Authors: Elmore Leonard
"Teddy wants dynamite or some plastic, C4. H
e was thinking they got everything here, with all th e fucking wars."
"If he's got it in stock," Rashad said. "See, th
e man's been dealing over the border, in Lebanon , selling everything he can get his hands on."
"We'll make him a better offer," Valenzuela said.
When Teddy Cass came back they saw him nodding before he reached the car.
"Okay, Clarence-Rashad," Valenzuela said.
"Check out and come back here. We'll show yo
u how it's done."
THE MARINE BEHIND the high counter that was like
a judge's bench inside the front entrance of th e United States Embassy, Tel Aviv, was Gunner y Sergeant David E. Davis: Regulation haircut, white cover with the spitshine peak straight over his eyes, blue dress trousers, and short-sleeved tan shirt, the colla r open, "Charlie" uniform of the day. He wore fou r rows of ribbons: all the Vietnam colors, Comba t Action Ribbon, Expeditionary Forces Medal, thre e Unit Citations, two Hearts and a Silver Star. Belo w the ribbons were an Expert Rifleman badge and th e smaller crossed-rifles-on-a-wreath version that indicated "expert with a pistol."
Davis appeared squared away, but with a tarnished look about him: a scrub farmer in his good Sunday shirt and tie. Davis was thirty-four. He ha d been in the Marines sixteen years. He was gettin g out of the Corps in exactly twenty-seven days an d he couldn't sleep thinking about it. It scared him.
He picked up the phone on the first ring an
d said, "Sergeant Davis, Post One . . . Oh, how ar e you? . . . Yeah, I can bring it when I get off duty."
There was a hint of a wearing-off southern accen
t in his voice. "I got to change first and do a fe w things, so it'll be about an hour and a half. Tha t okay?" He listened to the girl's voice, staring at th e round convex mirror above the front entrance. Th e mirror showed the area behind him all the way t o the fenced-off stairway at the end of the lobby.
When someone came down the stairs or wanted t
o go up, the watch-stander on Post One pressed a button and buzzed open the gate in the low meta l fence.
He said, "Pal Hotel. What room? . . . Okay, I'l
l call you from the desk. Listen, I told you I was going on leave? . . . It's like a vacation. I got twenty days coming and I'm taking some before I g o home. . . . No, what I'm trying to tell you, I'm going on leave soon as I get off duty. But I'll drop the package off first. . . . Okay, I'll see you in a while."
His gaze lowered from the mirror to the front entrance and the Israeli security guard at his desk next to the glass doors that sealed out the street noise s and the sun and the construction dust. The facad e of the embassy reminded Davis of a five-story pos t office, with official U
. S
. seal, placed by mistake o n the street of a Mediterranean city. Inside, the embassy reminded him of a bank--the lobby with th e high ceiling, clean, air-conditioned. He was th e bank guard. When someone wanted to see th e manager he buzzed the gate open.
When someone had an appointment upstair
s Davis would call up first before buzzing the perso n through the gate. Or he'd direct people to the reading lounge or to the visa office. Or explain to someone, very politely, no, you can't stop in and say hi to the ambassador unless you have an appointment. Some of the tourists came in and were surprised that the ambassador wasn't there to greet them.
Embassy security guard duty was considere
d good duty.
Eight-hour watches, here and at the ambassador's residence, divided among a complement of seven Marines under Master Sergeant T. C. Cox o f Amarillo, Texas, twenty-two years in the Corps.
Military training two days a week. A hundre
d hours of language school, Hebrew. (Davis kne w about five words.) Deliver some papers to the consulate in Jerusalem. Pick somebody up at Ben Gurion. Recommended calisthenics and a three-mile run every morning out at the Marine House in Herzliya Pituah. (Sgt. Willard Mims of Indianapolis, Indiana, a former 1st Force Recon Marine, ran te n miles every morning, down to Afeka and back , wearing a flak jacket and combat boots. Davi s would say, "As long as we got Willard, nobody'
s gonna fuck with us.") Good quarters. Each ma n with his own room in a pair of townhouse condominiums a block from the sea. Each room comfortable and personal. (Sgt. Grady Mason from Fort Smith, Arkansas, had Arab rugs, a brass waterpip e he didn't use, and a Day-Glo painting on black velvet of the Mosque of Omar. Stores included refrigerators full of Maccabee beer and several cases of vodka. Fried eggs, potatoes, bacon, and pancake s for breakfast. You didn't wear a uniform more tha n a couple of days a week. Three days off out of ever y eleven. Good duty.
All the Marines at the Marine House said it was.
Davis had asked each of them once, at differen
t times, if they'd ever had bad duty. Each one ha d thought about it and said no, he'd never had ba d duty. Davis had said, What about BLT duty-Battalion Landing Team? No, it was all right; yo u got to see foreign capitals and get laid. He'd said , What about in Nam? They had all been there an d each one of them had thought about it some mor e and said no, Nam was bad, but it wasn't bad duty , it was part of it. Part of what? Part of being in th e Marines.
MSgt. T. C. Cox would look at Davis funny.
How could Davis be in the Marines sixteen year
s and ask questions like that? Davis didn't know. Fo r sixteen years he had been looking for good duty.
(He had been to Parris Island, Lejeune, the suppl
y center in Philly, on Med Cruise BLT duty, Gitmo , Barstow, California--Christ--MCB McTureous o n Okinawa, and with the 3rd Marines in Vietnam.) Now he was at the end of his fourth tour and stil
l hadn't found any.
Sgt. Mims, roving security guard today, stoppe
d at the Post One desk.
"Top wants to see you before you shove off."
Davis nodded. "Where is he?"
"Down the cafeteria."
He'd see "Top"--MSgt. T. C. Cox--have a cu
p of coffee with him, and tell him again, "Yeah, I'v e thought about shipping over, but . . ." Then say , "You want to know the truth? I don't want to sta y in, but I don't want to get out either. Do you understand where I'm at? If you do, then explain it to me."
And before he left for good, he'd see about getting somebody to take his place--somebody willing to receive by APO mail every six months a package that contained one hundred thousand dollars in U
. S
. currency. You could look at it, make sure it was money and not dope or dirty books--
t here was nothing illegal about receiving money i n the mail. Just so you didn't ask too many questions , like, what was the money for? The girl wouldn'
t tell you anyway. Good-looking girl, too, with a nice little can. He should've gotten to know he r better.
A girl in a white bridal gown was having her picture taken in Independence Park, posed in an arbor of shelf rock and shrubbery.
"There's another one," Mel Bandy said. H
e stood at the bank of windows in the eighth-floo r hotel room, looking down at the park. "What i s this with the brides?"
"It's very popular for wedding pictures," Tal
i said, "with the trees and the flowers."
"And the dog walkers. They're having a convention over there, all the dogs, and the owners sitting around on the grass." Mel turned to look at Tali , who was standing between the two beds with th e telephone in her hand. "You going to call the manager?"
"I'm thinking the concierge would be the perso
n for something like this."
"I don't care who you call."
She began to dial the number.
"What time's the Marine coming?"
Tali pressed the button down to break the connection. "He said in about an hour and a half."
"You know this guy pretty well, uh?"
"No, I've seen him only sometimes."
"Three years you've been dealing with him, yo
u don't go out together?"
"There was another Marine before him we used.
The first one went home. This one, David, I believ
e it's the third time only he receive it."
"What do you give him?"
"A thousand lira."
"Lira?"
"Israeli pounds."
"That's what, about a hundred and a half?" Me
l said. "To hand over a package. The Marine kno w what it is?"
"Oh yes. Mr. Rosen said, 'Let him look. Sho
w him what it is.' The first one, I believe he though t maybe the money was to buy hashish. I told hi m no, I wouldn't do something like that, against th e law."
"What about the Marine?" Mel said. "What i
f he gets ideas?"
"No, Mr. Rosen trusts him. He said, 'How is h
e going to steal it? We know who he is. He works fo r the embassy.' "
"Does the Marine know who Rosen is?"
"No, I wouldn't tell him that."
"Have they met?"
Tali shook her head. "Mr. Rosen didn't think i
t was necessary."
"Or a good idea," Mel said. "You going to cal
l the manager?"
"Yes, right now," Tali said. She dialed th
e concierge, waited, said, "Shalom," and bega n speaking in Hebrew.
Mel Bandy watched her. "Tell him what yo
u want. You don't have to explain anything."
Tali was listening now and nodding, saying
, "Ken . . . ken," then gesturing with her hand as she began speaking again in a stream of Hebrew.
"You don't ask him, you tell him," Mel said. H
e came over from the window and took the phon e out of her hand.
"This is Mr. Bandy in 824. I want a couple o
f men up here to move some furniture around. I wan t a bed moved out and I want a couch brought in . . .
a sofa, and a small office refrigerator. . . . No, I sai d furniture. I want some furniture moved. You understand? One of the beds, the double bed in here, I want it taken out. . . . No, out. I want to get rid o f it. It takes up too much room. And I want a couch , a sofa, brought in. . . . Jesus Christ," Mel said. H
e handed the phone to Tali. "Tell them what w e want."
Late afternoon; they were the only ones in the embassy cafeteria: MSgt. Cox stirring two sugars and cream in a fresh cup of coffee; GSgt. Davis with a Heineken, sipping it out of the bottle and trying t o explain where he was, which Cox would never understand.
They had already gone through his being nervous, Sgt. Cox saying that if short time scared him , then he had no business stepping down. What wa s the date of his relacdu orders? Twenty April.
That's all? Shit, Sgt. Cox said, Davis was so shor
t he'd fart and get sand in his face. From today , twenty-seven and a wake-up and he'd be out of th e Corps with his DD214. That kind of talk.
Well, Sgt. Cox supposed Davis knew what h
e was going to do when he got out.
"I don't have any plans, no. But I feel right no
w it's time. I know, I put in four more years, at least I g et some retirement. . . ."
"Some? You get half pay the rest of your life,"
Sgt. Cox said. "Twelve more years, seventy-fiv
e percent for life."
"I know, but if I stay in any longer--this is how I
f eel--it'll be too late to do anything else."
"Like what?"
"I don't know. But I don't want to be a ban
k guard. That's the way I feel about it."
"What do you have to be a bank guard for?"
"I mean right now. That's what I feel like."
Sgt. Cox didn't understand that. He squinted a
t Davis, thinking. "What's your MOS, Administration? You can probably get into I and I."
"Shit no, I've got an oh-three MOS," Davis said.
"Oh-three sixty-nine, Infantry Unit Leader."
"I didn't know that." Sgt. Cox paused, giving i
t more thought. "Well, the way I see it, Davis, yo u maintain pretty good. Passable service record o n MSG duty. Re-up and I'll recommend you to th e RSO in Karachi. They'll give you a choice of embassies, depending on openings. I hear Seoul's pretty good duty."
Jesus Christ, Korea. Davis was shaking his head.
"No, that's what I'm talking about. Sitting at
a guard post, or sitting out at the Marine House shining my shoes, getting ready to sit at the post. You know what I'm saying? What the fuck are we doin g here? We're bank guards."
Sgt. Cox was squinting at him again, irritated.
"What do we do anywhere? It's what we do."
"That's what I'm saying," Davis said.
"You don't like it, then get back into your MOS.
You picked it."
"Or get out," Davis said. "See, basically, I'm a
n infantryman. . . ."
"We all are," Sgt. Cox said. "You're no different."