And then the door opened.
“You look pale,” she said.
“Hello to you too,” I replied.
She flinched as if she wasn’t used to anybody talking back to her, which she probably wasn’t if she was a part of this household. That meant I had to grope for my bedside manner fast.
“Sorry, I’ve been a little under the weather.”
She still didn’t know what to make of me, but then again, she was in her bathrobe and slippers and looked like she just rolled out of bed, even though it was close to three p.m. But she still looked good, kind of like Cate Blanchett if she ate a little. She was in her early forties but you could’ve realistically guessed five years younger. I already knew who she was, but I didn’t want to give the game away.
Meanwhile, she gave me the onceover. I was wearing my usual T-shirt, leather jacket, jeans, with Converse black sneakers. I did accessorize for this special occasion by wearing a Mets cap. I loved a loser, if it wasn’t obvious by now. Maybe I should’ve worn a coat and tie for this special occasion, but my Sunday-Go-To-Meeting clothes were all in a corner of my closet buried under five pounds of dust.
“Okay,” she finally said, “get out from under the weather and tell me who the hell you are.”
“I told you over the intercom at the gate. My name’s Max Bowman. I was told to come here by Mr. Barry Filer.”
“Who the hell is Mr. Barry Filer?”
“I wish I knew. The internet’s never heard of him, as far as I can tell.”
She blinked.
I said, “You don’t seem to have any idea why I’m here. So why’d you let me through the gate?”
“Because nobody dares push that intercom button unless they really should be here.”
“So – let me in.”
Having been hoisted by her own petard, she threw open the door and waved me in. I walked into what seemed like a Four Seasons hotel lobby, only nicer and without a reception desk.
“I usually don’t answer the front door, but the help’s off today.”
“Good for them,” was my answer.
“So why are you here?” she finally demanded as I walked around enjoying the smell of the fresh flower arrangements.
“I don’t know, I was sent to this address to talk to somebody who presumably needs a job done. That’s about all I know.”
“That’s not a lot.”
“I’m painfully aware.”
A long pause, the kind of a pause a pizza place takes when you ask if they’ll deliver to Roosevelt Island.
Finally, she said, “Hmmm,” if you can actually say “Hmmm.” She walked towards the entryway to another room. I assumed I was supposed to follow, so I did.
“You live here?” I asked. “Or just visiting?”
Her back provided some more information. “Living here. I just got divorced.”
“He got the house? You must have had a shitty lawyer,” I said and immediately regretted it. Jules always said that neither of us should be let out into public.
“No, I chose to move back here.” She looked over her shoulder back at me. “Any other questions?”
“Give me a little time.”
“I’d rather not.”
I followed her through the lobby area into some sort of sitting room with the type of furniture you’d find in a funeral home and the kind of old art hanging on the walls that you’d find in a museum in Florence.
“Any of these valuable?” I said, eyeing the paintings.
“You don’t recognize the artists?” she said.
“No.”
“Surprising. You look old enough to have been around when they painted these.”
I smiled at the jab. “You did just get divorced, didn’t you?”
“Yes, a wounded animal is the most dangerous kind, don’t you think?”
She motioned for me to sit down, and I did. She remained standing and stern.
“Do you want some water? Or something a little rougher?”
I looked at her and considered my options for a few moments too long.
“You’re not answering, which means you really want a drink but you’re afraid you’ll look like an alcoholic since the sun is still up.”
“Jack Daniels, all by itself with a couple of ice cubes.”
“Good boy.”
Then she was gone and stayed gone. It didn’t take that long to pour a shot of Jack. I mentally shrugged and turned on my phone to distract my nervous system - and I found there was plenty of distraction to be had. Jules’ dirty little secret was that she was a psychic – a fucking witch, to be exact - with the very specific but very powerful gift to instantly know when I was in a room alone with a strange woman.
There were 50 texts from her, the highlights of which included:
THERE’S NO FUCKING FOOD IN YOUR REFRIGERATOR.
BTW, the boring fat couple picked the ranch house with the shitty pond.
You still buy PLAYBOY? WTF???
I’m BORED. Come the fuck HOME.
Just saw commercial for older women having dry painful intercrs & it made me horny. Is that wrong???
COME THE FUCK HOME
The texts went on like that for a while, then things took a somber turn:
Don’t have to worry about your newspaper
anymore
Leg Sore Larry?
Went to get Starbucks,
EMS was pulling him out of apt
Sheet was over head.
Fuck, have you ever looked inside his rat nest?
On the next episode of Hoarders…
I stared at the phone with an expression of disbelief. Leg Sore Larry was gone. I couldn’t be happy about it. Neither could Jules.
Kinda sad tbh
I looked up, almost having forgotten where I was, as my hostess returned. She was out of the bathrobe and wearing slacks and an expensive top that probably cost more than my rent. She also didn’t have my drink, which I needed now more than ever. Not getting it pulled the rug out from under my brain.
“I found out why you’re here,” she said flatly. “And it would be best for everyone if you weren’t.”
Back in the fucking principal’s office.
I got up, feeling a little sick again. No Jack, dead Larry, and getting treated like shit all combined to create a minor explosion in my head. “Maybe I should go. Everyone associated with this thing is more interested in abusing me than getting it done.”
She felt my pain and softened a little.
“You know who my father is.”
“You’re Angela Davidson.”
“Yes.”
“Then I know who your father is.”
“Well, I’m very protective of him.”
I was getting more than a little tired of being questioned. “Do you think I want to hurt a living legend? What, you think I’m going to sucker punch him? Make fun of his wrinkles? Force him to advertise reverse mortgages? What do you think I’m up to here? Give me a hint, because, again, I don’t know.”
“No, no, no, I didn’t mean…” She trailed off. “It’s just…he…he’s losing his mind.”
She let out a big breath.
“What should I do? You tell me,” I said a little too harshly.
She looked away and then turned back to me. In spite of the bullshit, I think she actually liked me.
“I’ll take you to him. Everything’s gone too far. You’ll find that to be a recurring theme.”
She walked, I followed.
After hiking about fifty miles through the house, we arrived at a big set of double doors that she opened for me. I walked inside and found myself at the back of a screening room with four rows of seats, seven across. In the front one, dead center, was a very old man watching a very old film about a cavalry outpost in the old West. Angela nodded her head down towards him and indicated I should go on and introduce myself. It kept being clear she wanted no part of whatever was going on and was desperately struggling not to take it out on me.
&nbs
p; I carefully made my way down the darkened aisle as my eyes adjusted to the lack of light. On screen, an ancient Native American chief was telling John Wayne, playing older than he was at the time with grey hair and a moustache to match, that they were too old for war.
“Yes, we are too old for war,” answered Wayne. “But old men should stop wars.”
The old chief replied, “Your men die. My men die. No good.”
That summed things up.
As I approached the front row, the movie suddenly stopped and the house lights came up. The old man got unsteadily to his feet and let out a little cough.
I was face-to-face with General “Devil-Eyes” Donald Davidson.
General Davidson was one of those war generals that the public glommed onto and built into a mythic status, another one of America’s endless succession of John Waynes – Patton, MacArthur, you know the names. Davidson made his name during the first Iraq War, Operation Desert Storm, back in 1990, along with General “Stormin’” Norman Schwarzkopf.
But, while Schwarzkopf threw off the aura of a big friendly teddy bear, albeit a teddy bear who commanded 700,000 soldiers, Davidson was a fearsome figure whose nickname reflected the cold, hard stare he threw at anybody he thought was less than they should be. After that first Iraq War, Davidson wrote a couple of best-sellers (or, more likely, somebody wrote them for him) and he later became a highly-paid commentator on Fox News. That last gig didn’t last long, because he was too straight a dealer for cable news’ phony outrage. Still, he had made plenty on the speaking circuit and obviously, from the looks of this place and his daughter, he had a few bucks in the bank.
I knew all this from reviewing his Wikipedia page. I didn’t have a lot of time to do all the research I usually do before meeting up with somebody this high-profile – fuck, he was the most high-profile guy I ever had to have a conversation with – but I found out enough to get a sense of him. He was retired now, and hadn’t been seen in public in years. There were rumors of health problems – and the man standing before me in his solid black silk pajamas and matching bathrobe was in fact a shadow of what I remembered him looking like. He used to look like Clint Eastwood in his older Dirty Harry days – now he seemed closer to Barney Fife on Weight Watchers. He was bone thin and looked older than dirt.
He thrust out his hand, which demanded to be shook. I complied with orders.
“An honor to meet you, sir. I’m Max Bowman.”
“You’re older than I thought you would be,” his sandpaper voice let me know.
“That’s a common reaction these days, sir.”
He didn’t smile, but his eyes indicated he appreciated my comeback. He sat back in his chair, where I saw he had his own customized control panel for the room built into its arm. I had the feeling he spent a lot of time in here. He glanced back at the now-darkened screen.
“I love that movie.”
“She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. The middle leg of John Ford’s cavalry trilogy. And the only one in color.”
This time he did smile. I was finally doing well in the principal’s office.
“I love ‘em all. Well, the first two, anyway.”
“Ford only did the third one for the money, sir.”
“Is that right?”
“Rio Grande. Yessir.” I was winning at Trivia Night too.
“Explains a lot.”
“My father worked with Ford, so I’ve seen them all. He saw to it when I was a kid.”
“Your father worked in movies?”
“No, sir, he worked in the O.S.S. during the war – Ford did some documentaries with that group during the war.”
“He did The Battle of Midway, correct?”
“Yes sir. My father said he was the greatest artist who ever lived. When he wasn’t drunk.”
Suddenly, he looked angry, but not at me. “Ford understood the military better than any other director. All of his service movies…they reflect military purity. Do you understand military purity, Mr. Bowman?”
“I think so, sir.”
“Tell me what you consider it to be, Bowman.” A command. I knew, because he was this close to throwing a “Private” in front of my last name and that almost made me chuckle, an impulse that quickly vanished once I realized I had been given an assignment by a beloved American hero.
I took a breath.
“Well…these are men entrusted with a sacred duty that forces them to take others’ lives as well as put their own at risk. And that duty should not be compromised by political schemes, lies or a simple thirst for blood. The military should be entrusted with a mission, a justified and moral mission, and the military should be given the responsibility to carry it out according to its finest traditions.”
Wait – did I really just fucking say all that? I thought I must have – because, judging by the old man’s face, I had just transformed into John Wayne myself.
“You think about things, don’t you, Bowman?”
“Yessir. A lot more than I realized, apparently.”
“Then you probably know this country hasn’t experienced military purity since 1945. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan…there wasn’t much of a reason for any of that.”
That explained why he didn’t work out at Fox News.
“Sit down,” he commanded again. “We have some things to go through.”
I did as he requested and left a seat in between him and me. That’s what guys alone in a theatre do unless they’re looking for a dance partner. He stared straight ahead, I leaned towards him and eyed the side of his withered face.
“Do you have children, Bowman?”
“Yessir.”
“Drop the ‘sir.”
“Yes…”
“Do you ever have misunderstandings with your children?”
“No. They don’t talk to me so there’s nothing to be misunderstood.”
He turned to me. I was another step closer to being in his club, whatever it was all about.
“So you understand it. You saw for yourself how conflicts can develop. You know how a family can start out with the best intentions and lose its way.”
“On both sides, General.”
“Both sides?”
“My kids don’t talk to me and my father disowned me.”
He turned and stared straight ahead again.
“I see. That must have been very painful for you.”
I said nothing. There was nothing to say without saying everything and that would take much longer than either of us had the patience for.
“But it says something about you. You won’t be controlled, will you?”
I shrugged, but doubted he could see it.
“Anyway, you did a good job for me a few years ago. That’s why you’re in here.”
My hair went up again. “I did a job for you?”
“Through the Agency. You found a couple of retired officers I was trying to track down. I needed to reach out to them on a private matter.”
“I remember that. It was actually a very easy job, but thank you.”
The door to the screening room opened and Angela entered carrying two drinks. She gave me a little of the stink eye, but it was fleeting. I wasn’t bothered, especially since she was finally handing me my glass of Jack – and she was generous with the amount. She handed an equal amount in a glass to General Davidson and did a head cock towards me for his benefit.
“Daddy, he’s a Jack man too.”
That really warmed the General up. “You must be the son I never had,” he said as I saw a shadow pass over Angela’s face. He raised his glass in the toast position, I raised mine and we both took a large sip.
“It must be hard for you,” I said carefully. “Your son.”
With that remark, Angela turned on her heels and got out of the screening room as fast as she could without breaking into a full run. I watched her go, but the General did not.
“It was hard – and it continues to be hard.”
“But you have to be proud he died a
hero.”
“I would be if he weren’t still alive.” He took another sip.
So that was it. That was why his daughter thought he was going senile.
Just over ten years ago, First Lieutenant Robert Davidson was killed in action in a firefight back in Afghanistan and was posthumously awarded the Silver Star and the Purple Heart. Tributes in his honor ran day and night on the news networks because of who his father was. Members of his unit told reporters in detail what a wonderful, brave guy he had been. I remember catching a few minutes of the funeral and seeing General Davidson cry like a baby. As they say, parents shouldn’t outlive their children. Robert had been his only son. Now Angela was all he had.
“He’s not dead.”
The General was looking me straight in the eye, almost daring me to challenge him.
WTF? One of the most widely-reported deaths since Elvis Presley didn’t happen? This was like saying Hitler was caught running a 7-11 in Queens. And just like that, the panic was back in my gut, because I sure believed that Robert Davidson was dead. Did I happen to mention there was a funeral? And that he was buried in Arlington Cemetery? I guess if it came down to it, the General and I could go over there at midnight and dig him up so we could both sleep easier.
Maybe this was why everyone was freaking out. If this ever got out, half of America would believe the legendary General Davidson had lost his shit, and the other half would believe the kid was alive and spin it into a new conspiracy theory that would be instantly promoted by Charlie Sheen in a YouTube video.
I had to stay cool. Discretion. Bedside manner. Discretion. Bedside manner.
“How can you be sure?”
“I have sources. That’s all I can say.”
“Sources. Do I have access to…”
“No. I don’t want them involved.”
My head was spinning.
“General, I at least need a place to start”
He turned to me.
“I don’t have one.”
For the first time, he looked vulnerable. The fire went out of his devil eyes, maybe because of a few tears lurking somewhere in the back of them.
“No one will take me seriously, but I’m not crazy, Bowman. I needed someone to help me with this, so I asked who found those officers for me. I looked at your records and saw you’ve been doing this kind of thing for a long time, you’ve done it well and without any posturing. The fact that you’re outside the government now means a great deal to me, because I need someone in an independent position. You can operate on your own and not let anyone intimidate you out of doing your job.”
Dark Sky (The Misadventures of Max Bowman Book 1) Page 3