A Catskill Eagle

CHAPTER 45

I ATE HALF A CLUB SANDWICH. RACHEL WALLACE got her notes in order and began to talk.

“To begin with you’ll have to accept some things,” she said. “For instance, you’ll have to accept the limits of research. I have accumulated a lot of facts about Jerry Costigan, but he remains, in the way that you are probably most interested in, an enigma wrapped in a mystery.”

“Nice phrase,” I said.

“I did not originate it,” she said, “as you well know. Why Costigan is as he is, and therefore, how you will best be able to bring him down, is beyond my skills. Perhaps Susan can help in that area.”

Susan nodded. She was sipping a Miller Lite. She ate her club sandwich by taking off the top slice of bread and nibbling on the ingredients one at a time. I could eat a brontosaurus in the time it took her to eat a club sandwich that way.

“His holdings are large and various, but his current interest lies primarily in international commerce in arms. He seems without politics in this, selling arms and equipment to all shades of the political spectrum, without regard to their position vis-a-vis the United States.”

“A citizen of the world,” I said.

Hawk drank some Heineken from the bottle. “Wendell Willkie,” he said.

“More than that,” Rachel Wallace said. “He supplies not only arms and equipment, but personnel. He maintains a corps of trained mercenaries, for example the group you encountered in Connecticut, and supplies them as well as materiel to whomever.”

“Rent-a-troop?” I said.

“In a sense,” Rachel Wallace said, “but it’s more interesting than that. As far as I can tell, and obviously I am interpreting data here, and may sometimes misinterpret, he uses some of his personnel to foment, and then sustain, conflict, thus creating a market for his product.”

Hawk and I looked at each other. Hawk nodded his head. “Elegant,” he said.

“Good old Yankee know-how,” I said.

“As I say, Costigan seems to favor no position in this. He will sell arms to rebels, to governments suppressing rebels, to oligarchies, communists, democracies and dictatorships, people yearning to breathe free, people eager to prevent it. He often supplies both sides, and sometimes supplies personnel to both sides. He operates through a number of differently named companies. His sole interest appears to be creating a market for his product.”

“This make sense to you, Suze?” I said.

“So far. I never knew too much about Jerry’s business.”

“Anything to add,” I said.

“Let Rachel finish, then I’ll offer whatever I can. If I hear anything I know to be wrong, I’ll say.”

“Okay.” I looked at Rachel Wallace. She swallowed a bite of a chicken salad sandwich. She poured some Lite beer in her glass, about two inches, and sipped some.

“In his pursuit of profit and power, Costigan seems entirely amoral. Each has a salutary effect on the other. The more profit he makes the more powerful he becomes, the more powerful he becomes the more profit he makes. All evidence suggests that he is wealthy beyond calculation. He has no need to pursue either profit or power. He seems to pursue them because”-she made an I-give-up gesture with both hands-“because they are there.”

“Maybe there’s a point where if you don’t pursue it, you lose it,” I said.

“Perhaps,” Rachel Wallace said. She finished her two inches of Lite beer. “And perhaps the process has become a purpose in itself.”

She poured another inch of beer into her glass and took another bite of her chicken sandwich. We waited while she chewed and swallowed. Susan sat motionless, her club sandwich disordered and half eaten on her plate. She looked quietly at Rachel Wallace with the same inwardness that she’d maintained since I’d found her in Connecticut.

“However, in his personal life, and of this I know very little, he appears to be Roman Catholic doctrinaire. He is entirely committed to the belief in some kind of frontier radicalism in which absolute individual freedom is life’s greatest good. He is also a white supremacist.”

“Him too,” Hawk murmured.

Rachel Wallace smiled. “And an anti-Semite. He seems to believe that America is in danger of being overrun by blacks and Jews and foreigners and”-she smiled again-“lesbians.”

“The lesbians are arming?” I said.

“And gay men,” she said, “and feminists, and the IRS.”

“How about the worldwide conspiracy,” I said.

“You get the idea,” Rachel Wallace said. “Costigan appears to be fearful that America will be overrun by Americans. As a result he maintains not only a level of security commensurate with his wealth and power; but he keeps elements of his mercenary army on alert near him in anticipation of the forthcoming apocalypse.”

“Where is he?” I said.

Rachel Wallace shook her head and smiled sadly. “Everywhere,” she said, “nowhere. He has estab lishments and redoubts and hideaways and retreats and castles and keeps everywhere. I can, and will, add to the list I gave you by phone in California, but there’s no way to know that the places I know of are all there are and less way than that to know if he’s there, or when he will be. We know for sure only that he’s not here in this room.”

“Gee, that a start,” Hawk said.

“Christ,” I said, “we’ve got him cornered.”

“Perhaps the government people can add to what I’ve got,” Rachel Wallace said.

“As far as I can tell,” I said, “they wouldn’t even he certain he wasn’t in this room.”

“But they’d manage to let Costigan know that we were,” Hawk said.

Rachel Wallace nodded. “So we’re on our own,” she said.

“I appreciate the we, ” I said.

“I had occasion to appreciate it some years ago,” she said. “Susan, do you have anything to add.” Susan was looking at her sandwich. She picked up a half slice of tomato and ate it carefully.

“I don’t know where to look either,” she said.

We were quiet. Hawk began on his second sandwich. Corned beef. I finished my beer and opened another.

“I don’t want to talk about Russell,” Susan said.

“Talk about whatever you want to,” I said. “Anything we know will put us ahead of where we are now.”

“Russell is not like his father,” Susan said. She foraged a small piece of bacon from the sandwich and ate it. “I…”

I leaned a little forward toward her. “I won’t hurt him,” I said.

“Do you promise,” Susan said.

“I just did,” I said.

Susan raised her eyes from her plate. “Yes,” she said. “You did. I’m sorry.” She shifted her glance to Hawk. He was lying on the bed fully invested in his corned beef sandwich. He looked back at Susan.

“You tough lady,” he said. Susan was silent.

Hawk grinned. “Okay, since you put it that way. I won’t hurt him either.”

Susan nodded her head, almost as if to herself.

“Less of course you change your mind,” Hawk said.