It was a quality of melancholy.
Bob intercepted him.
'Say there,' he said, 'just wanted to tell you that was a damned nice little talk you gave there.'
The boy was not so mature that he didn't appreciate a compliment, so an unguarded smile crossed his face.
'Thanks,' he said.
'What's next for you?'
'Oh, the prize thing is an automatic year at Oxford as a research fellow. I leave for England tomorrow. Very exciting. They have a good department, lots of provocative people. I'm looking forward to it. Say--excuse me, I didn't catch your name.'
'Swagger,' Bob said.
'Oh, well, it's nice to talk to you, Mr. Swagger. I've, uh, got to be going now. Thanks again, I--' 'Actually, it's not just coincidence, me running into you. It took some digging to find you.'
The young man's eyes narrowed with hostility.
'I don't give interviews if this is some press thing. I have nothing to say.'
'Well, see, the funny thing is, I ain't here about you.
I'm here about your dad.'
The boy nodded, swallowed involuntarily.
'My father's been dead since 1971.'
'I know that,' said Bob.
'What is this? Are you a cop or anything?'
'Not at all.'
'A writer? Listen, I'm sorry, the last two times I gave interviews to writers, they didn't even use the stuff, so why should I waste my--'
'No, I ain't a writer. Fact is, I pretty much hate writers.
They always get it wrong. I never encountered a profession that got more wrong than being a writer. Anyhow, I'm just a former Marine. And your dad's death is mixed up in some business that just won't go away.'
'More on the great Trig Carter, eh? The great Trig Carter, hero of the left, who sacrificed his life to stop the war in Vietnam? Everybody remembers him. There'll probably be a movie one of these days. This fucking country, how can they worship a prick like him? He was a killer. He blew my father to little pieces, and crushed him under a hundred tons of rubble. And nobody gives a fuck.
They think Trig is the big hero, the victim, the martyr, because he came from a long line of Protestant swine and sold out to anybody that would have him.'
But then his bitterness vanished.
'Look, this isn't doing any good. I never knew my father, I was less than a year old when he was killed. What difference does it make?'
'Well,' said Swagger, 'maybe it still makes a little.
See, I was struck by the same thing as I looked into this.
There ain't nothing about your father nowhere. Excuse my grammar, I never had a fancy education.'
'Overrated, believe me.'
'I do believe you on that one. Anyhow, he's the mystery man in this affair. Nobody wants to know, nobody's interested.'
'Why is this of interest to you? Who cares?'
'I care. Maybe your father wasn't the poor guy in the wrong place at the wrong time, like everybody says.
Maybe he was more important than people think. That's a possibility I'm looking at. And maybe the folks who pulled the strings are still around. And maybe I'm interested in looking into this and maybe I'm the only man who cares about your dad--' 'My mother was a saint, by the way. She taught, tutored, worked like hell to give me the chances I had.
She died my freshman year at Harvard.'
'I'm very sorry. You were a lucky young man, though, who had parents who cared and sacrificed.'
'Yes, I was. So you think--you have some conspiracy theory about my father? Do you have a radio show or something?'
'No, sir. I'm not in this for the money. I'm just a Marine trying to get some old business straightened out.
Believe it or not, it connects with the death of still another member of that generation, a boy who died in Vietnam.
That was another great loss for his family and our country.'
'Who are you?'
