Going After Cacciato (39 page)

“Say again?”

“I don’ want you. You’re a fuckup. Man, you’re the worst.”

“Hey, don’t—”

“You heard me. Go home. Go hide your head.”

Paul Berlin backed off a step. Then he swallowed. “I’m going along, Oscar.”

“Shit.”

“I am. I’m going.”

“The messiness?” Oscar grinned. “You want in on the real nasty stuff?”

“I’m going, that’s all.”

“Brand-new balls?”

“I’m going.”

Oscar studied him, then shrugged. “Okay, man. Even yo-yos got to get their brand-new rocks off.” He let the rifle bolt fall. “So what’s the delay?”

They filed up the alley.

Climbing slowly, Doc and Eddie made their way up the two fire escapes, testing the steps as they went. Paul Berlin made his thoughts into a revolving sphere, a tiny marble, and he concentrated on the marble. He watched it turn. A silver, shining marble. He could feel the fear coming, but he kept his attention on the marble. Focus on it, watch it spin in the dark, a brilliant glowing sphere. Like a star. Be brave, watch the silver star.

When Doc and Eddie reached the second story, they crouched down and waved.

Oscar raised the rifle.

“Ready, Deputy? Showdown time.”

Oscar led the way inside. The doors were unlocked. Lighting a match, Oscar moved slowly across the lobby to the staircase. He stopped there. He listened, then lit a second match, then tested the stairs. The place smelled old. It smelled of dust and mildew and age. Damp, like Lake Country. Like the smell of old canvas. When the match went out Oscar did not light another.

Eyes firmly on the spinning silver star, Paul Berlin followed Oscar up the stairs. He tried for silence. Stealth, cunning. He listened for telltale sounds. The hotel was quiet.

At the top of the stairs Oscar paused again, shifting the rifle, turning, feeling for the walls. A window at the end of the hallway let in a pale path of moonlight.

Oscar began moving up the hallway. His shoulders were rolled forward. He stepped lightly, carefully, but there was no tension in the way he carried himself. He seemed loose and ready.

At the end of the hallway, Paul Berlin pointed to the green door. Then he stepped back.

Oscar grinned. “No, man.”

“What?”

“Heroes first.” Oscar pressed the rifle into Paul Berlin’s hands. “You dig this shit so much … here, take it. Go ahead.”

“I don’t—”

“Take the weapon. It’s your move.”

The rifle was incredibly light. Paul Berlin had to squeeze to keep it from drifting away. The shining silver star was gone.

“Go!”

Oscar used his shoulder to drive the door open.

The room was empty. Paul Berlin felt the emptiness before he saw it.

Then he felt the fear.

A monstrous sound hit him. It jerked him back.

“Jesus,” someone was saying, loud. Oscar, maybe.

The sound spun him around. Suddenly he was on his knees. He couldn’t stop shaking. He squeezed the rifle. He held on tight, but the shaking wouldn’t stop.

Someone was whimpering. A pitiful, silly sound. Behind him in the dark there were shouts, voices calling, the sound of someone running.

Red tracers made darts that stuck to the far walls. A smoldering smell. Burning. Holes opened like magic in the walls. The plaster turned crisp and black.

Shaking, shaking—he couldn’t stop it. He tried to drop the weapon. He tried to throw it, but it kept shaking him.

He heard himself whinny.

A dozen rounds were off in the time it took to squeal. Glass was breaking, windows popping. He squeezed the weapon and held on and whinnied.

“Jesus,” a soft voice kept saying, far off. “Jesus, Jesus.”

The noise ended. There was a click, then echoes, then quiet.

He was on his knees. His eyes were closed. Rocking, swaying, eyes closed tight, but even so he kept seeing red tracers, slim and sharp, brilliant red threads in the dark. The shaking feeling was gone. He smelled the burning.

“Jesus, Jesus,” he moaned.

He let the rifle fall. He put a hand to his lips and held it there, not quite touching. He felt the breath on his hand, felt himself swallow. Somewhere a fire was burning. It was a hot blazing fire, a bonfire. He heard people talking. Then there was a floating feeling, then a swelling in his stomach, then a wet releasing feeling. He tried to stop it. He squeezed his thighs together and tightened his belly, but it came anyway. He sat back. He shivered and wondered what had gone wrong.

   “It’s okay,” Doc murmured. “All over, all over. Fine now.”

Paul Berlin sat cross-legged to hide his folly. His arms and hands and feet weren’t working right. First the shaking feeling, next the numbness, next the swelling in his belly and next the wetness and next the folly and humiliation.

“No sweat,” Doc was purring. “You hear me? It’s all over.”

The fire blazed away.

He smelled the grass. He heard them talking, very softly. There was the breeze and the grass and the fire.

“Just the biles,” Doc said. “Right? It’s just the pitter-patter of the biles. Just the tinkle of the biles, no sweat.”

The shaking was back. Doc helped him lie in the deep grass. He lay there, letting the weapon shake him, and when the shaking ended he watched how the grass waved with the breeze. Like spring wheat. He wished he could cover himself. Maybe he could
sleep. Sleep away the rest of the war. He closed his eyes and listened to the soft voices and the breeze against the grass, then he opened his eyes, very slowly, seeing first his own eyelashes, then light, then the dawn sky.

“Dumb,” Oscar said.

Stink giggled. It was Stink’s high giggle.

There was the heavy sound of something being dropped, someone grunting, and the brittle sound of the fire.

Lieutenant Corson bent over him.

“Better now?”

Paul Berlin nodded.

The old man winked and made a comforting gesture with his hand, a kind of affectionate pat.

“It happens, kid. Sometimes it happens. You got to—” The words trailed off. The lieutenant winked again and moved away.

Folly, that was all it was.

The fire was very hot. He sat up, crossing his legs, watching the fire. He tried for control. He didn’t look at the others. Later he would have to look at them.

“Dumb,” Oscar said. “Stupidest thing I ever seen.”

Stink laughed.

Harold Murphy said something to them, then he turned and went over to his gun. He seemed angry. He kicked the gun, then kicked it again, then picked it up and moved away.

Doc Peret was back again.

“See, man? Everything’s real cool.” He held up a canteen. “So what’s your poison? I got Beaujolais, Pouilly-Fuissé, and this one last magnum of 1914 Goofy Grape. Which’ll it be?”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“Sure.”

“I was tense. I didn’t mean it.”

Doc kept smiling. His eyes wandered. “So place your order, cowboy. Chablis? Or this real saucy Spanish number? Both vintage years, I swear. Or if you’re on a budget I can recommend this special—”

“It just started. You know? It was like the gun just started … I didn’t mean to.”

“Sure, man.”

Doc unscrewed the canteen lid and sniffed it. “Drink up,” he said. “You lucked out … a terrific nose. Real sweet stuff.”

“It just happened.”

“No sweat. Come on now, take a swig. Isn’t that vintage stuff?”

The Kool-Aid was warm. The taste was between strawberry and lemon.

“What about Cacciato?”

Doc’s eyes kept roving. He smiled. “It’s over. Tell me if that isn’t the sweetest stuff you ever swallowed.”

The big breakfast fire burned hot. Near the lip of the hill, where the land dropped off sharply to the west, the lieutenant and Eddie Lazzutti were taking turns with the binoculars. They stood knee-deep in the grass, neither of them speaking. Eddie handed the glasses to the lieutenant, who held them to his eyes for a long time, swiveling, scanning the jungle below, then shaking his head.

“Dumbo,” Oscar said. He glanced over at Paul Berlin and shook his head. “I never seen nothin’ like it. Never once.”

Dawn had become morning. Paul Berlin got up. He heard birds in the trees. He stood very still for a moment, feeling the men watching, then he turned away.

He followed the hill’s eastern slope to the place where the grass was matted. He remembered crouching there, poised and waiting for what would happen next. How did it start? A kind of trembling, maybe. He remembered the fear coming, but he did not remember why. Then the shaking feeling. The enormous noise, shaken by his own weapon, the way he’d squeezed to keep it from jerking away from him. Simple folly, that was all.

He picked up the rifle.

Gold cartridges sparkled where they had fallen, strewn in the grass like spilt pennies.

He broke the weapon open, checked the barrel for dirt, then
closed it up again. The magazine was empty. Removing it, he replaced it with another from his bandolier, then, very carefully, he pushed the safety switch from automatic to safe.

Farther down the hill he found his pack. It had started there. Dropping the rucksack, lightening himself for the final climb, the last hundred meters. He remembered following Stink up the hill. He remembered the smell of the fire, the sense of something hidden. He remembered the lightness of the rifle. Floating, seeming to float.

He opened the rucksack. Near the bottom he found a fresh pair of trousers. He changed quickly. He rolled up the wet pair, carried them to a clump of bushes, dropped them in, and pressed them down with his boot. He tried to do this with dignity.

What else?

He shouldered the pack and climbed back up the hill.

Later, after Oscar doused the fire, the lieutenant went to the western lip of the hill for a final look. He covered his eyes with one hand, shading them, and he gazed west for a long time. He did not move. When he came back he was smiling. “That’s it,” he said. “Finished.” He winked at Paul Berlin as if to relay some secret.

“We had him,” Stink said.

“Did we?”

“Sure, we had him good.”

“Who knows?” The lieutenant was smiling broadly now. He looked happy. “Maybe so, maybe not.”

“Ready, sir?”

Harold Murphy heaved the big gun to his shoulder.

Doc gathered up the things Cacciato had left behind—some Hershey bars, two signal flares, the dog tags. Oscar strapped Cacciato’s weapon to his pack.

Then, when they were formed up, the lieutenant motioned with his hand and led them away.

It was the march again.

They found the old path and followed it through the morning, backtracking. At dusk they camped at one of the old sites. And in
the morning they continued east. They marched hard. It was the old order restored. Stink at point, Oscar at slack, next the lieutenant and Eddie and Harold Murphy, then Doc Peret, then Paul Berlin.

The country was familiar. On the evening of the second day the mountains began falling toward the paddies. Below, the land stretched eastward for many miles, flat and green, ending at the sea.

They came down from the mountains.

The next afternoon they stopped at a hamlet, resting and taking on water, then continued on. It was the war again. They spaced themselves ten meters apart, avoided paths, sent out flank security when it was necessary.

Late that day they were within radio range. The lieutenant made the call. Missing in action, he said. He spelled out Cacciato’s name phonetically, repeated it, his voice calm. He smiled when it was done. Then they were moving again, down from the mountains, through the rough country. The march was easy now.

At suppertime they made camp along a narrow irrigation ditch. They dug their holes and set out the tripflares and prepared for night. In the morning, with luck, they would reach the sea.

Night spread up the ditch and passed over them and rolled toward the mountains.

They talked softly. They talked of rumors. An observation post by the sea, easy duty, a place to swim and get solid tans and fish for red snapper. Later they talked about going home. It would become a war story. People would laugh and shake their heads, nobody would believe a word. Just one more war story. Then Oscar talked about two women he knew, and how, when he got home, he would choose the one who most hated war stories. This made Harold Murphy talk quietly about his wife. The lieutenant did not talk at all.

When full dark came, they moved to their separate holes along the ditch. The stars were out. And soon the moon appeared, very pale at first, but then turning bright as it passed over the mountains.

Paul Berlin slept. There were no dreams. When he awoke he saw that the lieutenant was sitting with him.

Together they kept the guard.

They watched the immense stillness of the paddies, the serenity of things, the moon climbing beyond the mountains. Sometimes it was hard to believe it was a war.

“I guess it’s better this way,” the old man finally said. “There’s worse things can happen. There’s plenty of worse things.”

“True enough, sir.”

“And who knows? He might make it. He might do all right.” The lieutenant’s voice was flat like the land. “Miserable odds, but—”

“But maybe.”

“Yes,” the lieutenant said. “Maybe so.”