The Argus Deceit Read online

  “Very well, sir. Unless you require anything else, I will retire for the evening.”

  Brody nodded, reluctantly. He nearly asked Felix to bring a plate up here for himself, but Felix would never allow such a breach of protocol. Their relationship, though close, was still one of employer and employee, and Felix would keep it that way. “Thank you, Felix. See you in the morning.”

  Felix turned on his heel and was gone, leaving Brody alone with a plate of leftovers and his thoughts.

  Brody glanced at the clock; ten minutes until six, a little over an hour before the old timepiece would chime seven times, and he would make his way downstairs. It was what he did.

  Chapter 2

  BRODY10

  Culver, Ohio

  Thursday, May 15, 1975

  2:09 p.m.

  He watched the second hand slowly sweep toward 12 and then jumped from his desk at the first sound of the bell.

  Afternoon recess wasn’t very long, but it was his favorite. Not only did it smell like summer outside, but afternoon break meant he was closer to the end of the day, closer to the end of the week, and best of all, closer to the end of the school year. Almost three months of glorious summer vacation beckoned, which in May seemed like an eternity before the last week of August, when he’d start all over again. As a fifth grader.

  Ten-year-old Brody Quail followed Rich Gable and Gary Thompson down the hall and out the double doors to the playground. The sun was warm on Brody’s face as the three boys ran across the pea gravel toward the grassy part of the playground, dodging the smaller kids who were racing to the swings and jungle gyms. Afternoon recess was only twenty minutes long, and they had a game of Smear the Queer to finish, except they couldn’t call it that around Mrs. Carlisle, one of the teachers who prowled the playground during recess. For some reason, she didn’t like the name. Around her, they called it Annihilation. The teams from earlier were already forming up, a combined fourth-and-fifth-grade team against the sixth graders. John Bullard, one of the bigger sixth graders, was tossing a football from hand to hand, the rest of his team lining up behind him. Bullard had tackled him once, right after Brody got the ball and before he could toss it to one of his friends. Not only had Brody had the wind knocked out of him, but he was sure he had heard his ribs crack. Brody was small for his age but didn’t let his lack of size hold him back. “Sorry, kid,” Bullard had said. “You gotta be quicker with the rock.” Bullard could have easily ruled the playground with an iron fist, as there weren’t many other kids his size, but instead he was a gentle giant. He’d helped Brody up and even patted him on the back. Coming from a sixth grader, that was pretty cool.

  Rich was the de facto leader of Brody’s team. He was bigger than any of the fifth-grade boys and the most athletic. They huddled around Rich, forming a circle just like the NFL teams did on Sunday, with Rich down on one knee, all eyes on him.

  “Pass it quick and keep it away from Bullard. Try to get it to me, Gary, or Lance.” Lance was a fifth grader who could run like the wind. “Okay, ready, break!” Everyone clapped their hands at the last word and spread out to receive the kick. During lunch recess, the sixth graders had scored three times, and they were ahead 21 to 14. It was time to get some revenge.

  The rules were simple. The team with the ball had to get it to one of the fences by moving it however they could—passing, tossing, handing off, whatever—without getting tackled. Touch the ball to the chain link, and it’s a touchdown. Fifteen guys on either side. The game was fun, fast, and physical; tackle, not touch, because touch was for wussies. And best of all, the girls liked to watch.

  Brody glanced back toward the school and saw all the sixth-grade girls, along with the girls from his class, sitting Indian-style on the grass and trying to look disinterested. Debbie Wilson was there, too. God, she was pretty. Brody imagined himself getting the ball and crashing through the sixth graders right in front of her, heading toward the fence and scoring a touchdown.

  A tug on his arm. “Brody?” His little brother, Murphy. A first grader.

  “Not now, Murf.”

  “Can I play?”

  “Scram, Murf. Get off the field.”

  “I wanna play, too.”

  Brody took his brother by the arm. “Not yet, okay? You’d get squished. Go over there and watch. Just stay out of the way.” Brody watched the smile fade from his brother’s face.

  “Mom says you have to play with me.”

  “Not now, Murf.”

  “Ready?” Bullard called, getting ready to punt the ball to their side.

  “Hey, Quail! Get your brother out of here.” That was Rich, staring at him. So was everyone else. Brody felt the heat rise up the back of his neck.

  “Get off the field, Murf, now! Go watch.”

  “I’m gonna tell Mom,” Murf said as he turned and ran back to the playground.

  Gonna tell Mom. Murf’s favorite saying. Brody loved his brother, but the kid could be a royal pain in the rear. Like now. Brody waved at Rich.

  “Okay, ready!” Rich yelled.

  Brody crouched and put his weight on the balls of his feet, his ready position, as his dad called it. With a boom, Bullard sent the ball into the sky (he sure was a good punter), and it tumbled down to Brody’s right, directly to Gary, who cradled it in both arms and took off running. Brody ran toward him, staying off to his left and slightly behind, keeping his head on a swivel to stay out of the way of the bigger boys. Getting run over without having the ball was embarrassing.

  One, then two sixth graders draped themselves on Gary’s shoulders and dragged him down. He tossed the ball to Sean Williams, who was hit immediately, tackled around the legs. Brody was close. He held his arms out for the ball, and Sean saw him.

  The ball came bouncing toward him. And so did everybody else.

  Brody caught it and ran, weaving his way through arms grabbing at his shirt. He was quick, hard to catch, one advantage of being smaller. Out of the corner of his eye, he spied Lance (the fast one) off to his right. Someone pulled his shirt. He was going to go down. Brody tossed the ball at Lance as he was tackled, his head hitting the ground. Just like in the cartoons, Brody saw stars. Tears filled his eyes and he moaned, rolling on the ground.

  don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry

  Brody opened his eyes and saw Lance flying toward the west fence, a bunch of sixth graders trailing behind, none fast enough to catch him. He was going to score.

  Brody picked himself up and cheered as Lance jinked past the last sixth grader in his way and slammed the ball against the chain link. Brody turned back toward the school and saw Debbie Wilson.

  He froze for a second, unsure if he was actually seeing what he thought he was.

  Debbie was smiling, and those big, beautiful brown eyes of hers were looking right at him.

  Brody stole a quick glance behind himself to see if she was looking at someone else, but there was no one there, not close enough anyway. The guys were all surrounding Lance, slapping him on the back.

  When he turned back toward Debbie, she tilted her head slightly, still staring right at him, and Brody was completely lost. Done for. Melted.

  Brody smiled back, but his moment of bliss quickly faded as he spied Murf heading off the playground and toward the road.

  In a second, Brody took it all in.

  Mrs. Carlisle, who was supposed to be watching, wasn’t.

  Murf had his head down, and he was walking straight toward the street. And there was a car coming.

  Brody ran.

  Chapter 3

  BRODY26

  Garland Trail, Nebraska

  Tuesday, November 12, 1968

  2:15 a.m.

  Brody slapped two bills on the bar and grabbed his field jacket from the back of his chair.

  Another end to another useless day. And in a few hours, he’d start all over again. He wasn’t sure how he’d gotten to this point, but here he was. A one-armed freak. A baby killer. A guy doomed to work a crappy job in a crappy
town in the middle of crappy nowhere, with a past no one wanted to hear about and a future as bleak as a winter sky.

  Things had looked bright when he first joined the Army—not drafted, thank you, but an all-American, true-blue volunteer who raised his right hand and took an oath, just like his dad and uncle before him. He’d serve, do his part for Lyndon Johnson and country, come home to a nation that would appreciate all the sacrifices he’d made, and make a new life.

  “G’night, Brody.”

  “See ya, Jimmy,” Brody replied to the bartender, nodding his head in silent appreciation to one of the few men who called him by name. Jimmy had served in Korea and still looked like the Marine he’d been all those years ago. His hair was still cropped close in a crew cut, and his arms could crush a man’s head like a walnut (which was why there weren’t any fights in Jimmy’s bar, at least not ones that lasted long). Jimmy had firsthand experience coming home to a country that didn’t care about what you’d done, didn’t want to hear the details of what happened to you, and would rather ignore the whole unsightly mess of an undeclared war. Jimmy understood. To most others, the people on the street who stared at his pinned-up sleeve, Brody was a monster, a murderer who went across the ocean to brutalize helpless yellow people who had done nothing wrong.

  They weren’t so helpless, Brody had learned. Especially the ones who’d made sure he left his arm there, shredded to pieces in the mud, a personalized keepsake for the Viet Cong, suitable for mounting on the wall of one of their damned rat tunnels.

  Nobody liked soldiers these days. Especially those pussies who never went over there, staying nice and safe in a classroom, listening to some punk spout off about Plato, or some other weird dead guy, using college to protect themselves from the ugly war across the sea. They called soldiers like him “baby killers.”

  Brody was in college, too, when the war started heating up. He enlisted, though, once he had his degree in hand, wanting to be a grunt like his father and uncle before him. They’d fought the Nazis and the Japs. He’d fought the NVA and their Cong buddies, in a very different kind of war. He’d done his duty, but everyone at home seemed to hate him for it. There was no getting around the fact that he’d been there, either. For one thing, he was missing his left arm, which practically screamed Look! A Vietnam vet! He got what he deserved, goddamned cripple! Because of that, he decided to wear his Army field jacket as often as he could. That’s right, I was there. That’s right, I lost an arm. That’s right, I killed people. Don’t like it? That’s right, screw you.

  Brody stepped into the night air and took a deep breath. The sky was clear, and the temps were supposed to plummet into the teens before morning. He gathered his coat closer with his right hand and began the walk to his apartment a few blocks away, his breath swirling into the darkness.

  Returning from the battlefield wasn’t like this for his father, bless his soul. He’d fought the Nazis for three long years, crawling from Sicily, through France, and into Germany itself. Came home with barely a scratch. And the country took care of him.

  His uncle Clem had fought in the Pacific, a Marine. Survived Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima. Came home with a Purple Heart. And the country had taken care of him, too, right up to the moment they planted him in Arlington.

  In Brody’s case, the VA had patched up his stump of an arm, the Army gave him an Honorable, and let him walk out the door. Right into a world of shit. The country was different now. People like him were objects of scorn instead of returning heroes.

  And maybe everyone was right.

  He’d killed, with his rifle and his knife. More than once. And for what? Did North Vietnam represent the same threat as the Nazis and Japs? Brody didn’t think so. Not anymore.

  The snow crunched under his boots. He was halfway home but was being followed. Two, maybe three, behind him, about twenty yards back, getting closer. He resisted the urge to turn and confront them. He took another deep breath to clear his thoughts, wishing he’d stopped after his third on-the-rocks double. He slowed his pace slightly.

  Let them come.

  Maybe Nixon would fix everything. He sure seemed like a stand-up guy. He’d promised an honorable end to the war during the campaign, whatever that meant. Maybe he’d load up every B-52 they had and blow the North back to the Stone Age. That’d be honorable enough, because nobody would ever have to go back to that stinking place and come home with fewer appendages than when they left. Or not come home at all.

  One of Brody’s followers crossed the street, walking fast. The other two were right behind him now, maybe fifteen feet away. Once these two stopped him, forcing him to turn and face them, the street-crosser would come up from behind. Brody would be surrounded.

  No use waiting anymore. He stopped and listened as the two gents behind him skidded to a halt. Brody didn’t turn. He wanted them to make the first move.

  Five seconds. Ten.

  The guy who’d crossed the street wasn’t sure what to do, hiding in the shadows and waiting for Brody to turn around.

  Talking wasn’t going to do much good, but Brody gave it a shot anyway. “Walk away.”

  One of the guys behind him laughed. “Say what?”

  Brody turned. One, a black guy, tall and skinny, the other, a white guy a little more built, but Brody had them weightwise. They both had their hands in their jacket pockets. The street-crosser slipped on the ice halfway across the street and fell on his ass. Back turned, Brody heard him get up and step up on the sidewalk. If this was Chicago, Brody would be a little more worried, but this was Garland Trail, Nebraska, for cripessake. These guys were wannabes. Skinny, Muscles, and, behind him, Clumsy.

  “I said walk away. You don’t want to do this.”

  Skinny looked at Muscles, and Brody recognized his laugh. “And how you gonna stop us, soldier man?” Skinny said.

  Soldier man. None of these guys had been to Nam. If they had, they might have backed off once they saw his sleeve, but no, he was just another baby killer. A cripple. An easy target. “Make your move,” Brody said. Deep down, he wanted to say something about being able to take all three of them with one arm tied behind his back, but he figured they wouldn’t appreciate the humor. He was too tired, anyway.

  Skinny pointed a finger at him through his pocket. “Maybe I should just shoot your white ass.”

  “That isn’t a gun. Your friend doesn’t have one either.” The ice crunched behind him. Brody tilted his head to the side. “And if your friend behind me gets any closer, he’s going to regret it.”

  “All we want is your money.” Muscles, this time. Brody could see he was nervous. Jumping a one-armed vet wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d thought.

  “Then come and take it, tough guy,” Brody said. These three had done this before but were rattled. In the next few seconds, they’d either back off or make a move.

  Brody watched Skinny’s eyes shift to his partner, the one at his back. Brody sighed and readied himself. They weren’t backing off.

  Chapter 4

  BRODY16

  West Glenn, Colorado

  Monday, March 30, 1981

  3:15 p.m.

  The president had been shot.

  They’d announced it during class. One of the office aides came into his Algebra II class and whispered into the teacher’s ear. Brody watched the blood drain from Ms. Walter’s face and knew something terrible had happened.

  Within the hour, rumors were running rampant. Reagan was fine; Reagan was dead; the VP had been shot, too; the secretary of defense, Weinberger, was dead as well; the Soviets had done it; the Sandinistas and the Cubans had done it; on and on. Brody was in study hall, and everyone seemed to have an opinion. A couple of kids were even glad, spouting some crap about how Reagan deserved what he got, he was going to start a war, blah blah blah. Brody figured their parents must’ve voted for Carter.

  Brody sat with his regular group of friends—Kyle Hufford, Jason Beard, and Tim Kolak. Study hall (held in the cafeteria) was supposed to be a place
where students could catch up on homework, but instead it was more of an opportunity to catch up on the latest gossip. For Brody, though, it was an hour of the day he relished, because he got to be close to Joan McNally. Joan had gone to junior high with Jason and every once in a while would come over and sit with them. Brody hoped today would be one of those “once in a while” times.

  Mr. Hufford came in at the start of the hour (Kyle’s dad—how it must suck to have a dad as a teacher) and let everyone know what the news was saying. The TV in the teachers’ lounge was tuned to ABC, and Frank Reynolds was delivering the facts as best he could, first reporting Reagan had not been hit, then that he had been, then that James Brady was dead, then that he wasn’t dead, but rather in critical condition.

  The recent news was all pretty scary. Nothing like this had ever happened during his lifetime, and Brody wondered if he’d recall this day like people did who were his age when Kennedy was shot.

  Joan was sitting one table over, facing in his direction. Brody tried not to stare but couldn’t help himself. He’d noticed Joan in the halls at the beginning of the school year, and at first glance she’d taken his breath away. She was small, a little over five feet tall, with honey-blond hair that barely reached her shoulders. Her eyes were a light, warm brown, almost the same color as her hair. She wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous, like Carla Franchetti, but was so cute Brody had a difficult time looking away.

  “Dude, are you listening?”

  Jason slapped his arm to get his attention, and Brody realized he’d been staring again.

  “Yeah, I’m listening.”

  “Bullshit. I saw who you were looking at. What did I say?”

  “You were talking about Reagan.” Safe bet, because that’s all anyone was talking about.

  “Okay, so do you think the Russkies did it?”

  “I don’t think they’d be that stupid.”

  “No shit,” Kyle agreed. “If we found out they tried to kill him, we’d nuke the living shit out of that place. So if it wasn’t them, who?”