The Language Of Cannibals

close-set black eyes gleamed with rage-but also, I thought, with fear. His graying black hair was uncombed and stuck out from the sides of his head. Sweat ran down both sides of his crooked nose. Elysius Culhane no longer looked like a well-dressed thug, but merely a sweaty, extremely upset thug.

'What are you doing, Frederickson?!' Culhane screamed as he pounded the desk beside me. 'Just what the hell do you think you're doing?!'

'It looks like you got the bad news, Mr. Culhane,' I said as I glanced across the room at Mosely, who was standing stiffly with his back to us as he pretended to study a painting of a sailboat. The scarred flesh of his neck around his collar was very red.

'You can't do this to me, Frederickson!' Culhane shouted, pounding his fist on the desk again for emphasis.

I was getting a lot of Culhane's saliva in my face. I rose from my chair, stepped behind it. 'Do this to you, Mr. Culhane? Nobody's doing anything to you.'

'You're irresponsible!'

'Irresponsible? I'm not the one who hired himself a KGB agent just because his rhetoric put him to the right of Genghis Khan. How many of this nation's secrets have been leaked to you, Culhane, secrets that the Russians are now privy to?'

Culhane's jaw muscles worked, and for a moment I thought he was going to spit in my face. He didn't. Instead, he clenched his trembling hands to his sides, took a step backward, and drew himself up very straight. 'You've made some very serious accusations, Frederickson,' he said thickly, his rage making him slur his words together.

'I'd call them shocking. But you're not accused of anything but poor judgment and gullibility. My only interest is in nailing the KGB agent on your staff.'

'This is none of your business, Frederickson! I want you to know I've already spoken to a very high-ranking FBI official, and he informs me that you're endangering national security! He's considering issuing a warrant for your arrest!'

'It'll be a cold day in hell before Edward J. Hendricks issues a warrant for my arrest, Culhane. It was never a possibility. Would you like to see me on trial? You'd be my first witness. I'm sure there are no fewer than five thousand reporters in this country who'd love to hear the story of the spokesman for the far right who, for years, has been using a KGB officer as an advisor.'

'Think about the country, Frederickson! Do you really think it's in the best interests of the United States to have a story like that made public? It will make the whole nation look foolish!'

'Spare me, Culhane. It's not hard to figure out who's going to look foolish.'

'I'm warning you, Frederickson!'

'Don't waste your time, Culhane; I've been threatened by really scary people. Let's talk about the real issue here. I note that you haven't tried to defend Acton; you haven't even suggested that I could be wrong. After your talk with your buddy Hendricks, I think you know better. With nothing more than your aide's Social Security number, which I have, I can prove he isn't who he says he is and that he wasn't born where and when he says he was. I have evidence he was born in Russia. I told all this to Hendricks, and it looks like he told you. All you're concerned about right now is your own ass. If you want to minimize any damage to your reputation as a fire-breathing, clear-thinking, hard-nosed movement conservative who would never let the Russians pull the wool over his eyes, I suggest you get with my program. Tell your employee over there to slap the cuffs on Acton and haul him into one of the cells he's got here. And then tell your friend Hendricks that you will not stand for any cover-up, and you insist that justice be done. I want to see a little patriotic fervor on your part regarding this matter. Acton may have made a fool of you, but you'll have the last laugh by helping to get him locked up and brought to justice. How about it, Culhane? Want to help me catch a commie spy?'

Elysius Culhane's response was to change colors like a traffic light-red to yellow to green-and retch. He got his hands over his mouth just in time to stop the initial flow of vomit, which oozed out through his fingers. Then he spun around and dashed from the office. I heard the door to the men's room out in the corridor open, and slam shut.

'I can't believe you did what you did, Mosely,' I said in a low, tense voice as I came out from behind the protective barrier of the chair and started across the room toward Cairn's chief of police. Contempt tasted sour in my mouth, and I wanted to make sure there was no doubt in the other man's mind just what I thought of him. 'Did you think this would be like fixing a traffic ticket? Where the fuck are your brains?'

Mosely spun around on his heels. His face was even redder, and continued embarrassment swam in his eyes along with an uneasy mix of anger and shame. But there was nothing apologetic about his tone. 'Where the fuck are yours, Frederickson?!' he snapped. 'You're in way, way over your head on this, and you refuse to see it! What want just isn't as important as you seem to think it is! Maybe you're not as important as you think you are! You're just one big, fucking headache. It's not the business of this police department to help you carry out a personal vendetta. There are other issues involved here, big issues involving the reputations of important people as well as the good of the country. I'm no right-winger, Frederickson, but I'm not an ideological neuter, a man without a country, like you, either. I care about this country, and I've heard enough from you to know that you don't really give a rat's ass about the United States. Maybe you don't really give a rat's ass about anything except what you want, which in this case is revenge. If Jay Acton is a spy, then it's going to be taken care of. What fucking right do you have to say that you're right, and Elysius Culhane and the whole FBI are wrong? What right do you have to ask me to put my career on the line just so you can go off sharpshooting on your own? You have no right, Frederickson! So fuck off!'

I took a deep breath and backed away a few steps, retreating from my own anger as well as from Chief of Police Dan Mosely. I knew now that I had wasted my time in returning to Cairn and certainly wasted my energy by getting angry at Mosely.

'Do you think Culhane is going to respect you for this?' I asked quietly. 'Do you think he's going to reward you or that your job is safer now? Forget it. If he and his right-wing buddies can engineer a scoot by Acton before he's caught, you're just going to be a continuing embarrassment to Culhane. You're making a big mistake, and by the time you realize it, it will be too late. I suspect you're not going to be feeling too good about it.'

Mosely shook his head. 'The leaders of this country aren't as corrupt or incompetent as you think they are, Frederickson. I'm keeping you from making a big mistake. There'll come a time when you'll thank me for this.'

'Did you call Culhane or go and pick him up?'

Mosely stared at me for a time, and I didn't think he was going to answer. But he finally said, 'I called him.'

'Was Acton there when you spoke to him?'

'He's out sailing.'

'I guess we have to learn to be thankful for small favors.'

'Get out of here, Frederickson. If you want to end up with your ass in a federal prison, do it on your own time. I don't want to see or hear from you again.'

I was trying to select an appropriate response from my reservoir of witty repartee when Elysius Culhane, now looking merely very pale, came back into the office. His hair was wet, matted down and combed straight back. He'd done a fairly good job of cleaning himself up, but there was still a strand of moist vomit that he apparently wasn't aware of staining die front of his shirt. He walked to the middle of the room, stopped a few paces away from me.

'You listen to me, Frederickson,' he said, calmer now, but still slurring his words together slightly. 'I'm not going to waste any more time arguing with you. I will not allow you to trash my reputation and career, and I will not allow you to use this unfortunate matter to subject the good, God-fearing, and patriotic people of this great nation to ridicule-which is certainly what you would like to do. As you know, I have very powerful friends in Washington. So do you. But I suspect that I have more than you do, and if it starts making the rounds that you're a traitor, that left-wing, candy-ass Shannon is going to run from you like a stuck pig. A traitor's what you'd be, because damaging my reputation would be a victory for the communists, something they sorely need right now. The Russians would have the whole world laughing at us. You're perfectly willing to be used as a propaganda tool by this nation's