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Taking its inspiration from a true story printed in The San Francisco Bee newspaper.
March 12 was propitious for Penelope Johnson, resident of the palatial Johnson villa overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Seven years ago, her husband had been listed as Missing in Action in Southeast Asia where many of his black world associates had given their all in the losing political proposition later called the Vietnam War.
Francis “Odd Fellow” Johnson was Penelope’s husband. The most decorated combatant in secret US combat, he led the most lethal, cunning and witty twelve operators in the US Air Force special forces. On the day he went missing, he managed to exfiltrate the other twelve men from a shut-end situation in the deep jungle. As the rescue helicopter rose from the hilltop clearing, Major Johnson was still on the ground taking care of business with his bow and arrows even while surrounded by insurgents bent on revenge. His superior officer wrote him up for the Congressional Medal of Honor, but by that time the war was growing unpopular and the best medals were being reevaluated at high levels. Besides, the hero was MIA, an embarrassment to politicians wanting a tidy end to a messy affair.
As time passed, the search for evidence of Johnson’s demise continued at Mrs. Johnson’s insistence. Her brother, as a congressman from his district in California, helped her sustain her cause until he was elected out of office. Penelope never gave up the hope that her Francis would return one day. She gave no thought of having affairs with other men or speeding the process for declaring her husband dead. Her beauty and vitality had always been an inspiration to Johnson’s men. They formed a praetorian guard of sorts, in part, to protect her.
Penelope Johnson was not alone in her grief. Her son Timothy was raised to remember his hero father as a kind of demigod. Now that he was twenty-one years old, he longed to follow in his father’s footsteps by joining the special forces. In this he was encouraged by his father’s comrades, but they had motives that were not altruistic. Every one of those secret warriors harbored the hope that Penelope would cease the worship of her husband and succumb to the charms of another man.
She staved off their importunate confessions of love by letting the men lodge at her estate while they ate her food and drank the fine wines her husband had selected. She claimed that she would choose among her suitors on the seventh-year anniversary of his disappearance, provided he did not return. Now that fatal date had arrived with no sign of her husband in view. Hoist in her own petard, she wrestled with a promise she hated.
Timothy knew his mother’s anguish for she could keep nothing from her son, yet her escape from her grief seemed best for her in his judgment. Still, he too wished and prayed for his father’s return to resolve her difficulties. He wondered what his father would be like after his experiences abroad. Surely, he would not return a broken, toothless man who had endured slavery and starvation in an enemy prison camp.
The son decided to drown his sorrows at the Oasis Bar of the restaurant on the Santa Monica pier. He could not stay away from the estate for long: he feared what his father’s cohorts would do to enforce their “rights” according to his mother’s promise.
Sitting at the bar drinking a rusty nail and minding his own business, Timothy felt a huge hand descend on his shoulder.
“You look as if you’ve just lost your best friend,” a voice whispered in his ear.
“I might as well have. Join me for a drink?”
“Only if I buy,” the mature, bearded man answered. To this the young man shrugged.
“Suit yourself. Do I know you?”
The older man looked him in the eyes and held his gaze. The young man gave no sign of recognition. When the bartender brought the second rusty nail, the bearded man touched their glasses and raised a toast, “To life and honor.”
The men drank while Timothy ruminated that the toast was the motto of his father’s old wartime outfit.
“Were you a special warrior in Southeast Asia?” the young man asked affably.
“Perhaps. Tell me, do you know an estate along the cliffs that is owned by the Johnson family?”
“I’m Timothy Johnson. That would be my father and mother’s estate.”
“Do you live there alone—or are there others with you?”
The young man looked at his drink for a long time, and his grip on his glass stiffened.
“My mother is surrounded by my father’s warrior companions. They have the run of the place, if you want to know the truth. And today they fancy is their day of reckoning.”
“Is that so? Why might today be any different from any other?” The bearded man’s eyes were flashing now.
“Today is the seventh anniversary of my father’s having gone missing in action. My mother rashly said she would on this day select a second husband from her husband’s former soldiers.”
The bearded man nodded and said, “It seems an arbitrary decision to me. Do you think your mother will choose among them?”
“My mother is honorable above all others. She gave her word.”
“Yet she must have been willing to let her husband go after seven years of mourning. Still, she had to have some means of sorting out her suitors?”
“Indeed, she devised a trick or two.” The young man sat up straight in his stool and beckoned to the barkeep to fill up both glasses. “For one, the winning suitor must fire an arrow through an array of twenty spade handles arranged in a row. This task is impossible for most men. In fact, the test was determined by my father, who was the only man who ever accomplished the deed.”
“I see. And how might any man achieve this marvel?”
“My father’s one-hundred-pound bow is the answer. I sincerely doubt any of the would-be suitors can even draw that bow to his ear and let an arrow fly, much less thread the projectile through the twenty handles.”
“So you might have nothing to worry about.”
“You must understand the cunning of the warriors who ran with my dad. They’re likely to claim that shooting through the handles with a firearm is equivalent to using the bow.”
“Such a violation would give you license to settle the matter.”
“I’ve not been through the training or experience of my father’s friends. My mother forbade me to join the special forces where I might have gained the skills I’d need.”
“Can you give me an idea of the men who ae surrounding your mother?”
“All have killer’s eyes. By that I mean, they have the look of men who would have no remorse for killing another for the least provocation. I’m convinced they would rape my mother if she reneged on her promise to select one of them.”
“Do you have evidence that they would do that?”
“I overheard three of the men say they intended to do that very thing at midnight tonight if she did not make her choice.
“Were there any other prescribed tests?”
“Yes. The winning man has to assemble an intricate rosewood bed my father made but left in a hundred pieces when he departed for Indochina.”
The bearded man looked at the barkeep, who turned away. Then he took another sip of his rusty nail.
“Do you suppose it would be easy to assemble that bed?”
“I’d say it was impossible for anyone but its maker. It’s like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. One thing more: mother said the assembly must be accomplished in the space of an hour, which was the shortest time my father spent assembling it before he broke it down.”
The older man laughed. “All right. If a man could shoot an arrow through the spade handles and assemble the puzzle bed in an hour, would he be considered the winner?”
“Only if he could do these things when he had drunk a jeroboam of wine that my mother has kept specially for the night of my father’s return.”
“I’m beginning to like the cunning of your mother.”
“She’s only following my father’s explicit instructions.”
“You’re sure of this?”
“She told me so, and she cannot lie. She laughed when she described the ordeals. Then she wept at the memory of my father. She always said he was the only man for her in the world. When he disappeared, she almost died from grief. I know because I saw her through the worst of her despair. Since her recovery, she has never faltered keeping the home fires burning. I hope to find such a woman to be my wife, but she’s inimitable. I’m convinced the hope of my father’s return is the only thing that has kept her alive all these years. Further, I’m convinced she knows the nefarious designs of those special warriors tonight. I’m afraid she’ll take her own life when they threaten to rape her.”
“Tell me, son, whether anyone can vie for the hand of your mother tonight.”
“I don’t think anyone’s thought about who can and who cannot compete.”
“Let’s say that I want to be among the contestants.”
“You? Well, if you do, you’d better be among the best warriors in the world.”
“I suppose the tests would make quick work of me if I weren’t.”
“That’s true, but if you were competitive, you’d have to deal with all the regulars’ skills unaided—except perhaps by me.”
“Why don’t we find a table at the restaurant and have a late afternoon snack. Afterward, I want you to take me to your estate.”
Timothy and the stranger had a late lunch overlooking the Pacific. While they ate, Timothy described each of the twelve suitors minutely. The bearded man asked odd questions about the warriors. For example, he asked whether one man ever said, “In a hundred years, who will care?” Of another, he asked whether the man had a favorite French song beginning, “Vive le mort, vive le guerre.” He wanted to know whether a third was puzzled by the nature of power. Timothy answered in the affirmative in each case. He began to wonder how this bearded stranger knew these most private things.
“When you’ve lived among secret warriors as long as I have, you learn things.” He probed his lobster tail to remove a hidden treasure.
“How shall I introduce you when we arrive at the estate?”
“Just say I’m the odd fellow who took you to lunch.”
“Say that again, please.”
“I’m the odd fellow who took you to lunch.”
“My father was called the odd fellow.”
“What a coincidence! Anyway, that’s what you’ll say.”
Sunset was the signal for Timothy and the odd fellow to drive to the estate. Timothy was not challenged for bringing a stranger to dinner as the warriors were too engrossed in eating and drinking to pay the bearded man much attention. At the head of the table sat Penelope Johnson. At the foot of the table sat Timothy. Six warriors sat on each side of the board, and the bearded stranger sat at a small, separate table.
The feasting was accompanied by singing and boasting. The warriors regaled each other with stories from their past. The stranger remained silent, but Timothy kept him under observation in case he was up to no good.
After the feast, thirteen jeroboams of red wine were fetched so each man could finish the first part of the contest—if he could manage to do so.
One by one the warriors succumbed to the wine until only five remained. The stranger was one of the five, and he had a suggestion.
“Assembling the puzzle bed will likely require more than one good mind. Why don’t the four of you give your best effort as a team?”
The four others thought that a great suggestion. They worked for over an hour on their unsuccessful attempt. Since the stranger laughed at their ineptitude, they felt belittled. They demanded the stranger should assemble the bed. If he succeeded, his life would be spared. If he did not, they promised to kill him slowly.
The stranger turned over the hourglass and began. Before the last grains of sand coursed through the glass, the bed had been erected and no extra parts remained. The four soldiers were furious, but his suggestion that they return to the feasting hall for another jeroboam of wine caught their imaginations. The drinking took out two more men. Finally, only the bearded stranger and the man called Sergeant Marcel remained awake.
“It seems, Marcel, that you and I remain. All the others have succumbed to drink. I only have the advantage of having assembled the rosewood bed over you. What do you say we proceed to the main travail—the bow exercise?”
Marcel swelled with pride as he lifted the bow. Try as he might, he could not draw the arrow back to his ear. His feeble effort went through the first handle, but stuck in the shaft of the second.
The frustrated archer swore in English and French, but he could no better in a second attempt. He did even worse in his third. With a sneer, he pressed the bow into the stranger’s hands.
Timothy and his mother watched the stranger limber up to draw the bow. The young man noticed that the stranger had slung a quiver of arrows over his back. He wielded the bow with confidence.
“Marcel, as we are nearing the end of our contest, surely you can tell me what you and the others had planned to do to Mrs. Johnson if all had failed to pass her tests.”
Marcel winked wickedly and said, “We were all going to have our pleasure whether in her bed or on the ground.”
“What, good soldier, should happen to those who planned to slake their lust upon the paragon of womanhood?”
Marcel, emboldened rather than cautious, said, “All we ever bargained for was death. He began to sing his signature song about death and war.
The stranger nodded as he led Marcel to the opposite side of the array of spade handles.
“Stand here, please, to assure my arrow goes through all twenty handles. Let me know if I miss any.”
The bearded man then retraced his steps and drew his bow, with an arrow aimed down the line of handles. He let the arrow fly through the maze and into Marcel’s right eye, killing him instantly.
Penelope Johnson fainted straightaway. Timothy brought out a concealed revolver and aimed it at the stranger.
“Son, if you mean to shoot me, you’ll have to take the safety off. Meanwhile, I have work to do.” The young man fumbled with his weapon but decided not to use it.
The stranger shot each of the sleeping warriors with an arrow from his quiver. Timothy could not be sure, but the man seemed to mumble each man’s name as he slew him. To be thorough, he checked each victim’s pulse expertly to be sure he was dead. When he was done, he handed the bow to Timothy.
“Son, my job is done now. You and your mother are safe. If you ever have need of me again, just call the number on this card and say you need the odd fellow’s services. Now, I suggest you phone the police. You know the man who committed the crimes you’ve witnessed. Tell no lies. They would do no good.”
The young man made the telephone call as the older man passed through the gates of the estate and into the night.
The police investigation into what the newspapers called “the night of carnage at the Johnson estate” extended for four weeks before the murders were relegated to the cold case files. No sign of the stranger was ever found though a broken, toothless and homeless Vietnam veteran was found wandering the beach. Timothy and his mother shared a suspicion. They divulged only the facts and kept their private thoughts to themselves. When they were shown a picture of the homeless vet, both said the man bore no resemblance to the killer.
As the investigating homicide detective was departing the estate for the last time, he asked Timothy his opinion about what had happened, off the record. The young man said, “An odd fellow came to our feast and saved my mother from disgrace—or worse, she might have committed suicide. I might have shot the fellow after his first victim, but I had not taken the safety off my revolver. By the time I discovered what was what, the stranger was gone—he simply vanished into the night.”
The detective asked, “How can you account for your mystery guest having killed twelve of the best special forces our Air Force put into the field?”
“Detective, your guess is as good as mine. You must recall the men had all drunk much more than they could handle. I can’t fathom how the stranger managed to drink the same amount and remain functional enough to accomplish the other things he did.”
“Like putting the puzzle bed together in an hour? Like shooting through a sequence of handles into the eye of one victim?”
“Yes, sir. Can I be of any further help?”
“I’ll be in touch if you can. Meanwhile, please take my card. Contact me if you think of anything we haven’t already discussed.”
Timothy and his mother talked of nothing but the strange events of that night in March. The longer they talked, the more they agreed something extraordinary had occurred.
“I can’t believe your father was not involved. That stranger looked nothing like him, of course. He knew I hate beards. All those comrades of his, now dead, were bent on mischief, but we might have managed.”
“Mother, I overheard what those supposed friends of my father were preparing to do to you. They deserved what they got. I’m glad I never became one of them if all they could do is betray my father’s memory and your honor.”
Timothy tried to trace the telephone number listed on the card the stranger had given him. There seemed to be no such number on record. The area code indicated Lackland Air Force Base as a possible venue, but the young man had no way of penetrating that secret facility where it was rumored Air Force special forces veterans were hire when their disabilities prohibited normal kinds of work outside.
The statutory mandate about missing purposes having passed, Penelope Johnson could have chosen to marry again, but she refused to do so. She did receive entitlement to her husband’s estate. According to Timothy, she had vowed to remain faithful to her husband’s memory to the grave.
He did not follow his father’s footsteps into a martial career. Instead, he became a DNA forensics expert in the Air Force civil service to discover whether any of the remains found during or after the conflict in Southeast Asia provided a clue as to his father’s fate. In his heart, he felt he already knew the answer to his own question: he would never find evidence of his father’s death because the man was still alive. In effect, he had gone missing in action again, only this time instead of saving his fellow warriors, he consigned them to the fate they might have faced in Nam if they had been left in his place.
The problem of the identity of the bearded stranger lingered in the young man’s mind. Timothy wondered why, if the stranger indeed was his father, he had not remained to live with his mother and him. He reasoned that the penalty for murdering twelve so-called national assets would have blocked his return into civilian life. No jury would believe a self-defense argument in a court of law. So, to preserve his wife’s honor and perhaps spare her life, he chose to remove the danger in her life. He might have figured she would have access to his fortune after the seven-year period, but only if he remained among the missing.
From his maturing perspective as the son of a hero and a heroine, he decided to let the stories tell themselves without embellishment. He continued to frequent the Oasis Bar in the hope that a broad hand came to rest on his shoulder, but that certainly would not happen twice. Once on the beach the young man happened to see the homeless vet, who winked and held out his hand before he retracted it and snapped to attention with a salute, the toothless smile on his unremarkable face.
As for the odd fellow’s number, he has never yet needed to use it. In any case, he thinks it is likely to be a dead end or rather the vanishing point where he and his father will meet again.