G-Man

by Stephen Hunter

  Sam thought a while. Then, finally, he said, “I don’t disrespect you at all, Charles. In fact, now I respect you more. The weight you carry, the dignity with which you carry it. Charles, listen to me, I can help you, I will help you. This doesn’t have to be permanent. I just have to show you the way and it’s the sort of thing I can do. I had a case like it in Hawaii and I helped that man, and I can help you. It just takes trust on your part, and commitment. Charles, you have to know: there is hope. There is hope.”

  Charles finished his fourth shot.

  Sam said again: “There is hope, Charles. I can help you. It’ll be our bargain with each other. You help me with the guns and make me courageous, I’ll help you with your secret pain. I’ll be better, you’ll be better. You’ve already taken the hardest step, which is acknowledgment and unburdening. Now at last you’re ready to progress, and I’m here to help you.”

  No one had ever made such an offer to him before, and Charles smiled tightly.

  “Well,” he said, “if you can show me the way, it would mean a hell of a lot. It would mean everything. Been lost in the goddamned forest too long.”

  —

  WHEN THEY GOT BACK to the office, it was deserted except for the hardworking Ed Hollis, cleaning guns, and a few guys spread throughout the squad room in pools of light, working through phone lists. Troutmouth Clegg had long since gone home, Purvis was on an inspection tour to keep his yap as far from the newspapermen as possible, and most of the others had gone home to wife, kids, girlfriends, dormitory, or movies.

  Sam left soon, and Charles helped Ed clean the guns he and Sam had fired. They had a good time chumming around until finally, the guns logged in, Ed departed.

  Charles went into his own office, just to make a last check. He was hungry to get home because he had a very solid feeling he’d sleep without nightmares tonight.

  He picked up the phone.

  He heard the operator putting the call through, heard the connection up and down the line, then the phone ringing—was she there?—and finally she answered and told the operator she’d take the call.

  “Charles? Is something the matter?”

  “No, things are fine,” he said. “I just wanted to check in, that’s all. Is there any news?”

  “None of it good. He’s taken to burning himself with cigarettes. I think I got them away from him, but it’s getting harder and harder. This child is really disturbed. It breaks my heart.”

  “I hope I have good news,” he said. “You just have to hold out a little longer. I got a fellow here who believes in me, he can help me—us—in all sorts of ways. I’m seeing a move to a big house in Washington, D.C., a job doing what I’m good at and for a good purpose, I see help for Bobbie Lee, Eastern help, the best doctors, and maybe a good place where they’ll work with him and he won’t feel like a monster.”

  “Oh, Charles, if only—”

  “Make Earl proud, maybe my success would help him in the Marine Corps, if that’s what he wants to do.”

  “Charles, how can such a thing happen?”

  “It’s my boss, Sam Cowley. You never met a finer man. I can’t wait for you to meet him. Sweetie, I think this thing is almost done up here and then we can move on. I promise you, I will take care of things and be the man you thought you were marrying.”

  “Oh, Charles.”

  “You will see, honey. I will make this happen.”

  He hung up, feeling a weight gone at last from his shoulders. But then it all changed. A memo was lying on his desk. He picked it up, recognizing Elaine’s handwriting.

  “Uncle Phil called. He says don’t bother to call him back, but the word is in: Lake Como Inn, Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, later this week.”

  56

  OUACHITA FOREST

  ARKANSAS

  The present

  SWAGGER GOT THE FLEX-CUFFS tight on each of the big boys, did a quick body search, coming up with several knives and, in each left boot, a small backup sidearm, a Kimber Solo 9mm, and an S&W Bodyguard, all of which he tossed away. Then he turned them around and sat them down where they had sat him, on the lip of the trench he had excavated to free the guns.

  Nick came over, having retrieved the main hardware, the Serbu shorty and the Smith .500.

  “Wow,” he said, “big-time ordnance. These goobers must have been hunting buffalo and just bumbled into you. I bet that’s their story too.”

  “Okay,” Swagger said, “let’s see who these mystery gents are.”

  He snatched the two balaclavas off to reveal broad, heavy-boned faces of no particular distinction under a frost of stubbly hair. They looked tough, that’s all, one with a broken nose that spread across his face, the other with a filigree of stitch scars running from the corner of his mouth to his ear. Both had gray eyes, not surprised, not frightened, not engaged. They just regarded him sullenly.

  “So,” said Nick, “Thuggis Americanus—what, two hundred forty apiece?—look at those mugs, like both these guys were hit in the face by gorillas with trailer hitches and neither of them particularly noticed. They did go to the doctor . . . two weeks later.”

  Swagger opened the wallets.

  “Grumley, no less. The foot soldiers of the criminal South. Law’s been fighting them two hundred years, including my grandfather, my father, and me. You too. Remember Bristol. That was all Grumley.”

  “Were those your brothers or cousins or kids? Or can you tell ’em apart?”

  The two big guys exchanged glances, rolled their eyes, and settled back into their obdurate silence.

  “They’re skip tracers,” said Bob, examining the credential. “Bonded-by-the-state, legally armed man hunters. Tough game. Takes a hard man. Lots of physical stuff. Guy doesn’t want to come along, they have to convince him.”

  “Okay,” said Nick. “Let’s see. Start with conspiracy to felony, armed robbery itself, unlawful use of firearms in the commission of a crime—I’m figuring at least fifteen, maybe twenty. Plus, I’m guessing that all over the state there are cops and prosecutors with particular grudges, waiting to pile on with this and that. So they’ll do hard time, and find themselves among many of the guys they sent up and whose skulls they busted. They’re tough, no doubt about it, but I think their years in prison will prove highly stimulating.”

  He leaned close, shined a light in each set of sullen eyes.

  “Anything to say, gents?”

  They just looked at him.

  “All right,” he said. “I’m calling the State Police. Once I do that and troopers are dispatched, it’s legal, it’s on the record, and there’s no turning back. The system takes over and it does with you what it wants.”

  One of them laughed. Then the other.

  Nick shook his head sadly, as if this were the greatest tragedy since Agamemnon or New Coke.

  He punched seven of the eight keys.

  “All right,” said one of them.

  “Well, well, well,” said Swagger, “they speak English.”

  “Now, Mr. Swagger,” said the speaker, “I hate to squish your big moment here, having bested two Grumley and enjoying the damned hell out of it, down to victory laps, high fives, and fireworks, but do you really think we’d move against a tricky bastard like you and this federal man without no Plan B?”

  “Oh, boy,” said Nick, “I’ll bet this Plan B is something. This one’ll be good.”

  “I think you’ll cotton to it,” said the talky one. “In fact, here’s my prediction: I bet that, inside of a half an hour, not only have you let us go but you’ll have given us the Colt Monitor there so we can complete our business successfully. It ain’t yours, after all, it’s Baby Face’s; you’ve no particular right to it except the right of salvage. You can have the FBI shit for the museum, if you want it. Not only will you wave us bye-bye but you’ll both be thinkin’, Damn, I’m glad we run into Grumle
y. Damn, that was the luckiest thing ever.”

  “He’s got a pair,” said Nick, “I’ll say that.”

  “What have you got that I want?” said Swagger, leaning forward.

  “We know what happened to your grandfather,” said the Grumley, smiling.

  Part V

  57

  COMO INN

  LAKE GENEVA, WISCONSIN

  November 27, 1934

  IT COULD HAVE BEEN the road to nowhere. Trees—dense Wisconsin pines—deep on both sides, nothing ahead, nothing behind, no noise, just a sense of being removed from the real world. This time of year, there wasn’t much activity in the woods, and most of the ground vegetation had turned to thatching. A gray chill clarified the air, and breath turned to vapor.

  “It’s spooky,” said Helen.

  “It’s Wisconsin,” said Les. “Come on, you’ve been here before. Fish, deer, stuff like that. Farmers who talk funny—”

  “Cheese,” said J.P.

  “Last time, they put me in jail. Anyhow, the farmers are all inside by their fireplaces,” said Helen.

  Les drove the newly stolen black V-8 Ford down this ribbon of dirt. He was all steeled up, as was J.P., and the Monitor and Thompson were cocked and locked, out of sight in the backseat well but could be up and in play in seconds, yet nothing was set to happen today. They had told Tony Accardo they wouldn’t be there for another few days and wanted to take the time to examine the layout, figure out routes in and out, switchbacks, other cars to steal in an emergency.

  “I want to know which side road dumps me in Chicago and which one dumps me in Lake Geneva,” Les said.

  In time, the nondescript road through the forest approached the lakeshore of the body of water that sustained a playground for Chicago vacationers, with plenty of room to speedboat, water-ski, and fish, under the blue sky amid the perfume of the pines. Before them lay the Lake Como Inn, a rambling, white-clapboard joint with country-house aspirations, including a long porch under a roof supported by three Doric columns, and out back were docks and a lakeside lawn, and cabins. Fifty yards farther down the shoreline, a two-story house stood, where the owner and well-known Mob pal, Hobart Hermanson, lived. In late November, however, the whole place had the look of abandonment, as all the vacationers were absent, the water was gray and choppy, and no speedboats flashed across its surface. A few Adirondack chairs shed paint in the chill, and the grass looked like Shredded Wheat.

  “Boy, will Hobe be surprised to see us,” said J.P.

  Hermanson was, among other enterprises, the Slots King of Wentworth County, who’d opened the place to the gangster trade. Most of the boys, going on back to Big Al, had logged vacation time there, including Les and J.P. Hobart had big-city aspirations in a small town, and had a speakeasy in the basement during Prohibition, serviced by none other than Jimmy Murray. Hobart always had a welcome for the profession; he enjoyed the excitement of hanging around with the big-time rollers.

  As they pulled in, a guy in a suit came out onto the porch of Hobart’s house and watched them approach. They waved, the guy on the porch waved back, and Les looked at the man and, rolling down the window, asked, all friendly-like, “Hey, is Eddie around?” meaning Hobart’s gofer, Eddie Duffy, and the guy’s face locked up hard.

  Then Les saw that he looked straight at the man who’d tried to kill him off Wolf Road and whom he’d tried to kill off Wolf Road.

  Angular face, eyes hidden under a low fedora, a grim jot of mouth, in a dark suit like a funeral director’s. He had FEDERAL written all over him in letters two feet tall. The two faced each other for a second that lasted a decade, as each tried to wrap a brain around what was going on.

  “You sonovabitch!” screamed Les, reaching for his .45.

  —

  AFTER UNCLE PHIL’S MESSAGE, things again happened fast. The next day, Sam, Charles, and several other agents took two cars to the Lake Como Inn. They reconned the place, made drawings, calculated fields of fire, places for cover, methods of locking off the complex once the prey was in the trap.

  Two days later, Hobart Hermanson himself showed up at headquarters in Chicago. He figured which way the wind was blowing and he didn’t want to be on the wrong side in the Baby Face drama upcoming. He volunteered what he knew, told the agents he’d clear his people out so there’d be no civilians to worry about in the field of fire—Little Bohemia, anyone? Cowley made another trek up as the week progressed to see how preparations were going. He left Charles and two other men as early preparation, though Nelson wasn’t expected for another two days.

  The agents took over Hermanson’s house, and kept a steady lookout, but on the third day, the twenty-seventh, they were running out of food, so the other agents, Metcalf and MacRae, went out to get supplies. They took Charles’s car, which he’d driven up in with Sam. Meanwhile, the Division car was parked around back, but, as it turned out, Metcalf had taken the keys with him on the shopping trip.

  Charles sat in the front room, his pistol in his shoulder holster, but all the heavy weapons—two Thompsons and a BAR—were stored upstairs out of sight in case visitors dropped by. There was nothing particular to do except worry and hope, and he was doing both when he heard a car drive in. Had to be Metcalf and MacRae coming back from the grocery store. He thought he ought to help with the provisions, as he’d always hated the kind of officer who ran things but never pitched in.

  He got up and pulled on his hat and ambled out.

  It was about 2 p.m., the temperature about 45, a wan sun pushing half its light through high clouds, no blue anywhere in sight. No wind, as the pines were still and the empty elms and maples didn’t rattle in a breeze.

  He smiled, noting immediately it wasn’t his Pontiac but a V-8 Ford, shiny black, as if just off the lot, and he wondered if someone had tipped the local cops, who’d come by for a look-see or a pitch-in, or maybe even some tourist or a friend of Hermanson’s. Through the windows of the car, he noticed the fellow on the passenger side waving, and he waved back, trying to put a smile on his face, though such an enterprise was always difficult for him, and as the car pulled to a halt, he watched the window roll down and the fellow, square-faced, youngish rather than oldish, oddly familiar, with hat low at his brow—a homberg, no less!—said, “Hey, is Eddie around?”

  That was the instant Charles recognized him as Baby Face Nelson and the instant Baby Face recognized him as federal.

  “You sonovabitch!” screamed Nelson, twisting as he went for his shoulder holster.

  Charles beat him cold and had a mere six ounces left of trigger before his pistol fired, but Nelson had vanished.

  Whoever was driving was quicker than either of them and punched the accelerator, and the V-8 took off like an Indy racer, throwing up a screeen of raw dirt that furled and flapped about Charles, and by the time he’d dropped to a kneeling position for a solid long shot, the car was too far away, and, not being an amateur, he had no call to waste hardball on phantoms. Instead, he fixed his eyes on the plate and read it: Illinois 639578.

  It vanished in the next second.

  Charles shook his head clear, turned to run to the Division car parked behind Hermanson’s, remembered that Metcalf had the keys, and realized he was frozen in place and time. And history.

  Goddammit!

  The rage and frustration broke like a falling wall in a six-alarm blaze, engulfing him, and he felt his whole body jack with fury and regret. If he’d made the recognition a half a second earlier, Baby Face might be gone, but he’d be wearing a hardball where his left eye used to be. A half a dozen other scenarios unreeled before Charles’s eyes in which, by this or that fraction or twitch or fate or zephyr of whimsy, Baby Face was in his gunsight one second earlier.

  But it hadn’t happened. Baby Face was gone, and Charles could do nothing but watch the dust settle in the air from his roaring getaway.

  Where were Me
tcalf and MacRae? Time seemed to coagulate in an ugly wound and would not advance. The world stood atomically still, with nothing moving anywhere except the last layers of dust that finally floated to its reunion with the road, and Charles put his full force of will into getting Metcalf and MacRae back—suppose they’d stopped for coffee?—so he could get on with the chase. But time, to say nothing of Metcalf and MacRae, refused to cooperate, and he was trapped there in a nightmare of frozen-solid paralysis.

  —

  “GODDAMMIT!” howled Les. “I had him. I had the edge on that G-Man! I was going to put a slug into the sonovabitch.”

  “Les, sure. But maybe there were ten more guys with Thompsons and Brownings in there, and you pop that guy and they hose us down like Bonnie and Clyde,” said J.P., hunched over the wheel, having roared down the road to U.S. 14 and cranked left to take them through the town of Lake Geneva.

  “J.P.’s right, honey,” said Helen from the backseat. “You don’t know what was in there. It could have been curtains for us.”

  That they were right—that J.P. had probably saved his life, that his plan was working, that the future as he had forecast lay perfectly ahead—did nothing to mollify Les. He wasn’t constructed that way, though he managed to get it through the vortex of red screaming rage that filled his brain that he should not yell at his wife and his closest friend.

  Instead, he sat there and sunk into himself. He took on himself all the rage and frustration he felt, somehow distilled it into pure bravado, feeling it leak through his bones and his organs to his gut and, there, alchemize into something monstrous. It was the urge to destroy as pure as he’d ever felt it, to reach out and, in the infantile core of his mind, simply crush any and all in front of him until his ego was the only structure left in the world. He would, if he could, destroy the world, and if he went along with it, as it perished in cinders and grit, that didn’t particularly upset him. He felt Nietzsche’s pure happiness of the knife.