Middle Man (22 page)

A
spens and pines lined the climbing road northeast of Bishop. An unpaved road cut off to the east and wound around a couple of hills. Below on the left sat a small placid lake. The road curled down again toward the lake and stopped at a gate marked DS Lodge. A heavy padlock held the gates together. I considered shooting it out with my pistol, but I used the pick instead and smashed the lock.

The log cabin was big for a fishing lodge, with a big square-paneled wooden door and an ostentatious knocker. I parked facing out. A steep path led to the lake about fifty feet below the house. Yellow and purple wildflowers spread in a meadow toward the hills to the left of the house. Behind the house was forested. Foothills ringed the property, isolating it from the world. I saw no sign of Victor, no sign of Sampson and Hanrihan. No sign of the graves.

I had to knock off the front doorknob and fiddle with the bolt to get into the house. The stone fireplace and chimney dominated the living room. The back wall was blackened, but there were no ashes. Two chairs faced the large front windows. There was no other furniture in the entire house. The kitchen had been cleaned out; not even a spoon remained. There were two bedrooms, one on each side of the living room. They were empty. None of the windows had blinds.

By the time I walked the meadow twice end to end looking for graves, the wind rose and pushed in heavy clouds. I moved through the forest, checking the clear, flat spots. No graves. The path down to the lake had been provided with a few makeshift stairs of stone. It wound left for about thirty feet, then cut right, straight down. The meager shore consisted of big rocks and three feet of dirt. The lake level looked a little low. A peeling, turned-over rowboat was pulled up onto the rocks. No graves. Underneath the boat I found a pair of oars.

By the time I was halfway across, I knew where the graves were. I kept rowing anyway until the boat bottomed on the opposite shore. There the dirt, covered in grass and weeds, ran back thirty feet to the spot where the rocks began to rise.

The headstones were in the shade, near the rocks.

It was after six. It would be dark by the time I got back to the graves with a shovel. I could dig by lantern light, but I did not look forward to opening a bag full of money with no idea where Victor was. I expected Sampson and Hanrihan, too. But they would not show themselves until Victor did. I decided to spend the night in the house. Even if Victor spotted the graves, he would not kill me until he knew whether they held the jackpot or not. At least that was what I told myself.

Bundled up against the cold, I finished the bag of pretzels and the two chocolate bars and one bottle of water. I placed the bag and the crumbled wrappers near the front door, which would not lock anymore, in the hope that I would hear them crinkle when Victor stepped on them. I pulled the chairs together, got comfortable and repeated a few different versions of this mantra: He won't kill me until he is sure there is money in the graves.

The mantra might have worked better if there had been curtains or shades. Breaking into an empty house was a familiar experience for me. I always slept well. But I had never done it when I was bait. The wind and the varmints became the tools of a mad adventurer fixated on me and obsessed with finding money that probably was not there. I moved to the floor and sat in half lotus.

The mesquite tree, the porch, the swing, the sheer curtain jostled gently by the breeze—I lingered on each leaf, link, ripple, and fold. Murmuring came from inside, but I went no farther than the window. I turned back and absorbed the scene from that angle. I sank into the peace. The murmuring was soft music. But I turned toward it again, and I saw the window.

And I thought about windows.

I hopped up and looked outside, but I might have been back in a cave; the blackness was absolute.

Repeat: Victor would not try to kill me until he saw what was in the graves.

I moved the chairs in front of the door, sat on one, put my feet on the other, my gun in my lap, and went to sleep. I don't remember any dreams and I don't know how long I slept. I don't know what woke me.

The eyes were clear and backlit, despite the darkness. Just two feet in front of me. I reached for my gun, but it was not there.

“I have it,” he said. But he was not holding a gun on me. He just stood there looking down. I pushed the chair away with my foot and straightened up.

“Sit down, Ethan,” I said.

He stood up straight and his eyes got wide and lost the fire. He stepped back. “What did you say? Why did you call me that?”

“Ethan. Ethan Williams. That's your name.”

“My name is Victor Kosinski. You know that.”

“I gave you that name. You know that. Sit down, Ethan.”

“Let's go dig right now. You have a lantern and so do I.” The sales pitchman was still there, but impatience had crept in. I wanted him to lose the sugar completely. I wanted him ordering me to buy the goddamn sprinkler system even without the added nozzles.

“We can dig in the morning. Sit down.” I kicked the chair in a gesture of my hospitality. It took him about two minutes, but he finally adjusted the chair and sat down facing me. He cradled a pistol. I could not tell if it was mine or his.

“That was a good trick at the airport. I almost lost you. I gotta use that one sometime.”

“How did you follow me?” But I thought he did not follow me. Hanrihan had told him where I was going.

“Do you think it's here? The rest of the money?”

“No. I think some of it is here.” He seemed to like hearing that. His eyes narrowed a bit and he smiled. “Tell me, Ethan, how did you hook up with Bannion?”

“I told you to stop calling me that.”

“You were Sam Simmons when I first met you. Who was he?”

“Why do you care about Sam Simmons?”

“Who came before him? How many were there?” He was looking at the window. I turned and could see his pale reflection. He leaned forward and I did the same. “You've watched me. Studied me, you said. I've watched you. I want to know how you did it. All of it.” He stayed there, leaning in. His eye blazing again. “Tell me about Iraq,” I said.

“This is one of your tricks. No tricks anymore.”

“You have the guns. You know where the graves are.”

The wind picked up and sand scratched at the door. There was nowhere for him to disappear to, nowhere for him to send me off to. He could not say, “You go first. I'll wait here.” His relentless eagerness had trapped him in the abandoned house. I waited until I thought he felt the trap, until he could rationalize his mistake and deal with it.

“How did you get in? I heard nothing.”

“When you were on the lake, I came in and unlocked a bedroom window.”

“Smart. Did you kill the NGO worker in Farah?”

“I needed the money. I thought you knew. I thought you hated the NGOs.”

“Hated the NGOs?”

He tilted his head and his eyes were puzzled. He had not thought about an answer to that, had never gotten more specific than “hated them all.”

“I thought you hated everyone there. The growers and the NGOs and the Marines, too. Lieutenant Spera told me you said everyone was in business together. I asked him, y'know. Asked him to go in with me. He said he wasn't smart enough to get away with it, but you were. But, he said, if I asked you, you'd shoot me.”

“He was wrong.”

“When you didn't shoot me, I gotta tell you, I thought about it for a long time. You must have had a reason. It was tough getting out of there. But the thought that you had a reason to let me live kept me up. If you saw something, then I decided I better see something, too.”

“Thank you,” I said. He smiled as if the coach had patted his back.

Inspiration to a lunatic. I tried to reconstruct the moment when I let him go, refigure the calculation. It was not compassion for Victor, I hoped, that influenced my decision. I did not want to think I had deemed him pathetic or helpless, which would have only highlighted how pathetic I was. The picture of handing him over to the Afghan authorities had colored everything. My weakness was in the dread of sacrificing people to procedure, sacrificing people to appearance. Passing Sam Simmons to the Afghans would have turned him into a token. It would have been a mere gesture, not a duty or responsibility. It would have made me want to change my name.

“Tell me about Iraq, Ethan.” He was silent. I sat back and put my hands behind my head and crossed my ankles. “You want someone to know. I know you do. Just like I'm glad you watched me.”

“I'm not Ethan.”

“You shot your old man at the graveside in Montana. I can't blame you. He was pretty awful and he knew you weren't in the grave. You had visited him, hadn't you? Before you knew about the money. Before you hooked up with Bannion. Tell me about that, about becoming one of the goons. You fooled them all.”

“The old man couldn't keep his mouth shut. Never could. He was drunk from the day I knew him. I knew when he saw the body in the grave he'd start blabbing and then people would be looking for me.”

“And you knew I'd think you were looking for the money.”

“Don't worry. I wasn't gonna hit you. I'm a damn good shot. Only thing the old man was good for, teaching me to shoot. We'd go hunting. By the time I was twelve, I'd have to take the rifle away from him in the afternoon. He'd want to shoot something and I was the only something he could see.”

“What about Kristen?”

“Whaddaya mean?”

“Were you aiming at her?”

He moved his mouth, but no words came out. He tried it a couple of times. At last he said, “She didn't know. Unless the old man told her. She was never bad to me.”

“She's still your wife.”

He chuckled. “I'm gonna have millions. What do I want a wife for?”

I remembered Nita, the waitress at Frank's place who had fallen for Ethan's charms. The story in Farah was that all the female NGOs were taken with him, too. Maybe the TV pitchman tone worked. I did not mention his daughter.

We had hours to go. I wanted it all. Once he acknowledged being Ethan Williams, the rest came easier. He had been an Army sniper at Fallujah with the 325th Airborne Infantry. They were moved out and the 101st replaced them. But Ethan was left behind to support the transition. No one knew him. He saw the strutting Blackwater men flaunting their freedom and money. The rules did not apply to them. The rules were going to get Ethan killed.

“Were you scared?”

“You were scared. Everyone is scared.”

“You're right,” I said. That concession seemed to satisfy him. He breathed deeply a few times and then he smiled.

“It was such a great opportunity. I hitched a ride with three Blackwater guys. They didn't know each other at all. They were guarding a shipment of Coca-Cola and chips and shit. But it was overcovered. About thirty other guards were on top of it. These guys had two cases of bourbon in their vehicle. We went back to where they were camped, at the edge of the 101st, who were also just setting up. It was all just coming together. Two of the guys passed out, and the other one got real drunk. Real drunk. And he wanted to come back with me to where I was assigned at the edge of the city. I was due back at 0200 hours. I let him come with me. We weren't there an hour when he stood up. We were on the second story. The windows were all shot out, of course. And he was hit. In the face. It was such a great opportunity.”

I knew Ethan had killed that guy, lured him there and murdered him. “Was he Sam Simmons?”

“Nah. He was someone else. Joe Nobody.”

“In the grave in Montana.”

“I guess. I didn't stay around to check. Maybe they switched the body. Maybe there was money in there. Was there?”

“No.”

“I went north. Avoided Mosul. Ended up in Kirkuk. That's where I first heard of Bannion. A lot of the Blackwater guys were talking about him and his operation.”

“And the money?”

Ethan gripped the gun and stood up abruptly and walked to the window. “You know, I could have killed you a thousand times and I didn't because of you letting me go. But if you hear all this, everything changes.”

‘I could tell, but I'd have to kill you': everyone's lame joke, but Ethan's earnestness was absolute.

“You can't kill me. Not until you see the money.”

“C'mon. You admitted before that everyone is scared.”

“You went north . . .”

“I met the guy you called Gill. He was special forces at the time. Ted Marker. Master Sergeant Ted Marker. Everybody heard about the money. Everybody was looking for it. Gill found some and he took, I don't know, he must have taken maybe two packets, twenty thousand dollars. And some guy is stupid enough to threaten to hand him in. So I killed him. That was Sam Simmons.”

“And years later, you looked up Ted Marker and reminded him that he owed you a favor.”

“That's how I got in with Bannion.”

Bannion, the King, McColl, each thought he was the story, his plans and schemes were the centerpiece around which the world spun. But the toxic concoction of ambition and arrogance bred slime like Ethan, who wriggled below the surface and oozed through the cracks. It was not a play about a schemer or a soldier or a king; it was about a fiend without compunction, a jokester, a demon. And his idea of how to act was to imitate me.

He told me not to go anywhere and he walked into the kitchen. He came back a moment later with a bottle of water for me and one for himself. “It'll be light in less than an hour,” he said.

I closed my eyes and pretended to go back to sleep. All I did was wonder how Sampson was going to get to the other side of the lake to help me.

W
e were just two prospectors certain that this time we would hit the mother lode. But we did not have to wait to count the booty to become paranoid fiends. Our calculations in the murder matrix powered the way. Ethan could not shoot me until he was sure these three graves held a worthwhile payday. I would be digging first. If the grave yielded twenty-five million, I was dead. If it yielded only a couple of million, or nothing, Ethan would try to make me dig farther. Failure meant life for me.

The sun, just poking through the pines, made me hold my eyes down as I rowed across the lake, flat and still now that the wind had escaped. I stared at the shovels and the pick on the bottom of the boat all the way across the lake and tried to figure out ways to survive. Mallards honked far off. Ethan aimed a gun at them but did not shoot.

Sampson might arrive on time but it would not matter. How would she cross the lake? Maybe on Hanrihan's back. He would be eager enough to get at the money.

“What are you laughing about?” Ethan said.

“You could dig, too,” I said. I held out a shovel toward him.

“You dig. I'll stand nearby holding a gun on you.”

“Which one should I start on?”

He examined the headstones for clues the way a sucker plays three-card monte. He pointed to the grave on the left, the one belonging to Neil Bess. I laid the extra shovel and the pick on the middle grave. Ethan sat on the rocks, facing me and the lake. I dug and thought about Ethan Williams, who joined the Army and kept finding opportunities too good to pass up.

He was his own best customer. Every step down to this lakeside graveyard was guided by his faith in the power of hucksterism. The lower it sent him, the deeper its claws dug into his flesh, and the more grateful he was. In his version, I had saved him in Farah Province and Gill had introduced him to Bannion. We were sent by the god of good luck, who wanted him to find the lost city of gold. Gill was dead; I was his only companion. At journey's end, when he lifted the pot of gold, I would have to be sacrificed; that was the shipping charge, the small print. He was so busy selling himself the magic elixir that no one had ever tried the truth on him. Why bother? I had reason to bother.

The silence did not last long. “Why didn't you bring Bannion outside while I was waiting? We had him. We had a deal.”

“Maybe I'm not who you think I am,” I said.

“You are.” Too loud. The sound boomed. Both of us looked across the lake as if someone there might have heard.

“My mission was to catch Bannion, not recover the money. I had to try to bring him in.”

“You were always after the money.”

“Never. You have me wrong. You just don't get it.”

“I know you're lying.”

I just kept digging. I hit some rocks and changed the shovel for the pick and worked that way for a while. The sun came over the trees and was directly in his eyes. He moved over to the grave on the right. He was careful not to step directly on it.

“Why are you here, if it isn't for the money?”

“The money isn't here, Ethan.” I kept picking away at a big rock. “Bannion put it all in bank accounts. I already gave them over. The money is gone.”

“Stop digging.”

I kept pounding on the rock with the pick. He repeated the command. I kept working. He fired the pistol at the headstone. The echo died and we both turned to see the Mallards take off. The lake remained a mirror.

“You can't kill me yet, Ethan. Unless you believe me about the money. And you don't. You can't, can you?” I changed the pick for the shovel. “You have some water?”

I hit the top of the box about three and a half feet down. Ethan came forward cautiously. He smiled, showing his small, even teeth, and his eyes lit up. Door number one was going to open; all the prizes were waiting behind it. He commanded me to dig out a bit on one side so the box could be pried open.

“Why do you think this one is any better than the others?”

“Just a feeling.”

He treated hope like a lighter, flicking it over and over again to see if it still worked, not understanding that the flame was meaningless. The failed opium scheme was one of hundreds meant to remake him. But his plans were disjointed pieces, notes hit simply to make a noise that went with the previous note. It took about twenty minutes more digging and scraping. I hopped up and leaned on the shovel. “I'll make you a deal,” I said.

“You don't keep your deals.”

“If there is no money in there, you dig the next one. You can hold on to the weapons.”

“No.”

“I'll never make it through three in one day alone. We'll have to spend another night here. Do you have enough food?”

“Open it up.”

I used the pick on the latches. I used the shovel to pry open the top.

“Pull it out,” he said.

I had to lie on my belly and reach in and pull up the bag. It was too heavy to lift from that position and I told him so. He moved next to me and got on his knees to help. I could have made my play, gotten under his arms so he couldn't reach the guns, which were stuck in his belt, and wrestled with him. I decided to wait for a surer chance, betting on Bannion, betting the DS list was mostly fake.

We dragged it out. By its weight it might have been a big stash of money or it might have been a corpse. Ethan stood over me as I unzipped the bag. I turned and looked at him instead of the contents.

His glowing eyes got small as slits and he scrunched up his nose in disappointment. A corpse was in the body bag where the money was supposed to be. Two rounds left before the show was over.

Ethan held the pistol on me for about a minute. I didn't move and neither did he. At last he said, “Is there any money in these graves? Just tell me.”

“I already told you.”

The light in his eyes seemed to flicker. To shoot me meant an end to his quest. He would have to start over, admit defeat. “Start digging,” he said quietly.

“Which one?”

He set me to the grave on the right, belonging to Roger Clark.