“No charge,” Sean assured him, as the officer dug into his wallet.
This was a ritual the two men went through on a regular basis.
“You sure?” Sergeant Fullerton asked, fulfilling his half of the litany.
Sean nodded and the policeman raised his paper cup in a toast and then brought it gingerly to his lips. As usual, Sean noticed, he had filled it too full. With a gasp, the sergeant snatched the brimming container away from his lips with a muttered exclamation. “Damn... that’s too hot!” Several spoonfuls of the steaming liquid sloshed over with his sudden movement and the policeman danced deftly away, avoiding getting any on his snug uniform. The stain the coffee made on the dirty linoleum was only noticeable for its gleaming liquidity.
“Don’t worry about it,” Sean murmured from his seat.
“No, hell, hand me some paper towels,” Sergeant Fullerton demanded. “It’s my fault... I’ll clean it up.”
Sean did as he was bid and reached under the counter where a roll was kept for just such emergencies. He tore off several and handed them across the counter. After carefully placing his cup on the countertop, the sergeant bent grunting to his task. Sean studied the bald spot that was developing at the crown of the officer’s skull. His own hair had remained full and thick through the years and only recently had streaks of gray begun to show themselves. People usually thought he was younger than he was.
Sergeant Fullerton’s voice came up to him a little strangled. “How come you’re always on midnight shift? Ain’t you got some seniority, or something? Been round here forever!” This last he said as he straightened up, his features flushed and congested-looking.
Sean caught a glimpse of his own face across the room, his head a pale balloon floating over the policeman’s shoulder. “Doesn’t bother me,” he said quietly.
“I can’t wait to get off night shifts,” the sergeant complained. “Damn things’ll kill ya!”
“It’s quiet,” Sean offered.
“Yeah, it’s quiet,” the policeman repeated as he surveyed the shabby, empty store. “Quiet until someone comes charging in here to rob you, and maybe kill your ass in the bargain. Couldn’t pay me to sit here like a fish in a bowl, waitin’ for some mangy cat to take notice!”
Sean’s gaze drifted downward and he whispered, “No, sir.”
The sergeant’s voice softened. “Hell, you don’t have to ‘sir’ me, Sean. How old are you, anyway?”
“Forty,” Sean answered, looking back at Sergeant Fullerton now.
“Forty,” the officer repeated dubiously. “You’re kiddin’ me, right? You don’t look no forty. Hell, I’m younger’n you! What’s your secret?”
Sean thought for a second, and then smiled. “I keep out of the sun,” he replied.
Sergeant Fullerton stared for a moment, then guffawed. “By God, you do that!” He chuckled a few moments more, then grew serious. “Listen, Sean, you been watchin’ the news?”
Sean shook his head. He rarely watched the news programs.
“How ‘bout the papers? You been readin’ what’s goin’ on in this area?”
Again Sean shook his head.
The sergeant studied him in puzzlement. “You ain’t just stayin’ out of the sun, you’re stayin’ out of life altogether. Maybe that’s the real secret.” It was the officer’s turn to shake his large round head. “Anyway,” he resumed heavily, “there’s a gang of some kind been workin’ our end of the state pretty serious. They like stores just like this one — open all night, lone operator in the wee hours, deal largely in cash. Get me? It’s not a snatch-and-run outfit, Sean. They mean business and they’re not leavin’ witnesses. They’ve killed three, so far... and they take the security tapes, the whole damn cassette recorder if they have to.”
Outside the store, a car cruised through the small, littered parking lot. As the headlights swept across the patrol car outside, they appeared to hesitate, then resumed the arc that meant they had continued on to the exit. A fissure of white gleamed through a broken taillight lens. Sergeant Fullerton, his back to the lot, did not notice, and Sean gave no indication of what he had witnessed. During the course of a shift, perhaps half a dozen cars would perform the same maneuver.
“So we don’t have a clue as to what they look like,” Sergeant Fullerton went on. “No vehicle description. Nothin’. But, they do shoot. The state police have recovered three bullets from the skulls of three night clerks... all small caliber. A ladies’ gun, a .25, I believe, and they use it up close and personal, execution style with a mean twist.” He placed an extended forefinger against the soft flesh that sagged beneath his jaws. “Straight up to the brain pan. The last thing those poor bastards got to see was their killer’s grinning face.
“I’m not tryin’ to scare you, Sean, but I can’t help but worry with you sittin’ on the edge of town out here.”
Sean was touched by the officer’s concern. They really hardly knew each other. “Well,” Sean ventured over a rising feeling of excitement, “it wouldn’t do to have Mrs. Fisher or little Megan in here for me.”
“No, I didn’t mean that,” Sergeant Fullerton continued impatiently. “Talk to Mr. Corrado about closing down early for a few weeks, until we catch these thugs. How much money can he make between midnight and eight that would make it worth it?”
Sean pretended to think this over.
Sergeant Fullerton studied his face as if noticing for the first time the vertical creases that ran from cheekbone to chin amidst the salt-and-pepper whiskers of the night clerk’s five o’clock shadow — as if it was occurring to him that, but for Sean’s vague, wistful gaze, a certain hardness might lie at the core of the man.
“I’ll mention it,” Sean lied. “But we make a lot of money up till about two A.M.”
“Not enough,” the policeman assured Sean as he wedged a travel cap onto the cup of coffee and turned for the exit. “I’ll try to get cars out here as often as I can,” he promised over his shoulder.
“Thanks,” Sean said to his own image as the glass door swung closed behind the sergeant.
Sean slept poorly that day. After the kindly policeman’s visit, a growing sense of alertness, a tingling, nervous energy, began to course through his veins. He felt like a person who had just awakened to a cry from another room, startled and uncertain as to its meaning. He was not afraid as a result of the officer’s warning, but excited the way he had been as a child watching a summer storm rolling across the landscape, its belly dark and full of lightning, the hot, humid air charged with menace and hidden meaning. So he was not surprised when he dreamt of Beirut.
The chaotic, crashing images of his dream would not have been recognizable as a geographic locale to anyone else, as they held significance only for the dreamer, but to Sean the very smell and taste of “The Root,” as he and his fellow marines had dubbed it, flooded his senses.
He stood on a third-floor balcony of the battalion landing team’s command post looking back over his shoulder. Somewhere to the front of the building he had heard the revving of an engine, and in the predawn quiet it seemed very loud. He was glancing back to see if the noise had disturbed any of his fellow marines in the room behind him, where most of his squad lay cocooned in their sleeping bags, but besides the usual grunts, snores, and farts of slumberous young men, they appeared unperturbed. This amused Sean and he smiled and turned away. The dreaming Sean smiled also.
As his dream self watched the coming dawn tint the Lebanese sky with blood, a crash came to his ears, and a splintering of wood. The truck, or whatever it was, sounded much closer. He leaned over the wall of the balcony in an attempt to see what was going on, but was rewarded with nothing but the sight of a few heads popping out from the bunkers and makeshift shelters that dotted the edges of the airport tarmac, swiveling this way and that in an attempt to locate the disturbance that had roused them from a Sunday’s slumber. From somewhere below him there was the crashing of glass, and he counted two rifle shots. A moment later, a sergeant he thought he recognized charged out of the building’s lobby and into his field of vision. Sean thought he had never seen someone run so fast before, or perhaps it was just an effect of the acute angle from which he watched. A husky voice from behind him called out groggily, “Dude, what the f — k is goin’—” The sleeping Sean sucked in his breath. This was when it happened.