The Devils Punchbowl

I find Kelly splayed out on the couch in my den, the Styrofoam cup in his lap, his eyes nearly closed. The television?s playing an old Sydney Pollack film,

Three Days of the Condor,

very low.

?Hey?? I say. ?You okay??

Kelly?s head slides forward in what might be a nod. I'm about to

turn and go upstairs when he says, ?That didn't take long. I guess it didn't go so good, huh??

?Understatement of the millennium.?

?Don?t worry about it. She?s just young. Still got a few illusions left. Give her time.?

I know he?s right, but I hate to think I'm waiting for Caitlin to become as jaded as Kelly and I about human nature and the legal process. ?Maybe she?s right. Maybe we should just go public with the whole stinking mess.?

?No way. Then Po skates for sure. I just wish we?d wasted Sands before we knew the bigger picture. Then we could say. ?Uh-oh,? and go about our business.? Kelly laughs softly, but for once his dark sense of humor strikes a dissonant note.

I walk deeper into the den and look down at him. ?You say that so easily. Like killing Sands would be no big deal. But last night you wouldn'?t even kill that dying dog.?

Kelly?s red eyes open momentarily, but he doesn?'t look up. ?I told you?we had to leave that place like we found it.?

?There was more to it than that. Were you testing me or something??

His chest rises as he takes a long breath. Then he sighs heavily, the sound almost like a snore. ?You got it done, man. Just let it go.?

?I want to know.?

He scowls, then sips from his cup, swallows audibly. ?When I went into Delta training, I was ready. Ninety- seven percent of the volunteers wash out, and they come from elite units to begin with. Then there?s the mental shit they put you through. I got through that just fine. But later on, after I was in, they put me in a rotation called dog lab.?

One eye opens and seeks me out, trying to see if I?'ve heard of this. I shrug.

?The idea,? he says, ?is to prepare you to handle the kinds of wounds you might encounter in the field. I mean, we didn't have medics along on our ops. We were our own medics.?

?So what was dog lab??

?Well?it?s pretty simple. The army takes some stray dogs and shoots them?or ?inflicts missile wound trauma??usually with the kinds of rounds you?re likely to be hit by in the field. AK-47s, shit

like that. Then they give you the wounded dogs. You have your medical kit. You?re supposed to stabilize the dog, then nurse it back to health. Every guy gets his own dog. They?re in shock when you get them, of course, like that dog last night. Bleeding out fast, panicked eyes, howling in pain. You start an IV, do everything you?d do for a human being. And that?s when you realize that textbook training doesn?'t mean shit. In the field, it?s different. So all you do for a week, ten days, is try to save your dog. You live with it, and with the other guys and their dogs. The guys bond with the animals in weird ways. They name them, and they get territorial about their dog?s space, or other people touching their dog. Some die, of course. But most of them make it?the ones that survive the initial shootings.?

Kelly takes another noisy sip from his cup.

?My dog got septicemia,? he says. ?I had him on antibiotics, but not the right kind, I guess. He was dying steadily, and the other guys were riding me about it. I wanted to load him into a jeep and drive off-base to a fucking veterinarian. But you couldn'?t do that. So when it got really bad, I took a syrette of morphine and put him down. The officer in charge of us went batshit, of course. I flunked dog lab. But I?d done so well on the hard-core stuff, they weren?t about to wash me out for that.?

?So last night??

?Last night, when I leaned over that pit bull, I was back in dog lab. Canine PTSD. Isn?t that a riot? I?'ve killed human beings without batting an eye, but I go to pieces over a fucking mutt.?

?I?d say that?s a good sign.?

Kelly shakes his head with sudden vehemence. ?It ain?t that simple, boss. Loving dogs doesn?'t make you a humanitarian.

Hitler

loved dogs. He had a dog named Blondi. He loved Blondi, but he still murdered millions of people. He offed the retards and the handicapped people too.

Homo sapiens

is one fucked-up species, Penn. Sometimes I wish I was still like Caitlin.?

I lean over and squeeze his knee. ?Don?t think about it. Just go get in the bed.?

?I'm good right here.?

?You sure??

?I'm good.?

As I climb the stairs, my cell phone buzzes to announce a text

message. When I check it, I'm surprised to see it?s from Caitlin. It reads: I THINK YOU?RE MAKING THE RIGHT DECISION FOR ANNIE, WHETHER IT?S RIGHT FOR YOU AND ME OR NOT. I LOVE YOU.

Halfway up the stairs, I stop and key in my reply: I LOVE YOU, TOO. I HOPE I SEE YOU TOMORROW.

Then I walk up the steps and collapse onto my bed.

CHAPTER

45

Caitlin stands in her kitchen, reading Penn?s text message and blinking back tears. In all her time with him, she?s never lied like that, not even by omission. But the deepest hurt is from shock at her own lack of feeling. She?s waited a year and a half for him to make the decision he made today, but tonight, hearing the words, she felt?betrayed. It made no sense, but that was what she felt.

Wiping the corners of her eyes, she reaches back and switches off the gas burner. She?d started making tea, but the last thing she wants is to lie in bed for an hour thinking about what just happened. She walks down the hall to the stairs and stops suddenly, startled by the sight of a man sitting on the floor of her living room. Carl Sims looks up from a copy of

Shotgun News

with a friendly smile. There?s a pistol on the floor by his knee, and his sniper rifle leans against the wall beside his shoulder.

?Everything okay?? he asks. ?didn't mean to scare you.?

?It?s all right. I just forgot. Where were you when I came in??

?Well, I was out there when you were talking to Mayor Cage. I mean, I wasn'?t close enough to listen or anything. I was just covering you guys. You know.?

?Thank you, Carl. I'm sorry I don'?t have a TV down here for you.?

?That'?s okay. I'm fine for the night. I?'ve got this magazine, and I got one of Mr. Cage?s novels to read if I get tired of the

News.

Major

McDavitt keeps telling me I ought to read one, so I'?ll probably give it a try tonight. They any good??

Caitlin walks to the foot of the stairs and stops. ?I think so. The first three, especially.?

?The major told me you might be in one or two of them. Kind of disguised, like.?

?Oh, I don'?t know. Maybe parts of me.?