Black Market

6

Manhattan

At six o'clock on Saturday morning, December 5, a bleak Seventh Avenue subway train, its surface covered with scars of graffiti, lackadaisically rocked and rattled north toward the Van Cortlandt Park station. The New York subways were generally a bad joke. This particular train wasn't so much public transportation as public disgrace.

Colonel David Hudson sat in an inconspicuous huddle on an uncomfortable metal seat. As always, he was wearing clothes no one would look at twice. Uninteresting clothes that created a street camouflage of drab gray and lifeless brown. He realized it wasn't a very successful disguise because people had looked at him, anyway. Their probing eyes invariably discovered the missing arm, the empty flap of his coat.

Hot-and-cold flashes coursed through his body as the train dutifully hurled itself north. He was drifting in and out of the present, remembering, trying to accurately replicate long hours spent at a Vietnam firebase perimeter listening post… Every one of his senses had been at its sharpest back then. Head cocked-listening, watching, trusting no one but himself… He needed exactly the same kind of brilliant clarity right now, the same kind of absolute self-reliance-which was probably the greatest high he'd known in his lifetime.

From Fourteenth Street, where he'd boarded the inhospitable subway train, up past Thirty-fourth, Forty-second, and Fifty-ninth streets, Hudson objectively contemplated the first days of his capture in Vietnam. An old Doors song, “ Moonlight Drive,” drifted through his mind. A period piece.

He was vividly remembering the La Hoc Noh prison now. Above all else, Colonel David Hudson was remembering the one known as the Lizard Man…

La Hoc Noh Prison, North Vietnam: July 1971

Captain David Hudson, his nervous system a mass of fire, felt each bruising, jarring bump, even the smallest stones underfoot, as four prison guards half carried, half dragged him toward the central thatch-roofed hut at the La Hoc Noh compound.

Through the flat white glare of the Asian sun, which resembled a bleached penny, he squinted at the pathetic hootch, with its tattered North Vietnamese flag and sagging bamboo walls.

The command post.

What an incredible, existential joke this all was. What a cruel joke his life had recently become.

Well muscled once, clean-cut and always so perfectly erect, so proper, the young U.S. Army officer was pitiful to behold now. His skin was wrinkled and sallow, almost yellow; his blond hair looked as if it has been pulled out in great, diseased clumps.

He understood and accepted the fact that he was dying. He weighed less than a hundred and fifteen pounds; he'd had the dreaded yellow shits literally for months without end. He'd gone beyond mere exhaustion; he lived in a shifting, hallucinatory world where he doubted even his own sensations and ordinary perceptions.

All Captain Hudson possessed now was his dignity. He refused to give that up, too.

He would die with at least some essential part of himself intact, that secret place deep inside that nobody could torture out of him.

The SNR officer, the one they had called Lizard Man, was waiting expressly for him inside the dread command hootch.

The North Vietnamese leader sat in awful silence, crouched like some feral animal, behind a low, lopsided table.

He almost seemed to be posing for a photo beneath a twirling bamboo fan that barely stirred the hundred-and-five degree air.

North Vietnamese cooking smells-green chili, garlic, litchi, durian, and spoiled river prawn-made David Hudson suddenly gag. He clutched violently at his mouth. He felt himself begin to faint. But he wouldn't allow that. No! Honor and dignity! That was everything. Honor and dignity kept him alive.

He stopped at his own mental command, drawing on the scant resources, the human spirit, that remained in him.

The North Vietnamese guards held him up. He collapsed, a weightless puppet in their tangle of bony arms. A guard punched David Hudson's jaw with a hard bare fist. Hot blood filled his mouth, and he gagged repeatedly.

“You Cap-tan, ah Hud-son!” the senior officer suddenly screeched, cawing like a heat-crazed jungle bird. He peered at the wrinkled notepad he always carried. His fingers struck hard into the page to emphasize certain words.

“Ho-Ho. Twen-six yea-ah old. Veetnam, Lah-ose since nineteen six-nine. Yow spy six yeah. Ho-Ho. You 'ssain! 'ssassin! Convic to die, Cap-tan.”

The prison guards let Captain David Hudson fall to the dirt floor, which was littered with gaping fish heads and rice.

Hudson 's fragile mind was reeling, crashing, exploding with sharp-pointed lights. He'd understood only a few of the Lizard Man's fractured English words. “ Vietnam… spy… assassin… convicted to die.”

Hudson 's eyes absently ran over the highly polished board surface. Games? Why did they all love games?

The Lizard Man snorted obscenely. A distorted smile appeared across his face. His jaw moved slowly, seemingly unattached to the rest of his skull. David Hudson imagined he could see, just behind the loose lips, a flicking, reptilian tongue in the man's mouth. He shook his head, trying vainly to find a clearing, a little area of reality, within his wildly confused thoughts.

“Yow play game? Yow play game me, Hud-sun?”

David Hudson's eyes were riveted to the game table, trying to focus. Play a game with Lizard Man?

The board appeared to be real teak. It was precious wood, exotic and beautiful, incongruous in this sodden armpit of a place. Even more striking were the hundreds of polished black and white stones, exquisite playing pieces. They were circular in shape, convex on each side.

For a lucid moment, Hudson remembered a marble collection. Something magical and forgotten from his youth in Kansas, on his father's farm. Collecting solids and cat's-eyes. Had he actually been a boy in this same lifetime? He honestly couldn't seem to remember. Die with dignity! Dignity!

“Play game for your life? Ho?” the Lizard Man asked.

The game board was divided into vertical and horizontal lines, creating hundreds of intersections. There were 180 white stones, 181 black.

Beside the pile of black stones, the Lizard Man's hand rested on a bulky Mosin-Nagant military rifle. One of his long yellowed fingers tapped the table relentlessly.

“Yow play. Play game me! Loser die!”

Captain David Hudson continued to stare hard at the game board. Focus, he thought. Concentrate. Die with dignity.

What did this man want from him now? It was an obscene joke, Hudson knew. One more way the Lizard Man had of torturing him.

The black and white stones seemed to be moving by themselves. Spinning, crawling like insects, in his blurred vision.

Finally Hudson spoke up. His voice was surprisingly strong, angry, even defiant.

“I have never lost at the game of Go,” Captain David Hudson said. “You play, asshole!” Dignity!

Manhattan: December 1985

The New York subway train braked noisily at a station stop. The soiled platform was bathed in eerie blue.

A few passengers on the sleepy, early morning train were staring absently at David Hudson. Even at a casual glance, he seemed like someone quietly in control of his environment. Beneath the drab street clothes, there was about him a sense of purpose. He was a man accustomed to taking command.

Hudson stared back at the other passengers. He peered into their hollow, pathetic eyes until most glanced away. The majority of American people were devoid of any real basic integrity, any sense of themselves. Civilians tended to disappoint David Hudson again and again. Maybe it was because he expected too much from them-he had to remind himself constantly that he couldn't apply his own high standards to others.

More listless passengers struggled onto the subway train at the West Eighty-sixth Street stop. There were mostly older whites, time-bent men and women, small-business merchants, ciphers who managed or owned the rip-off clothing stores, the rip-off food markets, in Harlem and the Bronx. One of the men boarding, however, was completely different from the rest.

He appeared to be in his mid-thirties. His striking black hair was brushed straight back. He wore a tan cashmere overcoat with a paisley scarf, pressed navy dress slacks, super-WASP duck boots. The impression he gave was of someone boarding a subway for the first time in his life and finding something amusing in the phenomenon of a slum on wheels.

He sat beside David Hudson and immediately snapped open Saturday's New York Times, coughing idly into his fist. As the subway rumbled forward, he crisply folded the newspaper into quarters.

“You made the front page. Congratulations,” Laurence Hadford finally offered in a guarded, casual whisper. His voice was exquisitely controlled and as smooth as his expensive silk scarf. “I watched the intriguing spectacle on the six o'clock, the seven o'clock, the ten, and the eleven o'clock news shows. You've succeeded in totally baffling them.”

“We've done reasonably well so far.” Hudson nodded in agreement. “The difficult steps are still ahead, though. The true tests of the plan's legs, Lieutenant.”

“You brought me a present, I hope? Christmas present?” As Laurence Hadford slid closer, Hudson could smell the man's citric cologne.

“Yes. Exactly as we agreed the last time.”

David Hudson looked sideways for the first time. He stared into the pale blue eyes and mocking half smile of Laurence Hadford. He didn't like what he saw. Never had. Not now and not back in Vietnam, either, when Hadford had been a smug young officer.

Laurence Hadford was impassive, cool. The well-shaved face might have been a door closed on private rooms. Hudson had a sudden impression of icy places locked away inside the man. Hadford was already a partner at one of the larger Wall Street investment firms and was said to be climbing to even higher rungs on the corporate ladder.

Reaching deep inside his coat, Hudson handed over a thick, overstuffed manila business envelope. The package bore no external marking, nothing to identify it in case there was any problem, an unlikely slipup on board the subway.

The envelope disappeared inside the rich softness of cashmere.

“There's one small hitch. A tiny problem has come up. The amount here isn't enough.” Hadford smiled so easily. “Not considering what's happened. What you've gone and done now. You've made this a very dangerous business arrangement for me. If you'd told me what you actually planned to do-”

“You wouldn't have helped us. You would have had too many doubts. You would have been scared shitless.”

“My friend, I am scared shitless.”

The subway train buckled slightly but only slowed minimally as it charged into the 110th Street station.

Angry graffiti was scrawled on all the walls. It shouted at anyone who cared to look up from his early-bird edition of the Daily News. Most didn't look up.

“We agreed on a figure before you did any work for us on Wall Street. Your fee, half a million dollars, has now been paid in full.” Hudson felt a familiar alarm sounding inside him. His control was slipping away. “Any information you've supplied us, any personal risks you took, were infinitesimal, considering your enormous financial gain.”

Hadford's perfectly capped white teeth gritted very slightly. “Please. Don't tell me how well I've been paid. I know what you're all about now. You've got so much money, you couldn't possibly know what to do with it. Another half million is virtually meaningless. What's another million, for that matter? Don't be so uptight.”

Colonel David Hudson finally managed a smile. “You know, perhaps you're right. Under the circumstances-what is another half million?… Especially if you're willing to do a little more investigation for us. We still need your help on Wall Street.”

“I suppose for the right price I could be convinced, Colonel.”

The next station David Hudson noticed was 157th Street. Between 110th and there, he and Laurence Hadford talked of the next steps to be taken on Wall Street, the kinds of additional information needed for Green Band.

Stenciled numbers announced the train stop on mottled, pale blue standposts. A sullen black face slowly slipped past the spray-painted train windows. The brakes screeched, then let out a loud, gaseous whump.

The last few passengers exited at the 157th Street stop. The black face didn't get on board. The subway doors slammed shut. They were completely alone. David Hudson felt himself tense. The blood coursed rapidly through his veins. All his senses were suddenly alert, and his perceptions had an astonishing clarity. Everything around him on the train stood out as if illuminated by a harsh arc light.

“I'm sorry, Hadford.”

“Excuse… Oh, God, no!”

As the train rumbled loudly out of the station, the flashing knife appeared from nowhere. What made David Hudson's parlor trick completely unexpected was that the blade was so very long, six inches, at least, and the handle perhaps another four.

The sharp blade jabbed hard and disappeared into Hadford's underbelly. It shredded the cashmere coat, tearing fibrous material and parting soft flesh and clenched muscle with virtually no effort. Almost instantly the long blade reappeared, dripping red.

As Laurence Hadford was sliding face up off the subway bench, Colonel Hudson relieved him of the weighty envelope. Hadford's rolling eyes were now staring sightlessly at the ceiling. His body underwent a series of racking convulsions, then went completely limp. He died somewhere between the 157th and 168th Street stations.

Hudson quietly slipped off at the next stop. He was shaking now. His mind was filled with tiny white explosions, with dark flowing streaks much like Hadford's blood. It was the first time in his career that he had ever harmed a fellow officer. But Hadford's greed had represented a weakness in the Green Band plan. And when you encountered greed, Hudson understood, instinctively, you ran into the likelihood, somewhere down the line, of betrayal. He could take no chances now, because there was no margin for error or for human weakness later.

Once he was out on Broadway, David Hudson struggled onto a city bus headed south. The Lizard Man screeched at him like a jungle monkey as the bus lurched forward. The Lizard Man screamed so loudly, Hudson had to grit his teeth. The Lizard Man laughed and laughed as David Hudson escaped into the awakening daytime city. Revenge!

A little more than an hour later, his composure intact once again, David Hudson climbed off the grunting, growling bus at the last stop-Columbus Circle and the New York Coliseum. Bundled inside his plain brown greatcoat, he walked farther south. He was almost sure people were staring, and that worried him.

Anonymity, he thought. He needed the cover of beautiful anonymity. He craved it. Especially now, he had to hold on to his New York cabdriver image. He had to be consistent. He also had to keep firmly in mind that he had been one of the very best Special Forces commanders in the world.

He reached the Washington-Jefferson Hotel, where he had a room at the far end of a depressingly drab second-floor hallway. He'd had this particular room for almost five weeks, and that was pushing his luck, perhaps. But the northern Times Square district was so perfectly anonymous, uncaring, and so convenient for the specialized work he still had to do. He specifically hadn't wanted a place too close to either the Vets garage or the Wall Street financial district.

Hudson sat on the edge of his hotel room bed for a moment. His thoughts turned idly back to Laurence Hadford, but he knew he couldn't dwell on the death of the man. He stared at the nearby telephone. Finally he decided to forget Hadford and reward himself for Friday night's success. Some well-deserved, maybe even spectacular, R &R was in order. His only vice, really-David Hudson's only remaining human connection, he sometimes thought.

He picked up the telephone and dialed a familiar local number in Manhattan.

“Hello, this is Vintage.” The connection was terrible. He could barely hear the words over the static.

“Yes. This is David… I've used Vintage Service before. My number is three twenty-three.” Hudson spoke in his usual soft but firm voice. “I can tell you exactly the kind of escort I'm looking for. She's between five feet six and five feet ten. I'd like her between the ages of nineteen and twenty-six. I'll be paying cash.”

Colonel Hudson waited, then he received a time and name for his “date.” He spoke into the telephone again. “In thirty minutes at 318 West Fifty-first. Thank you very much. I'll be expecting… Billie.”

It was just past eleven o'clock when Billie Bogan, her eyes raised to a winking neon hotel sign, stepped from a Checker cab on West Fifty-first Street.

The Washington-Jefferson? Now here was an odd one.

It certainly didn't look like the kind of place where Vintage clients usually stayed. Not the kind of successful men who could afford a hundred fifty dollars and up for an hour with some of the most exquisitely beautiful escorts in New York.

Billie finally shrugged and entered the paint-peeling hotel lobby. She had been told the client would be paying cash. As she walked down the dimly lit second-floor hallway, she shut off her Vintage beeper. It would be unbelievably tacky to get an electronic message while she was in the middle of a session with a client.

But the Washington-Jefferson? She shivered involuntarily.

Billie tapped on the door, and it swung open almost immediately. She was surprised to see someone so good-looking. His smile was open and pleasant. He was quite tall, slender, and…

Then she saw the flaw. The left sleeve of his mufti was empty-he had only one arm.

Billie couldn't feel too sorry for the man framed in the doorway. There was nothing about him that inspired pity; quite the opposite. He was certainly attractive, and his disability didn't seem to trouble him. He did not appear at all self-conscious as he gazed at her. He had the kind of face she somehow associated with the outdoors. Probably he was one of those self-reliant types who loved camping and knew the right knots to tie and the best place to pitch a tent.

“Hi. I'm Billie. How are you today?” She smiled courteously. “You're David?”

Colonel David Hudson stared at her for a few seconds longer before answering.

She was one of the best-looking prostitutes he'd ever seen. Her hair was an unbelievably rich, ash blond with thick bouncy curls. She was long-legged and thin in the manner cultivated by high-fashion models, but without the glossy emaciation Hudson didn't care for. Her breasts were firm under a pricey silk blouse. She wore a flattering straight skirt, dark stockings, and high heels. Her face managed to combine an exotic loveliness with an innocent quality that excited him.

“I'm sorry,” he finally managed with another smile. “I was starting, wasn't I? Come in. You're very pretty. Very beautiful. I didn't expect so beautiful a girl.”

Billie smiled-as if she'd never heard any of this before. The hint of a blush rose along her high, elegant cheekbones. The sudden color sloped down her neck to the deep hollow of her throat.

“I'm sorry. I wasn't paying attention. It was Billie what? Your last name?”

“Just Billie,” she smiled again. All of her gestures were very natural.

For the first time he noticed her accent. She was British. Maybe even upper class from the clipped sound of her phrases.

Hudson gestured around his Spartan hotel room. “I know, it isn't exactly the Plaza. Not just yet… You see, I'm writing a play. I hope this qualifies as an artist's garret?”

For some reason Billie found herself slowly relaxing with this one. He was easy to be with, and he sounded halfway intelligent. The bit about writing a play, whether it was true or not, had come out naturally enough. She sat down tentatively, almost demurely, on the edge of the unmade day bed. As if she were a real date and they hadn't discussed exactly why she'd come up to his room.

Staring at her face, Hudson thought she was twenty-five at the most. She was extremely elegant, even for Vintage.

“I like the theater a great deal. When I first came to New York to live, every single Wednesday I went to a Broadway matinee,” she said. “I'd get these half-price tickets at Times Square. Sometimes at hotel desks. I saw Death of a Salesman with Dustin Hoffman, Torch Song, Cats, Glengarry. Everything I could get into.”

Very nonchalantly, as she talked about the theater, she unfastened the top button of her silk blouse, then the next.

“Sit down by me?” A very innocent-sounding question.

Hudson did, and she kissed his cheek lightly. Her perfume was hypnotic, an expensive scent that captivated him. It drifted luxuriously up into his face.

“You said I was beautiful. I'd like to repay the compliment-you're very handsome. I hope you write a good play.”

Still innocently, Billie unbuttoned the middle two buttons of his shirt and lightly slid her hands inside. The hair on his chest was downy soft, and his body was muscled and hard.

Her touch was light and warm. Then something extraordinary happened, something unusual. Hudson began to feel.

A severe warning bell went off deep inside.

Yet she was so natural and relaxed. The lightest touch of fingers. She was massaging him tenderly as she undressed. First the silk blouse delicately shushed off. Then the straight black skirt. At last she stood over him-only sheer dark stockings, garters, and high heels. There was a glistening droplet on her golden patch of hair. He felt as if he were sinking right through the mattress.

The inner warning alarm sounded again.

He watched her breathe-so unexpectedly beautiful-and she smiled when she realized what he was doing.

“You are beautiful.”

“You're beautiful.”

Her breasts were swelling in anticipation. Hudson touched them gently, exploring their perfect roundness, exploring each light pink aureole.

She slid on top of him, and her blond hair glowed in the light from the overhead lamp. She rocked back and forth, a peaceful, swaying motion. Everything seemed so easy. The warning signals quieted, like a siren fading in the distance.

He was breathing faster and faster. Her eyes shut, then opened, seemed to smile, shut again.

Faster and faster, faster and faster. He thought of dance rhythms.

He played with her as she gently rocked on top of him like a cresting sea wave. He manipulated her lightly with his hand as she moved to her own rhythm. Then her whole body stiffened, and she began to fall forward against his chest. She arched dramatically backward and jerked forward again. It was as if currents of electricity were passing through her long, slender body.

He was almost certain…

She was coming, her whole body shuddering.

This expensive escort from Vintage… this beautiful prostitute was having an orgasm.

Billie. Just Billie.

Warning signals were going off like a hundred piercing police sirens in his head. He didn't come. He never did.