Gagliano,Anthony - Straits of Fortune.wps Read Free Page B

might that be?" "Matson." "Matson?" I took a deep breath, not moving my eyes from the yacht. "Walk with me, Jack. I get stiff if I sit too long." 15
    We took a narrow path that followed a break wall until it curved around toward the gazebo where I used to sit with Vivian and then on past the long-neglected tennis courts with their nets hanging limp and exhausted in the flagrant heat of midday. Beyond that was the Japanese garden the Colonel had had installed at great cost when he purchased the property. But not even the Green Giant could have made the project a success. The climate was too humid, the soil too salty, the sun too relentless. The gardeners, imported like the bonsais they had planted, had been forced to use native species for the project. All but one of them had returned home, broken, bitter, but a lot richer for their troubles. The Colonel stopped suddenly and looked at me. I was thinking about Matson dead on the boat. I stooped, picked up a small stone, and absentmindedly tossed it into a fish pond where bright orange Japanese koi were swimming around frantically, looking for a way out. "You never told me why you quit the police force up in New York," the Colonel said, apropos of nothing. "I never told you because I knew you already knew. What difference does it make now? Let's get back to Matson." "You know," he said thoughtfully, "it's a sorry fact that at least fifty percent of men engaged in combat never fire their weapons, even when they're being shot at, even when people are trying to kill them. Hard to believe, isn't it?" "History proves I'm not one of them." "No, I suppose not. But sometimes when a man makes a mistake--let's say he shoots the wrong man--it can make him timid. He doubts himself. The next time around, he hes- itates, and that's the end of him. I've seen it. I know." "He wasn't just the wrong man, Colonel," I said. "He was a cop. He was a cop just like me." "We call it friendly fire, Jack. It can't be avoided." I started to say something, but instead I turned and looked 16
    out at the water. What's that the kids say? Shit happens. It occurred to me that I'd been in Miami too long. Too many people knew who I was. I had lost the sacred one-time-only gift of anonymity. "That scar on your cheek," the Colonel said. "He fired, too. Would you have preferred that it was you who were killed--or worse, crippled? Is that why you insist on slum- ming as a personal trainer, Jack? Is that your idea of repen- tance? Wasting your mind teaching old bastards like me how to do push-ups?" Now I turned to face him. "What's this got to do with Matson?" The Colonel stooped and picked up a pebble of his own and tossed it underhand back into the fish pond. "Why did you come out here, Jack?" "You invited me, remember? You're not getting senile on me now, are you?" "You were hoping to see my daughter, weren't you?" "Stop playing me, Colonel. You think I don't get what you're doing?" He smiled. We kept walking. I had given him the satis- faction of knowing just how badly I wanted to ask about Matson. I was as hooked as the two fish lying frozen in my freezer, and the Colonel knew it. A winding, stone-lined brook gurgled alongside us as we walked. The lizards danced and flirted with our feet, and the wind carried the smell of the ocean from beyond the dunes. Neither of us spoke for what seemed a long time. I was thinking of Matson. I was thinking of Matson and Vivian. The Colonel walked beside me with his hands in the pockets of his black silk bathrobe. A gardener carry- ing a hoe and a bucket of dead plants stood up from behind some weather-beaten bushes. The Colonel spoke to him in Japanese for a few moments as the lizards skittered through 17
    the ferns like little fugitives. While they talked, I thought about Matson some more and tried to work myself around to caring that he was dead, but I couldn't seem to find the right frequency. The gardener took one last forlorn look at his work and shook his head like a