| |
In his New York office, Bodin sat in a recliner, a duplicate of the one back in his New Orleans home. His personal assistant, a young, bearded white man with a shiny new journalism degree, sat next to him, poring through a stack of memos and reports that hadn’t been converted to braille. Bodin asked the other man, who sat across the room, “Who started these wars?”
The other man, a leather-faced, leather-voiced investigative reporter, said, “Arms merchants, manufacturers, dealers.”
“Yes, Fred, but who?”
“What do you want? Names? Addresses? Life stories? Prosecutable evidence? A bullet in the back of the head?”
“Yes to all,” said Bodin. “Except that last one.”
“As if I needed to ask. You know the old adage, ‘Don’t pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel’?”
“Yes. Mark Twain, right?”
“You want me to pick a fight with someone who makes guns by the shipload?”
“Sounds like fun. It’ll look great on your resume.”
“More likely my tombstone. Okay, I can get the story,” said Fred. “But I’m going to need private protection and money for bribes. Lots and lots of mercenaries.”
“Those I’ve got.”
“This is going to be some book. I hope I live to read it.”