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CHAPTER 38
Tony patted his shoulder. Dean was far down a bottle of Wild Turkey, sitting on the lawn chair on his front porch. Tony’s Oldsmobile popped and clicked as the engine cooled.
Tony sat in the chair next to him. The evening had slipped into night. The warmth of the day lingered, but it was fading as rapidly as the visibility of the trees sinking into the dark. Tony pulled the bottle from Dean, took a drink, and handed it back to him. “What’s up?”
Dean let the question sit unanswered for a while. Why had he called Tony? Why not go directly to their dad, who would know soon enough? It was not about protecting the chief. He did not need or want that. When Dean started telling Tony about the missing M16 and Zorn’s source of information, the words came out fast and quick, like he were vomiting. His body cleansing himself of disease. All the little things over the months, every word Guthrie had said, every action he had taken loomed ever larger, ever more significant. And he wrestled coming to terms, accepting that Guthrie had led him, Reggie, and Etheridge into a trap. Had walked them in and expected them to not return.
Tony took another drink and handed the bottle back to Dean. “That’s messed up. They may lose leverage on Sam. Probably have. Well, they have. It’s just a matter if Sam knows it or not.”
“And that protects Zorn.”
Tony nodded once. “Yup.”
“I should’ve seen it.”
“That’s the booze and hindsight talking. Sounds like Guthrie was real careful. It’s not like Dad noticed it either. Zorn’s been slipping through his fingers for years. Some of that had to be Guthrie’s work.”
“But we’ve got nothing solid on him. He probably has an explanation for the M16. An explanation for everything.”
Tony leaned forward and clasped his hands together. “Thing is, now you know your target. All of that stuff he was doing was in the shadows. Now you’ve got the flashlight.”
Dean nodded.
Tony looked at his brother and then to the night sky. Only the brightest stars burnt through the haze of street and living room lights. “I know something about redemption. What it means to live with shame and to find a way, to claw your way back to something like respect. You. You are not in need of that. What Guthrie did, you didn’t give him that power to do. So you can’t reclaim it. You can arrest him. You can find justice for what he’s done, for Reggie. But you—you do not need redemption.”
Dean let a long silence rest between them. “Do you think Pryce will work with me?”
“How so?”
“Keep the missing M16 quiet for now. Help me nab Guthrie.”
“I’ve worked with him a couple of times. He’s a good agent. He’s pissed as hell, I’m sure. He’ll want justice, so yeah, I think he’d listen to what you have to say.”
Dean nodded. “I need to talk to him.”
“I’ll call him. I’ll tell him you’ll talk to him tomorrow.” Tony stood up and walked into the house.
Dean watched the Straithorn’s Buick LeSabre drive past his house and into their driveway. Their daughter, Lilly, jumped out of the back seat and ran to their front door. Two years older than Jenny, she seemed a lifetime more mature. Boys meant something to her and she meant something to the boys, at least a number of them. High school was sooner rather than later. And Dean saw Jenny so infrequently, that every time he did so very much seemed to have changed. She had grown or altered her hair style or found a new favorite band. It was impossible to keep pace with her. Impossible to understand and accept what he was missing. He swirled the whiskey in the bottle and took a drink.
The screen door closed behind Tony as he took back the seat he had abandoned a few minutes before. “Pryce says he’ll keep it quiet. Call him tomorrow with your plan.”
“Thanks.”
“Sure.”
“Did I ever tell you about Stitch?”
Tony smiled. “Yes. A couple of months ago. One of your buddies that didn’t make it out of Vietnam.”
“Mmmm.” Dean sighed. “Yep. Quang Ho. Hill 425. Lost a lot of good men there.”
“Yep. Sounds familiar.”
“Did I tell you I killed Stitch, that I’m the reason Stitch left in a body bag?”
Tony sat silent in the chair. He had grabbed a Pabst when he was inside.
“I take it I didn’t mention that part.”
“No. You did not.”
“It was when we were fighting bunker to bunker. Fucking NVA knew how to build bunkers. You could drop bombs on them all day and night and those goddamned bunkers would hold together. Unless it was a direct hit, which almost never happened. Anyways, we were crawling our way up this hill. Machine guns sweeping the routes of our advance. Those assholes could set up interlacing fire as well. Don’t ever believe them, when they say the NVA wasn’t a good army. They were well trained. Professional. Deadly.”
“I won’t.”
“I can’t remember which bunker it was, but it was a few in. We darted from outcropping to outcropping. Wherever we could find cover. But we moved. Had to. You stopped for too long you died. Who wants to die in Vietnam?” Dean took a drink. “Shit. Anyways, it was my turn to flank this bunker and drop some grenades in it while a couple of guys provided the covering fire. I get up there. I pull the pin. I drop the grenade in. And a gook pops up on my right. I don’t think. I spray the guy with my gun. The grenade goes poof. The NVA in front of me falls. He looked surprised.” He rubbed the armrest’s plastic. After a while, he continued. “The battle’s over and we’re trying to find the guys that didn’t make it. I found Stitch. He was downhill from that NVA guy I killed. I shot a bunch of bullets and it killed the enemy. And it may have killed Stitch. I didn’t think too much about it at the time. Just a fleeting thought. The kind like, ‘Did one of my bullets kill Stitch?’ But over time, over time, that begins to weigh. And then you get home. And you can’t tell anyone this. No one understands except other Marines. And you can’t tell them you think you killed one of your own, even if you know you aren’t the first to do so because you’re sitting at home on your ass drinking beer and he’s dead.”
They sat there in silence, watching the lights of the nearby houses turning off one by one.
“You end up hating yourself. You hate yourself for what you’ve done, and you wonder if there’s a way to claw your way back to humanity, to even liking yourself.”
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