by J. B. Turner
His mind flashed back to their first date. It was imprinted on his mind. He was home for two weeks’ leave and Angie had suggested they meet up as a foursome for a drink at McSorley’s Old Ale House, a spit and sawdust dive in the East Village. Elisabeth talked fast about everything under the sun from running the New York Marathon to fighting off a mugger in Central Park with pepper spray to her expensive education at the Chapin School. He’d surprised himself by liking her immediately. They just clicked. He had never entertained the thought of settling down until he saw her. She was beautiful, neurotic, open, relaxed in his company and, he noticed, quick at self-deprecation. She was from a different world. She talked of Cubism and modern art. He hadn’t had a clue what that was all about. But there was an immediate connection.
He’d listened to her go into minute detail about the distinction between tax avoidance and tax evasion. They’d drunk warm beer in half-filled mugs and ate a cheese platter with raw onion and hot mustard. When she’d asked him about his work, he didn’t tell her about Delta, but said he worked overseas a lot for the government. She hadn’t pressed him further. He’d liked that, but guessed that Angie might have filled her in on the details. Then he’d talked of Rockland and how it was a great town these days. He’d told her about new art galleries popping up almost overnight and how it was changing the image of his hometown. He’d talked of the calming nature of the sea, the smell of the fresh fish that had just been landed and of the crowded Main Street, thronged by visitors in the summer months. He’d told her that when he smelled the sea, he knew he was home. And that he was safe. She’d listened intently. She’d said she always wanted to live by the sea; work was in Manhattan, but she could see herself giving it all up for a less stressed life.
The possibilities seemed endless.
He’d felt like a different person. The following day they’d met up again and walked in the park. Within a few months, and quite out of character after returning from the Gulf, he’d found himself proposing to her at the Crystal Room at the Tavern on the Green overlooking Central Park. The following year, 1999, they’d got married. The wedding reception had been at the Plaza on August 14, 1999, a blazing hot day. Twenty Delta operators wearing impeccable grey morning suits turned up and sat in the corner of the main ballroom, guzzling beer and laughing uproariously as the band played Carpenters covers. Elisabeth’s family, blue bloods who gave large donations to the Met and the Museum of Modern Art, had looked aghast; although Beth seemed to enjoy it more than her husband. The highlight of the evening had been an inebriated Leggett attempting to mimic the moonwalk of Michael Jackson as the band played Billie Jean, before collapsing in a heap, leaving the Delta crew in stitches.
The sound of thrash metal from Leggett’s bar snapped him out of his reverie for a few moments. The tiredness was starting to swamp him. He popped a couple of Dexedrine.
Reznick closed his eyes and his mind flashed back to 9/11. The news footage of the collapsing towers. The smoke. The dust cloud. The twisted metal. The mayhem.
The world of Reznick and Leggett were inextricably linked that fateful day.
Elisabeth and Angie were both tax attorneys and worked in the same law firm in Tower One of the Twin Towers and both perished on 9/11. Leggett’s sister was one of the jumpers, trapped by the flames, jumping alone from the eighty-ninth floor to her death. The downward spiral of his old friend Leggett had begun on that day.
They both had the same coping strategy: they cut themselves off from the outside world. They found solace in their own ways. The first thing Reznick did was ask Beth to look after Lauren. He couldn’t cope with looking after a baby. There was no body to bury and he wasn’t sleeping. And he’d wanted Lauren to be safe in Beth’s Manhattan townhouse as he wasn’t able to cope, consumed by anger and grief. He couldn’t provide the stable family home she needed. He’d retreated back to the solitude of his home outside Rockland. He sat on the beach where he’d sat with Elisabeth and Lauren for hours at a time. The memories haunted him. Plagued him. He would sometimes climb down onto the rocky shoreline when it got dark, and listen to the waves crashing onto the beach. But then he was engulfed by a black mood and screamed in a burning rage until his lungs nearly burst.
It was like it would never end. He drank too much and he didn’t see a soul for months. He didn’t want to.
Then one day, out of the blue, he’d called Leggett. They’d met up in New York and they’d hugged and they’d cried and they’d talked about their losses.
It had been clear that Leggett was drinking insane amounts. He knocked back two bottles of Scotch a day, interspersed with numerous beers. But it didn’t end there. By the start of 2002, Leggett had begun to self-harm, cutting his wrists and arms, until he was hospitalised. Eventually he seemed to have sorted himself out and got back with Delta, but by 2004, he had had enough, and retired to Florida.
The raucous laughter from the bar snapped Reznick back to the present. He stared across at Leggett’s bar. Standing outside in the fetid Florida air, the kids were wearing black, smoking cigarettes, drinking from bottles of beer, arms draped around some burlesque bar girls.
The night air was warm and sticky. He checked his rearview mirror and side mirrors, but he didn’t detect any tails or cops. He was running a risk with a stolen car with South Carolina plates. He decided he would take that risk. But his major concern just now was that he couldn’t take Luntz into the bar. That would be asking for trouble.
He weighed up his options and realised he didn’t have any. He decided to leave the car where it was as he was only going to be gone for a couple of minutes. He shut the window and stepped out into the sultry night. Pressing the car’s central locking fob, he walked up to the entrance.
A tattooed skinny guy with tousled blond hair wearing a black T-shirt stepped forward and smiled, partially blocking his way. He was holding a cigarette in one hand, a bottle of Bud in the other. “Sorry my friend,” he said. “We’re closed.”
“I’ll bear that in mind, son,” Reznick said, as he brushed right past him and headed inside to the cool of the bar.
A crazy old hippie was belting out some punked-up blues standards on an old guitar, as stoned college kids lounged around on sofas, drinking beer and laughing loud.
Reznick walked up to the bar and ordered a Heineken. He handed the tattooed, muscle-bound barman with chiseled features a twenty-dollar bill and told him to keep the change.
The kid took the money and Reznick took a long drink. The cold beer quenched his thirst. “I’m looking for Harry Leggett,” he said.
“Who’s asking?”
“Name’s Reznick.”
“You got a first name?”
He gulped the rest of the Heineken. “Tell him Reznick’s in town.”
A smile spread slowly across the barman’s chiseled features and he handed Reznick back his twenty-dollar bill. “Your money’s no good here, man. It’s on the house.” He extended his hand. “Pleasure to meet you, sir. Ron Leggett. Remember me? We met a few years back, up in New York.”
Reznick shook his hand. “Christ, Ron. I didn’t recognise you. How’s your father these days?”
“A pain in the ass, if you must know.” He asked a barmaid to hold the fort for a few minutes. The girl nodded sullenly as Ron opened a couple more Heinekens and joined Reznick at the other side of the bar.
Ron pulled up a stool and sat down. “Man, dad’s gonna freak when he sees you,” he said, taking a large gulp of beer. “I take it you’re not here for the music.”
“Is your dad around?”
The kid pulled out a packet of Winston from his shirt pocket, tapped out a cigarette and lit up. He inhaled half an inch of cigarette before he flicked ash on the floor. “Yeah, he’s around. Just not here. An old buddy turned up this morning and they went out fishing this afternoon. He likes to kickback a couple of times a week. But he’s probably sleeping it off on his boat.”
Reznick’s gaze was drawn to a faded color picture behind some whisk
y optics of Leggett that showed some guys drinking in the bar. He didn’t recognise any of the faces. “Your dad’s got a boat?”
“Yeah, a brand new fifty-foot Cabo,” he said. He took a deep pull on the cigarette and crushed it in the ashtray. “It’s awesome. Pure teak inside. Man, my dad loves that boat.”
Reznick smiled but said nothing.
“Real pleasure to meet you again.” He leaned closed, voice low. “My dad once told me that you were the only man he truly trusted. Said you never made a wrong move. You always made the right call. And you never, ever let him down.”
Reznick averted his gaze. “I don’t know about that.” He looked at the boy’s rippling physique. “So, how’s life working for your dad?”
“I work all the hours here, and he spends most of his time on his boat.”
“I hear you.”
The kid fired up another cigarette, dragging hard. He blew the smoke out of the corner of his mouth, away from Reznick. “It’s a job.” He slugged back some more beer. “But my heart’s set on becoming a Marine. An officer.”
“You any idea what it entails?”
“A bit.”
“You know the motto at the Officer Candidates School at Quantico?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Ductus Exemplo.”
The kid shrugged.
“Look it up. It’s Latin.”
Ron smiled blankly.
“I really need to speak to your dad, now. Is his boat nearby?”
Ron shrugged. “Yeah, he’s gotta nice new berth down the marina. Walking distance. Man, he’ll freak when he sees you.”
Reznick drove the Jeep – with the man he should have killed still in the trunk – to a parking garage, three blocks away. He popped open the trunk. Luntz was still out of it and probably would be for a few more hours. Locking the car, he headed down to the beachfront.
A short while later, he walked past the Elbo Room bar on the corner of Las Olas Boulevard and South Atlantic Boulevard, the sounds of whoops and cheers and thumping music from the bar spilled out into the warm, humid air.
He walked on for a couple of hundred yards, the lights of the yachts and restaurants at the marina in the distance. A few minutes later, along a wooden gangway to Dock E beside the Intracoastal Waterway, right beside the dock master’s office and the fuel dock.
An old black guy, cigarette at the corner of his mouth, hosing down the decks of one of the boats nearby, nodded to Reznick.
“You down to do some fishin’?” he asked. “If you are, you’re too early. But I’m taking my boat out at first light if you wanna come back and do some serious fishin’. Snared fifteen marlins yesterday alone.”
The smell of fish bait, kerosene and barbecued meat hung in the muggy air. It reminded him of night fishing with his father when he was a boy, his father reminiscing about Nam, the Mekong and his buddies who hadn’t made it home, trying not to think about his next shift at Port Clyde Foods sardine cannery. He’d always hated his factory job. He’d wanted Reznick never to work in any of the Rockland fish packing plants. He’d once invited him in to watch him work. The smell made him sick. He remembered watching the dead eyed expression of his father – so different from his pictures back from Vietnam. He’d worked at the packing tables using a pair of sharpened knives to cut the heads and tails off the fish coming in, and packing them in cans, being bellowed at by a weasel foreman. His father could never answer back as he’d never work in any of the plants in Rockland again if he did. It was piecework, so the faster he went, the more money he made. He’d worked from 7am until 10pm straight every day, with hardly any breaks. It was there and then that Reznick vowed he’d never do that job.
Reznick saw the lights from a nearby yacht partially illuminating the dock. “Maybe next time.”
“You got a boat here?”
“Looking for a friend of mine. Harry Leggett.”
The black guy pointed to the pristine fifty-foot yacht berthed nearly twenty yards away. “That’s Harry’s boat. Damn fine it is too. Went out fishing with one of his friends around noon, cooler full of beer. But I was gone when they must’ve come back. Harry and his friend probably sleeping it off.”
“Thanks for the tip.”
“Any time,” he said, mopping the deck of his boat.
Reznick walked further down the gangway and climbed on board the yacht, using the aluminum rails to help him on. The slight swell made him feel sick. He never did have good sea legs.
Bait tanks and tackle storage boxes lined the cockpit. In the center, a fighting chair mounted on an aluminum-reinforced plate for marlin fishing.
Reznick knocked on a small window on the cabin’s doors. He got no answer. He tried a couple more times but still nothing. He peered through the window and looked around a modern galley, granite surfaces and best teak.
“Hey, anyone home?” Reznick said. “Harry, you in here, you old boozehound?”
No reply.
Reznick opened the door and switched on the lights. Ron was right. The yacht was teak everywhere. Two single berths made up, and a small settee. On the wall, a large flat screen TV with DVD player.
“Hey, Harry, you wanna shake a leg?”
The sound of the water lapping against the side of the yacht and the heavy brush strokes on wood of the old black guy outside. But he also heard the sound of a TV.
Reznick knocked hard on the door to the main stateroom and went inside. It was dark except for the huge plasma screen TV blaring. The place stank of liquor and cigarette smoke. “Fucking hell.” A Fox News anchorwoman shrilly talked about the costs of health care. He reached over and flicked on a light switch.
A half empty bottle of Tequila lay on its side, its contents soaked into the thick beige carpet, an empty bottle of Scotch on a bedside table.
Reznick slumped on a sofa and looked around. He couldn’t believe he had missed Harry. He must’ve headed out for a late night bar crawl with his buddy. Waves of tiredness washed over him. His body was telling him to close his eyes. But that wasn’t an option. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a packet of Dexedrine and popped two more.
Within a few minutes, he felt his senses sharpen. The drug was in his blood stream. “Shit.”
He felt anger gnaw him. He was running out of options fast. He needed Harry to take Luntz off his hands, no question. But as he looked around the detritus of his Delta buddy’s broken life, he wondered if Harry was indeed the man to help him.
The more he thought of it the more he got angry with himself for even considering his old friend, a burned-up alcoholic, as suitable to watch over Luntz or anyone for that matter. He couldn’t even look after his own life.
The newsreader droned on. America would have to make some hard choices. His heart sank as he began to face up to the consequences of his own hard choices. The real prospect that the only positive thing in his life, the only thing he lived for and gave a damn for, his daughter, was going to be murdered by some crazies he’d never met. And all because of what he did. What he was. It was eating him up from the inside. The bottom line was that he was responsible. He would have to deal with that. He would also have to deal with the fact that they held all the cards. He knew that. They knew that. And they were going to kill her if he didn’t show up with Luntz, of that he had no doubt.
Reznick closed his eyes, head in his hands. He listened to his heavy breathing as he could barely hear himself think over the braying voice on the TV talking of repercussions about the size of the US debt. There would be a price to pay some day. “Gimme a break, for chrissakes.”
He sat up and stared again at the empty booze bottles. “Where the fuck are you, Harry?”
He thought of all the crazy times they’d had. The night missions in Somalia. The surveillance in the desert. Then blowing off steam when they got home, letting rip for days, sometimes weeks at a time. The comedown was long and slow. But sometimes, it was impossible to return to a normal life.
The drudgery and pettiness o
f day-to-day living was too much for Harry. Deep down, it was clear he missed living on the edge. Waiting for the call. All the time waiting for the signal.
It was a closed world to outsiders. No one would understand how they felt about each other. The tightness. The blood bonds which tied them.
He knew Harry would have given his life for him. He would have done whatever it took to help Reznick find Lauren. He remembered the time when he’d visited his home in Maine one Thanksgiving, when Lauren was around nine. Harry managed to tone down his drinking, only partaking of a couple of glasses of wine with his meal, talking politely and in measured tones, unlike his usual raucous profanity-laden utterances. But when Lauren had gone to bed for the night, his old buddy couldn’t stop the tears running down his face, talking of his sister. He was a wreck, broken down by booze and scarred by terrible memories, unable to move on with his life.
The newscaster’s booming voice talking of a Taliban resurgence in Helmand Province in Afghanistan, snapped Reznick out of his reverie. He leaned over and picked up a remote control, turning off the TV. He sat in contemplation for a few moments. He thought he heard something. It was like a tap running. He cocked his head and wondered if it had begun to sound like a shower.
He looked over towards a recessed door which was partly concealed by old cardboard boxes. He got up, stepped over the empty bottle of Scotch, kicked aside the boxes and opened the door which revealed a huge en suite shower room and bathroom. The room was steamed up. “Harry are you drunk? You in here all this time?”
Reznick walked over to the shower and yanked back the curtain.
His heart nearly stopped. Lying in the fetal position inside the shower cubicle was Harry, familiar crewcut. He bent down and recognised the familiar tattoo on his left forearm. The Delta insignia. A black dagger and the word Airborne above it. He remembered the night they’d both decided to get tattooed, after completing the Operator’s Training Course.
He turned the body over. The dead blue eyes of Harry Leggett stared back at him. He edged closer and smelled the booze. His skin was bluish-grey. His gaze was drawn to his firing hand, his right, and a large callus in the web of the thumb. The telltale sign of a former Delta Assault Team member even after all those years. He had the same.
