New Englanders are an intemperate lot, quick to judgment and faster to a verdict. It’s said that if a Bostonian disliked you, he was kind to you, but he was sarcastic with you when he did like you. The clerk behind the counter must not have liked the Polaroid of me because I had asked for aspirin to kill the onset of a headache, and he pitched the luxury fleet on the shelf behind him.
“We have Datril 500. The Duke recommends it. ‘Gentle on the rest of your system.’”
“I’m not John Wayne. Bayer will do.”
“We have Bufferin, and Motrin, which is also easier on the stomach, and popular with the ladies.”
“My stomach is fine, Mister. And do I look like a lady to you? I want Bayer, and I want it now, unless you want your time of the month today. Bayer is ‘Tough on Pain’ and that’s what I want, and all I want.”
“No need for the hostility.”
“What hostility?” I said. “This is me being nice.”
I wanted to throw him through the plate-glass window. He retrieved the small bottle and placed it on the counter. I paid the man. That’d been a lot of personal aggravation so I could throw two pills down my throat, and I hadn’t opened the bottle yet, twisted the stupid lid loose, or wrestled with the wad of cotton inside.
I realized that I was at his mercy again. I had to ask.
“This place have a water fountain?” He shot me the look of Mr. Gower from It’s A Wonderful Life, and it prescribed cyanide. I rattled the purchase instead and said, “Never mind. I’ll go choke on these outside.”
I stepped out of view of the pharmacy’s window and worked the child-resistant top. Congress mandated that bottles of medications should be childproof. Too many children have died from overdoses and, in the case of aspirin, from Reye’s Syndrome. I worked the lid, did the Push Down and Turn, to no avail. I interpreted this as the universe telling me that I’d been cursed with Canada because it was two Canadians, Dr. Henri J. Breault and Peter Hedgewick, who had designed the Palm N Turn Safety Cap.
I tried again and failed.
I’d read somewhere in Blind Ambition that Nixon had summoned the hotshot young lawyer and future author John Dean to the Oval Office, but not for legal counsel on any one of the disasters during his term. No. He’d handed the attorney a bottle of pills instead and asked him to open it. Dean looked down at the screw top and saw presidential teeth marks all around the lid.
At last, I succeeded and popped two tablets and swallowed them dry. They went down the pipe like the news about Hoban from JC. The aftertaste from Bill’s coffee wasn’t helping. With the conversation ahead of me, I thought of Delano and his Alka-Seltzer.
Hunter and I needed to have a soul session, a heart-to-heart talk.
I did the cold man’s walk to my apartment in Union Park. A wind out of nowhere walloped me, and a misting spray of rain insulted me. I passed snowbanks and frail trees, their branches trapped inside ice. Icicles hung like daggers from the roofline all along Tremont Street. Sometimes the ice moaned, other times, it didn’t, but when it fell to earth, it would shatter against the sidewalk and sound like a car crash.
The discussion with Hunter would be as difficult as our patrols in the past. We’d gone from gathering information to covert activities after Charlie built the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Laos and Cambodia. We would cross borders and snatch prisoners in both countries. We would do the initial interrogation of our guests and leave the rest of the conversation to the experts. It was never called torture when it yielded intelligence. It was like doing fractions at the blackboard when we were in school. You searched for a common denominator, anything for an advantage against the enemy.
Officers were attuned to another number.
Body Count.
Sun up. Sun down.
I turned the corner, peered down an alleyway, and saw two dogs having sex.
Whatever it takes to stay alive and warm.
Whatever it takes.
I knocked on familiar wood and waited for Hunter’s voice. I expected the “Who is it?” before he undid the chain and threw the bolt. He cracked the door open. I realized that before he widened the door, his foot had swept aside a pyramid of glassware. I slid in and closed the door behind me, and locked up. I tapped a glass bottle with my foot. “Nice alarm you rigged there. Primitive but effective.”
“Look who’s talking,” he said.
“Come again?”
“You reinforced the door frame and the strike plate. What did you use, two-and-a-half-inch wood screws?”
“Three,” I said. “You know how it is. Anything that gives you that extra second.”
“Knock or no knock warrant, they’d need a mule’s kick to breach the door.”
Hunter stood there, in a t-shirt and tailored slacks, his feet in dress socks.
“That’s the idea,” I said.
“What inspired the sapper in you?”
A sapper was army lingo for a combat engineer.
I told him the truth. “A friendly visit one night.”
I wouldn’t dive into the details of the night a federal agent ambushed me and Delilah in this room. He’d hurt Delilah, so I hurt him.
Hunter pointed to a chair. I savored the delicious irony of permission granted to sit down in my own apartment. I saw behind Hunter two weapons, a camera, and a book in Spanish on a table. I was familiar with the title and the author.
He chose a chair I kept away from the window. The lowered blinds limited the amount of sunlight, in a way a film noir director would’ve appreciated the lighting. Hunter didn’t miss a beat. “You want to talk.”
“I do. I’d like to know what you’ve been up to since we last saw each other.”
“I thought we covered this at The Dugout.”
“More like glossed over it.”
“If you think it’s necessary.”
“If you want me as backup, it’s necessary. Let’s start with I rotated out on the freedom bird. You said you did another tour, and you went ‘extracurricular.’ Where did you go? And don’t say, here and there.”
“After I completed my training at Camp Peary, I was deployed to The Americas, Central, and South. Satisfied?”
“Makes sense. You certainly had the bona fides. The Americas would explain the book in Spanish behind you.” I pointed to it.
“Las venas abiertas de América Latina. Eduardo Galeano. Have you read it?”
“In translation,” I said. “It’s the Spanish version of Howard Zinn, but more poetic. Let’s get back on track. Were you in Argentina?”
“No.” He held up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”
I was happy to hear he had not participated in the coup d’état. Thousands of people disappeared during the dictatorship of Rafaél Videla. Journalists were calling it the Dirty War. I moved on to other questions and destinations.
Next closest in chronology would’ve been to ask him about Bolivia. The US had taken exception to its president’s support of unions. He fled the country, was kidnapped, and his body was found under a bridge. He answered my question.
“Why don’t you cut to the chase and ask me about the place that bothers you most?”
“Chile.”
“Most people would’ve asked about the Phoenix Project, but not Shane Cleary.”
“I’m not most people. You asked me to cut to the chase, and I will. You said you came into town to settle a score. You said it was personal. I hope you’re not stupid enough to take on the Company, or are you?”
“It is personal, yes. And I’m not stupid. Want something to drink?”
“No thanks.”
“I’m a freelance photojournalist now. See the camera on the table behind me?”
He had relocated my kitchen table to the living room, where it served as his bench. The placement was strategic, the apex of a triangle that gave him a view to an entrance and exit. Whoever entered the front door or used the bathroom window to enter the premises walked into an ambush because the only escape was through the living room, into the kitchen, and out the back door. The table would act as a barricade. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had jerried alarms before he went to bed so the bedroom would not leave him inside a kill box.
“A photojournalist?” I said. “Okay, explain the personal element to me.”
Hunter said that he’d completed an assignment in Puerto Rico months ago. He was there to document life inside a minimum-security prison called Oso Blanco in Río Piedras. He discussed prison culture like a passionate anthropologist. He talked about inmates, their tattoos, often religious, and how every detail on a man’s skin was a summary of his criminal history. He named gangs using words such as Ñetas and Gusanos. He mentioned a Group 27. Some of these gangs were interested in a free Puerto Rico, in the island’s independence from the United States.
“Terrorists?” I said. “Explains why your old friends would be interested.”
“These gangs think of themselves as freedom fighters.”
“A cliché. Nonetheless, freedom isn’t free. It requires financing. What pays for it?”
“Cocaine.”
“You’re in the drug trade, then?”
“No, I’m not. Don’t be so quick to assume, Shane.”
“Habit.”
“I’m not into drugs, I swear.”
“The personal connection, please.”
“Pedro Gonzalez.”
“A friend of yours from the prison assignment?”
“He did his time, and he came to Boston to make a clean break with the past. I know it sounds like an After School Special on tv, but it’s the truth. Care to guess the rest?”
I rubbed my ear. “He came to town, but his friends back home didn’t appreciate his independence. Pun intended. My guess is your friend played some role in their enterprise before something bad happened to him. How am I doing?”
“Doing fine,” Hunter said. “Continue.”
“Their operation expanded, and they wanted to increase distribution and revenue. Boston is a major seaport, one of the largest on the east coast. He said, ‘No’ and they said, ‘You have no choice.’ Perhaps they threatened his family, or maybe he played along because he needed the cash. At this point, he started talking about leaving, or maybe somebody was worried someone would listen to him. Assets and liabilities were assessed, and Pedro ended up on the wrong side of the ledger and gun. Am I doing okay?”
“Close, but I’m curious. How did you figure it out?”
“Your comment about the two suits at City Morgue. You said they weren’t FBI.”
“I’m impressed.”
“Not as impressed as I was when I saw what’d been done to Pedro. My question to you is what is it that you want me to do for you?”
“Help me clear the foliage so I can see what’s in front of me. I’ll do the rest.”
“You’re the One-Zero, then.”
We stared at each other. A One-Zero was the patrol leader, the man who planned everything. Hunter’s eyes may’ve seemed warm and may’ve matched Paul Newman’s, but his face was as cold as Lee Marvin’s. I watched him rise from my chair. He walked over to the open door to the closet. He traveled light, with one suit and a few dress shirts. Never stylish, he avoided the latest fads of stripes, spread collars, and loud patterns. He picked a blue shirt. Like me, he despised ties. He kept his hair conservative as an IBM Man, parted to the side, combed back without the pomade. He geared up. He put his shoes on and laced up. I watched him work the straps and the weapon into his shoulder holster. He reached up and pulled down a sports bag, the small kind that could hold a change of clothes at the gym. He slid it over to me. “There’s ten grand inside. It’s yours.”
I moved the bag to the right of my leg. He said, “Aren’t you going to look or count it?”
“I trust you,” I said and pointed. “The pistol says you’re expecting an army.”
“Wonder Nine. Czech nine millimeter. Fifteen-round capacity. You?”
“Six-shooter.”
“You’re a revolver in an automatic world. You need to enter the modern era, friend.”
“Speaking of relics,” I pointed again, this time at the table. “What’s with the knife?”
“You ought to recognize it.”
I did. The blade blackened, and the steel blued. It was housed inside a sheath that acted as a whetstone to sharpen the weapon as it was withdrawn. It gave off no glare in the sunlight and was as good as invisible at night. The weapon was also unmarked, devoid of any manufacturer’s signature. Seven untraceable inches.
He fixed his cuffs. “I want you to know I had no intention of coming to dinner.”
“She showed up here, and you didn’t want to be rude. I get it.”
I took the small sports bag with me. He thanked me. Hunter may look like the stranger who came to town, but he wasn’t. He was Death without his horse because wherever he walked, people died. I know this like I know my own name, because he’d spoken the truth to Bonnie. I’d taught him everything he knew.