Rules of the Road

by Lucian K. Truscott

  “What does that have to do with me, sir?”

  “The only difference between you and them is the fact that you’ve come directly to me and asked me permission to pull off the impossible but necessary. Sam, the impossible but necessary has to be pulled off every hour of every day in this man’s army. It’s the nature of the beast. They don’t give us enough money, enough men, enough materiel to accomplish the mission they also load onto our shoulders. So what are we left with? We’re left with the likes of mess sergeants who know how to secure extra chickens when the men are hungry. We’re left with supply sergeants who know where the surplus sleeping bags are buried when we lose a couple. We’re left with motor sergeants who can manufacture tools and parts if necessary, when command maintenance inspection time comes around. And we’re left with majors, like you if we’re lucky, who have the pluck and the initiative, when given an impossible task, to secure the necessary implements for its completion.”

  “Sir, I … I …”

  “I’ve thought about what I said to you out on the obstacle course, Sam. It was crap. Everything is political, Sam. How much money we’re paid. What budget we’re given. What mission we’re assigned. The color of our goddamned uniforms, that’s political. You’re a fool—no, check that. I’m a fool to have tried to tell you any different. And I’m a fool to have warned you away from something you’ve got to do. You want to videotape those sons of bitches in the dark in the middle of the night up there in Illinois, Major? Sit right where you are.”

  The colonel picked up the phone and ordered the supply officer, into the office. He told him to requisition the necessary camera, lens, and other equipment and take his personal vehicle and pick it up immediately at post supply. Within an hour, Sam loaded the camera, tripod, recorder, and the case containing the image-enhancing lens into the back of the Porsche and headed north. It was six o’clock. He’d be home by ten.

  JOHNNY GEE, MRS. Butterfield, and Betsy were sitting on the front porch in the dark when Sam drove up the hill to the farmhouse. He parked the car and cut the lights. He sat for a moment leaning his head against the steering wheel before he got out.

  The car door opened and he looked up to find Betsy.

  “You look exhausted, Sam. Come on inside. We saved you some dinner.”

  His mother was already at the stove by the time he hit the front door. Johnny Gee handed him a cold beer.

  “What happened, Sam? Did you get what you needed?” asked Betsy, once he was seated at the kitchen table.

  “First, I need to know what Johnny found out.”

  “Man, Sheila gave me some trouble, but she made the call.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I think we got a meetin’ with Harlan Greene, but there’s still a little problem.”

  “What’s that?”

  “He wants Sheila there. He said, she’s makin’ the connection, she gotta be there. Only thing is, she won’t do it.”

  “How did you leave it?”

  “She gave me Harlan’s number at home. She said we can call him, or she’ll call him and relay instructions, but no way is she goin’ to any meetin’ with Harlan Greene and the likes of us. The other thing is, he’ll only meet one on one with you, and like I said, Sheila’s gotta be there.”

  “That’s okay. We’ll figure something out.”

  “What about you, Sam?” asked his mother.

  “I got everything we need. All we’ve got to do is set up the meeting, and we’ll get the IBI what they want. There’s only one other detail to get straight. Johnny, I need you to call Moon and see if he can get down here by tomorrow afternoon. If you need to give him directions, Betsy will help you out.”

  “I’ll call him right now,” said Johnny Gee. He and Betsy left the kitchen for the living room.

  “Hey, Ma. You remember the old quarry, over on the other side of Delafield? In the woods? It’s still deserted, isn’t it?”

  “Sure, Sam. Why?”

  “That’s where we’re going to set up the meeting with Harlan Greene. I’m going up there to scout it.”

  “After you eat, Major Butterfield,” said his mother, shoving a full plate of stroganoff in front of him. He dug in voraciously. Just then, Johnny Gee and Betsy appeared in the kitchen door. Johnny Gee signaled “all’s well.”

  “Moon will be here tomorrow at four,” he said.

  “How is he getting here?” asked Sam.

  “Drivin’ his Mercedes, of course,” said Johnny Gee with a wide grin.

  “Good. We’re going to need him.”

  “You got everything, Sam?” asked Betsy, sitting next to him at the table.

  “I got it all. One of the video techs gave me a demonstration in a darkened room before I left. You won’t believe what this stuff will do. When they cut the lights, you can’t see your hand in front of your face. You turn on the camera, and the monitor shows the room as if it’s daylight. We’re going to set it up when I’m finished. You know that old quarry, up past Delafield?”

  “I think we went there one afternoon years ago and shot tin cans with your .22. Is that the place?”

  “That’s it. We’re going to set the meeting there and film every moment of it. That ought to give your IBI boys something to work on.”

  “If you get Harlan Greene there, it will.”

  “We’ve got the last tape,” said Sam, finishing his supper. “He doesn’t have much of a choice. I’m going to tell him if he wants it, that’s where it’s going to be.”

  “I hope you’re not underestimating him, Sam. He’s been at the game a long, long, time.”

  “Betsy, you’ve learned a lot over the past ten years you’ve spent in political campaigns. I’ve learned a lot in the army. One thing I learned along the way is that you can never underestimate the ability of the powerful to delude themselves about how much power they actually have. I’m banking

  on Harlan Greene being just that sort of man. Everything I’ve learned about him tells me he is. Besides, that’s all I’ve got to go on. There ain’t no more, Betsy. This is my best shot.”

  A few minutes later, with Sam and Betsy in the front seats and Johnny Gee wedged into the back, they headed down a series of gravel roads west of the farm. Almost by instinct, Sam found the road that led up the hill to the quarry. He followed the contours of the hill, then took a left on a road that was rutted and narrow and hadn’t been graded in years. At the top of the hill the road forked, and they went left through the woods, around a ridge. Then the woods opened up, and they drove through a narrow gap between a pile of gravel and a brush-covered dirt mound. They were in the quarry. They got out of the car and stood in the shadow of its cliffs.

  It was a big quarry, maybe two hundred yards wide and a half-mile long. Its sides rose three hundred feet above the trees. Over on the right there were several metal temporary buildings that were long out of use, their sides corroded and roofs collapsed. There wasn’t anything else. Just a big open stadiumlike arena with a rocky floor and granite sides. It was stark and gray and oddly beautiful in the soft moonlight, like the inside of a cathedral that was missing its roof.

  “This is some spot,” said Johnny Gee. “What made you think of it?”

  “Had to be someplace out in the open, and it had to be somewhere he’s never been. We want him off guard and confused about where he is and what’s going on.” Sam pointed to the walls of the quarry. “This place will be black as pitch at one in the morning tomorrow. There’s a moon right now, but by one it’ll be below the lip of the quarry.”

  “There’s only one road in here,” said Johnny Gee. “What if he comes with somebody else, and they block the fuckin’ exit? What if they leave a couple of cars at the bottom of the hill?”

  “I’ve already thought about that,” said Sam. “I don’t think they’ll try to block us up here in the quarry. They don’t know there’s only one entrance and exit.”

  “What about the tape? Are we gonna have it with us?”

  “We’ll have it al
l right.”

  “Don’t you think that’s taking a chance, Sam?” asked Betsy.

  “Sure we’ll be taking a chance. But if this thing doesn’t work, having that surveillance tape in our possession won’t do us any good. You already said the IBI guy told you the tape is no good without corroborating evidence. This is the only chance we’ve got to hang it on Harlan Greene. If this doesn’t work, he gets away free and clear, and Spicer died for nothing.”

  “This whole thing is about your friend Spicer, isn’t it?” asked Betsy.

  “They killed him because he helped me out, Betsy.”

  “Okay, Sam, I understand. What next?”

  “I’m going to take the car and retrace these dirt roads and make sure there’s no other way in here,” Sam said. “Maybe there’s some way we can buy ourselves a little extra insurance. Come on, Betsy. You want to go with me?”

  “Sure.”

  “And you’re gonna leave me here by myself?” asked Johnny Gee, lighting a cigarette, cupping his hands against the wind. “No way.”

  They climbed in the Porsche and headed out of the quarry. Sam drove through the woods around the ridge to the intersection where the rutted dirt road ran down the hill. He continued straight, following a narrow, graded trail. The trail followed a ridge line, dipped to ford a creek, then ran in a zigzag pattern uphill for a mile. At the top of the hill there was another intersection. The right fork looked like it headed back downhill to the road they came in on.

  Sam turned left. The trail went downhill for a half mile, passing through a meadow. Then it reentered the woods and became a well-graded firebreak. He followed the firebreak for two miles. It dead-ended at a T-intersection with a blacktop county road. He turned right. The blacktop wandered out of the woods through some marginal farmland and into a small town they had passed through earlier. He turned left at the town’s blinking red light, and ten minutes later arrived at the turn for the quarry. He continued straight on the blacktop, turned left up the rutted road, left again at the top and drove straight into the quarry. They’d come full circle.

  “Did you think about the entrance? It’s pretty narrow, man,” said Johnny Gee as they passed into the quarry.

  “Yeah, I had a look from both sides. I can make it over that little hill covered with bushes. See it?”

  “I don’t see him comin’ in here with an army,” said Johnny Gee.

  “Maybe,” said Sam. “But we can’t take the chance they’ll play fair. This is the way I’ve got it figured. I’m going to be standing in the middle of the quarry waiting for him. Betsy, you’ll be over here on the far side of this shed, so you can see the whole quarry and the entrance. Johnny, you’ll be in the car between these two sheds, with the camera set up next to you.” He pointed out a narrow alley between two of the metal buildings.

  “As dark as it will be, they’ll never see the car back here. If they come in with several cars, Betsy, you run behind the shed and get in the car with Johnny. I’ll make it to the car, and we’ll at least stand a chance of beating it out of here.”

  “Pretty impressive,” Johnny Gee said.

  “What do you mean by that crack?”

  “I’m not makin’ a crack. I’m sayin’ your plan’s got some juice. They musta taught you some good shit in the army.”

  “It’s not military tactics. It’s just logic. You take a situation, and you figure out everything that can go wrong, and you try to subtract out the negatives. You subtract out as many as you can, and only then are you making the best of the situation for yourself. It’s, ah, just instinct.”

  “I don’t know about your instincts, Sam, but I think you’ve got it covered,” said Betsy. She reached over and kissed him on the cheek.

  “We’ll get here early and check things out. The meeting will be at one, but we’ll be here at midnight. If they send somebody early, we’re out of here. If not, we go through with it.”

  “Sounds good to me,” said Johnny Gee.

  “Yeah? Well, I’m glad you all approve. Let’s go.”

  SAM FELT A tap on his shoulder and jerked around. He checked his watch. Three-fifteen. He was napping in his boyhood bedroom upstairs.

  “Moon’s here,” said Johnny Gee. “Wait ’till you see what he brung with him.”

  Sam sat up in bed and glanced out the window. A gray Mercedes sedan was parked next to the Porsche. He rubbed his eyes and stood up and followed Johnny Gee downstairs. He paused in the kitchen door. Moon was standing across the room, facing the door, arms folded across his chest, glowering intently at a man seated across the kitchen table from him. He looked up as Sam entered the room.

  “Major, how you makin’ out?” Moon asked.

  “You’ve met everyone, Moon? Betsy? My mother?”

  “Sure thing, man. Somebody here you ain’t met.” Moon pointed at the man across the table. “Stand up when my man comes in the room, Frankie.” The man stood up. “Turn around.” The man turned around. He was a tall man wearing a beige polyester jumpsuit with contrasting stitching. Sam looked at him uncomprehendingly, and then it came to him.

  It was Frankie Stillman.

  “Johnny told me yesterday you all seen my friend Frankie on that videotape you got,” said Moon, motioning Stillman to sit down.

  He did.

  “Me and Frankie go back a ways, don’t we, Frankie?”

  Stillman nodded desultorily.

  “Frankie and some of his goons done busted up a thing I was involved in a few years back, didn’t you, Frankie?”

  Stillman nodded.

  “What was that, Moon?” asked Sam.

  “I was involved in a community thing up in Chicago back in the mid-seventies, tryin’ to get a couple ’a construction unions to open up their membership to blacks. The unions didn’t think that was such a good idea, so we picketed their work sites downtown. The unions called Frankie and his boys in, and between them and the cops, they broke up our pickets. Then one night, what happens? A bomb goes off at the storefront headquarters we had down on Western Avenue, and one of my friends, cat by name of Rufus Johnson, he’s killed in the bombin’, and they never caught them who was responsible, did they, Frankie?”

  Stillman shook his head.

  “And me? I got busted couple ’a days later when they find a couple ’a bags of smack I never seen before hidden in the trunk of my car. They ended up droppin’ the charges against me, but that stopped us picketin’ the job sites, and it took a federal court to get their unions to loosen up. Am I right, Frankie?”

  Stillman nodded.

  “So I figured to myself when Johnny told me yesterday about Frankie bein’ the star of his own little picture show, and all the trouble you been havin’, I figured I’d look Frankie up after all these years, and see what he knows about this shit. And you know what, Major? I visit him at his house, and we sit down and have us a bottle of wine and talk things over, discussin’ old times together, and Frankie, he decides it would be a real good idea to drive on down here with me and tell you what he knows. Didn’t you, Frankie?”

  Stillman looked up from studying his fingernails and shrugged his shoulders.

  “What you want to be knowin’, Major?” asked Moon.

  Sam looked around. His mother was at the stove, making a pot of coffee. Betsy and Johnny Gee were standing by the bay window. He sat down at the table across from Frankie Stillman and motioned for Moon to sit next to him.

  “Mr. Stillman, let’s start with who the surveillance tapes actually belong to,” said Sam.

  Stillman studied the fingernails of one hand and leveled his gaze at Sam.

  “I don’t think you know what you’re getting into,” he said.

  “Oh, I think I do,” Sam replied.

  “Frankie …” Moon shook a forefinger at the tall man.

  “They belong to Midwest Waste Products,” he said.

  “And who made the decision to carry out this surveillance?”

  “Midwest knew that Evacusystems was working a big dea
l to build a facility down in Rock County, and they knew Harlan Greene was running interference for them. They decided they would throw a wrench in Evacusystems plans. They’d lost two battles over waste sites to Evacusystems over the past ten years, one over in Ohio and one in Pennsylvania.”

  “And?”

  “They didn’t want to lose another one. They figured either they’d ruin Evacusystems chances, or they’d come up with the site themselves. Either way, they couldn’t fail. All they had to do was box in Harlan, and they had it, because Harlan, he just wants the money. He don’t care one way or the other. He sets up the legislature, they vote his way, the facility goes in, he don’t care what name is on it.”

  “How did you get involved?”

  “There are some unions I’ve done some work for, and they’ve got some pension funds in Midwest Waste stock. They had a heavy financial interest in Midwest getting the facility. I’ve worked with Harlan over the years on this and that. I got asked to lend a hand, you might say.”

  “Who did the actual surveillance?”

  “Some firm out of New York. Pros. Industrial spying types. They’re for hire.”

  “And then?”

  “Then that fucking Howie Radian figured out what was going on, and he had one of his brother’s local cops bust the surveillance van when it was on its way from Springfield headed down south, and they grabbed all the tapes that had been made up until that point, and that queered the whole deal.”

  “And he was trying to sell them to Harlan Greene.”

  “Stupid bastard.”

  “What happened to your friend Howie Radian, Johnny?”

  Johnny Gee shrugged. “I haven’t heard from him in, I don’t know how long.”

  “And what happened to the waste facility?” asked Sam.

  “The initial votes went through, then Harlan bottled up the enabling vote in committee until he could get his hands on all the tapes. He wanted the insurance. He didn’t want the votes going through, and Midwest stepping in somehow and queering the deal at the last minute. He wouldn’t put through the final vote until he got the last tape.”