Hearts in Atlantis(160)

That was the morning, that was the helicopters, and something like that had to go somewhere. When they got to the shitty little Ville that afternoon they still had the stink of charred helicopter crewmembers in their noses, the old lieutenant was dead, and some of the men - Ronnie Malenfant and his friends, if you wanted to get right down to particulars - had gone a little bughouse. Dieffenbaker was the new lieutenant, and all at once he had found himself in charge of crazy men who wanted to kill everyone they saw - children, old men, old mamasans in red Chinese sneakers.

The copters crashed at ten. At approximately two-oh-five, Ronnie Malenfant first stuck his bayonet into the old woman's stomach and then announced his intention of cutting off the f**kin pig's head. At approximately four-fifteen, less than four klicks away, the world blew up in John Sullivan's face. That had been his big day in Dong Ha Province, his rilly big shew.

Standing there between two shacks at the head of the Ville's single street, Dieffenbaker had looked like a scared sixteen-year-old kid. But he hadn't been sixteen, he'd been twenty-five, years older than Sully and most of the others. The only other man there of Deef s age and rank was Willie Shearman, and Willie seemed reluctant to step in. Perhaps the rescue operation that morning had exhausted him. Or perhaps he had noticed that once again it was the Delta two-two boys who were leading the charge. Malenfant was screaming that when the f**kin slopehead Gong saw a few dozen heads up on sticks, they'd think twice about f**king with Delta Lightning. On and on in that shrill, drilling phone-salesman's voice of his. The cardplayer. Mr Card-Shark. Pags had his harmonicas; Malenfant had his deck of f**kin Bikes. Hearts, that was Malenfant's game. A dime a point if he could get it, nickel a point if he couldn't. Come on, boys! he'd yell in that shrill voice of his, a voice Sully swore could cause nosebleeds and kill locusts on the wing. Come on, pony up, we huntin The Bitch!

Sully remembered standing in the street and looking at the new lieutenant's pale, exhausted, confused face. He remembered thinking, He can't do it. Whatever needs to be done to stop this before it really gets going, he can't do it. But then Dieffenbaker got it together and gave Sly Slocum the nod. Slocum didn't hesitate a moment. Slocum, standing there in the street beside an overturned kitchen chair with chrome legs and a red seat, had shouldered his rifle, sighted in, and had blown Ralph Glemson's head clean off. Pagano, standing nearby and gaping at Malenfant, hardly seemed aware that he had been splattered pretty much from head to toe. Glemson fell dead in the street and that stopped the party. Game over, baby.

These days Dieffenbaker had a substantial golf-gut and wore bifocals. Also, he'd lost most of his hair. Sully was amazed at this, because Deef had had a pretty full head of it five years ago, at the unit's reunion on the Jersey shore. That was the last time, Sully had vowed to himself, that he would party with those guys. They didn't get better. They didn't f**kin mellow. Each reunion was more like the cast of Seinfeld on a really mean batch of crank.

'Want to come outside and have a smoke?' the new lieutenant asked. 'Or did you give that up when everyone else did?'

'Gave it up like everyone else, that's affirmative.' They had been standing a little to the left of the coffin by then so the rest of the mourners could get a look and then get past them. Talking in low tones, the taped music rolling easily over their voices, the draggy salvation soundtrack. The current tune was 'The Old Rugged Cross,' Sully believed.

He said, 'I think Pags would've preferred-'

"'Goin' Up the Country" or "Let's Work Together,"' Dieffenbaker finished, grinning.

Sully grinned back. It was one of those unexpected moments, like a brief sunny break in a day-long spell of rain, when it was okay to remember something - one of those moments when you were, amazingly, almost glad you had been there. 'Or maybe "Boom Boom," that one by The Animals,' he said.

'Remember Sly Slocum telling Pags he'd stuff that harmonica up his ass if Pags didn't give it a rest?'

Sully had nodded, still grinning. 'Said if he shoved it up there far enough, Pags could play "Red River Valley" when he farted.' He had glanced fondly back at the coffin, as if expecting Pagano would also be grinning at the memory. Pagano wasn't. Pagano was just lying there with makeup on his face. Pagano had gotten over. 'Tell you what - I'll come outside and watch you smoke.'

'Done deal.' Dieffenbaker, who had once given the okay for one of his soldiers to kill another of his soldiers, had started up the chapel's side aisle, his bald head lighting up with mixed colors as he passed beneath each stained-glass window. Limping after him - he had been limping over half his life now and never noticed anymore - came John Sullivan, Gold Star Chevrolet dealer.

The traffic on I-95 slowed to a crawl and then came to a complete stop, except for the occasional forward twitch in one of the lanes. On the radio ? and The Mysterians had given way to Sly and the Family Stone - 'Dance to the Music.' Fuckin Slocum would have been seat-bopping for sure, seat-bopping to the max. Sully put the Caprice demonstrator in Park and tapped in time on the steering wheel.

As the song began to wind down he looked to his right and there was old mamasan in the shotgun seat, not seat-bopping but just sitting there with her yellow hands folded in her lap and her crazy-bright sneakers, those Chuck Taylor knockoffs, planted on the disposable plastic floormat with SULLIVAN CHEVROLET APPRECIATES YOUR BUSINESS printed on it.