"[♪♪♪]" "[♪♪♪]" "[PSYCHEDELIC ROCK MUSIC PLAYING OVER RADIO]" "[PEOPLE CHATTING]" "WOMAN:" "I got good legs, huh?" "You like me, GI, I know..." "So I gonna love you beaucoup." "You got money, honey?" "Because I got time." "Tell me what you like, GI." "You like it slow and easy?" "Oh." "Maybe you like it rough." "Huh?" "[GIGGLES]" "Come on." "Come on." "Tell me what you like." "Don't be shy." "[METAL CLICKS]" "[♪♪♪]" "No, GI." "No!" "No, GI!" "Aah!" "Ugh." "There's been some VC activity up by Banh Long and Ben Tre, so we'll make a sweep up there." "If we run into anything significant, well, we'll just call in arty." "Yeah." "Walk in the park." "Do I detect a note of cynicism in your voice, sergeant?" "You got that right, LT." "And I'll tell you something else." "They didn't do us any favors transferring that bunch of rednecks in with us either." "Ah, well, into every life a little rain must fall." "I think we can make a soldier out of Cassidy, though." "Robert E. Lee himself couldn't make a soldier outta that boy, LT, if you ask me." "That's why nobody asked you, sergeant." "You from Mississippi, ain't you, Johnson?" "Yeah, that's right." "Yeah, boy, you remind me of Mississippi." "One night, Daddy and some old boys, they're out driving along the lake, saw this old colored boy shuffling along..." "Hey, Cassidy, nobody wanna hear no more of your dumb cracker tales." "Things changed a lot around here since Martin Luther King got killed." "Yeah, you see, Daddy, he was a big man." "Do you know what Daddy did?" "Peeled off the boots and said, "Hey, boy, you fill these boots, we ain't gonna string you up."" "Ah, great." "The damn bridge is out." "Damn shame, what happened to that nigger boy." "You are over the line, man." "There weren't nobody could fill old big Jack's boots." "You son of a" "[GUNSHOTS]" "Exchange fire!" "Go, go, go, go, go!" "SOLDIER:" "Turner?" "Turner?" "SOLDIER:" "Open up." "Open up." "Cease fire!" "Cease fire!" "That was a lone gun." "He's probably headed for one of the villes by now." "Yeah." "Let's get after him." "LT, we got a man down in the truck, sir." "[♪♪♪]" "Scotty, let's get a dust-off in here for Turner." "SCOTTY:" "Yes, sir." "He's not gonna need one, LT." "This ain't even my war, man." "What the hell am I doin' here?" "You tell me, what the hell am I doin' here?" "Let's go, let's go." "Move up!" "Move up!" "Let's go." "I'll get me a gook here for a souvenir, man." "Payback time." "Shut up, Cassidy." "SOLDIER:" "Flank." "SOLDIER 2:" "Got it." "SOLDIER:" "Watch the people." "SOLDIER 2:" "Negative." "Monroe, you've got the flank." "Come on." "Don't bunch up on me now." "ANDERSON:" "Don't bunch up." "SOLDIER:" "You heard him." "SOLDIER 2:" "Pick it up." "SOLDIER 3:" "Back deep." "Ugh!" "Female." "Yeah." "What the hell we got here, boys?" "Hey!" "Now, I don't care what you've heard, boy." "We ain't baby-killers." "Purcell." "[♪♪♪]" "[CRIES]" "[WILD, FESTIVE ROCK MUSIC PLAYING]" "Happy birthday to me." "[COUGHS]" "So...exactly how old are you today, lieutenant?" "Somewhere between the age of consent and senility," "Miss Devlin." "Well, the age of consent would be appropriate, considering the present I was intending." "Woof." "[LAUGHS]" "ALEX:" "I hear that's one soldier who could use charisma lessons." "Yeah." "He's been nothing but trouble since the day he shipped in." "I heard he blew an assignment, you covered for him." "You took some heat from Major Darling for it, right?" "Let's just say I want Cassidy to have every chance he can to improve himself, and then let's change the subject." "Yeah, I was voted most bodacious lover by all the pretty ladies in Honolulu when I was there on R and R." "Oh, you number one lover, huh?" "Believe it, mama." "All night long." "[LAUGHS]" "Then you need to buy more drink." "More drinks." "Both of you GIs need to buy more drink." "No, wait." "Now, we're wise to your Saigon tea, pretend whiskey stuff." "First, you jack up the prices, then you try and get us drunk so your boys in the alley can try and roll us while we're puking our guts out." "No, no roll you." "Just love you to death, GI." "Oh, okay." "You can love me to death any old time you want, darling." "Matter of fact, what's wrong with right now?" "[GUFFAWS]" "Uh." "Wrong place, wrong time, Cassidy." "Our turf's already established here." "[SIGHS]" "You'd best learn to clear a path for me, boy, or you'll find your butt in a sling." "You call me boy one more time, I'm gonna hit you so hard, your mama gonna feel it." "[LAUGHS]" "Ugh!" "Oh!" "Hey!" "Oh!" "Ugh!" "Ooh!" "Johnson!" "Taylor!" "Now, knock it off!" "You save the fighting for Charlie." "You tell that to Taylor." "It's his beef, LT." "Cassidy, first I want you to turn around and get outta here, and then I want to see you in my quarters at 0600 tomorrow, you got it?" "Got it!" "Sir." "Sir!" "MAN:" "Now, what happened in that ville was pure hell." "You took a life." "A child became an orphan." "But some things are God's will." "Sergeant... you fired your weapon in self-defense." "You killed a sniper who had already killed one of your men." "No, sir." "I killed somebody who just happened to be that baby's mother." "Well, you shouldn't be carrying any guilt." "I'm not talking about guilt." "I'm talking about being fed up with this war." "I don't know." "I figure, uh, when I get my next stripe, maybe I ought to just get the hell on back to the world while I can still function." "Well, that may not necessarily be the answer." "I heard that." "I'll tell you, taking Sergeant Binion's body back home was no treat." "I got spit at in the airport." "What's really fun is to go in a restaurant and see a veteran come in, then watch him, uh, scramble to try to get a chair so he can have his back against the wall." "Say, maybe we could arrange to take the baby to Saigon, huh?" "Place him in an orphanage." "Well, sir, with all respect, now," "I'm not his daddy." "I just, uh" "Just wanna make sure the right thing is done." "Excuse me, ma'am." "Yeah?" "There was a Vietnamese baby brought in here yesterday." "Yes." "That's right." "Well, I was wondering how he's doing." "Better." "Better?" "Was there a problem?" "Well, dehydration, but he shouldn't be in any danger now." "He's right over there if you'd like to see him." "Yeah?" "Thanks." "[♪♪♪]" "[GURGLING]" "Oh, yeah, GI." "I like you." "Oh, yeah." "I like your style." "Gonna love you too much." "Number one." "[BELT BUCKLE CLINKS]" "Whatever you want, GI." "You look too tense." "Got to relax." "Let me love you right." "Hmm?" "Oh, yeah." "I gonna love you too much." "All the way, GI." "Love you all the way." "[SQUISH] Ah!" "Uh!" "Why?" "[SQUISH]" "Uh!" "No!" "Uh!" "Ah." "[PEOPLE CHATTING]" "Chris." "ALEX:" "Hi." "I'll be right back." "Hi." "Chris Pierson, Sergeant Zeke Anderson." "Ma'am." "Nice to meet you." "I'd love to take some pictures of the kids." "If that's okay." "Oh, sure." "Yeah." "Great." "May I?" "Well, now careful, now." "This is precious cargo." "Sergeant, I used to play a mean game of touch football with four brothers." "Believe me, I've got good hands." "Hi." "Looks to me like y'all are pretty much full up here." "GIs probably aren't making life any easier for you, are they?" "Well, I had a brother in the 173rd, so I don't blame our GIs for the baby explosion." "The same thing happened when the French were here." "That's right." "Oh, thank you." "[GURGLES]" "You know, I can't make excuses for our GIs." "But these kids come over here, they're 18, 19 years old, leave their families and their girlfriends behind." "They're lonely as hell." "They're just trying to fill in the emptiness." "The real shame is that these kids here have to suffer when they're caught up in the middle of all the craziness." "You know, most soldiers are uncomfortable if they're within a country mile of a baby." "Well, I got a little girl of my own." "Oh." "I don't know." "I've always liked being around kids." "I'll tell you what, you get one smile from one of these little critters, it can pick you up and keep you going the entire week." "Oh, sergeant." "I'm gonna be starting some classes at Tan Son Nhut, and the first course will be in American literature." "Maybe some of your men would like to attend." "Maybe you would." "Oh, no." "Thanks, but I don't think I can." "GIRL:" "Chrissy?" "Hi." "How are you today?" "Good." "[LAUGHS]" "It's so important that we realize how precious each human life is." "Well, if you teach that to this new generation, maybe there won't be any more killing." "Have you had to do a lot of killing, sergeant?" "I'm a soldier." "That's what I do." "[KETTLE WHISTLING]" "[KNOCKING ON DOOR]" "Come in." "Private Cassidy reporting as ordered, sir." "At ease, private." "You, uh" "[CHUCKLES]" "You asked to see me, lieutenant, so here I am." "This is our mutual problem, Cassidy." "I" " I'm sorry if I don't follow your point, lieutenant, but I kind of have this God-awful hangover." "A little fuzzy on things." "Well, that doesn't surprise me, Cassidy." "You made a jackass out of yourself last night." "Did you get in any more trouble before you left Saigon?" "Not that I can remember, sir." "But I kind of feel like I have a reason, seeing as how Turner got greased like that." "We were kind of tight." "I don't mind you having a couple of drinks, Cassidy." "I just don't want you getting blind." "More importantly, we gotta put a lid on this racial crap, right now, before somebody gets fragged." "Do you understand?" "Sure, LT." "I guess things like that are, uh, kind of your call anyways." "Ha-ha." "No, Cassidy!" "If it was my call, I would ship your sorry butt to the furthest outpost in the DMZ, and I would sleep like a baby if you never came back again." "You got me?" "Yes, sir." "Now, Cassidy, before I see you again," "I want you to think real hard about why I'm cutting you more slack than any soldier deserves." "I promised someone I'd do him a favor." "You hear me?" "Yes, sir." "Favor." "That's right, and that favor is turning you into a soldier." "Now, that doesn't thrill me..." "but I'm gonna do it whether you cooperate or not." "You got it?" "Yes, sir, I got that." "Good." "Dismissed." "Sergeant, Sergeant, pull over a minute here." "Something's going on at the Blue Parrot." "Oh, yeah." "That's CID business." "That car, lieutenant named Hughes drives that." "Really?" "You know what?" "I can get back from here." "Wait." "Wait." "Miss Devlin, please." "Now, this ain't the neighborhood for you to be doing your Brenda Starr impersonation." "Thanks for the ride." "Please." "I'm talking" "It's okay." "All right?" "Witness only saw the uniform." "Rank?" "No." "Skin color?" "Nothing." "The lights were out in the hall." "It was too dark to see any specifics." "At least, that's the story we're getting." "Excuse me." "You've got business here, lady?" "Alex Devlin, ANI wire service." "What happened?" "This bar girl was murdered last night." "How?" "Stabbed." "Actually, gutted is more like it." "The other girls who live here say she worked downstairs at the Blue Parrot." "Somebody said something about a witness." "Yes, an American GI was observed leaving the scene sometime after midnight by a witness." "Any identification of the soldier?" "What is your business here again, Miss Devlin?" "Look." "Two other girls were killed in the past month, another a week before that." "All were stabbed under similar circumstances:" "late at night in rooms over or near bars, just like this one, okay?" "Okay." "Here's the situation." "White Mice were handling it, but now that it looks like a GI was involved, it's CID jurisdiction." "[SIGHS]" "Girls were apparently killed in a sexual frenzy." "We've got a psychopath on our hands." "What kind of wounds?" "Very characteristic." "Not made by a K-Bar or bayonet or a cheap switchblade that would've broken on the bone." "I'll tell you one thing." "I'm gonna get this guy before he does it again." "[SIGHS]" "Miss Devlin?" "By chance... you know this girl?" "[♪♪♪]" "I've been to the Blue Parrot." "I may have seen her there." "No." "ALEX:" "Myron." "Myron, I need to talk to you." "Not now." "Major Darling's waiting to take his daily piece of my hide." "A bar girl was murdered in Saigon last night." "It's the same one Cassidy and Taylor had the fight over." "How do you know that?" "Because I saw them removing the body." "Now, a witness saw a GI coming out of the girl's room shortly after she was killed." "There's no identification." "But CID's looking to track any soldiers that were at the bar earlier." "Yeah, well, that's their job." "What's your point?" "The point is I've decided to tell them what I know, which will implicate Cassidy and Taylor, and everybody else is gonna be questioned that was there too." "Alex, when a girl gets killed, people get interrogated." "I'm late." "Myron." "I can't believe you're not concerned that one of your men might be a killer." "They're all killers, Alex." "That's what they're trained to do." "If I could change that, I would." "[FUN, FUNKY MUSIC PLAYING]" "Can't lose now." "And that is Motown." "[LAUGHS]" "Okay, night baseball." "Let's go, boys." "Night baseball is what it is." "You guys are gonna be playing in the dark until payday." "Nines are good." "Uh!" "Aces are no good." "Hoo hoo!" "The Brother Ace." "Another dollar for me." "SOLDIER:" "Dollar is in." "TAYLOR:" "Aces nowhere." "SOLDIER:" "You cheating..." "But seeing how as I'm high..." "[SIGHS]" "LT?" "I heard about tomorrow." "Yeah." "Command wants us to clear all those snipers off the Tay Ninh highway once and for all." "I'd like to get a hold of whatever they're smoking." "For Victor Charles, there is no once and for all." "Well, what would you suggest, sergeant?" "We call in arty and burn all the villages and all the friendlies in them?" "Well, I think we both know better than that now, don't we?" "You got something else for me?" "Yes, sir." "Cassidy." "The way the men are feeling, we're gonna have a mutiny on our hands if we don't do something about him." "I told you, we're going to make a soldier out of him." "Yes, sir." "I remember that conversation." "Look, I've got my reasons, Zeke, okay?" "Anything else?" "I talked with Alex Devlin." "She told me about the CID investigation in Saigon." "She said she's concerned about you." "Well, about the only thing Alex Devlin's worried about is her next headline and where it's coming from." "I don't think you believe that any more than I do." "But with all respect, sir, if that's what's bugging you, maybe you ought to get your head straight before we go out there tomorrow." "Okay." "I could suggest the same for you." "Did you get that baby delivered to the orphanage in good fashion?" "Delivered." "All right." "Well, you put it behind you, then." "It's a war." "It's nothing personal." "So you saw the girl in here a few hours before the murder, and Taylor and Cassidy had a fight over her?" "Mm-hmm." "Now, Taylor's a decent soldier." "He's a hustler, but, you know..." "The other guy, Cassidy, is another story." "Violent type?" "Well, it's Vietnam, lieutenant." "Violence is endemic to what's going on here." "This war has made life so cheap, we're in danger of breeding sociopaths." "Some of these GIs treat the girls badly, but..." "Hell, where do you fix the blame?" "Sex, drugs, booze..." "It's their only escape." "Sometimes they lose control when they spy anything female." "You know, you're the first GI who hasn't hit on me in the first five minutes." "Well, I thought about it, but I'm engaged." "Hmm?" "She's Boston blue-blood." "And I'm Baltimore blue-collar." "I mean, don't ask me how lucky I am, or I'll tell you for a couple of hours." "That's great." "You getting married?" "As soon as I roll off the plane." "I'm short now." "Be rotating in a couple of weeks." "This Cassidy, he transferred in from Chu Lai?" "Mm-hmm." "About five or six weeks ago." "A similar murder went down in Chu Lai a few months back." "I was there on temporary duty." "Really?" "Did she resemble the Saigon victims?" "You've done your homework." "Take a look at this." "The second victim." "But they're all interchangeable." "They were all pretty." "They all had long hair and the same general appearance and physical attributes." "You mind if I borrow this for my story?" "It's CID property." "Come on." "I'll copy it and return it promptly." "I don't know." "I promise." "Come on." "What could it hurt?" "Okay, as long as you don't tell my fiancée how easy I am." "Thanks." "[♪♪♪]" "SOLDIER:" "Go." "Go!" "Let's go." "Let's go to the left." "SOLDIER 2:" "Check your ammo." "Now, now!" "SOLDIER 3:" "Let's get locked, loaded!" "SOLDIER 2:" "Moving up!" "SOLDIER:" "Keep-- Keep it tight." "Tight." "SOLDIER:" "Watch out." "All right." "Take that other trail." "ANDERSON:" "Danny." "Let's fly." "Let's move." "We gotta check it out." "After you, boy." "Why'd I know you'd say that?" "I don't like the looks of this!" "Get them the hell out of here, boy." "Come on." "Didi mau!" "Didi mau!" "Spider hole." "Aah!" "[SHOUTING]" "[HOWLS]" "So I heard the VC you bagged had some NVA documents." "Yeah, I hope the little gook makes it just long enough to get interrogated." "Cassidy gutted him." "Gutted?" "For once, he did his job, backed up the soldier he was with." "He saved Taylor's butt." "Cassidy saved Taylor?" "How about it?" "What did he use, his bayonet?" "Knife." "What kind of knife?" "Well, I don't know." "You'd have to ask him." "MAN:" "Excuse us." "Coming through." "Just wrap this up a little bit tighter here." "All right." "Now try that." "So it might seem silly to be reading American literature in the middle of a war, especially books that you've probably all read in high school." "But what you're going through in Vietnam will make you experience these stories in a much richer way." "So..." "[DOOR OPENS]" "Sergeant." "Please join us." "I have some extra books up here." "Here you go." "And there's a chair in the second row." "No, I'll be more comfortable back there in the back." "Okay." "The back's fine." "I didn't think I'd see him here." "Me either." "So the first book that we're gonna be starting with is Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage." "Unless there are any questions, we can begin." "All right." "[CLEARS THROAT]" "Let's open to page one." "Cassidy!" "Yeah?" "I just want you to know you saved my bacon out there today and I appreciate it." "I saved my butt today, Taylor, not yours." "Got it?" "I got it." "What makes you think you so special?" "You wouldn't understand, man." "Yeah, well, try me." "You've been riding Johnson and me and the other brothers ever since you got here, and there ain't a blood in this outfit that don't see you coming." "Nothing personal, Taylor." "Yeah, well, think again." "Look, a brother's done taking that cracker trash you been dishing out." "And one day you're gonna say that word "nigger" one time too many." "Yeah, that's right." "And some blood is gonna take a razor to you." "And it ain't gonna be me, Cassidy." "Because whether you like it or not, I owe you." "And it's because I owe you I'm gonna tell you." "Be careful." "Yeah, about what?" "I just caught wind that CID is calling us in to interrogate us." "What the hell are you talking about, Taylor?" "There was a murder in Saigon is what I'm talking about." "And I don't know who or how, but somebody seems to think you or me had something to do with it." "And I ain't killed nothing but Charlie since I been here." "[BOOK PLUNKS]" "SOLDIER [WHISPERS]:" "Sergeant?" "Sergeant?" "You forgot your book." "Oh, look, tell you what, why don't you hang on to that?" "I won't be needing it." "Okay?" "Listen, if it's the baby you're worried about, he's gonna be fine." "No, no, look." "I know the baby's in good hands." "You know he's in good hands because you went to the orphanage to check on him." "What's it gonna hurt to try?" "Just take it with you and read a couple of chapters." "Once you get into it, you might really like it." "It's not a question of liking it." "I'm just not the best reader in the world." "Well, I invited you, but you could have said no." "Why did you come?" "I don't know." "Self-improvement." "Well, Alex told me that Lieutenant Goldman said he'd never seen a better soldier than you." "He said that?" "Yeah." "Well, it was nice of him to say that." "It's just that I don't know what good that's gonna do me when I get back to the world." "I mean, I pretty much scratched my head all the way through high school, and lately I've been wondering what opportunities are gonna be available for me." "Oh." "There are plenty of opportunities... if you're patient." "I mean, I can read." "Don't get me wrong." "I can read." "It's just long passages, you know, description," "I have trouble concentrating." "Well, I'd like to help you, if you'd let me." "Taylor, let's go." "MAN:" "What happened to you?" "Did you get shipped up to Long Binh?" "MAN 2:" "Now, what line is he on?" "[PEOPLE SPEAKING VIETNAMESE]" "This guy has caused chaos in the ranks since the first day he got here." "He's gonna take you down with him if you continue to protect him." "Alex, I don't care what the circumstances are." "I just want to make sure the guy gets a fair shake." "Myron, Cassidy is a poor excuse for a soldier." "He's a bigot and" " And now he's a murder suspect." "Okay!" "Look, I..." "I made someone a promise." "What kind of promise?" "Cassidy's father served in my father's command in Korea, and he was severely wounded in Pusan trying to defend his squad against a North Korean assault." "Okay, I understand the background, but you're still putting yourself way out on a limb for the son of someone who merely just served with your father." "All right, so when Cassidy gets transferred in from Chu Lai, his father writes to my father and says, you know, "I want you to pull some strings, see if you can get my son in his platoon."" "Well, maybe you should have told your father what you were facing." "There was no way for him to know the kind of guy that this guy was, so I accepted the challenge." "Why?" "To prove that you could make a soldier out of him?" "Or to prove something to your father?" "Alex, oy..." "My whole life, it has been, "Yes, sir." "No, sir."" "I" " I keep trying to prove my worth to a guy that wasn't even there when I was a kid." "[SCOFFS] If we're not close now, we'll probably never be close." "I don't know why I keep..." "trying to do the impossible." "I just don't know why." "[SOLDIERS CHATTING]" "[SIGHS]" "How'd you do?" "I answered their questions." "I tied on such a drunk that night," "I ain't got any idea where in the hell I was when that girl was killed." "[DOOR OPENS]" "How about you?" "I don't know anything about no murder." "I just told" "In there." "[♪♪♪]" "It's a Sykes Fairburn, lieutenant." "You're under arrest, Cassidy." "What is this?" "I was in the Peace Corps before Nam." "That's where I got my teaching degree, and, uh, I joined IVS when I heard that they needed voluntary teachers and community service workers." "Well, I'll be honest with you." "After what went down during Tet," "I wouldn't advise my worst enemy to be hanging in here." "You know the brother I mentioned with the 173rd?" "He went home to my mother in pieces after he and three of his buddies were mortared in Bien Hoa." "Another brother just enlisted, and the younger two plan to when they're old enough." "I wish I would have run into your people when I was home recently." "It seems like there are a lot more war protesters than supporters anymore." "WAITRESS:" "May I help you?" "I'll have an iced tea, please." "Uh, make that two." "Well, you've had some time to think about it." "What about digging into some work on that reading?" "What is this?" "Am I supposed to be your guinea pig, or what?" "No." "Just think about it as a project for the future." "You have thought about the future, haven't you?" "Yeah." "I've thought about it." "I had my eyes set on this fishing-guide job back in Idaho, where I'm from." "I mean, it wasn't the stuff that you hang dreams on, but it was a good job, a steady job, and I was good at it." "Thanks." "But, uh, I don't know." "I've been searching lately." "Well, is there anything that you really wanna do?" "I don't know." "See, when I was growing up," "I was pretty much raised by nuns." "And there was this, uh, mother superior in the school." "Uh, we called her Attila the Nun." "[LAUGHS]" "Every morning, just almost like a ritual, she'd find one reason or another to, like, rap us all on the knuckles with a ruler." "But we knew this old broad was gonna be there every day, and she was gonna pay attention to us." "We had food to eat." "We had a bed to sleep in." "We had a roof over our heads." "We had security." "But these kids here, like the kid out at that ville, some of these kids are starving to death." "And I swear to you, some of them are dying from lack of love and lack of basic human contact." "So are you saying that you wanna work with children when you get back?" "Well, I never thought of it like that." "Well, you just thought of it right now." "So interrogation cleared Taylor?" "Yeah, he was back from Saigon with his buddies at the time of the girl's murder." "He also appears to be clear at the time of the other killings." "Is Cassidy gonna be taken to Long Binh?" "We'll interrogate him more today and probably move him tomorrow, which is your basic good timing, at least from my standpoint." "I got my orders early." "Goin' home?" "Yeah." "I'm getting outta here feeling good about getting the job done." "What I'm nervous about is seeing my fiancée again." "Oh, you'll do fine, Hughes." "So, what about Cassidy's prosecution?" "Well, preliminary investigation should handle itself." "I'll fly back if I'm needed, but I think we can build a case." "Cassidy's knife is a Sykes Fairburn, he can't account for his whereabouts for two of the murders, and he's hazy about the others." "Was he in Chu Lai at the time of the first killings?" "Yeah, confirmed." "Your fiancée?" "Yeah." "Met her in college before I got my orders for this trip to this tropical paradise." "Jesus, God." "It's gonna be strange heading back on that bird to civilization." "Starting to count the days myself." "But they say you don't deny or admit you killed the girls." "I told you, Taylor." "I got a memory problem." "I drink, I blank out." "One thing I gotta know about that tale..." "Your daddy taking a rope to that brother in Mississippi." "Is it true?" "Taylor..." "I told you and Johnson that story to rattle your cage." "I don't expect you to believe me after all I done, but I'm sorry for it." "I don't have to be from the South, Cassidy, to know that things like that go on." "But where I come from, a man could get killed just for telling it." "Yeah, I know I got a loud mouth, Taylor." "But, man, mostly I got a loud mouth because I've been scared to death since first day my plane touched down." "I found out this weren't no John Wayne movie, man!" "This is for real!" "Taylor, I was raised to hate anything colored." "But I want you to know" "I hated my old man every time he told that story." "Man, I don't even know how to act around you black folk." "I tell you how you act, Cassidy." "You act like we're doing right now." "Like we're just two people, two human beings sitting here talking." "That's all we ever ask." "Treat us like human beings." "I been a lousy soldier, Taylor." "There ain't no doubt about that." "Why'd you do it, Cassidy?" "Why'd you kill those girls?" "I didn't kill the girl from the Blue Parrot, Taylor." "[♪♪♪]" "Man, I don't remember much about that night, but I know deep down inside I didn't do it." "Taylor, I didn't kill them, and I ain't got no way to prove it, man." "But I swear" "I did not kill those girls." "MAN:" "Yeah, right." "Take those galleys out right away." "Here's the original and the copy of the pic you wanted, Alex." "Oh, great." "You want me to airbrush that scratch, no problem." "What scratch?" "Negative scratch." "It was on the original." "[♪♪♪]" "Damn." "Thanks." "[CHEERFUL, UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING]" "Lieutenant, can we talk?" "What's so important?" "Well, I, uh, just checked with CID." "I found out you were leaving even sooner than expected." "Correct." "First thing in the morning." "We may have a problem." "No." "If there's a problem, it's yours, not mine." "The problem is with this photo you lent me." "Whatever it is, just return it to CID and discuss it with them." "I'm history, remember?" "Did you know this girl?" "No." "Where'd you get the picture?" "From her family." "After she was killed?" "That's right." "I don't think so." "No?" "This was taken with your own camera." "I don't think I'm following you." "There's a negative scratch on this photo." "There's an identical scratch on the picture of your fiancée that was in your office." "Listen." "Both pictures were taken with the same camera." "This scratch is like ballistics or fingerprints." "I also found your camera in the office." "So?" "Come on." "How'd you take a picture of one of the victims that you didn't know before she was killed?" "Where do you intend to take this, Miss Devlin?" "Where are you going with this?" "Just asking questions." "Just want to find out why." "The wrong questions, Miss Devlin." "You try and make one sound, and I'll slice you so quick you won't get it out of your throat." "You were about to find yourself another victim, weren't you?" "A bar girl?" "Going-away present?" "You get the need, and you fill the need." "Look." "They have all this evidence on you." "If you just turn yourself in, they'd be a lot easier on you." "I'm taking you outta here, so be cool..." "or it'll hurt." "Bad." "Now let's go, baby." "[QUIETLY] Just walk right here." "Keep your hands down." "Keep your hands down." "Put a smile on your face, okay?" "Keep smiling." "That's it." "Give me a nice, pretty smile, Miss Devlin." "Just keep smiling." "Okay." "All right?" "MAN:" "Lieutenant?" "If you don't mind accompanying us, sir, we have a few things we'd like to discuss with you." "About what?" "GOLDMAN:" "We searched your quarters, Hughes." "We found the photos of the women you killed." "You set me up." "I didn't set you up." "You set yourself up." "Come on, Hughes." "Let the lady go." "Make it easier on everybody." "[BREATHING HEAVILY]" "MAN:" "That's it, folks." "I thought I told you to wait." "I thought I could talk him into giving himself up." "I don't know." "Alex... stick with reporting." "I'm gonna forget the past, Cassidy." "Taylor here has told me that you wanted start all over again." "I think we can do that." "A second chance is all I'm askin', sir." "And I appreciate you standing by me like you did, both of you." "I realize you put your butt on the line for me." "Well, you just worry about keeping your act together, and I'll worry about the rest." "Let's get out of here." "Yes, sir." "ALEX:" "I showed a picture of Hughes to some of the girls in the bars along the strips." "Uh-huh." "They said that he was a frequent visitor but that he never used his real name or rank." "One of the girls told me that she was with him one night, and he got really rough with her, but that was it." "He let it go at that." "She's lucky to be alive to tell you about it." "I know." "He said the reason he killed all these women was because all Vietnamese prostitutes are filthy animals." "More casualties of war, I guess." "God, it must have been a hell of a compulsion." "I guess he just made a lot of promises." "So did I." "[SMOOCHING]" "Myron." "Hmm?" "You've paid your debt back to your father." "Why don't you just climb out from under him, huh?" "I already called him." "And?" "[LAUGHS]" "And I told him no more promises." "[DOOR OPENS]" "MAN:" "Sarge." "[♪♪♪]" "[♪♪♪]"