“See, Bill, here’s the funny thing. If you want to go after me, that’s fine. I’m a big boy, I’m in a hot-seat job, it’s what I wanted, it was the risk I ran to pay for my ambition. I can go down; it’s the way of the wicked world. But you guys went after Swagger. Let me tell you, it takes a powerful kind of fool to go after Swagger. He never did anything but his duty, hard and straight, no bullshit, and he dodged enough lead in his time to sink an aircraft carrier. He did it for something he thought of as his country, and his country is a lot better off because of the risks he took and the wounds he bore and the responsibilities he embraced. Now you make him out to be some kind of cracker Svengali manipulating me into stupidity. I will tell you this: I’ve seen smart boys try to throw the rope around Swagger before and it always turns out the same. They think they’re hunting him, and it turns out he’s hunting them.”
“Nick, it’s nothing personal. It’s just-”
“So when I talk to you, Bill, the truth is, one way or the other, it’s like I’m talking to something that’s already been hit and just doesn’t know it yet. You and your rich boss and all the thugs he’s hired? Baby, you’re walking into bullet city.”
37
They took him downstairs into a blank white room with a heavy lock. It was one of those zones of permanent noon. Two TV cameras monitored it, mounted on brackets in the corner. It had an antiseptic quality to it, and a drain in the floor, in the center of the cheesy linoleum. The lights were harsh and shadowless. A sink hung off one padded wall. He knew what it was for.
The search came first: it was hard and professional, a bunch of clapping and probing and rubbing. Jimmy, one of the hulking, muscle-knotted gym rat contractors, even peeled a bandage back on one of his fingers, looking to make sure it covered a bloody wound, and only picking at the scab to draw a drop of blood convinced him it was real enough. “Cut ourselves wanking, have we now?” he asked, as he squashed the thing back in place. Raymond, the scrawny one, went to it on his boots, probing the lasts for hidden blades or whatever, finding nothing.
Then they threw him in a chair, the four of them, three hulking men in desert tan battle dress and Raymond, who he now realized was Carl’s doppelgänger during the week of shootings. Of course, there had to be a guy of Carl’s size and coloring who, in grubby clothes with a three-day beard and a ballcap pulled low over the eyes, could pass as any grizzled loner.
But that was the past; in the present, he could feel their weight and concentration of purpose palpably, filling the room. His tightly bound wrists, the plastic bindings deep in the flesh of his arms, sang in pain; his hands felt like blue gloves.
“I see Team Homo has formed up again,” he said. “Shouldn’t you boys be puking up green beer behind some dive in Boston?”
“Oh, Bobby,” said Anto, “with the smart comments, as if he’s reading from a movie script. He ain’t scared, is he, Ginger?”
“He is not,” said Ginger, “or if he is, the fellow controls it well. But we’ll change that.”
“We’s in for a long night’s journey, I’m afraid.”
Two departed and returned with folders, and Anto Grogan sat across from Bob, taking off his ballcap, running a hand through his dark crew cut, smiling broadly; handsome fellow he was too, radiating charisma.
“Nicely handled in Chicago,” he said. “Too bad we haven’t it on film. Counter-Ambush Tactical Improvisation. A damn classic. Also too bad that damn kid was so slow on the gun. He liked filling up the black gentleman with lead, and by the time he came around for you, you was gone. And three seconds later, he was dead. Very nice. Who said this was no country for old men?”
“You killed a second good man that night,” said Bob. “That goes on the list. When payback comes, I’ll kill you twice for that alone.”
Grogan and the fellas laughed.
“Him talking so big, all trussed like a pig,” Grogan explained. “Still, it’s the ego of the alpha. Even now, beaten and captured and in for who knows what ahead, he’s bellowing insults and kicking up the dust. See, here’s what I don’t figure. Ginger, help me here; he’s so damned good, the best, yet he comes in here like a clodhopping amateur and he’s taken down easily as can be. Which Bobby would it be with us tonight, the tough operator or the clodhopper?”
“I wouldn’t know, Anto,” said Ginger. “Maybe it was overconfidence? Even the best make mistakes when they get overconfident.”
“Possibly that’s so, Ginger,” said Anto. “Bobby, luv, here now, what’s your interpretation? What explains the different levels of your warcraft?”
“Go fuck yourself,” said Swagger.
“Now that’s not helpful.”
“I didn’t think you boys would be here. I thought I was way ahead of you on the figuring-out. My idea was to get in and get out before you realized how much I knew. It was a recon, figure on what I’d need next time. I thought you’d still be at Graywolf HQ, going over intel, tracking me down, sending out other kill teams, better kill teams.”
“Now, see, he is mixed up,” said Anto. “He thinks Graywolf has a thing to do with this and it don’t; this is private enterprise between us and his lordship Constable, who’s making us all rich boys who won’t be working no more teaching kids how to pop camel jiggers at a thousand meters out. Not that it ain’t fun, now, but still, I’d rather live in Spain with seven gals and three pigs and a nice big potato patch. Give an Irishman his potatoes and you’ve made him happy.”
He yawned and checked his watch.
“It’s late, Anto, best get on with it,” said Ginger.
“Yes, Ginger. You and the boys, fill them pails.”
The three-Ginger, Jimmy, and Raymond-went to the sink, and with bangs and crashes and a lot of drama, they filled three pails with water, the water rushing hard into the tin confines, drumming like God’s final rain upon the bogs, gurgling and seething.
“You know what’s coming, Bobby boy, do you now?”
“Fuck you and the green horse you came in on, Grogan,” said Bob. Yes, he knew what was coming.
“I will not lie to you, no sir. I respect you. I even love you, as soldier loves soldier in the pure and manly way, not like them camel shaggers love each other. You’ve been and done, I’ve been and done. We’re mates of the rifle; we give out death and risk our own. Wish it could be easier.”
He sighed, as if a tide of melancholy had rolled over him. He began to unbutton his sleeves and fold them back.
“You see how it has to be. Wish it didn’t but it does. You’re on to something. You’ve seen through the little rigged game the boys and I set up for Mr. Constable, as maybe no man on earth could have. Nobody knows enough about the things you and I know about to read the signs clearly. My bad luck you came along, your bad luck you came along. So what’s a fellow to do?”
“Tell you what, Grogan. Surrender to me with a full confession and I’ll get you life in a good joint, and you and Ginger can fuck each other three times a week. And Jimmy can have seconds.”
Grogan laughed.
“What about poor Raymond, then?” asked Ginger.
“Hear that, mates? With them Yank wisecracks, all Sergeant Rock style. Damn, the fellow’s a prince.” Then he leaned forward. “Look hard in me eyes, Swagger. I don’t want to torture you, but torture you I must and I will. Nothing you say means anything unless it’s uttered by a man broken in spirit, all his defenses crushed, his sense of doom large as this room, him knowing that it’s his last words and they must be true, and that as a reward he gets to sleep and there’s not to be any more pain. Do you see that? I have no choice.”
“There’s always choices, Grogan.”