Revolution No. 9 Read Free

brought it off, the toughest and wildest operation yet. Within hours, this would be headline news, its implications plain:
    The only way the necks were going to stay safe was to build maximum-security prisons.
    And live in them.

    BLOODBATH LINKED TO “CALAMITY JANE”
By Harold B. Lorenz
    The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 11/21/03
    Atlanta—A multiple homicide that shocked the nation two days ago has taken a bizarre new twist.
    Early this morning, police broke up a fight in a homeless camp near Atlanta’s Peachtree and Pine area, where a man was using a golf club as a weapon.
    It has since been confirmed that the club was one of a rare collection stolen from the house of Eurolon CEO David C. Bodewell. Bodewell, his wife, Paula, and four security guards were murdered last Tuesday in what appeared to be a carefully planned raid on the exclusive community of Sapphire Mountain Estates, north of Atlanta.
    The golf club was identified as a “Calamity Jane” putter—one of only a half-dozen that were handmade for golf legend Bobby Jones in the 1920s. A search of the homeless area turned up several more clubs from Bodewell’s collection. Apparently, they had been tossed in a Dumpster.
    â€œWe can’t speculate at this time on why the golf clubs were taken, or how they ended up where they did,” Atlanta police spokesman Charles Richardson said. Richardson also declined to comment on a possible motive for the murders. But another source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that nothing else of value appeared to have been taken from the house.
    The community’s residents, shaken by the murders, expressed deep concern at this new development. “You’re telling me they killed six people for some golf clubs, then threw them away?” said an outraged neighbor, who also asked not to be identified. “That’s crazy.”
    Police gave assurances that the investigation was being pursued with every available resource.

1
    C arroll Monks was planning a trip to Ireland. His grandfather had grown up near Kilrush, on the west coast, before emigrating to the States. Monks had seen a photo of the place—a stone hovel in a barren field, miles from the nearest tiny village.
    But Monks himself had never set foot on Irish soil. Why that was so was a puzzle even to him. The only answer he could give was that his life for the past thirty-odd years seemed to have been one long struggle to stay on top of whatever he was doing, while stumbling toward the next goal—college, medical school, five years in the navy, getting established in practice. Then marriage, children, divorce, and the thousands of vicissitudes that went with all that. Most of the traveling he had done had either been out of necessity, or vacations that were aimed at pleasing his children.
    But the lapse was still inexcusable, and he was going torectify it, come next March. He was not in search of his roots—he intended to make that clear to everybody he met. Mainly, he hoped to drink in some good pubs, walk on deserted beaches, and listen to a lot of rain, while he was warm and dry inside.
    He was warm and dry right now, inside his own living room. It was early December, getting toward dusk, and the northern California winter was starting to settle in. A fire crackled in his woodstove, with cats sleeping in front of it, waiting for him to break out the slab of fresh salmon that they knew was in the refrigerator, ready to broil on a charcoal grill. Meanwhile, to get himself in shape for the journey, Monks had put aside the vodka that was his usual preference and taken up an apprenticeship with John Power whiskey, a working-class Irish malt with a good rough edge. He liked to sip it neat, slowly, sampling various stouts as chasers. The effect was like nectar and ambrosia combined.
    He had been reading up on Irish history and had a pile of maps and guidebooks that he consulted while plotting his