“Amen, Gunny. Look at all them poodles: they don’t have clue one about the real world, and we lived and fought and died in a world so real they couldn’t imagine it.”
“Here’s to the United States Marine Corps, which gave us three hots, a cot, a rifle, and a target-rich environment.”
“I’ll drink to the target-rich environment, even if the hots wasn’t hot that often and the cot not that comfortable that often. Sure was good shooting, though. Never saw anything like it, and I wish I could feel ashamed like I’m supposed to, but I figure every little yellow guy I sent to Buddha-R-Us didn’t put a 7.62 through PFC Jones, and he got to go home to Passel O’Toads, Tennessee, and go to work in the paint factory.”
“Damn straight,” said Bob, “here’s to all them paint factory personnel departments we helped meet the quota!”
Too bad it was overpriced coffee they were drinking instead of some hard slop-chute poison that would have mellowed them out and made them feel no pain. But it was just caffeine, and in a while, Chuck got around to the real reason he’d struck up chatter with Swagger, as Swagger knew he would.
“Gunny—”
“It’s Bob. All that Gunny shit’s long gone.”
“Bob. I have to tell you, this whole thing doesn’t sit right.”
“No, it don’t.”
“Did you know Carl?”
“Never met him. Knew many who knew him; all said he was the bravest, the straightest, the best marine. I never had any reason to doubt that. You meet him?”
“Well, yes and no. All this stuff about number one and number two? It wasn’t a thing I gave a goddamn about, but when it come out, it did gnaw on me some. Suddenly I have newspaper assholes wanting ‘feature stories’ and I just know who they wanted me to play and I didn’t want to play that guy. I just wanted to be with my family. My daughter’s in the honors program at University of Oregon and my son just signed a minor league contract with the Mariners organization. I put in twenty-five years in the forestry service, had a nice pension, and I wanted to have some good time with my kids and watch them develop. There’s also a great many smallmouths out there signed up to go on my hook and I don’t want to disappoint ’em. Nothing more than that. All this ‘You’re number one’ crap didn’t mean a thing to me. It don’t put fish on the hook. But it got me worrying that it might have meant something to Carl. It just seemed wrong and I worried he’d be upset. If he was. I mean, who knew, really? The numbers was made-up to begin with. The official tags was only seen and confirmed by line squad members or officers and reported. There were hundreds more probables, and you know as well as I do, if you can call your shots, you know that there wasn’t nothing probable about most probables.”
Bob knew. The kills were a lot more than the official tally. A lot more.
“So anyway, I thought the right thing to do after the news came out was try to reach Carl. I wanted him to know that nothing of this had anything to do with me. I wasn’t behind any of it. I’m just minding my business, takin’ care of my kids and wife, that’s all. Someone else thought it was a big deal, not me. Of course I didn’t know how to reach him, so I sent him a letter care of Ballantine Books, which had printed Marine Sniper, that biography of him that fellow wrote. Didn’t think there’s a chance in hell it’d reach him. I suppose I did it for myself. Anyhow, I just said, ‘Hey, look, Sarge, just so you know, it wasn’t me behind ‘Who’s number one’ that everybody’s talking about, it means nothing to me, I haven’t thought about it in thirty years. You were a great marine sniper, the greatest. I just got a little luckier because a few more assholes saw me pull the trigger, that’s all.’ I felt a little better after sending the letter.”
“You got a response?”
“Well, yeah. It took a while. It took close to two years, but goddamn if I didn’t get a letter just a couple of days before all this craziness started. That’s why all this is so strange.”
Bob knew he’d be offered a chance to read the letter. He also knew he shouldn’t.
It was over, it was finished, it was gone. Put it behind you. Walk away from it. It means nothing. It’s the dead past. You have a life, a family, kids, the world. You have everything. No man has more than you, plus you got to be a marine sniper and you saw a lifetime of stuff no other man ever saw, much less survived, and you’ve got the scars and steel bones to prove how close the calls were over the years.
Chuck got the letter out, unfolded it.
“It just don’t make no sense to me. Here, read it.”
Bob took the letter, and read.
Of course. How could he not? He had to read. He owed it to Chuck, he owed it to Carl, he owed it to all the boys under the ground. You can’t walk away from certain obligations.
“Dear Chuck McKenzie,” the letter read, in Carl Hitchcock’s big, looping penmanship, not the slick handwriting of a man who wrote a lot.
Thanks so much for your letter and I’d heard you were no part of this deal, so it’s no problem for me at all. Don’t you worry about it. You were a hell of a marine and it’s a shame you didn’t get the medals and the rank you deserved, but then that was the way the thinking went in those days. But like me and all the other snipers I know, I figure you realize your true reward is all the boys walking around today who wouldn’t be if you hadn’t done your duty. I suppose I had a rough time for a while, because I’m as dumb a bastard as there is. And the “number one” thing put beer in the fridge and bait on the hook. I thought that might be over. Funny thing is, ever since the news came, I been busier than ever. I thought it would go away and instead it got louder. In fact, I have more bookings at more shows this year than any of the past five. And I told the promoters I’d have to up my fee because the cost of gas was so high, and that turned out to be fine with them. So as I sit here, damned if it don’t seem to be working out. It’s really the attention, more than the actual meaning. Being number two makes me somehow more interesting than being number one and I don’t know why. Civilians! But I do know a good thing when I see it and I will run with it all the way to the bank, or at least the bait shop.
Semper Fi, marine, and best to you and yours,
Carl Hitchcock
“Hmm,” Bob said, a sound he made involuntarily which seemed to have the meaning, That’s interesting but I will have to think harder about it.
Then he said, “He sounded pretty healthy.”
“That’s it, Gunny. He doesn’t sound like a depressed fellow about to go off on some kind of killing rampage, obsessed with getting his number one ranking back.”
Bob looked at the date. It was dated two weeks before the killing of the movie actress in Long Island.
It teased him.
“You show this to anybody?”
“No. The FBI asked questions about me, I hear, but no one ever contacted me directly and I never had a sit-down face-to-face, so I didn’t have a chance to bring it up.”
“Yeah, they asked questions about me too,” said Bob, remembering a call from Nick before it was clear what all this was about.
“Now,” said Chuck, “I’m not sure what to do. Should I call the FBI? I’m hoping to get some advice. Is this anything? I just don’t see how Carl could write this and just a few weeks later blow a hole in Hanoi Joan’s rib cage. It doesn’t add up.”
“No,” said Bob. “It don’t.”
“Yet the FBI, they say categorically, over and over, it’s been in all the papers, that yep, Carl did it, all the proof is in, they going to release a final report with all the evidence, case closed, and that’s it, that’s what the history books’ll say.”
“Yeah,” said Bob. “They’ve clearly committed to that interpretation and it’ll take something to get them off it. I know a little about how this stuff works. Once the big guys make up their mind, you can’t change it. Just like a sniper program. Took years for the brass to see the value and sanction a school, and meantime every unit on the line put one together ad hoc, because it was so obvious and necessary.”
Bob honestly didn’t know. He had no policy.
Then Chuck said, “Here’s why I’m really here. A guy hears things, you know. And one of the things I hear is that you never really left the life. You’re a sniper still, through and through. You’ve done stuff, survived stuff; lots of people say you’re way at the top of the pyramid in terms of getting certain kinds of work done. I remember years ago you were wanted for the murder of that archbishop. Then that all went away, magically, so something not too many people know about was going on.”
“I’ve had some crazy stuff happen,” said Bob. “But I’m retired now.”
“But it’s said you have a gift. I mean, more than the shooting, but understanding the shooting. You can look at circumstances and you have some kind of feel for what happened. You can infer in ways other people can’t. You’re Sherlock Holmes, you’re CSI, Gunfight, that sort of thing.”
“Chuck, you’re way overstating it.”
“I’m just saying what I’ve heard.”
“It’s true that men of my family are natural-born people of the gun. Don’t know why. But I had it, my daddy had it in spades, and his dad—who I hear was otherwise a monster—his dad was quite the gun man as well. It goes back, off and on, through generations, since somehow a mysterious fellow called Swagger appeared in the territory that would become Arkansas in 1783, from God knows where. His son had the gift and it’s why so many of us died in wars or other violence. We’re drawn to it, fatally, our character, our fate, one side of the law or the other, I don’t know why.”
“Well, I had a favor to ask.”
“Ask it, brother Chuck.”
“It’s this. Maybe Carl did go all nuts like they say, and maybe he did all that killing, and maybe, somehow, I’m a little part responsible. If that’s the case, then I’ll just have to learn to live with it, and it’s okay, it’s what happens in the world. But suppose it’s not. Suppose it didn’t happen the way they said it did. Suppose, suppose, I don’t know what, just suppose. Anyhow, what I’d like is for someone who is sympathetic to the marine side of the story and not under pressure to issue a report to make the newspapers happy to go and look hard at it. Go to the sites, reconstruct it in your mind, see what you see without prejudice. Look at it fair and square. If all the facts point to Carl, then that’s where we are, that’s it. At least there’s no worry in it, nothing to keep you up nights.”
“Chuck, I—”
“Now, I have a check here for five thousand dollars. That’s not a payment. But you shouldn’t have to gin up the expense money on your own. I’d like you to take it for travel, for hotels, for this and that, anything that might come up. Just take a week and satisfy yourself that everything’s on the up and up.”
“Chuck, save your money. I’m sixty-three, a little old to be tramping around strange cities with a range finder, hoping to find something the most sophisticated ballistic forensics techs in the world missed. It’s just not going to happen. I’m too old, they’re too good. It’s not for me and it’s a waste.”
“Gunny, I—”
“I just can’t do it. I don’t want you mad at me and I’m sorry for Carl, but I can’t go off again. I’m old. It’ll kill me, I know.”
“Okay, Gunny,” said Chuck. “I get it. No problem. Hey, I had to give it a try.”
“You’re a good man, Chuck.”
“Look, just do me the favor of saying you’ll keep a mind open to it. No pressure, but if you change your thinking, the check is still there. And if you need help of any sort, here’s my card, I’ll be there in a second. I’m still a lance corporal at heart.”
Swagger still made his plane, but just barely. He flew across America charged with melancholy at the way it had worked out. But he put it out of mind for a while, tried to get to sleep. Finally, after all the connections, he made it to Boise and went to his car in the lot. Another hour or so and then the day would be finished, at least.
He thought to call his wife to tell her he’d be home in a bit but was astonished to see his message light blinking.
Couldn’t hardly work the damned thing, but managed to figure out how to call up the “missed call” menu after a bit, and was stunned to see a Washington area code on the caller. Who in that town gave a damn about him? But then he realized there was one person, and he recognized the number from last year: it was Nick Memphis’s.
7
When the Seventh Floor calls, you have to go. It was J. Edgar’s rule, back when the floor was the fifth and the building was across and down Pennsylvania, but it still held. Nick was glad he’d worn a tie that day. He dipped into the washroom and gave his face a scrub, but the lines driven into his flesh by a week of twenty-hour days and a lot of flight and airport time weren’t helpful. He ran some water through his hair, toweled off, went out and found his jacket, and took the elevator up to seven for the director’s office.
He was waved through by the Big Guy’s secretary and two uniformed Joes who formed a security perimeter even this deep in the heart of the federal beast. He’d been in this office before, with its altar of flags, its glory wall summing up the director’s—this director’s—career, its shelves of unread books, its mementos and naval flourishes (the brass telescope!) and so forth. And he’d seen this view, which looked to the southeast over Pennsylvania and the Archives’ Grecian pretensions toward the dome of the Capitol, giving the room an absurd fake-movie quality, on the presumption that all offices in Washington had views of the Capitol, with its red-white-blue bunting flopping in wind jets.
But the director sat with two men, by dint of haberdashery alone—well-fitted blue suits with subtle striping; dark, shiny mahogany loafers affixed with the je-ne-sais-quoi languor of tassels; fresh, un-dry-cleaned red power ties—of a higher professional political ranking. Each face was smooth and ruddy (Botox? only a coroner would know for sure), each head of hair lush and vibrant, each profile taut, each body toned (hours per diem in the gym). It took a while, but Nick recognized the heartier of the men as a congressman from out west somewhere; the other guy had lawyer or prominent lobbyist written in his flesh.
“Nick, sorry to interrupt,” said the director, “but I wanted to get these two interested parties a little shot of face time with our lead guy on Sniper.”
“Nick,” said the congressman, rising, hand out, “Jack Ridings, Wyoming, thanks so much for giving us a few,” and the other quickly fell into line, IDing himself behind the well-turned-out presentation as Bill Fedders, no affiliation but by implication powerful affiliation.
“Nick’s one of our heroes,” the director said. “He still limps a little because he was wounded in a gunfight while busting up that armored car robbery in Bristol, Tennessee, last year. How’s the leg, Nick?”
“Well, my basketball days are over, but I can still jog and ride a bike, so it’s a fair trade. I never could hit a jumper anyway.”
“Nick, can you catch the guys up? Jack’s the representative for T. T. Constable’s western holdings and Bill’s T. T.’s private attorney, and Mr. Constable—”
“ ‘Tom’ is what we all call him,” said the slicker of the two, with a conspiratorial warmth, as if he were letting them in on some inside skinny. “He just came up with the ‘T. T.’ for publicity purposes. The man is insatiable.”
“Tom, then,” said the director. “Tom is very concerned with the progress in his ex-wife’s death.”
“Sure,” said Nick. “No problem. Most of it’s been in the papers.”
So, this was a private confab with the forces of Constable? Constable, wealthy beyond measure, the famous star’s equally famous hubby for eight years, fingers in all the pies there were—Constable was big-footing it. He needed private assurances that this thing was getting full attention from the Bureau—as if something this insanely high-profile wouldn’t of its own accord—and insisting on a little inside dope. That was fine, that was okay, that was the way the town worked, and if you were going to h
ave a career in the town, you had to play by its rules.
The rules were: Information is power. But power is also power. Power must be not so much obeyed as acquiesced to, massaged, assured. The key to all transactions was the congressman, who got his big donors and supporters private audiences with linchpin feds. It had always been that way, it would always be that way. Now Tom Constable—T. T. in the papers, Tom only to friends and intimates—wanted to be in the loop. In a way, Nick was surprised it had taken so long. Constable had a yen for attention himself, which may be why he married Joan in the first place, and he’d been front and center on all the Sunday talkers about the tragedy of his second wife, how much she’d given, what a crime it was that this tragedy took her, how it was as if she hadn’t survived the war she had tried so hard to stop. Of course Jack and Mitzi and the poor funnyman Mitch more or less disappeared during this orgy of calamity, but again, that was the way of the big foot. Nobody ever said it was fair. It wasn’t supposed to be fair. The process, in fact, in the language of engineers, was operating as designed.
Nick quickly ran through the actions his investigation had taken and tried not to overplay his hand. The director supplied that ingredient.
“See how fast Nick cut to the heart of it. He knew exactly where to go to smoke this guy out and it took, what, Nick, less than three days?”
“We didn’t begin to look at the pattern until after the second incident,” said Nick, “and we became lead agency. But we had the name one day after the third incident, went public with it the second day, and had our man early in the morning on the third, though for all of us involved, there was no breakdown by days. Nobody went home, we worked straight. It was great staff work. My people really did it. I just tried to stay out of the way.”
“I’m sure Nick is being modest,” said the congressman.
“I think I speak for Tom when I say the Bureau’s actions have been extraordinary,” said Bill. “Really fine work. Now what
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