He wondered if this Memphis were a part of it. Then he remembered the stunned surprise of the man, the slack, dumb look on the wide face, his squirming, the easy way the 10-mil came out of the holster when he reversed on him, and he doubted it. If he were one of what Bob thought now merely as “Them,” he guessed that this Nick Memphis would have been ready and waiting. Besides, he wouldn’t have left his car with the door open and the key in so helpfully there right outside on St. Ann Street.
There was a picture of the guy, a blurry thing snapped out front of the New Orleans FBI headquarters.
“Agent Memphis, who missed collar, hurries to car,” the caption said.
It was the same man, equally disturbed, this time with a grave and somewhat embarrassed look to his face.
You screwed up, and now these people are going to nail you for it. You screwed up almost as big as I did, he thought.
Bob read on, looking for answers.
But there were only more questions.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Here I am, Nick thought, in Arkansas!
He was sitting around the temporary bull pen in the Mena, Arkansas, Holiday Motel, wading through the oceans of paperwork that attended the task force’s relocation from New Orleans to Polk County, yet at the same time managing not to grieve too overwhelmingly for the passing of Leon Timmons, dropped by a mugger in a New Orleans alley two days or so ago. He wished it didn’t please him so and he wished the publicity – HERO COP SLAIN IN FREAK CRIME – would go away, because his own incompetence was a part of the story.
“You sure you didn’t smoke poor Leon there, Nick?” asked the ever mischievous Hap Fencl. “You know, in blackface, with a little throw-down gun?”
The others had laughed; they couldn’t mourn the braying Timmons either, who’d made the Bureau look so bad.
But Nick just smiled grimly and stayed on station as the operation’s prime goat. Outside the window, the green and thunderous Ouachitas rippled away toward Oklahoma in the late afternoon sunlight. He returned to his document, a witness sighting report from the New Mexico State Police; a motorist claimed he’d seen Bob the Nailer, big as life, tooling down the highway in an ’86 Merc. That was the common element in the sightings: as if Bob would be so bold to bull on through in broad daylight, sure his courage and his determination would get him through. These people were imprinting their own sense of Bob on ambiguous events and coming up with the strangest stuff.
The phone rang across the room and somebody else got it.
“Hey, Nick, it’s for you.”
Nick turned to the phone.
“Nick Memphis.”
“Nick, it’s Wally Deaver.”
A little burst of excitement went off in Nick’s chest.
“Wally, Christ, how are you? You got the pictures?”
“Yeah,” said Wally and Nick didn’t like the tone in his voice.
“It’s not him?” he asked quickly. “That’s not the guy you talked to in Cartagena? That’s not Eduardo Lanzman of the Salvadoran National Police?”
“Shit, Nick. That’s the terrible thing of it. I wish I could say one way or the other. I wish I could just tell you. But…I don’t know. I was only with Eduardo during the meetings which lasted maybe a day or so. Two days max. And a bunch of us went out to dinner, had a few drinks. I can’t say I knew him well. We exchanged cards, you know, the way cops do. Now these pictures – ”
“Yeah.”
“Nick, death doesn’t do anybody any favors. Maybe this is the same guy. Maybe it isn’t. It could be. It might be. Maybe it is. But…maybe it isn’t. You didn’t have the passport photo?”
“It didn’t look a goddamned thing like him.”
“What about any corroborating evidence?”
“Nothing. It all checked out, at least as near as we can tell. You know I can’t get budget to go down there. And the Salvadorans, they say they don’t know him at all, except that this is through our formal liaison with them which is run by the State Department, which means it’s got to go through so many layers – ”
“Yeah, that’s why I bailed out, Nick. So many layers. Look, Nick, to be fair, it’s a pretty dead horse without corroborating evidence. I mean, in good conscience, I couldn’t go before a grand jury and – ”
“Yeah, sure, I understand.”
“Great.”
“But tell me this. It could be. Just maybe, just somehow? At the outside.”
“Okay, Nick. Yeah, yeah. It could be.”
“Great, Wally.”
“But Nick. Don’t bet your career on it.”
“Sure,” said Nick. “I won’t.”
But he realized he already had.
She was rebandaging him.
“You must be a very tough guy, Sergeant Swagger. Looks to me like there isn’t a weapon made they haven’t tried out on your hide. You’re a one-man proving ground.”
“They had some fun with me, ma’am.”
“I count – what, four gunshot wounds? Old gunshot wounds, that is. As opposed to the two new gunshot wounds, which resulted in three holes. The hole total comes out to – five? Six? You’re a piece of Swiss cheese, Sergeant.”
“I was only hit three times. Twice the first tour, none the second, then the bad one, the bullet in the hip that ended the third tour. They had to glue and wire the whole gizmo back together again. Don’t know how they did such a thing. I thought I was set for the wheelchair my whole life. And that one old hole isn’t a bullet.”
“What is it?”
“You’re not going to believe this. It’s from a curtain rod.”
“Oh, now there’s a new weapon. Your wife, I presume, and I’ll bet you gave her very good reason.”
He laughed.
“My aunt. My mother’s sister. A sweet woman. I was helping her in the farmhouse. 1954. I was eight. She lost her balance and the curtain rod she was hanging fell and she fell on top of it and it went through my side. It didn’t hurt much. Bled a lot, didn’t hurt much.”
“I’ll bet.”
“That was before my daddy died. The year before. It was a happy year, I remember. Now let me ask you: How long before you think I’ll be able to get out of here? The longer I’m here the more danger I’m putting you in.”
“Another few weeks. Don’t worry. The neighbors have seen men live here before. I’ve been around the block a few times myself.”
He just nodded blankly. This didn’t please him, though he didn’t want to face it.
“How long has it been?” she said.
Since when? he wondered.
“You don’t even know what it’s called anymore? You know. With a woman. Wo-man. Female.”
“Oh, that? I don’t know.”
“A month? A year? Ten years?”
“Not ten years. More than a year. I’m not sure.”
“You could live without it that easily?”
“I had other things to keep me busy.”
“I don’t believe you.”
He paused, considering it.
“I didn’t want the complications. Someone said, ‘Simplify, simplify.’ ”
“Ann Landers?”
“No,” he said earnestly, “it was some old guy called Thoreau. He went and lived by himself, too, as I understand it. Anyway. I wanted to simplify. No wants, no needs, no hungers. Only rifles. Crazy as hell now that I think of it.”
“So you went off and became Henry Thoreau of Walden, Arkansas?” Julie said.
“I was at my best with a rifle in my hand. I always loved rifles. So I decided to live in such a way that the rifle would be all I needed. And I succeeded.”
“Were you happy up there in your trailer in the mountains without any people?”