by Larry Crane
“Don’t borrow trouble, baby. It’s always been good advice.”
“Well, if all hell breaks loose, I’ll come knocking, Virg, darling. You’ve got a wonderful shoulder to cry on.”
They had worked their way along the beach and back. Now, they turned and hurried to beat the sun through the kitchen door.
* * *
Monday, as Lou shuffled in the door of the office, Westover was already on the phone to give him a whopping order: all in municipal bonds out of the Blue Book. As over-the-counter trades where Pierson Browne’s Trading Department in New York could deal out of its own account using branch brokers like Lou as the conduit to individual investors, they carried whopping commissions. When you’re hot, you’re hot.
Rain started about noon. Other than the Westover call, business was dead. Lou was wasted from the gig and stood staring out the window, remembering the spectacular streaks of lightning that had lit up their night. But, with fatigue, Maggie’s tinge of worry began to settle like a familiar, damp cloth over his enthusiasm. It reminded him of Germany again, a summer night, before the baby—that is, before she told him there was going to be a baby—and they, just married, were as free as the clouds overhead, together on leave and exuberant.
They had spent the day driving along the Rhine and tramping around the castles and vineyards near Mainz. It was pure joy, but Mag had gotten tired before they even arrived at the town of Rudesheim. People of all kinds had crowded the streets: girls tripping by, giggling in German, French, or English; broad-bodied men, shouldering their way through the throng; housewives, jostling with overstuffed, mesh bags of bread and sausage. As Lou and Mag had passed beside the plaster and brick buildings, they could see into the windows that gaped open, splattering light over the streets.
They’d darted for a narrow alley to free themselves from the crowd. But around the corner, they were caught again and propelled into a pub where they were grateful to find a place to sit. A raucous band blared close by. Great pitchers of beer overflowed on the tables and onto the floor and the scent of beer drifted in the air between layers of smoke. Lou was dizzy with exhilaration, but Mag had looked ashen and hot, and a little panicky.
“I think...” she’d shouted.
“What?”
“I think we should go back to the hotel.”
“Back to Mainz?”
“Yes.”
“We just got here, Maggie.”
“I want to go back.”
“Relax! The night is just beginning!” he’d shouted, waving for more beer.
The faces from outside were all around them, poking through the windows, couples bounding by the table like a terrifying flock of geese. A platoon of dancers cavorted just below them. When he yelled for to her to come and dance, Mag resisted, and so he pulled her to her feet. He had to wait for an opportunity to jump into the swirling polka. He clamped her close to him. And when he pressed to kiss her, she fought him hard and broke loose and ran.
“Maggie, goddammit, what the hell’s wrong,” he’d kept shouting. But she couldn’t hear him. When he found her by the car, she was yanking on the door handle, gasping.
“You’re too rough. You... you hurt me. And I hate it. I hate this whole rotten place!” He couldn’t come up with anything to say. When he’d instinctively brought his hand up to comfort her, she flinched like she expected him to slap her.
* * *
Now, at the end of the day in Paramus, as he hunched over his stock charts, Lou felt Suzy, the secretary, at his side.
“There are a couple of men in the front looking for you,” she said.
Chapter Nine
The two men brought a smell of damp wool in with them. One was blond, the other dark; both were tall and hatless. Each wore a wrinkled raincoat, soaked through. The pant legs of their dark, business suits were stiff and round, and their black umbrellas created small puddles on the carpet beside Lou’s desk.
“Hello, I’m Willard Stanfield,” the dark one said, extending his hand, dripping water on the blotter. It was a smiling, weak, waggle of a handshake. “This is Paul Copeland. You’re Louis Christopher, of course. We work with Patricia Buck. If you can spare us a few minutes, we’d like to talk to you about your new account.”
He spoke in a formal and authoritative American English, but the sound of the “a” in Willard and the slight rolling of the “r” betrayed a faint Latin accent that this man, calling himself Stanfield, had worked to expunge from his speech. He was too polite, too formal. When he spoke, he spoke for them both, as if the other (Copeland was it?) had told him what to say. He bowed, unnerving and obsequious, as the words came out; angled himself so as to make it a three-way conversation, even though no words came from Copeland’s mouth.
At a brief nod from Copeland, Stanfield said, “If you’re just about finished for the day, Louis—do you prefer Lou?—perhaps we could go someplace where we can talk without interruption. Where no one can overhear what we’re saying?”
Copeland stood to the side, rolling his head as if to rid himself of a deep ache in his neck, darting his eyes about as if he expected a squad of undercover cops to swoop down at any moment, or that he’d spot a concealed camera somewhere.
“Do you have a particular place in mind?” Lou asked. “I mean we could go upstairs to the conference room, or maybe over to the coffee shop. We could get a drink, coffee, anything you like.”
Another nod from Copeland. “Maybe it would be best if we talked out in your car, Louis. This is, shall we say, sensitive. We wouldn’t want anyone, even unintentionally...” Stanfield said, looking to Copeland for approval.
“In the car? That sounds a little ominous. You guys KGB?”
“Well, actually, we left our cloaks at home today, Louis. Daggers too.” Stanfield and Copeland laughed tensely, looking all around at the people in the office. “No, it’s just that it’s something that shouldn’t get around in the branch. Certain people are concerned about any appearance of impropriety.”
“Certain people. Of course. Okay, guys. Wait until I get my coat and I’ll be right with you,” Lou said. He walked to the back of the office and up the stairs. From above, he looked at the two men through an office window. They were both young; at least fifteen years younger than he. Stanfield was tall, maybe six-foot-three. He was thin and sharp featured. Had a long nose and a pointed chin with a deep cleft. His teeth piled up toward the front where two beaver teeth rested on his bottom lip.
Copeland was so unremarkable as to seem to disappear into the surrounding air. His face was flat and without markings. He seemed to turn so as to avoid direct frontal viewing, as if he would just as soon melt into the carpet. He was blond and fair skinned with pale blue eyes behind squinting, blond eyelids. He was a head shorter than Stanfield, and fifty pounds heavier. He carried himself in a bobbing, jaunty way; almost like a welterweight. He suddenly stuck his finger in his ear to free it of rainwater.
Lou called Maggie from upstairs to say he’d be a little late.
The two men seemed in a hurry to leave the branch. They stood together without talking, shifting back and forth on the balls of their feet. As Lou approached, Copeland jabbed Stanfield in the side with his elbow. When Lou stopped at his desk to check for messages, he felt the knuckles of Copeland’s fist pushing against his spine and, for an instant, he pictured a pistol. They all walked quickly to the door and were out in the pouring rain.
Stanfield led the three of them directly to Lou’s Lexus, splashing through ankle-deep water. Copeland, following close behind, ticked the heel of Lou’s shoe with his foot. How did they know his car? He unlocked the doors with the clicker in his pocket.
Stanfield ducked into the front seat. Copeland disappeared into the shadows in the back. Lou walked around the front of the car to the driver’s side, impulsively scanning the lot for a police cruiser.
The rain came in gusts, beating against the roof and windshield. The parking lot was slowly emptying of cars as the shoppers and clerks headed
for home in the darkness. The windows began to fog almost as soon as they closed the doors. The headlights of the cars moving around the parking lot were diffused by the rain on the windshield.
“Westover’s been a pretty good account so far, wouldn’t you say, Louis?” Stanfield said.
So that’s what this is about. “It’s a great account. It would be greater if I knew who it really is,” said Lou.
“One or two more like it and you could call yourself well off.”
Stanfield lit a cigarette. He opened the window an inch and dropped the match. It stuck where he dropped it, and then slid down the wet window in a slow, rocking path. He took puffs as if from a straw and let the smoke waft from his nostrils. He left the window open a crack. In the back seat, Copeland lit up, too, and drew the smoke deep into his lungs in noisy, sucking pulls.
“Cigarette, Louis?” Stanfield asked. “No, you don’t smoke, do you? I’d wager Margaret appreciated that first paycheck. One could almost furnish a house with that kind of money. And that’s just the beginning.”
Margaret? How did they know Mag?
“We have plenty of things to do with the money,” Lou said. He cracked the window on his side. “I guess you never run out of things to spend money on.”
“What are you doing over in Glen Rock, Louis?”
“I’m living in Glen Rock,” he said.
“Assuming a continuation of the kind of cash flow you’re hauling these days, I could visualize you in Saddle River in one of those understated Georgian Colonials.”
“Maybe after I bag my second million. That gives me at least another couple of months.”
They all chuckled again at that.
Then it came from the back seat, “Let’s get to it, Christopher. Patty Buck wants something from you.”
“Ah, good,” Lou said. “Patricia wants something.”
Stanfield again, “Miz Buck would like you to undertake a special project for her, Louis.”
“I’ve been waiting for this. I’m ready. But she could’ve told me.”
“Whatever, Louis. Patricia’s thinking grand. She wants you to help create an illusion.”
Lou rested his elbow on the steering wheel and his chin in the palm of his hand. Rain pelted the windshield. He felt the pinch of apprehension just below his Adam’s apple.
“Actually, it’s more than just you, Louis. It’s a team project. You’re just one part of one team operating in this one part of the country.”
“Keep talking,” Lou said.
“Ms. Buck wants you to head up a project group that will operate in the metropolitan area. You’ll function independently of other teams doing similar things in other regions of the country. The overall impression will be one of mission continuity and cohesion.”
Stanfield stopped talking. He sat silently, looking at Lou, waiting.
“You’ll come out with it, eventually, I suppose,” Lou said.
“What we’ll do is, we’ll tell the woman you’re in.” It was Copeland again, a deep voice, out of the shadow in the back seat.
“Give me a hint,” Lou said, sliding his arm to the top of the seat and turning sideways to face the back. “Tell me the whole thing. You want me to sell something?”
Stanfield: “It’s a project that you’ve managed a dozen times in the past, something that should be well within your capabilities, Louis. We estimate it’ll involve a single weekend. In and out and it’s over. Of course, we’ll want you to keep your participation secret, totally—even from Margaret. It involves getting away from the house completely for two days.”
“So, how many guesses do I get?”
“No guessing. We’re going to lay it right on you,” Copeland said from the dark. “It’s military.”
Sudden fatigue seemed to settle on him from the air, compelling Lou to press his palms against his temples to hold it back. Then he felt as if a small boulder had materialized in his lap, pushing him deeper into his seat.
“Oh, I get it. Military,” Lou said, jerking his head to search Stanfield’s face for a smirk. He saw nothing in the dimness but the faint blotch of white teeth below the shadow of Stanfield’s nose. He saw nothing in the back seat.
“We want you to lead a small, paramilitary operation. In and out in two days.”
“Paramilitary,” Lou said wearily.
“You’ve heard of guerrilla warfare, Louis. Correct?” Stanfield chuckled through the beavers.
“You mean old, Vinegar Joe Christopher?” Lou said.
“That’s it, Louis. Right in your ballpark. You have twenty years of jungle boots and C-rations to fall back on.”
“Twenty-five.”
“Twenty-five years of camouflage and cannon fire.”
“My reputation precedes me.”
“How many times have you been handpicked for a dangerous mission, Louis?”
“You mean perilous?”
“Treacherous.”
“Maybe 100, 150 perilous, treacherous ones.”
“So what do you say to one more, old chap?”
“I say fuck you. Get out of the car.” The anger in his voice surprised even him.
Stanfield snorted and Lou heard Copeland snicker in the back, or was it a cough?
“Louis, I hear incredulity in your voice. I know how you must feel. We haven’t even told you what the operation is. Listen, what we want you to do is to cause a little disturbance that could be interpreted by the public in a certain way. It’s going to help out certain people. That’s all you have to know. This is a mission you’ve managed a hundred times in Grafenwehr, Nam, and other places. It’s simple. You’re in and out with minimal problems.”
“Oh, that’s much clearer. I’m gonna help out certain people. That’s all I need to know. How could I not want to help out certain people?”
“Let’s talk money. At this pace, over the year, you’re looking to book $250 net, easy. You know it, and we know it. I, for one, would not like to see you stop receiving your payments, Louis.”
The headlights from the last car leaving the parking lot swung in a wide arc that illuminated the brick wall of Filene’s Basement. The light swept over the hood of Lou’s car and glared through the opaqueness of the rain-drenched windshield. The car plowed off across the glistening blacktop, its taillights dripping a stream of red in a hundred, pocked puddles.
“Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars this year, and next year, and the next, ad infinitum. Two days, in and out, and no one’s hurt in any way. You’ve orchestrated operations like this so many times, you could do it in your sleep. You’ll be up against some drowsy guy in a tollbooth.”
“Hand to hand against a sleepy kid,” Lou said.
“This is big time, nationwide,” said Copeland from the back. “A sucker punch,” he said, rapping the window sharply with his knuckles.
“All over the place at once. People are going to go paranoia nuts, like in Nam when the Cong pulled the same thing, crawling out of the woodwork, raising hell all over the place at the same time,” said Stanfield.
“Another Tet Offensive. Swarm ’em,” Lou quipped.
“Yeah, and the memory’s still fresh. Patricia wants the illusion of a Tet-like strike and the psychological effect that it’ll have,” Stanfield said.
“VC corpses by the thousands littering the streets?”
“We all know that dead Cong were incidental. The intended message came through loud and clear: hey, five years of blood and guts, and we’re still here.” Stanfield and Copeland chuckled.
“Dead VC, incidental? Sure. Unless you’re one of them. That’s the message they got,” Lou muttered.
For a full two minutes—that seemed like an hour—there was absolute silence in the car. In the back seat, Copeland flicked his lighter and the darkness lit up as he touched the end of another cigarette. Lou heard Stanfield let out a long sigh.
“Uh, pal,” Copeland said. “You and Patty, I thought you liked the setup. Maybe I got it wrong.”
Lou didn
’t say anything. He felt a cold breeze ripple the hairs on the back of his neck and up behind his ear.
“You gotta know we’re going through with this thing whether you’re in on it or not. So what’s to keep us from dropping a little something here and there that, uh, implicates this stinking rich stock broker from Glen Rock, New Jersey? How you gonna get yourself off the meat hook? I can hear the detective: ‘You mean to tell me that all of a sudden this account starts calling you, giving you all these orders for nothing?’ You’re already signed and delivered, pal, from the first Westover call.”
“Louis, think positive,” crooned Stanfield. “When you complete the operation, you keep the account; and every year, from now on, you receive, shall we say, a liberal stipend. The operation is over in two days and you’re home free, forever. What more could you want?”
