by David Rich
“The next day, they fly back to Los Angeles and Simpson asks Dan up to his office to talk business. Simpson intends to make the kind of deal on Dan’s land that he made on this property, one where he could call in the loan and take over the title. Simpson explains that he knows Dan is hard up for cash. Dan hears him out patiently and expresses his delight that Simpson is interested in the New Mexico property. ‘You can have it,’ Dan says. ‘The price is two hundred thousand dollars…and the former convent property.’ He had never mentioned this place before. Simpson doesn’t understand. Dan repeats the offer, keeps the charming smile shining in spite of Simpson’s growing tension. Then Dan reaches into his briefcase and extracts an envelope, which he pushes across the desk. Dan keeps his eyes on Simpson as he opens the envelope and pulls out the contents: photos of Simpson naked with the naked prostitutes. ‘It’s real simple,’ Dan tells him. ‘Gwen is worth close to two hundred million. You have about a million in the convent property. New Mexico could be worth a billion someday. If you make the deal, the worst you come out with is Gwen. If you don’t make the deal, you own some buildings in the woods near Ojai. By the way, I called Gwen earlier. She’s meeting us here in about an hour.’ Dan keeps quiet for a little while to let Simpson see the One True Way. Then, to close the deal, Dan lowers the amount Simpson would have to pay him to one hundred thousand. How much did he bring back to you?”
“Ten thousand.”
“The rest were legitimate expenses. Everyone was happy.”
The lama thanked me a few times while he chewed it over, enjoying all the subtle flavors he had been craving for so long.
We had circled back toward the buildings. The lama led me into his office, a small cedarwood room with saffron-colored cushions on the floor in one corner and a desk and chair opposite. Behind the desk, a tall bookcase was filled with hardcover volumes about prayers and holiness. One shelf was devoted to Christianity and another to Judaism. Buddha supervised it all from the middle of a credenza which ran along under the window. The lama invited me to sit on a cushion. He unlocked a desk drawer, pulled out one of those wooden boxes that are a puzzle to open, and he opened it in a couple of easy moves.
He laid ten thousand dollars, crisp ones, in a packet on the desk.
“Is this what you’ve come for?”
My turn to freeze. He brought it around the desk with him and tossed it on the floor in front of me. He sat down facing me.
“Dan left that and a lot more in the house about seven years ago. He’s only been back three times since and he never touched the money.”
“You checked.”
“It’s easy for an alcoholic to give up liquor if there is none for a thousand miles. The challenge is in keeping your temptation close at hand. As I’m sure you have learned, facing one’s weakness develops one’s strength. It’s hidden where you used to hide. I think Dan knew that I had found the money. I think it pleased him to test me in this way.”
Dan the Great. Dan the Legend. Dan the Zen Master. I got up and told the lama to keep the packet of bills. “Payback for the money Dan didn’t replenish.”
“What are you going to do with it? The rest…”
“I have to give it back.”
“Who does it belong to?”
“It’s complicated. I have to figure that out.”
“If you have to leave it here in the meantime, it’s safe.”
He didn’t want it for himself, but he didn’t want to let it go, either.
The monks and novices lined up to give me their hands-together bow. I checked with the lama and he understood and shook his head: don’t mention Dan’s death. Two monks carefully opened the gates and I drove up to the farmhouse.
The body bag was in the root cellar behind a cabinet and a wheelbarrow and four old tires. It was heavier than I expected. I paused to imagine myself living down here for days, as Dan claimed I did. I could believe it.
The money had been safe there for seven years. The lama had explained himself honestly. I had to consider leaving it. But two things had changed: he knew Dan was dead, and he knew I would be taking it away soon enough. He might decide those were divine signs that the time had come to make his move. And more likely, he might decide his connection to Dan was so close that Dan would want him to have it, had always intended for him to have it. I loaded the money into the trunk of Scott’s car.
26.
I was carrying ten thousand dollars to be used for bribes, or to grease the wheels for Captain Ballard when we met up in Torkham. That money felt as heavy as the stuffed body bag I had just found. Ballard’s death should have meant the mission had ended since my role was to report to him. But Junior’s smug face haunted me. All I could report is that he had tea in the courtyard while Ballard was murdered. I wanted more. Ballard had been intent on playing out his fantasy to the end. I was not finishing this for him.
I spent about eight hours over the next few days with Nawaz. We prayed together and I told him about my village, slowly bringing up our difficulties in defending ourselves.
“You deserve the right to defend yourselves,” he said. “But sometimes rights do not matter without money to accompany them.”
“I have some money with me. I’m only looking for someone who can be trusted.”
“My cousin might know someone who can find weapons.”
He was asking what weapons I wanted. I had given this issue a lot of thought. Three trucks in the caravan were carrying M2 .50 caliber machine guns, a fancy weapon. It was heavy, more than forty pounds with the tripod. And it required belted ammunition, which was also heavy. Because I would need help transporting them, I did not want them.
“Those machine guns that we brought from Karachi are very powerful and accurate,” I said.
“And reliable,” Nawaz said.
“Yes. Solid. Excellent for defense, for defending a fort. Moving them can be difficult if you want to move quickly.”
“They are heavy,” he said.
“But .50 caliber is good,” I said. Nawaz listened patiently while I discussed the relative merits of various weapons and their usefulness for my situation. “The M107 .50 caliber sniper rifle, if your friend could find those…”
Nawaz shrugged. “Very expensive. But he might be able to obtain them.”
The Marines train you to use the weapons and clean them, but they never mention the black market cost. At DIA, we had not discussed further funds for me. I was caught off guard for a moment and worried that it showed on my face: the long, long list of lousy deeds I had contemplated did not include selling my weapon to the enemy. I was surprised by the omission. But Nawaz must have assumed I was already bargaining. He said he thought he could bargain it down to eight thousand dollars per weapon. When he saw that I was not prepared to enter that territory, he changed the subject to the quality of the food in Kabul and soon got up to excuse himself. I stopped him. “Let’s make sure we want to go forward before I bring all the money. I’ll buy two of those rifles for eight thousand dollars.”
Nawaz flashed anger at the challenge. I wanted that. “I don’t have time to waste if people cannot pay.”
“I told you what I would pay for two. If your cousin can deliver, I will buy twenty.” He hesitated.
“Come,” he said. And we went to meet cousin Abed in a house nearby. Abed was the ANA lieutenant I had seen with Junior and the next day with Nawaz after they had murdered Ballard. He was young, early twenties, small and clean-shaven. His eyes were light. He greeted us and dismissed the men he had been meeting with. After an hour, we started talking money. We settled on $9,500 for two, plus $84,000 for the additional eighteen rifles to be delivered. I paid him $4,750 on the spot. Nawaz and Abed walked me out. They said they would contact me soon. As I walked away, Abed spoke loudly, without yelling: “Watch out. Duck!” In English. I winced, but they couldn’t see my face and I kept walking.
The next morning, Nawaz and Abed picked me up in an old Ford. Abed was driving and wearing his uniform. It’
s easy to understand why the Germans covet Paris; it’s beautiful. It’s difficult to understand why the Brits, the Russians, and the Americans have coveted a country where Jalalabad is one of the nicer-looking cities. The road from Torkham to Jalalabad traces the Kabul River, and as we neared the town, thick splotches of green appeared in the gray-brown desert. We passed cornfields and groves of olive trees. We did not talk much.
Abed parked the car in town. He walked to the line of tuk-tuks and instructed us to get in. Abed sat next to the driver, facing Nawaz and me. Abed told the driver, “The American base.”
Abed showed his papers and talked to the guards and his story was good enough to get us thoroughly searched a few times. We only had to wait half an hour to get inside, passing most others who knew they were in for a long day. We sat in a mess for civilian workers, American and Afghan. Abed knew a lot of men from both groups. Hellos and nods. I was sipping soup when the star of the show swept in along with a young lieutenant named Nance. They sat at a table across from me. Junior was in full attaboy mode, slapping backs and bumping fists. I stared right at him. If he was going to make me, I wanted to know and the base was the best place for that to happen. I could surrender and never have to see Nawaz and Abed again. But I could read Junior and he did not see through me. He broke the gaze first, turning away with a sneer of superiority, which is a bad habit when you’re staring your enemy in the eye. Soon he and his companion were gone, and Abed with them.
They took with them my last chance for escape, though I spent the next few minutes lying to myself, pretending I would just hand over their names and be done with all this. But I knew the truth: I had fallen through a fissure in the earth into the Land of the Louses; I would not escape without a fight. No one at DIA was going to believe me, and I would not believe any of them.
“Let’s go,” I said to Nawaz. I got up and didn’t wait for him. Maybe it was posturing in front of Americans instead of Afghans that made me antsy. Maybe it was that no one suspected me. Suddenly I just wanted it to be over. The weeks of posing and now being on a base with other Americans sickened me. I walked quickly out of the mess, down a corridor, and out into a courtyard. Nawaz caught up with me. “What is wrong with you? Abed will be coming back to look for us.”
“I don’t like to be left alone in there with them. I could feel them staring at me.”
“We’ll be done here soon. Come back.”
I shook my head, but before I could start away, Junior and Abed were coming toward us. Abed was not happy to see us outside. I brushed past him. Outside the gates, I turned on him.
“Don’t ever leave me alone with them. I don’t know you well enough for that.” Abed was conciliatory. My sudden change of heart could not alter the course. The scent of money and betrayal was too compelling for them to give up. The deal had been struck. All was well. We were moving forward.
The next night, Abed and Nawaz delivered two of the rifles and I handed over the rest of the payment. I promised to return with the remaining cash within a week.
27.
After I left Dan and the blonde at the houseboat, I wandered toward California, stealing cars, riding the bus, hitchhiking with no intention. The future looked flat and I pulled down my sails because I was not ready to skid off the edge of the world. Officially I was not yet a runaway. Dan wouldn’t be looking for me for quite a while and school was out, but I was sleeping in strangers’ parked cars and work was intermittent. I drifted up from San Diego to Los Angeles. My Spanish helped, but most employers weren’t fooled and didn’t have faith that I would do the work as diligently as a native speaker. I was passing a clothing store on Melrose when I thought I saw someone who looked familiar in the window. I stepped back and stared. The guy was a raggedy mess, skinny and dirty and lost. I was staring into a mirror. Some kids along the road had mentioned a refuge for runaways in the mountains. I hustled up bus fare.
I was waiting outside the bakery in Big Bear, deciding if I could stand being in there with the smells but without the taste. Loretta walked out. She was in her thirties, thin and tough. She shook slightly. Multiple sclerosis had begun to work on her, but it was not much of a factor in her life.
The negotiations were quick. She wouldn’t tell anyone anything and I wouldn’t, either, and she would feed me until I was ready to leave and I would help her rebuild the place. She could kick me out whenever it pleased her. No trial. Loretta would not inquire about my past but would listen if I wanted. She did not want to know about any crimes or warrants.
Loretta was the anti-Dan. She could lie, cheat, and steal as well as he could, almost as well, but she did it to help others, her stray dogs, as she called us. Her charm was in her lack of charm. She had taken over an abandoned campsite with ten small cabins in Fawnskin, a village on the north side of the lake. Private donors, some were churches, and state money funded the refuge. If anyone tried to interfere, even visit, Loretta would drop everything to deter them. Loretta believed the best way to get people to grow up was to give them freedom. All scrutiny was censorship.
She fed me and I worked. In the months I was there, twelve runaways came through. Eight were girls. Some only stayed a few nights. Loretta threw two out for stealing from stores in the village a second time. When the police inquired, Loretta told them the shopkeeper had tried to get the girls to pose nude. I was older than some of the runaways and became Loretta’s assistant. She even let me cook.
Dennis Shelton showed up looking not at all ragged. A big guy, bigger than me, with broad shoulders, handsome and strong, he claimed to be sixteen, but I thought he was older. On his second night, he disappeared with Becky, a girl who had been there for two weeks. Becky was fourteen. She came back in tears but would not say much. The impression she gave was that she did not volunteer for whatever went on between them. The next day she slipped away. Loretta spoke with Dennis. She wasn’t reporting any of the details, but he stayed. Ten unpleasant days later came the repeat, this time with Amanda. She told the story in tears. Loretta kicked Dennis out. He threatened her. I was eavesdropping. When he pushed her, I stepped in. That was the worst beating I had taken up to that point. He capped it off by clocking me with a frying pan.
But Dennis did not leave the area. He was camping out on a ridge above the lake and not far from a spot the kids went for Sunday picnics. Loretta warned everyone, but she stuck to her complete freedom policy: do what you want, pay the consequences. Dennis lured Amanda away from the group two Sundays later and raped her. No doubt this time. I took a large carving knife and set out for his campsite.
He had chosen a good spot. The climb was steep and tough. He saw me coming long before I reached the top, even though I came up the back way, the difficult way. I could hear Dan suggesting something more subtle, but I was in no mood to listen. At the very top, a promontory jutted out to the right of the path I was taking. Dennis stood there taunting me, “Hey, it’s Mr. Frying Pan Man,” while the sweat leaked into my eyes and my muscles burned.
And then he went flying past me like Superman, but with a shocked look on his face like his powers had just deserted him. The first rock he hit was about thirty feet below me. After that, he was a sack of meat. I scrambled up the rest of the way and lifted myself onto the promontory. Through the trees, I caught a glimpse of Loretta moving steadily down the other side of the mountain.
The police decided Dennis fell. They came around the refuge cautiously, reluctant to deal with Loretta. Was Dennis violent? His past showed tendencies in that direction. Had anyone come around looking for him? Loretta told them no one came and they could go. Relatives claimed the body. Loretta and I never spoke about what happened, though I stayed a long time at the refuge and even longer in Big Bear.
I knew the body bag of money would be safe with Loretta, and if I died, she would use it for something worthwhile.
She wasn’t at the bakery this time, so I went over to the refuge. We hugged and kissed and she said, “They were following you the other day. Did you bring th
em here?”
“I’ve lost them for the time being.” She looked at Scott’s car. “Borrowed,” I said. “I’m glad to see you. And I’m glad to see the place.” The place did not look good. The cabins needed paint and repairs, and weeds had overgrown two of the paths. She had only eight kids there. The MS symptoms were stronger. Loretta used a cane. I had forgotten how little she was, wiry-thin and short. In memory, she was my size. Her nose and chin were sharp and her eyes bright so she always reminded me of a bird, and that seemed exaggerated now. She made a pasta dinner, no meat, for the kids. They cleaned up and drifted out, all but one boy who kept staring at me. “He’s okay, Kevin. Not the cops.” Kevin shrugged and went out. Loretta and I ate alone.
“The kids are the same. They’re great. The only thing wrong with them is they don’t know they could own the world.”
“You might mention it,” I said.
“Just sound like a liar to them. Encouragement starts to sound like a taunt after you’ve been hit enough.” I ached realizing how much I missed her. “The state is cutting us off,” she said. “The churches won’t contribute if we’re not a state-sanctioned entity. I told some of the private donors to come through, but I seem to have lost a step. The Mormon church in Arrowhead wants to take over. I don’t want to give the kids a place to run away from.”
I told her about Afghanistan and she wanted me to speak to her in Dari and Pashto and Arabic, so I did a little showing off.
