Stephen Hunter - I, Sniper

Fish. He decided it would be a fish night, because he was a long way from a reputable steak joint, the nearest, Morton’s, being over on Connecticut at K. It was a cab ride away. Nearby there was a place called Oceanaire he’d always heard good things about; he’d hit that, have a nice dinner, walk back to the Hoover underground, and be home in Fairfax by midnight.

He got to Oceanaire, which was on L, and liked what he saw: it seemed to have a kind of forties look to it, and it made him think of movies about G-men, where everyone wore a tough fedora with a tilt to the brim and a trench coat and carried a Colt Dick Special. Oh, and smoked, they all smoked, and he remembered the movie that had set him off on this path in life, which he’d seen on television in the seventies lying on his belly at fourteen in his parents’ split-level, gray in the light of the tube; it was called The Street with No Name and told the story of a heroic G-man named Gene Cordell who had infiltrated some mob in the tacky slumtown of “Center City,” and it ended in a blazing shootout, with tommy guns spitting flashes and spurts of spent gas and long columns of tumbling brass into the night air, while slugs chewed the shit out of a guy named Shivvy, sparing Cordell’s life at the last moment. Cordell was played by-what was that guy’s name? Some guy who never made it big, but boy, he’d seemed big in that movie. Steve Jackson? Jack Smith? Bill Stevenson, some name like that, some-Mark Stevens, that was it, and for that movie at least, no matter what happened before or after, Mark Stevens was so cool, so smart, so tough, so brave, so everything a kid could want to be, that’s when Nick knew he had to be a G-man or his life would come to nothing.

Nostalgic for the good old days of G-manning he’d only experienced in the movies, no matter twenty-odd years of service as a special agent, Nick slipped in, saw the place was half full, caught the maître d’s attention, and was taken to a nice out-of-the-way table. He sat, turned down a drink, listened to the specials, chose grilled rockfish with mashed potatoes after a salad, oil and vinegar, and began to work on a little plate of on-the-house munchies in sour cream the waiter had brought before he’d taken the order.

Meanwhile big-band music filled the air, and Nick waited for the announcement that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor, but it never came. Instead, a bottle of champagne did.

“I didn’t order that,” he said to Chad, the waiter.

“I know, sir, but a fellow at that table sent it over. It’s the very best. Not cheap.”

Nick looked across the room and saw that man Bill Fedders, waving pleasantly at him.

Nick smiled back, then turned to the waiter.

“Take this back, thank Mr. Fedders for me, if you don’t mind, but tell him I’m on duty. I’m an FBI special agent and I’m carrying a firearm, so it’s against regulations for me to drink tonight. He’ll understand.”

“Yes sir,” said the waiter, and sped off. But if Nick thought that would be the end of it, he was sadly mistaken. He had the salad, the rock, nicely done, and was enjoying a cup of decaf when a shadow crossed the table, and he knew who it was.

“Nick, hi. Bill Fedders-”

“Sure, Bill, I remember, in the director’s office a couple of weeks ago. You’re working for Constable, right?”

“I am indeed. Doing the boss’s dirty work, as usual. Sorry you couldn’t take the champagne. It’s a really light one, very good with fish. But I understand. Something happens, you have to pop a bad guy, and the fizz-juice comes up and it’s a lot of trouble.”

“Even I admit the chances of me popping a bad guy tonight are pretty remote, but if you get into a way of living, it’s tough to get out of it. Thanks for the offer. I’m not a prude. It just wouldn’t have been a good idea.”

“Got it. Nick, do you mind if I join you for a sec?” Fedders had a smooth way of ingratiating himself, that professional Washington player’s sense of entitlement to attention everywhere, welcome assumed. He was a radiantly handsome man, wearing the power attorney’s immaculately fitted blue pinstripe, with a glisten in his gray-black hair and the fresh look of just having stepped out of the barber’s chair.

“Mr. Fedders-”

“Bill.”

“Bill, it’s probably not a good idea. I do official business at the office, in the open, where everybody can see and hear. If you want to schedule an appointment, we’ll certainly do our best to accommodate you. Or if-”

“It’s not really official, Nick. Not really.”

“Well, sure then, but bear in mind I have a walk back to my car and a long drive back to Fairfax tonight. And I want to be in early tomorrow. I always try to be the first guy in the office. It goes with all that big money they pay me.”

Fedders smiled, eyes sparkling, as he eased into the empty chair. He put a half-full glass of scotch down before him.

“Nick, it’s my job, you know. I have to ask around, I have to find things out, I have to know how things work. That’s what Tom pays me for. I guess I’m sort of his ‘special agent.’ ”

“Sure.”

“So I hear things. I hear, for example, the investigation has suddenly gone off on another route.”

“We’re trying to be diligent, that’s all.”

“Sure, sure. I hear that too. I hear from people, ‘That Nick Memphis, sure to be an assistant director before the year’s out, just gone from triumph to triumph.’ I understand that thing in Bristol was hairy.”

“I caught a piece of lead, but I’m okay except for the funny walk.”

“Well, a hero. Very good guy. And that’s what I hear, that’s the summary judgment on Nick Memphis, FBI. ‘Very good guy.’ ‘The best.’ ‘One of the incorruptibles,’ ‘really a comer,’ ‘going places.’ ”

“Bill, going places isn’t the point. I’ve had a wonderful career and I’m happy at the small contributions I’ve made. That’s enough. If I make it to the next floor, won’t that be swell. If I don’t, that’s the way the cards fall. My ambition doesn’t include myself. I want to make sure we get it right; that’s my ambition.”

“Well said. You’re a noble man in a town full of assholes, professional and amateur. Okay, Nick, but let me just be square with you. This guy Tom Constable is your classic big foot and he’s not afraid to hurt people who get in his way. I try to get him to exercise some constraint, but these made-it-themselves celebrity billionaires are tough cookies when it comes to getting their own way. I’m just here to say, if there’s no point in antagonizing him, don’t do it. He can and will bring hurt, and I’ve seen it. Nick, I’d hate to see a guy good as you get buried under the big guy’s big foot over nothing. He wants the investigation closed; he wants his ex-wife’s name out of the papers; he wants the whole thing to go away. I’m only telling you this out of respect for your accomplishments.”

“Oh, I see,” said Nick. “You’re doing me a favor. See, I thought you were threatening an FBI agent.”

“Nick-”

“Mr. Fedders, I’d like this conversation to end now, before you get in trouble. Yeah, you have to serve the big man, and yeah, I have to tread softly around the big man, we both know how it works in this bad old town. Okay, you’ve made your point. Power talks, bullshit walks, welcome to the City on the Hill.”

“Nick, be pissed if you want, but think of it from another angle. This guy could really help you. I mean why do the assholes like me make it big and the good boys like you never quite do? It’s because us assholes aren’t afraid to suck up to a big foot, flatter him endlessly, do his dirty little jobs, and get the big payoff. You could say that’s the life I chose, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. But a good guy like you, if you do this one little favor for the big man, you have no idea how it can help a career. It could get a good guy like you to the Seventh Floor, and think of the good you could do there, and the pride you’d take in it. You’d be ahead of your wife too, and I know that’s got to play into it”-so Fedders had actually looked into Sally’s thriving career at Justice and knew that she was fast-track to the upper floors-“and think how good that would feel. Nick, that’s all I have, thanks for listening, you have my card, and if you ever, and I mean ever , need a favor in this town, call me.”