Thai Horse (10 page)

‘I think I’ll just call that hand,’ H
a
tcher said flatly.

‘Maybe you better call Stenhauser first.’

‘What’d you do, Sloan, kneecap t
h
e poor little bastard?’

‘I just tightened his suspenders a little bit. He hasn’t got your class. He folds easy.’

‘As easy as blackmail comes to you?’

Sloan’s anger was beginning to rise, but he controlled himself. The smile stayed, the soft tone, the sincerity. ‘Okay, okay. I got off on the wrong foot. Look, you do this little thing for me, you’ll never see me again. I’m history. You’re forgetting, I taught you everything you know, Hatch. I’ll forget all about—’

Hatcher suddenly twisted the wheel sharply to the right, then spun it back the other way. The boat started to go into a tight turn, then just as quickly switched into the opposite direction. Sloan was thrown backward. He hit the bulkhead. The beer can flew out of his hand and was swept away in the wind, then the boat yawed in the other direction and he lurched forward, scrambling for his balance and falling to his knees in front of the cabin hatch. Hatcher pulled the throttles back and then jammed them forward, and the defenseless Sloan, once again caught off-balance, vaulted headfirst into the cabin and flipped halfway over, landing on the back of his neck. He scrambled to get his feet under him and started to get up, but the boat turned sharply again and he flew forward and slammed into one of the bronze wall panels. His breath burst out of him as the mirror shattered from the force of the collision. Sloan fell to the floor as shards of the shattered mirror tinkled about him.

Topside, Hatcher pulled the throttles all the way back. The boat died in the water, and he jumped off the captain’s chair and bounded the steps to the cabin. Sloan was on his knees, scrambling across the floor to his briefcase.

Hatcher moved fast, and, grabbing the briefcase, pulled out the .357. He tossed the case aside. File folders spilled out and their contents splashed all over the floor.

‘Damn it
—‘
Sloan began, and then felt cold steel under his nose. Hatcher stood over him with a Magnum pistol pressed against Sloan’s upper lip.

‘You taught me everything you know, all right,’ his
fl
inty voice snarled. ‘Trouble is, Harry, you stopped learning and I didn’t. Blackmail me, you son of a bitch.’

‘You got it all wrong!’ Sloan said, his smile finally vanishing. ‘Just hear me out.’

Hatcher shook his head
—
Sloan never quit. ‘Your ace in the hole is that fast mouth of yours. You could coax the devil into a cold shower. You lace it all up with your favorite words. Duty, patriotism
—
hell, you sell patriotism like Professor Wizard sells snake oil.’

‘What’s the matter with patriotism?’

Hatcher ignored the question.
‘The
trouble with you, Harry, is you do lousy math. O
n
e time, two and two equals four. Next time, it equals seven or twelve or eighty-two or whatever you want it to equal. Damn it, do you think you can frame me twice in the same lifetime?’

‘Just listen for a
—‘

‘Shut up,’ Hatcher snarled, his eyes flashing.

Sloan thought to himself, If I can get past the next minute or two, I’m okay. It had been a calculated risk, facing up to Hatcher. So Sloan shut up. He leaned back in the chair and Hatcher stepped back a couple of steps, holding the gun at arm’s length, pointed between Sloan’s eyes. Then Sloan’s smile returned. The hands went out, away from his sides again. ‘I was hoping we could have a friendly talk.’

‘Christ,’ Hatcher snorted. ‘You are something else.’

‘Will you listen to me? Give me ten minutes of your time and I’m out of here forever
—‘

Hatcher cut him off. His harsh
w
hisper took on a new edge. ‘There was a time, Harry, when the only thing that kept me going,
the
only
thing, was fantasizing about this moment. That’s what kept me alive, imagining what it would be like to have you in the squeeze. Right now you’re a trigger finger away from eternity.’

The smile faded a little but was still there. ‘Okay, so what’s stopping you?’ Sloan said boldly.

Hatcher ignored the question. You’ll be out of here forever, all right. I can stash you in the coral, the fish’ll nibble you to bits before you h
a
ve time to float up. Nobody’ll ever know what happene
d
to you.’

‘You could do that, but you’re not going to,’ Sloan said, confidently shaking his head.

‘I’ve done worse to better than you. Hell, you ought to know, I was working for you.’

‘You think I don’t know you’re n
u
rsing a hard-on two miles long?’ Sloan said, and for a moment there was almost a touch of sadness in his voice. ‘Look around. Did I come in here with the whole brigade at my back? Did I come in waving around a lot of iron? Hell, no.’

Sloan had spent his life studying faces, learning to recognize the slightest nuances: the vague shift in a muscle, the almost imperceptible twitch of an eyelid, the slightest tightening of the mouth, the subtle shift of focus in the eyes. They were all signals to him that in an instant something had changed. Then it was like having a fish on a line. Time to reel in. Hatcher was good about concealing his emotions, but it was there, Sloan sensed it. I’ve got him, he thought. We’re past the real touchy part. He leaned toward Hatcher and his eyes glittered as he put in the fix. ‘I’m here on a mission of mercy, pal.’

And Hatcher thought, Shit, here it comes. Now he’s got that tongue of his going full speed, now he’s on the con.

‘Let’s stop horsing each other around, okay?’ Sloan said. ‘So you’re tough and I’m tough, we don’t have to prove that to each other anymore. I know you, Hatch. I know you know I’m not here to get a tan, so you’ve got to be real curious. Why don’t you put that thing down and listen to me before you do something real crazy?’

Hatcher sighed. He leaned his gun arm on his leg. The pistol dangled loosely in his hand, pointed at the deck somewhere between Sloan’s feet.

‘Okay, let’s hear the part about the mission of mercy,’ he snickered. ‘That ought to be a classic.’

CODY

Sloan gathered up his file folders from the deck and put them back in order. He dropped one in Hatcher’s lap.

‘Read this,’ he said.

It was the service record of Lieutenant Murphy Roger Cody, USN. Murph Cody. Hatc
h
er hadn’t heard that name since Cody died in Vietnam a long time ago.

‘What’s this all about?’ Hatcher asked. ‘Cody’s been history for fifteen years.’

‘Fourteen actually.’

‘Fourteen, fifteen, what’s the difference.’

‘Read the file, then we’ll talk.’

Hatcher leafed through the
0—1
file. There was nothing out of the ordinary about the record. It began when Cody entered the U.S. Naval Academy in 1962, and ended abruptly when his twin-engine
OV-
10 crashed and burned while flying a routine search-and-destroy mission near Binh Thuy in the Mekong Delta, April 13, 1972. Cody had been assigned to Light Attack Squadron 6, Naval Riverine Patrol Forces, and had gone ‘in-country’ in July 1971, nine months before he was lost. There were two commendations for outstanding service and a recommendation for the Navy Cross, which had been approved and awarded posthumously.

Supplementary reports included a tape of the debriefing interrogation of two of Cody’s wingmen and the gunner of an SAR Huey crew that had tried to rescue Cody and his radioman; a confidential report by the MIA commission dated January 1978, confirming that no trace of Cody had been found;. a tape of the review board and the official certification of death in 1979; and another commission report filed when the crash site was located in 1981, reporting that charred bones had
b
een found on-site but were unidentifiable
—
they could have been the remains of either Cody or his crewman, Gunner’s Mate John Rossiter, or parts of both.

The only mention of Cody’s father was on the service form under ‘next of kin.’ It said merely, ‘William John Cody, General, U.S. Army.’ Not
the
Buffalo Bill Cody, commander of all the field forces in Vietnam. A typical bureaucratic understatement.

There were two photographs, a drab black-and-white that was Cody’s last official Navy photo and a five-by- seven color shot of him with his wife and two small children in front of a Christmas tree. The date on the back was Christmas, 1971, his last Christmas home. There were also some news clippings, including the announcement in the San Francisco
Chronicle
that
Cody’s widow, Joan, had married a rear admiral two years after Cody was officially declared dead. Cold, hard facts and not too many of them.

Hatcher studied the two photographs. He remembered Cody as being tall and hard with a quick laugh, a man who loved a good time almost as
much
as he loved the ladies.

The photographs prodded Hatcher’s memory, but twenty years had dulled it. Hazy incidents flirted with his brain
—
the good times, oddly, seemed the most vague
—
then there were other incidents, juxtaposed visions of Murph Cody, that were crystal clear. In one, Cody was the brutish sophomore, a hulking shape in the boxing ring, pummeling his opponent relentlessly, driving a youngster into the ropes, slamming punches in a flurry to the chest and face of the kid until Hatcher and another member of the team jumped in the ring and pulled him off. In the other, Cody was the penitent, showing up at the hospital later that evening, apologizing in tears for hurting the young freshman, who had two broken ribs and a shattered cheekbone, and sitting beside him all night.

He remembered, too, his own fear as a freshman of Cody, who had a reputation among the new frogs as a mean hazer.

‘When did you meet him?’ Sloan asked.

Hatcher thought for a moment as memories bombarded him. Opaque memories like the shape of a room but not the furnishings in it and faces without voices. Then slowly the memories began
to
materialize as his mind sorted through fragments of his life.

‘The first day at Annapolis,’ he answered. ‘I’ll never forget it.
.

August 1963. A bright, hot day. Hatcher and a half- dozen other frogs were lined up ramrod-straight, their backs flat against the wall in the dormitory hallway. It was their first day at Annapolis, and they were all confused and scared. Two upperclassmen had them braced and were giving them their first introduction to the cruelties inflicted on a frog, a new freshman at the academy.

The worse of the two was a burly midshipman with a permanent sneer named Snyder. Snyder hated all lowerclassmen. Because he had almost
b
usted out himself, he had no tolerance for them.

The other second-year man merely watched. He was tall, muscular and handsome despite features that were triangular and hawkish and made him appear older than he was. He stood at parade rest, never taking his eyes off Hatcher.

‘Look at these maggots,’ Snyder said, stalking the line of frightened young midshipme
n
. ‘Look around you, maggots. By this time next year
o
nly two of you will be left.’

He stood in front of Hatcher. ‘You’re the juvenile, huh. How did a delinquent like you get into Annapolis?’

Hatcher stared straight ahead, not knowing what to answer.

Snyder’s face was an inch from Hatcher’s. ‘What’s the matter, maggot, can’t you talk?’ he yelled.

‘Yes, sir!’ the terrified Hatcher answered.

‘Are you a maggot?’

‘Yes, sir!’

‘Are you lower than dog shit?’

‘Yes, sir!’

‘I can’t hear you!’

‘Yes,
sir!’

‘Awright, clear the hall!’ Snyder yelled. ‘Move it, move it, move it. On the double!’ And he laughed as they all scrambled to their rooms.

A minute later the tall cadet appeared at the door to Hatcher’s room.

‘Everybody clear out but Hatcher,’ he snapped and the room emptied. Hatcher stood as erect as a statue in his new uniform, his chin tucked agains
t
his clavicle. Cody stood very near him but did not look
t
him; he stared out the window at the courtyard as he spoke. ‘My name’s Murphy Cody. You call me
Mister
Cody.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I hear you’re a Street kid. Is that rig
h
t, maggot?’

“
W
ell, sir, I
. .

‘Yes or no!’

‘Yes, sir!’

‘I hear you were a Golden Gloves champion in Boston. That correct?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Cody looked him over. ‘Middleweight?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘You don’t look like you could break wind, maggot,’ Cody said and walked out of the room.

Thanksgiving, 1963. A cold, hars
h
-wind day. ‘Hit the wall, maggot,’ Snyder bellowed as Hatcher was leaving the mess hail and the underclassman assumed the position.

A dozen frogs had already fallen before the relentless hazing of Snyder, Cody and other midshipmen. Yet Hatcher felt that in a funny way Cody was watching out for him. Hatcher had surprised them all. While other freshmen broke under the rigorous schedule and hazing, Hatcher seemed to get stronger as the months went by. By winter he knew he would get by that crucial first year if Snyder didn’t force a confrontation.

Snyder had other plans.

‘Hatcher’s mine,’ Snyder bragged openly. ‘I’ll break him. He’ll be gone before Christmas.’

He braced Hatcher constantly, in the lower
classman’s shower, in the yard, in the halls, his comments always insulting and humiliating. Eventually it started to get to Hatcher.

Now he was at it again.

‘The academy is for men, maggot,’ Snyder snarled. ‘You’re not a man, you’re what we
u
sed to call a J.D. back where I come from. You know what a J.D. is, maggot?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I’m going to make it my business to run you off. You’re history. You don’t deserve to be an officer in this man’s Navy.’

Hatcher didn’t say anything.

‘You want to be an officer, maggot?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Well, that’s a joke. You don’t even have a mother and a father, isn’t that a fact?’

Hatcher didn’t answer. He could feel the blood rising to his face.

‘I asked you a question, maggot.’

Still no answer.

Snyder moved so close his breath was hot against Hatcher’s face.

‘You know what they call someone who doesn’t have a mother and a father, maggot?’

Hatcher stared straight ahead.
H
e fought to keep himself from trembling with rage.

‘Say the word,’ Snyder demanded.

‘Maybe he doesn’t know the word, Snyder,’ Cody’s voice said. Hatcher was staring straight ahead; and Snyder moved out of the way and sudde
n
ly Cody was staring at him.

‘Maybe he never got that far in school,’ Cody said. ‘Is that right, maggot?’ Snyder snapped.

‘Well, maggot, is that right?’ C
o
dy repeated.

‘Yes, sir,’ Hatcher said.

Snyder leaned over to Cody
and
said softly, ‘He’s mine, Cody. He’ll be Boston dog meat by Christmas.’ He chuckled and moved on.

‘You almost lost it there, maggot,’ Cody said sharply. ‘I was watching you. Now, you listen up. Everybody figured you’d be history by now, but you fooled us all. So don’t lose it now. Snyder’s trying to provoke you, and if he does, you’re gone. You took it this long, just keep taking it. Couple more months and you’re a second-year man and nobody can mess with you anymore.’

‘What’s he got against me, sir?’

‘He’s an elitist. He doesn’t think you fit the profile.’

‘Do you, sir?’

‘It doesn’t make any damn difference what anybody thinks, it’s what you think. And we never had this talk,’ Cody snapped and walked away.

‘You and Murph Cody were pretty close for a time, weren’t you?’

Hatcher was drawn back to the present by Sloan’s question. He stared at him for several seconds and then said, ‘Yes
. . .
we were at Annapolis t
o
gether. I didn’t see much of him after we graduated. He went in the air service and I went into intelligence. Why? Why the interest in Cody?’

‘You know how it is. The general never has gotten over his death. I guess he just wants to put it all in perspective.’

Hatcher’s eyes narrowed. Sloan was lying to him and he knew it. But it wasn’t Sloan’s tone of voice or expression that gave him away.

‘Don’t bul
l
shit me, Harry. You didn’t track me down and then come all the way here to chat about Murph Cody. You think I got stupid since I saw you last?’

Sloan held up his hands in a gesture of apology. The smile got broader when he was in trouble. ‘Hey. Please. Stick with me for a couple of minutes more, okay?’

Hatcher relaxed. He was curious and had nothing to lose by going along with the game, whatever the game was.

‘Well, that’s a long time ago,’ Hatcher went on. ‘Annapolis was
—
1963 to ‘67. I was in his wedding. That was...’

“Sixty-nine,’ Sloan said. He pointed to the records. ‘It’s in the file.’

‘Then I didn’t see him again after I joined the brigade.’

‘Why?’

Hatcher paused for a moment. ‘We had a falling-out,’ he said. ‘Anyway, Cody was tough at first. Big on hazing. It was
—
like paying dues to him. Cody was very big on paying dues. Maybe it had something to do with being Buffalo Bill’s son.’

‘How so?’ Sloan pressed on.

‘Well, you know, Polo had to measure up. As I remember, the general wouldn’t put up with any slack in the line.’

‘He played polo?’

‘Did I call him Polo?’ Hatcher replied, surprised. ‘Jesus. I didn’t even think about it just came out. Polo’s a nickname, short for Polaroid. Co
d
y had a photographic memory, could remember anything
—
faces, names, math formulas, you name it. Everybody from the old gang at the academy called him that.’

He paused again as new images came back. ‘Look, he was a good guy, very loyal, liked to raise a little hell—’

Hatcher looked back down at the family Christmas photograph. Somehow the man in the Christmas picture seemed smaller and sadder than the Cody he remembered. And then Hatcher remembered
the
Christmas holidays that first year.

‘—
and loved the ladies.’

Christmas, 1963. There was a light snow, just enough to call it a White Christmas and make being away from the Cirillos for the first time a painful experience. Hatcher was huddled against the wind, walking across the yard with his head down. Broke and with n place to go, he was spending the Christmas holidays at the academy along with perhaps a dozen other midshipmen. As he was crossing the chilly yard he heard yelling and what sounded like furniture being overturned.

My God, Hatcher thought, two of the guys are going at it. He ran into the sophomore dorm and up to the second floor. The furor was coming from Cody’s room.

The room was a shambles. Books, papers and clothes were strewn all over the floor. Cody was in a rage, stumbling around the room, yelling obscenities, tears in his eyes. He picked up his desk chair and, turning to the window, swung it back with both hands. Hatcher leaped into the room and grabbed the chair. Cody turned on him, his face red with drunken fury. ‘Wha’ the hell’re you doin’, maggot!’

‘Shit, sir, you’re going to be in a lot of trouble. The OD’s bound to hear you.’

‘Up the OD’s dick, maggot.’

Hatcher looked out the window. The OD was charging across the yard through the snow toward the dormitory.

‘Oh shit!’ Hatcher said.

He put the chair back and rushed around the room, straightening it up, stacking up papers and arranging them on the corner of the desk. He threw the clothes in the closet and closed the door.

‘What d’you think you’re doin’, maggot?’ Cody demanded.

‘The OD’s on his way over here,’ Hatcher said. ‘If he catches you drunk in your room, you’re gone, sir.’

‘S’be it,’ Cody replied drunkenly. ‘Teach ‘em all.’

‘All who, sir?’

‘Mm’ your own business.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Hatcher heard the front door of the dorm open and close.

‘He’s on his way up here,’ Hatcher said in a panic.

‘Who’re we talkin ‘bout?’

‘The fucking OD, sir.’

‘Up the OD’s
—‘
Hatcher grabbed Cody and steered him toward the bathroom. ‘What the hell’re
--‘

Hatcher shoved him in the bathroom and turned on the shower. He went back in the room and pulled the door shut. Then he went to Cody’s closet and got out a pair of shoes and a shoeshine kit. He could hear the officer of the day approaching the room. He started frantically shining the shoes as the OD pounded on the door.

‘Mr. Cody?’

Hatcher opened the door.

‘What’re you doing in here, maggot?’ the OD demanded, staring at Hatcher.

Hatcher held up a shoe and a rag.

‘Doing Mr Cody’s shoes, sir.’

‘Where’s Cody?’ the OD demanded, brushing past Hatcher and entering the room. From behind him, Hatcher looked down at the foot of the bed. A. capped bottle of vodka was sitting on the floor. Hatcher moved as cautiously as he could to the foot of the bed and dropped the shoe, waiting until it hit the floor and at the same moment kicking the bottle under the bed.

The OD whirled and Hatcher popped to attention. ‘Sorry, sir,’ he stammered. ‘I dropped the shoe.’

At that moment the door opened and Cody’s dripping head peered around its edge. He had a towel wrapped around his shoulders.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked sternly.

‘Sounded like a riot in here, Cody,’ the OD answered.

‘The radio,’ Cody said. ‘I turned it off. Get back on those shoes, maggot.’ He slammed the bathroom door shut.

‘Yes, sir!’

The OD stalked out of the room. ‘Just keep it down,’ he said as he left.

Cody came out of the bathroom. The towel was still wrapped around his shoulders and his hair was dripping wet. Water had splashed on his tunic. He walked into the room and looked around, got down on his hands and knees and reached under the bed to get the bottle of vodka. He sat on the floor, leaning on the bed, uncapped the bottle and started to laugh.

‘That was very quick thinkin’, maggot, very resourceful,
i
ndeed. Have a drink.’

‘I don’t think—’

‘S’down and have a damn drink, maggot,’ Cody said with a flourish and held the bottle toward him. Hatcher sat beside him on the floor, took a swig, and shuddered.

‘You’re a real case, maggot,’ Cody said, almost sneering. ‘I been watching you. You got a funny kinda attitude. What d’you call that, street ethics?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘You suppose so,
what?’

‘Sir.’

‘Right.’ He took another swig and handed the bottle back to Hatcher. ‘M’old man’s a soldier’s soldier, maggot. E’body loves Buff’lo Bill Cody.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Well, shit,’ Cody said with a vague wave of his arm. He stared down at the vodka bottle. ‘Think I’ll ever make adm’ral, maggot?’

Hatcher took another swallow of vodka and handed it back to Cody. ‘Is that what you want to be, sir?’

‘Isn’t that what this’s all about? This is the U.S. Naval Aca
de
my, maggot. We’re all suppos’ t’be admirals before we retire, didn’t y’know that. Isn’t that why you’re here? You jus’ tryin’ to get recest
—
respect
—
respectable?’ He chuckled at the tongue twister and passed back the bottle.

Hatcher took another swig of the vodka. The room was beginning to tilt a little.

‘I like the ocean,’ he said finally, handing the bottle back to Cody.

‘I like the ocean,’ Cody repeated with a snicker. ‘Jesus, he came to Annapolis because he likes the friggin’ ocean. Well, maggot, which ocean d’you like best?’

Hatcher chuckled. ‘I like ‘em all, long’s they’re wet.’

Cody laughed. ‘Tha’s very funny. But ‘s
indiscriminant
. You’re
indiscriminant
, maggot. Got t’be discriminating‘s part of what we’re doing here, becoming elit
—
elit-isss.’