Something familiar .. . like the constant bulge straining against the front of his fatigue pants.

Both his family doctor and the 90th Repo"-Depot"s medic had warned him about "sticking his p.e.c.k.e.r where it don"t belong."

Gil shook his head when the fruit seller lifted one of the nuts and heard his dog tags jinglea"in three-part harmony. Two STANDARDS, dull tin gray, and one NONSTANDARD. Blood red.

If, however, he did "stick his p.e.c.k.e.r where it didn"t belong" and caught something "more aggressive than crotch rot," the NONSTANDARD tag would tell the medic in charge to avoid the rush and just hand him a body bag. Because he was gonna die.

Allergies to penicillin and most sulfa drugs did not a "happy soldier" make.

Especially when p.u.s.s.y came cheaper than a crew-cut coconut.

Especially when his "buddies" back at Tan Son Nhut would be keeping time to the Wheels" driving beat between the legs of some hooch maid while he, Corporal Gil "Can"t Get No Satisfaction" Thornton, humped the barracks" communal stereo system.

And watched.

"f.u.c.kin" s.h.i.t!" Gil snarled, waving aside the seller"s jabbering makee deal makee deal, and spun on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet. The lug soles of his boots made soft crushing sounds as he turned.

She was standing directly behind him; black-almond eyes smiling up at him.

watching him "You wan me suckee you good, GI?"

Gil felt the front of his pants shrink another size.

She was young and beautiful. Her black hair gleaming under the relentless sun. Her eyes clear and bright.

And watching him.

Gil"s fingers dug into the bag, striking plastic wrap.

"You wan me suckee you good, GI?" she asked again as if he hadn"t heard.

While she waited for his answer, she tossed a thick black braid over the shoulder of her blue ao dai. A bright blue ao dai. . . the "Devil with a Blue Dress" brought to life.

Halfway around the world from where they first met in the backseat of his dad"s car. But this time she wasn"t blond.

And this time what was between her legs could kill him as surely as a VC"s bullet.

Not as quickly.

Not as cleanly.

But just as dead.

One more grunt for Charlie"s body count.

One less grunt to watch.

"You have girlfriend Vietnam?" she asked when it became apparent Gil wasn"t going to answer.

Her skin, without the usual scabbed-over lesions and pustules he"d seen on some of the camp"s other "girlfriends," was stretched tightly over her heart-shaped skull; and Gil could see the sharp edge of one collarbone as she fingered the high silken collar.

In fifteen months he hadn"t seen one fat d.i.n.k wh.o.r.e.

h.e.l.l, he hadn"t seen one fat d.i.n.k anything.

"I be your girlfriend Vietnam," she said, and gave one case closed, end of discussion nod.

The Regulation Hustle: as STANDARD as the two tags hanging around his neck; and as obvious as the NONSTANDARD tag.

Gil shook his head, usually all the discouragement they needed, and checked the Seiko he"d picked up his first week in country. Frowned. The dubbing/screw "em if you can "party" wouldn"t start until the evening"s torrential rainstorm, around seven.

That left him twelve full hours before he had to become Gil the Geeka"master deejay and part-time voyeur.

watching Twelve hours to kill.

Gil could feel her eyes on him. Leeches. But hungrier than the rest.

"I be your girlfriend Vietnam." Stepping closer, she laced one blue-draped arm though his and began pulling him away from the still-babbling fruit seller. "You buy me tea, then I suckee you good."

Gil put a stranglehold on the bag containing the imaginary devil while he followed the real one, the one wearing the blue dress, through Centertown"s semicircular heart toward the "bars" on Plantation Road.

And kept following her even as they began pa.s.sing the plywood-and-pressed-beer-can establishments. When an even thinner wh.o.r.e in a bright red miniskirt and UCLA T-shirt darted out of the San Francisco and made a s.n.a.t.c.h at Gil"s hat, the Blue Devil at his side made her own s.n.a.t.c.h and came back with a tiny fist full of greasy black hair.

"I know beddah place," the Blue Devil said, ignoring the screeching, scalped wh.o.r.e behind them. "More beddah this place, for sure. No worry. We go."

Gil knew the "place" wasn"t any "beddah" than any of the other prefab bars they were pa.s.sing, but he wenta"following after her like a dog after a b.i.t.c.h, listening to her jabber away in a fast-forward version of pidgin English Vietnamese and trying to negotiate cobblestones thick with liquified human waste.

"You see," she said, turning to look into his eyes as she stopped and began pulling him through a doorway hung with blue and crystal plastic beads. "Much beddah place. You see."

you see But he hadn"t. Didn"t see the door until the beads clicker-clacked behind him. And by then he was too late.

The verbal horseshoe ambush caught him from all sides as floor-to-ceiling curtains were pulled aside, bamboo rings chattering, and the tiny "outer" room was suddenly filled with smiling, ao dai-clad wh.o.r.es.

But his was the only one wearing blue, Gil noticed. He had the only blue devil.

Four pair of dark eyes locked onto his as lips smiled and heads nodded. Gil felt his b.a.l.l.s pucker up into his belly. Felt their stares latch on to his flesh and start feeding.

felt Charlie watching When the mammasan in black pajamas shuffled out from behind a painted bamboo screen, his little Blue Devil raced forward, arms outstretched, jibbering like a monkey.

One of the curtains fluttered in her wake, exposing the cramped interior. An American GI, his sweat-slick Afro pressing into the filigreed back of a bamboo papasan chair, eyes rolling white, groaned while a half-naked woman kneeled between his spread legs, her shining black head nodding slowly.

Gil could still see their images, in reverse colora" the man white, the woman"s silken pants dull greena" superimposed on the curtain as it fell back into place.

could still see.

It wasn"t much different than the (few) parties he had attended his last year in high school. . . back when free love was, and Vietnam was just something you heard your parents talk about in hushed tones and Canada was still just a plane ticket away.

Back when he thought he"d live forever.

Gil looked down at the soggy bundle in his hand. One plastic-sheathed corner had worked its way through the rice paper. Beads of condensation, like sweat, gathered and disappeared beneath the matted paper. He could almost feel the LP getting softer in his hands. If he didn"t get back to base and start transferring Mitch Ryder to ca.s.sette tapes, he might lose the "Devil" for another G.o.d-knows-how-long.

Except that there wasn"t any real danger of that happening. Not now. Not really. Not in real time.

Gil looked up as the living Devil rushed back toward him, the ancient mammasan in tow. Smiling, nodding, watching "This be numbah one GI, Ba," the girl said as she laid a surprisingly cool hand against Gil"s chest. He shivered under its pressure. "I be his girlfriend Vietnam."

The old woman nodded her spa.r.s.ely covered head and smiled. Worn, betel-stained teeth gleamed at Gil in the murky half-light.

"You like, you like," she hissed at him, "you see, she numbah one suckee girl. How old you, GI? How old you?"

"What?" Was there an AGE requirement? "Nineteen. And a half."

The mammasan hooked a gnarled finger under the wh.o.r.e"s chin and lifted the perfectly heart-shaped face.

"She eighteen, GI. . . an" half, like you, GI. She no do this so much like other girls. I keep her special for you, GI. I keep her clean. Just for you, GI."

And it"s not even my birthday.

"An" she virgin . . . just like all girls here. She suckee you good, GI, but no f.u.c.kee. She virgin."

That must have been a major problem, Gil thought, considering that every woman he"d met in Nam wasa"by her own admissions or those of her pimpa"a virgin. Gil wondered if Uncle Sam knew he was waging a war against immaculately conceived VC.

Still nodding, the mammasan grabbed Gil"s arm just above the elbow and began leading {dragging) him toward one of the closed curtains. The exposed corner of the record b.u.mped against the dog tags hanging at his throat. Rattling them. Reminding him.

The mammasan heard the noise and turned without stopping, fingered the bright red one and smiled.

"Pretty, pretty . . . you like, for sure. Virgin girl know how to make GI plenty happy."

Gil felt the blue-dressed "virgin" brush past him and push the curtain open. Another bamboo chair, identical to the one he"d seen holding the black grunt, sat in the middle of the tiny room. Although room was too big a word for the s.p.a.ce he was looking at.

There was just enough room for the chair and a woman kneeling in front. Watching.

Gil took a deep breath and watched the girl bend down and fluff the thin pillow in front of the chair. As she straightened, she began slipping the tiny covered b.u.t.tons on her shirt through the silken loops. In less than a minute she shrugged out of the knee-length top and draped it over the fanned back of the chair. Her tiny, rose-nippled b.r.e.a.s.t.s trembled with the motion . . . begging for his tongue ... his fingers . . . his . . .

"A. . . virgin?" Gil whispered without benefit of spit. Every drop of moisture in his body, except for that oozing out through his pores, was currently filling the Full Military Erection jutting out the front of his pants.

"Sure she virgin," the old woman growled, "what you think? She some G.o.dd.a.m.ned bar girl? She virgin . . . like all others virgin."

"Why?" Gil heard himself ask.

"Must eat," mammasan said, "and war not last fo"eber. When war end I sell real virgins for beaucoup bucks to good family. Make plenty money. She suckee only, no open legs ... no f.u.c.kee. She virgin."

Gil suddenly felt like he was back in high school, about to go out on his last {first time) date; standing with his hands clasped over the pathetic throbbing in his jeans while he listened to the girl"s father explain the facts of life (everlasting) to hima"that his daughter was a virgin and he expected for her to come home in the same condition.

Which she hadn"t.

Neither of them had.

Gil pulled his arm out of the old woman"s grasp and laced both over the record.

"So how much are virgins going for these days?" he asked.

Twin smiles beamed at him.

"Five dollah American."

"Fivea" "

For that amount he could probably buy Ho Chin Minh"s daughter. Or a water buffalo. And still get change back.

Gil shifted the record to one side and shook his head, waving away the offer with his free hand. "Too beaucoup much. I"ll give you. . ." Pause. "... twenty-five piastres. That"s more than most bar girls get."

The mammasan"s black eyes disappeared beneath wrinkled flaps of skin as she puckered up and deposited a wad of cocoa brown phlegm an inch from the toe of Gil"s right boot.

"You wan spend twenty-five p, you go get G.o.dd.a.m.ned bar girl. This numbah one virgin girl give you good suckee, no disease. No nothing bad. She be worth five dollah American. Worth more, for sure."

Gil shook his head in time with the throbbing in his groin {please, Daddy? Please?). Five dollars American could buy a whole h.e.l.l of a lot of things more important than a quick b.l.o.w. .j.o.b . ..

. . . but for the life of him, he couldn"t think of any at the moment.

Grumbling under his breath to let the mammasan think her lie about the "virgin wh.o.r.e" had caught yet another overs.e.xed grunt, Gil reached into his back pocket and pulled out the thick wad of MPCs. Kept on grumbling while he peeled off the military scrip. Stopped when he reached five and held them out.

The old woman spit again.

"No wan Mickey Mouse money . . . that not good for nothing." She held out a scarred palm and slapped it with the fingers of her other hand. "Five dollah American. Real money."

"It"s worth it, man," a husky voice said.

Gil turned to watch the black grunt, chest glistening with sweat beneath his web gear, arm tossed casually over the bamboo curtain rod less than a foot above his flattened Afro. His eyes were half-closed beneath chocolate brown lids, thick lips hanging open in a loose smile.

He looked more stoned than f.u.c.ked over.

"Five dollars worth?" Gil asked.

"f.u.c.kin"-A, man." Tipping forward at the waist, the grunt planted a sloppy, openmouthed kiss on his wh.o.r.e"s puffy lips. "An" I was even in Vung Tau. s.h.i.t, these ladies could suck the eye out of a needle. d.a.m.n!"

"Five dollars."

The black grunt shot Gil a thumb"s-up, then staggered to and out the beaded doorway. The flat rattling sound continued as Gil flipped back the pay certificates to the real stuff. He, like every other grunt who"d pa.s.sed the Turtle Test, and lived to see his dark OD fatigues fade, always kept at least a cool hundred in U.S. currency.

For emergencies.

like this one.

"She"d better be worth this," Gil snarled, taking a relatively crisp five-dollar bill and dangling it before the mammasan"s jaundiced eyes like a baited hook. Her stares were more like grubs than leeches. "If she"s not, there"s going to be beaucoup h.e.l.l to pay. You understand?"

"Yes, yes, understand good. She berry, berry good, GI, you see. If no think so, you can beat. Beat, just no f.u.c.k. She virgin, worth more than five dollah Ameri-can when war finished."

Gil could almost feel the steam rising as she pulled the bill from his fingers.