Stabenow, Dana - Shugak 02 - A Fatal Thaw
Page 9
the attack. They bring out hidden weapons and test-fire them during the
holiday fireworks." He paused. "That night, it begins. The VC attack a
hundred major cities and towns in the Central Highlands and Lowlands of
South Vietnam."
Someone screamed. There was no other word for it, and it was instantly
answered by other screams rising together in a single, united, animal
howl. Mutt was instantly on her feet, ears back, yellow eyes wide and
alarmed. With a hand she noticed was shaking a little, Kate smoothed the
hair down on the back of her neck and patted Mutt's head.
Bobby's voice resumed. "January 31, Day 2. The VC attack in Saigon, Hue
and the Mekong Delta. They attack and hold the American embassy in
Saigon for six hours against Marine counterattack. In two weeks, the VC
fights its way into every town and village in South Vietnam." Bobby
paused. "Westmoreland calls for 206,000 more
troops and another 15 tactical fighter squadrons."
There was another chorus, one of whistles and jeers and boos. "But hey,
hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today goes on television and says
there is light at the end of the tunnel!" somebody yelled.
Bobby raised his voice over the resulting uproar. "March 16. My Lai."
Silence. "That same day, Bobby Kennedy announces he's going to run for
president."
Someone made a rude comment concerning Marilyn Monroe, and the animals
were back in force.
"March 22. LBJ relieves Westmoreland."
The rafters of Bobby's house resounded with cheers. "And on March 31,
hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today withdraws from the 1968
presidential race!"
This time the cheering thundered through the cedar logs and up through
the deck of the porch, joyless and unrestrained, a wall of raging sound.
Mutt couldn't stand it and began to bark, and Kate locked a restraining
hand in the fur of her ruff.
"We were there!" Bobby roared. "We were at Hue!" "The City of Perfect
Peace!"
"Sometimes you have to destroy a city to save it!" "We were at the
embassy in Saigon!"
"Send in the spooks to lead the counterattack!"
"Yeah! The fucking CIA oughta be good for some thing!"
"Spear carrier!" "Cannon fodder!" "Ass wipe!" "Yeah!"
"We were at Da Nang!" "Khe Sanh!"
"The ghost of Dien Bien Phu!" "Nha Trang!"
"Tan Son Nhut!" Unsurprised, Kate heard a voice she recognized as George
Perry's. "The battle for the body bags!"
"Yeah!"
"Gentlemen," Bobby roared, "here's to promotion
through
"Hear, hear!"
"Here's to the fucking Five O'Clock Follies!"
count! We want a body count!"
by Colonel Blimp!"
"Here's to the fucking light at the fucking end of the
fucking tunnel!" "Fucking A!"
"Here's to 206,000 more troops and another 15 tactical
fighter squadrons!"
"And to another 30 MIAs!"
"Here's to fragging the fuckers up front!"
There was an unexpected pause, into which came voice that sounded
aggrieved and a little bewildered. "B
we won," he insisted. "We won Tet."
Someone must have hit the Play button on the stereo.
The tape slipped a little, and then picked up in the middle of the song,
singing whoopee we're all going to die. Someone began stamping his feet,
they all joined in, and again the floor of the porch began to shake.
"Didn't we?" the voice said sadly, a plaintive question that reached
Kate clearly through the door. "Didn't we win?"
The door jerked open. A sepulchral voice announced, "This is the end."
Kate took an involuntary step backward. The doorman had smeared black
makeup beneath his
eyes and wore combat fatigues fraying at knees and elbows. In one hand
he held a half-empty bottle of mescal, still with worm; with the other
he raised a joint to his lips and sucked in. Kate didn't know him. She
backed up another step and gave aningratiating and, she hoped, Non
threatening smile. "I'm looking for
Bobby." He looked at her without expression. Behind him the
singing continued unabated.
"Who is it, Max?" A voice came from behind him. The owner of the voice
wheeled into Kate's view.
"Well, hey, gorgeous!" Bobby roared. With a single shove he sent his
wheelchair sliding down the ramp, and with a flick of large-knuckled,
clever hands turned himself sideways and slid to a hockey stop in a
shower of wet, grainy snow. He looked up at her with a grin. "Come to
celebrate the retaking of Hue with us?"
"Bobby, I'm sorry," she told him, "I completely forgot what time of year
it was. You want me out of here?"
He waved an expansive hand. "No problem. The Fifth Annual Twentieth
Anniversary Celebration of the Tet Offensive is open to anybody,
especially good-looking round eyes." He leered at her on his way back up
the ramp, and she jumped out of the way. Bobby Clark drove his
wheelchair like an offensive weapon.
The fatigue-clad figure holding the joint at shoulder arms hung around
the perimeter like a green-and-brown ghost. His eyes were deeply set and
vacant, the pupils dilated out to the edge of the iris. "Excuse me,"
Bobby said, "you met Max Chaney yet? No? Max Chaney, Kate Shugak. He
works for Dan O'Brian; he's the ranger took Miller's place."
"Oh." Kate held out a hand. "Hi, nice to meet you." "My only friend, the
end," Max Chaney replied. He took another toke, pulling the smoke deep
into his lungs, and without exhaling vanished back into the house. Kate
only hoped he didn't swell up and explode.
"Ah, never mind him, poor bastard's carrying a hell of a load, what
with-" A rifle went off somewhere. "Goddammit, you guys," Bobby roared,
a bellow that echoed around the clearing and off the treetops. "I told
you to cut that shit out! Everybody's jumpy enough with that craziness
week before last! Cut it out!" There was no reply; neither were there
any more rifle shots.
"What brings you here, sweetcakes?" Bobby waggled rakish eyebrows. "Am I
about to get lucky?"
"You wish," she retorted. Affronted at being ignored, Mutt reared up and
laved Bobby's face with a damp and loving tongue.
"Goddam, woman," Bobby roared, "you brung the wolf with you! How many
times I gotta tell you, no goddamn wolves in the house!" He cuffed Mutt
on the head. She grinned up at him, tongue lolling out of the side of her
mouth.
"Well, get outa the friggin' doorway, you're blocking
traffic," he grumbled, shoving open the door. Kate was
almost blown back by the blast of sound. With a single push of powerful
black forearms, Bobby whizzed over to the stereo and turned it down.
There were protests, which he quelled with a single roar. "Shut the hell
up, you noisy
bastards! We got company!"
Half a dozen men looked up from various sprawling
positions about the room. They were all in their early
and dressed alike in jeans and T-shirts, some with
fatigue caps, some with olive-drab jackets. The air was
layered thickly with the smells of dope and alcohol and
cigarettes.
Mutt made a beeline for the wood box. She nosed and pawed her way down
through the kindling and the split logs and struck gold, bringing up a
bone that looked
vaguely mooselike in character and still had bits of
meat and gristle clinging to it. She sat down at once
to gnaw.
"Mutt!" Kate said, shocked. "Where are your manners?"
Mutt, without releasing her grip on the bone, rose and
trotted over to rear up with both forepaws on the arms of
Bobby's chair. She didn't quite know how to go about discharging her
debt of gratitude without dropping the bone,
and this she was clearly unwilling to do, so she growled around it as
affectionately as she was able, causing several
of the men to move closer to the door.
"Goddam, woman," Bobby roared, fending her off,
"get this goddam wolf offa me!"
Kate grinned and signaled Mutt down. "Goddam, woman!" Bobby roared
again. "I don't know why I let either of you in the goddam house!"
"Me, either," somebody said. Kate knew that voice. "Bernie?"
A tall, skinny man with long, thinning hair bound back in a ponytail
looked up from a Nintendo Game. Boy. "Hey, Kate.
"Wait a minute," she said. "Wait just a damn minute here. I know for a
fact you weren't in Vietnam."
"Nope," Bernie agreed peacefully. "I was in the mall." Kate was
mystified and looked it. "The mall?"
Bernie took pity on her. "The Washington, D.C. mall, in 1970, in company
with about a million other people. I was also among the three thousand
John Mitchell honored with tossing behind a chicken-wire fence for
twenty-four hours, in direct contravention of our first amendment
rights." He thought, his brow creasing. "Or was it fourth amendment? I
was never really sure."
"A campus commando," Bobby told Kate, not without affection.
"Nope." Bernie gulped down the rest of his beer. The Game Boy beeped
indignantly at him and he looked back at it. "Just somebody with a low
lottery number, not enough stroke to get in the National Guard, and a
distaste for tropical climates."
"Max Chaney you met," Bobby said, "and you know Jeff."
Jeff Talbot, a dark, lithe man who contrived to look dapper in blue
jeans and a gray wool shirt, snapped a salute and grinned at Kate. "U.S.
Marine guard, American embassy, Saigon. At your service, ma'am."
His eyes wandered over her in lingering fashion, but she knew that with
Jeff it was more genetic imperative than implied insult and she ignored
it. "Hi, George," she said to the pilot.
"Hey, Kate," George said, waving a beer bottle at her.
"Long time no see."
"George was at Ton Son Nhut. Demetri Totemoff, Nha
Trang, and Pete Kvasnikof, Pleiku."
"Hi, Kate, how's Jack?" Pete inquired. "He's fine," Kate replied.
"I'll just bet he is, now," Pete said, but he said it to him"Okay,
guys," Bobby said, "'bout time to break this
party up and run you off."
There were groans and grumbles of protest.
"Hey, whaddaya want?" he demanded. "We done sung
the `Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag.' At least three of you
got wives, and, Jeff, I know for a fact you can't go Twenty-four hours
without getting laid; your pecker'll shrivel up
and die on you."
"Can't have that," Jeff said with his quick grin. He stood and drained
his beer. "Thanks, Bobby," he said, reaching
down a hand. "Good one, this year."
"Yeah." They did a jive handshake, complete with
high and low fives, and Jeff left. The starting of his
snow machine outside acted like a signal to the rest of
the group, and one by one they lined up to thank Bobby
and make their goodbyes.
"I'll be out to the Roadhouse to visit tomorrow," Kate
told Bernie.
"Good." He gave her shoulder a poke. "See you then."
Max Chaney stuck out his hand, missing Bobby's by about a foot, stared
right through Kate and drifted out the
door like smoke. "Is he driving?" she asked Bobby in
low voice.
"Nah. He flew down from the Step yesterday and Pete
brought him out."
"Good." When the door closed behind Max, the last to
leave, Kate inquired, "How'd it go this year?"
"All right." Bobby began emptying ashtrays into the
garbage. "It's getting to be less like work and more like fun."
"About time." Kate found the broom and began sweeping.
He looked up and said soberly, "Some of those guys have some awful
goddam tough ghosts to exorcise. You're too young and you weren't there.
You don't know."
"I've been known to crack a book or two, and I've been listening to you
for thirteen years," she. pointed out.
"You don't know," he repeated.
It was true, and Kate. was glad of it. "You seem relatively sane."
"I'm one of the lucky ones. I buried my ghosts with my legs," he said,
without bitterness.
"What's so lucky about loosing your legs?"
"I was in the hospital for months. I had the chance to decompress. The
other guys were in the jungle one day and in downtown San Francisco
being called baby killers the next." He shook his head. "Grunt Rule
Number 1. Never lose a war if you can help it. It upsets the folks back
home."
She paused in her sweeping and looked at him. "So, when you throw a
party like this, you're helping them to decompress?"
He shrugged. "We hang out, have a few beers, smoke a few joints,
remember, talk, listen to music, yell, scream. Sometimes we pound on
each other a little. We let off steam, take the edge off."
"Hasn't the edge dulled a little by now? It's been twenty-plus years."
"For some, yes, For some, no. For some on some days, yes. For some on
some days, no."
"When I was little, I remember my father and Abel talking
He shook his head. "No, Kate. They were Class of 45. Different thing."
"Different how? They got shot at, their friends died."".
"They came home to a parade, and a G.I. bill, and job
preference, and if that wasn't enough, the Nuremburg
trials showed them beyond a doubt that they'd fought the
essence of evil and won."
"Bobby," she said, "something I've always wanted to ask you. Sometimes
you talk like y'all was raised in the
middle of the Okefenokee Swamp, and at others you seem
to have just sauntered out of Harvard Yard. What gives?"
He grinned at her, a teasing grin, and she knew that was
the only answer she was going to get. "Okay," she said,
resigned, "then tell me what Bernie gets out of coming to
the Tet Annual?"
"Are you kidding? He looks at all of us and renders up thanks to the
powers that be that he ran for Canada." He
paused. "And we look at him and wish we had." After
moment Bobby grinned again, a trifle lopsided this time.
"And this year, with that goddam McAniff blasting away at everything
that moved, we needed it. It was definitely