Bird's-Eye View

by J. F. Freedman

“I think my new neighbor is dirty,” I begin.

  “Dirty as in criminal?” she asks.

  “Yes.”

  She takes my bold declaration with more equanimity than I would have expected. “After what I’ve seen, I can believe that. What do you actually know?”

  I have to be careful the way I craft this. The truth, and nothing but the truth. But not the whole truth.

  “Why did he buy his place out here?” I ask rhetorically, momentarily skirting her question. “This isn’t where people with money are buying. They’re buying on Solomons Island, or St. Michaels, or other places closer in to Washington and Baltimore. We’re still nowhere out here. We’re too far gone for weekenders.”

  “Maybe he likes the privacy, the same as you,” she responds reasonably.

  “Then why is he flying people in and out of here like the Delta shuttle, if he wants privacy? We don’t know who those people were that we saw, but he could have met with them somewhere else, couldn’t he? Unless he didn’t want anyone to know they were meeting.”

  She nods, slowly. “That makes sense. What do you really know about Roach, besides his job description?”

  I give her my first concrete fact. “He almost went to jail once, for illegal arms dealings.”

  That shakes her up. “Where did you find that out?”

  “I’ve been doing research. Most of it’s in the public records. You have to go back a couple of decades, but it’s there.”

  “What happened? Was he convicted, or—”

  “No.” I shake my head impatiently—now that I’ve started telling her this my anger toward Roach is in my throat again, a poisonous bile I have to exorcise. “The case never went to trial, so technically he’s never done anything wrong. The official line—ha, ha, big fucking joke—was that a public trial would compromise national security issues, so the government was forced to drop it. The same bullshit they always use. But the lawyers in the Justice Department who were prosecuting the case, who once in a blue moon actually gave a shit more for the truth than politics as usual, were sure he would be found guilty. They also felt that using national security was a chickenshit excuse for covering up other crimes by other big players.” I sag. “They fought like sons of bitches to keep the case going, but they were overruled. The files were sealed and the whole episode was buried.”

  She looks at me warily. “How do you know all this if the case was sealed?”

  “I . . .” Be careful here. I can’t bring Simmons into this. “I met a newspaper reporter who covered the story,” I lie. “He filled in the blanks. The stuff that isn’t in the public record.”

  “When did you meet him?”

  “A while ago.”

  “Before we met?”

  “Around then,” I answer elusively. I’m beating myself up inside for having opened this can of worms.

  She ponders what I’ve told her. “Do you think Roach is still selling weapons illegally?” she conjectures, savoring the possibility of scandal. “Fritz, I know you have bad feelings for him, but think about it. He’s an assistant secretary of state. If what you’re saying is true, this would be a scandal that could bring down an entire administration. Why would someone in his position be that reckless? It sounds crazy.”

  “Like Willie Sutton put it so well, for the money. We’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars potentially, Maureen. Billions. People have done crazier things for that kind of money. And who better than a man in Roach’s position to pull something like this off? He’s the ultimate insider.”

  She shakes her head doggedly. “Roach doesn’t strike me as being reckless. Just the opposite, I think of him as being supercool and guarded. I’ve only met him the one time,” she admits, “but I’m a good judge of character on first impression.”

  “He’s trained himself to look sincere, even while he’s picking your pocket. Do you remember Spiro Agnew?” I ask. “Nixon’s first vice president?”

  “Vaguely. I was nine years old when Nixon resigned.”

  “I wasn’t much older, but we all followed it around here, because Agnew had been governor of Maryland. He was well thought of, even my father voted for him for governor, and he never voted Republican. Well, it turned out Agnew was taking bribes in the White House. He’d been a bagman for years, from when he was a two-bit local pol in the state here, all the way up to being a heartbeat away from the presidency. If he’d been smoother about it he would’ve become president when Nixon resigned, instead of Ford. So believe me, Roach could be dealing under the table. Anyone in his position could.”

  She shudders. “God. That’s so scary to think.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “What else do you know about Roach?”

  “Nothing else concrete—yet. But I’m going to try to find out if there’s more.”

  She slams her beer bottle down on the floor. “Oh, Fritz!” She gets up. “Have you gone totally brain-dead? If James Roach is involved in any criminal activities he’s not going to let anyone get in his way, certainly not someone like you. You don’t need to be a college professor to figure that out.”

  “I’m not a college professor anymore,” I remind her. “And he doesn’t know,” I say, trying to reassure her. “I’ve been careful to cover my tracks.”

  She grabs a handful of my hair, jerks my head around. “How long do you plan to pursue this cockamamie scheme?”

  “For as long as it takes to find out.”

  “Find out what?” she almost screams.

  That’s a good question. “I don’t know. Whatever it is.”

  She lets go of me. “Oh, Fritz, Fritz, Fritz. What in the world is wrong with you? Do you think Roach won’t ever find out you’re sniffing his trail?”

  “I don’t—”

  “Of course he will! He’s a professional, Fritz, it’s what he’s done all his life. You’re a college professor. A sweet man I’ve started to fall for, who’s an amateur. Please, Fritz. Whatever you’re doing, don’t do it anymore.”

  She’s started to fall for me. She said it.

  “Fritz. I’m scared for you. Please—if there are things going on that could hurt you, please tell me. I want to . . .”

  I wait. “Want to what?”

  She takes a deep breath. “To be in this with you.”

  I shake my head. “That’s not where we are.” I look away from her, out across the water, now blank, in darkness.

  “It’s not where we’ve been, that’s right.” She takes my face, pulls it to meet hers. Oh, those emerald eyes. “But it’s where we are now. Admit it to yourself, Fritz. I have. And it’s been hard, because I know there are so many impediments between us. But I can’t help what I feel.”

  My guts are tied up in knots. “I’m falling for you, too, Maureen.” I moan. “Shit, who am I kidding? You blew me away the first time I saw you sitting on my porch. But this could turn out to be a dangerous situation. I can’t involve you in anything where you could get hurt.”

  Her eyes light up. “Have you been lying to me, Fritz? How much danger could you get into? How much are you already in?”

  I backstroke rapidly. “I’m not in any danger. But you never know what can happen. I’m not planning on getting into any dangerous situations, believe me.”

  I sound like an ass. I am an ass. This incredible woman, this object of my desire since the first time I saw her, is throwing herself, literally throwing herself, at me, and I’m fucking it up. “Shit happens sometimes, that’s all I’m saying.”

  “I know that. I’ve been there.” She won’t stop pushing. Maybe she can’t—what a terrific and frightening thought. “But if shit does happen, I want to be there to wipe it off your face.” She kisses me. “I’m growing accustomed to this face.”

  It ’s nothing like making love with Whitney, which was pure libido with no emotion, and it isn’t like making love with Johanna, which was emotion coupled with clandestine teenage-style recklessness, we were doing it under our parents’ noses, so to speak, nor is it li
ke making love with Dakota Chalmers, two adult friends fulfilling each other’s carnal needs on a practical level. It’s closer to the way it was with Marnie, except Maureen isn’t married, so we have the potential of having a future together, which Marnie and I never could. (If I’d realized that back then my life would be completely different. But you can’t change your past, and at this moment, I don’t want to.) Of course this is brand-new and may come to nothing, but the possibilities are whatever we allow them to be.

  And man, does that scare the hell out of me.

  • • •

  Maureen’s sleeping. I can’t. Taking care not to wake her, I get out of bed, pad silently into the other room, unlock my cabinet, and take out the pictures I shot of Roach, Wallace, and the others, on Roach’s runway. There’s a link in these shots to something else—what is it? Is it the other men? Who are they, and what is their tie-in to Roach? Are they diplomats? Gunrunners? Legit or not? Whoever and whatever they are, they don’t want anyone to know that they’re getting together with Roach; and vice versa, maybe more so: Roach must have compelling reasons for not being seen with these men openly. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be meeting clandestinely. Whatever this is, it has a bad aroma to it.

  What else? The other pilot besides Wallace, the one who flew these men in? Have I ever seen this man before?

  Leaving the incriminating pictures in the cabinet, I tiptoe into my bedroom. I don’t want to wake Maureen. I know she wants me to trust her with everything and I wish I could, but I can’t get her involved in this. Her reason for being here is to study birds, not to stick her neck out because of my dumb tenacity, with the possibility of having it whacked off.

  She’s sound asleep. Adorable little bubbles are forming at the edge of her mouth as she breathes in and out. Stealthily, I open the door to my closet and find the shoes I’d stashed the original transparencies in, the ones I took of the actual murder.

  I peek at her again. Not an inch of movement; she’s a sound sleeper. I creep back to the other room and look at the transparencies alongside the pictures of the second encounter, the one with Roach and Wallace and the mysterious visitors. Picking up a magnifying glass, I carefully study the face of the pilot who flew the second plane in.

  He doesn’t look familiar.

  I turn back to the original transparencies, concentrating not on the victim or his killer, but on the third man—the pilot.

  And there it is. This is a textbook case of not seeing the forest for the trees.

  The airplane pilot I’m looking at in the set of transparencies is the same one I’m looking at in the prints. But he isn’t the pilot who flew in Roach’s guests. He’s the pilot who flew Roach in.

  Wade Wallace is the third man in my originals—the pilot who was there when the Russian counselor was shot to death, who then got into the plane with the killer and the victim and flew both of them away.

  I don’t even try to go back to sleep. I sit outside on the porch, waiting for the sun to come up. It takes a long time, too long.

  “Hey.”

  I look inside, to my bedroom. Maureen’s up, reclining on her side, looking at me through the mesh.

  “What’re you doing up so early?”

  “Couldn’t sleep.”

  “I can understand.” She pats the empty space in the bed. I go in and lie down next to her. She smiles, kisses me. I nuzzle her breasts, stroke her stomach, kiss her neck. She tastes salty.

  We make love slowly, tenderly; it builds on the special feeling from last night that both of us want to hold on to. We don’t talk about the new place we’ve gone to; it’s too raw, too scary—the implications for the future.

  She’s going to Boston for a few days—work. She’d put it off if she could, but people are depending on her. “I’ll try to call tonight,” she assures me. “What are you going to do with yourself? Stay out of trouble, I hope.”

  “I’ll do my best,” I vow, stoutly.

  “Nothing stupid.” She has a worried look on her face, as if she doesn’t trust me to keep my word. “You promised.”

  “A promise is a promise.”

  “See that you keep it,” she orders me sternly. “And stay away from Roach and Wallace.”

  I give her a parting kiss. “I will have nothing to do with either of them.”

  “This is going to sound like lovesick teenager crap, but you’re the first man I’ve ever fallen in love with, I mean really deep down, Fritz.”

  “Maureen . . .” Jesus, how do you respond to that? I thought I’d gone off the deep end with Marnie, but that was nothing compared to the emotions I’m feeling at this moment.

  “I don’t want to lose you, Fritz. Promise me I won’t.”

  “You won’t lose me. I promise.”

  • • •

  It’s Fritz Tullis. I’d like to speak to Buster. Is he in yet?”

  “He’s not available at present, Mr. Tullis,” comes back the crisp reply. Buster’s secretary, Enid, is at least twenty years older than he, and she tends to mother-hen him. One of her ploys in that regard is to call everyone over twenty-one, except office staff, by his or her last name—it holds them at arm’s length, so they can’t wheedle favors from her, such as talking to her boss when he doesn’t want to be disturbed, and provides cover for him when he’s late coming to work, or is otherwise indisposed. “Shall I tell him you called?”

  I can picture her pen poised over Buster’s message list. “Yeah, please. As soon as possible, if you can,” I say, trying to keep the anxiety from my voice. I glance at the clock over the stove. Almost ten—I’d thought he’d be in by now, his phone machine picked up when I called him at home, over an hour ago. “How long before he’ll be in?” I ask as politely and casually as I can.

  He and I need to talk, pronto. It’s one thing to keep your mouth shut about a so-called hypothetical murder when it’s an abstraction to you. But now that I know that James Roach’s security chief, a loose cannon, as Maureen said, if there ever was one, was directly involved in that diplomat’s murder, it’s time for the bullshit to stop. Somebody in authority has to be told. I want Buster to hand-hold me through the process, because I know it’s going to be gnarly, given that I’ve been sitting on important evidence for weeks.

  “The day after tomorrow,” she tells me.

  “What?” I blurt out.

  “Mr. O’Reilly is on a corporate retreat in Santa Fe, New Mexico,” she explains. “He won’t be back in the office until the day after tomorrow,” she repeats. “He’s asked that I hold all messages until he returns, unless it’s an emergency. This isn’t an emergency, is it?”

  She thinks of me as Buster’s main party-animal friend, not someone who might have serious business. Better I keep it that way.

  “No,” I answer. “Just let him know that I called, and need to talk to him. In person,” I add. I hang up.

  This is a bitch. I need to talk to Buster, and I don’t want to do it over the phone—I’m paranoid about phones being tapped, especially cell phones, which would be how he would call me from wherever he’s holing up. I’m going to have to keep my head down until then, out of the line of fire.

  Since Buster’s unavailable, I boot up my computer and begin delving into Wade Wallace’s record. It doesn’t take me long to find out that his background is what I’d feared it would be. He’s a licensed commercial pilot with a jet airplane rating, for over twenty years he was a covert operative in the CIA, from before the Iran hostage crisis until less than two years ago, when he resigned and started his private security firm, specializing in clients in the government who need additional private security. People like James Roach.

  I’m certain about one thing now: James Roach did not meet Wade Wallace recently, as he’d told me that day I first met Wallace, on the yacht. They’ve had to have known each other before then, their world is too interconnected.

  Turning off my computer, I make a decision, one I’d never have thought I’d make. I hope my father will forgive me, from the gra
ve.

  Late in the afternoon, shortly before the end of the business day, I drive to Jamestown and enter a gun shop that’s owned by Billy Higgins, an acquaintance of mine from my dissolute youth. I check it out before I go inside, to make sure no one’s there, except him.

  Billy’s sitting on a stool behind his display cases, feet up on the counter, engrossed in a stroke magazine. He’s fat as a sow now, his Harley lowrider has extra-strong shocks and struts. His temper is as hair-trigger as the action on some of the guns he sells.

  “Hey, back there!” I call out. “You running a bid’ness or spanking your monkey?”

  He whirls, about to jump the counter and engage me in mortal combat, when he stops in his tracks as he recognizes me.

  “Jesus H. Christ!” he exclaims as he recognizes me. “What the hell’re you doing in here, man?”

  “You got any guns for sale?” I eye the weapons behind the locked glass counters and the racks that line the walls. George Washington could have outfitted the Continental Army out of this store.

  “The hard-core gun-hater is gonna buy one?” Billy says incredulously. “Armageddon must surely be upon us.”

  “That’s about right. I have finally seen the light, Billy.”

  “What brought you to this sorry state of affairs?”

  “There are bad people who are out to get me,” I say darkly. “Who only respect the business end of a .45.”

  “Spoken like Liberty Valance,” he crows. “But you don’t want a .45, son. That’s old-school. A nine millimeter’ll do you just fine.” He opens his arms to the merchandise below him. “You got a price range?”

  “How much is a good one?”

  “I can outfit you like a white man for six to eight hundred dollars, or a nigger for two hundred. Your choice.”

  I wince inwardly at the crude racism, which is still common around here, but I don’t show it, like I normally would. When in Rome . . . I’m here for a reason, not a crusade.

  “What color do I look like to you, Billy?”

  “The right color,” he chortles, smiling broadly. I can imagine him tonight at Dargin’s, the local white-trash watering hole, regaling everyone with the tale of how Fritz Tullis, the resolute gun-hater, finally changed his tune and saw the light. “Let me show you some selections,” he says, unlocking the top case. “All premium quality, guaranteed to blow away any man, woman, or child who pisses you off.”