Middle Man

by David Rich

  The pilot asked if I wanted to fly over the Louisiana Loop. He would have to refuel there but would discount the time. A huge tanker fed its load into a small dot, just a pimple in the gulf, connected to a pipeline that ran all the way into Louisiana. We banked and dived toward the tanker. No alarm screamed, no jets scrambled, no bodies scattered. One man on deck looked up and waved. The pilot shrugged; he was thinking the same thing I was. The pipeline led to a booster station, a white complex built on swampland, and then to a white storage facility. We buzzed them both. While refueling in Morgan City, the pilot said, “I dive and buzz them, hoping someone will wake up and tell me to stop. Just show some awareness.”

  Anyone taking that ride would have thought the same thing: How vulnerable and naïve we were. The pilot suddenly got talkative. He had theories: “We’re like the husband who is a compulsive womanizer but never realizes how much other guys are out to screw his wife or daughter. Of course we have plans, good plans, to destroy oil platforms all over the world. I’m sure we even have plans to destroy North Sea platforms belonging to our closest allies. But we leave ours wide open. It’s like we don’t want to admit that others think the way we do.”

  His customers must have been a receptive lot for that rap; it was well rehearsed. But I spent the return trip changing my mind. It might be worthwhile to have some last-ditch defense set up, but the real work would be at the inception, at the point where the bombs are constructed, tested, transported. At the point of training. We had too many targets to protect; forts and castles could not serve our needs. Our strategy was right. We just needed the energy to implement it and the guts to trust it. The pilot had concluded the U.S. government was not sufficiently paranoid, while also accusing it of bad behavior and worse intentions. I have no problem with the accusations; they apply to everyone and every government. But his paranoia was flawed because he doubted the depth of everyone else’s paranoia, especially the government’s. Besides, the whole philandering husband thing did not hold up. He assumed the wives and daughters were passive participants: another strike against the quality of his paranoia. His plan consisted of chastity belts for infrastructure.

  The car was still where I left it. I opened the glove box carefully and ran my finger along the back edge of the rental agreement and then licked it. My finger was not sweet.

  10

  The approach came on the second night. A blonde appeared beside me at the bar. She ordered a dirty martini and said, “Twinkly, isn’t it?”

  The man on the other side of her said, “That’s why I come here.” The blonde ignored him and looked at me. I said nothing. The man on the other side said, “I own those four buildings over there. See that red light?”

  She said, “No.” But she kept looking at me.

  This was my second night of riding up more than forty stories to have drinks in the Wildcatter Club, where the members could gaze out at Houston and feel those twinkling lights filling their pockets. I had never before ridden in an elevator just to get a drink. The bar was full and the dining room was getting there. Last night had been quieter, older.

  “You don’t like twinkly? Then you came to the wrong place,” she said.

  “Your ring is twinkly. I like that.” The tan, the nose, the hair, the breasts: The ring was the only thing about her that had a chance of being real. Even her Texas accent sounded wrong. She was petite and her blue eyes were large, made to appear larger by lashes peeled back like petals in a flower. She reminded me of a ten-year-old boy’s idea of an ideal woman. A doll come to life. But the bold shamelessness and ease with which she carried herself made me like her.

  “Are you a grouch?”

  “Maybe I’m a jewel thief,” I said.

  “Wouldn’t that be exciting. Are you drinking alone? I don’t like to see a man like you drinking alone. Makes me think there’s something wrong with me.”

  “I’m drinking alone,” said the guy next to her. He turned to his buddy next to him and said, “Aren’t I?”

  “Always,” said the buddy. They clicked their glasses and drank.

  “I love my friends over there, but they’re much more interesting when a man is present. Keeps them sharp, I think. Come this way,” she said to me. She got up and I picked up her drink before she could.

  “Allow me,” I said.

  She smiled at me, then turned to the guy on the other side and said, “See the difference?”

  Her name was Daisy. A second blonde, wider and older, was Marlene. Maya was younger than the other two. Somewhere under thirty. Her mouth was wide and so were her eyes, which were brown, giving her a slightly Asian appearance. Her skin was very smooth, though she seemed to be wearing little makeup. She watched me carefully without self-consciousness.

  They sat in leather chairs around a small cocktail table in the corner of the room farthest from the windows and the elevators. A bowl of bar mix sat untouched on the table. Daisy riffed for a few minutes on the jewel thief theme as a way of getting me to protest and explain what I really did. Then Marlene took over and asked how I had been spending my time in Houston. I told them about my helicopter ride.

  “We’re like skirt-chasing husbands, never thinking that our wives and daughters might be targets for other guys while we’re out looking for other’s . . . platforms,” I said with special attention to Marlene and Daisy, who were wearing rings. They chuckled and nodded. “We need chastity belts for our infrastructure.”

  Daisy said, “You’re right. You’re so right. I never thought of it like that. I knew I shouldn’t let you drink alone.”

  I wondered if I should try to fix her up with the helicopter pilot, since her husband seemed to be occupied elsewhere.

  “I wonder where Gerry is,” said Marlene while staring at the twinkling lights.

  “That’s a first,” said Daisy. Marlene did not smile.

  The silence lasted about thirty seconds and might have gone on longer, but a maître d’ appeared and announced that their dinner table was ready. Marlene guzzled the rest of her drink and handed the glass to the maître d’, who seemed to understand. Daisy asked me to join them for dinner, but it was time to find out which one of them wanted to see me alone. My guess was Maya because I hoped it was her.

  I said, “I’ll be in town for a few days and I hope I can have a rain check.”

  “Maya, dear, you coming?”

  “Would you mind if I skipped dinner tonight?”

  It was the first time she spoke after hello. Her accent was British but slightly off, as if English were not her first language.

  “Well, then, you two, maybe we’ll see you when we’re done. I know I’m gonna see you again, Robert. I just know it. Bye,” said Daisy.

  “There’s Gerry,” said Marlene. “Bye.”

  Maya did not move. I sat down. We watched Marlene squeeze across the room to a short, thick man in his sixties. She pecked him on the cheek and he seemed surprised.

  “Another drink?”

  “Not right now, thank you,” Maya said.

  “Dinner?”

  “I’m not hungry.” She stared at me, calmly and without wavering. I could not tell if she was reading me or if she wanted me to try, and fail, to read her.

  “It doesn’t have to be about food,” I said.

  We rode down in the elevator with the guy from the bar and his buddy. The guy studied Maya. Before we got off, he said, “What’s your secret, pal?”

  Maya said, “Chastity belts and infrastructure. He’s an expert.” And she winked at him.

  The doors opened and we walked out ahead of the men.

  The valet parkers were busy, mostly with arrivals. A guy who looked like he could be Middle Eastern sat in a black Lincoln in the no parking zone. He started the car when he saw us, but Maya gave him the slightest shake of her head, and he turned the car off.

  Farther down the street, behind the Lin
coln, near the corner, a black SUV idled. Maya glanced at it quickly, and even more quickly her mouth tightened and her eyes narrowed.

  We got into my car and I drove a few blocks before I said, “Is there any place you’d like to go? I’ve only eaten at my hotel and that club so far.”

  “I never want to eat again at the club and I’m not ready to go to your hotel,” she said. She gave me directions and pretty soon we were on a highway heading northwest, out of town.

  “Don’t worry about the car following us. It’s his job,” she said. She didn’t mention the black SUV, which was also following.

  We kept the top down. The air was warm and less moist, fresher than it had been since I arrived. As we left the city, forests lined the road in long clumps and scented the air with pine. We did not talk. Maya tied her hair into a ponytail. She leaned the seat back and put the window down and let her hand foil the wind.

  The road was unlit. Headlights scanned across us like search beams, without rhythm, as if trying to catch us off guard. I did my best to keep my smile hidden inside. A few times I gave in and glanced at Maya when the lights swept across us, and even though she did not look directly at me, I knew she registered my interest. I did not care if we drove like that until the tank was empty.

  I could taste my recklessness and I liked the way it tasted. The follower could have been an assassin and Maya could have been leading me to my grave, pre-dug in the dirt and sand among the pines. The SUV could have been the backup team. The farther we drove into the dark night, the more I enjoyed the mix of anticipation and tension. Her silence increased the pleasure, making me wonder more about her. Did she fear her voice would betray her plan for my ambush? Did she sense my conflicting emotions and so keep her silence to allow them to flourish? Her beauty was tantalizing, her silence intriguing. The allure was like a drug. I fought it, surrendered to it, savored it.

  This streak in me, my desire to toy with temptation, bothered me and I determined that if it did not kill me this time, I would address it before next time. And I knew that one day, that kind of lie would lead me into trouble I could not get out of. I have always been partial to indulgence because it is such an especially insidious and honest parasite. It leads you exactly where it says it will: violence or romance, greed or sacrifice.

  A memory, as grisly as this night was beautiful, attacked me and would not relent. Trying to block it out just gave it strength, so I capitulated, in order to get rid of it. At an outpost in Helmand Province, two privates, Ernie and Eric, muscle guys with bad mustaches and shaved heads, would spend hours going on about what they would like to do to the enemy the next time they got the chance. Gruesome stuff, of course, but everyone has nasty thoughts about the people who have been trying to kill them. Decapitation and disembowelment were persistent themes. One was Alvarez, the other was Alfredson, but they acted like twin brothers. We all heard the chatter and it was so extreme that we assumed the chatter was just steam.

  After living through a particularly intense barrage of shelling, we set out for the village where we thought the mortars and rockets were stored. Every structure had to be searched. Ernie and Eric worked as a team. I was outside, only a few buildings away, when I heard the shots. First order of business was to make everyone who wasn’t in a Marine uniform hit the ground. The shots stopped, and for about ten seconds, there was silence. Then voices started from inside the house the shots came from. One guy, Ernie, repeated a version of “What the fuck are you doing?” about a hundred times.

  And Eric said in a voice that was eerily calm, “Whaddaya mean? I told ya what I was gonna do. We talked about it, man. I told you.”

  Another guy and I tried the door. It was locked.

  Ernie yelled at us, “Back off.” And a second later he was yelling at Eric to stop whatever he was doing. I could hear the horror in his voice. He screamed, “Put it down! Stop it.” He sounded like a terrified kid begging his older brother to stop wrecking his stuff. Two shots followed.

  The scene was frozen: Afghans on the ground like customers caught in a bank holdup and the Marines standing among them scared as thieves, nobody moving and the only sound was the wind. The bolt drew back on the door. I raised my weapon and stepped back. Ernie came out. He closed the door behind him before looking all around. He settled on me and stared at my weapon, then into my eyes. He shook his head the slightest bit, then walked away. He didn’t look like a bad-ass Marine anymore. He looked like an old guy, a tired, scared old guy.

  Inside, we found Eric’s body and his victims, two parents and a child. At least he never got to work on the child.

  Ernie took me aside that afternoon at the outpost. “I have to get out of here,” he said. “If anyone gave me any crap today when I came out of that house, I’d have shot him. You, too. I have to get out of here.”

  I found the captain and told him. He started talking about an investigation. I laughed.

  “Ernie did the investigation, held the trial, executed the sentence. Everybody, even Eric, is happy with the result. You should give Ernie a medal, but if you don’t, he won’t mind. Just send him home. He saw inside all our heads. He can’t be around us anymore.”

  I was pretty sure I would not be chopping off anyone’s head no matter how charming Maya became, and I knew I was just seducing myself. The awful memory served as a helpful wound, a pain that kept me from succumbing to the drug.

  Maya directed me to turn toward Stagecoach, then onto a smaller road. A few hundred yards along, we went around a curve, and Maya said, “Here.”

  Billy’s Roadhouse was hidden among the pines, a one-story shingled building with a painted sign over the door illuminated by a single bulb. The parking lot was gravel. The mat in front of the door read: CONGRATULATIONS.

  Before we went in, Maya’s shadow pulled into the lot. “Should we ask him to join us?” I asked.

  “He won’t trust you. He’ll think you mean to do me harm and you’re trying to get him drunk, or to drug him.”

  I waited a moment for the black SUV, but it did not pull in or go past. That meant it had pulled off just around the curve.

  No one sat at the long bar. One couple occupied a table on the left side of the room and another balanced them at the other side. The light was low enough that I could not make out anyone’s features. A Gram Parsons song was playing on the speakers: the one about sweeping out the ashes in the morning. The bartender looked up but did not move.

  We stood there a moment, letting our eyes adjust. “This place a favorite of yours?” I asked.

  “Never been here, in fact. I read about it once. I’ve been looking for the right occasion to try it.”

  On our right a hostess appeared and said, “Hi, y’all. How’re doin’ t’night? Good to see ya.” It was just a standard Texas greeting, but I watched Maya for any sign that she and the hostess had met before. I caught nothing.

  We were led past a long row of booths, each with a high partition shielding the occupants from view, to the last one in the row. A large window made up much of the wall at the end of the row. I did not want my back to the window and did not want my back to the room and did not want to make a fuss about it. I chose to have my back to the room because the window would show a reflection of anyone coming toward us from the entrance.

  Maya ordered wine and I ordered a beer. The hostess lit a candle for us and left.

  “Most oilmen I’ve met like to brag,” Maya said.

  “Would you like me to brag?”

  “Very much.” She said it with perfect mock sincerity and rested her chin in her hands as if to hang on my every word.

  “Okay . . . After years of near starvation, extreme deprivation of all modern, earthly delights and pleasures, sacrifice unknown to others of my generation, I determined that a remote patch of land covered a vast sea of oil. With only a shovel and a pick, I dug the well. With a saw and hammer, I built the derrick. I fought of
f claim jumpers, thieves, con artists, and the alluring, seductive women they sent to deprive me of my fortune, and in the end I prevailed, and now with my ocean of oil and endless fields of dollars, I’m the richest man in . . . in this booth.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “The rich men I’ve met would not brag about dirty hands. You didn’t tell me how many cars you owned, or houses, yachts, movie stars you met.”

  “I have no reason to buy anything. I have no woman to buy it for.”

  “That’s not bragging. That’s flirting.”

  “Isn’t that why we’re here?”

  She looked at me the same way she had at the club, just an expressionless stare. She said, “I wanted to come to the club tonight so I could meet you.”

  The flickering candlelight accentuated the angles of her face and the surrounding darkness acted as a whisper: I leaned in to be sure I saw her expression. I wanted to erase the darkness, eliminate anything that kept me from seeing her perfectly.

  I asked, “Why is that?”

  “We might be able to help each other.”

  The waitress brought our drinks. I had not caught her reflection in the window. “Y’all ready?” We both shook our heads with the same slow cadence. The waitress shrugged and went away.

  The spell was strong. Too strong. I could leave the party now, or stay too long. The buzz I was feeling had spread thoroughly, drowning out my thoughts. If I abandoned my self-indulgence at that moment, I could still believe it was a just a pleasurable ploy to expose Maya, or to trick her into revealing herself. It would have been fine to go on for a while if I could keep my distance. I couldn’t.

  I still did not know who she was.