1974 - So What Happens to Me Read Online Free PDF Page B

dreadful wound.”
    I didn’t say anything but waited.
    “He has terrible people to work for. That man Essex! What a creature! And his wife!”
    Still I didn’t say anything.
    “Bernie feels so insecure.”
    “Don’t we all!” I said, watching the moon as it floated like a yellow disc in the cloudless sky.
    “You feel the same?” He turned to look directly at me. “You also feel insecure?”
    “Who doesn’t?”
    “You’re right, of course, but have you ambitions? Do you want to be rich? I’m sure you do and Bernie is the same. We often talk about money. He once said to me . . . I remember his exact words: ‘Claude, I would do anything to fix this insecurity. If I could only lay my hands on some real money I wouldn’t care how I got it.’”
    “Bernie said that?”
    “Those were his exact words.”
    It was my turn to look directly at him.
    “Look, Kendrick, suppose you skip this phoney buildup? To me, it stinks. I can see you want to feel your way as you don’t know much about me, but your approach is as subtle as a bulldozer. What have you on your mind?”
    He took of his orange wig and looked inside as if he expected to find something hiding in there, then he slapped it back on his head.
    “Bernie warned me,” he said and smiled. “He said I would have to be careful how I handled you. He told me he once had got you out of trouble. You held up a Vietnamese moneychanger and got away with three thousand dollars. Bernie gave you an alibi. Is that correct?”
    “Vietnamese money changers were easy meat. I needed the money and he had plenty. Bernie talks too much.”
    “Bernie said the money changer was killed by a bomb so everything was nicely tidied up.”
    As the Caddy drifted along with the lights of Paradise City making a necklace of diamonds in the distance, my mind went back to Saigon.
    My Vietnamese girl wanted money to get to Hong Kong.
    She was half out of her mind with terror. She had come from the North and she was sure the Viets were after her. Nothing I could tell her made an impact. She insisted she had to have money to bribe her way to safety. I was a bit crazy about her but her stupid terror spoilt our nights. I had no money to give her. Although I knew I was losing her, I finally decided I would have to get her to Hong Kong. One evening I walked into this moneychanger’s office, with a service revolver in my hand and forced him to give me the money. I had been drinking hard and didn’t give a damn. I gave the money to her and that was the last I saw of her. Then the M.P.s had a line-up and the moneychanger fingered me. I thought I was in the ditch, but Olson arrived He said he and I were working on his kite at the time of the hold-up. I’m sure the M.P.s weren’t convinced, but Bernie had a lot of authority and I got away with it.
    Thinking about this incident, it seemed a long way in the past. It was a lucky thing for me that the moneychanger’s office, with him in it, caught one of the first rocket bombs the Viets threw at Saigon. He was going to take his complaint to the Commanding General, but the rocket silenced him.
    I had told Bernie the facts and he had grinned at me.
    “Well, don’t do it again Jack. I might not be around to bail you out,” and that was that.
    At least, it was for a time, but I was always short of money.
    I got tied up with another Vietnamese girl; a dancer at one of the gaudy, noisy clubs American servicemen frequented. She held out for money; that’s what most Vietnamese girls thought about. So one night, when I was really turned on, I walked into another moneychanger’s shop. I wasn’t taking any chances this time. There was a thunderstorm going on, plus a hail of Viet rockets and the noise drowned my shot. I thought no more of killing an old Vietnamese than I would have shooting a wild duck. I collected a thousand dollars out of his open safe. It was enough to get me a good time with the girl and have something in hand. I did this three times.