A Catskill Eagle

CHAPTER 32

THE WORK WAS EASY. WE DID FOUR TRAINING sessions a day, two hours in the morning, two hours in the afternoon. We wore our Transpan fatigues. We ate lunch in the cadre dining room in the administration building where the help was Filipino men in white mess jackets.

Most of the training force were mercenaries like Red who already knew all they wanted to learn about hand-to-hand combat, and walked through the practice routines in good-natured boredom. Some of the kids were a pain in the ass. There was a straw-blond kid from Georgia who went at the training with the single-minded intensity of a Hindu penitent. His goal in life was to beat one of the instructors. Each time he failed only increased his determination in the next exercise. He volunteered for every demonstration.

“Tate,” I said to him on our third day in camp, “there’s a time to quit.”

“Quitters never win,” he said. “And winners never quit.”

I shook my head. “Life’s going to be hard for you,” I said.

There was also a squat moon-faced kid from Brooklyn named Russo who was so intent on proving how bad he was that Hawk finally broke his arm on the fourth day of training.

It had a calming effect on Tate.

Each evening after supper we strolled the grounds, circling past the big white colonial with its screen of forsythia and lilacs. On the second night we heard sounds of splashing from the pool. Security people in blue jump suits patrolled the picket fence, and nearer the house occasionally we could see men in civilian clothes strolling about wearing side arms.

The workers’ compound was next to the factory. There were six Quonset huts, three on each side of a dirt strip that in the army would have been called the company street. At the head of the street was a seventh Quonset with a sign over the door that said COMMISSARY. Past that a common latrine made of unpainted pine boards. There were tarpaulins stretched between the Quonsets, and shelter tops made of plywood. Small cook fires flickered at all hours of day or night. Most of the workers were Vietnamese, and when they weren’t on shift they squatted flatfooted beside the cook fires and played cards for cigarettes and whiskey. A small contingent of Latin workers kept an area near the last Quonset and intermingled not at all with the Asians. In the Hispanic section someone had fashioned a weight bench out of two-by-fours, and several men worked out regularly with an old set of barbells and cast-iron plates.

There were no fences around the workers’ compound but it was separated from the rest of the facility as if by measureless oceans of space.

Each shift went to work under the leadership of a blue security type, and a couple of security people were always visible at the perimeter of the compound.

“Stay out of there,” Red told me. “Motherfuckers will cut your throat for a pack of Luckies.”

“Have much trouble with them?” I said.

“Naw. Security keeps them under control. Plus there’s all of us. Long as you don’t go in there alone at night, they can’t do you much harm.”

“Doesn’t look like a step on the executive ladder,” I said.

Red laughed. “Shit no,” he said. “It’s goddamned slave labor, what it amounts to. They buy stuff at the commissary on credit. It gets deducted from their wages and each month they’re farther behind.”

“I owe my soul to the company store,” I said.

“Sure. And they bitch, they get turned in as illegal aliens.”

“On the other hand,” I said, “if they do get turned in and they start discussing this situation with somebody from the justice Department…”

“Course,” Red said. “But these assholes don’t know that. They figure all of us round-eyes are on one side and they’re on the other. They don’t even speak English, you know.”

It was evening. Hawk walked into the compound and squatted on his haunches beside one of the cook fires and began talking to one of the Vietnamese.

“Get him out of there,” Red said. “I’m telling you it’s dangerous in there. Even for him.”

“He’ll be all right,” I said.

“It’s against the rules, too,” Red said.

“No fraternization?”

“Hell no,” Red said. “Bastards start talking to people they may find out they’re being fucked.”

Hawk strolled back.

“What’d they say?” Red said.

“Said they’re bored,” Hawk said.

“You speak the language?”

“Some, and some French, some pidgin,” Hawk said. “I spent time there.”

“With the Frenchies,” Red said.

“Uh huh.”

“I hear the women were something,” Red said.

“Even better than Doreen,” Hawk said.

At lunch at the end of our first week, I said to Plante, “Where do these guys go from here?”

“The forces? They go on permanent station at Transpan installations around the globe.”

“Security?”

“Security, training, and demonstration,” Plante said.

“How ‘bout that mansion over in the corner by the river,” Hawk said.

“Executive house,” Plante said. “Mr. Costigan and his son stay there when they are in the area.”

“Costigan owns all this?” I said.

“This and much more,” Plante said.

“He there now?”

“His son,” Plante said. “Why?”

“Saw all the security over there,” I said. “Kind of like to get a look at Costigan. Man’s a legend.”

Plante nodded. “In an age of collectivism,” he said, “Jerry Costigan is the most powerful sole proprietor in the world.”

“That anything like Soul Brother,” Hawk said. Plante shook his head without smiling. “It’s no joke,” he said. “Mr. Costigan has never yielded an inch. He is an individual swimming strong in a sea of conformity.”

Hawk nodded and drank some lemonade. I said solemnly, “Man’s a legend.”

“When the government came in here and told us we had to let them unionize the work force Mr. Costigan said no, and meant it,” Plante said. “We locked the bastards out and imported workers from the foreign labor pool. Workers, by the way, grateful for the chance. They need discipline. They’re not used to American hustle and stick-to-it. But with guidance they do the job without a lot of pus-gut shop stewards grieving everything you try to do.”

One of the men attendants cleared away dishes and poured coffee.

“Mr. Costigan’s way is clean. There’s no bloat in his operation. He doesn’t subcontract. He doesn’t depend on anyone. He’s stood by the things that got us where we are. Everywhere collectivism, committeeism, collaborationism is oozing over us. Trying to creep in at every fissure. Foreign goods, foreign ideas, decision by committee, by regulatory agency, by boards and unions and…” Plante guzzled some coffee. “… damned community action groups and class action groups and affirmative action groups. Want us to be run by a bunch of fat-ass pansies from Harvard.”

Hawk leaned forward, his face open and interested, his hands folded quietly on the edge of the table. Now and then he nodded. If he wanted to, Hawk could look interested in the Playboy philosophy.

“But Mr. Costigan.” Plante gulped more coffee. A mess steward filled his cup. Plante shook his head rapturously. “Mr. Costigan, he won’t budge. He does it his way. With his own workers, his own forces. He owns it all and he runs it all.”

“And the forces help him,” I said.

“Absolutely.” There was a faint gloss of sweat on Plante’s upper lip. “Absolutely. Transpan is selfcontained. Self-contained. When the collapse comes, we’ll be ready.”

He paused, looked at his watch, and raised his eyebrows. “God, I’m running late,” he said. He stood, rapidly drank a cup of coffee, and hurried out.

The mess steward cleared away his dishes impassively.