was a fiftyish man in dark red prisoner pajamas who sat across from him. The pajamas seemed three sizes too large. The prisoner was speaking so fast the seated NP could not transcribe it. The NP standing next to the prisoner clouted him on the cheek with a backhand and spat a Vietnamese word. The prisoner slowed down.
    The third NP spoke to my escort quickly in Vietnamese, then addressed me in English. My escort fetched a chair.
    ”Welcome. I am Captain Ngo.” He inclined his head. ”You will please to sit?”
    ”Thank you,” I said, sitting and tugging a pad and ballpoint pen from my shirt pocket. ”I’m Lieutenant Cuddy. I understand this man speaks English?”
    ”Oh, yes. We will...”
    He shot a terse question in Vietnamese to my escort.
    ”Sus-pend,” said my escort.
    ”Ah, yes. We will sus-pend now and you will question him. The traitor’s name is Can Gai Trinh. He has much to tell you.”
    Captain Ngo barked something at Trinh and the guard who was about to clock him again. I heard a scrabbling sound from the room next door. I hoped it was a rat. If not, it was probably a child.
    Trinh stopped talking to the NP transcriber and looked at me.
    ”Yessir,” he said.
    ”Your full name and address,” I asked.
    He told me.
    ”How long have you been here?”
    ”Whole life.”
    I shook my head. ”No,” I said. The guard took this as a request to strike Trinh.
    I looked at Ngo. ”Tell him to stop hitting the prisoner.”
    Ngo spoke, and the guard backed off a step.
    ”I mean, how long have you been in this building?”
    ”Oh, maybe full day.”
    ”How old are you?”
    ”T’irty-one.”
    I looked at him. He flitted his eyes around the room, fearful he’d sparked more retribution. He still looked fiftyish. The pajamas covered everything but his head, weak hands, and bare feet. There were no marks on those parts. Probably used the crank box.
    ”Tell me the GIs who work with you in the black market. Names, outfits.”
    I got a stream of people. Twelve or thirteen, from PFCs to a master sergeant.
    I took it all down, got some functional details and some future dates to mark.
    I looked up at Captain Ngo. ”Who knows he’s here?”
    ”Nobody. We catch him clean. Behind a building. Nobody see.”
    I inclined my head toward the prisoner. ”I may need him at the trial of the bad Americans,” I said. Trinh’s face lit up, the hope, however, tempered by experience.
    I locked Ngo with my best stare. ”Will he be alive then?”
    Ngo frowned, disappointed. ”If you like,” he relented.
     
    I shook off the interrogation memory and waded through about twenty more reports. Names, faces, places. The absurdities of a big city at the edge of an unnatural war. I went through December of ‘67 into January of ‘68. I dreaded reaching the end of that month, so I got up and took a stretch-break. My interlude with the muggers was taking its toll in stiffness and soreness. I finished the ice water and took the pitcher to the door. I opened it.
    The receptionist was gone, but a master sergeant swiveled around in the seat Casey had occupied hours ago. He stood up and smiled.
    ”Help you, sir?”
    ”Yes. Are you Sergeant Ricker?”
    ”That’s right, sir. What can I do for you?”
    He was about six feet tall.