Jungle Rules (9 page)

“Well, that should have thrown some doubt the jury’s way,” O’Connor said, putting his feet on the floor, now sitting on the side of his bed. “The kid’s got a roll of dope, but no way to light it.”

“Oh, but Charlie the shyster neutralized any reasonable doubt we had managed to put forth with his so-called character witness, Private First Class John White,” Carter said, pacing the floor faster. “He was not charged, nor was he ever listed as a material witness.”

“Since when does the prosecution bring in character witnesses?” Kirkwood said, falling back on his bunk.

“He had totally nothing to do with the case!” Carter exclaimed, waving his arms, punctuating his words with their frantic movement. “Yet the judge allowed him to testify. This is what killed us.

“I had pretty much discredited the gunny and the corporal of the guard, and tied them together in their conspiracy. The military police who arrested my client testified as to the contents of Zelinski’s pockets, and the lack of any kind of lighter or matches. Plus the three other culprits they arrested smoking dope in the hangar were nowhere near Zelinski at any time that evening.

“Then the judge called the next witness. The doors in the back of the courtroom swing open and in walks the largest, blackest Marine I have ever seen: Private First Class John White.”

“Oh, shit,” O’Connor said, falling back on his bunk, laughing. “Big, very black, and the name White. Oh, that is good. Sleazy but good.”

“Charlie Heyster had this Marine state his name not once but twice for the jury,” Carter said, waving his arms faster. “And in all, three times!”

“You objected?” Kirkwood said, leaning on his elbows.

“Of course I did, right after the second time Heyster had him say his name, but the judge let it slide,” Carter said, again pacing hard. “I tried to approach the bench, but the judge stopped me in my tracks before I could even take two steps toward him, and told us to move on. I think that the judge just didn’t want me near his face.”

“I wonder why,” O’Connor said, and then flashed a quick, eyebrows-raised grin at Kirkwood. “So what did Private White have to offer in the way of evidence?”

“Nothing of relevance,” Carter said, stopping again between the two racks. “However, his nonevidence nailed the coffin lid shut on Lance Corporal Zelinski.

“Picture this very black Marine private sitting in the witness box, wearing a khaki uniform, which is a sharp contrast to his skin color. The eyes of all six jurors fixate on him. His presence quite literally mesmerized the whole court after Heyster had him state his name for a third time, right after my objection. A disgusting racial trick, and I know that even Private White did not like it.”

“So the jury is hypnotized on Private White,” O’Connor said. “What did he have to say?”

“Heyster asks him, ‘Do you know the accused, Lance Corporal Raymond Zelinski?’ ” Carter said, mimicking the prosecutor, putting his hands backward on his hips as he spoke. “Poor Private White cannot even say Zelinski, and stutters and stumbles trying to repeat the name.

“Then I see it. I see Heyster smile that dirty, I-got-you-now smile of his. He looked at me, looked at the jury, all of whom sat transfixed on White, and then with his back to the jury, I see Heyster raise his eyebrows and give PFC White the nod to now finish his statement.

“White looks right at the jury, just the way Charlie told him to do, and says, ‘I don’t rightly know him as Lance Corporal Zuh, whatever you said his last name was. All us guys down on the flight line, we just calls him Raymond the Weasel!’

“At that moment, White looked at Zelinski and smiled, and every eye in the court then followed White’s cue and looked at my client, sitting there with his pointed little face, bug eyes, pencil-thin mustache, slicked-down black hair, and poor posture. It was as though the whole trial focused on that moment. That name. At that instant he became guilty. He turned to slime. In their minds he was no longer Lance Corporal Zelinski, but a street item named Raymond the Weasel.”

Carter then screamed, standing on his tiptoes and swinging his arms as he now ranted nearly uncontrollably, “Raymond the Weasel! My God! Everyone in the courtroom, including the jury and the judge himself, laughed out loud!

“The jurors’ eyes immediately shifted from the very black Private White to my client, who could only slink down in his chair with his ratty little paws curled under his chin, looking very much like Raymond the Weasel! They convicted that boy purely on his looks!”

“That and a joint of marijuana that he held in his hand, planted or not,” Kirkwood added, sitting on the side of his bunk.

“Well, yes,” Carter said, standing with his arms folded at the end of Kirkwood’s rack. “But he was set up, and everyone knew it.”

“Possession is possession,” O’Connor said, now sitting, too.

“The judge, no doubt duly influenced by my client’s weasel looks, sentenced Raymond to, you guys just guess what,” Carter said.

“Oh, crap, how should I know?” O’Connor said. “Thirty days in the brig. A little harsh, but for a weasel, a month in the cooler.”

“Typically, a guy would get some restriction, a fine, but you said Raymond was no longer a lance corporal, so he must have gotten a bust,” Kirkwood said.

“Wrong on nearly all counts,” Carter said. “The three others who were charged with possession, who the military police caught red-handed smoking the pot in the hangar, each got off with a fine and thirty days’ confinement. For having a single marijuana joint in his hands, not smoking it, nor having even a match with which to light it, and not even time to put it in his pocket, Lance Corporal Raymond the Weasel got busted to private, received six months in the brig, a fine of six months’ pay, and a bad-conduct discharge. For possession of one stinking joint, he’s ruined for life.”

“Six, six, and a kick,” O’Connor said, “That is harsh.”

“Get used to it, gentlemen,” Carter said, walking back to his bunk. “Dicky Doo believes in harshness. He even told me once that every enlisted Marine is guilty of something, and should be lashed at the mast. He claims that a little brig time for them just balances the scales of justice.”

“Oh, he is definitely a flogging kind of a guy,” O’Connor said. “I got that right off.”

“Gentlemen,” Kirkwood said, looking at his wristwatch and sliding his toes between the thong straps of his green rubber shower shoes, “I am off to clean up before the big hail-and-farewell bash tonight. Just a couple of hours away. No time to snooze, but a long shower and a shave might restore my soul at least for a little while anyway.”

“I’m with you, my man,” O’Connor said, rolling off the bunk, and grabbing a towel and toiletry kit, and trotting barefooted after Kirkwood.

 
JAPANESE LANTERNS TIED on communications line stretched between tent poles decorated the lawn behind the Officers’ Club that night. Vietnamese chefs stood in front of flaming grills, turning giant prawns and porterhouse steaks over the fires and dropping the surf ’n’ turf fare on the plates of First MAW Law’s attorneys, staff, and their many guests, who outnumbered the lawyers three to one.

Country music from a Filipino group with a Japanese lead singer blared from two batteries of six-foot-tall loudspeaker cabinets that flanked the foot-high riser of plywood laid on concrete blocks that served as a stage. Electric cords buried between two-by-fours stretched to the back of the club, where an octopus of outlets fed the band’s amplifiers and microphones.

“How’d ya like ole Yamaguchi Ritter and his Angeles City Cowboys?” a Marine nearly a size too large for his tiger-stripe pattern jungle-camouflage utility uniform said to Terry O’Connor, slapping a paw the size of a beef chuck roast on the lawyer’s shoulder, knocking him off balance, and causing beer to slosh out of his glass.

“Not bad at all,” the five-foot, ten-inch O’Connor said, looking up at the Marine, who towered a foot above his head.

“He kind of fucks up the L sounds, but after a while, over here, a guy stops noticing it,” the gigantic Marine said, craning his neck over his shoulder, looking at the band playing at the opposite end of the lawn, where much of the crowd had gathered, near the bar and the barbecue grills.

“Terry O’Connor,” the lawyer said, and extended his hand to the huge man.

“Archie Gunn,” the hulk said, returning the shake, wrapping his mitt around O’Connor’s almost like a man taking a child by the hand. “Just call me Lobo. My old Basic School roommate over yonder, T. D. McKay, is in your outfit, and always invites me to your cross burnings and beefsteak sacrifices.”

O’Connor glanced past Lobo, and noticed Jon Kirkwood walking toward him, a half smile on his face.

“Here comes my TBS roommate,” O’Connor said, “Jonathan Kirkwood.”

“Oh, yeah, I met him a while ago,” Gunn said, letting go of O’Connor’s hand and offering Kirkwood a wave. “He was cornered by old Stanley the shithead Tufts and the Brothers B.”

“I know who Tufts is; I met his brother Manley at staging on Okinawa. He came on our plane today, and I think he got assigned to one of the grunt battalions for a couple of months before he goes to work at First Marine Division Legal, but the Brothers B? I haven’t met them,” O’Connor said.

“Phillip Edward Bailey-Brown and Miles Christopher Bushwick. Charming fellows from New England,” Jon Kirkwood said as he joined Lobo and O’Connor.

“Yeah, that’s the names,” Gunn said and grinned. “Their shit don’t stink, either. I don’t think they even fart.”

“They’re not related I gather from the different names,” O’Connor said, seeing the two men talking and laughing with Major Dickinson, Stanley Tufts, and Charlie Heyster.

“Naw, they just call them the Brothers B because of the same initial on their last names, which also stands for Boondoggle, which we have assigned them as their unofficial last name. Plus, those two are joined at the hip most of the time,” Lobo said. “You don’t see one without the other. From up in New England someplace.”

“Old money, and well connected,” Kirkwood added. “According to Mike Carter, our noble Mojo, Dicky Doo, cannot kiss their asses enough. He’s always worming around that pair, and ironically, they treat him like a poor relation.”

“Dicky Doo takes it up the ass,” Lobo said, and gulped down a mouthful of beer from a can that he crushed with his hand as he sucked it empty. “Speaking of taking it up the ass, I’ve gotta get a closer look at this crew of L-B-F-Ms that Yamaguchi Ritter has dancing on the sidelines. See you gents later.”

“What did he call those Filipino go-go girls?” O’Connor asked, laughing while watching Lobo walk through the crowd of cocktail-sipping officers clustered across the lawn, parting them as he pushed through like Moses did with the Red Sea.

“L-B-F-Ms,” a major now standing by Kirkwood said. “Little brown fucking machines.”

The dark-haired and olive-complected Marine stood an inch or two shorter than O’Connor. He wore a khaki garrison cap cocked to one side, and a dark green flight suit with zippered pockets and vents on his legs and sleeves, and a white with red and blue embroidered, circular McDonald-Douglas F4 Phantom patch on his left shoulder. He had a brown leather rectangle attached to the flight suit on his left breast, above a slanted zipper-closed pocket. In gold letters it said “Buck Taylor, Major, USMCR.”

“Terry, here is a guy you have to meet,” Kirkwood said as O’Connor made eye contact with the major.

“Monahan S. Taylor,” the Marine said, extending his hand to O’Connor, “but call me Buck. Everyone does. I drive Fox-Four Phantoms when I’m not acting as my aircraft group’s legal officer.”

“Major Taylor is a Yale Law School graduate,” Kirkwood said.

“And you fly Phantoms?” O’Connor asked, surprised. “I thought a Yale Law degree guaranteed you body and soul to the Staff Judge Advocate Corps.”

“Usually it does,” Taylor said, pulling two cans of beer from a six-pack he held under his arm, and handed one each to Kirkwood and O’Connor, along with a fold-up beer-can-opener he pulled from his pocket. “However, I graduated first in my class at the Basic School. So I had my pick of where I wanted to go. Most dive into the ought-three profession, commanding grunts on the charge, but I had my head in the clouds. I wanted to fly jets. Always did, ever since I saw the Blue Angels perform at South Weymouth when I was a kid. So I went to flight school, down at Beeville, Texas. Got my wings, and here I am.”

“A naval aviator who graduated TBS,” O’Connor chirped. “That’s pretty rare. Most, I hear, miss that evolution.”

“There are a few of us with some ground training. Captain Archie Gunn, over there, is another TBS graduate pilot,” Taylor said. “I expect the crotch to eventually get away from the Marine Corps option out of the navy’s flight officers’ candidate school, and make all their pilots go to Quantico for both Officer Candidates’ School and the Basic School. I think it’s a good idea. It certainly helps my perspective when laying snake and nape for a gaggle of grunts under fire.”

“I’m sorry. Snake and nape?” Kirkwood said, popping a triangular hole in his beer can with the opener and handing it to O’Connor.

“Snake eyes, your standard five-hundred-pound, mark-eighty-two general-purpose bomb, and nape is napalm,” Taylor said.

“Lobo’s a pilot?” O’Connor said, taking a sip from his beer and handing the opener back to Major Taylor.

The three men then turned and watched as the massive Marine in the camouflage uniform now grabbed the asses of two Filipino dancing girls.

“Observation planes,” Taylor answered, dropping the opener back in his pocket and turning toward O’Connor and Kirkwood. “He came to Beeville a month or so before I graduated there and went on to Yuma, where I got my follow-on, F-4 fighter pilot training. Damned good pilot, but way too big. A Martin-Baker seat in a Fox-Four is just not that accommodating, plus if he ever managed to get strapped in he’d rip off his kneecaps if he had to punch out. Never had a prayer to fly jets, so they trained him in Broncos, which is still a mighty tight fit for his big ass. I think that’s why he prefers to fly that J-2 Cub. He’s got room for his butt, and he can throw a friend in the backseat, too. Not that I would ever want to go riding with that crazy son of a bitch.”