Dark Sky (The Misadventures of Max Bowman Book 1) (4 page)

The old chief replied, “Your men die. My men die. No good.”

That summed things up.

As I approached the front row, the movie suddenly stopped and the house lights came up. The old man got unsteadily to his feet and let out a little cough.

I was face-to-face with General “Devil-Eyes” Donald Davidson.

General Davidson was one of those war generals that the public glommed onto and built into a mythic status, another one of America’s endless succession of John Waynes – Patton, MacArthur, you know the names. Davidson made his name during the first Iraq War, Operation Desert Storm, back in 1990, along with General “Stormin’” Norman Schwarzkopf.

But, while Schwarzkopf threw off the aura of a big friendly teddy bear, albeit a teddy bear who commanded 700,000 soldiers, Davidson was a fearsome figure whose nickname reflected the cold, hard stare he threw at anybody he thought was less than they should be. After that first Iraq War, Davidson wrote a couple of best-sellers (or, more likely, somebody wrote them for him) and he later became a highly-paid commentator on Fox News. That last gig didn’t last long, because he was too straight a dealer for cable news’ phony outrage. Still, he had made plenty on the speaking circuit and obviously, from the looks of this place and his daughter, he had a few bucks in the bank.

I knew all this from reviewing his Wikipedia page. I didn’t have a lot of time to do all the research I usually do before meeting up with somebody this high-profile – fuck, he was the most high-profile guy I ever had to have a conversation with – but I found out enough to get a sense of him. He was retired now, and hadn’t been seen in public in years. There were rumors of health problems – and the man standing before me in his solid black silk pajamas and matching bathrobe was in fact a shadow of what I remembered him looking like. He used to look like Clint Eastwood in his older Dirty Harry days – now he seemed closer to Barney Fife on Weight Watchers. He was bone thin and looked older than dirt.

He thrust out his hand, which demanded to be shook. I complied with orders.

“An honor to meet you, sir. I’m Max Bowman.”

“You’re older than I thought you would be,” his sandpaper voice let me know.

“That’s a common reaction these days, sir.”

He didn’t smile, but his eyes indicated he appreciated my comeback. He sat back in his chair, where I saw he had his own customized control panel for the room built into its arm. I had the feeling he spent a lot of time in here. He glanced back at the now-darkened screen.

“I love that movie.”

“
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
. The middle leg of John Ford’s cavalry trilogy. And the only one in color.”

This time he did smile. I was finally doing well in the principal’s office.

“I love ‘em all. Well, the first two, anyway.”

“Ford only did the third one for the money, sir.”

“Is that right?”

“
Rio Grande
. Yessir.” I was winning at Trivia Night too.

“Explains a lot.”

“My father worked with Ford, so I’ve seen them all. He saw to it when I was a kid.”

“Your father worked in movies?”

“No, sir, he worked in the O.S.S. during the war – Ford did some documentaries with that group during the war.”

“He did
The Battle of Midway
, correct?”

“Yes sir. My father said he was the greatest artist who ever lived. When he wasn’t drunk.”

Suddenly, he looked angry, but not at me. “Ford understood the military better than any other director. All of his service movies…they reflect military purity. Do you understand military purity, Mr. Bowman?”

“I think so, sir.”

“Tell me what you consider it to be, Bowman.” A command. I knew, because he was this close to throwing a “Private” in front of my last name and that almost made me chuckle, an impulse that quickly vanished once I realized I had been given an assignment by a beloved American hero.

I took a breath.

“Well…these are men entrusted with a sacred duty that forces them to take others’ lives as well as put their own at risk. And that duty should not be compromised by political schemes, lies or a simple thirst for blood. The military should be entrusted with a mission, a justified and moral mission, and the military should be given the responsibility to carry it out according to its finest traditions.”

Wait – did I really just fucking say all that?  I thought I must have – because, judging by the old man’s face, I had just transformed into John Wayne myself.

“You think about things, don’t you, Bowman?”

“Yessir. A lot more than I realized, apparently.”

“Then you probably know this country hasn’t experienced military purity since 1945. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan…there wasn’t much of a reason for any of that.”

That explained why he didn’t work out at Fox News.

“Sit down,” he commanded again. “We have some things to go through.”

I did as he requested and left a seat in between him and me. That’s what guys alone in a theatre do unless they’re looking for a dance partner. He stared straight ahead, I leaned towards him and eyed the side of his withered face.

“Do you have children, Bowman?”

“Yessir.”

“Drop the ‘sir.”

“Yes…”

“Do you ever have misunderstandings with your children?”

“No. They don’t talk to me so there’s nothing to be misunderstood.”

He turned to me. I was another step closer to being in his club, whatever it was all about.

“So you understand it. You saw for yourself how conflicts can develop. You know how a family can start out with the best intentions and lose its way.”

“On both sides, General.”

“Both sides?”

“My kids don’t talk to me and my father disowned me.”

He turned and stared straight ahead again.

“I see. That must have been very painful for you.”

I said nothing. There was nothing to say without saying everything and that would take much longer than either of us had the patience for.

“But it says something about you. You won’t be controlled, will you?”

I shrugged, but doubted he could see it.

“Anyway, you did a good job for me a few years ago. That’s why you’re in here.”

My hair went up again. “I did a job for you?”

“Through the Agency. You found a couple of retired officers I was trying to track down. I needed to reach out to them on a private matter.”

“I remember that. It was actually a very easy job, but thank you.”

The door to the screening room opened and Angela entered carrying two drinks. She gave me a little of the stink eye, but it was fleeting. I wasn’t bothered, especially since she was finally handing me my glass of Jack – and she was generous with the amount. She handed an equal amount in a glass to General Davidson and did a head cock towards me for his benefit.

“Daddy, he’s a Jack man too.”

That really warmed the General up. “You must be the son I never had,” he said as I saw a shadow pass over Angela’s face. He raised his glass in the toast position, I raised mine and we both took a large sip.

“It must be hard for you,” I said carefully. “Your son.”

With that remark, Angela turned on her heels and got out of the screening room as fast as she could without breaking into a full run. I watched her go, but the General did not.

“It was hard – and it continues to be hard.”

“But you have to be proud he died a hero.”

“I would be if he weren’t still alive.”  He took another sip.

So that was it. That was why his daughter thought he was going senile.

Just over ten years ago, First Lieutenant Robert Davidson was killed in action in a firefight back in Afghanistan and was posthumously awarded the Silver Star and the Purple Heart. Tributes in his honor ran day and night on the news networks because of who his father was. Members of his unit told reporters in detail what a wonderful, brave guy he had been. I remember catching a few minutes of the funeral and seeing General Davidson cry like a baby. As they say, parents shouldn’t outlive their children.  Robert had been his only son. Now Angela was all he had.

“He’s not dead.”

The General was looking me straight in the eye, almost daring me to challenge him.

WTF? One of the most widely-reported deaths since Elvis Presley didn’t happen? This was like saying Hitler was caught running a 7-11 in Queens. And just like that, the panic was back in my gut, because I sure believed that Robert Davidson was dead. Did I happen to mention there was a funeral? And that he was buried in Arlington Cemetery? I guess if it came down to it, the General and I could go over there at midnight and dig him up so we could both sleep easier.

Maybe this was why everyone was freaking out. If this ever got out, half of America would believe the legendary General Davidson had lost his shit, and the other half would believe the kid was alive and spin it into a new conspiracy theory that would be instantly promoted by Charlie Sheen in a YouTube video.

I had to stay cool. Discretion. Bedside manner. Discretion. Bedside manner.

“How can you be sure?”

“I have sources. That’s all I can say.”

“Sources. Do I have access to…”

“No. I don’t want them involved.”

My head was spinning.

“General, I at least need a place to start”

He turned to me.

“I don’t have one.”

For the first time, he looked vulnerable. The fire went out of his devil eyes, maybe because of a few tears lurking somewhere in the back of them.

“No one will take me seriously, but I’m not crazy, Bowman. I needed someone to help me with this, so I asked who found those officers for me. I looked at your records and saw you’ve been doing this kind of thing for a long time, you’ve done it well and without any posturing. The fact that you’re outside the government now means a great deal to me, because I need someone in an independent position. You can operate on your own and not let anyone intimidate you out of doing your job.”

“Who would want to intimidate me?”

I held his eyes for a moment. Then he looked away uncomfortably.

“I don’t know. Maybe no one.”   

“If there’s anything you know, any information you have, General, I really need you to share it with me now before…”

“There’s nothing,” he snapped. Then, more quietly, so quietly I had to lean in closer to hear, “I would only be guessing and that might prove…difficult for you. It’s far better for you to find out what you can on your own, without being prejudiced by me or anyone else.”

Military purity. He went on.

“You might not find anything. You might come back here after you’re done and tell me that I am crazy, that my son is indeed dead. I’m not expecting miracles. I’m only expecting an effort and I expect you to make one.”

Once he got all that out, he suddenly seemed tired. I finished my drink, stood up and said, “Don’t worry, the effort will be made.” Then I remembered something, something that had been left in the air.

“General, you started this by talking about parent-child misunderstandings.”

“Yes. My son and I weren’t speaking when he…disappeared. One of the great regrets of my life. And maybe the only regret I can still erase.”

I nodded and we exchanged curt goodbyes. As I walked back up the aisle, the lights went down and the Duke came back to life. 

I headed out of his one-man theatre feeling bad for the guy. He wasn’t the American hero anymore, he was just another sad old man who screwed things up with his boy and wanted too much to fix them after it was too late. It didn’t take a shrink to realize this was just about wish fulfillment – but he had to know on some level that not many wishes ever come true.

After I had left the Davidson estate, I was, if anything, more of a candidate for Jules’ myriad mental prescriptions than before I went in. How did I draw this card? The one that had the picture of the last remaining general-hero in America? Schwarzkopf was dead and Petraeus was caught diddling his biographer, so Don “Devil-Eyes” Davidson was it. And somehow, he was entrusting me with a mission that a lot of people, including his daughter, were nervous about being carried out. 

And boy, was his daughter nervous.

On my way out, she had been waiting in the hallway, looking as tense as a closer with a one-run lead and the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth.

“You know this is a ridiculous wild goose chase. You know my brother’s dead.”

“I haven’t heard anything that indicates it’s not. But…”

She grabbed my arm. Not lightly either.

“So just take the money. Just take the money, come back here in a few weeks and say you hit a dead end. I don’t want the people of this country thinking of him as some kind of Alzheimer’s-ridden freak show.”

“To me, he seemed completely lucid. Maybe he’s misguided. If he is, I’ll put it all to rest and nobody will be the wiser.”

I gave her one of the cards I had printed up through some internet company that only charged ten bucks. We lived in a golden age, all right.

“Feel free to call me if you need anything. Or even if you don’t. I don’t want you to be nervous about me.”

It was a smart move, I thought. “Thank you,” she said and in a genuine way.

As I got on the 1-64 headed back toward Richmond, I replayed the conversations again and again in my head. Nothing seemed to add up to much of anything. Angela didn’t want the family embarrassed and the General didn’t want his boy to be dead. On the other hand, I was getting paid a lot of money to do something.

I just had to figure out what.

Was it even possible Robert was still alive? How could a very public death on a very distant battlefield translate into a secret resurrection over a decade later?

I needed a little traveling music to calm down and create some thinking space, so I turned on the rental car’s satellite radio. I paid extra for it – well, my new credit card did. I dialed up and down, past the Springsteen channel, past the Pearl Jam channel, even past the Elvis channel, until I settled on the Sixties’ station for a few seconds. Then I realized it was playing
Hooray for Hazel,
a song I hadn’t heard in forty years and never wanted to hear again; it always made me think of the TV maid on that sitcom I hadn’t seen in forty years and never wanted to see again.

I searched a little more and found the Sinatra station – only, what the fuck, it wasn’t playing Sinatra, just some other song recorded by one of the endless legions of Frank wannabes that sang Frank’s songs with Frank’s arrangements without Frank’s talent. Would they dare play Bon Jovi on the Springsteen station?  No. And yet, here they were playing Tom “Dukes of Hazzard” Wopat’s take on
That’s Life
.  Check it out for yourself and get back to me after if you make it all the way through without throwing yourself off the nearest balcony.

I moved on and, finally, at a loss, I stopped on a hip-hop channel, which was playing
We Dem Boyz
by something called Wiz Khalifa, according to the read-out on the radio screen. I stuck with it because it made me feel younger than a hundred and fourteen. It wasn’t half bad either, it just wasn’t half good. Still, I wasn’t one of those guys who went around insisting music was better when he was a kid.
We Dem Boyz
beat
Hooray for Hazel
by a country mile. My dirty little secret was I liked a little hip-hop once in a while, and it had to be a secret or Jules would have applied a sledge hammer to the back of my head.

My brief musical journey must have loosened the rocks in my brain, because they suddenly gave way to reveal a bright, shining light bulb, like those that signify an idea in the cartoon world. It was actually pretty obvious. The General said he had a source. It seemed a good bet who that source might be – or at least I could narrow it down to two possibilities. After all, he had also mentioned the fact that my hunt for the two retired Army officers a couple of years before had been at his request – and he was cagey about the reason he wanted them found. All he would say was it was about a “private matter.”

Nothing could be more private than this.

If one of those guys had told the General his son was still alive, he probably didn’t want to be called on it by somebody like me. And if neither of them knew anything about this bizarre claim, then I couldn’t let anything slip or the General and his daughter would have me shot at sunrise, if they even waited that long. So every move I made had to be a stealth move. I had to get information from people who had no idea what I was after. And I had to do it in person.

If I tried to do this over the phone, it wasn’t gonna work. No, I had to go to where they lived and knock on their damn doors. I had to be able to see their faces.

As I drove toward Richmond mulling this over in my head, I couldn’t help noticing a blue Toyota in my rear view mirror that seemed to be working very hard to stay exactly three cars behind me. It was as if the driver had read some secret stalking manual and was following its instructions to the letter. If he really was tailing me, he really sucked at it, because, otherwise, I never would have spotted him, because I hadn’t been at all worried about anyone tagging along after me. I had gotten to the point in my life where it was laughable to think that someone would actually consider it worthwhile.

Yet, there the fucker was, hanging back those three cars – as he had been doing for the last forty miles or so. 

Still, because he was so obvious about it, I dismissed his existence in my head. When you drive on an interstate, you constantly see the same vehicles over and over. Like that truck that didn’t believe in abortion, according to the giant sticker on its back. It kept passing me going downhill and I kept passing it going uphill. So maybe the blue Toyota was using me as a pace car or something. Whatever, it wasn’t worth taking seriously.

I had other things to worry about. For starters, I needed supplies. I searched the highway exits for one of big box store plazas - the kind that always has a mammoth Old Navy overpowering the scenery next to an equally mammoth, vacated Barnes & Noble. I spotted one too late to take the exit, so I took the next one a few miles up the road so I could backtrack.

That’s when the blue Toyota reminded me it was still there.

In my rear view mirror, I saw that it was getting off where I was getting off. Then I saw it was backtracking along with me. Which meant I had to pay some attention. 

But I also spotted a Banana Republic tucked away in the corner, which was exactly what I needed. Yeah, I would have to park a few football fields away – it was Sunday and the place was mobbed – but I was going to be gone a few more days and I needed some clothes. And not just some clothes, better clothes. I needed some shirts that had buttons and maybe a jacket that didn’t look like a cast-off from Fonzie’s closet. I was heading into the heartland and I needed to dress for success. Or, more accurately, dress like someone to be trusted. 

But fuck it, I was still going to wear my jeans and Chuck Taylors.

I finally found an open parking space, pulled my rental into it and got out of the car. I scanned the immediate area for my friend in the Blue Toyota, but saw no sign of it parking anywhere else or cruising around the lot. So I shrugged it off again and trotted over to Banana Republic. And began the godawful task of buying some clothes.

Like most men, I don’t do clothes shopping happily or competently. This was no exception. The hardest part was finding a pair of black jeans that fit over all the takeout food I’d consumed since the last time I dragged myself into a clothing store. I ended up with a casual jacket, three shirts, two pairs of jeans, some socks and underwear. The one bright spot? It all went on my brand new credit card. Hell, these were travel expenses, especially since the clothes were crucial to the job at hand. 

At least that’s what I would tell Mr. Barry Filer.

Maybe the nice new silver watch I also bought wasn’t all that necessary, but I was felt entitled to reward myself for all the unpleasantness swirling around me. And speaking of unpleasantness, there was some more to get out of the way. I had to call Jules to tell her I wouldn’t be home that night.

It went about as I thought it would. Turned out I was an asshole cocksucking monkey fucker who raped his mother. I guessed I could live with that if I had to. When she was finally done enumerating my unusual, illegal and wholly fictitious sexual proclivities, she let me know she wasn’t staying the night at my place.

“If I stay here, I’m just going to have fucking nightmares about the ghost of Leg Sore Larry dripping ooze piss from his lesions. That doesn’t make for a restful fucking night, now does it?”

“Can’t deny that.”

“Besides, it’s a lot closer fucking commute from my place to work than from your place. And I don’t have to sit there on the F-is-for-FUCK train sandwiched like a sardine in the middle of all those smelly bastards from Queens.”

“They can be smelly.”

“Yeah, and…WHY ARE YOU AGREEING WITH ME SO MUCH, MR. DUMB FUCK?”

“I just appreciate every hair of your bogusly blonde hair.”

Silence.

“And I need one small favor…”

“Oh FUCK, I did not see THAT coming.”

Of course she did, we were at the point where we both saw pretty much everything coming. Luckily, what I was asking for wasn’t that big a deal on her end. I just needed her to open up a couple of documents from my folder of case files on my computer and text me the information I needed – which was the addresses of those two retired Army officers Davidson had asked me to retrieve years ago.

“Sure. Sure, Max Bowman, I’ll do that shit for you. Only now – I get TWO nice dinners when you get home. And one of them is gonna be at the Gotham fucking Bar & Grill, what do you think about that?”

My wallet began to silently weep. When the President came to Manhattan, he ate at the Gotham fucking Bar & Grill. When I went into Manhattan, I got a hot dog off the cart.

“Okay,” I said, “but no appetizers.”

“HAHAHAHA, you’re a comedian! Guess what, asshole? Appetizers AND dessert. Not only that, but also – dessert
WINE
.”

“Okay, okay, okay.”

“And – I WANT US TO BUY A DOG.”

What? A dog?

“I’ll think about it.”

But I wasn’t going to. If giving her a key to my place had been the equivalent of digging my own grave, agreeing to co-parent a dog with her would be asking for the dirt to get shoveled over my face.

Not that I actually related that charming metaphor to her. I didn’t want to hear more speculation on what other monstrosities my penis was capable of penetrating. Instead, I told her I missed her, said goodbye and put the phone back in my pocket, next to the burner given to me by Mr. Barry Filer. And actually, a part of me did miss Jules. I had to admit that to myself. I didn’t have much else in my life, and I kind of liked being around somebody who said “fuck” more than me. And she said it a fucking lot more.

It took the entire length of our conversation for me to make it from the Banana Republic to my parking spot in the far corner of the lot. At which point I realized I never should have written off the blue Toyota. It had left me a message that was far from a friendly one; all four of my tires were slashed, leaving my rental resting completely on its rims. I dropped my Banana Republic bags and just stood there for a few seconds, staring blankly at the car. The thought that immediately leapt to my mind was that I was glad I bought myself the watch.

According to that watch, it took about an hour forty-five to get a replacement car from the rental company. That kind of pissed me off, since I had checked every box and every insurance upgrade on the rental form – my new credit card could take the punishment, after all – so I expected some kind of superior service. But I forgot this was America and that ever since all of Mom and Pop’s little businesses went under, the corporations were fine with fucking over one individual customer. There were a few million others out there on hold waiting to give them money, why give a shit?

At least I had things to do to pass the time while I was waiting. Jules had texted me the addresses, accurately and quickly as I expected – and she had even gone to the trouble of putting “fucking asshole” in between every other word. I liked the fact that she was willing to put that kind of time and effort into our relationship. The addresses were close to what I remembered – one in Kentucky and one in Missouri - which meant I could drive the whole trip and avoid any more cramped pain-in-the-ass flights. I liked a long drive – and it would give me time to think out my approach.

Then the rental company finally showed up with my new car. We all agreed it was some damn teenager who ripped apart my tires and we went on with our lives. I got back on the I-64, then, when I got to Richmond, I took the I-95 north towards D.C. It would be a couple more hours, but some things had to be addressed before I continued west.