“To Bob Lee? Let me tell you something, son – were you in the war or anything?”
“No sir, I wasn’t.”
“Well, son, the only people that are interested in medals are the ones that are fixing to run for office some day. I went from one side of Burma to the other with General Merrill’s Marauders in 1943 and 1944, and the only man I ever saw who wanted a medal or cared about a medal later became the only governor of Colorado to be impeached. No, son, Bob Lee Swagger don’t give two damns and a jar of cold piss about medals. I’ve been out to his place a time or so and you’d be hard pressed to find an indication anywhere that this man was one of the bravest heroes our country ever produced.”
Somehow, that pleased Nick.
And that night, when Herm dropped by, he said, “Nick, you got any Charlies to butt on up to Beta or Alpha classification?”
Nick answered, “Yes,” and he had three names, men who seemed dangerous but whom he had not been able to turn up.
Bob Lee Swagger was not on the list.
At last he was out of the office. Sitting in a swamp, as a matter of fact, but at least, indisputably, out of the office.
He sat in the back of a Secret Service van, with Herm Sloane and his partner Jeff Till as Till, the expert, fumbled and cursed at a control console. The van was all dressed up with electronic gear.
“Not a goddamn thing,” said Till.
“Are you sure it’s reading?” said Sloane.
“I’m not sure of a goddamn thing,” said Till, a little neurotically. “All the lights are red, we’re on the right directional beam, but believe me, I am getting absolutely nothing but hum and static. It’s making me crazy.”
Nick let the two chums take turns cursing the equipment that flickered wanly in front of them.
Outside, there was nothing but bayou and hanging cypress and the swish and rustle of swamp water and small, mean creatures squishing through the mud. Somewhere three hundred yards ahead – at least in theory – there was a farmhouse that doubled as the headquarters of the White Beacon of Racial Purity, a rabidly antiblack group said to be floating around the fringes of the New Orleans loonies culture. These were fat-bellied white guys with tattoos and Ruger Mini-14’s, their favorite piece, far to the right of the Klan, good old, mean old boys who’d dropped out of the Klan because it was too dang soft. That is, if they existed. Nick was privately of the opinion that it was a policeman’s fantasy, or rather an easy out; any inconvenient crime could be blamed on the White Beacon, and thereby consigned to the unsolved files without much in the way of an investment in time or energy. He had once spent a week trying to get a fix on them, concluding that there was nothing but vapors of hate and rumors feeding on rumors.
But, on a tip that Sloane had gotten from a detective in the New Orleans Gang Intelligence Division, he and his partner and, as local representative, the reluctant Nick Memphis had come out well past midnight in the Service’s electronic monitoring vehicle in order to penetrate the farmhouse – no warrant was necessary if the penetration was done via parabolic microphone – and see what the White Beacon boys were up to, if there were White Beacon boys and if this was the farmhouse where they were meeting. Nick knew at least three sly old Cajun detectives who’d drink themselves goofy in merry recollection of having sent three Northern federal whiteboys out into the swamps for a night, listening to the cicadas. But he said nothing.
“It can’t be a goddamn overlapping signature,” said Till. “It’s just junk equipment. It isn’t even digital, for Christ’s sake.”
“Maybe the beam isn’t getting through the trees,” said Sloane.
“Maybe it’s the goddamn junk equipment,” said Till again.
But Nick felt as if he was in the space cruiser Enterprise, it was so high-tech.
“What’s wrong with the equipment?” he asked. “Man, if we have a big bust, we have to requisition our EV from Miami.”
“We been trying to get an upgrade for years,” said Till. “This piece of shit always goes into a zone two weeks before the Man does. But it was built in the sixties and it’s so far from being state of the art, it can’t even pick up HBO! It’s a piece of shit!”
“You need an Electrotek 5400,” Nick said innocently.
“Jesus, yeah!” said Till. “Sure, but I don’t have a million bucks lying around to spend on listening in on people. Hell, all I’m trying to do is protect the life of the president of the United States, that’s all. How’d you ever hear of an Electrotek? That goddamn thing’s top secret.”
“Guy told me. Said there were seven in the world.”
“No, they built five or six more. Yeah, wouldn’t it be sweet if we had one. Man, we wouldn’t have to go to this fucking swamp. We could go to the parking lot and tune in.”
“It’s the Agency and DEA that have them, right?”
“And certain overseas clients with very high and tight connections.”
“I heard some guys got them in Salvador.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me. No death squad would be complete without them. Meanwhile, guys like us who are trying to work for a living, we get a piece of sixties shit like this. Man, I think I’m getting Country Joe and the Fish on these earphones.”
Nick shut up for a while then, as Till jimmied and dicked with the equipment.
“I got something,” he finally said.
“Tape rolling?”
“Tape rolling fine. Ah, let me see if I can amplify it and bring it out…”
Nick heard a babble of voices chattering over the loudspeakers:
“You know, dem boys, dey be, you know, um, dey be hawmping in de woods fer ole gata, lemme tell you, um, dey be hawmping da swamps, shooooo-eee, boy, wif dem, like lights, you know, you know what I’m saying, lights, like, and when dem boys git in reals close, wham, wham!, you know – ”
“I hate to tell you,” Nick said, “but I don’t think those are the Beacons. Not unless they started an equal opportunity program.”
“Shit,” said Sloane.
“Man, what are they talking about?” said Till in wonderment.
“Gator hunting, I think. These old backwoods blacks, they go out late at night and attract gators with light, then bop ’em over the head with ax handles. Highly illegal, but they eat the meat and sell the skins and teeth. Poaching. It’s poaching. You guys want to bust ’em for conspiracy to poach? It’s three to five and it’s federal.”
“Shit,” said Sloane again. “I know that guy said it was thirty miles out Parish Five-forty-seven, then left at the dirt road for thirteen miles.”
“I think he was chain pulling,” said Nick. “These old Louisiana cops, you know, they love their pranks.”
“I’m going to report his ass,” said Sloane hotly.
“No, don’t do that. See, he’s got you. You can’t prove it was anything but real and if you make a fuss, you’re the one that looks like the ungrateful ass. Listen, my first year in Gumboland, I spent half my nights on wild-goose chases. This is what passes for sport down here. Those guys are sitting in the back room at The Alligator Club right now, laughing themselves sick, I guarantee you. But you did your job, right? That’s the main thing.”
“Christ, Memphis, you’re a walking testimonial to the human power to forgive.”
“It’s so much easier than being a hard guy. Especially in their town. Now I get along with them pretty well, because I paid my dues and never complained.”
“Ah, let’s get out of here,” said Till.
“Just think, Till, how silly you’d feel if you’d been parked out here in a million-dollar Electrotek 5400. All dressed up and no place to go.”
Both the Secret Service agents laughed, and then Till said, “No way I’m getting hold of an Electrotek unless I go to work for RamDyne, which I just might do.”