“You mean that nitwit Carter,” Terry said, and shook his head. “He’s more fucked up than ever, now that he’s become the great Boston political activist. Those people are out to lunch, and you know it. Even you agree that we have no choice but to see this thing through in Iraq. The eggs are broken! Damn!”
“Now, you watch your language, too,” Vibeke scolded her husband. “That word you like to use, I don’t approve. It makes you appear ignorant. People who use such profanity have no imagination.
“As for the war, you and I do agree about that issue. It was wrong to go in the way we did, without more consideration about the cost in American lives as opposed to the benefit. However, as you say, the eggs were broken the day the bombs fell in Baghdad. Yes, Michael Carter and his bunch are, as you say, out to lunch.
“Now that we have those issues settled, and I hope out of your system, we will hear no more talk about it.”
“I promise, no war arguments,” Terry O’Connor said, walking out his office door and smiling at Gwen. Wayne had slouched back in the sofa and closed his eyes.
Cynthia Marvel smiled at Terry O’Connor and Vibeke. She loved how they looked together. She hoped that when she reached sixty years of age that she and her husband looked as good, and as in tune with each other.
“Of course you know my friends, Cyn,” Terry said, pointing to Wayne and Gwen.
“Well, yes, Mister O’Connor,” Cynthia said, “I met them last year and the year before that, too.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Terry said, and looked at his wife, who smiled at him.
“You’ve had your mind elsewhere,” she said, hooking her arm through his as they walked into the reception area.
“Wayne, did you know that Cynthia’s husband, Ken, is a Marine Corps Reserve pilot?” O’Connor said, looking down at his pal, who kept his eyes shut.
“I think so, yes,” Wayne answered, still slouched with his head laid back and his eyes closed.
“Do you know what his rank is?” Terry said and laughed, looking at Cynthia, who shook her head and walked back to her desk and sat on its corner.
“Oh, don’t tell me,” Wayne said and laughed, still trying not to look up. “Since his last name is Marvel, he’s got to be a captain.”
“Right!” Terry said with a laugh. “My assistant is married to none other than Captain Marvel! I love it!”
“You have a sick and twisted mind, Terry O’Connor,” Wayne Ebberhardt said, and then opened his eyes. “You know, Stanley Tufts called me yesterday.”
“No, I didn’t!” Terry said, and then looked at Gwen who shrugged and shook her head. “I haven’t heard anything about him since he left Vietnam.”
“He has a law practice in Seattle and just called me out of the blue, looking for buddies who served with him in Vietnam,” Ebberhardt said, and took a drink from a glass of tea he had sitting on the coffee table. “I told him to come to Denver and join up with us at the Hilton. That’s okay, isn’t it?”
“Of course!” Terry said, smiling. “Why, he wasn’t such a bad fellow. A kiss-ass, but not a bad fellow.”
“Yeah, that’s how I felt about it, so I invited him,” Wayne said and opened his eyes. “We can see if he still walks with his arms out like a seagull on a hot day.”
Terry laughed and sat down on the couch in his office’s reception area. “How did he find you?”
“Marine Corps Association,” Ebberhardt answered, and took another sip of iced tea. “He joined the MCA and got a copy of the membership directory and looked me up. I’m surprised he hasn’t tried to call you, too. You got one this year, didn’t you?”
“Sure, it’s on a shelf behind my desk,” Terry said, and pointed with his thumb toward his office door. “I never thought to look to see if Stanley or anyone else was listed in it. I guess all the people I want to know, I have their addresses and numbers in my Rolodex.”
“He told me that Dicky Doo is still with the living,” Wayne said and smiled. “Thought that would make you smile.”
“Oh, he wasn’t such an enormous asshole,” Terry said, and laughed. “Just a moderate-sized one. Don’t forget, he went to bat for Sergeant Fryer and Sergeant Wilson after the brig riot, and got the charges dropped on both of them. They spent the rest of their tours at special services, but that beat hell out of the brig and bad time on their records.”
“He’s down at Hilton Head, South Carolina,” Wayne said, and smiled. “Pushing eighty years old, I guess, and Stanley tells me the old fart plays golf every day.”
“Good for Dicky Doo!” Terry said and looked at Gwen and laughed. “He and Stanley never figured out what gave them the shits, did they.”
“Terry, I have borne the guilt of doing that to those poor men like a millstone tied to my neck!” Gwen said, and then laughed, too. “Thank God they didn’t figure it out. I might have gone to jail! I certainly would have had no chance of ever working at any airline either.”
“Might be fun to tell Stanley now,” Terry said with a laugh.
“No, it might not,” Wayne said, and then sighed. “I called Dicky Doo, and invited him, too. He said he’d have to think it over and talk to his ball and chain—his words, not mine.”
“Ball and chain?” Gwen laughed. “Oh, I might find some more of that magic powder then and fix him another drink! Can you imagine a man these days calling his wife a ball and chain?”
“So, he’s listed in the directory, too?” Terry asked, and then looked at his watch, wondering what kept Lobo and Buck.
“Yeah,” Wayne said and smiled. “After Stanley called me, I got to looking and found our favorite mojo. It lists his home address, telephone number, and electronic mail. Want a good laugh? Guess what he has for an Internet address.”
“I wouldn’t have a clue,” Terry said, not wanting to think too hard about the man who tormented him during most of his tour in Vietnam.
“Believe it or not, its Dicky Doo at Earthlink dot com,” Wayne said and howled laughing.
“I don’t believe you!” O’Connor said with a laugh, and looked at Gwen and Vibeke, who laughed, too. “I wonder who told him?”
“I asked Colonel Dickinson about it and he laughed,” Ebberhardt said. “Charlie Heyster told him. Kept him filled in on all our dirty deeds.”
“He never figured out that Jon and Movie Star loosened the bolts on his furniture though, did he,” O’Connor said with a smile and nodded confidently. “Not even after he moved into Colonel Prunella’s old office. The stuff kept wobbling and the lamps kept flashing, and he never had a clue, did he.”
“I don’t know, he might surprise you,” Wayne said and noticed the lights above the elevators outside the double glass doors that led into the reception area flash across the numbers and stop on fifteen. “I didn’t think to ask him about the furniture, but I did inquire about his fair-haired boy Charlie Heyster.”
“All I ever knew about the shyster was that General Cushman didn’t even let him spend the night in Da Nang after Lieutenant Biggs arrested him. They put him on a gooney bird to the rock, and that’s the last anybody saw of him,” O’Connor said, looking out at the elevators, too. “Jon said that they kept him overnight in Okinawa, then flew him to Camp Pendleton, where they tossed him in the brig.”
“Matches pretty close to what Dickinson told me,” Ebberhardt said, nodding in agreement. “You ever wonder why nobody asked for those photographs, or none of us had to ever testify? It just all disappeared like fog?”
“Yeah!” Terry O’Connor said, sitting up. “I stayed pissed off for a couple of years. I figured they let him slide and reassigned him someplace, or worst case, let him resign.”
“Dicky Doo told me that Charlie bought a plea deal in exchange for all the names of the people he supplied with dope,” Wayne said and shook his head. “Of course, the Marine Corps yanked his commission, busted him to private, dismissed him from the service, and put him on ice for two years of hard labor at Portsmouth. However, he avoided serving ten. Got disb
arred, though, thank goodness. The three deadly D’s—disgraced, dismissed, and disbarred.”
“So the dirty bastard did time after all,” O’Connor said, and let out a deep sigh. “Wonder what he’s doing now? Hell, I wonder what just about anyone we tried to keep out of the brig is doing these days.”
“Dickinson said that Heyster managed to put together enough money to open a used-car dealership in Oakland,” Ebberhardt said, noticing a familiar hulk stepping out of the elevator. “He’s been in touch with him off and on. I guess Heyster’s doing okay selling cars. It broke Dicky Doo’s heart, though, when Charlie went down in flames.”
“Kind of disproved his theory about the good guys and the bad guys,” O’Connor shrugged, and looked at the mass of humanity that ambled toward his reception area.
“Hey, shit for brains!” Archie Gunn bellowed at Terry O’Connor as he pushed open the double glass doors that led to his suite of offices. “You know, we need to get rocking and rolling if we’re going to swoop down to Dallas and pick up that jockstrap McKay and his little Mexican-cutie wife, Marguerite, and still get to Denver in time to have dinner tonight at Stockman’s Steakhouse.”
“Where’s Buck?” Terry said, grabbing his briefcase, and luggage he had staged in the corner of the reception area.
“Down there keeping that fruitcake company that’s driving our limo,” Lobo said, grabbing two handfuls of suitcases and helping the four people get to the elevator. “Good thing this is just for the holiday weekend, or I’d have to hire a truck for your extra shit.”
“Speaking of fruitcakes,” Wayne Ebberhardt said, pushing the down button on the elevator, “I take it that we’re not taking a jag to Boston to pick up Mikie and his life companion, Tab?”
“Fuck, no,” Lobo said, and then looked at the ladies. “Oh, sorry. Shit, no! The twirp has some kind of rally tonight. Something to do with gay marriage and taking it before the Supreme Court. He and Tab will fly tomorrow. I’ve got a car picking them up at DIA about noon.”
“Oh, yes, he called me about wanting to hire one of our partners at this firm to argue the gay marriage case before the Supreme Court, if they can get it heard by the Court, of course,” Terry said, and smiled. “Mikie’s their lead man in pressing the issue before the courts.”
“As long as they have that nitwit Carter in charge,” Lobo said, shoving the double armloads of luggage onto the elevator as the doors opened, “we won’t have to worry about gay marriage anytime soon.”
“So Archie, how’s business with that chain of sporting goods stores you have, Lobo Sports?” Wayne Ebberhardt said, getting on the elevator.
“We’re opening a super center in Atlanta,” Lobo said, putting his arm around Gwen’s shoulders and giving her a lusty squeeze. “That makes me coast to coast. One hundred seventeen stores. Amazing what a guy can do with a handful of fishing reels and hunting rifles.”
“Buck’s still your chief financial officer and vice chairman of the board?” Terry said, and slapped his old friend across the back.
“Yeah, but the shithead’s talking about wanting to retire and go fishing every day at Corpus Christi,” Lobo said and laughed. “Shit, he doesn’t have to retire to do that!”
A FINE MIST lay over Bangkok and formed a halo of light above the Normandy Restaurant, which sat atop the main tower of the famous, old Oriental Hotel. Its luminance caught the eye of Brian Pitts, who stood dressed in black silk pajamas and matching velvet slippers at one of the ten cathedral widows that lined one side of his five-thousand-square-foot penthouse atop the skyscraper owned by his construction company. He gazed into the lonely wet night and at the lifeless lights below, and he watched the endless traffic of barges pushing their loads down the river, past the grand, five-star hotel set at the water’s edge, and its restaurant with its circle of light.
For the past several years he found himself sleeping less and less as he spent night after night alone with only his thoughts, his memories, and his regrets for company as he looked out the big windows of his palace, gazing upon the city that waited at his feet. While he stood his solitary vigil, night after monotonous night, he often thought of his Aunt Winnie Russell, now ninety-two years old, stubbornly living in her modest frame house in Olathe, Kansas, despite his incessant invitations to come reside with him in Thailand. Never giving up on the boy she loved as a son, she had the housekeepers and home health nurse, whose wages her dear nephew paid, keep the room above the garage tidy, in case Brian ever decided to come home.
INDEX
AA form
ADF. See Automatic Direction Finder
Aerial photos, at CCOC
AFVN. See American Forces Vietnam Radio
AHCobra helicopter
Air America
hijacking of
in Vietnam
Alcohol, consumption of . See also Entertainment; Marine Corps
Alice pack
Ambush, of trucks
Americal division. Seed Infantry “Americal” Division
American Communist Party
American Forces Vietnam Radio (AFVN) . See also Radio
Anderson, Norman J.
Animal Tracks (album)
ARcarbine
Armed services, U.S.
buying off from
draft dodgers from
draft for
politics and
regulations/justice for
service choice under
Army Special Forces
Article fifteen. See also Nonjudicial punishment
Articles of War, British, as Rocks and Shoals
Artillery
call in
as cover
of Eleventh Marine Regiment
from LZ Ross
of Seventh Marine Regiment
ARVN units
A Shau Valley
Assault and battery, charges of
Assault, sexual, by Marine
Associated Press
Automatic Direction Finder (ADF)
B-rocket launcher
Bachelor Officers’ Quarters (BOQ)
Bandits. See North Vietnam Army
Basic School, at Quantico
Battle of Belleau Wood
Beef and rocks. See -rations
Belleau Wood Battle
Big Bend
Bigotry . See also Racism
Binoculars
Bird Airways
Black market, in Dogpatch
Black Panthers
Blacks, racism against
Black Stone Rangers
charges for
cooperation by
demands by
escape by
at Freedom Hill
hierarchy of
kangaroo court by
leadership by
negotiation by
prisoner release by
release of
riot by
surrender by
threats by
trial by
Black syphilis
Blood of Dead Marines
Blue Angels
Body odor, diet for
Bomb, general-purpose
Booby traps
along roads
by NVA
BOQ. See Bachelor Officers’ Quarters
Bordellos. See also Prostitution
in Dogpatch
Boredom, from nonaction
Brig
Da Nang Air Base
defense, negotiation and
drugs for dispensary of
on Freedom Hill
for Marine Amphibious Force (MAF)
British Articles of War. See Articles of War, British
Bronze Star with Combat
Brown, Bernice Layne
Brown, Edmund G.
Buddha, as drug
Bunker, operations
Burdon, Eric
Burma white. See also Drugs
Burned out syndrome
C-
C-Starlifter
Call of the Wild
(London)
Call sign. See also Radio for radio shark bait as
Cambodia, special teams in Camp Butler
Camp Carroll
Camp Courtney. See also Okinawa
Camp Pendleton
Canada, draft dodgers in
Cannons, fire power of
Carter, Michael
CCOC, aerial photos at
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development under
ICEX under
Ceremony, decoration. See also Heroism
CH-Sea Knight helicopter
Chaplains, Marine
Chapman, Leonard F., Jr.
Charge sheet . See also Disciplinary action
Charlie. See Viet Cong
Charlie Med
as hospital
med evac to
Charlie Ridge
Cheney, Richard
Chicago Tribune
China Beach
military facilities near
party at
R and R at
Chosin Reservoir
Chu Lai
Americal division at
dope supply for
holding facility at
homicide at
Marine Wing Support Group Seventeen at
murder at
PMO at
racism at
Chu Lai Cage, as holding facility
Chu Lai Hippie . See also Drugs
CIA. See Central Intelligence Agency
CID. See Criminal Investigation Division
Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development . See also Central Intelligence Agency
Civil rights
Civil War
Clap. See also Venereal disease
Cock/dog fights, in Dogpatch
Collateral damage
Columbia Law Review
Communication. See also Radio
call sign for
field telephone for
Mayday call for
by PRC-radio
radio operator for
VHF walkie-talkies for
Communism
Dogpatch and
fraternization and
oppression by
sympathizers with
Confederacy, flag of
Conrad, Joseph
Con Thien
artillery cover from
base camp at
Jungle Rules Page 61