The Second Saladin

44

The postman was in a cruel mood that evening. He took somebody out with an elbow and people started staying away from him. After a while it got a little ridiculous and Chardy said, “Hey, listen, you’re playing way out of control, man. Just calm it down. You haven’t—” and the postman hit him in the mouth.

“Watch yo’ face, motherfuckin’ white trashman. Watch yo’ fuckin’ mouth.”

Chardy picked himself up from the asphalt. A black circle formed around him.

“All right,” he said. “No problem. Didn’t mean anything.”

Then he dropped the postman with a shot to the cheekbone.

He was never sure who called the ambulance. It seemed to get there awfully fast. There was a great deal of confusion and he was explaining everything to a young cop.

“You better stay off this playground,” the cop said. “You want to play basketball, you go to the suburbs. Go out to the University of Maryland. Go to the Y. But don’t come here, and then when they shove you around, don’t punch anybody. We find bodies out here all the time, mister. I don’t want to have to find yours.”

“You better let us check it out,” the medic said. “Your pupils look a little dilated. You might have a concussion and they can be tricky. You might need some stitches to close that cut. You got Blue Cross?”

“Sure.”

“Then let us check you out, man. Just to be safe.”

“My car’s here. I’m not going to any hospital.”

“In the wagon, man. Let me look at that eye in the wagon.”

“All right. Christ.”

He climbed into the back of the ambulance and the medic opened his black bag and took out a.357 magnum and said, “Now just relax, Mr. Chardy.”

They took him to a small Catholic hospital in Southeast Washington, Saint Teresa’s, and led him in, handcuffed, through a loading dock, up an old freight elevator, and down a quiet hall to what at one time must have been an operating theater but was now just a high-ceilinged room with tables and a few blackboards about, where a single man waited.

“Unlock him. Sorry. You like to do these things neatly. You’re being watched, of course.”

“Who the hell are you? What’s going on?” Chardy asked angrily.

“Just sit down and relax. They say you’ve got a temper, but try to control it. Just for once, okay? Here, this’ll help.” He opened his wallet and showed off the card, which sported a photo of a square, blocky face next to an announcement of the presence, in official capacity, of Leo Bennis, Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of investigation. Chardy looked from the plastic-covered image to the real Leo Bennis, softer in life and a little older, and smiling mildly.

“Howdy,” Bennis said. “You’re a hard man to track down.”

“Feds. What the hell do you want?”

“Let’s say we’ve become fascinated recently with a certain situation.”

“Make an appointment with Mr. Lanahan. He’s the boss now. He’s a very busy man. He can probably see you sometime next spring.”

“Paul, you’re so hostile. You’re seething with hostilities and resentments. Just calm down. Be nice.”

“This is your party. You set it up; you brought it off. Get to the point.”

“We always get this when we deal with the Agency. You people are such prima donnas. You think you’re such gods.”

“I think I’d like to go. Is this official? Are you making an arrest? No? Then I think I’d like to go.”

“Paul, I saw a movie last night. Let me tell you about it. It was a western.”

“Bennis, just what the fu—”

“It was about an old gunfighter, a cowboy. Off teaching school. Suddenly his old outfit asks him to buckle his guns on again. Sure, he says, why not? Anything for the old outfit. But my, my, some strange things begin happening. To name just one, he goes out to see the widow of an old chum. All of a sudden, bingo, in the middle of the day, off he goes. And when two of his pals tag along, he ditches them very neatly. He knows what he’s doing, this old cowboy. Of course he doesn’t ditch us. Because we know what we’re doing too.”

“Where were you?”

“Overhead. Chopper. We had six cars. Nobody was with you for more than a mile, and the chopper coordinated it all. I was in the chopper, Paul. We’ve got quite a unit going on this thing.” He smiled.

Chardy looked at him. “Okay, so it’s a big deal to you. So what?”

“Back to the movie, Paul. Why’d the cowboy go to the widow? Did the cowboy smoke out some kind of link that might put the pieces together for everybody?”

“Maybe he’s just a sentimentalist.”

“Won’t wash. Then why bother to drop the Agency tail? Why doesn’t he want the Agency to know he’s a sentimentalist? In fact, there’s all kinds of things he hasn’t told the Agency. He hasn’t told them about his nephew in Mexico. He sends the nephew money, his own money, from his own pocket. Everybody else thinks the nephew is dead. Now isn’t that curious? What do you suppose is going on in the western, Paul?”

“I never go to movies.”

“I don’t either. Hate ’em, in fact. But I’m kind of worried about this old coot. He’s playing an awfully funny game. And we’re only beginning to catch on to how funny this game is. What’s the Agency trying to pull, Paul? How come they sent losers like Trewitt and Speight down to Nogales under Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms cover? How far out is Ver Steeg? How far in is little Lanahan? How come the Agency requested us to program our computer to kick out any dope on seven-six-five Czech auto pistol ammo? And, on the other hand, never requested assistance in looking for Ulu Beg? Our people are good, Paul. They could have helped. Except they would have had to ask a lot of questions, Paul. And maybe somebody doesn’t want a lot of questions asked.”

“They must hire you guys for your imagination. You ought to write books. Are you done? Can I go?”

“Oh, I wish you’d be my friend, Paul. I really do.”

“It’s getting late.”

“Just remember what happens to the solo artists, Paul. Give it some thought. This business eats up the solo artists. Frenchy tried to go solo, and he got waxed, didn’t he? And Old Bill, in the sewer. Teamwork, backup units, technical support, infrared surveillance, computerized files — that’s the ticket now.”

“Go back to the movies, Leo. There’s nothing anywhere that says I have to help feds poking around.”

Bennis smiled. He had a bland government-issue face, an office face, baked in twenty years of fluorescent light. He was pudgy, in his forties, with sandy hair.

“Paul, I know you think I’m just a cop. Right? A cop here to horn in on a wobbly Agency operation, a red-hunter, a security goon hungry for a bust. That’s what you think.”

“I don’t know what your game is. I just don’t want fifty guys crashing in on me. I have to work this thing out on my own. I really do. You want to recruit me? Sorry. I’m working strictly for myself.”

“Let me ask you, Paul, you think that kid can hack it down there? That’s bandit country. A cowboy like you, maybe. But that kid? That’s some first string you’re running. A beat-up old cowboy and a kid four years out of college, held together by a nun in Illinois, and up against you don’t even know what, except that you know people keep getting dropped, and nobody can get a line on Ulu Beg. You’re the one with the imagination if you think you’re going to get anything out of it except what Speight got. Here, let me show you something. Take a look at this.”

He handed Chardy a typescript with several lines underscored in red.

Chardy read it.

“Where the hell did this come from?”

“Came into Johanna’s apartment long-distance, the day after she died. We’ve managed to track down the guy that answered; he’s a Boston cop who was there as part of the civil investigation. He didn’t know anything about you or Ulu Beg or the Agency. He said he’d take the message in case he ran into you. But he never did. He must have forgotten. Cops — you can’t trust ’em.”

It was a wiretap transcript of Sister Sharon trying to reach Chardy with a message from Trewitt.

“He sounds like he’s onto something. And he’s in trouble,” Chardy said.

“We got it two days ago from one of your Technical Services people up in Boston who was closing down the tap on her phone. And our next step was to put an intercept on any Western Union messages that came through to you care of your old school. This just came through and it’s why we decided to bring you in tonight.”

Chardy read:

UNC WHERE YOU? HAVE JEWELS NEED HELP BAD BANDITOS ABOUT EL PLOMO MEX NEPHEW JIM

“El Plomo’s a town in the Carrizai mountains, west of Nogales, just over the border. The message was sent Tuesday by a Mexican national. It looks like Nephew Jim’s out on a very dangerous limb. Now we could go to the Agency about this, go to Miles Lanahan ano!—”

“No,” Chardy said.

“No, of course not. So what we’re going to do, Paul, is we’re going to go down there, yes we are; we’re putting together a little party tonight just for that. You see, Paul, we do like you. We want you to come along.”

“Then let’s go,” said Chardy.