The American Pearl

by Peter Gilboy

  The three men filed out, leaving her alone with her liberator. Patricia spat again, but this time it was only blood that had filled her mouth. She stared at her liberator. He still seemed dumbfounded by the leader’s words.

  Softly, Patricia said, “Một cây đứng cao cho đến khi nó chết.”

  He stepped toward her, but not angrily. “Who told you that? Who?”

  “What does it mean?”

  He shook his head. “It old saying. Very old.”

  She waited.

  “And it good,” he added, nodding to himself.

  “But what does it mean? Please.”

  He looked into her face. “It mean that a tree stands up strong, even as it dies.”

  45

  JANUARY 18, 2006

  A PLACE ON U STREET, 6:10 P.M.

  WE SLEEP ON, AND then Wilcox hears something and wakes up, startled. He tries to signal to us. Eddie wakes up and he nudges Greene and Greene nudges me. We all hear it now, like someone is whispering, like someone is saying shhh, trying to quiet others around him. Then nothing. The whispering has stopped. Of course we’re scared. But it’s still just normal scared. We have each other. We are the brotherhood.

  The place smells of concrete and beer. The juke box just changed songs, and now Otis Redding is telling us what it’s like to sit on the dock of the bay. Volt Records. 1968. What happened to Otis? What happened to good music?

  I’m sitting at a table waiting for Julia. Eddie is leaning back in the chair across from me. He’s watching the door for Julia, too.

  I called Julia an hour ago and gave her this address. Or rather, I gave her the address directly across the street. That’s because there are no numbers on the door. You might say it’s an exclusive club. You wouldn’t know it if you walked by. You wouldn’t know it even if you walked in.

  It’s on U Street, three miles from the Wall and a block down from the African American Civil War Memorial. No sign outside. No store window. Just an anonymous, paint-peeling door. Nothing that would say, Come in. This is the place.

  If you’re a male under fifty and you happen to stumble in, they’ll tell you they’re fresh out of everything, and that they’re sorry about that. I doubt they’d serve bankers or hedge fund managers of any age, though it’s a long shot they’d be caught dead here. This place is for others.

  Julia doesn’t know that I come here.

  Eddie sees Julia first. He tilts his head in her direction. I look over as the door closes behind her. She gazes around uncertainly, squinting into the room like she just fell down the rabbit hole. She turns to leave, but then sees me. I stand for her and wave. I pull out a chair.

  “Nice place,” she says as she settles in.

  “It’s different,” I tell her.

  “I’ll say. Does it even have a license?”

  “Probably not.”

  In some ways, it’s like a lot of bars. Cheesy dark-wood paneling, generic beer signs, long wood bar with stools lined up. Half a dozen tables scattered about. Couple of pool tables in the middle, and pungent whiffs of pot. I follow her gaze as she looks around. About thirty patrons in all, all of them men, all late fifties or early sixties, most with long hair and bandanas. Two men are at the pool table. One is a dreadfully thin black man with a pointed goatee. The other is a blond guy with a gut that foams out under his OD green T-shirt. He’s missing an arm, but he’s able to line up his pool shot nevertheless.

  Julia looks at the drink in front of me. “Are you having that?”

  “Scotch and water,” I say. “Helps me think.”

  “I thought you didn’t drink anymore.”

  “Fourteen years, two months,” I say. “I said, it helps me think.”

  “Sorry I asked.”

  The song changes, and now it’s “Take It Easy.” 1972. Asylum label. A great song. Jackson Browne wrote most of it, and the lyrics were finished by Glenn Frey of the Eagles, who was Browne’s upstairs neighbor. When I first heard the song I was in Oakland, being discharged. I imagined myself, exactly like the song says, standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona. I made up my mind right then that I’d go to Winslow and stand on a corner. I didn’t say when. It’s still on my list.

  “Go ahead and order,” I tell Julia. I motion to the bartender.

  “Think they’ll have strawberry daiquiris?”

  “Funny,” I say.

  The bartender approaches, expressionless. Nods to Julia.

  “What’ll it be?”

  “Lite beer,” she tells him.

  The bartender looks at her for a long moment. He turns to me then, as if to ask, What’s with her? Finally he says, “No Lite beer.”

  Julia points to the florescent sign over the bar. “It says Lite beer.”

  “It’s a joke,” he says.

  “A joke?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh.”

  He adds, “That’s what’s wrong with America.”

  “Lite beer?” she asks, cautiously.

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay,” she says. “I’ll have whatever.”

  “Whatever it is.” He turns and heads to the bar.

  Julia leans toward me. “I’ve always wondered how long a monosyllabic conversation could last.”

  Not funny, Eddie says.

  “Not funny,” I tell her.

  After a time the song changes again. Richie Havens starts in on “Here Comes the Sun.”

  “Love this song,” she says. She looks around the room again. “How do people know about this place?”

  “They just seem to find it.”

  The restroom door opens, and a legless man glides out in his wheelchair. It has angled racing wheels and a funky chrome air horn. He heads to the pool table and hoists himself up onto a corner. It’s his shot.

  Tell her not to stare.

  “Please, Julia,” I say. “Don’t stare.”

  “I wasn’t staring. I was looking,” Julia says.

  The bartender returns with a bottle of beer. Bud, of course. “Out of glasses,” he says.

  She smiles.

  After he leaves she turns to me. “Okay, I get it. It’s a time warp. But you said I’d like it here.”

  “No, I said it’s a good place to talk.”

  She takes a sip from the bottle. I fiddle with the drink in front of me.

  “So let’s talk,” she says.

  “There are others,” I tell her.

  “Others?” she says. Then her eyes open wide as she understands. “Besides Patricia Pavlik?”

  “Yeah. Over two hundred at first.”

  “What do you mean, at first?”

  “Most of them are dead now. But some got out. Some are still there.”

  “And how do you know that?” she asks, skeptically.

  I nod. “Smith. And Patricia Pavlik has somehow escaped on her own.”

  “But I thought you didn’t trust him.”

  “He says there are just eleven left,” I tell Julia. “Smith needs to find her. If she gets out on her own, and somehow the public finds out, the others will be killed. That’s what he says, anyway.”

  She reaches across the table and takes my hand. “Quintyn, honey, I think this is too much. I really think you’re going off the deep end.”

  I ponder a moment. “I keep wondering what the big secret is.”

  “Honey, there is no secret,” she tells me.

  “You know, I get it that if the country realized we left soldiers behind, there’d be hell to pay; it would be bigger than Watergate and Iran-Contra, and anything else you can think of. It would be Benedict Arnold. So, yeah, people try to cover their asses, I got that. But what if there’s something else—”

  “Quintyn, honey.”

  “No, listen a minute. What if there’s a good reason why we had to leave them there. Had to deny it. I’m trying to think from their side, see? Think like they think. Something about national security, or drugs, or trade. Or maybe it’s all of them together, or something else, somethin
g I can’t even imagine. Some big picture that I can’t see. A good reason why we didn’t rescue them decades ago, a reason that no one can know about them.”

  “Quintyn!”

  “You probably never heard of Colonel Corso.”

  “I heard of the Tuskegee experiment, and there wasn’t a good reason for that. And there couldn’t be one for this, either. Not if it’s true. And I don’t think Smith is telling the truth, Quintyn. Did he tell you who he works for?”

  “INR. He calls that his day job. But he’s got another outfit, he says. The Salvation Army, that’s what he called it.”

  “Then he’s a joke. And you can’t trust him.”

  “Of course not.”

  Julia turns as the man in the wheelchair rolls to the juke box. He butts his chair against it and spins himself on top so he can see the selections. He drops in some quarters. In a moment the song changes. Crosby, Stills and Nash launch into “Ohio.” The bartender turns a knob, and now the words reverberate around the room—tin soldiers…finally on our own…how can you run… ?

  “Don’t know that one,” Julia says, nearly having to shout now.

  “Before your time,” I say.

  “It’s not even good music.”

  “Back then it was meaning before music.”

  “And now?” she asks.

  “Now it’s neither.”

  We wait for the song to finish. Carol King comes on with “My Old Man.” The bartender turns the sound down. Julia takes my hand again.

  “Our honeymoon,” she says, obviously trying to be patient. “Remember that? Honey, do you remember our honeymoon?”

  “Corso,” I say. “Just listen. He worked intelligence for General MacArthur and later was on Eisenhower’s National Security Council. After the Korean War, he testified to the Senate that we knew that we’d left Americans behind in Korea. Hundreds of them, he said. We just deserted them. Corso said they were later moved by train to the Soviet Union. And that we did nothing, Julia. We did nothing.”

  “And what happened?”

  “The government destroyed Corso’s reputation. Did everything they could to discredit him. Liar. Nut. So, nothing happened.”

  Julia shakes her head. “I don’t believe it, Quintyn. And it’s not healthy—”

  A man enters. All eyes go to him, including Julia’s. He holds up a hand to the room and receives nods and raised glasses in return, a kind of salute. He goes to the bar.

  “Who’s he?”

  “No one,” I say.

  “Quintyn, I think we should leave.”

  “I keep asking myself, what’s the reason for denying that people are still there? Even today.”

  “Are you sure she’s really there, Quintyn? Are you sure that anyone’s there at all?”

  “No.”

  “But you want to believe it.”

  “No, I want to believe that they all came home. Or that they’re all dead and not still wasting way.”

  “Well, I don’t think she’s there, Quintyn. I don’t think anyone is there. It’s been too long. Nobody could have made it. It’s like a Rorschach test, honey. You see what’s already in your mind. R-O-W can mean only one thing—Rowland. B-E-C can mean only one thing—pearl. Patricia Pavlik’s father can’t get over her death, nor can her husband, so it must mean that she wasn’t killed. Honey, that’s fanciful. You could start in any direction and find coincidences and parallels and flukes that could take you down any path. You’ll see what you want to see.”

  “Someone saw her,” I say.

  “What?”

  “Someone saw her,” I repeat, more emphatically this time.

  “Who?”

  “A soldier, in a hospital. Noah Levinson. I spoke to him. He saw her. He saw Patricia Pavlik.”

  “What hospital?”

  “St. Elizabeths.”

  Julia sighs. “For the mentally ill,” she says.

  “He saw Patricia Pavlik on a beach with another soldier. She was captured, Julia. He saw it. It has to be her.”

  “When? Fifty years ago? I don’t care, Quintyn! You can’t live like this!”

  “Like what?”

  “Like this! Look around!”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “Obviously not. I think we should go,” she adds.

  I don’t move to get up.

  After a moment, Julia says, “This is really all about Eddie, isn’t it?”

  “What? No, it’s not.”

  “Yes, it’s about Eddie.”

  I shake my head. “Look,” I say, “I keep thinking that if she is there, Pavlik, if it is true, then there has to be a good reason for leaving her behind all those years. And the others too.”

  She squeezes my hand. “I’m going to say it, Quintyn.”

  I take a breath. “Okay.”

  “You know I’ve gone along, even though I’ve had my doubts. But here’s something that I do know, Quintyn. It’s not healthy for you to be involved. It’s not healthy for you to be here. Look around. It’s really a sad place. This whole thing is draining me, and I can’t imagine what it’s doing to you.”

  “Julia—”

  “There’s no reason to leave anyone behind! Because they weren’t! I’ve thought about it too. No American would do that. I simply can’t believe it. And if anyone was left behind, it was unintentional; and if we knew about it later, we’d do anything to get them out. Anything! We really would.”

  I want to laugh. “Your generation,” I say.

  “I don’t want to hear about my generation!” she snaps. “It’s your generation that’s screwed everything up!”

  I can’t argue with that.

  “Quintyn, honey, this is our honeymoon, remember? This was our honeymoon. Our start.” She motions around the room. “We aren’t even supposed to be here! Is this the way you want us to have it? With them?”

  I point to the man who had just entered, the one who was acknowledged by the others. “His name is Barnes. Scott Barnes.”

  “Then why’d you say he was no one?”

  “Because that’s what he is to the government. And after they finished discrediting him every way possible because of what he saw. Americans. He saw Americans still being held in Laos. He saw them firsthand, Julia. Long after the war.”

  She looks over at Barnes. He’s sitting by himself at the bar. Three shot glasses in front of him.

  “He doesn’t look very stable, Quintyn.”

  “Stable enough to pass polygraphs and voice stress analyses. He went so far as to testify to the Senate. They called him a liar and a flake. Just like they did with Colonel Corso. Then they did everything they could to destroy his reputation. Dredged up every mistake he’s ever made and invented the rest. Destroyed him. They’ll destroy anyone who gets in the way, Julia. And there’s more.”

  “Jesus, Quintyn. How long have you been following this?”

  “It doesn’t matter!”

  “But it does matter, honey. It was all so long ago.”

  “Not for me! Not for them! There were so many sightings of live Americans back then that Reagan ordered a team to get at the truth.” I point toward the man again. “Barnes was part of it. Operation Grand Eagle is what it was called. He went into Laos covertly with some Laotian tribesmen and CIA types. He and one of the CIA men saw them, Julia. Americans. They were being moved along a jungle trail from a work camp to their detention camp. He even heard them speaking American English. They got pictures, even audio of them speaking.”

  “Quintyn!”

  “Just wait, okay? Just wait. So Barnes does like he’s told and sends copies of the pictures and the audio to a CIA drop in the States. And he gets the originals to the U.S. embassy in Thailand. Later the embassy and the CIA claim none of the pictures came out. No audio either.”

  “Quintyn, do you even know him?”

  “I know enough! And get this. The CIA guy he went in with, Jerry Daniels, turns up dead in his Bangkok apartment. From a gas leak. From his heater. In the
middle of the summer.”

  “Do you really know that? Do you? You think everyone is hiding the truth, Quintyn. Why not him? You think everyone is lying—”

  “Julia,” I interrupt. “Some have already come back.”

  She puts her hand to her head. “What?”

  “Smith and his team got some of them out. But they can’t go public with it. The ones he got out, they can’t even see their families. If it gets out that there are more pearls, they’ll kill the ones who are still there.”

  “Quintyn, do you hear yourself? This is so far-fetched! It’s insane!”

  Julia is gone before she’s gone. I can see it in her face, suddenly tense and drawn. Her eyes are down at the table. She’s already decided.

  “I’m leaving, Quintyn.”

  “Where?”

  The music changes. The room is suddenly filled with Jimi Hendrix’s clamorous rendition of the national anthem.

  “Where?” I ask again.

  She pushes her chair back. “Anywhere,” she says. She reaches for my hand. “Come on, honey. Let’s go.”

  I take her wrist and hold it firm. “I need you with me on this, Julia.”

  She tries to pull away. “Let me go, please.”

  “No, wait.”

  “I said, let me go!”

  “What if sacrifices had to be made? And the people who made these decisions aren’t evil people, but good people.”

  “There are no conspiracies, Quintyn. And you need help. And if you’re not going to get it, I’m not going to stand by and watch you go down in flames. I love you. But this is your last chance.”

  Hendrix’s rendition is building. She pulls harder, but I hold her wrist tight.

  “Let me go!” she shouts and yanks her hand free. She stands.

  Suddenly all eyes are on us.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Away from your fucking war. And away from you!”

  She turns and strides toward the door as Hendrix’s guitar inches toward a screeching crescendo of sirens and explosions. Eddie raises his eyebrows to me as if to say he knew she’d never understand. He starts humming loudly to accompany Hendrix’s rendition, explosions and all.

  At the door, Julia takes one final look around.

  She shakes her head at all of us, and she’s gone.