because I’m as dumb a bastard as there is. And the “number one” thing put beer in the fridge and bait on the hook. I thought that might be over. Funny thing is, ever since the news came, I been busier than ever. I thought it would go away and instead it got louder. In fact, I have more bookings at more shows this year than any of the past five. And I told the promoters I’d have to up my fee because the cost of gas was so high, and that turned out to be fine with them. So as I sit here, damned if it don’t seem to be working out. It’s really the attention, more than the actual meaning. Being number two makes me somehow more interesting than being number one and I don’t know why. Civilians! But I do know a good thing when I see it and I will run with it all the way to the bank, or at least the bait shop. Semper Fi, marine, and best to you and yours,
Carl Hitchcock
“Hmm,” Bob said, a sound he made involuntarily which seemed to have the meaning, That’s interesting but I will have to think harder about it.
Then he said, “He sounded pretty healthy.”
“That’s it, Gunny. He doesn’t sound like a depressed fellow about to go off on some kind of killing rampage, obsessed with getting his number one ranking back.”
Bob looked at the date. It was dated two weeks before the killing of the movie actress in Long Island.
It teased him.
“You show this to anybody?”
“No. The FBI asked questions about me, I hear, but no one ever contacted me directly and I never had a sit-down face-to-face, so I didn’t have a chance to bring it up.”
“Yeah, they asked questions about me too,” said Bob, remembering a call from Nick before it was clear what all this was about.
“Now,” said Chuck, “I’m not sure what to do. Should I call the FBI? I’m hoping to get some advice. Is this anything? I just don’t see how Carl could write this and just a few weeks later blow a hole in Hanoi Joan’s rib cage. It doesn’t add up.”
“No,” said Bob. “It don’t.”
“Yet the FBI, they say categorically, over and over, it’s been in all the papers, that yep, Carl did it, all the proof is in, they going to release a final report with all the evidence, case closed, and that’s it, that’s what the history books’ll say.”
“Yeah,” said Bob. “They’ve clearly committed to that interpretation and it’ll take something to get them off it. I know a little about how this stuff works. Once the big guys make up their mind, you can’t change it. Just like a sniper program. Took years for the brass to see the value and sanction a school, and meantime every unit on the line put one together ad hoc, because it was so obvious and necessary.”
“Should I contact the FBI?”
Bob honestly didn’t know. He had no policy.
Then Chuck said, “Here’s why I’m really here. A guy hears things, you know. And one of the things I hear is that you never really left the life. You’re a sniper still, through and through. You’ve done stuff, survived stuff; lots of people say you’re way at the top of the pyramid in terms of getting certain kinds of work done. I remember years ago you were wanted for the murder of that archbishop. Then that all went away, magically, so something not too many people know about was going on.”
“I’ve had some crazy stuff happen,” said Bob. “But I’m retired now.”
“But it’s said you have a gift. I mean, more than the shooting, but understanding the shooting. You can look at circumstances and you have some kind of feel for what happened. You can infer in ways other people can’t. You’re Sherlock Holmes, you’re CSI, Gunfight, that sort of thing.”
“Chuck, you’re way overstating it.”
“I’m just saying what I’ve heard.”
“It’s true that men of my family are natural-born people of the gun. Don’t know why. But I had it, my daddy had it in spades, and his dad-who I hear was otherwise a monster-his dad was quite the gun man as well. It goes back, off and on, through generations, since somehow a mysterious fellow called Swagger appeared in the territory that would become Arkansas in 1783, from God knows where. His son had the gift and it’s why so many of us died in wars or other violence. We’re drawn to it, fatally, our character, our fate, one side of the law or the other, I don’t know why.”
“Well, I had a favor to ask.”
“Ask it, brother Chuck.”
“It’s this. Maybe Carl did go all nuts like they say, and maybe he did all that killing, and maybe, somehow, I’m a little part responsible. If that’s the case, then I’ll just have to learn to live with it, and it’s okay, it’s what happens in the world. But suppose it’s not. Suppose it didn’t happen the way they said it did. Suppose, suppose, I don’t know what, just suppose. Anyhow, what I’d like is for someone who is sympathetic to the marine side of the story and not under pressure to issue a report to make the newspapers happy to go and look hard at it. Go to the sites, reconstruct it in your mind, see what you see without prejudice. Look at it fair and square. If all the facts point to Carl, then that’s where we are, that’s it. At least there’s no worry in it, nothing to keep you up nights.”
“Chuck, I-”
“Now, I have a check here for five thousand dollars. That’s not a payment. But you shouldn’t have to gin up the expense money on your own. I’d like you to take it for travel, for hotels, for this and that, anything that might come up. Just take a week and satisfy yourself that everything’s on the up and up.”
“Chuck, save your money. I’m sixty-three, a little old to be tramping around strange cities with a range finder, hoping to find something the most sophisticated ballistic forensics techs in the world missed. It’s just not going to happen. I’m too old, they’re too good. It’s not for me and it’s a waste.”
“Gunny, I-”
“I just can’t do it. I don’t want you mad at me and I’m sorry for Carl, but I can’t go off again. I’m old. It’ll kill me, I know.”
“Okay, Gunny,” said Chuck. “I get it. No problem. Hey, I had to give it a try.”
“You’re a good man, Chuck.”
“Look, just do me the favor of saying you’ll keep a mind open to it. No pressure, but if you change your thinking, the check is still there. And if you need help of any sort, here’s my card, I’ll be there in a second. I’m still a lance corporal at heart.”
Swagger still made his plane, but just barely. He flew across America charged with melancholy at the way it had worked out. But he put it out of mind for a while, tried to get to sleep. Finally, after all the connections, he made it to Boise and went to his car in the lot. Another hour or so and then the day would be finished, at least.
He thought to call his wife to tell her he’d be home in a bit but was astonished to see his message light blinking.
Couldn’t hardly work the damned thing, but managed to figure out how to call up the “missed call” menu after a bit, and was stunned to see a Washington area code on the caller. Who in that town gave a damn about him? But then he realized there was one person, and he recognized the number from last year: it was Nick Memphis’s.
7
When the Seventh Floor calls, you have to go. It was J. Edgar’s rule, back when the floor was the fifth and the building was across and down Pennsylvania, but it still held. Nick was glad he’d worn a tie that day. He dipped into the washroom and gave his face a scrub, but the lines driven into his flesh by a week of twenty-hour days and a lot of flight and airport time weren’t helpful. He ran some water through his hair, toweled off, went out and found his jacket, and took the elevator up to seven for the director’s office.
He was waved through by the Big Guy’s secretary and two uniformed Joes who formed a security perimeter even this deep in the heart of the federal beast. He’d been in this office before, with its altar of flags, its glory wall summing up the director’s-this director’s-career, its shelves of unread books, its mementos and naval flourishes (the brass telescope!) and so forth. And he’d seen this view, which looked to the southeast over Pennsylvania and the Archives’ Grecian pretensions toward the dome of the Capitol, giving the room an absurd fake-movie quality, on the presumption that all offices in Washington had views of the Capitol, with its red-white- blue bunting flopping in wind jets.
But the director sat with two men, by dint of haberdashery alone-well-fitted blue suits with subtle striping; dark, shiny mahogany loafers affixed with the je-ne- sais-quoi languor of tassels; fresh, un-dry-cleaned red power ties-of a higher professional political ranking. Each face was smooth and ruddy (Botox? only a coroner would know for sure), each head of hair lush and vibrant, each profile taut, each body toned (hours per diem in the gym). It took a while, but Nick recognized the heartier of the men as a congressman from out west somewhere; the other guy had lawyer or prominent lobbyist written in his flesh.
“Nick, sorry to interrupt,” said the director, “but I wanted to get these two interested parties a little shot of face time with our lead guy on Sniper.”
“Nick,” said the congressman, rising, hand out, “Jack Ridings, Wyoming, thanks so much for giving us a few,” and the other quickly fell into line, IDing himself behind the well-turned-out presentation as Bill Fedders, no affiliation but by implication powerful affiliation.
“Nick’s one of our heroes,” the director said. “He still limps a little because he was wounded in a gunfight while busting up that armored car robbery in Bristol, Tennessee, last year. How’s the leg, Nick?”
“Well, my basketball days are over, but I can still jog and ride a bike, so it’s a fair trade. I never could hit a jumper anyway.”
“Nick, can you catch the guys up? Jack’s the representative for T. T. Constable’s western holdings and Bill’s T. T.’s private attorney, and Mr. Constable-”
“ ‘Tom’ is what we all call him,” said the slicker of the two, with a conspiratorial warmth, as if he were letting them in on some inside skinny. “He just came up with the ‘T. T.’ for publicity purposes. The man is
“Tom, then,” said the director. “Tom is very concerned with the progress in his ex-wife’s death.”
“Sure,” said Nick. “No problem. Most of it’s been in the papers.”
So, this was a private confab with the forces of Constable? Constable, wealthy beyond measure, the famous star’s equally famous hubby for eight years, fingers in all the pies there were-Constable was big-footing it. He needed private assurances that this thing was getting full attention from the Bureau-as if something this insanely high-profile wouldn’t of its own accord-and insisting on a little inside dope. That was fine, that was okay, that was the way the town worked, and if you were going to have a career in the town, you had to play by its rules.
The rules were: Information is power. But power is also power. Power must be not so much obeyed as acquiesced to, massaged, assured. The key to all
