THE FOURTH WATCH (34 page)

"Skidmark old fellow, how the hell are ya?"
Walter said jovially. Walter had given Skids his nickname years ago
in high school. Arthur Donovan had had a hygienic problem that
manifest itself in the crotch of his BVD's. Walter had discovered
evidence of the problem one day after gym class and advertised it
widely. Later when women would inquire as to the origin of his
unusual moniker, Skids would tell them that he had been quite the
parking lot drag racing stud back in High School. Walter would
always correct that story given the chance.

"I don't think we're gonna make much money on
that Mike Knight case you were telling me about."

"Oh, yeah?" Walter said, his voice
changing.

"Yeah. Somebody just popped him and some bimbo
outside the Copper Wok." There was a pause on the line.
"Walter?"

"Yeah. What the fuck are you talkin'
about."

"About 9:30. I heard about a shooting outside
the Wok on the scanner, so I came on up. Two people down on the
street. I got there before the cops and the guy looked familiar so
I went in for a closer look. It's him. I saw him
myself."

"Are you shittin' me?”."

"No."

"Is he dead?"

"I don't know. The broad is though. They took
them out of here in the wagon about ten minutes ago. I think he was
still breathing."

"Where'd they take him?"

''I dunno. It was a city wagon though. Probably
UMASS.

"Probably." Walter was up pacing his small
office with the cordless. "What happened?"

"Not much to tell.” Skids said. “I hung around
while the cops did their interviews. Long blue or black or green
car, no guess on the age, pulls off the curb in front of Ernie's
pizza joint down the street from the Wok. People munch sandwiches
in the window. A few seconds later 3,4,5 or 6 shots get fired.
Couple people see the car pull off, no one gets a plate. Knight and
the broad are in the street. The cops are still out here banging
around.”

"Where are you?"

''In the Wok on the phone with you."

"Well stay with it, see what they come up with
and call me back when you know

something. "

"Okay. Hey...um... I'm on the clock
right?"

"Clock? I'll give you a fuckin' clock! I'm
gonna stick a clock up your ass," Walter yelled at him.

"Hey, just getting it straight, you know?
Christ! Take it easy."

"Call me back."

"Yeah."

Walter hung up the phone and starred at his fly
blown windows. "Fuck," he said.

*****

WALTER PULLED HIS CAR
into a 'Staff Only' spot in front of the
emergency entrance to the University of Massachusetts Medical
Center off Lake Ave. He went inside and flashed a bogus police
shield to a young admitting nurse at the front desk. "Detective
Willingcock," he told her, "Worcester PD. Did you just take two
gunshot victims in here from that shooting on Prince
Street."

The nurse was craning her neck to look at the
I.D. as Walter snapped it shut and pocketed it. ''Um, yes,
Detective ... ?"

"Willingcock. Where are they?" He glared at her
sternly.

"Surgery. Second floor, but you can't ...
"

Walter was gone. He found the
stairs and went up, not wanting to wait for the elevator. On the
second floor he followed the signs to surgery and went up to the
nurse's station. A tired old nurse that had the same face and hair
as the Cowardly Lion in the
Wizard of
OZ
looked up at him from a paperback. He
flashed his badge.

"The shooting victims?" she said.

Walter nodded.

''They're all down in the waiting room across
from surgery. Go left out of here, third room on the
left."

"Can I use that phone?" WaIter said
pointing.

She lifted it up and put it on the counter.
"Press any line that's not blinking and dial 9 before the
number."

"Thanks. "

Walter dug out his pocket phone book, checked
the number and dialed the St. John's rectory. As he listened to the
exchange he thought : I gotta get me one of them cell phones. Jack
picked up on about the eighth ring. He was half-asleep. "Father
Jack?"

"Yes."

"This is Walter DeMaris, Father."

"Oh, yes. Hello Walter. I just ... "

"Father, I'm sorry to wake you, but Kato's been
shot. I'm up at UMASS ... "

"Oh my God!...is he alright?"

"I don't know, he's in surgery I think, I
thought I should call."

"Yes, thank you, Walter, I'm on my way
down."

The line went dead. Walter passed the phone
back to the nurse and went out and down the corridor toward
surgery.

*****

THERE WERE THREE COPS
standing around drinking coffee and eating donuts
when Walter turned into the waiting room. A replay of the ball game
was on the TV with the volume turned low. How the hell do these
guys end up with coffee and donuts everywhere they go, Walter
wondered. He recognized two of the cops. One of them noticed
him.

"Hey, cockroach, what the hell are you doin'
down here. This is a closed off area, there's an investigation
going on."

"Yeah," Walter said, "I know. You guys are
investigating each others dicks."

The cop took a step toward him. The other cop
that Walter knew grabbed the first cop by the arm. "Cut the shit,
Larry. Knight's a friend of his. He's alright."

"Fuckin' cockroach is what he is," Larry said
and went back to his donut after giving Walter a long
glare.

Walter sat in a plastic chair and worried a
fingernail. He looked at the clock every thirty seconds. Twenty
minutes later Jack Healy came in. He was not wearing his collar. He
had a five o'clock shadow on his handsome face and his hair was
finger raked to one side. He wore a gray Old Navy tee shirt under a
three-quarter length pea green London Fog trench coat, blue sweats
and Nike running shoes. The same donut-eating cop that braced
Walter started on the intercept before one of the others said,
"Hello, Father."

"Hello, Paul," Father Jack replied. He waved to
Walter and then went into a huddle with the police officer. They
chatted quietly, their heads together, Jack nodding, a hand on his
chin. After a few minutes he came over and sat down next to
Walter.

"How you doing?" he said without
preamble.

"Me? I'm fine, Father. The question is how's
Kato?"

"I talked with one of the Doctors before I came
in," Jack told him. "There's not much to tell just yet. He was shot
twice, one in the lower back, the other in the shoulder, and he hit
his head hard when he went down. He's in surgery. They are
optimistic. They seem to be more worried about his head injury then
the gun shot wounds. The girl he was with was a woman named Carolyn
Whorley. He had mentioned her to me ... a client of his. She's
dead, God rest her Soul."

Walter had his head down in his hands. "Jesus,
Father."

"I know one of the officers over there. From
St. John's. They don't know what happened. They said it might be a
gang thing that they got caught in the middle of or something.
"

"Gang thing?" Walter said
incredulously.

Father Jack shook his head. "They don't
know."

23

Laos, 1970

BRANCHES LASHED AT
Sal Moltinaldo's face as he stumbled at the end
of his rope through the thicket. He felt the scales of something
long and thin flick across the back of his neck and shuddered. They
were moving quickly now. At first he had fallen every thirty steps
or so. But when he did, the soldiers would curse him and drag him
by the neck until he got his feet back under him. His neck was raw
and bleeding. He had vomited and he had the acrid taste of it in
his mouth, and could feel the wetness of it on his cheeks. In time
he learned to stay at the taunt end of the rope which would guide
him along the same path that the soldiers walked, more or
less.

His heart, which had been thundering in his
chest, had begun to slow to a less frantic rhythm, and his mind was
beginning to work again. He was thinking that there would be no
purpose in blindfolding him if he was going straight to a hanging.
If death was all that awaited him, then why hadn't they simply
beheaded him with the Moung. And why had they removed Farmer Ka
from the road after he had seen him. The vision of Ka's emasculated
corpse could not be said to be comforting, but still, why were they
taking him along if only to kill him elsewhere?

He was in total darkness, the seal over his
eyes almost hermetic. Once, when he had gained some slack on his
rope, he had smashed headfirst into a tree, and now, as he stumbled
along the endless, invisible trail, he could feel the trickle of
what he thought must be blood leaking down his face.

After an eternity, his legs throbbing from
exertion, he began to smell wood smoke, although he could not
imagine why anyone would want to build a fire in the ninety-degree
heat of the jungle - unless it was to keep the animals away. A
little further along he began to hear chattering and laughter,
which grew louder with every step. And then suddenly he walked into
someone, and was immediately swatted to the ground.

The chatter stopped and everything was silent,
except the jungle. He could hear a million creature voices mixing
in shrill medley around him. He could feel eyes on him. He was not
sure if he hoped they were human. He didn't dare to move or attempt
to regain his feet. He lay motionless in a cocoon of darkness but
could feel the concentrated heat of fire. Then there came the sound
of a jabbering voice to his left, and reflexively he .turned his
head toward it. Instantly his face was mashed down into the dirt
and he felt cold steel slide along the nape of his neck and the
back of his head. There was a quick jerk and then a harsh rip and
as he screamed, sudden light. His eyes batted spasticly as they
tried to adjust. His face stung where the tape had torn away skin
and hair. Less than two feet away from where his face was held
sideways in the dirt, the flames of a fire licked at the gloom. As
his vision cleared, he could see a man in a Chinese Officer's
uniform cooking snake on the end of a bayonet, light dancing in his
black eyes. All eyes were on him as he lay like a hunter's trophy
in the dirt.

*****

THE LAST GRAY LIGHT
of day was leaking away through a canopy of
broad-leaf trees above the jungle floor. The fire flared and
crackled and threw a ring of yellow, smoke filtered light around
the encampment. There were soldiers sitting on logs around the
perimeter and several others were standing behind him. The snake
that the officer was cooking was headless, and as Sal watched, he
slid it off the end of his knife onto a flat rock, and broke it as
if it were a crust of bread. He peeled the skin away and began
feeding steaming white meat into his mouth. He gestured at Sal and
the man stepping on his neck released him, and leaned over and cut
the tape between his wrists. Sal sat up in the dirt carefully and
pulled the tape away and wiped his face with his
shirtsleeve.

Suddenly the black-eyed officer was speaking.
He continued to eat as he spoke and instantly another voice began
to translate what he said into English. The translator's voice was
small and musical. Sal let his gaze traverse the camp and saw him,
a boy in rags, so small as to be almost dwarf-like, his eyes
sightless, milky marbles, glowing and rolling in the
firelight.

''I have taken an interest in you," he was
saying.

Sal said nothing, his skin crawling.

"I have been thinking, what kind of fool is it
that seeks death so tirelessly, hey?"

Sal listened to the boy's almost flawless
English, just a trace of accent at the end of his
sentences.

"You have accepted my protection, and yet you
steal from me. How can I not punish you? You go about asking about
my business, and about me. You are tasteless and disrespectful. I
should slice open your sack and roast its treasure before your
eyes, no?"

Sal was shaking his head.

''Now I have been forced to kill a respected
villager and create enemies that will last for generations, and for
what? You? I must know what makes a man so stupid, eh? Before I
slice open your belly and stake you on the river bank."

It was coming to him now. Sal had heard tell of
an almost mystical Chinese Major that the farmers and villagers
feared. He was rumored to have firm control of the drug trade that
flowed into the Vietnamese war theater. It was said that this Major
had massive holdings in the fields of Burma, Thailand and Laos,
that he operated the labs that processed the raw opium into heroin,
that he protected transportation of the product and owned and
supplied all the Generals that allowed its distribution. He had
military power and wealth and operated as a renegade with neither
side claiming him but both reluctant to engage him. In that China
was not officially in the war, his very presence in the area was
denied. However, all suspected that he had the unofficial blessing
of the Chinese Government to fill the arms of American soldiers
with narcotics.