That should have been there.

But wasn"t.

Hadn"t been for twenty-plus years.

You wan me suckee you good, GI?

Gil pushed away from the thin sheet-marble column and ran a shaky hand through thinning hair. Tried to force an even shakier smile to his lips, but found that particular action as impossible as trying to draw a long-forgotten gun.

To shoot a long-dead wh.o.r.e.

watching him He would have laughed out loud if he"d been able to stop panting. The reaction and the (fear) memories had undoubtedly been the direct result of the "182nd Point 5" reunion dinner he"d just suffered through.

And wondered, againa"for the hundredth time that evening, actuallya"why the h.e.l.l he"d suddenly felt obliged to sit through an overpriced meal and down watery scotch alongside men whom he shared nothing in common with except the number 182.5.

The exact middle of the summer of "69 draft choice.

If you didn"t count leap year.

Which Uncle Sam didn"t.

Why after all these years? was still playing like a broken record in his mind when the evening"s "Reopening of Old Wounds" had drifted away from firefights and cheap p.u.s.s.y and focused on the current administration"s brownnosing attempt to reestablish trade agreements with the Nam.

The boys of the "182nd Point 5 Club" thought that was a bad idea.

And Gil had kept quiet, sucking down three times his usual two-drink limit and making himself a promise he intended to keep this time: No more reunions with men incapable of putting the past behind them.

Like he"d done.

At least until tonight.

"So ya wanna suckee or not?"

Gil lowered his hand slowly, remembering the side arm at the last moment, and quickly grabbed the restaurant"s bra.s.s handrail instead.

still watching him "What?"

The vague female shape stepped away from the line of parked cars and started a slow, cautious advancea" high heels clicking against the sidewalk like bamboo chimes, her body moving beneath the minidress like a snake trying to shed its skin.

Gil enjoyed the show until she stepped into the light and tossed her head. A flash of bright blue (the color of a peac.o.c.k"s breast) stabbed him in the gut.

You wan me suckee you good, GI?

"What?"

The heart-shaped face he remembered (expected) melted under the light into a haggard scowl topped with a Raggedy Anne fright wig. Sighing, the hooker tossed the fringed blue scarf back over her shoulders, exposing tired-looking b.r.e.a.s.t.s that had been cinched into a black leather vest, and stared up at him. Ran a jaundiced tongue over corpse-pale lips as she rolled nearly colorless eyes.

You wan me suckee you good, GI?

Gil felt his backbone mold itself to the smooth marble sheeting.

"s.h.i.t, man," the hooker hissed at him, "you from outta town or sumthin"? You wanna b.l.o.w. .j.o.b or not?"

He couldn"t tell her agea"somewhere between twenty and death was as close as he could comea"but the streets had already done a number on her. Gil could almost smell the coppery sweet stench of decay rising from beneath the short skirt.

Could almost hear the skin on his b.a.l.l.s go snap crackle pop as they shriveled at the thought of her tongue and teeth closing over hisa"

"I"ll do it for twenty-five," she said, taking a step closer, running k.n.o.bby-fingered hands down the front of her thighs. "What"dya say?"

Gil shifted his weight, feeling the solid wall of protection at his back give way to a sweating chill as he focused on the bright sun-faded palms already dripping onto the tin-roofed plywood stalls where bird-legged children ran between the coils of barbed wire and a heart-shape-faced wh.o.r.e in a blue dress walked past a stinking, dilapidated bar called the San Francisco skyline towering overhead . . .

... as he tried not to breathe in air that suddenly seemed thick, heavy with the stench of urine and burning s.h.i.t and fish drifting in from the Bay . . .

... as he rushed down the polished marble stair, ducking at the last moment to avoid the outstretched claws. As he listened to another voice whispering seduc-tively in his ear.

youa"wana"mea"suea"keea"youa"gooda" Ga"I became Gil"s marching cadence as he crossed against the light and turned in to the deeper canyons of the Financial District.

He didn"t even stop at the opposite side of the street to hail a caba"something he never would have done (considering the five-block technical climb back to his apartment) if it hadn"t been for the booze . . . and the reopened wounds his "buddies" of the 182nd Point 5 had picked at all night.

"You remember those friggin" "bars" down on Plantation Road?"

"Man, oh man . . . my wiener never ate so good."

"s.h.i.t, yeaha"them B-girls were the best, man. You remember, Gil?"

I remember.

"You remember, Gil?"

"I remember."

"But ya gotta be careful, pal. . . "cause you never know which one could be workin" for ol" Charlie. Right. . . gotta watch their eyes, man."

"Right. Gotta watch their eyes," he whispered, and caught the reflection of his own eyes in the subdued, night-lit windows of the district"s "trendier" boutiques and storefront offices.

eyes watching G.o.d, he was getting old.

Getting? f.u.c.k, he was old. Despite the hand-tailored suits ("customized" to hang loose around the softness at his belt line and wide over his stooped shoulders) and weekly salon trims, Gil could see his father and grandfather where there had once been a hard-muscled, hard-a.s.sed boy who always thought he"d be that way.

Back when "getting old" meant surviving your tour of duty.

The good ol" days.

Gil made a sound in the back of his throat that might have been a laugh if it had been any other night and he hadn"t downed quite so many waterlogged whiskeys and smiled. Flipped his reflection the single-digit salute.

And momentarily forgot how to breathe.

you wan me suckee you good, GI?

The large poster dominated the travel agent"s window, its young Vietnamese modela"complete with straw "Ah so" hat and white silk ao dai pajamasa" holding a bouquet of jungle orchids: half-turned toward the camera. A shy smile on her lips. The pale green cast of her eyes a silent indictment to her racial impurity. Either Amerasian or Eurasian.

Gil was surprised the gooks had let her live, let alone become their country"s poster child.

She looked about the right age, probably no more than eighteen, GI. . . and she no do this much like other girls . . . I keep her special for you, GI. . . just eighteen GI.

twenty, and twenty years ago there was more than enough American DNA swimming in the ol" gene pool to produce a whole generation with s.h.i.t-green eyes.

Gil let his own eyes drop to the caption just below the half-caste"s tiny b.r.e.a.s.t.s: Come Back to VIETNAM.

Come back.

Come back.

Come back, GI... I no bite She was standing next to him in the gla.s.s, wearing the same bright blue ao dai she"d been wearing the day Gil killed her.

Watching him.

You wan me suckee you good, GI? she asked, her voice a whisper as she slowly lifted her hand to his shoulder. I be your numbah one girlfriend Vietnam.

Gil was shivering even before he felt the coldness of her hand through the thick layers of tailored wool. She was just as lovely as the last time he"d seen her.

And just as dead.

You wan me sucka"

"a"ee you good, GI?"

Gil tightened his grip on the limp rice-paper bag he was carrying and rolled his shoulders beneath the sweat-soaked uniform tee. Ignored the sweet-soft voice as he forced himself to take another step through the morning"s almost liquid heat.

When he got to the next stalla"a seller of plaster Buffies and other objets d"arta"Gil wiped the dripping skin below his boonie hat and cursed softly to himself. Seven-f.u.c.king-A.M. and he already felt like a used rubber . . . wrinkling into himself and leaking juice like a sieve.

"You wan me suckee you good, GI?"

Jesus, didn"t wh.o.r.es take ANY time off?

Gil quarter-turned again and thumped his boot-heels hard against Duong Cong-Ly"s rutted, monsoon-pitted asphalt; ignoring the m.u.f.fled squawks of a half dozen dusty chickens the same way he"d ignored the wh.o.r.e"s "come-on" line.

The first time.

Halfway around the plywood and hammered-tin stalls that made up Centertown"s "business district" and Gil could still feel the silent, angry stares collecting along his backbone like starving leeches.

Had been collecting there from the first moment he stepped foot in country.

He knew no amount of shoulder rolling would detach them.

That no amount of bug juice would keep them off him.

For long.

Gil didn"t like being stared at. Never had. But now it was worse. Now his life might be threatened by one of those stares.

Because you never knew.

Never knew when Charlie might be the one staring.

never knew He"d even heard about wh.o.r.es with gla.s.s up their s.n.a.t.c.hes just waiting for h.o.r.n.y GIs.

They were still watching. He could feel them.

Didn"t they know he was one of the GOOD GUYS? Didn"t they know he was there to try and save their f.u.c.king country for them? Why the f.u.c.k did they have to WATCH him all the time?

To keep himself from drawing the service "piece" on his hip and taking out a few of the WATCHERS (because you never knew when Charlie might be one of them), Gil ran a greasy hand over the back of his neck and took a deep breath . .. almost gagging on the combined stench of his fear sweat and Vietnam"s pungent ambience.

Something had died nearby. Either that, or the wind had shifted and was blowing from the direction of the nuc mam seller. A thin-legged boy pulled down his shorts and added to the overall olfactory effect.

Watching him. Watching Gil with hate-filled eyes.

The gun would have felt so good in his hand.

Rolling his shoulders, turning away from the (eyes) child, Gil opened the soggy bag and looked insidea" rea.s.suring himself that it was still there.

It was.

Although the humidity had already gotten to the plastic (unbroken) shrink-wrap covering the jacket, fogging over the full color photo, Gil could still make out some of the lettering: Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels.

Featuring their hit single: "Devil with a Blue Dress."

Gil sighed and nodded, carefully folded the bag closed and tucked it under his arm. Felt better knowing it was still there, even though it was the reason he was out wandering the marketplace; collecting hard-edged stares the way a t.u.r.d collects flies.

But that was okay, he reminded himself, because he had the record.

The night before he and seven of his barracks-mates had each pitched in twenty-five cents for the weekly "record run," then drew straws to see who the runner would be.

Gil made sure he lost.

Almost ten months in country and he hadn"t realized how much "Devil with a Blue Dress" had meant to him . . . back in the "World". . . when he still had a future that wasn"t measured in firefights and hostile stares.

The rest of the "record runners" would probably be p.i.s.sed when he got back with the cla.s.sic, but f.u.c.k "em, he sure as h.e.l.l wasn"t going to tell them the reason behind it. Couldn"t tell them that it was the song blaring on the radio of his dad"s Chevy the first and last time he"d had s.e.x.

Made love.

Screwed.

f.u.c.ked.

Gil hugged the record to his chest and found himself stopped in front of a fruit stall, staring at flat-topped green coconuts.

They were the only things in the display he could recognize.