Veteran Avenue

by Mark Pepper

  ‘It’s all in there. The thing is, I didn’t get that photo out of that envelope.’

  Dodge scowled. ‘John, I should tell you at this point, I’m becoming mightily pissed off with these riddles of yours.’

  John held up his hands to indicate they were at an end. ‘I’ve had Hayley’s picture in my possession since nineteen seventy-eight.’

  Not surprisingly, Dodge maintained his disgruntled expression.

  John smiled. ‘You might not want to tell us anything, Dodge, but I’ve got one hell of a story for you.’

  Larry’s eyes burned as he imagined a neat hole in Connie’s brow and the back of her skull blown out. The image lasted two seconds. The fire in his eyes was quickly extinguished by unexpected tears, and the wickedness in his head was washed away.

  He was wishing ill on Frank Dista’s wife. Frank, the man he had always secretly regarded as a belated replacement for a father who had skipped town when he was still in diapers. Which made Connie his honorary mom.

  As he walked the streets of Rancho Park, Larry examined the root cause of his anger and hoped it might attach to someone else – Hayley, DeCecco, Marie Olsen, Connie, even Frank for dying in the first place – but it kept swerving at their doorsteps and coming back to roost on his own. He had made foolish decisions and people had reacted naturally, closing him out to safeguard themselves and their loved ones. No one had been vindictive towards him. He had screwed up. He had nobody to blame but himself.

  Larry slowly came to a standstill as though his batteries had run down. The realization had literally stopped him in his tracks. It was a breakthrough moment, like standing up at a first AA meeting and announcing his weakness to the group. The problem was him. Jesus, this was freeing. Life wasn’t out to get him. People didn’t have it in for him. He didn’t need to hold any grudges. It was all down to him.

  Knowing this, the anger seemed to drain out of him, taking the threat of further violence with it. Which meant Connie was wrong. He could ask for forgiveness from Hayley, because he would never need to request it again. He had seen enough domestic incidents to know it took a lot more than two beatings to make a good and loyal wife give up on her man. Some women withstood years of abuse before calling it a day. Was his Hayley any less resilient? She suffered figurative knocks from her career every day the phone didn’t ring.

  With hope creeping tentatively but inexorably though every capillary, Larry Roth – the new, improved version – resolved a fresh start for himself. He guessed Hayley had been taken to the UCLA Medical Center, but as much as he wanted to heal his rift with her straight away, he realized she needed time to recover, space to heal on her own; allow some distance between the crime and the plea for absolution.

  In the meantime, there were other hurt parties to placate.

  ‘Shit, son, you wanna throw a flying saucer in there for good measure?’

  ‘How do you mean?’ John asked.

  ‘You don’t think there’s perhaps something strange in what you’ve just told me?’ Dodge said.

  ‘Coincidences are always strange. Especially ones this big.’

  ‘Coincidence? You’re happy with that label, are you, John?’

  ‘You as well, eh?’ John said. ‘Your daughter started on about the supernatural back in Oregon. I’m afraid I gave her very short shrift.’

  ‘Depends on how you interpret supernatural. To me, just means there’s stuff we can’t explain. As a race we’re pretty screwed up in that department. It’s the ultimate human conceit: thinking we know it all. Only God does.’

  ‘You believe in God?’

  ‘I believe we’re not the whole story. I don’t want to believe we’re the whole story. We’re as good as it gets? That’s terrifying.’

  John shrugged, quite willing to leave it at that, but Dodge had more to say.

  ‘You know how many ways a man could die in Vietnam? You got a cherry fresh off the plane at Phu Bai and within a week he’s being loaded back into the hold in a box. I spent four years over there, in the thick of it. I only took a bullet once and I was back in-country inside two months. After a while you get to thinking maybe you’re not meant to die, that somebody up there likes you.’

  ‘You think you were spared for a reason?’

  Dodge looked suddenly exhausted, as though such talk had drained him.

  ‘Well, if I was, then I’ve let a lot of people down in the time since.’

  John decided not to prompt; Dodge had a faraway look that promised more.

  ‘All the guys who died over there, I owed it to them to live a good life when I got back to the world. But I couldn’t. After Harry died, I had a death-wish. I went back to Vietnam because I wanted to die there. The shrinks call it survivor’s guilt. But the bullets just kept missing me. So when I came home for good I had ... shit, I don’t know, death-wish guilt, I guess. While I was trying to get zapped, I had two kids growing up Stateside, and a wife who couldn’t figure out why I wouldn’t stay home. You know how shitty that made me feel after the event, to think I knew what I was doing to them and still didn’t care?’

  John risked a quiet reply. ‘That’s what you meant about the infection that set in after Harry died.’

  Dodge nodded gravely, then looked rather startled. It appeared his brain had caught up with his words. He stared John straight in the eye.

  ‘I just broke my silence, didn’t I?’

  ‘You did. How do you feel?’

  ‘Too early to say. John?’

  ‘What?’

  Dodge paused before asking, ‘Do you suppose we could find Hayley Olsen?’

  ‘We could certainly try,’ John said. ‘But I’m not sure about the we part. You mean you as well?’

  ‘Can you talk to Quealy? Explain all this to him? Get me out of here?’

  John shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’ll do my best, but … he’ll want to hear all this from you. I know you don’t like the man, but could you tell him what you just told me?’

  Dodge considered for a moment. ‘Sure. Sure, I can do that.’

  When John pulled open the driver’s door, Virginia, slumped in the passenger seat, awoke with a start. She looked shattered.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Out like a light, eh?’

  ‘The instant I sat down. How’d it go?’

  ‘See for yourself.’ He pointed past her.

  Virginia turned to her right and yelped with delight. ‘Dad!’

  Dodge and Quealy were standing side by side. While Quealy was immaculate in a dark suit of razor-sharp creases, Dodge was attired in an old shirt and jeans courtesy of the hospital’s left property. Their expressions were also in sharp contrast. Whereas her father looked happy, Quealy looked, if not sad, then at least woefully concerned.

  Dodge leaned in through the lowered window and pecked his daughter on the lips.

  ‘But ... how?’ Virginia asked. ‘Doctor Quealy ...?’

  ‘Mr Frears will explain the situation, I’m sure. And I confess it’s not one I’m at all comfortable with. This is certainly a gross breach of protocol, but I seem to have had my words cleverly manipulated against me. So I’m releasing your father into your and Mr Frears’ care for a period of no longer than forty-eight hours. Mr Frears knows what plan of action we’ve decided upon, and I do not want your father left alone for one single minute, is that understood? Any concerns, you are to call me immediately. Not the police, unless you want to see me locked up alongside your father. Mr Frears has my card. Any time. Day or night.’

  Virginia nodded. ‘We will.’

  Quealy turned to Dodge and offered his hand, which was grasped firmly and pumped several times.

  ‘Now, Dodge, you know the risk I’m taking with this. I’m putting what’s left of my career on the line for you. But I was a man of action before I became a physician – a veteran of Vietnam just like you – and action is what’s needed now, not talk. The fact remains, though, that I am potentially endangering the public by letting you out. So, please, do not let me
down.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Dodge said humbly. ‘And thank you.’

  ‘Two days, Dodge. Then you need to come back and face the music. I wish you the best of luck.’

  Quealy gave Dodge a military salute, about-faced and headed back towards the hospital. They all watched him go, all three of them perfectly silent as though they expected he would turn around any second with a change of mind.

  With Quealy safely inside the building, Dodge climbed in the rear of the Cherokee and shifted across behind the driver’s seat to get an easier eye-line with his daughter. John got behind the wheel, started the engine and drove them off the Veterans Administration grounds onto Wilshire Boulevard.

  ‘Dad, are you sure you’re fit to be leaving hospital?’ Virginia asked. ‘I mean physically?’

  ‘Sure, don’t worry. Surface scratches. Like I said to John: someone up there likes me. I’m damn near indestructible.’

  Virginia didn’t smile. ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘In about a mile,’ Dodge said, clapping a fatherly hand on John’s shoulder, ‘take a left onto South Beverly Glen Boulevard. What don’t you get, Ginny?’

  ‘I still don’t understand how you got out.’

  John answered: ‘Like Quealy said: I used his words against him. Remember what he said about the machine breaking down and how we had to find the one broken part? Well, when I told him we’d found that part but we couldn’t fix it with Dodge locked away, he was obliged to let your father out or look like a prick who didn’t believe in his own theory.’

  ‘What, he just accepted your word that you had pinpointed the problem? I didn’t figure him to be that gullible.’

  This wasn’t something that John wanted to explain. He looked to Dodge, forcing the baton into his hand.

  Dodge sighed. ‘John told me all about Oregon and I ... well, I returned the favor concerning my time in Vietnam.’

  ‘Oh ... okay,’ she said, and faced front.

  John gave her a subtle sideways look. He could see her feelings had been deeply hurt, but her response showed she was more concerned with her father’s state of mind than with revealing her own. Dodge had to be kept on an even keel, and upsetting his only beloved daughter would not have been conducive.

  ‘Girl, don’t be upset,’ Dodge said, sensing if not seeing her expression. ‘It was my letter, the one I wrote back in sixty-nine. You’d gone before I could read it. It just got me talking. I wasn’t even aware until I’d finished exactly what I’d said – John’ll tell you. And you didn’t miss much, honestly. I didn’t go into detail.’

  Virginia looked round and smiled at her father. ‘It’s okay, really. Let’s get you home. I need to pick up my car. I’ve got a production meeting coming up and I left some preliminary sketches in the trunk.’

  It went very quiet in the back. Then there was one word: ‘Shit.’

  ‘What? Dad, what’s that face for?’

  ‘Do you have your vehicle insurance documents up at the house?’

  ‘No, they’re at my apartment. Why?’

  Another telling silence. John reckoned he maybe knew the punchline already.

  Virginia’s tone dropped. ‘Dad ...’

  ‘Uh, yeah. You might want to check the small print, the exclusions. See if there’s not something about accidental targeting by lunatic with grenade launcher.’

  John had never known a more pregnant pause. ‘Dad, tell me this is a joke.’

  ‘I can’t. I blew your car to pieces.’

  Another ghastly pause.

  ‘Sorry,’ Dodge added.

  ‘Assuming – only assuming – this is true, then when you say you blew it to pieces, you don’t mean that, do you? What you really mean is it got hit by shrapnel, right?’

  John didn’t have to turn round to know Dodge was shaking his head. Perversely, he could sense an outbreak of the giggles threatening.

  ‘Pieces,’ Virginia repeated carefully, as though the word itself was liable to explode. ‘And just how big were these pieces, Dad?’

  ‘Small. Real small.’

  John erupted, and the word giggles did not do justice to what emerged. Too much stress had built in the past few days for it not to find a release. Virginia was giving him the evil eye but he couldn’t stop laughing. He hoped she would find it infectious, because this was the sort of thing that could kill a relationship stone dead.

  ‘Sorry,’ he spluttered.

  For some reason, this set Dodge off, but his support was more damaging than helpful. On recent evidence, he was already cruising happily along Batshit Boulevard; he would find it funny.

  ‘That scorch mark on the concrete, right?’ John managed to ask.

  ‘Yeah,’ Dodge said, and howled.

  ‘You total assholes,’ Virginia said amiably; a great relief to John.

  They drove in amused silence for a while, briefly taking Sunset Boulevard before joining North Beverly Glen.

  ‘Sorry about the sketches,’ Dodge said quietly. ‘Can you remember what they were?’

  ‘I keep copies, don’t worry. Guess I’ll have to drive a rental until the insurance pays out.’

  ‘You won’t have to wait that long. I made a call from the hospital. Old buddy of mine in the trade. You’ll have a replacement by tomorrow. Exactly the same, even down to the talking alarm.’

  ‘Thanks, Dad.’ She reached back to squeeze her father’s hand.

  ‘How’s the range looking?’ John asked.

  ‘It’ll be closed for a while. And, Ginny, I’m transferring ownership to you. Even if I manage to stay out of jail, they won’t let a basket-case like me keep on running the place.’

  She smiled. ‘Looks like I’ve come out of this pretty well.’

  They arrived back at Angelo Drive. While Dodge went upstairs to change, Virginia and John carried their mountain mementos through to the living room and waited in silence. A few minutes later, Dodge entered the room, looking far more at ease now in his own clothes in his own home.

  ‘Let me see the suitcase,’ he said.

  ‘Uh ... sure,’ Virginia said, but that momentary hesitation had betrayed her reluctance, which John assumed was down to Harry’s Hush Puppy.

  ‘John, my daughter will feel happier if you take the gun out first and keep a hold of it. Although I don’t know why. She knows I have other weapons in the house. If I was looking to shoot the place up, I wouldn’t need an antique Smith to do it.’

  John laid the case open on the coffee table in front of him. Inside, the items were all jumbled about, and Dodge simply pored over them for a minute. When he began handling them, he did so with great reverence, as though they belonged to pre-history and might crumble to dust. This he did in silence, his expression unreadable. With the militaria inspected and placed to one side, he checked the calendars. Any thoughts he might have had, he kept to himself. Gently, he returned everything to the case and closed it. He looked up, his expression perfectly mellow. From those articles of war, Dodge had drawn a kind of personal peace.

  ‘If we do find Hayley,’ he said, ‘this belongs to her.’

  John nodded, but Virginia had her reservations, and put them to her father as carefully as she could.

  ‘That’s fine, Dad, but you do know that’s a pretty big if. That Venice Beach address is way out of date. Marie said in her letter: she was moving away with a new husband.’

  Dodge sagged a little at this reality check.

  ‘Sorry, Dad, I don’t mean to rain on your parade, I just don’t want you hoping for too much and getting disappointed.’

  Dodge smiled at her. ‘I know, Ginny. I know you’re worried about me. And if I can’t find her then, yes, I will be disappointed. But I have to take that risk. Just like Quealy. If he didn’t think there was a chance of some healing, he wouldn’t have let me out. Maybe just the act of searching will make me feel better. I think it has already. It’s a focus. I need that.’

  She shrugged. ‘Yeah, it ... it just seems such a long shot.’

  J
ohn touched her arm. ‘Hey, what do we have to lose? You never know, maybe a neighbor might have an address, or still be in contact. Would that be any stranger than us unearthing a letter from your dad in a log cabin a thousand miles away?’

  ‘I guess not. But I still worry.’ She looked back at Dodge. ‘What happens if you do find her?’

  ‘I’ll see if she’s doing okay, ask if she needs anything, and let her know what kind of a man her father was.’

  ‘What if she’s not interested?’ Virginia asked. ‘Are you prepared for that?’

  Dodge leaned back in his chair with a weary sigh that turned into an angry growl.

  ‘Ginny, I don’t know, okay? You’re asking what’s in my head. If this happens, how will I react, if Hayley says get lost, what will I do. I have no idea. I haven’t known what’s been going on for over forty years; why should it be any different now?’

  ‘Dad, I’m just saying she may want the past to be left where it is. I just want you to be ready for that.’

  Dodge pressed his palms against his ears and squeezed his eyes tight shut, as though he couldn’t allow the words and pictures outside his head to soil those on the inside, and John realized that Dodge was lying. Since learning about Hayley, he had clearly let his imagination create the most perfect meeting between the two of them, a piece of wish-fulfilment that could prove every bit as damaging as his warped mental projections at the range a few nights ago.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Dodge said, opening his eyes. ‘You tell me, Ginny: if things had worked out differently, and I was the one who hadn’t come home, would you want Harry knocking on your door to fill in some of the blanks?’

  Virginia nodded. But she wasn’t Hayley so it meant nothing. Her father had come home and she couldn’t imagine it any different. Still, it was an end to the discussion, and Dodge closed his eyes again and didn’t wake up for a further two hours.

  The Beverly Center stood eight stories high across seven acres of land, an imposing mall at the edge of Beverly Hills and West Hollywood. A good place to kill time, become faceless.

  Laura DeCecco turned off South San Vicente Boulevard into the entrance to the parking and found a spot on the second level, positioning the Honda Civic nose out for a quick getaway. She stayed in the car for several minutes, checking the vehicles arriving behind her, the Sig-Sauer in her lap.