January Justice (26 page)

It felt like late afternoon when I awoke. The bottle and the glass were gone. I stood and went into the guesthouse. The glass had been washed and replaced in the kitchen cabinet. The Scotch was capped and sitting on the counter. There was a lot less liquid in it than there had been that morning. My head was killing me. At least the headache helped distract me from my ribs, and all the rest.

I fell onto the sofa and sat there staring at the carpet. Why? Why had they murdered her? Did it have something to do with the other violence swirling all around me, with Guatemala and the disappeared? Was it something I hadn’t considered, something caused by factors or events completely unknown to me? Or was it random, like Castro’s irrational desire to see me dead?

I tried to focus on the new memory, to summon details beyond that dark profile and the stench of rotting fish. I wanted to see the man’s face, hear his voice, get some kind of hint that might lead me to him. I indulged myself in thoughts of violence, of putting my hands on him and causing as much pain as possible. But as I thought about the fleeting memory of him and that strange, awful smell, a kind of dread rose over me. I recognized the feeling. It had been a constant companion in the hospital. Instead of satisfying fantasies of revenge, my memories stirred familiar fears of being powerless, the heart of insanity.

It seemed I wasn’t strong enough for vengeance. Not yet.

I decided to return to the sweet distraction of the Doña Elena’s kidnapping and Toledo’s murder. And what had I learned? Not much. I had managed to get beaten senseless and nearly killed. The two-hundred-thousand-dollar mystery remained. I had no idea where to look next for Alejandra Delarosa. I had looked through every connection in her file, had visited her previous neighbors, her employer, her church, and her landlord, but nobody knew anything. At least, no one was willing to tell me anything. And after months of straining to get past my mental block, when a memory of Haley’s murderer had finally returned, the only detail was an awful stench.

I wondered if the smell was even real. Maybe it was just my mind playing games, just another residual hallucination, a metaphor aptly expressing itself. Maybe it was my subconscious saying, ‘You stink, Cutter. You’re rotten to the core.’ And so I was right back to thinking about losing Haley, and the fear began to come again. That helpless feeling.

Suddenly I was angry. I stood up. It was time to put a stop to this so-called recuperation.

I shaved and showered, and fifteen minutes later I was in Haley’s Bentley headed south. After a half-hour drive along the Pacific Coast Highway and the 5, with unobstructed views of the sparkling ocean most of the way, I arrived at the north gate of Camp Pendleton. I explained to a Marine guard that no, Captain Bud Tanner wasn’t expecting me, but he should put a call in to the chaplain anyway.

Five minutes after that, I was in Camp San Mateo, 62 Area, home of the Fifth Marines, the most decorated infantry regiment in the Corps. After his last deployment to Afghanistan with the Fourth, Tanner had been reassigned there for some reason.

I pulled into the parking lot outside the rust-and-ochre-colored, two-story building where Tanner’s office was located. A female sergeant held the door for me as I entered the building. I checked the registry on the lobby wall and followed the numbers to his office.

Tanner was at his desk when I walked in. He stood immediately and came toward me with his hand out. “Good to see ya up and around, Gunny.”

“Thanks, Captain,” I said, taking his hand. It was good of him to call me that, since they had busted me to private.

I looked around the office. I had seen Bud Tanner in a hooch in Afghanistan and a room in a stateside hospital mental ward, but this was the first time I had seen him in his own element. The office was larger than most I had seen in the Corps. In addition to the desk and chair, he had a credenza, a bookcase, and a couple of chairs for visitors facing the desk. The walls were made of painted concrete blocks. He had one window, which opened toward the parking lot, and beyond that a complex of low buildings, including Capodanno Chapel, where the chaplain led worship services three times a week. Near the chapel I could see another building where marines were trained with computer-simulated weapons to kill the enemy. Eternal life and sudden death stood side by side. I supposed it was the way of things.

At the other end of the room were a sofa and two occasional chairs, all upholstered in stiff-green vinyl. In front of them stood a low coffee table with a Formica wood-grain top. On each end of the sofa were two other small tables. A Bible and a box of facial tissues sat on one of the smaller tables. A pitcher of water and three glasses sat on the other. Tanner waved a hand toward the sofa and chairs, and we sat down across from each other.

He said, “How you been?”

“Pretty good.”

“Doesn’t look like it.” He indicated the stitches on my forehead.

“I got into a little more trouble.”

“Something to do with what happened before?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

He leaned back and crossed his right leg over his knee. “Tell me.”

I began at the beginning, with Valentín Vega and Fidel Castro and their story about wanting to clear the URNG. I told him about the friction with Castro, and the encounter at Crystal Cove with the two guys in the black Suburban. I described my meeting with Doña Elena and Congressman Montes, and I told him about the file Olivia Soto brought over the following day. I mentioned all the calls I’d made and the interviews I’d conducted in search of Alejandra Delarosa, at the apartment building and benevolence society in Pico-Union, the travel agency, the church, and the landlord’s office, and the beating on the sidewalk in front of the café. Then I told him about my trip into the mountains and the attack. He listened to it all without asking any questions until I got to the attack.

He said, “There were only two of them?”

“That’s right.”

“And you had a sidearm?”

“I, uh… I actually left it in the vehicle.”

Tanner stared at me a moment, and then he said, “I’m beginning to understand why we’re having this conversation.”

I had nothing to say.

He said, “Did you want them to kill you?”

I continued to be silent.

He uncrossed his leg, put his other boot on the ground, and leaned toward me. “You should have killed those guys, Gunny. No question. No contest. But you let them flank you and put three rounds in your vest. Why is that?”

I stood and went to stare out the window. The color of the hills had begun to change to golden hues. From my time at Pendleton, I recognized the effect of a Pacific sunset. “I’m not thinking straight, Bud. I haven’t been since the thing with Miss Lane.”

“How do you feel about the fact that those guys didn’t kill you? Disappointed?”

I stood there and said nothing.

“Are you drinking much these days?”

“A little.”

“Did you drink last night?”

“A little.”

“And earlier today?”

“I need it to stay calm.”

“What do you want from me, Gunny?”

I turned to face him. “I don’t know. Advice. Therapy. Something I can use.”

“I’ve already told you everything I know.”

“It’s not working.”

“Really? So God isn’t getting the job done for you?”

“I’m talking about that thing you said in the hospital.” I closed my eyes, shutting off the view of glowing hillsides. I spoke the Bible verse he’d taught me. Whatever is true, whatever is excellent… think about such things.

He said, “Solid advice in every circumstance. What about it?”

“It helped a lot at first, but it’s not working anymore. I keep thinking it and saying it, but everything is getting worse.”

“It’s not a magic incantation. I’m not a wizard, and God’s not a genie. You don’t just say the words, and everything gets better.”

“Lighten up a little, Bud. I’m just looking for some help.”

“I’m sorry. Have a seat, will you? It hurts my neck to sit here looking up at you.”

I went back to the chair across from him and sat.

“Okay,” he said, “what is it you want to do?”

The thing I wanted was impossible—Haley back, everything the way it was before—so I didn’t bother to answer his question. Instead I said, “You say I’m supposed to think about what’s true, but how am I supposed to do that when the truth keeps changing all the time?”

“Well, I’m pretty sure you’re mistaken there. The truth never changes.”

“Miss Lane was here. That was true. Then I let somebody kill her. Now she’s not here, so it’s not true anymore.”

“You’re talking about a truth. I’m talking about truth. Listen, this is important. You’re talking about rain. I’m talking about water. You’re talking about wind. I’m talking about air. Do you understand?”

“No.”

“It’s about faith, Malcolm. You have to have a little faith that this world isn’t everything or all that matters. That there’s a plan at work beyond our understanding. That’s what makes things true in the final, absolute, unchanging sense. Like air exists even though the wind isn’t blowing to prove it. Like water exists whether there’s rain falling or not.”

I was shaking my head. “I have to have something real. You don’t need to tell me this world isn’t everything. I know that. I’ve been outside this world. It nearly killed me. And the only thing that saved me was knowing there was something back here in the real world. Not pie in the sky. Something I could see and touch, something actually
there
, outside of me. I just need you to help me focus on that kind of truth so I won’t go back to being crazy.”

“You say you knew there was something real. You mean you knew that while you were still lost in the delusions?”

“Yes.”

“But how did you know that? When you were still hallucinating all the time, how did you know that anything existed other than the craziness inside your head?”

“I made myself remember. There were all these constant disconnected ideas and images swirling around like things picked up in a tornado or something, but every now and then, something would fly past and I’d think, there it is; that’s real. Hang on to that.”

Tanner said, “Let me see if I understand. You’re saying in the midst of your insane hallucinations, you decided to believe that some of it was real. You sorted through months of delusions and picked out a few thoughts or memories or whatever, and based on nothing but your instincts, or your intuition, you decided those few things were real and actual. And you decided to hang on to those things, and that decision is what brought you back.”

He leaned to his right, placed his elbow on the arm of the chair, and rested his temple on his fist. He considered me that way for a few seconds, as if I was a mildly interesting specimen.

Finally he said, “In the middle of the craziness you decided to believe something was real, not because you had solid evidence but simply because you needed to, and that decision saved you, actually in fact and in reality saved you, and now you’re seriously sitting there and telling me you have no use for faith?”

I stared at a spot on the wall beyond his head. When he put it that way, my logic did seem a little out of whack. “Like I said, I’ve been mixed up.”

“There’s no shame in it, Malcolm. Grief will do that to a man.”

“I let her down, Bud. She was counting on me, and I let her down.”

“Are you talking about Haley Lane again?”

“I let her die.”

“As I understand it, you were completely incapacitated.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“What are you talking about? Of
course
it matters. You do know that, don’t you?”

I found I couldn’t speak.

“Malcolm?” said Tanner. “Malcolm?”

I shook my head and covered my eyes with the palm of my right hand.

He leaned over and put a hand on my knee. “What was this woman to you?”

It took another moment before I trusted myself to speak. “What we talk about in here, it’s confidential?”

“I’m not a priest, and this isn’t a confessional, but unless I’m ordered to reveal the details of this conversation, you have my word it won’t go any further.”

“She was my wife.”

He leaned back in his chair and stared at me. “You and Haley Lane were married?”

I nodded.

“Oh, Malcolm. I’m so sorry.”

I had nothing to say.

After a few moments, he said, “You know, the press seems like it’s got nothing better to do than dig up dirt on that whole Hollywood crowd, and the Hollywood people seem to make it easy for them. But I don’t think I’ve ever heard a single negative thing about her.”

I said, “I wish you could have known her, Bud. She was magnificent.”

“Seems like I remember reading that she did a lot of charity work.”

“People have no idea how much she did.”

He nodded. “Okay, Malcolm, here’s what you do. A couple of things, actually. You listening?”

“Yes. Please.”

“Okay, first and absolutely nonnegotiable is this. You go on. It doesn’t matter what happens, you go on. No more of this suicide-by-bad-guy nonsense. If a hostile comes at you, then you defend yourself, all right?”