Seventh Enemy

by William G. Tapply

  “A lot of sporting guns are semiautomatic, aren’t they?”

  “Sure,” said Wally. “Shotguns, hunting rifles.

  “So what’s the difference?”

  “Functionally, the only difference is the size of the magazine. Except, of course, your assault gun looks—well, it looks—like a military weapon. And they’re pretty easy to modify into fully automatic.” Wally turned and smiled at me. “You’re not that bad at cross-examination, Brady, you know that?”

  “I was just interested,” I said. “Sorry.”

  “No, don’t be. Talking about it helps me clarify it.”

  “So this is a consultation.”

  He turned to me and smiled. “You gonna put me on the clock?”

  “I guess I should. Julie would be pleased. Want another drink?”

  He shook his head. “Mind if I use your phone?”

  “You don’t have to ask.” I flapped my hand at the wall phone in the kitchen. “Help yourself.”

  He went into the kitchen, took the phone off the hook, and sat at the table. He pecked out a number from memory, I turned my back to him, sipped my drink, and watched the clouds slide across the sky. I wasn’t trying to listen, but I couldn’t help hearing.

  “Hey; it’s me,” said Willy into the phone. “Here, in Boston… With my lawyer… Just one night, then to the cabin. Gonna be able to make it? …Yeah, good. Terrific. I’ll meet you at your place tomorrow, then…” His voice softened. “Yeah, me, too. Um, how’s? …Oh, shit. Well, look. Keep all the doors locked and don’t be afraid to call the cops… I know, but you should still do it… Christ, babe, don’t do that. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? It’ll wait” he chuckled softly. “Right. You, too. Bye.”

  I heard him hang up. He came into the living room and slumped onto the sofa. I went over and took the chair across from him. We both put our feet up on the newspapers that were piled on the coffee table.

  “That’s a friend of mine,” he said. “She’s having problems with her husband.”

  “You fooling around with married ladies?”

  “She’s in the middle of a messy divorce. The guy’s not handling it with much class.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “I’m not fooling around with her,” he said. “I’m serious about her.”

  “Sounds like a good situation to stay out of.”

  “My lawyer’s advice?”

  “Your friend’s advice.”

  He shrugged. “You can’t always pick ’em. You’d like Diana. She and I are gonna spend the week at the cabin. Hey why don’t you join us?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Just what you want. A threesome.”

  “No, really,” he said. “We’ve got a spare bedroom. Diana would love it. So would I.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t spare a week.”

  “A few days, at least. How about it? The Deerfield should be prime.”

  “Boy,” I said, “I haven’t had any trout fishing to speak of all spring. I could maybe take Thursday and Friday.”

  “Done!” said Wally.

  “I gotta check with Julie.”

  “Assert yourself.”

  “It’s not easy with Julie. But I’ll try.”

  We sipped our drinks, chatted aimlessly, then began to yawn. I pulled out the sofa for Wally; found a blanket and pillow for him, and got ready for bed. When I went back to the living room, he was sitting at the kitchen table reading through a stack of papers and making notes on a legal-sized yellow pad. A pair of rimless reading glasses roosted on the tip of his nose.

  “What’s that?” I said.

  “A copy of the bill I’m supposed to testify on tomorrow and some of the SAFE propaganda. I haven’t had a chance to look it over.”

  “You probably ought to before you talk about it,” I said. “Lawyer’s advice.”

  “And that,” said Wally, “is why I pay you those outrageous fees.”

  Whether it was the booze, or visions of Deerfield brown trout eating my dry flies, or just seeing Wally again, I don’t know, but I lay awake for a long time. It all must have affected Wally the same way, because even as I finally drifted off to sleep I could still hear him pacing around in my living room mumbling to himself.

  3

  WHEN I STUMBLED INTO the kitchen the next morning, Wally was slouched in the same chair at the table, scratching on his yellow legal pad. I poured two mugfuls of coffee and slid one beside his elbow. “You been sitting there all night?” I said.

  He took off his reading glasses, laid them on the table, and pinched the bridge of his nose. Then he reached for his coffee and took a sip. “I slept for a while.”

  “This must be important,” I persisted, gesturing at what looked like an entire pad’s worth of balled-up sheets of yellow paper scattered on the floor behind him.

  Wally leaned back and rolled his shoulders. “Actually it’s just a little subcommittee hearing, one of those deals where you slip in and slip out and nobody listens to what you say because they’ve already got their minds made up, but the law requires a public hearing. So they set it up for Monday morning before the press rolls out of bed and everybody just wants to get it over with.”

  “Then why…?” I gestured at the litter of paper balls on the floor.

  “I just like to do things right,” said Willy with a shrug. “It’s a character flaw.”

  I waited until nine to call Julie. “Brady L. Coyne, Attorney,” she said. “Good morning.”

  “It’s me.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Home. I’m gonna be late.”

  “How late?”

  “Couple, three hours.”

  “No, you’re not. Mrs. Mudgett has a ten o’clock.”

  “Call her. Reschedule.”

  “Aha.” I could visualize Julie squinting suspiciously. “Who is it? The Hungarian or the Italian?”

  “I’m not with a woman, Julie. I’m with a client, and we should be done sometime before noon.”

  “Don’t try to bullshit me, Brady Coyne,” said Julie.

  “No. Listen—”

  “I know you,” she said. “You don’t set up meetings with clients. Especially on Monday mornings. You avoid meeting with clients. You hate meeting with clients. I’m the one who sets up meetings. Then I have to keep kicking your butt to make you show up for them. Look. If you’re hung over, or if you’re calling from some fishing place in New Hampshire, or if you’ve got your legs all tangled up with some woman and just can’t summon up the strength of character to kick off the blankets, okay, fine. I mean, not fine, but at least I know you’re telling the truth.”

  “It’s Wally Kinnick. He flew in unexpectedly last night. He’s got a problem. I’m his lawyer. My job is to help my clients with their problems. So—”

  “Ha!” she said. “I know the kinds of problems you and Mr. Kinnick discuss. Like how to catch big trout on those little bitty flies you use.”

  “No, listen,” I said. “This is lawyer stuff. We’re here at my place, and we’ve been conferring, and we’ve got more work to do, and I’ll be there by noon. And don’t give me any more shit about it or I’ll fire you.”

  “Ha!” she said, “You’d go broke in a week.”

  “I know. I won’t fire you. I’ll give you a raise. Call Mrs. Mudgett and reschedule her. Oh, and, um, you better clear my calendar for Thursday and Friday.”

  “Fishing, right?”

  “Well, yeah, but—”

  “Boy,” sighed Julie. “To think, I could’ve been an emergency room nurse, run the control tower at O’Hare, something easy on the nerves.”

  “Thanks, kiddo,” I said. “Love ya.” I made kissing noises into the phone.

  After I hung up, Wally said, “From this end it sounded like you were taking a bunch of shit from a wife.”

  “Worse. A secretary.”

  Wally grinned, “That Julie’s a piece of work.”

  His testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Publ
ic Safety was scheduled for ten. It was a gorgeous May morning, so we decided to walk over from my apartment on the harbor. I carried my briefcase and Willy lugged his overnight bag. We talked about fishing and baseball and micro-breweries and girls we knew when we were in high school. We did not discuss gun control.

  We got to the Common at about nine forty-five and took the diagonal pathway that led to the State House. Hallway across, Wally stopped and said, “Oh-oh.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Look.”

  I looked. The golden dome atop the State House gleamed in the morning sunlight. On the sidewalk in front a mass of people were milling around in a slow circle. I saw that many of them were carrying placards.

  Several of them, in fact, were dressed in cartoonish animal costumes. I saw a Bambi, a couple of Smokey-the-Bears, and several person-sized rabbits.

  They were chanting. At first I couldn’t distinguish what they were saying. Then it became clearer.

  “Kinnick’s a killer.”

  That was the chant: “Kinnick’s a killer.”

  I turned to Willy with raised eyebrows.

  “Animal rights activists,” he said. “For some reason, they don’t like hunters.”

  “Ah,” I said. “The good folks who splash red paint on fur coats. Does this happen often?”

  He nodded. “Yep. Some places you expect it. Washington, of course. Denver, New York, San Francisco. Dallas, on the other hand, or Cheyenne or Billings? Never. Boston, or, best of all, Cambridge? Definitely.”

  “I love their costumes,” I said.

  Wally shrugged. “Part of their schtick. Come on. Let’s go.”

  We climbed the steps that took us from the Common up to Beacon Street. The demonstrators patrolled the sidewalk across the street. From where Wally and I stood I could read the signs they carried.

  LET’S MAKE HUNTERS THE NEXT ENDANGERED SPECIES, read one.

  A Smokey look-alike carried a placard that said, SUPPORT YOUR RIGHT TO ARM BEARS.

  HUNTERS MAIM WITH NO SHAME. A big rabbit held that one.

  PEOPLE FOR THE ETHICAL TREATMENT OF ANIMALS. An uncostumed pregnant woman.

  KILLERS JOIN SAFE.

  FUND FOR ANIMALS.

  STOP THE WAR ON WILDLIFE.

  HUNTING: THE SPORT OF COWARDS.

  ANIMAL LIBERATION.

  COMMITTEE TO ABOLISH SPORT HUNTING.

  OPEN SEASON ON KINNICK.

  KINNICK’S A MURDERER.

  REMEMBER BAMBI.

  There were thirty or forty demonstrators, I guessed, an equal mix of men and women, various ages, costumed and not, moving slowly hack and forth, chanting “Kinnick’s a killer” and waving their placards. A policeman stood off to the side watching them.

  “I didn’t realize you were so popular,” I said to Wally.

  He grinned. “Like it or not, I’ve become the nation’s most visible hunter.”

  “I would’ve said you were an outdoorsman, a conservationist.”

  “Sure,” he said. “Me, too. But to some people, if you hunt, that’s what you are. A hunter. None of the rest matters. You’re a murderer, and it doesn’t matter what else you do, what else you stand for.”

  “How’d they know you’d he here?”

  “Gene McNiff probably told the media that I was testifying. That’s McNiff’s main thing. Politics, lobbying, public opinion. He speaks to any group that’ll listen. Watchdogs the six New England legislatures. Prints his newsletter. Keeps gun issues alive in the media. That’s SAFE’s whole purpose. If they didn’t do these things, they believe the Second Amendment would be doomed.” He touched my arm. “Well, shall we?”

  “Lead on,” I said.

  We crossed the street and approached the milling crowd of demonstrators. “Excuse us,” said Wally. “Please let us through.”

  Some of them paused and stepped back to let us pass. We began to edge through the crowd. Then someone shouted, “That’s him! The big guy with the beard! That’s the killer!”

  Others echoed the cry. “That’s Kinnick! That’s him!”

  “Come on, folks,” said Wally. “Get a life, huh?”

  They closed in around us. The chant rose up, loud, frenzied voices. “Kinnick’s a killer. Kinnick’s a killer.” Their bodies bumped ours. They were yelling into our ears. I felt an elbow ram into my ribs. Something thudded against the back of my shoulder. I felt a hand grab my arm and yank me. I stumbled forward.

  Wally was tugging me up the steps and the crowd was behind us. “Wait, now,” said Wally. “Be cool.”

  We stopped at the first landing on the stairway, flanked by the statues of Horace Mann and Daniel Webster on the State House lawn. I turned to look back. The demonstrators, people and ersatz animals, were all staring up at us, waving their placards and yelling. I could read the passionate hysteria of their conviction in their faces. Their chant was out of sync now, so that their words mingled into an undifferentiated swirl of hate-filled noise.

  One tenderhearted animal lover in a rabbit costume was giving us the paw.

  The policeman hadn’t moved. The expression of resigned cynicism on his face hadn’t changed.

  “Jesus,” I said.

  “True believers,” said Wally. “Goes to show what happens to people with too much time on their hands.”

  “Are they here for the hearing?”

  “Naw. They don’t care about assault weapons. They care about animals. They’re here for me.

  “They’re kinda scary.”

  “All true believers are.”

  4

  WE CONTINUED UP THE long flight of steps and entered into the lobby of the State House. It was packed with tourists on this Monday morning. A teacher was addressing a knot of elementary school children in front of a glass-covered display case. I wondered if she was explaining the example of democracy at work that Wally and I had just experienced outside.

  Wally and I wove our way among the people into the second lobby, which was equally mobbed. More school children. Tourists. A busload of senior citizens. Harried tour guides and teachers. We passed through into the third round room, this one directly under the golden dome. It was an oasis of relative quiet. Old murals encircled the arched ceiling. Historic flags were illuminated behind glass cases.

  We stood there for a moment before Gene McNiff appeared. He grabbed Wally’s hand, shook it, and said, “You guys okay?”

  “Fine,” said Wally.

  “Speak for yourself,” I said.

  “Did they hurt you?” said McNiff to me.

  “I’m fine.”

  “If they did, we can sue their assess. Right, Mr. Coyne? You’re a lawyer. I’d love to be able to sue those animal nuts.”

  “They seemed pretty harmless,” I said.

  “Don’t count on it,” said McNiff. He turned to Wally. “Right?”

  Wally shrugged. “They’ve got friends in high places, they’ve got money, and they’ve got one of those deceptively convincing arguments. I never underestimate them.” He grinned. “They’re something like SAFE.”

  McNiff glanced at Wally and frowned. “Well,” he said with a shrug, “they’re not our concern today. The Second Amendment. That’s today’s agenda. Let’s go.”

  Wally and I followed McNiff to a flight of stairs that descended into the bowels of the State house. We turned down a corridor and came to a door marked “Hearing Room.” Someone had written “S-162” in black felt-tip on a piece of typing paper and taped it onto the door. McNiff pulled it open and we stepped inside.

  We found ourselves standing at the rear of a narrow rectangular room. In front was a long table behind which sat four men and two women with microphones in front of them. A smaller table in front of the committee had one chair and one microphone. A uniformed policeman sat there facing the committee, mumbling into the microphone. I couldn’t distinguish his words above the drone of voices in the acoustically primitive room, because behind the witness were rows of folding chairs—a hundred, minimum, I guess
ed—and it looked as if every one of those chairs was occupied. The narrow aisle down the side of the room was blocked with standees. This was a public hearing, and, at ten o’clock on this Monday morning in May, the public had turned out for it.

  I scanned the audience. I saw only a few women in it. Ninety-percent men. Some were wearing business suits, but most of them wore shirts open at the neck, working clothes, blue jeans, boots. None of them had on an animal suit. It was a predominantly blue-collar crowd, and their unspoken message was clear: We are the voters, the masses, the majority that refuses to be silent. We hold the power to fill or to vacate legislative seats. We are watching you.

  Many of them, I noticed, were glancing around at Wally and mumbling out of the sides of their mouths to the people around them. They seemed to be ignoring the policeman who was testifying up front.

  Wally, Gene McNiff, and I stood at the side of the room leaning our backs against the wall.

  “Who are all these people? I said to McNiff.

  “Ours,” he said.

  “SAFE?”

  “Yep.” He smiled. “We turn ’em out. The sacred right to bear arms is under attack everywhere. We’ve got to be vigilant.”

  True believers, I thought. Paranoia rampant.

  “Why don’t you try to find a seat. Mr. Coyne?” said McNiff. “Walt, we’ve got to get up front with the witnesses.”

  He led Wally toward the front of the room. I spotted an empty seat. I edged my way down the aisle and squeezed in between two flannel-shirted men.

  A minute later the guy on my left thrust a clipboard into my hands. It held several mimeographed sheets of paper. Each sheet had “S-162” and the date printed across the lop and columns marked “name, “address,” “pro,” and “con.” I flipped through them. The “pro” column had been checked by none of those who had signed the sheet. The “con” column was solid with checkmarks.

  I scratched my name and address. I checked neither pro nor con. I hadn’t read the bill. Then I passed the clipboard back to the man on my left. I noticed that he looked at it, checking me out.

  The policeman finished his testimony and was dismissed. Another witness was called. He wore glasses and a three-piece suit. He took the witness seat and laid a slender attaché case on the table in front of him. He opened it and slid a few sheets of paper from it. I heard him clear his throat into his microphone, and for a moment the low din in the hearing room subsided. “My name is Earl Clements,” he said. “I’m a professor at the New England School of Law. My field is constitutional law, my specialty the Bill of Rights.”