The Preserve

by Steve Anderson

  “I’ve heard of him,” Lett said.

  “Good, okay. Now, they tried to trick the proud Marine into playing along,” Selfer continued, “assuming as they were that he would hunger for the same unchecked power and riches they craved, all he needed was a taste of it. But Butler felt more in common with everyday people, you see, born as he was to a Quaker family, and the fellow loathed the idea of a single gilded room of the richest men pulling all the strings. So Butler blew the lid off the plan. It first broke in the Philadelphia Record and New York Post, I believe, and some were calling it the Business Plot and others the White House Coup.”

  Selfer listened to the corridor again, then grimaced at Lett, letting his hair hang in his eyes. “Now get this. You might not know of this part. After the hearings and news stories, hushed and sanitized though they were, it was revealed that the cabal’s first choice for their fascist strong leader wasn’t Butler, but none other than . . .” Selfer thrust out his hands like a desperate vaudeville comedian low on laughs. “Guess who?”

  “General Douglas MacArthur.”

  “The very same. At the time, Chief of Staff of the United States Army. Well, MacArthur certainly has the pedigree and connections and certainly the perfectly aggrandizing nature. Yet MacArthur proves too extreme a choice. Even for them. In 1932, MacArthur had led a crackdown on the famous ‘Bonus Army’—WWI military vets who converged on Washington, there to protest nonpayment of their bonuses long overdue. They and their families were going to starve without the reward they’d earned through so much blood and sacrifice to the nation. Ah, but the great General MacArthur sees things otherwise. He orders in troops and tanks and rides at the head of the charge, his men attacking with fixed bayonets and sabers drawn, and when that isn’t brutal enough, our grand general deploys tear gas—goddamn tear gas, Lett—just as the enemy did to these heroic vets in the Great War.”

  “I don’t think it sounds cuckoo, not at all,” Lett said.

  “No? It’s documented, too. There were hearings in Congress, on ‘Un-American Activities,’ they called it—to investigate Nazi propaganda and other schemes. Though you wouldn’t find much in the big newspapers and magazines except the briefest mention and those, well, they’re dismissive at best. Sanitized, like I said.”

  “How do you know so much about it?”

  “That General Smedley Butler wrote a book about it.”

  “War Is a Racket,” Lett said. “I remember that now.”

  “Correct,” Selfer said. But this time he only sighed. He sat and pulled his knees up like a GI still rattled after a long firefight. “Then, there was my father. It doesn’t hurt to tell you. He did some small-time hustling for those bastards behind the Business Plot, basically playing their messenger boy. Shameful. He probably thought he could finally get a leg up. Finally. And you want to know the real tearjerker? Back in ’32 he should’ve been in the Bonus Army, standing up to them strong and tall. That’s right. He was a WWI vet, Lett. In the dark woods like you. The Argonne. But, no. He was too damn busy running penny-ante numbers rackets. So I know. And meanwhile my dear mother and me were always wondering where and how and when the milk would come, stolen or no.”

  Lett only glared at Selfer. “You’re a lackey here. Their tool. You make your dad look good.”

  Selfer recoiled. “I should slap you for that, seeing how you’re so weak, but I’m afraid you might be right.”

  “You know where I was in the Philippines, and what I saw?”

  “I didn’t even know it was the Philippines.” Selfer added a bitter chuckle. “Of course.”

  Lett told Selfer that he had seen and even met MacArthur.

  Selfer lost color in his face, and the bare light bulb wasn’t helping.

  “That’s more like it,” Lett said.

  “You know what they’re going to do exactly?” Selfer said. “Do you?”

  “I thought you might.”

  “I only got the theory, Lett. Look at history. A bastard like Hitler and the forces behind him, funding him, they failed with their Beer Hall Putsch a good ten years before Hitler got into power. Sure. But they did not fail the second time.”

  Lett grunted. “America loves a winner.”

  “And no one in our history is more popular than General Douglas MacArthur at this very moment. Maybe Ike. But President Truman? Couldn’t be weaker . . .” Selfer let the words trail off. He stared between his legs, his hands hanging off his knees.

  “I should’ve brought you water,” he added. “What the hell is wrong with me?”

  “You’ve had the rug pulled out. You’re spooked.”

  “That bastard Lansdale,” Selfer said, shaking his head. “The man is so damn crude in his opportunism, it grates. He’s like some cheap carnival barker.” He muttered something, his eyes rolling around. Then he was itching at the one sleeve hanging over his lower arm. Lett hoped it was only whisky causing his bender and not something stronger. Even so, this had to be the moment. He might not find Selfer in a more compromised and vulnerable state.

  “I’m going to tell you something,” Lett said. “Remember when they sent me to Honolulu? Do you know why?”

  “How should I know what happened there? They don’t tell me what your missions are. I just see regular teletypes, and everyday report requests, and the usual approval forms—”

  “Listen. The person I met was named Mae. She was Chinese. She told me she knew things no one else knew. About something called Golden Lily. The other thing was, she was fixing to meet with a reporter.”

  Selfer’s head had reared back, his eyes wide. “Spit it out.”

  “She knew that this place, The Preserve, was training an assassin.”

  “Say it. Just say it.”

  “This assassin, he kills a very important man. This, in turn, will spark a take-over. A coup. Just like you told me about.”

  Selfer’s arms had lowered to his sides. His hands lay on the cold floor, knuckles down, palms up. His head swiveled to Lett, his face on a flat track, eyes gliding with it. “So it is true.”

  “It’s just what you were afraid of, wasn’t it? About San Francisco. When you backed out of that briefing room? Thus your figuring. Thus the history lesson you’re telling me.”

  Selfer stared at Lett for a long time. Lett stared back.

  “Stand up,” Lett said finally. “For once. Stand up to them.”

  “Like you did, during the war? Or here? Yeah, and look what happens.”

  “Well, at least I’m not you.”

  “Don’t tell me. I know what I’m doing. Sure, maybe I never fought up on the line, rear-line staffer like me, but . . . You know something? Maybe it is about time I do get in a fight.” Selfer shot up, adjusting his holster, pushing back his hair.

  “Can you get me out of here or not?” Lett said.

  “What?” Selfer whipped around. “How can I? I don’t know the score. I need to know the score, see.”

  “Can Kanani help? Tell me she’s still up there.”

  “She is, but, I don’t know. I just can’t trust her. It’s too risky. And now there’s that heavy Francisco to worry about, and I can’t know if those two Hawaiians will stick together or not.”

  “Lansdale?”

  Selfer laughed. “Oh, Lansdale’s out, gone, scot-free. On to the next con. It’s that Francisco I have to worry about now. He makes Lansdale look like a file clerk.”

  Selfer felt at his holster again, and he stepped back, out of Lett’s cell, into the corridor.

  “Water,” Lett said after him, but Selfer didn’t respond.

  35.

  Kanani didn’t like returning to the boogie house bungalow, not after Frankie had found her there. She couldn’t get it out of her mind. He had made her slide her chair closer to him on the gold chaise. Then his eyes went narrow and dark inside. He warned her never to run from him again when she had a secret that he also knew. Because he would be right behind her, again and again.

  “Promise me,” he’d said, �
�that you tell me, and only me, if that fool Selfer or anyone else makes any moves that could endanger the pact I made with Lansdale and those head haoles who run Lansdale.”

  “Who runs Lansdale?” she had dared to ask.

  Frankie’s face went hard and crimson, and he admitted that he didn’t know. “Has to be big kahunas from the mainland,” he said. “Who else?”

  So she promised Frankie, she had to. Charlie Selfer certainly wasn’t a man she could stay loyal to, she told him—if she were playing that quaint old sort of loyalty game she wouldn’t have left the likes of Wendell Lett to his own sorry devices.

  Frankie laughed at that.

  “Besides, we Hawaiians gonna stick together,” she added. She didn’t elaborate that Frankie himself was practicing about as much loyalty to his fellow Hawaiian as the imperialists who first came bearing their power and greed, as the colonialists, as the so-called democratic Americans with their shameless and manifest land grabs.

  At the same time, she fought the realization swelling inside her that she was making her own play from a position of unrepentant greed. A person could argue that against her. Her own faddah certainly could. He might even claim she would never live it down.

  But, there was another problem. Frankie had held her hand and told her, in the kindest way he knew, that she should take things further. She should hitch herself to his star. She could tell by that twinkle in his dark eyes that he would demand sex with her eventually. He once made a move for her when he was a boxer in Honolulu, the country kid going for broke in the territorial finals. She had somehow evaded him. But soon she might have to give it to him. It might be the only way.

  Then her stomach flushed with warmth and her brain with the relief of clarity. She recognized: There might be a way to get all of what she wanted. She could get at the gold and get Wendell out, too. Just maybe. If Jock Quinn truly was as gung-ho as he said.

  She was holing up at the Main House instead of her bungalow for now. But she needed Charlie Selfer to come back. She hadn’t been able to keep track of Selfer the last couple days. He had been rushing around camp on his own when he wasn’t disappearing possibly underground or locking himself in his office, always having just left the last place she tried. He could only keep moving so long. She waited for him in his bedroom, hunkered on his bed in his terry cloth robe.

  The front door slammed shut. “Where is she?” Selfer shouted, even though old Yoshiko had been sent home long ago. The bedroom door flew open, and Selfer bounded in as if he’d just leapt from a sinking canoe onto the beach. He looked it, too. His khaki shirt was unbuttoned and his tank top underneath sweat-soiled, his hair in his face. To her surprise he was wearing a holstered Colt—yet this suited her plan well. Afternoon light from the louvered glass window illuminated a splotch on his neck. As he came closer she saw it was a bug, so smashed she couldn’t tell what kind—probably a mosquito, yet another plague the haoles had brought to the islands, from the bilge water in their whaling ships.

  “What? What are you looking at?” he said.

  “One bug on your neck all slimy.”

  Selfer slapped at his neck and wiped, leaving a track of red. He landed on the wicker chair nearest the bed with a great creak and a sigh. She moved to the edge of the bed closest to him, braving a reek of stale sweat and whisky. He lit a cigarette, handed her one. And then she saw it. He had needle tracks on his forearm, close to his elbow.

  “Where you get those? Doctor Lansdale?”

  Selfer stared at his arm as if he’d never seen veins before. He waved away the notion. “Lansdale’s no doctor. This here? Just a little something to keep me calm.”

  “I can see that.”

  “Look. What do you want me to say?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Well, I can tell you I’ve found out some things. Lansdale is long gone, for one.”

  “The Directorate is no more.”

  “Right. It’s something else now.” Selfer sipped from his flask, then offered her a tug but she declined. “I thought I was one of them. But I’m not. I just get orders by goddamn teletype.”

  “From those machines in your office.”

  Selfer shook his head, and the veins on his temples swelled. “There’s no record of any so-called Directorate. Of Lansdale even. Only of us. Me. You. Lett.”

  “Where’s Wendell?”

  Selfer jumped up. He paced the room, looked out the window. He glared at her through smoke. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” he said.

  She didn’t answer. She let him calm down.

  “Where’s Wendell?” she repeated.

  Selfer didn’t seem to hear. A sickly chuckle puttered out of him. “Do you know that President Truman’s approval numbers are plummeting? Look at him. He’s weak. Desegregating the military, wavering on other issues. And then, there’s General Douglas MacArthur.”

  “Charlie . . .”

  “The big man doesn’t even have to know about it, and he probably doesn’t, not the details. They simply prepare the throne for him and he strides up and he assumes. He never got the respect he deserved, and now by God he will.”

  “Oh. Maybe I do see where you’re going with this. Who’s they?”

  “Who do you think? Old money, new power; new money, old power. It’s a revolving door, all the same players. Damnit to hell.” Selfer formed a fist and pounded on his knee.

  “Calm down.”

  “Easy for you to say. You’re just a native.”

  Kanani jerked back, raised a hand. She could’ve slapped him. “You got no idea, mister.”

  “Well, maybe I’m starting to get an idea. I bought into this deal hook, line, and sinker. I had no idea missions were going to fund something like this. A coup?”

  “Hold up, bruddah. A coup?”

  “You heard me.” Selfer fell silent a moment. “San Francisco,” he muttered. “The president will be there soon, it’s on his schedule. All right, sure, supposing it’s a lesser important person. Only they make it look like a grave threat. It could even be a foreign leader, one not playing along. Or this could simply be a test run. But the havoc it might create? A vacuum for a strong man? What if it’s a first step?”

  Kanani let her robe drop. She yanked her denim overalls off the chair. She put them on.

  Selfer just glared into the carpet, didn’t look at her bare flesh. “All they have to do is say Lett did it. They could even deliver him to the very spot. By then it’s too late. It doesn’t matter what he says or claims to be.”

  Kanani placed a hand on Selfer’s knee. “I hate to sound cruel here, but you’re not gonna end up much better.”

  Selfer placed his hand over hers. It pulsed hot and small and wet, as if he were clutching his own heart. “My dear,” he said, “don’t you think I know that? Don’t you?” He then held his hand to his heart as if replacing the organ.

  “So do something about it.”

  He snorted. “Me, their head paper-pusher. Head lackey. There’s no one to call. That was always the deal. We are on our own. Secret operation. They tell me. Us. It’s a one-way street, a dead end.”

  “So stand up to them. Here.”

  “Well, I’d need to know when, wouldn’t I? And how. Problem is, I’m not in the know. Never was. The only loophole I’m seeing is a noose. If even a sense of what I or Wendell Lett suspects is true? They’re leaving me to hang. We’re all hanging. There are so few left in camp, more leaving every day. Lansdale can deny it all. And this goon Frankie, he is their new man.”

  “Do you know where Wendell is?”

  Selfer looked away, side-eyeing her.

  “Look at me. You do!”

  “You can’t—”

  “Where’s the map?”

  Selfer grimaced at her. “So you did find it, that time in my office. Well, I burned it.”

  “You what? Shit.” She buttoned up and slid into her slippahs.

  “Can’t have any evidence, dear, or they might pin it all on me.”

  Sh
e grabbed her purse and slung it.

  Selfer stood. “Where you going?”

  “Where you think? I’m going find a way to get us all out of this trap.”

  Selfer stared, his lower lip hanging. “How?”

  “Tell me where they have Wendell. Stop glaring at me. Listen to me.”

  “You can’t visit him. It’s not possible now.”

  “Then just tell me where. Answer me, dammit.”

  Selfer kept glaring. He wiped at his neck.

  36.

  Kanani returned to the boogie house bungalow, she had to. The baby revolver was there, in the footlocker. She cased the place first. Luckily Frankie wasn’t inside. She kicked off her slippahs and pulled on her army boots and a good broad hat, slid the revolver into her purse, and moved to leave. At the mirror, she stopped. Her eyes looked drawn, the skin of her face loose. It could’ve used makeup but she didn’t have the time.

  Moving through camp, Kanani noticed that something was fishier than spoiled poke. The personnel in The Preserve had been steadily dwindling, but today almost no one was left. Before she knew it, this would be a haunted place, a prospect that made her take deep breaths as she strode across the grounds. She didn’t want to be a ghost, and surely not the last phantom out to close the door. Adding to the spookiness was the sky entombed by low clouds, sheets of battered lead pushing in from the sea and going ever higher up mountain, dragging over. The palms shuddered from it, and the eerie quiet gave her a chill. She wished she had a rain poncho, a tarp, anything.

  She entered the command office. No one was on duty, but she spotted a chalkboard on a back wall that listed the day’s sentry assignments—she didn’t see Jock’s name there.

  Next stop was the training ground where Jock had trained Wendell and others on various weapons. That, too, was empty, as was the laundry hut, and even the bar. She fast-walked it over to Jock’s bungalow. She knocked, no one answered. His screen door was shut but wasn’t locked. She went inside, calling his name, got no response. His small bungalow was sparse and spic-and-span like a barracks, bedcover taut, all stowed away. He even had a stand-up locker. No padlock, so she pulled it open. His fatigues hung neatly there. She checked his bathroom, saw his toiletries arranged just so. Same for the kitchenette, the washed dishes drying on the counter.