Hit and The Marksman (28 page)

Radford doesn't have time to spar with him. He looks up at Charlie. “D'you know he was undercover?”

“No.” Charlie is scowling at Radford as if he doesn't like what he sees.

Radford says to him, “Hey. I didn't shoot anybody. They put the rifle in my hands.”

Don scoffs. “Sure. They. Who's ‘they'?”

“Wish I knew. Some people—gun club in a building on Broadway …”

“Yeah,” Don says. “I hear you sayin' it.” He looks up at Charlie. “Son of a bitch told a bunch of lies before. On Eye-rakky TV.”

Charlie leans over Don. “You'd have done the same thing, Donny boy, and you'da done it a lot sooner than he did.”

Radford drops the snub-revolver in his pocket and gets Charlie's eye. “You want to keep this character on ice a little bit? I've got to get some answers. Want to know why … Who did this?… Look, I got to hit you up for some moving-around money. A razor … Pair of scissors … And let me borrow your jacket.”

Radford comes out the side door from Charlie's Cafe, wearing a leather jacket that hides the police uniform. He's clean-shaven and he's cut his hair shorter, but he stumbles a bit. He's disoriented and in pain—that headache: again, still … always.

Charlie looks both ways from just inside the door. “You belong in a fucking emergency ward.”

“I could be putting you out of business here, Charlie. Undercover narc idiot could run you in, aiding and abetting.”

“Maybe he knows me better'n to try that.” Charlie's deadpan gives way to a wicked unamused grin.

“Yeah … If I'm still alive sometime I'll pay you back.”

“When'd we start keeping books on you and me?”

Charlie shuts the door and Radford trudges away.

He reacts when he sees—

The redheaded dealer. Still wearing those camouflage combat fatigues. Radford asks, “What outfit were you with?”

“Huh?”

“In the service. What unit?”

The dealer frowns. “Man, you got a problem or what?”

“Never mind. I—uh—I just want to make a buy.”

The dealer looks down at Radford's cuffs and shoes. Police blue and black.

Radford continues, “I need a painkiller bad.”

The dealer's gaze very dryly climbs back up from the police Oxfords and the blue slacks to Radford's face. “My man, I got nothin' for you.”

“Come on. I really need …”

“Don't they tell you guys about entrapment?” He turns away laughing. “Next time try to remember—eighty-six the pig shoes.”

Radford says, “Hey, you're wrong …”—and in his desperation he thinks about knocking the dealer over with the nutcracker—but now something stirs in the corner of his vision and he turns to see a cop coming in sight, a block away. The cop looks this way, and Radford shuffles away into alley shadows …

Later in the night the redheaded dealer crosses a silent downtown street and stops in a doorway to see if he's being followed. When no one appears, he walks on. Then, out of sight one turn behind him, Radford emerges from the shadows and dodges forward, cautiously following the dealer …

Inside Union Depot it's so late there's very little activity. The dealer stands at a magazine rack near the bank of lockers and pretends an interest in the magazines while he has a look around. He doesn't spot Radford, who watches him from a distance. The dealer turns, produces a roundheaded key, opens one of the lockers and takes a package out.

Radford is about to move in when—

The baldheaded officer and two other cops converge from three different directions upon the dealer.

Radford fades back just in time; in harsh disappointment he watches it go down.

The dealer sees he's trapped. Knowing the routine, he sighs and turns to spread hands and feet and lean against the wall. A cop frisks him. A cop unwraps the package and finds a thick bankroll. The bald cop takes it. He shows a picture of Radford to the dealer. The dealer says, “I know only one thing. My lawyer's phone number.”

“Okay, then.” The bald cop takes out a cigarette lighter and sets fire to the bankroll. The dealer looks on in horror as his money burns up.

Radford lurches through the dark streets, hammered with pain.

Under a sudden, hard, white light, a younger bloodstained Radford lies on a table in a spartan prison hospital—primitive; rudimentary. Iraqi soldiers watch a doctor probe Radford's head wound, look up at the soldier who interrogated Radford, and shake his head “no.” The doctor discards the probe, wraps a bandage carelessly around Radford's head and walks away …

Charlie moves forward and cradles Radford's bloody head in his hand. And now, to Charlie's amazement, Radford, horribly cut and bruised, opens his eyes to look at Charlie. He's alive on sheer will power, everything raw and bleeding. We see Charlie's tears as he reaches out gently to touch Radford's cheek.

Under a street lamp in the silent city Radford lurches on—afraid, confused, in pain—blindly into the night …

Conrad's parked van stands at the curb in front of a suburban house on an ordinary street. Inside the house, in the kitchen, Harry—clean-shaven now—takes two beers from the fridge and tosses one to Conrad. Anne is watching a TV newscast. She's worried. She glares at Conrad. She fidgets. “I want to talk to Damon.”

“Grow up.” Conrad pops the beer top.

Harry says, “We'll see Damon sooner or later … You're gonna stay here right now. Radford running loose, shit, God knows what may be going on in that messed-up brain of his.”

Anne says, “The poor son of a bitch.”

Conrad points a finger at her. “He's a trained sniper. A killer, and by now he's madder'n hell. He gets his hands on you, you won't feel so sorry for him … You just worry what happens if they get him alive and he talks. He ID's you—you're an accessory.”

Anne shows a flash of heat. “So are you, Conrad baby.”

“Yeah. Well you just sit here quiet till he's dead.”

“Jesus,” she says. “And I was once an honest-to-God fevered zealot.” She points at the TV. “Wasn't supposed to be this way!”

“No, it wasn't,” Conrad agrees. “Your buddy Radford was supposed to get dead.”

Harry tries to embrace Anne possessively. She pushes him away. “We started as good people. What happened to us?”

Harry says, “Hell, honey, you can't make an omelet without—”

“Oh spare me. I hear that breaking-eggs shit enough from Damon.”

Conrad says, “This country and the tree-hugger crazies were getting too close together. It had to be stopped.” He heads for the door. “I've gotta go.”

Anne won't let it go. “I bought the philosophy, Conrad—but I'm starting to think it's a hell of a way to preserve freedom and justice for all.”

Before dawn in a scuzzy downtown park—place of business for felons; home for the homeless—a cop prowls, exploring. A few derelicts sit at trash campfires, eating scraps, drinking out of brown paper bags. Others sleep under trees or in makeshift shelters or on benches. The cop gently straightens an overcoat over a sleeping woman with a small child. He walks on, past a huddled shape under rumpled newspapers. It lifts a corner of paper stealthily to watch the cop depart—It's Radford, shaking with a fever of pain. When he moves, his head hurts so bad he can't stop the groan.

In the bright light of an interrogation hut the younger Radford—his face an ugly half-healed scar—peers up without interest into a TV camera. An Iraqi woman clumsily paints pancake make-up over his scabs while a soldier holds up cue-cards beside the camera. On a black-and-white monitor Radford can see himself, and on the TV screen the make-up doesn't show; he looks puffy but not seriously injured.

He speaks straight into the camera with what seems to be peaceful calm. His eye movements betray that he's reading from cue cards.

“I'm sorry that the leaders of my country have picked the wrong side this time. I've seen the terrible destruction that's been visited on this little country by American bombs, and I feel ashamed. Ashamed of my leaders, ashamed of the petroleum imperialists who're promoting this war on innocent civilians. I don't want to hurt anybody. I just want to come home. I'm asking my government to reconsider—and to get out of this place where they have no business being.”

When he finishes talking, he simply stares unblinkingly into the camera. He doesn't stir. The monitor's screen slowly goes to black.

In the city park Radford lies in the night, hopeless amid the homeless. Something draws his attention and he turns sluggishly to see several cars drawing up over at the edge of the park. A dozen men in suits get out of them. Most of them carry shotguns or rifles.

Vickers gets out of the back of one of the cars. Behind him are the two FBI men and reporter Ainsworth. Vickers makes rapid hand-signals. The dozen armed men fan out into the park.

Radford, moving with agony, crouching to stay out of sight, staggers across a street threading traffic … and takes cover by a parked truck, and looks back at the park where the dozen men brutally roust the homeless people, shining flashlights in their faces.

Vickers and Ainsworth watch the search.

“Colonel Vickers, you really think this is going to find him?”

“Only if they get real lucky. The idea's to give him no chance to rest. Keep him tired out. A tired man makes mistakes … He's up there all alone without a net. He only has to slip once, and I've got him.”

Radford watches from behind the parked truck across the street. A government agent comes up behind him. Radford turns, looks at him. The agent deliberately takes a photo from his pocket and looks at it, comparing it with Radford's face.

That mug-shot of Radford shows him as he looked in a previous life. The agent isn't sure whether this is the man or not. “Mind if I see some identification?”

Across the street the dragnet is working its way toward them. In no time at all, somebody in that lot will be close enough to recognize Radford. Knowing that, he moves quickly as he takes out a wallet (cop's wallet) and flashes the badge at the agent, and feigns exasperation. “Move on, man, you're fucking up my stakeout.”

Embarrassed, the agent moves on. Radford reacts to the near-miss, and fades back into the shadows just before Vickers comes across the street and collars the agent.

“Who was that?”

“Some cop on a stakeout.”

“Shit. You idiot! Radford stole a cop's ID along with that uniform.” Vickers looks in all directions, fuming with frustration.

A big illuminated sign emulates a green beret. Sure enough its lettering spells out “GREEN BERET BAR.” On both sides of the door are glass-covered shadowboxes protecting posters of soldiers, guns, combat action. Radford looks up at the “bar” sign and hesitates, and goes in. His head is killing him.

Inside he walks past a hand-lettered sign thumbtacked to the wall: “WET PANTY COMBAT NIGHT!” He goes on to the bar. The place is crowded and very noisy—a lot of exuberant shouting. Several scantily-clad women seem to be dancing in some fashion on an elevated stage, and over the sound of heavy metal music he can hear men shouting:

“Commence firing!”

“Play guns! Come on, play guns, guys!”

“I said—Commence firing!”

At first Radford can't tell what's going on and doesn't care. He pays no attention to the raucous uproar. He gets a barmaid's attention and grits out the words in pain between his teeth: “Double vodka. Straight up.”

Then he waits, enduring his pain until after an eternity the barmaid sets the drink before him. Radford slugs it down fast and waits for a hint of surcease.

There's a tumult of enthusiastic yelling—finally he turns to see what's going on.

Up there on stage four women are dressed in tight T-shirts and skimpy bikini panties. They're wet. He sees bursts of water drops, and thin streams of water, coming at the women from the audience, soaking them. Not understanding, he shifts his gaze to the men in the audience—all ages; rough clothes mostly; blue collar guys. They're having a wild time shooting at the women on stage with water-guns that are look-alike models of real submachine guns and rifles and pistols. The guys aim and shoot—some with gleeful enjoyment, some in combat stance with deadly grimness.

“Shoot 'em in the crotch, guys—Right in there between the legs!”

Not believing what he's seeing, Radford squints.

On stage three of the women thrust themselves forward, pelvis first, grinning at the guys; streams of water soak them. The fourth woman—a little shy, scared—hangs back.

“I wanta see some wet pussy! Man, she's hot! You see that? I got her—and she likes it!”

Here and there in the audience Radford can see a few women, most of whom obviously have been dragged here by their men and would rather be anywhere else.

“Come on, Francine, you can't win prize money if you don't make like a good target!”

The fourth woman gives it a game try, pushing herself forward, but somebody's spray hits her in the face and she flinches.

The streams of water are zeroing in with increasing accuracy on the four women's crotches.

“All right! You guys shot like this in Vietnam, we wouldn't of lost the war!”

Unable to take this, Radford shoves away from the bar and flees out of the place.

He stumbles outside and looks back at the Green Beret Bar. “Jesus H. Christ.”

He disappears.

At some ungodly hour of the morning in the kitchen of Charlie's cafe, Denise Clay is interviewing Charlie while Dickinson examines Don the waiter's ID. Don is explaining, “I been working out of Vice …”

“Yeah,” says Dickinson, “so what do you know about this Radford son of a bitch?”

Charlie is saying to Clay, “Said he didn't do it. Said they put the gun in his hand after the shooting. And I believe it. I know him. If C.W.'d killed the guy, he'd say so.”