Tinker and Blue

by Frank Macdonald

  “And the moral of this story is...” Vinyl Vinny wondered aloud.

  “That you shouldn’t trust anybody who’s got more power or money than you, because all he wants to do is keep that and get more. Some people get so much power and money they own the politicians and the police, and they get that power and money by selling trusting suckers like us sick horses. A guy like Capricorn, eh, and he’d be surprised to hear me say this, but a guy like Capricorn just wants everybody to have their own share of the world. Well, if everybody’s going to have their own share, then somebody’s got to give up a hell of a lot, don’t you think? So what do you think they’d do to keep their share, and yours, and mine? Anything, that’s what!

  “This Tinker character everybody’s talking about, and don’t forget, they’re just talking about him,” Blue reminded listeners, “he’s scared the daylights out of Fucdepor Petroleum. Did you ever see his oxygen engine? No! Did I? No! Did anyone? No! As far as we know, it’s just talk, but they want to get rid of him for just talking about an engine that will make everybody’s life better. If it is true, if this Tinker guy invents an oxygen engine, I’ll tell you this much, he doesn’t want to sell the rest of us a sick horse, he wants to share a healthy one with us. Well, maybe he’d like to make a few bucks off it, but Fucdepor would rather poison us to death with their oil fumes just to keep their greedy hands on a planet that belongs to every one of us....”

  “So, Blue, you obviously believe that the FBI and the petroleum industry is involved in a conspiracy to make Capricorn and Tinker disappear.”

  “That’s why we’ve come to you. The real radios and newspapers won’t let us tell the truth, but you will. If you keep talking about this on the air somebody’s going to have to say something about what’s happening to Capricorn and Tinker, and I thank you for that, Vinny. Know what would be fine? We end this with you playing ‘Failure To Love,’ dedicated to those two martyrs.”

  —

  It was raining when by the time Blue and Barney took up their position in the doorway across the street from where he believed Wise held Capricorn under arrest. There had been more FBI denials after the radio broadcast, denials strong enough to make even Blue believe them, if he didn’t know better. Feeling a desperate lump in his throat, a hopelessness he tried to lose by burrowing his face into Barney’s coat, Blue kept going through the no longer convincing motion of copying the activity across the street into the scribbler he kept folded and stuffed in his jacket pocket.

  8:25 p.m. - a guy and girl went into the building.

  8:43 p.m. - a different guy came out of the building.

  9:16 p.m. - the same girl and guy come out of the building.

  10:05 p.m. - a soldier went into the building.

  58

  “There’s a soldier down here demanding to see you,” the security guard said into the phone on his desk. “He says it’s vitally important that he talk to you— Throw him out? I can’t do that, sir! He’s a Marine, he’s wearing a ’Nam ribbon! He needs to see you, he says.” The security guard hung up the phone and told the soldier that Wise would be down in a moment.

  When the elevator arrived, Wise walked briskly toward the Marine who saluted him sharply. “Put that hand down, Corporal,” Wise ordered. “You know better than to salute civilians.”

  “Normally I do, sir, but you are no ordinary civilian, sir, not if this story is true,” the soldier said crisply, dropping a copy of The Subterranean on the information desk. Wise glanced at the headline, then brought his narrowing eyes back to the soldier, scrutinizing him.

  “Is it true, sir? Do you have Capricorn under arrest?”

  Wise detected an eagerness in the soldier’s voice that delayed his automatic denial. “What would it matter to you if it was true?”

  “Sir, my name is Jim Connelly, Corporal Jim Connelly. I don’t know how much you know about this bastard who calls himself Capricorn, but I know him as Stephen Burns. He killed my father!”

  Wise looked from the soldier to the security guard who was making a great pretence of not paying attention. “Come with me, Corporal, we’ll discuss this in my office,” the FBI agent said, leading the solider to the elevators.

  “You say Capricorn murdered your father?” Wise said as the two of them settled into his office.

  “I’d call it murder, sir, although the courts won’t, but my father’s dead and Capricorn’s the reason.”

  “Tell me about it,” Wise said, relaxing to listen to Corporal Connelly’s tale.

  “Sir, my father used to be the vice principal of one of the finest schools in New York City. He was a brilliant man with a great future in education. Your so-called Capricorn was a student at that school ... do you know this story?” the soldier asked, seeing a glint of recognition in Wise’s eyes.

  “I’ve been tracking Capricorn for a long time,” Wise said, “gathering every piece of information I could about him to create a profile to help in his apprehension. It’s been a while, but there was a story about a high school scandal—”

  “That’s the story, sir. I’m not saying my father was a saint, he and my mother didn’t have the happiest marriage in the world, but I was just a child at the time, in the same school. Capricorn wired my father’s office to the intercom and everyone in the school heard what took place between him and his secretary.” Corporal Connelly stopped, taking an emotional gasp of air, clearly fending off a soldier’s worst fear, his own tears. “Including me, sir, I recognized my father’s voice over the intercom, but I was so young I didn’t know what I was hearing. Everyone ... laughing, sir ... laughing at my father.”

  The Corporal walked to the window of the office and looked down into the dark, rain-stained street. Wise, a seasoned interrogator who knew when to keep his peace, waited. Eventually, Connelly returned to the chair he had been occupying.

  “The result was that the school board transferred my father to another school, the worst in the city. He was an intellectual man, my father, brilliant. He could hold his own with anyone in an argument, but not in a fight, sir. Not in a fight, and in the school they sent him to, it was the only way anyone could survive, students and teachers. He turned into a frightened man who threw up every morning before he went to work. He lasted a couple of years, sir, in that school before he couldn’t take it anymore. He killed himself late one August just before school was scheduled to open again. He begged for a transfer to a school he could handle. Any school, sir, rather than face those ruffians who made his life so miserable. And your Capricorn, he graduated at the top of his class. Does your research on him tell you that, that he ruined my father, killed him,” Connelly shouted angrily, pounding his fist on the desk, “and they loaded him up with scholarships, made him the class valedictorian and sent him to Harvard University! Harvard, for fuck sakes! Harvard! What’s wrong with this country, sir, I ask you, what has happened to our country?”

  “I share your worries, son,” Wise said consolingly. “At least you’ve chosen to do something about your country. You’ve joined the Marines, which means you didn’t hide at home waiting for a draft notice to force you into service. You didn’t run and hide in that Communist country to the north of us, that fucking Canada. There’s the next place our soldiers should be going, if you ask me. No sir, Corporal, you enlisted and went overseas and you fought like a man. The evidence is on your chest and in your face. You’re what America’s all about, son.”

  “I swore when my father was kil— died, sir, that I would never allow myself to become as vulnerable as he was. He believed in the world of reason. He didn’t know about the violence that exists even inside our own country. He didn’t know how to survive it when he was thrown into it, and make no mistake, sir, it was Capricorn, not the so-called system, that threw my father to those wolves.

  “When I finished school, I enlisted because I want to do two things with my life, contribute to my country and protect it. There
is no better way to protect my country than learning the skills of a United States Marine, sir. So I enlisted. I’ve been tested under fire and I believe that I stood up to that test, sir. When my tour is up, I hope to go to university, sir, Harvard. I have the academic credentials, I believe, and if the best university in the country is going to train people like Capricorn to destroy it, it’s only fair that it also educate those of us who are dedicated to protecting it. Then, sir, as a civilian, I intend to continue protecting my country as a member of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, if the bureau finds me acceptable, that is.”

  “There’s no doubt about that, Corporal. If you ever require a personal recommendation, I would be more than happy to accommodate you.”

  “Thank you, sir. I don’t know whether to be delighted or sad that the story in this newspaper isn’t true. My reasons for wanting to join the FBI aren’t without selfish motives. I dreamed from childhood of capturing Capricorn once I learned that he had become an outlaw, but when I read this headline I was so happy, I wasn’t even sorry that it wasn’t me. You’ll pardon me, sir, for saying this, but until this afternoon, I had never heard the name Special Agent Bud Wise, but when I read it in association with Capricorn’s capture, you became my personal hero. Just because the story’s not true doesn’t mean that I don’t still respect you, sir. You’re the only person who has kept after him when everyone else stopped looking, even after that bombing of the factory in New York. I’m sure that someday you will find him. If I don’t first,” Connelly said with a smile. “I was just hoping—” he said, rubbing his fingers forlornly across the headline that announced Capricorn’s capture.

  Wise and Connelly sat in their separate silences until it was bridged by Wise’s decision to take the conversation between them one step further. “Could the agency rely on your discretion in a matter of national security, Corporal?” he asked.

  “Absolutely, sir!”

  “Very well, come with me,” Wise said, leading the Marine through his office door, past the half dozen agents that were still in the office at that hour, all of whom were obviously members of a task force. Wise stopped with his hand on the knob of a door. “What I am about to show you, Corporal, must remain our shared secret. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” Corporal. Connelly said, a clearly confused expression in his face.

  The door opened into a windowless office that had probably served as a storage area before it was requisitioned as an interrogation room. There was one desk and two metal chairs in the room. One of the chairs was located behind the desk which held a tape recorder, some empty cups, stationery and pens. The second chair contained a bearded figure whose battered head hung in fatigue. A set of handcuffs on either hand locked him to the metal rungs that supported the back of the chair. He lifted his head wearily and squinted into the light of the open door. The soldier froze in the doorway.

  “Capricorn,” he whispered so softly that Wise barely heard him. “You do have him,” he continued in a clearer voice. “You got the bastard,” and Connelly made a closed-fist move toward the prisoner before Wise grabbed his arm, holding him back.

  “Easy, son, easy. Let me introduce you. Capricorn, or as you’ve known him, Stephen Burns,” he said, walking over and slapping the cuffed prisoner across the face, “I’d like you to meet Jim Connelly, Corporal Jim Connelly of the United States Marine Corps. Does the name mean anything to you?” Wise asked in a teasing tone. “His father used to be one of your teachers, but something went sadly wrong with the unfortunate man’s career when one of his students played a nasty joke. Corporal Connelly was in the school that day,” Wise said, jerking Capricorn’s head back by his badly matted hair, forcing the commune leader to look into the soldier’s eyes through his own swollen eyes. “Corporal Connelly just got back from a tour of Vietnam, but you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, you fucking pacifist coward.” He jerked Capricorn’s head back even farther.

  “I don’t understand. Why haven’t you told anyone?” Connelly asked Wise, never moving his hate-filled eyes from Capricorn’s face. “After all the time you spent chasing him, I’d think you’d be parading him down Main Street America.”

  “There’s a complication that we believe Capricorn can help us with, so it’s not in the national interest to announce his capture at the moment.”

  “Has it got to do with this Tinker character that the newspaper article talks about?”

  “You’re quick, Corporal. The bureau is going to love having you in its ranks. We know there’s a connection between Capricorn’s organization and Tinker. The Panthers, too, but Capricorn is our best link. All we need to do is get him to tell us where we can find the fucker.”

  “What have you done to get that information, sir?” Corporal Connelly asked.

  “As much as we can get away with. Sleep deprivation, no food, no water, some non-bruising physical interrogating, although you can see that some of the men interrogating him missed a few times, but none of it has produced much. He’s a stubborn bastard, I’ll give him that.”

  “No disrespect, sir,” Connelly said, “but those don’t sound like very convincing methods. The man’s still got all ten fingernails, for fuck sake.”

  “If it was up to me, Corporal—”

  “Of course, sir, I understand your restrictions, but do you understand that I don’t have any?”

  “Pardon?”

  “I’m not an FBI agent, sir, I’m a Marine. Of course, the Marines don’t teach their soldiers to torture the enemy. The mothers of America wouldn’t like that. What the drill instructors do instead is give us soldiers very detailed information on the methods the enemy will use if they ever capture us. It’s so detailed, in fact, sir, that a Marine could probably make any prisoner talk, if he had any prisoners, that is. The Marines only give us the information, you understand. They would be disappointed if we used it, naturally.”

  “Unfortunately, Corporal, I have the prisoner, not you. He’s my responsibility,” Wise pointed out.

  “But I’m a distraught Marine just back from Vietnam, sir. I read about the capture of Capricorn, the man responsible for the death of my father. Between battle fatigue and my traumatic childhood, there’s not a court martial in the land that would hold me responsible for charging in here, finding Capricorn, whom you were interrogating in the national interest, and getting information from him. If anyone ever finds out, that is, and I see no reason why they should. Not if Stephen Burns here just disappeared once we had the information you need.”

  Wise’s doubts about what Corporal Connelly was proposing dissolved when he saw the wave of fear that washed across Capricorn’s face as the soldier made his case. “I can’t be here,” Wise said.

  “I could sure use a cup of coffee, sir. Not the trash they serve in the Marines, but a real cup of coffee, one that takes a good twenty minutes to brew. Could you get me one, sir? When you bring it back here, I guarantee you’ll know where this Tinker is, and who he is.”

  Wise left the interrogation room rubbing his hands together in gratitude that there was finally about to be a break in the case. Giving a sick wink to the frightened Capricorn, he closed the door, looked at his watch and decided to treat himself to a long, comfortable shit.

  “Are you crazy?” Capricorn asked as Tinker rushed behind his chair to examine the handcuffs. “How do you expect us to get out of here?”

  Tinker pulled a package of small tools from an inside pocket and fiddled at the cuffs, telling Capricorn that if he could take an engine apart, “these things should fall to pieces in my hands.” They did, and as Capricorn rubbed circulation through his wrists, Tinker told him how they would be leaving the building. Capricorn was standing behind the door when Wise re-entered the room. Before he could react to the empty chair, Capricorn and Tinker overpowered him, cuffing the agent with his own.

  “Call the others in here,” Tinker ordered, pushing his finger
like a gun against the back of Wise’s head. “No tricks,” he ordered as he disarmed the FBI agent.

  The six members of the task force filed into the interrogation room. By the time they realized that all was not well, it was too late. The soldier who had accompanied Wise into the room where Capricorn was being held opened his tunic, pulled out a canister and held it high over his head.

  “Allow me to introduce myself, gentlemen. The name is Tinker, and this,” he said, shaking the canister that looked as harmless as the fuel tank of a Coleman stove, “is an oxygen bomb. It doesn’t need to go off. Whether it does or not is strictly up to you, because the fact is that I know that there are people who want me dead, and that this so-called task force plans to be my executioner, so it doesn’t really matter if a couple of million people die with me.”

  The other agents, whom Capricorn took time to explain to Tinker weren’t FBI at all but muscle men for Fucdepor Petroleum, understood that they were in a room with a mad bomber, a misunderstanding Wise had wisely allowed them to continue believing. They quickly disarmed themselves. Under the threatening shake of the oxygen bomb they allowed themselves to be tied together with their own neckties while Bud Wise gurgled from behind the gag of his own necktie.

  Capricorn locked the room in which he had spent the past five days, and with Wise as their hostage, the three men left the building, Capricorn and Tinker flanking the agent to hide the cuffs as they passed the security agent, acknowledging him with nods of the head while he scratched his own, searching the log book for the signature of a dirty, matted-haired hippie who must have signed in. He shrugged, decided it must be an undercover agent.

  —

  Blue watched a cluster of people coming through the lobby of the building across the street and took out the surveillance scribbler to note his observation. At the same time, he heard a car start somewhere up the street. Barney’s ears perked as a black car pulled quickly in front of the building and three people came through the door, rushing toward it. They may not have recognized the black car, but both Blue and Barney recognized the familiar tics and drones of Tinker’s Plymouth, and the getaway driver behind the wheel.