Fiddlers

Infantry Division during Operation Ala Moana. But getting a straight story from any of them wasn’t as easy as Meyer and Carella had hoped.

Some were reluctant to talk about the worst experience they’d ever had in their lives. All of them were remembering events that had taken place close to forty years ago. Obscured by the fog of war, separate encounters took on almost surreal significance…

‘… the jungles in Nau Nghia Province are thick and dense, you never know who’s behind what tree, you can’t tell which trail Charlie has already booby-trapped…”

‘… Max Sobolov, yeah, he was our sergeant. And it was D Company, D for Dog, not B, you got that wrong …”

‘This was only thirty miles northwest of Saigon, but you’d think you were in the heart of Africa someplace…’

‘… something to do with a Vietnamese woman, Sobolov and this kid in his squad. They were taking her back for questioning…’

‘… the stuff was stashed in this village, these huts they had, you know? Buried in these huts. AT mines, and rice, and sugar, and pickled fish, all therefor Charlie to use whenever he dropped in…’

* * * *

Mark was in his room watching television when Teddy walked in on him at four o’clock that Monday afternoon. April was at a sleepover; Teddy felt perfectly safe talking to her son. She went immediately to the television set, turned it off, stood in front of the screen facing him, and began signing at once, as if she’d been preparing for this a long while, the words tumbling from her hands in a rush.

Your father and I have been talking, she signed. You have to tell us what’s going on.

‘Nothing, Mom.’

Then why’d you burst into tears on the way home from practice yesterday?

‘It’s just that April and I aren’t as close anymore,’ he said, ‘that’s all. Mom, really, it’s nothing.’

Then why couldn’t you just tell that to Dad?

‘April and I need to work it out for ourselves,’ Mark said, and shrugged. ‘Kids, you know?’ he said, and tried a lame smile.

Teddy looked him dead in the eye.

There’s something you’re not telling us, she signed. What is it, Mark?

‘Nothing.’

Has her friend stolen something else?

‘No. I don’t know. April hasn’t said anything about…”

Because if that girl is a thief…

‘It isn’t that, Mom.’

Then what the hell is it, Mark! Teddy signed, her eyes blazing, her fingers flying. Tell me right this minute!

Mark hesitated.

M-a-a-rk, she signed, her hands stretching the simple word into a warning.

‘They were doing pot,’ he said.

Who?

Eyes and fingers snapping.

‘Lorraine and the older boys.’

Where?

‘At the party last Tuesday. Some of the other girls, too.’

April? Teddy asked at once.

‘I don’t know. They were all in Lorraine’s bedroom. The door was locked.’

Was April in there with them?

Again, he hesitated.

Was she?

‘Yes, Mom.’

Are you sure about this, Mark?

‘I know what it smells like, Mom.’

Teddy nodded.

Thanks, son, she signed.

‘Did I just get her in trouble again?’ Mark asked.

No, you just got her out of it, Teddy signed, and hugged her son close, and kissed the top of his head.

Then she went directly into her own bedroom, and opened her laptop there, and immediately e-mailed her husband at work.

* * * *

‘Patricia?’

‘Hey, hi, Oll!’

‘How you doing?’

‘Great. I just got home a few minutes ago. Whussup?’

‘I’ve been doing some thinking. You know, it’s been frantic here, these Glock Murders…”

‘Oh, I’ll bet.’

‘So I thought… let me try this on you… I may not have the time to go shopping for the kind of dinner I’d like to make for you this Saturday…”

‘Oh sure, Oil. You want to make it some other night?’

‘Well, not exactly. I thought if you could come over here for brunch Sunday morning… instead of dinner the night before… it would be a lot simpler. I could make pancakes for us…”

‘Yummy, I love pancakes. But that’s the Fourth, isn’t it? Sunday?’

‘Yes,’ he said, suddenly thinking he was making a wrong move here. ‘Yes, it is. Will that be a problem?’

‘No, no. In fact, we could hang out together all day, and then go see the fireworks at night.’

‘That’s just what I thought. We’d make it real casual, you know. Blue jeans. Like that.’

‘Sounds good to me,’ Patricia said. ‘Just a nice, easy, relaxed Sunday.’

‘And fireworks later,’ Ollie reminded her.

‘Lo-fat pancakes, though, right?’

‘Right, lo-fat.’

‘Terrific. Good idea, Oil. What time did you have in mind?’

‘Eleven o’clock all right?’

‘Perfect. I’ll see you then.’

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Good, Patricia. Casual, right? Blue jeans.’

‘Blue jeans, got it. See you then.’

‘See you, Patricia,’ he said, and hung up.

His heart was pounding.

He felt as if he’d just planned a candy store holdup.

* * * *

On and on the veterans’ stories went…

‘… this wasn’t my squad, it was another squad in D Company. You know how this works? Or do you? There’s your company, has two to four platoons in it, and then there’s your platoon, has two to four squads. There are only nine, ten soldiers in a squad, you get it? This kid who shot the woman uas in another squad…’

‘… we flushed out seven bunkers and two tunnels in the area just to the rear of us. Captured twelve 81-millimeter rounds and 11,200 small-arms rounds, more than a ton of rice, and a Russian-made