Стивен Хантер - G-Man

“Into something special — like father, like son.”

“No, my father was a real hero, I’m just a lucky imitator. Anyhow, I have taken it upon myself to learn something about my grandfather and see what lies at the root of his mysteries. I have called homes for the elderly all throughout Arkansas, taken out ads in elder publications, dug through the photo albums of old families in Blue Eye, finally hiring a sophisticated detective agency to try to find someone who was alive and remembers when my grandfather was alive. After all that, I’ve found only one such person: you. That’s all.”

“I’m afraid I must disappoint you, then, Mr. Swagger… Colonel Swagger?”

“ Gunnery Sergeant Swagger.”

“Sergeant Swagger, I have no memories of your grandfather.”

“I brought some pictures. I thought it might help. These are from the Blue Eye Historical Society.”

“All right,” she said, “I’m game. Abracadabra, bibbity-bobbity-boo, let’s see if some magic happens.”

He handed over a batch of glossies from his briefcase and the old beauty took them, scanned them, now and then stopping to meditate, or at least go into search function, and commented as she navigated.

“The trees — I do remember the trees. Elms, hundreds of them, and in the fall the whole world blazed with their coloration.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Bob.

“They burned leaves in those days, and from August through early November the stink of burning leaves and a fog of smoke hung everywhere. Is that right?”

“It is,” said Bob.

“Is it me or were the colors really different then? I seem to remember nothing was as hard a color as it is now. It was more pastel somehow, thinner. There was more light in the air. There wasn’t so much insistence on being noticed.”

Bob sort of got what she meant, but no words came to him.

“Not big on colors, are we, Sergeant Swagger?”

“He was too busy ducking to notice colors,” said Nikki.

“Point well taken,” said Mrs. Tisdale. “Your life has been too full of meaningful action to put up with ironic jibes from a rich old lady, Sergeant Swagger.”

“None of it had much meaning, ma’am. I take no offense.”

“Anyhow, of course homes were bigger, but hotter, no air-conditioning. I remember big black boat-cars. Everybody smoked, everybody wore hats, everybody drank. Yes, there was a Depression, but I was among people who seemed untouched by it. I remember tennis, but I think that was later, more toward the war. My father played golf and was in the country club. The black people were very subservient, and invisible, even if they were in your home… Oh, I do remember this home, I believe Billy Marlowe lived there. I think he kissed me in 1941, when I was seventeen, right before we left for Baltimore. I think I heard he died in a plane over Germany. The shoes are so funny. I don’t remember them, though I do remember saddle shoes, though maybe that was later. I think I have the ’thirties and the ’forties and half the ’fifties lumped together. I’m afraid next I’m going to remember going to the movies to see Lewis and Martin.”

“What about Shirley Temple?”

“I remember seeing those movies, I remember the theater, and my friends Frannie and Thelma, but it’s in space, just floating, not connected with anything. Sorry, I can’t help. Anything else, Mr. Swagger?”

“Finally, this one.”

“My god,” said Mrs. Tisdale. She looked at the photo, considering it carefully. In time, she squinched up her eyes so that she was regarding it like a sniper peering through a scope, only through her dominant eye.

“Here’s how it appeared in the paper, ma’am.” He handed over the cellophane-wrapped clipping from the December 11, 1934, Clarion . “Sheriff Awards ‘Crossing Guard of Year’ Medal.”

“The actual glossy has more detail,” he said. “The printed version gets all fuzzy with those dots.”

She continued to stare intently. Then at last — it seemed an hour had passed, but it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds — she said, “Yes, now that I see this, it does in fact conjure some memories. I cannot believe I still am capable of such.”

“Please, go ahead.”

“Ah, suppose I tell you something about this man that you won’t like?”

“I would be surprised if you didn’t. What information I’ve come up with suggests he’d just done something that resulted in some kind of scandal and returned to Polk County in shame. And I assume since it was the custom, that as part of the apparatus that ran Polk County in those days, he was party to all matter of graft, grift, and bribe.”

“Perhaps… I wouldn’t know any of that. But I did notice that he smelled like Daddy, which was my code for whiskey on his breath. I remember too that he had the sort of over-friendliness, over-politeness, over-precision that attends someone in a state of alcoholic blur who is pretending to be sober.”

“He seems to have had a drinking problem. I’m guessing it started in 1934.”

“What happened to him in 1934?”

“That’s the mystery I’m trying to solve. I know that later it got so bad that he started going to a Baptist Prayer Camp for help. But the Lord was otherwise occupied.”

“The Baptists talk to God, you know, so if they couldn’t help him, he was beyond redemption. Are you sure you want to know?”

“No. But I am sworn to try my damnedest.”

“Fair enough. All right, he was, as I said, slightly drunk. Nobody said a thing, but I could smell it. He must have favored rye, as my father did. There were other things manifest now that I remember. He was treated by all with great respect. It was clear many viewed him with awe and considered themselves lucky to be in his presence. Perhaps it was all those medals he won in his two armies.”

“He had also shot it out with some very bad fellows from Little Rock, and when the smoke cleared, he was still standing and they were not. Actually, that happened several times with various fellows, and he was always the one left standing in the end.”

“Yes, that was the aura. He was the gunfighter. But at the same time, even as I sensed that, I can remember not fearing him. He didn’t make you uneasy. He seemed a good man, to a ten-year-old girl. I remember that plaid jumper I wore on special occasions. Each of the crossing guards got a medal, but because I had never been late or missed a day, I was considered the best. I was rather proud of that medal; it remains the only prize I ever won. It also was the first time I ever succeeded at anything, and I had been considered a dull girl. But having a big important man like The Sheriff give me that medal, and hold my hand, and telling me I should be proud, that was one of my favorite moments.”

“I’m glad he was part of that for you.”

“I am too. Maybe he wasn’t the bastard you think.”

“We’ll have to see.”

“Now I am getting a memory. It’s gurgling out of my unconscious. Is it real or is it a figment? No, I think it’s real.”

They waited. The old lady closed her eyes, as if waiting for the séance to begin, then laughed.

“Oh, yes: the ear.”

“The ear?”

“You can’t see it here. His head is turned slightly. It was his right ear. The top half of it was bandaged. It could not have been a major wound. I mean, an ear. The top of an ear! But it wore some gauze wrapping and adhesive tape. Yes, definitely. Had he been in a minor accident?”

“I don’t know. I’ll go back to the newspaper and see if there’s any mention.”

He sat back, looked at Nikki, who nodded.

“I can’t tell you how much you’ve helped me. You’ve given me something I didn’t have before: an ear.”