Outlaws (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)

by George V. Higgins

  “Qué?” the guide said plaintively, invisible ahead.

  “More slowly,” Naisbitt said. “Proceed more slowly, please.”

  “Oh,” the guide said. “I say: ‘you, make, the, tapes, music?’ ”

  “Shit,” Naisbitt said.

  “No comprenez,” the guide said, alarm in his voice.

  “Oh, go on,” Naisbitt said desperately, using his left hand to make a shooing gesture he was sure could not be seen. “Just go on. Get where we’re going. Get this over with.”

  “Si, señor,” the guide said, hurt urgent in his voice. “Just a little further. We will be there soon.”

  The lighting began to improve, brightening over the tops of the backdrops twenty feet above, and Naisbitt’s vision had completed adjustment to its level just before the guide suddenly appeared silhouetted against strong direct light about fifteen feet ahead. Lurching forward out of the darkness, Naisbitt was again blinded momentarily by the illumination from the set fifty feet across the room. He stood blinking in the new light, his guide standing about six feet away from him.

  “You okay?” the guide said. “You okay, señor?”

  “I’m fine,” Naisbitt said. “I’m perfectly all right.”

  “Florence likes to provoke me,” Claire Naisbitt said, making eye contact with Fiona Cangelosi, seated across from her at the center of the table. She shifted her gaze to Fiona’s left, to a man with heavy jowls she knew only as “Doctor Dan.” “She calls it: ‘Drawing Claire out.’ ” She glanced toward Clayton Walker at the westerly end of the table. “Clayton,” she said, nodding, “and Florence of course,” redirecting her gaze to Fiona’s right and a white-haired woman with a vacant smile, “know what a trial Neville can be. Even after all these years, he still has the capacity to amaze me. He really means what he says.” She turned to her left and used her right hand to pat Gerald Ward on his arm. “Not only when he’s in the privacy of our home. And it’s not just a public show, either. As I’m sure you’ll understand, Gerald, being a public man yourself, he is quite intemperate.”

  “I’m not sure I do,” Ward said stiffly.

  “Well,” she said, “I simply meant.… When he left tonight, I said: ‘Now Neville, please don’t get started about the Russians again. Killed Stalin, rearmed the Germans, sent them to the East. And how the Japs would’ve pitched in, and then when we were finished, we could’ve knocked them off. It’s all very well for you to be a perfectly bloodthirsty old bastard, indoors among friends, but the public won’t understand.’ ”

  “I’m sure they won’t,” Ward said. “I don’t myself, as far as that goes.”

  “Well, then, you see?” she said. “That’s my point exactly. He’s a very awkward man. As awkward as a ten-foot ladder in an eight-foot room. And that’s all I am saying. Absolutely all, and I know he’s in a scrape.”

  A woman wearing a scarf and a sweater and tight jeans emerged from the dimness behind the camera on the left. She was carrying a clipboard. She had a stopwatch on a cord around her neck. She peered toward them, shading her eyes with her right hand. “Cesar,” she said in a sharp voice, “is Professor Naisbitt here?”

  The young man whirled toward the woman. “Yes, he is here,” he said, in an anguished voice. “I am trying to ask him, I am trying to tell him.…”

  “I don’t care what you’re trying to tell him,” the woman said, striding toward them. She extended her right hand to Naisbitt. “Regina Fisher,” she said. “Call me ‘Reggie.’ Co-producer on the show? Your secretary and I’ve spoken. Several conversations. Awfully nice to have you here. Tom, well, he’s excited. Tom’s a great admirer. Having you come on the show was chiefly Tom’s idea, and that doesn’t always happen, that our guest’s a treat for Tom.”

  “Well,” Naisbitt said, “and for me as well. All the exposure we can get for the Ensemble, well, we appreciate it. Tom’s being very kind.”

  “Well,” she said, “you may not think so, after you’ve spent two hours under those lights. Why don’t we go back to Tom’s office, now, and.…”

  “Two hours?” he said, holding back slightly. “I understood it was to be one. I’ve seen Tom’s show when I’ve been here. Visiting, you know. Thought it was very good, of course, or I would not be here. But I thought it was one hour.” He shook his head. “I must be getting old.”

  “It is one hour, on the air,” she said. “And if it’s good, that’s a big part of the reason. One of the things in Tom’s agreement is that we tape two, and edit down to one. But we’ll break at least twice, at the end of each hour. And if that’s not enough, well, then, three times, if you like. Any time you want. We’re the last show taping tonight, so we don’t have to clear out for anyone else. So don’t you hesitate. Just pipe right up, for any reason, and say that you’d like to take a break, and that is what we’ll do. And don’t worry about it. We can splice anything. The breaks won’t ever show. So stop us if you want to catch your breath, and we’ll touch up your makeup, and make sure everything’s okay. And then what goes out on the air will be the very best that we can do for you.”

  The five monitors now showed the set as having a pale blue background. Across the tops of the screens it appeared that a logo in silver block letters had been affixed to the blank backdrop. The logo read: “Tom Oates: In Search of History.” In white letters at the lower center of the monitors was this legend: “Tonight: Neville L.C. Naisbitt, C.B.E.”

  “It’s amazing,” Naisbitt said, as they moved toward the left behind the cameras, Fisher clinging lightly to his arm. He waved his right hand toward the set. “I know how they do that illusion, superimpose the letters, choose any colors they want, but as many times as I’ve seen it done, I’m still always amazed. That it can be done. That, literally, one can no longer believe what his own eyes see.”

  The center line legend disappeared on the monitors and was immediately replaced with another: “The Atlantic Alliance — in Music.”

  “I know it,” she said. “But it’s because, it’s all so expensive, you know. So they have to use this set for eight other shows every week. If they had to have a different set for all of them, and pay the stagehands’ union what they’re asking for these days, well, the public couldn’t support it, that’s all. It would be out of sight. And we’d be dark most nights, or running endless reruns. So, thank God for illusion, that we can make things what we want to now, no matter what they seem.”

  “I’m afraid we’re laboring under a misconception here,” Ward said. “If your attitude is that a person of strong principles should conceal them in public forums, then I have to say that we’re in serious disagreement. I was the first black Congressman ever to serve this District. I became a Congressman when persons of color were still ‘Negroes.’ In polite circles, at least. When they knew we were around. And I can tell you right now, I didn’t get there in the first place, or remain there all these years, by convincing the voters, both white and black, that I had no real principles, or would compromise them to win. Quite the opposite. No, my view is that if a public statement of your principles is dangerous, because they’ll anger people, then there’s probably something wrong with your principles. That’s where the problem lies. Hell, the Ku Klux Klan, they’ve got strong principles. That’s not what bothers me — it’s the nature of those principles. That’s where the problem is.” He turned to face Claire Naisbitt. “I hold no brief for Tom Oates,” he said. “I’ve seen him destroy too many defenseless people on that little show of his. But that show is his turf, not your husband’s — if he behaves as you seem to think he will, he may be in for more trouble than he’s dreamed of. Tom will eat him alive. And he’ll deserve it, too.”

  “Gerald, please?” Florence said. “Would you like a little more wine?”

  “Yes, Gerry, for God’s sake,” Clayton said. “Have another glass of wine.”

  “You know, Congressman” Claire said, holding her glass out for refill as well, “I very much doubt he’s in real danger. My husband, that is. He g
ot through the Blitz and a few other things. He can take care of himself.”

  The first forty-eight minutes of the Naisbitt taping began with Tom Oates escorting Neville L.C. Naisbitt onto the set. Fisher emerged from behind the lights. She was wearing headphones with a microphone attachment. She had the stopwatch in her right hand. She pointed her left forefinger at Oates. The monitors emitted beeping sounds, went dark, and began showing vertical pictures of the spectrum, digitally displaying below the bands of color Navy time in hours, minutes, seconds, and tenths of seconds reading up from 20:18:05:09. At 20:19:00:00, Fisher said: “And: ready. Tape’s rolling. Sound up. Five, four, three, two,” and she dropped her left forefinger.

  “And good evening again, ladies and gentlemen,” Oates said, leaning forward. “ ‘When in the course of human events,’ as the revered old document states, ‘it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the bonds that have connected them with another, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind’ — and I’m not quoting now; I’m making this up, so don’t bother to write in — demands that they recall with mutual affection that the ties that have been sundered do not include the ones of common history. So it was in Seventeen-seventy-six, and so it remains today.”

  He settled back in his chair. “It remains so today,” he said, “because it remained so in Nineteen-seventeen, when the England that we fought back in the eighteenth century was under siege for the first time in the twentieth by the German attack. It remains so today because when the England that we fought in Eighteen-twelve was threatened once again in the fourth decade of this century, we responded once again. Because that England, from which this country sprang, and the England of today, remains a place of heritage for us. The one ally with whom we have, ‘a special relationship.’ ”

  He leaned slightly to his right and stretched in the chair. “With us tonight,” he said, “is a guest from England with whom I have a ‘special relationship.’ Professor Neville L.C. Naisbitt. Honored by the Queen who named him a Commander of the British Empire. Treasured by the University at Ipswich which permitted him to accept the status of ‘professor emeritus’ only on condition that he continue to enrich its student body each year with his Flagler lectures. Known to an amazing number of Americans as the founder and conductor of the Ipswich Ensemble, which has toured this country so many times since he started it after World War Two, to such rewards for all. Recorded as a valiant member of the Royal Air Force until he was seriously wounded over Germany in Nineteen-forty-two. An extraordinary man who is also known to me, or was, when I was growing up, as ‘British Uncle Neville.’ ”

  Oates paused and smiled. “My father served with him, in those long dark days of the Battle of Britain, back so many years ago. I have not known him all his lifetime, but I’ve known him all of mine.”

  He turned toward Naisbitt, leaning forward, his hands clasped before him. “Neville Naisbitt, welcome,” he said. “Thank you so for coming.”

  Naisbitt leaned backward in his chair. He extended his right forefinger to massage the lobe of his right ear. He smiled. “Thomas,” he said, “your debut for my eyes occurred in a crib where you were unhappy to be left. And so disrupted a dinner party. At the time I sympathized with your parents, who were somewhat annoyed. But after that introduction, I now wonder if perhaps they didn’t err, and should’ve asked you out of it, to come and dine with us.”

  Oates grinned at Naisbitt. He looked back to the center camera. The red light on the top came on at once. “Since Nineteen-forty-seven,” he said, “the Ipswich Ensemble has been a regular ornament of the American cultural scene. Its members have traveled around the world, several times. Is that right, Neville?”

  Naisbitt nodded. “Eleven,” he said. “And this visit is our thirty-eighth, to America.”

  “Tell us about the Ensemble,” Oates said. “What were its origins? What are its roots? Where did it come from? Thirty-nine years after, what do you think it’s meant?”

  Naisbitt crossed his legs. “Tom,” he said, “I have to go back to the beginning. To those frightening years when I met your father, when it seemed that the world might end. When the group of us were thrown together into makeshift barracks in East Anglia, and it seemed as though the fate of the free world hinged in part on what we did.”

  “And didn’t it?” Oates said.

  “I believe it did,” Naisbitt said. “I believed that then, and I believe it to this day.”

  “Your specialty, sir,” Oates said.

  “I am a mathematician,” Naisbitt said. “I was trained to expect order. To insist on it. When war seemed inevitable, I was thirty-one years old. It made no sense, and yet it made all sense. Disapproved, informally, but disapproved nonetheless, for return to active service, I was remanded to ground service and invited to state my interest. I included cryptography, and I am very glad I did.”

  “I want to get to that,” Oates said, “but right now what I want to talk about was your specialty in the RAF.”

  Naisbitt frowned. He steepled his fingers and rubbed his nose. “Before I was hit,” he said, “well, it’s a little difficult to say, actually. I suppose you could say I was a sort of a forward observer. Reconnaissance. What in the infantry, or in the artillery, you Americans would have called ‘a spotter.’ My MOS, as you Yanks would call it now — Military Operations Specialty — my job was to select targets.”

  “For later bombing runs?” Oates said. “Troop concentrations and like that?”

  “That’s correct,” Naisbitt said. “The Germans at the start of the war could afford to be profligate with their bombs, and waste them on civilians. We had to be more careful.”

  “After you were wounded,” Oates said, leaning forward and grasping his right wrist with his left hand, “tell us what happened then.”

  “Initially I was in field hospital,” Naisbitt said. “It was evident to me, even as a layman, that the wound was not healing properly. ‘Irksome damned thing,’ as my doctors referred to it. And there seemed to be a rather unpleasant possibility that I might lose the leg.

  “I had met your father on one of our early missions,” Naisbitt said. “That meeting, of course, should never have taken place, had Carl seen fit to obey the wishes, if not the outright commands, of his superiors here in America.”

  Oates grinned. “The network wanted him to stay on the ground, and he didn’t think he could do his job of covering the war properly if he did that. So he didn’t do it.”

  “And lucky for me that he didn’t,” Naisbitt said. “We hit it off from the start. We became fast friends. Odd, too, when I think about it now — that we did become such friends. Carl was a daredevil, in many respects. Quite heedless of danger. He stood out, even in the company of other young men of an age, each of us convinced until forcefully taught otherwise, as I was, that he was personally immortal.”

  He hesitated. “You may not know this, Tom,” he said, “and if you don’t, perhaps I should not tell you. But your father phoned me, just before he died, and told me what he was going to do.”

  Oates nodded. He pursed his lips. “I did know,” he said. “He called me up one day and asked me to meet him for lunch, and he told me the tests had confirmed it, what he had. And he knew what to expect. And he said to me: ‘I won’t do it. I will not go out that way.’ And I understood.”

  “Precisely,” Naisbitt said. “The idea of Carl Oates submitting to such debility, of wasting away; as horrifying as it was to have to think that his refusal to linger meant that we would lose him sooner, the alternative was worse.”

  Naisbitt grimaced. “The hardest part of life,” he said, “the very hardest part of it is saying ‘good-bye’ to friends. I recalled, of course, after I talked to Carl that last time my mind was just flooded with memories, and I got out of my chair and walked across the room to fetch a steadying drink for myself, and I thought: ‘If it hadn’t been for Carl Oates, you’d be doing this on a prosthesis.’ And I would have been almost certainly. Because when Carl came in to se
e me, one of those forbidden forays that he made, he took one look at me, and then he demanded my charts, and then he said: ‘This will not do. We’re getting you up to the Eighth. Friend of mine from Columbia College’s assigned there, on the surgical staff.’ And Carl pulled strings and got things done, and that was how I met Clayton Walker, thereby not only saving my leg but acquiring still another friend I’ve cherished all my life.”

  Oates held up his hand. “I’m going to interrupt you there, Neville, for a moment, if I may.” He turned to face the center camera. “Our New York viewers, many of them will know that Doctor Clayton Walker is the chief of cardiology at New York Memorial Hospital. And that his lovely wife, Florence, is an indefatigable fundraiser for many worthy causes. For those of you elsewhere,” he said, turning to face the camera on the left, “the Walkers are the kind of people who make the Big Apple shine.” He sat back. “And now we’ll take a short break, and then we’ll be right back.”

  Fisher appeared from the dimness behind the cameras. The pictures disappeared from the monitors. “Can I ask you, Tom,” Naisbitt said, “why did you do that?”

  “I was going to say the same thing,” Fisher said.

  Oates sucked his teeth. He nodded. “Simple,” he said. “I need a couple minutes here to think.” He looked at Naisbitt. “I expected this to be intense,” he said. “But not quite this intense.”

  Naisbitt smiled. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Out of the great evil that was Hitler, some great good was made. The sense of shared peril that brought us together, bound us together ever afterwards. Those of us who survived grew accustomed to acting on our principles, whatever the other rules said, sure in the conviction that those principles were right.”

  Oates stared at him. “Yes,” he said. “Let’s see what we can do with that.” He stood up. “Five minutes, folks.”