Hazard (2 page)

Carl had originally wanted and especially prepared himself for a foreign service career. He'd started as a junior officer at the embassy in Lisbon. After two years there, he got a jump up to Cairo, where he was second assistant liaison to the chargé d'affaires. Carl's intellectual qualifications were acknowledged. However, according to the periodic reviews submitted confidentially to Washington by his various seniors, Carl's political attitudes weren't exactly on target. What that really meant was that Carl was too idealistic, not flexible enough in his beliefs to make the necessary compromises between what might be right and what was strategically best. Moreover, he often wasn't even diplomatic about how he felt, came right out and said, for example, that he believed some of his own country's power plays were degrees of war.

Thus Cairo was, in State's opinion, much too delicate a spot for Carl. It upped his foreign-service grade a notch and transferred him to Saigon. For duty with a section of the pacification program known as
C
.
O
.
R
.
D
.
S
., short for Civil Operation and Revolutionary Development Support. As one of the many Foreign Service junior officers assigned to
CORDS
, Carl's function was to advise the South Vietnamese civilian and military administration on ways to gain acceptance by the people of that country.

Perhaps at that point State hadn't entirely given up on Carl. Perhaps it hoped such duty might help conform him. However, being in the proximity of a long-term war and witnessing personally its devastation only set him off, activated his convictions.

In the course of his duties in Vietnam various atrocities came to Carl's attention. He investigated them on his own and wrote extensive reports. Over the months he accumulated a thick file, which all together made My Lai seem comparatively mild. When his reports received no official action, Carl pressed the matter. Shortly thereafter he was recalled.

State would have preferred to dismiss him but it decided not to risk focusing attention on him and his incriminating file. Smarter to keep him in, give things time to fade.

Carl was reassigned. For the past year and a half he'd been an assistant representative to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. Not really getting to do any of the talking but at least he was part of an effort that seemed to suit his ideals and he worked hard and hopefully at it.

Now Hazard told him, “There's nothing I'd give that much of myself to.”

“You might.”

“Never.”

“What's more important?”

Hazard drank more of his depth charge and thought about what he believed. It came out bitter. “Peace is another of those abstractions that don't really exist.”

“There have been peaceful times.”

“Just intermissions. Time out to get ready for another go at it.”

“If I was susceptible you could depress me.”

“Be good for you.” Hazard smiled. He realized once again how much he cared for his brother, and how ridiculous it was for them to be discussing such impersonal things considering that they hadn't seen one another in over six months and only briefly three times in the past two years. Better, thought Hazard, they should have stayed on the subject of their faraway, flag-waving father, whose disposition was worse now with the realization that neither of his boys would ever attain the public importance his displaced ambition had aimed them toward.

“What do you hear from Catherine?” Hazard asked for the sake of change.

“She's in town.”

“Staying with you?”

“At the Pierre.”

That told Hazard enough, but Carl didn't let it go at that. Carl gave his wife the benefit of an excuse, perhaps because he needed it. “She's only in to do some shopping,” he said. “Wanted to be close to Bendel's and Bergdorf's.”

Just coincidentally Catherine happened to be in the same city, Hazard thought, and was grateful for his own less-complicated, unmarried status. “Think you'll get together, you and Catherine?”

“I'll be seeing her while she's here.”

“I mean really back together.”

“There's a chance.”

“Try kicking her in the ass a couple of times,” advised Hazard.

“Is that what you'd do?”

“Maybe. Anyway, that's what she's been asking for.”

“She kicks herself,” said Carl.

“Not hard enough.”

“I think she's serious about a divorce this time.” There was regret in the way Carl said it.

“What's different about this time?”

“Just the impression I get.”

“Catherine's never been serious about anything,” said Hazard and wished immediately that he hadn't because it included Carl. He tried for quick repair. “I mean she's different, a very unusual person.”

“You should have been the diplomat.”

“I'm a lousy liar.”

“You always were.”

“At least I always tried,” said Hazard, meaning it as a reverse compliment. “Not like you.”

That negative phrase seemed to hang in the air between them, as though hyphenating them.

There was only a year's difference in their ages, but Carl at thirty-five appeared considerably older. One would have guessed he was in his mid-forties. His face was lined for that many years. Also, much of his dark hair was already lost and he was about fifteen pounds overweight. What Carl chose to wear only added to the older impression. A dark, square-cut suit, white shirt with a short collar too snug, black regular-width tie knotted small and tight, and the sort of black shoes usually preferred by older businessmen.

Conversely, Hazard looked younger than thirty-four. Closer to thirty. His hair helped. It was light brown, full and thick and slightly long. He was taller than Carl by about four inches and he was lean, had the sort of body that said activity. The way Hazard dressed conveyed confidence and defiance. Brown velour trousers cut like jeans, antelope suede jacket broken in enough to qualify apparently as his comfortable favorite, fitted shirt soft as its creamy color looked, good leather boots. No tie. Hazard hadn't worn a tie in years. He considered a tie an insidious accessory, a restricting loop around the neck symbolic of a lot of hang-ups. He owned only one tie now. A gift from a girl who thought she'd gotten to know him. He kept it. On a hook on the back of a closet door. He used it to buff his boots.

The contrast between the two brothers was more than superficial. So much so that it seemed incredible they were from the same parents. Carl had always been the intense one, introverted and generally sober. Even during his younger years he seldom indulged in any of the flamboyant vanities that would have been normal. It seemed no distraction was ever compelling enough to bring Carl out of his serious self. Whenever he attempted to be outgoing it was too obviously forced, and it was said and accepted that he lacked a sense of humor.

Hazard went to the other extreme and was better liked for it by nearly everyone. He sought out any escapade that took him across the grain of society. Even before he was old enough he was greatly preoccupied with girls, developed a way with them that resulted in his usually getting his way with them.

Of course, this was when grass was still something to be kept off of and pills were only for those who were physically ill and acid was a symptom of indigestion. It was when dancing was still a moving embrace and Elvis was up there twanging and twitching and Brando set the phlegmatic style and the local police didn't realize how easy they had it protecting the peace that was disturbed by dual straight mufflers on cars that had to roar to a certain illegal standard, cars that were shaved clean and leaded smooth, stripped nearly beyond recognition of their superfluous Detroit ornamentation and souped up so they could drag competitively at two in the morning on some residential street. It was the infancy of revolution, merely the rather naïve stirrings of it, and Hazard was into it. He was a good-time rebel, seemingly immune to any discipline or punishment his father gave out. Hazard did what he wanted, stoically paid whatever price his father put on it, and went right back to doing what he wanted.

Not like Carl.

Carl was the sort of student who had to work hard for good grades. Hazard could look once briefly at a page and recite it verbatim. He was a mnemonist, one of those rare beings endowed with the ability to recall at will whatever his senses experienced. During his early years he was so frequently called on to perform this feat that he got to be self-conscious about it, considered himself some sort of cerebral anomaly. As a result, he didn't use his special mental gift to best advantage. Studies were too easy for him, boring because they mostly involved memorizing. To please his father he followed Carl into Dartmouth and then, to please himself, he didn't finish. No matter that his grades were high among the highest. That only verified his opinion that the entire system was false-bottomed. Hell, he thought then, he could get more of an education just browsing in a good bookstore or library.

In need of challenge Hazard went searching for it. After two years of transcontinental bumming, going nowhere, everywhere, he found what appealed to him most was uncertainty, chance, contesting his destiny rather than merely accepting it.

He became a professional gambler.

With his unusual mental faculties he should have been very successful at it. However, too often he chose not to stick to the professional's logic, allowed his emotions to influence his choice, ignored the creed:
cowards love favorites but an underdog is a fool's worst friend.
Perhaps Hazard felt he deserved such a handicap or, more likely, he was not immune to the gambler's unconscious need to lose sometimes as well as win. Winning was a letdown from the excitement of the idea of winning, like the chase being more enjoyable than the kill. Whenever Hazard won big he was only temporarily elated; a depression would soon set in and the only way to counter it was to spend fast and bet back in big chunks. Anyway, he managed to lose enough so he never got substantially ahead, and to win enough to nearly support his better than average life style.

Hazard, the day-by-day plunger.

Carl, the pacifist, the plugger.

But perhaps the difference between the brothers who now stood together at the bar of the Sign of the Dove was best summarized by something they had in common. They were both named Hazard. It was their family name. Carl, however, had always been just Carl, while hardly anyone ever thought of Hazard as Norman.

Now Hazard had finished his depth charge and was trying for the bartender's attention to order another. He told Carl, “I know what you need.”

“Sleep,” said Carl.

“Forget about everything. Go some place and just forget.”

Carl hadn't had a real vacation in years. It was his own fault. He just kept going.

“There's a guy I know who owns a place in Barbados,” said Hazard. “Right on the beach. Never uses it. I can give him a call.”

To avoid committing himself, Carl asked, “How's your money situation?”

“Way ahead,” lied Hazard. At that moment all he had was in his pocket. Nine hundred and some odd dollars. But his bookie was paid up and what he owed Diner's and American Express wouldn't come due for a couple of weeks. Not exactly financial security but it was normal for him and no reason to panic.

“I can let you have some,” said Carl.

Hazard disregarded the offer. “I've got a friend who'd go down there with you and help you relax.”

Carl seemed to be considering it.

“A blonde,” said Hazard, and grinned. “At least she was last time I saw her.” He tried quickly to think of someone he could persuade to go along with Carl for nothing but the trip. A few possibilities came to mind, but no one for sure. It would mean he'd have to ask a special favor and he didn't like having that kind of debt.

“Sounds inviting,” said Carl, not really enthused.

“It's what you need. Two, three weeks of that.”

“Maybe. I'll let you know.”

It was Carl's way of saying no, which Hazard knew from times before, when he'd tried to get Carl away from his dry government routine. He ordered another beer.

And vodka? The bartender wanted to know.

Hazard hesitated, half closed his eyes as though concentrating, and then decided no on the vodka. The bartender placed the benign glass of draft in front of Hazard.

Within a few seconds a dark-haired girl appeared in the archway entrance to the bar. She had on a full-length Paris policeman's cape and held a miniature Yorkshire terrier in the fold of her arm. Her eyes found Hazard and she went to him. She gave him a kiss that said possession with its brevity. Hazard introduced her to Carl. First name only. “This is Keven,” he said.

“Souping it up again?” she said to Hazard with a smile that didn't camouflage her disapproval.

“Just beer, plain beer,” said Hazard.

Keven eyed his glass then, giving way to suspicion, took a close look and even sniffed above its head. “You're a good boy,” she said, while her fingers soothed the Yorkshire between its ears.

Hazard told himself she meant him, not the dog, which didn't even belong to her. She borrowed it sometimes from a neighbor. He put his arm around her, inside the cape.

She asked Carl, “Are you going with us to the track tonight?”

“I'm afraid not,” said Carl. “But thanks anyway.”

“There'll be other times,” promised Keven, not just being polite.

Hazard liked her for that. He quickly downed half the beer and called for the check. He wouldn't let Carl get it. He charged it on his Diner's.

When they were outside Carl wanted to take a taxi. His apartment was on 49th, downtown, about twenty blocks out of the way, but Hazard insisted on driving him. They walked to Hazard's car, which was parked in a yellow zone on 61st. Stuck under one of the windshield wipers was a parking ticket.