"Baxter said he couldn't compromise his informant."
"He's not going to share a bust with a federal agency."
"Forget about that guy. Look, Washington called yesterday with some information about Cardo's military record. He got a Silver Star for going after a point man who stepped on a mine."
"He didn't tell me that."
"After he was wounded, he got moved back to Chu Lai for the last four months of his tour."
"Why was he moved back to Chu Lai?"
"How should I know?"
"There's something not right. The Marines were real hard-nosed about keeping a guy in his platoon until he had a million-dollar wound or two Purple Hearts."
"Maybe he had some pull. Listen, Dave, don't get involved with the guy's psychology. Eventually we're going to punch his ticket. You'll probably be there when it happens. Or you'll be in court testifying against him. All this semper fi bullshit won't have anything to do with it. You want a lesson from Vietnam? Don't think about the guy who's in your sights."
"You always cut right to the bone, Minos."
"I didn't invent the rules. By the way, we have that house under twenty-four-hour surveillance. If it turns to shit inside, throw a lamp or a chair through a window. In the meantime, think about how far you want to take it. Nobody'll blame you if you decide to go back to New Iberia."
It was cool under the stucco colonnade, and red leaves were blowing out of a heavily wooded lot across the street.
"Dave, are you still there?" he asked.
"Yeah… I'll try to call you back tonight or tomorrow. Talk to you later, Minos."
I hung up the phone and wondered if Minos would tell the lion tamer that he could put down his whip and chair and walk out of the lions' cage whenever he wished. I went inside the drugstore, bought a package of razor blades, and came out just as Tony and Jess pulled to the curb in the maroon Lincoln convertible.
* * *
CHAPTER 10
Tony was in the passenger's seat. He reached over the backseat and popped open the back door for me. He had changed into loafers, a rust-colored sports shirt, pleated tan slacks, a cardigan, and a yellow Panama hat.
"You could have taken the car, Dave. You didn't have to walk," he said.
"It's a good day for it."
"How do you like my hat?"
"It looks sharp."
"I got a collection of them. Hey, Jess, go inside and get me a copy of Harper's," he said.
"What?" Jess said.
"Get me a copy of Life."
"Sure, Tony," Jess said, cut the engine, and went inside the drugstore.
Tony smiled at me across the back of the seat. The Lincoln had a rolled leather interior, a fold-out bar, a wooden dashboard with black instrument panels.
"Jess has an IQ of minus eight, but he'd eat thumbtacks with a spoon if I told him to," he said. Then the smile went out of his face. "I'm sorry you had to hear that stuff between me and Clara. In particular I'm sorry you had to hear that about me being a war hero. Because I never told anybody I was a hero. I knew some guys who were, but I wasn't one of them."
"Who was, Tony? Did you ever read a story by Ernest Hemingway called 'A Soldier's Home'? It's about a World War I Marine who comes back home and discovers that people only want to hear stories about German women chained to machine guns. The truth is that he was afraid all the time he was over there and it took everything in him just to get by. However, he learns that's not a story anyone is interested in."
"Yeah. Ernest Hemingway. I like his books. I read a bunch of them in college."