All, that is, but two of them.
Carlo Henderson was tapped by D. A. late that morning, as most of the others had left. He was in no hurry because he was going to catch a late bus out of Texarkana for Tulsa, where he planned to visit his widowed mother. But that was not to be.
'Yes sir?'
'Henderson, Mr. Earl tells me you're doing very well. You've got a lot to be proud of.'
Carlo lit up with a smile. Earl, of course, was a God to him, brave and fair but not a man given to much eloquence in his praise.
'I am just trying to do my duty,' he allowed.
'That's important, isn't it?'
'Important?'
'Duty, son.'
'Yes sir,' said the boy. 'Yes sir, it is.'
'Good, I thought you'd say that,' said the old FBI agent. 'Now let me ask you this: what do you think of Mr. Earl?'
Carlo was taken aback. He felt his jaw flop open, big enough for flies to fill, and then he swallowed, gulped and blurted out, 'He's a hero.'
'That he is,' agreed the old man. 'That he is. You've heard these rumors that Earl won a medal, a big medal, in the Pacific? Well, they're true. Earl was a great Marine out there. Earl killed a lot of the Yamoto race. So any young man who gits to study and learn and benefit from Earl's bravery and leadership ability, he's a lucky young man indeed, wouldn't you say?'
'Yes sir,' said Carlo, for he felt that way exactly.
'But you should know something, Henderson,' D. A. continued. 'Earl's was the very toughest of wars. Five invasions. Wounds. Lots of men lost on hell's far and barren beaches. You get my drift?'
Carlo did not.
'It takes something from a man, all that. You can't go through it and come out the same. It wears a man down and exhausts him. It blunts him. Now, son,' continued the old man, 'I am a mite worried about something. See if you follow me. You ever hear of this thing called combat fatigue?'
'Yes sir,' said Carlo. 'Section 8. Cuckoo. You can't do your job no more, even though you ain't been hit. So off you go to the nuthouse.'
'Them jitters, they don't always make it so you want to go to hospital. Sometimes they make it so you just want to die and git it over with. It's part of combat fatigue. It's called a death wish. You hear me? Death wish.'
The concept sounded somehow familiar to Carlo, but he wasn't sure from where. And he wondered where in hell this was going.
'See, here's what can happen,' D. A. explained. 'A fellow can be so tired he don't want to go on. But he's got too much guts?they call it internal structure, the doctors do, I have looked it up?to quit. So he decides to kill himself doing his duty. He takes wild chances. He behaves with incredible bravado. But he's really just trying to git hisself killed. Strange it is, but they say it happens.'
'Is that what's going on with Mr. Earl?' Carlo asked.
'I don't know, son. What do you think?'
'I don't know neither, sir. He seems all right, I guess.'
'Yes, he does. But dammit, I have told him three times on raids to wear the damned vest and he will not do it. I have told him his job is to stay outside and coordinate, over the walkie-talkies. But again, he's got to be right up front where the guns are. And that last stunt. Why, he walked down that hallway in plain sight, daring them boys to shoot him. What a fool thing to do. He could have laid back and with that BAR just opened fire and finished their hash off.'
'He was afraid of hurting them colored girls.'
'Never heard of such a thing in all my days.'
'Yes sir.'
Now that he thought about it, Carlo had to admit it did seem peculiar.
'So anyway,' said D. A., 'I am mighty worried about Earl. I do not want to be a party to his self-destruction. I picked him, I offered him this job in good faith and I expected him to do it in good faith, and not try and get himself killed. Do you understand?'
'I think so, sir.'
'Now, there's one other thing as well.'
The boy just stared his way.
'You know I respect and appreciate Earl as much as any man on the team?'
'Yes sir.'
'And you know I think he's a true American hero, of the type there ain't many like anymore. Mr. Purvis, he was one. Audie Murphy, now there's another. William O. Darby, he was another. But Earl's quite a man, that's what I think.'
'I do too, sir,' said the boy.
'So I ask myself a question so hard I can hardly put it in words. Which is: Why did he lie?'
'Sir?'
'Why did he lie? Earl told a lie. A flat, cold, indisputable lie and it's got me all bothered, bothered as much as his crazy need to get hisself kilt. I tried to dismiss it but I couldn't. There seemed no point to it, none at all, not even a little one.'
'He lied?'
'He did.'
'It don't sound like him.'
'Not a bit. But he did.'
'On what topic?'
'The topic was Hot Springs.'
'Hot Springs?'
'I asked him dead-on. Earl, have you ever been in Hot Springs? No sir, he said. 'My Baptist daddy said Hot Springs was fire and damnation. He'd beat our hides off if ever we went to Hot Springs.'That's what he said.'
'But you think he has?'
'Shoot, son, it's a pitcherfiil more than that! At least three times I have planned a certain way, based on my reconnoitering and my experience. And in each damn case, he has at the last second said, Now wait a minute, wouldn't it be better if… And each goddamn time his way was better. Better by far.'
'Well, I?'
'Better because he knew the terrain or the site of the buildings. The last time was the best. He's in the alley watching the rear-entry team, holding it all together on the radio. But suddenly he gets this feeling the team will be ambushed from behind. So he's looking down the alley when they move a truck with gunmen in it down toward Malvern, with an enfilade on the rear to Mary Jane's, How's he know to look there? It's dark as sin, but he knows where to look? How?'
'Ah. Well, I guess?'
'Guess nothing! I asked him straight up and he told me he was just lucky he was looking in the right direction. Bullshit! I swear to you, he goddamned knew there was just the slightest incline down that little street, called Guilford, toward Malvern. He knew a truck could roll down, no engine involved, just by releasing the emergency brake, and git into shooting position. So that's exactly where he looked and by God when he saw them boys sliding into position he was ready. He emptied two BAR mags into that truck and up she went like the Fourth of July and three more of Pap Grumley's cousins went to hell. He knew.'
The old man seemed astounded, turning this bit of information over and over in his mind. It fascinated him.
'All right,' he said, 'here's what I want. You take this week and you turn all your detective skill loose on Earl. Earl's background. Earl's past. Who is Earl? Why's he working the way he is? What's going on in his head? What do his ex-Marine pals say? What's his folks say? What's his family doctor say? How was he in Hot Springs? When was
