Paul Levine - Night vision

"Evan was killed after the firefight in the village, right?"

"Of course, right. I just told you-"

"Evan was still alive when you left the village."

"Jake, what's wrong with you? Of course he was still alive or he couldn't have been shot by the gook sniper on the dike."

I don't have a polygraph machine in my head, but he looked like a man telling the truth. Of course, I believed Gerald Prince and Tom Carruthers, too. Maybe Nick Fox was right about me. Maybe I'd lost that cynical edge that comes with the territory. Maybe I'd gone soft downtown advising husbands how to avoid alimony and companies how to breach contracts. Maybe billing by the hour fattened the wallet and dulled the instincts. But I could still recognize two stories that didn't match. There was Nick Fox's story and there was Marsha Diamond's printout:

1. WHO GAVE THE ORDERS TO WALK ALONG THE DIKE PRIOR TO ENTERING THE VILLAGE OF DAK SUT?

2. AFTER THE MEDIC AND RADIOMAN WERE KILLED, WHAT WAS THE STATE OF DISCIPLINE OF YOUR MEN?

3. WHEN YOUR PLATOON ENTERED THE VILLAGE OF DAK SUT ON JANUARY 8, 1968, WHAT ORDERS DID YOU GIVE?

4. WAS THERE EVIDENCE OF NVA OR VC IN THE VILLAGE?

5. WERE THE VILLAGERS ARMED, AND IF SO, DID THEY THREATEN YOUR PLATOON?

6. WERE ANY VILLAGERS WOUNDED OR KILLED BY YOUR MEN?

7. WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR TRANSLATOR?

8. THE LAST TIME YOU SAW LIEUTENANT FERGUSON ALIVE, WAS HE…

The chronology didn't match. Nothing added up. And if Fox hadn't told Marsha about the incident, how did she know enough to ask the questions?

Nick Fox picked up a file and began reading or pretending to.

"Tell me more about what happened in Dak Sut," I said.

"Look, other than formal reports to command and my personal log, I simply have never…"

His eyes glazed over, but only for a moment. Then he turned to me, the old Nick Fox, a glint of anger just beneath the surface. "I don't know what you're getting at, Lassiter, but you're barking up the wrong tree. How about interviewing Harry Hard Dick, or whatever he calls himself, and get the hell out of here."

"I intend to do just that."

"And don't let him bullshit you. Shake him up if you have to. Tell him you've got his prints at the scene-"

"That's not the way I play the game."

"The game," he said derisively. "I used to watch you play ball, Jake. And you know what I remember? One Sunday against the Cowboys, you were blitzing from the weak side. Staubach rolled your way and tripped. Just stumbled over his own feet and went down. Nobody had touched him, so it was a live ball in the days before quarterbacks wore skirts and the zebras blew the whistle every time a money player got a hangnail. He was down, ribs exposed. Fresh meat, and you had a clean shot. You could have speared him, taken him out. Worth fifteen yards, right? Even a good shoulder might have done it. But you just played tag and hopscotched over him."

"I never played to hurt anybody."

"You never played to win! " he thundered.

"I stuck my head in there like everybody else."

"Sure, you were physically tough. You threw your body around like it was somebody else's. But that's not the point. You played to have fun. I watched you. You'd help the runner up. You laughed out there, always chattering, clapping your hands like a schoolboy. You never knew it was war."

"It wasn't. It was just a game."

His laugh was scornful. "You don't fucking understand, Jake. I'm not talking about football. I'm talking about life. You coast along, just doing your job, making your little jokes. You weren't committed to winning on the field and you haven't changed. You're not serious because you don't see what's going on. Well, I've seen life up close. In the jungle, on the streets, in the eyes of the scumbags and the faces of their victims. Being a cop is war. Being a prosecutor is war. You think the assholes out there play by the rules? You think the guy who killed Marsha gives a shit what's in our fancy books? It's just like in-country. We own the day, Charley owns the night. Only it's worse now. It's pitch-black twenty-four hours a day. Damn it, Jake, you got to have night vision. You got to see in the dark."

The explosive crack of a rifle shot.

The squeaking of sneakered feet on concrete. Murmurs in Spanish, a low whistle, then applause mixed with groans.

A haze of cigarette fog hung over the jai alai fronton. Wednesday night and the place half-empty. Some of the regulars slouched in their cushioned seats studying the program, trying to build two bucks into a hundred with a lucky trifecta.

Henry Travers, aka Harry Hardwick, leaned over the rail at the end of the court near the front wall. He held a stubby pencil and was scribbling in the margins of his program. His stomach ballooned from under a bright aloha shirt. His pants were low slung and drooped over brown loafers with worn heels. His face was creased, his dishwater hair uncombed, and he looked at life through thick, rimless glasses. He appeared to be a man who spent much of his time alone.

Two new players took the court as I sidled next to Travers at the rail. I studied him close up. He hadn't shaved this morning, and if he had showered, he should return his deodorant soap for a refund. His taproom pallor was beyond pale; I had seen better suntans on death row.

At the first crack of pelota against the wall, Travers looked up from his program and toward the court. The player in the red jersey cleanly handled the rebound and, in that peculiar whipping motion, hurled the pelota high against the front wall. The second crack was louder, and there was nothing but a white blur as the player in blue climbed the sidewall, reached high with his cesta, and made the catch. In one motion he pivoted and whirled, rocketing a low screamer toward the front wall. The man in blue tried to short-hop the bounce like Ozzie Smith on a double-play ball, but there's only one Ozzie Smith, and the pelota dribbled off his cesta into the protective screen.

"Goddamn Guernica," Henry Travers muttered.

"It's only one point," I advised.

He turned toward me. It was just another bettor in a Dolphins jersey. Except mine was real. Travers said, "His confidence goes to shit after he loses the first point. Here, look."

He shoved his crumpled program at me. There were handwritten numbers on it. They didn't mean anything to me.

"Guernica finishes in the money forty-six percent of the time when he wins the first point, twenty-one percent when he doesn't."

"Like getting on the board first in football," I said.

"Same principle. I took Guernica, Maya, and Chucho in the trifecta, then wheeled Guernica in both the quiniela and perfecta."

"Good luck."

He snorted. "Should just burn my money, be faster."

Guernica had already lost the second and third points when I asked Travers if he cared for a beer. He said no thanks and then I opened my wallet and showed him my official, laminated, gold-starred, special-assistant-state-attorney badge signed by the Honorable Nicholas G. Fox. A beer would be just fine, Henry Travers allowed.

We sat at a dirty plastic table sipping watery American beer from Styrofoam cups. At the next table a couple of retirees in baseball caps nodded to Travers.

"I couldn't help noticing you have a slight limp," I said. "Your right foot drags a bit."

"Disc problem. Total disability from the postal service."

"Funny how the heels on your shoes are worn evenly. You'd think the left one would deteriorate faster from carrying more weight."

Behind the thick glasses, his eyes narrowed. "What're you trying to prove?"

"Earlier tonight, when you came out of the head, you were practically skipping so you wouldn't miss a point. You could have been the drum major for the A-and-M marching band. After I said hello, you were hobbling like a cornerback with a pulled hamstring."