“Not really. It’s just that MIT was my school, in every sense.” He paused. “Anyway, it’s not a secret now, is it? Now that you’re here.”
“No.”
“I hope it won’t go any—” Levine began. He tried again: “I’ve cooperated, haven’t I?” He paused, perhaps for Charlie to take him off the hook. When Charlie didn’t, Levine said, “Do you need, uh, anything else?”
“Nothing,” said Charlie, opening the door. The cab they’d called was waiting in the circular drive. Beyond that, just darkness. Levine gave Charlie a long look, as if making sure that he, this visit, were real.
“What rotten luck, huh, Blake?”
“Luck?”
Levine lowered his voice. “What else? I remember thinking, ‘This will never work.’ ”
“What are you talking about?” Charlie said, although he knew.
“That stupid … bomb. One lousy stick of dynamite, that silly clock, those stupid instructions. It was all so Mickey Mouse.”
They didn’t shake hands. Charlie turned, walked down the drive, got into the cab. The door to the house closed, and Levine disappeared inside. The cab drove off, with Charlie in the back, considering two related omissions. One: Levine had shown no sign of feeling bad about the boy. Two: he himself hadn’t mentioned that Levine’s Mickey Mouse bomb was, in fact, a dud.
Headlights went on in a car parked on the street.
· · ·
“Mr. Goodnow?”
It was Svenson. “This is not a secure line,” Goodnow said, trying to keep the IV tube from tangling with the phone cord.
“Compris,” said Svenson. “Our boy’s looked up Stuart Levine.”
“Roommate?”
“Check.”
“Not implicated. Not even present.”
“Check.”
“So?”
“He heads up one of those high-tech places on the one twenty-eight ring. They do DOD work.”
Silence.
“Of a sensitive nature,” Svenson added.
Silence.
“I await instruction,” said Svenson.
“Do nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“It is not germane.”
· · ·
Svenson, at the wheel of his girlfriend’s three-year-old Nissan Maxima, for which she would be reimbursed by accounting at the rate of thirty-one cents a mile, punched in another number on the car phone. He had a problem of the most worrying kind, a career-advancement problem. Although it made him nervous, he accepted the possibility that Goodnow had a certain latitude to operate independently, in order to provide deniability for his superiors. That was the lesson of Watergate. He could see that bringing down Hugo Klein was a good thing, even if a few rules had to be misinterpreted. But what if in the course of the operation, they ignored something else, something more important? Like a connection to SDI?
Svenson’s call was answered by a sleepy-sounding woman on the third ring.
“Yes?”
“Mr. Bunting, please,” said Svenson.
“Who is it?”
“Work.”
Muffled sounds. Then: “Bunting,” said Mr. Bunting.
“Yes, sir. This is Svenson.”
“Do you know what time it is, Svenson?”
Svenson checked the digital clock on the dash. “Yes, sir.”
“What do you want?”
“Counsel, sir?”
“About what?”
“The germanity of something.”
“That’s not a word,” said Bunting.
17
Brucie Wine felt like shit.
“I feel like shit,” he said.
“You drank a case of Bud last night is why,” said Laverne.
“Got nothin’ to do with it.”
“Not to mention those pills you popped.”
“Lay offa me.”
Laverne was quiet. Brucie smelled smoke. He opened his eyes. She was sitting up in bed, smoking a Virginia Slim, in a bad mood. Brucie knew how to fix that. He slid a hand under her heavy thigh.
“Forget it, Bozo,” said Laverne.
Jeez, Brucie thought. He got out of bed, rubbed his gummy eyes. “I got work to do, anyway,” he said. Laverne snorted. Brucie went into the shower.
He let hot water pound down on him until the stall filled with steam. He still felt like shit, but now hot and wet too. Hot, wet shit, he thought, looking for the soap. There it was, lying on the drain. He kicked at it with his foot, hoping it would somehow hop up into his hand. When it didn’t, he thought, Fuck it, lifted his arms to give his armpits a soaking, spread his cheeks to let water in there, then turned off the taps and stepped out. He dried himself with a Budweiser beach towel and looked in the mirror. He probably needed a shave—yeah, definitely. And there was a Bic disposable and a can of Gillette Foamy right on the counter. But he just didn’t have the energy. Fuck it. And so what. I’m not Joe Salesman.
Brucie returned to the bedroom, pulled on yesterday’s jeans, sneaks, a fresh Grateful Dead T-shirt. Laverne was still sitting in bed, smoking, not looking at him. Watch this, he thought. I’m just gonna waltz out of here without saying a word. He almost did, almost stopped himself from yelling, “Back soon,” as he went out the front door, water dripping from his rat tail. He heard Laverne’s snort, all the way from there.
Brucie unchained Flipper, let him piss and shit on someone’s lawn, then unlocked the Trans-Am and said, “Here, boy.” Flipper charged into the car, banging his head on the rearview mirror. Brucie got in, adjusted the mirror, and drove off to Polly’s, forgetting to burn rubber until it was too late. He had a headache anyway.
Brucie liked doing business at Polly’s. It was dark inside, never crowded. Besides, he was a regular, considered Polly a friend, felt safe. He locked the Trans-Am, chained Flipper to a No Parking sign within striking distance, and strolled inside. No one there but Polly behind the bar, flexing one of her massive forearms, the one with the Iron Cross tattoo, and a little chink sitting in the corner with a newspaper and a cup of coffee. Brucie took the table at the back, where it was darkest. The jukebox was playing “Stairway to Heaven.” Led Zep. Loved ’em.
“Somethin’?” Polly called from behind the bar.
“How about a Bud?” Brucie said. Why not? He felt like shit anyway. Hot, wet shit.
Polly came over with a long-neck Bud and no glass, plunked it on the table. “Buck and a half.”
Brucie forked it over, raised the bottle. “Hair o’ the dog, right, Poll?”
Polly looked pissed. “I tole ya before, Brucie, and I’m not gonna say it again. You bring that fuckin’ dog in here and so help me I’ll blow both your pointy heads off with that pump gun I got behind the bar.”
“Huh?” said Brucie.
“You heard me.”
Polly went back to her post. She flexed her forearm, watched the muscles pop. Brucie watched her watching until he was sure she wasn’t going to reach down behind the bar for that fucking pump gun. Then he took his first sip and immediately felt much better. Hair of the dog, he thought to himself, very quietly.
So. Where were the spics? He glanced at his watch, checked the front door, checked the little chink reading the paper. The Chronicle, he saw. Guy must be a yuppie, one of them Chinese yuppies with a briefcase and a BMW. What the fuck was he doing here?
The front door opened. In walked the spics. Poppa, Momma, baby, kids. Four of them. Christ. They bred like … like something; Brucie couldn’t think what. They were looking around stupidly like bats in a tanning parlor.
“Hey,” called Brucie. “Over here.”
They came, stood awkwardly around the table. “Siddown, for Christ’s sake,” said Brucie.
They sat, as many who could fit around the table. “Couldn’t find a baby-sitter?” said Brucie.
“¿Señor?” said Poppa.
“Nothin’.” Cut the prelims, thought Brucie. Get down to business. “You guys all set?”
“¿Señor?”
<
br /> Christ. He didn’t like spics. For starters, they had their own language. “Didja bring the money?” Brucie said. “Dinero,” he elaborated, going more than halfway to meet them. That’s what it meant to be an American. They could learn from him.
“¿Dinero?” said Poppa. “Sí, señor.”
“Give,” said Brucie, sticking out his hand in the palm-up way that requires no translation.
Momma opened her purse, took out a wad of bills, laid them in Brucie’s hand. Slowly. Looking at the bills with big brown eyes. Don’t make me cry, lady, thought Brucie, counting it out.
“Twenty, forty, fifty, fifty-five, seventy-five, ninety-five, one-oh-five …” He counted it twice, but it came to six hundred both times. “What the fuck?”
“¿Señor?”
“There’s only six hundred here, asshole. I told ya—a C-note per. There’s seven of you, right?” He counted them, stabbing his forefinger at each family member. “One two three four five six seven. Seven times a hundred—seven hundred. What’re ya tryna pull?”
Poppa and Momma babbled back and forth at each other. Poppa turned to Brucie. “Pero—the baby, señor?”
“What about the baby? You think the baby’s free or something, like I’m running a goddamn hotel? Give.”
More babble. Then Poppa said, “She is born aquí, señor. In United States.”
“What the fuck you talking about?”
“That baby, señor.”
“Oh yeah?” Brucie got it. The baby was a U.S. citizen. All they had to do was walk into Social Security and fill out a form for her. Did they know that? Maybe, maybe not. Did they have the balls to walk into Social Security? Probably not. And anyway, why didn’t they tell him before? He’d already made one up with her name on it, made one for all of them, with all those Jesus-long names they had.
Taking everything into consideration, Brucie said, “What? You think she’s off the hook cause she’s a baby? This ain’t Mexico, guys. You’re in the big time now.”
Babble. Momma seemed to be resisting. Brucie was wondering whether to relent, give them the cards—what the hell, six C’s was better than zip—when she gave in. Poppa looked at her with loving eyes as she rooted around in her purse, a grim expression on her face. She handed him some bills. He took them but didn’t pass them on right away. Instead, he turned those big browns on Brucie and said: “Is the food money, señor.”
Brucie wasn’t made of stone, wasn’t above offering support and encouragement. “Now you can work, get good jobs, lotsa food—tacos and all that shit.” He held out his hand. “Give.”
Poppa gave. Brucie counted the hundred, stuck the whole wad in his jeans, came out with seven blue cards. All the big brown eyes locked on the cards the instant they appeared.
“Here you go, guys,” said Brucie, handing them over. “Welcome to the U.S.A.”
“Don’t move a fucking muscle,” said a voice. Brucie’s head jerked up. It was the chink, suddenly crouched there on the other side of the table. He was tiny, a goddamn midget or something. But the .357 Mag he was pointing at Brucie’s face was full-size. “Don’t even twitch,” said the chink. “Unless you want your brains all over the floor.”
“You do that,” said Polly from the bar, “you mop up.”
· · ·
“Brucie, Brucie, Brucie.”
Back in Nuncio’s office.
“Yeah?”
“This was a public bar?”
“Sure, Mr. Nuncio. I don’t belong to no private clubs or nothin’.”
“What I meant was, you were conducting your business in a public place, where you could be observed by almost anybody?”
“Hell, no, Mr. Nuncio. This was Polly’s. Polly and me are like this. And how was I sposta know that little chink was INS? He looked like some yuppie bloodsucker from downtown. How fair is that?”
Nuncio coughed. Maybe it was just cigar smoke going down the wrong way. Nuncio gazed at his client. Brucie gazed back.
“So,” said Brucie after twenty or thirty seconds of that, “figured it out yet?”
“Figured what out, Brucie?”
“How to get me outta this. Isn’t that what we’re here for?”
“Brucie.”
“Yeah?”
“Clarence Darrow couldn’t figure this one out.”
“Huh?”
“You’re fucked, Brucie.”
“Fucked? You mean like jail?”
“Precisely,” said Nuncio. “Barring a miracle.”
“What kind of a miracle?” asked Brucie Wine.
Part III
18
June 28, 1970. Sproul Plaza. Noon.
America, but was America ever closer in sight, sound, smell to an Oriental bazaar, the medina in Marrakech?
Bongo players. Dope smokers. Tarot readers. Speech makers. Singers. Dancers. Young men in sandals, with quiet voices and underexercised bodies. Young women with unshaved legs and unshaved armpits. Troubadours from Fort Wayne, Kansas City, Staten Island, Fairbanks, Rutland, Austin, St. Paul, Tulsa, Altoona, Spokane, with guitars on their backs and fingerpicks in their pockets. They played “It Ain’t Me, Babe,” “Early Morning Rain,” “Farewell, Angelina,” “Sounds of Silence,” and songs of their own devising. Everyone moved inside a bubble of common music, the roofs of their mouths dry with the taste of herb.
Blake Wrightman sat on a bench facing Sproul’s four Ionic columns, the stage set for a play that seemed to be over, and waited. He wore a shabby T-shirt, faded jeans, dirty sneakers. In a plastic bag beside him were a red and black checked lumberman’s jacket and another T-shirt. In his pocket were two one-dollar bills, a quarter, a dime, two pennies, and a clipping from the Boston Herald Traveler with his high school graduation picture—short haired and clean-shaven—accompanying a story about a boy named Ronnie Pleasance; Mina, his brokenhearted mother; and Jack, the father who demanded justice. Blake was hungry, and tired of waiting. He’d been waiting for almost a month, waiting to be taken into the world underground, the world of Malik’s tomorrow.
At first he’d bought a newspaper every morning, searched its pages, often seen his name, Rebecca’s, Malik’s. Now, with money running out, he found his papers in trash barrels instead. Their names appeared less and less often, then not at all. No arrests had been made; none were said to be imminent. He waited, in the beginning staying only the fifteen minutes Malik had prescribed, gradually extending the time until now he didn’t leave until after nightfall.
A skinny shirtless guy with shoulder-length hair, an Australian bush hat, rose sunglasses, and a guitar case sat at the other end of the bench. He opened the case, took out a guitar decorated with painted rainbows, and started strumming. Blake listened. The guitarist seemed to know three chords, E, A, D minor, but had a lot of trouble going from E to A, leading to many pauses in the flow. The guitarist began to sing, his voice wavering wildly in pitch, reaching aggressively for notes that weren’t there. Still, Blake thought he recognized the tune—something from Buffalo Springfield—although the words sounded new.
What a cool day for a treat
Lots of chickies really neat
Walkin’ round and just hangin’ out
Well you know, I’ll just have t’ shout
You gotta come, hey, when I call
Everybody knows you love to ball.
The guitarist, sensing he had an audience, tried to end with a little three-note run that involved one finger change on the fretboard, and bungled it. He turned to Blake.
“New song,” he said.
Blake nodded.
“Still workin’ on it.”
Blake nodded.
The guitarist shook his head. “Poetry’s a bitch, man.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” said the guitarist. “Like you get an idea, you know? And then you gotta put it in words.”
Blake nodded.
“And then you gotta make sure they rhyme.”
“Like ‘neat’ and ‘treat’?”
&n
bsp; The guitarist smiled, happy as any author to be quoted by a fan. “I worked on that one till three in the morning. That’s why I say—poetry’s a bitch.” He gave the strings one last fierce strum for emphasis, snapping the narrowest one. “Shitty strings,” he said, putting the guitar in the case. “Spade in Oakland. Ripped me off.”
The guitarist opened the compartment for spare strings and picks and removed a pack of cigarette papers and a baggie one-quarter full of grass. He took a few pinches and rolled a joint, his fingers suddenly adept. He struck a wooden match on his thumbnail, like a tough guy from a spaghetti western. Then he lit up, inhaled extravagantly, held his breath, passed the joint to Blake.
Blake didn’t want it. He thought of how hungry he would feel later. On the other hand, he wouldn’t feel hungry now. He took it.
“Acapulco gold,” the guitarist gasped. “The real shit, man.”
“Yeah?” said Blake, stoned almost at once. For a moment he forgot everything and just sat there peacefully, in the carnival, in the sun.
“I got like a pound of it at my pad.”
Blake, looking up at the hills rising above the campus and the blue sky above that, a deep blue sky with a hawk drifting up on rising currents of summer air, barely heard.
“A whole fucking pound, man,” said the guitarist. “Didn’t cost me a cent.”
“No?”
“Not a cent. Traded for it, man. With this Mex that needed ID.”
“What did you trade?”
“ID, man. Identification. That’s what I do.”
Blake sat up. “You work for the government.”
“Huh? What government? I’m a printer.” He saw Blake looking at him closely and misinterpreted. “The poetry’s just on the side.” He held out his hand, as though to arm-wrestle, for a hippie handshake. “Brucie,” he announced. “But everybody calls me The Kid.”
“I’m Ronnie,” said Blake. The words were out before he had a chance to think. “I know some other chords.”
“Yeah?”
They shook hands, Ronnie and The Kid.
· · ·
He crashed at The Kid’s pad. He stopped going to Sproul Plaza and got a job unloading trucks at Safeway. He saved money, enough to pay what The Kid charged for papers in the name of Charles Ochs, a real person, recently deceased. “So it’ll all check out, man. You know?” The Kid never asked why he needed them; Blake assumed he thought it had something to do with dodging the draft.
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