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BACK NINE
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SMOKEY ENLISTS -- ACT 3
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The
only part that surprised Smokey the next
morning was that all three of them were uniformed policemen; he’d
thought there
might be some plainclothesmen, like Feds. When Austin’s Finest came
knocking at
VFW Post 22 the next morning, they were armed with search warrants,
Mace, handguns,
notebooks to transcribe their perceptions in, forms to fill out, and an
IP
address that had been traced to this building. The
near demolition of Hancock Shopping Center
the night before had caused great consternation in City Hall. Mayor
Victoria
“Rosebud” AA had been awakened from her slumber at 4 a.m. by an urgent
phone
call from the Chief of Police Manny Ramirez – or, if not awakened
exactly, at
least disturbed from her watching of the conclusion of “Barfly” --
thinking
that Mickey Rourke was actually a lot better looking than Charles
Bukowski, and
a far better actor than Matt Dillon, and Faye Dunaway was probably a
lot better
looking than any of Bukowski’s girlfriends, but who knew? – while
“Debbie Does
Alice” burbled on the little TV in the kitchen where Rosie’s husband Chief
Ramirez had felt duty-bound to inform the
FBI about this potential terrorist activity, only 30 short blocks away
from the
Governor’s mansion, even though he had not been on speaking terms with
the FBI
since that incident with the illegal immigrants in the trunk of his
cruiser two
years back. When the Chief mentioned “FBI”, he got Mayor AA’s
attention. The
teenaged Rosie had had a rather unpleasant encounter herself with the
Bureau
over a sack of something that she’d carried across the street for a new
friend she
met in the bus station on her first day visiting New York City. In
general, the
FBI was not highly regarded in Austin. But terrorism is terrorism, and
no one
wanted to be the one to be accused of not taking note when the flight
student
said he didn’t need to know how to land a plane. It
was the third policeman, Officer De Selby
Fox, who finally got to Smokey after a few hours of interrogation that
had
consisted mainly of Smokey having to repeat his answers three or four
times
because none of the policemen spoke Cedar Chopper, the native language
of the perdurable
clubhouse attendant of the Austin Golf Club. Officer Fox (about whom
more
later) eventually dragged the confession out of Smokey: That indeed
Smokey he
himself had been whiling away the wee hours by googling his way around
the
world’s vast array of Organized Information, when he had somehow found
himself
staring straight into the face of the Hancock Shopping Center power
grid.
Helpless as to knowing what to do, he had tried to escape, but there
was no way
out, it was like as if Kafka’s computer had frozen in
mid-hallucination, with
Orson Welles playing the Internet, it was frightening. So all’s he
could think
to do was to unplug the durn thing, and that’s when sparks started
coming out
of the wall socket and he knew he’d done something awful, but he didn’t
know
what! So he had gone to sleep and waited to see what tomorrow would
bring,
remembering his mother’s saying that “Time is the great teacher, and it
is for
us but to do nothing and learn.” The
Police searched the Post for the guilty
computer, but came up empty. They were impressed with the powerful
router that
drove the wireless network, which Smokey seemed not to have previously
known
existed. This was hardly credible, given Smokey’s obvious skills at
hacking
into secure sites. It seemed clear that Smokey had disposed of the
hardware.
Who had ever heard of a wired building with no live nodes? Smokey
was kind of worried that somehow these
brilliant investigators would find their way to his friend Rivers’s
granddaughter Trigger. He wasn’t really worried about them discovering
the
involvement of Paul B, the most junior senior member of Austin Golf
Club; Paul
B could take care of himself, as he had proved on many occasions in the
past
such as the time he’d called in a bomb threat to that bar on Burnet
Road
because they closed before he’d finished his pool game, and somehow the
payphone he’d used had turned him in and he’d had to talk his way out
of a
felony charge; fortunately the judge was a member of the Austin Golf
Club and
in fact had also been kicked out of the same bar some years earlier,
for some
unremembered minor offense like insulting the skills of the young
Korean pong
player, Young Pong. Fortunately
Trigger had left town that morning,
to compete in the finals of the state high school chess tournament.
Smokey
hoped she’d win so she’d have to stay away at least another day, to
attend the
awards ceremony. He thought about getting word to Rivers, but thought
it best
not to contact anyone. Smokey knew he was toxic for now; just keep the
head
down, things usually blow over. Officer
De Selby Fox’s routine was to be neither
the good nor the bad cop, but to hold back, wait to see how things
developed,
then to step in and go for the sale. His imposing physical presence
(6-3, 250)
meant that the perps would sit in fear of what he might bring to the
party, and
he used that anticipatory anxiety to let things build before he weighed
in.
After a couple of hours of staring at the interrogatee with a mixture
of sympathy
and skepticism, Officer Fox knew that the accused would have worked
through
phases of expectation and eventually come to utter confusion as to
where Fox
might be coming from. Fox
liked wearing the Austin Police Department uniform, but in fact he was
not
technically a member of the APD. He worked undercover as a policeman.
His real
position was known only to Mayor AA, and to his minder, Letter B, who
knew Fox
only as Letter E. *
* * It
took less than a day for word to come to the
sage of Austin Golf Club, Major Saul V, about the aborted attempt on
Hancock
Center’s life. As a connoisseur of subterranean activity, his interest
was
lively. And knowing the principals as well as he did, he was even more
curious
to know the details. But how to extract the relevant information
without
betraying the code of guerrilla warriors? The
Major’s concern was allayed without trouble
when an unnamed source gave him a fulsome report. Officer De Selby Fox
was the
name of the unnamed source who filled in the Major, within the context
of their
mutual though unofficial agreement to keep each other abreast of
notable
examples of aberrant human behavior. They
had run into each other at Les Amis that
morning, where each sometimes went for a lousy cup of coffee or one or
six
pitchers of beer. Fox told the Major that Smokey’s face had revealed
all. Except
one small thing kept nagging at the Officer. Each of Smokey’s denials
had only
confirmed the veracity of whatever accusation had been made against him
in the
interrogation room. Fox had seen enough lying in his time to know the
difference. But he had the feeling that there was one more thing to
discover.
It was clear that Rivers, Fats, and Paul B had been in the Post hall
with
Smokey; all were well known to Fox as unpredictable ne’er-do-wells from
their
previous minor brushes with The Law, and Smokey’s face had practically
recited
their social security numbers. But
wasn’t there something else, as yet
undeclared? Fox would keep turning it over in his mind. Maybe something
about
that dog at the Austin Golf Club? Hm, if Smokey hadn’t done the
hacking, who
had? Rivers? Fats? No chance. Paul B had never been known to use a
computer for
anything more than replying to Nigerian bankers who were offering his
long-lost
million dollars. That dog? This hound did seem uncommonly intelligent,
when Fox
had tried to apprehend her for leashlessness, before the City passed
the
ordinance giving Geronimo special license to freedom. Geronimo seemed a
more
likely possibility than Smokey, Rivers, Fats, or Paul B, but still, a
dog? Fox
resolved to file the thought in his come-back-to-later folder, while he
whittled away at other lines of reasoning. Whom then? He
daren’t mention his doubt to the Major; that
would be tantamount to inviting Major Saul to help Fox to unravel the
mystery,
which would be a violation of their unwritten code of how much to
discuss and
how much not. Practiced in the shadowy world of half-truth, each knew
how to
navigate around partial information and to speculate about how to fill
in the
rest. Later,
over pungent martinis in the clubhouse of
the Austin Golf Club, Saul V and Paul B got their heads together
(something
neither had ever been quite able to do on his own). “Looks
problematic for Smokey, I hear,” muttered
the Major. “Smokey’s
teflon. They wouldn’t give hard time
to an octogeneriast.” The
Major started. “They got him for that too?” Paul
B leaned forward and hunched his shoulders
even more than normally. It made the Major’s back hurt just to look.
“They
don’t really think he can hack into a secure site, do they? Smokey’s
never
touched a computer, except to push one out of the way when he’s
cleaning up.” The
Major nodded ruefully. “But they know that
Smokey is the door to something more interesting.” “That
damn Fox. You’d think he has something
better to do, like chase down loose dogs. If it wasn’t for that hound,
we’d
have had ourselves quite a news item last night.” “Paul
B, if it wasn’t for Geronimo, you and your
friends would be seeing a lot of Fox, and not the good side of him
neither.” “Look,
Major, we gotta get Smokey outta the
hoosegow. How much is bail?” “No
bail in terrorist cases.” (Another example
of the Major’s mastery of obscure facts, Paul B noted.) “I wouldn’t be
too
alarmed. Smokey’s been there before. He has a natural instinct for
gaining
favor with the guards. I think he learned it when he was a POW in Italy
in ‘44.”
Major Saul took a ruminative sip of his
cointreau/fresh-squeezed-lime/vodka
martini, known at the Club as the Major Martini, and elsewhere as the
Lime
Vicky. “The boy just has a knack for survival.” “Knack
schmack. He’s in it deep this time. I’d
be worried about him even if it wasn’t my fault. But I feel like I got
him into
this, I gotta get him out.” “Too
late for that, my son. Shoulda thought
about it before executing the mission. As we say in The Service, leave
the
bodies behind, especially the ones that are breathing.” “But
this mission wasn’t being run by your
Service. It’s my gig. And Smokey’s my friend. I mean, who else would
find me a
towel when they’re all dirty?” “I
don’t think it’s such a sign of friendship to
hand you a dirty towel that happens to be dry.” “Well,
nevertheless, you get my point.” “I
get you, but it’s pointless.” “Hey,
remember that Nilsson song about The
Point?” Paul B asked with a sudden burst of enthusiasm. “No.” With
that the subject had safely been changed, and their ability to
concentrate was
no longer being tested. The younger man – Paul B – and the older – Saul
V, who
was approximately 15 to 50 years older than Paul B – settled
comfortably into
an extended discussion that began with the pesky tree at the turn of
the 2d
hole, veered onto some satisfying complaining about the City’s
inability to
conduct nuclear attack drills in an organized fashion, ranged left into
condemnation of private contractors’ performance in the conduct of the
current
wars, and touched lightly upon the Red Skelton Show, the decline of
Martin Amis,
the barkeep Janine’s peculiar charms, the wonder of modern medicine
that the
two of them were still alive, and the perspicuity of the OT Special at
Dirty
Martin’s Kum-Bak Hamburgers (it’s the mayonnaise, stupid). By then,
after two
rounds, each doddered off homeward for the highly valued sustenance of
the
afternoon nap. *
* * Officer
De Selby Fox sat in his cruiser, parked
at his favorite spot outside a Methodist church atop a cliff
overlooking town
from the north, next to the radio satellite tower that had been climbed
by purported
members of the SDS back in ’69. Fox smoked a Punctuation, staring down
at the
town laid out below him, marveling at the variety of human malfeasance.
Why
would anyone want to bother to blow up Hancock Shopping Center? Surely
the
risk/reward was negative. What sort of twisted mind would fix on this
antisocial act as an objective? It did not bear the traits of Major
Saul, who
largely left his native nation alone, and kept his malefactions for
distant
lands where small interventions were required to tilt the climate in
this
direction or that. Fox doubted that Paul B’s imagination was up to such
a grand
scheme. Rivers, Fats, and Geronimo were dismissed in their turn.
Another hand
must be at work. Fox
sighed and let his mind wander. Where
would he take Janine for dinner tonight? (For the two were dating!) He
had met
Janine at the Austin Golf Club where she worked part-time as a
bartender. She
had offered him a sympathetic ear that day that he had gone a little
crazy and
sworn he’d seen his doppelganger out on the course, only to discover
that in
fact it had only been one of the fairly rare sightings of the ghost of
Harvey
Penick. He decided to give Janine a jingle and see what’s up. *
* * Janine,
for her part, was contemplating breaking
it off with Officer Fox, as she sat in the classroom of Highland Park
Elementary School, watching over her student teacher-led 4th-graders
while they apparently did their arithmetic. She loved Fox’s two boys
from his
prior marriage to Annaliese von Hoffentlich, the roller derby player
turned
aura consultant, in fact Janine would have been happy to take the two
lads on,
but she was less sure about Fox coming along in the package. Janine
idly wondered whether it ever happened
that a divorced parent would keep the kids and then remarry, then
divorce again
but the newly divorced partner keeps the kids; and the more recent
ex-partner
would then marry the kids’ other parent, thus making one of the
original parents
both parent and step-parent. She tried to work out in her mind the
brain-teaser
about whether there would have to be a same-sex marriage somewhere in
the mix.
It felt like an algebra problem. The transitive property might be in
play. She
thought about diagramming it. MP1
+ FP1 = C1 -
FP1 MP1
= C1 +FP2 MP1
+ FP2 = C1 -
MP1 FP2
= C1 +FP1 FP2
+ FP1 = C1 FP1
= parent and step-parent Where: MP
= male parent FP
= female parent C
= child Was
she attracted to Annaliese von Hoffentlich? The
thought startled her back into
attentiveness, in time to note that none of her students were doing
their
arithmetic but rather were engaged in a mass note-passing exercise. She
paused
to admire the dexterity of their secretive fingers, and the highly
synchronized
movement of slips of paper from hand to hand, with only the slightest
movements
of head and acknowledgments of eye, imperceptible to any but a 4th-grade
teacher. It was like a marching band at half-time performing in mime.
She noted
for the thousandth time the perfect precision and efficient sense of
purpose of
a 4th-grade class. All it took was a mission that was
against the
rules, and every manjack of them fell unprotesting into his or her
place in the
hierarchy of the understood order. Their innate sense of social
organization
made them a formidable fighting machine when it came to outwitting a
student
teacher. And
a substitute teacher? Forget about it. Let’s
don’t even go there, it’s too horrible to contemplate. The student
teacher had
the advantage of seeing them repeatedly over a period of time, which
gave the
apprentice teacher the chance to learn a few things about the pack’s
behavior,
and the little monsters had to acknowledge somewhere deep down that
this
20-something shared some of their DNA imprint and might indeed be
human, bringing
at least a slight sense of empathy, which the student teacher could
exploit for
survival. But the substitute teacher was just a piece of meat to carve
up and
parcel out at snack-time. There was no pity required for the substitute
teacher, who appeared and disappeared randomly, like the disembodied
bad guys
that flitted through video games with the sole purpose of getting
themselves killed. Actually,
Janine was pretty popular among the
10-year-olds. The Scottish accent went a long way. And they recognized
that she
really wasn’t that much older than they were; her passage to The Dark
Side was
not yet complete, and her vestiges of childishness (like getting
embarrassed and
turning red, or laughing when someone fell down) indicated that she was
not
entirely to be distrusted. At the end of the school day, they lined up
to give
her a hug as they filed out the classroom door – a practice observed in
only
two classrooms in the school – even all of the boys (who secretly
looked
forward to that moment of physical warmth with a woman who wasn’t their
mother
or grandmother or aunt). What
was it about Officer De Selby Fox that made
her think this was not the thing for her? She’d gotten over the fact
that he
was a policeman. He’d gotten his masters in forensic psychosomatics
from Sul
Ross State in Alpine, so he wasn’t dumb as a nightstick. He seemed to
feel
sorry for most of the people he arrested. Sometimes he helped them out.
He made
her laugh sometimes. He seemed to listen to her when she talked. She
was pretty
sure he liked her. But
why had his first marriage fallen apart? His
version of the story cast blame exclusively on his own side – the odd
hours of
his work interfering with holding up his end of the childrearing,
including
occasional unexplainable absences for a few weeks; his lack of
enthusiasm about
getting a cat; his failure to become interested in either roller derby
or aura
consulting; the list went on and on. What should Janine glean from this
input?
It made her tired to think about it. Maybe she just wasn’t suited to
commitment; no one person was that interesting to her. Superficial
relationships with lots of people, that’s the ticket, she thought, but
moderation with the casual sex. Her
cellphone rang as she walked to the parking
lot after school. Might as well git ‘er done, she thought. The
conversation was short. Fox didn’t seem to
want to talk about it. Hanging up, Janine recognized a very strong
feeling of
remorse. What did that mean? Was it just pity? She felt really sad. In
the pit
of her stomach. She could barely walk. She leaned against her car. What
have I
done? Made a good man unhappy. Well, I made him happy, I can make him
unhappy
too if I want to. Very cold comfort. She wanted to call him back. But
that
seemed stupid, after what she’d just told him in the even,
business-like tones
of the serial breakup artist. She hadn’t even done it in person! Guilt
joined
the sadness. With the guilt came resentment. How dare he make me feel
guilty, I
can do what I want! Like hurt a person? Rationality
spent, confusion settled in as Janine drove home where she would watch
chickflicks all evening and try to think of reasons why she’d done the
right
thing. By the next morning, she had to admit that she loved him. How
else could
she feel so bad? *
* * De
Selby Fox was not in a good mood that evening
when he next met with Smokey in the interrogation room, or meat locker
as it
was known. Fox was determined to break this man down, to get to the
bottom of
whatever was missing from the picture. He wanted to know the truth, not
because
he wanted to protect the law, or prosecute wrongdoers, but because it
irritated
him not to know it. It was an offense to his professional pride that a
case
would not open itself up to him with the full contents of its
revelations.
Smokey stood – sat, actually – between Fox and the fulfillment that
cracking a
case always brought. “Now,
Mr. Countryman—,” Officer Fox began. Smokey
wondered who he was talking to, then
remembered it was his last name. Four
hours later, it was over. The final
mysteries had been resolved. At last, Fox knew. And he knew what to do
about
it. He had known Major Saul V for years, and he’d cut him a lot of
slack in
that time, out of appreciation of the entertainment that Saul’s stories
provided, and all of the good advice that the Major had dispensed to
immeasurably improve the lives of so many that he had touched. But all
that was
over now. Major Saul V had gone too far. Trying to blow up a shopping
center
just because the anchor Sears store had refused to continue carrying
the
Major’s favorite brand of mosquito netting…this could not stand. Fox
would have
to bring his friend to justice. The Major was a menace, and society
needed
protecting. Fox was glad that he’d finally wrung the truth out of
Smokey… …who
sat in his cell, feeling a little bad about
selling the Major down the river, but he recalled the Major’s story
about the
time he’d been wrongfully accused of plotting to undermine Zapata back
in the
hills of Pharr San Juan Alamo, and he’d had to promise the passage of
the North
American Free Trade Agreement in his lifetime before they’d let him go.
Smokey thought
he’d probably put the Major in something of a pickle, but he knew the
old coot
would be cool as a cucumber and had the brine if not the brawn to peck
his way
out of it.
Dialling
the secret number, he reached Letter B’s
assistant, a matronly Mrs. Peel.. “Letter
A!” she breathed. Immediately
ordering him a car for the drive to Nuevo
Laredo, Mrs. Peel booked him on a military cargo jet travelling from
Nuevo Laredo
to Myanmar with a load of unsold Hummers for which the US Government
had paid
top dollar as part of a comprehensive bailout package and then had
found a
willing buyer in the Myanmar Government for two cents on the dollar.
The
friendly government would offer Saul the
chance to lie low and let things percolate for awhile, while his agents
would
set to work sorting out whatever mishap the Major had stumbled into.
Saul had
done time in Myanmar before, during the Tibetan revolution, and knew
where all the
golf courses were buried. ©
Craig Van Dyck Back
Nine
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