Robert Stone - Dog Soldiers

June’s room was at the end of an airless immaculate corridor; a closed circuit television camera surveyed the hall from a point just above her door.

For quite a while, she declined to open but after he had slid his red and yellow Vietnamese press card under the door she let him in.

“Why didn’t you call up?” she asked him. She was fair-haired and freckled with a hardening baby face, wearing tight faded Levi’s and a halter with anchors on it. Her voice reminded him of the voices of telephone operators who answered from Bismarck or Edmonton when he misdialed an area code.

“What else you got with your name on it?”

He showed her his passport. There was a color television set in the room tuned to the day’s Giant game; the sound was off.

“How’d I ever get mixed up in this happy horseshit?” She took a cigarette from a pack on the television set and lit it. She seemed slightly drunk or fatigued.

“I understand you had my daughter for a while.”

“Isn’t she all right?”

“I hope so,” Converse said. “I haven’t seen her.”

“Well, we took good care of her. You ask Bender.”

Converse went to the blue tinted window and looked out at Treasure Island and the bridge.

“Do you know where Marge is?”

She widened her Scandian cornflower eyes in annoyance.

“Don’t give me a hard time.”

“Understand my position,” Converse said. June shook her head, and turned her back on him. He saw that there was another room with a second television set in it. A pale blue uniform suit with a flight pin at the breast pocket was spread on its hanger across a bed.

“What were you doing over there?” she asked him.

“Writing.”

“So you’re back and your old lady is doing something else. It’s not unknown.”

“It’s awkward for me.”

She gave him a brief, shrill laugh. “Well don’t be peasant about it, man. Learn to live with it because some things are more important than boy-girl.”

“Boy-girl,” Converse said, “isn’t the trouble.”

She looked at the bandage over his ear.

“No?”

“First there was the disappointment. Then yesterday somebody burned me over a stove.”

She put her cigarette out and shook her head quickly with her eyes closed.

“It’s not my problem, John. Don’t give me a hard time.”

“If this is your idea of a hard time, you haven’t met the people I have.”

“That’s a threat,” she said.

“No, it’s not.”

The walls were beige with silver bamboo leaves painted on them.

“Is this where you had Janey?” he asked her.

“I don’t live here. Who burned you?”

“Two guys.”

“Freaks?”

“More or less.”

“I get it,” she said. “I see.”

He sat down carefully on the edge of a sofa that matched the walls.

“If you get it — where’s Marge?”

Her eyelids fluttered. Her eyes looked slightly out of focus as though the effort of being casual was putting her to sleep.

“Marge is away, man. On vacation, Pee Vee. Guaymas. Rosarita, cha cha cha.” She snapped her fingers twice.

“They’re hiding for Christ’s sake. I don’t know where they are.”

“All right,” Converse said.

She settled onto the far end of the sofa and looked at her watch.

“How did Janey end up with you?”

“I was doing a favor for a buddy.”

“For Ray Hicks?”

“Yeah for Ray.” She watched him drowsily and lit another cigarette. “They didn’t screw you. I mean as far as I know they didn’t. They got taken off.”

Converse could not restrain a sigh.

“They still got the dope though. It’s your dope, right?”

He shrugged without answering.

“Well, they still got it. Or as far as I know they still got it.”

He was nodding thoughtfully as though the intelligence were of some value to him.

“Scared?”

“Yes, indeed,” he said.

“You seem just like an ordinary guy. Why’d you try it?”

“We’re all just ordinary guys.”

June laughed.

“That’s what you think. Do you know Those Who Are?”

“Those Who Are? Those who are what?”

“Forget it,” June said. “It’s a gag.”

“It sounds really funny,” he said. She looked at him with sympathy.

“Me, I’m getting loose of these people. I’m straight, I got a chance of my old job back. They won’t see me around this town again.”

“What’s your old job? Are you a stew?”

“Used to be,” June said. “Will be again for a while. See, when I knew Ray I was into running shit from Bangkok. No scag — just Laotian Red and such. Then I started dealing myself and I met this guy Owen and then we were both dealing.”

“I guess I ought to thank you,” Converse said. “For having Janey.”

“Sure,” June said and looked at her watch.

“How was Marge?”

“Well, she wasn’t hurt. She was pretty fucked up. You want to get back with her?”

“I don’t know.”

“I really hope everybody makes out,” June said. “I been up against so many people’s paranoia that I’m really turned around. When I get east, man, I’m gonna get some protection and nothing and nobody’s gonna get to me.” She watched the television set for a while; the camera was panning over the stands as the fans in Candlestick Park took their seventh-inning stretch. “That’s what this country needs is protection.”

“Tell me,” Converse said, “who do you think it was that burned me?”

“Who do I think it was? Well, I guess it was the people who took off your wife. They were right there when Ray got in so they must have been expecting everybody. You can figure your troubles started over in Nam.”

“Yes,” Converse said. They sat watching the Atlanta pitcher warm up. “Do you know a cop named Antheil?”

“He’s not a cop,” June said. “He’s a regulatory agent. I know him.”

“He’s been harassing my father-in-law. He seems to think Marge is mixed up in a dope ring.”

“Well, you’ve all got my sympathy.” She smiled and shuddered. “Is that what he said? A dope ring?”

“So I understand.”

“That sounds like him.”

“If you were dealing dope,” Converse said, “How come you know what he sounds like?”

“Oh man,” June said sadly, “I don’t want your paranoia. I know the dude, that’s all. The guy I was with,” she said, “he had dealings with Antheil. Antheil has lots of dealings.”

“Why is he a regulatory agent instead of a cop?”

“Because he works for a regulatory agency. And that’s what he calls himself.”

“I see,” Converse said. “He knows everybody, right? He’s got a lot of sources.

He pays them. I don’t know if he stands still for their dealing but I guess he’d have to.

“I made it with Ray, O.K.? Owen was very possessive, he found out about it. After they split Owen got loaded and called Antheil. He had a theory about where they were going.” She watched a throw to first, an easy out. “I think he’s wrong. I hope he’s wrong.”

“Where did he think they were going?”

June shook her head.

“You wouldn’t find it by yourself. It’s way out in the toolies. Anyway, it’s not where they went.”

“All right,” Converse said.

They watched the game.

“Sorry to hear you got Antheil after you. He’s very weird. He’s not your ordinary nark.”

“Why not.”

“He’s a lawyer. He used to work for the civil service commission and for the internal revenue. Then some shit went down and he transferred. He knows a lot of heavy political people, Owen says.”

A lock of Converse’s hair had stuck to his bandage. He tried cautiously to disengage it.