Between Earl and the young man lay a whole gulf of mistrust. Frenchy had been a member of Earl's raid team in Hot Springs some years earlier, in an ugly little war against mobsters, supposedly for the moral betterment of mankind. But Frenchy was wild then, and made mistakes, some innocent people were killed, and it was decreed by frightened higher authorities that he should be let go. Off he went, spewing fury and screaming betrayal.
A week later, the team was mysteriously ambushed in a rail yard, after being set up by someone with an unusual sense of its weaknesses and vanities. Seven good men died that night and only Earl and one other made it out. Within six months, the tables and wheels of Hot Springs were up and running, so it had all been for nothing. It still left a dark, rancid taste on Earl's tongue. He hated to think on it; it got him riled in ways unnecessary for a calm life.
'You don't tell me nothing. You understand? Was a time when I thought I might come looking for you so's we'd have a little talk, get some things straightened out.'
'Earl, there's nothing to be straightened out.'
Earl looked at him and Frenchy held the gaze square and hard. There was no evasion, no furtiveness of the eyes, none of the things you saw when you had a crook before you, as Earl had had before him now a thousand or so times. Earl watched: the boy didn't breathe hard and shallow, his eyes didn't flutter left to recall or right to make something up, his throat didn't dry or crank up a quart or two of liar's phlegm. He held steady, maybe even a little too steady. That was the thing about Frenchy, damn his skills, he could look anybody square in the eye and tell him anything and say it with such passion he made you believe it.
'Does this Roger kid know what a little snake he has working for him?'
'Earl, I never did you or any of them any harm. I heard about it when I got back from China. I looked for you, because I wanted to know what happened, too. When I heard that Bugsy Siegel got pasted, I figured Mr. Earl paid him a call.'
'Like as if I'd waste my time on city trash like that. No, he wasn't part of what happened in Hot Springs.'
'Neither was I. Ask me any question. I'll go over it with you day by day, I'll cite time, date, location. I'll account for it all. You try your hardest to trip me up, but you won't be able to do it, because there's nothing for me to trip up on.'
'What I know is you got canned, and both the old man and I fought as hard as we could against that. Some fights with some assholes you just don't win. Next, you disappear. A week later we are turned inside out by someone who knew us so well he played it straight to our weaknesses, to that old man's silly vanity, to his memories. Only two of us walked away.'
'You and Carlo Henderson.'
'That left seven good men and one great one to die in a rail-yard.'
'I'd bet he didn't go unavenged.'
'There was justice paid out, and I'd do it again in a second, even if it was evil killing work. But that ain't got nothing to do with you. We were talking about the great D. A. Henderson and seven good men.'
'I remember D.A. He was a good hand. Earl, I had not a thing to do with it. I left town, I drifted to Washington, I went to work in a small unimportant department of the government, I had a lucky break and met some people-through a girl, actually-and got a small, unimportant job in the Agency. A nothing job. In there, I worked hard and met some more people and got some training and got the China assignment. I saw some things, but you know we lost China, and some men were stained by it. Their careers are finished. I just barely survived and I'm still at it. Going nowhere except fetching coffee for this Harvard asshole Roger who thinks he's the next Director. Anyhow, that's the story, the whole story.'
Earl just studied him.
'Truth is, you could be spinning a lie or saying the word of God and I wouldn't know. Some-very damned few-criminals have that gift. But most don't. Not hardly nobody does. I never saw it in fifteen years in the Marine Corps. But it exists, I have learned that as a cop.'
'Earl, I'll take a polygraph.'
'You could beat that.'
'Earl, you just watch and wait and make up your own mind. You belong in the major leagues, not out on some lousy Arkansas state route, handing out tickets. You'll see.'
Earl shook his head.
'I need some sleep,' he finally said.
'Earl, tonight there's the big party. You'll see it's the world you belong in. I know you, Earl. I know where you belong.'
Chapter 14
'I must say, Speshnev, you've quite a queer notion of doing business,' said Pashin.
'How so?' asked Speshnev. They sat at a disagreeable cafe in Centro, just off Zanja Street, just down from the Barrio Chino, for their weekly. The coffee was strong and sweet, the smell of tobacco stronger. All about them throbbed the Cuban working classes, in whose cause they so energetically labored.
'You were assigned to shadow a man who could be an opponent. And, if necessary, kill him. You establish surveillance, you penetrate the target, you even manage to enter the zone with an automatic. Then, astonishingly, you save his life when fate is about to give you exactly what we needed and expected of you. I wonder what the meaning of that decision is?'
'Oh, that. Yes, well, he seemed rather too impressive a man to end up with his gizzard cut in a Havana drunk tank. The theater of the moment demanded that I intercede. One has to have a feel for such things.'
'His records have been found. We have sources in Washington, you know. Here, take a look.'
Pashin slid the documents over. They were photoed copies of the Marine service record of Earl Lee Swagger. They told of many wars, much battle experience, many wounds, many lost friends, and a few moments of insane heroism. The list of medals was impressive.
'As you see,' said Pashin, 'a man of great talent. A formidable opponent, one they could not easily replace. And so…you save him?'
'I thought he had a salty look to him. Like one of the old zeks sent to the camps to perish who instead flourish. Zeks are one thing I know all about.'
'Yes, well, if you fail, it's a zek you'll know about again, 4715.'
'Ah, yes, the magic number, 4715. Why, how sweet to hear its rhythms again.'
'If he determines to move in a certain way, how will we stop him? It would have been so much better to deal with this now.'
'He doesn't know Cuba well enough to do us any harm yet. And the men with him, they are idiots. So I will watch him, while I become an intimate of this Castro, and all things will develop as we hope. I will perform magnificently.'
'You know, Speshnev,' said the younger man, leaning forward, his face empty of humor or irony but filled simply with aggression, 'I grow tired with your whimsy, your poetics. I'm sure all your Comintern colleagues at the Hotel Luxe in Moscow found them amusing, but out here, we've no room for romantic gestures. This is a war, and we must win it.'
'Little Pashin, I do believe I know more about wars than you do. After all, I have fought in all the ones you only read about.'
Chapter 15
'Cigar, Marine?'
It was the fifth one he'd been offered tonight, a huge, dense thing, expertly woven into the perfect tube.
The offer came from a little man in a dinner jacket, his tanned face alight with pleasure. He had to be Somebody Important. Everybody here was Somebody Important.
