Enemy Combatant

by Ed Gaffney

  I walked to the main lobby to take the elevator up to the cafeteria. Lunch would help me clear my head. I needed a plan.

  The area outside the Gomez courtroom had cleared. There was only the normal lunchtime traffic in the hallway as I made my way toward the center of the building.

  As I boarded the elevator and pressed the button for the fourth floor, I found myself hyper-alert, closely examining everyone who came into the cab with me. First was a young man and a young woman, both carrying heavy briefcases, and also heading to the fourth floor. They were obviously on their way to the library. The final two riders were older women who pressed the button for the fifth and sixth floors—probably administrative workers.

  As the bell rang and the doors started to slide together, I caught sight of a pair of men standing next to each other in the corridor. Both wore dark pullover shirts and trousers. One was African American, and had a goatee. The other was white, and his head was shaved. Just before the doors closed completely, the white one smiled at me. Then he made a gun with his thumb and index finger, and shot me.

  I knew that I was in no condition to think through this mess rationally, but it was hard to ignore the waves of paranoia that were beginning to wash up on the shores of my consciousness. As the briefcase couple and I exited the elevator, I found myself wondering if their heavy satchels contained weapons, and was greatly relieved when they turned left off the elevator, and really walked toward the library.

  I decided that right after lunch, I had to go to the cops.

  I freely admit that part of my decision came from watching countless victims in Hollywood blockbusters end up dangling from a frayed rope over a pit of crocodiles, or single-handedly trying to disarm a thermonuclear device with a thumbtack and a Q-Tip, all because they failed to get help from the police just because some bad guy told them not to.

  By the time I reached the cafeteria, I was resolved. The man in the bathroom was just not credible. Operation: Rig the Gomez Trial was too far-fetched to start with, but to think that the nutcase in the bathroom knew about it, and took it upon himself to valiantly, albeit terrifyingly, “warn” me about it—for no apparent reason—defied all reason.

  What I was convinced of, though, was that Beta was dangerous. I had no intention of recklessly ignoring his threats. But realistically, if I was careful about it, how would he ever know if I talked to the cops? I decided that right after lunch, I would drive directly from the courthouse to state police headquarters, go in there and tell them the whole story, right down to my encounter in the men’s room. They’d protect me if I really needed it. What was the Greek Alphabet Squad going to do about that? Storm a police station?

  I finally reached the lunch line at exactly three minutes before one o’clock, and I was so desperate to get something into my system quickly that I grabbed two sandwiches and two bottles of water, threw them on my tray, and almost sprinted to the cashier. Marge, a tiny, ancient woman with the whitest hair I’d ever seen in my life, rang me up. “Somebody’s hungry today,” she said.

  I’d known Marge since my eighth birthday—the first time my father had brought me here for lunch. She’d given me an extra bag of potato chips that afternoon to celebrate. If Marge was a part of this conspiracy, the entire planet was doomed. “I missed breakfast,” I admitted. “I don’t think I’ve ever looked forward to chicken salad so much in my life.”

  I paid, picked up my tray, and headed to the first empty table I could find. But before I could get there, fate saved me my trip to the police, as a state trooper stepped right in front of me. Wearing not only his khaki uniform but an uncharacteristically big smile, the cop said, “Counselor, I’m glad I found you. I thought you might have already left, and I wanted to get a chance to speak with you before you took off. My name’s Trooper Paul Landry.”

  NINE

  I HAVEN’T HAD much luck with lying.

  My limited experience started back in second grade, with my first, and probably biggest, whopper.

  I was sitting at one of the five cool, short, round worktables in our classroom annex with Rocco Rufo, Billy Valparaiso, Lisa Perez, and another girl whose name I’ve forgotten. We had moved there from our regular desks because Ms. Jennings had told us we were going to have a special activity. But before we could begin, we had to sit quietly and wait for her, because she had to run out of the classroom for a minute and she would be right back and no one had better make a single sound or there would be a severe punishment.

  After about thirty seconds of her absence, the power of that warning began to fade. After sixty seconds, it was all but forgotten. Any room full of seven-year-olds contains a tremendous quantity of kinetic energy. We were no exception.

  At our table, Lisa and the other girl managed to remain astonishingly quiet, but the rest of us began a lively discussion about modern art. Specifically, Rocco’s amazing ability to draw trucks.

  In my eyes, although Rocco Rufo’s creative talent was beyond dispute, the single most impressive thing about him was his unparalleled generosity. I’d personally seen him on at least two prior occasions give away, for free, cupcakes that his mother had packed for his lunch.

  At that point in my life, those were the greatest humanitarian gestures I had ever witnessed.

  Billy said something like, “Shoot, I can’t even draw a stupid car,” to which Rocco replied, “You want me to draw you a car? ’Cause I can draw cars, too.”

  Billy could say nothing but “Cool!”

  Talking while Ms. Jennings was out of the room was one thing, but the unauthorized drawing of a car seemed like a pretty chancy undertaking to me. Rocco, however, was unfazed. He reached into the middle of the table and took the top sheet from the pile of laughably low-quality paper that our school seemed to love. But then he really went for broke. He grabbed a red marker from the forbidden cup.

  On each of the five tables, next to the stack of cheap paper, Ms. Jennings had stationed a large plastic cup which contained supplies that only she was allowed to use. Scissors—the real kind—a glue stick, a ruler, a stapler, and several awesome-looking, but absolutely taboo, permanent markers.

  In retrospect, putting prohibited items like that within easy reach of our eager, stubby little fingers and then walking out of the room was like dropping a freshly grilled hamburger in front of a puppy and telling him not to eat it.

  My sister-in-law, Amy, has very high standards for public educators, and whenever she hears this part of the story, she suggests that Ms. Jennings was an incompetent ass.

  In any event, Rocco’s work was, as always, impeccable. The sports car he rendered for Billy was magnificent, complete with three dramatic rear fins, flames shooting from the oversized exhaust pipe curiously positioned in the center of the trunk, and, if I remember correctly, machine-gun turrets mounted above the headlights. He passed the drawing to Billy and returned the marker to the cup just before I saw the classroom doorknob turning.

  The noise level was perilously high when the door swung open. To make matters undoubtedly worse, at the very moment that Ms. Jennings walked into the room, a futuristic-looking paper airplane glided gracefully past her left ear. Regrettably, that considerable aerodynamic accomplishment was lost on our teacher, as was readily apparent from the Armageddon-is-nigh look that had taken up residence on her face.

  “Everyone back to your desks immediately!” she screeched, and suddenly the only sounds in the room were those of twenty-five chairs scraping across the floor, and fifty small feet scampering to what their owners hoped to be the safe haven of their desks.

  “I leave you alone for the shortest amount of time imaginable, and I cannot believe…”

  She abruptly halted what was ramping up to be a first-rate tirade, and the entire classroom was abruptly plunged into a very tense, vacuum-like silence. I knew it was dangerous, but I lifted my gaze from the broken screw on the left side of my desk to find out what had happened. Ms. Jennings was standing next to our now-deserted little round table, and lookin
g down. Then, in a terrifyingly ominous tone, she asked quietly, “Who used the red marker?”

  At first, I thought that Ms. Jennings must have been employing some sensory organ found only in teachers. There was no way she could know that Rocco had used the red marker. There simply was no evidence. Rocco had given the picture to Billy, and then put the marker back.

  But then I noticed that our tabletop was badly stained with red ink. It must have bled through the crappy paper.

  By now, several seconds had passed, and no one had responded to our teacher. Her head snapped up and she faced us again as if trembling on the verge of committing mass homicide.

  “I said who used the red marker?” This time Ms. Jennings screamed the question so forcefully that her face was almost purple. “If the person responsible for this does not come forward immediately, this entire class will stay after school, and a serious notation will be made on everyone’s permanent record.”

  In my tearful conversation with my parents later that evening as they put me to bed, I explained that they had told me always to think of the right thing to do, and then do it.

  Confessing to the misdeed was the best I could come up with on the spur of that moment.

  As far as I could see, the entire situation was poised to explode into any number of injustices. Why everyone in my class—including the twenty people not even sitting at the scene of the crime—should have been made to stay after school and to suffer a blot on their permanent record, was simply inconceivable to me.

  The two girls at our table were completely innocent. And certainly Billy bore no blame. He hadn’t suggested Rocco use the proscribed marker.

  And that harm could come to Rocco for the latest in an incredible string of selfless acts—first cupcakes, and then an original drawing of a fabulous car—seemed utterly intolerable.

  That night, after I explained the many details of the profound dilemma I had faced, my father and mother went out of the room to talk. Then my dad came in and told me I should just try to go to sleep. It was going to take them some time to figure out the appropriate consequence.

  At my high-school graduation ten years later, my dad told me they were still working on it.

  On that second afternoon of the Gomez trial, I sat down at an empty cafeteria table with Trooper Landry. Beta—the man in the bathroom—had specifically warned me about him, and urged me to lie—at least by omission—in any dealings with the purportedly renegade cop. Whether I could pull that off convincingly was an extremely open question. But I wasn’t buying Beta’s story—at least not yet.

  Landry had already eaten, and insisted that I have my lunch while he filled me in.

  It turns out that the State Police Captain in charge of overseeing security at special public events had been keeping tabs on the Gomez trial from the start, and the captain had seen my ignominious effort on the courthouse steps as I left the courtroom at the end of day one. He thought I might appreciate knowing that he’d assigned Trooper Landry to the courthouse for the duration of the trial, to ensure that neither A.D.A. Varick nor I was overwhelmed by the media, or by other spectators, whether at the trial or otherwise.

  “Funny you should say that,” I said, taking a bite of my second sandwich. And just then, my cell phone rang. The only people who have my number are my family and Cliff, so I swallowed hastily, and then answered.

  A voice spoke that I instantly recognized as the man who all too recently had held a weapon to my head. “Didn’t you hear what I told you? Landry is not your friend. If you tell him anything about what happened with me, you won’t make it home to your father alive. Nod your head and say, ‘Of course.’”

  I hesitated. I am not particularly good at following arbitrary directions, especially those given to me by people who have recently threatened my life. Landry was sitting across from me, smiling. If there was a doomsday plot and he was a part of it, Satan had done a great job casting him in this role. The man was the most unassuming state trooper I had ever seen in my life. It’s not that Landry didn’t look like a cop—it’s just that he looked like he’d be everyone’s first choice to visit the neighborhood kindergartens to teach the kids how to cross at the corner.

  The voice on the phone continued. “Landry’s phone is going to ring in ten seconds. Just stall. Stay on the line with me so I can keep trying to save your stupid ass.”

  I was totally confused. I believe all I managed to say was “Excuse me?”

  The voice merely said, “Four, three, two, one,” and one second later, exactly as promised, Landry’s phone chirped. He checked the caller ID, excused himself, and then walked to another empty table, and took the call.

  “How did you know his phone would ring?” I asked. “And how did you get this number?”

  “Never mind that,” my bathroom buddy replied. “If you don’t start paying attention, you’re gonna get whacked.”

  “You keep telling me that, but you’re the only one who’s ever held me at gunpoint. Why should I believe anything you say?” I was speaking quietly, looking around to be sure I wasn’t overheard by the four women at the next table.

  “Fine,” the man said, obviously disgusted. “Don’t believe me. You will soon enough. Just don’t say anything to Landry. He’s going to give you his phone number, and a special device—he’ll call it a panic button. He’ll tell you to keep it with you at all times, so you can call for help if you need it.

  “But it’s much more than that,” Beta continued. “It’s going to have a GPS chip in it, and a bug. If you carry that thing around with you, they’ll know exactly where you are, and exactly what you’re saying, twenty-four seven.”

  “How do you know—”

  “He’ll be hanging up in a second. Don’t tell him anything. If you talk to him, your death is on you. Saving your butt was a long shot anyway. But I am not wrong. Do not trust him. Your life depends on it.”

  And then he hung up.

  A second later Landry finished his call, and came back to the table. “So, you were saying?” he said, taking his seat again.

  I knew I was being monitored—how else could my bathroom assailant know that I was on the verge of telling Landry what had happened? What I didn’t know was whether spilling my guts to the cop was going to end up killing me, or whether I was just being played.

  I decided to wait. If Landry ended the conversation without giving me the panic button, then I’d know the voice on the phone had lied. But if the cop gave me the device, then I’d hold off. I’d decide what to do later, after I’d had a chance to check it out.

  “Yeah,” I said. I had finished eating. “I was saying funny that you were assigned to keep us from being hassled by the press. I was wondering if you could get me out of the courthouse today without having to run that gauntlet on the front steps.”

  Technically, it was not a lie—I really was hoping to get to my truck without having to survive another grilling from the press. But it wasn’t what I’d originally intended to say to the smiling officer.

  “No problem. Follow me.” We stood up, and headed together to the elevator and went down to the basement level.

  We walked through a secure checkpoint manned by another state trooper and a court officer, and entered the private parking garage used by the judges and other court personnel. Then Landry gave me a quick ride in his cruiser to my truck, past the crowds of reporters still milling around the courthouse. By the time we reached my parking spot, Landry hadn’t given me anything except an increased feeling that the man in the bathroom was a dangerous person that I needed protection from.

  The last thing I needed was to be constantly looking over my shoulder as I fought my way through what was going to be an impossible trial. “I just wanted to let you know that I’ve had some pretty strange things happen to me these past couple of days,” I began.

  If Trooper Landry had realized that I was gearing up to unload on him the entire story of my curious incident in the lavatory, he never would have interrupted me. But he
must have thought I was just making idle conversation about the courtroom events of the past twenty-four hours. So he jumped in, and changed my life forever.

  “I hear you,” Landry said with a toothy smile, as he reached into his pants pocket and withdrew a small device that looked a lot like a miniature garage door opener. “That’s exactly why I want you to keep this with you at all times. It’s called a panic button.”

  TEN

  I MANAGED TO make it home that afternoon without getting whacked.

  I still didn’t know whether Landry was as trustworthy as he seemed to be, or whether paramilitary toilet boy was telling the truth, but I had decided to play it safe. I took the panic button from Landry, and said nothing about the assault.

  As I climbed the ramp to the front entrance of our house, Liana Kaas, the woman who stays with my father when I have to go into the city for work, opened the door. She was a divorced woman in her forties with two kids, both living on their own, one in Mesa, and one out in California. Liana seemed to have boundless positive energy, and even managed to get Henley to do his therapy with the elastic exercise tubing he hated so much.

  “He’s napping,” she reported, as I dropped my briefcase in the entryway. “Everything’s fine, though the phone’s been ringing like crazy since lunchtime. There must be thirty messages on the machine. And some file boxes from an attorney named Timilow or Temilow came for you. All of a sudden, you’re a very popular person.” She followed me into the kitchen, where I opened the fridge and got myself a beer as she gathered up her things. “Oh, and the cable guy was here. You’re getting a free upgrade for the next sixty days. Some movie channel wants you to sign up, I guess. Henley was thrilled.” She called out over her shoulder as she took off. “See you tomorrow morning.”