Wag the Dog

by Larry Beinhart

  Taylor wasn’t doing anything. Just watching. It was too late to alter anything.

  Maggie leaned against Joe. The wetness beginning to drip out of her. It felt good, a reiteration of eroticism. That was because they were new lovers. In a mature relationship, it feels slightly repulsive—adult humans don’t like being wet and sticky—and then, as it dries, crinkly, tightening, and staining, it becomes one of those mildly irritating cleaning problems. Something to be dealt with, though not as bad as red-wine stains.

  “That’s the kid,” Joe said. Once Brody crossed the street, Joe opened the window to get more angle so he could keep watching. Maggie adjusted her clothing, covering her breasts. Then, just as Brody got ready to enter his building, Joe saw movement out of the corner of his eye. A car door opening.

  Sight goes to movement. He saw Bo Perkins step out onto the sidewalk. Stepping quick, right behind Teddy Brody, following him into the building.

  “Stay here,” he said to Maggie. “Don’t open up for anyone but me.” He ran out.

  Bo was right behind Teddy. He had him pegged for a faggot right away. That made him happy. He liked to hurt faggots. More than regular people. There was something about it that was just—there was no other word—satisfying.

  Great, the lobby was empty. Stairs to the left, elevator to the right. A door at the back. Where to do the number on him? Fucking rush job. This was risky. Best shot—do it now, do it fast, get it over with. Why not? He who hesitates is lost. Lots of truth in the old maxims. As Teddy reached for the elevator button, Bo punched him in the kidney. Teddy never touched the button. He turned in agony. He saw Perkins. Partly because he’d pegged Teddy as queer, partly because it gave him a sense of power, Bo yanked Teddy toward him and drove a knee up into the kid’s groin, smashing his testicles and his pansy dick. The freak would be walking funny for a long, long time, if he lived. Which—what the hell, he had looked at Perkins, right at him, seen his reasonably memorable face, sometimes shock makes people forget, sometimes agony fixes a memory in place, why take a chance—he was not going to do. Perkins stepped back and very efficiently broke Teddy Brody’s neck with a single blow.

  It had been real fast. Even running, by the time Joe got there, Perkins was gone. In his car, driving away. He hadn’t forgotten the knapsack. Joe checked the body lying on the ground. Dead. He went outside.

  Taylor was still there. Across the street. He and Joe looked at each other.

  Chapter

  FORTY-TWO

  NO ONE ELSE is in the lobby. I kneel down and search the body. I take out Teddy’s wallet and find his address. I put it back.

  I go back upstairs. I tell Maggie the kid is dead.

  “You knew something was going to happen.”

  “Is that a question?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes.” I did know.

  “Why? How did you know?”

  How did I know when I see Perkins that it is not coincidence, him there to see the dentist downstairs? And that his job is not just to follow Brody, find out where he goes. “I knew. The way you know how to act.”

  I call Steve.

  Maggie’s full of questions. “Who was that? Did they shoot him? Who did you see? I don’t understand.”

  Steve answers. I say, “I need you to meet me, at Maggie’s house.”

  “Sure thing, Sarge,” Steve says.

  “I want you to protect her,” I say.

  “Why? From what?” Maggie asks me.

  “What do you mean?” Steve wants to know.

  “It’s a real remote possibility, you know. I don’t think anyone is going to move against her—”

  “Joe, tell me what’s going on?”

  “Joe, bro, what’s goin’ down?”

  “Steve, you got a gun of some kind?”

  “I done tol’ you, I’m gonna do what I got to do, but I don’ wanna put a hurt on nobody no mo’. Guns don’ solve shit.”

  By now I hear sirens. Someone’s found Teddy Brody and called in a corpse. “Steve—”

  “Don’ worry, I be there. Tell you what, you min’ I bring my son?”

  “No. I don’t mind. I got a couple of guns in the house.”

  “He likes that shit. You gonna be surprised when you see him.”

  “How’s that?”

  “It’s like back to the future or somethin’: Put him in camies and you be lookin’ 1968 square in the eye.”

  Maggie’s got questions. Too many questions. I promise to answer them later. Right now I want to get both of us out of there before the police show up and we have to stay and make statements.

  Jesus Christ, I am sick and fucking tired of having to turn on the radio every time I want to have a conversation. I pull over. We both have to get out so I can lie on my back and squeeze under the dash. I know where the thing is. I get in there, on my back, and tear the little sucker out. I put it on the sidewalk and stomp it, like an ugly bug. Then we whip up on the freeway and I take Maggie home.

  How can I explain to her who Bo Perkins is and how I know him.

  There’s still so much she and I don’t know about each other. I ask her nothing about her history. I don’t care. She asks, some, about me. I think it’s just enough to prove that I will do the trendy thing, open up to her, if she wants me to. Communicate. I don’t live in the past much. I don’t feel that need to tell people I’ve done this and that and some goddamn thing made me cry when I was nine, and I was traumatized at the high-school prom because just when the homecoming queen said she’d dance with me I broke wind. It’s possible to be a soldier and be an honorable man. There is no doubt about that. All of history, all cultures say that. Most religions say that. A Just War is a fundamental Christian doctrine. There are chaplains of every denomination in the Army. You know why Islam stretches from Morocco to Jakarta? Jihad. The Upanishads, the holy books of the Hindus, are battle epics. Ninja are followers of Buddha. To kill is not to be evil. There is a distinction in killing. To kill without morality or honor is to be a degenerate.

  Which is what Bo Perkins is. A degenerate.

  “The guy across the street, watching,” I say to her, “I told you who he is. He wasn’t watching to see if the kid showed up. He was watching to be sure he was stopped.”

  “How do you know? How do you know they killed him to keep him from . . . That can’t be true. If it’s true, then I’m responsible.”

  “No. The guy that killed him is responsible.”

  “Who is that? Who is that, Joe?”

  “His name is Bo Perkins. The guy who walked in behind Brody and who was gone by the time I got there and found Teddy dead. He usually works with a partner.”

  “Where do you know him from?”

  “He works for U. Sec. We’ve done . . . jobs together.”

  “What kind of jobs, Joe, that you knew he was going to do . . . what he did?”

  “I’m going to leave you at the house. Steve and his son, they’ll take care of you. He’s a good man. I don’t know about the son. You make sure the alarm is on and everything is locked up. I’m going over to Teddy Brody’s apartment. I’ll see what I can find. He had a knapsack on when he walked into the building. It was gone when I found him. He still had his keys and his wallet. So they were after something specific, I guess.”

  It makes me feel good to see that Steve is there, waiting, when we arrive. He introduces me to his son. He’s right. It’s just like seeing him all over again the way he was back then. Back in ’68. Eighteen-year-old lean, mean Marine. It also makes me see all the years that Steve’s got on him and I’m not that vain that I think they’re not on me too.

  As I turn to go, Maggie grabs me. “Joe, did they really kill him to stop him from talking to us?”

  “You’ll be alright, Maggie.”

  “I don’t understand, I don’t understand,” she says. “It’s just movies.”

  When I get to Teddy Brody’s, I don’t need the key. The locks have been punched out. Not very subtly either.

 
The computer is gone. The monitor, keyboard, and printer are all there. What I’m figuring is that Teddy Brody knows what John Lincoln Beagle is doing. He writes it down. He’s bringing it to me. Or they think he is. And they kill him for it. Then they clean out the apartment. I have to admit, Mel Taylor seems to be running a step ahead of me. Cutting me off at the pass each way I turn. Also, at this point it makes no sense. I’m saying to myself, What the fuck is it? It’s just a movie, isn’t it?

  I check anyway, hoping that they missed something. Sooner or later, the police are going to show up here. I don’t have gloves with me, so I go to the kitchen and get some paper towels. I handle everything with them. I’m looking for notes, printouts, drafts that he trashed. I go through the desk first, then the wastebasket. Taylor’s boys have been through both.

  In the garbage, in the kitchen, I find a stack of papers. There’s a résumé and a treatment and some other stuff. I can see why he threw them out, a printer problem.

  Then I go to the phone. First I try redial. That’ll tell me the last person he called. It rings twice. “Good afternoon, Mr. Taylor’s office,” Bambi Ann Sligo says. Of course. Not Teddy’s last call—Taylor’s black-bag boys checking in. Clumsy, they should’ve dialed something else after.

  I have an impulse to say “Hi, Bambi Ann. Did you speak to John Travolta? By the way is Bo Perkins around. Don’t get in the elevator with him. Looking middle-aged is no protection. He once raped a mama-san with no teeth and one eye. And how about his buddy, Chaz Otis.” If I hadn’t been living in a wiretapped world for the last couple of months, I probably would have said something. But I’m aware, all day long, it seems like, which phone is tapped, which phone is clean—turn on the music, whisper in the wind—I realize that Brody’s apartment is a hot zone and anything I say on the telephone will cross Taylor’s desk in the morning.

  There’s a noise behind me.

  I’m in a dead man’s apartment with the locks broken. Who’s behind me? Taylor’s boys? The cops? Some goddamn civilian, going to memorize my face and give a description.

  I turn around. The door is swinging open. There’s this real good-looking guy standing there. Young. Blond. If he was his sister, my heart would go thumpty-thump. He’s got flowers in one hand, wrapped in paper, and a box, about four-by-four-by-seven inches, in the other.

  “What’s going on? Who are you? Where’s Teddy? What happened to the door?”

  Fucking microphones. What am I going to say? “LAPD.” I reach into my pocket, pull out my wallet. Flip it open. If the kid can read anything at that distance, he should be a bald eagle, five hundred feet up, able to spot a mouse running through the grass. “We got a report of a break-in.” I walk toward him as I put the wallet away. “Don’t come in here, mess up the crime scene.” I get out in the hall, pull the door shut. “Who are you?” I say.

  “I’m a friend,” he says.

  “Of who?”

  “Teddy, Teddy Brody,” he says. “He lives here.”

  “Who the flowers for? Him?”

  “What if they are? What of it?”

  “Son, we better go somewhere we can talk.”

  “Why?”

  “I just want to talk to you. You’re not in trouble. I’m not going to make trouble for you. Is there a coffee shop, something around here?”

  “There’s one a few blocks west.”

  “Come on. We’ll take my car.”

  He follows me out to the Cadillac. “Fancy car for a cop,” he says.

  “I have a rich friend,” I say. Of course, he reads that as “male friend.” He looks at me different, trying to figure it out “Get in,” I say. When he’s in, doors shut and locked, I ask him his name.

  “Sam Carmody,” he says.

  “Teddy was something special to you?”

  There are flowers in his hand. And a card. “I wanted him to be.”

  “Uh-huh. Listen, I got bad news for you. Real bad.”

  “What?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Oh. Oh, oh shit.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “How?”

  “A mugging. Someone hit him too hard.”

  “Fucking L.A. Fucking L.A. I fucking hate fucking LaLaLa. La-de-da, LaLaLa.” He throws the flowers on the floor and the card with it. He looks at the box. “What am I gonna do with this?”

  “What is it?” I ask him.

  “Teddy’s discs. I was bringing them back. I was using them as an excuse to come over. He came over to my place. This morning. His printer was fucked up. He wanted to use mine. I looked at him . . . I had . . . I started thinking . . . you know, you look at someone . . . you think . . . fucking maybe, fucking maybe, right? Maybe you got a fucking shot at . . . at . . . ”

  Teddy Brody’s discs. OK. Thank you, Lord, I’m saying to myself. Out loud I say, “I’m sorry, Sam. Look, can I do anything for you? Drive you home, to your car, something?”

  “No. No. I wanted to . . . What do you care? You don’t care. You’re just . . .”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Fuck it,” he says, starts to get out. “What am I gonna do with these?” The discs.

  “I’ll take care of it for you. If there’s next of kin or something, they want it, as part of his stuff, I’ll make sure . . . you know.”

  “OK, sure,” he says, and gets out. Good-looking kid. If it were his sister or you were of that persuasion, make your heart go thumpty-thump. I’m zeroed in on the discs. I never ever think to pick up the card that’s on the floor. Maggie picks it up later. And in fact it’s got nothing to do with nothing, in terms of what John Lincoln Beagle and David Hartman are up to. It’s a little poem, that either Sam put some thought into, or maybe it’s just one of those gay things, part of their subculture, not all that original, but what it says is:

  I’m HIV negative, just got the news.

  Isn’t that grand, how about you?

  I’d like to celebrate with someone like you,

  If someone like you would like to be true.

  Chapter

  FORTY-THREE

  PERKINS WASN’T ENTIRELY sure about having killed the kid. “I figure he bought the farm. But I wouldn’t guaran-damn-tee it. Maybe he’s down but not out. Might wake up as a dickless wonder with a crick in his neck.” So Taylor figured he better check, on the off chance that Brody had lived and then he wouldn’t have to tell Hartman that Brody had been—no one liked the word “murdered” in these instances—killed? Eliminated? Terminated? Taken out of the game? Made redundant? Ciphered? Bumped? Crashed? Initialized? Consummated? Deconstructed?101Taylor had to make his inquiries discreetly and circumspectly so that the questions didn’t blow back on U. Sec. As a result, it was nearly 1:00 P.M. before he confirmed the consummation.

  Then he reported in to the client. That was at 1:00. Hartman listened and hung up. At 1:01 he called C. H. Bunker in Chicago.

  Once Bunker had aspired to being peripatetic. He loved going on missions at a moment’s notice, leaping from a sleek companion in a rumpled bed in the dark of night to speed to wherever the game was afoot. He had dreamed for decades of the private jet that he did eventually acquire and he had looked forward to a life of being whisked from action station to action station. He had created a worldwide empire of security services, in part so that he would have to do just that. But he had grown old. So old that his age made noises—joints that creaked and popped, breath that wheezed, little groans and grunts that accompanied actions as simple as putting on his shoes or even a shirt. Now he liked the big old mansion by Lake Michigan with its formal dining room and real library and nursery room full of toys for when the grandchildren came to visit, he liked the servants who knew his comforts and whims and rhythms. He didn’t like to travel. Not anymore and certainly not in a rush.

  Even if you discount the speed by pointing out that he did not travel commercial but on a company jet that was kept on standby and took off at his convenience and that he picked up two hours by traveling west, the fact that the old
man got to Los Angeles by 3:00 P.M. signaled two things loud and clear: David Hartman and Operation Dog’s Bark were of the utmost importance—red flag, ultra, total alert—and someone’s job was on the line for having created a situation for which Old Man Bunker had to leave his hearth.

  Sheehan traveled with him. Taylor met them at the airport with a stretch limo. It had a bar and a television. The television stayed off. Bunker had a Scotch and soda, a single malt very weak, as if just the whiff of the barley was enough to make his cells sigh and ease themselves of the pain of life. He sat in back. Taylor sat facing him. There was a telephone on the jet, but Bunker did not like discussing sensitive matters over broadcast technologies, even with scramblers at both ends and his own experts telling him that his communications were secure. So Taylor briefed him while they rode in the big car. It had bulletproof windows.

  Taylor had recommended that they meet in the Cube. Clients loved the uncomfortable glamour and high cost of it. It bewildered Taylor that Hartman didn’t want to meet there. And it made him unhappy. The Cube was a profit center and having the meeting there would have been a point, even a point and a half, in Taylor’s favor—the client may be unhappy but we’re making money off him even as we try to turn him around—and he certainly felt that he was going to need every point he could get.

  “Just give me the facts, Taylor. No explanations. No excuses.”

  Taylor told it without obvious editorials, but from his point of view, which was that stopping Brody—once he got the intercept order—was his total priority. Nobody said, “Intercept, but only if you can do it in a certain way with certain people.” He had used the resources available and achieved what he understood to be his mission.

  Bunker asked if Joe Broz had seen Perkins. Taylor said he didn’t think so. Bunker asked if Broz had seen Taylor. Taylor said yes.

  “I enjoyed the recordings of Joseph and of Magdalena Lazlo very much,” the old man said. He spoke slowly, as always, with a certain formality and a definite baritone richness. “Very much. Are there more?”