Point Of Impact

He followed her into the traffic, trying to remember where she lived, or if she’d ever said. He simply latched on behind as she headed out I-10, east, until she reached the lakeside, then followed the sign that pointed the way to Gentilly Woods. He watched as she stopped at a Fill-a-Sack. When she came out a few minutes later with two plastic bags, he decided it was time to move.

“Sally! Hey, Sally!”

He dashed across the parking lot to her, but when she heard his voice and he saw suspicion flee across her pretty face, he knew in a second he had no chance at all of pretending he’d just bumped into her.

“Nick! Are you trying to get me fired! What are you doing here? You followed me. You followed me!”

“All right. Yeah, I did.”

“Well, you’re lucky I didn’t have a date.”

“I know that. You’re the most popular woman in New Orleans, I keep forgetting.”

“Nick, you’re in a lot of trouble. You could get me in a lot of trouble.”

“You haven’t told anyone I’ve been talking to you on the phone?”

“Hold it right there. You haven’t exactly been talking to me on the phone. When you want something, like a top secret government report, then you talk to me on the phone. When you don’t want anything, then you don’t have the decency to give me the time of day. And why do I think you’re here now? To tell me how much you like my dress?”

“It’s very pretty.”

“To tell me how much you like my new cologne?”

“Hey, it smells great.”

“To tell me how you’ve missed me?”

“I’ve missed you a lot.”

“What do you want, Nick? You always want something. And it’s not even me. You don’t want to kiss me or sleep with me or anything. You just want some favor that’s going to cost me my job.”

“It’s real easy. It’s so easy. It’ll take you two minutes. I know you can do it.”

“What is it? Steal Mr. Utey’s billfold? Sneak an M-16 out of the armory?”

“Run some numbers for me. You can do it. You’re tied into the municipal numbers, I know you are.”

“I knew it. Boy, if you aren’t the predictable one. Nick, I just can’t – ”

“Do you think I’d do this if it weren’t important?”

“It’s always important. It’s always just one more little thing. Why don’t you just go to Hap Fencl and explain. He likes you. Everybody likes you.”

“Ah…it just wouldn’t work out. Trust me. Sally, I need you to get into the New Orleans Municipal Motor Vehicles Registry. I need a name or a number or…well, I don’t know.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh. Taxis. Didn’t I say that? Taxis. I’m looking for…well, I don’t quite know what.”

“When?”

“When?”

“When! When do you need it by?”

“I was hoping…I was hoping you’d let me take you out to dinner. Then I was hoping you’d let me drive you back downtown. Then I was hoping you’d run upstairs. And run the numbers tonight.”

“God, Nick, you deserve some sort of award for shamelessness. I mean, this sets a new record even by your standards.”

“Sally…I can’t even tell you what this is about or what I’ve been up to or who I’ve been with. But – please, trust me. This is so important.”

“Oh, Christ, Nick. Do you have a quarter?”

“A quarter?”

“A quarter.”

“Yes.”

“Give it here, then.”

“Sure. What – ”

“I do have a date. I’ll go break it.”

“Oh, um – hey, with who?”

“Norm Fesper.”

“That guy? He’s a defense lawyer, for Christ’s sake. Oh, come on, you can do better than that!”

“I just did,” she said, walking away to make the call.

They kept her locked in a room in a Quonset hut. The room smelled of rust and old paint, but it was warm and dry. She had a television. They brought her food three times a day, bland, nutritious institutional stuff. They brought her magazines, and someone changed the linen every third day. Between eleven and twelve and then again between three and four, they took her for long walks across the empty, rolling fields. She could see mountains in the distance.

She had two guards. Both were dour Latino men who avoided direct eye contact and treated her with what might be called gentle firmness. She was a practical woman: she understood that hating them was pointless.

“Where are we?” she asked. “Are we in Virginia or Maryland? I know it’s somewhere in the East.”

They would not answer. But she knew it was the East, because it was turning cold. She had forgotten the cold, living all those years in the desert. But now the cold insinuated itself into her life, crawling down the black wool sweater they’d given her to wear over a jumpsuit, or into the bed when she slept. There was frost on the window when she awoke, and the days were hard and crisp, the sky aching blue.

Finally, she was brought before a man. There was no mercy in his eyes; he looked like a deputy sheriff she’d once known who’d shot three men over his career. Here at last, she understood, was someone worthy of her anger.

“Where am I? Why are you doing this to me?”

“We’re not doing this to you, Ms. Fenn. Your friend Bob Lee Swagger is doing this.”

“That’s bullshit. This is bullshit. It’s all bullshit. Bob Lee wouldn’t do anything to hurt me.”

“I’m not here to argue with you about that. Bob Lee Swagger is a traitor and a murderer. We have to apprehend him. He is a danger to his country.”

“More bullshit. Bob Lee Swagger would never do anything to hurt his country. He fought and bled for it for three long tours in Vietnam. He was wounded terribly for his country. He was in a hospital for over a year for his country. He loves his country.”

The man waited patiently for her to finish.

“He became an assassin and a spy, bent on destruction. He must be stopped. We’ll use you to stop him. It’s our duty to this country.”

“I don’t know who you are, or why you think you can do this to me, but when I hear the words ‘duty’ and ‘this country’ in your mouth, I want to puke. I think you’re just a mob of gangsters and what you’re trying to save isn’t the country but your own asses.”

“You’re here to help us stop him. That’s all we care about at this point. I’m telling you this on good faith, because I don’t want you to hate me. I want you to be willing to cooperate with me and with your country.”

“You’re not my country.”

“I am your country,” he said. “I’m the part of your country that’s willing to stand up for what must be done, for what is necessary.”

“Mister, if you think you can get the best of Bob Lee Swagger, then you’re just another fool who’ll end up in the ground.”

It was sheer bravado, of course, and even as she said it, she wished it were true and prayed that it were true and knew that it couldn’t be. There were so many of them: this horrible leader, the little creep Payne, with his tattoos and beady, scary eyes, and all the robotlike Latinos, and some white trash, all with guns, all with attitudes. It was a mob, a manhunt, a posse. Who was Bob Lee Swagger to stand up to all this anger? He was just a man,