Seven Silent Men (5 page)

“Friday afternoon.”

“And the office here didn't get a chance to brief you, that right?”

“Only on routine procedures.”

“There's scant little of that to worry about … scant little of anything else.” Jessup's laugh was more mirthful than before. “Prime malady 'round here, in case you haven't heard, is boredom. Could be we're the boredom capital of America. Not lifestyle boredom, 'cause Prairie Port is the best place you ever could choose to raise a family and improve your tennis game. I'm talking occupationally. Occupational boredom. Diddly-dick doesn't go down around here crimewise. That probably accounts for folks disliking us as much as they do. We get cranky waiting for something to happen. When it does finally happen, we get overzealous.

“You take Ed Grafton. Ed's off on vacation now, but he's our senior resident agent in charge of Prairie Port. He's something of a local legend … a cross between Jesus Christ Almighty and Billy the Kid. Ed's been busting the chops of an individual named Wilkie Jarrel. Wilkie Jarrel's as potent a powerhouse as a man can get to be in this part of the country. Not to mention Jarrel being a friend of J. Edgar Hoover. Ed Grafton doesn't give a hoot in hell who or what Jarrel is. Grafton's a friend of J. Edgar's too, so he goes right on busting Wilkie Jarrel's chops. Not as bad as a couple of years back, but still bad. Ed just won't let Jarrel off the hook. He's like a man possessed about nailing Jarrel. Jarrel's no choir boy, but he's surely not worth the time and trouble Grafton's been putting in … unless there's nothing else to do. Unless you're killing a little boredom.”

Jessup pulled up to an inside lane and finally passed the Dr. Pepper truck … to Yates's relief. “Lord-dee-lord, does ever it get boring hereabouts. And I gotta tell you, the prospects for the future look none too rosy. Everything in this city keeps growing except crime. Right this instant in Prairie Port we've got a population nearly as big as Saint Looie. And guess how many FBI agents Saint Looie has?”

“Seventy-five?” Yates guessed.

“Eighty-seven and a potload of support personnel! Guess how many agents our office here in Prairie Port's got?”

“Thirty?”

“Including you, eighteen, and no support people except for a part-time typist who comes in on Friday evening … only Friday evening is softball night. Softball accounts for an awful lot 'round here. Grafton organized the team. Even if he hadn't, softball would account for lots. Bridge and backyard barbecues account for lots too. Anything to fill the time. If Prairie Port rolled over and died tomorrow, you could put on its tombstone: The Honesty Was Terrible. Where did they transfer you from? Ohio, wasn't it?”

“Cincinnati,” Yates told him. “I was assigned to Cincinnati and then loaned out to Columbus for a while.”

“The missus come with you?”

“Yes.”

“The kids too?”

“We don't have kids.”

“Couldn't find a better place to start than Prairie Port. Good neighborhoods, good schools, lotsa churches … almost no crime, like I mentioned. For boys it's 'specially good. Boys get all the regular sports plus riding and hunting and exploring. Even surfing. Surfing right here on the river. The Mississippi River has a freak midstream current running the length of Prairie Port and beyond called the Treachery. It's like shooting the rapids getting on it. Yes, sir, if you're a lad, Prairie Port is indeed a wondrous place. Tom Sawyer grew up just north of here. Hannibal, Missouri, is just upriver past Saint Looie. What kind of trouble did you get into back at Cincinnati?”

“… Why would you think I had trouble?” asked Yates.

“You're here, aren't you?”

“So?”

Jessup glanced at the placid agent, who in three-quarter profile reminded him of Paul Newman. “Don't you know about Prairie Port?”

“Know what?”

“It's Siberia.”

“Siberia?”

“Billy Yates, you've been exiled.”

Yates seemed not to comprehend.

“Prairie Port may be heaven on earth to little kids and aging FBI men waiting to retire,” Jessup said, “but for most of the other agents it's Siberia without snow. The Gulag. Elba. Banishment.” He reconsidered. “Well, maybe it's not the ultimate exile that can be imposed. Not Butte or Detroit. When they're not quite sure you qualify for Butte or Detroit, you come here. It's kinda Purgatory's waiting room. For years now, Bureau headquarters hasn't sent Prairie Port anything but misfits, rebels and crazy people. It's their way of getting back at Grafton for doing what he damn well pleases about Wilkie Jarrel and everything else. Headquarters brass won't risk challenging Grafton directly. Not with him being as tight with J. Edgar Hoover as he is. So they punish Ed with transfer agents. You have no idea what they've dumped on this office in only the time I've been here. We had one agent transferred down from North Dakota who swore he understood animals. Actually could talk to animals and have them talk back to him, like in that song Rex Harrison sang. Know what, we darned near solved a case on what he told us a billy goat told him.

“… We have another agent who's always dying and getting himself reborn. A regular Lazarus. Ain't that right, Brew?” Jessup happily called back over his shoulder. “A real live Lazarus, that guy?”

“Real dead,” Brew yelled out from under his hat. “Tell him about Mata Hari.”

Jessup grinned, said to Yates, “We got this other agent they call Mata Hari. He sees spies everywhere. Under the bed, in your soup. Thinks Washington is always sending in secret operatives to snoop on Grafton. Probably thinks you could be the latest spy working for Washington.”

“Looney-toon thing about Mata Hari is,” Brew's hat-muted voice interjected, “Mata's the only agent in Prairie Port who doesn't look on Ed Grafton like the second coming. Mata thinks Grafton's nothing but gloss, but he goes right on protecting Grafton against spies.”

“Yessiree, it's crazy time 'round here okay,” Jessup assured Yates. “So crazy even sane agents start going wacko. Grafton was born a little prairie-mad to start, so he don't really count, but not so Cub … Cub Hennessy, who was supposed to pick you up instead of us this morning. Cub's a real good guy and honorable mention All-American at football. He even played a couple of seasons of pro as second-string middle linebacker for the Saint Looie Cardinals. Cub's thirty-eight now and know what? He wants to make a comeback at football. Cub's out there every free moment hitting the heavy bag and pushing a sled like he was twenty years old and expecting a coach to call. That's real looney-toon, like Brew would say. Some folks think it's Cub's wife, Sissy, who's driving him to it. Only Sissy's one of the best wives and mothers ever, ain't that right, Brew?”

No answer came from the rear seat.

“Strom's even worse off than Cub,” Jessup went on. “Strom Sunstrom. Strom's the assistant senior resident agent here and solid as a totem pole. Strom's second-in-command to Grafton and the man behind the legend … the one who makes Grafton's image look so good, if you ask me. Without Strom, Grafton's shoeshine. Strom's about the nicest guy ever born and the most efficient. He keeps the office running smooth as oil. Now even Strom's gone wacko on us. Strom's seeing ghosts! Real friggin' ghosts!”

“And holding exorcisms,” the voice beneath the straw hat addended.

Jessup thought about Strom Sunstrom for a moment, noticed Yates watching him think, asked Yates, confidentially, “So who did ya hit?”

“Hit?”

“Slug. Belt? Punch out, to get sent to us?”

“You have to punch out somebody to be transferred here?”

“It surely does help,” Jessup said. “This is a very picky asylum. Very snooty. No matter who headquarters sends, damn few damned souls get let in. Technically, Grafton does the accepting or rejecting of transferees. When it's left to Graf, he usually goes for some hotheaded, looney-toon bronco buster. Nine times out often, thanks be to God, Strom Sunstrom makes the actual selections, whispers in Grafton's ear who to take and who to slam the door on. Strom favors the hotheaded and noble, but not looney-toons. Noble or chivalrous. I don't figure you for looney-toon. Give you odds it was your SAC back in Cincinnati you laid out. Strom cottons strong to SAC beaters.”

Billy Yates, for the first time during the trip, if only in bemusement, smiled. “You're the one who sounds looney-toon.”

“Oh, I am,” Jessup gladly admitted. “I'm the fella who thinks you're the spy Washington sent in.”

“You're Mata Hari?”

“In the flesh.”

“I'm no spy,” Yates assured him.

“It would be a helluva lot easier to swallow that if I knew who you slugged.”

“Isn't it conceivable I didn't slug anybody?”

“Young turkey, you're speaking to a member of the FBI. Granted not the youngest member, but even these weary old eyes of mine don't need specs to notice you're covering up the knuckles on your right hand … skinned and bruised knuckles.” Jessup winked a self-satisfied wink at Yates. “Could be, of course, that you're a slicky, that you're covering up them knuckles kinda awkwardlike with malice aforethought … so I'll think you're too inept, so to speak, to be the spy?”

“Mr. Yates?” Brewmeister, to be heard more distinctly, was holding the hat away from his face. “Might as well 'fess up to the fighting or he'll go on and on. Like Jez told you, his eyesight's not for dick. He wouldn't have noticed your knuckles in a hundred years if the assistant SAC from Cincinnati hadn't called up yesterday and told our office your personnel file hadn't been sent on yet … and to watch out because you pack one helluva wallop. Only problem was, he hung up before saying who it was got walloped. Jez has been skulking around like something wild and unwashed wondering who it could have been.”

Yates studied Brewmeister. “Did you hit someone to get here?”

“No, sir,” Brew replied. “I'm an exception to the rule. I requested to be transferred in. I come from Prairie Port. That's not to say I'm any less looney-toon than the rest of the agents.”

“So who got slugged?” Jessup asked eagerly. “I say it has to be the SAC or assistant SAC.”

“Neither,” Yates answered. “Cops.”

“You hit police
men?
In the plural?”

“Afraid so. Around Columbus, Ohio. Maybe that's why the Cincinnati office didn't have the details.”

“Details such as?” pressed Jessup.

“I broke one cop's jaw.” Yates was none too happy. “Did some pretty ugly damage to four more.”

“
Five
cops in all?” Jessup said in awe.

Yates nodded.

Jessup thought it over, frowned. “You bulling me?”

Yates shook his head. “Nope.”

“Let's have a closer look at them knuckles!”

Yates slid his right hand from under his left, held up the severely bruised knuckles for closer inspection.

“It's raw okay,” Jessup conceded. “When you say this happened?”

“Four nights ago.”

“Brew, you see that hand?” Jessup called back.

“I'm seeing.”

“So whatcha think?”

“I think if he hits a softball as good as he hits cops, we can take the county championship.”

Jessup glanced expectantly at Yates. “You heard the man, young turkey. How d'you rate yourself at softball?”

“Better than with cops,” Yates told him.

Jessup, unsure exactly what the answer meant, took a second, harder look at Yates.

“I'm good at softball,” Yates said. “Very good.”

Jessup laughed. Yates grinned. Brew smiled, then almost rolled off the rear seat as Jessup made a two-wheel cut back across three lanes of the superhighway, held on for dear life as the careening car, at seventy miles an hour, rocketed down and around a circular exit ramp. Reaching the newly constructed service road at the base of the ramp, Jessup accelerated.

Yates stared ahead through the windshield at the looming skyscrapers of the River Rise apartment project, some of which were completed, many of which were still under construction. An electrified billboard announced that River Rise was the “recreation of yesterday today.”

“So what caused the fight between you and the five Columbus cops?” Jessup asked Yates.

“Leave the guy alone for chrissakes,” Brewmeister said.

“I was only being neighborly.”

“Neighborly like a boa constrictor,” Brew commented.

“I wanna know,” Jessup insisted. “A man's got a right to know who he's serving beside in the trenches.” He glanced over at Yates. “So why didya bash them, young turkey?”

“… Ass.” Yates spoke softly.

“Ass?”

“As in behind,” Billy qualified. “I'm addicted to it. But only my wife's behind. My wife's name is Tina Beth and she's as blonde and tall and blue-eyed and beautiful as any woman ever born. No bosoms to mention. But my God … my sweet Jehovah … what an ass! I am slave to a high-slung Nordic ass. Any little wiggle, any minimal flex of her derriere and I fall to my knees panting like a puppy dog. I once followed her down the street like that in daylight. She loves showing me her ass as much as I love looking at it. Generally she loves showing it without clothes on, which is why we both got picked up back in Cincinnati … got nabbed bare-ass as Venus right on the front lawn of the Taft Museum. Then came Columbus, the Ohio State football stadium at two in the morning. We only got a warning on the front lawn of the Taft Museum. At Ohio State it was the real thing. I understand all my file record says about the incident is ‘mistaken arrest for justifiable exhibitionism.' Don't you love that phrase? Don't it just knock your socks right off?”

Jessup remained silent, kept his eyes hard on the road ahead.

“Anyway, there I was, chasing Tina Beth in Ohio State football stadium at two in the morning. I tried telling the cops I was an FBI agent and not to worry. I kept yelling at them to go away and leave us be. But what would you believe if you were a bunch of Ohio cops who found this stark-naked character scrambling, on his hands and knees, across the fifty-yard line after a naked lady's tail?”