Envy the Night

seemed to end with the CIA instead of the Department of Defense. Temple II had matched his father’s Silver Star and Purple Heart, then come home to a career as a U.S. marshal, fathering a son who—of course—bore his name, his father’s name.

“You’ve got a lot to live up to.” That was his mantra for Frank, a thought shared with the same casual frequency most people used for “Good morning,” a constant reminder that Frank’s was a line of brave men and heroic deeds.

The hell of it was, Frank had always believed him. Believed in him, which was even worse. All the hero bullshit, the talk of honor and courage, it seemed to come from his father’s core. It was sacred. Right up until his father killed himself and a team of FBI agents arrived at the house, three months before Frank’s high school graduation, he’d believed in his father.

Now, sitting beside a fire with a lukewarm beer in hand, he wondered how long that would have continued. If his father had never been caught, if those FBI agents had never showed up at the door, would they sit here together, sharing a laugh and a beer, Frank steadfast in his faith in the man across the fire from him? Or would he have grown wiser with age, smelled the lie in his father’s words, seen evil in eyes that had always looked on him with love?

He would’ve been proud today, Frank thought. The way I brought the socket wrench down, the sound it made on the back of that guy’s skull, yeah, that’s Daddy’s boy right there.

He laughed at that, the sort of laugh you can allow yourself when you’re drinking and alone. Laughed for longer than he should have, then lifted his beer to the cabin, a toast to his return. This was their place, a spot of memories shared only with his father, no interlopers here.

He wanted to spill some tears, weep for his father. It had been four years since he’d last been able to do that. Driving through the Kentucky foothills in the middle of the night, listening to a radio station from some town he’d never heard of when the Pink Floyd song “Wish You Were Here” came on, began chewing at the edges of his brain, then danced right through the center of it when one softly sung line—“Did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?”—wafted out of the speakers.

There’d be no tears tonight, though, and maybe those he’d lost on a lonely highway in Kentucky would be the last. If this place, with all its good memories, didn’t affect him in that way, then no place ever would.

He wouldn’t cry for his father here at the Willow, but he might kill for him. If Devin was really coming back . . . damn, but that would feel good. Frank could do it, too. Bet your ass he could do it. Years of lessons didn’t disappear that quickly, not when they were taught by somebody as good as his father.

There’d been a day, sometime in the summer when he was fourteen, that his dad first broached the subject of justified killing. Really laid it out there. They’d been downstairs in the mat room, working out, Frank attacking and his father defending, blocking most of his attempts easily, but every now and then Frank would sneak a blow in. When he did, his father would smile. Glow, almost.

They’d finished and were sitting together with their backs against the cold concrete wall, breathing hard, and his father had said, There’s a lot of bullshit to what I do, son. And to what I did. With the marshals now and the Army before.

Frank thought he meant bullshit as in boring work, red tape and bureaucracy. That wasn’t it, though. As the sweat dried on Frank’s neck and back and his heart rate wound down to a slow, steady thump, his father had explained what he meant.

We chase down guys who are evil bastards, Frank. I mean evil, you understand? Guys who steal and kill and rape and commit any other manner of crime, anything you can think of. Some of them go to prison. A lot of them don’t. They get off on some technicality, get some lawyer pulling tricks, whatever. But they go right back out on the street and hurt somebody else. I’m not saying the system doesn’t work sometimes . . . I’m saying it doesn’t all the time. There are guys the system can’t touch who aren’t worth the air they’re breathing. And there’s a way to settle it. A natural way.

A natural way. That’s what his father thought of killing. That it was the most natural thing in the world, an inherent solution to human conflict, ageless and unsurpassed.

Frank hadn’t said anything for a while, until it became obvious his father wanted some sort of response. Then he’d asked what all of that had to do with the Army.

It’s the same thing. There’s this system in place, right, governments and generals and all the rest, and they’re supposed to keep the peace, and everybody wants them to do it without firing a shot. But you know what? They can’t. Because there are evil people in the world, son, and they’re going to keep doing evil things. And that keeps people like me in demand. People like me, and your grandfather, and you. Somebody who knows how to use a gun and knows when to use it.

That was the first time Frank had been officially included in the list, and it made his head go a little light, the honor of that shared company hitting him deep in his fourteen-year-old boy’s heart.

A few years later, his father’s body in the ground and face on the front page of the newspaper, the sad truth of moments like that one began to show itself to Frank. He understood what his father had been doing, understood that he’d been rationalizing with himself as much as he’d been offering a philosophy to Frank. But he believed what he said, too, and Frank saw the horror in that, saw the fallacy and savageness and the justification. Yes, the justification. It was still there. Smaller, maybe, weakened, maybe, but not obliterated. It couldn’t be. Because his father, evil man or not, was dead, and Devin Matteson—evil man for sure—was alive and free. Cut a deal, hung Frank’s father out to dry, and then walked away from it. No punishment, no penance, no pain. He deserved some of all of that. Damn sure deserved some pain.

There’d been another conversation down in the basement that stood out in Frank’s memory, and again the true significance hadn’t hit for a few years. They’d been down there working on elbow strikes—vertical, horizontal, front, rear, up, down, Frank’s dad always demanding greater speed, greater power—while his mother played Tom Petty music loud upstairs, trying to drown them out, unhappy with the violent lessons her son was taking to so well.

That day had been, Frank would later learn, exactly one week after his father came back from Florida having killed two men to avenge Dan Matteson’s death. One week living with the reality of it, maybe a couple of weeks of dealing with the decision itself. He’d paused to sip a beer—it was the first time Frank could remember his dad bringing anything but bottled water downstairs with him—and he’d studied his son with a critical eye.

Frank, he’d said, suppose somebody takes me out one of these days.

It had still seemed like a game right then, and Frank had answered, That can’t be done, nobody out there good enough, in a flip, teasing voice, thinking they were just working up to some of the chest-thumping bravado the old man liked to get into during a hard session. His eyes were different, though, darker and more intense.

It can be done, Frank. Probably will be done, someday.

Frank didn’t answer.

Suppose it happens, his father had said, and suppose you know who’s responsible. What would you do?

Still no answer.

Frank? What would you do?

Kill him, Frank said, hating how weak his voice sounded, like a little kid. I’d find him and I’d kill him.

Pleasure in his father’s eyes. Respect. He’d nodded, finished his beer, and said, Damn right you would. Damn right. Then he’d laid a hand on Frank’s shoulder and said, You’re a good boy, Frank. Check that—you’re a good man.

A few years later, Frank had been able to flash back on that conversation and once again see what had been working beneath the surface, see the rationalization, the justification, but there’d been something else there, too: a promise.

I’d find him and I’d kill him.

Frank Temple II had killed himself. No scores to settle. None.

I’d find him and I’d kill him.

Frank had endured a lot of pity over the years, some genuine, some false. Sometimes it would be expressed