ed himself another. Uncle Matt frightened me a little now that I was older and his youthful flamboyance had turned to brittle, ambiguous intensity. I
looked at those once-powerful arms in which I had long ago put my faith and trust, not exactly sure what he might do with them next.
He folded them across his black T-shirt. “We've been through a lot lately,” he said. “You just let the dust settle a little now.”
I handed him a photocopy of the letter. His shoulders stiffened when he read it. “Damn,” he muttered quietly. I watched his every move, grateful I'd
clicked the safety off my pistol. He didn't seem to want to talk. So I did.
“That vagrant thought my father was you, didn't he? He found us because we were listed in the directory and you weren't. You and my dad. Same initials.
Same general appearance. My father understood it as soon as the letter arrived. And he suffered terribly because of it. We all did, because of what you'd
done. But my father also went to you about it, didn't he? He told you we
Previous
|
|
were being blackmailed for something you did, and so you murdered again.”
Uncle Matt ran his fingers through his steel-wool hair and looked into my eyes. “Don't you ever go off duty?” he asked. I let that pass. So he tried
another tack. “You like being a cop, don't you?”
What the hell. “Yes, I do.”
“I didn't,” he said.
“What? You gonna try to tell me now you were military police?”
“O.S.S. Military intelligence. Dirty work. Rooting out counterespionage agents. Japs stashed them everywhere. Don't make judgments unless you were there.
It wasn't street punks and squad cars.”
“I take that as an admission.”
“Take it any way you like. What that lunatic came around your place threatening to expose was an act of war. Pure and simple. That guy was one sandwich
short of a picnic, you know. And eleven months in a Jap POW
Next
|