“In those ten years between that time and now I saw him twice, once I was at your home, you must have been about seven or eight, I was passing through the area, I stopped to see my old friend, I wanted to make sure he didn’t need anything. Looking back now, I’m sure it was more of a benefit to me to see him, than it was for him to see me. He asked only briefly about Sanford. Then it was all I could do to talk with about anything other than you. You were his life. He spoke as passionately about you and his dreams for you as I had once heard him speak about making the world safe for democracy. You should remember he wanted you to make your own way in this world, and make an impact.”
Again Neil sat for a long time thinking blankly staring, “The last time I saw you father was at Finch’s office the day he and I set up what happened earlier today."
Gary's glass was empty, he pushed it away, and it chinked against the slide of Neil’s worn .45.
Neil lit another cigarette, "So...Gary, I have only one more thing to tell you and then I have a question for you. I myself have never been a family man, I have no children, no wife, and to be quite honest I really don't know where to go from here as far as you are concerned.” He paused.
“But the way I see it there are two options. Option one, I have a contact in Houston, it was your father’s contact in the beginning. Someone he would have likely made some way of introducing you to as you got older, she is quite wealthy and can see to it that you will have the best schooling, and you will be afforded any luxury that you can imagine. The opportunities you will have will likely lead you to be a captain of industry or a powerful man in government. You will never want for anything, and you will be allowed to move in any direction you could point. This first option was your father’s intent this is what he wanted me to do if this ever came to be.”
Neil pursed his lips together until they almost disappeared, “However against James’s almost always better judgment I think you should have a second option. I remember one time in my youth making a decision that changed the entire course of my life, and I made that decision and never felt like there was another option. So, option two. You and I will travel into Mexico and from there we will make a departure for places I cannot tell you, you will continue your education, not in the best of conditions, and certainly not in luxury. There will be a second education, an education you will receive from me and others like me, it will not be pleasant, it will not be easy, and there will be no fame. I can make two promises, the money is good, and you will make a difference. Beyond that there are two key points I have to tell you about the second choice, and this may sound harsh but it is the truth.”
Neil once again poured a splash of Jack into his tumbler, gulped it down and considered his thoughts before speaking, “One, there is no guarantee. I cannot assure you that you will pass the tests that are going to be presented to you, nor can I bend the rules so that you can succeed. I will be there as your teacher but there is nothing I can do to insulate you from failure. If you do choose the second option and fail, there will be nothing I can do for you. The money your father left to you will be available to you when you are eighteen, but I can make no promises beyond that. The second thing I can tell you is that there is nothing more than I can tell you about the second choice. Gary, I am going to let you make this choice because it’s not my choice to make, but which ever choice you make it will be the direction we will go. Once on a path the other option will no longer be on the table. I do not want your answer tonight, I want you to sleep, tomorrow we will head for Dallas, and by the time we get to Dallas we will be at our fork in the road. Sleep tonight, and please, think very carefully about this choice.”
***
September 13, 1965
Neil woke Gary early the next morning and they readied to leave, Neil was as methodical exiting the room as he was entering it. Wiping surfaces and fixtures. He checked the edges of the beds and took the trash bags from the waste bins and carried them with him to the car.
The two of them had a light breakfast at a roadside diner. Gary watched Neil as they ate, he had noticed Neil moving through the restaurant as they entered, quickly to the back, a corner booth. Neil's back was against the wall, he would pause from eating briefly each time the door opened, making a glance and then back to his eggs.
Neil had just finished eating, had pushed his plate a couple of inches forward and was sipping his coffee, and Gary looked up, "Neil, was my father a good man?"
Neil placed the white porcelain mug on the worn diner's table, "Gary, your father was the best man I have ever known. If a genie fell out of the sky and gave me three wishes, my first would to be just like James Cannon, of course my second would be that a naked Sophia Loren would appear in a big bowl of cherry Jell-O," Neil chuckled and gave Gary a wink.
Gary managed a smile and bit the end from a piece of bacon, "Neil, the pe..." Gary looked around, "I mean, the work that he, you guys did, was it good work?"
"No, it’s not good work in the sense that it’s not a socially acceptable profession, if it was they would be teaching it in college and trade schools. What it is, is service, we provide a service that is unique, we clean up messes, usually someone else’s mess. You see, you have to have some order in the world, and right now those damned Commies are trying to make it their order, and that’s just not the right order.”
Neil sipped his coffee, “But, what happens is the good ole US can't be seen as being aggressively getting rid of people or organizations whose threat is sort of gray to us. If we had soldiers in every corner of the world that we had threats, there wouldn't be an adult man left in this country. We can do things a little different, we’re more efficient. Costly, but efficient. We do the work like surgeons that no one sees. We do it so others don’t have to."
Gary quietly considered what Neil had told him, "I choose option two, Neil."
***
September 19, 1965
Six days after Neil’s breakfast wish for Sophia in cherry Jell-O and at three A.M. he and Gary slipped into Mexico. It was uneventful and not what Gary had expected. Somehow after all the miles they had traveled, all the switchbacks and country blacktops, Gary thought Mexico would look, different. The two of them crossed the border at Juarez, they just drove in, Gary had expected something more, romantic, something more Hollywood.
Gary looked from side to side, his eyes were wide with marvel, and they rolled through this wild border town which was apparently oblivious to what time it was.
Gary saw people on both sides of the street, people drinking, laughing, fighting, and there was the occasional U.S. soldier on leave.
A soldier that had been warned that the Army could not help him if he got his ass in a bind south of the border, but who had come to Juarez looking for some break from training, using up whatever leave and pay he had gotten on some tequila and Mexican women.
Maybe it was the last night he had before he went across the pond, maybe the last night he had to be young and foolish before he died in a jungle half a world away.
The crowd looked like a human river, broken from its banks and flooding into the streets. At one point they were stopped by the flow as it passed in front of them. From the right a smiling man came to the car window, plump Mexican woman in tow. He squeezed her to the car window and said “Hey, there Hombre, this is my mother Guadalupe, want to see her dance, she is a virgin, I promise.”
With that the man pulled back from the window and tugged the top of the plump old woman's blouse down revealing a large wrinkled breast, Gary's mouth fell open. The woman smiled a toothless grin as the smiling man moved back to the car trying to entice someone to pay for whatever pleasures he could sell of this woman.
The smiling man's head came in the open window this time, Gary could smell his stinking breath and the sweaty odor from his body. The man's torso was halfway in the car now taunting, with his hands open laughing. There was a faint movement to Gary's left, as quick as it was smooth.
Neil's arm was extended across Gary's
face, arm straightened and steady. Gary traced it to the wrist and noticed for the first time the silver gray .45 clutched securely in Neil's hand. The patina of the old pistol glinted softly in the light shining in from the dimly lit streets, its muzzle rested firmly between the dark bushy eyebrows of the smiling man.
Neil’s voice was low and steady, “Listen friend, neither me nor my young companion here are interested in what you’re selling. Maybe you’re interested in what I’m selling?”
The smiling man’s grin was still shining, his eyes narrowed they slowly looked over to Gary and then back forward, his mouth opened, then closed, “Who’s the kid Neil?” His accent was nearly gone, the hustle was gone from his actions, and he was cool as ever.
Neil lowered the pistol, “Kid’s nobody, just someone I’m heading south with. Ritchie you, are one sick prick.”
Ritchie looked over his shoulder and back in the window, “Her? Paid her five dollars to come over here and act sweet.” He gave Gary a wink.
“You really are a sick little shit you know that? You need to spend some time back in the states, see if you can’t find your dignity again.”
“Hell I don’t need to dignity, that’s why I stay down here.”
“Look, I need to catch some rest Ritchie, few hours, maybe six, heading for Panama by end of the week.”
Ritchie nodded up the street, “Ten blocks that way make a right, head another five it’ll be the orange place with the yellow door, there’s an old truck bed in the yard. Can’t miss it. There’s three bedrooms, knock yourself out.”
They motored on, the crowd had eased out of the street and the heavy Chevrolet hummed down the narrow path. Gary was silent, Neil's face was ghostly in the illumination of the faint dash lamps. Gary turned to him, "Neil, what just happened back there?"
Neil pursed his lips out, "That was Ritchie, and he’s not one of Sanford's but he's very aware of what goes on around here. He's a chimp out of Langley, stationed down here, keeps an eye on people moving in and out. He pays the right people, does the favors he needs to keep tabs on who's moving where."
"Who is he keeping tabs on?"
"Different people, commies, people from the states who sympathize with the red cause, and of course people like me. I could have moved through here like and shadow and he never would have known. But occasionally I like to throw him a bone, helps his ego.”
Neil rubbed the stubble on his chin, “The thing you’ve got to know about Ritchie, he’s not Mexican, he grew up in Ohio. He’s always had some trouble following the rules and the little bastard is just as crooked as he seems. He’s down here because it keeps him out of sight, out of sight out of mind, know what I mean?"
"What's Langley?"
Neil's lips pursed again, brow crumpled, "All in due time, we're going to cover all of this, and more. Right now we're going in here," he motioned with his head to the house on their left accented with yard art by Ford.
“When we go in here just keep quiet, shouldn't be anyone else here, it’s a safe house, but never know what they have set up. Likely going to be a shitty place inside too, Ritchie's not known for being a neat freak, or running a tight ship, and no one from Virginia really likes coming down here, who knows what we're in for. It could be anything from a room with piss stained mattresses on the floor to an impressive pad with four poster beds and crisp starched white sheets. Personally I'm betting somewhere closer to the first one, so don’t get your hopes up."
They got out and each carried their single bag to the porch Neil felt around the top of the door frame and produced a key, opened two bolts on the door and they stepped inside.
The smell of stale beer hit Gary like a wave rolling into the beach, followed by another that was a mixture of cigar smoke and the smell of sweaty bodies.
Neil clicked on a small lamp, behind stark eyes his face was stone, "Goddamn you Ritchie."
***
For an hour Gary lay on the broken down bed. He thought to himself that the term hammock was more appropriate as that was more fitting to its shape. The only thing that has smelled worse than the house itself was the pillow on the bed.
Gary thought the pillow was likely once white but it was now the color of rusty tap water, a stain halo worked its way out in various rings of brown from the pillow's center. Before he reluctantly lay his head on the pillow he thought of the rings of a tree, and wondered if there could something that he could count from the rings on that pillow.
Gary tried laying on his side but the bow of the bed was too great and reserved himself to being on his back. In the darkness he thought of the confusing trip to Mexico, the endless number of small towns, roach infested Motor Courts that Neil stopped in. All of those places were the Ritz compared to where he was at now.
He thought of his parents, thought of the water rushing through their car as they took their last breaths before they were overpowered by its current. He thought of the car that they had died in, remembered riding with his folks to church, with his mother to the market.
Riding with his dad in the summer, windows down his hair blowing in the breeze. He loved to ride like that with his hand out the window soaring like an airplane.
Sometimes his dad would take him out and they would just drive, find an old country road and amble across the countryside, take in the smell of freshly hayed grass and his dad would tell him about things he had seen that week driving his old truck.
Gary thought of trips for ice cream and trips to the movies in the city, he thought of the time his dad had to come get him at Mr. Whitewater’s when Gary and his friend Sean had thought it would be fun to burn ants on the pile behind Mr. Whitewater’s hay barn. Gary’s father had arrived as the fire department was rolling their hoses and putting them back on the truck. That was a fun idea that had landed Gary bucking bales for the rest of the summer. Even being just sixteen miles, the ride home was the longest one he had ever taken in that car.
Gary felt a single tear slide down his left temple, its coolness rolling toward his ear. There was a snap in the darkness and then there was a rough hand stinking of cigarettes pressed over his mouth. He tried to turn to see, but an arm was moving around his neck from the back. He was being pulled from the bed. Gary tried to push off with his feet but before he could there were two powerful hands grasping him by the ankles hoisting his feet from any point of leverage.
The two who had him were strong, the one on his feet had them so securely he could not even kick against him. The one about his neck had removed the hand from his mouth and was slowly squeezing the arm around his neck, he felt as if a python was wrapped around his throat. The already black room faced away to nothing.
***
September 20, 1965
Gary opened his eyes to blackness. He closed his eyes and opened them again, still nothing. He could feel something against his face, something rough. He could feel it on his ears and on his chin and all across his face. He moved his head from side to side but could not shake it off, he did not know what it was but it smelled like his sweaty socks.
It was at that moment that Gary realized he could not move his hands either, and noticed that his feet were bound. Gary fought against his bindings, panic flooded his mind. For just a second he held his breath, and at the moment he realized he was moving.
He slowed his mind down, thought about his breathing and tried to think about where he might be. The last thing he remembered was the two people in the darkness in that foul place that Ritchie had sent them to, it was black and dark when they had come for him and now this situation he had awoken to was very similar. Now in his stillness he could hear the hum of tires on pavement, the movement was floating, smooth. Even in the darkness he closed his eyes to listen, listen for a motor, for anything. He could hear the drone of a motor, and as he listened for a brief moment he thought he could hear talking.
Gary tried to take an inventory, moved his toes, shoes on. Ankles tied together, knees free. He was clothed his hands were behind his back, he was o
n his right side. He moved his hands and fingers around to feel for whatever he could. Moving them close to his body he could feel the bottom of his jacket, a thin brown cotton zip up. He moved them away, there was a rough carpet under him.
Gary tried to roll to his back as best as he could and his knees hit something, it was hard and had an edge to it. He straightened his legs and his feet hit something, it was solid but flexible. Felt his movement slow briefly and then acceleration, on the acceleration he could hear it plainly, the clear sound of exhaust and he figured it out, “I’m in the fucking trunk.” he said to himself.
Gary had no idea how long he laid in the trunk of that car or how far they drove but he dozed off and on as they traveled. It seemed to go on forever, in the blackness the hum of pavement and engine, the motion was sickening. His body ached, not being able to stretch out and move his joints was maddening. The rope about his wrists and ankles cut against him as he tried to move back and forth to loosen them, but he could not make any progress.
Gary had rolled forward, his forehead on the trunk bottom trying to stretch as best he could, and then the car decelerated, and then it was not just deceleration but braking, and a left turn.
The car accelerated again, this road was not as smooth as the one they had been on, and soon Gary could smell what he thought could only be the dust of a dirt road. Gary tried to settle in again, but it was short lived, the car braked again and this time it made a right turn. There was no acceleration after this turn only a coast down to a stop.
Gary heard the engine cut, and two doors open, one closed, then the other. He poised for what was next, there was the sound of a key in the trunk lid, and the creak of hinges as the lid opened.
Killing Sanford (Gary Cannon Book 1) Page 4