Unpunished

by William Peter Grasso

  Fred O’Hara was anything but motionless. In his living room, he had been listening to the same radio broadcast as Joe Gelardi—and flinging anything he could get his hands on in a drunken rage. The whiskey bottle he had just drained was only the latest missile.

  His hands seized a heavy metal paperweight—embossed with military aviator’s wings—from the desk. In an instant, it, too, was flying. It struck a wall full of framed family photos, some of which clattered to the hardwood floor, leaving a minefield of broken glass and crumbled plaster.

  Fred slumped back against the sofa, awaiting the remorse he knew would set in shortly. Remorse for the drinking, remorse for the destruction to his home—and remorse that Leonard Pilcher still drew breath.

  Allegra Wise gathered the collar of her stylish spring coat tightly around her neck as she shivered in the cold March night. She cursed her choice of outer garments: Dammit! Screw fashion…it’s still winter up here. The streets of downtown Nashua, New Hampshire, were still teeming with people on this primary night, many of them abuzz about the amazing showing of Leonard Pilcher at the ballot box. She corralled a middle-aged couple, their practical but obviously inexpensive clothes marking them as working class locals. She thrust the microphone of her miniature reel-to-reel tape recorder toward them and asked, “How do you feel about those who say Leonard Pilcher is too young, too inexperienced to be president?”

  The man responded with typical New England skepticism. “Hell, what did all of Eisenhower’s experience get us? Got us pushed around by them commies, that’s all. That Pilcher boy’s proved himself a leader…he’s a damn war hero, for crying out loud! A real fighting war hero.”

  His wife chimed in with great enthusiasm. “He seems like such an upstanding young man, from a fine family.” She paused, a scowl crossing her face. “And he won’t be taking no orders from the Pope of Rome, neither…not like that Kennedy boy.”

  The couple turned and bustled off down the street before Allegra could ask another question. Exasperated, she scanned up and down the sidewalk for another interviewee. She did not notice Tad Matthews in a doorway across the street, pointing her out to an unsmiling man in a trench coat—a Hard-Boiled Man with an air of quiet violence about him.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  The air was still and deadly quiet in Max Pilcher’s office, like the eye of a hurricane or the sudden lull just before the tornado swirls in and lays waste to everything in its path. Max felt his anger surging as he took in the sight of his insolent son, lounging in an armchair, pouting; Leonard Pilcher was never one to take criticism well.

  “I’m going to say it again, Lenny…maybe it will get through your thick skull this time. That war hero crack was an asinine move, son.”

  Leonard continued to study his fingernails as he replied, “Aren’t you the one who always says tell them the lie they want to hear?”

  With those words, the storm front had finally arrived. Max had had quite enough of this imbecilic lout.

  “YEAH…AS LONG AS IT WON’T COME BACK AND BITE YOU IN THE ASS, YOU IDIOT. I HATE TO BREAK THIS TO YOU, LENNY, BUT YOU AIN’T NO FUCKING WAR HERO. THE PRESS IS GOING TO HAVE A FIELD DAY ON YOUR STUPID ASS.”

  The younger Pilcher remained slouched in the chair, unmoved by his father’s tirade. He answered only with a shrug.

  Tad Matthews picked this inopportune moment to enter the office. He immediately sensed the familiar tension in the air, stopped in his tracks, and turned to exit. “Oh…I’ll come back,” Matthews said.

  But Max Pilcher waved Matthews into the office impatiently. “No, no, Matthews. Get in here. We’ve got to get the spotlight off this Sweden bullshit.”

  The elder Pilcher put his hand on his chin, deep in thought. Tad Matthews stood and waited. He had no idea what Max had in mind.

  Leonard Pilcher puffed his cheeks and forced out the breath through pursed lips. It made a sound like a wet fart. His father took no notice.

  A moment later, with his mental calculations complete, Max Pilcher turned to Matthews and said, “Get the Pentagon on the phone…I need to talk with General Brown.”

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  The bright lighting of the television studio complimented the suntanned face of the man in the blue military uniform. He was led by a stagehand to one of two comfortable-looking chairs that faced the TV cameras. The cameras were bulky, standing as tall as a man on their pedestals, and appeared to weigh a great deal as their operators rolled them across the studio floor. To the man in the blue uniform, they looked intimidating, like one-eyed robots closing in for the kill. A small circular table separated the chairs. Another stagehand placed two mugs of water on the table. The cups bore the TV station’s logo: a large number 7, surrounded by its call sign, KLAX, Los Angeles.

  Senior Master Sergeant Ed Morris, US Air Force, picked up one of the cups and took a sip. The chair proved very comfortable, but he found it hard to relax. He had been traveling for over 36 hours, all the way across the Pacific from a place called Saigon, Vietnam. It had been just him and the flight crew on the mammoth C-124 transport plane. The aircraft commander, a major who was an old-timer like Morris, had said, “You’re either some kind of hero, Sarge, or you’re in real deep shit to have a big bird like this sent just for you.”

  Ed Morris was very tired from the journey. Usually he could sleep like a baby on any airplane on which he was not a crew member. But this time, the droning of the four big piston engines had not had their usual, sleep-inducing effect. There was much on his mind. He felt more like a prisoner being brought to trial than a career military man with a chest full of decorations. Since being The Lady M’s flight engineer all those years ago, he had done and learned much. Once released from internment in Sweden, he had gone to the Pacific and flown against Japan on B-29s. When the Korean War broke out, he was among the first bomber crews in the fight. He had learned the workings of US military aircraft inside and out. His knowledge and experience were much valued in the Air Force.

  This unplanned odyssey had begun two days ago. He was summoned from the air base where he was serving as team leader of a small group of American aircraft maintenance advisors to the fledgling South Vietnamese Air Force. Their mission was clandestine; the United States had no official military presence in this little-known Southeast Asian country locked in conflict with its Communist brothers to the north. Morris and his men were teaching the South Vietnamese how to care for the aging but still-capable combat aircraft the American government had provided in the hope of keeping the South from becoming another toppled Asian domino.

  The man he had been summoned to see was Colonel Johnson, the commander of the support squadron. While technically Morris’s boss, the two hardly knew each other. They had only come face-to-face twice before.

  The colonel had seemed congenial at first, like an old buddy to the senior NCO standing at parade rest before him. “Got a message here from General Brown,” he began in a slow drawl.

  Morris was startled. “The chief of staff, sir?”

  “Yeah, that General Brown. He’d like you, Sergeant Morris, to do him a little bitty favor.”

  Ed Morris felt his insides tighten into a knot. This could not be good.

  The colonel picked up a dispatch from his desk and casually flipped it to Morris. “Take your time reading it, Sergeant. Make sure it sinks in real good.”

  Ed Morris’s face dropped as he read. When he was finished, he placed the dispatch on the colonel’s desk and returned to the parade rest brace before speaking.

  “With all due respect, sir…I’m afraid I ain’t got nothing good to say about Congressman Pilcher…then or now.”

  The congeniality vanished from Johnson’s manner. “Well then, Sergeant Morris, that’s just a damn shame…a real damn shame. You see, I haven’t forgotten about those shenanigans at your warehouse last year…Neither has the general.”

  The colonel paused, making a tsk-tsk sound with his tongue as he shook his head with mock sadness. “A fine record like yo
urs, Ed…a year from retirement and your pension…all wiped away by some silly little oversight.”

  So there it was—blackmail. The silly little oversight of which the colonel spoke, when viewed in the harsh light of day-to-day reality, had been merely business as usual in this God-forsaken place. A number of aircraft parts meant for the Vietnamese—several truckloads’ worth—had left Morris’s warehouse at Tan Son Nhut airbase without any signed documentation indicating who had received them. That was not an unusual occurrence in the bizarre world of Vietnam, where urgency and apathy happily coexisted. In the supposed rush to get grounded planes back into the air, repair parts often vanished from the shelves without a paper trail. Sometimes an overworked supply clerk meant to get to the paperwork later but got sidetracked and forgot. Or the Vietnamese mechanics took the part from the shelf without bothering to go through proper channels.

  But most likely, those parts had simply been stolen by South Vietnamese officers and sold on the black market. Genuine American components fetched a high price in the developing world. These officers had spent their entire lives in a country at war with one oppressor after another: the French, the Japanese, the French again, and now their brothers to the north. Conflict was the norm; there was no reason for them to expect it would ever end, so one must learn to profit from it. Now the Americans were here, with their massive affluence, foolish optimism, and naïve misunderstanding of the workings of the world. Profiteering had suddenly become very easy. Theft was endemic. Locks only stopped honest men.

  Usually, such losses were just written off the balance sheets, provided that you knew it was missing in the first place. To discover what was missing at any given time, however, you had to be constantly taking inventory, and nobody—certainly not Ed Morris’s little team—had the time or manpower for that.

  This particular loss would have escaped without consequence but for a surprise visit by some inspector general and his team. This IG was bucking for his first star and needed to make a name for himself. His auditors did their usual thorough scouring of the logistical records and uncovered over two-hundred thousand US dollars’ worth of replacement parts unaccounted for. That was enough money to send the responsible party to federal prison for 20 years. Senior Master Sergeant Edwin Morris was that responsible party.

  It had looked really bad for Morris at first. He would be found guilty no matter how they looked at it. If the stuff was deemed stolen, the poor security and inventory control that had allowed the theft to occur and remain undetected made him guilty of negligence and inattention to duty. Or, if he colluded in the undocumented transactions, he was guilty of conspiracy and theft from the US government. Either way, he was going to Leavenworth, stripped of rank and benefits. A statement of charges was prepared. Court martial proceedings were scheduled. The new commander of the support squadron—Colonel Johnson, fresh from the States—had confined him to quarters pending trial. That was the first time Morris had met his new boss.

  Then, in keeping with the bizarre character of life in Southeast Asia, the political winds shifted. Two State Department types—sweating buckets in their tropical worsted suits, custom made in Hong Kong—had paid Colonel Johnson a visit. Behind closed doors, the men from State said, “To proceed with a court martial, there would need to be a detailed investigation…and the findings of such an investigation might prove embarrassing to our Vietnamese allies. Therefore, Washington has mandated that this matter be dropped immediately.”

  What was a few dollars in aircraft parts between friends, anyway?

  Shortly thereafter, Morris was released from confinement to quarters and summoned to Colonel Johnson, who breezily informed him, “Certain parties above my pay grade have decided to put this little matter on hold. But be advised, Sergeant Morris…this matter will not be forgotten.”

  Still braced at parade rest, Ed Morris’s eyes drifted to the dispatch on the colonel’s desk. He was certainly right about the “not being forgotten” part, Morris thought. I’m screwed...I either do this PR stunt for the big brass or I lose everything and rot in Leavenworth. That fucking Pilcher!

  The congeniality had returned to the colonel’s face. “Now I’m not trying to play the bad guy here, Ed. I think we can work this out real easy…”

  So here Ed Morris was, working it out in a television studio in Los Angeles. The interviewer who now sat across from him seemed as robotic as the cameras they faced but far less intimidating. In his heavy stage makeup and expensive, tailored clothes, he struck Morris as resembling a woman dressed as a man. Or perhaps a circus clown. The questions the interviewer posed were read straight off a teleprompter, carefully worded to yield the answers that Morris had been told to give by those people above his pay grade.

  As General Brown, the Air Force Chief of Staff had told Max Pilcher: What could be better for your boy than a glowing testimonial from a former crew member? And I happen to have just such a crew member readily available.”

  It was getting hotter than midday in Saigon under the TV studio lights. The interviewer leaned in for the closing questions.

  “So, Sergeant Morris, as you’ve said in your own words, Leonard Pilcher actually saved your life and the rest of his crew’s as well. Do you regard that as an act of heroism?”

  “Yessir, I do,” Morris replied. “Captain Pilcher made the tough decision…the right decision.” His throat had gone completely dry. Clumsily, he reached for his cup of water. It toppled slightly before he caught hold of it. Some of its contents had landed on the interviewer’s trousers.

  The interviewer never flinched. Morris was aware of the cameras moving, readjusting their aim. Kinda looks like the clown pissed himself, Morris thought. I guess they don’t want that in the shot.

  “One more question, Sergeant…isn’t it against regulations for a member of the military to endorse political candidates?”

  Morris smiled, not from happiness but the amusing irony this question provoked. Those above his pay grade had said it would be asked to keep us all honest. Even though Ed Morris would be lying through his teeth.

  “Affirmative, sir,” Morris replied. “But I’m not endorsing anyone. I’m just setting the record straight.”

  The interviewer extended his hand. “Thank you, Sergeant Edwin Morris, for your candor…and your service to your country.” Then he turned to the camera and said, “We’ll be right back after these words.”

  Morris rose and walked to the studio exit. The Air Force officer monitoring the interview—a young captain without aviator’s wings on his chest—was waiting for him by the door with a smug smile on his face.

  What does that pencil-pushing desk jockey think he’s grinning at? Morris thought as he returned a look that was anything but a smile. With a tone that flirted with disrespect without crossing that line, he asked the groundling captain, “Am I free to go now, sir?”

  The captain nodded and held open the heavy studio door for Morris. As the senior master sergeant made his way down the hall with great purpose, the captain’s face still wore that same smug grin.

  Still in his dress uniform, Ed Morris sat on a stool in the Los Angeles airport bar and nursed his beer. He still had an hour before his commercial flight to Honolulu departed. From there, he would have to catch a ride on a military transport back to Saigon.

  Thank God that bullshit is over, he thought as he took another sip. He felt disgusted and dirty, soiled once again by association with Leonard Pilcher.

  Across the bar, a middle-aged man admired the many ribbons adorning Morris’s uniform blouse. He caught the sergeant’s eye.

  “I was in the big one, too,” the middle-aged man said. “Twelfth Air Force…North Africa, Italy, France. All that fruit salad you’ve got…you must be some kind of hero, Sarge.”

  Morris took a moment before mumbling, “Nah. I ain’t rich enough to be no hero.”

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Tad Matthews knocked on the Manhattan hotel room door for the third time. The first two knocks had been
soft and polite, respectful of the early hour. This third knock bordered on an impatient pounding. It did the trick—there was a click as the door unlocked from inside and swung open to reveal a groggy Leonard Pilcher, clad only in boxer shorts.

  Inside the dimly lit room, empty liquor bottles and glasses littered the floor. The silhouette of a woman rose from the bed, draped herself with a sheet in one fluid motion, and vanished into the bathroom. Tad could discern enough, even in the darkness, to know the woman was not Mrs. Leonard Pilcher.

  Slurring his words, Pilcher asked, “What the hell time is it?”

  “Seven-o-five. We need to be at the studio in forty minutes.”

  Pilcher grumbled and walked back into the room, leaving the door wide open. Tad remained in the hallway.

  “Should I call the lady a cab?” Matthews asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

  Pilcher gave a dismissive wave of his hand and did not bother to keep his voice down. “Nah. The bitch can call her own goddamn cab.”

  “We’ll be waiting downstairs, Congressman,” Matthews said as he pulled the door shut. Alone in the hallway, he did not bother hiding the look of disgust on his face.

  Allegra Wise, still in her pajamas, juggled her cereal bowl in one hand as she fiddled with the rabbit ears of her TV set. Even though it was Sunday morning, she had set an alarm. She had no intention of missing Meet The Press. Leonard Pilcher was to be the featured guest.

  She plopped onto the couch just as the first question was hurled his way. “Congressman, the story of your internment in Sweden during the war is largely unexplored…”

  Pilcher interrupted the panelist. “That’s because there’s not much to explore, I’m afraid.”

  The screen image shifted back to the panelist in time to display his look of annoyance at being interrupted. With an even tone, he continued his questioning. “Recently it has come to light that two of your crew died while in Sweden, both reported as suicides. Surely you must feel some regret…and some responsibility…that young men under your command took their own lives in those circumstances?”