"Headhunters," I said, with a nod.
"I know this is gonna sound strange," Stick said, "but I still have this funny feeling about guys from Nam. You know, the chemistry. After a while you get so used to a guy, he starts a sentence, you finish it. And when he's hurting, you know he's hurting. Like you are now."
I knew what he was talking about. Once, just after I came back from Nam, I was in San Francisco and I went to the movies and when I came out there was this topkick sitting on the stairs. He had hashmarks up to his shoulder and I don't think I ever saw so many decorations and he was sitting there crying so hard he was sobbing. People were walking by, looking at him like maybe he was unglued. Well, maybe he was, he probably had the right. Anyway, I sat down beside him and put my arm around him and he looked up and all he said was "Ah, Jesus," and we sat that way for a long time and finally he got over it and said thanks and we left the theater. He went that way and I went this, so I knew what Stick was talking about.
And he was right, I was hurting.
"You lose track of reality fast," I said. "When I first went into combat, the Hueys took us into U Minh Forest. It was a free-strike zone. The B-52's had done it in that afternoon, and there was this old man sitting against a wall and he was clutching his leg to his chest, like he was afraid somebody was going to steal it. He bled to death like that, just clutching that leg. This old man, probably, I don't know, maybe sixty, sixty-five, too old to do anything to anybody. I started thinking, Holy shit, there's some weird people over here. Whoever's running this war needs to get his head rewired."
He was nodding along with me.
"It was the ultimate scam, Nam," he agreed. "Nam the scam, the big con. Shit, from the day we're born we get sold the big con about war and manhood. We get conned up for that all our lives. The big fuckin' war payoff. Be a hero—except there weren't any heroes in Nam. All it was was a giant fuck-up with a high body count."
"That's what you wanted, Stick? To be a hero and have a parade?"
Stick laughed. "Would have been nice if somebody had made the offer."
"I never did figure out what it was all about," I said. "That was the worst part of it."
"Guilt is what it's all about."
I knew about that. First you're exhilarated because you're still alive and others around you are dead. You don't want to admit it, but that's the way it is. The guilt sets in later. That's the way it was with Teddy.
"Anyway," I said, "you get over the thing about camaraderie the first time one of them takes a shot at you. That's part of the scam."
"I didn't mean to get off the subject," Stick said. "The thing is, the CRIPS were mean motherfuckers and Nance was one of them."
"Why all this interest in Nance?" I asked.
"I'm about to show you."
He peeled off Ocean Boulevard just before we reached the bridge to Oceanby Island and the beaches. The city docks were clean, well-kept, concrete wharves, stretching several hundred feet along the river. It was early for the shrimpers. There was one boat unloading. It was jet black, its nets draped from the outriggers like the wings of a bat. The strikers were shoveling shrimp from the hold onto a conveyor belt that carried it into a sheet-metal building that was little more than an elaborate icehouse.
Stick pulled into a large parking lot flyspecked with battered fishing cars and stopped near a beat-up Ford that looked vaguely familiar. Zapata peered out of the front seat and grinned.
"Hey, amigo," he said. "How's everything at the track?"
"I got an education," I answered.
"You're about to get another one," he said.
"How's that?"
He reached out between the cars and handed me a pair of binoculars.
"Check the belt."
I checked the belt running into the building. It appeared deserted.
"Nobody around," I said.
"Just keep watching for a minute," said Zapata.
Stick put lighter to cigarette and hunched down behind the wheel.
A man with a clipboard came out of the shrimp house. He was a short man with a white beard, rather benevolent looking, with a stomach that was used to too many beers. His bullet head was covered by a bright green fishing cap, and he was checking wooden crates piled against the back of the building. I watched him for a full minute before I realized it was Tuna Chevos. A new beard and dark glasses were my own excuses. I knew that face well.
"Son of a bitch," I said. "There he is, the missing link. I knew it! I knew that old bastard had to be around here. That means Nance can't be too far away. How did you tumble on to them?"
"Shit, this was easy," Zapata said. "You said Chevos ran barges on the Ohio River. Seemed logical he'd stick to the same trade, especially since shrimp boats move a lot of grass. So I got out the phone book, turned to shrimp companies. I got lucky. This is the third place I checked out."
"What's the name of this joint?" I asked.
"Jalisco Shrimp Company," Stick answered.
"Let's find out who owns it."
"Check."
Another man joined Chevos, a tall, lean, ferret of a man who walked on the balls of his feet, loose and rangy. His head moved constantly, as though he were stalking some unsuspecting prey. I could almost smell his feral odor three hundred yards away.
"There he is," I said, no longer trying to conceal my hatred of Turk Nance. "That's Nance."
"Yeah, I figured," Zapata said. He was grinning like the man in the moon.
"You did good, Chino," I said.
"Thanks. Piece of cake, this one."
"You really have a hard-on for Nance, don't you?" Stick said.
"I owe the son of a bitch."
"Well, maybe we can fix it so you'll be accommodated," Zapata said almost gleefully.
"That would be nice," I answered. "At least we know they're all here."
I watched them taking inventory of the shrimp boxes.
"They look like they're actually working for a living," I said.
"These are the real bad ones, huh?" asked Zapata.
I kept watching Nance, his snake eyes gleaming malevolently. Nance had killed a dozen men I could think of.
"The real badasses," I affirmed. "The way it is, if anybody in the Tagliani outfit is capable of wasting the whole family, it's Chevos, with Nance probably doing the batting.
"Twenty-four-hour surveillance on these two, okay?" I said to Zapata.
"I'll see to it personally," he said, obviously proud of his score.
"It also might help to know where the two of them were last night. Particularly Nance. But don't let them on to you."
"That may be a little tougher but I'll see what I can do. You want Nance, you got him."
I gave the glasses back to Zapata. "I'll tell you how I want Nance. I want Nance doing the full clock in the worst joint there is. I want him screaming in solitary for the rest of his natural life."
The Stick stared at me with surprise for several moments, then broke into his grin.
"We got the point," he said.
33
ISLE OF SIGHS
It was eight thirty when I started out to the Isle of Sighs and it was dusk by the time I had put Front Street and Dunetown behind me. Crab fishermen were standing hard against the railing of the two-lane bridge that connects the main island to Sea Oat Island. Below it, an elderly woman, as freckled as an Iowa corn picker, and wearing a battered white fishing hat with its brim folded down around her ears, fished from a flat-bottom skiff that drifted idly among the reeds in the backwater. The hyenas hadn't got this far yet.
Sea Oat was the buffer, a small, marshy islet that separated the whore-city from the wistful Isle of Sighs. There were few cars, the road was populated mostly by weathered natives on bikes. The islanders seemed to have prevailed here, stubbornly refusing to surrender to time or progress. I passed what seemed to be an abandoned city square, its weeds crowding the wreck of a building at its center, then half a mile farther on, a small settlement of restored tabby hou
ses, surrounded by laughing children and barking dogs. Streets narrowed to lanes, oyster shells crackled beneath my tires, and the oaks, bowed with age, turned the roadways into living arches, their beards of gray Spanish moss shushing across the top of my car.
I was racing the sun, hoping to get to Windsong before dark, but as I got closer to the old, narrow, wooden bridge that ties the Isle of Sighs to Sea Oat, I unsuspectingly burst out of the trees for several hundred yards and the marsh spread out before me for miles, like an African plain. It was as if I had suddenly driven to the edge of the world.
I pulled over, got out of the car, and leaned against a fender. The sun, a scorched orb hanging an inch or two above the sprawling sea grass, lured birds and ducks and buzzing creatures aloft for one last flight before nightfall. I watched the sun sink to the horizon, merge with the flat tideland, and set it briefly afire. The sky turned brilliant scarlet and the color swept across the marsh like a forest fire. The world was red for a minute or so and then the sun dropped silently behind the sea oats and marsh grass.
Whoosh; just like that it was dark.
When I got back into the car, I had a momentary attack of guilt. My mind flashed on Dutch and the promise I had made to him. No scandal, I had told him. I thought about that for at least sixty seconds as I drove on through the oak archways and across the narrow bridge to the Isle of Sighs. Nothing here had changed. It was like driving into a time warp. Here and there, along the rutted lanes, hand-carved signs announced the names of houses hidden away among pine and palm. Once this had been the bastion of Dunetown, a fiefdom for the power brokers who took the gambles, claimed the spoils, divided them up, and ruled the town with indulgent authority. The homes were unique, each a masterpiece of casual grace.
Windsong was the fortress.
It stood at the edge of the woods and a mile from the main road, down a narrow dirt corridor, tortured by palmettos and dwarf palms, that was more path than lane; a stately, two-story frame house, ghost-white in the moonlight, surrounded by sweeping porches, with a cap of cedar shingles and dark oblong shutters framing its windows. Before it, a manicured lawn spread a hundred yards down to the ocean's edge. Beyond it, past the south point of Skidaway Island, a mile or so away, was the Atlantic Ocean. The gazebo, where bands had once played on summer nights, stood near the water like a pawn on an empty chessboard.
Memories stirred.
A lamp burned feebly in a corner room on the second floor and another spilled light from the main room to a corner of the porch. Otherwise the place was dark.
I stopped near a dark blue Mercedes sedan that was parked haphazardly on the grass near the end of the driveway, got out, and stood for a minute or two, letting my eyes deal with the darkness. Moon shadows were everywhere. A south wind drifted idly across the ocean and rattled the tree branches. Out beyond the house, a night bird sang a mournful love song and waited for an answer that never came. It was obvious why Chief had called it Windsong; no other name could possibly have fit.
I remembered Chief and Stonewall Titan, ending each day sipping whiskey on that porch. I opened the trunk and put my pistol under the spare tire and pressed the lid shut as quietly as I could. This was no place for sudden noises.
The boathouse was a dark square, jutting out into the ocean to the east of the house. I walked down toward it. The night bird started singing again and then, suddenly, flew off in a rustle of leaves. Then there was only the wind.
I knew what I was going to say; I had been rehearsing it in my head ever since I saw her.
Hang tough, Jake, don't let soft memories shake you. Get it said and get out.
I was ready.
She was standing in the boathouse, haloed by the moon, swinging on a twenty-five-foot Mako bow line clamped to a hook above her head. She didn't see me at first. Eyes closed, she was lost in the moonlight, stirring her own memories.
A small Sony tape deck was whispering on the dock beside her. And that summer came back, a riptide that erased whatever scenario I had planned. I recognized Phil Spector's breakaway guitar on the old Drifters version of "On Broadway." Twenty years ago I could whistle every note and break, right along with him. I didn't even think, I just started whistling softly between my teeth, amazed that I could still keep up with all the riffs and pauses.
She turned, startled, her fawnlike eyes fluttering as they tried to adjust to the darkness. The ocean was slapping the pilings beneath us and the Mako bumped easily against the rubber tires in the side of the dock.
Nothing else but the wind.
"Jake?" she said, a decibel above the night sounds.
"Yeah."
She moved away from the line.
"You can still do it," she said, and laughed.
"I'm a little rusty," I said.
"No. Not rusty at all."
There was an awkward pause, where you feel you should say something just to fill the silence. She did it for me.
"I'm so glad you came. I wanted it so bad it hurt."
"You haven't changed at all," I said huskily. "Time has passed you by."
"You always say the perfect thing, you always did." Another pause, then, "I didn't even hear you. I was lost for a minute."
"I can't think of a better place to be lost."
She eased toward me, a shimmering vision, still moving slightly with the music.
"Remember the night party? Dewey Simpson got drunk and tried to swim to the channel marker in his tuxedo . . . "
I remembered it and said so.
" . . . and you kept egging him on . . . "
The moon silhouetted her, trim legs etched behind a white cotton skirt.
" . . . and we kept playing that song, over and over, while Teddy swam out to pull him in . . . "
The brief triangle of her bikini panties, the swell of one of her breasts, tinted by a moonbeam.
"And my eighteenth birthday, when we took the dune buggy and left Teddy and that girl on the beach . . . "
Her blond hair was swirling in the wind, whipping the shadow of her face.
"We were at the very end, remember? Down at the point . . . the breakers were running so high."
She whisked her fingertips down her neck.
"It was so hot that night. Remember how hot it was?"
I began to feel the same heat, rising round my neck. She was some piece of work, make no mistake.
"It was just like tonight . . . the moon was full . . . "
She was close enough to smell.
" . . . that was the first time I ever saw you naked . . . "
And now she was close enough to feel my heat.
"We were lying there in the dunes and you let the buggy roll down the hill . . . "
"Oh yes, I remember . . . "
"You were gorgeous . . . "
"You still are," I heard myself say. My voice was as shaky as a spinster's dream.
"I feel the same way now, Jake. I feel like I'm on fire inside . . . "
She moved against me, her breasts exploring my chest as tentatively as a butterfly exploring a blossom.
But it was not 1963 and we were not on the beach; it was now and here and she stepped back from me, her dress already unbuttoned, her breasts pushing out past the white bodice, and she lifted her shoulders so gracefully that she hardly moved, and the dress slipped away, hovering down to the dock at her feet, and she leaned forward, her hands sweeping swiftly down her thighs, and suddenly she was naked before me again.
If anything, time had improved her body.
She moved against me and I ran my hands slowly across the swell of her buttocks, pressing her hard against me. She began to rock back and forth, urging me to rise to her. I let the flat of my hand slip down along her thigh and then back up, and she urged herself against it. She was warm and moist and she clamped her legs together, trapping my hand, and began to rock harder. Her fingers moved nimbly to my belt, unfastening it, and then she slid her hand down and began to caress me and then we were moving together.
"Oh, God, Jake," she moaned, "where have you been?"
I lowered her slowly to the cushions in the boat and she stretched out before me, her hands over her head as I teased her, my hand barely touching her soft down, until suddenly she thrust up against my hand. She began to tremble under my touch, took my hand and pressed it harder, and began to move my hand with hers, showing me where to touch, what to explore, orchestrating her pleasure. Her hands groped for something to hang on to, found the edge of the seat and clutched it. Every muscle in her body seemed to be responding. She was moving back and forth as my fingers sought all her secret places.
She started to whimper and the whimper became a growl, deep in her throat, and she stiffened suddenly, wrapped her arms around me, buried her head in my shoulder, and her cries were muffled against my flesh. She reached down, searching with desperate fingers, and turning slightly, guided me into her. Then there was only the feel of her, her soft muscles engulfing me, urging me to come with her, and the rush of her mouth against mine.
There was nothing else.
No Ciscos, no Taglianis, no hooligans, no wounds or screams of grief. There were only our own cries of joy and relief, whisked to sea on the wind.
34
LATE CALL
The tape recorder had run its course and turned itself off and I had pulled my Windbreaker over us, although I didn't need it. Her warm body lay across mine like a blanket. We didn't say much, we just lay there holding each other. Half an hour crept by and then my beeper broke the spell, like a phone that's been left off the hook too long.
I shifted under her enough to reach up onto the dock and riffle through my clothes until I found it and turned it off. My watch said eleven fifteen.
She twisted back against me and sighed. "What was that?" she asked.
Hooligans Page 21