Dog Soldiers Read Free

he was compressing himself into the ovenlike space of the little Citroen, the rain broke.
    “ Nguyen Thong, ” he told the driver.
    The monsoon battered them as they drove in the direc tion of Tansonhut; the rain darkened the ocher walls of the peeling villas and glistened on the bolls of barbed wire along the curbs. The Arvin sentries in front of the politi cians ’ houses ducked into their tarpaulin shelters.
    It was a drive of about fifteen minutes to Nguyen Thong, and by the time they pulled up to the end of the alley where Charmian lived, the p otholes were filled to overflow ing.
    Blinded by rain, Converse waded through the ruts until he stood struggling with the latch on Charmian ’ s gate. When he was inside he saw her sitting on the verandah watching him. The bleached white jellaba she wore, with her straight blond hair hanging back over the cowl, made her look like a figure of ceremony, as though she were there to be sacrificed or baptized. He was glad to see her smiling. When he came onto the porch, she stood up from her wicker chair and kissed him on the cheek. She had come from the shower; her body smelled of scented Chi nese soap.
    “ Hi, ” Converse said. “ The man been here? ”
    “ Sure enough, ” she said. She led him into the enormous room where she slept and which she had filled with Buddhas and temple hangings and brass animals bought in Phnom Penh. Her house was half of a villa which had been
    owned by a French brewer in colonial days. She was always finding old family photographs and novena cards in odd corners of the place.
    “ The man been, ” she said. She lit a joss stick, waved it about and set it down in an ashtray. They could hear her washing lady singing along with the radio in the wash house across the back garden.
    “ You ’ re high, ” Converse said.
    “ Just had a little hash with Tho. Want some? ”
    Converse shook his head.
    “ Weird time to get high. ”
    “ John, ” Charmian said, “ you ’ re the world ’ s most fright ened man. I don ’ t know how you live with yourself. ”
    She had walked to a metal cabinet against one wall and was kneeling down to open a combination lock on the bot tom drawer. When the drawer was open she took out a large square package wrapped in newspaper and held it out for him. The newspaper in which it was wrapped was the liberal Catholic one, identifi able by the strips of blank col umn which it carried to chafe the censors.
    “ How ’ s this for terrifying? ”
    She set it down on a desk beside the smoldering joss stick and folded back the newspaper. There were two snow-white cotton ditty bags inside with their tie strings done in dainty bows. Each was lined with several layers of black plastic U.S. Government burn bag and the plastic sealed with masking tape. Charmian peeled away the tape to show Converse that the bags were filled with heroin.
    “ Look at it down there, ” she said, “ burning with an evil glow. ”
    Converse looked at the heroin.
    “ It ’ s all caked. ”
    “ So what? It ’ s the dampness. ”
    He gently put his finger into the powder and worked a tiny amount onto the nail. “ Now let ’ s see if it ’ s really shit, ” he said, sniffing at it.
    She watched him amused. “ Don ’ t think you won ’ t get off on that. This is nearly pure scag. Can you imagine? ”
    She was standing on tiptoe with her hands tucked into the folds of her white jellaba. Converse rubbed his nose and looked at her.
    “ I hope you ’ re not doing this crap. ”
    “ My opiate, ” Charmian said, “ is opium. But I ’ ve been known to take a little Sunday sniff now and then same as anybody. Same as anybody. Same as you. ”
    “ Not me, ” Converse said. “ No more Sunday sniffs. ”
    It seemed to him that he wa s able to feel a faint cold eas ing down from his sinuses, cooling the fever, numbing his fear. He sat down on a cushion and wiped the sweat from his eyes.
    “ Scag isn ’ t me, ” Charmian said.
    Charmian ’ s