When the Killing Starts

by Ted Wood

  It must have been a little after ten when I finished the first circuit of all the likely places. On Queen Street West there's a country bar called the Chuckwagon, well enough known in the country-music crowd that the Saturday nighters were mostly in western gear, blue jeans—national dress for the under thirties, anyway—but with check shirts and Stetsons. The music was deafening, but it was Waylon Jennings, so at least it was telling a story.

  I got myself a beer and looked around. No sign of the colonel. That would have been too easy. I looked for his phone jockey, someone old or out of place in this young crowd. Nobody answered that description, either. But there was one guy on his own who interested me. He wasn't on the make, which put him in a class by himself in there. He was nursing a beer and doing his best to look at a magazine in the limited light that was available. Killing time, glancing up now and then, trying not to look obvious.

  I left my beer on the bar and sauntered past his table as if I were heading for the john. His head was down, and he was studying a picture of a guy in combat fatigues holding an automatic weapon. It had the curved magazine of the AK 47. He looked up and caught my eye and closed the magazine. Soldier of Fortune.

  He stared at me, coldly. Getting himself psyched up to show how tough he was. He was already working at it, high-crowned baseball cap dead center, crisp haircut, clenched jaw. A recruit waiting for his army.

  I nodded at him. "That's a good magazine." He kept up his stare, not sure I wasn't sending him up. "How would you know?"

  "Used to read it all the time," I said, and then set the hook. "When I first got back from 'Nam."

  "You were there?" His face changed. "No shit, were you?"

  "U.S. Marines. Two years." Fred would have been proud of me. I didn't follow up right away. I nodded again and went on to the washroom. It was busy, and I had to wait, watching a young guy slamming the contraceptive machine with the heel of his hand because it had eaten his quarters and left him unprotected. He was taking some heavy joshing from his buddies about his possible sexual preferences.

  I walked back out past Soldier of Fortune. He was waiting. "Hey, got a minute?" His voice was as gruff as he could shade it without picking a fight. Anxious to talk but not at the cost of losing face, I figured.

  "'S on your mind?" I smiled to show I was playing nice.

  "You a vet, really?"

  "No big deal, there were a million guys there. Most of us came back."

  "Yeah, but you're Canadian, eh? Like I figured you had to be American."

  I leaned my knuckles down on the table so we could talk without bellowing over George Jones and Tammy Wynette. "There were lots of Canadians there, thousands of us. I was marines."

  His jaw had come unclenched. He looked as close to pleading as he could allow himself to get. "Were you in the boonies?"

  "Most of the time."

  "Listen." He looked around, at the bar, where I'd left my beer. "You with somebody, or can I buy you a beer, shoot the shit?"

  "Kinda boring," I minimized.

  He said it. He honestly did, like a school kid. "That's easy for you to say."

  I grinned and dropped into the chair opposite, waving at the waiter, who was plowing through the crowd with his aluminum tray at arm's length over his head. I hoped somebody didn't tickle him.

  He stopped at our table and dropped four draft. The Soldier of Fortune would have outdrawn Billy the Kid to get his cash on the table. He tipped a quarter. The waiter sniffed and left.

  He pushed a glass toward me. "Down the hatch," he said almost jovially.

  "Here's looking up your address." Freda, if you could only see your boyfriend now!

  I can see why women are reluctant to let a guy pay for their drinks. It gives him a share of your life. Even if you gulped it down, you couldn't leave without giving him what he considered his money's worth of time. Maybe more for a woman. He flung the questions at me like incoming fire. I could soon tell that he was a reader; he knew the history of the war better than I did. But I guess a ringside seat gives you perspective that the fighter in the ring never gets. I sat and answered questions for twenty minutes, nursing that first beer while he finished his two, and started my second, waving to the waiter, who had developed short sight as far as our table was concerned.

  "Where were you wounded?" he was asking when I held up my hands to stop the questions, doing it slowly enough that he could see the white slash across the underside of the left arm, where my radius bone came up for air.

  "No more questions, okay," I said, but he was peering at the wrist.

  "Hell, that looks like it was painful."

  "It was." I took another little nibble at my beer. "But tell me, if you're this interested, why don't you join the marines yourself? They're still looking for recruits." It was like fishing. I let the line go slack here by adding, "And right now there's no chance of getting shot at."

  He straightened up again. "Yeah. You unnerstan' I'm not gung ho or nothin', but I don't wanna sit around polishin' brass. I wanna see some combat."

  I gave the fishing line a tiny tug. "Well, you ask me, the marines is your best bet."

  At last it was his turn to act superior instead of humble, and he clenched his jaw again, managing to smile as he did so. He looked as if he had heartburn. "Oh, no," he said. "Oh, no, it ain't."

  I laughed. "There wasn't any war on last time I saw the papers."

  "Plenny of 'em," he said. "You gotta know where to look."

  "Yeah?" The old soldier kidding.

  "Yeah." He was bursting to tell me now. "Like you won't let this go any further, okay?"

  "Hell, I don't even know your name," I said.

  "Baks," he said, and stuck his hand out. "John Baks. I'm from Huntsville."

  It's a small town up in the bush, nothing much there but a sawmill and a Canadian tire store. I said, "Oh, sure, I know Huntsville."

  "They oughta call it Dullsville," he said.

  I laughed again, Uncle Tomming.

  He smiled, then clenched his jaw. It must be tired by now, I figured. "Two hundred a week, working at the feed store. Not for this sucker. I'm heading for big money."

  "Gonna rob a bank?"

  He shook his head and leaned forward, almost whispering, although he could have shouted under the bass voice of Johnny Cash with "Sunday Morning Coming Down." "No. I'm meeting a guy here tonight, gonna head south, see some action, earn some real money."

  "Doing what?" I stared at him suspiciously, dumb. "That's classified," he said happily. He sat hugging his snug little secret, smiling his tight-assed smile.

  "Well, what kind of money? How much?" I put enough disbelief into my voice that he had to prove his superiority. He bit.

  "Two grand a month, plus uniforms, plus food." He did the little trick with his eyes, lowering his head a fraction and sagging the chin for a moment. It only ever makes sense as a send-up, but guys like Baks do it all the time, for real.

  I acted impressed, anyway. "Who'd you have to kill?"

  He snorted with laughter and buried his nose in his beer glass.

  "I ain't met the guys yet," he said. I scratched my chin and looked at him slyly. "Listen, sounds interesting. You think you can put a word in for me?"

  He liked that. He sat up even straighter and looked me up and down. "Hell, you must be thirty-five."

  "Thirty-seven, but who's counting. I could do with a few paydays like that. Get my ex-wife the hell off my back."

  He shrugged. I could see he was torn. On the one hand, he wanted his swell new career to himself, but on the other, it would be reassuring to have a veteran alongside him if the other guys started returning fire. Prudence won. "I'll ask him," he said. "That's all's I can do, y'unnerstand. I'll ask him. What say your name was?"

  "Michaels. Tommy Michaels." I grinned happily. "Yeah, I'd like to talk to this guy. Maybe he was there as well. In 'Nam, I mean."

  "Doubt it." Baks shook his head, a tight little drill movement. "He's English."

  "You
met him already?"

  "No. Spoke to him, though. He told me to meet him here. Said to carry S.O.F., be here ten-thirty."

  "Must be close to that now."

  "Twenny-seven after." He confirmed it on one of those watches you can take to the ocean floor.

  "Time for another beer," I said, and waved the waiter over. This time he came, hoping I was the tipper of the table.

  I paid for the beers and picked one up. It was exactly ten-thirty. And on the dot of the half hour two men came into the bar. One of them was Dunphy. Exactly as my contact had described him, not tall but capable looking, cropped hair, bristling English-style army officer's mustache. The other one was bigger and looser. Without hearing him speak, I guessed he was American, a southerner. He had that plantation owner's sneer you see on the faces of a lot of tall crackers. He would be the court jester, I judged, making bitter little jokes that meant pain for other people. If young Jason Michaels had been alert, he should have veered off when he saw this character.

  Dunphy stood in the doorway, looking around, not moving anything except his head, standing rigidly, a studied pose that said, Look how military I am. Wouldn't you like to be as tough as this?

  It worked. Baks was on his feet as if this were a boot-camp room inspection, holding up his copy of S.O.F. the way a knight would hold his coat of arms. Dunphy's partner saw him and bent forward slightly to say something that made Dunphy's mustache twitch with amusement. Then they came over, walking right across the middle of the dance floor, ignoring the couples who were swaying together to the record.

  Dunphy stopped at our table and nodded at Baks.

  "You're John Baks."

  "Yessir," Baks said, standing very straight.

  Dunphy looked over his shoulder at the other guy. "What do you think, Mr. Wallace?"

  "I b'lieve it might be possible to make a soldier outa this man," Wallace said. His voice was airy, as if he were having trouble hiding his contempt. He would be the instructor, I judged, making sure that everyone got as muddy and humiliated as he could contrive while he stood around in immaculate fatigues. A bully.

  "We should sit and talk for a few minutes, somewhere private," Dunphy said.

  "Yeah, right. Shall we go?" Baks wasn't going to risk making either of them mad by bringing up my name. I think he would even have left his magazine behind if they'd wanted him to.

  "You're the colonel," I said, and Dunphy glanced at me in surprise. He didn't answer. Instead, it was Wallace.

  "An' what's your name, boy?"

  "Who're you calling boy?"

  Baks had gone catatonic. He could see his dream getting blown away. I was making these wonderful people angry.

  Dunphy said, "You have a big mouth, friend."

  "Listen, Colonel, I don't have any fight with you. But no cracker gets to call me boy."

  "Tough guy, huh?" Wallace asked me.

  "Tough enough. I was kicking ass in 'Nam while you were in grade school pushing nigger outhouses over." I could remember the fight that comment had started in a southern bar where some redneck had confronted a buddy and me. My buddy had been a cracker, like the one in front of me now, only mellowed out by combat. We had fought a roomful of rednecks before the MPs came and saved our necks.

  "I don't b'lieve you're that tough, mister," Wallace said.

  "Let's head on outside and find out," I said.

  "'S wrong with here?"

  Dunphy finally spoke. "Gentlemen. I'm sure you're both very tough, but why waste time proving it on one another. Mr. Wallace, perhaps our friend here is looking for a chance to show us what he can do in our employ." Dunphy had worked on his accent. He sounded like an officer, a trick most British enlisted men never master.

  "Thanks, Colonel." I nodded approvingly. "I heard you might have some interesting work. I also heard you were a fair man. Nobody told me about this guy. Is he part of your outfit?"

  "Yes," Dunphy said shortly. "Tell me what's on your mind, Mr. . . ." He paused, waiting for me to supply the name. Baks did it for him.

  "This is Mr. Michaels," he said, and Dunphy turned to Wallace and frowned.

  Wallace must have been a mind reader. He responded at once, without blinking, stepping forward and slamming a punch at my head. Only I beat him to it. People don't ambush me, not since 'Nam. I was to one side of the punch when it got there, grabbing his wrist with my left hand and crunching my balled-up right fist into the back of his neck like a hammer. He grunted and collapsed across the table, spilling beer in all directions.

  I turned to face Dunphy, crouching. "What was that all about?"

  He ignored me. "Pick him up," he told Baks. "We can talk outside."

  THREE

  The bouncer was coming toward us, shoving through the dancers on the tiny floor like a battlewagon through a yacht regatta. He was big and ugly enough to be a dropout from a biker gang. I wondered what Dunphy would do. He showed me instantly. His billfold was in his hand before the man reached us. His voice was confident as he spoke. "I'm sorry about the mess. Our friend here has had a drop too much of your good beer. We're leaving. I hope this will take care of any damage."

  The biker took the twenty and put it in his shirt pocket. "Looks to me like he needs some air," he said.

  Dunphy obliged him with a neat little chuckle and turned away to where his new recruit was draping Wallace's arm over his shoulder and getting ready to carry him out. I stood back, not offering to help. To the victor the spoils.

  Dunphy led the way to the door, and I came right behind him, leaving the kid staggering under Wallace's weight. The inner door was shut, but it was glass, and I could see there was nobody waiting outside to throw any punches. The street door was open. Dunphy stepped through it and paused to glance back at the other two. He ignored me. I checked around. There was nobody on the street but the usual Saturday night strollers. Wallace had been his only backup.

  I waited until the kid had made the door and paused, grunting with his efforts, propping Wallace against the wall and leaning against him. Then Dunphy turned to me. "You're very good, old chum," he said.

  "Good enough, a lot of the time."

  "Tell me, were you hoping to find employment with my organization or what?"

  "I wouldn't want to fight alongside Wallace," I said. "But that's not why I came looking for you, anyway."

  "Oh, and what was your reason, Mr., er, Michaels, you said, didn't you?"

  "Yeah, Tommy Michaels. My brother asked me to see you. Said his dumb kid had joined up with you. The kid's underage; we want him back."

  Dunphy straightened himself up, a sure sign he was going to start lying. "I've no idea what you're talking about."

  "Fine. Then I'll call a cop and we'll head down to the station and you can talk to somebody who can make you remember a little better."

  "It wouldn't change anything," he said in the same tone he had used on the bouncer. "I've told you, I've never heard of anyone called Michaels, except yourself, of course. However, you do impress me, and I could offer you a very rewarding assignment if you chose." He didn't let me answer but went on. "I assume, from the way you acted, that you've seen service. Canadian forces, was it?"

  "He was in the United States Marines, in Vietnam," Baks said.

  Wallace was starting to recover, rubbing his neck and groaning. I worked out how far away Sam was. Thirty yards, on this side of the street. He could be fighting alongside me inside ten seconds if necessary.

  "How interesting," Dunphy was saying. "You saw some actual fighting, I judge. You're a trained jungle fighter."

  "We're talking about Jason, a kid with the IQ of a cord of firewood," I said. Wallace was straightening up, measuring his chances of taking another lunge at me. If Dunphy tried at the same time, it could be trouble.

  "You. On the deck," I said, pointing at Wallace. "Really, Mr. Michaels. There's no need for that," Dunphy protested.

  "Down. Or I put you down," I said, and Wallace slowly and angrily slid down the wall until he was squatt
ing on his haunches.

  "Flat on the deck," I said. He looked murderous, but he complied.

  "Right. Now do you tell me where the kid is, or do I call a cop and get this cockamamy outfit of yours busted?" It was my last and only possible threat. If he said no, I would have to fight him, and I wasn't sure I could win. A British para is tough, and this guy was built for fighting.

  "Look," he said at last, "you're a very forceful chap, and so I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Yes, I did meet the boy. He had seen one of my advertisements, and he came to see me. I took one look at him and knew he was useless. Too soft, too pampered. You should know that. However, I did take pity on him, and so I gave him some money. Two hundred of your funny dollars, to be exact. He thanked me and said he was going to Vancouver, anywhere to get away from his dreary father."

  "The hell you did. You wouldn't have given him the time of day. You hired him. Where is he?"

  Dunphy raised both hands. It's a good move. It looks peaceful, placating, but it gives you an advantage. You can punch with one hand before the sucker you're talking to realizes you're ready.

  I stepped back. "Swing at me and I'll wrap you around that fire hydrant," I warned him. "Where's the kid? Quit stalling."

  "For the last time, I don't know. You can have me arrested and beat me with rubber hoses, but I can't tell you anything else. It's the truth."

  I said nothing, and he lowered his hands. "Look, Michaels, if that's who you really are, I appreciate why you're here. But you understand, don't you? You volunteered to go and fight, just for a change in your life-style. For all I know, this boy has done the same thing, bought himself a ticket somewhere and joined the army there. I hope so, for his sake. He needs discipline. But I didn't take him."

  This was getting me nowhere. I looked around to see if there was a police car cruising somewhere close. There wasn't. There never is when you need one, even if you're a copper.

  "Getting anxious, Mr. Michaels?" Dunphy asked. "Hoping for some backup, were you? Maybe some of your fellow policemen?"

  I glanced at him sharply. He grinned, a smirky little gesture that made his mustache bristle in the light from the front of the bar. "Oh, don't look surprised. I know you're a policeman. You've got the haircut, you've got the authority. You've got all of it, except the one thing you need, a reason to arrest me."