Call Me Joe (33 page)

“Hell of it is, Tru, I don’t really know squat about Joe. Nobody does. I know the birthmark which may or may not be true. I know he’s roughly 60, but that’s a guess. I know…well, I don’t know but the rumor was he was from somewhere in Oregon. He enlisted in Portland, so they say. The only thing anybody knows for sure is that he’s Finnish.”

“Finnish!” I almost shouted. “How do you know that?”

“Years ago, one of those C.I.A. field agents wrote a tell-all…damnit, what was his name?” Nat muttered. “Amos? Ayers? God, getting old sucks…”

“I know who you’re talking about, Bub, but I can’t think of it either,” I fumed.

“Fuck…well, anyway, the guy was Joe’s contact for the first two years in Laos. That was before he passed into legend. This guy worked closely with the French and they were fascinated with Joe. Used to ply the C.I.A. guy with whisky and beg for details. Finally, he let slip that Joe was of Finnish ancestry. The French started calling him ‘Le Fin’; their little joke, since ‘Fin’ in French…”

“…means ‘the end.” I nodded,  “Nat, if you were here, I’d kiss you right on the mouth.”

“Jesus! Glad I’m not there,” he laughed. “What did I do, exactly, so I can avoid doing it again?”

“No time to tell you right now,” I said quickly, “but I promise, soon as I clear this up, I’ll get into D.C. and let you lose some more money to me on the basketball court. Then I’ll tell you all about it. Okay?”

“Man, you know, this is gonna eat me up,” Nat groaned.

“Dude,” I smiled, “if what I’m thinking right now is true, I’ll call you by the weekend, okay?”

“Deal,” he said firmly, his tone changed. “Tru? If you’re after this guy, keep your head down, you hear me?”

We rang off as I gathered up my keys and paid the tab. I was just getting ready to punch up Jack’s cell when it rang in my hand.

“Tru,” Jack said breathlessly, “We’re coming up 395. Where are you?”

“I’m at the little café where you two belittled my manhood,” I replied, “You sound winded.”

“I just got a call from my guys,” he said quickly, “I’m writing notes. There’s a lot of stuff, believe it or not, but I’ll give you most of it when I get there. Here’s the nutshell: The trust that holds the deed to the property in Colville goes through three double-blinds before we finally get a Joseph Lawrence Reininger, of Wallawa Lake, Oregon, who’s listed as the owner of record. We ran the name... nothing. Not a goddamned thing, anywhere. If it’s the guy’s real name, it’s the most fantastic job of going underground any of us ever saw. We’ve run Russian gangsters and got more than this. But, running similarities, we come up with a curious string of mentions for a Lars Josef Reijnen, Enterprise, Oregon – about ten miles from Wallowa Lake - who basically disappeared after graduating Enterprise High School. We ran a very discrete records search for all branches of the armed forces. Nothing. Ran a general search for the name and variants for all colleges in the US and got three hits, none of which was him. No hits on death records, no passports issued, no tax records. The guy just vanished, basically. That in itself was so fishy, my best guy got into the CIA’s central database – not the one the Top Secret stuff is in – and found regular checks paid to a trust in Oregon. We hacked into the lawyer’s files and found that the trust was listed as administered by two of the guys on one of Reininger’s double-blinds. It’s loose and we’re trying to tighten it up right now and...I wouldn’t bet the farm that he’s the guy but...”

“I might bet an acre or two,” I mused, “Okay, I’m going up there. Keep your phone on and...”

I vaguely heard the door open and close and some steady footsteps. I glanced up as someone slid into the chair across from me.

“Jack? Gotta scoot. Later,” I folded the phone without waiting for a response.

“Colonel,” Allen Simmons said, smiling. “Fancy meeting you here. You making any progress?”

“Hey, good to see ya,” I smiled. “Yep, actually, think I am. It looks like the rat in the woodpile in that voting business was Doctor Clayton’s wife, Jane. I can’t explain it right now, but I’ll come out and see you before I leave and fill you in. Quite a piece of work, that gal.”

“That was my take,” Simmons nodded. “You leavin?”

“I was,” I admitted. “I was going outside to wait for Jack, so we can get moving, but, y’know, long as I’ve got you here…”

“Yeah?” Simmons asked. “Anything I can do…”

“Maybe,” I said, settling back into the seat and signaling for two more beers. “What do you know about that guy Joe, owns Plot 23, up on the ridge?”

“Him, huh?” Simmons smiled ruefully. “Not a lot. Sorta bugs me, really. I’m pretty proficient online, usually, but I couldn’t find much. He’s a vet. Told me that, himself, and it checks out. Marine, four years, honorable, came out a sergeant. Otherwise undistinguished. Couldn’t find a P.O.B., but D.O.B. is July 15, ’50. No civvie files at all.”

“Warrants? Sheet?” I probed.

“Well, some of that stuff I just can’t get,” Simmons shrugged, “but his service sheet is clean. Mind if I ask why?”

“Some coincidences are piling up,” I allowed. “Have you ever met the guy?”

“Several times,” Simmons nodded. “He’s okay, not real forthcoming and somehow you never really feel you have his full attention, but certainly not hostile or uncommunicative.”

“I need to talk to him,” I said quietly, deciding to roll the dice, “I hear he comes into town once in a while.”

“Once a month at least,” Simmons said. “But, y’know, you could just go up there.”

“You been?” I blinked.

“Twice,” he smiled. “He’s not a bad guy, Colonel. He just figures he’s earned the right to his space…and his privacy. Hard to argue with that.”

“Yeah,” I sighed, “I know. For once, I’d like to be wrong.”

“Look, Colonel,” Simmons said, uncomfortably. “I’m…uh…I didn’t like askin’ this but…the guy’s right in the middle of something I’m responsible for—that resort. I’m security chief, now. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t ask for a heads-up.”

“Yeah,” I sighed. “Let’s just say…let’s just say that I have enough little red flags that I’m thinking I need a closer look. At this point…Joe is making me curious.”

“He’s due back about now,” Simons yawned,  “Sorry…long day. He’s been out of town but I’m pretty sure I passed him on the way here. Let’s go see him.”

“Now?” I asked, surprised.

“If he’s hinky, you’ll need backup,” Simmons shrugged, “and I could use another opinion, even if he’s not. I have to get him off my radar, either way.”

I flipped open the cell and called Jack.

“Where you at?” I asked.

“About twelve miles from Colville,” Jack replied.

“Look, you guys get some dinner,” I groaned, stretching. “I should be back in about an hour.”

“Where are you headed?” Jack asked.

“I’ve got something I want to check out,” I replied. “Where’s Jane, now?”

“With her folks,” Jack answered, “with Clayton, too. Get back A.S.A.P., okay? We got news.”

“Will do,” I said quickly. “Later.”



Joe drummed the wheel and sat impatiently at the one traffic light in Kettle Falls.

The flight back from Amsterdam had been late and he had barely made the connection at J.F.K. On top of that, his flight into Spokane had run late, so he wasn’t able to get to the safe deposit box for his I.D. package.

The blasted light finally changed and Joe had to concentrate fully to obey the speed limit. His foot, his leg muscles, even his hair was straining toward home.

As the bridge slid past and the forest swallowed up the Blazer, Joe felt his innards unclench, his diaphragm slip its fetters, and his soul drift upward towards the big rock on the ridge line and the onrushing sunset. He found himself impatient to see Katja.
But
what he had to say would be that much sweeter if she had to wait a while. It was something he had longed to say for many, many years. What was eight more hours?

Joe edged the Blazer carefully into the cave mouth and around the sharp, left-hand turn, neatly out of sight of the rock-strewn trail. He locked up and shouldered his travel bags. He was completely clean, as always. Nothing he had left home with was with him now, right down to the bag, belt, shoes, and wallet. All guns were long gone, carefully disposed of in rivers, landfalls, or incinerators. It was a ritual, rooted in practicality, that had assumed a deep symbolic significance, over the years.

It had become a totemic cleansing; a way of purging the darkness of his vocation from the purity of his home life. He walked into the sanctity of the forest as untainted as possible, abandoning the sameness of his other life to the undeniable richness and possibility of the new.

Possibility.

As Joe walked up the steep, familiar trail, the early evening sky seemed to bathe him in it, in the promise of a time when secrecy loses its meaning and the only “duty” in life is showing up on time for another sunset.

Maybe he wouldn’t even be alone…that was such an immense possibility that he shied away from it, lest he jinx it, somehow. For right now, home was another quarter mile and was certainly enough.



The big picture.

Calvert shuffled the package from research to identification and grappled with the very real likelihood that this boyo—already off British soil—was going to get away altogether.

Grasping at straws, he had ordered up everything research could give him on P.P.V.’s current and future projects and the other principals in the Colville development. If the answer were actually in the U.S., he reasoned, looking in London was asinine.

Included in the packet were photos of Jack Bartinelli; his attorney, Arthur D’Onofrio of Spokane; Truman North, their investigator; Alan Steptoe, the project manager at Coyote Creek; and Dr. and Mrs. Clayton C. Wright, Spokane, the minority partners.

Calvert sat holding the picture of North for a few seconds, then grinned broadly. Of course it was him, Calvert thought. How many Colonel Truman Norths would there have been in Laos?

Calvert remembered their one meeting very well:  They had taken an enemy L.Z. a mile north of the Laotian border. Filsen, their advance scout, hadn’t returned. Calvert—Major John Calvert, then—had sent the big, green farm boy from Kent out on recon and felt bad even as he did it.

After they took the L.Z. and hunkered down, he requested aerial on forward troop movements and was stunned to find that a huge firefight had erupted in a valley straddling the border. It was right on top of Filsen’s last known position.

The grief was stunning, debilitating: a good kid, wasted by an almost equally green major whose ambition had gotten the better of him.

He had actually started the condolence letter to Filsen’s parents when the entire platoon sprang to ready, as one man, as a lone figure, dressed in American fatigues, was stumbling out of the tree line, carrying the unconscious Filsen over his shoulders. Calvert and his sergeant lowered the boy gently to the grass.

“Concussion shock,” the American said evenly. “Grenade. No wounds, though. Brave kid. He was holding off about two dozen Charlie with what he had on him.”

“What happened to the enemy?” Calvert asked.

“We took care of ‘em,” the American smiled faintly.

“Colonel…North, is it?” Calvert asked. “You’re Truman North, right?”

“Whatever you heard,” North grinned, “I didn’t do it.”

“Colonel,” Calvert said, from the heart, “whatever else you did, today you’ve done this boy—and me—a great kindness.”