Hooligans

DEATH HOUSE ON FLORAL STREET

It was like Saturday afternoon at the county fair and the Stick was Joey Chitwood. He slapped the

blue light on the top of his black Firebird and took off, driving with one hand while he lit cigarettes,

tuned the police radio, and hit the siren with the other, cigarette bobbing in the corner of his mouth as

he talked. Pedestrians and traffic ran for cover before the screaming Pontiac. I hunkered down in my

seat and stiff-armed the console.

“You nervous?” he asked.

“Not a bit,” I lied.

He hit Azalea Boulevard sideways and straightened out doing seventy. I could feel the seat moving

out from under me.

I liked the Stick‟s cavalier attitude, but his driving was downright hazardous. I knew he had to be a

good cop or he wouldn‟t be in the Freeze. The Federal Racket Squad, which everybody called the

Freeze, was three years old, understaffed, underpublicized, underlobbied, and under the gun. The FBI

wanted to make it part of their dodge, but so far we had maintained our integrity because our job was

mainly gathering information, not strict law enforcement. At least, that‟s what it was supposed to be.

Sometimes it didn‟t work out just that way. Cisco Mazzola, who had formed the outfit, was an exstreet cop and he hired only street cops. As far as I could tell, the Stick fit in perfectly.

He seemed to know the town. His course took us down a few alleys and past an impressive row of old

homes, restored to Revolutionary grandeur, their lights blurring into a single streak as we vaulted

down the street.

“How long you been here?”

“Coupla months,” he said around the cigarette dangling from his lips.

“So you were here for the Graves-McGee showdown?”

“Just after it happened.”

“I knew a Philly shooter who operated out of Pittsburgh named McGee,” I said, still making small talk

“But he called himself Ipswich.”

“I wouldn‟t know about that,” Stick said. “Actually, it was all over when I got here. All I know is

what I heard on the gas pipe.”

More turns. More screaming tires. More fleeing pedestrians.

“What‟s this Graves like?” I asked.

“Like Dutch said, for years he had the town sewed up. I get the idea the local law left him alone as

long as he didn‟t get too far out of line,”

“Wasting McGee wasn‟t getting out of line?” I asked.

“Y‟know, I don‟t think anybody blamed him for the McGee thing. In fact, I get the feeling the locals

were glad he did McGee

in.

“Could he be behind this Tagliani chill?”

“I suppose he could. Mufalatta‟s keeping an eye on him. If anybody will know, the Kid will.”

We drove away from the downtown section and across the bridge to Skidaway Island, which lay

between the city and the beach. The rain had stopped and the moon seemed to be racing in and out of

the clouds. As we crossed the bridge, the old-town charm of Dunetown vanished, swallowed up by

redwood apartment complexes and condos that looked like gray boxes in the fleeting moonlight.

There was something sterile and antiseptic about Skidaway. Twenty years ago it was a wild,

undeveloped island, a refuge for wildlife and birds. Now it appeared almost overpopulated.

Stick took Ocean Boulevard like it was Indianapolis. The souped-up engine growled angrily beneath

us and the needle of the speedometer inched past one-twenty. The landscape became a blur. Five

minutes of that and he downshifted and swerved off the four-lane and headed off through a

subdivision, its houses set back from the road behind carefully planted trees and shrubs. In the dark it

could have been any planned community.

“Cisco says you lived here once,” Stick said past the cigarette clenched between his teeth.

“I just spent a summer here,” I answered, trying to adjust my eyes to the fleeing landscape.

“When was that?”

“I hate to tell you. Kennedy was still the President.”

“That long ago, huh?” he said, somewhat surprised.

“I was still a college boy in those days,” I said. I was beginning to feel like an antique.

He made a hairpin turn with one hand.

“Surprised you, huh, how much it changed?”

I laughed, only it didn‟t come out like a laugh; it sounded like I was gagging.

“Oh, yeah, you could say that. You could say I was surprised, and I haven‟t even seen the place in the

daylight.”

“I couldn‟t tell you about all that. No frame of reference, y‟know.”

“This used to be a wildlife refuge,” I said. “That give you an idea?”

He flipped the cigarette out the window and whistled through his teeth.

“I doubt if you‟ll see a sparrow out here now. Rents are too high.”

He swerved into Highland Drive without even making a pass at the brakes and lit another cigarette at

the same time. I started thinking about taking a cab when I saw half a dozen blue and whites blocking

the street ahead, their red and blue lights flashing. We pulled up behind one of them, leaving a mile or

so of hot rubber in the process. Ground never felt better underfoot.

I could smell salt air when we got out of the car.

“Lock up,” the Stick said. “Some fuckhead stole my hat once.”

“So I heard,” I said as we headed toward the house, which sat a hundred yards or so back from the

road against high dunes. An electric fence was the closest thing to a welcome mat.

I began to get the feeling that this whole bunch of hooligans, Stick included, were like Cowboy

Lewis. They definitely believed the shortest distance between two points was a straight line. I also

began to wonder where due process fit into all this, if it fit in at all.

We reached the fence, showed some bronze to the man on the gate, and started up the long drive on

foot. Dutch was right behind us. I could see his enormous hulk silhouetted against the headlights of

the patrol cars. The body lay, uncovered, at the pool‟s edge. A breeze blew in off the bay, rattling the

sea oats along the dunes above.

The old man was unrecognizable. Whatever had blown up, had blown up right in his face. One of his

arms had been blown off and either be had been knocked into the pool or was in it when the bomb

went off, The water was the colour of cherry soda.

There were blood and bits of flesh splattered on the wall of the brick house.

All the windows in the back were blown out.

A woman was hysterical somewhere inside.

“What kind of maniac we got here?” Dutch said, as quietly as I‟d heard him say anything since I

arrived in Dunetown.

“Right under my fuckin‟ nose,” Kite Lange said. And quite a nose it was. It looked like it had been

reworked with a flat iron, and he talked through it like a man with a bad cold or a big coke habit. To

make it worse, he was neither. His nose simply had been broken so many times that his mother

probably cried every time she saw him. He had knuckles the size of Bermuda onions.

Ex-fighter, had to be.

He was wearing ragged leans, a faded and nicked denim battle jacket, no shirt under it, and a pair of

cowboy boots that must have set him back five hundred bucks. „The headband he wore had to be for

show—he didn‟t have enough dishwater-blond hair left to bother with. He also had a gold tooth, right

in the front of his bridgework. I was to find out later that he was a former Golden Gloves

middleweight champion, a West Coast surfer, and, for ten years, a bounty hunter for a San Francisco

bail bondsman before he went legit and joined the police.

Salvatore appeared through the bright lights, nosing around.

“I thought you were gonna check out Stizano,” Dutch said. “What the hell are you doin‟ here?”

“A look-see, okay? Where‟s Stizano gonna go anyway? He‟s an old fart and it‟s past ten o‟clock.”

“You don‟t think the whole bunch ain‟t hangin‟ on by their back teeth at this point? Somebody just

wasted their king.”

“They‟re on the phones,” Salvatore said confidently. “They‟re jawin‟ back and forth, tryin‟ to figure

out what the hell to do next. What they ain‟t gonna do at this point is bunch up. Jesus, will you look at

this!”

I was beginning to get a handle on Dutch‟s hooligans, on the common strain that bonded them into a

unit. What they lacked in finesse, they made up for with what could mercifully be called individuality.

There‟s an old theory that the cops closest to the money are the ones most likely to get bent. Dutch

went looking for mavericks, men too proud to sell out and too tough to scare off. Whatever their other

merits, they seemed to have one thing in common—they were honest because it probably didn‟t occur

to them to be anything else.

“First Tagliani‟s wife gets whacked,” Lange said. “And the old man‟s grandson almost got it here.”

“This here don‟t read like a Mafia hit t‟me,” Salvatore said. “Killing family members ain‟t their

style.”

“Maybe it was a mistake,” the Stick volunteered.

“Yeah,” Dutch said, “like Pearl Harbor.”

“More like a warning,” I said.

“Warning?” Lange and Dutch asked at the same time. A lot of eyebrows made question marks.

“Yeah,” I said, “a warning that he or she or it—whoever he, she, or it is—means to waste the whole

clan.”

“Tell me some more good news,” said Dutch.

“So why warn them?” Lange said.

“It‟s the way it‟s done,” said Salvatore. “All that Sicilian bullshit.”

“Now we got four stiffs, and we‟re still as confused as we ever were,” Dutch said. “Hey, Doc, you got

any idea what caused this?”

The ME, who was as thin as a phalanx and looked two hundred years old, was leaning over what was

left of the old man. His sleeves were rolled up and he wore rubber gloves stained red with blood. He

shook his head.

“Not yet. A hand grenade, maybe.”

“Hand grenade?” the Stick said.

“Yeah,” the ME said. “From up there. He was blown down here from the terrace. See the

bloodstains?”

“There were two,” Lange said.

“Two what?” the ME asked.

“Explosions. I was sittin‟ right down there. The first one was a little muffled, like maybe the thing

went off underwater. The second one sounded like Hiroshima.”

“Woke ya up, huh,” Dutch said.

The ME still would not agree. He shook his head. “Let‟s wait until I get up there and take a look. The

pattern of stains on the wall there and the condition of the body indicate a single explosion.

“I heard two bangs,” Lange insisted.

“How far apart?” I asked.

“Hell, not much. It was like. . . bang, bang! Like that.”

I had a terrifying thought but I decided to keep it to myself for the moment. The whole scene was

terrifying enough.

The woman screaming uncontrollably inside the house didn‟t help.

“Homicide‟ll clean this up,” Dutch said. “I‟m lust interested in the autopsy. Maybe there‟s something

with the weapons‟ll give us a lead.”

The homicide man was a beefy lieutenant in his early forties dressed in tan slacks, a tattersall vest, a

dark brown jacket, and an atrocious flowered tie. His name was Lundy. He came over shaking his

head.

“Hey, Dutch, what d‟ya think? We got a fuckin‟ mess on our hands here, wouldn‟t ya say?”

“Forget that Lindbergh shit, Lundy. This isn‟t a „we,‟ it‟s a „you.‟ Homicide ain‟t my business.”

Lundy said with a scowl, “1 need all the help I can get.”

Dutch smiled vaguely and nodded. “I would say that, Lundy.”

“Can ya believe it, Dutch,” Lundy said, “that little kid almost bought it!”

it occurred to me that nobody had expressed any concern for Grandpa Draganata, whose face was all

over the side of the house. I mentioned my feelings quietly to the Stick.

“What‟d you expect, a twenty-one-gun salute?”

“Four stiffs in less than three hours,” Dutch mused again. “This keeps up, I‟ll be out of work before

morning.”

“Yeah, and I‟ll have a nervous breakdown,” Lundy said.

1 looked over the entire scene. The pool was directly adjacent to the rear of the house; then there was

a terrace with a carousel, a miniature railroad, a gazebo, and three picnic tables. Beyond that, the land

rose sharply to the dunes above, maybe a hundred yards behind and above the house.

“I‟m gonna take the Stick and have a look-see up on the terrace,” I told Dutch. To the Stick I said,

“Get a light.”

A young patrolman came down the bill and said, “There‟s a couple of Draganata‟s goons up there,

acting like they own the place.”

“We‟ll talk to them,” the Stick said. “Let me bum your torch a minute.”

“Three gets you five they ain‟t sayin‟ a word about what happened. It‟s that damn wop salad code of

theirs,” Dutch growled. Lundy went back to the scene.

“Want to come along?” I asked Dutch.

He looked up the bill and laughed.

“In a pig‟s ass. Call collect when you get there.”

The Stick and I went up to the terrace and looked around. One of Draganata‟s bodyguards approached

me. He was no more than six four or five and didn‟t weigh a pound over two hundred and fifty, with a

face that would scare the picture of Dorian Gray.

A finger the size of a telephone pole tried to punch a hole in my chest.

“Private property,” he said.

I stared him as straight in the eye as I could, considering the eye was four inches above me.

“You jab me once more with that finger, I‟ll break it off and make you eat it,” I said in my tough-guy

voice.

The goon looked at me and smiled.

“Sure thing.”

“I‟m a federal officer and you‟re obstructing the scene of a crime. That‟s a misdemeanour. You jab

me again, asshole, that‟s assaulting a federal officer, which is a felony. Can you stand still for a felony

toss, sonny?”

He shuffled from one foot to the other for a moment or two, trying to work that out in whatever he

used for a brain. While he was sorting through my threat, the other gorilla came over.

“Don‟t take no shit, Larry,” he said. He was just as big and just as ugly.

“You two already fucked up royally once tonight,” I said. “How‟s it feel, knowing you screwed up

and your boss got his head handed to him.”

Larry‟s face turned purple. He made a funny sound in his throat and took a step toward me. But before

he could raise his hand a fist came from my left and caught him on the corner of the jaw. The top part

of his face didn‟t budge; the bottom part went west. His jaw cracked like a gunshot. He was so ugly, it

was hard to tell whether the look on his face was one of pain or surprise. A second later his eyes did a

slow roll and he dropped to his knees.

He made a noise that sounded like “Arftoble.”

The Stick was standing beside me, shaking out his knuckles.

The other tough went for the Stick and I pulled my .38 from under my arm and stuck the barrel as far

up his left nostril as the gun sight would permit.

“Don‟t you hear good?” I said.

He stared at the gun and then at me and then back at the gun. The Stick kicked him in the nuts as hard

as I‟ve ever seen anybody kicked anywhere. He hit the ground beside his partner; his teeth cracked

shut, trapping the cry of pain. It screeched in the back of his throat. Tears flooded his eyes. He fell

forward on his hands and threw up. The other one was shaking his head, his jaw wobbling uselessly

back and forth.

“Gladolabor,” he said.

I thought about what Cisco had told me, about how Stick was young and not too jaded, and about how

I might give him a few pointers on due process. Now was hardly the time. He was doing just fine. I

put my artillery away and smiled.

“Y‟know,” he said, “we got a pretty good act here.”

“Yeah. Maybe we should tighten it up a little, take it on the road,” I agreed.

Stick and 1 checked over the terrace, ignoring the two stricken mastodons.

“Obstructing the scene of a crime,” he mused. “Where did you come up with that?”

“It sounded good,” I said. “Did it sound good to you?”

“I was convinced,” he said. “Cisco says you‟re a lawyer; I figured you should know.”

He stepped into the gazebo and threw on the lights. The calliope music started, but the merry-goround was destroyed, tilted on one side like a bloody beret. It was eerie, the mutilated horses frozen in

up-and-down positions, heads blown away, feet missing, while the calliope played its happy melody.

“Cisco likes to tell people I‟m a lawyer, to impress them,” I said. “I never practiced law”

“How come?” he asked.

A bloody horse‟s head, with flared nostrils and fiery, bloody eyes, lay at my feet. I lifted it slightly

with the toe of one shoe and peered under it, as though I expected to find some important bit of

evidence under there.

“I had the stupid notion it was still an honourable profession,” I said.

He laughed this crazy laugh, his eyes dancing between the lids, his mouth turned down at the corners

instead of up. It could have been mistaken for a snarl.

“I knew better than that the first time I was briefed by a prosecutor. He as much as told me to perjure

myself.”

“And what‟d you tell him?”

“1 told him to get fucked. It didn‟t happen the way he wanted it to happen and that was that. He ended

up plea-bargaining the case away rather than taking a shot with the true facts.”

“Just after I took the bar I was interviewed by this big law firm in San Francisco,” I said. “This was

one of the most prestigious law firms in the city. The old partner who did the interviewing spent an

hour explaining to me how fee splitting works. Nothing is ever said between two opposing lawyers;

they just exchange D and B‟s on the clients and decide how much they can milk them for. When the

well‟s dry, they reach a settlement. When I left, I was so disgusted I almost threw up. I wandered

around the hill for a while, then went down and joined the police force.”

“But you felt good about it,” he said, flashing that crazy smile again.

“No, I felt like shit if you want to know the truth,” I admitted to him. “Three years in law school and I

end up driving a blue and white.”

The Stick listened to the music for several seconds and finally flicked the switch off. I looked above

us, up to the top of the dunes.

“Up there,” I said.

We huffed and puffed through the sand to the top of the sharp embankment and found ourselves

staring at the ocean far below. It twinkled in the moonlight.

“What‟re we looking for?” the Stick asked.

“You were in the army,” I said. “What makes a discharge when it‟s fired and another one when it

hits?”

“Mortar?”

“Too close.”

He snapped his fingers. “Grenade launcher.”

“It fits,” I said.

We checked the trajectory from the hill to the pool. The terrace could be seen only from the very edge

of the dune. It didn‟t take us long to find a scorched place in the grass on the back of the dune with a

smear of gun grease behind it.

“Right here,” I said. “Whoever killed the old man lobbed his shot from here, right onto the terrace. He

couldn‟t even see him; he lined up his shot with some point on the pool and it blew up right in the old

man‟s lap.”

1 flashed the light around the dune, looking for footprints.

“There,” the Stick said, pointing to several depressions in the side of the dune leading toward the

ocean.

We looked closer.

“Looks like Bigfoot,” the Stick said. The depressions were fairly shallow and about the size of a small

watermelon. There was no definition to them.

I pointed the light to the hard sand at the bottom of the dune. The tide was almost full. Ridges of foam

lay near the foot of the dune.

“Great,” I said. “The tide‟s in. There goes any tracks on the beach.”

“Knew what he was doin‟,” the Stick said. “A blind shot like that and the timing was perfect.”

“This took a little planning. He had to know the setup. He knew when high tide was. And with those

two goons down there, he only had one shot. Confident son of a bitch. We better not make too many

tracks; forensics may turn something up.”

“One Ear,” the Stick said.

“Right. Let‟s get him over here.”

We went back down and told Lundy what we had found and he sent two men and a photographer up

the hill.

“Those two gorillas up there may need some medical assistance, too,” the Stick said. “They give you

any shit, book „em for assaulting an officer.”

Lundy‟s eyebrows arched in surprise. “Yeah, thanks,” he said with a touch of awe.

“I‟m goin‟ inside,” said the Stick. “See if 1 can raise Charlie One Ear.”

I joined Dutch, who was leaning on the corner of the house gnawing on a toothpick. He was obviously

impressed.

“You guys weren‟t gone long to be so busy,” he said with a

I looked at my watch. It was past ten and my stomach was telling me it hadn‟t been fed since noon.

“I‟ve gotta fill Mazzola in and get something to eat,” I said. “Then I‟m calling it a night.”

“I could use some food too,” the Stick said, rejoining us. “Charlie‟s on his way and not too happy

about it. I told Lundy to keep people off the bill.”

The Stick produced a small tan calling card.

“You ever need me,” he said, handing me a card, “my home number‟s on the back. There‟s a machine

on it. If it rings four times before it answers, I‟m there, just takin‟ a shit or a shower or something.

Leave a number, I‟ll usually get back to you in a coupla minutes. If it answers after one ring, I‟m out.”

“Meet us at the Feed Mill,” Dutch said to Stick. “Jake can drive down with me.”

I was grateful for that.

As we walked back to the cars I said, “We can throw in with you on this. I think we can assume the

weapon was a grenade launcher and that‟s an illegal weapon and that makes it federal.”

“Gee whiz,” Dutch growled. “Ain‟t due process grand.”

12

FLASHBACK: NAM DIARY, ARRIVAL

The first ten days: First off, I was a replacement. I sat around the Cam Ranh Bay repo-depot for

about ten days before they sent me down to Third Corps HQ and from there over to Phouc Binh which

is where I pick up my squad. I‟m only five weeks out of Advanced Infantry School, I don‟t know shit

and I am plenty scared.

I can tell you this, flying in to Cam Ranh I, look down and it‟s really gorgeous, I mean this is some

beautiful place except you have all this beautiful green jungle and then you have mortar holes

everywhere. It was like, you know, paradise going to hell and gone.

Anyway, while I‟m in Cam Ranh waiting to get a squad, I hang out with this potato farmer from

Nebraska they call Spud, because of the potatoes and all. He doesn‟t like it much but he doesn‟t

complain either. That wasn‟t too bad because we were both, you know, newcomers, so mostly we

talked about what it‟s like back in the world—the States. Except this Spud, he was really scared. His

hands shook and everything. Then he gets shipped into Indian country, and after that I meet q with

this kid from Wisconsin—a short termer with only two months left to go who is off the line a couple

days to come see his brother who got wounded and is in the hospital. We hook up in this sorry ass

lean-to they call a bar. First off I tried striking u some talk with a sergeant but he just looks at me with

these dead eyes, I mean eyes like hunks of coal, no feeling, no nothin‟. He was scary. I says “hi” and

he looks at me and gets up and leaves, and that‟s when this kid from Wisconsin, who is sitting down

the way from me, pipes up and says, “He‟s a CRIP, they don‟t socialize much.” And I says, “What‟s a

CRIP?” And he says, “Jeeze, how long you been over here?” And I says, “Less than a week,” and he

says, “Shit, you got it all ahead of you,” and just shakes his head but he doesn‟t say anymore about

CRIP; I learned about that later.

Anyway he got off the line to see his brother, only it turns out he‟s been there three days and hasn‟t

been to the hospital yet and when I ask him why he says, “No guts.” Finally after a couple of beers I

walk him down to the hospital mind I wait outside in the hall and there‟s some guy screaming the

whole time I‟m waiting. It gives me the crawlers. I wanted to just up and leave but that wasn‟t right so

I sat there and after a while I put my hands over my ears so I couldn‟t hear it anymore. Then the kid

from Wisconsin comes out and he‟s crying and he‟s like, you know, hysterical or something, and we

get outside and sit down near the hospital and this kid, he‟s really torn up. But I don‟t ask him

anything, I just wait, because already I‟m learning about not asking questions.

About five minutes after we sit down for a smoke this Huey comes over and settles down almost on

the ground and they dump out half a dozen body bags, just like that, plop on the ground and whip off

again. I never saw anybody dead before. I started getting sick and the kid from Wisconsin is sitting

there staring at the bags and finally I says, “Let‟s get out of here,.” and we go down to this other

hooch and have a couple more beers.

The kid gets pretty drunk and finally he starts talkin‟. Real fast, it just comes bustin‟ out. He says,

“Bobby says to me, „Christ, how am I gonna tell Arlene, [that‟s his girlfriend, Arlene,] how‟m I gonna

tell her I ain‟t got any balls left,‟ and I‟m sittin‟ there thinking, Jeeze Bobby, you don‟t have any

fuckin‟ legs left!‟ Ah, shit, it don‟t make no never mind anyways. Arlene married some asshole from

over at the paper mill at Christmas and she never even wrote him or anything. You think I‟m gonna

tell him that? There‟s a lot of Arlenes in the world but Bobby, he only has two legs and two balls.

Now he ain‟t got neither.”

And I just sit there listening because, what are you to say, right? Besides, my insides are really

beginning to churn and I‟m wondering when I‟m going up. And then he says, “What‟s it like back in

the world? Do they really spit on soldiers?” And I says I never saw anybody spit on a soldier,

although once I did see a demonstration and I was in uniform and a bunch of them, y‟know, they shot

me a bird like it‟s my fault I got to go to Vietnam.

Finally I navigate the kid from Wisconsin back to his quarters and he‟s really soused and the last thing

he says to me is, “I‟m afraid to go home, scared shitless here and scared shitless to go home, shit,

they‟re gonna hate me because of Bobby.”

I never saw him again but I know what he means now, about them hating him because of what

happened to his brother. You get so paranoid after awhile. After awhile you get so you think

everybody back in the world blames you for the whole thing.

Like this Jesus freak from Mississippi I meet at the Red Cross. He‟s even worse. He kind of babbles,

you know, runs things to-get her, like he can‟t get it off his chest quick enough, keeps talking about

the kids, about killing kids. “Kids?” I says to him. “Listen,” he says and he‟s whispering, “don‟t ever

shoot a water buffalo, hear? You can kill women arid children but you kill a water buffalo, man,

they‟ll bury you under the brig.” Then he starts laughing. Laughing. Then he says, “Nothin‟ over here

makes any sense. Sometimes I wonder, hey, we the good guys or not? But you ask an officer that,

he‟ll send you u to the psycho ward. I don‟t pray anymore. I‟m too embarrassed to talk to Cod. I got

too much to tell him.” He goes on like that for maybe an hour, shaking his head the whole time.

Always whispering.

By the time I get my walking papers I‟m almost glad to be going into it. This place is nuts. It all

seems to come to a head here at Cam Ranh because you get them comin‟ and goin‟. Everybody‟s a

little crazy. There‟s a lot of questions you want to ask but after awhile you figure out nobody has any

answers, anyhow, why bother.

So anyway, here 1 am in this creepy little town near the river, if you can even call it a town, I‟m not

here five minutes, the lieutenant, who looks about sixteen, red hair and freckles, his name is Carmody,

sits down and pops two beers, and he says, “Now listen good to me. I been out here, it‟s going on

eight months. I got my own way of doing things after all that time, so you do what I say, don‟t even

argue, don‟t tell me you didn‟t learn It that way back in the world, you just do it and I‟ll get you home

alive. You don‟t, 1 give you two weeks, you‟ll be dead or missing something you don‟t want to lose.”

I don‟t say anything, I just listen. I try not to shake but I am real nervous.

“I got a few rules,” he says. “In the beginning, no matter what happens, follow me. If Charlie starts

busting caps, you just follow me. Don‟t talk, don‟t start yelling at anybody else. If I go down, you go

down. Find a pebble or a mound of dirt or a paddy and get below it. Get under his horizon. If you get

hit, don‟t say anything and don‟t move. You do, and you‟re dead. Just lay there, somebody‟ll get you.

That‟s my last rule—we don‟t leave anybody behind. Dead or alive, everybody goes out together.”

I was so scared my stomach hurt.

“These VC are good, goddamn good,” he says. “Don‟t let anybody tell you different because that‟s

bullshit. All that shit they gave you back in Al, forget it. They got tunnels out there, they go on for

miles. They got whole operating rooms under the ground, not just some little pooch hole you throw a

grenade in and forget it, they pop up fifty feet away and your ass is in a bucket. These fuckers can run

into a village and vanish. We don‟t get heroic, okay, we call in some air, let the Black Ponies burn it

out. We move on. „That‟s our mission, search and destroy. What it is not is search and be destroyed.”

I remember thinking, this is for real. Jesus, in five minutes we could be doing it for real.

“Any questions?” he says.

I shake my head no.

“Welcome to the war,” he says.

13