He sees himself, then, watching from up in the gaping skull-like third-story window opening of a bombed-out shell of an apartment house. He holds a ’scoped sniper rifle. He’s very young (22), in camouflage uniform, face blackened, revealing no feelings except fear. Scared… sweating in the bitter cold, frightened, he aims his rifle at something in the distance. He can hear its approach, the Iraqi helicopter, and he squints into the scope, aiming up into the sky — steadies his aim and fires. The recoil rocks his shoulder gently; he’s used to that. When he lowers the rifle, his expression has gone blank — he seems no longer afraid. The sound of the helicopter rotors changes, becomes rattly and uneven, and Radford watches while the machine begins to sway from side to side as if on a pendulum before it shatters against the slope of a jagged rock hillside. The explosion lights up Radford’s face like daylight and he shrinks back into the shadows of the bombed-out building.
…In the cafe bathroom he puts the syringe and bottle away in the case, and pockets the case, and straps on his grease-stained uniform. In his aching head the sound of combat fades. He tries to open the door. It won’t open. Won’t budge. He shoves hard at it. Nothing now, except after a moment he begins to hear men chuckling beyond the door. He kicks the door. The voices outside begin to laugh aloud.
The harder Radford tries to open the door, the louder they laugh.
He feels as if the room is closing in on him…
Outside the door, in the cafe hallway, are grouped several waiters, including Don. They’re the ones who’re laughing. A chair is propped under the door handle, wedging it shut.
Don opens a fuse box on the wall. His finger flips a circuit-breaker from “on” to “off.”
Inside the bathroom Radford is plunged into darkness and panic overtakes him. He thrashes at the jammed door.
Out in the hallway the waiters’ laughter stops abruptly when the door is kicked out in splinters.
Radford comes exploding out through the smashed wreckage.
They gape at him.
In a sweating panic Radford stands panting.
Don backs away in sudden fear.
— And Radford walks away.
The waiters try to laugh again, but it’s uneasy and it trails off…
After nightfall the cafe’s trade changes. More of an upscale crowd now — thrill seekers looking for something they won’t find behind a velvet rope in the more trendy sections.
In a corner booth sit the two guys who earlier were in their van watching Radford on the street. Their names are Conrad and Gootch. Conrad’s the dapper dandy who likes to smoke cigarillos but he can’t smoke inside here so he’s drumming his fingers on the Formica tabletop, an unlit cigarillo between his fingers. He’s watching Radford swab the floor, mopping under tables. Conrad, the body-builder, is facing the other direction, intent on something or someone. Conrad asks, “What you lookin’ at?”
“Curly, Larry and Moe over there.”
Conrad swivels, hikes his arm up over the back of the booth and twists his jaw to look back over his shoulder. He sees three tough-looking punks drinking beer at the counter. “Uh-huh.” He looks at his watch. “You know that’s what I hate about theater. You bust your ass to get there on time and the fuckin’ curtain never goes up when it’s supposed to. Fifteen, twenty minutes later they get all the stragglers seated and some dickhead gets on the mike and says please turn off your fuckin’ cellulars and pagers. Where the hell’s our leading lady tonight?”
Back in a doorway, half hidden in shadow, Don the waiter swigs beer and watches everything.
Now a slim woman enters — attractive, blonde, thirties, well put together and nicely dressed; too sophisticated for this place. She looks around nervously.
Radford glances at the woman, looks away, continues to mop the floor.
Conrad says under his breath, “Curtain going up.”
And now — quickly…
Conrad and Gootch look toward the counter where the three punks sit.
The three punks — Curly, Larry and Moe — drain their beers and get up. Their path toward the exit just happens to take them near the blonde.
Don from his shadowed corner watches everyone.
Curly, the leader of the three, does a take as he play-acts recognizing the blonde.
She doesn’t look at Curly; she’s seen them out of the corner of her eye and she’s alarmed. Abruptly Curly shouts: “Your brother owes me two large.”
The blonde at first doesn’t look at him. Then, startled to realize it was addressed to her, she tries to conceal her fear. “Were you talking to me?”
Curly bellows, “He owes me money!”
Curly jerks the blonde forward roughly, his face an inch from hers.
“Let go!” She looks around frantically for help but there’s only Radford, mopping the floor.
Curly grips the blonde’s throat. She tries to fend him off but Larry grabs her wrists and stands behind her, immobilizing her arms, and Moe moves in close, menacing. The blonde whispers, “Somebody please…”
Curly says, “Let’s take it one more time from the top. Start with where’s your brother at?”
The blonde in terror finally blurts, “I don’t have a brother!”
Radford watches but makes no move.
Curly slaps the woman’s face hard and tightens his hold on her throat. Larry pulls her arms up behind her back. She cries out. Moe kidney-punches her from the side and Curly slams his fist hard into her midriff, doubling her over. “Let’s try one more time.”
The blonde can barely gasp. “What’re you talking about?… Please…”
Moe gets set to hit her again and then suddenly rocks back — something has hit him hard in the back — and as he falls away from the blonde his fall reveals Radford. He’s jabbed Moe with the end of the mop-handle.
Radford says, “Hey man, please.”
The punks react. All three turn on Radford. By the swiftness of their reaction, and the way they suddenly ignore the blonde, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see this whole set-up has been rehearsed. The one they’re really after is Radford.
As the three attack him he stabs the mop handle toward Larry’s eye and it makes Larry flinch away and in the flow of the same motion Radford swings the pole against Curly’s cheek, hard enough to knock the man off his feet, but now Moe has recovered from the kidney punch and he swarms toward Radford and all of a sudden the three of them are on him like bears on a honey pot and the pain in his head is beyond unendurable but still, somehow, moving faster than anyone ought to be able to, Radford protectively pushes the blonde into a booth before he swings to face them and speaks before any of them can nail him:
“Hey, guys, I don’t want to hurt you.”
That provokes Curly’s harsh laugh. They come at Radford and he backs away, looking for a way out, really a coward… And all three punks pile on him, beat on him, lock him in a hold that a crowbar couldn’t pry loose…
Conrad and Gootch are watching with keen interest. They see when Radford knows he can’t get out of it and begins to give in with unhappy resignation.
Conrad speaks under his breath to Gootch: “Now we see if he’s a player.”
The three punks have Radford pinned. His mind is screeching, running off the track now— All of a sudden he’s in a chilly fog as he comes heaving up out of a basement under some derelict building like a monster creature. He’s young, in combat fatigues, hauling his sniper rifle — he tries to slip away in the night but abruptly there’s the gleaming point of a bayonet against the back of his neck and he reacts… turns his head slowly to see a child holding a rifle at the other end of the bayonet. A boy, not more than twelve or thirteen, looking half stoned, wearing wretched street clothes but a soldier’s kepi on his head.