DRESS GRAY
by
Lucian K Truscott

Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Books USA Inc., 375 Hudson
Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England Penguin Books
Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia Penguin Books Canada Ltd,
10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2

Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England
Published by Signet, an imprint of Dutton Signet, a division of Penguin
Books USA Inc.

Originally published in hardcover by Doubleday & Company, Inc. First
Signet Printing, June, 1997

10 9 8 7 6 5 4

Copyright Lucian Truscott Co. Inc., 1978 All rights reserved Printed in
the United States of America Without limiting the rights under copyright
reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or
by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright
owner and the above publisher of this book.

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents
either are the product of the author's imagination or are used
fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

BOOKS ARE AVAILABLE AT QUANTITY DISCOUNTS WHEN USED TO PROMOTE PRODUCTS
OR SERVICES. FOR INFORMATION PLEASE WRITE TO PREMIUM MARKETING DIVISION,
PENGUIN BOOKS USA INC.. 375 HUDSON STREET, NEW YORK. NEW YORK 10014.

If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this
book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to
the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any
payment for this "stripped book."

This book is dedicated to David Hall Vaught Robert Lome Leslie Richard
Lee Swick Cadets, Officers, Gentlemen, Friends!

BOOK 1.

May 25, 1968

Ryan Slaight was walking punishment tours on Central Area when they told
him. Each cadet told another as they passed, marching at attention, M-14
rifles upon their shoulders. Area regulations required silence, so the
news swept across the area like a hot wind, a ripple of whispered air,
until it reached Slaight, who was marching in and out of a tiny piece of
shade down at the western end of the area, near the stoops on either
side of the First Class Sally Port, a vaulted passageway through the
barracks. "They found a body up in Lake Popolopen this morning," said a
voice. The cadet talked out of the side of his mouth, eyes straight to
the front. It was hard to tell who spoke. "They know who it is?" asked
Slaight, who had aboutfaced and was marching alongside the guy who had
whispered the news. "Some plebe," said the cadet matter-of-factly.

"Don't know his name."

"When. What happened," said Slaight. It was a command, not a question,
and his head swiveled sharply toward the other cadet as he spoke. The
cadet glanced at Slaight, then focused again on the pavement in front of
him. It was the way on the area: straight to the front at all times. The
sun was bright, and it caught Slaight's black patent-leather visor,
reflecting a white spot of light on the stone wall of the stoops ahead.

The cadet could not see Slaight's eyes, but he could see Slaight's left
hand, clenched tightly in a fist. They halted, executed a slow,
simultaneous about-face, taking their time. It was a leisure due them
because they were cows. Juniors. upperclassmen.

Even walking punishment tours on the area, cows were cool. They marched
north across the area. "Found him this morning, floating," the cadet
whispered. "Don't know what time. Early, I think. They say it was an
accident." Slaight marched a few steps, aboutfaced on the iron storm
drain at mid-area, and marched south. He wanted to be alone. This was
Slaight's third month of May spent walking punishment tours on the area
in as many years. It wasn't that he was a dullard. Slaight just seemed
to attract unwanted attention from the officers who ran the Tactical
Department the way the cadet uniform attracted stares on the street in
New York City. The Tactical Department was West Point's expanded Dean of
Students, an elaborate system of command which supervised every aspect
of cadet life outside the classroom. It began with the tactical
officers, thirty-two of them, majors, each of whom commanded a company
of 160 cadets. Then there were four regimental commanders, colonels,
each of whom commanded eight cadet companies. At the top was the
commandant of cadets, a brigadier general, a position which was
traditionally a key step on the ladder of army success. Many former
commandants went on to become Chief of Staff, top dog at the Pentagon.

It seemed odd to him, but Slaight had always felt a peculiar sense of
comfort, of well-being, when dealing with the Tactical Department,
despite the fact that three times his encounters with officer superiors
had landed him with slugs, assignments of twenty or more punishment
tours on the area. The TD was both a father and a mother to the Corps of
Cadets. It scolded and punished cadets, guiding them through four years
of academy life with Pavlovian precision. Slaight often mused that if he
had gone to a civilian college, he'd have been kicked out by now. At
West Point, breaking the rules was expected of cadets. It was part of
playing the game, the eternal struggle between cadet and academy, the
artificial give-and-take of the system which defined one's identity at
the United States Military Academy. Slaight knew the area. It was
punishment as punishment should be, and he hated it. But after some
fifty hours walking the area, Slaight had come to admire the concept of
walking the area. It was time meant to be wasted, good time, weekend
time, and it was time lost to the cadet punished. Gone. Forever. Slaight
derived no small amount of satisfaction from the private notion that he
used the area. It was like reading a book, he decided. Only thing was,
what you read on the area had to be your own mind. Slaight walked alone
in and out of his small piece of shade, his eyes adjusting and
readjusting to the hot late May sun beating down on the area, turning
the fifty-by hundred-yard rectangle of concrete between the barracks
into a stone oven. There were many styles for walking the area. Some
guys walked in little informal groups, a few yards apart, as if the
company of others afforded quiet solace. Some guys walked slowly, trying
to cover as little ground as possible in each three-hour stint on the
concrete. Others rushed from one side of the barracks to the other, as
if their speed would hurry the clock along. Some guys cruised the area,
covering every inch of the hot rectangle, like they were establishing
territorial imperative over the ground they walked. Slaight always
walked the same strip of ground, down near the sally port, loosely
following a series of cracks in the concrete which had been patched with
tar in a pattern he found  ...  interesting  ...  nonlinear. And so he
always walked a slightly crooked path, stepping to the left and right of
the tarred cracks, but never on them. Slaight's area style had nothing
to do with his politics, which were conservative, and everything to do
with his sense of himself, which struggled somewhere in the mucky,
ill-defined area inhabited by twenty-one-year-olds. The barracks hummed,
crackled with Saturday afternoon cadet life. Stereos clashed from window
to window. Up on the rooftops, sun bathers peered over stone battlements
and called encouragement to guys they knew on the area. Down in the
sinks, the basement shower rooms and locker rooms, electric shavers
purred and water splashed, and a lonely, echoed voice could be heard
from the 13th Division, singing a song by The Association. Through the
sally port, the cadet mess hall clanked and chugged, and Spanish voices
of waiters yelled across the massive, gymnasium-sized south wing as
tables were set for the evening meal. Veal cutlets. Slaight could smell
it. Three years had trained his nose. Veal cutlets and lima beans and
mashed potatoes. Slaight knew it wouldn't take long for the name of the
dead cadet to emerge from the ooze which was the eternal undercurrent of
rumor, speculation, and false hope just beneath the surface of the
United States Military Academy. Death was part of the undertow,
infrequently discussed but forever back there in the rear of the mind,
among the theorems and axioms of applied science, the chaotic patchwork
of textures of military tactics and strategy. Knowledge of death was not
learned but absorbed in such a way that it was part of the unspoken
tongue, the code among cadets. It was one of those shared things which
set them apart, death was. They imagined they faced it every day, and in
a way, they did. Vietnam waited. It would not go away. Perversely, they
did not want ii to, not a war, not the war, the only shooting war since
Korea, not the year before Slaight and his classmates graduated. West
Point in the spring of 1968 was probably the only place in America where
the war in Vietnam was a "good deal," the accelerator pedal of army
success, the escalator of army promotions. The war had kicked everything
at the academy into high gear, put an edge on the experience of being a
cadet which had been missing three years previously when Slaight entered
West Point as a plebe. The war made the air at West Point dry with
tension. It was like the centerfold in Playboy. The academy opened
naturally to the page which sold the place. War was the reason West
Point existed. Everything else was filler. They liked to think that war
was their reward, the currency they were paid, cadets did. War was the
object of their ambition, the thing they were supposed to lust after the
way Harvard and Yale guys were supposed to lust after jobs with big
corporations, admissions to law schools, graduate degrees. War was said
to be the final j measure of the man. Officers at the academy frequently
likened the war to sex. As intercourse was necessary to propagate the
species, war was necessary to thin it out. Hell, as long as there had
been men, there had been wars. Two thousand years of recorded history
couldn't be wrong. Military Academy doctrine decreed that war cleared
the senses of civilization, established those who counted, brought
things like "politics" and "international relations" to a head. Peace,
if followed, was merely afterglow. This was a vision of the world with
which cadets were comfortable because they were not yet acquainted with
dead bodies. "Guy's name is David Hand," a voice reported. "Drowned.

Been dead a couple of days. Grim scene, they say." Slaight stopped
marching the area, removed his hat, and with the coarse wool sleeve of
his dress coat, wiped his forehead. He knew David Hand. He had come to
West Point from New Orleans the year before like he had nothing to lose.

There was something about the kid that said he had the place figured
out. This was not the way plebes were supposed to act. Slaight, who had
been his squad leader during the first month of Beast Barracks, knew it.

David Hand knew it. Slaight knew that David Hand knew. It brought them
close together. In any military unit, especially one as small and
tightly knit as a squad--eleven men--there exists a glue between men so
tight, so intimate, so intense, it has traditionally remained unknown
outside the confines of military life. The language has had difficulty
expanding to contain the unmentionable. In recent years, an intellectual
term has been in use to describe such behavior: male bonding. But the
language of West Point barracks life has always been far more succinct.

For years. West Pointers have referred to their roommates as wives.

Slaight thought the term  ...  wives  ...  had its roots in the shared
experience of plebes. Being a plebe, he thought, was like being a woman
for a year. Plebe year at West Point had often been compared unfairly to
pledging a college fraternity. True, there is something of the
atmosphere of a fraternity about the whole of West Point
life--jocularity, playfulness, hilarity in the face of shared hardship.

But to be a West Point plebe is to capitulate oneself to a system so
foreign, so completely absorbing, and so totally dominating that the
similarity between plebe and pledge ends with the letter "p." Plebe year
was the thing which ultimately drew the distinction between West Pointer
and all others. For plebe year imbued in the cadet heart an incendiary
mix of pride and shame which each man would hold forever secret by a
tacit pact as old as the academy itself. David Hand had been
inordinately skilled at the thousand little details of plebe life. No
one could shine shoes better than he. His uniforms fit as if they had
been custom-tailored, while most plebes looked like Cadet Sad Sacks. He
could "spout poop," recite the myriad memorizations of plebe knowledge
with an ease of delivery which skirted the edges of boredom. He was
always on time, while his classmates fumbled through each day as if
blindfolded. David Hand had seemed comfortable as a plebe. He retained
an odd aloofness, when all the unwritten rules said he should have been
soaked in humility. Slaight, the squad leader, noticed there had always
been something David Hand kept to himself, some private place neither
Slaight nor the plebe system could reach. Slaight had admired him
secretly for preserving a portion of himself which the academy would
never touch. Slaight decided it took courage. For to withhold from West
Point that which West Point considered it rightfully owned--namely
oneself--violated the academy's most sacred rule. In return for
receiving the secret gift the academy had to offer, a special knowledge
of the inner workings of power among men, one had to first surrender
himself and become powerless. David Hand had refused to do this, and now
he was dead. Ry Slaight placed his hat on his head, lifted his rifle
from his right shoulder to his left, and walked the area. He looked over
at the west face of the four-sided clock in the middle of the area. It
was almost 5 p.m. His fifty-third hour on the area was almost over. He
had seven hours left to walk. He studied the stone barracks surrounding
him. Most of them had been built in 1850, in a style now called Military
Gothic--basement, stoop, four stories, four rooms to a floor, toilets in
the hall, flat roofs edged with battlements. They looked like tenements.

He was trying not to think of David Hand. It was the fourth time in his
life he had considered death up close. Each time it seemed to get worse.

There was too much he knew about David Hand, the plebe. Most
intriguingly, there was too much he didn't know about him for Slaight to
simply forget David Hand. Now he was dead, and Slaight knew there were
things he'd never know about the guy. It bothered him, gnawed at him,
being so curious about a dead man. So Slaight, walking the area from one
side of Central Area to the other and back again and again, resolved to
look into meditation, which he imagined was about the business of not
thinking. Maybe he'd order a book about it, the next time there was a
Marboro ad in the New York Times. That was what he usually did when he
was curious about something: order a book. But he'd have to do a little
digging to satisfy his curiosity about David Hand, dead by drowning at
nineteen.

Across Thayer Road from Central Area, in a highceilinged office on the
third floor of the Academic Headquarters Building, Major General Axel W.
Rylander, superintendent of the Military Academy, picked up a telephone
and punched a button: "Get me Hedges," he said, referring to Brigadier
General Charles Sherrill Hedges, the commandant of cadets.

His secretary dialed the four-digit number for the commandant's office,
located about one hundred yards away across the street in the Brigade
Headquarters Building, at the southeast corner of Central Area. The call
was answered by the commandant's secretary. The two women, as
intermediaries for their respective bosses, spoke to each other
frequently. They chatted for a moment before they put the call through.

Then Hedges' secretary punched a button: "General, it's the supe on line
two." Hedges replaced a pair of binoculars in its black leather case,
straightened his uniform jacket, and mentally counted to ten. He picked
up the phone. "General Hedges," he said, knowing the voice on the other
end of the phone would be that of the superintendent's secretary, Mrs.
Moore. "One moment. General," said Mrs. Moore. Hedges winced at the
sound of the woman's voice. He had no patience for the formalities of
secretaries and intercoms and buzzers and waiting. That was why he
purposefully omitted the word "sir" when he picked up the phone. General
Hedges. He liked the sound of it. It was like saying yeah?, thumbing his
nose at the waiting, the wasted time. Hedges had a thing about wasted
time. Back in Nam, up in his C & C ship, his command and control
helicopter, when he grabbed the mike and punched into the battalion
radio net on the ground, he wanted to be talking to the lieutenant or
captain in command of that unit he was looking down on. It wasn't just
policy, it was the gospel. His commanders never used their RTOS,
radio-telephone operators, to relay messages. Once he had relieved a
platoon leader because the lieutenant had not personally responded on
the radio to the C & C ship. He told the lieutenant's RTO to put the
platoon sergeant on. He told the sergeant to tell the Lieutenant he was
finished. He didn't want to see him back at base camp. He didn't want to
see him anywhere. That Lieutenant better get himself on down to Division
and start looking for a desk to hide behind  ...  the sergeant was
yessir--yessir--yessiring up a storm, breaking radio procedure, but he
didn't give a good goddamn, he was too pissed at that lieutenant to go
wasting any more time on the sergeant ... And now Hedges was waiting
again. Waiting for the superintendent to come on the line. Seemed like
he spent half his time waiting for the superintendent on the telephone.

He wondered what in hell Rylander had done on the radio in Nam when he
was a division commander. He tapped the eraser end of a pencil on the
desk. The telephone seemed to burn his ear with silence. He was on hold.

What was he doing wondering what Rylander had done in Nam? He'd heard
enough about the almighty 1st Cavalry Division to know what kind of
commander Rylander had been in Nam. He was old-school, one of those
grandstanding SOBS who never got the hang of the fact that Vietnam
wasn't Normandy and the gooks weren't Nazis. He'd been up there in II
Corps with his almighty cav troopers, making huge sweeps, divisional
maneuvers so grandiose every VC worth his rice knew a week in advance
what the 1st Cav was doing, where they'd strike next. But he was all
over the television, even made the cover of Life. Big color picture of
Rylander with a gold scarf around his neck and a pair of mirrored
sunglasses on, looking out across a bunch of hills that were probably
crawling with VC and NVA regulars. And all kinds of quotes from Rylander
about the "new enemy," turning the 1st Cav into a "new concept" of a
"fighting unit." He sounded like one of those eggheads in the Pentagon,
spewing garbage out of some field manual. Hedges had shown how it was
done with his brigade in the Big Red One, the First Infantry Division.

He demanded the toughest area of operations in the Iron Triangle, and he
nailed down that AO like he was fencing in his own back yard. There
wasn't a gook within fifty miles who didn't know Hedges' Hellions were
holding that piece of real estate. They kept their distance, that was
for sure. Once an ambush captured a VC province infrastructure leader,
and they interrogated him, scared the hell out of the little yellow
coward. When he'd had enough, he said the VC had a name for Brigade
Commander Hedges. It was some gook word--never could remember it right,
but it translated to "Red Devil."

"Charlie, Charlie?" The voice of General Rylander broke the silence.

"Charlie, what about this plebe they found up in Popolopen this morning?

You got anything more for me? I'm going to need a report before close of
business today, you know."

"I've got Terry King on it right now, sir, and I should ' be hearing
from him any minute," said Hedges, referring to his Third Regimental
commander.

Colonel Phineas Terrance King, with whom he'd served in the Big Red One.

They had been battalion commanders together, before Hedges got his
brigade--Hedges' Hellions. Terry and the Pirates  ...  those were the
days  ...  his mind was wandering again. He thumped the eraser on his
desk and blinked. "Terry's the best man we've got, sir. He'll have the
whole ball of wax wrapped up for us. I've got complete confidence in
him, sir. We've got the lid screwed on tight, and it's going to stay
that way."

"Goddammit, Charlie, the lid better be on tight. June Week starts the
day after tomorrow, and we're going to be overrun with weight from
Washington. The Chief of Staff's going to be up here. You know that. And
if there are any questions about this business  ..."

"There won't be, sir," Hedges broke in, clipping his words crew-cut
short. He knew how to deal with Rylander. Reassure the old bastard,
reassure him again, then cut him off and let him go back to wondering
what pasture he was going to graze in, when his time was up as supe. It
worked every time. "Yeah. Okay," said the superintendent. "Give me a
call, will you, Charlie, when Terry comes in with that report? I want to
know what went on." "Will do," said Hedges, again purposefully omitting
"sir." He dropped the phone in its cradle as soon as he heard the click
on the other end. Talking with the superintendent of the Military
Academy was like going shopping with the wife. Hedges reached for his
binoculars.

Sitting around waiting. Waiting. Waiting in one of those Fifth Avenue
stores while she tries on this dress and that dress, saying yes, dear,
reassuring the old bitch, then cutting her off, opening the wallet,
flipping the credit card at her with a wordless glare. Worked every
time. Christ, it was a pathetic state of affairs when the supe reminded
you of your wife. Jesus! The army was in sad shape when a Uly-livered
old relic like Rylander could creak his way through the machinery and
plop! There he is! Supe! Well, Rylander was just lucky as hell his
classmates, that crowd from the class of '40, were in all the key slots
down in the Pentagon right now. Every stud worth the price of his pants
down in Washington knew the DCSPER, the deputy chief of staff for
personnel, had been Rylander's roommate when they were cadets. And
everybody in the CIA knew Rylander's Life magazine "victories" were just
so much smoke Westmoreland and LBJ were blowing in the face of the
country and the Congress. Everybody in the Agency knew Rylander and the
1st Cav had been just running around up there in II Corps blowing away a
lot of bush and wasting a lot of brass and lead. Hell, Johnson had been
screaming at Westmoreland for another face, another symbol, another set
of starched fatigues he could put on the tube every night and show off,
like generals standing around in front of TV cameras meant wars were
being won. Rylander had gotten the nod. Now it was all over. Vietnam was
finished. Hedges knew it. Just a few days before, he'd been talking
about how the war was messing everything up with Colonel Addison
Thompson, head of the Social Science Department at the academy. They
talked frequently. Hedges had been a protege of Thompson's when he was a
cadet, and Thompson had followed--some even said helped-- the young
general's career ever since. Thompson was as politically plugged in as
any officer in the army. His connections were older, and reached deeper,
and were tethered to more debts than anyone Hedges knew. Thompson had
powerful friends in both political parties, but more importantly, he had
helped to place, over the years, career bureaucrats in every key agency
in the federal government. Right now, at this very moment, Hedges knew,
close friends of Thompson's were in policy-making positions in the State
Department, the CIA, the ultra-secret National Security Agency, not to
mention the West Pointers he had sprinkled liberally through every
echelon of the Department of Defense. Colonel Addison Thompson, in
short, was a man of considerable power. And the truly astonishing thing
about the man was that no one suspected the silver-haired old social
science chief up at West Point of anything more than occasional
pointy-headedness. He was known all over the army as West Point's most
liberal academician. It had been Thompson who told Hedges about Bobby
Kennedy. Only days before the California primary, Kennedy was chasing
Hubert Humphrey right off the map. The thing that rankled Thompson was
the fact Kennedy was using the war to do it to Humphrey. Hell, it had
been his brother, JFK, who started the war. And according to Thompson,
Bobby Kennedy had goosed the war along while he was Attorney General.

Thompson had found out about Bobby Kennedy and his meddling ways from
his friends in the CIA. He was always sticking his nose in the Agency's
business when he was Attorney General. It was like JFK had given him
some kind of family credit card to play around with the world. Both
Kennedys, but especially Bobby, were constantly meddling in the affairs
of the Agency. And Vietnam was the mechanism for the meddling. They had
wanted to know everything that was happening in that godforsaken little
country. They had pressed the CIA into operations its own experts warned
against. Then JFK had committed troops--they were called "advisers," but
everyone knew they were just the opening wedge. And now Bobby Kennedy
was using what had been his own personal little war to clobber Humphrey.

He was successfully stealing the war issue from McCarthy, and
nobody--nobody--knew the real truth about Bobby Kennedy and the CIA and
the war in Vietnam. Nobody but Colonel Addison Thompson and a few
others. And Hedges knew. He remembered the time back in '62 Bobby
Kennedy had worn a green beret as he had helicoptered around, on a
secret mission for his brother the President. Hedges had been his escort
officer. The memory settled inside him like a good hot meal. Hedges was
satisfied. He'd gotten his, over in Vietnam: two tours of duty, one in
'62-'63 as one of Kennedy's "advisers," the kind of job where you could
drop out of sight for a year and really get your feet wet, really get a
handle on what was happening over there. That was when he first found
out about Bobby Kennedy and his toy green beret and his unusual
affection for things military. Then '66-'67, his battalion command, a
field promotion from lieutenant colonel to brigadier general (skipping
the rank colonel altogether), and his brigade in the Big Red One. He
watched his flanks over there. He nailed down his little piece of real
estate and he stayed put. He collected his basic load of medals, even
pulled down a little publicity himself, the night his battalion had been
overrun by an NVA regiment, and they hadn't suffered a single KIA. Blew
away two hundred gooks that night. Vietnam had had its glamour, but now
anybody could see that career-wise, the war was finished. Addison
Thompson had been predicting as much for two years. And so Hedges was
already lining up his ducks for his next move. The first duck in line
was the superintendent. Brigadier General Hedges had always thought of
himself as a kind of dues collector, the man you pay. In 1948, the year
they graduated from the Point, his roommate told him he should have
studied accounting, not tactics. It seemed like Charlie Hedges was
always tallying things up, counting. Naturally, his roommate missed the
point. Charlie Hedges never counted. He measured. He was one of those
rare individuals with a nearly animalistic sense of smell for other men.

He didn't need to count the odds. He just knew, just like he now knew
that the war had peaked, careerwise. It was indeed no mistake that
Charles Sherrill Hedges was the first man in the class of 1948 to be
promoted to brigadier general, two years ahead of his class 5 percent
list, the select group promoted ahead of schedule. General Hedges could
smell the fear coming off the superintendent's words over the phone. He
could see it. It was like  ...  steam, rising out of those vents along
Thayer Road, hot mist rising and disappearing into the air. Everybody
tended to ignore fear, especially when they sensed it might be coming
from their superiors. But not Hedges. He used fear, used his nose for
the weaknesses of men to maneuver them into positions most advantageous
to him. Hedges. In his mind's eye, he pictured the superintendent of the
Military Academy, pacing the carpet in front of his desk, switching the
phone from ear to ear, staring out his windows overlooking the Hudson,
staring out there, waiting. Men like him. were always waiting. Waiting
and worrying, Rylander was a worrier. Every moment in the life of the
Rylanders of the world was that moment in Nam when somebody yelled
"Incoming!" and you ducked and ran for cover. Rylander was always
ducking and running, and he didn't even know it. Hedges prided himself
not for his courage--for which he had been amply decorated--but for his
sense of timing. What good was courage if you didn't know when to
exercise it? What good was an act of bravery if no one noticed? And so
General Hedges honed his sense of timing, worked on it, polished it  ...
labored over it the way Rylander probably worked on his golf strokes.

Hedges knew one day his sense of timing would really pay off. And he
knew that day was fast approaching. Hedges leaned back in his leather
reclining desk chair and ran his stubby fingers through his thinning
hair. At 5'9" tall, forty-two years of age, he cut a figure of
extraordinary military bearing. He weighed a perfect, trim 155. His face
had the ruddy good looks of a young Jimmy Cagney, helped along by five
minutes each morning in front of a sun lamp, which he kept in the lower
right-hand drawer of his desk. The eighteen custom ribbons on the breast
of his uniform jacket were arranged in seven rows: two rows of four, two
rows of three, two rows of two, topped with the Distinguished Service
Cross, the nation's second highest award for heroism in the face of the
enemy. He got that one the morning after the NVA regiment had tried to
run over his battalion. A miniaturized Combat Infantryman's Badge was
poised over the DSC, between the edge of his lapel and the seam of his
jacket sleeve, giving his uniform breast an uncrowded, yet massively
impressive display of official decorative color. For this reason, Hedges
did not often remove his uniform jacket, preferring to wear it even when
he felt a bit uncomfortable. But he would remove his jacket and hang it
on one of those standing valet hangers next to his desk--the breast of
the jacket still visible to anyone in the office--to achieve the
appearance of informality, if seeming a little loose served his
interests. In fact, it could be said accurately that General Hedges
wasted little time with matters which did not in some direct way serve
his interests. Leisure time, he reasoned, was wasted time. And so when
he played squash during his lunch hour, he played for two reasons: One,
to win. Two, to stay fit. The game, squash, was good for his image.

Having disposed of the superintendent and his niggling, time-wasting
telephoning. Hedges was indulging in a little image-building. Patton had
his pistols, MacArthur had his dark glasses. Hedges had his binoculars.

He was sitting in his wood-paneled, forest-green carpeted office in the
Brigade Headquarters at the southeast corner of Central Area, and
through his Nikon binocs (which he had bought on sale at the Ton Sun
Naut Air Force Base PX while waiting for his R & R flight to Hawaii) he
was watching the two dozen or so cadets marching Central Area below him.

Hedges kept the binocs in their shiny black leather case at the upper
right-hand corner of his desk expressly for this purpose. Anyone walking
in his office would see the binoculars case, nicked and scraped from
hanging around his neck in combat, one of the many mementos of his
career strewn around his office: the six unit plaques on the wall behind
him gleaming brass and enamel and polished walnut reproductions of
regimental crests; a relief map of the Iron Triangle on the wall above a
three-cushion brown leather sofa; a pair of chromed, crossed bayonets
mounted on a VC flag next to the map; on his desktop, a 1:25 scale model
of a Huey Model D, outfitted with miniature M-60 machine guns on its
door, a toy version of his C & C ship back in Nam. Hedges held the
binoculars to his eyes and with his right index finger focused each
eyepiece. He could see the mouths of the cadets marching the area. He
watched them passing each other on the area, one heading north, the
other south. General Hedges shifted his vision from cadet to cadet until
he identified what he believed to be a continuous conversation between
two cadets whispering to each other as they passed on the area. Then he
picked up the telephone and called the Cadet Guard Room, located
immediately beneath his office in the Headquarters. But he didn't pick
up just any phone. He picked up a battery-operated army field telephone,
directly connected to a similar unit in the Guard Room. Hedges turned
the crank on the side of the field telephone and listened to the
pleasant whirr of the little generator which would ring a bell on the
field telephone downstairs. "Yessir!" came an excited voice over the
field phone; "Cadet Guard Room, sir!"

"Give me the area sergeant. This is the commandant speaking," said
Hedges. When the area sergeant, the cadet in charge of the punishment
tour detail, came on the line. Hedges told the cadet to report to him.

Within thirty seconds, the area sergeant was at his side. Hedges pointed
out the offending cadets and ordered their names be brought to his desk.

The area sergeant returned with the cadets' names, General Hedges pulled
from his center desk drawer a pad of two-dash-ones, disciplinary Report
Forms, and in his neat, tutored hand, wrote up the cadets for talking on
the area. Eight more hours walking the area. In his nine months as
commandant of cadets.

General Hedges had become known for his binocular-fed pad of 2-1's. In
fact, it was so extraordinary for a man of his rank and stature--a
general, the commandant of cadets--to take time out of his day to write
up cadets for minor infractions of regulations, that, the general had
become known among cadets as "Two-Dash Hedges," a sneering reference to
the pad of 2-1's he kept close at hand. But still cadets talked on the
area. This was a source of some discomfort to the general, for when he
began his campaign to control talking on the area, he figured it would
take only a few slugs to bring the practice to an abrupt halt. Nine
months later, he found himself on the lookout for repeat offenders. If
the commandant observed the same cadet or cadets talking again, even
several weeks after he had first reported them, he would whip out his
2-1's again, adding to his disciplinary report the words "Gross lack of
judgment." This wording escalated the punishment to twenty hours. There
was one cadet walking punishment tours on the area who had been out
there every weekend for nine months, having been caught repeatedly
talking on the area by the commandant. In all that time, it had never
occurred to General Hedges to order the man up to his office to answer
the obvious question: Why? So the cadet walked and the general watched,
and the eternal game went on. As he watched the cadets marching back and
forth across the area, as he zeroed in on their lips with his Nikon
binoculars on this afternoon in late May, Brigadier General Charles
Sherrill Hedges knew that today, anyway, he had accomplished his
mission. In the timehonored way of the Military Academy, cadets were
being taught a lesson. They were being punished. "General? General?"

Thirty-five-year-old Althea Shanks peered around the door leading into
Hedges' office. "General, Colonel King is here to see you. Should I show
him in?" Hedges placed his binoculars on his desk and looked up. "I'll
see him now," he said. The door opened, and Colonel Phineas Terrance
King, a lanky six-foot-tall Oklahoman who walked with a slight limp, a
shrapnel wound received in Vietnam, stood in the doorway. "Terry! Come
on in! What have you got for me?" Hedges rose from his chair and walked
around his desk, tugging at the front of his uniform jacket. Phineas
Terrance "Terry" King was his personal emissary to the rest of the
world, his right-hand man, his most trusted subordinate. And he was more
than that. He was a buffer zone between Hedges and everyone below him in
the chain of command. Though the office of the commandant was fully
staffed--deputy commandant, S1, S-2, S-3, and S-4, several special
assistants, cadet activities officer, a normal quota of noncommissioned
officers including a brigade sergeant major--Terry King was Hedges' man.

He was present at all sensitive policy meetings. He was taken into the
confidence of the commandant on matters considered to be of importance
to the academy, the army, and the nation. But most importantly, he was
used by the commandant as a kind of major-domo executive assistant,
given secret extra duties which he understood were of special
sensitivity. It was Hedges' sly way of stepping slightly outside the
direct strictures of the chain of command to pick the man in whom he
would place the burden of his trust. He picked his Third Regimental
commander, one of four colonels who served in that capacity for each of
the four respective cadet regiments. But Terry King was Big Red One. He
was Terry and the Pirates. He was  ...  combat. King understood this. He
appreciated the fact Hedges had chosen him. He knew it meant that Hedges
would look out for him. Hedges was going places. Therefore, King was
going places, too. Colonel King walked twelve steps forward to the spot
where Hedges stood waiting for him, exactly opposite the middle cushion
of the leather sofa. King's garrison cap was clamped tightly under his
left elbow. Hedges held out his right hand. It was one of their signals.

King did not have to salute Hedges, as did all other officers who
reported to the office of the commandant of cadets, no matter their
rank, position, or relationship to General Hedges (with the sole
exception of the supe, of course). The two men shook hands. Hedges sat
on the middle cushion of the leather sofa, where he always sat. King sat
on the edge of an armchair across from the general, where he always sat.

On his lap he held a manila folder containing the report on the dead
cadet. "It doesn't look good, sir," said King. "You want to just read it
for yourself, sir?" Despite the informality of their greeting, King was
careful to preserve the deferential "sir," with which he either began or
ended his sentences. The word carried more than respect. It meant
thanks. "No, come on, Terry, you know me better than that. What do you
think I put you on this thing for? Exercise? Give it to me straight.

What's up with this business? The supe's been on my back all day. I've
got to have something for him before he goes down to that dinner for the
local civilian biggies at the Bear Mountain Inn tonight. He's champing
at the bit."

"Looks like this kid  ...  let me see  ...  here it is  ... David Hand
...  Company F-4  ...  looks like he might have been killed.

General, sir."

"What in hell! Come again with that."

"There's a pretty strong possibility the kid was murdered, sir. I've
been on this thing since you called me at home this morning. They found
him about 0530. You called me about 0545. I was up there by 0615, on the
scene at 0630.

"Good. What did you find out?"

"Well, sir, one of the companies found him on a reveille run. Somebody
spotted the body floating about ten feet off shore in Popolopen. At
first they thought it was a parachute. Looked white. You know, back up,
just a shiny white surface, like a piece of nylon in the water. The
skydiving team is always Jumping into Popolopen in wet suits, so they
thought it was one of the team chutes. Then one of the upperclassmen
took off his boots and waded in. Water was about chest-deep. He reached
out and touched it, and it was the kid's back.

Dead a couple of days. Bloated. White as this piece of paper. They say
the guy puked, right there in the lake."

"Really?"

"Yessir. So another cadet waded in, and they hauled him up on shore. He
was in one of the other companies. Nobody knew him. They didn't even
know if he was a cadet. Thought he might be one of the kids from the
post, a high school kid. Fishing accident. So they left him where they
found him, ran back to the barracks at Camp Buckner, and reported the
body to the duty officer. They still hadn't identified him by the time I
got there. His face was totally misshapen by the water; the whole thing
was pretty ugly."

"Yeah. Go on."

"Sir, first thing I did was to get rid of all the cadets who were
hanging around. I got hold of Lieutenantant Colonel Evans Fitzgerald,
the provost marshal--he's class of '58--and got him up there. He brought
his MPS and put them on a search for personal effects around the general
area where the body was found. I kept Fitzgerald with me. I told him
right off to keep this thing tight. He was very co-operative. We both
figured we had a dead cadet on our hands, even though there was no way
of telling, not at 0630 in half light, anyway.

And the kid was nude. Not a stitch."

"The body was nude? Completely naked?"

"Yessir. We covered the body with a tarp from Fitzgerald's jeep, put him
on a stretcher, and hauled the kid out of the area quick. No sense in
too many cadets getting a look. You know how these things get around."

"I certainly do. I've been hearing about it all afternoon."

"Yessir. I got back to Headquarters Building at Buckner, got all the
upper-class company commanders together, and ordered a check of morning
reports. Nothing. Then I told them to have everybody form up for a
normal breakfast formation and to take extra care with the reports. No
counts. Name by name. Ten minutes later we had our man. Hand. David.

Home town: New Orleans. Company F-4. Sixth Training Company at Buckner.

The plebes had only been up there at Buckner for two days, and the kid
had simply gotten lost in the shuffle. He drowned the first night they
were up there, moving in. And with a thousand plebes moving all their
summer gear into those crowded Quonsets and tents, nobody assigned to
their regular squads or platoons from the regular academic year, all the
companies in the roster order they'll be in for July, when summer
training starts for the plebes  ...  well, sir, the kid got lost, and
nobody missed him. That's all."

"Well, somebody's head's gonna roll for that. Terry, I want the man
who's responsible in here this afternoon. I want "him standing tall in
front of this desk. I want some ass kicked, and I want it kicked today."

"I'm not so sure you will when you hear the rest of it, sir."

"What's that you say?" "Sir, I said I'm not so sure you'll want to move
right away when you hear the rest of it, sir. I think, if I might
respectfully make a suggestion, sir, that the best thing for us to do at
this point is to keep this whole thing as low-key as possible. If we go
dealing out a huge slug to some cadet company commander because Hand
dropped out of sight and nobody missed him, the whole corps is going to
be buzzing.

They're going to know something's up, and they're going to want to know
what it is."

"Okay, okay. I see what you mean. Get on with it. The supe's going to be
on the horn any minute."

"Yessir. Anyway, Evans Fitzgerald and I stuck pretty close together all
day. We got the body down to the hospital early, and Fitzgerald got in
touch with one of the doctors he deals with all the time on auto
accidents, that kind of thing. Somebody named George Consor, major,
class of '59. Fitz says we can trust him. Consor did the autopsy. Sure
enough, he'd been in the water almost two days--about thirty-six hours,
to be exact. That means he drowned about 2100, night before last, the
first night the plebes were up at Buckner for their June Week
orientation."

"So where'd they find the body? You never said."

"Sorry, sir. Slipped by me. Let me see  ...  here it is. They found him
down at the far end of Flirtation Walk, down near Class Rock, you know,
that huge boulder the plebes paint with the class numerals every spring.

Seventy-one. The numbers are already up there. Apparently, they'd
painted them on the rock that afternoon-- the afternoon before he died.

But I had Fitz check it out quietly with the kid's company. Hand wasn't
on the rock-painting detail. Wasn't his kind of thing. Closest anyone
can recall, he spent the whole afternoon in his bunk, reading."

"Go on.

What did the autopsy show?"

"Death by drowning. No signs of struggle.

Water in the lungs. No internal injuries. No sign of heart seizure, or
any other  ...  what the hell did that doc call it  ... of yeah, no sign
of any other trauma which might have caused death. Fitz checked with the
Office of Physical Education. The OPE guys say he was an excellent
swimmer, took Advanced, scored a 2.8 out of a possible 3.0, received a
Red Cross Life Saving badge, the whole works. Kid was a fish."

"So what makes you figure the kid might have been killed? Any sign of
drugs, alcohol?"

"None. The doc ran a complete autopsy. I wasn't in the room, of course.

I had a lot of running around to do, but I left Fitzgerald at the
hospital to make sure nobody got in on the autopsy. The doc did the
whole thing himself. No nurses, no aides. I figured the best way to
handle it, to keep the lid on, like you said, was to limit access to
sensitive data to grads."

"Good move, Terry. Outstanding. But get to it.

What else?"

"The doc found out the kid had sex almost immediately before he
drowned."

"Sex? You mean he got laid? How'd he know that?"

"Semen in the urinary tract. The major, Consor, says there are always
traces of semen in the urinary canal after sex, unless you urinate right
afterward. Well, apparently the kid didn't piss. Normally, the doc says,
the relaxation of the muscular system upon death would have caused the
bladder to partially empty. But apparently the temperature of the water
caused the kid's penis to shrink up so much it was damn near up inside
his crotch. The bladder never got a chance to release any urine. So the
semen was still in there. The fact is this, according to the doc: The
kid was fucking just before he drowned."

"Maybe he masturbated, then went for a swim. Then he just waded in and
killed himself. Maybe he was the only guilt-ridden wanker we got here.

Christ, anything could have happened. What makes you so sure he was
murder?"

"Fitzgerald. He's damned sharp for an MP, you know. He ran Checkpoint
Charlie in Berlin during the crisis. And he investigated one hell of a
lot of murders over there in Germany committed by whores, pimps, or
both. A lot of GIS got it in the back in Krautland, General. I'm sure
you know that."

"Yeah, I remember. I had one in my company. In '54, in Stuttgart. Some
German bitch ran a knife up under the guy's ribs right in bed. Hellish
scene over there."

"Yessir. Well, Fitzgerald says there are two dead giveaways. One: The
kid was stark naked. The kid probably wouldn't have stripped naked to
jerk off. Two: Fitzgerald's MPS found the kid's uniform up in a rock
formation not far from the scene--about a hundred fifty feet up the side
of the hill, over the edge of a little rocky outcropping with a flat
top. His uniform was neatly folded, his shoes aligned, socks tucked
neatly into his shoes. Nothing missing. Wallet, money, ID, everything
intact. The whole area was rocky, and the top of the outcropping was
heavily carpeted with leafy mulch. No footprints, nothing they could
pick up, anyway. But Fitzgerald went over the scene like a pro. He must
have spent about two hours up there alone, poking around. He says there
were two people up there, and the other person was not a young lady."

"How's he so sure about that?"

"This." Colonel King reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a
cadet summer dress shirt epaulet, a gray wool-covered rectangle, pointed
at one end, squared off at the other. The epaulet King held in his right
hand was distinctive for two reasons: It was emblazoned by a light gray
cadet crest, the color assigned to the cadet junior class,
second-classmen, cows. The epaulet also had a stripe of thin gold braid
running along its squared-off edge, the insignia of a cadet corporal, a
rank reserved for cadet second-class squad leaders. The colonel held the
epaulet in his hand and both men stared at it. "Didn't belong to Hand,"
said Hedges.

"No sir," said King. "Both his epaulets were on his dress shirt. Whoever
was up there with Hand lost his epaulet, and he was a cow."

"Any way of telling who it belongs to?"

"Fitzgerald had it printed. Negative. Brass on the crest freshly shined.

And there's no regulation requiring the cadets to mark the damn things
with their names, because they're passed from one class to another."

"You sure it couldn't have been left up there from before, by somebody
who might have been up there last week?"

"Fitzgerald doesn't think so, sir. It rained the night before the kid
died. This epaulet doesn't show any signs of dampness. The other thing
was where it was found."

"Where was that?"

"Right under the kid's trousers. Fitzgerald says whoever was up there
with Hand lost the epaulet, looked around for it, but it was dark, and
he just didn't find it."

"That's it?" The two men continued to stare at the cadet epaulet in
disbelief. "Well, sir, here is the scene, as reconstructed by
Fitzgerald. This Hand kid goes down to the end of Flirtation Walk after
dark with this  ...  upperclassman. Whoever. Obviously, they don't want
to be found out. They climb this rock formation, not an easy climb. Hand
disrobes. The  ...  perpetrator probably does the same, judging by the
fact that he loses his epaulet. There is sex. Anyway, Hand comes. They
decide to go skinny-dipping. Hand is pushed underwater by someone
stronger than him and held there until he drowns. Or he is surprised by
someone not stronger than him. Take your pick. The kid's an excellent
swimmer in good health. He didn't paddle out there and start drinking
Popolopen until he sank."

"So maybe he cramped up. Who knows?"

"The doc says the chances are slim. He says in such cases there are
normally signs of internal muscular contractions, even after death. With
Hand ... negative. The doc says he figures Hand was surprised from
behind, in water over his head, and held under. He sucked in a good
volume of water, an indication that he wasn't tired or out of breath,
the doc says. And he didn't find any skin under Hand's fingernails, so
if he struggled, all he did was flail around. The doc says he was
surprised from behind. Fitzgerald agrees."

"All right. This Hand was probably killed. Then what?"

"The killer goes back to the hill, climbs up the rocks, dresses, cleans
up the area, leaves Hand's clothes as he left them, making it look like
a solitary swim and accidental drowning. Exits scene. Fitzgerald says
most probably the guys didn't realize he'd lost his epaulet until he got
back to the barracks. Cadets are losing the damn things all the time and
not noticing they're missing. I must have personally written up three or
four cadets in the past week, since they went into the summer white
dress shirt, for missing epaulets."

"That sounds plausible."

"Yessir. The whole damn thing is plausible. Almost too plausible. You
know what Fitzgerald said, sir? He said what he'd like to think is we've
got some civilian psycho prowling the woods, surprised Hand and killed
him. But that's so goddamn unlikely  ... ignores the semen, lack of
struggle, and the goddamn cow epaulet." King held the thing in his hand
as if it were alive. "Fitzgerald says this was a neat job, sir. He says
this is murder premeditated. He says whoever killed Hand knew him, had
his trust, probably had sex with him ... at least watched him. General,
it looks very strongly like we've got a homosexual cadet murder on our
hands, and we have no suspects, Zero.

Nobody saw Hand go up Flirtation Walk that night. Afterward, his absence
went unnoticed for thirty-six hours. Nobody saw nothing. We've got
problems." Hedges straightened the bottom of his uniform jacket and
looked across the room at his trusted deputy, Phineas Terrance King. He
knew King had done a good job. An exhaustive job. He sensed King was
right. He smelled it. Every nerve ending in his body tingled with that
crazy mix of fear and excitement that comes when adrenaline fires the
system. Hedges ran his fingers through his hair, felt the dampness
forming imperceptibly on his forehead. His lips wore a thin smile. He
knew about the smile. It was something he couldn't control. He knew
about it from seeing his face in photos taken up in the C & C ship in
combat in Nam. The thin smile was always there. By the time they landed,
back at base, it went away. He'd never seen the smile in a mirror. It
was as if his mind wouldn't allow his face to show itself what it looked
like under stress. Hedges felt secretly embarrassed. The thin smile hid
from everything but the camera. King broke the silence. "Sir, what are
we going to do about this thing?"

"How many copies of that report have been made?"

"This is the only one, sir."

"Fitzgerald know I called you this morning? He know you came up here to
see me this afternoon?"

"No sir. He thought I was post duty officer--something like that. He
assumed I was there on official duty. Never asked any different. Good
man, Fitz." I've always liked the hell out of him."

"Roger. Anybody else? I mean, anybody else know you're up here reporting
to me?"

"Your secretary, sir."

"Besides her. The doctor. This man, Consor. He know?"

"No sir. We left him at the hospital hours ago and told him to go about
his duties normally, as if nothing had happened."

"You have a driver drop you here in an official sedan?" "No sir. I used
my POV all day. You said you smelled trouble this morning when you first
called me, and I took you at your word. General. I remember what used to
happen back in Nam when you smelled trouble. Jesus." Hedges felt his
thin smile turn into a grin. He leaned back on the leather sofa, ran his
fingers along the creases on his trouser legs. "Damn fine job, Terry.

Damn fine. I'll see that the supe knows what a hell of a job you've done
for us on this.

Now, here's what we're going to do. You give me the report. Give me the
epaulet. I guess it's evidence, and the supe's certainly going to want
to look at it. I'll get over to the supe's right away. You get back to
Fitzgerald. Tell him this thing is hot. Tell him it's going all the way
to the top, and he's not to speak to anyone. You have him talk to the
doctor, the major, and have him tell the doc the same thing. Nobody
talks. And any MPS Fitzgerald had sniffing around with him  ..."

"The MPS, sir. You were saying?"

"Yeah. The MPS. How many were actually involved in the investigation, on
the scene? How many got a look at the body, the evidence?"

"Fitzgerald handled it mostly himself. I think one or two MPS were up
there with him at one point."

"Tell Fitzgerald to have them transferred. Korea. Germany. Someplace out
of the country. I do not want those men available. Tell him the word
came from the top. Do not specify me or the supe. Let him draw his own
conclusions. I don't care if he thinks the chief is involved. Just tell
him to get those MPS off this post by tomorrow, and on their way
overseas by next week, understand?"

"Yessir. I don't think there will be any problem. Fitz is very well
connected with MP personnel branch down at the Pentagon. He'll get the
job done."

"Terry, give me the report and the epaulet." King handed them over.

"Now, you let me handle the supe. He's got one hell of a lot on his mind
with June Week coming up. I think you know I've got good instincts when
it comes to dealing with crises like this."

"Roger that, sir. I remember that time in Nam  ..."

"Now listen up, Terry," Hedges cut him off. "I want this kept
ultra-quiet. It is an accident.

The kid was skinny-dipping and he drowned, right? I want the death
announced in the mess hall the way they announced those two firsties who
killed themselves in that goddamn Corvette last week. Accident. Tragedy
for all concerned. The Corps of Cadets sends its condolences. A moment
of prayer. Whatever you think is best, understand?"

"Yessir. I've got a copy."

"For the next two weeks, I want you to do some quiet sniffing around. I
want to know about this kid. Hand. I want to know who his friends were,
who his enemies were, who his squad leaders were, who he came into
regular contact with in extracurricular activities, if any. I want you
to run a thorough check on this kid. I want it in writing. Take two
weeks. When you figure you've got the kid nailed down, I want details.

Names. Dates. 2-1's. Roommates. Trips away from the academy.

Cadet aptitude reports. Anything you can get from the academic side of
the street. I want Cadet David Hand in this office, like he was standing
in front of me with his heels locked and his chin in. I want his life,
Terry, every last breath the bastard took. I want to smell him, Terry.

You got me?"

"General, sir, you know you can depend on me."

"Okay. But keep this on the QT. If you start a thing where the cadets
think 'the word is coming down' on Hand, all hell will break loose. So
be careful and take your time. Get back to me as soon as you're ready."

"Yessir."

"Now, I've got to get over to the supe's office before he loses his
lunch. Keep in touch. Let me know if there's anything I can do." Colonel
Phineas Terrance King stood up and saluted, Hedges didn't even notice.

He was studying the toes of his shoes, which were highly polished but in
need of a final buffing before making the trip across the street to the
supe's office. It was a short walk, but Hedges had a lot of thinking to
do and a short time in which to do it. He felt good. Time was beginning
to compress, to shrink, and though he acted quickly, he felt as if he
were moving in slow motion. It was a feeling he knew well, as if he were
moving in motor oil instead of air  ...  the compression of mental time,
psychological time, while "real time" raced ahead  ...  it was what had
made him a good combat commander. He created time for himself when
situations refused to yield it. Hedges felt the thin smile on his lips
again. Pressure. He smelled it. He breathed tension the way other men
breathed a woman's perfume. It was like being a little drunk  ...  high
...  your hands tingled and your mind felt supercharged,-above it all.

Charles Sherrill Hedges reached in his pocket and felt the gray wool of
the cadet's epaulet. He walked across Thayer Road. He had been born to
be a general. He thrived on the army, ate it and drank it and breathed
it and slept with it ... Walking through the sally port into the
courtyard inside the Academic Headquarters Building, Hedges remembered
an old sergeant he'd had as a squad leader when he was a lieutenant. It
had been his first command. They were in the field on maneuvers
somewhere in the red clay of Georgia, and the sergeant was drunk.

Lieutenant Hedges was momentarily perplexed. He didn't know whether to
punish him, indulge him, scold him like a child, put him to bed  ...  he
didn't know what the hell to do. He wished he was older. He was green.

He knew it. The old sergeant, a buck sergeant who had been busted up and
down the stripes three or four times in the twenty-some years he'd been
in the army  ...  the old sergeant wrapped his arm around the young
lieutenant's shoulder and whispered to him: This army's like a woman,
sir. A cunt. You can smell her. Just remember: If you're not fucking
her, she's fucking you. "Heeeeaauh! Slaight!" The sound was a nasal
bark, like a seal's. Slaight heard it as he walked down the long, wide
hall of second floor. New South Barracks, heading for Room 226, in the
corner, overlooking the hospital. "Heeeeaauh! Fuckin' Slaight!" It was
his roommate, Leroy Buck. The sound was their signal, a ridiculous
noise" one of them had started back when they were plebes. They weren't
allowed to talk with one another when they passed in the area of
barracks, which meant anywhere outside their own rooms, so they barked:

a low, nasal directionless sound. Nobody could figure out where it was
coming from, or what it meant. It didn't mean a thing. And three years
later, they were still doing it. "Heeeeaauh!" barked Slaight. "Jesus
fuckin' Christ, I'm tired from that area. My feet feel like hamburger
patties. My goddamn shoulder feels like somebody's been pounding on it
all day with a telephone pole. Goddamn fuckin' area."

"You're not going to believe what's come down from fuckin' dingo
Grimshaw, Slaight," said Buck, his thick southern drawl dragging his
words from his mouth like the blade of a plow through bottomland. Buck
was from Burning Tree, Indiana, a town of about forty near the south end
of the state on the Wabash River. He was born so far out in the dirt
farm boonies, he considered even Slaight came from a city. Slaight was
from Leavenworth, Kansas, a metropolis of about twenty thousand. Buck's
father worked. a piece of land near Burning Tree as a tenant farmer, the
modern term for sharecropper. His father planted and harvested another
man's land with his own equipment, realizing three fifths of the crops'
profits. His people were of the land, of the dirt, and they were dirt
poor. It was 1957 before Leroy Buck knew that houses were heated with
anything besides potbelly stoves. All his life he had slept under a pile
of his mother's hand-stitched quilts. When he arrived at West Point in
1965, the distinctive cadet black, gray, and gold wool blanket became
his most treasured possession. He still took the blanket home with him
on leaves.

"Yeah, Buck, well, you're not gonna believe what I heard out on the
fuckin' area. You're just not gonna believe it." "Well,
goddamn-goddamn," said Buck. When he was hard-pressed for words, which
was often, for he spoke slowly and his voice could not keep pace with
his mind, he repeated the word "goddamn."

"You remember that plebe from Beast last year? That real smart son of a
bitch from New Orleans?"

"Well, goddamn-goddamn. You mean beanhead Hand. That  ...  goddamn smack
we fuckin' nailed the last week of first Beast? Now ...  how in hell you
think I'd ever forget the memorable smack Hand?"

"I didn't."

"So c'mon.

What about the little creep? He leading a beanhead revolution over there
in the  ...  goddamn  ... Fourth Regiment?"

"No. He's dead ...  They found him this morning up in Popolopen.

Floating. Drowned two days ago.

Somebody out in the area said they found him stark naked. Grim scene,
they say. It was all over the area. Beanhead Hand, our star plebe.

Fini."

"Goddamn-goddamn." Leroy Buck leaned back on his bunk, surrounded by
pages from the New York Times. He had been reading the financial section
all afternoon. The stereo was playing a Merle Haggard tune.

Leroy Buck's accent, his pigeon-toed half-stumble way of walking, his
penchant for cowboy boots off-duty, and the little sprout of blond hair
that stuck uo like a feather at the back of his head  ...  the whole
scene, him sitting there in the middle of a roomful of newspapers and
magazines and dirty laundry, all of it spelled one word: hick. He was
anything but. Glancing around the room, Slaight figured immediately what
Buck was up to. He was getting ready to hit the computer center down in
the basement of Thayer Hall, the main academic building, where he would
throw in a complex program he had written for the IBM 360, which
accomplished a rudimentary projection of stock trends for the few issues
he held, based on their thirtyday performance. Slaight had noticed the
year before that Buck rarely bothered to write programs before he sat
down at the key punch and started banging out the cards, which fed into
the maw of the computer, would spew answers to work/study problems they
had in thermodynamics, mechanics of solids, mechanics of fluids, nuclear
engineering, electrical engineering, all the applied sciences they took
as cows. Leroy Buck was the only person Slaight had ever met who had a
grasp for both higher math and the English language. He consumed books,
magazines, newspapers, and other printed matter like a data disposal. He
was a plowshares-toswords genius. "What else you hear about Hand?" asked
Buck, obviously stunned. He had stopped his compulsive consumption of
the stock market data in the Times. Slaight stood in the door, pulling
off his white cotton gloves, his M-14 clamped between his knees. Sweat
was dripping off his chin, hitting the rear sight assembly, and
dribbling down the stock of the rifle. "Nothing. They say it was an
accident. All the Fourth Regiment guys were talking about it, down at
their end of the area in their little group. There was so much
bullshitting going on out there, the area sergeant had to' come down and
warn them about Two-Dash Hedges. He was doing his fuckin' number up
there in his office. You know. Watching us with his binocs."

"Fuckin' Hedges. That dimbo couldn't squint and spit at the same time.

Hear anything else?"

"Nope. Hey, help me out of these goddamn shoes, will you, you worthless,
lazy, no-good-for-nothing dufus rack hound. I can't even bend fuckin'
over." The two cadets talked to one another like a couple of sergeant.

It was a habit they'd picked up during summer training, out in the
field, when there was nothing better to do than stand around with the
sergeants and listen to them tell lies. After a couple of summers spent
training with "the real army," what had passed for slang among cadets
seemed limp. Pale. So they picked up the jargon of sergeants, a cut,
jab, and hammerlock way of talking with all the earmarks of the American
outsider. It was a blue-collar tongue, sprinkled with acid put-downs and
a strangely backhand authoritarianism.

Sergeant talk was fueled by cigar smoke and mess hall coffee, greasy
fatigues and scuffed boots, afternoons spent ghosting at the motor pool,
and an instinctive, almost magical feel for the manipulation of
subordinates whom "the real world," society, might class as smarter, or
better than the sergeants themselves. It was underdog lingo, full of
aphorisms and cliches discarded by others, which took on new life and
meaning in the coarse texture of a sergeant's timing and delivery. The
way army sergeants talked reminded Buck of the men his father hired to
help with the harvest, workers who drifted in and out of the Indiana
bottomland around Burning Tree with the seasons. Sergeants reminded
Slaight of the guys he'd known in downtown Leavenworth, the old man who
ran Snooker Poolhall, the night manager at the Apco service station,
where Slaight hung out in junior high, and a black dude in Slaight's
high school class who was the generally acknowledged leader of a gang
down near the Missouri River on the east side of town. For both cadets,
there was a romance to the way sergeants talked. Cadets were supposed to
be gentlemen. Sergeants talked dirty. It was sexy. "C'mon, man, help me
with my fuckin' feet." Slaight was lying on his bunk with his feet
propped up on his Brown Boy, the tan cotton quilt every cadet slept with
like a Linus blanket, a postadolescent teddy bear. Buck untied Slaight's
shoes. His feet had swollen an inch. The laces on his shoes would barely
tie. Slaight groaned as Buck pulled each shoe off. He wiggled his toes.

They were numb. Buck peeled the cotton socks from Slaight's feet. They
were caked with blood, like somebody had taken an electric belt sander
to them, bloody and raw. Blisters had turned into open sores and oozed
a, mixture of blood and clear fluid. Three hours a day walking concrete,
five days in a row, had taken an ugly toll. Slaight studied his feet
with mild disgust. He'd seen them in worse shape, the year before, when
a similar stint on the area had almost hospitalized him. The thing that
pissed him off was the fact that his tactical officer. Major Nathan E.
Grimshaw, had decreed that no one in his company could be medically
excused from walking the area. He had threatened that anyone with a
medical excuse from the area would walk an extra, day of punishment
tours for every day he had been excused. Thus did Rysam Parker Slaight
III find himself in Room 226 of New South Barracks, studying a pair of
feet which indeed resembled hamburger. Later, he would go on emergency
sick call over to the dispensary and get the duty doctor to work on his
feet, put them in a salt bath, patch them with moleskin, maybe give him
some Darvons and a handful of codeine pills for the pain. Pills were
necessary for serious area walking, and everyone in Grimshaw's company
kept a neat stockpile of painkillers in case they were sentenced to
pounding the concrete. Buck was poking fun at Slaight, remarking that
his feet were evidence of what happens to a "city boy" when he's got to
do some walking. Slaight said he'd like to see Buck spitshine his bare
feet with black polish and try to pass the area inspection. "Only way
you'd make it through three fuckin' hours out there. Buck. Barefoot. I
wanna see that plowboy gait of yours out there someday, you fuckin'
cracker thwacker." Buck laughed and wet a towel in the sink to wipe the
blood off Slaight's feet. "So  ...  whatdaya figure is up with fuckin'
Hand gettin' himself dead, Slaight? Suicide? You figure the little
bastard just decided to cash his check? That'd be his style.

Dramatic-like. A fuckin' floater. Beanhead Hand. Jesus."

"Man, I just don't know. Can't figure it. But something big was
happening over at Brigade Headquarters this afternoon, I'll tell you
that much."

"Yeah?

What?"

"Fuckin'-A, Buck. Wished you'd have been there. Just as they were
forming us up to dismiss the area formation, just before this little
dipshit firstie sergeant says, "Aaaeeeereeeaa Squuaaaaaad, Dwismissed\"

just before he squeaked it out, up drives this blue Chevy, and out jumps
our fuckin' number one favorite colonel. Third Regimental Commander
Phineas T. King. Old Phineas T. had a big folder in his hand, and he was
humpin' and galumpin' and limpin'--close as he could come to
running--into the building. His shoes were all dusty and cruddy, his cap
was on crooked, and he was unshaven. You could see his whiskers all the
way across the fuckin' area. I bet he's been on that Hand thing all
day." "Why King?" asked Buck, genuinely perplexed. "He's not Hand's
Regimental C.O. Hand ended up in the Fourth Regiment, right?"

"Yeah.

Fourth. But you know the story on old Phineas T. He's fuckin' Two-Dash
Hedges' fuckin' A-numberone hit man. Does everything but wipe his
goddamn ass for him."

"Yeah  ...  they were Big Red One buddies, right?

Over in Nam?"

"You got it. Well, I checked out old Phineas T. humping his ass into the
H.Q., and I figured something's up. So I bopped into the Guard Room
acting like I was checking out the area schedule for Monday. Then I
walked through the rear exit, the one that leads to Brewerton Road,
right there where the ramp leads to New South. As I scooted through the
main entrance to the H.Q., this secretary comes down the stairs. I've
seen her around there before--works in the S-1 office.

So I stopped her, asked her if Colonel King had found the general's
office okay--you know, teasing her, like King had never been in the
building before. She laughed. She said, yeah, he's up there with the
general right now."

"So fuckin' Hedges has got his best buddy, Phineas T., on the Hand
thing, huh?" Leroy Buck was sitting upright now, straightening the Times
and a sheaf of notes he had taken off the stock pages. "We can't be sure
about that. I don't know what he had in that folder. Maybe he was
delivering Hedges' copy of Playboy. Who knows? But you know what I think
we've got here? I think we got a scene just like what happened with the
infamous Magnificent Seven last year. You remember."

"Yeah  ...  the Mag-7. Jeez, I almost forgot about them."

"Phineas T. was up to his fuckin' skinny neck in the Mag-7 thing. They
caught that yearling smoking dope up at Camp Buckner last summer, so
they discharged him on medical or something. Covered it up. But old
Phineas T. wasn't satisfied. He swoops down on the seven guys who shared
the squad bay with the dope smoker, and inside of a week, they got their
leave time pulled, and they were restricted to barracks for the whole
year."

"I remember now. That one kid who was one of the Mag-7, used to be in
our company, he came and told us about it. They didn't even know the
fucker was smoking. The guy they caught even admitted to Phineas T. he
had been going up behind the mess hall at Buckner and doing the stuff
by, himself, in that little clump of three trees back here, at night. So
Phineas T. holds a little 'court-martial," with himself as prosecutor,
judge, and jury. He didn't have a shred of evidence those guys even knew
about the dope smoker. Next thing they know, their shit is packaged up,
their leave time is yanked, and they're confined to barracks. Christ ...
those guys got bottled up so fast, they didn't even feel the lid coming
down." Buck finished shuffling his stock market notes and whistled
softly to himself. "Hey, Buck. You know the Mag-7 were never even
written up. There wasn't a single piece of paperwork on the whole
business."

"How'd you find that out?"

"C'mon, Buck. Your memory's fading on you. Remember that day we talked
to Sergeant Major Eldridge up in Building 720, the Regimental H.Q.,
don't you?"

"Oh, yeah. The crusty old critter was stomping around the halls like a
caged opossum. I got you." "Well, he said the book was closed on the
Mag-7. Hell, he said the damn book was never open. Said the supe didn't
know what in hell had gone on out there at Buckner, didn't know fuckall.
Sergeant Major said Hedges was behind the whole thing. He said Hedges
used King to bring down the hammer on those guys the same way he used to
bring it down in Vietnam.

One day a guy would be there, the next day he wouldn't. Nobody'd know a
fuckin' thing about what happened, and nobody asked questions. Sergeant
Major was in a state of shock. Hedges was pulling the same shit at West
Point he was pulling in Nam." "Yeah,"' said Buck. "I recall that day
now. Old Sergeant Major Eldridge was really shook up about the whole
thing."

"Damn straight. He was really loyal to Hedges. He served as Hedges'
sergeant major the whole year they were together in Nam back in '66-'67.

Then Hedges brought him up here to Woo Poo when they made him
commandant. Hedges put the sergeant major over here in the Third
Regiment, so he could keep an eye on his friend, Phineas T., I'd guess.

That's all over with now."

"What  ...  do you mean by that  ... Slaight?" asked Buck. "You know
what the story is on old Eldridge, don't you?"

"Negative. Give me the poop."

"Heard it just the other day from one of the cadets up in Building 720.

Hedges is giving him the heave-ho right after June Week. Has to do with
trouble Eldridge had with his son.

The kid got bounced out of basic training down at Fort Dix with a bad
discharge because they claimed to have found some dope taped under his
wall locker. Eldridge says his son swears it wasn't his. He said some
other guy fucked him, because the whole platoon knew his old man was a
famous lifer noncom. Thing was, they never even brought the kid up on
charges. Never court-martialed him. They just processed him out
administratively, so the kid never got a chance to defend himself. Got
an undesirable discharge. Broke old fuckin' Eldridge's heart. He wanted
the kid to go through basic and AIT, then get into the prep school down
at Belvoir and try for an army appointment to West Point. Christ, it's a
real tragedy. A classic."

"And Hedges didn't do anything for him?"

"Are you kidding? The sergeant major went up to see him about his kid,
see if Hedges could pull a couple of strings for the kid, at least get
the bastards down at Dix to charge the kid with possession, and let him
defend himself. What does Hedges do? He takes a fuckin' walk. In the
opposite direction. Know what he said to Eldridge? He said, I don't want
to hear about it." That was it. "I don't want to hear about it." You
believe that?" Buck whistled that low whistle between his teeth and
stared at the floor. "Jesus H. fuckin' Christ," Buck stuttered. "The
sergeant major was a legend. Hell, everybody in the fuckin' army knew he
was Audie Murphy's platoon sergeant in the Third Division during the
war. He's got the  ... fuckin'  ...  Medal of fuckin'  ...  Honor, for
crying out loud. He was the dude who was feeding fifty-caliber rounds to
Audie Murphy when he shot up that German battalion. You seen the goddamn
movie. They even let old Eldridge wear his blue and white stripe Third
Division patch on his right shoulder still, you know. Most of 'em wear
their Vietnam unit patches. Not fuckin' Eldridge. He still wears the
Third."

"Last time I saw Eldridge, walking along Brewerton Road, he looked like
a truck had just run over him. Said they were retiring him.

Big ceremony. Giving him the Legion of Merit, like he needs another
ribbon or something. But the whole thing is happening after June Week,
when none of the cadets from the regiment will be around to pay their
respects. Most of the officers will be on leave, too. Christ. Thirty
years in the goddamn army, and Hedges is pushing the sergeant major out
the back door. I don't think he's too big on old Two-Dash Hedges any
more. No sir. I'd be willing to bet you my cow stripes old Eldridge
would give anything to carve off a piece of Hedges before he leaves.

I'll bet you Eldridge is chewing on his hat brim up here in 720 to keep
himself under control. That clerk I talked to said the sergeant major
had fuckin' blood in his eyes, he was so pissed."

"Think we can get anything out of the sergeant major about what Phineas
T. was doing up in Hedges' office this afternoon?"

"You fuckin'-A right I think we can get Eldridge to feed us the poop on
what King was up to. What's he got to lose? His Legion of Merit? He's
out of here, out of the army in two weeks. I never thought I'd see a
hard-core, brown-shoe army sergeant with a short-timer's attitude, but
old Eldridge had it written all over him when I saw him shuffling along
Brewerton Road. Fuckin' Hedges stepped on his dick when he turned his
back on Eldridge. He took the sergeant major for granted, figured
loyalty was a prerogative of rank. He couldn't have made a worse
mistake. When Eldridge got the cold shoulder, he wrote off Hedges for
good. I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't put trash all over Hedges on
the old-sergeant-grapevine. You know how those old fuckers stick
together. One of 'em can't fart in Korea without the rest of 'em hearing
the echo. And Sergeant Major Eldridge has always been one of the
heaviest of the heavies. If he trashes Hedges, his bullshit isn't going
to be worth fuckall when it comes to senior NCOS."

"So what do we do about Eldridge?"

"Give me a clean pair of socks out of my drawer, will you. Buck? I'm
finished messing with these damn feet." Buck got up and handed Slaight a
neatly folded pair of black cotton socks. Slaight grimaced as he pulled
the socks over his swollen feet. "I'll tell you exactly what we do about
Eldridge. We put a bug in his ear, that's what we do. Let him know we're
interested. Colonel King probably had him galavanting all over the
goddamn place today, anyway. I'm sure he knows the shit's astir. And we
ask him to keep an eye peeled for any relevant poop-sheets which come to
his attention. He's always feeding us poop-sheets, anyway. Half the shit
we've got filed away in this room came through Sergeant Major Eldridge
during the past year. He is one goddamn fountain of poop-sheets. Good
stuff, too. Remember back in January, when he fed us that poop-sheet
that said they were doing away with reveille, two weeks before it
happened? We won about three hundred bucks betting on the demise of
reveille."

"Poop-sheets." Buck whistled again and gazed around the room.

Two-twenty-six looked like the final resting place for all academy paper
officialdom. A paperwork graveyard.

The room was madly organized chaos, like a political campaign
headquarters in the final throes of the last week before the election.

Buck remembered when his father was running for county Democratic
chairman back in Burning Tree. The family living room looked just like
his room at West Point. Papers and books piled on the window ledge,
overflowing the bookshelves, stacked on both gray metal desks. A metal
typewriter table had been imported to hold a stack of magazines, two
rows, eighteen inches deep. Two olive-drab file cabinets--the kind with
five legal-width drawers--lined the walls behind both desks, to the left
and right of the window overlooking New South Area. The file cabinets
contained thousands of poop-sheets, army slang for official documents of
every description, relating to matters as banal as trash pick-up
schedules, as momentous as firstgeneration photo copies of the minutes
of meetings of the Academy Board of Visitors, the closest thing West
Point had to a board of trustees. Neither Buck nor Slaight could recall
why they had decided to start collecting poop-sheets. They probably
hadn't decided--sometime in the past, the flow had simply begun, and now
after three years, it couldn't be stopped. One poop-sheet after another
found its way to Room 226, via a circuitous route of cadets and NCOS
with chain-of-command positions through which streamed a steady ibow of
official memoranda, records, orders, bulletins, disposition forms, and
just plain extraneous make-work military gibberish. Their room had
become a corps-wide repository for poop-sheets. Buck read them, and
Slaight filed them. Buck filtered out useless data and fed relevant
information to Slaight on a nightly basis, when they took their showers
just after taps. Between them, they probably knew more about what
transpired at the United States Military Academy than the brigade S-1,
the adjutant, the officer with responsibility for the generation and
flow of all academy paperwork. They were fascinated by the swamp of
paperwork upon which the army seemed to float, for within its murky
depths, they surmised, could be found more than a few of the secrets
about what made the wheels go round. "So here's the plan, Buck. Tonight,
I'm going up to Eldridge's quarters. I'll wait until he's had a few
beers, then I'll put the bug in his ear. I'll fill him in about Hand
from last summer. The kid was not without his share of enemies, you
recall. Then I'll let him know that it would not go unappreciated if he
passed along any relevant poop-sheets coming to his attention about the
death of Cadet David Hand. I give the sergeant major three days, max. If
there's a lid down, he'll uncork the fucker. Nothing gets past an old
sergeant major like Eldridge who decides to call in his debts. Nothing.

If Hedges so much as burps over his tuna salad sandwich, Eldridge will
get a report on what key he burped in. All we've got to do is sit back
and wait." "Slaight  ...  SOB, I think you done got it nailed," said
Buck, grinning widely, making his already youthful face look positively
pubescent. "Now, I suggest you haul your ass over to the hospital and
let that doctor over there have a look at those feet. He's probably
going to recommend you for a medical discharge, this time."

"Shit. I just want my basic load of Darvon and codeine. Seven more
fuckin' hours and I'm finished. Buck. Seven goddamn hours. Give me a
half-dozen Darvon and a couple of those big horsepill codeine caps, and
I'll hump my fanny from here to New York. Jesus. That it should come to
this. Darvon, codeine, and fuckin' moleskin."

"At least you're not up there floating in Popolopen, polluting the
lake," said Buck, digging into his papers again. "Yeah. Christ. Hand's
dead. Guy told me on the area today, I just about dropped my gun.

Drowned. It just doesn't  ... fuckin' fit, you know, Leroy?"

"Yeah."

"So what is it you got for me.

Buck? Let's have a look. "Aw, just another goddamn DP from Grimshaw.

More total wisdom from the tactical officer, bless his khaki ass. But
this one's a goody." Buck handed Slaight the memo. It had been run off
on DD Form 314s, official Department of Defense DFS, Disposition Forms.

DFS like it came down from Grimshaw on a daily basis. DISPOSITION FORM
subject: Marriage disposition: 1 PA. 1 & 2 Cadet Rooms classification:

None. 1. You gentlemen are no doubt aware that June Week is nearly upon
us. I have before me a list of 1 cadets who intend to marry, subsequent
to June Week festivities and Graduation. It has come to my attention
that several 20 cadets have become "engaged." I would remind all you
gentlemen of the following: 2. Pick yourself a good Army Wife. This is
not a matter to be taken lightly. A good Army Wife is necessary for your
Career. Many of you have heard me expound upon the fact that I had to
turn in my first wife for a New Model. Gentlemen, my first wife did not
cut the mustard. She had to go. My present mate fills the bill. She is
All-Army and Gung-Ho. In fact, I have affectionately dubbed her
"Rangerette Grimshaw." As cadets, you will not--repeat, not--address her
by this nickname. 3. Do not be fooled by Clever Packaging. (I think we
all know what is meant by this.) 4. Do not let June Week get the "best
of you." You all know what I used to tell my troops in the old
Triple-Deuce in Nam. Keep it in your pants, and it'll stay between your
legs. Good advice, gentlemen. You may chuckle now, but someday you will
know the accuracy of my words.

Nathan E. Grimshaw Maj/Inf Tac Off Co. D3

"Fuckin' Grimshaw. You can't beat him, can you?" asked Slaight with mock
amazement. "Nope. Not old Nathan E.," said Leroy Buck, his nose deep in
the financial pages of the Times again. "Now, drive your ass over to the
dispensary, you lazy dimbo. That poop-sheet ain't doing your feet any
good. Now, get."

Axel W. Rylander, Major General, United States Army, had been a
turnback. He had flunked mathematics his third-class year at West Point,
and after summer tutoring, had passed a make-up examination in
mathematics and been readmitted to the corps of cadets with the class
behind him, repeating his third-class year. The phenomenon of the
turnback was at once West Point's way of punishing a man for not trying
hard enough and yet hanging on to promising young cadets whom the army
would have missed had they simply been flunked out altogether. So
General Rylander, class of 1940, should have been class of 1939. Among
generals, Rylander was a running joke. He had, in effect, two sets of
classmates--those with whom he had been admitted as a cadet and those
with whom he had graduated.

Rylander, however, thought the joke was on everyone else. He had twice
as many classmates as his contemporaries. Therefore, he had twice as
many friends in high places, looking out for his interests. Having been
a turnback, Rylander hardly shone in academics, graduating in the deep
confines of the bottom quarter of the class of 1940. His academic
standing did little to hold him back. He was captain of the army
football team and first captain, the highest ranking cadet, brigade
commander of the cadet corps. When he graduated, he married the daughter
of the owner of a large brewery in northern New Jersey. She was "horsy,"
which meant she was well placed in that stratum of the social scene in
the New York metropolitan area who considered horseback riding somewhere
between cleanliness and godliness. It had not hurt the career of young
Lieutenantant Rylander when his wife's father was chosen by President
Roosevelt to become the deputy Secretary of War in charge of production
in 1941. Much could be said--was said--about Axel W. Rylander and his
Washington connections during the war years. But truth was, he had taken
his duty assignments as they had come to him, and in 1945 was still
commanding the same company he'd had for the past year and a half. His
father in-law's War Department position had been, if anything, a
nuisance, for the suspicion that somewhere behind the scenes strings
were being pulled for him followed Rylander throughout the war. And it
pissed him off but good. He was an infantry combat commander. The only
thing his father-in-law ever did for him was to send him a pair of boots
from L. L. Bean during the winter of '43 in a War Department pouch that
had gone to the Fifth Army Headquarters. That was it. General Rylander
paced the sky-blue carpet of his office overlooking the Hudson. The
great room had a twenty-foot-high ceiling with exposed wood beams that
had to be sixteen inches across. The walls were oakpaneled, and sliding
doors opened along one wall onto the wide stone stairwell which led into
the courtyard of the Academic Headquarters. He figured the office had
once been a conference room before some superintendent had come along
and decided to expand, to move from the cramped corner office which had
served superintendents for nearly a hundred years. He wasn't
particularly happy with the new arrangement. The big office seemed  ...
hollow. There was too much air in the place. A man couldn't get in there
and light up a cigar and get some smoke going and muddy up the light,
create a little cocoon around himself in which a man could think. In his
two years as superintendent, Rylander had done little to his office.

Same desk. Same chair. Same dull gray drapes. Same leather sofa. Same
small conference table and chairs over at one end of the room. Same
portrait of Sylvanus Thayer, class of 1808, the fifth superintendent of
the academy and so-called Father of West Point, the man who founded the
academic system still used at the academy in 1968, small classes,
testing and grading of students every day, emphasis on the applied
sciences and engineering. Old Thayer just sat up there on the wall,
staring, glaring at everyone who walked into the supe's office. It was
like he still owned the place, like he knew, up there in heaven or
wherever he was, that the academy was virtually unchanged from his day.

He had the eyes of a psychopath, thought Rylander. Or maybe he had a
tiff with the man who did the portrait, and the artist had painted in
that crazed glint, that cast to his eyes which meant they never looked
the same. Rylander continued to pace. There was little else in the big
room to catch his eye. His office was completely devoid of what he
called "garbage," the standard collection of mementos of one's career.

The year before, when Army beat Navy, they'd tried to present him with
the "game ball," which had been mounted on a walnut stand and was
flanked on either side with brass castings of football players in
action. He told them to put the thing in a glass case over in the gym,
"where the paying customers can see it." So the presentation Army-Navy
game ball was sitting in a glass case next to the Army Athletic
Association ticket window, as per the supe's instructions. Major General
Rylander was pacing the sky-blue (infantry color) carpet in his office
because he was bothered by this business with the dead cadet they found
up in Popolopen early that morning. He heard about it around 9 a.m. from
his aide, who burst into his office with a telephone message from the
duty officer up at Camp Buckner, where the plebes were stashed during
June Week, preparing for their summer training. The duty officer had
called about fifteen minutes before Rylander reached his office, and the
aide just found the message, buried in some papers on his desk, taken by
the Academic Headquarters Duty NCO, who went off at 8:30 a.m. Rylander
expected the normal flap would begin any moment--phone calls,
messengers, military police, and emissaries from the Tactical Department
running all over the place. He waited. Nothing happened. At 10:30 a.m.,
an hour and a half after he first received word of the dead cadet, he
received a call from the deputy commandant of cadets, Colonel Theodore
Reed, class of '50, who reported that General Hedges, the commandant,
had wanted to personally make a report to the supe, but he was at that
moment on his way out to Buckner. Or someplace. The colonel wasn't sure.

He had received a cryptic message from the com to call the supe and "let
him know what's going on." The dead cadet's name was Hand, David, class
of 1971. He drowned in Lake Popolopen. That was all he knew.

Rylander was busy preparing for June Week. That was why he worked a full
day on Saturday. Seemed like every year there Was more to do. This was
just what he needed: a dead plebe. He spent most of the day on the phone
to Washington. It was the Chief of Staff's thirtieth class reunion (he
was class of '38), so there were additional preparations to be made, a
private reception at the supe's quarters for the chiefs classmates, an
address to the class of '38 on "The Military Academy of the Future," a
special picnic up at Round Pond honoring the chief and his wife. June
Week was normally a hellish time for the academy superintendent, and now
this. A dead plebe laid at his feet three days before the whole thing
was due to begin. Just what he needed. Rylander felt his stomach grumble
and remembered that he had forgotten to take his Maalox at lunch. He
reached into the top drawer of his desk, pulled out a sterling silver
flask, and took a quick swig.

Blaaah! The stuff tasted the same, no matter what you drank it from.

Rylander had waited all day for a follow-up report on the dead cadet
from the commandant. When by 5 p.m. he had heard nothing, he called
Hedges. He hated to call Hedges. They worked only a hundred yards away
from each other, and it seemed like there should be some better way of
doing business than the telephone. He thought about putting on his cap
and just walking over to Hedges' office and asking what the hell was up
with the dead cadet, but then he thought again. Hedges was the one who
was supposed to report to him, the supe.

Hedges should be hot-footing it over to the other side of Thayer Road
about twice a day--once in the morning, once in the afternoon--for a
face-to-face with the man he worked for. Rylander made a note to
himself. Daily meetings w/Hedges here. AM--PM. The phone call to Hedges
had produced nothing but hot air and a promise for a report before close
of business, an hour away. He never got anything out of Hedges over the
phone. He always had this feeling Hedges was using the phone as a
weapon, wielding it in a circular fashion, like a sling. He had this
image of Hedges whipping the phone around and around his head  ...  then
letting it go  ...  the phone sailing through the air like a mortar
round  ...  black and slow and deadly. Rylander heard his stomach this
time, grinding and crunching like gravel beneath a truck's tires. He
reached again for the Maalox. June Week was going to get the best of him
again this year. He could tell. Everything had to be perfect for June
Week. It was the high point of the year at the academy. In the crisp,
early summer mornings. West Point was fresh, limegreen, young in some
odd, indefinable way. Thayer Road, the area of barracks, the Plain, the
cliffs overlooking the Hudson River Valley, all would be crowded with
"old grads," wandering around the grounds, checking to see that the
academy, though it changed perceptibly from year to year, carried on the
grand traditions of the Long Gray Line. Maybe that was why West Point
seemed young during June Week. Because every year the old grads who
returned seemed older. The men who would walk the grounds of the academy
during June Week were the Long Gray Line. The traditions preserved by
West Point were their traditions. At least, the old grads thought the
traditions were theirs. June Week was a time of high emotion, a time
when the academy stood at attention to be inspected by those of the
Corps who had come before. June Week celebrated the past, held it aloft
and worshiped it, for in the past was to be found the path to the
future. June Week was West Point with shoulders back and head high, West
Point in its most public incarnation, in full-dress uniform, handsome,
cinematic, regal, the military way of life carried to its most elegant
conclusion. June Week was a grand parade of perfection. Every year the
New York Times and the Daily News and the wire services and the three
television networks sent reporters to the academy. The news media made
its annual pilgrimage, it seemed, to reassure the world that at least
here among the great gray stone buildings of the academy, here among the
cadets with the close-cropped hair and the impeccable manners, here
among the medalbedecked officer corps--here at West Point life went on,
unperturbed by events outside. The news stories emanating from June Week
would chorus: At West Point they still believed. Everything had to be so
perfect for June Week that the entire plebe class was moved, en masse,
to Camp Buckner, the summer training installation ten miles away from
the main academy grounds, where later that summer they would undergo two
months of intensive field exercises. Technically, in May, the plebe
class was of West Point, but they were not yet West Pointers. They had
not been "recognized," the formal ceremony following graduation parade
when each plebe would shake hands with each upperclassman in his
company. Plebes were thus not yet fit for public consumption. They would
spend June Week by themselves, getting ready for summer training. It was
a carefree, unhindered week for the plebes, the first time all year when
they were not under the constant gun of the upper classes. Lake
Popolopen offered swimming, canoeing, sailing, water skiing, fishing,
and for the first time since they had entered the academy, access to
Camp Buckner's own version of West Point's famous "Flirtation Walk,"
along which amorous adventures with those of the opposite sex could take
place. Now this plebe, Hand, had been found floating in Popolopen down
at the end of Flirtation Walk. The deputy com had said it looked like an
accident. Accidental cadet deaths were all too common during June Week,
though rarely, if ever, did one receive public exposure. Every year, one
or two cadets would do themselves in.

This year it had already happened. Two first-classmen had killed
themselves in a Corvette, making a last-minute dash back to the academy
from Snuffy's Bar, a little roadhouse located precisely fifteen miles
from the academy gate, the closest bar where cadets were permitted to
drink. Their deaths went unreported in the press. The year before,
Rylander recalled, a drunken cadet had run over a child in Highland
Falls, the small town just off post. The cadet had been charged with
manslaughter and was later exonerated. The whole business was hush-hush.

Many cadets never found out the "accidental" killing of the child had
occurred. Where was Hedges? Why in hell is it taking him so long to get
that report to me?

Brigadier General Charles Sherrill Hedges had been commandant of cadets
for nine months; Rylander had been superintendent for two years. The two
men did not get along. The superintendent sat down behind his large oak
desk and scratched his crew-cut head. He was beefy and tall--6'", 220
pounds, only a bit over his playing weight when he had captained the
army football team. His face was soft, unlined, almost youthful-looking,
despite his fifty years and combat experience in three wars. He had the
offhanded bearing of one who had been brought up to think he was better
than everyone else. This had not been true of Axel Rylander. He was a
Wisconsin farm boy and had worked his father's small dairy before he
entered the Military Academy in the summer of 1935. The Depression had
killed his mother, and an appointment to West Point the year of her
death had seemed at once a blessing and a cop-out, leaving his father
and kid sister alone to run the dairy  ...  it had bothered him when he
was a cadet. In retrospect, he thought the guilt he felt leaving his
family behind was probably the reason he was a turnback. He could never
keep his mind on his studies, so he took out his frustrations on the
football field, where because of his size and his anger, he excelled.

His career had been a normal one--command time, staff time, combat, all
the army schools, a graduate degree in foreign relations from George
Washington University, gotten at night when he was stationed at the
Pentagon as a lieutenant colonel in the '50s. If there was anything that
set him apart, it was his command of the 1st Cav back '65-'66, when the
war was being won. Everything seemed to go right for him that year. The
1st Cav made headlines almost every day. The press needed something to
focus on, something to hold up as evidence that, indeed, a war was being
fought over there in Vietnam, ten thousand miles away from the nearest
American Main Street. The correspondents who were covering the war,
Cronkite and some of the older ones anyway, remembered Rylander from
World War II. They remembered Bastogne, the refusal of the greatly
outnumbered 101st Airborne troopers to surrender. Rylander had been
there. No doubt about it, Bastogne brought back a lot of memories  ...
and the memories of another battle, another war  ...  the memories gave
Rylander credibility. Now they wanted another war, and he gave them
one--the kind of war he remembered: great divisionstrength operations
sweeping across huge pieces of the II Corps highlands, rushing to the
Laotian border and back again. Rylander deployed more troops in the
field on actual combat maneuvers than any unit commander in Vietnam. The
1st Cav would go two months before a "stand-down," a return to the rear
area for a brief respite from life in the jungle. Rylander's division
was the army the way the American people remembered their army from
service in World War II, Korea  ...  from the late movie on television.

Rylander commanded a division that got out there and got the job done.

That the job which was getting done had little bearing on the political
realities underlying an elusive military situation went completely
unnoticed by press, pobticians" and public. In '65-'66 the war in
Vietnam was being won. The 1st Cavalry Division was the most visible
symbol of this uncontested fact. General Rylander was a symbol. He
symbolized the military man of history textbooks and Hollywood motion
pictures. He symbolized the military man Life had celebrated on so many
covers over the years. Rylander went on the cover of Life. Not long
afterward, the President showed up at his division headquarters, in the
company of a phalanx of public relations types from Saigon. There were
TV crews all over the place. The President looked around the
headquarters, went outside, and shook some hands. Rylander recalled
thinking that he looked like he was campaigning somewhere in Texas--it
was all dusty and he was hot, sweat straining his armpits and the back
of his white shirt. Then he walked up to Rylander and asked if he could
take a ride in a helicopter. Just like that. Rylander had been
dumbfounded. The President sounded like a kid asking a parent if he
could ride the roller coaster. It was in the tone of his voice. Through
the famous Texas drawl, Rylander detected that touch of fascination and
fear and awe only a kid would experience just before his first ride on a
roller coaster. So they climbed in the chopper and went up for a ride.

One of the PR types from Saigon took Rylander aside and told him not to
take the President anyplace. "Just ride him around a bit. You know," the
man had said. The cameras rolled. That night, all across America, it
would look like the President of the United States was taking off on a
combat mission, really getting up there on the front lines and mixing it
up with the troops. Truth was, Rylander rarely if ever used the
helicopter which sat next to the division headquarters bunker. He
preferred to look at things on the ground, see the terrain the way the
foot soldier would see it, walk around and get a feel of the goddamn
land. Now, three years later, the same President he'd taken for a ride
in his helicopter had abdicated. The war in Vietnam had not been won
with a few crack Airborne units and a Marine division or two, as the
Pentagon and the politicians had hoped. Now the "brushfire war" was
called a "protracted struggle." Official United States Army language had
adopted the political slang of Chairman Mao to describe the war which
just seemed to ooze from day to day with no end in sight. Slowly, the
country was being weaned from its historical fascination with the
military. Men like Axel W. Rylander had become, almost overnight,
obsolete. And he knew it. In one year, at the end of his tour of duty as
superintendent of the Military Academy, his career would be over.

Rylander leaned back in his chair and stared at the lush green hills
across the Hudson. In one year, he'd be cashiered with a third star and
shuffled off to a harmless duty assignment where he could serve out his
final years in the army with quiet dignity. It was the army way. The
payoff. An active-duty pension. The pasture. Rylander knew that the army
of 1968 had changed in quantum leaps from the army of just three years
ago. Right now, down in the Pentagon, they were looking for some young
buck, some up-and-comer to push on the public as an image for the New
Army General. What bothered Rylander about his commandant of cadets was
the fact that Hedges was just the man they were looking for. He was
young. He was hot. He had combat experience. And something--some gut
instinct deep down inside Rylander--told him Hedges was well connected
politically. The army general of the future, he surmised, was going to
be a political animal. Hedges was such an animal. He was moving ahead
with unreal speed, and he was toeing the current Pentagon line,
prattling to the cadets in his lectures on the war about "the airmobile
concept" and the "body count." Hell, his old unit was now called the 1st
Cavalry Division (Airmobile) in deference to helicopter tactics, the new
doctrine which was coming out of the Pentagon in a desperate attempt to
find some kind of formula with which the Vietcong could be effectively
dealt a crushing military and political blow. The magical ingredient,
the key to instant success, was the body count. Helicopters and body
counts. Rylander scratched his crew cut again and laughed out loud.

Hell, he'd fought in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, the Battle of the
Bulge, and finally in Germany itself. He had walked his way through most
of World War II. Now they were flying around over in Vietnam in
helicopters  ...  all Hedges could talk about when he was telling war
stories at cocktail parties was his "C & C ship." It was like he was
talking about some temple, some place he went to worship, the way he
talked about his C & C ship. So they flew around in helicopters, and
they spent the night on cots in places they called base camps, and they
counted bodies. This was winning the war.

Well  ...  if it wasn't winning the war, it sure was promoting those who
flew the most missions and counted the most bodies. Hedges almost glowed
when he talked about body counts. In his unit, they stacked the enemy
dead like cordwood, took pictures of them, and put the photos on the
wire services and television. Often, Hedges would have a big plywood
crest of his unit leaning against the bodies, so everyone would know
which unit had scored the victory. One night at a reception Rylander had
given for the Board of Trustees of Boston College, Hedges pulled from
his Dress Blues jacket pocket a color photograph of a particularly large
stack of Vietcong dead, with his unit crest prominently displayed in
front of the pile.

The Boston College trustees were horrified. It wasn't just a color photo
Hedges was showing them. It was his family Christmas card. The photo had
been duplicated and run off on a white background, with the words
"Season's Greetings" and "Peace to the World" ringing the photo of the
dead VC bodies. One of the trustees from Boston College approached
Rylander and asked him if the commandant was trying to make some kind of
sick joke. Rylander walked across the room and asked to see the card.

Hedges showed it to him, explaining that he and his wife had just sent
out two hundred to their entire Christmas card list. It wasn't a sick
joke. It was Charles Sherrill Hedges, Brigadier General, United States
Army. An up-and-comer. Counting bodies was a crime. An enemy was an
enemy, and he deserved respect. Counting his dead, and photographing
their bodies, violated Rylander's notion of the nature of war. Every
soldier knew that wars were fought over land, territory, dirt. You
deployed your forces, executed maneuvers, killed enemy soldiers, and you
occupied land you took away from them. When you had occupied and
controlled all of the land, as the Allies had done in World War II, as
had been done in World War I, as had been done in the Civil War, as had
been done by Napoleon, and by Caesar, and by Alexander the Great  ...
then you won. The fact that II Corps, the area of operations over which
he had command, was now completely controlled by the Vietcong, meant
that in three years of war in II Corps, the United States Army had lost.

Sitting in his office waiting for Hedges to show up with his report on
the dead plebe. General Rylander was disgusted. But he would hide his
disgust. For in truth, his disgust was turning slowly to shame, and
generals were not supposed to feel shame. And he, Axel W. Rylander, was
certainly not going to feel shame in the presence of his manipulative,
political commandant of cadets, Charles Sherrill Hedges. Rylander sat up
straight in his chair. He swiveled around and gazed across the Hudson.

West Point, he resolved, was not going to go the way of the Charles
Sherrill Hedgeses of the world. Not while he was superintendent, it
wasn't. He swore softly under his breath. After twenty-eight years in
the army, he was resigned to protecting the United States Military
Academy like it was a piece of turf in some gang war in the Bronx. If
the nation had any idea what was happening to its sacred West Point  ...
"General, the commandant is in the outer office." It was Mrs. Moore,
Rylander's secretary. The superintendent swiveled his chair around so it
faced his oak desk, nodded his head in a signal to his secretary, and
took a pad of yellow legal paper from his lower left-hand desk drawer.

He chose a sharp pencil from a row of pencils to his left, next to the
phone. The door opened. Hedges strode into the supe's office. He reached
a spot immediately in front of a chair located slightly to the left of
the desk and about two feet away from its corner. It was a subtle
gesture, and Rylander took note. According to protocol, the commandant
should have placed himself squarely in front of the supe's desk, about
four feet distant, and reported his presence in a military fashion,
waiting for a signal from the supe to walk over to the chair and sit
down. Instead, Hedges was poised, ready to sit down as he spoke:

"General, I've got that report from Terry King we've been waiting for.

He just stopped by my office and gave it to me. I got over here as soon
as I could." Rylander looked at Hedges. He was not carrying a briefcase,
a manila folder, the distinctive light blue Top Secret container for
sensitive information, a sheaf of papers  ...  he wasn't carrying
anything. Rylander waited a mental fourcount before speaking: "Where is
it?"

"I am prepared to give you the facts, verbally, sir. You seemed in a
hurry when I spoke to you on the telephone. I figured you just wanted to
get the facts and be on your way down to Bear Mountain for the dinner."

Rylander didn't move a muscle. He did not want to give Hedges the
slightest indication that he was being invited to be seated. Let him
stand there and stew a minute. Nothing in writing. You seemed in a
hurry. "General Hedges, I will determine when I am, as you put it, 'in a
hurry," and when I am not 'in a hurry."

" Rylander let the sarcasm of his words sink in. "It so happens that
right now, at this moment, I am not 'in a hurry." Do you understand me.
General?"

"Yessir  ...  I just thought  ..."

"General Hedges, I do not expect you to sit in the commandant's office
all day and 'just think."

" Again, the sarcasm.

"Today, I expected you to get that report on the dead plebe to me. It so
happens that all day I have been, as you put it, 'in a hurry." There is
much I must do in preparation for June Week. You are aware of this. The
plain fact is, I did not hear word one from you until 1700, exactly
forty-five minutes ago, when I had my secretary place a call to your
office, and we spoke. You have not exactly been very solicitous of my
time, if you are indeed, as you say, aware of the fact that I have been
'in a hurry." Now, where, may I ask, is the report?"

"Back in my office, sir." Hedges' words were curt, and edged with the
realization that he was getting a grilling. He drew himself to his full
5'9", and pulled at the bottom of his uniform jacket. Rylander noticed
it was a nervous habit Hedges had, the constant straightening of his
uniform, as if every crease had to be in precise alignment in order for
Hedges to function properly. He often thought of Hedges as a machine, so
perhaps it was true. MacHines need to be aligned, balanced, in order to
run. So, obviously, did Hedges. "You will get the report to me at 1300
tomorrow?" asked Rylander. The inflection in his voice was that of a
question, but clearly it was a command. "Yessir, 1300 it is, sir,"
replied Hedges, looking Rylander in the eye. Hedges felt blood moving
inexorably into his face, and he knew that by now, he had reddened. The
knowledge angered him, and sped the reddening of his face. Soon, he knew
from past experience, he would be crimson. "Well," Rylander paused again
for a count. "Sit down. Let me know what you've got. I want it all.

Every detail King gave you." Hedges eased himself into the chair at the
edge of Rylander's desk, pulling on the bottom of his jacket, running
his hands along its front seams, making sure they overlapped properly.

Rylander watched Hedges with detached amusement, as he aligned and
tugged, putting himself together. Hedges' face was the color of a ripe
tomato. That it has come down to this-- a store mannequin soldier in
custom-tailored greens, pulling and yanking on himself like one of those
dolls his daughter used to have, with strings you pulled, and they
talked, or made a squeaky noise that passed for talk. And now this  ...
machine  ...  Hedges  ...  was pulling on himself; straightening his
tie, running his fingers down his buttons, making sure they're all
buttoned and straight, nothing out of alignment  ...  any minute the
puppeteer was going to let loose and Hedges would collapse in a heap of
cloth and papier-mache  ...  the soldier of the future. Rylander
shuddered, deep in his gut, picked up his pencil, and sat ready to take
note on Hedges' report. "Sir, what we've got here  ..." Hedges' eyes
drifted to the right, out over the river, then focused quickly back on
the superintendent. "Sir, what we've got here is a clear-cut case, a
tragic case, an accidental drowning which apparently occurred, sir, when
the individual, Hand, David, Company F-4, nineteen years of age, was
skinny-dipping down at the end of Lake Popolopen by himself. Violated
every regulation on the books. Swimming alone. Off limits, making use of
Flirtation Walk and vicinity after dusk  ...  swimming in the nude. I
could go on. I'm sure you see the pattern, sir. The young man was a
problem plebe, an accident looking for a place to happen. Looks like he
found it. Or we found him. Depends on the point of view, sir. If you get
what I mean." Hedges smiled a strange, thin smile Rylander had seen
before. The smile was completely out of place. There was nothing
humorous about the death of a cadet, accidental or otherwise. Hedges'
smile seemed to mask something within him  ...  something strange, and
inhuman. Rylander was seized with the realization that Charles Sherrill
Hedges did. not know the smile was on his lips. The man has lost control
of himself. "Go on," he said. "Let's hear the rest of it." "That's it,
General," said Hedges. "A tragic accident. I think we should notify the
parents ASAP. They're going to want to make funeral arrangements, and we
can't let this thing get in the way of June Week ..."

"You let me worry about what does and what does not get in the way of
June Week, do you understand me. General Hedges?"

"Yessir. Roger that." The smile had become self-satisfied now. Rylander
caught Hedges' casual usage of radio talk--roger that--and it disgusted
him. "You're sure that's it?" asked Rylander, drilling his eyes into
Hedges' thinly smiling face. "That's all Terry King had for you?"

"Yessir."

"Well. Get that report to me tomorrow by 1300. I want to take a look at
it in writing before I notify the next of kin. You can go now. You are
dismissed. General." Rylander did not look up from his notes. Hedges
rose sharply and executed a snappy salute. "Good evening, sir. And you
and Mrs. Rylander have a nice time at the Bear Mountain Inn." Hedges
turned neatly on his heel and walked quickly out the door. Rylander
swiveled his chair and looked out over the Hudson. The sun was low, and
the river had a greenishblue tint, picked up from the sky and the
reflection of the wooded hills on the other side of the river. The river
never changed. Looked the same way it did when he was a cadet. Hedges.

They had a phrase describing men like Hedges, when he was a cadet. Guys
like him thought they were "all over it." I'll show him who's all over
it. He folded his notes and stuck them into an inside pocket in his
uniform jacket. Picking up his gold-braided cap, he walked through the
sliding doors, down the stone steps, through the courtyard, across
Thayer Road, through Central Area, down Diagonal Walk, across the Plain.

He enjoyed the walk. It took five minutes, and he was home. Six-thirty
p.m. A telephone call. "Colonel King speaking, sir."

"Terry? Hedges. I'm at the office. Get over here as soon as you can.

Forget dinner. I've just seen the supe,- and he's hopping mad about this
business with the dead plebe. He gave me explicit instructions that
we're to clean it up. ASAP."

"Anything I can bring with me, sir?" Silence on the line. King could
hear Hedges flipping through some papers. "This report you gave me this
afternoon  ...  is this the only copy of the autopsy done on the kid?"

"Yessir. You've got the whole thing. I made sure Fitzgerald turned over
all his paper work to me. I personally collected the autopsy report and
all copies from Consor, the doc. Destroyed the copies this morning,
sir."

"Well, get yourself on down here, Terry. We've got some work to do. The
supe went crazy, started throwing his arms around, says he wants this
thing sanitized, squeaky-clean. Says he wants to be able to use it for a
shaving mirror, it's so shiny. And he wants it on his desk by 1300
tomorrow."

"Sir?"

"Yeah, Terry, what is it?"

"Sir, what exactly does the supe mean by 'sanitized'?" "He means he
wants Hand's death reported as an accident, a regrettable, tragic
accident. You know what he said when I told him the kid was probably a
fag, and probably murdered by another cadet? He said--and these are his
exact words, Terry, I swear to God--he said, "I don't want to hear about
it." You should have seen the look on his face.

His skin was green."

"So we've got to rewrite the report, sir? The whole thing?"

"That's right. And we're going to need a new autopsy. The supe isn't
going to want to see anything about murder or semen in there. So you'd
better do some thinking about how we're going to come up with a
brand-new autopsy report."

"No problem, sir. Got it covered."

"What's that?"

"No problem, sir. When Censor handed me the autopsy this morning, I told
him I wanted all his copies. I found some blank forms, along with his
copies. Got 'em up in my desk."

"Stop by your office on your way down, Terry. I want those forms. And
what about this man, Consor? Can we trust him? Should we call him over
and tell him our problem, give him the word straight from the supe?"

"I don't think so, sir. He's a grad ...  but you know these doctors,
sir. They're not combat arms. I think we can handle the autopsy. We'll
just excise what we don't want in Censor's report, retype it and run it
through the photocopier over his signature. Look good as new. That's all
anybody gets their hands on nowadays, anyway. Photocopies. The supe'll
never notice. No problem, sir. Got you covered."

"Damn fine, Terry. Damn fine. I'll see you down here in  ...  let's say
...  half an hour, roger?"

"Roger that, sir."

"Terry?"

"Yessir?"

"Don't let the little woman know what's up. Tell her you've got
officer's call or something. See you in threezero."

"King out." Brigadier General Hedges cradled the phone. He ran his right
index finger down the front of his uniform jacket, touching each brass
button, feeling instinctively for the wings of the little embossed
eagles, straightening a button if its wings were not horizontal. He
sharpened a pencil. The electric pencil sharpener whirred softly,
sounding like a generator back in Nam, bunkered out behind the hootch,
sandbagged in so you could barely hear it hum. He thumped the eraser end
of the pencil on his desktop, waiting. The whole thing was like a duck
shoot back in Maryland on the Chesapeake, when he grew up. They'd sit
out on the edge of the bay on little stools in a blind, waiting. Waiting
for those damned ducks. Ducks would come by, they'd stand up and shoot
them.

First, the father. Then Harry, the oldest son. Hedges' brother. Then
little Charlie with his .410 gauge single-shot. He'd stand up and bang
away, reloading as fast as his little fingers could fumble another shell
into the breach of the shotgun. It always pissed him off that he was
last, that the rest of them called him "Little Charlie," because he was
always the youngest, the littlest. Now he was the commandant, things
were different. He was going duck shooting again. The feeling was the
same. Sitting there in his office, waiting. Always waiting. But this
time he was going to get off the first round. And there was only one
duck: the superintendent of the United States Military Academy. Hedges
thumped the eraser faster, dropped the pencil, straightened the bottom
of his uniform jacket, touched the knot of his tie, felt the
sterling-silver clasp he used to pinch together the points of his
collar, custom-tailored Dacron and cotton khaki he'd ordered from some
outfit over in Nam. He ran his fingers through his hair, back to the
collar of his shirt, starched stiff against his rough, tanned neck.

Never in the recent history of the Military Academy had a commandant of
cadets, superseded a superintendent. Traditionally, each position was
considered an important step in a general's career. Commandants usually
left West Point with a promotion to major general and a division
command. Superintendents usually received a promotion to lieutenant
general and moved into a key slot in the Pentagon, or took a deputy
command slot over in NATO Headquarters. Commandants and superintendents
moved up and away from West Point. Hedges considered the situation. No
matter who won the election in November, the war was going to start
winding down. Addison Thompson said it was coming. Sentiment in the
Congress was turning. It wouldn't be long before a coalition of antiwar
senators could bottle up a defense appropriations bill and demand White
House concessions on the war to let it out--concessions like troop force
reductions, cutbacks in air strikes against the North, reduced military
aid to the South Vietnamese regime. As he had done many times in the
past, the head of West Point's Social Science Department was watching
over the careers of his proteges. Hedges knew he was at the top of
Thompson's list, and that Thompson was right: No matter what happened in
November, Vietnam combat command was no longer the thing for army
generals with an eyeball on their futures. Hedges made up his mind. He'd
use the murder of Cadet David Hand to knock off the supe. That prissy
SOB with his society wife, sitting over there in his office, playing
around with his telephones and his secretaries and his social plans for
June Week  ...  what the hell did he know about what was going on at
West Point? Nothing. Rylander was so obsessed with his formalities, with
the pomp and circumstance of power, he had no idea of the essence of
real power, the control of the life of one man by another. He'd never
suspect a thing. That bunch of half-assed flunkies over in Headquarters
would keep him insulated  ...  that gaggle of desk jockies, always
running around wheezing and napping and all for what? For the greater
glory of Axel W. Rylander, that's what. He figured he could get away
with rapping his knuckles on the head of Charles Sherrill Hedges, he had
another think coming. Hedges turned the notion over in his mind,
flipping it from side to side, examining the plan for rough spots,
nicks, scratches in the metal  ...  it really was like shooting ducks!

The idea of knocking off Rylander, moving from com right up to supe,
taking that walk across the street for the last time  ...  Hedges felt
like he was holding a rifle, rubbing linseed oil into the stock,
tightening the sights, working the rifle's action, the bolt sliding over
and back and forward and over and locking and over and back and forward
and locking again  ...  the notion felt warm and sticky and smooth  ...
elegant. It wouldn't be an easy shot, but it was the thing he'd been
training for all his life. Hang Rylander with a phony report on the
murdered cadet, then sit back and watch him cook when the heat was
turned up  ...  watch the son of a bitch buckle and twitch and fry when
the scent of scandal began wafting along the Hudson  ...  Rylander
sitting there in his office with his telephones ringing, not knowing
what to do ...  Hedges thumped the eraser on his desk, making mental
notes, plans  ...  time compressing again  ...  that familiar,
comfortable sensation of floating, slow-motion, above the ground, like
he was in his C & C ship, strapped in, left hand on the mike, right hand
gripping his web gear, floating up there above the action, yelling above
the roar of the rotor blades into the mike, calling in fire, shooting
ducks ... At 6:30 p.m.

Slaight was sitting neck deep in 105 water in one of the Jacuzzi
whirlpools in the physical therapy room of the West Point Hospital. He
had decided to skip supper, a privilege enjoyable only on Saturday
nights. The nurses' aides in the PT room had left one of the whirlpools
full for Slaight when they went off-duty. He had arranged the deal on
Monday and had spent an hour soaking in the whirlpool every day after
walking the area. It was privilege. It was cow. Slaight just stripped,
eased himself down into the stainless-steel tub and sat on the wooden
bench on the bottom, dialed 105 on the thermostat, flipped the Jacuzzi
switch, leaned his head back on a rolled towel, and blew out a long
breath of hot, stinky air, area air, air full of sweat and gritty
concrete dust and the rank stench of his sweaty fuckin' gray wool dress
coat, barracks air, West Point air. The hot swirling water pounded him
like a soggy jackhammer, going to work on his legs first, down there at
the spot where the jet nozzle stuck into the tank. Then he felt the
water at the base of his back, rooting around in his muscles, tugging on
the knots of tension he brought over with him from the area, pulling
that goddamn M-14 off his shoulder, floating those eight pounds of steel
and wood and leather up over the edge of the tank "and away. Then he
felt his neck let go. It was a slobbery, lazy feeling, like somebody had
landed a good one on him in plebe boxing, and he had brushed the edges
of consciousness, swimming around out there in that gray area where your
legs are rubbery and your balance lurches in and out of contact like a
New York subway pulling away from a station platform wham! clank!--the
cars banging together as the train picks up speed  ...  balance slipping
and swaying and rushing away ... He felt good. He'd stay in the
whirlpool until his toes felt like they were growing together, they were
so waterlogged; then he'd wrap a towel around himself and pad down the
hall to the duty doctor's office for his nightly foot-doctoring. The
hospital at West Point was like another world, completely separate from
the academy. Inside its walls, the rules changed: It was doctors and
patients, not officers and cadets. Of course, the academy did what it
could to limit the breakdown in discipline perceived inside the
hospital. The presence of the hospital commander on the Academic Board,
the academy board of governors, saw to that. Cadets who were
hospitalized, for example, were required to mop the areas around their
bunks and make their own beds every morning, except when their
temperatures exceeded 100 . It seemed like a little thing, mopping your
area, making your bed. But when Slaight had pneumonia as a plebe, had
spent twenty-eight days up in Ward Two, staggering around his bed every
morning, slopping the mop, soaking his cotton slippers with ammonia
suds, yanking on the sheets to square his bed corners for ward
inspection at 7:30 a.m., it was just like being back in the barracks.

The significance of his duties in the hospital ward had not been lost
upon him. He was sicker than he'd ever been in his life, but he knew
that back in the barracks, the Tactical Department had targeted the
hospital--the doctors, the nurses, the aides--all of them were the
goddamn enemy. The enemy! Jesus! The fuckin' VC were supposed to be the
enemy! Every day they screamed and yelled about the fuckin' VC, little
commie dinks, fuckin' yellow slopes, all they heard about from the tacs
and the rest of the fuckers who'd been to Nam was VC--VCVFUCKIN'c. But
they weren't the only enemy, the VC. There were enemies all over the
goddamn place. You listened to the tacs, every dude in the Academic
Department was the enemy. You listened to the gorillas over in OPE,
anybody who couldn't do more than ten pullups was the goddamn enemy. You
listened to the Juice P's, the Fluids P's, the Solids P's--the
professors in all the applied sciences--anybody downstairs in English or
Social Science was the fuckin' enemy. And you listened to any grad any
goddamn place in any goddamn department doing any goddamn thing from
teaching nuclear physics to picking his teeth  ...  listen to a grad,
and anybody who wasn't a grad was the goddamn enemy. Listen to Infantry
dudes, and the Artillery was the enemy. Listen to Armor, and Signal was
the enemy. Listen to the ribbon-wearing combat arms officers, and
anybody pushing pencils in any of the noncombat arms was the chickenshit
enemy. Christ! If you really listened-up at West Point, if you believed
all the bullshit they shoved at you every day, really believed it, you'd
flip out paranoid-schitz for sure! Slaight shifted position on the wood
bench so the jet nozzle shot a stream of bubbles right up his backbone.

It was a damn good thing guys didn't get to do time in the whirlpool
every day like this. If they did, inside of a month there'd be nobody
left at West Point. Whole goddamn corps would up and resign. Old Woo Poo
had it all figured out. They take your" life for four goddamn years and
they cam every day full of formations and classes and parades and
inspections and reports and studies and problems and they leave you with
zero time to think. Too much thinking softens the brain. That was the
West Point attitude. Tac was always saying: No- "body's payin' you to
think mister they're payin' you to act you got that straight? Funny
thing was, the dumb bastard was right. "Well, well, well. Mr. Slaight.

Imagine finding you here." The voice came from somewhere behind him, and
Slaight turned around on the bench in the whirlpool to see who it was.

"Using your Saturday evenings profitably these days, I see," said the
voice. It was Consor, the doctor Slaight had had when he was a plebe,
twenty-eight days with this guy thumping his chest and peering down his
throat and shooting his fanny full of antibiotics. Twenty-eight days
under the supervision of a doctor, and the goddamn guy had to be a grad.

Now he's the Saturday duty doctor. Slaight cursed his luck. He'd never
get any codeine out of Consor. Grad docs were too hip to cadet scams.

"How's it going. Major Consor?" asked Slaight. "Long time no see."

"Maybe long time no see for you, Mr. Slaight, but I've picked up your
scent over here occasionally. It seems your chest colds and flus
dovetail nicely with the schedule of midterm exams, I've noticed, Mr.
Slaight. Let's see. How many days of bed rest have you pulled down over
the past year, Slaight? Ten? Twenty?"

"Been keeping an eye on me, have you, sir?"

"You bet, Slaight. You may cough your way past these young captains
we've got over here, but the first time you draw me on sick call, I'll
shove so many needles full of distilled water in your ass, you won't be
able to sit down for a week."

"Come on, sir, you know I wouldn't try to pull anything on sick call.

Only time I've been over here this year was when I got the flu. They
gave me the basic load of pills and sent me to bed for a few days,
that's all. I was sick. For real."

"How many days, Slaight? How many days of bed rest you rack up this
year? Tell me. I'm curious."

"Eight, sir. Four pairs. I never pulled down a whole week. There's guys
in my company who talk their way into a week of bed rest all the time.

Not me, sir. I just come in for a couple of days' rack when I get worn
out, that's all. Nothing outrageous."

"Indeed. What are you doing over here tonight, Slaight?

Working on your muscle tone for summer leave?" The major was standing
next to the whirlpool tank in his khakis and white coat, grinning like
he'd caught Slaight breaking some minor regulation, which he had.

Technically, the whirlpool was a prescription therapy, and cadets needed
a doctor's signature on a "sick slip" to use it. Slaight's deal with the
orderlies in the physical therapy room had been strictly off the books.

He traded a week of whirlpool for a stack of back-issue Playboys.

"No sir. I've been on the area all week. I've got an Emergency Sick Call
slip to come over and have somebody take a look at my feet. Are you the
duty doctor tonight, sir?"

"You guessed it, Slaight. What seems to be the problem with your
tootsies?" The major grinned widely and leaned on the tank. Slaight
lifted one of his legs and propped his foot on the edge of the steel
tank. The whirlpool had softened the skin around the edges of the broken
blisters, and the bleeding had stopped. But his feet still looked like
Salisbury steak, raw. The major whistled. "Christ, Slaight, why haven't
you been over here before this? Your goddamn feet are a crime."

"I've been coming over every day after area formation, sir, getting them
worked on. I just peeled off all the moleskin and bandages. That's why
they look sorry." He had both feet on the edge of the whirlpool now, and
the quite purr of the Jacuzzi vibrated his toes slightly. "You mean
you've been over here every day this week, and nobody has issued you a
medical excuse slip from the area formation?" The major looked
incredulous as he picked at Slaight's raw toes. "I've been coming every
day, yessir, and one or two of the docs who've seen me have tried to
issue me a medical excuse, but I don't want one, sir.

Can't take one. Got to walk my hours and get them over with. I've only
got seven left to walk, then I'm finished. I'll be off on Thursday."

"What do you mean you can't take a medical excuse, young man? If a
doctor issues you a medical excuse from the area, you take it, and
that's that."

"No can do, sir. My tac. Major Grimshaw, won't let anybody in the
company be excused from the area for any reason. We had guys walking
hours this winter with hundred-degree fevers. Grimshaw says if you take
a medical, he'll give you double hours for every hour you get excused
from. Nobody wants to walk those extra hours, sir. Guys in the Company
will crawl the area rather than have Grimshaw come down on them like
that. Last year, one of the firsties decided to take a medical excuse
from the area in May, and Grimshaw had him walking seven hours a day all
through June Week, soon as his excuse ran out. Guy walked up until the
night before graduation. He was so worn out, he didn't even bother going
to the graduation ball. Family didn't even come up for June Week. He was
broken. Everybody in the company saw him go, day by day, just fading
away out there on the area. He had hemorrhoids/shin splints, I think the
guy even had bursitis by the time he was finished with the area.

Grimshaw put him out there for eight days, seven hours a day, fifty-six
hours in all. It was incredible. I'm not about to lock horns with
Grimshaw after that." Major Consor shook his head slowly from side to
side, poking a wood tongue depressor softly into the flesh of Slaight's
right foot. He reached over and shut off the Jacuzzi. "Get yourself out
of there, dry off, and come down to my office. We'll take a look at
those feet of yours." The doctor turned and walked out of the PT room as
Slaight pulled himself slowly from the steaming tub. Old Consor wasn't
such a bad dude after all. He pulled on his summer-weight gray trousers,
stuck his feet in a pair of cotton hospital slippers he'd gotten from
one of the nurses' aides, and shuffled down the hall. He found Consor
sitting at his desk in a small room near the dispensary, right where
he'd been two years ago. Prints, line drawings, and posters of ski
scenes decorated the tiny windowless room. His M.D. and Internal
Medicine Specialist certificates were mounted over his desk, along with
framed diplomas from Airborne and Ranger schools. Major George Consor
was a small man, 5'6" tall, the absolute minimum required height for
admission to West Point. At thirty-two, he was already balding, a shiny
spot forming at the crown of his head. His face was all angles, rights
and lefts and ups and downs, handsome in a broken, Picasso-like way.

Slaight had been up to his house for dinner a couple of times when he
was a yearling, after Consor had him as a patient the year before. He
remembered that Consor had a good-looking darkhaired wife and three
little kids who always seemed to be running around in pajamas with feet
on them, fuzzy little outfits, pale blue and pink, real
little-kid-looking. Once after dinner when they were having coffee in
the living room, and the kids were off in bed. Censor's wife said that
Slaight and her husband looked a lot alike. The remark made the two of
them nervous, because they did look something alike, like brothers ten
years apart maybe. Slaight's nose had been broken twice when he was a
kid and had a perceptible bend to the left, and a bulge, a knot of extra
cartilage right on the bridge below his eyes. His cheekbones were
pronounced. The hollows formed in his cheeks and tapered to a pointed
chin. Looking at Censor's face again, a year later, well, they did look
alike, which probably explained the gentle tension between them, the
constant verbal jabbing and ducking and joking that went on whenever
they met in the stands at a football game or in the lobby after a movie.

Slaight hadn't been invited up for dinner after that night. Censor's
wife had made one of those observations women sometimes noticed which
seemed to  ... get in the way  ...  interrupt the flow of things between
Slaight and her husband. Slaight remembered the subtle tension in the
room after Mrs. Consor had said they looked alike. It was sexual. "Have
a seat, Mr. Slaight," said the major. "Put your feet up on that stool."

Slaight did as he was told. The major worked silently, quickly, surely,
swabbing each foot with some kind of antiseptic solution, drying them
with sterile gauze. Then he took a roll of what looked like thick white
tape from a cabinet next to his desk. "This is some new stuff we just
got in," he explained, as he began cutting away with a pair of scissors.

"It's padded moleskin, a quarter inch of high-density foam with an
adhesive backing. Better than the old cotton stuff. They developed it
for Vietnam, but they found it just absorbed moisture and jungle rot
over there, so they shipped it all back to the States. Now we've got
it." He applied the thick moleskin to Slaight's feet with gentle skill,
ringing the raw areas with open circles of padding, leaving a hole in
the middle for the raw skin to breathe. When he was finished, Slaight's
feet looked like something out of Walt Disney  ...  or the space
program. White stuff in a weird, arty pattern all over the place  ...
Slaight stood up. They felt good. He'd been so mesmerized watching
Consor work on his feet, he'd forgotten what a good doctor the guy was.

"What else have they been doing for you over here this week?" asked the
major, with genuine concern. "They've been giving me Darvon 65's and
codeine, sir," said Slaight. The doctor reached in a desk drawer and
pulled out two yellow manila envelopes and handed them to Slaight. Each
contained about a dozen capsules, Darvon and codeine. "Now. Let's see.

Anything else we can do for you? Morphine?" The doctor laughed that dry
crackle of his and pushed his chair back against his desk. Slaight was
surprised. Consor was known as a lifer, one of the rare army doctors who
intended to make it a career. He'd figured Consor would balk at codeine.

Slaight grinned. "You know, sir, there is one thing you could do for
me." "Sit down, Mr. Slaight," said the major, indicating the same chair
with his forefinger. He always addressed cadets as "mister" the proper
way, avoiding the first-name familiarity preferred by many young
officers.

Censor's manner made Slaight feel  ...  respected. That was it. With
Consor, there was no illusion of equality, that bullshit all us men
together nonsense you got from some officers. Instead, you got this
steady feeling the man respected you as a cadet, as a surbordinate. It
made Slaight feel comfortable, but hardly at ease. The difference was
subtle but sure. Consor knew what it was all about. "What have you got
on your mind, young man?" asked the major. "You want me to see what I
can do about your tac, Grimshaw? I think what he's doing with your
company is reprehensible  ..."

"No sir," Slaight cut in. "No sir. That's the one thing I don't want you
doing. I'm the only guy in the company on the area right now, and if you
so much as squeaked, he'd know where it was coming from. He'd put my
stuff in a sling and hang it there for the rest of my days. I don't want
to spend firstie year pounding ground." "I see what you mean," said
Consor. "What is it, then? What do you want to talk about?"

"You're the duty doc today, sir. You hear anything abbot this plebe they
found up in Popolopen this morning, drowned? His name was David Hand. He
was in my squad last year during first Beast detail.

I heard he was dead out on the area, but nobody seems to know anything
more than that."

"Sure. I know all about the deceased cadet. I did the autopsy on the
body this morning at 0900. Very peculiar case. Very peculiar case,
indeed. I started cutting on the body at 0900, finished with him about
an hour later. Some colonel from Brigade Headquarters came into my
office here and demanded all copies of my report. I told him this was
very irregular, but the provost marshall was with him, Fitzgerald, with
whom I work all the time on these things. They use me for autopsies
because of my internal medicine specialty. Fitzgerald indicated that it
was okay to turn the whole thing over to the colonel.

Peculiar, nevertheless."

"So? Did you give him your report, sir?"

"Well.

You are curious about this, aren't you, Slaight?"

"Yessir. I knew the kid pretty well. He was from New Orleans. Had a
sister at Vassar. I used to date her when I was a plebe. In fact, she
was the girl who used to come and visit me when I was down with
pneumonia. Maybe you remember her."

"Indeed I do. The rather tall girl with auburn hair? Quite attractive?"

"That's the one."

"Well. I see your interest has some basis other than aimless curiosity.

I guess I can tell you about the deceased Mr. Hand. But I don't know ...
you're going to have to keep this pretty close to your chest, you
understand? An autopsy is a sensitive medical matter. And this one
seemed particularly sensitive, given the circumstances of the young
man's death. The colonel and the provost marshal seemed highly agitated
about the whole business."

"Yessir. I understand, sir." Slaight leaned forward eagerly. '"Well."

Consor had a Jack Benny way with the word "well," pausing after he said
it, waiting for a modicum of suspense to build before going on. "Well."

He paused again, straightening the little pair of Ben Franklin glasses
which were always perched on his nose like they were about to fall off.

"I gave them my report, of course. I'd just finished typing it myself.

You know they don't give us any clerical backup over here. All the
clerks and jerks are over in the Tactical Department or down in Thayer
Hall. They asked for the whole thing  ...  all the copies. I handed them
over. It wasn't until they had left that I remembered my handwritten
draft." Censor tapped a pile of papers on his desk. Slaight glanced at
the pile and looked Consor in the eye. "So what did you determine, sir?

What was the cause of death?"

"I'm not sure I should be telling you anything about my autopsy,
Slaight. Under normal circumstances, such a report is to be considered
confidential until I'm officially notified otherwise."

"Come on, sir. I knew the kid. Knew him pretty well, in fact. I'm not
just curious. I'm  ...  involved." The word popped from Slaight's mouth
involuntarily and hung in the air between them like smoke. "Well  ..."

Consor paused again, pushing his glasses up on his nose. The glasses
were not army issue. Nor was the white jacket he wore, a Dacron and
cotton loose-fitting garment he must have picked up in medical school.

What set the white jacket apart from those worn by other academy doctors
was that Censor's was not starched. In fact, there was nothing starched
about Dr. Consor. In some way Slaight had never been able to put his
finger on, Consor didn't fit. He was the academy's only doctor who was
also a grad, a distinction of absolutely no merit where other West
Pointers were concerned. To have dropped out of the sacred combat arms
and embraced the discipline of medicine put Consor in a class of one at
West Point in 1968. He wasn't just different. He was what the tacs liked
to call "a strange bird." It was a pejorative description, and it wasn't
meant to be funny. Consor must have sensed this, for he flaunted the
extent to which he was different from West Pointers of his grade. He
chose to live off-post, though he was eligible for government-sponsored
housing. He never made the Officers Club

"Happy Hour" scene. He was known as something of a loner. The granny
glasses Consor wore symbolized his breakaway stance as a grad, but
Slaight sensed Censor's ambivalence about West Point ran deeper than his
image suggested. From precocious personal experience, rooted in his life
on the unpredictable, dingy, rotten streets of Leavenworth, Slaight knew
that one's image was composed of both myth and reality. Myth served as a
shield to protect reality. Construction and maintenance of one's image
was necessary.

Slaight had learned at an early age, for in myth could be found power
reality often lacked. Slaight had detected in Consor this carefully
balanced equation which comprised his image as "a strange bird," an
oddball West Pointer, a loner on the verge of being an outcast. But
Consor had never, ever let Slaight get away with anything, even the
tiniest con. He played the game--doctor/patient, officer/cadet--and he
played it straight. This part of him was real, believable. The rest of
it, the granny glasses and all, Slaight guessed was myth, at least in
part. Consor used this portion of his image to mask emotions with which
Consor had not come to grips. Slaight watched the doctor. He didn't know
whether Consor would reveal his findings. The doctor shifted from side
to side in his chair. He was staring out the door, down the hall, as if
expecting a visitor to enter at any moment. He wasn't nervous. Nor was
he two-faced, a "schizo," as cadets liked to call officers who played
buddy-buddy one minute and wrote you up for insurbordination the next.

Consor was acting the way he always acted. Every motion of his body,
every move of his eyes, the way he kept his hands folded, fingers
interlocking, in his lap--everything was planned and executed with
precision. Slaight figured Dr. Consor needed his planned, precise
behavior for the same reason he had created a two-dimensional image for
himself. Slaight figured Consor loved West Point, but couldn't bring
himself to admit it. Consor had probably suffered an obscene, grim, and,
worst of all, lonely plebe year because he was Jewish. In those days,
the late 1950s, cadets literally tortured Jewish plebes. It was a part
of the academy's heritage everyone had forgotten except its victims.

Consor signaled his individuality as a doctor, as a grad, and as a man,
for he had been victorious. He had persevered. And for reasons unknown
to Slaight, Dr. Consor had drawn an odd but clearly visible strength
from his experience. He had a look in his eyes, magnified by his
frameless granny glasses, that was impossible to ignore. Censor's eyes
were gentle, pale blue, droopy at the edges. When focused and fixed with
a glare, they telegraphed: Don't fuck with me. "Well  ..." said Consor
again, drawing in a deep breath. Slaight leaped into the gap. "Out on
the area, they said it was an accident, Hand drowning. The word's out.

They're gonna announce it in the mess hall at supper." "That's
peculiar," said Consor, studying his fingernails absentmindedly.

"Why so, sir?"

"I would have thought by now they'd have an academywide search going
full force. I thought they would demand anyone with knowledge of Hand's
death to come forward immediately."

"No search, sir. No demands." Slaight baited him. "He drowned, of
course."

"Yessir."

"But I don't believe it was an accident, and my autopsy report reflects
my findings."

"It wasn't an accident?" Slaight stuttered the words in a failed attempt
to contain his excitement. "I believe he was murdered, Mr. Slaight.

Hand's lungs were so engorged with water, he could not possibly have
drowned from exhaustion. No. I've examined such drownings before. I
believe he was overpowered by another person, stronger than himself, and
held underwater until death."

"You're joking, sir. Right?"

"Negative.

The young man was murdered. And there was additional evidence indicating
murder, and possible motive, strong evidence. I am shocked that the
academy has not moved to find the killer."

"They're not moving, sir.

It's so quiet out there, you'd think the entire Tactical Department has
gone on leave." Slaight waited. He knew Consor would get around to
explaining himself at his own speed. Consor fidgeted, glancing down the
hall. He reached with his foot and kicked the door shut. "Well. I'm not
at all sure I should be telling you this, Slaight."

"Come on, sir. If what you say is true, about Hand being murdered,
they'll probably nail the killer somehow, and it will all come out in
the wash, anyway. If Hand was murdered, you're going to be up on the
stand, and no army court-martial is going to take pity on Hand, his
family, or anybody else. What harm could you do telling me now?"

"Mr. Slaight, I see exactly what you're driving at, but the nature of my
findings is so sensitive that I omitted a portion of them from the
typescript of my report, in deference to the family. It would serve no
one's interest to cause the family any more grief than they already must
endure. Though my findings were germane to concluding that Hand was
murdered, they indicated motive, not cause of death, so I left them out
of my report. I informed Colonel King verbally of my findings, however.

He knows everything."

"What is it, sir? What are you so reluctant to tell me? I knew the kid.

I went with his sister for two years. I want to know, sir, you know what
I mean?" Consor turned his head, found Slaight's eyes, and fixed him
with that glare. "Yes, I do, young man. I also know if I reveal my
autopsy findings to you, I will be in violation of certain army
regulations." Slaight held his breath, waiting. Consor rested his hand
atop the handwritten notes on his desk. His glasses slipped to the tip
of his nose. Automatically, he pushed them back in place. He leaned back
in his gray metal chair and crossed his legs. "How do your feet feel
now, mister?"

"Fine, sir."

"You're still determined to walk tours tomorrow?"

"Yessir. Got to. You understand." "Yes," said Consor. He paused. Things
weren't much different when he was a cadet. West Point had changed, but
not much. "Yes, I do understand, mister. But you will walk the area
against my medical advice and best judgment. Is that understood?"

"Yessir."

"As long as  ..."

"What about Hand, sir?" Slaight interrupted. "You are a persistent
bastard, you know that, Slaight?"

"Yessir." Dr. Consor laughed. "Okay. This entire matter is being handled
in such an unorthodox way, I don't imagine it would do any harm to tell
you why I believe Hand was murdered. I based my conclusion on three
pieces of physical evidence. You listening, mister?"

"Yessir." Of course he was listening. Censor's question was part of his
style, a proforma exercise in establishing, at once, rapport with and
distance from the cadet. It was leadership. "One. Water in lungs.

Evidence Hand drowned.

Unusually large volume indicated a struggle, presence of a second
person. Two. Semen in the urinary tract. Hand had sex immediately before
death. Three. Signs of irritation in the area of the anus, engorged
musculature, hemorrhoid-like growth, inflammation of lower colon, high
white-corpuscle blood count in the area, indicating a prolonged
low-grade infection  ..." Consor paused, thumbing through his notes.

"All the signs, in short, that Hand was getting fucked in the ass.

Including a large quantity of semen in the rectum. Is that clear enough
for you, Mr. Slaight? Your man Hand was a homosexual. Did you know
that?"

"No sir." Slaight stared at his taped feet sheepishly. The tiny office
was quiet. Down the hall, an industrial dishwasher in the hospital mess
hall could be heard chugging into gear. "Major Consor? Can I ask you
something?"

"Shoot, mister."

"Did you put all that stuff in your formal autopsy report?"

"No, I didn't. I wanted to spare the family ...  well  ... I told you.

But I did spell out to Colonel King my conclusion that Hand was
murdered. Clearly, the man with whom Hand had sex probably murdered
him."

"Yessir."

"That's why I find it surprising they haven't launched a Corps-wide
search for the killer."

"Yessir.

Major Consor, this is going to sound presumptive, but I think you should
hang on to your notes, sir. I think the shit's going to hit the fan, if
you'll pardon the expression, sir. Somebody's neck is going on the line
right now, if my guess is correct. Your notes will ensure the neck that
goes isn't yours."

"I see what you mean, Slaight. I didn't like Colonel King's attitude
this morning. He marched in here like the autopsy room was a little
piece of his fiefdom, told my orderlies to leave the room, then stood
around outside until I was finished, as if he was the ward chief. He
kept opening the door and telling me to hurry up. Hurry up. I don't know
what the rush was. The kid had been dead for thirty-six hours. Wasn't my
fault they didn't find him until this morning."

"Colonel King was in charge? I mean, he was the one you gave your typed
report to?"

"Yes. Tall man. Infantry. With a limp. You know him?"

"He's my regimental commander, sir. He's the one who put me on the area.

Grimshaw, my tac, takes all his clues from King. King came through the
barracks one morning last month. I was taking a nap between classes. He
walked in, wrote me up for 'failure to assume the position of attention
in the presence of an officer' and 'out of uniform during duty hours." I
was in my drawers, between the sheets, fast asleep. Two-dash-one came
down with a fifteen and twenty. Fifteen demerits, twenty hours of tours.

Most I figured I'd get was an eight and eight. Jesus. Old Grimshaw had a
field day with my 21. He sent down a memo saying nobody could take naps
any more, any time."

"So that's why we're getting all these sick calls asking for medical
permissions to take bed rest between classes! I was on sick-call duty
last week, and we must have had a half dozen of them.

I didn't notice they were all from the same company."

"They probably weren't. Everybody in the regiment is trying to protect
themselves with medical permission to get rack during the day, our free
time. That won't last past the summer. By next fall. King will have
something figured out to beat the medical excuses. He'll require that
they be renewed on a daily basis, something like that. Make it
impossible for guys to get a new sick slip every day. Man, you can't let
your guard down for an instant in King's regiment. J'd watch it dealing
with him if I were you, sir. I'm not trying to give you any unsolicited
advice or anything, but ..."

"Mr. Slaight. I understand what you're getting at. I'll watch myself
with him. Are you certain you don't want me to do anything about this
Grimshaw character? As a doctor, it's my duty to tell you that you most
assuredly should not be walking the area with your feet in such poor
condition. There's a strong possibility you could do permanent damage to
the sensitive skin on the instep of your foot. I see no reason ..."

"Sir, I've got seven hours left. I'll make out okay. And I wouldn't pay
any attention to Grimshaw. Colonel King's the man you're going to have
to watch out for. He's like some kind of human jackal."

"Slaight. I won't have you maligning your superiors in my presence. Save
that kind of talk for the barracks."

"Yessir."

"Come back and see me about your feet next week. Let me see  ...  you'll
walk three hours Monday, three Tuesday, and one Wednesday. Drop in
anytime. I'll be here every day."

"Yessir."

"And don't abuse the painkillers."

"Yessir."

"I'll see you next week then."

"Yessir. Good evening, sir." Slaight walked back to the physical therapy
room. He dressed quickly, walked out the basement door of the hospital,
up some metal stairs, and into New South Area. The clock on the barracks
said it was 7:30 p.m. Buck would be back from supper. He took the stairs
to the second door by twos, and his feet hardly bothered him. He burst
in the door of Room 226 to find Buck sprawled on his bunk in the company
of The Wall Street Journal, several copies of Burning Tree Weekly
Gazette, the latest issue of National Livestock Producer, and what
looked to be a three-inch stack of computer printout. Obviously, Leroy
Buck had made a stop at the computer center on his way back from supper.

"Slaight, they went and did it tonight in the mess hall. Announced the
news about beanhead Hand. Adjutant got up there and gave the poop.

Accidental drowning  ... regrets to announce ...  Hand, F-4  ...  Corps
of Cadets will send its condolences  ... tragedy  ...  then a goddamn
lecture about swimming along during fuckin' summer leave. You wouldn't
have believed it."

"Yes, I would. But you're not going to believe what I just heard."

"What's that, Slaight, you son of a--"

"I got the autopsy report on Hand. You won't believe it. The doc who did
the autopsy report told me all about it. Wasn't an accident- David Hand
was murdered. And the doc says Hand was a faggot, got himself banged in
the ass just before he drowned. Doc says: Whoever fucked him, killed
him."

"Any suspects?"

"Suspects? Are you kidding? Not even the provost marshal has heard about
this. The doc left the fag stuff out of his official report, but he told
King all about it. What we figured about old Phineas T. King earlier?

Right on target. He was all over that doc who did the autopsy today,
took every copy of the official report with him when he left. The doc
told me he wrote in his official report that in his opinion Hand was
murdered. So tonight they announce it was an accident, huh?"

"Say yeah."

"Buck, this ain't the Magnificent Seven all over again. This is a whole
new ball game. Phineas T. is up to his skinny neck in this shit, and
he's reporting straight to fuckin' Two-Dash Hedges, so he's in on it,
too. We better keep this quiet till we figure out what's going on. Maybe
they're just putting out the accident story until they can nail the
killer."

"I doubt it, Ry."

"Why's that?"

"If they were looking for a killer, the word would be all over the Corps
by now. Place would be crawling with TD fuckers. They'd have the whole
goddamn Corps restricted to barracks. Give a listen out there.

So quiet, you can hear the fuckin' jukebox down in Grant Hall. Slaight,
those fuckers are sitting on this Hand thing, sure as shit. They got the
lid screwed on again. You going up to see Sergeant Major Eldridge
tonight, like you said?"

"Nope. I've heard enough for one day. I'll stop by and see him Monday,
before area formation. We've got plenty of time to touch him for his
contacts. Besides, I want to give my feet a rest. I got two hurtin'
cowboys for feet, let me tell you." Slaight flopped on his bunk and
propped his slipper-clad feet on his Brown Boy. Buck had a Waylon
Jennings album on the stereo. He was singing something about women,
lonesome, and, if you listened closely, mean. Buck was reading The Wall
Street Journal. Slaight heard him whistling softly between his teeth. It
was funny, the way Leroy Buck whistled to himself like that.

Often the noise he made sounded like the way he said "wisht." He was
always saying stuff like

"I wisht I was back home right now. Yellow squash is comin' in." Or, "I
wisht they'd goddamn leave us alone, goddamn-goddamn."

"I finish clocking my stocks. Slaight, let's you and me go on over to
the late movie, how 'bout it? They're showing one of those Clint
Eastwood pictures. One of those Westerns." "Okay," said Slaight, closing
his eyes, letting Waylon Jennings' voice close the space around him.

"Let's do it." Seven-thirty p.m. A telephone call.

"Duty Officer Major Consor speaking, sir."

"Major, this is Colonel King."

"Yessir. Something I can do for you, sir?"

"Matter of fact.

Major, there is. You can keep absolutely quiet about this plebe we found
up in Popolopen this morning. Do you understand me? You may consider
your involvement in this matter classified Top Secret. This comes from
the highest authority. Am I making myself clear?"

"Yessir."

"We have a very, very sensitive case on our hands here, as I am sure you
are aware.

It is absolutely imperative that none of the details of this case go
beyond where we left them today. If we are to bring this matter to a
satisfactory conclusion, there must be absolute confidentiality. Total.

You are to report to no one but me on this matter, is that clear?"

"Yessir."

"Now, I am in possession of all copies of your official autopsy report,
am I not? I have before me a four-page typewritten report on a DD Form
220, in triplicate. This is what you gave me this morning, is it not?"

"That's it, sir. DD Form 220. That's the official autopsy report form.

Autopsies are the only medical operations reported on the Form 220.

There's a regulation somewhere  ..."

"I'm not interested in the regulation. Major. I am simply reaffirming
that what I have in hand is your official report on the death of Cadet
David Hand."

"That's it, sir. That's the official report. You've got all my DD 220s.

The body was bagged, and at 1400 the funeral home from Highland Falls
arrived to pick it up, just as you said it would. I supervised the
transfer of the body myself."

"Good. That's damn fine work, Consor. Damn fine. Now, just remember
this. We've got a sensitive, potentially explosive case on our hands
here. We've got to keep it in the family. Do you understand?"

"Yessir. In the family. I understand, sir."

"Excellent.

Consor, don't do anything else, don't talk to anybody from this moment
on, don't generate any more reports, don't do anything without
consulting me first. Got that?"

"Yessir."

"Outstanding, Major. Damn fine work."

"Thank you, sir."

"King out." The phone went dead in Major Censor's hand. He looked at the
clock on his desk. It was 7:35 p.m. He thanked the Lord King hadn't
asked him if he'd talked to anyone about the case during the day. Cadet
Slaight had left his office not ten minutes ago. He wondered about
Slaight, whether it had been a good idea to confide in him. Slaight was
an odd case, a cadet who seemed somehow out of place at West Point, and
yet he possessed all the qualities of a textbook military leader: poise,
bearing, guts, intelligence, and a massive, nearly impenetrable ego. If
there was some thing about Slaight, if there was one thing which was
going to be his downfall, it was his ego. An ego like his, at age
twenty-one, almost completely negated any chance for the young man to
really develop a sense of himself, nurture the germ of self-knowledge
which after a few years would yield the revealing vulnerabilities of
adulthood. Slaight had mastered the great confidence game of youth, the
trapdoor situation where he'd suck you in with innocent curiosity; then
as soon as you'd opened up and let the cat out of the bag, he'd close
the trap and squeeze out the rest of what he wanted with a mix of guile,
cunning, and plain old-fashioned tit-for-tat trade-off, dealing. Major
Consor remembered the first day he'd met Slaight, three years ago. He
was in Ward Two with double lower-lobe pneumonia. Because he had been a
plebe, he had been discouraged from going on sick call, and went
untreated until he collapsed in the barracks. For the first six days he
was in the ward, he was in a semicoma, fed intravenously, conscious for
only a few moments a day, and even then he was dazed and confused. On
the seventh day, his fever dropped to 102 , from a one-time high of 105

, when they'd had to pack him in ice to bring the fever under control.

Slaight, a very, very sick plebe, woke up and noticing the doctor
leaning nervously over him, rapped out a coarse expletive: "Fuck. This
place looks like a good deal.

How long have I been here?" When told he'd been in the hospital a week,
he then asked how much longer he could expect to be confined to the
hospital ward. Told that pneumonia like his sometimes took as long as a
month to heal properly, he thought for a moment and said: "Hey! I'm
gonna miss sixteen parades!" Consor chuckled at the memory. As a cadet,
he'd indulged in the same parade-dodging skulduggery. It was part of the
game. Maybe Slaight wasn't so odd, after all. Maybe he was just plain
U.S. grade Choice cadet, a redblooded American boy. Any way he looked at
it, he was going to have to trust Ryan Parker Slaight III. he decided.

Better Slaight than King. King out. My God, what was this army coming
to?

BOOK 2.

June 26, 1968.

Wednesday morning. New York City.

Water woke Ry Slaight, splashing against the tub on the other side of
the wall directly behind his head. He propped himself on one elbow and
peered through the semi-darkness. A clock radio glowed on the bedside
table. It was 9 a.m. Heavy curtains blotted out the morning sun. Four
weeks to the day since he'd gotten off the area. Over the past three
weeks, he'd been to six army posts in six states, on a junket called the
First Class Trip, supposedly an introduction to what West Point seniors
could expect from the six combat arms when they graduated a year later.

It had been one long six-thousand-mile waste of time and taxpayers'
dollars. The firsties knew it. The army knew it. West Point knew it. By
mutual agreement, the trip was an excuse for six army posts to throw six
formal balls for the cadet first class, which the cadets were required
to attend with arbitrarily assigned blind dates, officers' daughters
getting their own introduction to what they might expect to find as army
wives with army husbands. Now the first class was back, and this was the
first morning of Slaight's summer leave, thirty days of free time he
planned on spending right here, in this bed, in this apartment in this
city with this woman. Her name was Irit Dov, and Slaight was
twenty-one-year-old-awestruck-head-over-heels in love with her. They'd
met when Slaight was a yearling. After a year of weekends, trips, and
leaves, Slaight found himself pretty much under the spell of the strange
dark woman in the shower behind his head. He gazed around the familiar
bedroom. Against one wall was a desk stacked with letters and unopened
bills and family photographs and old magazines and used airline ticket
envelopes. A blond Art Deco dressing table with a huge circular mirror
was clean, save for a hairbrush, silver with natural bristles, and
matching hand mirror. Atop the night stand on the opposite side of the
queen-size bed was a glass of water and two aspirins. Hanging on the
cut-glass doorknob was a nightgown, ankle-length pale gray silk with
hand-embroidered lace around a square neckline, low-cut. On the floor,
partially obscured by the nightgown, was a white telephone. A long
twisted white cord snaked through the door and disappeared down a hall.

Above him, yards and yards of steel-gray satin were gathered into a
tent, peaking at the center, draped to the ceiling above the corners of
the bed, falling to its edge in four perfect fabric columns. A cathedral
of gray satin. Outside, the street snarled with the impatient sounds of
Madison Avenue traffic. "Ry? Ry? Are you awake? Are you up?" Her voice
was high, strident--a morning voice. The shower had stopped its
insistent beat against the tiles, and he could hear her padding around,
out in the hall. It was a long hall, leading from the living room to the
bath, bedroom on the left, a long row of closets and built-in storage to
the right. The closets were mirrored, full-length, and fit tightly
together so the hall appeared to have a wall which was one huge mirror.

Behind every mirror--opening at the touch of a finger on the left
edge--was a vertical stack of drawers, notched, of white Formica, shiny,
like they'd been. hand-lacquered. A thick white carpet ran from one end
of the hall to the other, parquet flooring showing on either side. The
ceiling was high, maybe twelve feet originally, but dropped a foot and
inset with spotlights which could be controlled with a rheostat.

Somebody had done one hell of a job on that hallway, Slaight remembered
thinking when he first saw it. "Yeah. I'm awake," he said. "Still in
bed. Man, I'm worn out. Beat."

"Stay there," she commanded. He did. The bed felt good, a damn sight
better than the web-seating of the C-141 Starlifter Air Force cargo
plane he'd flown in the day before, on the way back from Fort Bliss,
Texas. No air conditioning, stuffy, smelly, guys sleeping with heads
leaning forward against duffel bags between their legs: Nightmare. "What
will you have for breakfast?" she asked from the hall. "I have  ... I
have toast and coffee. Will that suit you?" "Fine," he said, flopping
back against a pile of pillows, trying to remember what had happened
when he came in late the night before. He couldn't focus, mind slipping
and sliding back and forth in and out of fatigue-induced
semi-consciousness. His eyes drifted. Between the pillows next to him
was the small pillow. As she slept, she clung to it, a six-by-six-inch
square of fine linen, flat, almost completely empty of feather stuffing.

He remembered watching her before she fell asleep one night  ... it
seemed like a long time ago. She cuddled the little pillow. The sight of
her would have been pathetic, he remembered, but she was so content the
square of linen against her bosom, a thin bandage of a smile on her
lips. She had been unashamed, explaining she never slept without it. He
touched the little pillow, picked it up, held it against the stubble on
his cheek. It was soft. He tossed it on the bed and closed his eyes,
hoping to nap. The small linen pillow was only one of the things he
couldn't figure about Irit Dov. Never could. Made him feel  ... nervous.

He scratched around his ankles, pulling the gray satin quilt up around
his shoulders. She heard him. "I said stay where you are." She bit off
the words like biscuits, her voice reaching toward that peculiar lilt,
almost British but not quite. Slaight drew the quilt around his
shoulders, warding off the chill from the airconditioner, purring away
behind one of the curtains. His underarms stank, an odor like swamp gas,
the body's mix of fatigue and sex. It smelled good. He inhaled deeply.

Decomposing pits. He chuckled. Summer leave. Fuck. Am I ever gonna
chow-down for a month. Slaight's eyes dropped closed, and his mind
drifted again ... Most of the time at West Point, you were so goddamn
lonely you lived in your own head in a fantasy world constructed of safe
racktime and dangerous dreams. But you didn't live up in your head
really. You lived down in your belly, down there inside you where all
your reactions come from. It was  ...  necessary. All day, every goddamn
day at West Point, everything was hit  ...  react  ...  hit  ... react,
a hell of a lot like boxing, an endless series of blows to the solar
plexus, the face, the neck, the stomach, with no time-out to back off
and relax. Breathe, reach out, and grab air. Absorb. Never relax.

They used to scream if, yell it like marching cadence in plebe boxing.

Hit. React. Hit. React. Some little OPE bastard named Malloy; with a
face like a river rat and a body like cast-iron sewer pipe, he was about
sixty-five years old; and he'd stand there in those black pants with
gold stripes down the legs and shiny black leather ripplesole coaches'
shoes and his T-shirt with "OPE" and the academy crest over the left
tit, he'd stand there with his face coming just under the top rope of
the boxing ring and he'd scream at the top of his bloody Irish lungs:

Hit. React. Hit. React. You never forgot that face or those words and it
never ended. The closest you ever came to leaving that little spot down
in your belly, the closest you ever came to relaxing, really relaxing,
was fucking. Even then, it was only half-release. Parole instead of
freedom. For this reason, because they wanted it so much, because they
needed it so goddamn much, cadets were really good at fucking. It came
natural like taking a leak after a reveille run and feeling that cold
shiver run up your spine; fucking was just something you did because you
knew you needed to fuck the way you knew you needed to piss. Release.

Let it fuckin' go. Cadets fucked for fun, fucked for love, fucked for
sport, fucked to satisfy the humid animal lust of goddamn barracks life
all week long, fucked for money even, like male hookers, betting their
bodies and their hard-ons against the streets of New York City on a
fivedollar weekend they'd find a body and a bed before the bars closed.

Most of the time it was charged with tension, quick and hot and sweaty
and tinged with a smoldering, smoky smell, like you seared the hairs on
the back of your hands getting too close to a heat stove on a cold night
in the field, sex so fast and hot it burned. Getting laid by a cadet,
Slaight used to guess, must have been for a girl what a wet dream was
like for a guy: You couldn't remember what had happened when it was
over, but you knew it felt good. Girls were kind of  ...  functional.

They fit into the machine like an idler wheel, taking up the slack and
keeping everything running more or less smoothly, and when somebody put
the hammer down, they were always there to  ...  flex  ...  absorb  ...
take the shit when the guys just plain couldn't take it any more. They
were different, like another species--like cats, maybe. Soft where guys
weren't soft  ...  bony, angular," where guys were muscled, hard  ...
wide, padded with extras, where guys were stripped down like hot rods,
efficient. They looked different and they acted different and they
talked different. More  ...  grownup. Cadets were always punching each
other in the upper arms and saying stuff like  ...  hey, say hey, big
fella, c'mon let's toss a couple down on the Plain  ...  say wha?  ...
say, fuckit man, let's get us some rack ...  when them plebes spose't
come round for SI, anyways  ...  getting fuckin' tired of those
zit-faced little pingers  ... oughtta bottle 'em up and ship 'em out
with the Japanese fuckin' current ...  Cadets talked like high school
football coaches with perpetual hangovers. Girls talked nice all the
time, like they understood what a shitball place West Point was and all
they wanted to do was make you feel better. Used to piss a lot of guys
off, all that niceness, because it was hard to figure where it was
coming from, and at West Point, you were taught the ancient male dogma
that if you couldn't figure where something was coming from, best to
duck and wait and listen and watch before assuming it was friendly. So
girls had their function, but they didn't  ...  fit exactly right, like
a pair of socks too small, always sliding down into the heel of your
shoes, having to stop, reach down, yank up the socks, looking and
feeling like some kind of dufus fool couldn't afford to buy himself a
good pair of socks. That was the way a lot of cadets felt around girls,
like they didn't quite fit together right, because they just weren't
used to them, they were never around, and when they were, it was always
awkward and strained ... They felt the same way about weekends. Weekends
were longed for, always too late to arrive, too quick to. leave  ...
there was an equation in the minds of cadets between girls and weekends.

Weekends meant freedom or parole anyway  ...  but a weekend always
ended, Sunday night at 1800, dinner formation: a lot of shuffling and
horsing around and goosing and yelling at one another across the area
...  guys would stand around and clap their hands together  ...  clap
clap  ...  clap clap  ...  not because there was anything to applaud,
anything to celebrate, but because there was nothing else to do at
dinner formation on Sunday night. You clapped your hands together the
way a football or baseball or basketball coach is always clapping his
hands on the sidelines  ...  clap clap  ...  clap clap  ...  nervous,
frustrated, because he's standing there, just standing around, and
there's nothing he can do. So weekends ended, parole ended, and so did
girls. They weren't all present and accounted for, SIR, at the Sunday
dinner formation. They were temporary. What it amounted to was the plain
fact that they were gone for another week. Cadets wrote letters to
girls, lots of letters to lots of different girls, maybe a half-dozen
letters to a half-dozen girls at a time. It was a form of contact with
the outside world. At West Point, the feeling of writing a letter was
just as good as the feeling of receiving one. Guys would labor over
letters, work on them, etching each word carefully, like it was evidence
they existed or something. You were reaching out with a letter, reaching
out and touching someone  ...  you could feel it there in that little
spot in your belly as the words went down on paper, a warm sensation,
molecules stirring, brushing up against one another down there in the
place where you lived. Letters went out from zip code 10996 to all
different kinds of cadet girl friends. There was the Girl Back Home.

Some guys entered West Point going with the girl back home, and it never
changed; they'd write her damn near every night for four long years, and
they'd marry her the day they graduated, and nobody ribbed them. There
was a special place in the cadet heart for the girl back home. Just
about everybody had one, sometime. There were the Irish and Italian
Princesses from the Catholic girls' schools which surrounded West Point
like outposts around a night defensive perimeter. It seemed like cadets
couldn't move in or out of the place without noticing, or being noticed
by, one of those precious little things from Ladycliff, Seton Hall,
Marymount--the list went on. It was like a conspiracy hatched somewhere
in the bowels of the Vatican to wed the cream of American Catholicism to
the cream of the American military. There were those snobby, snappish
liberals from Wassar, the West Point of the Seven Sisters--arrogant,
elitist, they were as bad-assed as goddamn cadets. It was probably
because they were so much alike that more cadets didn't go with Vassar
girls, being as they were only a few miles away across the Hudson in a
little town called Poughkeepsie. But Vassar just sat over there, a
feeding trough for Ivy League preppies. Cadets were advised by
upperclassmen from the time they were plebes to keep their distance from
Vassar girls. There were College Girls, which is to say, girls cadets
would meet at "away" football games at mixers and post-game parties.

These girls tended toward sororities. If an upperclassman in a company
was going with a Delta Gamma from Northwestern, it wouldn't be long
before a plebe in his company would be going with a freshman rushee from
the same sorority at the same school. Sometimes college girls were
traded around, used as currency within the social structure of the
academy  ...  fix you up with this fox my girl friend knows, man, if
you'll take my guard duty next week  ... gotta poly sci paper due, man,
c'mon, I'll even throw in a fin for the weekend ... Then there were the
Working Girls. They were usually from New York City, and they ranged
from the East Side (stewardesses and the occasional Playboy bunny) to
the West Side (secretaries and receptionists) to the Village (downtown
ladies of questionable means). To a certain breed of cadet, in whose
ranks Rysam Parker Slaight III found himself, the working girl was found
treasure for any number of good reasons. She did not attend college and
was thus not subject to dormitory hours and rules. Nor did the working
girl indulge in the penny-ante social game playing which so thickly
permeated cadet and college life in the 1960s. Working girls were
capitalists, past masters at the scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours
school of emotional algebra. She often had an apartment, sometimes one
of her very own without roommates (such a girl was Irit Dov), this
removing one thorny expense on weekend leaves: the hotel room. She might
even cook. This was a truly rare find. Most working girls were
bachelorettes with refrigerators containing the obligatory quarter pound
of butter, two eggs, a two-week-old container of raspberry yogurt, the
55<f size jar of instant coffee, and one can of beer. She did not raise
a fuss about sex. While still a delicate matter, sex was something for
which the working girl was often prepared, with birth-control devices,
right there in her purse or medicine cabinet. Bye-bye, rubbers! Good
evening, diaphragm, pill! The working girl was usually lonely. This was
a character trait attractive to cadets for the simple reason that
loneliness was like a permanent flu at West Point. There you were,
surrounded on all sides by all these guys, all these friends, and they
were always slapping you on the back and asking to borrow toothpaste and
trading two skin mags for one stroke book and helping you decipher
yesterday's nuke problems  ...  and yet walking along Thayer Road back
to the barracks from the library just before taps, you could feel like
the last person on earth. Working girls must have experienced much the
same feeling on the subway on the way home from work. The lonely attract
the lonely. This did not often make for profound relationships, but it
made for convenient ones. There was of course a certain
cross-pollination between the apples of cadet eyes. Some guys had a girl
back home, who was visited on long leaves during the summer and at
Christmas, and a working girl in the city, who was visited more
frequently, for shorter periods of time. Weekends. The former was
treated with care, the latter with precision. Cadets could be counted
on. They were efficient. They arrived on time. They were nearly
perfectly predictable. Early on, there would be sex. And sometimes they
were even cordial, gentlemanly. Sometimes. This was Ry Slaight's act for
the first couple of years he was at West Point. He had a girl friend
back in Leavenworth, Kansas, a colonel's daughter, Betty Jane Soah. And
he was going out with David Hand's sister, Samantha Hand, who was in his
class year at Vassar and was  ...  handy. But there always came a time
when somebody wised-up  ...  one of the girl friends, or maybe both of
them at once, sometimes even the cadet. It happened to Slaight all at
once, in May of 1967. He was just getting off the area after three hours
of punishment tours. He was walking down Thayer Road, holding his rifle
in his left hand, when he noticed a commotion up ahead. In front of
Grant Hall, a public gathering place where cadets met their dates, a
group of girls were passing out daisies and antiwar leaflets. It was a
demonstration. Slaight walked faster, eager to see what was happening.

When he reached the gaggles of demonstrators and onlookers, he thought
he recognized a couple of the girls. They were from Vassar. He was tired
and hot from walking the area and was about to turn the corner into New
South Area, when Samantha Hand stepped in front of him and gave him a
mimeographed sheet of paper. He glanced at the piece of paper in his
hand. Across the top of the page in large hand-printed letters he
recognized as hers were the words: DESERT! QUIT THE WAR MACHINE! Slaight
stared at her disbelievingly. She thrust forward the daisy, smiling. "I
tried to call you and tell you, Ry, but they said you were. out walking
the area, being punished. See what I mean, Ry? It's all wrong. You
should just give up." Slaight took the flower from her with his free
hand, stuck it in his mouth, and began chewing it. He swallowed. He
handed the leaflet back to Samantha Hand. "Stick it up your fucking
ass," said Slaight, turning away, walking back toward the barracks. If
she only knew, he thought. If she only fuckin' knew. Slaight had his
doubts about the war, about the academy--about everything. Most cadets
did. Nobody was completely immune from the urge to second-guess the
cadet experience, digging around, trying to figure out what was bullshit
and what wasn't. He'd even thought about signing. Walking the goddamn
area--hot, depressed, all kinds of doubts rattling in his head like a
bunch of BBS in a tin can  ...  and his second year at the academy,
yearling year, was coming quickly to an end.

New army regulations said if you resigned from the academy after the end
of your second year, you were subject to five years' active duty as an
enlisted man, a GI, a cleansleeve grunt trooper. He was out there
walking the area thinking about resigning the next goddamn week, just
before the cutoff, and now this--Jesus--humiliated by his own girl
friend in front of other cadets, some of them his classmates. He climbed
the ramp back up to New South Area, flopped on his bunk, and made up his
mind. He couldn't resign now. He would graduate if it was the last
fuckin' thing he did on earth. Next weekend he walked his last hour off
his slug. Weekend after that, he took off for New York City and met Irit
Dov. Now he was lying in her bed and Jesus, all that was over a year
ago, and man, time does get by, doesn't it? Little over a year ago,
Samantha Hand's trying to lay on that tired-assed trip about the war,
next thing Slaight knows, her brother's in his squad in Beast Barracks,
and now he's dead, a faggot, killed up there in Lake Popolopen by
somebody who'd just stuck it up his ass  ... Jesus  ...  who'd have
guessed that day they were handing out daisies in May of '67 what would
happen a year later, almost to the day? Seemed like nothing made sense
any more. Nothing  ...  added up  ...  it was all  ... coming apart,
splattering in every goddamn direction at once. West Point was like this
piece of granite, a national anchor, but even West Point was pulling
loose now ... Feet shuffling in the hall, just whispering across the
carpet  ...  Slaight whipped his head around, startled. Irit Dov's
footsteps faded in the direction of the kitchen, all the way across the
living room, huge, forty feet by forty feet square. Irit Dov's
penthouse, sitting on top of an apartment building at the corner of East
Eighty-second Street and Madison, was rather small as such places go--

only two rooms, really, living room and bedroom. The kitchen and bath
seemed like afterthoughts. But the penthouse had a spacious, airy
feeling, high ceilings, windows all around, everything painted in a
dull-finish oyster white. On the north side of the living room was
Slaight's favorite spot, a greenhbuselike alcove, a sun room jutting out
over an odd extension of the building below, completely enclosed by
casement windows. The sun room was full of plants, palms mostly. They
were tinged with brown edges and had been clipped back, an attempt to
fight off some New York palm disease. The palms looked like plants with
haircuts. The little room reminded Slaight of the screen porch on his
parents' place, outside of Leavenworth. It was bright and green and you
could sit in there reading, listening to the steady rumble of the city,
and it was like you were in the woods, hearing the invisible sounds
woods make, rustling and flapping and whispering away, trees talking to
each other, squirrels chattering and birds calling, the quite rattle of
the absence of human beings. Up in that penthouse it was like that  ...
nobody visible and yet all this life around you  ...  humming and
grinding away. The whole place was full of plants--plants and white
furniture, low-slung and deeply pillowed in white muslin. Matching
tuxedo couches faced each other at right angles to a fireplace on the
west side of the living room. Between them a white Formica coffee table
sat close to the floor. Chrome frame chairs with dark brown leather
seats and arms faced the fireplace at the end of the white table.

Overhead lights, similar to those in the hallway, illuminated barren
white walls, where they existed at all. Mostly there were windows,
waist-high to the ceiling-- windows on either side of the sun room to
the north; overlooking the small terrace to the west; along the entire
south end of the penthouse, a glass door in the middle, through which
you walked out on a wide terrace, shaded by potted ginkgo trees. The
bedroom had four windows, facing south and west. The window in the
bathroom was a foot wide and six feet high, a narrow glass peek at the
world through the end of the tub. The penthouse came perilously close to
looking like it had been done over by a designer, that spare, Sunday
Times Magazine look, uncluttered with human interference. But crazy
little touches rescued the place from hellish perfection, like the phone
running down the hall from the living room to the bedroom, white cord
getting in the way underfoot. A thin, threadbare Persian rug lay between
the couches.

It was faded and frayed, not antiquery, just worn out. Three or four
pieces of battered wicker furniture, in dire need of repair, were
scattered about--two chairs in the corners of the bedroom, a table in
the sun room, hiding among the plants, another rattan table on the
terrace, weather-beaten, ready to collapse. And everywhere were
magazines, stacks of the damn things, fashion magazines, news magazines,
piles of old Esquires and New" Yorkers, French magazines, Italian
magazines, untouched stacks of old Sunday Timeses, evidence of a
compulsive collector of printed matter. The piles were neatly, even
cleverly hidden--behind furniture, under tables, stacked on deep-set
bookshelves. They looked like they belonged. So did Irit Dov. Slaight
had wandered around the place many times over the past year, exploring.

It was his way. He poked into corners, opened drawers, peeked in
closets, ruffled through stacks of papers and magazines. He examined the
penthouse the way he read books: close-up, giving the place his
undivided attention. He was fascinated by Irit Dov's penthouse, its
deliberate excesses, casual messiness. In the rooms people lived, he
knew, could be found all of their obsessions, some of their secrets.

Slaight's year-long inspection of Irit Dov's penthouse apartment
bordered on fetish. He wasn't nosy. He was a pack rat, gathering pieces
of others' lives, storing them away inside himself. He was vaguely aware
of what he did, but he had no idea why. All he knew was, Irit Dov's
penthouse had captured him and held him tightly. So did she. He heard
her out in the kitchen: comfortable, muffled sounds, plates and cups and
saucers and silverware, running water--reminded him of lying in bed when
he was a kid, listening to his mother fixing breakfast downstairs,
banging around, listening to the weather on the radio. Slaight reached
over and flipped on the clock radio. Some FM station was playing the
Jimi Hendrix Experience, "Purple Haze," a little heavy at 9 a.m., so he
turned it off. Something was up. West Point was showing its seams, the
nearly invisible little side effects of a system which required absolute
precision all year long, absolute adherence to the Honor Code, absolute
attention to detail in all the science and engineering courses, absolute
total memorization of a million little (f)X = YZ proofs you had to keep
filed away in your head all the time. West Point was this hermetically
sealed society, closed off from the rest of the world, and to the casual
observer, it looked like West Point would remain forever unreachable,
perfect in its distance from the grubby world outside its gates, forever
frozen in the celluloid of the late show on TV. But from the inside
there was always this subliminal anxiety, just beneath the surface of
cadet lives, pent up frustrations and doubts, imperfections that had to
be hidden, contained, controlled, checked and balanced by
self-confidence which appeared to come from nowhere, but which really
came from West Point itself, from the United States Military Academy,
from the final truth that you were a goddamn cadet, and when push came
to shove you dropped all your doubts and insecurities and believed all
the bullshit. West Point said it was so, and you believed it: You were
better than the rest of them, all those fuckers outside, everybody who
didn't know the definition of gray, all the nongrads and the civilians
and the politicians, the goddamn enemy. But now even that last-ditch
circling of the wagons, final defensive perimeter belief was breaking
down. Slaight could feel it go. He'd been watching it happen, little by
little, all through his cow year. The death of David Hand was widening
the cracks in the system. Slaight didn't know exactly what was going to
happen, but he had a few ideas. All the time, cadets were holding back,
repressing these doubts and unconscious feelings they weren't supposed
to have. The system caused the cadet to be totally confident, on top of
it all, in control 100 percent of the time. But then came weekends, and
weekends afforded that brief instant of relief when repressed feelings
could bubble to the surface. Up would come the gas you held down in
there in that little spot in your belly where you lived, grumbling,
ulcerous, vile, everything you didn't want to believe about yourself but
you knew, you just fuckin' knew, was true. He'd watched it happen a
dozen times, and he knew it would keep happening. Somehow, he knew the
David Hand thing fit, but he couldn't figure which way. Slaight, his
roommate, Leroy Buck, every cadet, was sensitive to every comment on the
war, the military, the academy. And the comments hit with gale force in
'67-'68, raining down from every side. You couldn't dodge it. When
cadets would go down to New York City and hang out in the singles bars
on the East Side, the operative method for dealing with the inevitable
what do you do for a living? question was to mumble, / go to school near
here, like the girl you were talking to should just know where you
meant--Princeton, Rutgers, some damn place. Sometimes it worked. But
there was always the haircut, close on the sides, two inches max on top.

And the distinctive cadet manner, inbred, almost impossible to conceal:

the stiff back  ...  the walk, a quick gait executed with crispness the
irresistible urge to say "sir" when you were talking to a guy only a few
years older than you, like he was an upperclassman or something. And no
matter how hard you tried, you couldn't help but slip up, sometime. Then
the hostility, Jesus, the hostility! A chance remark, a comment like,
"Oh, I see they just made you get another haircut," anything could set
off the time bomb inside cadets, the repressed humiliation, the feeling
they were always being Watched over like a bunch of children, scolded
and punished and sent to the corner-- anything could explode that time
bomb. When it went, it was circuit-blowing pain, the kind of jolt you
never felt in sports, the ache that made a pulled leg muscle seem like a
stain on your goddamn pants. Cadets would wheel and snap like Dobermans,
not caring who said exactly what or when or where, just so they could
tear off a chunk, get that feeling they were tasting blood. Once, in a
bar in north New Jersey, Slaight watched a classmate bite the top of a
guy's ear off, a guy from Princeton, when he'd mumbled something like
West Point sucks under his breath at the bar. The cadet just reached
over, grabbed the guy by the hair, hit him a couple of times in the
face, and at first sight of blood spewing from the guy's nose, the cadet
pulled the guy's head toward him, held it down on the bar, and chomped
the tip of his ear off, spit it out right onto the bar, a grisly,
incredible scene. The whole bar just ground to a halt, and everybody
stood there, staring, the guy clutching at his bleeding ear, the cadet
standing there with this grimly satisfied look on his face; then he
turned and walked out, and nobody did anything, nobody fucked with him
because they all caught the vibe that the guy would kill, he was so
pissed. Another time, Slaight saw a guy slap his girl friend halfway
across the dance floor at Snuffy's, then stumble out to the parking lot
and lean against a car and start crying like a little kid, just sobbing
and dripping snot all over his shirt front, weeping like a baby. Slaight
asked him what happened. The girl had yelled something at him when they
were dancing, the guy couldn't remember what she'd said, all he could
say was  ...  she just don't understand, you see, man? She just don't
understand, man, how fucked up things are, 'you know? Slaight watched
the guy cry for a while, not saying anything to him. There was nothing
you could say to a guy who was blubbering like a fool, who'd just about
knocked the girl friend's teeth out, and who'd probably do the same to
you if you accidentally pressed the wrong psychological button. Later
the next week, he saw the same guy in the mess hall, and the guy said
thanks for being there, down at Snuffy's, and Slaight mumbled forget it,
man. Then the guy said he and his girl friend had patched things up,
checked into a motel down in Stony Point and spent the whole night
fucking. The guy started jabbering about belly fucking, ass fucking, tit
fucking, elbow fucking, toe sucking, doing it standing up, sitting down,
across the motel room dresser, over the edge of the tub  ...  on and on
until Slaight finally wandered away, leaving the guy standing there in
the aisle in the mess hall, talking to himself about what he had planned
for next weekend. The year '67-'68 was that kind of scene, blown-out,
hanging right there on the edge all the time. Bobby Kennedy had been
murdered a week to the day after Slaight got off the area, and he and
Leroy Buck stayed up all night watching the live TV coverage. There
wasn't any widespread cadet sentiment for Kennedy. In fact, a lot of
guys had gone around the next day complaining that Kennedy had picked a
hell of a time to get himself blown away. His death was putting off the
First Class Trip for two days, because all the Air Force C141's were
being held on alert to airlift troops to Detroit and New York in case
there were riots in the ghettos, like there had been when Martin Luther
King died, another event which hadn't drawn much cadet sympathy. But
Bobby Kennedy had appeared to Slaight and Buck like a dim beam of bleak
hope, symbolizing a glimmer of forward motion in a country which seemed
to have come to a halt the day his brother, the President, was killed
five years before. Now RFK as dead, too, and the papers were chasing
Gene McCarthy around the country like a pack of rabid dogs, trying to
force-feed an image of-liberal leadership to an electorate that had
fallen asleep with a beer in hand in front of the tube watching scenes
from the siege of Khesanh flicker across the screen in full color. It
was a sorry-ass state of affairs, 1968, a sorry-ass year with sorry-ass
campaigns being run by a bunch of sorry-ass lamester politicians running
around saying a lot of sorry-ass shit  ...  a lot of sorryass shit about
the war. It was so pathetic, it was almost funny. Only a couple of years
before, in 1966, West Point was still a hook, a sure-thing name-drop for
a free drink at a bar, a comeon to a girl sitting next to you on a
plane. Now everything had changed. Down in New York, on June 26, 1968, a
rock group called the Velvet Underground would play a smoke-filled hole
of a club called the Plastic Exploding Inevitable. Fifty miles up the
Hudson, West Point was getting ready again for the first day of Beast
Barracks, a week away. The two places coexisted in a sphere so close to
splitting at the seams, only sex seemed to be holding things together.

The press had noticed as much and coined a neat but illusory headline,
"The Sexual Revolution," to describe, a carnivorousness between men and
women which said fucking was okay as an end in itself. No rules, no
court-and-spark, no nothing. Just strip and fuck. Anything goes.

Everywhere you looked, order was collapsing into chaos, but that wasn't
it, either. Everything was just turning casual, even sex. This was a
circumstance greeted by cadets with great enthusiasm. What did they have
to lose? Their virginity? Thank God West Point couldn't touch you while
you were on leave. And thank God for fucking. Irit Dov appeared in the
door of her bedroom carrying a wicker breakfast tray with toast and
coffee for two. She was wearing a light cotton robe, tied at the waist.

Her black hair fell past her shoulders, shadowing her face and her
breasts in the dim light. "Ry Slaight! Ry! Open your eyes! Wake up, you
lazy thing! It looks like midnight in here. Come. Take this tray from
me. I won't hold it forever." She had a mocking, teasing tone in her
voice, and she smiled widely as she appeared to berate him for napping
while she had been slaving in the kitchen over breakfast. It was this
way between them every morning. He wanted to sleep late, imagining he
was skipping reveille, getting away with breaking the rules. She wanted
to rush from bed to bath to street, as if they hadn't a moment to lose,
the city was getting away from them, the museums were closing, it would
all be over before she got him out of bed and out of the house. Usually,
they compromised, as they had this morning, Irit letting him nap while
she washed and fixed breakfast. Then she'd push him out the door and
into the park or wherever they were headed for the day. What they really
did was to make deals: I'll trade you one sleep-in for a visit to the
Metropolitan. Okay, I'll cook dinner tonight if we can go over to the
Five Spot and listen to jazz later. It's a deal. Theirs was a way of
life which a few years later would be called liberated, as if in
deal-making there was to be found some measure of freedom for both
parties. Irit Dov and Ry Slaight found not freedom but comfort. There
was a tension between them, for each was strongwilled, but they worked
out part of the tension in their constant bartering, trading of
experiences and duties. The rest of it they worked off in bed. "Sit up,
you sleepy fool! What do they call guys like you up there? Rackhounds! I
remember. Your friend Leroy, he is always calling you a rackhound. Well,
sit up, rackhound. Eat your breakfast. Drink your coffee. There is much
for us to do today!" Slaight grabbed the tray, and Irit eased herself
onto the bed next to him. He was awake but about one-third functional,
still worn out and hung over from three weeks riding around on wooden
benches in deuce-anda-half trucks, eating dust from the column ahead.

Day after day they listened to lectures on the wonders and miracles of
modern warfare--"the electronic battlefield," they were starting to call
it--then they'd mount up in the goddamn deuce-and-a-halfs and road-march
out to some godforsaken military reservation and watch firepower
demonstrations. Battalion-sized, elaborately staged, fully armed attacks
on undefended objectives, all these tracks and tanks and companies of
troops firing live ammunition, all tracers, blazing red and yellow
around dusk, with flame throwers and mo-gas explosions all over the
place, a goddamn firepower demonstration looked like ten Fourth of
July's all going off at once. The assembled West Point first class would
watch this incredibly expensive fireworks from bleachers on a nearby
hillside, then climb back in the duce-and-a-halfs and eat dust all the
way back to the post officers' club, where they'd pretend it had all
been for real and get good and stinking drunk. Three solid weeks of
trucks and dust and lectures and C-141s and formal balls and bullets and
booze. Slaight felt like someone had blowtorched his ears, then crawled
into his mouth and turned the flame down his throat. His tongue felt
like a small sandpile. His eyeballs felt like they'd gone 100,000 miles
without a lube job. '"Hey. Thanks." He managed to get the words out
before Irit stuffed a piece of buttered toast and jam into his mouth and
handed him a steaming cup of black coffee. He munched his toast and
sipped his coffee and looked over at the woman sitting next to him on
the bed. She sat there watching him like she was making sure he got it
all down, he was sick and she was taking care of him. There it was
again. All that niceness. Like she knew what kind of bullshit
of-goofing-half-stepping nonsense the Firstie Trip had been, but of
course she didn't. She was just sitting there eyeballing him
possessively. It was the first time they'd been together since before
Slaight started walking the area in the beginning of May. Made him
nervous, the way she sat there, not eating her breakfast, just watching
him like that. Nervous and  ...  wanted. Slaight sipped his coffee. Irit
Dov waited. She was tall, about 5'8" in her bare feet. And she was dark,
swarthy the way an Arab is dark. Her skin had the tawny permanent tan of
Semitic peoples, whose heritage lay in the desert sun where she came
from: Israel. She was a sabra Israeli, born and raised there, with a
family heritage traceable to biblical times, to the Promised Land. It
was part of what made Slaight nervous. She had this  ...  presence, this
...  confidence Slaight wasn't used to finding in women, not the college
girls he'd gone out with, not the East Side foxes he'd met over the last
few years. Irit Dov had class. You could see it in her face. Her
cheekbones were wide-set like an American Indian's. Her nose was narrow,
aquiline, her nostrils thin elegant slits. It was pronounced, a sturdy
angular structure around which the rest of her face settled naturally.

Her wide dark face was the most prominent feature of Irit Dov's body,
which was equally bony and angular. She had the shoulders of a swimmer,
the flat tummy of an athlete, and a real honest-to-God bosoms, full and
round, not like the flat chests of stewardesses and models. She had wide
padded hips, long legs, tiny feet. But what was striking about her,
striking in a strange foreign way, were her fingers. Her hands were
narrow, the width of her wrists, and her fingers were long and skinny,
interrupted by knuckles protruding noticeably, like burls. Her fingers
were patrician; they said inbreeding somewhere in the distant past. They
reminded Slaight of his grandmother's hands and fingers  ...  those of
an old Virginia gentlewoman. Irit Dov knew about her hands. She kept
long elegant fingernails. She painted them in tones of dark red.

Burgundy. Her nails drew attention to her eyes, for she was always
glancing down at them, and one's eyes naturally followed hers to the
nails, then back up to her eyes. Her eyes were black, like her hair, and
unflinching. She was an extraordinarily good-looking woman. Even in New
York City, she stood out in a crowd. Up at West Point, on Ry Slaight's
arm, she was just plain famous. "Ry, let's make love," said Irit Dov as
Slaight took his last sip of coffee. He looked at her face. It was dark,
hawkish, shrouded in her long black hair. "Now?" he asked. "I thought
you wanted to get me out of here." "Shut up, you silly boy," she said,
taking the breakfast tray and placing it on the floor next to the bed.

She was three-years older than Slaight, a world-wise twenty-four, and
for this reason she often called him "boy." It was a term of endearment,
but it made Slaight nervous. His father used to call him "boy" all the
time. Now he didn't call him much of anything any more; Ry, when he had
to get his attention at home, but most of the time his father was quiet
around him. It was like his son wasn't "boy" any more, symbolizing, the
estrangement of father and son which comes when a boy leaves home and
returns a de facto man, though down deep inside, each knew the
parameters of "man," and Slaight was still a boy. But Slaight could
never bring himself to just walk up and say, hey. Dad, you can go ahead
and keep calling me boy if you want  ...  it's been like my nickname for
years, you know? Just as he couldn't bring himself to ask Irit to stop
calling him "boy," it made him nervous and reminded him of this thing
with his dad and all. "Come, you lazy boy. Make love to me." Irit lay
back on the bed and pulled him toward her. With her left hand, she
reached down and tugged her robe. It fell open. Her body was the color
of cedar shakes a couple of years old, a weatherbeaten light brown,
special, unique  ...  and it was that color all over, from her face to
her toes  ...  her breasts were that lovely cedar-shake brown, like
she'd been sunbathing, in the nude, but she hadn't; it was just her
color, it was like something in the air you could breathe, an odor that
got you high. She moved nearer to him and waited, coming on, her feet
creeping over his, digging at him with her toes, tightening a grip
around one of his calves with her ankles under the covers, Slaight still
leaning on one elbow watching her  ...  amazing fuckin' woman, goddamn
amazing woman, tall and raunchy and gutsy and brown and foreign and so
fuckin' beautiful, so goddamn sexy. "You want me to do your breathing
and your shoulders?" he asked, leaning over her and staring down at her
eyes. "Yes, Ry. Please. Do my breathing, you do it so nicely ..." She
may as well forget about getting out of here before noon. "Doing
breathing" was something they did to one another; it had just come along
naturally, like kissing, a part of making love necessary because both of
them were so goddamn tense all the time, Irit because of her boutique, a
little place on Madison specializing in Israeli fashion, most of it her
designs, and Slaight  ... well, he was tense pretty much 100 percent of
the time. It was part of being West Point, part of being gray. Slaight
sat up, reached under her arms, and yanked her upright" angling her body
across the bed diagonally, feet in one corner, head and shoulders up
near the other. He crossed his legs and sat at her head, looking down.

She was watching him, her big black eyes staring straight up, a quiet,
satisfied smile on her face. It occurred to Slaight that she'd had this
in mind all morning, puttering away out there in the kitchen, humming
and planning and working up her juices ... He placed his left hand flat
in the middle of her bare chest, palm on her breastbone, fingers
touching her diaphragm, then he placed his right hand on top of it,
interlocking his fingers. "Breathe," he said. Irit took a deep breath
and exhaled. Slaight pressed down with the exhalation of air, letting up
when he felt her taking another breath. "Let me hear you. Breathe," he
said again. This time the exhalation came in a rush of air, an audible
sigh, and it was deeper, more air was coming out. Slaight pressed down.

Let up. Breathe. Press down. Let up. Breathe. Press down. Aaaaahhhhhh.

Let up. Breathe. Press down. Aaaaahhhh. "Let me hear you. It's fading,"
he said as Irit inhaled. She nodded. Aaaaaahhhh! This time the
exhalation came  ...  looser  ...  Slaight felt his hands go down deeper
into her chest, and he knew she'd released some of the diaphragmatic
musculature with which the body actually takes in and holds air inside
the lungs. Breathe. Press down. Aaaaaahhhhhh! Deeper again, her chest
was caving now, curving inward, feeling like a sponge beneath his hands,
a wet pliant sponge soaking up air and squeezing it out. Breathe. Press
down. Aaaaaaahhhhh! Jesus. There it went. That terminal sigh, a
distinctive sound which signaled she'd finally let go, relaxed, crumbled
under the pressing and the breathing and the pressing and the breathing
...  a hypnotic wavelike rhythm  ...  pressing and breathing and
pressing and breathing and finally letting go, limp, noodley, soggy with
total release. Her eyes were closed and she was still breathing deeply,
regularly, a steady rush of air in and out, in and out  ...  her long
fingers curled slightly with each breath, an involuntary reaction of the
central nervous system Slaight had noticed some time back. Christ, he
couldn't even remember when they'd started doing this weird shit. He
glanced over at the clock radio. It had been thirty minutes since they
started the pressing and breathing, pressing and breathing  ...  time
just flew, there wasn't any time, really, just this strange hypnotic
flow, as trancelike for Slaight as it was for Irit ... He stopped
pressing and massaged the muscles of her chest above her breasts, the
pectorals. They were tight, knotted. She breathed. Slaight massaged  ...
in a moment they relaxed, soggy. He let his hands slide sideways over
her arms, under her arms, and lifting slightly, he slipped them beneath
her back, placing the forefinger and middle finger of each hand on
either side of her backbone. Now he lifted when she exhaled, shoving the
air out of her lungs from below. With each breath, he slipped his
fingers up her backbone toward her neck, inch by inch. He let his hands
come up around the sides of her neck, leaving his fingertips on her
backbone, disappearing now into her skull. With his thumbs he massaged
the sides of her neck, digging around in the tendons gently, rubbing,
rubbing, rubbing until he felt the neck muscles begin to go. Then he
slid his hands up to her chin, gripping her head with fingers at the
base of her neck, thumbs under her chin, running down along these two
strong muscles on either side  ...  and he pulled, gripping the head
tightly, he pulled and pulled, keeping the tension between her head,
which he held in his hands, and her body, which resisted the pulling
with friction against the sheets  ...  he pulled and pulled gently but
surely until he saw the neck release and actually elongate slightly,
neck muscles letting go, her shoulders slumping as he released her neck
and ran his hands down across her clavicle, his fingers up under her
back again, pulling up on. the shoulders this time, pulling and
massaging at once, keeping at it, kneading and pulling and lifting and
moving his hands ever so slowly toward her neck again, slipping them
under the neck, fingers kneading the edges of her backbone, then holding
with the thumbs and the fingers and pulling again, pulling the head away
from the shoulders, and this time the neck let go immediately, a quick
extension, like a turtle easing out of his shell for a look-see  ... and
he kept it up, kneading and lifting and pulling, pausing every once in a
while when he noticed her breathing begin to fade, pressing down on the
chest again to restart the breathing, pressing down, aaaaahhhhh! easing
up and pressing down, aaaaaahhhh! and pressing down  ...  that rhythm
again, just going on forever and ever, the gentle give and take of hands
and skin and muscles and bone and tendon and fingers in her hair and the
sound of her breath aaaaaahhhhh! coming up at him like a fountain, a
fountain of pleasure and release. Jesus. He was trying to think how this
business got started, but the tendency was not to think, the tendency
was to breathe and listen and breathe and listen and breathe and listen,
listen to her, watch her, until finally his own eyes were closed and
everything was happening involuntarily and he was listening to his own
breath going in and out, in and out. "Hey. Ry." He opened his eyes. She
was staring up at him, naked except for the robe loose at her sides.

"Hey. You. I love you. Did you know that?"

"Yeah." He reached under her neck and pulled her to him, kissing. He
rolled forward on his right shoulder in a sideways somersault and came
up next to her. He threw his right arm across her shoulders and pulled
her to him again, pressing his chest against her breasts. They
flattened. He kissed her on the neck. It was damp and smelled of soap.

He took her lips in his and chewed gently.

Her tongue darted in and out of his mouth. It was sharply pointed and
rough, like a cat's. He nibbled her tongue, nibbled her lips, thrust his
tongue into her mouth. She drank it in like it was fluid, sucking,
pulling on his tongue and rubbing that catlike tongue of hers against
it. One thing you could say about Irit Dov. Here was a woman who liked
to kiss. Jesus, she'd lie here and kiss for goddamn hours, chewing and
tonguing and dribbling all over her cheeks and the pillows ... He eased
himself up on the bed, rubbing against her body, feeling her breasts hit
the hollows beneath his ribs. His stomach tightened, sucking air
sharply. She burrowed her head in his chest, licking that soft spot on
his throat, below his Adam's apple, licking and sucking on the skin and
wetting down his neck from throat to breastbone. He wrapped his arms
around her head and buried his face in her hair. "Irit. You fox. You
smell so goddamn good." She sucked, he felt her breath rushing across
his wet throat, cold  ...  chilling the place she'd kissed. The sound
...  phffffffft  ...  the sensation of her breath on his neck sent
little jolts of pleasure across his stomach and down his thighs, through
nerves just beneath the surface of his skin, his feet stiffening, toes
pointing, feeling like some kind of wind was going to come blasting out
of the bottoms of both feet, blowing away the quilt, rustling the
curtains across the room, he felt ...  Jesus  ... so goddamn  ... Christ
...  fine  ...  She gasped, threw back her head, and kissed him on the
mouth. "Ry," she whispered. "Yeah."

"Take off my robe." He pulled it over one shoulder, she rocked to the
side, pulled it from the other, and the robe was off. She spread-eagled
atop the satin quilt, naked.

Sunlight from the living room came down the hall, diffused through the
open bedroom door, broke shadows across her bosoms, bathing them in a
strange white glow. Slaight rose up on his hands and knees, sank his
tongue into her belly button, circling it, jabbing, slurping liquid
gulps of air. She jerked, pulling up her knees, holding on to her ankles
with both hands, giggling in a hoarse whisper. Slaight tongued away at
her belly button, one hand on each breast. "Stop that, you devil!" she
yelled aloud when she couldn't take it any more. "You're tickling me!"
"I know it," he said, leaning back on his haunches grinning. "Come
here," she beckoned. Her nipples were erect with passion. "Look at those
little troopers," said Slaight, pointing. "Standing at attention, hey."

He laughed. "You come here, my American boyfriend," said Irit Dov,
feigning seriousness. That was another thing she called him, my American
boyfriend, like she had them on three continents, which she probably
did. Pissed him off. He felt like he filled only part of her life, and
he wanted it all. Made him defensive. The grin dropped from his mouth
and he crossed his arms, rocking silently from side to side, gazing
across the room. They'd been together a little over a year, as together
as West Point would allow, anyway, and he guessed they were in love.

Whatever "love" was by June 1968, after the "summer of love" and the
"love generation" and all that shit. It seemed to Slaight their life
together was fragile, a balloon they batted in the air between them,
hoping it would not burst. They had never ventured inside the balloon,
for that would have meant a commitment. Ry Slaight and Irit Dov were
each other's best fans. An invisible distance separated them, over which
neither of them seemed to have control. Like performer and audience, the
two were separated by youthful obsessions: words and sex. By 1968,
talking and fucking were supposed to be easy. Events had conspired to
create an illusion of freedom. Where once had loomed a pile of
time-consuming groping and clumsiness, there was now a convenient social
short cut, symbolized by the first night they met. They just went home
to Irit's bedroom and climbed in bed and fucked. Everything had to
happen quickly. It seemed like neither one of them had a thing to lose.

What a bunch of crap! Here was Slaight, threatened by the notion Irit
was just toying with him, keeping him as her New York lover as she moved
between Tel Aviv, Paris, and the United States. And there she was, this
girl who'd been so stung by the fast-paced scene within which she had to
move in the fashion business. By the time Slaight met her she was like
steel twice tempered. As a kid, he had ruined the blade of a hunting
knife one night by heating it in a campfire and plunging it into a
canteen cup of water, watching the fast boil and the disappearing red
glow of the steel, over and over. The blade never again held an edge.

Twice tempered, the steel had lost its hardness. That was the way Irit
Dov had been when Slaight met her. She'd been clobbered by somebody. He
knew he would have to treat her gently, because nobody else had. Irit
moved, wrapped her arms around his waist, rested her head in his lap,
and looked up at him. He looked down, into her eyes, mad because the
spell had been broken between them, but glad because he'd made up his
mind. He took her head in his hands and pulled her tightly against his
stomach. "Hey, Irit," he said. "Yes, Ry?" She looked at him, perplexed.

"I love you, you know that?"

"Yes, I know, you silly boy."

"Come on.

Knock off the silly boy crap. I love you, goddammit. You understand what
I'm telling you?"

"Of course. You love me. I understand that. You've told me before. This
is not the first time we've made love." She smiled.

"I love you, too. What is bothering you, Ry?"

"Nothing's bothering me. I just want to get something straight, you know
what I mean? I want to tell you  ... for some reason, I just feel this
incredible urge to tell you how much  ...  how much I fuckin' love you,
Irit. It's like this thing I've been bottling up inside me, like
something I've been holding back. I love you. I mean, I love you. I want
to be your guy, you know? I want you to fee! like you can count on me,
you know  ...  depend on me if you need to. Jesus. I feel like some kind
of schmuck, gushing like this. I don't want to embarrass you."

"You don't embarrass me, Ry. It's wonderful, what you're saying  ..."

"I don't know. Int. I guess I'm just scared."

"Scared? Scared of what?"

"Like scared something's going to happen, and you won't  ...  know. You
won't know how I felt. You won't know I really love you. We've been real
tight, you and me. Int. But I don't know  ...  right now I just feel
extra close to you, like there's some invisible connection between us.

Listening to your breathing this morning, watching your chest rise an
fall  ...  Jesus, it's weird, you know."

"Yes, Ry. I think I know."

"I wrote this pqem once. I ever tell you about it? Wrote it when I was a
plebe, for my roommate. It was his girl friend's birthday, and he wanted
something special to send her, he wanted to send her a poem, but he just
couldn't write one that said what he wanted it to say. So I told him I'd
write one, and I did. So there I was, sitting in my room at West Point,
writing a love poem to this imaginary girl I didn't know. It was strange
...  three years ago  ... but I still remember one of the lines. It
said, about love I mean, it said, "I want to  ...  give in to its
ceaseless attack." I didn't know the girl, of course. Didn't know what
in hell love was either. But that image of it attacking, I guess it
stuck with me. I've always thought of love as some kind of warfare,
something you're always trying to win.

Know what I mean?" Irit tightened her grip around Slaight's waist, and
he could feel her nails dig into his flesh. "Yes," she whispered softly.

"Yes. I know exactly what you mean."

"Well, goddammit. I don't want to win any more. I'm giving up. I
surrender. You got that?"

"Yes, I  ..."

"I just want you to drink every goddamn minute we've got together, Irit.

I want to feed you. I want to nourish you. I want to love you so goddamn
much  ...  Jesus, Irit. I don't know what else to say."

"Don't say anything." She pulled Slaight over, her arms wrapped around
the small of his back, nails dug into his flesh. "Just love me. I do
need you, Ry. I need you." Slaight unfolded, and he was on top of her,
his penis between her legs, he was inside her, and it was sticky wet
warm squishy. A fetid compost of sweat and the juices of the genitalia
settled over them like a soft sheet. He moved his buttocks slowly, back
and forth, back and forth, feeling his way in her vagina. She looped her
arms beneath his, holding him close to her, their heads touched, and
each could hear the quick breathing of the other. Beneath him, she moved
from side to side, up and down, up and down, writhing, tightening and
loosening her legs, raising her knees, then thrusting both down against
the bed with a soft thump. They stayed like that for a long time, then
rolled over, and she was on top of him. He looked up. She was bolt
upright on her knees, rising and falling with her breaths, regular,
deep, penetrating the air between them, her breathing almost  ...
visible. He took her breasts in his hands and kneaded her nipples
gently, squeezing them between his thumb and forefinger, tighter,
tighter, rolling the nipples back and forth, pinching and kneading,
holding the weight of her body with her breasts as she leaned forward
eagerly. He let go. She fell against his chest, grabbing the back of his
head, holding tightly. A moist sucking noise, like the sound of water
against the pilings of a pier, could be heard between their wet, sweaty
stomachs. The noise quickened the pace.

He moved faster, more boldly against her pelvis. She released her grip
on his head and flopped to the side, pulling him over on top of her with
her knees. He stiffened his arms on the pillow, looking down at her
face. It was wide, and her cheekbones were highlighted in the shadows
from the open door. "Ry," she said softly. "Love me." A tiny gasp of
passion separated each word. He closed his eyes. An image formed. He
could see her face, she was mouthing the words, Ry  ...  love me  ...
soundlessly, in a vacuum. In his mind, it was as if she were yelling the
words at him, screaming. But there was no sound, only her breathing,
regular and deep and fast. He opened his eyes, working with the motions
of her pelvis. The head of his penis found the top of her vagina and
stayed there, moving against a small, uneven area, the size of a half
dollar. It was a membrane just beneath her pubic bone, where her hymen
had once been. He knew. He'd gone down there and looked around, studying
her vaginal area. It was beautiful, and he had told her so, embarrassing
her in the shower one morning. The water was beating down on them, and
he was on his knees, splitting her labia, peering  ...  inside. He hated
the word clitoris, so he called hers "boodle," an affectionate nickname
she thought hilarious when she learned that it was cadet slang for
candy. The membrane in her vagina was ultra-sensitive, and he moved back
and forth against it with inch-long thrusts. Again he heard her: "Ry ...
my  ...  love  ...  I  ..." She stuttered now, her accent thickened, her
voice finding a frantic pitch. Her breath came last against his cheek,
and he moved deeper within her, sliding slowly until his pubis reached
hers, the fleshy area just above his penis beating against the folds of
skin covering her boodle. He clutched her, pounding his body against
hers, letting go. She bucked, throwing him forward, her face contorted,
wrinkled vertically, tiny folds of skin in a curtain across her
forehead, her eyes tightly closed. It flashed through his mind that
whatever ('( was, love, it was happening, sex, love, whatever  ...  the
word love stuck in his mind stubbornly as he came in several brief,
almost painful bursts of pleasure, driving heat to the base of his neck,
tightening the muscles in his calves, rattling his toes. She clutched
his balls with one hand and pushed her entire torso upward, a back bend
from shoulders to feet, shaking, quivering, as they were joined, hinged
at the hips. He raised his head. He looked at her. Then he realized. She
hadn't held her breath. Always before, she'd grimaced and hold her
breath. Now her breathing came as it had for the past  ...  how many
minutes  ...  for how long had they been at it? They settled easily into
one another's arms and lay silently. With her left hand, Irit reached
over and pulled the linen pillow between her breasts, closing her eyes.

The bed was a total mess. He straightened the sheet, folding the quilt
across their shoulders. He rested, watching Irit Dov, breasts engorged
with blood, reddish, nipples still partially erect. Jesus. Her breathing
sloped into even distant quiescence, and he leaned against the pillow.

They would nap for an hour. When they awoke, she'd tease him for
"neating up" the bed, straightening it. He'd grab her by her black hair
and kiss her on the mouth to shut her up. That was what they did:

teasing and jiving and tossing, riding the tension. He glanced over at
the clock radio, glowing in the dim light. It was 12:30. They'd been at
each other for just over three hours, not unusual, except for the weird
rap he blurted. Slaight crossed his hands behind his head. Already
asleep beneath the gray canopy of satin, Irit seemed delicate,
vulnerable. He watched her. For the first time he was afraid to drop
off, afraid he'd roll over, swing an arm, and break her. Christ! ISO
pounds, dripping wet! What fuckin' nonsense is this? But he sensed
things would be different now between him and Irit Dov. He smelled it
...  didn't have the slightest notion how things'd change  ...  wha's
gonna happen  ...  he slept. By the summer of 1968, Irit Dov had
achieved a measure of success unusual for a woman twice her age. She was
a Madison Avenue boutique owner with a growing sideline in fashion
design. She was part-owner of a factory in Israel producing two
seasons--fall and spring--of ready-to-wear sports clothes for women. The
best of her fall line, full skirts and blouse-over tops for evening in
desert beiges and Mediterranean pale blues, had recently been featured
in a six-page color spread in the American fashion magazine Vogue, in a
section called

"Around the World with Vogue." The French magazine Elle had in December
of 1967 named Irit Dov one of the year's "top new designers on the
international scene." The boutique page in Women's Wear called her "one
of this year's exciting young things--a girl with verve, a girl to
watch!" She sold most of her designs through two boutiques in Tel Aviv
and in her tiny shop on New York's Madison Avenue, but as she picked up
publicity, she was beginning to get small orders from stores like Saks,
Bloomingdale's, and Neiman-Marcus. Irit Dove was doing a million
dollars' gross business in 1968, of which she would personally realize
about $100,000. Irit Dov, at twenty-four, was a woman of means.

It figured. It was in her blood  ...  and in her bank account. She had
been financed four years previously-- enough to open her first shop in
Tel Aviv--by her grandfather, Shiomo Dov, an Israeli diamond merchant
who was one of the Two Hundred, a select group of men who once every
month received from the Johannesburgbased De Beers Consolidated Mines
Ltd. a small black leather case containing maybe $1 million, maybe $5
million--maybe more, depending on the year--in uncut diamonds. Shiomo
Dov had a business on Forty-seventh Street in New York, in a
second-floor loft above a block teeming with men in black suits carrying
black satchels from one side of the street to the other, an endless
stream buying and selling an endless stream of the world's hardest, most
secure currency, the diamond. Shiomo Dov bought his diamonds from De
Beers at the price asked, without even opening the black leather case.

It was the way of the diamond trade. De Beers owned the diamonds, and De
Beers owned their pricing. He dealt some of the diamonds he bought from
De Beers in Antwerp, Belgium, on the diamond exchange, uncut. Others he
kept for his own business. In Tel Aviv the diamonds were broken down,
graded by experts in his employ, and Shiomo Dov always had the last word
about a stone, no matter how small. The diamonds were cut in a large
loft in a warehouse district of Tel Aviv. From Israel, Shiomo Dov's
diamonds were hand-carried in black satchels to London, Antwerp, New
York. Some ended up on West Forty-seventh Street, where they were sold
without the haggling and bickering characteristic of the diamond
business. Shiomo Dov's diamonds were purchased at the price asked,
because everyone knew he was one of the Two Hundred. He dealt
first-quality merchandise, no matter where his diamonds were "pointed"

on the grading scale, whether they were "melees," small stones of a
carat or less, or "sizes," larger, expensive gems. Shiomo Dov was a man
of respect. His son, Avi, short for Abraham, was a general in the
Israeli army, commander of a tank ugda (task force) stationed along the
north-south border between Israel and Jordan. As a young man, in 1946,
he had joined the Palmach, the guerrilla strike force of the Haganah,
the illegal Jewish militia in British-occupied Palestine. After British
withdrawal in 1948, Avi Dov had been a platoon commander in the Palmach,
which became the commando arm of the Jewish army. The full-time Israeli
army was small, only about twelve thousand men, not including draftees.

By 1968, most of the men who called the army a career had fought
together in four major wars: the guerrilla campaigns against the British
and Arabs during the years 1946, 1947, and 1948; Israel's War of
Independence; the Suez Campaign of 1956; and the Six-Day War of 1967.

The Israeli generals knew each other well. Avi Dov was perhaps better
known than most. He had been among the founders of the famed "101
Battalion," which during the early 1950s had made antiterrorist raids
across the Israeljordan border in response to Arab terrorist activities
within Israel. There were those among Israel's enemies--and some among
Israel's friends--who had accused the 101 Battalion of terrorism. Some
of its raids had resulted in documented deaths of Jordanian women and
children. But the 101 Battalion's daring raids had helped to make Avi
Dov's reputation. When he transferred in 1956 to Israel's armor branch,
he turned himself into an overnight legend when he devised an
eerie--some said cruel--initiation rite for young Israeli armor
lieutenants. The lieutenant would stand atop an old discarded tank body.

The tank would be doused with diesel fuel and set ablaze. The lieutenant
would be required to recite his oath of allegiance atop the burning tank
before he was allowed to jump through the flames to the ground. Irit Dov
was among those who thought her father cruel. Though she had served her
requisite duty as a teenager in the Israeli army, she was one of a
growing number of young Israeli citizens who had problems with Israel's
reputation in the world as a mini-superpower, obsessed with military
might, competing--or so it seemed--with the Great Powers themselves for
domination of the Middle East. Although Irit comfortably embraced the
socialism of Israel's ruling Labor party, she had accused her father of
"imperialism" once or twice when she heard him talking with army friends
of their designs on the Jordanian west bank of the Jordan River, and on
the Sinai, the great expanse of desert which separated the southern
border of Israel from the strategic Suez Canal. Then came June 1967, and
all her doubts became academic. The West Bank and the Sinai were now
part of Israel. It came as no surprise to either Avi Dov or his wife,
Daphna, when their daughter at age nineteen used money borrowed from her
grandfather to open her first boutique on Tel Aviv's busy Deitzengof
Street. Nor was it much of a surprise, four years later, when Irit was
named in the influential Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz as "one of Israel's
jet-setters, one of our citizens who has made the world her market
place." Their daughter was a citizen, but as she paid the eight hundred
dollars for an exit visa from Israel and boarded planes at Lod Airport a
dozen times a year, it was clear to the Dovs that their daughter had
become a citizen of the world. She spent more time outside
Israel--specifically, in the United States--than she did in the country
of her birth. She was sabra, but by 1968, it seemed as if a new Jewish
history, a new two thousand years, was beginning for people like their
daughter. It made them sad. Though General Dov agreed with Moshe Dayan's
military doctrine--"to exorcise Jewish cleverness from Israeli strategy
and tactics"--he longed for an Israel in which there were no political
disputes as he had with his daughter, as he had occasionally with fellow
army officers. It was part of General Dov's gut conservatism that he
often ended speeches to his troops with the words: "We must not forget
that first, we are Jews. Second, we are soldiers." Irit Dov had two
penthouses--the one on Madison and East Eighty-second Street, in New
York, and a small studio apartment atop a building on Hayarkon Street,
overlooking a stretch of beach between two large Tel Aviv hotels. She
called them "my bird nests," because they were both located high above
surrounding buildings, and because she thought of herself as a "bird,"
the slang word from Britain used to describe a new breed of fast-moving
international woman, the model Jean Shrimpton, the actress Julie
Christie, the singer Marianne Faithful. She liked to think she designed
clothes for "birds." They clung loosely to the body, flowing easily as
one walked. Her clothes were unlike the tight, tailored, body armor of
other contemporary designers. Irit's clothes were soft, feminine,
vulnerable like a second skin. Even her fabrics had a birdlike quality.

They were featherlight tight-weave cottons and smooth challis wools. It
took a special, hip woman to wear Irit's clothes. It took a "bird." She
often visited museums--in Paris, the Louvre; in New York, the
Metropolitan--to find inspiration for her designs. She collected lines,
the movement of color in a painting, the way a musician collects riffs
from old, perhaps forgotten recordings. From sketches made in Paris--the
surrealists, cubists, impressionists--and in New York, the
Metropolitan's growing collection of Egyptian art, she gathered the
notions behind her designs. She watched American television, especially
"American Bandstand," and went to rock-and-roll concerts at the Fillmore
East, to capture a feel for what had become known as "funk." It was an
arduous process. She would sometimes spend hours standing before a
single painting, a single expanse of temple wall transplanted from Egypt
and erected within the walls of the Metropolitan, its paintings of
prehistoric scenes intact  ...  she'd just stand there, staring. Once a
director of the Metropolitan interrupted her as she stared at an
Egyptian piece late one afternoon, just before closing. He was a tall
distinguished man, and he had watched her in the museum before. This
day, he asked her if she wanted to have a drink with him across the
street at the bar of the Stanhope Hotel, and she accepted. Through him,
Irit Dov would gain access to collections of the museum which were not
yet open to the public. And on his arm in 1966 and 1967, she would
become acquainted with an exciting, glamorous crowd in New York City.

The museum director was one of those men who stood atop a unique
intersection where the worlds of money, art, and politics met. One
night, Irit Dov attended a party, to which she had been invited by the
museum director. Ry Slaight read about the party in the New York Times
and crashed. They met. It happened casually, quickly, and things seemed
to happen in those days. Slaight felt at loose ends in the swirling
laughter and bubble and swell of the party until he found a pool table
in a room just off the study. It was a large house on East
Seventy-second Street, overlooking the East River. The pool table,
scuffed and beat-up looking, seemed as out of place as Slaight. A guy
from Brooklyn in a gray fedora was playing all corners and beating them.

Slaight, who had spent more than his share of hours in the Snooker
Poolhall in downtown Leavenworth, played the man for twenty dollars and
won. He played again. Won another twenty. He played double-or-nothing
and lost. Then the man said, "Let's play for a yard, kid." Slaight
recognized the term from Mickey Spillane novels. It meant a hundred
dollars. He didn't have the money, but by now, he knew he could take the
man from Brooklyn, and he did. He was counting the tens and twenties,
wandering away from the pool table, when he heard a voice. "Ry Slaight?"
the voice asked. He couldn't place the accent. "Ry Slaight?" the voice
asked again. "Is that your name, Ry Slaight? That's a funny name. Is it
Jewish?" Slaight turned. The woman with the voice was dressed in black
pants, black blouse, black suede heels. Around her neck hung a thin gold
chain. It hung over her bosom and dangled at waist level. It was a long,
elegant chain, meant to catch the eye. It did. Slaight looked at her
face. It was dark, swarthy, beautiful, shrouded in long black hair. "No.

It's not Jewish. It's Kansas," said Slaight. She laughed, unblinking,
her eyes not leaving his. "You're a funny guy," the woman said, placing
her arm through his. Slaight's right hand was stuck in his pants pocket.

His left hand was covered with baby powder, from shooting pool. He was
looking for the bathroom, to wash up. The woman pointed. "Over there.

When you come out, get me a drink. I will have what you are drinking, Ry
Slaight." He closed the door and washed up. How the fuck does she know
my name? He ran hot water. Must have been watching the pool game. She's
a weird one. Foreign. Smells  ...  musky  ...  like the woods. It was. a
strange odor. Dark, like the woman. When he opened the bathroom door,
she was standing where he'd left her. She slipped her hand around his
arm. He pulled two beers from a bucket of ice at the bar, opened them,
and reached for glasses. "I will drink mine from the bottle," said the
woman.. Slaight handed her the beer. It was one of the expensive brands,
from Holland. They sipped the beers. "This place is hot. Or is it just
me?" he asked, searching for something to talk about. The woman laughed,
a rough, attractive chuckle. He felt wetness at his underarms, sweat
running in a slow river down his back. A hundred-dollar game of pool was
like  ...  well, it was just a bit over his head, when it came right
down to it, especially since he didn't have the scratch to cover, if
he'd lost. He wondered if the woman could smell him. He probably stank
to high heaven. "What's your name?" he asked. "My name is Irit Dov,"
said the woman. She spoke crisply, with that weird accent. "Is it
Jewish, your name?" He smiled, embarrassed. He was reversing his
sentences, something he did when he was tired. The woman laughed, sipped
her beer, leaving a thin film of dark red lipstick on the green neck of
the bottle. "Yes. I am an Israeli."

"Can't get much more Jewish than that, I guess," said Slaight. "Are you
really from Kansas?" she asked.

"Yeah. From Leavenworth."

"I guess you can't get much more Kansas than that," said the woman. They
both laughed and walked over to the window overlooking the river. "And
you are here in New York on business?" Ohoh, thought Slaight. Here it
comes. "No. I go to school near here." The dodge. "And where do you go
to school?" "West Point," said Slaight, looking across the river at the
lights of Queens. "Ah," said the woman.

"We have a place similar to West Point in my country. In Israel,
everyone serves in the army. I am a corporal in the women's reserves."

Slaight swiveled and looked at the woman. She smiled, revealing tall
straight teeth. "You were expecting a lecture about your military?" she
asked rhetorically. "I am an Israeli. My father is a general, commanding
tanks on the border with Jordan. I have no love of the military. In
Israel, the army is something with which we all must live. Here  ..."

She gestured about the room where the party showed no signs of ebbing at
1 a.m. "Here things are different. But I can see you know this. You do
not belong here." She said it matter-of-factly, and Slaight didn't know
what to say, so he said nothing. "You learned to play the game pool in
your town in Kansas?"

"Yeah. I used to play a lot. I don't play much any more." "You play
well," she said, touching his arm with her fingers, tipped by nails the
color of her lips. It occurred to Slaight that the woman was coming on
to him, but he thrust the thought aside. Jesus, the fuckin' guys in the
barracks are never going to believe this one. "You told the man in the
white hat with whom you played pool you were staying in a hotel on
Eleventh Street," she said. "Yeah."

"Come. You needn't stay in this hotel. I have room for you." They took a
cab back to her place, had a drink, climbed in bed, and fucked. It made
a strange kind of sense. She was lying there on this incredible bed in
the soft yellow light from a lamp across the room, saying  ...  fuck me
...  fuck me ...  fuck me  ...  fuck me  ...  fuck me  ...  over and
over again. And he was up there humping away, just like the code among
cadets said you were supposed to, humping and humping and sweating, and
he'd copped the ultimate good deal, bed, board, and body for a weekend
leave. Jesus, there wasn't anything more fuckin' gray-hog than this. In
the early hours of the morning they lay in each other's arms. She was
sleeping, but Slaight  ...  he couldn't sleep for some goddamn reason.

Couldn't get it out of his head that there was something  ...  missing
... something  ... wrong ...  What she was chanting was right. It wasn't
love-making, it was fucking. First time he thought about the difference.

They'd rushed ahea'd, reaching desperately for some imaginary edge which
just hadn't been there. They coupled like headlights of oncoming cars,
passing each other in darkness at speed. The whole thing, the whole
night, passed under them like a flat stretch of two-lane blacktop back
home, white lines nickering. Gone. The clock radio read 1:30 p.m. when
the phone rang. Jesus. First day of leave, and the day's already half
gone. Irit rumbled on the floor, found the receiver. Her voice was
husky, scratchy from sleep and sex. "Hello? Hello?"

"Mr. Slaight, please. General Hedges is calling." Irit reached over and
shook him.

Slaight was facing the other direction, trying to ignore the ringing
phone. "Ry, it's for you. Some woman. She says a general is calling for
you. Someone called Hedges."

"Jesus. Hedges. Give me the phone." He sat up straight and took the
receiver. First day of leave, now this ... "Mr. Slaight speaking, sir."

The approved cadet telephone procedure. Say "sir" whether it's a woman
or not. Never can tell. "Mr. Slaight. Just one moment, please. General
Hedges is on the other line. I'll get him." Slaight waited, shifted the
receiver to his other ear, covered the mouthpiece. "Get me a glass of
water, will you, Irit? My throat feels like  ..."

"Mr. Slaight. General Hedges. How are you, young man?"

"Fine, sir."

"My secretary traced you through your leave form, on file with your
regiment. I hope I'm not disturbing you, Mr. Slaight."

"No sir.

No sir. No problem, sir." Slaight pulled the quilt over his naked form
against the chill from the air conditioner. Irit handed Turn the water,
and he took a sip. "Fine. Damn fine, mister. That's what I like to hear.

Listen to me now, Mr. Slaight. Can you hear me clearly?"

"Yessir.

Clearly, sir."

"Something's come up. I need you up here. Right away.

This afternoon. You understand me, Slaight?"

"Yessir."

"We do not normally interfere with a cadet's leave time. You know that,
Slaight.

But this is different. We have a  ...  very serious situation on our
hands, Slaight. I need to see you  ...  today. Can you make it up here
before close of business this afternoon?"

"Yessir. I believe so, sir." Slaight remembered to say believe. He'd
been taught never to say, / think  ...  always to say  ...  / believe.

"Outstanding. Damn fine, Mr. Slaight. I knew I could depend on you. Oh.

Yes. You will be compensated for your lost leave time. I will personally
authorize an extra day of leave. Is that understood  ...  er  ...
agreeable?"

"Yessir." It was funny. The general's voice sounded official, but
informal  ...  relaxed.

There was a note in his voice  ...  Slaight couldn't place it. "What
time you think you can be here, Slaight?" Slaight glanced at the clock
radio. It was 1:35. Thirteen thirty-five, military clock lingo. "Sixteen
hundred, sir. I can be there by 1600." Four p.m. "Good enough, young
man. One more thing, Slaight. Wear your uniform. Khakis will do. Won't
be necessary to get into Sierra." Sierra. One day into leave, and
Slaight had almost forgotten the word. It meant the cadet summer dress
uniform, gray trousers, white dress shirt with epaulets  ...  Slaight
focused. "Yessir. Khakis, sir."

"Sixteen hundred, then."

"Yessir."

"Good man, Slaight. See you then." The phone clicked and went dead, the
long-distance line whizzing into silence. Straight flopped back on the
pillows, his forehead perspiring despite the air conditioner. "Who was
it, Ry?" asked Irit, looking sleepy and confused. "The commandant of
cadets. General Hedges, that's who. Jesus."

"What did he want?"

"He wants to see me in his office this afternoon up at West Point. I've
got to be there by four. You think we could drive up in your car?"

"Of course. If it's really necessary, Ry."

"Oh. It's necessary, all right.

When a goddamn general calls you personally on the telephone and tells
you to drive around to his office, it's goddamn necessary. Necessary!

Christ. What a grim note."

"What's the matter, Ry? Why does he want to see you?"

"He didn't say. It was all very official, but kind of  ... chatty,
almost. He was telling me to come up to his office, but he made it sound
like he was asking a favor. But he was insistent ...  no doubt it was an
order. Strange. A general kind of  ...  playing games that way."

"He didn't say why he wanted to see you?"

"No. But I think I know why." Slaight paused, staring across the room.

The drapes glowed from the midday sun. Irit touched his arm. Her hand
was cold, icy from holding the glass of water. "Remember that plebe I
told you about? The one they found floating up in lake Popolopen in May,
drowned?"

"Yes. You had known him."

"He was in my Beast squad last year."

"I remember."

"Well. He was murdered. I found out about the autopsy they did on the
kid."

"Murdered! Ry! You never told me that!" She recoiled, grabbing the edge
of the quilt. Slaight put his arm around her shoulder. "Yeah. I know. I
was walking the area when I found out, then I went on the Firstie Trip
...  I didn't want to get into a thing with you about it over the phone,
Irit." Slaight paused again. That wasn't it, at all.

He'd told her this much  ...  he was going to have to tell her
everything. "Truth is, Irit  ..." He paused, breathing deeply. "It was
like, you know, one of those West Point things, you know?" He watched
her face. No sign of recognition. "What can I tell you? What I mean is
..." he was fumbling for words. "What I mean is  ...  it was between me
and Leroy Buck. This major told me about it, a doctor, a guy I've known
since I was a plebe. He did the autopsy. He asked me not to talk to
anyone about it. Of course I  ...  of course I told Leroy. You know.

He's my roommate." Irit nodded. "I didn't figure you needed to know. I
figured the whole thing would be investigated, and it would all come
out, you'd find out  ...  soon enough. I should have told you, Irit.

Jesus. I'm sorry." Slaight looked down at his feet. There he was  ...
holding back  ...  always holding back  ...  seemed like all he did was
hold back from this woman he loved. Now she'd gotten involved  ...  she
didn't deserve being treated like this. He was ashamed. He felt her hand
on his arm again. "I understand, Ry." He looked at her. She did, goddamn
her! "So tell me," she said, "why do you think the general--what is his
name?--why do you think this commander wants to see you?"

"The commandant. General Hedges. A real cool one, Hedges. Stainless
steel, that fuckin' guy. Cold."

"General Hedges. Yes?" She was prodding him.

"Well, he probably wants to talk to me about the kid, David Hand. Which
means one thing: They got to the doctor."

"What do you mean, "They got to the doctor'?"

"They got to him, that's all. Found out he talked to me. I'm just
guessing, Irit. But this is bad news. Let's get up. We've got to hurry.

I got to get into my goddamn uniform, and I've got some calls to make
before I see Hedges. This is bad news, and it could get to be worse news
real quick."

In the office of the commandant of cadets. Brigadier General Charles
Sherrill Hedges replaced the telephone on its black cradle, tugged at
the knot in his tie, and looked at the man seated across the desk from
him. "Terry, you've done one hell of a job here," he said slowly,
leafing through a stack of papers on his desk.

"Thank you, sir," said Colonel Phineas Terrance King, Third Regimental
commander. "One hell of a job, Terry. This is more than I expected. Much
more." Hedges was quiet for a few moments as he glanced through the
report on David Hand he had requested of Colonel King a month ago. It
had taken two weeks longer than expected to arrive, but considering its
contents, the extra fourteen days had been worth the wait. Here was the
life of Cadet David Hand just as he wanted. He could see the kid, he
could feel him breathe, smell him. Terry King hadn't been conscientious,
he'd been obsessive. He hadn't missed a thread. This kid was laid as
bare as the day they fished him out of Popolopen. The report had
everything: friends, squad leaders, enemies. Aptitude Reports, 2-1's,
contacts with civilians. Only thing would have yielded any more data
than this would have been a wiretap on the kid's brain-- a direct
connection through his temples to his frontal lobe! This was ('(. "So
I've got this man Slaight coming this afternoon," said Hedges, without
looking up from the report. "Yessir," said King. "He's in the report a
couple of times, I believe."

"Terry." Hedges looked up. "Terry, I can't emphasize to you the
sensitivity of this thing. You've done an outstanding job here. Just
outstanding. And the job you've done only underscores what a damned
sensitive thing we've got here."

"Yessir."

"Cadet Slaight is due at 1600, Terry. I'm going to need the rest of the
afternoon to go over this report before he gets here. Won't be necessary
for you to be present when he reports."

"Yessir. I understand, sir."

"Now, let's get this thing straight. You've got Fitzgerald, the provost
marshal, under control. Is that correct?"

"Yessir. He understands the gravity of our situation here, sir. If this
business got into the wrong hands  ... well, we all saw that kind of
thing happen once or twice in Nam, sir, with those damn reporters around
all the time. Fitzgerald understands, sir. He was in Nam, Checkpoint
Charlie  ...  Sir, if anyone knows how to handle himself in a situation
like this, it's Evans Fitzgerald."

"I'll take your word for it, Terry. But understand this.

Fitzgerald is your man on this. You are responsible for him."

"Yessir.

Got you."

"And this doctor  ...  what's his name?"

"Consor, sir. Major Class of '59."

"Yes, the one who talked to Slaight the day of the autopsy. You've got
him straightened out?"

"Yessir. I was as shocked as you, sir, to find we'd had that leakage
when we did. I didn't find out about it until yesterday. This man,
Consor, took leave after June Week, three weeks. Had to take it then,
before preparations for Beast. Just returned from his home-of-record
yesterday. I had the post duty officer call me when he signed in from
leave."

"Damn fine work, Terry. Damn fine.'" Hedges leaned back in his chair,
tugging the edge of his uniform jacket. King eased forward to the edge
of his chair, preparing to be dismissed. "Let me see. You figure this
Consor talked to Slaight * by chance, Terry? Is that your sense of it?"

"Yessir. He was the duty doc that day. Slaight went over there to get
his feet bandaged. He was walking off a slug I gave him. A fifteen and
twenty. The doc was working on Slaight's feet in his office, and they
were shooting the breeze.

Slaight was curious. Consor told him he thought the kid had been
killed."

"And you got all the copies of the autopsy?"

"Yessir. I made him go through his files. I got all the copies the day
he did the autopsy, you remember, sir. The ones we retyped that night."

"Yeah." Hedges paused, gazing across the area of barracks. "Terry, what
in god-hell was Slaight doing getting his feet bandaged at that time of
day?" "Know what you mean, sir. I asked Consor the same thing  ...  wish
I hadn't, as a matter of fact. He got hopping mad, really red-faced all
of a sudden. Said it had something to do with Slaight's tac not allowing
the men in his company to be medically excused from the area. He said
Slaight's feet were completely wrecked, that he'd have hospitalized him,
but Slaight was afraid of reprisals from his tac, and swore the doc to
secrecy. Consor said that was the only reason he didn't file a report to
his superiors on the tactical officer. This is one place he's really got
us, sir. He was angry. I mean mad as hell. You know how these doctors
get ..."

"Who is Slaight's tac?"

"Grimshaw, sir. That's the strange thing  ...  he's one of my best men,
sir. I didn't know a damn thing about this "order of his. It's obviously
illegal. There's no way a tactical officer can keep a man from being
medically excused ..."

"Goddammit, Terry, I want a piece of Grimshaw's ass! That stupid son of
a bitch! Hadn't have been for his thing about medical excuses, Slaight
would never have been over there talking with a doctor in the first
place."

"I can understand your anger, sir. But I think we'd better hold off on
Grimshaw. This is another one of those areas where  ...  well, sir, if
we come down on Grimshaw about this in the middle of the summer, heads
are going to turn, sir. The heads of other tactical officers.

They're going to wonder what's up. Grimshaw, for one, will know
precisely who was involved. Slaight. Consor. It's just too close to the
quick, sir. Too close for right now, anyway."

"See your point, Terry.

Indeed." Hedges rocked forward, resting his forearms on his desk. His
eyebrows rose, and the thin smile formed on his lips. "Indeed. Terry, we
just might be able to turn this thing to our advantage. Let me give it
some thought and have a good look at your report here. Slaight's due in
just over two hours." King rose from his chair. "Yessir."

"I'll let you know what comes of my meeting with this young man, later.

Terry, you've done one hell of a job for me. Keep it up. We'll have this
thing under control yet."

"Yessir." King watched as Hedges did what he always did to signal
dismissal of his closest confidant. He turned his chair sideways to his
desk, facing Central Area, his left hand atop the desk, fingering his
binoculars. It was like Hedges had entered another world, a little world
all his own. The way he stared across the area  ...  staring out the
window  ...  he didn't say "good afternoon," or "good day," or "see you
later," or "you're dismissed"  ... any of the conventional parting words
between officers. The general simply went away. Somewhere out on the
West Point golf course/Major General Axel W. Rylander was taking in the
June sunshine, beginning his second eighteen holes of the day. He was
pleasantly unaware of the conversation between Hedges and Slaight on the
telephone, the conversation between Hedges and King in the office of his
commandant of cadets. General Rylander was playing golf, his mind at
ease. Hedges had been dealt with. Sunday, May 26, at exactly 1300 hours.

Hedges had walked into his office and delivered his report on the death
of Cadet David Hand. Death by drowning. Accidental. Autopsy showed water
in lungs. No signs of struggle. No other bodily traumas or internal
injuries. No signs of drugs or alcohol. One more tragic accidental cadet
death, and they all seemed to happen at once, within a couple of weeks
of June Week. It was all he had needed. The cadet's parents had to be
notified, of course. The father, a restaurant owner in New Orleans, the
mother, some kind of city social butterfly down there. The whole
business had been sad and rather unpleasant, especially since the family
had been looking forward to seeing their son for the first time since
he'd been home for Christmas. It was too bad the kid had to die so close
to June Week. The parents had been offered the opportunity to bury their
son in the West Point cemetery, but the offer had been made discreetly,
through the superintendent's aide, with a kind of  ...  institutional
frown, intended to discourage them in a gentle, but firm way. It was
June Week, after all, old grads all over the place, visiting the
gravesites of classmates killed in World War I, World War II, Korea,
Vietnam. A funeral for a cadet, a plebe, an accidental death, no matter
how tragic, would be, well  ...  a funeral would have just upset the
flow of things. It was never stated in so many words, but the father of
Cadet David Hand understood. The superintendent's aide had helped him
arrange to have his son's body shipped, by air to New Orleans. The aide
had learned the boy had been interred aboveground in a tomb alongside
that of his grandfather. Sad. Very sad. But necessary. And Hedges. The
week following, the superintendent had ordered his commandant to begin
reporting twice each day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon,
to the building across Thayer Road, walking up those stone steps,
through the aide's office and into the huge chamber of the
superintendent of West Point. It was symbolic. Hedges was a cocky
bastard, and he was obviously going places in the army--up--the man was
ambitious. Hungry. But as long as he worked for Axel W. Rylander, he'd
damn well act like he worked for Axel W. Rylander. After two weeks of
twice-daily personal reports from Hedges, the superintendent had worked
out a system by which the commandant could leave a Disposition Form with
the supe's aide in the outer office, if nothing significant had
transpired since his previous report. Those silences  ...  the two
generals standing there in the huge office overlooking the Hudson with
that huge desk between them, Sylvanus Thayer's portrait staring down at
them from the wall  ...  those silences, when Hedges really had nothing
to report, well, the meetings had become too much for both men. They
were getting old, after all. And there were only so many minutes in each
day. Rylander felt secure that he'd made his point. Hedges knew he was
working for someone besides himself now. He still made the twice-daily
trek across Thayer Road, to drop off the DF and announce his presence,
in case the supe had something to say to him, if nothing else. Rylander
lined up his shot in the third tee and squinted into the sun. It was
about 2 p.m. In three and a half hours, at 5:30 p.m., Hedges would walk
across Thayer Road again and deliver a Disposition Form to the supe's
aide. Rylander stroked, satisfied at the resonant crack as the head of
his driver hit the golf ball, watched it disappear over a low hill in
the general direction of the green, northwest, toward Camp Buckner. Ry
Slaight and Irit Dov moved silently around her penthouse as they
prepared for the drive to West Point. That was the way she wanted it
when Slaight finally roused himself from bed: quiet. If he didn't keep
his mouth shut, he was snappish, brusque, quite unlike himself. Getting
up, getting out of bed, clearly did not agree with him. He wasn't mean
...  he was efficient to the point of compulsion. Even the way he moved
was abbreviated, spare. He moved in a truncated trance, with his head
lowered slightly, as if he were afraid to raise his eyes and face the
day. Irit couldn't imagine how it was to get up in the morning at West
Point, 6 a.m., dark at that hour most of the year, cold winds howling up
the Hudson all winter as the cadets stood in their barracks areas,
waiting to march off to meals. But she knew how it was to get up with Ry
Slaight at Eighty-second and Madison. Damned unpleasant. Slaight was
machinelike in the morning, and that quality about him--efficiency to
the point of seeming inhuman--bothered her. So she kept to herself,
stuffing necessary items in her purse, waiting for him to emerge from
the bathroom like a bull moose, headed for the door, soundless yet  ...
frightening. Once he told her about the squad leader he'd had when he
was a plebe, some guy named Gary Lyons. Every day the plebes had to
report to the squad leader's room fifteen minutes before each formation:

reveille, breakfast, dinner, and supper. This meant the plebes reported
to Lyons at 5:45 a.m., 6:15 a.m., 11:45 a.m., and 5:45 p.m. The function
of these four fifteen-minute periods amounting to a total of one hour
each day), he explained with some difficulty, was "Special Inspection,"
or SI for short. Now, the true purpose of SI was unclear to Irit, but
she knew it had something to do with the squad leader checking his
plebes before they were permitted to face the rest of the company at
formation Special Inspection, however, was rarely an inspection at all.

It was harassment, pure and simple. Everyone knew it, the plebes, the
squad leaders--everyone. Yet it went on every day, four times a day, on
and on because it was driving around, it was an unreasonable order
obeyed without question. It was tradition. So it's 5:45 a.m., fifteen
minutes before reveille, the plebes file into the dark room of the squad
leader, Lyons, and arrange themselves against his wall in a line. They
are bracing, even in the darkness. Once Lyons had caught one of the
plebes with his "neck out," failing to brace, and really reamed him.

Lyons could see in the dark. The plebes brace. So there they stand in
darkness and silence, as the squad leader and his roommate get in their
last few minutes of racktime. Time passes. The plebes fidget and
scratch. New-mown haircuts itch. Outside the door, the five-minute bell
rings and the plebe minute caller begins his insistent screaming, the
Calling of the Minutes  ...  SIR THERE ARE FIVE MINUTES UNTIL REVEILLE
FORMATION THE UNIFORM IS AS FOR CLASS UNDER SHORT OVERCOATS UNDER DRESS
GRAY CAPS THERE ARE FIVE MINUTES SIR!  ...  screaming the words in
staccato bursts, on down the minutes to the two-minute bell, the last
minute the minute caller must scream. Most of the time, the squad
leader, Lyons, slept through the five-minute bell, the four-minute bell,
the three-minute bell, old Lyons stayed under the covers in the rack
until the two-minute bell had been called and the minute caller's
footsteps could be heard disappearing down the hall and down stairs on
his way out to formation. Then like a great machine, Lyons threw back
his Brown Boy, swung his legs over the side of the bed, stuffed his feet
into his shoes (he wore his socks to bed), reached with his right hand
for his trousers (draped over the tubular metal head rail of the bed),
pulled them over his shoes  ...  then shuffling across the room and out
the door, stuffed his arms into class shirt and short overcoat the
former already inserted into the latter), slipped his pretied necktie
noose over his neck and under the collar of his shirt, rested his cap on
the back of his head, gray scarf over one shoulder, and in one fluid
motion--a ballet is what it was, shuffling out the door and down the
stairs toward the area, composing himself in a slow dance of scarves and
buttons and wool--old Lyons zipped his trousers, buttoned his shirt,
tightened his tie, wrapped his scarf, buttoned his short overcoat,
reached in its pockets for his gloves, everything coming to a neat pile
just as Lyons stepped into company ranks to hear the company commander
call the assembled cadets to attention. Slaight had told her that often
Lyons would complete the entire exercise, from bed to formation, without
ever opening his eyes. More than two years later, Slaight was still awed
by the total economy of motion and preservation of racktime represented
by Cadet Gary Lyons getting himself out of bed. "Irit? Irit! Where's my
garrison cap? I was wearing it when I came in last night. I know I was."

Slaight's voice was tinged with tension, anxious. He was down on his
hands and knees behind one of the sofas when Irit handed him the cap.

"Here it is, Ry. Settle down. How long does it take to drive to West
Point? An hour? A few moments more? We have plenty of time to get you
there by four."

"Yeah. I know." Slaight took the cap and tucked it under his web belt.

"I've got to make some calls."

"So sit down and make some calls. The telephone is here, in front of
you. Call. Sit still. I cannot stand it when you  ..."

"Yeah. I know. I'm sorry, Irit. It's just  ... you know  ...  this
General Hedges is no pushover. I'm uptight." Slaight dialed Leroy Bucks'
number in Burning Tree, Indiana. "Yeahello," came Buck's voice, thickly
accented over the line, sounding more like "yellow," than "hello." "Hey,
Buck," said Slaight. "Slaight, goddammit.

I just left you at that goddamn bus station in D.C. yesterday. What you
doing calling me the next day for?"

"They're digging into my shit on the goddamn Hand thing. Buck."

"Whatayamean?"

"I mean I just got a call here--I'm at Irit's in the city--I just got a
call here from fuckin' Hedges. Hedges. He wants to see me this afternoon
at four o'clock, told me to get up there to his office in my Class A's,
my khakis."

"Well goddamn-goddamn. He say what he wanted?"

"Nope. Just told me to come up, that's all. Said I'd be compensated for
the lost leave time. You believe that?"

"Shit. That's unbelievable. What do you figure happened?"

"They must have gotten to Consor. You didn't get any weird calls from
Woo Poo today, did you?"

"Nope. Been home all day, too."

"Well, I'm the only one Consor talked to. That's why I figure they got
to him."

"Yeah. I see what you mean. What are you going to do, Slaight, goddamn?"

"I'm going up there to see Hedges. What you think I'm gonna do?"

"Well, goddammit, don't go bitin' my head off. I was just askin'. You
gonna talk to that doc, Consor?"

"I was going to call him right after you."

"I bet they got his shit wrapped up tight in a sling, if what you say is
right. Old Hedges probably got a fix on his nuts with his binocs, know
what I mean?

You're not going to get much out of Consor, with fuckin' Hedges
vice-gripping his ass."

"Maybe not. But I've got to tell him I'm going to see Hedges. And I want
to know what they asked him about  ...  and how much he told them."

"Yeah. Listen. Slaight, goddammit! I just had an idea. You remember that
law"P' we had last year, that real weird one, kind of roly-poly guy,
balding, with the squinty eyes and the glasses with gold frames? I think
he was a Harvard guy. Nongrad."

"Yeah, I remember him. Captain T. Clifford Bassett."

"Remember how he was always comin' down in the army's shit, explaining
your rights under the UCMJ, and civil judicial rights? Other P's used to
call him the commie of the law department."

"Puckin'-A, Buck. Old Bassett. Sure."

"Yeah. Well, I think you ought to give old T. Clifford a call when you
get up there.

Stop in and see him after you talk to Hedges. Can't hurt. He sure isn't
gonna be the one to go rattin' on you."

"Goddamn, Buck. I'll do it. I knew I should call your worthless ass
about Hedges. Goddamn, I'm glad I did. I never would have thought of old
Bassett, sitting down there in his little cubbyhole in the basement of
Thayer Hall in the Law Department. Good fuckin' idea. Buck. Say hey.

What are you up to?"

"Nothin'. Loafin'. Got to get on the tractor and do some plowing next
week. Cora's up good. Listenin' to the radio. Same old shit, man. You
heard that new one by Loretta Lynn? "Don't Come Home a-Drinking with
Lovin' on Your Mind'? Classic."

"Haven't heard it. New York City. No country station. You know that."

"Yeah."

"Hey, Buck. Gotta be going.

Have to talk to Consor, then get up to Hedges' office, man. Thanks."

"Slaight. Gimme one minute, goddammit ..."

"Shoot."

"First, I seen some real nice black Tony Lama's with a radical boot heel
in your size up in Shawneetown yesterday, and I seen some of them Acme
rough-outs you been lookin' for. You want me to pick 'em up for you? I
got the money to cover you, till you get a check this way."

"Yeah. Jesus. Buy the rough-outs, but hold off on the Tony Lama's--I'd
have to see them. They run about seventy dollars, don't they?"

"Yep."

"So get the Acme's. And thanks."

"Slaight. Number two. Don't let that fuckin' Hedges trap you, when you
get in there, a-talkin' with him, you hear? Fucker's liable to try to
box you into an honor situation, use your honor against you. Be careful.

He done it before to a guy, remember hearin' about it?"

"Yeah.

Buck, thanks, man. See you."

"You bet. Say howdy to that fox, Irit. See ya." Slaight hung up. Irit
was out on the terrace, watering her ginkgoes. That was something he
liked about her  ... she was independent, always seemed to have
something to do, some project to chase after, a book she was reading or
a design she was working on. And she had this sixth sense for those
moments when it would have bothered him if she was just sitting there
across from him, staring, while he talked on the phone or read or just
sat and thought. "Hey, Int. Buck says howdy."

"That's nice. What is he doing? Is he on leave?"

"Yeah.

Farming. You know. Indiana."

"It's two-thirty, Ry."

"I know. I just got to make one more call." He dialed the main number
for West Point, got the operator, and asked for Major Censor's quarters
... that's right ...  C-0-N-S-O-R  ...  only one in the book. The line
went blank, then he heard a soft electronic connect, and it rang. "Major
Censor's quarters." It was his wife. "It's Mr. Slaight calling, ma'am.

Is the major there?"

"Oh. Hello, Ry. Yes, he's here. Just one moment." Slaight could hear a
muffled voice in the background saying, just a minute. He was going to
another extension. "How are you, Ry?" said Mrs. Consor.

"It's been so long since we've seen you."

"Fine, ma'am." Good. Consor hadn't let on to his wife. I "You'll have to
come by for supper sometime, when the academic year begins again."

"Yes, ma'am. I'd like that."

"Oh. Here's George." One phone picked up. Hers went dead. "Major
Consor."

"Sir, it's Mr. Slaight."

"I figured I'd hear from you today, Slaight. Where are you?"

"I'm calling from New York, sir. I'm coming up to the academy this
afternoon. General Hedges called me. He wants me in his office at four."

"Aren't you on leave?"

"Yessir. He wants me up there anyway, sir. I kind of thought he might be
wanting to talk to me about this David Hand thing, sir. That's why I'm
calling."

"Yeah. That's it, all right. Colonel King called me in yesterday. I just
returned from leave. He'd been waiting for me for two weeks, apparently.

I'm not surprised they've got you coming up today. There seems to be
some sort of crash program on."

"What's up, sir? What did Colonel King want?"

"It's the David Hand drowning. He wanted to make sure he had all the
copies of the official autopsy, made me check my files. Came over to my
office personally. He acted strangely, very  ...  nervous. He has a tic,
he flares one nostril, wrinkling his nose and his brow. He was doing it
over and over, the whole time he was in my office."

"Yessir. I've noticed the same thing."

"I went through my files. He insisted on watching me. Anyway, when he
was satisfied that nothing existed in writing on the matter of Cadet
David Hand, he asked if I'd spoken to anyone about the autopsy. I told
him I had. I gave him your name. He asked for it. I didn't want to  ...
I considered doctor-patient confidentiality for a moment  ...  but
obviously, Slaight, the Hand matter had nothing to do with your feet. I
had to tell him."

"I understand, sir."

"He was extremely agitated. Very worked up. He told me not to discuss my
findings with anyone else. Said I might jeopardize a sensitive
situation. He didn't elaborate. But he did ask me why I was talking to
you, and I told him about your feet, that I was treating you."

"You mention Grimshaw, sir?"

"Yes, I did. He wanted to know why I hadn't medically excused you from
the area, if they were bad enough to require a doctor's attention. I
told him your tac wouldn't allow medical excuses. He didn't say anything
after that."

"Oh, Jesus  ...  I'm sorry, sir."

"I wouldn't worry about Grimshaw, Slaight. I told King I'd go to the
wall with Grimshaw if I ever saw another pair of feet like yours from
his company. Colonel King just nodded. But he got the message."

"Thanks, sir."

"Slaight  ..."

"Yessir."

"Slaight  ...  you would be well advised to, ahh  ... watch your step
when you're in there with General Hedges. I don't know exactly what's
going on here, but it doesn't  ... feel right to me. You understand?"

"I think so, sir."

"The whole business is being handled very queerly. No pun intended. For
instance, I have yet to see Colonel Fitzgerald, the provost marshal.

King was the only person I saw when I did the autopsy, and he came alone
to my office yesterday. There have been no more questions about the
autopsy. From anywhere. Anyone. I have this feeling .. the whole thing
has hit some sort of bottleneck, maybe for reasons of secrecy or
security, I don't know. One thing is clear to me now, anyway."

"What's that, sir?" "You've hit the bottleneck. King obviously reported
to Hedges."

"Yessir, I knew about that."

"You did?"

"Yessir. I saw him going into headquarters that day I talked to you
after, the area. I asked around. He went to see Hedges that afternoon,
the day you did the autopsy."

"He did. Goodness.

He's a very busy man. And a very nervous man. I almost handed him a
combat ration of Valium, he was ticking and twitching up a storm  ...
forget I said that, Slaight."

"Yessir." Slaight suppressed a chuckle.

Good ole Consor  ... "Mr. Slaight, do something for me, will you?"

"Yessir."

"Let me know what transpires between you and Hedges. I want to know
what's going no. For crying out loud, I don't even know what's happened
to my autopsy at this point. And after King's warning, I'm not going
asking around. Give me a ring when you're finished. I'll be home all
evening."

"Yessir. Will do. Major Consor?"

"Yes?"

"Thanks, sir  ... I mean  ...  for telling me this stuff."

"No problem, Slaight. Mister, keep your nose clean in there. And listen
up. Understand?"

"Yessir."

"Speak to you later, then. Goodbye."

"Bye, sir." Irit was standing behind him now, her hands on his
shoulders. He could see her reflection in the window across the room.

She'd changed into a bright red silk dress, a mini-dress with a skirt
with a million pleats, so it seemed to dance and spin with a life of its
own as she walked. Her lipstick matched the color of the dress, and
Slaight could see her nails, bright red against the khaki of his uniform
shirt. He hung up the phone and looked at her. He was tired. It seemed
like they'd been up a long time ...  but only an hour had passed since
the call from Hedges. "What now, Ry?" she asked. "We're going to goddamn
West Point," he said. "Come on.

Let's get a move-on." It was always the goddamn same, every goddamn
time, no matter which way you went: in the bus, up Route 9W; in a car,
up the Palisades Parkway; you could fly in a goddamn helicopter straight
up the Hudson, digging the view of the river, a stewardess serving
martinis and peanuts, and it'd still be the goddamn same. It was going
back, up to West Point, those final fifty-five miles between New York
City and the gate at the end of Main Street in Highland Falls, a grim,
depressing trip no matter which way you cut it. Always gave you that
feeling  ...  what was it, exactly?  ...  that feeling you had as a kid
on the first day of school  ...  a restless churning of the nerves, down
in your gut, you didn't know what to expect, who your teachers were
going to be, where your classes were  ...  always afraid you wouldn't be
on time  ...  you'd be caught there in the door of the classroom with
all the other kids already sitting down and the teacher halfway through
the roll, and the teacher would turn and look at you and say. Well, who
have we here? and you'd slink back to the nearest seat, slide in, and
say your name in a hoarse whisper above the general rustling of books
and chairs and first-dayof-school bullshit around you. It was the same
every goddamn time, a miracle really, West Point could hit that little
anxiety button somewhere along those fifty-five miles of road between
New York City and the academy, hit the button again and again until by
the time you reached the gate, your stomach was knotted, gripped with
Total Fear . '. total fear of what? Fuck. All you were doing was going
back to West Point, something you'd done dozens of times by firstie
year, maybe hundreds  ...  yet there it was, that little knot down
there, tying your belly to your backbone, automatic stiffening of the
posture, straightening of the neck, assumption of the Proper Cadet
Attitude  ... and silence. Always total silence. You could be in a
busload of cadets, and West Point could have just beaten Notre Dame in
Shea Stadium, and still the bus would be seized with silence, rumbling
and bucking its way up those fifty-five miles, every guy in the bus
sinking a little lower and lower into that hole inside himself the
closer they got, sinking and sinking, looking for some kind of goddamn
protection, like if you went down there far enough you'd find some
little guy inside you, come bouncing out saying, Hey, fuckstick, buck
up, man! Only fuckin' Woo Poo you going back to! Chin up, dullski! You
been through this shit before! You be through it again soon enuf! Get
yourself together, man! Any chick catch an eyeball on you like this,
man, she gonna figure you for some kinda faggot or somethin'! Pull your
shit outta that sling, mister! West Point ain't doin' this to you! You
be! ...  You could dig around down there forever and still not find that
little guy, and by the time the bus pulled up outside Grant Hall, its
doors would disgorge the sorriest lot of stray-dog-looking fuckers,
heads up, back stiff, but their faces! Jesus, the faces! You could see
the skin hanging, hanging in folds under the eyes, from the corners of
the mouth  ...  hanging and drooping and sagging like curtains in a
funeral parlor as they grabbed overnight bags and marched silently
across Thayer Road, up Brewerton Road, up the ramp to New South Area,
marching back to the barracks, back to The Life. Seemed like the longer
you stayed there, the worse it got. And the older they looked. Firsties
coming back from weekend looked like  ...  like veterans  ...  old grads
...  tottering along, easing themselves through the door of the Orderly
Room to sign in, their signatures a pathetic scrawl of resignation, of
the experience, repeated over and over and over again, that they were
going back ... It was no wonder that most firsties returned to West
Point from leaves drunk, having learned the army's first law of personal
thermodynamics, kill the fuckin' pain ... What Slaight was thinking
about, driving out of the garage on East Eighty-second Street, was a
drink, a goddamn drink. That's what he could use, a drink, right now,
something cold and clear and full of ice and alcohol, gin preferably,
indeed, a gin and tonic would do just fine, icing down his right hand
and his head, icing down his belly for the drive back, the goddamn drive
back up to West Point. Most of the time, he was drunk when he returned.

Not stumbling drunk, but drunk just the same  ...  numb  ...  numb and
quiet, in his mind already standing in supper formation, standing there
on the area waiting, standing there waiting and clapping his hands  ...
clap clap  ...  clap clap  ...  clapping his hands like the rest of the
dull bastards around him ...  Jesus. A drink. That's all he needed, to
walk into Hedges' office smelling like the inside of the Officers' Club
bar  ... They were driving Irit's 1962 Mercedes-Benz 190SL, a low white
sports car with classic lines, red leather interior, the feel of a good
horse between your legs. That's what Slaight imagined the feel to be,
anyway. He'd never ridden a horse in his life, but the elegant creak of
the leather seats, the soft purr of the Mercedes exhaust note, must be
like a horse, because he'd never known a feeling like it in his life.

Back home in Leavenworth, in high school, Slaight owned a 1949 Ford, a
classic automobile he had hot-rodded tastefully until the little bugger
came on like a pedigree  ...  lowered an inch all around,
nosedand-decked and painted a deep royal metal-flake blue, floor
shifter, engine heads milled, ported, balanced, fourbarrel carburetor,
dual exhausts  ...  the Ford was like a smooth pebble from a creek
bottom, round and sleek and clean, slipping and sliding down Kansas
blacktops like a little piece of midwestern weather, unpredictable, hot
and fast. But the '49 felt like a car  ...  it was Detroit, U.S.A., iron
and rubber and plastic rolling stock, and you could always hear this
sucking noise, this soft woooooooosh, as the four barrels of the carb
ate Kansas air and spat fire out behind the rear bumper onto the
pavement into the night ... That's what it was. Cars in Kansas always
meant nighttime and driving around and rock and roll on the car radio,
the raspy yowls of adolescence filling the passenger compartment, a
loud, satisfying sound, rock and roll by bands like the Rolling Stones,
dirty boys, nasty wired ear-splitting firewater music, hugely,
purposefully offensive  ...  the Ford engine would whine, mixing exhaust
and music and wind, and somehow it all meant you'd never grow old, that
all you could really do was live for right now ... Not so this 190-SL.

Slaight and Irit were always driving in her elegant little sports car in
the middle of the afternoon, whipping out to Montauk Point at the end of
Long Island for oysters and lobster rolls and beer, taking in the
sights. Forget rock and roll on the radio, not in the 190-SL  ...
Slaight felt a bit nostalgic for that Kansas hit of gasoline and nofse,
but he knew it was finished. By the time they hit the George Washington
Bridge on the way to West Point to see Brigadier General Charles
Sherrill Hedges, he knew he'd already grown fuckin' old, the music had
lied, like everything else. And so if to prove it, here it came again,
one more time, Bronx and Riverdale to the right, up the Hudson, Yonkers
next  ...  the river stretching away in either direction beneath a low
haze of summer heat  ...  steam rising from the water, obscuring the
West Side Highway and the buildings of midtown, downriver  ...  and
upriver, up there around the bend, past the Tappan Zee Bridge and past
Stony Point and past the Bear Mountain Bridge, another fifty miles now,
hot wind in the face, turning onto the Palisades, Irit with a scarf
around her black hair, squinting behind oversize shades, looking over
the low, flat hood of the Mercedes, gazing up the parkway toward West
Point, going back ... Slaight was guiding the Mercedes gently up the
parkway, riding the edge of the speed limit, ever conscious that the
State Police had a thing about catching cadets and their girl friends
speeding on their way back to West Point, like they had nothing better
to do, like cadets were the goddamn enemy or something. With the top
down and the wind rushing past his ears, Slaight thought at first that
his mind was sucking air like the carbon his Ford  ...  woooooooosh ...
his memory slipping into that groove always there, just behind his
eyeballs, the West Point groove. What the fuck? He was going back, first
full day of leave or no first full day of leave. Irit, she understood.

She was just sitting there being nice and understanding and providing
the car, which was what girls were supposed to do  ...  and Slaight, he
was just slipping back in that goddamn groove and driving that Mercedes
and letting the wind blow oxygen past him; he could use the fuel ... The
man he was going to see. General Charles Sherrill Hedges, was a complete
mystery to Slaight, though he had been commander of Beast Barracks
exactly one year ago, when Slaight had been Hand's squad leader. That
month of Beast had seemed like a hot, stuffy trial, over which Hedges
presided like a lawn-party host, in his tailored khakis and crisp summer
dress whites. He was new to West Point, freshly returned from Vietnam,
from the Big Red One, and guys had been shocked--laid out-- when they
saw this piss elegant  ...  dude  ...  that's what he was, a fuckin'
dude in his custom uniforms and handembroidered ribbons and
patent-leather shoes. By the time he was a cow, Slaight was used to
seeing officers coming straight back from Vietnam looking like somebody
had tied them behind an armored personnel carrier and dragged them
through the whole goddamn Delta  ... they were haggard and worn out and
beaten down and etched with the lines of a war that wasn't so much being
fought as it was being held together with baling wire and gaffer's tape
and spit and oil and nylon thread sent in CARE packages from home  ...
these guys looked like they'd been there. Hedges  ...  he looked like
West Point, flashy perfection. When he took command of Beast Barracks,
he made it clear to the upperclass detail that everything was going to
be as perfect as he was. Everything. To make his point, General Hedges
ordered that all cadets would march with thumbs pointed stiffly toward
the ground alongside the index finger, which would be curled, along with
all other fingers, precisely and stiffly at the first knuckle. Not the
second knuckle, or the third knuckle, and not a half-fist, or a fist ...
but this  ...  this contraption, held in the karate-chop fashion,
unwieldy, awkward, shifting the mind from marching, from the beat of the
drum, lo the curl of the fingers, the position of the thumb. It was
nonsense, ridiculous bullshit, and every upperclassman knew it  ...  two
and three years they'd been cadets, and nobody had ever made them march
like fuckin' Nazis. But there he was. General Hedges, the new com,
attending formation after formation, skipping from company to company,
checking the knuckle status of his young charges. With the eye of an
eagle (later he would become known for his binoculars) Hedges would
pluck from a formation a plebe (less occasionally an upperclassman) to
give extra instruction in finger-curl and thumb-point, the proper
procedure for shaping the Hedges marching hand. He often instructed a
single cadet in front of the entire Beast Barracks formation, fifteen
hundred -strong, delaying meals and parades and training to do so. The
routine went on for a month, General Hedges pacing the sidelines of one
formation after another, his yellow cotton gloves clasped tightly in his
left hand, striking his left thigh, time and again. In the few moments
of quiet at each formation--reveille, breakfast, dinner, supper--when
orders were not barked and commands were not echoing between the
buildings, you could hear him even if you couldn't see him. Slap. Slap.

Slap. Yellow gloves caressed his thigh. Click. Click. Click. Oversize
taps on the heels of his shoes hit the concrete, resonating through the
area. He was everywhere. Slaight was puzzled by Hedges and had often
watched him pace the formations. What was it about a goddamn brigadier
general that made him come out and play diddlyshit with the cadets?

Hedges had an unnervingly casual way with cadets of the upper classes in
a one-on-one meeting, calling many by nicknames he seemed to pick from a
bottomless pit of snappy, wisecracky handles. Slaight's turn came. One
night he was the recipient of extra instruction in finger-curl and
thumb-point after an evening formation. It was late, sometime just
before taps, and the Beast detail had just marched the plebes back to
the barracks after a lecture in Thayer Hall. Slaight noticed from the
general's breath that he'd been drinking. Gambling for the moment that
Hedges was just a bit more relaxed than usual, Slaight asked him about
his obsession with pointed thumbs and curled fingers, since his own
thumbs and fingers were being pointed and curled under the general's
close supervision. "Mr. Sam," said General Hedges, deliberately choosing
the last three letters of Rysam Slaight's name as his own personal
manner of addressing him. "Mr. Sam, what I'm showing you here is just my
way of putting my signature on my unit." Hedges bent over Slaight's left
hand, reaching down with his own to correct the posture of Slaight's
thumb, the precise curls of his fingers. Hedges' hands felt clammy, cold
in the hot summer night air. Slaight stood there waiting while a
brigadier general finished leaning over and touching his hands--first
his left, then his right--touching them, manipulating his thumbs and
fingers until they met his approval. Slaight was chilled by the notion
that Hedges was getting off, touching his hands in the darkness. They
stood alone on Brewerton Road behind the barracks, and upstairs, guys
could be heard yelling at the plebes, Johns were flushing, showers
started and stopped. In the distance, the mess hall clanked along,
leaving supper, heading for breakfast. Noises surrounded them, but they
were alone. "Sir?" Slaight asked, breaking the tension, for Hedges was
now standing there, just standing there staring at him. "Sir, what do
you mean, 'put my signature on my unit'? I don't understand."

"You march like I tell you, Mr. Slaight," said Hedges, shifting his body
until his face was maybe ten inches from Slaight's. "You march like I
tell you, and you are mine." Thumb-point and finger-curl were not the
only obsessions of General Hedges. He drilled the cadets in the miracle
war being fought in Vietnam, far from the "fields of friendly strife" of
West Point. At every juncture of training. Hedges pounded the drum for
the "Combat Example" into the hot days and nights of Beast Barracks. Not
a single thing happened between men, it seemed, to which the combat
Example did not apply. "How would you like to depend on that man in
combat?" came the inevitable question from Hedges at lectures, out on
the parade ground, on the training fields during bayonet drill and squad
tactics. "If that man failed the test here at West Point, think of what
he might do in combat." Hedges' words hung over the heads of cadets like
flags at half-mast, skeletal images of doom, a vision of all the world
in terms of  ... war. But it was the way he used the word, combat, like
a bludgeon to beat up on guys who were just messing up, being plebes,
doing all the shitball stuff plebes are supposed to do on their way to
becoming upperclassmen. He swung it like a club--combat--word coming
around at you all the time, whistling through the air, landing with a
dull thud on some poor fucker's head every time Hedges took a notion. He
didn't criticize performance or point out ways to improve efficiency or
encourage better attitudes. The word combat was interchangeable with the
word career. Hedges rarely spoke of combat in a strictly military
fashion, following Clausewitz's definition of war as the execution of
political ends by other means  ...  "other" meaning, of course, combat.

Hedges preferred to speak of combat as desirable, necessary for a man's
career. The interdependence of men in combat became an interdependence
of careers. Not only were lives at stake  ...  so was rank, prestige,
ratings by superiors, success. To Hedges, combat meant something else,
something almost holy, the way he rattled the numbers around his war
stories like change in a collection basket up in the Cadet Chapel.

Combat meant body count, the measuring' stick of victory in Vietnam.

Hedges' units in the Big Red One had greater body counts than any other
units in Vietnam during the time he was there. He'd been promoted faster
than any commander in the history of the war. And now Brigadier General
Charles Sherrill Hedges was the commandant of cadets, a soldier's
soldier  ...  a man's nan. The lesson to cadets was clear. The Pentagon
had assigned him to the academy as an example for cadets to emulate. He
was the kind of man they were supposed to become. He was army. The next
time Slaight saw Hedges up close was down at Benning, just two weeks
ago. There they were on the First Class Trip, and they'd been
road-marched in deuce-and-a-halfs out to some godforsaken little hilltop
deep in the Georgia boonies of the Fort Benning military reservation,
where they were supposed to witness another firepower demonstration,
this one an example of the defense of a battalion-size night defensive
perimeter. This was the real shit, the way they did it in Vietnam every
night, they'd been told in lectures all day. Now it was growing dark, as
they were ushered into dilapidated, collapsing sets of bleachers ringing
the crest of the little hilltop. Some major from the Infantry School was
out there on a PT platform with a mike and a blackboard showing a map of
the hiiltop, pointing out before it got completely black how the
battalion was dug in all around the cadets. And sure enough, you could
see them out there, 750 strong, their helmets poking up out of foxholes
just this side of miles and miles of Concertina barbed wire, piled in a
huge circle around the hilltop. Scattered around the enclosed circle
were a half-dozen armored personnelcarriers and several M-60 tanks, dug
into defoilades, only their turrets and muzzles showing. Then it got
dark and the cadets waited. Suddenly all hell broke loose, mo-gas
explosions going off all over the place outside the wire, the guys in
the holes opening up with what must have been a division's load of
machine guns, loaded with 100 percent tracer rounds, the air around the
NDP blazing with red and yellow piss-streams of tracers, disappearing
into the woods around them. Artillery started coming in. WHOMP WHOMP
WHOMP, then more mo-gas going off, a dozen flame throwers snaking
dribbly hoses of orange flame into the bush  ...  a half-dozen F-4

Phantoms made a low pass, dropping napalm about two hundred meters
outside the wire, lighting up the hilltop like a Broadway stage  ...
then more machine guns and mogas and flame throwers, and the 50s on the
APCS opening up, the tanks shooting into the woods from their defoilades
right next to the bleachers  ...  a hellish spectacle  ...  no VC in his
right mind would ever face such Total Firepower  ...  this was winning
the war  ...  man .. look at all those colors and listen to all that
fuckin' noise ... As suddenly as it began it ended. All the explosions
and firing were obviously cued from a central bunker, wired to every gun
that had been shooting. Suddenly, total silence. The cadets just sat
there, stunned, ears ringing, eyes blinded from all the fire and light
and madness ... Three of the M-60 tanks wheeled their turrets and
switched on Xeon spotlights capable of throwing a million candle power
of white light a mile. They switched on the spots and focused them on a
little piece of ground, a little berm, a pile of dirt surrounding--what
was it, anyway?--nobody could tell at first, but every eye swiveled
toward the berm, waiting ... Inside the berm could be seen another tank,
in total defoilade, nearly buried. It was one of those engineer tanks,
with a bulldozer blade across its front slope. Slowly, the blade swung
up, up, up toward the vertical, until finally it was straight up in the
air, directly over the tank, the surface of the blade horizontal, level
with the edge of the berm ... And suddenly there he was. Brigadier
General Charles Sherrill Hedges, standing on the tank's bulldozer blade,
impeccably starched fatigues, spit-shined jumpboots, camouflaged
steel-pot helmet  ...  above his head, he held a pair of binoculars--his
binoculars--waving them slowly back and forth, a recognition signal in
the nearly blinding light of the Xeons. This wasn't just any old
infantry general. This was the commandant, down at Benning, with the
troops. He was wired for sound, and from hidden speakers surrounding the
bleachers, his voice boomed: "GENTLEMEN  ...  GENTLEMEN  ...  WHAT YOU

HAVE JUST WITNESSED WAS AN EXERCISE IN NIGHT TARGET DETECTION. NIGHT
VISION  ...  GENTLEMEN. THIS IS THE KEY. WITHOUT NIGHT VISION  ...
GENTLEMEN  ... THERE WOULD BE NO FIREPOWER. WITHOUT NIGHT VISION  ...
GENTLEMEN  ...  THERE WOULD BE NO DEFENSIVE PERIMETER. IF YOU CANNOT SEE
THE ENEMY  ... GENTLEMEN  ...  HOW CAN YOU SHOOT AT HIM?" All this time,
the general is swinging his pair of Nikon binoculars back and forth
above his head. As all cadets knew, binoculars had a way of gathering
light at night, magnifying it, enabling the user to see more distinctly,
even in near total darkness. And there was Hedges, binoculars in hand,
delivering the Infantry School lecture on the one-million-dollar night
defensive perimeter firepower demonstration. "GENTLEMEN  ... WHAT YOU

HAVE WITNESSED TONIGHT IS A RE-ENACTMENT  ...  AN EXACT RE-ENACTMENT ...
GENTLEMEN  ... OF THE NIGHT ACTION MY BATTALION WAS ENGAGED IN WITH A
FORCE OF NVA REGULARS  ...  A NORTH VIETNAMESE REGIMENT  ...  GENTLEMEN
...  A FORCE THREE TIMES THE SIZE OF MY BATTALION. AND WITH GOOD NIGHT
VISION  ... GENTLEMEN  ...  WITH EXPERT TARGET DETECTION AND TRAINING
AND ESPRIT- ... GENTLEMEN  ...  WE DEFEATED THAT NVA REGIMENT  ...  WE
DROVE THEM FROM THE IRON TRIANGLE WITH THEIR TAILS BETWEEN THEIR SKINNY
LITTLE PAjama-clad LEGS  ... GENTLEMEN  ...  THE NEXT MORNING WE POLICED
UP 250 BODIES  ...  GENTLEMEN  ...  A BODY COUNT OF 250  ...  IT WAS
QUITE SOMETHING TO SEE  ...  GENTLEMEN  ...  GOOKS AROUND OUR NDP TWO
AND THREE DEEP. NIGHT VISION  ...  GENTLEMEN. REMEMBER IT. AND REMEMBER
YOUR SIX P'S  ... GENTLEMEN  ...  PRIOR PREPARATION PREVENTS PISS-POOR
PERFORMANCE. I HOPE YOU'VE LEARNED SOMETHING HERE TONIGHT  ...
GENTLEMEN. BECAUSE IN COMBAT  ...  IN COMBAT .. GENTLEMEN  ... THERE IS
NO TIME TO LEARN. THERE IS ONLY TIME TO PERFORM. GOOD NIGHT  ...
GENTLEMEN. I WILL SEE YOU AT THE ACADEMY IN THE FALL." Jesus Christ, it
was eerie. Hedges standing there on the dozer blade of that tank in the
blinding glare of those Xeons--enough light for a rock concert--standing
there waving his binocs over his head, his voice coming from everywhere
at once, crashing around the cadets' ears like artillery, babbling on
and on about night vision and body counts and the

"Six P's"  ...  hadn't heard that bullshit since plebe math ... Slaight
eased the 190-SL into an empty parking space in the lot across from
Grant Hall. West Point was uncharacteristically quiet  ...  a week to go
before the start of another Beast Barracks, only a few detail
upperclassmen around  ... another long summer over which Hedges would
preside with his gloves and his heel taps and his binoculars and his
thumb-point and finger-curl.

Jesus. Sweat poured down Slaight's back, soaked his khaki shirt, turning
his armpits the color of Kansas mud. He felt that tightness in his gut,
like a rat was down there with a jaw-lock on his intestines. A
shiver--visible to Irit, who sat next to him, waiting--shook his spine.

He remembered Hedges' clammy, cold hands that night a year ago, down
there on Brewerton Road, a hundred yards from where they were sitting in
the Mercedes. He remembered the look on his face, the smell of his
breath--Manhattans. Slaight was not looking forward to his visit with
the commandant of cadets. "Irit," he said, "you can wait in Grant Hall,
or you can wander down to the river, around the Plain  ...  you know. I
don't know how long I'm gonna be in there."

"I know, Ry. I brought some work. I'll be okay. I'll wait for you in
Grant Hall. It's cool in there."

"Yeah. Okay." Efficient woman. Hedges would find his match for his
goddamn Six P's with this one. "Ry. It's three fifty-five. You'd better
go."

"Sure. Christ. My uniform's a soaking mess. Fuckit. I won't turn my back
to him. Maybe he won't notice ..."

"I'll see you later in Grant Hall, then, Ry?"

"Yeah. Listen. Give this lawyer a call for me ... Captain T. Clifford
Bassett. He's down in the Law Department, probably be in his office
right now. The cadet guard in Grant Hall will get him on the phone for
you. Tell him I want to see him after I'm through."

"T. Clifford Bassett. Yes. I copied it in my notebook. Is there anything
else you want me to tell him?"

"No. Just tell him it's important. I'd appreciate it if he'd hang
around."

"All right, Ry. Take care."

"Thanks, sweetness. I'm off  ...  off to see the wizard  ..." Slaight
laughed, extracting himself from the Mercedes. It was a joke between
them  ... off to see the wizard  ...  the movie was on the late-late
show the night they met." But this was no late show. Slaight tucked his
khaki shirt, straightened his belt buckle, and walked across Thayer
Road. The thing about going to see the commandant of cadets was that you
were supposed to be totally intimidated-- shaking in your boots, in a
state of terminal flap, spastic you were so scared. It was part of
playing the game. He was a general, and you were a cadet, a little
pip-squeak, just a pimple on the academy's ass, and you were taking up
his time. Generals just basically should not have to call cadets on the
telephone and tell them to drive around, ancient academy slang for come
around to my room, smackhead  ...  the words dated so far back in the
distance, it was hard to figure where they came from, who first started
using them. But all down the years, their meaning had remained the same.

Drive around. Being told to come to someone's room--in this case, "to
the commandant's office--was etched in the cadet memory, an indelible
mark left there by plebe year. You were scared because the guy who told
you to drive around to his room had total power over you. Total. You
might want to be somewhere else--in the library, say, studying. Or
taking a shower. Or you might have to take a leak, the call of nature.

But when some upperclassman rared back and said drive around, mister ...
you fuckin' drove around, that was all. You had to. There were times,
every cadet could probably name dozens, when you'd actually be required
to be doing something else, like writing a term paper or even reporting
to another upperclassman. But fuck the term paper. And the other
upperclassman  ... if he was outranked by the dude who said drive
around, you just forgot him, and you drove yourself around to the dude's
room and you knocked on the door three times and you walked in and you
reported and you might not have the least idea what to expect  ...  what
this bastard was going to uncork on your skinny shaking little beanhead
ass  ...  but you examined your options, which amounted to exactly one,
and you drove around. You played the fuckin' game. Now here was Slaight,
and he's a firstie, and still driving around  ...  called off his leave
in New York City, stuffed back into his unpressed khakis, bent into a
sports car, and here he was, literally, driving around to the room of
Brigadier General Charles Sherrill Hedges, the office of the commandant
of cadets, on the second floor of the Brigade Headquarters Building,
overlooking old Central Area. Three years, and still driving around,
still playing the game. Strange thing  ...  Slaight didn't feel properly
intimidated.

He wasn't shaking in his boots. He wasn't in a state of terminal flap.

He wasn't spastic and scared and verging on the edge of control. He was
tired, hot, and maybe just a tiny bit pissed off. He checked himself as
he turned off Brewerton Road into Central Area. Can't let the commandant
pick it up that you're pissed. Got to Assume the Proper Attitude. Got to
play the game. He entered the Headquarters and walked up the stairs to
the second floor. He nodded at the commandant's secretary, and he turned
to the commandant's aide--some captain who'd been wounded in Vietnam and
was supposed to be a hero--he turned to the aide and said: "I'm Mr.
Slaight. I'm here to see the com." The aide looked Slaight over like he
was examining dirty laundry  ...  stains  ...  wrinkles  ...  shoes in
need of a good shine  ...  obviously in need of a haircut  ... the aide
looked Slaight up and down and with his right hand indicated that
Slaight should sit down on a wooden chair across from his desk. "You do
not appear prepared to report to the commandant, Mr. Slaight," said the
aide. "You look disreputable, in fact." Slaight paused a moment,
collecting his thoughts. This was all he needed. The clock over the
aide's head said it was 4 p.m. "Captain, I'm on my leave right now. The
general called me exactly two and one half hours ago and told me to
report to him at 1600. I just drove here from New York City. I don't
have another uniform, and other shoes. I just got off the Firstie Trip.

Now I see that it's 1601, sir, and I want to do as I've been told. I
want to see the com." The aide gazed unblinkingly at Slaight with a look
of astonishment. The secretary shuffled papers nervously. "I'll tell the
general you're here," said the aide. He disappeared through a door. He
reappeared. "The general will see you now." Slaight stood up and walked
through the open door. At the far end of a long rectangular room sat the
commandant behind a large desk. All over there was military
paraphernalia: models and plaques and flags and helmets and old unit
coffee cups cluttering up the place like it was some kind of goddamn
museum  ...  or a playroom, a rec room. That's what it looked like! One
of those rooms in the new suburban split-level tract houses  ... people
were always cluttering up the paneled rooms with their son's old
football jersey and bowling trophies and Junior Chamber of Commerce
Citizen of the Year awards, stuff like that. Slaight paused in the door,
taking it in. He strode forward until he reached a spot he figured was
four feet from the front edge of the general's desk. The general looked
up from a pile of papers, peering at Slaight from beneath
salt-and-pepper eyebrows. Slaight saluted. "Sir, Mr. Slaight reports to
the commandant of cadets as ordered." He spoke the words with
inflection, his hand steady above his right brow. The general paused one
beat  ...  two  ...  Slaight could almost hear him counting  ...  three
...  then he zipped his hand from the desk, skittering his fingers
across his forehead like a third-base line coach signaling the catcher
... saluting  ...  and he stood up, thrusting forward his hand  ...  all
in one motion, catching Slaight off-guard. The general wanted to shake
hands with him! What was this shit? Slaight dropped his salute and took
the general's hand. "Good to see you, Mr. Sam! God damn'. Good of you to
come up here today, young man! I know it was short notice, but you did a
fine job! On time! Looking good! Have a seat over here  ..." Hedges
pulled Slaight sideways toward a green leather thickly upholstered chair
next to his desk. It was a subtle gesture, like the handshake. Slaight
would not sit across the desk from him. He would be seated next to the
desk, with nothing between them. Slaight felt it coming on. A man-to-man
talk. "Mr. Sam, how've you been?"

"Fine, sir." Slaight watched Hedges with perverse fascination. The man
was a catalogue, a Sears and Roebuck of tricks. Every move he made had
meaning. Every last fucking one of them. Hedges leaned back in his chair
and crossed his hands behind his head, interlocking his fingers. He
crossed his right leg over his left, exposing his gleaming
patent-leather shoe with the brogue sole and oversize heel and tap the
size of a quarter sliver of a silver dollar.

Hedges was wearing his khakis. Above his left pocket were perched his
CIB and Airborne Wings. At the top edge of his left sleeve was his
orangeand-black Ranger Tab. Hedges was relaxed  ...  almost too
informal. "So how's leave going for you, Mr. Sam? We're going to
compensate you for this trip up here. I told you that, didn't I?"

"Yessir. Well, sir, this is my first day  ..."

"God dammit." Hedges unleashed his right hand and slapped his knee on
the dammit. "Got to remember this stuff. Of course. Your first day.

Well." He smiled. "It's all ahead of you then!"

"Yessir."

"All thirty glorious days."

"Yessir."

"And I'll bet you're gonna eat 'em up. Chew up those days. Eat 'em like
popcorn, huh, Mr. Sam?"

"Yessir."

"My secretary tells me a young lady answered the phone when we called
earlier today. You're gonna chowdown on this leave time, Mr. Sam. I can
tell by the look on your face, you rascal." Slaight had no discernible
look on his face. Exhaustion, maybe.

"Yessir." Hedges unfolded, scooted his chair square with his desk,
straightened the papers on his desk. A look of grave concern crossed his
face. Then he smiled a thin, peculiar smile. "Mr. Slaight, I think you
know me well enough to realize we wouldn't have pulled you off leave if
we weren't faced by a pretty serious situation up here." He paused.

"Yessir."

"You have any idea why I ordered you up here to see me today, Slaight?"

Slaight looked Hedges dead in the eye for the first time. "Uve got an
idea, sir." Hedges' eyes shifted quickly back to his papers. It was hard
to look the man in the eye. He was everywhere at once. "And what's your
idea, young man?"

"It's about David Hand, sir." Slaight wasn't going to be evasive, but he
wasn't volunteering anything, either.

"Right. First time. God damn we've got our hands full with this
business, Mr. Sam." Familiar again. Dropping the occasional, casual
curse word. It was known as establishing rapport. They taught it Second
Class Summer during Instructor Training Course. "You see all this paper
work I've got on my desk here, Mr.. Sam?" Slaight could hardly miss it.

The general's question was proforma. "Yessir."

"It's all on this David Hand business. All of it. Every last goddamn
page. Must be hundreds of them here. Maybe a thousand. I've been on this
business night and day." He paused again, waiting. "Yessir."

"One of the pieces of information we've got in this pile, Mr. Sam, just
one little piece of information, is the reason you're in here. You know
what it is?" Time to play dumb.

"Not really, sir."

"It's the fact you talked with Consor about his autopsy on the body of
that dead plebe. Hand. You were on emergency sick call that day, am I
right, Mr. Sam?"

"Yessir."

"What did you think when you heard what the doc had to say?"

"What did I think, sir?"

"Were you shocked?"

"Yessir. I guess so."

"You guess so?"

"I was shocked. Yessir."

"You damn straight you were shocked, mister. Anybody'd be." Hedges
pushed the papers around his desk aimlessly. Slaight figured he'd better
play along  ... closer. Hedges might be known among cadets as a dimbo,
but clearly he held all the cards. Play. Play. It was all a goddamn
game. "You see this little stack right here?" Hedges indicated a slim
folder at his right hand. "Yessir."

"You know what it is?"

"No sir."

"It's your file, Mr. Sam. And it contains one more interesting piece of
information, though it has little bearing on why you're here. You were
Hand's first squad leader, during Beast last year. Weren't you?"

"Yessir."

"And you drilled the little bastard with an aptitude rating at the
bottom of your squad, didn't you?"

"Yessir."

"Something between you and this Hand?"

"No sir."

"Why'd you rate him eleven out of eleven? Once the academic year began,
he was in the top fifth of his class in aptitude." Hedges peered at
Slaight closely. Slaight caught his eye again, held it this time. "Hand
thought he was all-over-it, sir. Thought he was too good to be a plebe.

He was like  ...  like a drain on the squad  ...  sapping everybody's
strength, sucking blood from the squad.

Hurt morale. Wouldn't cooperate with his roommates. Technically, he was
a first-class plebe. But he'd never  ...  you know, sir  ...  come
around. Time came to rate him, I had to put him at the- bottom. He
caused that squad more grief than all ten of the rest of them combined."

"You hate him, Slaight?" Hedges looked away. "No sir. I admired Hand ...
it was weird  ...  he just refused to bend, and I had to admire the kid
for that. He had guts."

"You figure it takes guts to 'refuse to bend," as you put it?" There was
a sarcastic tone in Hedges' voice. "In Hand's case it did, sir. I put
more pressure on him than any other five guys in the company. Most of
the rest of them would have caved in, or quit.

Probably quit. Not Hand. He had guts. His kind of guts. I don't know
exactly how to describe it, sir. It was a year ago."

"I see what you mean, Mr. Sam." Hedges continued to swim through his
papers. Slaight glanced at them, trying to read them sideways, with
little success.

"About your conversation with Consor. He told you the kid was a homo.

Did he not?"

"He told me he suspected he was, sir."

"He tell you he figured the kid was murdered?"

"Yessir."

"You believe him?"

"I believed that he believed his own suspicions, sir. But I'm no
criminal pathologist. I don't know what to think about David Hand any
more."

"Well, Mr. Sam, he wasn't necessarily murdered. You understand me?"

"I think so, sir."

"You think?"

"I understand you, sir."

"That's better, goddammit. You're not being paid to think, Slaight.

You've been here long enough to know that."

"Yessir."

"Now. Let's get back to this autopsy business. I've been on this thing,
first priority, since it happened. That's a month now. A month. I've
seen it all. Every report.

The autopsy is just one of them. And this doctor  ...  whatshisname  ...
Consor. His opinion is just one opinion. You get my drift?"

"Yessir." Hedges was definitely drifting somewhere, but Slaight was
finding it difficult to tell exactly where. "Hand was not necessarily
murdered. His death was announced as an accident. Officially, that's
where it still stands. We would not issue a false report on a cadet
death. You know that, Slaight."

"Yessir." He knew nothing of the sort, but "yessir" was clearly called
for under the circumstances. "So at best, you have only a partial
understanding of a small portion of a rather large set of circumstances.

Am I correct?"

"Yessir. I guess that's it all right." Play. Play along. "You talked to
Consor. Consor gave you his opinion.

You formed an opinion about Censor's opinion. Pretty flimsy when you
consider what's at stake. A man's death. Don't you figure?"

"Yessir."

"And your memory of Hand  ...  while your opinions are still keenly
held, your memory has weakened. You said yourself Beast was a year ago."

"Yessir."

"Do you see what I'm getting at here, Mr. Sam?"

"Not exactly, sir." Hedges wouldn't spell it out, not completely, but
Slaight would try to get him to come as close as possible. "What I'm
getting at, my boy, is the severity of the situation we've got on our
hands here. We've got a dead cadet. An accidental death, most probably.

Accidental officially, anyway. But it's the death of a rather peculiar
cadet. A homo. You know this because you talked to Consor. True?"

"Yessir."

"Then you understand the severity of the situation here. This thing  ...
this business about David Hand has implications for the academy, for the
army, for the nation, Slaight. You understand? We've got a dead cadet, a
faggot homo. You know what would happen if this ever got out?" Hedges
was grinning. "No sir."

"You can imagine, I presume." His grin widened.

"I believe so, sir."

"If this gets out, Slaight, we're going to have all those faggot
communist demonstrators out there  ...  we're going to have them
thinking they've got a piece of the action up here at the academy.

He was one of theirs, mister. If this gets out, all over the world,
they'll be watching us, and they'll figure we just let commie faggots in
our Military Academy along with everybody else, and then what good you
think our military commitments overseas will be?" Hedges chuckled
knowingly. He didn't expect Slaight to buy his line of reasoning. He
expected Slaight to take the hint and come inside. He watched Slaight,
waiting for the sign that the cadet understood the charade. The cadet's
face was blank. He showed no emotion. "Not much, I guess, sir." Slaight
almost choked on the words. He knew Hedges was playing out a fantasy, an
old, old academy game. We're special. We're one of a kind. "This David
Hand business involves national security, Slaight. You understand that?"

"Yessir." Hedges was looking straight at him now, his hands placed
firmly on the edge of his desk, leaning slightly in Slaight's direction,
knowing smile still painted on his face. "That's why we 'can't have this
business about David Hand getting out. And that's why you're up here
today, Slaight. I want you to keep your mouth shut about David Hand. I
don't want you breathing a word about that autopsy outside this room. I
believe you're going to have a memory failure. Am I correct in that
belief, Slaight?"

"Well, sir  ..."

"Look, mister. I'm not telling you to lie. I'm telling you to forget.

You can understand that, can't you?"

"Yessir."

"Now." Hedges reached for Slaight's personnel file. He flipped it open.

He thumbed its pages slowly. Slaight caught a glimpse of a "Blue Dart"

or two in there--the light blue forms with which one cadet could pillory
another by writing a special report as an adjunct to the normal Aptitude
Rating System. The Blue Dart needn't be signed by the cadet writing it.

The Blue Dart was a classic anonymous stab in the back. Slaight saw a
few more. He'd collected his share in three years.

"I've been looking through your file here, Mr. Sam. I've been giving it
my very, very close attention. You are a very interesting young man. A
man with great potential. Great potential. Did you know that, mister?"

"Sir  ..."

"You needn't answer that. Unfair question. Your file reveals you to be a
man of great unrealized potential, Mr. Sam. That's the key right there.

Unrealized. I don't think you've ever really lived up to your promise.

There's talent here. Lots of it. You're a leader, mister.

High marks in Instructor Training. Top of your company in Command Voice.

Hell of a job last summer in Beast. Hell of a job. You've had your share
of problems. I see you've spent some time on the area."

"Yessir."

"Major Consor was apparently quite distressed at the condition of your
feet when you saw him, Mr. Sam I want you to know that I've looked into
this ...  ah  ... matter  ...  the matter of your feet, that is. I made
my "discreet inquiries. It's my job, Slaight. I am, after all, the
commandant."

"Yessir." Oh-oh. Here it comes. "I can't afford to have any of my boys
jeopardizing their  ...  jeopardizing their careers out there on the
area  ...  And I don't give a good goddamn who takes a different point
of view. The commandant is responsible. Am I making myself clear?"

"Yessir." He's going after fuckin' Grimshaw. "Let me put it this way. I
will take care of this deplorable  ...  ah  ...  situation in the fall.

This most  ... reprehensible behavior will not be tolerated. This  ...
this  ...  Grimshaw character .." The general paused, his jaws working,
grinding his teeth. "This little cocksucker Grimshaw will pay, and there
will be no repercussions. I will personally see to that. Understood?"

"Yessir." Jesus. He really hates the bastard. Slaight wondered if
Grimshaw was already in the sling, on his way out. "I will not stand for
such  ...  such  ...  such contemptible weakness." The general was
stuttering now, staring out the window, working his jaws. Several
moments passed in silence. Slaight fidgeted. "Now. We come to this
matter of your potential. Your unrealized potential, Mr. Sam. There's
something you probably don't know about me. You have any idea what it
is?"

"No sir." Christ, if this guy asks one more rhetorical question  ... "I
am a man who hates--hates--to see another man fail to realize his full
worth. I hate it, Slaight. Hate it. You understand that? You understand
what it is to hate something, Slaight?"

"Yessir."

"Well, goddammit, I hate it when little shits like this  ...  Grimshaw
can't lift themselves out of the scum of mediocrity. Scum. Every real
man ought to rise, Slaight. Every real man ought to stand up and take
his shot, Slaight. Got that?"

"Yessir."

"That's why I'm considering making you a battalion commander, first
detail of the academic year. A battalion, Slaight. Your very own
battalion. I know this probably comes as a shock to you, young man  ...
but sometimes we  ...  sometimes we commanders get the opportunity to
reach out and pick someone and give him a shot at the stars. And if you
don't take the opportunity, then you're not functioning as a commander
should  ...  as a man should. I've got this opportunity with you,
Slaight. And I'm going to use it. I feel secure, having studied your
record, that you are battalion caliber.

Easily. Battalion. What do you think, young man?"

"Well, sir  ... that's ...  uh  ...  very interesting." Slaight got the
words out and paused, staring at the general, stunned. It came to him in
a flash, sitting there watching Hedges, listening to him ramble on  ...
suddenly Slaight knew: This is the way it happens. One minute you're
just sitting there, and you're just Ry fuckin' Slaight. The next minute,
somebody reaches out, and you're touched. You're chosen. Slaight
couldn't get over it.

The sensation was almost physical. "Well, mister, what do you think? Up
to it?"

"Yessir  ...  it's just that I  ..." Hedges chuckled in a knowing way,
as if to say: "Listen, kid, one day I was in your shoes.

Know exactly how you feel. Bit heavy, huh, kid? You'll get over it.

Knuckle down. Dig in. It'll pass." He leaned back in his chair, folded
his hands behind his head, threw one leg over the other, rocking slowly
back and forth, back and forth, staring across Central Area. Slaight
watched him. He looked  ...  Jesus  ...  content. "So how's your memory
doing, Mr. Sam?"

"Sir?" Hedges continued to rock, back and forth, back and forth, like he
wasn't listening. Slaight held the silence between them like a garbage
can lid, a shield against what was coming next. For the first time since
he walked in the Headquarters, he felt scared. The bastard's making a
deal with me. He's just sitting in his chair overlooking the area,
rocking and rocking like this went down every day here! He's making a
deal with me! He's telling me he'll make me a.goddamn battalion
commander if I'll conveniently forget I ever knew Major Consor, much
less talked to him about the autopsy. He knows damn good and well I'm in
the third fifth of the class in Aptitude, down there with the platoon
sergeants and the file closers and the rest of the firstie dead beats.

Got it right in the file, black and white. And Blue. But he's gonna hand
me a battalion, a goddamn battalion, lock, stock, and barrel, like it
happens every day around here  ...  Jesus, maybe it does'. Maybe most of
those fuckers walking around with stripes on their arms made deals
somewhere along the line  ... who knows? It all happens in little manila
file folders and behind closed doors and maybe one guy  ...  maybe two
...  know what's really going on  ...  and right here sits the
commandant, and he sure as hell knows ... Slaight's mind spun like
somebody had boxed his ears. Here he was, Ry Slaight, and the commandant
was treating him like one of the guys. It made Slaight feel special. He
found the deal, the idea of being a battalion commander, attractive. The
whole thing made him feel desired. That was it. Desired. It was the
first time in his life anybody had sat down across the table from him
and just come out and offered a deal. He had this feeling if he didn't
move right now, the whole thing was going to get away from him. Wait a
minute. The feeling was familiar--goddammit, what was it? He had the
same goddamn warm thrill he'd had the night he meet Irit, when she just
looked at him standing in the middle of that roomful of people and said:

Come home with me, Slaight. It was in her eyes. She was making a deal.

Come home with me and fuck, and you got a place to stay, boy. Sure, it
was subtle and between the lines and unstated, but the truth was right
there in her eyes. It was all so goddamn businesslike. That's what
bothered him at first about her.

Everything she did was businesslike. Even fucking. No
wham-bam-thanks-ma'am thing, but it was like  ...  abrupt. Before he
fell in love with her, he followed her. That was it. She led and he
followed. The understanding between them was functional. Neat.

Uncluttered. Efficient. Slaight was a cadet and he slipped into the
scene like he was putting on his pants in the morning. The one weekend
...  well  ... Now he was sitting in the office of the commandant of
cadets at West Point, and the commandant was rocking in his chair and he
was making a deal, just as casual as you please. Slaight felt  ...  he
felt like he'd been complimented or something. Honored. The whole thing
meant he was being drawn inside, in there with the gears whirring and
the wheels turning, and guys like Hedges standing around with oil cans
and wrenches, kicking this wheel, goosing that gear, running the goddamn
machine ... But the whole idea of a deal, Jesus, he'd been uncomfortable
around the idea of deals since he was a senior in high school, selling
clothes in a men's shop in downtown Leavenworth. There was another
senior working there, an Italian kid named Polozzi, and he just had this
nose for deals. He'd lurk in the store, watching this customer go by and
that one go by. Then he'd make his move, collar some poor bastard who
was looking to buy a sport coat and a pair of slacks. Ole Polozzi would
crank the poor guy up, turn a hundred-dollar sale into three suits, a
topcoat, dozen shirts, six ties, three belts, two pairs of shoes. He'd
discount this and that as he went along--on his own initiative, for to
do otherwise would have been to drop the flow of things--and before you
knew it, Polozzi was standing at the cash register ringing up thirteen
hundred dollars' worth of stuff for the guy. Old Mr. Wolfe, who owned
the place, would come out and see the Polozzi discounts, and after work
he'd chew Polozzi's ass, but at the end of the week, Polozzi would win
the store's sales contest  ...  and he only worked part-time, like
Slaight. Polozzi must have made a deal with his old lady to leave her
womb, they used to joke. He knew goddamn deals. Slaight stood around
selling shirts and socks and ties and an occasional suit that walked in
and sold itself, but he never did get the hang of making a deal, that
magical area known to guys like Polozzi. Slaight felt uncomfortable. He
couldn't shake it. He'd been sitting there listening to Hedges, trying
to clock his every move, gauge his every motive, and old Hedges was
bobbing and weaving like the pro he was, a real fighter, a goddamn
warrior. Slaight was fascinated. Enchanted. Watching him. Listening to
him. But this thing  ...  this off-balance thing  ...  it was like
somebody had a hand around his neck and was pulling him over backward.

Weird nervous creepy little doubt  ...  this hand on the neck  ...
goddammit  ...  Hedges was so, well, so  ... seductive  ...  Slaight
almost forgot, just sitting there watching and listening like some kind
of fool. It popped. What would my father do? Landed like a tight bare
first in the solar plexus  ... Slaight gasped and sucked air and hoped
to hell Hedges wasn't checking out his act because it was definitely
fraying at the edges  ...  splitting at the seams  ...  but old Hedges
just rocked and gazed the area ... What would my father do? Right here.

Right now. The hand on the back of his neck, tight as a goddamn C-clamp
gluing a joint, coming up out of nowhere and clamping down and holding
on and not letting go  ... pulling and hanging on ... First time in his
life anybody ever offered him a deal, a real goddamn deal, and he felt
that rush  ...  now I'm gonna get mine, goddammit, the moment has
finally come and I'm gonna get mine, a goddamn piece  ...  some bitter
little notion that'd been sitting around the back of his brain since the
days when he was a kid in school and he had to wear last year's sneakers
and everybody else was wearing this year's loafers  ...  Jesus  ...  the
stupid shit it boiled down to in the end, when you really got down to it
...  a rooty little bitterness that gave you the reflexes of a goddamn
cobra  ...  this is it, Slaight. Move, you fucker. Move. And goddamn if
he hadn't been getting off on it, watching Hedges dealing out his little
chunk of power. Goddamn if the whole scene hadn't sucked him right in,
inside, in there where you felt warm, part of it, desired. He remembered
the crummy little bitterness with Irit, when they were first going out.

Went back to that first night. Cadets were supposed to feel like'
conquerors, but Slaight didn't feel like that; he just felt like he was
finally getting his. Didn't matter if she was giving or he was taking.

What mattered was getting. That was the way it was. When you got your
chance, you reached out and grabbed. It was true with women, and now he
knew it was true inside the office of the commandant of cadets. "Well,
Mr. Sam, how about it?" Hedges watched him closely, Slaight with his
fist on his neck, holding him. The old man. Slaight knew. He just
fuckin' knew. The old man would never buy this act. Not for nothing
would he go for the stinkbait Hedges was fishing with. It was always the
old man. Every time he came up against something that rankled him a bit,
the old man was there, watching him, hanging over his shoulder like a
grade school teacher, the kind you could fool  ...  but only once. The
old man. You could only fool him once. So Slaight played the game at
West Point, but he played it with a tiny kernel of wisdom inside him.

The academy had fooled him, slipped one by him early on. But he never
let it happen again. He was sensitive to the nuances of the game. He
studied them. The game was it. To West Point's rules, he added one of
his own. The old man's rule. And he stuck by it. "Sir, I've got to give
this some thought. I mean, a lot of guys are going to wonder what I'm
doing wearing stripes, sir. You know? There are hundreds of guys ahead
of me in aptitude. There'll be a lot of questions."

"Yes  ...  I  ... aahhh  ...  see your point." Hedges looked away. "I
want to make myself clear, Mr. Slaight. Your conversation with Major
Consor. A very, very sensitive matter. More sensitive than you know.

More than I am at liberty to tell you. Understand? I think it's best
that you consider you and Consor never talked."

"You mean that day after the area, sir?"

"Exactly." / "It's Top Secret, or something, sir?"

"You could give it that classification. Yes."

"Does Major Consor know this, sir?"

"You let me handle Consor!" An ever-so-slight flare of temper. "His
situation is none of your business, young man. And the less you know,
the better off you'll find yourself. Believe me."

"Yessir." Hedges stood, and Slaight rose with him. Again Slaight found
Hedges' eyes and locked them for an instant. Hedges rummaged in his
papers. Slaight couldn't be sure  ... maybe he caught the barest glimmer
of uneasiness in the general's eyes.

A flicker. It made sense. It wasn't  ...  right, somehow, that a general
was sitting around his office making deals with a cadet who under normal
circumstances would never, ever, come personally to the attention of the
commandant of cadets. Slaight got the same feeling Consor had. Something
was going on, something big, and they did not know what it was. Then he
knew. He just fuckin' knew. He'd made it. He'd avoided the trap. He
hadn't said yes, and he hadn't said no. It was a subtle point, but one
to which all cadets were attuned. He hadn't let Hedges catch him in that
Honor Code trap of  ...  committing yourself. What you did was, you wove
and you dodged and you played coy and you did not commit. It was called
using your honor against you. If you let an officer commit you one way
or the other, then he could hold you there with the Honor Code. It was
part of the game, the eternal game. Sure, you lived by the code, but you
learned to use it, too ... "It was good to see you, Mr. Sam," said
Hedges, offering his hand, smiling again. Slaight shook hands. "I think
we understand each other. National security, Mr. Slaight. Remember
that." Hedges smiled. An insider smile. "Yessir."

"Good afternoon, mister." Slaight stepped back to the spot four feet
from the desk and saluted. "Good afternoon, sir." He about-faced and
walked from the room.

Slaight found Irit "in Grant Hall sitting under General George C.
Marshall, one of the two nongrads whose portraits hung in that august
chamber. Grant Hall was many years ago the cadet mess hall. Now it was
comfortably arranged with leather sofas and armchairs and reading lamps,
the way an Ivy League club reading room must look, Slaight imagined. It
was used as the public area in the barracks where cadets met their
dates. "That lawyer you wanted to talk to, Ry? Captain Hassett? His
secretary said he went on leave last week. He won't be back for a month.

She said you can talk to him when you return for academics in the fall."

"Shit," Slaight muttered under his breath. Irit stood up, gathering
sketches and note pads, stuffing them into a large canvas bag she often
carried. "Let's get out of this place," said Slaight. "Wait a minute. I
just remembered something," said Slaight. "Sit down for a minute, will
you? I want to call someone." The sergeant major. Why hadn't he thought
of him before? Slaight leafed through the phone book. There it was.

Sergeant Major Atkins Eldridge. Slaight jotted down his home number,
hoping Eldridge hadn't cleared post after retiring, hoping the army had
given an old sergeant a few weeks' grace period to make his final move.

He dialed the number. A woman's voice answered. "Sergeant Major
Eldridge's quarters. This is Mrs. Eldridge."

"Ma'am, this is Mr. Slaight. I was in the sergeant major's regiment. Is
he there? Can I speak to him?"

"Certainly. We've got the packers today, and the movers are coming
tomorrow  ...  he's a little busy, but he's here." Slaight waited. Then
the voice, authoritative, muscular: "Sergeant Major Eldridge, sir."

"Sergeant Major, it's Mr. Slaight. I'm over at Grant Hall. I'd like to
come by and see you. I've got to talk with you. It'll only take a
minute."

"Slaight! Damn! How'd you know I was still around?"

"I didn't. I just  ...  I just called, that all."

"Well, come on by, mister. Plenty of time. Plenty. That's one thing I
got enough of, nowadays. Time. So come by. You know where my place is,
don't you?"

"Sure, Sergeant Major. See you in a few minutes." Slaight grabbed Irit,
explaining on the way out the door they had to see this guy before
leaving West Point. He told her briefly who Eldridge was, saying he'd
tell her everything later, the meeting with Hedges, all of it. They
drove along Thayer Road, turning off for Washington Gate. Down at the
end of a long drive lined with the houses of colonels and lieutenant
colonels, old brick army quarters built in the 1930s, were several
woodframe, clapboard structures, no less sturdy, no less elegant than
the brick homes. The sergeant majors lived there. Slaight pulled up in
front of the second house to find old Eldridge standing at the curb,
waiting for them. "Well, well, well. So this is the famous Irit Dov,"
said the sergeant major, opening the door of the 190-SL on her side.

"This is indeed a pleasure. Miss. Dov. I've heard so much about you  ...
from Mr. Slaight, of course." Irit smiled. She knew. Slaight and the
sergeant major shook hands. He escorted them to a small brick terrace
next to the house. There were folding lawn chairs, and Mrs. Eldridge had
prepared a large pitcher of iced tea. "Hey, Sergeant Major. You think I
could get a beer? Irit?" Slaight turned to her, opening an imaginary can
in the air. She shook her head no. Mrs. Eldridge poured iced tea. "Sure.

I'll get you one," said the sergeant major. "Could use one myself, I'll
tell you." He walked inside, and Slaight followed. In the kitchen, the
two cracked beers and took long drafts. "Jesus," said Slaight. "Man, I
needed that."

"What's on your mind, Ry?" It was -the first time the sergeant major had
ever called him by his given name, and it reminded Slaight the old
soldier was retired now. Gone from the army. Slaight grabbed him by the
arm as the sergeant major started back outside. "I'd like to stay in
here for a minute. Sergeant Major," said Slaight.

"Sure."

"I'm gonna ask you something. Sergeant Major, and I know it's putting
you up against the wall, so if you don't want to answer, I'll sure
understand."

"Yes. Go ahead. A look of concern crossed the old man's lined face. You
could almost see the three wars in his face. It was tired  ...  not
physically tired  ...  just tired. And sad. A man can only see so much,
and then  ... "Sergeant Major, I want to know what you've heard about
that plebe they found up in Popolopen, David Hand.

Before you answer, I should tell you I've just been to see the com. I'm
on leave right now, and they called me up here today, special. There's
something big going on, and I want to know what it is. I figured you
might have some idea." The sergeant major studied the face of the young
man in his kitchen. Here was young Ry Slaight. He was fond of the kid.

Fond of him  ...  like a son. Slaight had gotten all worked up over that
business with those guys they called the "Magnificent Seven," because he
thought they'd been screwed. They had.

The sergeant major had to explain to Slaight there were just some things
in life you couldn't do anything about. Then had come the news about his
own son, and Slaight was up in Building 720 the day he heard, and he
told Slaight about it, told him the whole story for some reason. He
guessed he just had to explain it to himself all over again, that there
were some things in life you just couldn't affect. Slaight listened,
nodded, but he knew Slaight didn't believe it for a goddamn minute.

Didn't believe that business about some things in life  ...  Slaight
didn't believe it because he, the sergeant major, didn't believe it,
either. It was just something you said to younger men, hotheads, young
fireballs with a burr up their asses. You said it to cool them off, but
you didn't believe it any more than they did. He looked at Slaight's
face, red and sweating and young and hot and handsome like a colt  ...
he looked at the kid and he knew he'd have to tell him. "Yeah. I know
about this Hand thing. Big goings-on. Big.

Started the day they found him. Kept up all through June Week. Still
going the day I retired  ...  lemme see  ...  two weeks ago, now. They
got you up here, huh?"

"Yes, Sergeant Major" When you addressed a sergeant major, you said.

Yes, sergeant major to him the way you said Yessir to an officer. It was
the way. "Cut that crap. You can call me old Moonface, for all I care.

Did you know that's what they used to call me? Old Moonface? It was
because I was a platoon sergeant when I was eighteen, so goddamn young I
was moonfaced, I guess. You can call me Ed.

That's my nickname."

"Sure," Slaight was -nervous. You always felt that way when someone
older--someone above you--told you to be informal. "So what'd they call
you up here for?"

"I found out about the autopsy on the kid. By accident. Soon as they
found out I knew, they called."

"Figures." The sergeant major took a long pull on his beer. He looked
out the window. Irit and Mrs. Eldridge were going over some of her
sketches. Mrs. Eldridge looked interested  ...  she laughed. Irit  ...
fit. "Lemme tell you something, Ry. I wouldn't have told you this a
couple of weeks ago. But you know--got the packers today, movers coming
tomorrow. It's the last time, I guess. We're going to Santa Fe, New
Mexico. Picked it right off the map. Never been there in my life. We're
just going. Feels kind of funny though  ...  it's the first time I
picked the spot on the map." Sergeant Major Eldridge took another swig,
finished the beer, opened the fridge for another. "In the army, you've
got your shitstorms and you've got your shitstorms. Happens all the
time. Goddamn command maintenance inspections, stand-downs, division
exercises over in Germany  ...  and the goddamn war. Now there's one of
your all-time shitstorms. That one." The sergeant major opened his beer
and stared out the window again. "Yeah," said Slaight, acting like he
knew what old Eldridge was talking about. He didn't. "As I was saying.

You've got your shirtstorms. This one's so big, you can't even see it.

This dead plebe thing. Lemme tell you, Ry, those last couple of weeks up
there in 720, it was like being in the eye of a hurricane. Know what
that's like? Quiet as hell. Not a whisper of wind. But around you, you
know all hell is breaking loose. That's the way it was with the dead
plebe. Quiet. Too fucking quiet. It was another one of those situations
where not one piece of paperwork got generated. Not a fucking one. Now
in the army, anytime the poop-sheets stop flowing, you better sit up and
take a look around, son, 'cause something's wrong. Like in Nam. You
don't hear nothing, you don't see nothing, you start looking up, up in
the trees for snipers. Look up, not down. Same thing with the plebe. I
did some asking around." The sergeant major paused and studied Slaight's
face. It was a ritual he'd been through a thousand, maybe a million
times before. You paused, and you waited for the young trooper to come
on. "I understand," said Slaight, prodding. "No, you don't," said the
sergeant major with finality. "Not this time. Slaight, the lid's down so
tight, it took me a week to get a hold of anything. Even then, it was
diddlyshit, rumors and such. Another week, just before they retired
me"--he sipped his beer--"just before they retired me, this clerk over
in Headquarters comes by and we talk. He was scared. Said a friend of
his down at Post HQ told him three MPS got shipped to Korea the week
before  ...  just like that. Gone in one day. They'd been up at Buckner,
working on that dead cadet thing, he said. Then they were gone. He did
some sniffing around. Colonel King arranged it  ...  the MPS' transfer,
I mean. I knew King was up to some shit, because I was watching him come
in and out of the office  ...  in and out and in and out ...  That last
week, I had lots of free time, and I just wandered around. He was going
to see Hedges about twice a day. I figured that's what he was doing,
reporting to Hedges, but I didn't know for sure till I seen him."

Sergeant Major Eldridge finished his beer. "Want another?" he asked.

"Sure."

"Well. I knew the lid was on, but goddamn. It's been a long time since
I've seen that kind of stuff--used to call it 'midnight levitation,"
when they'd take a guy and ship him out overnight, just raise him up and
he'd be gone, like magic. So one day the colonel  ... I mean Colonel
King  ...  he's going over to play tennis right around lunchtime, and he
drops off this big pouch on the chair next to my desk on his way out,
and he says to me, he says. Take care of this for me while I'm gone,
"will you, Eldridge?" So I figure to myself, okay, I'll take care of it.

I went in his office and closed the door and went through the whole
pouch  ...  anything disappeared, I wanted to know about it, right?"

Eldridge grinned widely and swiggered his beer.

"Right," said Slaight. Classic sergeant logic. "CYA. Cover Your Ass. All
that good stuff. So I went through the pouch. Took me an hour. It was
all the stuff on this plebe, David Hand. Some of it was pretty
incredible. They had his whole record, every goddamn thing there was on
the kid here at the academy, and some shit that must have come from
someplace else  ... intelligence stuff, or something. There were 'red
flags," you know, those little red tabs that mean Top Secret, all over
the goddamn place." Eldridge paused again. "So?" Slaight could barely
stand the waiting. "Well. I can't remember everything I seen, you
understand. And I believe if I was ever to be questioned about it  ...
I'm not so sure I could even remember what that pouch looked like. I'm
getting along in years, you know. And I got this shrapnel wound right
here  ..." Eldridge pointed to a scar behind one ear, leaning toward
Slaight and turning his head. "I got me this wound right here, and it's
been known to affect my  ...  uh  ...  memory. You understand."

"Sure."

"Slaight. You're a good man. A god damn good man. I like ya. And I'm
gonna tell you three things that was in that pouch. Three. You
listening?"

"You bet. Sergeant Major."

"One. The kid was a homosexual.

Confirmed. All over the place. Poop-sheets and poop-sheets and
poop-sheets on the kid being queer. Got that?"

"I knew that one."

"Good.

Two. There were two  ...  that is two  ...  copies of autopsies in that
pouch. Both of 'em typed up. Both of 'em signed by some major over to
the hospital. You wannanother beer?" Eldridge crinkled his can and
opened the fridge for another. "No, thanks. I'm driving." They laughed.

"Okay. These two autopsies. They were different. Completely different.

One of 'em was all about the kid being a fag, semen all over the goddamn
place, all that shit. Said suspected murder victim. The other one said
nothing about him being a fag. Nothing about a murder. Drowning.

Accidental. Water in lungs. You know. Both of 'em signed by this major.

Can't recall his name. Now I figured that was a little strange  ...  two
autopsies, one dead plebe. And with all that other stuff in there--a lot
of the red-flagged stuff--about him being a homosexual and all. I don't
know what King was doing with two autopsies. Both of them were
photocopies. All I know is I seen two of them, for sure."

"Jesus." Slaight whistled, the way Leroy Buck whistled, between his
teeth. "Yeah.

Jesus. So I read on, after coming across these two separate autopsies.

And we come to number three. Three. One name keeps coming up, all
through the pouch. I don't know what the hell this name is doing in
there. The name is on the red-flagged poop-sheets. It's on letters. It's
on some photocopies of transcriptions of phone conversations. Lemme tell
you, Slaight. This name was in that pouch, one end to the other. The
name is William Beatty." The sergeant major took a pull on his beer.

"Yeah?" said Slaight, not wanting to appear anxious. "William Beatty.

Number three. Some civilian down in the Department of Defense in the
Pentagon. From the looks of it, he knew the kid, David Hand. But the
strange thing was  ...  this Beatty character, his name crops up in
letters from the Pentagon, letters from generals, letters to King,
letters to the com, letters from one general to another inside the
Pentagon, all kinds of goddamn memos, and letters from Beatty himself to
all of these guys. This Beatty  ...  he's all over the goddamn place,
digging in everybody's shit. Looked like he pretty much inserted himself
into the thing  ...  you know  ... they didn't go looking for him. He
came looking for them. For King and Hedges, I mean. As for the rest of
them-- the Pentagon characters--I don't know. I don't know what this
Beatty's story is, but I can tell you one thing about him. He has got
some friends. It was all Dear Billy, Dear Tommy, Dear Dave  ...  that
fucker was dearing his ass from one end of the Pentagon to the other.

And first-naming it with King and Hedges, too. This guy, William Beatty,
he's into that dead plebe up to his hindquarters and then some. Deeper.

If I was to base my conclusions on poop-sheets alone, I'd say this guy
knows some stuff. William Beatty, Slaight. That's all I'm gonna tell
you."

"Thanks, Sergeant Major." Slaight took a long swig of beer, finishing
the can. "That help you, son?" Eldridge studied Slaight. The kid's mind
was churning  ...  cranking. He could tell. "Sure did.

Sergeant Major. Beatty. I know him. Know of him, anyway. Jesus. That's,
the weirdest twist in this thing yet  ...  weirder than two autopsies
even."

"Well, lemme tell you something, boy. I don't want to know. Got that?

You keep it to yourself. And if you want a piece of advice, I'd keep my
fanny just as far away from this shitstorm as my little legs could carry
me."

"I've got you. Sergeant Major."

"You're on your leave time, aren't you, Ry?"

"Well  ...  if you want to call visiting the com on leave  ...  yeah."

"And they just called you up and roused your ass up here, huh?"

"Yeah, they found me. My leave form, up in Regimental Headquarters.

They're all on file up there. Easy enough."

"Tell you what, Slaight. I been meaning to drop by old Building 720
before I clear post  ...  got a few goodbyes to say and all that. Now.

Let's see.

You'll be back in New York City by tomorrow, if I'm not wrong. That
correct?"

"Yeah."

"So you wouldn't know it if somebody yanked your leave form and it just
kinda disappeared, would you?" The sergeant major was grinning ear to
ear now. "It's hard to know what's happening up at Woo Poo when you're
down in the city, I guess."

"Leave it to me. More important records than goddamn cadet leave forms
have been made to vanish for lesser reasons, lemme tell you. And take a
piece of advice from an old sergeant, will you?"

"What's that. Sergeant Major?"

"The army only gives you thirty days a goddamn year ..." Eldridge nodded
his head in the direction of the terrace, where Mrs. Eldridge and Irit
sat talking. "Use it." Eldridge laughed and punched Slaight in the
stomach affectionately. "You bet. Sergeant Major."

"Thought I told you to knock that stuff off."

"Yeah  ...  but Jesus, Sergeant Major. You're always going to be, well,
the sergeant major to me  ...  to lots of guys.

Christ. Just because the army says you're through doesn't mean we have
to  ...  forget, does it?" The sergeant major wrapped a beefy, tanned
arm around Slaight's shoulders and hugged him tightly. Slaight looked in
his eyes, and the sergeant major looked away reflexively. "I don't guess
it does, Ry. I don't guess it does. God damn, this is some shit."

"What's that. Sergeant Major?"

"This place. West Point. I been in the army all my goddamn life, and I
never seen anything like it. I mean, I've seen it come, and I've seen it
go. Hell, I used to know guys, old SOBS when I first signed up, thought
the army went to hell in a handbasket the day they traded the horse for
the tank. I seen some changes in my day, Slaight. By God, I seen some
changes. But this place.

I'll tell you what. I never seen anything like it in the army till I got
here. I served under West Pointers since I was a private, but you'd have
told me about this place, I wouldn't have believed you, not in a
thousand years, I wouldn't have. The kinds of stuff I've seen here  ...
the stuff they do to each other  ...  makes you wonder, that's what it
does. Makes you wonder. I guess retiring is the best thing for me. I'm
just an old sergeant. But I'll tell you what. It all seems different to
me now. All of it. Now that I've seen West Point up close, I guess my
kind is finished in this man's army. I don't belong any more. Know what
I mean? I don't belong. That's what makes me sad. Learning after all
these years that you don't belong. Hell's bells, maybe I never did. Who
knows?" The sergeant major tugged at Slaight's shoulder as they walked
out the back door to the terrace. "You need anything, Slaight, just call
Santa Fe information. They'll have me listed in a couple of days. And
you tell that Leroy Buck to stay in touch, too. And that John Lugar,
too. God damn, it's going to be lonely out there without you guys."

Slaight didn't know what to say, so he didn't say anything. "Irit Dov."

The sergeant major embraced her. "Irit Dov. Your daddy's a general, over
there in Israel, isn't he? Wasn't I reading about him last year in the
papers, during the war?"

"Yes, Sergeant Major."

"Not you, too. Come on.

Call me Ed."

"You're not going to get to her either. Sergeant Major," Slaight
interrupted. "She's a corporal in the army reserves over there."

"God damn. An old man can't win anything any more. Okay, Irit. You take
care of this young man, you hear me?"

"Yes, Sergeant Major." They walked to the Mercedes and got in. They said
brief good-byes. It was the way in the army. Sharply. Clean. Leaving was
always fast. From a phone booth in Highland Falls, Slaight called Major
Consor and reported on his conversations with General Hedges and the
sergeant major. If Consor was disturbed to learn there was not one
autopsy, but two, of David Hand floating around with his name attached
to them, he didn't show it.

Consor had unreal control, like the doctors on the televisions shows. It
was like showing emotion was illegal or something. But Consor did ask
Slaight to keep the information about the two autopsies to himself and
to get in touch if he heard anything else. Slaight promised he would.

They drove back to New York City in fading light. Quietly. Irit watched
Slaight. He concentrated on the road and drove well, as he always did.

But she knew he was thinking. It was all over his face, wrinkled into a
permanent frown, a grimace of distaste. It was impossible for Slaight to
hide his emotions, a fact Irit found comforting, for all she had to do
was look at him and she knew what was up. She didn't ask him anything
because she knew if she did, he would snap at her. It was always that
way for a day or so after he left the academy. His temper was brittle.

She knew if she asked anything, they would have a spat, and later, he'd
blame it on West fuckin' Point. That's what he always called it. West
fuckin' Point. They'd argue and fight, he'd brood and pout and hide from
her--going away, she called it--and when it was all over, he'd blame it
on West fuckin' Point. West Point was his excuse for everything. For all
his moods, all his mistakes, all his faults, all his failures  ... and
for all his skills, all his talents, for his manners, his sense of right
and wrong, his tenderness, his occasional bursts of anger, bitterness,
resentment. West Point just sat there on the Hudson and soaked up blame
like a sponge. In a way. West Point protected Ry Slaight. West Point
protected him from himself--from his true self-- and he didn't know it.

When they'd garaged the Mercedes 190-SL and returned to Irit's building,
she checked the mail. "Ry, there's a letter here for you. It was
forwarded from West Point," she said. The envelope was pink, obviously
from a girl. He avoided her eyes. They rode the elevator in silence, the
floors going by with ringing metallic clicks. Upstairs in the penthouse,
she disappeared into the kitchen to fix supper. Slaight sat down on one
of the sofas, took off his shirt, shoes, and socks, propped his feet,
leaned back in his khaki pants bare-chested in the summer night, and
opened the letter. June 20, 1968 152 Chartres St. New Orleans Dear Ry,
My brother is dead, an accidental drowning they said. We buried him next
to my grandfather in the family tomb, and I cried. For two weeks, I put
it out of my mind, but today I couldn't stand it any longer. I got out
all the mail I received from him this past year while I was in Paris,
and I went through every letter this afternoon. All he could talk about
was Ry Slaight this and Ry Slaight that and Ry Slaight did such-and-such
and I saw Ry Slaight at the movies and Ry Slaight went somewhere and did
something and I heard Ry Slaight said and on and on. Now he's dead and
buried. I don't believe for one minute it was an accident. And I think
you had something to do with it. If it's the last thing I do on this
earth. I'm going to find out what happened and I'm going to make you
pay. Samantha Hand Slaight dropped the letter at his side and rested his
head on the sofa. Jesus H. fuckin' Christ. Samantha Hand. Today. This.

Irit walked in from the kitchen carrying a tray of crackers and cheese,
saw Slaight with the letter at his side, sat down across from him, and
said: "Ry? Ry? What is it? Tell me." He handed her the letter. She read
it. "Ry, all day you haven't said a thing about what's going on. I
haven't asked you about it because I knew you needed  ...  well, I knew
you had to go up there to see that man, the commandant. And I knew you
needed to talk to the sergeant major. And I knew you needed the time to
sort it all out for yourself. But this, Ry." She held up the letter.

"What is the meaning of this? I want to know. I have a right to know.

This whole thing is destroying you, Ry. And it's destroying us. Tell me.

Please. You've got to tell me." Slaight raised his head and looked at
her. She was remarkably beautiful. His hands shook. He put his head
between his knees to hide his face. She moved to the sofa next to him
and stroked the hairs on the back of his neck. He was tired and she was
right. The whole thing was eating him alive. He was falling apart. He
knew he was going to need her. He needed help to see it through. "Irit,
it's a long story. A long story. I'm going to tell you all I know. The
whole thing. First, I need a drink. I want a glass of bourbon on the
rocks, tall. Then I'm gonna start at the beginning, on July 1, 1967, and
tell you every goddamn thing I know. Everything I know about this
fuckin' ghost, David Hand."

BOOK 3.

David Hand.

July 1967. Newspapers called it long and hot. In Detroit, Newark, Watts,
and New York, there were riots, fire bombings, the helmeted presence of
the National Guard. The word "trashing" entered the language to describe
wanton, aimless violence and destruction mirroring domestically the war
still raging in Southeast Asia. In the Middle East another war erupted,
flared briefly, and was over. Wishfully, or stupidly, it was known as
the Summer of Love. At West Point, they weren't fooled. All that
craziness out in the streets  ...  all the screaming and stomping and
yelling and burning and demonstrating and music and long hair  ...  all
of it had meaning. Especially the hair. There was something, well,
unsettling about long hair. Like rock and roll, long hair was loud, a
catcall at America. It was effeminate, a constant reminder of the little
black hole in men's hearts which was of the female. That summer, the
noise was so loud and the hair so long, it seemed dangerous. It was
power derived from appearance. It was dimensionless. It came from
nowhere and it went nowhere and it could not be controlled. This was
power in its most subtle form: power in the absence of money. It was
power such as only a handful of men understood completely, and in their
minds, it was by rights West Point's--the power of the warrior class.

Historically, their power was a willingness to wait, to bide one's time
in billets at low pay, sometimes as in the 1920s and 1930s, nearly
forgotten while the rest of the world went about its business,
manufacturing goods and services, achieving status, garnering
possessions, land, and money. The warrior class, the West Pointers,
estate money, they were good at waiting, for at the end of their time on
the sidelines, they would go to war and change the shape of the world.
Warriors had never been paid very much, so they were said to have
served, and what they did was known as the service. But it was always
more than that. It was a calling, a spirit, a mysterious something not
measurable in civilian terms. The power of the warrior class was the
power of men willing to kill other men, and who could measure such a
willingness in terms of money? In all of recorded history, soldiers had
been underpaid and overworked and very, very powerful, and their power
had never been effectively challenged, for the willingness to kill or
risk being killed had no monetary equal on the battlefield. In the
summer of 1967, their power was challenged, and the effectiveness of the
challenge lay in its diversity, decentralization, and almost total lack
of money. The warriors were mired in a war ten thousand miles away which
was not changing the shape of the world. And people back home--kids,
housewives, students, fathers, congressmen, senators, citizens--were
saying it couldn't be won and should be ended. Now. Guys coming home
from the war weren't being met by marching bands and baton twirlers.

They were returning to Customs, Greyhound bus stations; three more
months of pulling details in some stateside hellhole like Fort Bragg or
Fort Polk or Fort Leonard Wood. Hassles, man. And outside, "in the
world," as the saying went, out there past the gates, in the streets,
were increasing numbers of people who weren't interested in possessions,
land, or money, who just wouldn't stop chanting peace. It was all
getting to be too much. Last year, for the first time in the academy's
165-year history. West Point had begun recruiting, sending out cadets
from the academy to the high schools, competing for graduating students
like West Point was just one more college or something. Everywhere, all
around the warriors, there were threats. Everywhere, there was hair.

Clearly, something had to be done. They had to grab a final symbol to
brandish West Point's separateness from the rest of the country, its
impregnability. They grabbed the cadet haircut. It made sense. Haircuts
were image. They could be extreme, loud: white sidewalls, hair so short
and bristly around the sides of the head it showed ash-white scalp. Hair
so short the head was shiny. An inch on top, just beyond burr-head,
enough to plaster down with water and grease-and barely affect the look
of hair. Hair. It became an obsession at the United States Military
Academy, an obsession propagated by a single man. Brigadier General
Charles Sherrill Hedges, the brand-new commandant of cadets freshly
minted in Vietnam, a combat hero. He conceived of the cadet haircut as
the academy's symbolic moat, the thing to be crossed to get to West
Point, the belief to be embraced if you wanted to be a cadet. More than
anything else during the summer of 1967, short hair would characterize
the Military Academy, mark the cadet, make the man. The academy itself
was groomed as impeccably as its cadets. It became a military
Disneyland, a lush green summer dream, a memory of the way things were.

To those boys who traveled from the fifty states and several foreign
countries to become cadets. West Point would seem a place Tom Sawyer
might have aspired to, even in the hot mist of that hectic summer of
1967. As the new cadet candidate fresh off the bus from New York passed
through the gates of West Point, the academy lay before him frozen in
time, so consistent was reality with the images formed in the mind by
The Long Gray Line on the television late movie, the yearly spectacle of
the Army-Navy football game, the books by Red Reeder he had read in
junior high school. To the left was the drill field, lined by the old
stables, converted now into warehouses and offices. Above the drill
field stood barracks built in the 1920s, long brick buildings with
porches and floor-to-ceiling windows, elegant reminders of the
"brown-shoe army." To the right was the Thayer Hotel, perched atop a
piece of granite the size of a football field, lobby hung with battle
flags, walls lined with regimental crests. And everywhere was granite
...  great boulders and hunks of it exposed on the side of a hill, roads
blasted through it, houses nestled among it, granite, granite, and more
granite  ...  rock  ...  stone. High above the area of cadet barracks, a
mountain of granite, topped by the Cadet Chapel, a building so
singularly imposing that in the late afternoon with the sun in the west,
it seemed to cast its shadow over the entire academy. The Cadet Chapel
was a cathedral of gray stone, walls flowing into the rock so the chapel
and its granite mount seemed to be one. At a glance, the chapel looked
like a European castle, battlements topping walls, great oak doors
giving way to gloomy interiors, the entire structure cold and gray like
the rock on which it stood. Yet there was something oddly gentle about
the whole of the academy. The main post was a place of aristocratic
stature. Beautiful old brick and wood-frame officers' quarters lined the
streets, sitting on huge expanses of well-trimmed lawns at a respectful
distance from one another. White wooden signs with neat black stenciled
lettering announced the names and ranks of occupants. Many of the old
quarters were three stories high, with a fourth containing dormer
bedrooms. Sixteen-foot ground-floor ceilings and double parlors with
fireplaces, brass doorknobs and cut-glass bathroom fixtures, marble
sinks, floors of fine hardwoods or long-leaf yellow pine, screen porches
garnished with wicker furniture upholstered in colorful floral prints,
oaks and red maples dappling the perfect green lawns with shifting,
windblown shade  ...  the overall effect was of a past held reverently
to the bosom of the academy, a belief in the continuity of things. The
buildings and the lawns and the great pieces of granite which surrounded
them were like a steady hand upon the shoulder. The feeling was solid.

So was the academy. Having stood upon that historic fist of stone for
165 years, its forefinger directing the passage of the Hudson River, the
academy provided a solace, a calm no longer enforced outside the gates
of the academy. Inside the gates, solitude was still enforced. There was
to the atmosphere of perfect well-being pervading the academy in the
summer of 1967 a lesser design and a greater design. The former had to
do with getting through the next day, the next week, the next year.

Laying low seemed the best course. Wait it out. The lessons of history,
never lost upon warriors, taught that all things would pass, even
opposition to the military. West Point would persevere. The latter
design had to do with the reason the Military Academy existed in the
first place: to pass a special knowledge of the warrior class to a
select group of young men. To cadets. The West Point catalogue did not
advertise four years of study as a college, though upon graduation a
bachelor of science degree was promised. The academy was described as a
"way of life." Within the academy's unique notion of itself rested the
greater design of West Point: a conservative idealism embracing the
ancient ethic by which great ideas, principles, and knowledge were meant
to be separated and revealed only to a chosen few. In modern times, this
ethic had been distilled elsewhere to a set of rules one followed if one
wanted to get ahead. But at West Point, the ethic remained essentially
unchanged from 1802, the year the Military Academy was established by an
act of Congress at the urging of President Thomas Jefferson. In the
anxiety following the Revolution, men acted in America as men had acted
for centuries. In 1797 President George Washington pleaded with the
Congress for the establishment of a military academy, noting that the
art of making war "in its most improved and perfect state is always of
great moment to the security of a nation," and that "an academy where a
regular course of instruction is given is  ...  an expedient which
different nations have successfully employed." Washington and Jefferson
would copy the examples of France and England. And the Military Academy
copies them even today. The study of military history at the academy has
always gone by the course title

"Military Art." And so in the egalitarian vacuum of an infant democracy,
an elite would be born to study the military art of making war. In the
womb of a system of government consciously shunning royalty, a new kind
of royalty would grow. It was a royalty of attitude and achievement
rather than of blood, but its intent and effect were to be the same.

Those who were chosen for the Military Academy would rise above others.

Synthetic elevation was intended, and so it would remain--a great game
played on a grand scale, and it would never match the elegant,
controlled madness of divine providence. But it would come close. In its
way. West Point was from the beginning an embodiment of the American
dream. In the eyes of America, West Point would stand forever above even
its sister academies. There would always be only one West Point, and to
be chosen to go there had no equivalent in American life. The dream was
to become a cadet. Cadet. The word rang with echoes of the Long Gray
Line, tradition so steeped in greatness, you could almost smell the
sweat and the leather and the steel. But to become a cadet you had first
to become a plebe. In order to turn civilians into plebes, Beast
Barracks was necessary--two months of intensive summer training, the
academy's equivalent of basic training. Plebes were the fuel upon which
the academy ran, and Beast Barracks was the breeder reactor producing
plebes, feeding the machine ...  Plebes were necessary because they wert
practice dummies for the upper classes. All the things which were
unstated at civilian colleges--or in the Ivy League, hidden behind the
closed doors of Skull and Bones or the Porcelain Club--were practiced in
the open at West Point, encouraged, acted out with a freedom stemming
from the academy's total removal from the rest of society like a
monastery, a secret cult headquartered on the Hudson behind a stone
facade untouched for better than a century and a half. What it boiled
down to was this: In order to become a warrior, you had to understand
what it is to be warred upon ... a process with its antecedents in
ancient Greece, certain initiation rites during the Middle Ages. But the
thing which fueled the Military Academy goes deeper than that, to man's
inhumanity to man, and on a less lofty level, boys' inhumanity to other
boys. Beast Barracks was the culture in which this ancient process would
thrive. Beast Barracks was the way. So that summer at West Point, the
symbolic trench was dug.

Haircuts were stingingly short, trousers immaculately pressed, shirts
impeccably starched, shoes shined to mirror perfection. All was made
ready. Tradition would reign. Beast Barracks would begin on July 1,1967,
just as Beast Barracks had begun on the first day of July every year. It
was important--no, essential--to the interests of the nation that the
academy forge inflexibly onward. The generals were determined: The rest
of the country might bend--it might crack, hell, might go to the
dogs--but West Point would not bleed. On the last day of June, civilian
boys checked into the Hotel Thayer for the last night before they
entered The Life. A single word ran through the hotel in a river of
apprehension and conjecture. Cadet. It was uttered in tones normally
reserved for the football huddle and the church confessional. They
listened to one another as boys talked themselves into fitful sleep. Did
you see those cadets standing around outside the barracks? Yeah. Did you
see the looks on their faces, I mean, how serious they were? Yeah. Did
you see the way they just stood there  ...  you know  ...  looking at
us? Yeah. Real straight. Did you hear about all the yelling up in the
barracks? A guy was walking by, and he said the cadets were really
screaming. Said they were practicing. For tomorrow. Yeah. I heard.

Silence. Wow. Whatdaya think? Silence. They were trying not to think.

don't know. Think you'll make it? I mean, through Beast? I guess so  ...
I mean  ...  yeah. I'm gonna make it. Me too. But some of these guys are
gonna pussy-out. You can tell. Yeah. Did you see that guy with his golf
clubs and shit? Must have got off the bus at the wrong stop. Laughter.

Talk ran through the night like athletic liniment, with the same effect
on the tense atmosphere in the Thayer Hotel as balm on a leg muscle.

Hot. Full of bluster and ego and fear. Indeed, the Thayer was closer to
a locker room than a hotel that night. The boys slept restlessly, like
the night before the big game. They knew little of what the next day
held. Beast Barracks was a rumor. A secret whispered from bed to bed ...
pass it on  ...  like word that the camp counselor was making his
rounds. The boys of the summer of 1967 represented a part of the country
unsullied by the change outside. They were too young to have been
wounded deeply by the death of John IF. Kennedy, too young to have
remembered the political wasteland of the I-Like-Ike years, too young to
have invested themselves deeply in Johnson's peace-preaching in 1964,
then been disaffected by the lap-dissolve into a land war in Southeast
Asia. They were young, but they weren't innocents. Two years of watching
the war on television, observing older boys scurrying through the
various passageways of escape from the draft  ...  the past two years
had hardened them. They had come to West Point in many cases because
they had been recruited. They'd been whispered the first clue of the
secret. West Point held a promise the rest of the colleges didn't. West
Point's promise was integration into an instant elite. All you had to do
was make it through Beast. When the guy tells you to drop your bags,
drop them. Someone, who said his father was a grad, whispered in the
darkness. No one could figure out what the hell the voice was talking
about, but each boy listened and nodded to himself in silent agreement
with the apparent wisdom of the advice. Yeah. Gotta remember to drop my
bags. Somebody chuckled. Somebody else giggled. If their friends could
see them  ...  the stories they'd be able to tell, six months from now,
when they were first turned loose on Christmas leave ...  They waited
for dawn. They waited for July 1, 1967. They tried not to be afraid. Few
were successful. "DROP THOSE BAGS, MISSTAH, DROP'EM. YOU HEAH ME,
MISSTAH, DRO-O-OP THOSE BAGS, DROP'EM WHEN AH TELL YEW TO DROP THOSE
BAGS!" David Hand lowered two army duffel bags gently to the cement and
raised his head. He was staring into gray eyes belonging to a tanned
thin face, shaded by a gleaming white hat and a mirrorlike black
patent-leather visor, balanced near the tip of his nose. The face
grimaced. "PICK'EM UP." The words were not yelled so much as chewed off
matter-of-factly, as if drop those bags and pick them up were the most
natural things in the world to be saying at 9 a.m. on a sunny summer
day. The voice had a coarse, imitation edge to it, but not so
makebelieve that it wasn't just a bit scary. David Hand reached down and
picked up his bags. "DROP'EM." David Hand laughed. He had just completed
a two hour process which had divested him of all civilian gear in his
possession, clothed him in a pair of gym shorts and T-shirt, black
plain-toe tie shoes, burdened him with two fatigue duffel bags stuffed
with all the military equipment and uniforms necessary to get him
through the first few days of Beast Barracks. Hand laughed. Then he
looked into the eyes of the cadet leaning forward only inches from his
face, and he realized something was happening to him he did not
completely understand. This guy was yelling and he was taking the
business of dropping bags and picking them up seriously. David Hand
leaned back as the cadet leaned forward until with elbows locked, pelvis
shoved forward, and chin back trying to avoid the cadet's face. Hand was
contorted into a crazy human question mark. David Hand wasn't the only
one. Central Area was teeming with spastic human question marks, each of
whom was being similarly berated, directed to perform odd tasks,
bombarded with verbal violence. Hand glanced from side to side. The
place was a stone madhouse  ...  worse than he'd imagined. Guys were
running all over the place, bare knees pumping up and down, gray shorts
and white T-shirts darting here and there, stiff black shoes slapping
the pavement  ...  and screaming! Animals! Growling, snarling, snapping
... But they stood there, stiff as cardboard in the crinkly heat, ramrod
straight, just like the photos. And the voices--all the screaming and
yelling seemed to come from nowhere but everywhere at once! You couldn't
see their mouths move! Their faces were shaded by hats, so voices spewed
from the shade across the concrete, bouncing off barracks walls,
crashing about the ears in a kind of music. The words came in staccato
bursts, drum rolls, snapped at the end like cracking whips. It was all
somehow handsome and appealing. David Hand could imagine, even in those
first few split seconds, becoming just as sharp and quick and sure, just
as expertly violent with his tongue, just as mean as they were. He could
imagine becoming a cadet. They were like Doberman pinschers, cadets,
sleek and gray and vaguely sinister, even when standing in small groups
at the end of the area, just watching. They wore gray trousers and white
starched cotton shirts and gray epaulets and brass insignia, everything
shiny and bright, blinding in the morning sun. They were sneak attack
machines whose single purpose was to bring David Hand and other new
cadet candidates under control--total control--complete domination of
one man over the life of another. The first day of Beast Barracks was
intended to stun, to leave new cadet candidates nearly senseless
wondering what in hell was happening to them, and this was accomplished
with a massive injection of order disguised as chaos. It was hard--no,
impossible--to tell what was going to happen next. There was only one
choice. Listen. React. Hand was fascinated, entranced by the experience.

It was all so perfect. "AH SAID DROP THOSE BAGS, MISSTAH. YEW HARD A
HEAHING?" Hand dropped the bags. They hit the pavement with a dull thud.

"NOW PICK'EM UP." He scrambled for the bags, slung them over his
shoulders. "DROP'EM." He let them fall. "PICK'EM UP, MISSTAH." Up over
his shoulders went the bags again. Hand was sweating now, salty droplets
of water stinging his eyes, wetting his hair, starting down his arms and
legs. "DROP'EM, AH SAID, DROP THOSE BAGS." The face pitched forward,
centimeters between them now. Hand could feel his breath, cadet breath.

Startled, he paused. "DROP THOSE BAGS, MISSTAH. WHEN AH SAY DROP THOSE
BAGS YEW DROP'EM AND YEW DO NOT HESITATE, MISTAH." Down. Plonk. "THAT
WAS NOT FAST ENOUGH FOR ME, MISTAH. YEW UNNERSTAND THAT, MISSTAH? YEW
UNNERSTAND ME, MISSTAH? SPEAK UP, GODDAMMIT! AH'M NOT STANDING HERE FOR
MY HEALTH, MISSTAH, YEW HEAH ME? NOW  ..." Hand scrambled for the bags,
falling to his knees, anticipating the command. Concrete stung his skin.

The voice dropped in pitch, twinged with quiet fury. Hand, on his knees,
could feel the cadet's anger, could imagine spittle forming at the edges
of his mouth. He did not look up. "Misstah, Ah did not tell yew to pick
up those bags yet. Ah nevah gave that command, misstah, yew unnerstand
me? Yew do not move, yew do not even fuckin' flinch until Ah give the
command. Yew unnerstand me, misstah? Now. DROP'EM." Plonk. Hand,
quivering human question mark, sweating profusely, soggy like a wet
washcloth. Cadet utterly dry, caressed by an invisible cooling breeze,
the voice low, barely tolerant. "Ah do not like your attitude, misstah,
yew unnerstand me? When Ah tell yew to pick up those bags this time,
misstah. Ah want to see sparks fly. Ah wanna heah your chest heave. Ah
wanna feel you move. Ah want yew to rustle the crease on my trousers in
your breeze, yew heah me, misstah? Yew heah me?" "Yes." "Speak up." "I
said yes."

"I take it yew mean yessir, smackhead."

"Yessir."

"Speak up, goddammit. YEW HEAH ME?"

"YESSIR!"

"PICK'EM UP, SMACK, PICK UP THOSE BAGS. MOVE  ...  MOVE  ...  MOVE  ...
MOVE!" Hand moved. The bags heavy on his shoulders. Weigh more each
time. "That is bettah, misstah. Now, yew listen up, and yew listen up
close. Yew listen up to me like your little worthless life depended on
it. DROP'EM!" Drop. Plonk. Sweat.

Drip. "That is the idea, misstah. Yew are one slow smackhead, misstah.

Now, yew listen up, now, you heah? Yew think yew are some kinda hot
shit, diddlyboppin' in here outta high school, big hero, goin' to West
fuckin' Point. Well, misstah, yew got another think comin', yew heah
me?"

"YESSIR!"

"Yew got a brand-new think comin', hey. Yew are gonna be a plebe now,
smack. A new cadet. That is what yew are goin' to be later.

A new cadet. Right now, today, this minute, yew are a new cadet
candidate. Yew got that straight?"

"YESSIR!"

"Ah'm heah to teach yew two things, smack. Two simple things. The
position of attention for fourth-classmen, which yew will adopt as your
very own way of life. And your three answers. Now yew listen up,
smackhead. Yew listenin'?"

"YESSIR!" Hand could feel puffs of the cadet's breath as he spat out the
words derisively. Sweat rolled off his forehead, down the bridge of his
nose, dribbling on his lips, his chin, staining the concrete at his
feet. The cadet stepped back a foot. Hand waited. "SUCK IN THAT OBESE
CUT, SMACK! SUCK IT IN, IN IN IN IN IN. NOW ROLL THOSE HIPS BACK AND
POINT THOSE THUMBS TO THE GROUND. TO THE GROUND, SMACKHEAD, TO THE
GROUND! THE GROUND IS DOWN THERE AT YOUR FEET NOT UP IN THE GODDAMN AIR!

RUN THOSE THUMBS ALONG THE SEAMS OF YOUR SHORTS, AND POINT"EM DOWN. CURL
THOSE FINGERS AT THE FIRST KNUCKLE. CURL"EM! AND SUCK IN THAT GUT,
SMACK, SUCK IT IN AND ROLL THOSE HIPS BACK AND STRETCH THOSE SHOULDERS
TO THE SKY AND POINT THOSE THUMBS TO THE GROUND!" The instructions came
in a savage rush, and Hand struggled into a body position he imagined
fit the description ringing in his ears. He felt like a scarecrow. He
looked like a scarecrow. He grinned. "Wipe that smirk off that dull face
of yours, smackhead." Hand stiffened. "Now, dullard, yew think this is
so funny  ...  yew listenin' up?"

"YESSIR!"

"Yew think it's been a big yuk so far, smack, yew just gonna love this
next part. Now yew listen up to me, and yew listen up close. Ah'm only
gonna tell yew this once. Yew take that dull bean of yours, smack, and
yew direct your chin skyward." David Hand had no idea what the cadet was
talking about. He-blinked and gazed around, trying to see what the other
new cadets were doing, hoping he could copy someone. Across the area, he
spied another spindly human question mark, gazing in his direction,
probably wondering the same thing. He grinned to himself. "SMACKHEAD!"

Hand wheeled to find the cadet's face only an inch from his. He tried to
focus. Beads of sweat flooded his eyes. Under the shade of the cadet's
visor, he could see a face. The cadet's eyes were red, bloodshot. Hand
flinched, glancing down to avoid the cadet's eyes. For the first time,
he noticed the cadet was shorter than he, and had been standing on his
tiptoe's in order to bring his face close to level with Hand's. The
cadet dropped his voice to a low whisper. He hissed: "Ssssssmackhead.

What is your name, smackhead?

Please, be good enough to tell me your name, misstah. Yew think this is
all so much fun  ...  well. Ah wanna know who's havin' all the fun,
misstah." Ridicule dripped from the cadet's voice like sweat from Hand's
brow, a steady, slow stream. "My name is David Hand, sir."

"What did yew say, misstah? Did yew just say something, misstah? I
cannot hear yew." "I said, my name is David Hand, sir. I thought I spoke
rather clearly."

"Yew thought yew spoke rather clearly. Isn't that cute.

Hey, Leroy! This little bean thinks he speaks rather clearly. Isn't that
nice?" The cadet turned to another cadet not far away, his mocking tone
announcing to the assembled upperclass cadets that he had a real fish on
the line. The cadet called Leroy laughed. They both laughed. A bunch of
cadets standing in a group not far away laughed. Everyone laughed. Hand
winced, gathered his courage. The cadet was staring at him again. He
looked the cadet right in his bloodshot eyes. "I SAID MY NAME IS DAVID
HAND, SIR."

"That's better, misstah. Much better. But Ah still don't believe Ah hear
yew properly. Tell me once more. Please. What is your name?" Hand
realized some kind of game was being played, and his mind raced back
over the last few moments, an eternity, searching for the answer, the
simple phrase he knew would release him from the cadet's counterfeit
superiority. He remembered. "MY NAME IS NEW CADET DAVID HAND, SIR." The
cadet's face moved away, out of Hand's direct vision, and Hand heard him
inhaling and exhaling short, expensive bursts. The cadet eased his mouth
close to Hand's ear and whispered again, making believe what he said was
just between the two of them. Hand knew all the other upperclass cadets
were watching and listening. "Your name, misstah, is not New Cadet David
Hand. Your name, misstah, is New Cadet Candidate David Hand until yew
are told otherwise. Yew got that?"

"YESSIR!" The cadet stepped in front of Hand and moved back until Hand
could see him clearly. A black name plate on the right pocket flap of
his starched short-sleeve shirt announced his name in white capital
letters. SLAIGHT. David Hand would not forget the name Slaight. "That's
better. Yew are beginning to get the big picture, smackhead. Give us a
few eons, smackhead, and we may whip yew into shape. But Ah doubt it.

Yew are dull, misstah. Dull and ugly. And smelly. Yew are the reason
they call this Beast Barracks. Yew are subhuman. Yew are a smackhead, a
crot, a dullard, a simple little bean  ...  in short, smack Hand, yew
are a beast. Yew got that smackhead?"

"YESSIR!"

"Now are yew ready to proceed. New Cadet Candidate Hand?" The cadet's
voice oozed scorn.

"YESSIR!" Hand screamed reflexively. He was angry. "Now then. We come to
the good part, smack Hand. And yew listen up to me and listen up good,
smack, cause Ah'm only gonna tell yew once. Yew take that dull bean of
yours, and yew direct that chin up. UP, SMACK, UP. SKYWARD, DULLARD.

Look up there at the roof of those barracks over my shoulder. Not just
your eyes, dullard. Move your whole head. That's better. What do yew see
up there, smack?"

"NOTHING, SIR!"

"Well  ...  well  ..." the cadet drawled. His accent was a phony. Hand
realized. If not phony, at least exaggerated. "We-e-ell, that's just too
goddamn bad, smack, because yew better enjoy the view right now. This is
the last time yew are gonna be gazing up in that direction, yew hear
me?"

"YESSIR!"

"Listen up, smack." Hand looked the cadet in his bloodshot eyes. He was
perfect. Down to the last detail, the last thread. Like an expensive
toy. "You roll that chin down. DOWN, SMACK. DOWN, DOWN, DOWN, DOWN,
DOWN. That's the big idea.

Rest that skinny chin of yours on your skinny neck. Now. Get ready.

CRACK THAT CHIN TO THE REAR. TUCK THAT CHIN TIGHT UP ABOVE YOUR ADAM'S
APPLE. TUCK IT UP THERE, SMACK. TUCK IT. TIGHT, TIGHT, TIGHT, TIGHT."

David hand's chin was crammed down against his Adam's apple, like
somebody had driven a tenpenny nail up through the base of his skull.

The pain at the back of his neck, across his shoulders, was great. He
held the position. "That's a good iittle bean, Misstah Hand. Yew know
what this is, smackhead?" Hand choked: "NO SIR."

"Yew are assuming the fourth-class position of attention, smackhead, and
it is known commonly around here as BRACING, yew unnerstand me,
smackhead?" Hand choked: "YESSIR!"

"Yew will never utter the word bracing, but yew will assume this
position at all times, yew unnerstand me? Yew will walk bracing.

Yew will run bracing. Yew will eat bracing. In fact, the only time yew
will not brace is in your sleep, yew got that. Hand?"

"YESSIR!"

"The only place on the face of this earth yew are permitted to relax
from bracing is in your room. But yew do not have a room yet, smackhead.

And so yew will brace. Yew will brace everywhere yew go today. Yew will
brace unless yew are told to do otherwise, smack. To relax will be known
as falling out. But yew will not fall out, smack. Yew will brace.

Beginning today, for the next eleven months of your miserable little
insignificant life, bracing is your mission, your identity, your fuckin'
destiny, yew got that, smackhead Hand?"

"YESSIR!"

"NOW, BRACE, MISSTAH.

BRACE, GODDAMMIT." SCREW THAT PUNY CHIN OF YOURS UP AGAINST YOUR
BACKBONE AND BRACE! AH WANNA HEAR YOUR NECK CRACK, MISSTAH! AH WANNA
HEAR YOUR NECK CRACK, MISSTAH! AH WANNA HEAR YOUR FUCKIN' BONES RUBBIN'
AGAINST THAT SKINNY CHIN OF YOURS, SMACK! AH WANNA HEAR THE MUSIC OF
CHIN MEETING BACKBONE, THE FUCKIN' MUSICAL SOUNDS OF FUCKIN' BRACING,
SMACK! BRACE!" Hand braced. The cadet smiled, thrusting his own chin
forward in ridicule, wagging it back and forth in the air between them.

Hand braced and swore silently  ...  if I ever get through this day  ...
he didn't have time to complete the vow. "Now. Yew listen up again,
misstah. Ah'm gonna give yew your three answers. Yew will use them at
all times, unless otherwise instructed. Yew are being given exactly
three answers, misstah, because it has become abundantly clear that yew
are so completely dull, so totally beastly, yew are unable to handle
more than three answers. Are you ready, smack?"

"YESSIR!"

"Listen up.

Your three answers are: Yessir. No sir. No excuse, sir. Yew got that,
smack?"

"YESSIR!"

"Okay. Let's have them. What are your three answers, smackhead?"

"YESSIR, NO SIR, AND NO EXCUSE, SIR, SIR!"

"SMACK, THAT'S NO WAY TO ANSWER A QUESTION. GOD DAMN. DOES EVERYTHING
HAVE TO BE SPELLED OUT TO YEW, BEAN?" The cadet dropped his voice. "The
answer to the question, smack, is as follows: "Sir, my three answers
are: etcetera, etcetera, and etcetera." Yew got it straight now?"

"YESSIR!"

"Let's hear them now. What are your three answers?"

"SIR, MY THREE ANSWERS ARE: ETCETERA, ETCETERA, AND ETCETERA." Hand
could not keep himself from smiling. Two could play the game of
semantics, and the cadet had fallen for his own trap. The cadet
reddened. Was the cadet going for his throat? The cadet shook his head
slowly from side to side in mock resignation. He looked behind himself,
then back at Hand. "Listen up, you wise-ass smackhead. Yew see that man
in the red sash standing over there across the area?"

"YESSIR!"

"We-e-ell, just for the convenience of yew dull, dull beanheads, he will
be known for today as the man in the red sash, and yew are going to be
seeing a hell of a lot of him, so yew may as well get used to him. When
Ah release yew from my presence, which Ah'm gonna do in about one second
because Ah cannot stand the sight of yew for another minute, yew will
proceed over to the man in the red sash on the double, and yew will
report to him, and he will send yew on your next mission. Ah would not
advise making any wise-ass cracks to the man in the red sash. Ah doubt
yew will find he has the finely hon d sense of humor we have shared this
morning, smackhead, with all the spinnin' and grinnin' yew been doin'.

Yew get my drift, smackhead?"

"YESSIR!"

"Now, Misstah Hand. Let us get ourselves together. What are yew gonna do
when Ah tell yew to report to the man in the red sash?"

"SIR, I AM GOING TO REPORT TO THE MAN IN THE RED SASH."

"Do yew know how to report to the man in the red sash, beanhead?" Hand
considered the question. It was loaded. "NO SIR."

"Smack, yew are so goddamn dull. YEW ARE SO GODDAMN DULL, THEY ARE GONNA
HAVE TO OPEN UP A WHOLE NEW CATEGORY OF DULLNESS FOR YEW, A SPECIAL NEW
AREA OF DULLNESS, SMACKHEAD, YEW HEAR ME?"

"YESSIR!"

"Now, smack, when Ah tell yew to report to the man in the red sash, yew
POST over there, and Ah'm sure if yew stand around long enough, he'll
notice your dull bean, and yew can work out reporting procedures with
the man in the red sash, yew got that, bean?"

"YESSIR!"

"When Ah tell yew to move out, smack, yew move out ON THE DOUBLE,
BECAUSE YEW MOVE OUT ON THE DOUBLE EVERYWHERE YEW GO TODAY AND THE NEXT
DAY AND EVERY GODDAMN DAY HEREAFTER, YEW UNNERSTAND THAT?"

"YESSIR!"

"Now, smack. When Ah tell yew to move out, move out. MOVE OUT!" Hand
grabbing for his bags, stumbling, sweat pouring into his eyes, the area
a foggy maze of heat and gray and white, bodies, madness, on every side
shrieking and cursing and half-naked forms scurrying jerkily everywhere
at once. Hand moving in the general direction of the man in the red sash
only by concentrating with near catatonia on each" successive step he
was able to negotiate. He ended up in a heap of duffel bags and skinned
knees and sweat-soaked gym clothes and scuffed shoes somewhere in the
general vicinity of the men in the red sash, for in fact there were
several nearly identical men in red sashes standing side by side. Each
had a clipboard on which he copied the names of the new cadets sent to
him alongside a list of tasks to be performed within the next few hours.

As tasks were performed by the scurrying new cadets, they were checked
off the clipboard chart by the men in the red sash, and a similar check
was made on a manila tag pinned to the gym shorts of each new cadet. The
men in the red sash were central control over the entire melee. They ran
a rudimentary bookkeeping operation, and by cross-checking gym shorts
tag against clipboard, it was possible to ascertain the progress of any
new cadet at any time. The precision of this process, of course, was not
clear to the new cadets, who imagined themselves, at the least, victims
of unimaginable crime, at the worst, inmates of an insane asylum for
which no West Point catalogue or cadet recruiter had prepared them. They
rushed from one place to another, on an endless series of missions, each
of greater, more pressing import than the last. Moments clicked by like
hours. The first day of Beast Barracks would never end. Each new cadet
suspected somewhere deep within him this was true. They were trapped.

There was no way out and it would never end, and besides, if they ever
got out, who would possibly believe them? From the man in the red sash,
who turned out to be a harried but gentle sort, David Hand was sent to
the man on the stoop, another upperclassman whose sole function was to
teach the proper procedure of reporting to one's superiors. He sent
David Hand inside the 6th Division barracks to report to the company
first sergeant. Hand stood in the hallway, waiting his turn, watching
other new cadets stumble in and out of the first sergeant's office like
wind-up toys, fumbling their reporting over and over again. Finally
Hand's turn came. "SIR, NEW CADET CANDIDATE HAND REPORTS TO THE FIRST
SERGEANT OF THE SIXTH NEW CADET COMPANY FOR THE FIRST TIME AS ORDERED."

The words tumbled from his mouth in proper order, as much a-surprise to
the first sergeant as to Hand himself, who stood with his fingers
perched above his right brow in close approximation of a salute. Hand
was the first new cadet to get the procedure correct the first time all
day. He knew it. He tried not to show his satisfaction. "You think
you're pretty goddamn smart, huh, beanhead?" The first sergeant looked
up from the paper work on his desk at Hand, still saluting. "NO SIR!"

The first sergeant returned the salute, and Hand dropped his arm to the
fourth-class position of attention. "You got prior service?"

"NO SIR!"

"Your old man a grad?"

"NO SIR!"

"Rotcee?"

"NO SIR!"

"You go to some goddamn toy military prep school, smack?"

"NO SIR!"

"Then what is it with you, smackhead? Why'd you get it right when none
of the rest of these fuckers can get their goddamn names straight, much
less the whole poop?"

"I was determined to get it right the first time, sir, and I did." The
first sergeant looked up from his paper work again. A haze of icy fury
crossed his face. "That one of your three answers, you worthless
arrogant little smack?"

"NO SIR!"

"Then you've learned exactly nothing today, right, smack? Nothing. Nada.

Zero. Goose fuckin' egg; Vacuum.

Right, smack?"

"I guess not, sir."

"YOU GUESS NOT! SMACKHEAD! GET UP AGAINST MY WALL, SMACK! SCREW THAT
NECK TO THE REAR, PULL IT IN, IN, IN, IN, SMACK, IN! I WANNA SEE THAT
WALL TREMBLE AS YOUR PUNY BODY VIBRATES, SMACK. BRACE, GODDAMMIT! BRACE
UP AGAINST THAT WALL!" Hand slammed himself against a stretch of
institutional green wall and braced. This was it. The real stuff. He
smelled it. The first sergeant was genuinely angry. He wasn't playing
games. This wasn't make-believe. "WE DON'T LIKE SMART-ASS PUNKS LIKE YOU
AROUND HERE, YOU GOT THAT? WE DON'T LIKE PUNKS WHO THINK THEY'RE SMART
SHIT BECAUSE THEY GOT SOME SIMPLE-ASS BULLSHIT STRAIGHT THE FIRST TIME,
YOU GOT THAT? YOU LISTEN TO ME, BEAN. YOU LISTEN UP GOOD. NOTHING YOU DO
IS RIGHT, YOU UNDERSTAND THAT? NOTHING!

YOU ARE A DULLARD. A DULL, DULL SMACKHEAD. YOU ARE NOTHING. YOU ARE LESS
THAN NOTHING, SMACK. SO FAR AS I AM CONCERNED, YOU DO NOT EXIST. YOU
UNDERSTAND ME?"

"YESSIR!"

"NOW YOU SCREW THAT WORTHLESS BEAN IN, HAND.

CRAM IT TO THE REAR. SLAP THE BACK OF YOUR NECK FLAT UP AGAINST MY WALL,
BEAN. I WANNA SEE SWEAT COMING OFF YOUR FACE IN A MAJOR RIVER,
SMACKHEAD. I DON'T WANNA SEE ANY DAYLIGHT BETWEEN THE BACK OF YOUR NECK
AND MY WALL, SCREW. I WANT YOU TO VIBRATE, YOU ARE BRACING SO HARD,
SMACKHEAD. I WANNA SEE YOU SHAKE, HAND. SHAKE!" By this time, the first
sergeant was off his chair and leaned forward, both hands on the desk.

His face was a wide, impassive mask. He was not angry, he was mean. A
face appeared next to Hand's. He recognized the breathing as that of the
first cadet he had encountered at 9 a.m. Slaight. "Smack, you know what
it means when the first sergeant gets all upset like that?"

"NO SIR!"

"It means he is truly pissed. Pissed, you understand? It means he's
about ready to boil over that desk of his and clear a space on his wall
and invite you to spend the rest of the month up against that space,
like you are right now, up against his wall, bracing. You are not
interested in becoming a permanent fixture in the first sergeant's room,
are you.

Hand? You are not interested in becoming part of the first sergeant's
furniture, are you, mister?"

"NO SIR!" Hand noticed Slaight had dropped the accent he affected out on
the area. "Then you post out of here, and you rid yourself of that
arrogant attitude, you hear me, smackhead?"

"YESSIR!"

"NOW, POST OUT OF HERE." Hand posted, back to the man in the red sash,
who sent him to see the supply sergeant, and from there to the barber,
where his head was completely shaved, crew cut, and from there to the
mess hall, where he ate a single bologna sandwich he had difficulty
swallowing while bracing, having been instructed by the table
commandant, the upperclassman in charge of his ten-man mess hall table,
that bracing in the mess hall was especially desirable. From the mess
hall Hand was sent back to the the Division of barracks, to Room 1144,
where he was to sort through and inventory the contents of his duffel
bags. In Room 1144, he found his roommates. They had already scattered
the contents of their duffel bags all over the room and were madly
scrambling among the confusing collection of equipment, uniforms,
underwear, toilet articles, books, shoes, sheets, pillows, even a box of
"Cadet Stationery," The room was an unbelievable mess, and Hand stood in
the door, still bracing, his duffel bags at his sides, near tears at the
sight of the two subhuman pack rats before him, digging, rooting through
their stuff. Suddenly he was struck by the realization he was the same
as them  ...  he looked the same  ...  he had bags of the same stuff ...
he had to sort and inventory it ...  the whole thing was hopeless.

He was trapped. Hand introduced himself to Chauncey Dippel, a tall,
skinny, awkward-looking guy from the Bronx, and Lester Woodruff, a
slow-moving football player type from some farm town in western Ohio.

Except for the shapes of their bodies, the two were almost
indistinguishable. Dippel and Woodruff (the new cadets would rarely call
each other by their first names  ...  there didn't seem to be time) had
their heads shaved, and their sweating faces were coated with cut hairs
uncleaned by the harried barbers. The two were completely confused by
the contents of their duffel bags  ...  they didn't know what anything
was, where it was supposed to go, what it all meant. Which was a hand
brush and which was a clothes brush and which was a shoe brush? The
toothbrush was easily identified, but eight cross-belts (white cotton),
breastplate, waist plate, web belt, shirts (Sierra) and shirts khaki)?

Who knew? Who  ...  cared? The three roommates rummaged and guessed and
made checks on inventory sheets with a stub of pencil Hand found in a
desk drawer. While Hand stacked the contents of his duffel bags in neat
piles on one of the bunks, his roommates scattered stuff from the
fireplace to the door and before they knew it, they'd lost track of what
was what and whose was whose and they were arguing. Hand could tell. His
roommates were  ...  well, uncoordinated. They didn't have it. And so he
kept to himself, sorting and checking and piling and organizing. Before
long, he was in what he'd been told was the uniform for the
afternoon--gray trousers, black shoes, white cotton shirt with gray
epaulets, black web belt, and brass belt buckle. Hand was examining
himself in a full-length mirror on the wall when a figure appeared in
the door to their room. It was their squad leader, who had walked down
the hall from his room, 1141, Ryan Parker Slaight III. Hand saw Slaight
and popped to attention, bracing. His roommates didn't notice the
presence of an upperclassman. "You gonna call the room to attention.
Hand, or you gonna just stand there with your fuckin' thumb up your ass
like some kind of dufus fool?"

"ROOM, TENSHUN!" Hand screamed, trying to sound like the upperclassmen
he'd heard drilling new cadets on the area that morning. His roommates
looked up, startled. They snapped to the brace, quivering at the sight
of Slaight. "So. Smack Hand. Smack Woodruff. Smack Dippel. What a crew.

You three better learn to get along. It's gonna be one fuck of a long
two months, and you're gonna be spending the better part of it rubbing
up against each other like you were fuckin' married." Slaight stood in
the door, grinning. His three charges braced. , Slaight's grin was
forced. The records he'd been handed by the company administrative
officer on David Hand showed that he was indeed the brother of Samantha
Hand, the girl from Vassar he'd just broken up with, the girl who'd
handed him a flower and an antiwar leaflet as he'd walked back to the
barracks from the area the last week in May. What in hell was Samantha
Hand's brother doing at West Point?

And what terminal twist of fate had landed him in Slaight's squad? An
appeal to the cadet company commander had failed to dislodge Hand from
his squad only a half an hour ago. If one guy gets to change his squad
around, Slaight had been told, every guy will want to do the same. No
dice. Slaight was stuck. "Hand, you seem to have your shit relatively
well together. Now, you help your roommates here locate their shit, show
them how to assemble their uniforms, and the three of you be downstairs
in squad formation in five minutes. Get used to it, gentlemen.

Co-operate and graduate. Work together. Not one of you little smacks
should exit this, room for a formation until the three of you are ready
to go together. Remember it. Co-operate and graduate. Now, function."

Hand fished around on the floor and helped Dippel and Woodruff get
themselves together. When the last epaulet was snapped into place, he
checked his watch. Fifteen minutes had passed. They were ten minutes
late. They ran downstairs. The rest of the squad was in formation,
waiting. "Drive into Late Ranks, smackheads." Slaight indicated an
imaginary line at right angles with the rest of the squad.

The occupants of Room 1144 fell in where Slaight pointed. "This,
gentlemen, is Late Ranks. It is where you will stand when you are late
to formation. It is not a good place to stand. If you are late
occasionally, you will spend your free time decorating my wall with the
sweat off your skinny little necks. If you are late repeatedly, you will
receive demerits. If you receive too many demerits, you will walk
punishment tours on the area during your free time on weekends. You do
not want to be late, gentlemen. Ever." Slaight motioned with his hand
for the three to join the rest of the squad. Over and over again,
Slaight dismissed the squad and had them form up in the area, running
them back and forth up and down the four flights of stairs to the fourth
floor at the 6th Division where they lived. He drilled them. Right face.
Left face. About face. Forward march. To the rear march. Column right
march. Column left march. Hand salute. More dismissals and formations
...  endless yelling and running, sweating and searching, marching and
turning and stopping and starting ... The air was peppered with words
which would become as familiar as their names: sally port, the arched
walkway through the barracks to the mess hall  ...  stoops, long covered
porches on the first floor of the barracks  ... the 6th Division, the
stairwell containing the squad's rooms  ...  the sinks, the basement
lockers and showers and Johns where everyone in the division shaved and
bathed. And naturally, smack, bean, crot, smackhead, beanhead, endless
variations on unique cadet expletives designed to let the cream of the
nation's crop know that they had just arrived at the bottom of the
carton, where they would sour for the next eleven months.

All afternoon the upperclassmen prepared the new plebes  ...  their
uniforms, haircuts, marching, shined shoes, scrubbed faces and necks and
hands  ...  all of it necessary for the 5 p.m. swearing-in ceremony, to
be held in public view on Trophy Point, overlooking the Hudson to the
north, and to which the entire class of new cadets would march,
organized into squads, platoons, and companies, looking, it was hoped,
like a crack regiment of hardened soldiers. Like cadets. It has long
been an integral part of West Point tradition that a complete
transformation of civilian boy into cadet take place in the space of a
single day. The parents of many new cadets remain on academy grounds
during the first day of Beast Barracks, and in fact are so encouraged by
the academy. Cadet-conducted tours on foot and by bus are offered for
parental enjoyment, during which they are carefully instructed in the
ways and traditions of the academy. The parents are steered clear of the
main area of barracks, of course. What fun would the swearing-in
ceremony be if they had spent the day witnessing the creation of a
plebe? Blissfully ignorant of what's really going on at West Point on
the first day of Beast Barracks, most parents stay for the swearing in.

They are assured it will be a truly impressive spectacle. "But don't
expect to recognize your sons," the parents are cautioned by their
cadet-guides. It is the academy's intent that parents are not able to
recognize their sons as they march the quarter mile from the barracks to
Trophy to take the Oath of Allegiance. That so many raw civilian boys
are turned, almost magically, into a uniformed, well-disciplined, and
handsome military unit is central to an important but nonpublic portion
of the mission of the Military Academy, which is to enhance and
perpetuate its own image and power at all times. And what better
opportunity than the first day of Beast Barracks, an astounding visual
success, all those young cadets marching with seeming expert precision
down Thayer Road, forming without a hitch around Trophy Point, raising
their hands, taking the oath with a single  ...  well, older, man's
voice, booming out over the Hudson and across the academy, a pledge in
unison to everything the parents and the army and the academy and the
nation stand for. An Oath of Allegiance. By July 1, 1967, this had been
going on for 165 years. The impression given by the first day of Beast
Barracks has been as lasting and impressive as the history of the
academy itself. In the morning, over a thousand young boys, rank
amateurs, walked into West Point, through the portals of those gray
stone buildings, from whence they would not emerge until 5 p.m. By then,
they had become professionals. The response of parents, press,
dignitaries, and tourists would be nothing less than total awe. For if
it had been possible to accomplish such a complete transformation--from
boy to cadet--if it had been possible to accomplish so much in so little
time, just think what would happen to their sons over the next four
years! Indeed. Think of it. Samantha Hand considered the fate of her
brother as she watched him being sworn in out on Trophy Point. Now he
was a cadet. It had been his dream. She had opposed her brother's choice
of West Point over a long list of other colleges he had been accepted
to. It had nothing to do with her relationship with Ry Slaight, at the
time, blooming. The thought of her brother in that gray uniform, the
hat, the black shiny shoes---the image made her uneasy. She really
couldn't explain her opposition to West Point, so she had little effect
on her brother. And once he'd made up his mind and accepted his
appointment to the academy, she said no more. Even when she and Ry had
their bitter split in May, she's said nothing to her brother. What was
his business was his business. In part as a reaction to her brother's
choice of West Point, in part because of her split with Ry Slaight, she
had decided to spend her junior year at Vassar abroad, studying art
history. On July 2, 1967, she would leave for Paris. She was glad to be
leaving  ...  her brother, Ry Slaight, West Point, America. In the last
year, everything had turned sour. Listening to the voices of the young
cadets, the Oath of Allegiance, she shuddered. It was all too much. That
night after supper, the new cadets were herded into South Auditorium of
Thayer Hall, where they signed the official documents making them
members of the United States Army with the official rank of "Cadet."
This was the real "Oath of Allegiance," a contract promising five years'
active duty service in the Regular Army in return for an education at
West Point. Confronted with the actual paper work, several members of
the class of 1971 walked out of the auditorium and announced to the
nearest officer that they wanted to quit. They were the first.

More than 10 percent of the class would drop out for one reason or
another before Beast Barracks was over. But not David Hand, not any of
the guys in Third Squad, First Platoon, Sixth New Cadet
Company--Slaight's squad.

That night studying the records of all his squad members, Slaight
resolved he'd do his best to be fair with David Hand. But he wouldn't go
overboard because once he went steady with his sister. And he wouldn't
hold his sister's recent behavior against the kid. It ran against
Slaight's grain. Among his classmates, he was known as tough but fair.

He was proud of the image. On a single bunk in Room 1144, David Hand lay
awake after taps. A thin chain of thoughts tied together the day's
experiences for the New Cadet. He knew he was different. Only a few
hours in the company of his rather peculiar roommates proved that much.

They hardly knew which way was up, and he'd at least figured that out.

Then there was the deep shit he'd stepped in once or twice that day  ...
have to stay out of the way of the first sergeant  ...  and Slaight  ...
now, here was a guy who was a total mystery, despite his transparent
play-acting at times  ...  it was tough to know what to expect from a
guy like Slaight. Beast Barracks, in short, was going to be a tough
grind, much worse than he'd expected  ...  but now he, David Hand, was a
cadet, albeit a "new" cadet. And he was going to make it. He'd show
them. He'd show them  ...  all of them. David Hand would make himself
someone to be reckoned with. Downstairs, footsteps sounded on the
galvanized steel steps of the 6th Division, the officer in charge making
his rounds. A dozen yards away, the mess hall purred. Outside the window
of Room 1144 facing Central Area, the area clock struck 11 p.m., and
moments later, David Hand slept. The days of July 1967 passed for the
plebes in Beast Barracks like each step of a reveille run  ...  thud ...
thud  ...  thud  ...  thud  ...  a plodding, sluggish motion, pain in
the legs and the lungs and the arms, fear somewhere in the back of the
mind it would never end, you'd be out there plodding along, beating the
pavement, absorbing the pain, forever. To say that Beast Barracks was
depressing for most plebes would so grossly understate the emotional
experience as to render it meaningless. And if there was one thing Beast
Barracks had, it was meaning. The stuff they made you do! Stuff like
clothing formations. The whole company is down in the area in front of
the barracks, and the company commander gets up there on the stoops, and
the plebes are bracing, the upperclassmen all standing around with their
arms folded, chuckling, and the company commander shouts so everyone can
hear: "ALL RIGHT, YOU SMACKS, YOU'VE GOT EXACTLY FIVE MINUTES TO GET
YOUR FANNIES UP TO YOUR ROOMS AND INTO PULL DRESS GRAY UNDER LONG
OVERCOATS UNDER ARMS AND BE BACK DOWN HERE STANDING IN FORMATION  ...
NOW, MOVE OUT!" He'd yell it all so fast it was hard to understand what
he'd said. Plebes were scurrying everywhere, whispering to each other as
they pounded up the stairs at the double time ... What the fuck did he
say? Full dress what under what? They're nipping through the Blue Book,
the four-inchthick three-ring binder of cadet regulations, to find out
what in hell full dress gray under long overcoats under arms is all
about. Finally someone yells in the hallway  ... Here it is! I found it!

It's all that shit they just issued us yesterday, the weird long coats
and the new pants and the jackets with the tight black collars and
zippers up the front. Says here, we gotta wear our cross-belts and ammo
boxes and breastplates and waist plates and carry our goddamn rifles.

Jesus! All this shit in five minutes? They think we're supermen or
something? And all the time the upperclassmen are standing around
downstairs in the area, lounging on the stoops, drinking Cokes .. Cokes!

Plebes hadn't tasted Cokes in days, weeks! The upperclassmen are
lounging around waiting, knowing, just knowing that the uniform the
company commander yelled out was impossible for the plebes to strap
themselves into within five minutes. The plebes were up there in a state
of Total Shock, spasing around like a bunch of jupior high school boys
getting dressed after gym class, afraid they'll be late to English ...
The upperclassmen are laughing and joking and punching each other in the
arm, bored with the whole business by now. Beast Barracks--almost as
much of a grind for them as for the plebes, eighteen-hour days, endless
formations, sometimes fifteen to twenty formations a day, formation for
shots and formations for uniform fittings and formations for drill and
formations for classes and formations for poop-sheet signing and
formations for new boots and formations for meals and formations for
special announcements and formations for bayonet drill and formations
for the daily dozen and formations for special lectures after supper and
formations for slide shows about Vietnam and formations for more goddamn
uniform fittings and formations for more goddamn shots and more
formations and more formations and it just seemed like it never ended.

So when there was an hour of free time, it made a perverse kind of sense
...  it was funny, when you thought about it  ... to have clothing
formations, make the plebes run back and forth from the area to their
rooms to the area to their rooms to the area, changing from one uniform
to another--mixing up the uniforms, like as for physical education under
raincoats under arms  ...  mix up the little fuckers till you had them
wondering where they could possibly find another piece of clothing, till
their rooms were piled with discarded uniforms, parts and pieces of
uniforms, ripped out of their closets and wall lockers, strewn about the
room in a huge confusing mess, one guy's shit getting mixed up with
another guy's shit so they'd be up all night sorting out the madness ...
then form up the company about three minutes before taps in their
drawers, get them standing out there in the night air with nothing on
but their baggy old GI shorts and their shower clogs, so guys from other
companies are looking out their windows and pointing at this entire
company of plebes, formed up neat as you please in ranks of squads and
platoons, and none of them wearing anything but their saggy old GI
drawers and shower clogs  ...  the upperclassmen are holding their
sides, they're laughing so hard, it's so goddamn funny, they've all been
through the same shit themselves and looking back on it, you realize how
ridiculous you must have looked, and now you're standing around the area
drinking Cokes and waiting for your plebes to do what you tell them to
do so you can watch and you can laugh at the madness you've created  ...
and suddenly you realize that what you're really doing is laughing at
your fuckin' self, two years ago ... Beast Barracks. It just went on and
on and on and on  ...  a thing with a life of its own, seemingly apart
from the plebes, the upperclassemen, the tactical officers--a tradition.

That's what it was. A tradition. The tradition. Without Beast Barracks,
there would be no plebes. Without Beast Barracks, there would be no
cadets. Without Beast Barracks, there would be no West Point. Without
Beast Barracks the academy would not run, it would not function, the
academy might as well just dry up and blow away. Beast Barracks was it.

Beast Barracks was West Point at its most pure. Beast Barracks was West
Point in its truest form. Beast Barracks was West Point in its finest
hour. Beast Barracks was West Point with everything that made the
academy run just hanging out there in the breeze, West Point with its
trousers off. West Point stripped down to its goddamn drawers. West
Point stripped down to the thing which created plebes, down to Beast
fuckin' Barracks. Upperclassmen used to stand around on the stoops at
night, drinking Cokes and joking and cursing West Point. Out in the
fuckin' world  ...  if they knew what it was, was producing all those
bodies they watched on their TV screens every November, marching into
that stadium down in Philly for the Navy game  ...  out in the fuckin'
world if they really knew what goes down up here, if they knew the shit
going on during Beast Barracks  ... they'd pull the handle and flush the
place right into the Hudson, is what they'd do  ...  all those liberal
senators and congressmen and do-gooders, they'd die if they knew what
was happenin' to the little boys they were appointing to this place
every goddamn year  ...  they'd have fuckin' heart seizures is what
they'd have  ...  they see these beans bouncing around here like a bunch
of goddamn Ping-Pong balls, fightin' each other for little bits of food
at the mess hall table, arguing and punching each other out 'cause one
guy steps on the toe of another guy's shoe he'd just spent two hours
spitshinin'  ...  fighting and yelling and crying in the night for their
mommies 'cause they're lonely and homesick and they miss their little
fuckin' girl friends back home in Palookaville  ...  waitiri' for the
goddamn mail every day like it was some kinda holy communion or
somethin'  ...  and sobbin' and cryin' in their pillows when the letter
they were expectin' didn't come  ... comin' to the squad leader's room
in the middle of the night all teary-eyed and weepy, wantin' to quit,
askin' for special permission to call home so's they could ask their
mommies and their daddies if they could quit  ... every one of the
little bastards thought about quittin' at least once, most of-them a lot
more than once  ...  rare was the goddamn beanhead who didn't feel the
stinging, crippling pain of self-doubt  ...  rare was the goddamn
beanhead who didn't wonder what in fuck he was doin' at West fuckin'
Point, wonder what had possessed him to apply to the goddamn place in
the first place, wonder what had made him accept the goddamn appointment
from the goddamn congressman, wonder why in fuck he hadn't quit on the
first day of Beast when he saw what the fuck was actually going on,
wonder why right now-- now--he didn't just up and take a goddamn walk
out the main gate, take a walk downtown and get on a bus and go down to
New York and get himself out to the airport and get on the first goddamn
plane and get his fuckin' ass home ... The upperclassmen would stand
around at night and drink Cokes and listen to the noises the plebes
made, those familiar noises of Beast Barracks  ...  the pounding of feet
up and down the steel stairs as they ran back and forth to the showers,
the scratching of pencils and pens on paper as they wrote home to their
girl friends, the soft whoosh-whoosh-whoosh of a shoebrush shining
shoes, the raised voices of an argument over whose turn it was to sweep
up the ghost turds collected under the beds every day like devils, the
screamed curse when a can of Brasso fell off a desk and spilled all over
somebody's boots, ruining two weeks' work of building up a base of
polish necessary for a spit shine, cursing and cursing because the guy
knew he'd catch hell in ranks the next day with his improperly shined
boots no matter the reason his boots weren't spit-shined  ...  Nothing
was fair. The upperclassmen would stand around and listen and joke and
down deep inside most of them, they knew what they were doing was
listening to and joking about themselves, because they'd all been
plebes, not so long ago. In fact, it was the shared experience of having
been plebes, just like those guys upstairs, which held them together as
upperclassmen  ...  which held them to their squads, attached them to
the plebes who were theirs, tied them like big brothers to a bunch of
kids they'd only known for a few days. They spent eighteen hours a day
with those plebes. Sometimes more. They saw them in dress uniform, ready
for chapel on Sunday mornings  ...  and they saw them naked, down in the
showers when each plebe was required to approach his squad leader,
supervising shower formations, and report: "SIR, I HAVE SHOWERED AND
SHAVED AND IT HAS BEEN (X) DAYS SINCE MY LAST BOWEL MOVEMENT, SIR!" They
saw the plebes struggling through obstacle courses out in the field,
making it over walls they never thought they'd cross, not in a million
years. And then listened to the plebes at night, listened to them crying
themselves to sleep because they all figured, each one of them, they
were the only people on earth who knew the feeling of true pain, what it
was to hit bottom, the experience of total failure, the reality, bitter
and cruel, to have completely lost your sense of manhood. The
upperclassmen knew their plebes; they identified with them, because they
had been there. They knew what it was. They'd been plebes. And Beast
Barracks  ...  hell. This was their second Beast, they liked to joke.

The fuckers who didn't draw Beast Detail didn't know what it was all
about. Two Beasts  ...  Jesus. Ry Slaight joined in drinking Cokes and
joking on the stoops because that's what you did with your nights, and
because what was true for the rest of them was true for him. Everything
was pretty much of a bell curve at West Point. The squads in Sixth New
Cadet Company were all the same. When all was said and done, when all
the beans had been divvied up, there was really very little deviation
from the norm. Every squad leader had his good guys, his averages, and
his nick-ups. In any squad, it would be three or four good beans, three
or four take 'em or leave 'em beans, and a couple of dead-ahead
fuck-ups. In yearling math they'd studied statistics and probability,
and sure enough, that's the way it broke down, so neat you could predict
what you'd get with your slide rule. And then there was David Hand. The
kid from New Orleans was where it all broke down and fell apart. He was
one of your classic Special Cases--Exceptions to the Proverbial Rule.

There was nothing in any textbook, no chapter they'd read in Military
Psychology and Leadership, no number on the slide rule to explain the
phenomenon of David Hand. He simply could not be categorized. He was the
closest thing anybody had ever seen to The Perfect Plebe. David Hand
could do everything, and do it better than any new cadet in the
company--hell, in the entire Beast Barracks regiment of plebes. At
drill, his movements were crisp, precise, executed with an uncanny sense
of timing, like a dancer. He could flip an M-14 rifle around like he'd
spent four years on a high school ROTC drill team, which he had not. He
picked up rifle drill fast and loose, the way he picked up everything
else. Bayonet drill  ...  he was like a combat vet, hungry and mean. The
daily dozen  ...  he could do more push-ups, more squat-jumps, more
sit-ups, more of any exercise in the army daily dozen than anybody in
the company. Back in the barracks, his shoes, his clothing, his locker,
his bed--all were exemplary. He learned Plebe Knowledge a full two steps
ahead of everyone else in the squad. He knew the famous

"How is the cow?" poop when the rest of them were still stumbling over
their three answers. "Sir, she walks, she talks, she's full of chalk,
the lacteal fluid extracted from the female of the bovine species is
highly prolific to the nth degree." The words tumbled from his mouth
like dice coming up seven every time, maddeningly perfect. In the mess
hall, he never made a mistake at the squad table. When it was his turn
to be cold beverage corporal, the plebe who sat at the end of the table
opposite Slaight, table commandant. Hand whipped out the beverages like
he'd been born with a pitcher in one hand and a bucket of ice in the
other, like a First Avenue singles bar bartender, he was so quick. It
was impossible to catch Hand making a mistake because he simply did not
make them. He was perfect. But David Hand was a problem, because he was
aloof from his classmates. Despite the frequent warnings of his squad
leader, Slaight, who knew of such matters, Hand had an attitude. His
attitude was aristocratic, mirrored 'like the toes of his shoes, shiny
perfection. He was better than the rest of them; therefore he needn't
stoop to their level. This was not the way of the plebe, and Hand knew
it. He flaunted his attitude like an invisible red flag, and
upperclassmen charged, only to be repelled by Hand's command of West
Point's ways. He had the shit down. Not so his roommates. Dippel and
Woodruff were the squad fuck-ups, a pair of dufus beans who were lucky
to put on their pants right-side-out in the morning. Nothing they did
was right. Their shoes looked like somebody had shined them with a
chocolate bar. Their uniforms hung like parachute cloth, billowing at
the back, gathered at the ankles, draped in grubby folds from the
shoulders. Their beds looked like they'd been made by the help at a
cheap motel. When it came to marching, Dippel went one way and Woodruff
the other. Marching in step, to the beat of the big bass drum, seemed a
near   ... *. impossibility. They bounced and bobbed against the tide of
the company formation. They were out of synch. They were classic
fuck-ups. In any military organization, there is always congenital
affection for true fuck-ups. The institution understands that they have
to be protected--from themselves, as much as from anyone else.

And there is humor. Fuckups are funny. They have to be. At bottom, humor
is the final survival mechanism. Without a sense of humor, they might as
well cash their checks. Hand's roommates fit the pattern. Dippel was so
gangling and awkward, watching him get out of bed was like watching a
baby bird trying to fly--all legs and wings, flapping around, sheets and
blankets flying, everything moving except Dippel's torso, which attached
itself to the mattress, refusing to budge until his bed self-destructed,
taking with it the better part of his uniform supply, hanging in a neat
row along the wall of his alcove next to his bed. By the time Dippel hit
the deck, the area of his bunk looked eligible for federal disaster
relief. Woodruff was simply a monster--huge, at 250 pounds, six feet
tall, one of those guys with no neck  ...  his head disappeared into
shoulders so huge it took three tailors to fit him for his uniforms,
they hovered around him with pins sticking from their mouths, standing
on little stepladders, chalking and pinning and muttering to each other.

Woodruff's uniforms probably cost double the average cadet's. He'd been
recruited to play football, and though he was an excellent athlete, up
in the barracks he was just plain slow. Everything he touched took time.

If there was one thing plebes did not have, it was time. So Woodruff was
late. Late. And later. He was the kind of guy who found zipping his
pants a true challenge, who'd grab his roommate's toothbrush by mistake,
and use it to apply polish to the soles of his shoes, then use his
Brasso rag to spitshine them, removing another layer of carefully
applied polish base with every turn of the cloth until finally it
occurred to him that he was rubbing fresh polish on raw leather ...  But
like an athlete. Woodruff had an incredible ability to absorb the blows
of Beast Barracks like a huge pillow. He could take it and take it and
take it and still come back for more. When the whole squad was down in
the dumps, having performed poorly at parade and received a half-hour
ass-chewing from an irate squad leader replete with threats of
punishment tours and loss of weekend privileges when they finally
arrived, Woodruff was the guy who would rally the squad, get them
together in his room, and ten minutes before taps, you could hear them.

They'd be singing some marching-cadence lyric Woodruff had composed on
the spur of the moment, usually at the expense of their nemesis,
Slaight: Hey! Hey! Beast Squad three! Who's the pride of the Infantry!

It ain't Slaight And it ain't Buck So it can't be me! We got wrinkles We
got knocks We got shoes That looks like socks! Take us marchin' With our
guns This one's for fightin' This one's for fun! Hey! Hey! Beast Squad
three! Which is the right end Of this here M-fourteen? I don't know But
I been told That Rysam Slaight Is growin' old. Hey! Hey! Beast squad
three! Newest record Slaight got Is Lewis, Jerry Lee! And so on. Sitting
in his room at the other end of the hall, Slaight could not keep himself
from laughing as his squad yukked it up down in Room 1144. At moments
like those, he could even bring himself to think there must be a worse
place on earth to be than West fuckin' Point. Right now, he couldn't
think of one. For the first two weeks of Beast, everything went by the
book, or close to it. Then one morning at reveille, Slaight wandered out
to formation to find a small but significant change. Dippel and Woodruff
were standing in Late Ranks, where they could usually be found along
with the rest of the company fuck-ups. This time. Hand, their roommate,
wasn't with them. On the surface, it was a minor matter. Hand had left
his room, heading out to formation without them. Until that morning,
Dippel, Woodruff, and Hand could be found in Late Ranks at nearly every
formation. Dippel was so spastic and Woodruff so slow, getting the two
of them out to formation on time was a task, beyond even the
considerable talents of David Hand. And so Hand suffered the ignominious
appearance in Late Ranks along with his roommates. Slaight had been
careful not to take Hand to task for his Late Ranks appearances.

Clearly, it was not the fault of Hand that Room 1144 was usually late.

In fact, Slaight had assigned Crolius, another guy from the squad, to
help Dippel and Woodruff achieve the seemingly impossible rewards of
being on time. It was beginning to work. Already they'd made it to quite
a few formations on time, even if they did look a little sloppy. At
least they knew. it was possible. It was a matter of morale. Slaight
wanted the squad to get that rush of togetherness  ...  the special
feeling he knew they'd have when they were pulling together and it was
all working. They were on time. They looked good. They marched well.

Nobody fell out of reveille runs. They could be proud. They would be a
unit. And now this. Dippel and Woodruff in Late Ranks. Hand in
formation. Slaight let it slide. He wanted to see if it was a quirk, a
temporary thing the three of them would repair by dinner formation. But
all day it happened. Hand on time. Dippel and Woodruff in Late Ranks,
looking worse and worse every time. Clearly, Hand had given up on his
roommates. His aloofness from his classmates had reached a new high.

Slaight told Hand to drive around that night, twenty minutes before
taps. It was time for a talking-to--one which Hand had had coming for a
long time. Hand knocked on Slaight's door three times at precisely 9:40
p.m. Slaight told him to enter and grab a piece of wall. Hand stood
against the wall next to Slaight's desk, bracing. Slaight lectured about
the rules of the game, that old thing about "co-operate and graduate."

Hand listened respectfully  ...  at least he didn't pipe up with a bunch
of lame excuses. If there was one thing Slaight hated, it was a plebe
who manufactured excuses for his fuck-ups. That was one of the few good
things about Dippel and Woodruff. They didn't make excuses. They just
were. Slaight told Hand he hadn't gotten himself in trouble for helping
his classmates. Everyone in the company, including the company
commander, knew Hand was perfectly capable of being on time to
formations. Hand wasn't running any risks of losing privileges or
receiving demerits and landing punishment tours on the area. But Slaight
knew there was a key element to that weird thing in the army about
institutional affection for fuck-ups. The organization would tolerate
them only so long as it sensed the fuck-ups were trying. Slaight knew
the rest of his squad, similarly mired in the noxious fumes of
Beasthood, sensed Dippel and Woodruff were at least trying. What about
Hand? "No sir. I don't believe they are trying."

"What do you mean. Hand?

I put Crolius in there helping you last week, and by last Friday, you
two had them down into formation at least half the time. They're not
trying? You got to give them a goddamn chance, Hand. That's all."

"I just don't think  ...  I don't believe  ...  they're trying, sir. If
they are  ...  well, then, sir, they just don't have it."

"What do you mean, smack, they don't have it? Who are you to determine
whether or not they have it, whatever the fuck it is?" Slaight was
angry, but Hand remained impassive, bracing against his wall. "Sir, I've
spent two weeks down in Late Ranks with Dippel and Woodruff, getting
laughed at and hazed by the first-classmen. I've given them as much time
as I believe they deserve. If they want to spend the rest of their days
in Late Ranks, sir, that's up to them. I am determined to make it my
business to be on time from now on." Slaight was nearly seething with
rage. But there was nothing he could do. Ultimately, whether or not Hand
helped his roommates get to formation on time affected the performance,
thus the morale of his squad. But classmates helping each other was
something worked out between classmates. Technically, Slaight could not
order Hand to help them. But there was something in the tone of Hand's
voice  ... he didn't like the ridicule and abuse he suffered in Late
Ranks because Dippel and Woodruff couldn't get their shit together. That
was understandable. But something else ate at Hand. Slaight smelled it.

"Hand. What else is going on in your room? What's bothering you about
Dippel and Woodruff? I don't think this Late Ranks thing is the whole
story. Now give me the rest of the poop." Hand paused. Slaight knew he'd
been right. "Sir, it's not Woodruff. He's okay. He's just, you know,
sir. Slow. But Dippel. It's different with him, sir. I just can't take
Dippel any more."

"Come on. Out with it. Hand. This is just between you and me. Close the
door." Hand closed it. "Now fall out. Relax. I want to hear it. What you
say to me will remain in confidence."

"Sir, Dippel has been buying favors from others guys in the squad in
return for fixing them up with dates as soon as privileges start. Last
week his mother sent his high school yearbook up from the Bronx, and
he's been spreading the word around he'll fix you up with a date, if
you'll help him out with stuff. Like guard mount. One guy took his guard
mount last week.

Another guy has been shining his shoes. Somebody else has been coming
into the room before reveille and making his bed while Dippel gets
dressed. For all of these guys, he's done this: He takes out his
yearbook, and he lets them pick out a girl's picture. Then he writes his
mother a letter and asks her to get the guy a blind date with the girl.

They all live down in the Bronx, so they're close enough to come up here
when weekend privileges start. I just don't like it, sir. It's like he's
buying his way through Beast. He's pimping for these guys so he won't
take so much gas." Slaight was stunned. What Hand said made perfect
sense. He couldn't blame him. West Pointers were conditioned to despise
weakness in those around them, and there was a reason for it, like there
was a goddamn reason for everything else at West Point. Weakness was
contagious. If you stayed near it long enough, some of it would rub off.

In a small military unit like a squad, this was especially true. Hand
had suffered the rigors of Late Ranks with Woodruff and Dippel for two
weeks, and now here was Dippel, trying to trade blind dates for
"favors." The favors were actually the stuff he was supposed to learn
how to get done for himself every day. Because Hand had revealed
Dippel's seedy practice to Slaight in confidence, there was nothing he
could do about it for now; not unless someone else in the squad made a
formal, aboveboard complaint about Dippel. Unlikely, so long as they all
believed Dippel was the pathway of least resistance where girls were
concerned. Slaight remembered what it had been like coming to West Point
from Kansas  ...  not knowing any girls  ... it had taken months to get
fixed up with a date as a plebe. Dippel had quite a scam going. "Look,
Hand. I see your point about Dippel. And I appreciate your candor. But
I've got to warn you. You'd better spend some time figuring out how
you're going to handle this thing with your roommates. I can't order you
to help those guys. What's between classmates is between classmates. But
it's like I told you on the first day of Beast, remember? You've got to
live with those guys. It's like you're married to the fuckers. And at
West Point, it's like the Catholics. They don't recognize divorces here,
right? Understand?" Hand nodded. "Now post on out of here back to your
room. It's almost taps." Hand saluted and left. Slaight had a new
respect for Hand. The kid had principles, he thought. He was aloof, and
being aloof was going to get him into trouble-- sooner rather than
later. But now Slaight knew there was substance behind Hand's style,
camouflaged by his aloofness. Or there was something back there,
anyway-- something Slaight hadn't seen yet. He couldn't be sure. He went
back to work on his squad book. In the distance, one of the Hellcats
blew taps. It was 10 p.m., and Beast was just about half over for Ry
Slaight and the rest of the First Detail July upperclassmen. Almost
nightly, the plebes received training on the Honor Code, traditionally,
the sacred cornerstone upon which the academy has been said to rest. In
fact, the class had been at West Point only a few days when they were
introduced to the code formally. Most of them knew about the Honor Code
in advance, having read in the West Point catalogue, which had been
mailed to all candidates, that "A Cadet does not lie, cheat, or steal."

That was the code, lock, stock, and barrel. Or was it? Omitted from
official documents relating to the code was the so-called toleration
clause, which required--and still requires--that cadets report any and
all violations of the code to which they are witness, or be expelled as
an honor violator for having failed to make a report. But knowledge of
the toleration clause would come soon. For the time being, the Honor
Code seemed simple. The thing which lay behind the code would be
explained to them at a lecture delivered by the chairman of the Cadet
Honor Committee. The new cadets attended the lecture at night, after
supper, in a huge auditorium. It would soon become known to them as
"South And." Sweating, wet from the heat outside, they froze within the
air-conditioned cavernous hall, located in what was once the old Cadet
Riding Hall, Thayer Hall, a place of the 1920s and 1930s, of mandatory
equestrian training for cadets, of polo practice and saddle soap and the
brown-shoe army. The old Riding Hall, now the main academic building at
the academy, was drenched in tradition, with an overpowering air of
those who had come before: the Long Gray Line. But who, exactly, was the
Long Gray Line? With the exception of a few heroes like Eisenhower,
MacArthur, Patton, and Pershing, the new cadets didn't know. But they
were in awe. It was the business of plebes to be forever in awe. A tall,
good-looking upperclassman with burred, white-sidewall crew cut, wearing
many stripes on the sleeve of his Dress Gray coat, stepped before the
class. They nearly gasped. He was the commander of Beast Barracks--the
"King of Beasts" they called him, a guy named Van Riper. He was also the
Chairman of the Honor Committee, and as he spoke of the code, his voice
carried the echoes of the old Riding Hall itself. "This is your code,"
said Vanriper. "It belongs to you." He struck an impressive, cinematic
figure in his crisp white trousers and Dress Gray coat. The new cadets
listened raptly. "In the next two months, you will attend many meetings.

The workings of the code will be explained to you in detail, by your
company honor representative and others. If you have any questions, you
should ask them." Vanriper lectured in general terms on the Honor
System, the mechanism by which the code was administered by the cadet
upper classes. Then he dropped his voice. In low, serious tones through
the PA, he told the new cadets the real reason they were in South And
this night. Because the Honor Code belonged to the cadets, they were to
talk about it with no one outside the Corps of Cadets. Outsiders had no
business with the code. His implication was unavoidable. Upon entering
West Point and taking the oath, the new cadets were bound by a trust as
solemn as the Oath of Allegiance itself to reveal to no one the most
important truths of their lives as cadets. He suggested the new cadets
not discuss the code even among themselves. They would receive adequate
instruction on the code and the Honor System, and if they had any
questions or doubts, they should be taken directly to the company honor
representative, a firstclassman. Discussion of the code among new cadets
was dangerous, Vanriper explained. It often led to misinterpretation and
misconceptions, either of which could lead further to the dread honor
violation, the lone penalty for which was expulsion from the Corps. It
was a narrow, dangerous path along which they would move for the next
four years. The only way to reach the end was to follow rules. All you
had to do was not lie, cheat, or steal, and you were assured passage
into that void known as graduation. There was holiness in the Honor Code
that was hard to miss. At meetings with company honor reps,
pronouncements about the code were delivered in evangelical tones. This
was true when the new cadets were counseled to turn in even their best
friends or roommates, should they commit an honor violation. The new
cadets owed only one higher allegiance, and that was to God. Short of
Him, the code was all. By the third week of Beast, David Hand recognized
perfection in a system requiring him to subordinate all emotion, logic,
and reason to a higher goal. So much about Beast was petty, worthless,
without meaning. The Honor Code could be used. Though the code did not
remove completely the desirability of establishing deep and lasting
friendships with classmates, it did provide an excuse if one was needed.

Hand grabbed it. The code put most new cadets on the defensive. The code
assumed you were at once cop and criminal, best friend and secret agent.

The code was vertical. Every cadet's allegiance was directed upward, to
the code. But not David Hand's. He found a more comfortable allegiance,
closer to home: himself. He'd play by the rules, all right. The rules
protected him. Deftly, Hand had figured the Honor Code's greatest
shortcoming and turned it to his advantage. The Honor System defined the
code's strictures along finite lines, spelling out in detail exactly
what was considered lying, cheating, and stealing. Additionally, the
Honor System defined the slightest deviation from the code as
"quibbling," failure to tell "the whole truth." In delineating the code,
however, the Honor System necessarily established those areas which lay
outside its scope. The black-and-white Honor Code was surrounded by a
gray sea through which one could swim with alacrity. Thus Hand uncovered
the secret of the West Point Honor Code only a few understood as well as
he. By consciously defining for its young men what they could not do.

West Point unconsciously established what they could do. They could
search out the edges of the code and walk them expertly. To David Hand,
the West Point Honor Code mirrored the society from which he came. In
New Orleans, rules abounded. Finding your way around them was how you
got ahead. It was an orderly system with chaos at its core. Mardi Gras
alone was evidence that madness was necessary to complete the social
equation in New Orleans. At West Point, the equation was more
complex--differential instead of algebraic--thus more profound. Plebe
year was West Point's Mardi Gras. And the Honor Code provided the masks
behind which the academy hid its true identity. David Hand embraced the
Honor Code because it was familiar territory. Its beautiful irony--by
identifying evil, the code emboldened cadets to explore and closely
acquaint themselves with its cousin, the edge--fascinated Hand,
entranced him. The Honor Code offered him a system he accepted
unquestioningly. Hand had never taken anything seriously in his life.

Examining the code and its myriad nuances, he found he needed it. The
Honor Code gave order to his life. The Honor Code epitomized a creature
Hand found irresistible: Proud, dignified, taut with military bearing
and discipline, dedicated to principles larger than the self, the code's
vision of an ideal cadet was ineluctably masculine. David Hand fell in
love with the Honor Code early the third week of Beast Barracks. Slaight
was casting wildly about for a way to flush out Dippel and his crummy
little scheme, getting guys to run errands for him, in return for blind
dates on weekends. Slaight imagined him, sitting in his room, flipping
through the pages of his yearbook, each photo of a pretty girl like
money in the goddamn bank. Slaight was pissed. Nobody from the squad was
coming forward because they all saw Dippel and his magic yearbook as the
only game in town, which indeed it was. But doing a guy a favor was one
thing. Pimping for personal profit was something else. In desperation,
Slaight decided to call together his squad one night and hold what was
known in those days as a "manhood session." He would ask his squad of
eleven men, bracing in a semicircle around his desk, who among them was
still a virgin. Maybe that would flush out Dippel and put the hammer on
his little operation. He called for the squad. When they were
positioned, he asked: "Okay, beans. Who among you is still cherry? We
got any virgins in this squad, any of you little bastards not gotten
laid by your girl friends back home? Come on. Let's see it." The new
cadets chanced anxious glances at one another, to see if anyone would
thrust forward a fist-- the cadet equivalent of raising one's hand--the
nearly sacrosanct admission he hadn't "gotten any" from his girl friend.

There was a moment's pause as they inspected each other. Slaight watched
the scene with detached amusement, recalling the exact same moment his
plebe year during Beast, the exact same feeling. He'd been the only one
in the squad to hold out his fist. Slaight watched the anxiety in the
room heat to a cherry glow. For sure, that dufus Dippel, who couldn't
get his pecker out without catching it in his zipper, would be the one.

David Hand stuck out his fist. Slaight was wrong. His plan backfired.

But he had to play it out. "Ah. Hand. Still cherry, huh?"

"Yessir," Hand answered matter-offactly. "Can't hear you. Hand. You
saying you haven't gotten any from your girl friend back home?"
"YESSIR," said Hand, his fist still at right angles to his body. Fuckin'
kid's got guts. He surveyed the rest of the squad to see if any of the
rest of them would snicker at Hand. This was their chance to get back at
the guy who had been lording it over them for the past two weeks, the
guy who could do everything better than they could. Slaight pitied Hand
when he and his roommates reached their room. Hand would never see the
end of this. He remembered his own experience as a plebe, the total
humiliation  ... the ribbing and cutting the rest of the guys had done
...  cherry  ... cherry  ...  cherry ...  Slaight regretted he had
called the "manhood session." Not only had his Dippel plan failed, but
it backfired on Hand, guy who'd pulled Dippel through his first two
weeks of Beast. Jesus.

There was something about Hand  ...  something admirable about his
arrogance. "Stand at attention. Hand," commanded Slaight. He had to do
something. "If I hear any of you fuckers dishing out shit to Hand
because he had the balls to admit he's still cherry  ...  if I hear one
fuckin' peep outta you beans, I'll have every last one of you decorating
the walls in here until the end of this detail, right up to the minute I
go on leave. Is that understood?"

"YESSIR!" The squad chorused the word.

"It just so happens, gentlemen, that my squad leader held a manhood
session exactly like this one when I was a beanhead in Beast. And I was
the poor fuckin' smack, the only cherry beanhead in the squad, and I was
standing there with my fist in the air like some kinda goddamn goon,
just like Hand. So I know how it feels. Now, you smacks post back to
your rooms and get your fannies ready for bed. And remember. If I hear
one goddamn word, that man's gonna wish to hell he'd never dipped his
fuckin' wick, I'm going to sweat so much of his neck up against my wall.

You got that?"

"YESSIR!"

"Now, POST." They left on the double. Over the next few days. Hand grew
more distant from his roommates  ...  from the whole squad. You could
see it. Hand would show up out in the ranks for a formation. He'd be the
first one out there, maybe two or three minutes early. And there he'd
stand, all alone, until the rest of them would arrive. They'd move in
next to him without exchanging secret glances, the way plebes always
did, trying to beat the system, get away with breaking little rules like
muttering "heeeeaauh," that seal-honk, the way Slaight and buck used to
do when they were plebes. Leroy Buck was a squad leader in one of the
other platoons in Slaight's company, and the two of them stayed up late
nights talking about the David Hand situation. It seemed irresoluble.

Hand was just as stiff, just as arrogant, just as perfect in his own
special way as his classmates, the rest of the squad, were tight-kni as
a team. They were like mutually opposing forces, likepoles of two
magnets, repelling each other. The truly remarkable thing was that Hand
alone appeared to have the strength of the other ten altogether. Slaight
watched them carefully. No one was taunting Hand, at least not out in
the open where he could see it. But he could imagine the little
diddlyshit that was going on behind closed doors after taps at night,
the snide comments, the slippery crap guys pulled on other guys,
especially when they were forced to be as close together as a squad in
Beast Barracks. Still, Hand managed to maintain his own. When Woodruff
would hold one of his song sessions in Room 1144, Hand would find a
reason to be down in the sinks, shaving or taking a shower by himself.

He would return to his room precisely at taps, just as the Hellcat began
blowing taps, before the cadet in charge of quarters (the CQ) would hit
the 6th Division yelling "ALLRIGHT," the old cadet password, echoed by
each successive cadet room up the stairwell, from 1111 on up to 1144,
signaling that each cadet was present and accounted for at taps,
negating the need for a physical inspection of rooms. Hand would make it
back to his room before taps, before the Allright, after the rest of the
squad had returned to their rooms. He didn't want to have much to do
with them, nor they with him. Morale in the squad bottomed. They sagged,
the plebes, slogging their way through each day without enthusiasm,
without the sense of irony and humor so necessary  ...  so necessary to
fuckin' survive. They weren't surviving.

The squad was dying. Slaight began to have premonitions of mass
resignations. He felt guilty and helpless. Guilty because it had been he
who had forced the issue with Hand. And helpless because Hand was such
an ironheaded bastard, as inflexible as the Military Academy itself.

There seemed little Slaight could do to bring Hand and the squad back
together. He couldn't patch things up. He and Leroy Buck pondered the
problem. There just didn't seem to be anything they could do. Hand was
such a plucky scrapper of a guy, they both began wondering if he came
from Cajun stock down in New Orleans. But there was something else about
him, something  ...  well  ...  prudish. That was it. Hand was a goddamn
prude. Thinking he was better than the rest of them was conceited,
stuffy, morally superior. Slaight began to wonder. He'd never seen
anyone quite like Hand before, anyone tied in such a neat, impregnable
knot. Slaight wondered if there wasn't something hiding inside Hand's
knot. Having no patience for the incompetence and weaknesses of the
other guys in the squad was one thing. But Hand really hated it. He
hated weakness. He hated weakness like nobody Slaight had ever seen
before. And so Slaight wondered: Why? Why? He called Hand into his room
once or twice for regular counseling sessions--the whole squad got the
same counseling so nobody could accuse Hand of receiving special
treatment. He told Hand to relax, chatted with him, probed him, tried to
figure where all that hate was coming from. Hand wouldn't open up. Not a
crack. Slaight learned only one thing in his sessions with Hand,
something he would never have suspected without those informal chats.

Hand knew nothing--absolutely nothing--about Slaight and his sister,
Samantha. It seemed amazing at first, and Slaight probed, tested, talked
openly of Vassar and Vassar giris in general, giving Hand every
opportunity to let on that he knew Slaight and his sister had gone
steady. Finally the conclusion was inescapable. Samantha had told her
brother nothing about Ry Slaight. Hand didn't know. Another day passed
without incident. Slaight was getting more and more depressed. If you
couldn't lash together a goddamn squad of beanheads, then what the fuck
could you do with yourself? Doubt nagged at him like a vulture. He
figured any minute the Big Wazoo was gonna come down and call his
number, and that was gonna be it, man. It. At 7 p.m., right after
supper, a loud, single knock came on his door. "Enter."

"Sir, New Cadet Hand requests permission to speak." Hand was in the
door, stiffly at attention, impeccable as usual. "Come on in. Hand.

What's on your mind?" It looked like Hand had finally come around to
complain that he was getting razzed by his roommates. Then he saw Hand's
face. For the first time all week, he looked calm. Content. Hand stood
bracing in front of Slaight's desk, eyes riveted on a spot on the wall
above Slaight's head.

"Sir, I would like to report a man for an honor violation, and I was
wondering, sir. Are you the man to whom I should report?" Slaight
grimaced. Here it comes. "Yeah. What is it? Who is it? Relax, Hand. Sit
down. Tell me the whole thing, beginning to end." Hand sat down in a
chair across the desk from Slaight, his back straight, head thrust
forward. He spelled out what he had denned for himself as a textbook
case of quibbling. It seemed that Crolius, a short, hawk-faced miner's
son from the hill country of Kentucky, had confided in Hand that
day--after three days of silence on the matter--that he was not a
virgin, exactly, but he was "kind of a virgin, you know, if you want to
look at it that way," as Hand recalled Crolius' words. Their
conversation had taken place that afternoon in the showers. Hand was the
last one down in the sinks showering after bayonet drill, and Crolius
had remained after the others had gone upstairs. He obviously felt sorry
for Hand and the way he'd been treated by the rest of the squad since
the manhood session three days ago. So Crolius had decided to confide in
Hand, believing Hand would feel better knowing there was another guy in
the squad who was  ...  well  ...  uncertain about his manhood. "Kind of
a virgin, you know, if you want to look at it that way" was a rarefied
definition of sexual experience to which eighteen-year-olds were privy
in a lonesome way in those days. Crolius was going steady with his high
school girl friend back home in Kentucky, and just before he had left
for the academy, in a fit of passion, they had gotten into some heavy
petting. Once or twice--he couldn't remember exactly--he'd gotten his
penis out of his pants, and his girl friend had fondled it. And once he
had gotten her pants down, and he poked his penis around "down there,"
as Crolius told Hand, and he had come. That much was for sure, he said.

There had been "one hell of a goddamn mess." But he couldn't be sure he
had gotten "inside." Now you could take getting "inside," or you could
leave it, so far as Crolius was concerned. The whole thing sure had felt
good, he told Hand. Hand asked him if he was going to tell Slaight that
he was still "cherry," and Crolius had said, hell no, far as he was
concerned, messing around down there and getting off was "it." David
Hand wasn't so sure. In fact, he told Slaight, the more he thought about
it during supper, the more he figured Crolius had quibbled when he
hadn't stuck out his fist at the manhood session, admitting he was
"cherry." He was as much as admitting he quibbled now, explaining his
doubt that he had gotten "inside." Hand related his interpretation of
the fact with a self-satisfied look on his face. "Are you serious about
this. Hand?" Slaight asked incredulously. "Yessir. Quite serious. The
man quibbled. I want to report him." Slaight tried to poke holes in
Hand's interpretation of the definition of quibbling, pointing out that
to Crolius, what he had done had been "it" so far as he was concerned.

And when it came to quibbling, the intent to deceive was all-important.

How could Crolius have an intent to deceive, when he'd just spelled out
to Hand in graphic detail his own sexual experience? Hand stood fast. He
had listened to the lectures from the company honor representative with
the six senses of a goddamn eagle, and he was convinced he had caught
Crolius quibbling. He was going to see Crolius tried before the Honor
Committee for not having joined him in sticking out his fist at the
manhood session. Slaight was dumbfounded. He stared hard across the
desk, fixed Hand's eyes, and held them. "Hand, you dullard, don't you
realize Crolius is the only goddamn friend you've got in this squad? He
was the guy who helped you last week with those out-of control roommates
of yours, Dippel and Woodruff. Only when you and Crolius were working
together on them did their shit finally start coming together. Crolius
didn't have to give you any help. They weren't his goddamn roommates. He
did it to help you as much as them. He did it to help the squad, dammit.

Don't you understand that?"

"Yessir. I understand. His behavior last week in no way obviates the
fact that today he quibbled."

"What the fuck are you talking about. Hand? Crolius came to you. He
volunteered the information. You didn't catch him hiding anything  ...
lying, for crying out loud. He wasn't hiding. It was his way of letting
you know that you might still be a virgin, but he identifies with you.

Hand.

Don't you see that?"

"Yessir. I still say the man quibbled."

"Quibbling.

Jesus. You know what a broad fuckin' area quibbling is. Hand? You know
how fuckin' broad it is? Lemme tell you. You don't. And what you're
going to do if you go the next step with this, which is to the company
honor representative, what you're going to do is open up a whole big can
of fuckin' worms you know nothing--nothing--about, you understand me?

You're going to create an enormous amount of trouble for Crolius, who's
only trying to be a friend to you, the only decent fucker in the whole
damn squad. And you're going to plunge him into deep shit, Hand. He
might go up before the Honor Committee. He might not. But it doesn't
really matter. The minute you report him to the honor rep, you're going
to create doubt in everybody's minds about old Crolius. No matter what
happens to him from that time on, his reputation as a cadet will be
stained until the day he leaves this goddamn place. You understand what
I'm telling you, mister? You understand the gravity of the situation
you're creating here? You're fuckin' around with another man's life.

Hand. Has that thought occurred to you?"

"Yessir."

"And you still figure you're willing to fuck with another man's life
because you've got quibbling fuckin' down, is that it. Hand?"

"Yessir."

"Well, I knew you were an arrogant little prick, but I guess I just
never knew how arrogant. You amaze me, Hand. You really do." Slaight sat
there staring at him. Hand stared back, impassive. Emotionless. "I'll
tell you what I'm gonna do. Hand. I'm gonna tell you a little story
about old Ry Slaight, just like I told the squad the other day that I
had to be the only one to admit I was cherry back in my Beast squad. I'm
gonna teach you a fuckin' lesson about quibbling, mister. Then you can
make up your mind whether you still want to see the honor rep. Got
that?"

"Yessir."

"Now listen up. Hand. One weekend last year, I was on a trip-section
down to New York, and me and a couple of other guys checked into the
Statler Hilton in our uniforms, our Dress Gray uniforms. Some chicks
noticed us down in the lobby, and in a few minutes, up in our rooms,
just as we're changing into civvies and getting ready for a night on the
town, there comes this knock at the door. These girls are all from Seton
Hall, a Catholic girls' school near here. And they're all in formal
gowns. It's their big class ball at the Waldorf Hotel, uptown,
seventy-five fuckin' bucks a head. And one of them got stood up by some
Princeton preppie fuck-stick. So they asked me and this classmate of
mine, John Lugar, if one of us would wear our uniform and take the girl
who got stood up to the ball at the Waldorf. She'd shelled out $150, and
this stupid shit from Princeton had taken a walk on her, and there she
was downstairs in some room crying her little beadies out. So to make a
long story short, me and Lugar flipped and I lost. I put my uniform back
on, went downstairs to pick her up, and she turns out to be a goddamn
fox! At least 2.8 out of 3.0. I mean a looker. So I lucked out--a
good-looking chick, tickets to a $150 dinnerdance--what more could I
ask, right?"

"Yessir."

"So I take her up to the Waldorf with the rest of these hens and their
dates from Princeton and Yale and places like that.

I'm in my Dress Gray. And who do I run into up there, but some dufus
firstie, who comes up to me, right in front of the gid, and asks me what
I'm doing in Dress Gray at a formal ball, where I should be wearing full
Dress Gray, the formal uniform. I told him how I'd gotten roped into
escorting this girl I didn't even know, and he wanders off, and I
thought everything was cool. Then I get back here to West Point, and
Sunday night, the honor rep comes around to my room and tells me I've
been reported for quibbling by some firstie. Said the guy had reported
me for an "intent to deceive" because these civilians didn't know the
goddamn difference between Dress Gray and full Dress Gray, and he just
figured I was trying to pull a fast one on them. Well. I mean, Jesus! I
thought I was doing the noble cadet thing, right? And I get reported for
fuckin' 'quibbling," by some half-wit firstie from another company who
doesn't know me, never seen me in his life. Man, I was pissed. Anyway,
the thing goes to an honor subcommittee, and ends there. I explained to
them what the story was, and they killed the charges. The honor rep told
me he knew it was a crock of shit, but he had to take it to the
subcommittee, because that's the way the system works. You getting what
I'm telling you. Hand?"

"Yessir."

"Are you sure, mister?"

"Yessir."

"So you understand what I mean about this quibbling thing. It's a can of
goddamn worms. Hand. It's like this gigantic gray area in the system. I
know they tell you there's no gray areas--there's only black and fuckin'
white. But I've been here two years longer than you, Hand, and I've seen
the system work, up close. I've seen the Honor Committee come swooping
down on a guy, and before you know it, he's gone, and you never even
find out what he was supposed to have done. Then you hear about another
guy who's done some outrageous shit, and the Honor Committee finds a
goddamn loophole in the Honor System, and he's let off the hook. Before
the Honor Committee, Hand, there are no rules of evidence, no procedural
rights, no right to representation by counsel, no right to confront
witnesses against you  ...  not a solitary goddamn right you are
afforded as a citizen of the United States under the Bill of Rights. The
Honor Code is a hell of a good thing. Hand. Nobody can argue with those
words, "A cadet does not lie, cheat, or steal." But Jesus, the Honor
Committee-- sometimes they operate like they're wearing black hoods,
sometimes they decide the fate of a guy in a matter of seconds, and it's
a decision that's going to follow the guy all his life. Nobody's
perfect. Hand. These guys who end up as honor reps on the Honor
Committee, that doesn't make them any more perfect than you or me or the
guys who are charged with honor violations whose cases they've got to
hear. Now listen up to me, Hand. You listening?"

"Yessir."

"I am not sitting here telling you I don't believe in the Honor Code. I
believe in the code as much as any other swinging dick around here. But
I've got my problems with the Honor System. It seems to me--hell, it's
been my experience--that there are just too fuckin' many opportunities
for abuses within the system, and not enough protections for
individuals, which is you and me--and Crolius. Am I making myself clear.

Hand?"

"Yessir."

"The single fact that a man cannot confront the witnesses against him
just turns my fuckin' stomach. Hand. It makes me sick. Turns a goddamn
Honor Board into a kangaroo court, is what it does. And some of these
guys I've seen kicked out of here on honor. Jesus. I wish you could see
them when they go. It's fuckin' pathetic. They're turned into overnight
outcasts. Lepers. So lemme tell you something. Hand. If you' go to the
honor rep with this thing Crolius told you this afternoon, you are
fuckin' with another man's life, and you're fuckin' with it in a very,
very serious way. So you better be very, very serious about your
convictions. And you better be sure of your motives, mister. You ever
heard the old saying "Discretion is the better part of valor'?"

"Yessir."

"Yeah. Well, around here it could use a little rewording. At West Point,
discretion is the better part of honor. And the discretion belongs to
you. Hand. You. I've told you my experiences, and I've told you my
judgment on this. I don't think Crolius was quibbling. I don't think the
little fucker is capable of quibbling. Don't think it'd even occur to
him. Where he comes from, getting it 'is probably just getting it, any
old fuckin' way. Hell, they probably bang sheep in his home county. Who
knows? And if you bang a sheep, are you still cherry? Shit, Hand.

Crolius was treating you honorably. He was taking you into his
confidence. If you report him for quibbling, you better have your shit
together, and you better have it together good. Because the whole
fuckin' world is liable to come down on that smart-ass head of yours if
you don't. Now. You made up your mind?"

"Yessir."

"What are you gonna do. Hand?"

"I am going to report Crolius to the honor representative, sir. The man
quibbled. His case belongs before the Honor Committee, not here, between
us." Slaight stood up. Hand stood up. "I hope you know what you're
doing. Hand, because the minute you walk out of this room and head over
to the honor rep, your actions are going to follow you and follow you
just like a goddamn shadow, and no matter where you go, no matter what
you do, no matter the resolution of the case, you're never gonna get
away from that shadow. Hand. Never."

"I am sure, sir. Good evening, sir." Hand saluted and departed. He
reported Crolius to the company honor rep that night. The honor rep made
his report to the full Honor Committee, which authorized a subcommittee
hearing, the Honor System equivalent of a grand jury. The subcommittee
decided that the case should go before a full twelve-man Honor Board,
the system's equivalent of a trial. All of this happened within a matter
of two hours after Hand left Slaight's room. The next night, the Cadet
Honor Board met to hear Crolius' case. He had been given less than
twenty-four hours to prepare a "defense." Slaight had never really
understood what an accused cadet was permitted to do before a full Honor
Board--just sit there silently, defend himself, call witnesses, who
knew? The whole business was shrouded in a mystique manufactured into
the Honor System by design. The mystique kicked the whole idea of
"honor" onto a higher realm  ...  a higher realm than, say, the cadet
realm. This was, after all, honor. And a cadet was only a cadet. Slaight
didn't understand how the system worked, but he knew board hearings were
open to upperclassmen, so he decided to attend. Crolius was called. He
was first. At a long felt-covered table, twelve first-classmen sat in
their Dress Gray coats and peppered Crolius with a rapid-fire series of
picky little questions about exactly what words he'd used to tell Hand
this and tell Hand that. Crolius, who had been a new cadet exactly
nineteen days, was completely intimidated. He got so entangled in his
story of sexual experiences, he only served to confuse the board, which
interpreted Crolius' frightened behavior as further evidence of
quibbling. It was a vicious circle. Crolius was damned if he did and
damned if he didn't. Slaight stood up in the back of the room and asked
to volunteer as a witness in Crolius' behalf, since he had been the
first person to whom the new cadet's alleged "violation" had been
reported. He explained he was Crolius' squad leader, he knew the young
man well, and that he thought he could clear up some of the confusion
caused by Crolius's obvious misunderstanding of the proceedings. The
chairman of the Honor Board ruled Slaight was out of order, and
commanded him to sit down. Crolius turned and looked at Slaight. He knew
he was finished, and he didn't know why. Slaight and Crolius were
dismissed from the hearing room. A few minutes later, a representative
from the Honor Board fetched them from the hallway. The chairman of the
Honor Board pronounced the verdict. Guilty. The board had not even
bothered to call Hand to testify. Crolius was served with papers asking
that he in good faith and in keeping with the tenets of the Honor Code
resign from the academy. The board had no power to officially expel a
cadet from the academy. They could only ask him to resign. But all
cadets understood. Anybody who didn't resign, who one way or another
retained status as a cadet, would be "silenced." No further explanation
was necessary. Crolius agreed to resign. It was 11:30 p.m., July 19,
1967. Crolius hadn't been a new cadet for three weeks yet. He hadn't
been allowed his first weekend privileges. Only nineteen days had
elapsed since the first day of Beast, and already the Cadet Honor
Committee was ousting a new cadet for the offense of "quibbling," an
offense so broad and so dangerously vague it boggled Slaight's
imagination. He was pissed. At himself for having held the manhood
session in the first place. At the Honor Committee, for coming on like a
bunch of goddamn Nazis, for not giving the kid a chance to explain
himself in his slow Kentucky drawl. And he was pissed at David Hand,
because Hand had violated Crolius' confidence. He'd stepped on the only
guy who had reached out to him. Hand thought he was better than Crolius.

Hell, he thought he was better than everybody. Late that night, Crolius
was moved from his room in the 6th Division barracks to a place called
the Boarders' Ward, a no man's land where resignees and others leaving
the academy for one reason or another were interred until they could be
outprocessed. It was the final humiliation. They were no longer cadets.
They were "boarders." Slaight took David Hand over to the Boarders' Ward
the next night. He took him to the room where Crolius sat alone on his
bunk, waiting to go back to Kentucky and explain to his parents and his
friends and his high school teachers and to the editor of the local
paper who had run a front-page story on Crolius congratulating him for
being the first town son to be appointed to West Point, and to his girl
friend and to her parents--to everybody in his little town in
Kentucky--how he had come to resign from the Military Academy so
suddenly, where for almost three weeks in the letters he wrote home, he
had seemed so happy and so proud. Crolius was sitting there on his bunk
in his khakis. It was clear he understood so little about why he was
leaving, he was at a loss for words. In his mind. West Point and honor
were one. Now he was leaving West Point because of honor, but he didn't
understand why. Slaight ordered David Hand into the room and said:
"Hand. You're the man who reported Crolius for what you alleged was
quibbling. Now he'd got to go home and explain the whole thing to
everybody. You sit down here. Hand, and you explain to Crolius why he
was found guilty by the Honor Board. You explain to him why he was asked
to resign. You explain to him, Hand, why he, Crolius, 'quibbled." When
you're through explaining your extensive understanding of Crolius' fate
to him, you report back to my room." Slaight walked out, leaving accuser
and accused alone. Hand reported to Slaight after fifteen minutes with
Crolius. He had been unmoved. A violation was a violation. Crolius had
quibbled. The Honor Board had found him guilty.

He had agreed to resign. The system had worked. What was important to
Hand was not Crolius, the man. What was important was the system. Hand
had seen Crolius ousted from the academy for "quibbling." He thought he
knew how the system worked. Slaight dismissed Hand. He sat at his desk
alone. So Hand thought he knew the system now, huh? Well, he'd give Hand
a brand-new view of the system at work, up close. He'd take Hand on a
journey through the system, through the digestive process which consumed
young American boys and produced cadets and eventually, Regular Army
officers. It would take time, and it would take thought, and it would
take careful, well-planned, and elegantly executed action. But in the
end, he'd get inside David Hand and find whatever little worm was in
there calling itself a soul and confront the little fucker. Everything
up until now, including the Honor Board exercise with Crolius, would
seem like so much pitty-pat when Slaight was through with David Hand.

Slaight would move on Hand, and he'd move on him for the next twelve
days like he was running a goddamn tactical military operation. After
all, he reasoned with a certain smile, wasn't that what he'd been
trained for? Taps sounded. Slaight had fucked up, and fucked up but
good. Dippel was still running his two-bit operation out of Room 1144.

Crolius was gone. Squad morale had ebbed to an all-time low. But Slaight
still had twelve days before the end of the First Detail of Beast
Barracks. And David Hand remained. He would be dealt with. No doubt
about it. It was the way of Beast Barracks. One little mistake, one
miserable little slip, one step out of line, just one-- one,
goddammit--and that was it. The whole thing came crashing down around
your ears. It was the same for both plebes and upperclassmen, or seemed
that way. If a plebe fucked up, it was like his life came to a
screeching halt. Suddenly, nothing he did was right. Everything was
wrong. He'd be standing out in the area, look down, and discover that
one of his shoes was untied. Just when he figured he'd finally gotten
his shit together! What to do? Reach down and tie it, and risk getting
caught, making a personal correction in ranks? Or wait for the
inevitable arrival of the squad leader, his slow pacing of the
squad--he'd notice the untied shoe. You just knew he would. He'd look
down and see the laces flopping on the ground, and he'd look up, fix the
plebe with his eyes, and say something like  ... Well, well, well, Mr.
Dumb Crot. What have we here? A clown act? You tryin' for some kinda
award or somethin'? Who you think you are, anyway? Charlie fuckin'
Chaplin? Baggy pants, untied shoes, a goddamn dressoff that looks like
somebody inflated a basketball and stuck it up the back of your shirt.

You look like a goddamn clown, mister. You don't belong in this squad,
you don't belong in this company, you don't belong in Beast Barracks,
you don't belong in West Point, you belong in a goddamn circus. Now
DRIVE AROUND to my room tonight at 2130, and I wanna see that uniform of
yours sparkle. I wanna see you shine, mister. You hear me? I wanna look
up and see you standin' there in the door of my room lookin' so fuckin'
good you sparkle. You hear me talkin'? You're gonna blind me, mister,
you're gonna put my fuckin' eyes out you're lookin' so  ...  so cool ...
And the plebe is YESSIR--YESSIR--YESSIR-- YESSIRING up a storm, the
squad leader is standing an inch away yelling in his ear, and the whole
world is falling, falling right down around the plebe's ears, the whole
thing is gonna stop, the whole goddamn place is gonna crack--it's all
become too goddamn much, too much to handle. It could be equally bad for
the squad leader, maybe even worse. He's got eleven guys to take care
of, eleven goddamn plebes, eleven separate walking duffel bags of
problems. This one's got bad teeth, gotta get them fixed. That one can't
swim a stroke, he's never been in water in his life. He's gotta be
coached and coached so he'll make it through Plebe Orientation Swimming,
so he'll make it through Beast and at least get a shot at takin'
swimming in Plebe PE during the regular year. And that one over there,
the one with the ears sticking out from the sides of his head like a
couple of big oak leaves, the one with the nose, looks like somebody
yanked at it with a pair of vice grips, the one whose arms are so long
his hands are hanging down around his knees--yeah, that one--he's a
fuckin' case, a textbook case, lemme tell you. You talk about your
fuck-ups-- well, this kid's created a whole new area of fuckin' up,
staked it out all by himself. You know the kid in your high school,
always used to carry a briefcase to school, wore glasses, always walking
down the halls, gazing around, bumping into people, never seemed like he
was, you know, present? Well, this bean makes a guy like him look like
Joe fuckin' Namath, his shit is in such a state of total flap. Tell you
what. Don't know where they're digging up these smacks any more. Just
don't fuckin' know. They gotta be comin' from someplace, but damned if
you can figure where ... The squad leader has a whole squad, eleven
plebes, eleven beans, eleven smacks, every one of them different, and
yet every one of them the same, because they're all beans when it comes
right down to it. Plebes. Sorryass excuses for American humanity, a
bunch of goddamn accidents looking for a place to happen, and they had
to happen here, in this squad, all at once, like a human chain-reaction
pile-up ... Beast cut through the bullshit, shattering the mirror of
cadet narcissism. Beast had a soft underbelly. You ended up learning as
much about yourself as you learned about that thing they called
leadership. Being one of the bad guys for a month taught you that self
and other were inversely proportional. Early on, it was clear you had to
yield something. Racktime. Movies. Attention to the girl in your life.

Usually, it added up to about eighteen hours a day, every goddamn day.

And you had to care about those eleven plebes. You couldn't fake it.

Plebes knew. You knew that they knew, because you'd been a plebe, too.

The shared experience brought squad leader and squad close together.

Beast was West Point's most overt usage of one's innate inhumanity to
others for the academy's own purposes. Every squad leader was shooting
in the dark, and each of them, though they wouldn't admit it, had this
feeling he could kill--metaphorically, psychologically, even for
real--hell, they didn't know, and it didn't really matter. The feeling
was what counted. And each of them sure as hell felt the anxiety he'd
inherited from a long gray line of hellish, bottomless tradition. So
Slaight did what most twenty-one-year-olds would do. He went along, up
to a point. He figured West Point was probably better at "teaching"
leadership than anyplace in the nation. After all, the place had been at
it with a vengeance since 1802. But Slaight had always held that
leadership was at least 50 percent acting ability--what he called "the
John Wayne quotient." There came a time, however, when Slaight learned
what it was all about. The lesson Slaight learned was ironic, for
"playing the game," the eternal diversion of most cadets and upon which
Slaight looked down with derision, became allimportant to him. Slaight
was forced to negotiate step by painful step all the traps designed into
the "game" in order to come to grips with West Point's special secret.

War was indeed the reason the Military Academy existed, and by
extension, its purpose was to teach young men to kill. But there was a
corollary to the academy's mission, unmentioned by West Point
officialdom. You had to be willing to die, not for duty, honor, or
country, but for your own men. That was leadership, the thing West Point
had to offer. And there was its secret. The system counted subliminally
but necessarily on human imponderables. West Point knew you'd end up
loving those whom you were trained to despise and abuse--in this case,
your own plebes. The twist was as frightening as it was effective. While
the academy supplied you the drum of ego and urged you to beat on it
with vigor, ever so subtly was planted a seed of self-sacrifice. Not
until he was a squad leader in Beast did "all that gibberish about
leadership," as Slaight called it, make sense. Suddenly, it counted.

Eleven young men depended on him. Slaight, lying awake in bed at night,
thinking to himself, the only time he's got all to himself, really--when
he thinks about it--actually gets down and goddamn thinks about it--he
loves those beans. Every last sorryassed one of them. He loves them
because they're his. He loves them because they're beans. He loves them
because they depend on him, like some kind of father or
mother--something anyway. He loves them because down deep, way deep
inside, they're him. He was a bean. He was a plebe. He was a fuck-up and
a dullard and a crot and a worthless no-good-for-nothin' piece of shit,
and goddamn if he doesn't remember what it was like! He remembers what
it felt like, Beast Barracks, every last one of those hellish days in
July and August, and how he loved his goddamn squad leaders, loved them
and hated them both. They were always jumping in his shit, coming down
on him like goddamn jackhammers, but somehow, when it was all over, he
had turned out okay. September came, he got into his regular company,
Beast was over, and damned if he didn't discover that he could cope!

That was what it had all been about-- about coping. A squad leader
taught you how to cope. He taught you about life, stuff you'd never
forget as long as you lived. When you were finished with Beast, after
you'd waded through the muck and the shit they tossed at you, you were a
goddamn cadet, a regular guy, full-fledged and everything, and you could
fuckin' cope. They were a responsibility, those beans, those eleven
young American men. One fuck of a big responsibility. And the guy who
was directly responsible for them-- responsible for whether or not they
took their salt pills and wrote home to Mommy and Daddy and took at
least a couple of craps each week--the guy who was responsible for every
minute of their miserable little lives was the squad leader. All around
him, firstclassmen and officers, tacs and lieutenant colonels and majors
and staff officers and even old Hedges, the Beast C.O., all around him
these other guys stood, watching-- just watching and waiting. They were
waiting for him, for the squad leader, to fuck up, is what they were
doing. Waiting to see if one of his guys dropped out of a reveille run.

Waiting*for Saturday Morning Inspection, to see if his squad was looking
Up To Snuff. Waiting for the inevitable, one of the plebes wanting to
see the tac, wanting to resign. All those firsties and officers just
stood around waiting for the squad leader to fuck up, and just like with
the plebes, it took only one, just one little fuck-up, and it was All
Over ... Beast Barracks hung together like a fifty-dollar jalopy limping
along on retreads, a quart of oil every hundred miles, six out of eight
cylinders firing, brakes just this much short of needing new drums, the
pedal going down within an inch of the floor, everything bucking and
jerking and screeching but somehow still rolling--and you knew, just
knew, if one little piece blew, the whole goddamn thing would grind to a
halt and you'd be stuck. It was the way of Beast Barracks. So David Hand
wasn't just a wild card. He was trouble. The kid from New Orleans was a
plague on the squad, hell, on the whole platoon of forty-four plebes. It
was a question of morale. Everybody knew what had happened. Everybody
knew Crolius was the only guy who'd even come. close to being a friend
of Hand's  ... when hand turned him in on an honor violation, and they
all saw Crolius get it  ...  they all saw him take gas for something
they called quibbling, but which looked to the rest of the plebes like a
pile of trumped-up crap  ...  when they'd seen what happened to Crolius
and how Hand just kept lording it over them, beating them at all the
diddlyshit stuff plebes were supposed to do every day  ...  they
cracked, broke wide open, a goddamn wound opened in the squad, in the
platoon, a wound that was bleeding and bleeding and bleeding and just
would not fuckin' stop ... That was when Slaight knew he'd have to do
something about Hand. He saw it in the faces of the other plebes. You
looked at them, and something in their eyes was pleading, begging,
yearning--for what? For release? For help? Slaight didn't know. He
wasn't sure. All he knew was. Hand had to be dealt with, and dealt with
now or the whole goddamn squad was going to up and quit, fall apart,
consume itself with self-pity and agony and sorrow at the memory of poor
Crolius. Because they were his responsibility, Slaight knew the whole
thing was his fault. But the more he studied the thing, the more he
knew--just knew--the answer. He'd have to break Hand. Break him open and
grind up the worm inside of him, open the smart-ass fucker up so the
rest of them could glimpse the truth that Hand was, after all, human. It
was the first time in his life Slaight had felt the surge of power, the
twinge, the juice that rushed up your backbone once you'd made up your
mind you were going to do something, and you knew you were going to do
it right. No, it was the second time. The first time had been when he'd
learned at age fifteen that he could shoot pool--he was a shooter,
nobody could beat him, he could hustle pool. But this business with Hand
was different. Hustling pool was just betting money against skill, when
you got right down to it. Dealing with David Hand would be gambling with
another man's life. So Slaight set up and he took his shot. From the
start, he complemented an overall plan with certain tactics of
harassment and interdiction. He took command of Hand's time,
orchestrating every moment of his day, from the time he awoke in the
morning to the instant he climbed into bed at night. Slaight was there.

He didn't supervise Hand, he controlled him. Hand wasn't permitted to
make a single move which was not in some way directed by Ry Slaight or
by Leroy Buck, Slaight's friend and fellow squad leader who had taken a
similar interest in "the punk from New Orleans," as Buck called him. To
Leroy Buck, Hand was just an animal. Back home on the farm in Indiana,
he'd have gone after such a creature with his .22 rifle or maybe a
sixteen-gauge shotgun. Buck's reaction to Hand's special breed of
arrogance was not all that far-fetched in the army of 1967. In Basic
Training, an army drill sergeant would have simply run Hand ragged, worn
him down physically until he either collapsed and was hospitalized or
died. To a drill sergeant, it didn't really matter. As an enlisted man
in a regular army unit. Hand would have been cut out of the platoon and
tortured in the vicious, petty ways caged men go at one another. Maybe
his platoon mates would have dragged him into the showers and scrubbed
him with latrine brushes until his skin bled from head to toe. Maybe
they'd have starved him, totalty deprived him of food during a lengthy
field exercise. Maybe they'd simply take him out in a car late at night,
run it up to sixty or seventy miles an hour, and push him out the door.

Kill the bastard. When it came to the army, there was no way of telling
what men would have done to a guy like David Hand. But at West Point,
the process was elusive, more refined: the ways of Beast Barracks were
hidden from the eye and the ear. It wasn't physical, it was
psychological, a game played with wits and patience. For always West
Pointers had been taught the lessons of bureaucracy, taught to believe
that time was on the side of the man willing to do the waiting. Time was
an elegant weapon. So they waited, Slaight and Buck, and they tossed
David Hand between them like a badminton birdie. They sent him on little
crummy mission after little crummy mission, carrying messages between
the two squad leaders' rooms, visiting other upperclassmen of known ugly
disposition. Always the results were the same. David Hand was on time.

He was neat. He got things straight. He never missed a beat. Every time
he reported to either Slaight or Buck, even when he had run halfway
across the area of barracks and returned out of breath, he reported
expertly, without a single mistake. At first it was maddening, watching
this plebe run circles around every design of Slaight and Buck, who
figured they could nail Hand in a matter of a few days. It would be only
a short time before he cracked. Then they knew. It was going to take
time. They settled into a comfortable--for them, anyway--routine. Hand
was kept extremely busy. He had no free time. Zero. He lived his entire
life at the behest of Slaight and Buck, who combined their energies
expertly. For more than a week, the routine remained the same: Hand
running, reporting, delivering, shining, running, reporting, spouting
plebe poop, running, shining, running, reporting, bracing against walls,
running, more running, more bracing, more reporting, more bracing--and
on and on and on, endless variations on the same theme. They thought
they'd wear him down. But it wasn't working. Hand was perfect. Perfect.

It was impossible to make him fuck up. Then one night, three days before
the last day of the First Detail of Beast Barracks, three days before
Slaight would be out of Hand's life for good, Slaight got an idea. What
was the lone weapon he still had in his arsenal? The last goddamn thing
he could use on Hand? The only thing he hadn't pulled out and thrown at
him so far? It was 9:35 p.m., the time when plebe mail carriers came to
the rooms of upperclassmen to collect mail which would go out early the
next morning. Naturally, David Hand was the mail carrier for his squad
leader, Slaight. He reported to Slaight's room. Slaight looked up from
his desk and signaled for Hand to enter. Hand stood the proper four feet
from the front of Slaight's desk and waited, as Slaight finished
addressing an envelope. Then he handed the envelope to the plebe. It was
addressed to Samantha Hand, Vassar College--Hand's sister. His eyes
flared when he saw the name. It was a tiny, fleeting loss of composure.

Coming from another plebe, Slaight would have written it off as one more
glimmer of emotion in a huge spectrum he had watched his squad go
through during the past four weeks--everything from elation, the
adrenaline of plebe euphoria when a job had been well done, to utter
resignation and defeat, the way they looked right now. With David Hand
there had been only one emotion the entire four weeks: superiority.

Self-confidence. Ego. Even when Hand had thrust forward his fist,
admitting at the manhood session that he hadn't "gotten any" from his
girl friend back home, he had done so proudly. Slaight had to admire him
for that. The kid had guts. But now Hand had flickered, ever so
slightly, opening the secret door to which Ry Slaight held the key.

Slaight just sat there pretending to go through some papers on his desk.

He didn't look up at Hand's face, for he knew Hand was standing still,
staring at the spot on the wall above his head, awaiting further
instruction. Slaight glanced at the letter. Hand gripped the envelope so
tightly it was crumpled. His hand had unconsciously formed a fist, and
the letter was wrinkled like a piece of cloth. This wasn't David Hand,
the perfect David Hand who had beaten the Beast Barracks system at its
own game. This was a scared kid. Slaight knew he had him. Slaight
continued to shuffle his papers, waiting for Hand to tumble the
possibilities around in his mind. He waited, giving Hand the chance to
consider every possible scenario. It was quiet in the room. There were
twenty-five minutes until taps, until Hand had to return to his room
down the hall. Slaight knew he had the time. He told Hand to step around
the desk next to the wall, and to relax. They had talked informally
before. Now Slaight made it seem like he was giving up, like Hand had
won. He asked Hand about new Orleans, about his high school, what it was
like down South, what his father did for a living. Hand mumbled
unenthusiastic answers. Slaight pretended not to notice, rambled on
about Kansas, about going to high school in Leavenworth, about a girl
friend he had back home. He was treating Hand like one of the guys,
pulling him inside. He explained to Hand the ways of West Point, how
lots of guys had a girl friend back home, and another parked somewhere
nearby, one of the local colleges maybe, a girl in the city, a
stewardess or a secretary, 'any old girl. He told Hand that's the way
he'd worked it. Kept the girl back home happy on leaves, then had all
the local skirt he wanted, what a good deal it was. Slaight told Hand if
he played his cards right, maybe he could work the same kind of deal.

Hand nodded, as if to say yes, sir. Slaight babbled on, as if he hadn't
noticed the slip in protocol. Then he paused and shuffled through the
papers on his desk. He pulled out another envelope, this one addressed
to Betty Jane Soah, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He gave it to Hand. He
winced this time. Slaight leaned back in his chair, let the whole thing
sink in. Here was Slaight, telling David Hand all about what a good deal
he'd had for the last couple of years  ...  a girl friend back home  ...
a girl friend somewhere nearby, getting ass in both places. Hand was
standing there, holding both envelopes and listening. He was sweating
now, water pouring down his forehead, soaking his shirt collar, pouring
down his arms. The knees of his khaki trousers were soaked dark brown
with sweat. The envelopes, crinkled in his left hand, were wet. Slaight
watched Hand from the corner of his eyes. He was blinking beads of sweat
off his eyelashes, water running down his face in a river. Slaight
leaned back in his chair, put his hands on his desk, spun slowly around,
and looked straight at Hand. It was time. "You know something Hand?"
Slaight asked. "I've gotten a lot of ass in the last couple of years,
but the best piece of ass I ever fucked was your sister." Hand swiveled
on his heel and faced Slaight, sweat pouring from every inch of skin on
his body. "That sister of yours fucks like a goddamn bunny, do it in the
fuckin' road, she would. Never seen anyone like her. A regular fuckin'
maniac, that goddamn Samantha."

"SIR!" Hand screamed. "YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT MY SISTER!"

"I know I'm talking about your sister. Hand. You're holding a letter I
wrote to her tonight in your left hand. In fact, you've ruined the
goddamn letter, Hand. Look at it. The fuckin' thing is all wrinkled and
soaked with sweat. Give it back to me, mister. What's the matter with
you. Hand? Having problems with the idea that I fucked your sister?"

Slaight paused. Hand had begun to tremble. Slaight stood up and walked
over to Hand. He turned slowly as Slaight walked. Slaight stood directly
in front of him and looked him in the eyes. Sweat was pouring down his
face, and his body was vibrating. He was a good three inches taller than
Slaight. He was in superb physical condition. Slaight knew if Hand went
for him, it was all over. He told Hand to look at him.

Hand bent his head forward so their eyes met. "What the fuck is the
matter with you tonight, Hand? You got problems? You didn't seem to have
any problems that day Crolius told you about fucking his girl friend. In
fact, you seemed real cool about it. You were even cool that night I
took you over to the Boarders' Ward to see Crolius, the night before he
left the academy. What's the problem now. Hand? I'm just another
Crolius. Your sister is just another girl friend. A fuck is a fuck.

Hand. What seems to be your problem?"

"SIR, YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT MY SISTER!"

"I know I'm talking about your sister, Hand. So what's the goddamn
problem? You don't believe I fucked her? Why don't you run down to the
honor representative and turn me in on an honor violation. Hand?

Why don't you turn me in the way you turned in Crolius?" Slaight waited.

Hand stood there shaking and sweating. "You are really bothered that I
fucked your sister, aren't you. Hand? The idea that I fucked your sister
really gets to you, doesn't it, mister? Well, I fucked your sister,
Hand." You don't believe me, call her up and ask her. You'll probably
surprise the hell out of her, but I'm certain she'll remember me. I
fucked your sister a whole bunch of times. Hand. She seemed to enjoy it.

I know I did." Every time Slaight said fucked your sister, he enunciated
every syllable, driving the words into Hand like nails. He shuddered.

Slaight stood in front of Hand for several minutes, waiting for him to
say something or do something. Slaight considered the idea that Hand
might report him for hazing, but he'd told Hand to fall out and relax.

He wasn't even bracing. Slaight hadn't touched him. Hand just standing
there, shuddering like a cold wind was blowing across his wet khakis.

Slaight took a step forward, moving his face to within a couple of
inches of Hand's. "You really hate me, don't you. Hand? I mean, you
really, really hate me, don't you?" Hand grimaced, closing his eyes.

"YESSIR!" Slaight stepped back. Slaight knew he had him boxed, but he
knew he had to give him a way out so when his collapse came, it would be
complete. Total. A real breakdown. "Well, now's your chance. Hand. It's
just you and me alone in this room, and the door is closed. I told you
to relax. No more plebe. No more upperclassman. It's. just one man to
another man. Hand. Just like you and Crolhis. Standing in front of you
is the guy who fucked your sister. Hand. If you're going to do anything
about it, now's your chance. You better take it now, or shut your mouth,
get your shit together, and crawl out of here like a good little plebe.

You understand that. Hand? I'm giving you your chance. Now take it, or
leave it. The choice is yours." He stood there, vibrating like a human
tuning fork, just stood there, his fists clenched, the letter to his
sister crumpled into a wrinkled knot. Slaight looked at Hand, and he
knew he had him. He stepped close to Hand, stuck his face up next to
Hand's left ear, and whispered: "You're not going to do a damn thing,
are you, Hand?" He waited. No answer. "You're not gonna do one goddamn
fuckin' thing, are you. Hand?" Still no answer. "I cannot hear you.

Hand. You are going to have to speak up. I am having trouble hearing
you, mister." Then it came. "NO SIR!" Hand screamed the word. Slaight
stood there for a moment. Then he stepped back and told Hand to pull out
his snotrag and wipe his face. He did. When he was finished, his face
all red and swollen, Slaight put his mouth up near Hand's ear and
yelled: "THEN SLAP THAT CHICKENSHIT NECK OF YOURS BACK, SMACKHEAD HAND.

CRACK THAT NECK OF YOURS UP AGAINST MY WALL." He flopped back against
the wall, sweating and bracing and vibrating. He was finished. Broken.

Slaight stepped away. He felt a strange mixture of guilt and
vindication--powerful. Not satisfied. Powerful. There was a difference.

"Hand," said Slaight slowly and carefully. "Hand, you drive around to my
room tomorrow morning five minutes before reveille, and you drive around
every morning at that time until I leave here. You drive around. Hand,
and you better be looking good, mister, because I'm gonna be watching
you. I'm gonna be watching you, Hand. Remember that. Now, get outta
here. Get outta my sight." Hand spun out of the room like a blown tire,
out of control. The next morning he showed up at Slaight's room late. He
had completely fallen apart. His shoes weren't shined, his belt buckle
was smudged, he hadn't shaved. Hand was broken, and he had nothing to
fall back on. No place to go. The amazing thing, Slaight noticed, was
that Hand knew exactly what had happened to him. He never asked for any
help from his squadmates, and he never asked for a break from Slaight.

Even in defeat, he retained a strange dignity. He had played the game
his way, and he'd lost, and he would pay the price. One thing about
Hand. He knew the goddamn rules. The morning Slaight left the Beast
Detail to go on leave, he called Hand into his room one last time. Drive
around, he told him. That's what it was all about. Drive around.

Control. Do as yau're told. Drive fuckin' around. Hand showed up on
time. Utter perfection. He knew Slaight was going on leave at noon, and
he had pulled himself together one last time. As he stood at attention
in Slaight's room, Slaight saw that look on his face again--a look of
detachment, like he was only half there. The expression on his face was
taunting, arrogant. Slaight saw Hand standing there, a statue, and he
dismissed him without a word. His face had said it all. Slaight had
gotten to him, all right. But not completely. There was still a place,
somewhere inside him, deep in there, deep, that neither Slaight nor
Beast Barracks would ever touch. With some incredible strength from that
place inside him. Hand had picked himself up, pieced himself together,
and he was standing there in Slaight's room telling him; I'm going to
make it, Slaight. He was saying, / learned my lesson. I won't make the
same mistake twice. I'm going to play the game my way and win. Slaight
never forgot the look on the kid's face. He never forgot David Hand. The
kid had fuckin' guts. You had to say that for him. He'd found an edge,
and he'd walked it, and he'd survived. Slaight had no. way of knowing
precisely what edge Hand had explored. Nor was he yet well enough
acquainted with himself to have realized that David Hand had used him.

Hand would emulate his squad leader, Ry Slaight. Then he'd get killed
for it.

BOOK 4.

The Kingdom of Steam.

"Have you told anyone else what you have told me tonight, Ry?"

"No." Irit sat next to him, her right hand on the back of his neck. She
had been sitting there listening to him for the better part of two hours
while he told her about David Hand. "Why not? I do not see how you can
live with all of this inside of you, Ry. I don't see how." Slaight
sipped his third bourbon on the rocks. "I don't know, Irit. I don't know
why. I probably wouldn't be telling you, except all this shit with
Hedges went down today, and well  ...  you're you, Irit, you know?"

"No, I do not know, Ry. I do not understand. I can understand the things
you have told me tonight. I can understand why they happened.

But I do not understand why you have never told anyone. Have you told
your parents? Have you told your father, Ry?"

"No."

"Why not, Ry? It would seem to me that your family should be the first
to know, if you have  ...  problems."

"Problems! What fuckin' problems!" Slaight exploded, nearly spilling his
drink, standing up, pacing. "What fuckin' problems? All this shit I told
you tonight was just West Point, Irit, until Hand went and got himself
drowned. It was all just West fuckin' Point, what happened up there
every day. Who's got problems? All you've got up there is one day after
another coming down on your head. You wanna look at it that way, my
whole goddamn life up there is a problem, one big goddamn headache. You
wanna look at things that way, I probably ought to be put fuckin' away
for what I've done, Irit. Locked up. Jesus!

What am I supposed to tell you?"

"But your family, Ry  ..."

"My family!

Are you kidding? What the fuck would they know? They're sitting out
there in Kansas running goddamn horse stables, is what they're doing. My
old man didn't even want me to go to West Point. He and I haven't had a
nickel's worth of shit to say to each other in the last three years. I
go home, and it's like visiting a goddamn funeral parlor. Eat scrambled
eggs for breakfast. Grill steaks for supper. Drink fuckin' beers and
stand around and watch the rich kids from Kansas City ride their horses
around the riding ring. Drink more beers. Watch the sun go down. Watch
TV. Go to bed. It's the same story for everybody I know up there. What
are your parents supposed to think? You don't go around telling your
parents and friends everything that happens to you at West Point. You
can't. You can't expect them to understand what it was like to be a
goddamn plebe. You can't expect them to understand about Beast. You just
can't."

"Then you agree with the--what did you call him?-- the chairman of the
Honor Committee, the one who gave the lecture to the plebes. You agree
with him when he said you were not supposed to tell anyone about your
life at West Point. You believe in the need for secrecy. You believe
that West Point should remain apart from the rest of the world.

You believe that don't you, Ry?" Slaight sipped his drink. He didn't
believe it, not for a goddamn minute did he believe it. But he had
practiced it, right along with the rest of them. He had practiced it
until this very moment, when he sat in his girl friend's living room and
told her all he knew about David Hand. "I don't believe that bullshit,
Irit. Christ, if I really believed it, I wouldn't have told you a thing.

It's not as simple as  ...  either you believe or you don't believe.

It's not black and white. I don't believe in that secrecy crap, never
have. But I've lived it. I've been caught right in the middle of it
because until now, there didn't seem to be any other choice. Even now,
it seems like this whole thing was forced into the open. It's like, I
had to tell you. I didn't have any choice. You already knew too much.

Christ. Listen to me. I sound like some World War II spy movie on the TV
late movie. You knew too much, baby, so I hadda tell ya, but now it's
all over between us, see? This is ridiculous."

"It's not ridiculous, Ry.

This is very serious. I have the feeling you are admitting to some
doubts you never knew you had before now."

"Yeah, I know. You're right.

But Jesus, Irit, West Point. What more can I tell you?"

"You can finish telling me why you've never told anyone about your
experiences there."

"Finish! Irit, don't you understand? I told you about me and David Hand,
but that's just, like, the tip of the iceberg or something. How can I
make you understand? You go to West Point when you're eighteen. You
become a cadet. You do things. You go on leave. You go home for
Christmas. You see your folks. You meet a girl. You have a drink in a
bar and you talk to the person sitting next to you on a plane. What are
you supposed to say to any of them? Listen, yesterday I told this plebe
to drive around to my room, and when he came in, he looked like shit.

His shoes weren't shined and he needed a dress-off, and he didn't know
the movie schedule for the week. So I told him to drive around to my
room every morning before reveille for the next month. That'll fix him.

Fix what? Fix his goddamn dressoff? Nobody even knows what a fuckin'
dress-off is. Jesus, what are you supposed to say to anybody? Being a
cadet is like  ...  being some kind of god. They put you up there and
tell you that you're better than everybody else, and at first you know
it's all bullshit, but after a while, you've listened to it for so
goddamn long, you begin to believe it." Slaight sipped his drink and
paced. "How the fuck is anybody supposed to understand the shit that
goes down up there? Huh? Listen, when I was a plebe, I had this
roommate. His name was Danny Gottlieb. He was a Jewish guy from
Brooklyn. Father was a tailor. The whole thing. A cliche. Going to West
Point was the biggest fuckin' thing ever happened in his family. So he
gets up there, and this guy in the company, a cow by the name of Ryder,
he hates Gottlieb. Not because he's a Jew, but because his body is
shaped like a pear, you know? He's just ...  like this pear  ...  narrow
shoulders, wide in the gut and the hips. He's in shape and everything,
but he looks like a pear. What can I tell you. So Ryder hates Gottlieb.

Every day Gottlieb works on his stuff, getting ready to go out to
formation. He works on his stuff Until it's all perfect. Then he goes
out and stands in formation. Down the stairs comes Ryder. You can hear
him. He's bullshitting with the other cows. He comes through the door to
the barracks and he spies Gottlieb standing in ranks. He walks toward
him. He gets ten feet away, and he says, "Gottlieb, what is that thread
doing hanging out of your pocket?" Gottlieb looks down, and sure enough,
hanging from his pocket is this tiny little piece of thread, about a
half inch long. He says, "Sir, I do not know." Ryder tells him to drive
around at 2130. So the rest of the day, Gottlieb's whole life is ruined.

Ruined. Do you understand? Gottlieb can't study, because he's got to
work on his shoes, work on his uniform, work on learning all his poop,
so he won't catch any shit from Ryder when he drives around at 2130. But
he just knows. He fuckin' knows he's gonna catch a load of shit when he
drives around, because it happens every day. Every goddamn day. The same
thing. The same way. And me and my other roommate, we need Gottlieb to
poop-us-up in math, because he's got the calculus down. But Gottlieb
hasn't got time to help us, because all he can do is think about driving
around to Ryder's room. It went on like that for a fuckin' year. All of
plebe year. Nine goddamn months. Every goddamn day. Ryder telling
Gottlieb to drive around. And you know what? The next year, Ryder
becomes company commander, and he's the best goddamn company commander
we ever had. He never gives Gottlieb any shit. They become good friends.

How do you figure it, Irit? A total flaming asshole like Ryder becomes a
firstrate company commander. Gottlieb, who hated and feared him for a
whole year, would cut his arm off for him the next year, because Ryder
was always watching out for the company's shit. Always taking care of
us. Keeping the tac off our necks. Best goddamn CO we ever had. How do
you figure it, Irit?"

"I don't know, Ry."

"I don't know either. And how do you figure this? Gottlieb, who had the
most hellish plebe year imaginable, he becomes a regular gray-hog.

That's like a superstraight cadet. If anybody had an excuse to slack off
yearling year, it was him.

But no. Gottlieb digs in, and he's straight-arrow. But these other guys
in the company, guys who never had to drive around to Ryder's room once,
guys who never had to drive around period, who just ghosted through with
hardly a plebe year at all, they start resigning like some kind of an
epidemic hit, like the last train is pulling out of Woo Poo, and you
better get on. Now. So the Tactical Department, they watch about twenty
guys in the company resign in a row, and they figure something's up.

They send this major over from the Department of Military Psychology and
Leadership. They're going to do a study. They want to know why so many
guys are resigning. So the major is meeting ' with us twice a week, and
he's gotten us broken down into different discussion groups and stuff,
and we're all supposed to give him reports on what we think is wrong
with West Point. Well. Where do you start. Right? One night we're all
sitting down in the sinks meeting with this major, he isn't a grad, and
he's a real nice guy. Everybody really likes him. So one night, he just
asks for a show of hands. How many are going to resign? A half-dozen
guys raise their hands. He starts to ask them why. Guy& are saying stuff
like, they don't like the educational system, they've decided they don't
want to be officers in the army after all, they're disillusioned with
this part of the system or that part of the system. Pretty stock
answers. You could get the same shit from any half-dozen yearlings at
West Point anytime. Hell, you could hear the same shit from any
half-dozen college sophomores about any goddamn college in the country.

Finally he gets around to this dude Whitford, from Tennessee. Whitford's
a real character. He's got an accent so fuckin' thick--Christ, he made
Leroy Buck sound like he was from Boston. So he asks Whitford, and old
Whitford says--I wish you could have heard him--old Whitford says, "Suh,
suh, Ah'll tell yew what. This here place, 1 Whest Phoint ...  waaalll,
suh, Whest Phoint is just lahke this big coffin. Yuh come heah on the
fust day a Beast, and yuh climbs in the big coffin, and they puts the
lid down on yuh. And every day, they drives in another. nail, suh. Every
day, they drives in another nail." Old Whitford laid that on the major,
and he just called a halt to the whole thing, took the stuff he'd gotten
from us back to the Department of Military Psychology and Leadership,
and we never heard another thing about it. The study was over. Old
Whitford. resigned and went back to Tennessee, enrolled in the
University of Tennessee, got himself in some fraternity, and he was
writing us letters back all the time telling us what a good time he was
having and shit. Then one day Leroy Buck, who had been his roommate
plebe year, got a letter from Whitford. On a single sheet of paper is
written just one line. Please buy me a Brown Boy and mail it to me,
Leroy. Whitford couldn't get along there without his, Brown Boy. So
Leroy goes up to Cadet Supply and buys him a Brown Boy and we stuck it
in a big box and mailed it down to Whitford at U.T., and we never heard
another word from him. I guess he was too embarrassed after that to
write to us about what a good time he was having. Because no matter what
he'd said, the truth was, he missed West Point. He missed the company.

He missed the guys. He was too embarrassed to admit it to us. Asking for
a Brown Boy was his way of saying he was kind of sorry he'd resigned.

That was one of the weird things. All those guys who resigned  ...  you
always had the feeling that they regretted resigning on some level  ...
like they would always wonder: Did they do the right thing? For the rest
of their lives they'd wonder. And they'd wonder: Did they resign because
they just couldn't cut it? Christ, I've read these stories in the Times
about the problems they're having at Ivy League schools with students
coping under the strain of academic competition. One story I read said
most of the schools have had to open mental health facilities for the
students. Man. Competition is one thing. But the shit that goes down at
West-Point!"

"I know what you mean, Ry. That story about the coffin, it's almost ..."

"Funny. Yeah, it's almost funny. It was funny at the time. We laughed
our goddamn asses off over that line. Christ, we'd laugh at anything. I
remember one Saturday night that year, yearling year, this goes back two
years now. I remember one night I was up in the barracks writing
letters, and I heard a ruckus out in the area, so I looked out my
window. It was about midnight, and these two firsties from my company
were coming back from Snuffy's, the bar where all the firsties went to
drink. They were totally drunk. They were doing PLF's ...  you don't
know what a PLF is. Okay. A PLF is a"Parachute Landing Fall," which they
teach you at the Airborne School when you're on the Firstie Trip. You
jump off a wall, land on your feet with your knees bent, and roll to
absorb the shock of landing. It's a training exercise for Airborne. So
these two firsties are doing PLFS off this little wall onto the area.

Finally, they both end up on the area, rolling around laughing, and one
of them, a little guy who'd spent a lot of hours walking punishment
tours--I'm sure he was a Century Man, which means he'd walked over a
hundred hours--the little guy starts screaming, "I love this fucking
area! I love this fucking area!" and he starts humping the area. Then
the other guy starts humping the area. And they're both screaming, "I
love this fucking area!" and humping, like they're fucking the area.

Guys are looking out their windows to see what all the noise is about,
and they see these two firsties fucking the area, and they're hooting
and hollering out the windows, cheering them on, and the two firsties
are humping and humping and screaming, and somebody puts on the Rolling
Stones, "I Can't Get No (Satisfaction)," and turns the speakers out the
window into the area, and I swear to you, there was almost a goddamn
riot going on. Music and screaming and laughing and these two crazy
area-birds fucking the area. Finally somebody calls one of the orderly
rooms from the Cadet Guard Room to say the officer in the charge is on
his way, because they can hear it all the way over in Central Area, and
the firsties scramble into the barracks, everybody pulls up their shades
and turns off their lights, and just like that  ...  it's over. You
believe that?"

"Yes. Of course I believe you, Ry."

"You think they'd understand?"

"I think so."

"Yeah, it all sounds funny in retrospect, when you tell it like a story,
you know? Well, how about this one. There was this upperclassman and
this plebe. The plebe was real smart. Too smart. He thought he could get
away with playing the game by his rules. The upperclassman decided he
wouldn't let him. So the upperclassman broke him, just busted the little
fucker in half, like a watermelon, cracked him wide open. Saw his
insides, the upperclassman did. And you know what? He looked in there
when he got him cracked open, and he didn't understand what he saw.

Isn't that some shit? All that trouble he went to, breaking the plebe
open, and once it was done, he didn't know what he was looking at.

That's West Point for you. Right there. They teach you all about
leadership, about influencing the behavior of others, they teach all
this shit, and when you put it to use, you don't know what the fuck is
really going on. You're just banging away in the dark in the general
direction of the target. And West Point stands there and lets it happen.

They let it happen, because they know they control the light switch.

They know it'll stay in the dark. They know it'll never get out. None of
it. You know why, Irit? I mean, you know why, besides West Point
controlling things?"

"Tell me, Ry."

"I'll tell you why. It'll never get out, what goes on up there, because
when it's over, you're too fuckin' embarrassed to admit to yourself that
it happened. You're too fuckin' embarrassed to admit what happened to
you when you were a plebe. You're too fuckin' embarrassed to admit what
you did with the power you had when they made you a squad leader. You're
too fuckin' embarrassed to tell somebody what it was like to stand down
there in the sinks and have some goddamn naked plebe come up to you and
salute and tell when he took his last crap, and you're sitting there
checking between his goddamn toes for athlete's foot, and you're squad
leader and mother and father and every other goddamn thing to these
guys, and you're only nineteen or twenty years old yourself, and you're
coming on like God's right-hand man. You're too fuckin' embarrassed to
admit what you learned about what goes on between cadets when they're
that close together, because you didn't really understand it all
yourself, and what you did think you understood--who would fuckin'
believe it, anyway? It all happened inside this goddamn vacuum, this
goddamn monastery, and you knew the whole time that West Point wasn't
the real world. It wasn't intended to be the real world. You knew it was
a giant fantasy, a big goddamn game. You knew it was a goddamn game from
the first day when that guy told you to drop your bags, and you went
ahead and dropped them, and you didn't question it, because you knew
why. Once you'd dropped your bags, you accepted the goddamn rules and
you played the goddamn game. But it was real, too. West Point was
fuckin' real. Real enough to hurt. And Christ almighty. Real enough to
kill." Slaight stood there with his empty glass in his hand. He had been
pacing back and forth, and he was soaked with sweat, despite the air
conditioning in Irit's penthouse. He was sweating and he was tired and
he was well on his way to being drunk. He was killing the fuckin' pain.

Irit listened to him rant and rave for another twenty minutes, and now
it was her turn to speak, and Slaight knew it. He flopped down on the
sofa next to her. "Ry, you've got to go to New Orleans, and you've got
to tell this girl, Samantha Hand, what you know about her brother.

You've got to go, Ry. You've told me. Now you've got to tell her, I
don't care how much it hurts. You owe it to her."

"Yeah. I know." Slaight's eyes were closed. He didn't want to think
about West Point any more. He didn't want to think about David Hand. He
didn't want to face the idea of going to see Samantha Hand. But he knew
he had to because Irit was going to make him do it. Good ole Irit. What
would he do without Irit? Huh? What would he fuckin' do? "Irit. Let's go
to bed.

Tomorrow, sweetness. Tomorrow. I'll make all the arrangements tomorrow.

I promise you. Right now, all I want to do is climb in bed with you.

Right now, all I want to do is climb in bed and feel your body next to
mine, Irit. I need you, Irit. You know that?"

"Yes, Ry. I know it."

"You don't mind, do you? I mean, me needing you and all? Is this driving
you crazy, Irit? It's about ready to rip my guts out, and I don't want
it to hurt you. I don't want West Point to hurt you, Irit. I love you
too goddamn much. You know that? I love you. I love you, Irit Dov, and I
need you."

"I know, Ry. I love you, too. I love you in some way I don't completely
understand. But that doesn't matter for now. Come. Let's get you in the
shower, and into bed. Tomorrow, we'll think about New Orleans. Okay?"

She looked at the shirtless body next to her. He was already asleep. Two
days later, Ry Slaight and Irit Dov stepped off the plane into the
kingdom of steam. Heat rose from the streets of New Orleans in vertical
ranks of waves, rippling, swirling gas vents from the center of the
earth. It was hot in New Orleans, hot and humid. New York was bad in
July, but this was unbelievable. They rented a car and drove to the
French Quarter-- the Qwa-a-atah, it was called in New Orleans, the old
part of the city down on the banks of the Mississippi where the river
made a sharp U-shaped turn from south to north. They checked into the
Provincial, a small rooming house on Ursulines Street, and spent their
first afternoon wandering through the Quarter. Cypress trees lapped up
the sun, spread their flat, scalelike foliage in courtyards and alleys
between the old buildings of the Quarter like living ceiling fans. Wind
off the Mississippi ruffled the cypress leaves, spinning them like tiny
green knife blades. Everywhere there were bars and restaurants open to
the street, real ceiling fans turning overhead inside, stirring the
humid air, sucking cool air from the concrete floors, passing it slowly
over the sleepy midday drinkers on its way to the ceiling and out the
open store fronts to the street, where the hot sun superheated the cool
air and spun it skyward. Slaight had never seen anything like it. The
place was like a giant broiler.

People didn't live in New Orleans. They just sat there and slowly cooked
themselves to death. Slaight called a classmate who lived in another
section of town, and he met them in the Quarter for supper. His name was
Nathan Tabor. He was in one of the other companies in the Third
Regiment; he and Slaight had had a few classes together over the years.

He asked Slaight what he was doing in New Orleans, and Slaight told him
"leave." Slaight asked him about the restaurant owned by David Hand's
father, a place in the French Quarter called Anthony's. "Anthony's is
the restaurant in the Quarter," explained Tabor. "You've got to know
somebody to get a table in the place. What I mean is this. The
restaurant is really two places--there's the Anthony's that the tourists
know about, this famous place in the Quarter, right? You just walk in
off the street, and there's this big room and a lot of tables, and you
sit down and eat. Then there's Anthony'sr-a series of back rooms, small
private dining rooms upstairs and in connecting buildings, not visible
from the street. You have to know one of the back-room waiters to get a
table. You call a special number, ask for your waiter by name, and he
takes your reservation. When you go, you don't enter by the front door.

Just to the left of the front door is a narrow alley between buildings.

You walk down that alley, and at the end, you pick up a phone on the
wall and ask for your waiter by name. When he answers, you give your
name and the time of your reservation, and you're buzzed into a back
room, and escorted to your table. You get a different menu from the
tourists, a different kitchen, a whole different scene. There are
actually two waiters for your table--your main waiter and his son, who
serves as his assistant. Your main waiter takes your order and places
your order with the kitchen. Now, the way they work it at Anthony's is
like no other restaurant in America. Your waiter is actually a
wholesaler to your table. He buys from the kitchen at wholesale, and
sells to you at the price marked on the menu, and he pockets the
difference. That's his salary. So if you've got a good waiter, he'll
watch your food when it comes from the kitchen, and if it doesn't meet
his approval, he'll refuse it--send it back for you. He'll make sure
what you get is perfect. All the time, his son is there at your table,
pouring wine, tossing salad, making sure everything is okay. You pay a
little extra for this service--not much, really, but you pay. A good
waiter at Anthony's can make between five hundred and seven-fifty a
week, which he splits by some mutually agreed-upon percentage with his
son. The son inherits his job when he retires. Those waiters are really
something. They'll cultivate a regular clientele of regulars from New
Orleans, and then some big spenders from out of town with the
connections to get in. They clean up. The guy who owns the place started
out as a waiter, inherited the job from his father. Later, he quit and
went into other business, made it, and came back and bought the goddamn
place. One of the classic success stories of the Quarter. He's a real
power these days. Anybody who's anybody in this town had better be on
the good side of William Hand, or he gets stiffed at Anthony's, and if
that happens, forget it. In New Orleans, if you're going to make it, you
need Anthony's more than Anthony's needs you. This town lives on lunches
and dinners at Anthony's and a couple of other places. But Anthony's is
the one. Why you ask? You want to eat there? I might be able to fix you
up, if you give me a couple of days."

"Yeah, thanks. Tabor. Maybe in a couple of days. We'll give you a call.

We're just trying to get our feet on the ground. This heat is enough to
float you away."

"July is not your ideal time to visit New Orleans," said Tabor. "Yeah.

I'm beginning to get that idea."

"What brings you down here this time of year besides leave, anyway?"

Tabor was one smart son of a bitch, and Slaight didn't want him digging
around. "Curiosity, man. My girl, Irit, she's never been here, and
neither have I. And you only got one leave right? Now or never." "Sure.

Gotcha." They said good night and walked down Royale Street to the
rooming house. They spent their first night drinking straight gin on the
rocks, huddled next to a pathetically inadequate air conditioner
hard-pressed to make a dent in the heat; wondering what they'd do to
stay cool the next day. They needn't have wondered. At the ungodly
hour--for Slaight, anyway--of 9:30 a.m., Slaight drank two gin and
orange juices' worth of courage, turned the corner outside the
Provincial, walked the three blocks down to 152 Chartres Street, and
rang the buzzer on the cast-iron gate of the fence surrounding a
marvelous old Victorian mansion set back from the street by an
intricately designed garden, inset with winding brick walks and flower
beds and flowering bushes of one kind or another. It was truly an
imposing structure, the Hand house, and Slaight expected to be met by a
black maid in a white apron when the gate swung open. Instead, a tinny
voice sounded over a small speaker mounted on a cast-iron Greek column
at the right side of the gate. "Who is it?" inquired a tinny voice of
indeterminate sex. "It's Ry Slaight. I'm here to see Samantha Hand."

There was a pause. Another voice came over the speaker, female. * "Yes.

Who is it?"

"It's Ry Slaight, ma'am. I'm here to see Samantha Hand, please."

"This is Samantha," the voice crackled from the speaker. "I don't want
anything to do with you, Ryan Slaight. Go away. Go away this very
moment, or I will call the police and have them arrest you for
harassment."

"Samantha, you're not giving me a chance."

"You're damn right I'm not giving you a chance, Slaight. Now, go away."

Slaight gave up when he heard the speaker click, signaling that it had
been turned off. He walked back to the Provincial, poured himself
another gin-and-orange-juice, and announced the grim news to Irit. "I
will go myself," said Irit. "We will not come down here without giving
this Samantha person the information which is by rights hers. Wait for
me here." Slaight didn't argue. He sipped his drink in the dark silence
of the room overlooking Ursulines Street, which had begun to buzz with
the commercial truck traffic of the warehouse district through which it
passed. Irit repeated the buzzer process at the gate to 152 Chartres
Street. Again the voice: "Who is it?"

"My name is Irit Dov. I have information about the deceased cadet, David
Hand. Let me in, please." Again a pause. The gate buzzed, and opened a
crack. Irit pushed her way through. She walked to her left along a brick
path. Before she had gone more than a dozen steps, a light-complexioned,
extremely thin blond woman who appeared to be in her early twenties
stepped suddenly from behind a bush. The two women faced each other in
the bright, early morning sun. "I'm Samantha Hand," stated the blonde
flatly. "You've come with Ry, haven't you? I know. My brother mentioned
your name in his letters. You're Ry's girl friend. What do you want?"

"You made a grave mistake in your letter to Ry. I read it. And yes, I am
here with him.

You should not have turned him away. He had nothing to do with the death
of your brother, David. But Ry does know how he died. He has come here
to tell you everything he knows about your brother and his death. Like
you, he believes your brother was murdered. But unlike you, he has the
facts. He knows of the autopsy on your brother. He wants to find your
brother's murderer. Ry has been drawn into this, not by your letter, but
in other, more complicated ways. For reasons which he will have to
explain to you himself, the death of your brother hurt him very deeply.

You must talk with him. He has not come to defend himself against your
letter, for he has no need to. He has come to tell you everything he
knows, and you will do yourself and your family a grave disservice if
you do not listen." Irit delivered her well-rehearsed lines in the
peculiar lilting English native to Israel. Samantha Hand seemed stunned,
speechless. Irit spoke: "You have reason for concern, Samantha. But you
have no reason for fear. Ry cannot hurt you any more than he has already
hurt himself. I have listened to him and watched him since he learned of
your brother's death in May. It has consumed him. Your letter only
served to crystallize what had already become a nearly self-destructive
passion. He is determined to find your brother's killer. You can help
him. You can refuse to help him. But you must listen to him, you must
hear him out. If you do not, I hardly know what to expect from him. I
fear for his emotional health, and I fear for his safety. You must give
him the benefit of the doubt. You must listen, no matter how difficult
it is for you. I assure you, this journey has been equally painful for
him." Samantha Hand walked slowly toward Irit and took her by the arm.

Her hand seemed frail, bony. Wordlessly they walked to the house.

Inside, it was dark and cool, the windows shaded outside by huge oaks,
fans stirring the air slowly within the house, drawing cool air from
somewhere and circulating it through the rooms on the first floor.

"Where, is he?" Samantha asked without emotion. "I'll call." Irit gave
her the number, and Samantha dialed the telephone, asking the desk for
Slaight's room. He picked up. "Ry, it's Samantha. I'm sorry. Irit is
here, and she has told me. She seems like a wonderful person. I'm glad
she came with you. I would never have seen you otherwise. Please. Come
over. Have you had breakfast? Come then. We'll eat, and we can talk."

Samantha led the way to a terrace behind the house. The leafy foliage of
giant rosebush thickly entwined a latticework gazebo. Samantha told a
servant to show Slaight to the terrace when he arrived. The two women
drank tea and talked of the weather as they awaited Slaight's arrival.

He was there within a few minutes. The former lovers greeted each other
awkwardly and sat down across the table from one another. Irit offered
to leave, but Ry held her hand, and Samantha asked her to stay. She
seemed a steadying influence in a scene that needed one. It took Ryan
hour to outline the events of the past few days, including his knowledge
of the real autopsy, the existence of two "official" autopsies, his
meetings with Major Consor, the commandant, and the sergeant major. The
details were quickly drawn and to the point. David Hand was murdered.

The doctor was convinced of it. The sergeant major suspected it. The
commandant appeared to be eager to keep it quiet, having offered to buy
off Slaight with a battalion command. There was a great deal of
intelligence data on the case, the contents of which Slaight did not
know. The Pentagon was somehow involved. What, Slaight wanted to know,
had the family been told? "We were told it was an accidental drowning,"
said Samantha Hand. "We were given no other details. The entire matter
was handled very quietly and hurriedly by the authorities at the
academy. My father took the superintendent at his word. David was
interred without an autopsy here. The academy never informed us that an
autopsy had been performed. This is the first I have heard about an
official autopsy. Ry  ...  I am sorry about my letter. I was distressed.

It was just that  ...  well  ... it was like I told you in the letter.

My brother was obsessed by you. The obsession went back to when you were
his squad leader during Beast Barracks. He wrote me in Paris during that
time. And it never stopped. I often wondered. What had happened between
you two that he would suffer such an obsession? I never told him about
you and me. Never. Not before he went to West Point, and never afterward
by mail from Paris. His obsession seemed to come from nowhere."

"It hardly came from nowhere, Samantha. It came from me. That's the
other thing I came down here to tell you about. Beast Barracks." Slaight
spelled out the story of David Hand during Beast Barracks in equally
abrupt, concise detail. Samantha nodded her head once or twice, as if to
agree, or to acknowledge something she already knew. When Slaight was
finished, she sighed deeply. "I didn't know all of it  ...  not like
that  ...  but it sounds so much like him. Like what he would do. He was
that way in high school. Headstrong. Impossible in many ways. My father
was desperately opposed to his going to West Point. He is on the Board
of Trustees at Tulane, and he wanted David to follow in his footsteps.

David wouldn't listen. My mother, on the other hand, was completely
romanced by the idea of the academy. It appealed to her sense of
patriotism, all those young men in their uniforms with their stiff white
trousers and their full, proud chests. I guess, being from the South,
she envisioned scenes of lawn parties with great tents spread over acres
and acres of grass, girls in long flowing gowns moving soundlessly
about, the tinkling of ice in crystal cups filled with punch, the sounds
of a band playing a fox trot somewhere at the edge of the crowds of
cadets ...  They were at such complete odds with one another over David
and West Point, I didn't know what to do. I of course knew that West
Point was nothing like my mother envisioned it  ...  nothing like David
envisioned it, for that matter. But my mother had violently opposed my
going North to Vassar. She wanted me to attend a local girls' school--a
finishing school more than a college. And it was my father who gave his
approval to Vassar. So I could not bring myself to come between them. I
felt I had only one choice, and that was to stay out of the whole thing
and let David make up his own mind. For whatever reasons of his own, he
chose West Point. I never really understood why. I never asked. I
accompanied him to West Point for the first day of Beast. I watched them
march out to Trophy Point that afternoon to take the oath. I watched
them march back to the barracks. The next day, I left by air for Paris.

A week later, I heard that you were his squad leader. You can imagine my
shock!"

"Well, you can't imagine mine. One chance out of thirteen hundred, and I
got him."

"Yes. And you 'broke him," as you say. That must explain why he
continued to follow you around the academy. He did, you know. He
reported to me your every move. Everything."

"I didn't know that. I never saw him again, after that last morning in
Beast. Never heard anything about him, either. Not until that day on the
area, when I was told he was  ...  dead."

"David made it sound in his letters as if you two had become friends ...
of a rather distant sort. He made it sound like you confided in him from
time to time. He always knew what you were up to. I found out about Irit
within a week of your return to West Point in September of 1967. By
Christmas, I felt as if I knew her.

David must have spent half his free time spying on you, Ry. It's all
very strange. Very, very strange."

"Yeah."

"But he always lived in a fantasy world. He loved books and movies. In
high school, he was completely wrapped up in the Thespians, and after
school hours, with one of the local little theater groups. He was always
dreaming. I think becoming a cadet  ...  the army  ...  it was just one
more of his dreams. But the dream was bigger than he could have known
this time. He was just a child. He had no way of knowing ..."

"He was more than just a child, Samantha."

"What do you mean by that?"

"It's the last thing I came down here to tell you. I wouldn't tell you,
but I'm convinced--and so is Dr. Consor--that this had something to do
with his murder. I'm really sorry, Samantha ..."

"Ry. What is it?"

"Did you know that your brother was a homosexual?"

"That's a lie! A despicable lie!"

"It was part of the doctor's findings in the autopsy, Samantha. I don't
want to go into the details, but the doctor found that your brother had
had sex immediately before death. He had sex with another man."

"No."

"Samantha.

I'm not lying to you. I've told you everything I know about your
brother. Everything that went down between me and him. Now I've got to
tell you this, because the doctor is certain, and I am certain, that the
man with whom your brother had sex murdered him. He's the guy we're
looking for. That's what it comes down to, grim as it is. But it's the
truth." Samantha stared blankly across the garden for a few moments
before speaking. When she finally spoke, her voice was measured, firmly
in control. "You are a contemptible whore, Ry Slaight. I knew the moment
I agreed to see you that you would do nothing but cause more grief, more
suffering. What is it about you? Why must you prey on me and my family
like this?"

"I didn't come down here to  ...  prey, Samantha. I knew I would cause
grief. It wasn't easy for me. If you won't believe me, ask Irit."

Samantha Hand turned slowly and faced Irit. Tears dribbled down her
cheeks. Their eyes met, and Irit simply nodded. Samantha faced Slaight.

"It's none of your fucking business, Ry." She spoke rapidly, and the
words came from deep within her chest, a rumble of anger and
frustration. "I know, but ..."

"You're always saying, "I know." Well, fuck you and all you know."

"Samantha  ..."

"It isn't doing me, or my family, or even you any good, all this you say
you 'know."

" She spat the word at him. "Goddammit, I didn't come down here to do
you or anybody else any good." Slaight stood up from the table, pacing
the concrete deck of the gazebo. "You wrote me a letter. You figured
your brother was murdered. You said I had something to do with it. You
told me I had something to do with the fucking war in Vietnam one day,
too.

Remember?" He glared at her, leaning forward, hands on the table, his
face a foot from hers. "Remember that day? Well, fuck you and all you
'know' about that war, Samantha Hand. You and that bunch of overfed
cunts from Vassar can take your bullshit about the war someplace else.

Why don't you demonstrate over at Yale? Ever think about that? Shit. A
flower and a leaflet will get you laid at Yale. Those fuckin' guys will
end up buying and selling slots in line units in Nam, sister. One year
from now, they'll be trading stocks down on Wall Street. They'll be
trading blood stocks. They won't have to watch the war on TV. They'll
see it every day on the broad tape, in numbers. All the companies that
are feeding off that fucking war like a bunch of pigs at a trough. So
fuck you and your uppity crap about me and West Point and the army and
Vietnam. I don't need it."

"Ry  ..."

"Fuck you." "Ry  ..." "I said fuck you."

"Ry. Wait." The voice was Irit's. Slaight stopped at the bottom of the
steps to the gazebo. Samantha was standing, her head erect and proud.

Irit stood next to her. Samantha spoke. "I didn't mean to  ..."

"You didn't mean shit. You say you wanna know who killed your brother.

So do I. You got your reasons. I got mine. I didn't come down here to
haunt you, or harass you. I came down because I need your help. You help
me, and we'll nail the son of a bitch who killed your brother. You take
a walk now, and those fuckers at West Point will bury your brother but
good. They're runnin' scared, Samantha. I don't know from what, or why,
but they're runnin'. And they're coverin' their tracks as they go. You
wanna help me nail your brother's killer, talk If not, we'll be on our
way." The three of them stood for a moment like cast-iron statues in the
heat. Then Samantha sat down, Irit with her. Slaight returned to his
chair and sipped his drink. "Okay, Ry." Samantha stared across the
garden. Her eyes were glazed. Her face was thin, drawn tight, brittle,
like expensive porcelain. "You have no business knowing this, Ry." She
looked him in the eye for the first time all morning. "But you know
everything else. You may as well know David the way I knew him." Slowly
at first, with the cultured broad-A tones spoken by natives of New
Orleans, she talked about her brother, her family, and the city of New
Orleans. They seemed tightly entwined, like the vine covering the
gazebo. Slaight found the story fascinating. Irit found it chilling,
uniquely American, like the late movies he always wanted to watch on
television. David Hand had been valedictorian of his high school class.

He was captain of the debate team, a contender for the state debate
championship, president of the school's Honor Society. He was president
of the Key Club, the high school adjunct to the local Kiwanis. He often
traveled to small towns near New Orleans to address Kiwanis luncheons.

"He was popular, Ry," said Samantha, hoping the word meant as much where
Slaight came from as it did in New Orleans, It did. "David seemed to
float through high school in an air-conditioned sphere of adulation and
quick, easy fame. There was only one thing more beautiful, more perfect
than the whole social scene we came from. David. And he knew it. He was
like Troy Donahue in A Summer Place. Nobody noticed life wasn't a movie.

No one cared. He was too perfect, and they cherished him for it. They
used him like a mirror. They all wanted to see something of themselves
in him, and he knew it. He must have used you the same way, Ry. That
would explain his letters, the way he followed you, watching you,
admiring you." "Yeah, I guess," said Slaight, waiting for Samantha to
continue. She spoke haltingly at first, picking up speed as her memory
poured out, a catharsis interrupted only by the insistent buzzing of
bees around the gazebo. Slaight listened quietly. Irit gripped his hand
beneath the table. The town fathers were proud of young David Hand. When
they lunched at Anthony's they clapped the senior Hand on the back and
told him the town, hell, the whole nation had a future leader in young
David.

He was a youngster they could all be proud of. When they learned he was
going to West Point, not to Tulane, his father's alma mater, the news
failed to dim enthusiasm for David Hand. He would bring honor to New
Orleans no matter where he went to school. Samantha explained that her
father had remained deeply perturbed by David's unexpected decision to
go North to West Point. His displeasure had nothing to do with his
politics, which were sufficiently conservative that beating the commies
over in Vietnam seemed one hell of a good idea. He just didn't want his
boy David becoming a statistic before he had a chance to  ...  make his
mark. The very idea of the Military Academy displeased the elder Hand.

It was almost like entering the seminary. You were locked up for a long
time, four years, and when they let you out, the army still had you for
five years' active duty. An eighteen-year-old boy making a commitment
like that! By the time his son had completed his obligation, he'd be
married with a couple of kids, William Hand decided. An army career
would be almost irresistible under those conditions. Even the prospect
of inheriting Anthony's, the finest restaurant in the French Quarter,
would probably fail to lure his son from the army. He was too damn
headstrong. Once he made up his mind, he'd never change it. William Hand
had spent his whole life changing. He'd come up the hard way. His father
had been a waiter at Anthony's. The job had provided the family enough
money to own a house, and to send William to Tulane, the university
across town, across Canal Street, over near Audubon Park lazily
scattered among the trees and grass and wide boulevards that didn't
exist in the Quarter. Tulane was to have been William Hand's way out,
and it was. He took a job with a bank downtown and rose to assistant
manager. With a keen eye, he watched the real estate market. One day he
withdrew all his savings and invested in a big piece of swampland not
far outside town, a place no one figured would ever go anyplace. William
Hand knew better. New Orleans reached the edges of its natural
boundaries--the river to the south, west, and east. Lake Pontchartrain
to the north. The peninsula of delta landfill which for two hundred
years had contained the city of New Orleans was full. The city needed a
place to spread. It needed suburbs. Those suburbs would become known as
Fat City, the place people moved to when they left _ the Quarter and the
grubby low-rent districts bordering the river. Fat City was William
Hand's swampland. He cleaned up. At thirty-five, in 1945, he bought
Anthony's where his father still waited tables. His father retired to a
house in Fat City. In 1946 William Hand married Rosemary Bonaparte, the
daughter of one of the wealthiest oilmen on the Mississippi Delta. Such
a marriage was not socially out of order in New Orleans, Samantha
explained. The city took the lavish spectacle of the son of an Anthony's
waiter marrying the daughter of Francis E. Bonaparte in its stride. It
was part of Louisiana history, part of state pride, that the blood of
disparate families mixed like silt in the waters of the Mississippi.

Everybody knew the silt was there in the river, because it was deposited
daily on the constantly shifting islands and backwaters and sloughs
which were the Mississippi delta. But in the water, Mississippi silt was
invisible. The water was muddy, and so were the histories of the
families which had settled the only state in the Union with civil codes
based in French law, instead of British law, like the other forty-nine.

In New Orleans it seemed everyone was related in one way or another. The
city rested, William Hand often told his daughter when she was old
enough to understand, not on landfill, but on a quicksand of family ties
which depended on a peculiar gentlemanly form of blackmail for cohesion.

In New Orleans you collected information on your fellows the way you
deposited your money in a bank. You were what you knew. William Hand
wanted his son to inherit Anthony's. It was a matter of family pride.

Samantha knew from the time she was a little girl that restaurants in
New Orleans were a man's business. Food was taken too seriously to be
left to women. Because of the machismo surrounding her life in New
Orleans, which naturally included the restaurant she knew she would
never inherit, Samantha decided to go North to Vassar. She didn't want
to become another of the frail New Orleans blossoms that passed for
girls in her high school class. Like her mother had been brought up,
they were being trained for a different kind of success. In New Orleans
women didn't inherit businesses, they inherited men. Samantha didn't
want any part of it. She left in 1965 for Vassar. Her father could never
figure out his own son. The boy was smart. That much had been confirmed
many times over. He was headstrong, too  ...  headstrong like his
mother, a woman who masked a considerable will behind the floral flounce
of New Orleans femininity. Samantha knew--or sensed, really--it
depressed her father that everything about her brother had come from her
mother's side of the family. He had her handsome yet soft facial
features, skin that looked so moist it seemed to be thinly coated with
honey. He had his mother's soft pale blue eyes, and her wispy, chocolate
brown hair. When David spoke, you could hear the elegant, leisurely
tones of his mother's voice in the ebb and flow of his words. He talked
the way the Mississippi moved, with an inexorable certainty, slowly,
self-confidently, as if speech had been not a gift of God but a right,
something which ran in his blood at birth. Samantha said David wasn't
just impressive in high school. He was downright precocious. Once, when
she was home from Vassar for Christmas, her father had gotten drunk and
told her late at night, the boy is possessed. "It was eerie, Ry,"
Samantha explained. "My father isn't an excitable man. He can't be, to
run the most important restaurant in New Orleans, all the other family
investments he's made over the years. But the next day, I had lunch with
him at the restaurant. David came in. I saw him, coming through the
doors of the restaurant with all these Kiwanis men. They followed him.

They followed him like he was the Pied Piper, and his tongue was his
flute. He was talking, talking, and you could see it. They felt caressed
by his voice. Father was right. David was  ...  frightening." Samantha
stared at Slaight, waiting for his reaction. "Yeah. I know what you
mean," he said. "No, you don't, Ry. You don't know what it was like,
because you weren't his sister. You'll never know."

"No, I guess I won't," he agreed. They were silent, each of them staring
at a plate or spoon on the table before them. The maid began clearing
the table, asked if anyone wanted anything else. Slaight asked for a gin
and orange juice. The maid glanced at Samantha, and she nodded her
assent. "You still drink too much, don't you, Ry?" "Yeah, I guess so,"
he said. "You seem different, though. Quieter. Less the wild man you
were when I knew you."

"Yeah." Irit gripped his hand under the table. "Is it over now, Ry? What
you've come for? Have you told me everything you've come to tell me? Is
there anything left I can tell you?" Samantha seemed drained, empty of
feeling. Slaight hated to press her for more. But he had to. "I know
this has been hellish for you, Sam," he began, calling her by her
nickname accidentally. She blushed. "But I need one last thing. I want
the name of your brother's best friend in high school. I want to talk to
him." Billy Patou agreed to meet Slaight the following night in a little
bar on St. Charles Street in the Quarter. It was a typical French
Quarter spot--wide doors folded back, the dimly lit interior of the bar
open to the snarling bumper-to-bumper tourist traffic of the street. He
said he'd be dressed in blue, and he was. From head to toe, baby blue.

Sneakers. Socks. Jeans. T-shirt. He was about Hand's age, nineteen, and
skinny. It was hard to figure how somebody could weigh so little and
still live. Even his face was skinny, about as wide as his neck. He had
hair the color of the wicker bar stool he was sitting on, sipping some
white frothy concoction that looked like a gin fizz. When Slaight sat
down next to him, he turned his head slowly to face Slaight. Bill
Patou's face was deeply pock-marked by acne scars.

Slaight took one look and thought: Billy Patou had been David Hand's
horse-holder, an old army term describing somebody who just followed
another person around, catering to his every whim. Without saying
anything. Billy Patou stood up--he was about 5'9", Slaight's height--and
led the way back to a courtyard behind the bar. He sat down at an old
round oak table and signaled a waiter. Billy Patou knew his way around.

But he was nervous. Slaight saw it. His eyes flicked from side to side,
and his long slender fingers drummed the table in a quick tattoo. The
waiter came. "I'll have another one of these," said Billy. Patou,
holding his glass. He looked over at Slaight. "I want a Dixie," said
Slaight, referring to the local beer, at twenty-five cents a bottle, the
kind of bargain that could turn you into an alcoholic. "You didn't bring
anyone with you?" asked Billy, glancing back toward the bar. "No," said
Slaight. "You asked me to come alone. I did." "You said you wanted to
talk about David," said Billy, draining the last of his gin fizz, with a
slurp. "I don't want to talk about David. He's dead. He's gone now. He
was my friend."

"I know he was your friend. Listen, man, let me introduce myself. I'm
..."

"I don't want to know who you are!"

"Okay.

If that's the way you want it. But Hand's sister told you who I am,
didn't she?"

"All she told me was, you were David's friend. That's all I want to
know. You were his friend, weren't you?"

"Let's put it this way.

I knew him. He was in my squad at West Point. Upperclassmen and plebes
aren't friends. But I knew him. Pretty well."

"Okay. So what do you want to talk about? Samantha said you have some
questions to ask me. I don't want to answer questions about David. He's
gone now  ...  a tragic accident. I never thought he would drown\ He was
a good swimmer. The best."

"It wasn't an accident. Billy."

"Wasn't an accident! What do you mean? That's what they said. That's
what the priest said at the funeral.

It was an accident!"

"Look, Billy  ..."

"Don't call me Billy! Call me ...  Ray. Call me Ray. That's my name down
here."

"You're not from here?

From the Quarter?"

"No. I live in the Garden District. If my parents knew I was down here
.. , I'm not supposed to come down here, is all. So call me Ray."

"Okay. Ray. Look, your friend David didn't die accidentally. He drowned.

That much was true. But not accidentally. He was murdered."

"Murdered! You've got to be kidding! This must be some kind of sick  ...
joke. I'm leaving." He stood up. "Look, Ray or Billy or whateverthefuck
you name is. Sit down. Samantha told you to talk to me, didn't she?

She's David's sister, right? You can trust her, right?

Come on, goddammit, answer me." "Yeah. Samantha. She said you were  ...
all right."

"So sit down and listen to what I have to say." He sat down, drumming
his fingers. Slaight could feel his knees bouncing under the table.

"Settle down, kid. I don't bite, you hear? I came here to meet you
tonight to tell you one thing, and that's already done. David Hand was
murdered. Now, I want to ask you something. And I want you to think
hard. I'm trying to find who murdered David Hand. I'm gonna find the guy
who killed him, and I'm gonna bring him up on charges in the army and
see him hang for it. You understand me, now? You see what I'm driving
at?" "I guess so," said Billy Ray. "But why you? Why hasn't there been
some kind of official army investigation, if what you say is true?" The
waiter brought the drink and the beer. The courtyard was ten degrees
cooler than the street outside, and potted palms hung over sparsely
scattered tables. Nobody else was in the courtyard. The kid might be
scared, but he wasn't stupid. "I can't answer that," said Slaight,
sipping his Dixie from the frosted bottle. "I can't answer you, because
I just don't know the answer. I don't know what the army is doing, or if
they're doing anything, or why. All I know is this. I want to find the
guy who killed Hand. And I need your help."

"Me? Why me?"

"I thought you might remember something--something from when you two
were in high school. Hand was killed at West Point. The best guess is,
he was killed by another cadet. Now, think. Did David Hand ever talk to
you about any cadets he might have been, you know, friends with? Any
cadets he was especially tight with?"

"When he came home from West Point for Christmas, he talked a lot about
one guy. I think his name was  ... Slaight somebody  ...  I can't
remember exactly."

"That's me. My name is Slaight. Ry Slaight."

"Well! He certainly admired you! He went on and on about what a  ...
neat guy you were. He thought you were quite the ideal cadet. His ideal,
in any case."

"Yeah. So? Anybody else?"

"I never heard him talk much about anybody else at Christmas time. There
was one cadet, though. Before David went to West Point. He came down
here and visited our high school  ...  let me see  ...  in the fall of
1966. He was on a recruiting trip or something. He gave an address to
the entire senior class, in his uniform and everything. He was quite
something to see. David was really taken by this cadet. I think he was
the reason David decided to go to West Point. Before that cadet visited
our high school, I don't think David had given it much thought. He had
applied to several colleges, some of the Ivy League schools, Tulane,
Duke, a few others. But that cadet  ...  I think he made up David's mind
for him. He never stopped talking about West Point after that. Never."

Hand had been recruited! Jesus! Slaight's mind raced. "Look, ah. Ray, I
want you to think about this cadet. Can you remember his name?" The
kid's face twitched wildly, his fingers drumming. He was giving himself
away. The cadet recruiter was a sensitive memory. "I  ...  don't  ...
remember.

How am I supposed to remember? That was almost two years ago! Goodness!

Do you think I have total recall or something!" Nervously, the kid
fumbled for a cigarette and lit it with one of those expensive thin gold
lighters you saw advertised in The New Yorker. "Listen to me. Ray. I
want to tell you something. I know David Hand was a homosexual. He had
sex with a man immediately before he was murdered. Let me put it
bluntly. Whoever fucked him killed him. Understand?"

"Well!" The kid blew a long breath of smoke across the table. He crossed
his legs. His fingers stopped drumming. "I'm not as fuckin' straight as
I look, kid," said Slaight, bluffing, acting like he knew more than he
actually did. "Who said you were? You don't have to get testy  ..."

"I'm not getting testy Ray, or Billy or whateverthefuck your name is. I
just want answers. What about this cadet recruiter. You remember his
name or not?"

"I told you. I can't remember everything ' Slaight sipped his beer.

Kid's definitely a screamer. Definite. "Okay then. Let me put it to you
this way. Did Hand have a thing with the cadet? Back in 1966, I mean."

"My. You are putting it to me, aren't you?" The kid blew smoke across
the table again, straight in the face of Slaight, "Don't get cute with
me, Patou. I didn't come down here to play fuckin' games. I came down
here for information. Facts. Now, give."

"And if I don't? What are you going to do? Take me in the alley and fuck
me in the ass? Huh? Is that what you really want? Is that why you're so
eager to find David's killer? You make it with David, too?" Slaight
reached across the table and grabbed the kid by the T-shirt. He yanked
him down, slamming his face on the table. The kid didn't make a squeak.

Didn't even drop his cigarette. Slaight held him there and whispered: "I
didn't make it with David Hand, kid, but I want to know who did. And
you're the man who can tell me. Now, when I let you go, you sit up like
nothing happened, and you start talking, and no more faggot wisecracks.

You understand what I'm saying?"

"Yes." Slaight released his grip on the kid's T-shirt. He sat up and
took a drag on his cigarette, calm as you please. "Talk."

"You are serious, aren't you?" "You bet." "I should have known. Samantha
said  ...  well. That doesn't matter." "What exactly did Samantha say?"
"She said not to play games with you.

She said you meant business. But I didn't know that you  ...  knew."

"So now you know that I know. What about Hand?"

"What's going to happen to me? If what you say is true, this guy has
already killed once. And if anything gets out  ..."

"If anything gets out, what?"

"My parents  ..."

"You're in the closet. I shoulda known."

"I'm not in the closet. I'm in the fucking attic!"

"Okay. Nothing will get out. This will be Top Secret. Between you and
me. You've got my word."

"Isn't that quaint! With your word and a quarter, Mr. Slaight, I can buy
myself a Dixie beer."

"Look, Patou, if I tell you what goes down at this table will remain a
confidence, that's what I mean, you hear me? You think I'm down here in
this goddamn hellhole on leave time for my health? Huh? You think this
is just one big lark for me? A goddamn game? Well, you got another think
coming, Patou. It's not. The shit's getting so deep around the death of
David Hand, it's 'going to take a rowboat and oars to get out pretty
soon. And I'm caught in it, dead in the middle of the shit, through no
goddamn fault of my own, for reasons that need not be explained to you.

I want to know what you know. You talk, and everything is cool. You just
sit there and play dumb, which you are not, and everything may not be so
cool. Got it?"

"Okay. Okay. Just don't raise your voice like that again, please.

Please. I want another drink."

"So order yourself one." The kid signaled the waiter with his glass.

Slaight raised his beer bottle. The waiter acknowledged the gestures
with a nod. "Where do you want me to start?"

"With the cadet who came to your high school in '66. That's as good a
place as any."

"Okay. You probably already suspect it. David had an affair with the
cadet while he was here."

"What do you mean, an affair?"

"I mean David Hand fucked him in the ass, that's what I mean." The kid
lit another cigarette. "So."

"They got drunk. The cadet was here for three days. He came to our high
school the second day. David hung around after the lecture, asking
questions. I guess they went out to dinner together. David could be
quite persuasive. He was a real charmer.

Anyway, he told me about it later. They went drinking around the
Quarter. The cadet wanted to see one of the TV shows on Bourbon Street.

David took him."

"TV shows?"

"Transvestites. Female impersonators.

Strictly tourist shit. Bourbon Street isn't part of our gay scene. But
David said the cadet was really getting off on the TVS. They went to his
hotel room afterward. They were pretty drunk. The cadet was still in his
uniform, so the first thing he did was strip to his shorts. David told
me later that's what cadets do all the time. Get out of their uniforms.

But then, David didn't know. He took it as a signal. He started coming
on to the cadet. The cadet got really mad, hit him, split David's lip.

He was bleeding. It scared the cadet. He was all over David, with cold
washcloths. You know. Then David noticed. The cadet had a bone. He was
turned on. So David starts cooing. Let me tell you something. David
could coo. Meanwhile, they're still drinking. The cadet is staggering
drunk. David is high, but not drunk. So he does his number."

"His number?" ' "He goes down on the cadet. Suddenly, the cadet is all
turned on. David thought the guy was straight at first, then he wasn't
sure.

Anyway, David goes to the bathroom to check his lip, and he sees a tube
of K-Y in the cadet's bag, his little toilet kit, along with some
rubbers. He thinks, at least he goes both ways. So David walks out of
the bathroom with the K-Y, and the cadet is passed out on the bed. He
just climbed on, and before the cadet knew what was happening, David was
doing it. That was his thing. He really dug getting off on straight
guys. I bet he fucked half the Kiwanis leaders in town by the time he
graduated."

"Yeah?" The kid sipped his drink, as the waiter served Slaight another
Dixie. "Straights were his thing. It was all ego with David. He wasn't
satisfied making it with gays. He wanted the feeling ...  I don't know
how to explain it to you, because I never really understood it myself. I
guess David wanted the feeling of changing someone. Did he ever come on
to you?"

"No."

"There. That explains why he never stopped talking about you this past
Christmas. He obviously wanted you. Badly. But he was afraid of you."

"He told you that?"

"No. But I could tell."

"How?"

"I was his friend. Don't you understand that, yet?

He was the only real friend I ever had." The kid puffed on his
cigarette, looking away. It was the first emotion he'd shown, other than
nervousness. Slaight sipped his beer, giving the kid time to recover

"So what about the cadet? You remember his name?"

"I told you already! That was two years ago! I'm supposed to remember
every one of David Hand's goddamn fucks! Give me a break!"

"Okay. Okay. You remember what class he was in? Did David tell you?"

"He was an upperclassman."

"I know that much. They don't send plebes on recruiting trips."

"All I remember was, he was an upperclassman."

"Well, let me ask you this. Did David see the cadet when he got to West
Point? Was he still a cadet when David was a plebe?"

"Yes."

"Did Hand still have a thing going with him at West Point? Did he
mention anything in letters, or when he was home on leave?"

"He saw the cadet at West Point. Yes. But he never said much about it. I
had the impression he didn't see him very regularly. But I couldn't be
sure. David just didn't talk about him much. That was his way. Once he'd
made it with someone, the thrill was gone. It was like it -was over. He
would brag and brag when he'd fuck some guy for the first time,
especially if he was straight. Or he'd talk endlessly about somebody he
wanted to fuck. But once the  ...  ah  ...  deed was done, as they say,
you didn't hear much about the person again. That was David. When he
came home for Christmas, he was always humming this little tune. Once I
asked him what it was, and he sang the words. I couldn't believe it."

"What were the words?"

"I'll never forget them. He sang:"I'm gonna be an Airborne-Ranger. I'm
gonna live a life of danger." I think that's the way he really saw
himself. He got off on the danger.

I guess he was really very masochistic."

"What makes you say that?"

"Because what he really wanted, I think, was to be making some guy, some
straight dude, and have the guy get ripping mad and beat the shit out of
him. He loved that edge. He used to say fucking wasn't fun unless you
didn't know if you were going to make it. He used to say that, then  ...
then he'd laugh."

"He'd laugh?"

"Yes. He'd laugh. He was laughing at me." Slaight sipped his beer. The
kid stared across the courtyard. This trip to New Orleans was turning
out to be more than he'd bargained for.

He had the feeling he was taking the kid's confession or something.

Funny thing was, the feeling was familiar. He remembered. It was like
Beast, when a plebe would come to you with problems, and you'd sit there
and listen to him, and the kid would be pouring it all out and you'd be
listening and wondering what in hell to do with it all, all of the gush,
all the emotion, that big space inside the kid between today--right
now--and back when ... "Do you want anything else from me? My blood
type? My sign? I'm a Pisces. Does that help?" The kid was blowing smoke
again, tapping his fingers. "I want you to think about the cadet. You're
sure you can't remember his name?"

"Certain."

"Do you remember what he looked like?"

"He was  ...  handsome. Good-looking. And tall. About David's height.

Trim. Fit. You know. Military."

"You remember the color of his hair?"

"Come on. Next you're going to ask me if he had bad breath."

"No. Next I'm going to ask you if you could pick his picture out of a
yearbook. Could you?" The kid paused, smoking. He was scared.

He'd probably already told more than he ever intended to tell. Slaight
waited. "I  ...  don't know. Maybe. But listen. That was two years ago!

How many times do I have to remind you? People  ...  change. Times
change. And David is dead. Gone. What difference could it possibly make?

Who's to say this guy killed David? You're just  ...  shooting in the
dark. That's all you're doing."

"I'm shooting in the dark, Patou. You're right. But now I've got a
target. And you've got a flashlight."

"Maybe you've got more than one target, Slaight. I forgot to tell you.

There were several cadets at our high school that day. Three of them, as
I recall. Each of them gave lectures to different groups."

"And your group was?"

"All the seniors who had lunch at the first sitting. I remember now. The
lecture was just after lunch. Some seniors heard another cadet earlier.

Some heard another lecture after ours. I can't remember which cadet
addressed which group. It was all mixed up. They spoke to the junior
class, too. That's why there were three of them at school that day. Ours
was the biggest high school in town. Over four thousand students. More
than one thousand seniors alone. That's why they had to break us up into
groups. The auditorium would seat only five hundred at a time."

"Jesus. So there were three cadets in your school recruiting that day,
and Hand made it with one of them, huh?"

"That's it."

"Did you see all three of them?"

"I saw cadets in the halls between classes. I don't know if I saw all
three. They all looked the same to me."

"Do you remember if any of them had stripes on their sleeves, you know,
like this." Slaight outlined a chevron on the table with his forefinger.

"I think so. I can't be sure. I don't remember if David's cadet had
stripes or not, if that's what you're getting at."

"That's what I'm getting at."

"Well, I don't remember."

"But you might be able to pick this guy out of a yearbook. Is that
correct?"

"I honestly don't know. Are the photos in uniform, those gray jackets?"

"Yes."

"Well, they all look the same to me. My goodness. I hardly recognized
David at Christmas in his uniform.

They make you look so  ...  stiff."

"Yeah. Know what you mean."

"Are you finished now? Can I go?"

"Just one more minute. I need to know how I can get in touch with you.

Maybe later this month. Maybe in September, when school starts again. I
might want to let you have a go at the yearbook, see if you recognize
anybody."

"Not through my parents! I don't want them involved  ...  well  ...  you
understand, don't you?"

"Yeah. I understand. How about Samantha? Is it okay to have her call
you?"

"Yes.

That would be all right."

"Where do you go to college. Billy? Down here?

Tulane?"

"No. Yale. I went North to  ...  be close to David. But I never heard
from him. I never saw him. Not until Christmas. Even then, things were
...  different. You know?"

"I think so."

"What is it about that place. West Point? David seemed so  ...  changed.

It wasn't just the uniform or the haircut. He seemed  ...  like a
different person. What do they do to you at West Point? Is everyone
changed like that  ...  I mean ...  so their own best friends hardly
recognize them?" Slaight finished his beer and looked at the kid. He was
leaning on his elbows, peering through the semidarkness across the
table. His face was earnest. He really wanted to know. "I'll tell you
what. Billy. I've been there three years, and I'm damned if I know. I
guess you'd have to ask my best friend, back home. I guess we're all a
little different after being at West Point. It's that kind of place. It
does  ...  it does change you, I guess."

"And where is back home for you?"

"Kansas."

"Kansas! Phew!"

"Yeah. Phew."

"So you won't call my parents, and you won't tell anyone ...  what I've
told you tonight. Is that right?" "I didn't say that." "Then what did
you say?" "I said nothing would get out about you. I won't tell anyone
I've spoken to you. The only other person who knows your identity is
Samantha, and she won't talk. You know you can count on her."

"Yes. I know that."

"But you've got to understand. I'm going to make use of what you've told
me tonight. I've got to, if I'm going to figure out who killed your
friend Hand. But I won't tell anybody where I got the information. So
far as I'm concerned, I went out for a drink tonight and talked with a
guy by the name of Ray. Right?"

"I have your ...  word?"

"You've got my word, man. You can count on it. Far as I'm concerned,
you're just some dude in a bar. Satisfied?"

"Yes. I guess so.

It's just that  ...  well ...  I really  ..."

"You really what?"

"I didn't really plan on telling you any of this. I thought it was none
of your business."

"You're right. It's not my business. It's the business of the men who
run West Point, but they're sitting on their fannies waiting for the
smoke to clear. Before it does, I'm gonna figure out who killed Hand,
and I'm gonna make them get off their asses and nail him." Slaight
signaled for the waiter to bring the check, scribbling on an imaginary
scrap of paper in the air with his hands. "Why?" Patou stared at Slaight
across the table. "Why what?"

"Why are you doing this?"

"I don't know. It bothers me. That's as good a reason as any."

"That's interesting. David told me last Christmas he did something that
bothered you, and you really gave him hell for it. He called you a 'take
charge guy," that was the phrase he used. Take charge. The way he said
it, I could tell he admired you."

"Yeah." Slaight stared at the check, digging in his wallet. Patou was
making him nervous, and Slaight was doing his best not to show it. "Hand
ever tell you why he went to West Point?" Slaight asked the question
defensively, to break the sticky, hot silence. "I don't think he ever
said it out loud." Patou stirred his drink, thinking. "But I always kind
of knew why he wanted to go to West Point. It's funny. We never talked
about it--him going to West Point, me going to Yale-- because we didn't
have to."

"Yeah? Why not?"

"I told you. We were friends. I knew him. I guess you  ...  wouldn't
understand."

"Try me."

"I knew he'd go to West Point the day that cadet came to our high
school. David watched him. He just followed him around and watched him.

If you could have seen his eyes  ...  sometimes, he'd get this look. It
was like he was looking at himself in the mirror, only different. I
don't know how to explain it. You'd have to see it."

"I did."

"That's right. You were his commander or something, right?"

"Yeah."

"So you know what I mean  ...  about the look in his eyes."

"I think so. But I'm not sure I understood it, not completely. That's
why I asked you if Hand ever told you why he wanted to go to West Point.

I could never figure it. I didn't know he was homosexual, but somehow, I
knew he was different. He didn't fit."

"The way David talked about you, I'm surprised you didn't know he was
gay. I would have thought  ..."

"Look. I didn't know he was a fag until the day he died." Slaight
bristled, glaring at Patou, then shifting his gaze quickly to the side.

He looked through an arched doorway at the bar. It was late, but
business was brisk. New Orleans. Jesus. "I know what it was!" Patou
brightened, waving his arms, nearly spilling his drink. "You know what?"

"That look in his eyes. David's. The look he got watching the cadet. It
was like singing in the showers, after gym class. We used to do it all
the time. You know how your voice always sounds better in the shower,
more resonant, fuller? Then you walk back to the lockers, still singing,
and it's just your same old voice again? That's the way it was, the look
in David's eyes, watching that cadet. It was like he was admiring
himself in the mirror, only better. He was watching an image he knew
would disappear when the cadet left. There was always sadness in his
eyes, too. I could see it. With the cadet, it was worse. I knew he'd
fuck that guy when I saw the way he watched him. I just knew it."

"What are you saying, Patou? You're talking in circles."

"You really don't understand, do you?" Patou peered at Slaight through
the dim; smoky air.

"Hey, if I understood all this shit, you think I'd be here in this
hellhole feeding questions into you like nickels in a jukebox? Come on,
man. Give me a break."

"Incredible." Patou sipped the last of his drink with an abrupt slurp.

"What?"

"You're so straight. I mean  ...  you don't see it, because you're the
answer to your own question."

"Damn straight I'm straight, Patou." The kid looked up, and they both
laughed.

"Okay," said Patou, signaling the waiter for another drink. "Okay. I get
the message. I mean  ...  it was always so clear to me, I guess I never
stated it out loud. David went to West Point because West Point was the
straightest place on the face of the earth. That cadet, in high school,
he was straightness personified. David fell in love with West Point
because he wanted to become it. It was always that way with David..

Image. The straight guys he used to fuck, he was never satisfied because
they never lived up to their own image. Once he'd fucked them, they
weren't straight any more. You see what I mean?"

"I think so."

"West Point  ...  David's image of West Point was like the final edge of
maleness, beyond anything he'd ever encountered--oil rig roughnecks,
Cajun longshoremen, cowboys in the movies. Beyond John Wayne. Sure. He
fucked that cadet when he was here recruiting. But West Point was
different. I think David thought West Point would  ...  change him. Is
that what West Point does? Does West Point have that kind of power?"

"In some ways. Yeah. It's got power. A special kind of power."

"What kind?"

"Shit, man, if I could answer that one, I'd have my own academic
department up there." Patou laughed. Slaight sipped the beer Patou had
ordered. "Is West Point as straight as David thought it was?" The
question was loaded, and Slaight knew it. He sipped his beer. Patou was
asking questions now. "Yeah, I guess so. Hand's image of the place was
correct. He couldn't have missed it with his eyes closed. They work on
that image of West Point, shine it till it gleams. They've got it down.

They should. They've been polishing the West Point image for a hundred
sixty-five years now. If Hand fell for the image, he wasn't the only
one. There's plenty of others, me included."

"And the cadets? Are they as straight as they seem?"

"Yeah. Christ. Getting laid at West Point is like a requirement for
graduation. Women are part of the currency, traded for goods and
services. And status. The guys are straight, all right."

"But David wasn't. Nor was the cadet he fucked, the one you think killed
him."

"Yeah. I know."

"Are there any other gay cadets?" Slaight stared straight ahead. "Did
you ever know one?"

"Yeah. Sort of."

"What do you mean, 'sort of?"

"This guy in my class, from another regiment, a guy I don't really know,
he stopped by my room one day to bullshit. I'd seen him around. He was
one of the smart guys, up there near the top of the class. We both
worked on the cadet magazine. The Pointer. So he stops by, we're talking
about the next issue, and he asks me what I'm doing over summer leave. I
tell him. Then he tells me he's spending his summer leave working as
stage manager for one of the off-off Broadway theaters in the Village.

Tells me it'll be his third summer working there."

"So?"

"So I knew what the scene was with off-off Broadway theater. I wrote a
story for The Pointer about two plays I'd seen down there the year
before. He knew I knew. He never came right out and said it, but he was
telling me he was homosexual."

"And you didn't turn him in?"

"Turn him in? For what? One of the incredible ironies about West Point
is the fact there's no regulation against homosexual behavior, but there
are a slew of them proscribing relations with women, saying what you can
and can't do and when and where. Shit. You wouldn't believe it. Anyway,
that's not why I didn't turn the guy in. It was obvious he needed to
tell somebody. I mean, he had to let it out in the open, and he figured
I would understand, and I did. It was just one of those things.

Everybody needs to talk to somebody about something really private, you
know? I did, too, when I was a plebe. When I needed someone, there was a
guy I knew I could go to, and depend on, and be there when I needed him.

Same with this classmate. You could think of "it as an unwritten rule.

You don't rat on a guy when his own personal hammer comes down on him
like that."

"But this unwritten rule--is it West Point's?"

"No. It's the cadets', as much a part of the system as the uniform. But
there's one crucial difference. What belongs to the cadets does not
necessarily belong to, or have the approval of, the academy. Often the
two are at odds, as different as  ...  you and me."

"I know what you mean. At Yale, it's not the same, but there are
parallels, I guess you could call them." Slaight shifted nervously in
his seat. He enjoyed talking to the kid. Patou was smart. But it was
getting late, and he wanted to go back to the rooming house, back to
Irit. Here he was, sitting in a bar in New Orleans, talking to this
screaming faggot as if  ...  The glow of Patou's white palm caught
Slaight's attention and interrupted him. Patou was waving at him. "I
don't want to keep you, but  ..."

"No, man, that's okay. Go ahead."

"You never really answered my question. About West Point. You said it
lived up to David's image of how straight he thought it was. But you
never said whether or not West Point was really straight. Inside the
image, what's it like? What is it about West Point that gives it the
'special power' you said it has?" Slaight twirled the bottle of Dixie
beer in his hand, pondering the question. Patou was driving at the core
of something Slaight himself had always avoided, and he was coming at it
from an angle no one, not a single person, had attempted, at least not
in Slaight's experience. Quickly, Slaight added up what he knew: the
murder, Hand a secret fag, the cover-up. Hedges and the rest of them
running scared from something Slaight couldn't figure. He didn't buy the
commie demonstrator angle, Hand's murder affecting national security.

Hedges didn't buy it either. Hedges was using that bullshit in the
allus-men-together manner, welcoming Slaight into the insiders' covey, a
special center rarely opened, promising everything. Guys he had known
during his three years at West Point had eaten each other alive trying
to get there. Slaight's instincts told him Hedges promised more than he
would deliver. His father had a phrase for it, one he remembered from
years ago when they were showing horses at the county fair. "Carney
blow," his father called it, as they walked down the midway. "They say
it costs a quarter. So does five songs on the jukebox. So does a
one-armed bandit. You get what you pay for." Slaight had been down
plenty of midways since that hot summer afternoon fifteen years ago. He
had trouble recalling their various "attractions," but he remembered his
father's cynical advice, word for word. Now Slaight had new information.

Pursued properly, it might force the identity of Hand's killer. And he
finally understood something about the engine which had driven Hand with
such inhuman energy through Beast Barracks. Hand didn't go to West Point
to get laid, to fuck cadets. David Hand went to West Point to test
himself, to see if he could live up to West Point's definition of
manhood. What had long perplexed Slaight now made a perverse kind of
sense. Beast. Crolius. Hand's stubborn refusal to listen to reason, to
play by the rules. Having tested cadets and found them, like other
humans beings, weak. Hand began testing the system. Hand wanted to fuck
West Point. "Jesus, Patou. You're asking me to explain West Point. I'm
no expert, man." Slaight was trying to wiggle out. Patou pressed him.

"But you know something. I can tell."

"Okay. Okay. I'll tell you what I know. You read God and Man at Yale?"

"Yes, I've read it."

"You think you understand what Buckley was saying?"

"Well. These days," Patou glazed the words with derision, "Buckley is
considered something on the order of Cro-Magnon man. I guess he
basically took issue with Yale's philosophy that all sides of any
question can be presented with complete impartiality. He thinks a
university should propound a more unified point of view, if not an
actual ideology. Events seem to have passed Mr. Buckley without his
notice."

"I'd say that was a fair reading of the book. Consider this: Buckley
would be happy as a pig in shit at West Point. The academy is everything
he wants Yale to be. It has a single mission. To produce soldiers. It
has its own prepackaged set of values, the West Point values. The
academy presents the point of view it wants to present, on the questions
it wants to raise. There are no other questions, no other points of
view, no other values, no other mission.

An illustration. At the moment, we are fighting a war against forces led
by one Ho Chi Minh. In the three years I've been there. West Point has
not seen fit to tell me anything about Mr. Minh, other than the fact he
is the enemy, and perhaps incidentally, their leader. We are taught
nothing of his politics, his mission, his values, in short, those forces
which may motivate him and his legions to wage war against our army. Up
at West Point, only one thing counts. West Point. Answer your question?"

"Yes. Sounds pretty conservative."

"That isn't the word for it." The two stood up, facing each other across
the table. "Then what is it?" Patou asked. "It's like a laboratory, or a
zoo. Everything is out in the open, flourishing. Outside the gates,
there is democracy. Inside, there is West Point. Going to West Point,
you learn how men work, the way they fit together. This may sound
strange, but it's West Point's way of preparing you to lead our army,
which serves a democratic society."

"Yeah, I see what you mean. It's almost exactly the opposite of what
Yale tries to do."

"There's only one West Point, man. It's a unique experience. Can't get
it anyplace else. Hand must have known it, or sensed it, anyway."

"He did. You're right. But you still haven't answered my question. Is
West Point as straight as David thought it was?"

"Christ! You're fuckin' obsessed with how fuckin' straight West Point
is! I told you the place isn't overrun with fags."

"I know, but you're still avoiding my question. Why? Does it frighten
you?" Patou stared earnestly at Slaight. He wasn't teasing. He really
wanted to know, in the same way Slaight had become obsessed with
figuring out what was going on behind the cover-up of Hand's murder.

They began walking slowly out of the bar's garden. "I guess I just don't
know the answer, Patou. You're asking me something I don't know much
about." Patou nodded as if he understood. "If what you say about Hand's
image of West Point is right, then he at least had a handle on it. West
Point is all men. It was conceived of by men, it's run by men, only men
are admitted as cadets. There are all these goddamn men in one place at
one time, and there's no way, no way, man, you can get away from it.

It's like this, Patou. While you're at West Point, the men who run the
academy have total control over your life. Total. Everything you do is
controlled and measured by them. It lasts four years, four long fuckin'
years. During that time, you go from being controlled to being one of
the controllers.

It's like driving through a small town late at night. If you blink, you
miss it. The passage is that quick. Know what I mean?"

"I think so."

"No, you don't, Patou. You've got no idea whatsoever. Know why? You
haven't been there, man. You haven't been a cadet."

"That's ridiculous.

You're saying you can't learn about something without experiencing it."

"That's right. Exactly."

"Then what about books? What about education?

West Point is supposed to be a college, isn't it?"

"Forget education, Patou. West Point is a way of life. That's the way
the academy describes itself, literally. A way of life. Quit thinking of
West Point as a place, and think of it as being alive, like an animal or
a human being.

West Point propagates its own species. They're called graduates. West
Pointers. They're different from you and me. They're special. They're
better. And they're all men."

"Sounds like fascism to me."

"Fascism, smashism. Who gives a damn? You wanted to know what it was
like. I told you." "How did it feel, like you said, being controlled all
that time, then becoming one of the controllers? It must have been
something of a shock." Patou smiled nervously. "Like getting drunk for
the first time and waking up with a hangover." Slaight laughed. "I don't
know what it felt like, Patou. I never thought about it. I told you. It
just happened. Fast."

"Do you think David knew about West Point? I mean, by the time he died.

The way you told me about it just now." They were walking out of the
bar, and Slaight stopped. He faced Patou in the glare of the
streetlight. The kid's blue outfit glowed. He was dressed for the
street. "That's the best goddamn question you asked me all night,
Patou." Slaight stared past him, across the street. Even late at night,
you could see heat rise from the streets of New Orleans. "You know what
I think? I think David Hand knew more about West Point than I'll ever
know. I'm not sure how, and I'm not sure why. But inside, I know it. I
knew it back in Beast, when I was his squad leader. He had West Point
figured. He knew about fuckin' control, man. He knew." Slaight stepped
from the curb in the direction of Ursulines Street. He was tired, and he
needed to talk to Irit before he slept. His conversation with Billy
Patou bothered him. The kid had raised as many questions as he'd
answered. Maybe Irit had some ideas. Maybe, hell. She always did. "You
remind me so much of David,  ..." said Billy Patou. Slaight heard him,
but he kept walking and did not respond. He couldn't.

BOOK 5.

Duty, Honor, Country, Self.

Slaight was hanging up his uniforms in the closet of Room 226, New South
Barracks, making trip after trip up and down the stairs, back and forth
to the company trunk room, moving his books and shoes and boots and file
cabinets and stuff back into his old room in Company D-3. It was August
27, 1968, the first day of Reorganization Week, the seven days
immediately preceding Labor Day weekend. From the four corners of the
globe, cadets were returning to West Point to prepare for the new
academic year. Slaight had spent August at Fort LeonardWood, Missouri,
as a "third lieutenant" on the Academy's Army Orientation Program. He
was the executive officer of an Infantry Basic Training Company. Thirty
days of hell. Another Beast Barracks, army style. He was glad to be back
in his old room. The sign on his door said his roommate was going to be
John Lugar, a tall, rangy redhead from San Bruno, California. Lugar, as
usual, was late. Slaight was glad to have him for a roommate. Leroy
Buck, now the company first sergeant, had not only given him back his
old room, he'd put him in with Lugar, a good guy. Slaight was
straightening his stuff, filling drawers, making his bunk, aligning his
books. Then he saw the note. It was Scotch-taped to the shade on his
desk-lamp. The handwriting was tiny, hard to read. He bent over.

Slaight: Grimshaw wants to see you up at Bldg 720, ASAP. Today--CQ The
note had been left there by some dimbo yearling. They'd been back from
Buckner for several days. Beast was over at midweek. Now it was Friday.

When in hell was "today"? He leaned out his door. "Hey, Cee Que! Get up
here. Room 226." He heard footsteps on the stairs, two at a time. A
freshly mown yearling in khakis appeared in his door. "Yessir."

"I'm not sir to you any more, Ridgeway, you dullard. You're a yearling
now, remember? You got recognized last June. My name's Ry. You first
name is ..."

"Barry."

"Yeah. Barry. Okay, Barry, I got this note here.

What-the-fuck is it supposed to mean? When, may I ask, is 'today'?"

"Grimshaw came by first thing this morning. I guess he knew you were due
back today. He told me to leave a note for you to come up and report to
him as soon as you got back. He said to tell you that you'd better be
looking good, too. He was  ..."

"He was being fuckin' Grimshaw, is what he was."

"Yeah."

"So I'm supposed to drive around to see Grimshaw, huh?

He say what it was about?" "Nope. Just said to leave the note."

"Well.

From now on, Barry, when you leave a note, you leave it out where a guy
can fuckin' see it. I've been in and out of this room a half-dozen times
and never saw this damn thing. Grimshaw's probably going to chew me a
new one, because I couldn't see this microscopic excuse for a goddamn
note."

"I'm sorry. I must have  ..."

"You fucked up."

"Yeah."

"Well, do me a favor, will you? Scare up a couple of beans and get them
to haul the rest of my stuff up here to my room. And tell them to carry
Lugar's up here, too." "Ry?" "Yeah. What is it?" "They said we can't use
plebes to carry upperclass gear during re-orgy week this year."

"Yeah? Well, who is 'they'?"

"The cadet regimental staff. They put out the word this morning."

"You seen anything in writing?"

"No  ..."

"Get the beans together and organize them and get that shit up here,
before some poop-sheet comes down. Far as I'm concerned, what I just
heard is a goddamn rumor. Right?"

"If you say so."

"I say so. Now move, man. Move!

I got to get myself together for my audience with Grimshaw." Ridgeway
ran down the hall, calling out unfamiliar names. Jesus. A whole new set
of plebes to get used to. And now Grimshaw. This could not be good.

Slaight thought for sure when he talked to Hedges that day in June  ...
he thought for sure Grimshaw would be shitcanned. Slaight pulled on his
khakis and wondered what was going on. Only one way to find out.

Building 720. Grimshaw's office. Bang! Bang! "Enter."

"Sir, Mr. Slaight reports to the company tactical officer as ordered."

"Ah. Slaight. Good of you to come. What time is it?"

"Sixteen hundred, sir."

"Sixteen hundred. You just coming off leave?"

"No sir. AOT. Fort Leonard Wood."

"What took you so long to get up here?"

"I didn't get the note until a few moments ago, sir. The charge of
quarters left it in my room as you told him, sir. I just didn't see it."

"You-didn't see it."

"No sir."

"Are you having trouble with your eyesight, Mr. Slaight?"

"No sir."

"Look down at your shoes, Mr. Slaight. What do you see?"

"Shoes, sir."

"Shoes in need of a good spit-shine. Am I correct, mister?"

"Yessir."

"I'll ask you again, then. Are you having problems with your eyesight?"

"No sir."

"Look in the mirror on my door, mister." Slaight did an about-face and
looked in the mirror. This game had been played before. He about-faced
again. "What did you see, Mr. Slaight?"

"I saw myself, sir."

"You notice your haircut, mister?"

"Yessir."

"Two inches on top, mister?"

"About that, sir."

"About that!"

"I'd say it was close to two inches, sir, without taking out a ruler and
measuring."

"You getting smart with me, mister?"

"No sir."

"You planning on starting off this year the way you finished last year,
Slaight?"

"No sir."

"Then I suggest you get yourself back down to the barracks and deport
yourself like a soldier, mister. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yessir."

"If that means getting fitted for eyeglasses, Mr. Slaight, perhaps you'd
like to pay a visit to sick call.

Your eyesight seems to be ailing, mister. Would you like some help
filling out a sick slip, Slaight? I've got a stack of them right here on
my desk for you. Special. Like me to fill one out for you, Slaight?"

"No sir." Slaight's temper was barely  ...  just barely under control.

Grimshaw had been laying for him ever since that business with Major
Consor. "Well, mister. I want you to avail yourself of sick-call
privileges at least once each week. And every Saturday morning, during
barracks inspection, I want a report on the status of your health,
signed by a medical doctor, displayed in a manila folder on your bunk,
mister. I want it out there where I can see it. And you know what I want
stenciled on that manila folder. Mister?"

"No sir."

"I want that folder to read, in letters one inch high, "Slaight's
Sick-Call Report." Is that understood?"

"I'm not certain, sir. Let me get this straight. Are you ordering me to
go on sick call every week?"

"Let's put it this way, Slaight. If you know what's good for you, you'll
do as you've been told.

Understood?" ' "No sir. What if I have no need for sick call, sir? What
if I have no need for sick call, but I do have need to attend my first
academic class in the morning, sir? What if I'm scheduled for a test
each morning of the week, first period, and I am required by the
Academic Department to take those tests unless I am sick, sir, a valid,
academic requirement. And what if all five days in a row, sir, I am not
sick. Thus I have no legal or moral reason to take sick call and miss a
test. What then, sir? What is good for me then, sir? I'd like some
guidance here, sir. I really would." Grimshaw fidgeted in his chair,
never taking his eyes off the cadet standing before him at the position
of attention. Oh, how he wished Slaight would utter the least little
insubordination! How he'd like to nail that squealing little bastard to
the wall, put him out there on the area where he belonged. "Mr. Slaight.

I believe I've made myself quite clear. I want this report--'Slaight's
Sick-Call Report'--displayed on your bunk every Saturday morning until I
tell you otherwise. I don't care if you have to go on sick call during
your free time on Saturday afternoons. I don't give a goddamn what you
do to get that report every week, do you understand me? I want to see it
displayed, I want the manila folder lettered as I told you, and I want
to see the signature of a medical doctor every week, Slaight. Every
week. Is that understood?"

"That is understood, sir."

"Now. I suggest you drive yourself down to the barracks and get yourself
looking strac, mister, because the commandant wants to see you at 1745,
in his office.

Now get out of my sight, Slaight, before I pull out my twodash-ones and
quill you into the middle of next week. Get out of here!" The cheeks of
Grimshaw's thin, childlike face were quivering he was so mad. Slaight
paused one beat  ... two, watched him shake. He saluted. "Good
afternoon, sir," he said. Grimshaw returned the salute, and Slaight
left. He went straight to Buck's room and told him about Grimshaw, "What
are you going to do, man?"

"I'm gonna do what I should have done last fuckin' year. I'm gonna call
that lawyer. Captain T. Clifford Hassett, and I'm going to see him
before I report to Hedges. I have been back here exactly five hours.

Buck. Five fuckin' hours. The shit's up around my goddamn knees. I can
feel it getting deeper. Hey. Keep an eye out for Lugar for me, will you?

Tell him if I know Grimshaw, he'll be down in the company area tonight,
and he'll pay a special visit to our room. And do me a favor. Keep an
eye on those beans the CQ put on my room. Make sure they get our shit in
there in some kinda order. I figure we're going to have about an hour
after supper before Grimshaw is bopping around, making his presence
felt."

"Okay, Slaight. I'll take care of it for you."

"Jesus. Re-orgy week was never like this. What a hell of a note. And
wait till you hear what I've got for you on the Hand thing.

I'll tell you at supper. Hey. Put me on your table, will you?"

"Already have. Me and you and Lugar and Kenny Towne, a couple of decent
cows, the yearlings who are doing my company clerking for me, and the
two best fuckin' beans I could find."

"See you at supper formation. Buck."

"Heeeeeaauh!"

"Yeah. Heeeeeeaauh. Fuckin'-A." ' Slaight picked up the phone in the D-3
orderly room and dialed the number for the Department of Law. "Captain
Bassett, please. Mr. Slaight calling."

"Just one moment, please." A secretary. "Captain Bassett."

"Sir, it's Mr. Slaight.

Ryan Slaight. I had you for law a couple of times last year."

"Yes. Of course! Slaight. What's on your mind?"

"I've got to see you, sir. Today.

Right now. Have you got, I don't know  ...  an hour?"

"Sure. Come on over. You know where we are  ... basement of Thayer Hall,
down here with the heat ducts and the boilers ...  Can I ask you what
this is about?"

"I'd rather discuss it when I get over there, sir."

"Sure. Come on down. I'm in Room 408. You'll see my name on the door."

"Yessir.

Good-bye, sir." Slaight ran up to his room, changed into his Class A
shoes, ran a shine-rag over his belt buckle, dabbed some Brylcreem on
stray hairs. He ran over to Thayer Hall. No time to lose. Com at 5:45.

It was 4:30 now. He found Captain T. Clifford Bassett buried in a
closet-size room so full of paperwork it looked ready to burst. "Claims.

They've got me pulling post claims officer. You would not believe what
people lose when they move. And every item, every description of every
little doodad has to go through me. If I see another van lines company
name, another shipping firm, another airfreight outfit, I'm going to
turn in my JAG Corps branch insignia and tell them to make me a Spec-4
and put me in the Infantry. Anything's got to be better than this."

Bassett laughed in that squinty-eyed way, his wide face smiling from one
side to the other. His ample frame was doing little to lessen the
crowded conditions of his office. Over in the Tactical Department, they
would call Bassett a "typical goddamn P--overweight, indifferent,
probably subversive." Slaight knew better. T. Clifford Bassett had teen
editor of the Law Review at Harvard Law, and had spent three years with
Sullivan and Cromwell on Wall Street before getting drafted, opting to
serve four years as an army lawyer, a captain, rather than two years as
an enlisted man. ground the Law Department he was considered eccentric.

But he was respected. He was by a full head and shoulders the best
lawyer in the department, and everyone including the colonel, the
tenured professor of the department, knew it. Bassett signaled for
Slaight to be seated. He spread a small hole in the poop-sheets on his
desk, withdrew a yellow legal pad from some secret stash, pulled out a
black army pen, and peered over the top edge of his army-issue glasses,
perched on the end of his nose, used only for reading. "So. Mr. Slaight.

I never thought I'd see you again. What seems to be the hurry?"

"I've got to go see the com today at five forty-five. I'm going to need
some legal advice. One way or another, I've gotten myself neck-deep in
shit, if you don't mind my saying so, sir."

"I don't mind."

"I'm going to have to give it to you quick, sir, and you're going to
have to keep what I tell you to yourself. In total confidence."

"You want this to be an official legal counseling session then?"

"Official?"

"Yes. In that way, it's covered by lawyer-client privilege. I am bound
by law not to divulge anything you tell me, not even before a court of
law, not even under the orders of the general himself."

"That's good enough."

"Now, what's this about, Slaight?"

"The cadet they found drowned up in Popolopen last May, Captain Bassett,
kid by the name of David Hand."

"Ah yes. I saw the report when it came though here. An accidental
drowning, as I recall."

"It wasn't any accidental drowning. The kid was murdered.

By another cadet. The kid, David Hand, was a homosexual. He got himself
fucked in the ass just before he drowned. The guy who fucked him killed
him. I have very good reason to believe the murderer was another cadet.

I've done some pretty extensive research on the death of David Hand,
sir. I've got it narrowed down. It was one of three cadets  ...  perhaps
one of six  ...  who were on a recruiting trip to New Orleans in 1966.

Hand was recruited by one of the cadets. He had an affair with the cadet
at that time. The affair continued here at the academy. I'm pretty sure
the guy Hand made it with in New Orleans was the guy who killed him up
at Popolopen."

"Yes. Indeed. But one of three--maybe six--cadet recruiters  ...  that's
still a rather broad area of suspects, isn't it?

And isn't there a chance that it could have been another cadet
entirely?"

"There's always a chance, sir. But it gets narrower. I've got a guy I
think can identify the cadet Hand had the affair with. If we can link
Hand directly to one guy, one cadet, I think we've got him. Even if the
odds are against us, and it's not him, I think the pressure will be
great enough that the guy will come clean. He'll help flush out the
murderer. Any way you cut it. Hand was murdered. It wouldn't take much
police work to figure out who did it. But the thing is  ...  nothing is
happening. Nothing is being done. The commandant knows Hand was killed.

But he hasn't done a goddamn thing. He called me off leave in June to
talk to me about it. I tried to come see you then, but you were on
leave, too."

"Yes. I got a note from my secretary that you'd called."

"Well, here's the thing. The com tried to make a deal with me. Keep
quiet, and he'd make me a battalion commander. Now, sir. I stand dead in
the middle fifth of the class in Aptitude, about six hundred in General
Order of Merit. I'm about as much of a battalion commander as you are
Infantry." Bassett laughed. "He knows it, and I know it. But when I left
his office in June, the offer still stood. Now, today, in about an hour,
I've got to go see him again. And I want to know what I should do. I
want to know my legal obligations, insofar as having knowledge of the
commission of a felony is concerned. And I want to know my rights--what
protection I have under the UCMJ, whatever USMA regulations are
involved. Basically, I want total legal advice, as fast and complete as
you can give it to me."

"Hmmmmmm." Bassett leaned back in his chair, stuck the pen in his mouth,
and chewed quietly. "You have got yourself a problem here. Open the
door, will you?" Slaight opened the door behind him. "Adrian? Adrian?"

Bassett's secretary looked up from her typing.

"'You can go home now. I won't be needing you any more today." "Thanks,
Captain," the secretary said. She stood up, preparing to leave.

"Close the door, Slaight. Now. I want you to start at the beginning."

Bassett had a smile on his face. It was an odd smile, and with his big
nose and glasses perched there, his eyes squinting, his big eyebrows
dancing on his forehead like a couple of caterpillars, he looked owlish.

Slaight liked Bassett. He knew Bassett was going to enjoy this. He was
going to fuckin' eat it up. "I want you to give me the whole story,
Slaight. All the information you've got. Every last single solitary
scrap. Every tiny detail. You may not know what's important. You let me
decide what's important, and what's not, okay?"

"Yessir."

"And stop calling me sir. I want all the information on this Hand matter
you've got, and I want to know where you got it. In what form--written,
verbal, firsthand, secondhand. I want to know the names of the people
you've talked to, so I can get some idea of their veracity. As closely,
and as quickly as you can, I want you to reconstruct your entire
involvement in this matter. I want to know what transpired between you
and the commandant in June.

Exactly. And I want to know by what miracle or act of God you think
you've narrowed down the list of people, or cadets, who may have
murdered this young man. Hand, to three, or six. And why. I want to know
your reasoning behind every last thing you tell me." Bassett rocked
forward in his chair, took pen in hand, and peered over his glasses. The
smile was gone. "Now. Give it to me straight. We haven't got much time."

Slaight ran it down, the whole thing, from the first day he saw Hand in
Beast back in '67, right through his conversation with the kid in blue
in New Orleans, through his phone calls to the sergeant major out in
Santa Fe. The sergeant major had touched a friend in the Registrar's
Office for the names of the cadets who had made the recruiting trip to
New Orleans in 1966: two firsties, '67; two cows, '68; two yearlings,
'69. Slaight's class. Three of them, the sergeant major learned, had
been scheduled to speak at Hand's school-- one cow and two yearlings.

The two firsties had spent that day with local civic groups. But there
were no records on file at the academy listing who actually made the
appearance at Hand's school that day. The records showed the schedule,
but there had been no after-action report, army lingo for a record of
what actually happened. So there it was. Slaight gave Bassett the names,
he had them memorized. Bassett nodded and scribbled, nodded and
scribbled, stopping only to push his glasses back up on his nose. Only
once during the entire, course of Slaight's story did Bassett stop
writing, looking startled: "William Beatty, huh?" he asked, obviously
recognizing the name from somewhere. "I wonder what in hell he's doing
in on all this?" He scribbled Beatty's name, put a circle around it, and
nodded for Slaight to go on. Slaight spat out the story rapidly,
reflexively. To his surprise, he found himself tiring of the subject. It
seemed so long ago that day on the area back in May. In June he had a
file going. By the time he left New Orleans, the file had turned into
files. Now, after a month at Fort Leonard Wood, pondering the facts,
making phone calls, filling in the gaps, staying up late at night
thinking and drinking and talking to Irit on the phone, the files filled
a one-cubic-foot-square Sears and Roebuck file box. Page after page
after page of notes, nearly verbatim transcripts of phone calls, ideas
jotted down, things which he recollected, sitting bolt upright in the
middle of the night. The facts. A separate file folder for each person
involved. Another folder for each fact unattachable to a specific
person. A folder containing notes on each significant meeting--Hedges,
the sergeant major, the kid in blue. And a crude cross-referencing
system, annotating people, places, conversations, facts, ideas,
conjecture, conclusions. The Sears and Roebuck box ' weighed thirty
pounds now. He knew. They weighed it at the St. Louis airport when he
flew back to New York. Yes, he was tired of the whole thing, as he
rattled off the details from memory, tired, but still determined. Now,
after his confrontation with Grimshaw, whom he'd expected to have
vanished into thin air, or perhaps another tour in Vietnam, coming back
to West Point and finding Grimshaw still riding herd over D-3 after
listening to Hedges castigate him for "weakness," Slaight didn't know
what to think. He didn't know what to expect. He was scared. The summer
was over. They had him back at West Point now. Grimshaw--all that
diddlyshit crap about the sick-call report and haircut and shine--Jesus!

The meeting with Grimshaw meant nothing had changed. They were playing
for keeps. As he recounted the details of the Hand case to Bassett, the
whole business seemed like a war story or something. Listening to
himself talk was like sitting around the mess hall out in LeonardWood,
listening to a bunch of dufus sergeants talking about what it was like
"back in Nam  ...  in the bush," thinking up detail after detail, day
after day, contact after contact, killin' fuckin' gooks, man, that's
where it's fuckin' at. You ain't been there till you seen them fuckin'
dinks, man, dinks coming out of the woodline, coming atchew through the
wire, man, trip flares going off all over the fuckin' place, man, whole
fuckin' night lit up like Times fuckin' Square, man, tracers and mo-gas
and shit going off all around you, and dinks, fuckin' dinks ... They
were never the enemy. Always "dinks" or "gooks" or "Charlie," like the
war wasn't being fought against an enemy as much as it was being fought
against an idea--something none of them could grasp, so they pulled
names out of their asses and threw them around trying to describe the
undescribable. Sitting there in Bassett's office, Slaight felt the same
way, helpless, like he was trying to overcome some huge doubt with a
flood, a goddamn torrent of details, facts, names--throwing all this
shit at Bassett, just sitting there in-that tiny office throwing
everything he knew at Bassett like a desperate fool, so strung out,
there was nothing left to do but te&&:;? Talk. Talk. Hoping somebody
would fuckin' understand." Now he knew what they meant when they said
been there. How could you describe what it was like to have been there
to somebody who hadn't been thereat Slaight spewed data, checking the
time, and slowly he began to realize why his old man had always refused
to talk about the war when he'd been growing up. As a kid, he knew his
father had fought in the war--World War II--because his mother told him.

She'd let it out every once in a while. That was when "your father was
gone." Gone. The word she used to describe it, the war. Gone. And
Slaight would ask his father about the war, from when he was just a
little kid; maybe he'd been to the Saturday matinee, and maybe he'd seen
To Hell and Back, or some other glory-hole war movie, and he'd come home
and ask his father about the war, and always it was the same. His father
would say: I'll tell you about it, son, when you're old enough. When's
that. Dad? he'd ask. When you're old enough to understand, son, his
father would say, sitting on the screen porch, drinking his martinis.

When you're old enough to understand. Slaight never got old enough to
understand. He left for West Point in June of 1965 with his mother's
blessing and his father's unspoken disapproval. Now he knew why. Sitting
there in Bassett's office, talking about his own version of been there,
man, he knew why. His father had entertained the hope of all
fathers--that somehow things would be better for their sons and
daughters, somehow the world would become a better place, a place where
you didn't need to understand, because there just wasn't anything that
was necessary to understand in the way you had to understand a war,
understand the reasons men went out and killed other men. His father had
known if Slaight went to West Point, the day would come when he'd have
to understand. The notion so saddened him, so depressed him, that he
couldn't have made the world a better place or something--a bottomless
fatherly depression ...  He almost hated his son for going to West
Point. Consciously or unconsciously, it didn't really matter. The fact
remained the same. His son would understand. He'd become one of them.

Slaight could almost see his father in his mind's eye, sitting there on
the porch in the late afternoon, sipping his martinis and smoking his
cigarettes with his back to the boy. He wouldn't--or couldn't--face him,
because he was helpless. When he was finished. Captain T. Clifford
Bassett leaned back in his chair, let his glasses slip down to the tip
of his nose, stuck the end of the army pen back in his mouth. "Well," he
said. "As you said. Deep shit. And getting deeper. When are you
scheduled to see Hedges?"

"Five forty-five."

"Ten minutes. Okay.

Legally--let me emphasize this--legally this is where you stand. You
have no firsthand knowledge of the commission of a felony. You certainly
have reason to believe a felony was committed, but you do not have
firsthand knowledge. Therefore, you are under no legal obligation to
report anything to the authorities. You see?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Okay.

Morally. You can do as you damn well please. You can spill your guts to
Hedges, if it will make you feel any better. You can keep your mouth
shut if that would make a difference. Morally, it's open field running,
Slaight. You go in any direction you want. Just between you and me,
however, between lawyer and client. I would not advise telling Hedges
any more than you have to. From what you've told me, he has not exactly
shown himself to be eager to roll back the rock. If you ask me. Hedges
would just as soon see you going out with the tide. You represent, shall
we say, a threat."

"A threat?"

"Indeed, Slaight. There was never an Article 32 investigation run on
this Hand thing. You recall the Article 32 investigation from your
Military Law studies with me, no doubt--the military equivalent of a
grand jury. An investigation to determine whether or not, in fact, a
crime has been committed. If there had been an Article 32, I'd know
about it. They all come through the Post JAG office, and at West Point,
the Department of Law is the Post JAG office.

No Article 32. No crime. Except for you, Slaight. You and your knowledge
of the autopsy. Hedges doesn't know anything else, does he?"

"No. All he knows is, I talked to Consor."

"Good. Keep it that way. Now. How to handle Hedges today? I'd go in
there and keep my trap shut, if I were you. But don't forget. You are
bound by the Honor Code, which puts you in a, shall we say, class apart,
insofar as the UCMJ is concerned. In other words, Hedges has the Honor
Code as an extra little cannon in his arsenal. And don't put it past him
to use it, Slaight."

"Don't worry about that, sir. I've heard all the stories."

"Indeed. Then you see what I'm driving at. If he asks you a question,
you are honor-bound to answer the question truthfully. If you don't,
he'll bounce you out of here on an honor violation, which is probably
exactly what he'd like to do with you. Get rid of you. ASAP. So answer
his questions, and answer them truthfully. To the letter, and not
beyond. The trick is, of course, to divert him--keep him from asking
questions, as much as that's possible.

Having never met the man, I am uncertain as to how you should proceed in
that direction, Slaight. My advice is  ...  watch your step." Slaight
was just sitting there, listening to him, this round little captain,
sitting in his tiny office, boiling it all down. "Captain Bassett, I
really appreciate this. I mean, I really appreciate what you're doing
for me, giving me all this advice. I've been looking for advice like
this for weeks. But I've got to ask you something. What the fuck is
going on?" Bassett sat there looking at Slaight. "Mr. Slaight. You'd
better get yourself over to the commandant's office. You've got
only--let me see-- four minutes."

"But, sir, I wanna know. What's going on? I wanna know."

"Slaight. On your feet. Out. You've got only a couple of minutes before
you see the com. I'll wait for you here in my office.

Come on over when you're finished seeing the com. We'll talk. I want to
hear what he has to say." Slaight standing up and grabbing his cap,
mumbling thanks, feeling for the doorknob, heading down the hall and up
the stairs, back across Thayer Road, into the area of barracks, up to
the com's office. Old Bassett. What a guy! He just sat there in that
little office of his and took it all in. Then he just boils it right
down. It's all so logical. You go in, and you see the com. You step
here. You don't step there. You watch your step. It's all so fuckin'
logical. Jesus. You go to West Point, and they pump you full of logic,
you study law, you study math, higher math, higher and higher math until
finally you're up there with integral calculus and differential
equations, statistics and probability, sliding into applied sciences and
engineering  ...  they've given you the key, the goddamn language of
logic, and what they're telling you is  ...  take this logic, kid, and
apply it. Use it. Believe it. Logic as science. Logic as The Answer.

Logic with all its logical ends to mysteries of life. Logic as religion.

You get down in there so deep, so deep in the math and the science and
law and tactics and shit, and finally you're inside the logic. You look
around, and there are all these facts, all this information, all these
formulas and ways to deal with information, ways to filter it, ways to
make information work for you. But between you and the logic is empty
space. You're in a hole, nothing around you really, just space, air  ...
no map, no boundaries, no edge to the logic. The logic is a dream, one
of those quick ones, thirty-minute nap, a whole week goes by in thirty
minutes, but when you wake up, you can remember only the last five
minutes of the week, and man, they sucked ... That's where Slaight was
now, taking the stairs to the com's office two at a time, cap in his
left hand, khakis slapping, slapping  ...  slap  ...  slap  ...  slap
...  wetly against his calves with every step. He was inside the logic,
inside the hole, and he didn't know what in hell was going on. The door
was open. "Slaight. Good to see you, young man. Come on in." Brigadier
General Charles Sherrill Hedges was down at the end of his office,
seated behind his desk, waving at Slaight with his left hand. Slaight
assumed the position. "Sir, Mr. Slaight reports to the commandant of
cadets as ordered." Hedges returned the salute, indicated the chair next
to his desk. ' "Sit down. Sit down! God damn} Good to see you. How was
your summer? Get your fill?" The general chuckled. He was sitting
sideways, one leg crossed, hands behind head. A carbon. Slaight in the
same chair. Exactly the same as that day in June. "Fine, sir. My summer
was fine."

"I heard you did a hell of a job out there at Leonard Wood.

One hell of a job. Your battalion commander called me the other day to
say so. You were the only cadet on AOT in that training brigade, weren't
you?"

"Yessir."

"Well, mister, you left one hell of an impression on those people out
there. You were a credit to the Corps, Slaight. A credit. Your battalion
C.O. a colonel  ... whatshisname?" "Perdue, sir." "Yes. Colonel Perdue.
He said you taught all the battalion classes. That true?"

"Yessir."

"How many hours in all? He told me. I can't recall."

"Seventy-seven, sir."

"Seventy-seven! In thirty days. God damn, Slaight.

You did a fine job. Outstanding, young man. Outstanding." Hedges rocked
back and forth on his tilting chair. He gazed across the area. Slaight
hadn't been called in six hours after his return to the academy to be
congratulated for his performance on AOT. Chummy. Hedges was being
chummy. Slaight waited. "Slaight, I haven't got much time this
afternoon--got to be over at the supe's office in, let me see, twelve
minutes. But I called you in this afternoon to let you know that my
offer--the one we spoke about in June-- the offer still stands. A
battalion, Slaight. Your own battalion. You still interested?"

"I'm not sure I understand, sir."

"The battalion, Slaight. You recall we spoke about making you a
battalion commander."

"Yessir. And I also recall that we spoke about the fact that I'm in the
middle of the class in Aptitude, and that I stand about six hundred in
General Order of Merit."

"Fuck the G.O.M. And fuck Aptitude! Your performance out there at
Leonard Wood on AOT is all I need, young man. You know that?"

"I guess so, sir."

"You guess! You did a damn find job, an outstanding job for that
battalion, and you know it, Slaight. Come on, mister. Buck up."

"Yessir." Hedges dropped his foot and rocked forward in his chair. He
placed his hands on the desk. His nails were immaculately
manicured--pale glowing moons against the light tan of his fingers.

"There remains only one other matter for us to discuss then. The
accidental drowning of Cadet David Hand," Slaight looked at Hedges.

Accidental drowning. He wasn't wasting any time. "It has come to my
attention that your interest in the Hand matter has  ...  ah  ...
continued. Is this correct?"

"Yessir."

"Your opinions about the Hand drowning--are they the same as they were
when last we spoke on this subject?"

"They are, sir."

"You believe he was murdered, then."

"Yessir. I do."

"Have you  ...  ah  ...  taken any action, as regards the Hand matter?"

"Action, sir?"

"Official. Have you taken any action  ...  official action. Have you
done anything in a  ... ah  ...  legal sense, Slaight?"

"No sir. Nothing official."

"Have you formed any opinions as to who might have committed this murder
you believe took place? You still believe the official disposition of
the case was .. incorrect?"

"Yessir."

"Yessir, what?"

"I mean, yessir. I have some opinions. And yessir, I believe the
official disposition of the case was incorrect. I believe the man was
killed." Hedges stiffened.

He ran his thumbs along his belt line, taking the wrinkles out of the
front of his khaki shirt. With his left thumb, he brushed his Airborne
wings. "You have names, Slaight?"

"Yessir."

"How many?"

"Six, sir."

"You believe he was murdered by six people?" - "No sir."

"What do you believe, mister?"

"I believe one of the six men whose names I have may have murdered him,
sir."

"I see." Suddenly it was clear. Hedges had sucked him in! He'd been so
busy watching his step, he'd missed it completely.

Hedges acted as if Slaight had stated definitively in June that he
believed Hand was murdered, when, in fact, all he had done was
acknowledge he'd spoken with Consor. It was Consor who figured Hand was
murdered. The opinion had not been Slaight's, it was Censor's! Hedges
had slipped one past him. He'd gotten Slaight to commit. He was on
record as believing Hand was murdered now. No turning back. "These six
names, Slaight. Do you have them with you?"

"Yessir." What to do? There was something in there  ...  something
Hedges said. Something logical.

Think, goddammit. Think. Logic. How the fuck did Hedges lead into it?

The battalion  ...  Hand  ...  any official action  ...  that was it.

Official. Fuck. "Sir. May I say something?"

"What is it, mister? Make it quick. I've got to be at the supe's in a
couple of minutes."

"Sir, I'd like to make an official report. You are the commandant of
cadets, sir.

You are the commander, sir. I'd like to make an official report to you,
sir, in your capacity as commandant of cadets. I'm going to give you the
six names, sir." Slaight reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a
piece of folded yellow legal paper. He withdrew a pen from his shirt
pocket, carefully buttoning the flap. He began writing the names on the
yellow legal paper. "The six names, sir, are names of cadets or
graduates, sir--officers, sir. I have strong reason to believe that one
of these men is the man who murdered David Hand, sir." He continued
writing. Hedges stared at him. If Hedges could make an assumption and
operate from that position, so could Slaight. What could be more
obvious--more logical--than making an official report? Doing his duty.

That's what he was doing. His duty. He handed the sheet of paper with
the six names to Hedges. He glanced at his watch. It was 5:57. He was
banking that Hedges had to see the supe at six ... "This comes as  ...
something of a shock  ...  mister," said Hedges, taking the sheet of
paper from Slaight. "You asked me if I had taken any official action,
sir. I hadn't. Not until now. You have the names now, sir. All six of
them. If you want to know how I got these names, sir  ..."

"Mr. Slaight.

I have to be going  ..."

"If you want to know how I got these names, sir, I can tell you quickly.

David Hand was recruited. One of these six men recruited him, on a trip
to New Orleans, part of the cadet recruiting program. And that man is,
if my reckoning is correct, the man you're looking for, sir." Hedges
held the sheet of paper and stood up slowly. Two can play this game.

Hedges was standing now, holding the piece of paper in front of him like
it was poisoned. Slaight stood up.

"Mister. You let me handle this from now on, you understand me? You got
that?" Hedges glared at Slaight. It was the first time Slaight had seen
him show anger. Real anger. Hedges was pissed, and he wasn't taking the
time--he didn't have the time--to hide it. "I've got your six goddamn
names. Now, you let me handle this thing. You hear me, Slaight? You
obviously didn't take the advice I gave you last summer. This case is
hands off. You understand that, mister. Hands off. You let me handle
this. If I hear that you  ..." Hedges' lips quivered. "If I hear that
you have anything more to do on this Hand thing, Slaight, I'll rip you a
new asshole. You understand me?"

"Yessir."

"You won't know what hit you, got that, Slaight?"

"Yessir."

"Now, post out of here, and don't let me hear another goddamn word about
you. You got that, Slaight? Not one fucking word."

"Yessir. Good afternoon, sir." Slaight saluted and left.

Hedges was still standing there, holding the sheet of paper. Slaight
could see him from the area, through the big windows of the commandant's
office. Hedges and Slaight's six names. God damn. Captain Bassett was
puffing on a pipe when Slaight knocked on his door. Bassett nodded in
the direction of a metal-frame U.S. government issue office chair and
sat down. He told Bassett everything that had happened up in Hedges'
office. Bassett chuckled, sending little puffs of acrid smoke out his
dime-size nostrils, when Slaight told him about making an "official
report," about Hedges standing there with the sheet of paper with the
six names on it, just standing there, holding the paper  ... how pissed
he got. Bassett chuckled and nodded. Then he pulled his pipe out of his
mouth and said: "You know what my advice is right now, Mr. Slaight? I
advise you, as your lawyer, to do just as the commandant said. Sit back
and let him handle it. You've done your duty. Lay low. Don't give him
the tiniest reason to notice you  ...  not the least reason to come down
on you. My advice to you is disappear." Slaight nodded his assent. But
the question he'd asked Bassett earlier still nagged him. "Sir, you
didn't seem too shocked when I told you the whole story this afternoon.

You just took it all down. Now I want to know what's going on. For the
life of me, I can't figure it. This stuff is beginning to drive me
crazy. What have we got here at West Point, anyway? A nest of faggots?

This kid Hand isn't just some kind of freak. I want to know what's going
on. The whole thing has me  ...  I don't know what to believe any more."

"Well, Mr. Slaight, I've been here two years. There have been instances
in the past  ..." Bassett puffed on his pipe, tamping it with the eraser
end of a pencil. "What goddamn instances? When?"

"Last year. An officer and a cadet were caught flagrante delicto down in
North Auditorium one night after taps. The cadet was medically
discharged. I don't know what happened to the officer. Two other cadets
were medically discharged for homosexuality  ...  that was over a year
ago, I believe."

"Jesus. I didn't know about any of this."

"They don't exactly issue press releases every time they get rid of
someone, Slaight."

"Yeah. I know what you mean."

"I'm sure you have heard about the cadet 'flashers," the
exhibitionists."

"I've heard about them. We had one in our company two years ago. The one
they called the "Phantom." He got away with dropping trou for six months
before they caught him one night, down at the bottom of the ramp leading
up to New South Area."

"Ah, yes. The"Phantom." I recall the case. He was medically discharged."

"They medical-discharge all these guys?"

"Not much choice. Any other type of discharge requires too much
paperwork. Hearings. A medical can be expedited. They get one of the
exhibitionists on the bus and out the gate in a couple of days."

"Christ. I didn't know that."

"Indeed. Now. Getting back to your question, as to whether or not
there's a 'nest' here  ...  I just don't know, Slaight. The
psychiatrist, over at the hospital, his wife is friendly with my wife.

We live on the same block up in Cornwall. She's told my wife quite a few
stories. The shrink never sees any of the officers stationed here, of
course. My God, think how that would look on your record! April 4. Major
So-and-So visited the post psychiatrist.

Diagnosis: mild anxiety. Prescription: five milligram Librium. Can you
imagine?" Bassett laughed. "Yeah. They'd love that down at the
Pentagon."

"Sure. The promotion boards would have a field day with a prescription
for Librium. So. The shrink doesn't see any of the officers, but he sees
plenty of their wives. His wife and my wife have discussed his--shall we
say-- practice over a few cups of coffee. Let's put it this way. Here at
West Point, there are certain problems among the officer corps. I
wouldn't imagine that they are any different in nature than those on any
army post. But the atmosphere at the academy exacerbates the problems.

To put it bluntly, the main problems are alcoholism and impotence. There
are quite a few unhappy wives on this post- I don't know what the
divorce rate is. I doubt that it would differ significantly from, say,
that of a major American corporation.

But here, problems are forced beneath the surface of things and held
there. By the time an officer gets to be a major, by the time he's got
ten or twelve years service, the last thing he wants is to make even a
ripple on the surface of the pond. The last thing."

"I see what you mean."

"Now, this David Hand business. My guess is that it's an isolated
incident. If all that you say is true, and I have no doubt that it is.

Hand looks to me like a--shall we say--exceptional figure. If he's as
intelligent as you say he was  ..."

"Oh, he was smart, all right. You better believe that."

"Yes. Well, if he was as smart as you say, there may have been a touch
of blackmail involved. If not blackmail, then paranoia. The man who
killed Hand may have feared that Hand was going to expose him in some
way. Hand sounds to me like the type who would excite, let us say, a
reasonable fear that he might do something. You've been here three
years, haven't you, Slaight?"

"Three years. Three long goddamn years."

"Then you no doubt have noticed that this place-- West Point, I
mean--fairly bubbles along a little current of fear. It's like ... fuel.

It's what makes the place go. Easy to find. Nonperishable.

And invisible."

"I don't guess I've ever thought about things that way, Captain. Jesus.

Does that apply when it comes to my tac. Major Grimshaw?"

"Grimshaw? He's your tac?"

"Yeah. A real winner: He had me up in his office this afternoon, chewing
my ass because the com found out he kept me on the area last May when
Major Consor, the doctor, wanted to medically excuse me from the area
for my feet. They were really fucked up."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean Grimshaw put out the word that nobody in our company could take
a medical excuse from area formation. He said he'd double our hours if
we did. So I had to walk  ...  everybody had to walk  ...  no matter
what was wrong with you. We had guys on the area last winter who had the
goddamn flu, sick, puking, everything. It was ridiculous."

"You're wrong, Slaight. It was criminal."

"I guess that's one way of looking at it. Yeah." "You said he was
chewing you out today?"

"Yeah. He's making me go on sick call every week now. Wants me to put a
manila folder on my bunk every Saturday morning for inspection,
containing my sick slips. He told me to stencil"Slaight's Sick-Call
Report' on the folder. Christ. He's really out for my ass. He's gonna do
everything he can to put me back on the area."

"I'll tell you, Mr. Slaight. What this Major Grimshaw has told you to do
is a violation of army regulations. No commander can humiliate his
subordinate because he has gone on sick call. This goes back to the
incident in World War II--the Patton thing. There's a clause in the
600-200 series  ...  I'll find it for you, if you want."

"I'll take your word for it."

"Anyway, there is a specific clause, intended to prevent just such
behavior. You would be fully within your rights if you chose to simply
ignore Grimshaw's order that you display a sick-call report. I've had my
eye on this Grimshaw character for a while now. It looks to me like he's
going too far, this time."

"What do you mean, this time?"

"We had one of the kids from your company down here last year, looking
for some advice about his bank account. It seems that the bank computer
said he overdrew his account, when actually he did not. The computer
made an error in the hundreds column, indicated a huge overdraft.

Grimshaw wrote the kid up, gave him a fifteen and twenty. The kid wrote
an "Explanation of Report," and then a"Reconsideration of Award," both
of them showing his checkbook figures, proving that he hadn't overdrawn
his account. Grimshaw ignored him. The kid walked off the fifteen and
twenty. Then he received a letter from the bank, apologizing for the
computer error. The kid had already walked off his hours. He came down
to see us--me, actually--wanting to know if there was anything he could
do to get the fifteen demerits rescinded. I helped him draft
another"Reconsideration of Award," appending the letter from the bank.

He sent it up, and Grimshaw rifled it right back to the kid, called him
up to his office and threatened him, told him if he took the
"Reconsideration' any higher, he'd get him. Scared the pants off the
kid. I tried to get him to go to the wall with Grimshaw, but the kid was
too scared. If I had known he was pulling that crap about sick call--not
permitting his men to receive proper medical attention--I'd have brought
him up on charges myself."

"What do you think I ought to do? If I just disobey his order, what
happens to your 'lay low' strategy? That goes out the window, doesn't
it?"

"Good point. Tell you what. You make up the manila folder like he told
you. Then, if you feel like going on sick call, go. If you don't, then
don't go. Leave the damn thing empty. See what he does. If he so much as
utters a word to you about it, let me know. I'll dig up the regulation,
and I'll pay him a personal visit. I've got enough on Grimshaw right
now, with what you've told me, to put the son of a bitch in Leavenworth.

There's nothing I'd like better than to nail him. These bastards in the
Tactical Department think they're .." . gods. My, my.

You have got me excited about this." Bassett knocked his pipe on the
heel of his shoe and began reloading it. "I think there's some kind of
connection between Hedges and Grimshaw, sir," said Slaight. "Hedges told
me last summer he was going to put Grimshaw away for that business with
the area and my feet, and I get back today, and there he is, big as
fuckin' life."

"I don't care if Grimshaw has a direct pipeline to the President. The
law is the law, and it's about time that lesson was learned around
here."

"Yeah. I've thought about that once or twice myself. Mandatory chapel
ought to go down the drain, too. But Jesus. You know what Hedges said
last year? Some guy asked him about chapel one afternoon, when he was
giving a talk to our regiment. He said I think I can quote him almost
"exact he said: "If mandatory chapel goes, then the next thing that's
going to happen is they're going to let women in here.

Then the next thing that's going to happen is they're going to allow
cadets to marry. Then you know what we've got? We havep't got West Point
any more. All we've got is a goddamn college." " Bassett relit his pipe
and chuckled. "I never said Hedges was a dummy," he said. "He's right,
you know. Tradition is like a high wire. The tighter you pull it, the
harder it is to walk. West Point has been walking the high wire for a
long time now. Things are getting tighter and tighter. Some day,
Slaight. Some day, this place is going to change. It won't happen while
you and I are here, but we'll see it in our lifetime. You can count on
that." Basset stood, shoving papers, seemingly at random, into an old
leather briefcase. "Now I've got to be getting home. You talk about
chewing out. My wife is going to be grinding her teeth by the time I get
home. You keep in touch, Slaight. Let me know what happens with
Grimshaw. And remember what I said. Keep your nose clean, and lay low.

Don't do anything stupid, like drink in the barracks, or miss a class or
a formation. Don't give them any excuse to nail you. Hedges has the ball
now. Let's see what he does with it."

"Yessir."

"And stop calling me sir. My name is Clifford. You can make plans now to
come over for dinner, the first week in September. You and anybody else
from your company whom you want to bring. Okay?"

"Yeah. Sure. That'd be great."

"See you then."

"Okay. Thanks, Captain. You really put me back on the track today. I was
really napping there for a while." They walked upstairs together,
Bassett turning north, heading for the parking lot out past the baseball
field, Slaight walking west, past the library, back to the barracks.

That night, Grimshaw visited Company D-3. At 10:15, he banged on the
door of Room 226. Slaight and John Lugar snapped to attention. Grimshaw
strode around the room, looking things over. When he reached the sink,
he stopped. He pulled a pad of two-dash-ones from his uniform pocket,
scribbled on the pad, tore off the slip of paper, and laid it on the
counter next to the sink. He turned and looked at Slaight. "Have the
company commander send this up tomorrow morning with the company
logbook, mister." He walked out. Slaight walked over to the sink. He
picked up the two-dash-one. SLAIGHT, RYSAM PARKER III Co. D-3 Room in
disarray, i.e.: dusty floor; improperly made beds; cluttered desktop;

uniforms improperly aligned; dusty bookshelves; spots in sink.

Grimshaw, N.E. Maj/Inf Tac/D3 Firstie year had begun. It was that way.

Barn. You were back. Back at West Point. Back in The Life. It never let
up. Hit. React. Hit. React. You laughed it off, punching each other in
the arm, joking, oof-goofing-and-half-stepping in the hallways, popping
towels in the shower, acting like a bunch of high school football
players on an "away" football trip, but it never let up. Never. West
Point wouldn't let you forget you had been a smack. A bean. A crot. A
dullard. They were all around you. New smacks. New beans. New crots. New
dullards. West Point never let you forget the past, because the past was
you. Slaight and Buck and Lugar and the rest of the guys in D3 shook it
off. Coped. By firstie year, for some damn reason, the bullshit made
sense. It never ended and it never let up, and you didn't really want it
to. If everything went smoothly, without a hitch, if everything were
somehow easy, it would have invalidated everything that had gone before.

And everything that had gone before was you. The attitude was  ...  I've
sucked shit this long, why not another goddamn year? Why shouldn't these
new beans suck the same shit? Indeed. Why not? Tradition was a seductive
trap, and everybody fell for it. The attitude made about as much sense
as anything else about West Point, not much sense at all. You dropped
your bags, and you took the place at face value. West Point was gray,
you were gray, by the time you graduated, your hair might as well be
gray, too, and for more than a few guys, it would be. Gray faces and
gray hair and gray uniforms and gray barracks, with the leaves railing
on the trees, snaking along the river at water level, hitting the sides
of the cliffs, clinging to the stone like gas coming off dry ice,
-following the contours of the academy, sweeping across the gray
concrete area, down your gray wool overcoat collar, sneaking down there
under your T-shirt, gray, too, after three years at the cadet laundry,
as gray as your notebooks and your blanket and the tiles on the floor of
your room in the barracks, and the tiles in the showers and the marble
partitions between the Johns  ...  gray wind, whistling through window
jambs, turning the air you breathed gray, your teeth gray  ... it was a
wonder, the guys in D-3 used to joke, that they didn't find a way to
issue gray toothpaste in gray tubes, so you could brush your gray teeth
with a gray toothbrush out of a gray toothbrush case, all of which were
displayed on the gray shelves of your gray medicine cabinet, mounted on
your gray walls. It was a joke, but like everything else about The Life,
it was real too. Real enough so you had to laugh at it to get by. John
Lugar used to say that Lenny Bruce would have had met his match at West
Point. Only the United States Military Academy could absorb his
penetrating, razor-edge paranoia without showing a wound. Lenny Bruce,
Lugar said, could successfully needle the Catholic Church, because the
goddamn Catholic Church didn't know what to do. West point did. They'd
just put him in an auditorium full of cadets and let those stony gray
faces eat him alive. Guys got a lot of rack.

Sleep. Rack was like women. You went at it with a vengeance, greed. You
wanted to sleep the way you wanted to fuck. You could never get enough.

In D-3 they coined code words for the sleep they coveted every day.

Night was just plain rack. Then starting in the morning, there was ABR:

after breakfast rack. MPR: mid-period rack, between classes. BDR: before
dinner rack. ADR: after dinner rack. PMR: afternoon rack. BSR: before
supper rack. ASR: after supper rack. Guys would stay up bullshitting and
studying until 1 or 2 a.m., then spend the next day napping, sleeping
every loose minute. Guys could lie down on their bunks and be asleep in
two minutes, one minute. There were levels of rack. Deep rack.

Ultra-deep rack. And deepest of all, something called self-destructive
rack, sleep so deep, guys would wake up with a nosebleed. It happened
all the time. Nobody could explain it. Nobody tried. They just grabbed a
hand towel, soaked it in water, and stopped the bleeding. John Lugar
used to say it was the body getting off. "Hey, Leroy, your brain's
having an orgasm," he'd say, when Buck would wake up with a nosebleed.

"Fuck you, Lugar," Leroy would say, mopping up the mess. Slaight would
laugh. Everybody would laugh. Blood all over the goddamn place, blood on
the pillow, blood on the floor, blood all over the sink and the counter,
blood on your T-shirt  ...  everybody would laugh. It was
self-destructive rack. It was the way. September went by. Guys settled
in. October came. Grimshaw kept out of the way. Some kind of general
orders came down from Brigade that tacs were supposed to let the
firsties run things. Grimshaw didn't even inspect the company Saturday
mornings. Slaight's sick-call report just sat there, untouched. The five
demerits he picked up that first night disappeared in the muck of
digging in. Booking it. Weekends, they went down to Snuffy's and got
drunk, or up to a place outside Newburgh called the Ideal Nile Club, a
country and western bar where you could dance and drink beers for a
quarter. Sometimes they took off for New York City, ran around, got
drunk, stayed at some cheap hotel, shacked up with girls, got laid, and
showed up in ranks- on Sunday night smelling like beer and pussy. They
were firsties. They were hot shit. Slaight spent most of his time with
Irit Dov. He had the feeling he was hiding. It didn't sit well with him,
hiding, but it was better than walking the goddamn area. T. Clifford
Bassett checked in with him every week. Anything happening? Nope. Okay.

Keep your nose clean. Sure thing. There goes another week, gone like the
wind up the Hudson, gone gray and cold like the winter, creeping up on
the academy  ...  visibly. West Point was the only place in the world
where you could see temperature. You looked out your window at a little
flag hanging from a flagpole at the end of the area, and there, for
everyone to see, was the "uniform flag" for the day. It told you which
one of your overcoats you should wear, which hat. The little flag even
told you when to wear your goddamn raincoat. It could be pouring rain
outside, you'd look out there, and if the little flag didn't say "wear
your raincoat," you didn't wear your raincoat. You wore what the little
flag told you to wear, and you didn't ask questions. Everybody knew what
happened when you asked questions, when you didn't follow the flag.

Two-Dash Hedges made sure of that. He wrote a guy up for not obeying the
flag early on, put the poor bastard on the area for two months, gross
disrespect and heavy discredit or some such shit, but everybody knew.

Rain or no rain, cold or no cold, you did what the little uniform flag
told you to do, or you paid. It was the way. One morning at 10:30
Slaight returned to his room from his first two classes and found a big
note taped to his door. It was from the CQ and it said to report to
Grimshaw, ASAP, as soon as possible. It was October 21, seven weeks into
the year. Slaight put a gloss on his shoes, shined his belt buckle,
straightened his tie, checked the uniform flag, donned the appropriate
outer gear, checked himself one last time in the mirror, and headed up
to Building 720. The note had come as a surprise. He was curious. What
could Grimshaw have up his sleeve? Nothing was happening. Nothing. On an
impulse, he stopped in the orderly room and called Hassett to tell him
he was going to see Grimshaw. Bassett said to come over to his office
when he was finished. Slaight said okay. Then he walked but of the
barracks, under the stoops, and up the back stairs to building 720. He
knocked on Grimshaw's door. He heard the familiar voice. Enter. Grimshaw
was on the phone when he walked in, talking to somebody. It was all
radio talk, Grimshaw on the phone  ...  roger this  ...  roger that  ...
over  ...  six  ...  roger that  ...  six-out. "Six" was radio lingo for
a commander. Grimshaw hung up the phone, took Slaight's report, returned
the salute, indicated a chair. Slaight sat down. Grimshaw was smiling.

"The little woman," he said, pointing at the phone. "Finest little
chunk-a-fanny this side of the Hudson. Wants me home for lunch."

Grimshaw, grinning, pointing at the phone  ... Six  ...  roger that  ...
Jesus! Right then it stung him, deep in the spine, down the back of his
neck heading south. This dimbo major's sitting there talking radio baby
talk to his old lady on the phone, expecting me to sit here listening
...  listening to that shit like it's all  ... normal  ...  logical  ...
like every goddamn major sits in his office talking radio talk to his
wife like that. He knew it. The shit's coming down. Slaight just knew.

"Mr. Slaight, you know why I've called you up here today?"

"No sir."

"It's my duty, mister, to inform you that Aptitude proceedings have
begun against you."

"Aptitude proceedings?"

"That's right." Grimshaw picked up a familiar file. Slaight's Aptitude
file. "We're in the process of  ...  ah  ...  preparing paper work to
...  ah  ...  convene an Aptitude Board to  ... ah  ...  hear your
case."

"When do I get to see this paper work, sir?"

"You don't, mister."

"Then when is the board, sir?"

"You'll be informed in due time, mister. Any other questions?"

"Yessir. Do you have my standing  ...  I mean my class Aptitude standing
in my file?"

"I don't know what your standing is, Slaight. All I know is, there's
going to be an Aptitude Board, and it's going to hear your case."

"I'll tell you what my Aptitude standing is, sir, since you don't seem
to know. I stand in the middle fifth of the class. Now I've got a
question. If you're going to run an Aptitude Board on me, what about the
firsties in the bottom two fifths of the class? What about them? You
going to run some kind of an assembly-line Aptitude Board, sir?"

"Don't get smart with me, mister. I'll quill your ass in a minute."

"I'm not getting smart, sir. I asked you a valid question."

"And I don't have to answer your questions, Slaight. Not a fucking one
of them. You ask entirely too many questions around here, mister. Too
many for your own fucking good. Got that?"

"Yessir."

"Now, I've been keeping track of the"Slaight Sickcall Report." We're in
the seventh week of the academic year, correct?"

"Yessir."

"And there are no sick slips in the folder you've been displaying on
your bunk every Saturday morning, correct?"

"That's right, sir."

"Then you disobeyed my orders, didn't you, Slaight?"

"No sir."

"Then how do you explain the empty folder, mister?"

"I didn't go on sick call, sir. I wasn't sick."

"I gave you specific instructions, mister. I told you to go on sick call
every week and display your sick slips in that folder."

"You told me to do what I thought was best for me, sir. I didn't get
sick. I didn't go on sick call. I figured what was best for me. I
followed your instructions to the letter. I did what I thought best."

"You're verging on insubordination, mister."

"Sir, I am discussing with you a situation which obviously has bearing
on this Aptitude Board you've told me about, which obviously has bearing
on whether or not I'm going to remain a cadet here at West Point, since
Aptitude Boards are not empaneled to reward cadets for their exemplary
behavior. I'm not being insubordinate, sir. I just want to get the facts
straight."

"The facts are straight, mister, and they're all right here in this
folder."

"When do I get to see them, sir?"

"You don't. You'll hear them. From the board."

"Yessir."

"Now, drive your ass back down in the barracks. And if I were you,
mister, I'd go on sick call first thing tomorrow morning."

"Sir?"

"Yeah."

"I'm not going 'on sick call. Good morning, sir." Slaight saluted and
left. At the end of the hall, he stopped at a secretary's desk and asked
to use the phone. He dialed Bassett's number. Bassett picked up. "It's
Slaight. It's happening. Right now."

"What? Slow down, man. What's happening right now?"

"You gonna be at your office for a while?"

"Yes. Until lunch."

"I'll be over before lunch. We'd better talk."

"Good. I'll take you to lunch at the Officers' Club."

"I'm not sure you'll want to, when you hear what I've got to say."

"Come now, Mr. Slaight, it'll be fun."

"Sure. See you." Slaight ran down to the barracks, into Leroy Buck's
room to give the news. "Slaight. You seen this?" He held up a sheet of
paper. Slaight took it. The paper listed the names of cadets excused
from class for three days the following week to take part in SCUSA, the
Student Conference on United States Affairs, held annually at the
academy, attended by students from two hundred colleges around the
country. Slaight had spent the last three years working on the committee
which was in charge of setting up SCUSA-- all the administrative and
technical garbage necessary to put together four hundred civilian
students and about one hundred cadets, break them down in discussion
groups, where they would spend three days on "world affairs." This year,
1968, with campus SDS chapters expected to pack quite a few of the
college delegations, SCUSA promised to be interesting for a change. The
Times was due to cover the melee. Slaight checked the list. He looked
for the committee he now controlled, Committee Chairman Slaight. His
name wasn't on the list. "What the fuck?" "You believe that shit?" asked
Buck. "Where in hell is my name?"

"Ten to one it's Hedges.

Ten to one, Slaight. You better get over to the Social Science
Department and see the officer in charge of your committee. Ask him what
the fuck is up."

"Yeah." Slaight spun out of the room, down the stairs, double-timing
across Thayer Road, heading for his QIC's office. He didn't bother
knocking. Walked past the secretary, stood by the major's desk. In his
left hand he held the excused-from-class list. "Have you seen  ...  this
...  Major?" He was still panting. "Yes, I've seen it, Slaight."

"You gonna do anything about it, sir? I mean, how am I supposed to run
my committee  ...  how am I supposed to put together SCUSA for you, if
I'm not free from classes?" The major looked up from his desk. "Close
the door, will you?" Slaight reached around and closed it. "Have a seat.

I know about the list, Slaight. All I can say is, I'm sorry. But please.

Please don't ask me to do anything about it. Please." Slaight looked at
the major. "It's that heavy, huh, sir?"

"Please don't ask me to do anything, Slaight. That's all I can say."

"Well, let me ask you one thing, sir. Just one thing. You don't have to
answer verbally, so if anybody asks, I can tell them you didn't say a
thing to me. All you have to do is nod your head yes, or nod your head
no. I just want to know one thing, Major. One little thing. Who's
responsible for this? For me not being on the list. Grimshaw?" The major
shook his head no.

"Hedges?" The major nodded his head. Yes. Slaight just sat there,
staring at him. "Please, Mr. Slaight. Don't ask me  ...  I've got a wife
and kids. My career  ..."

"Yessir. I got you. The committee, sir. I got a good cow for a deputy.

I'll send him down here to see you this afternoon. Now I gotta go."

Slaight bounced downstairs to the Law Department two at a time. He
walked into Room 408. Captain T. Clifford Bassett started clearing a
hole in the pile of papers on his desk. "So?"

"So it's happening. This morning. All at once. Grimshaw calls me in.

They're convening an Aptitude Board. I asked him why. He wouldn't say.

Asked him to see the papers. Wouldn't show me. All he did was ream me
for not having any sick slips in my folder on Saturday mornings. Then I
get back to the barracks, and the excused-from-class list is down for
SCUSA. I'm head of the committee that runs the show administratively. My
name isn't on it. I just got back from the QIC for my committee. Asked
him who was responsible. He was fuckin' pathetic. Pleading about his
career, Jesus. He wouldn't say anything, but I got him to nod his head.

It was Hedges. Captain Bassett, it looks like the shit is coming down.

Now. All at once."

"Settle yourself, Slaight. Settle down. There's nothing to worry about.

Yet. Let's give this thing some thought. The list for SCUSA we won't
concern ourselves with. That's just a slap in the face, and a stupid one
at that. He's showing his hand, showing it too early in my considered
opinion. But the Aptitude Board. Did Grimshaw say anything about when it
would happen?" "He said I'd hear in 'due time." That's all."

"Excellent. Excellent. Grimshaw is just the crack in the door.

Regulations require that any Aptitude proceedings originate with the
company tactical officer. So that means it's just starting. And you've
got to remember. They feel time is on their side. They'll keep you
dangling for a while. Tension. They love to play with the tension.

While they think you're dangling, we'll be getting your ducks lined up.

We can use time, too. I'll keep track of your board with a friend in the
Department of Military Psychology and Leadership. MP&L officers sit on
the boards. In the meantime, we'll begin a few delaying tactics of our
own. A request for representation by counsel before the board, for
example. There's a neat one. They'll need an opinion from the judge
advocate general before they can turn you down. It'll take at least a
week to grind that opinion out of this office. I'll see to that. Then we
can put in requests for witnesses on your behalf. One at a time. One
each day. We've got plenty of time, Slaight. Don't worry about that."

"I'm not worried about time, sir. I'm worried about this goddamn
Aptitude Board. I've seen those things in action. I got called as a
witness by a guy in my company they were boarding back in 1966. They
asked me a couple of questions, he called a few more witnesses, and that
was it. He was in the Boarders' Ward the next day."

"Yes. I know all about Aptitude Boards. Not exactly your paradigm of
procedural rights.

But don't let that bother you. We know what's behind this thing. The
murder of David Hand. Slaight, you hold a lot of cards. Our only problem
now is to figure out when to begin playing them. And in what order. Now,
are you ready to lunch at the club? I think it would make good politics
for those in the Tactical Department to observe us lunching together.

Let them know where things stand. Don't you?"

"Yeah." Slaight grinned.

Bassett was propping to go to the wall. They lunched at the O Club, as
it was called. Slaight had a steak sandwich. Grimshaw watched him chew
every bite from a table across the room. The little woman hadn't gotten
him home for lunch, after all. "Ry, I want to know what's happening to
you. What's going on? Something is wrong." Irit was angry, and the tone
of her voice on the phone caught Slaight off guard. He took her call in
the company orderly room. It was Thursday night, around 11:30, October
24. Three days had passed since he learned about the Aptitude Board. He
hadn't told Irit about it, not wanting to upset her unnecessarily.

Bassett seemed to have things fairly well under control. His draft of
Slaight's request for counsel before the Aptitude Board had gone up the
chain of command today. "Irit, what's up? What are you doing calling me
at this hour? It's after taps."

"I want to know what's going on, Ry.

There is something you are not telling me. There is something wrong"

"What do you mean, something wrong?"

"I'm being watched, Ry. It's been going on for several days now."

"Watched? By whom?"

"I don't know. All I know is, I am being watched."

"Irit, call me back on another number, will you?" asked Slaight, giving
her the number for the phone in Leroy Buck's room. Slaight took the
stairs two at a time, hit Buck's door, and flopped on his bunk. A Marty
Robbins album was playing softly on the stereo. Buck was working on some
dapn computer program he had designed to predict the outcome of the
presidential election, based on a sampling of cadet opinion, via
computer-card straw poll. Buck had run the program several times and had
a sample of about 750 cadet votes by now. Nixon was ahead, Wallace
second, Humphrey a close third. The phone rang.

Slaight picked up. "Irit?"

"Yes. Ry?"

"S'me. I'm up in Buck's room. We can talk now. Tell me about this again,
slowly. You're being watched?" Buck's head swiveled like a snake's.

"Yes, Ry. I'm positive. It's an around-the-clock surveillance on my shop
and my apartment. I waited to call you after I had made sure."

"You made sure? How? What is this, anyway, some kind of paranoid New
Left gibberish? I feel like I'm talking to  ...  Mark Rudd or one of
those Columbia idiots or something.

Come on, Irit. Get serious. You're talking to 'nothin'-but-the-facts'
Slaight." Buck laughed aloud. "Ry, this is no joke," said Irit, her
voice level, words like stainless steel. She heard Buck's laugh,
Slaight's chuckle. "Are you sure the phone you are speaking from is
secure?" she asked. "Secure?"

"Yes. Secure. Are you sure the phone is not bugged?"

"Jesus, Irit. First you're being watched, now there's bugs in the
phones. What gives?"

"I'm calling you from my grandfather's, Ry.

I have been watched for the past three days  ...  maybe more. Maybe a
week. It's hard to tell for sure. I did not start keeping track of the
surveillance until three days ago. Today I had my grandfather check with
friends in the government in Israel. I am not under surveillance by
Israeli intelligence. My grandfather assures me of this. I have told you
before, Ry. In my country, this is no joke. We are accustomed to
intelligence activities. I have friends who are Israeli agents  ... here
...  elsewhere. We must live constantly with terrorism, so we must live
constantly with intelligence activities. Surveillance, the tapping of
telephones--this happens all the time in my country. It happens here. I
know. I've more than one Israeli friend in the business world here in
America who is in reality one of our intelligence agents. Believe me,
Ry. I am not joking. I am being watched, but not by Israelis. These men
are professionals. I have the feeling, Ry. It has something to do with
you." Slaight leaned against the pillow on Leroy Buck's bed in a state
of near catatonia. She was dead serious. He remembered talking with Irit
about the Israeli equivalent of the American Cla--how in Israel the
whole business was just taken for granted, because it was so goddamn
necessary. Once they'd had dinner in New York with a friend of Irit's
from Israel, and afterward, after they'd spent a leisurely evening
discussing the Middle East and the news business--for her friend was a
reporter--Irit told him her friend was also an intelligence agent. He
was stationed in New York to keep an eye on Arab business activities in
the United States. His job covering Wall Street for Reuters provided an
ideal "in," she explained. Slaight had been intrigued--and horrified.

Knowledge of foreign agents--the very words evoked images of Hitchcock
films and paperback novels--no matter what country they were from,
operating in the United States, his country, disturbed Slaight. The idea
of espionage ran counter to his essentially democratic conservative
instincts. He recalled arguing with her-- what right have they to and on
and on--then the cold, harsh realization that she wasn't talking about
rights, she was talking about what had to be done. She was talking about
survival. Now here was Irit laying it on him again about intelligence
agents  ...  they were American, and moreover, they were probably
watching her because of him. Ry Slaight. Jesus. "Irit, I don't know what
to say," he stuttered. "You don't have to say anything, Ry. Just answer
my question. Is there anything wrong, anything you haven't told me?"

"Yeah."

"Do you think your phone is secure  ...  it is not tapped?"

"I don't really care, Irit. It's all out in the open now. I put off
telling you until this weekend, because I didn't want to spoil your week
for you. Yeah. I'm in trouble. Big trouble. They're running an Aptitude
Board on me sometime soon. I don't know when. And I'm catching shit from
the tac again. Something is up, Irit. It started Monday."

"That was when I first noticed them. Monday. I kept track of them
Tuesday and Wednesday. That night I visited my grandfather and asked him
to contact his friends in Israel. We just received word tonight. They
are not Israeli. Who could they be, Ry?"

"Jesus, Irit. I don't know. I can't think of why they'd want to be
keeping on eye on you, unless  ..."

"Unless what, Ry?"

"Unless something big has happened in the David Hand case that I don't
know about, which might explain why they're eager to bounce me out of
here, and they just might by trying to cop some dirt on you to sue
against me at this Aptitude Board. Christ. Enough people up here know
that I've been going out with a foreigner now. Who can tell?"

"Ry, I can't tell you the reason, but I can tell you they're watching me
twenty-four hours a day. Three shifts. The shifts are irregular, so
there is no pattern. I never see the same face in the same location
twice. In Israel, when they put physical surveillance on you, it means
they've already tapped your phones. So I am afraid for my phones now. I
will not talk to you from home or from the shop."

"Well, goddammit. This is ridiculous. I'm not doing anything wrong.

You're not doing anything wrong. We've got nothing to hide."

"This is true, Ry, but you never want to give them anything they can
use. Anything."

"Well, goddammit. This shit is going to stop. I'll take weekend tomorrow
and come down and check these fuckers out. Grades came down this week.

I'm 2.3 or above in all my subjects for the first time all year! I can
take leaves on Friday afternoons now."

"Well, good for you!" She sounded genuinely excited.

Then her voice dropped again, steely. "But what do you propose to do,
Mr. Big Shot? Do you think you can walk out and make them go
away--pooof!--just like magic? It does not work this way in Israel. I am
sure it does not work this way here."

"Let me give it some thought; I'll let you know before I come down
tomorrow."

"Not on the telephone, Ry Slaight."

"Goddamn. Forgot. Okay, you'll be at your shop tomorrow afternoon,
right?"

"Yes, until six."

"I'll get word to you, Irit. Just don't leave the shop until you hear
from me tomorrow."

"Okay, Ry  ... Ry? I hope you know how serious this could be."

"I do, Irit. Believe it.

I do." They said their good-byes, and Slaight told Leroy Buck the latest
news. "Goddamn-goddamn," said Buck. "What you gonna do, Slaight?"

"You got a 2.3 in all your subjects, Leroy?"

"Yeah."

"So has Lugar. Maybe it's about time the three of us took an
old-fashioned weekend leave in New York City stayed at the Van
Rensselaer, just like the old days, huh?"

"You thinkin' what I think you're thinkin', Slaight, goddammit?"

"I don't know, Leroy. Haven't done much thinking yet. Get one of those
bean runners of yours in here, and get him to wake up Lugar and tell him
to get over here." Buck banged his fist on the wall next to his desk
twice, and within seconds, a bathrobe-clad plebe was standing at
attention in the door. "Get over to 226 and tell Mr. Lugar I wanna see
him," commanded Buck. "Yessir," said the plebe, about-facing and
double-timing down to Lugar and Slaight's room. Buck walked over to the
stereo and changed the record. Tammy Wynette. By the time she was
singing the "V" of "DIVORCE," a sleepy John Lugar was scratching his red
hair and wondering what the fuck was up, that he had to be roused out of
the rack by some goddamn plebe to see the goddamn company first
sergeant. "That girl friend of yours, Josie Irene, she still a reporter
for the Bergen Recordt' asked Slaight. "Yeah. Ole Severns been moved to
the city desk now. They took her off night rewrite. Good deal." Slaight
suggested that the three of them repair to the shower room, where two
banks of six shower heads going full blast would drown out their
conversation. Paranoia, he was discovering, had its own twisted logic.

It didn't take long for the three of them to work out a feasible plan.

Convinced of the accuracy of Irit's assessment of her surveillance--for
John Lugar had long been an admirer of Irit Dov--he insisted on drawing
up a set of plans. Into his extensive file of maps dove Lugar, and up he
came with the best street map of New York he could find. "Even shows the
directions of the one-way streets, and every alley in the Village," he
boasted. He and Josie Severns had used it many times to find obscure
off-off Broadway theaters. Leroy Buck insisted on renting the car. "If
we're gonna figure out what the fuck is really going on, we gotta be
mobile," said Buck. "Not bad, for a farm boy," laughed Lugar. The three
were standing naked in the corner of the shower room, all twelve shower
heads blasting hot water, turning the place into a steam room. They were
joking, dancing through the hot showers, gathering around Lugar's
nowsoggy map, spread on one of the wood benches running down the middle
of the shower room. They had no idea who the intelligence agents were,
of course  ...  or if in fact they were intelligence agents at all. Nor
did they know where they were to be found, for Irit's description of the
situation had carefully avoided details. But they were confident they'd
come up with something. Hell, what had they spent three and a half years
at the Military Academy for, if it wasn't to have a bit of
self-confidence when it came to matters of tactics and strategy?

Friday afternoon, October 25, the three drove to New York City and
parked several blocks from Irit's boutique on Madison Avenue. Slaight
waited on the street until a young kid happened by. For two dollars, he
got the kid to deliver a message to Irit: Meet them in the back room of
a bar across the street from where they were parked on Seventy-eighth
Street in ten minutes. She showed up on time. Slaight outlined the plan.
Irit would return to the shop, business as usual until closing. Once she
had locked up, instead of going back to her apartment, she would walk a
few blocks up Madison, grab a cab, and take it in a ten-square-block
circle back to the same bar on Seventy-eighth. The "agents," she
explained, had stationed themselves in a drugstore across from her
boutique, one of the last on Madison that still had a fountain. They
plugged dimes in a meter for a nondescript Chevy at curbside all day.
Chevy today. Ford yesterday, Buick the day before that. They weren't
dummies, these guys. Somehow, they always found a parking place on her
block at night for whatever car they were using. By morning, the car was
gone, and a new one would show up in front of the drugstore. She had
gone on a walk around the block one night. Nobody was sitting in the
car. She had the feeling they were still around, but she didn't know
where. "That's why you're taking your long cab ride to the bar here,
Irit," said Lugar. "I've watched enough spy movies to figure they'll put
one guy on you on foot, and one in the car. If we're lucky  ...  well,
let's see." Irit went back to her shop.

At ten minutes to six, Lugar and Slaight walked up Madison. Buck hopped
in the rental car, drove around the corner, and pulled into a standing
zone a block away from the drugstore. AT 6:05, Irit backed out of her
shop, locking the door and the electronic burglar alarm. She walked
briskly up Madison Avenue. A man in a charcoal London Fog raincoat
followed, a half block behind her on the opposite side of the street.

Two blocks ahead, John Lugar waited at the corner of Eighty-fifth
Street, an unlit cigarette in his hand. Slaight stayed back at
Eighty-first and Madison, just inside the entryway to an antique store,
his eyes riveted on Irit, moving now two, now three blocks away across
the street and up Madison. She reached the corner of Eighty-fifth
Street. Stopped. Moved a half block up the street into a bus stop zone
and waited. The man in the charcoal London Fog reached the corner of
Eighty-fifth Street, and did some disinterested window-shopping. Irit
spied a cab. She raised her hand. Slaight signaled Leroy Buck. He pulled
out from the curb, heading up Madison, passing the Chevy just as it was
starting its engine. Irit's cab arrived. She opened the door. The man in
the charcoal London Fog stepped to the curb. John Lugar made his move.

"Excuse me.  Can I bother you for a light? Lugar stood between the man
and the curb, blocking his way. The man fumbled in his pockets for
matches.

Irit climbed in her cab, shut the door, and signaled the driver to take
off. He did. "Thanks, mister," said Lugar, puffing on his cigarette in
the cold fall air. The man started to move away, but Lugar cut him off
again. "Say, I wonder if you could help me  ..." Just then, Leroy Buck
drove up, heading north on Madison, slowly, the nondescript Chevy behind
him. The man in the charcoal London Fog made a move toward the Chevy.

Leroy Buck stopped, threw the rental car in reverse, and made believe he
was backing into a parking slot, cutting off the Chevy. Irit's cab was
disappearing up Madison in traffic. John Lugar was pestering the man in
the charcoal London Fog about the Whitney Museum. Suddenly the man waved
his right arm wildly, and the nondescript Chevy pulled around Leroy Buck
and raced up Madison after Irit's cab. They'd done it. They'd separated
the pursuers. Buck followed the nondescript Chevy, following Irit on her
wild-goose chase. John Lugar thanked the man in the charcoal London Fog
for the light, and walked downtown. Slaight moved to a better
storefront. He watched the man in the charcoal London Fog. What would he
do? Where would he go, now that he'd lost his partner in the car? Back
to the drugstore? Slaight was banking  ...  no. Slaight was banking he'd
go to a place where he could establish secure communication with his
partner in the Chevy. He was banking he'd go where they were holed up.

The man in the charcoal London Fog headed back down Madison, crossed to
the east side of the street at Eighty-third, turned left on
Eighty-second, walked past the entrance to a luxury high-rise, past a
couple of brownstones, and turned onto an old doublewide tenement, which
had been gutted and "renovated" with tiny overpriced studio apartments,
catering to the quick-turnover stewardess and secretary trade. John
Lugar had moved to Irit's apartment lobby. He watched the man enter the
building. Slaight stayed out of sight on Madison. About 6:15 a light
came on in the apartment, second from the top, left. Slaight headed for
the bar on Seventy-eighth Street. When Irit walked in, he dropped a dime
in the pay phone and dialed the phone in Irit's building's lobby. Lugar
picked up. "I'm going to turn her loose now," said Slaight. "Okay, I'll
hold the line," said Lugar. Irit walked back up Madison, the four blocks
to Eighty-second Street, turned into her lobby, and headed for the
elevator. The nondescript Chevy turned the corner not long afterward.

"Chevy here," said Lugar. "Thought so," said Slaight. "Lights out in
apartment," reported Lugar. "And now Venetian blinds are lifting up  ...
face visible in apartment window, just a shadow, but it's a guy. It's
the guy. He's standing up, taking off the overcoat," said Lugar with
satisfaction. "Chevy parked  ...  goddamn, I think they've got that
space reserved, you know, with one of those little white cardboard
parade permit things  ...  man getting out of Chevy, heading for same
apartment, going in. He's there."

"Okay. Come on down. Leroy's here," said Slaight from the pay phone in
the bar. Lugar took a couple of minutes to reach the bar. "So Irit's
tucked away for the night," Lugar announced. "I think you better keep
your fanny out of there, Slaight.

They've got a full view of everyone going in and out of that building,
and you may be the one they're waiting for."

"Yeah. I know. Let's hop in the car and get downtown, get some supper at
the Puglia. Tomorrow comes the fun part. Josie in town yet?"

"She's down at the Van Rensselaer right now, waiting. Already got our
rooms."

"Gentlemen, let us leave our friends to exercise their night vision,
drive downtown, and get our shit together for tomorrow." They did.

Saturday morning, 11:30, October 26, the three cadets and the woman
reporter for the Bergen Record loaded into the rental car and drove
uptown. It was a simple plan, hatched by John Lugar, eagerly agreed to
by his girl friend, Josie Irene Sevems, who at twenty-three had cut her
teeth as a newspaper reporter covering political corruption in Hudson
County, New Jersey, with the exception of Mayor Daley's Cook County,
probably one of the largest political sludge-heaps in the nation. In a
year fraught with the spectacle of the Democratic National Convention
fracas, demonstrations and political dissidence of every conceivable
sort, a story on domestic intelligence gathering seemed to Josie Irene
Sevems one of national importance, and one hell of a lot of fun. Like
most cadet girl friends, she held little truck with the demonstrators.

But again like most cadet girl friends, issues about the war raised by
Bobby Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy had made their mark. The girls were
none too keen on the war their boyfriends were doubtlessly going to
fight. Leroy Buck pulled the rental car to a stop a block from Irit's
boutique. Josie hopped out and headed for the boutique, just another
customer. Once inside, Irit stood behind a rack of clothes and pointed
out today's watchers. Josie checked her purse. All was ready. Irit tied
a red scarf around the neck of one of her mannequins in her window--a
prearranged signal. Buck, Lugar, and Slaight jumped out of the car and
moved to the corner of Eighty-first and Madison. Josie walked out of the
shop and directly across the street to the drugstore. Two men sat in a
booth near the window, nursing cups of coffee, toying with stale English
muffins. Josie took a counter seat near them, ordered coffee, turned her
back, and pulled out John Lugar's Nikon. Without warning, she wheeled
the counter stool and snapped six photos of the men in the booth, seated
about eight feet away. She placed the camera on the counter, produced a
note pad and her wallet, and approached the booth. The men were stunned.

"Gentlemen, my name is Josie Severns, and as you can see by my police
department press badge, I represent the Bergen Record." She slid into
the booth next to one of the men. "Now. I would like to ask you a few
questions about intelligence activities. We may as well start with what
agency you gentleman represent. CIA? FBI? Military Intelligence? Defense
Intelligence Agency?" She looked eagerly in their eyes, and she knew
they were wondering what in fuck is going on? "Come now, gentlemen,
don't be shy.

I've been watching you for a few days. You and your friends are getting
to be regulars here. Now, let's cut the crap and get down to basics. Who
are you with, and why are you watching the woman who runs the store
across the street?" Again she watched them. She knew she had them. They
were making the same mistake the New Jersey pols made. They thought if
they just ignored a "girl reporter" long enough, she'd go away. Bad
mistake with Josie Irene Severns. She could wait out the stoniest Hudson
County courthouse stare-down. And there she was, sitting in the booth
with these two spooks, still holding her main question. On an educated
guess--based upon research into the career of Brigadier General Charles
Sherrill Hedges, gleaned from a bio in Assembly, the West Point alumni
magazine--John Lugar figured the surveillance was the work of the
Defense Intelligence Agency. The FBI had no reason to muddle in the
army's affairs. Military Intelligence agents spent most of their time
running background checks on guys who were being put in for security
clearances. Best of all. General Hedges had served for two years, after
his first tour in Vietnam, as a liaison officer on the staff of the
Secretary of Defense between the CIA and the DIA. Since he worked for
the Secretary of Defense, Hedges had been the DIA's man. He probably
still had good contacts there, reasoned Lugar. Josie sprung the
question, standing up, thrusting her notebook back in her purse: "Well,
then, gentlemen, if we don't get anywhere this way, perhaps we'll get
somewhere when I get this film developed this afternoon, print it in
tomorrow's paper, and send a clip down to the director of the Defense
Intelligence Agency, inquiring about what his noble employees were doing
on a coffee break during their surveillance of Irit Dov's boutique. What
do you think, gentlemen? Do you think that will produce some answers to
my questions?"

"Let's have that film," stated one of the men flatly. He was wearing a
navy blue suit and tie, and his face looked like a pane of glass, his
skin was so shiny. Josie grabbed her camera and her purse, tossing two
quarters on the counter. Just then. Buck, Lugar, and Slaight walked in.

"Nothing doing," she said. "I said I want the film," said the man. "This
is official business. You are interfering with government business. Now,
give me that film, miss." Buck, Lugar, and Slaight stood next to her
silently. "I've spent my whole career interfering with official
government business, mister, most of it rather unsavory. You two remind
me of poolroom stiffs I know in Hoboken. Only there, they've got
something constructive to do with their time. They watch people shooting
pool. What are you guys watching? To see if the knees on Irit's
stockings sag by the end of her day?"

"That will be enough of your wisecracks, miss. Now give us the film."

Lugar grabbed the camera and slung it over his shoulder. Slaight stepped
forward. He decided to play the scene to the hilt. If he was going to
go, many as well be in style.

"It's my understanding that you two dipsticks, and the two you replaced
last night, are denizens of something called the Defense Intelligence
Agency, Is that right?" Nothing. "Well, I'm Ry Slaight, the guy you've
probably been waiting for. I'm here for two reasons. One, to ask you--

no, to tell you--to get off my girl friend's back. If you don't pack up
your shit and shut down this crummy little stake-out, I'm going to
notify the ACLU and have a team of lawyers up here serving you with
every kind of goddamn civil writ they can crank out. Two. I'm going over
to see my girl friend in her shop, and from there, to her house. My
friends here are going to photograph everything you do while I walk over
to her shop, and while we walk up to her house. Then they're going to
hop in cars and drive downtown and make sworn statements as to what they
have seen today and last night." Slaight waited for the men to say
something. They said nothing. "We know where you're staying. We know
where you go every day. We know when you change shifts and cars. Look at
that hunk of shit you've got out there now! What is that, some kind of
practical joke? A goddamn Falcon!" The men didn't say anything. They
weren't taking the bait. Slaight was hoping for some sort of
confrontation Lugar could photograph, but it wasn't coming. He reached
in his pocket and withdrew two envelopes. Each contained a carbon of a
letter to the director to Defense Intelligence Agency, outlining the
"moves" of Rysam Parker Slaight III and Irit Dov on Saturday, October
26, 1968. He handed them to the men at the table. "There is your report,
guys. File the fucker. I already sent it special delivery to Washington
last night. Your boss has probably already gotten it." To Slaight's
great surprise, the men took their envelopes and pocketed them.

Fingerprints. The men left money on the table, stood up, and left
wordlessly. "Weird," said Lugar. "You gave those two enough reason to
kick your ass from here to Philly, and they didn't do nothin'."

"Yeah?

Well, fuck them and their marching orders," said Slaight. He was feeling
good, better than he'd felt in months, in fact. They all walked over to
Irit's shop, she told her assistant to run things for the rest of the
day, and the group headed for her place. They drank, cooked, talked, and
joked all afternoon and into the night. Three cadets and a lady
reporter, putting the arm on a couple of spooks from
God-onlyknows-where! Think of it! Think of the report old Hedges would
get up at Woo fuckin' Poo! Wait'll he puts an eyeball on the bottom of
the report Slaight handed the men in the drugstore. Sketched at the
bottom of the page, about three inches high, was a replica of the
clenched fists which emblazoned T-shirts, flags, banners, and placards
at every demonstration photographed and films for the past year! Not
just any fist, but the fist! Wouldn't that give old Hedges something to
train his binoculars on! They laughed and laughed but never so hard as
they laughed at Leroy Buck. He was taking a course in advanced Ordnance
Engineering, and just yesterday, his small five-man section had been
given a secret lecture on military weaponry. One of the two majors who
taught them held up a Plexiglas model of an artillery shell, a 105-mm
howitzer round. But this howitzer round was full of wires and
transistors and little round balls and weird shit, inside the Plexiglas
casing of the shell's warhead. The instructor told them the model
howitzer round was still in the early stages of development, that he was
holding a dream, really. He hinted broadly that the model howitzer round
represented the furthest reaches of tactical nuclear weaponry
development. Then he got so excited, holding the model howitzer round,
fondling it, gazing into its multicolored interior, he just burst out
with it: "Gentlemen," he said, "this puts tactical nuclear weapons down
where they belong, at the company level. With this round a company
commander will be able to knock out an entire enemy company with a
single round. Imagine that! One call on the radio, and zap! And it'll be
clean, gentlemen, the company commander will be able to move his men
through that area within a matter of hours. This is tac-nuke of the
future, gentlemen. Maybe by the time you're company commanders you'll
have the privilege and the pleasure of deploying this little baby!"

Leroy Buck told the story perfectly, imitating the major's authoritarian
inflection, uncannily accurate even through his thick southern drawl.

"Next thing you know," he went on, "they'll pull us down there in the
goddamn basement of Thayer Hall, and they'll hold up a little Plexiglas
sphere, and say, this here, gentlemen, is the nculear grenade. Now this
little bugger puts tac-nukes down where they really belong, in the hand
of the lowly infantryman. With one pitch, even the dullest PFC'll be
able to knock out a whole enemy squad, the little tac-nuke just makin'
the neatest little mushroom cloud you ever did see. A fuckin' nuclear
grenade! That's gonna be the next goddamn thing!" They all guffawed,
even Irit, Leroy Buck's imitation of the major was so perfect, the
twisted extension of logic of the nuclear grenade was so--well--so
goddamn funny\ What else could you do but laugh your ass off at the
concept of the nuclear grenade after a day like today--hell, after the
last goddamn three and a half years! The more grim the joke, the harder
they laughed, the more they drank, the funnier it all was. It was the
way. Charlie Napier, a dean-sleeve firstie with whom Slaight had walked
the area many times, came to the table the next night, Sunday night,
October 27, 1968. Napier had gotten slugged cow year, 66 demerits, 132
punishment tours, and six months' confinement to his room, for that
unique cadet "offense," PDA--public display of affection. PDA
effectively speaking made it illegal for a cadet to touch a girl in
public. Public was defined as anywhere--literally, anywhere, on or off
academy grounds. Affection was defined as touching with the hand, and
went onward and upward past the kiss on the cheek to the nether regions
of the embrace, and finally, as in the case of Charlie Napier, to the
act of intercourse itself. In Napier's case, it was suspected
intercourse, but it was PDA just the same. What had Napier done to
justify the stiffest punishment meted out at West Point, short of
expulsion? He and his girl friend had checked into a motel one Saturday
night. The motel keeper, a local Highland Falls cadet-hater, had sought
to report him for PDA, but the room was registered in the girl's name.

So the motel keeper had gone to the West Point library and leafed
through company photographs--some 3,200 cadets in all--in the Howitzer,
the cadet yearbook, until he found Napier's face. He found his name. He
reported Napier to his company tactical officer. The tac in turn
reported Napier on a two-dash-one. The tac had thought Napier ought to
get some kind of slap on the hand, and for being dull enough to use a
local motel if nothing else. But when the form came back from old
Two-Dash Hedges, Napier's "offense" had been reworded: "Gross lack of
judgment, so as to bring discredit on himself, the Corps of Cadets, the
United States Military Academy, the United States Army, and the Nation,
i.e.: sharing a motel room with a member of the opposite sex on or about
April 15, 1968." The announcement of Napier's offense, made by the
brigade adjutant at lunch in the mess hall one day in early May, had
been a clear warning to others who might be entertaining similarly
licentious thoughts about girls and motel rooms. The reading of the
"offense" over the booming PA left the mess hall hushed, stunned. Hell,
everyone knew what went on behind closed doors, especially the closed
doors, of motel rooms. But the word was already around the mess hall. In
Napier's case, there had been no evidence. He could have slept in the
tub, he could have napped in a chair. The motel keeper, Two-Dash Hedges,
nobody knew what went on between Napier and his girl friend, because a
motel room was not public. The message was clear. Hedges had decided to
make an example of Napier. Not only was touching a girl on academy
grounds illegal, so was the presumption of sex--not sex itself, merely
the presumption of sex--even off the grounds of the academy, even in a
motel room. Eventually, the cadets laughed it off, as they laughed off
everything else that made no goddamn sense at all. They went about their
business of fucking anything wearing a skirt--cautiously, is all. Just
about everyone, that is. John Lugar, Slaight's roommate, had spent three
and a half years in the cadet library, combing its stacks, its
collections of rare academy memorabilia, its unclassified "papers," in a
futile search for the man he called "the sick motherfucker who conceived
of PDA." If he ever found the man's name, he said he was going to
plaster it all over every company bulletin board in the Corps, a total
slander of the bastard, let everybody know who had first decreed cadets
could only look at girls-- unless, of course, you could get off-post and
into a motel room with a girl, and now with the Napier slug, old
Two-Dash Hedges had attempted to proscribe even that normal, healthy,
male sexual activity. So when clean-sleeve Charlie Napier, by this time
something of a hero--or at least a public figure in the Corps--showed up
at the Buck/Lugar/Slaight table on Sunday night, his presence was
especially ominous. Slaight had just finished flaunting the fact that he
was going to spend the night with Irit Dov in front of two intelligence
agents of some sort, and if that couldn't be denned as public display of
affection, what could? But Napier's visit brought still grimmer news.

"Slaight," he said slowly, for Charlie Napier was not one of your fast
talkers, residing as he had for the past three years in the bottom ten
in the class in General Order of Merit (considered a likely contender
for Goat). "Slaight, I've got some  ...  ah  ...  bad news for you.

While you was away on weekend, your tac. Major Grimshaw  ...  he was
officer in charge ..."

"Grimshaw was OC?" Slaight interrupted. "He wasn't scheduled to be OC
this weekend."

"I know  ...  he  ...  ah  ... volunteered, I guess you could say.

Anyways. I was pulling guard, like I usually do on Saturdays, because
I'm slugged and all, you know, and Grimshaw comes in and says he wants
me to take him on an inspection of your company. You know the regs  ...
the OC has to take a cadet guard with him wherever he goes. So I figured
he's an asshole, like everybody says, and he just wants to rape his own
company, you know? But uhuh. He didn't do nothing of the sort. He just
goes on over to New South, straight up to your room, and he went through
every one of your files. I know. I had to stand there and watch him do
it. He must have spent two hours in your room  ...  this was about, you
know, two a.m. Saturday night, er, Sunday morning, you know. So I'm
standing there, just sleepy as hell, and he went through all your files
in your cabinets. I don't know what he was looking for, but he kept
muttering to himself he'd find it somehow, so I don't guess he found
whatever it was he was after, you know?" "Yeah," said Slaight. "Slaight,
you know about this, man?" asked Buck. "Hell no. Haven't looked in my
files. I just came back, jumped in my Dress Gray and out to formation at
the last minute. Jesus. This is some shit." "Yeah," said Napier. "But
that ain't half of it, Slaight. I mean, going through your shit and all.

That was something. I had to tell him I didn't think it was right, what
he was doing. He told me I was being insubordinate and to shut my
goddamn mouth, or he'd shut it for good. So I stayed quiet and just
stood there and watched. He read everything, Slaight. Every goddamn
thing. The funny thing was, he kept saying something about this one
guy."

"Which guy? Who?" "He kept saying, really low like to himself, "Beatty
said it'd be in here someplace  ... Beatty said it'd be right here in
his room." Anyways, he mutters that a bunch of times, but he didn't take
anything. So he's leaving the room, right? And you know that little
stick he carries, with an AK-47 bullet for a tip, and an AK shell at the
end? You know the stick?" Everybody in D-3 knew about Grimshaw's
war-souvenier stick made from the ammunition of a Russian-made
Kalachnikov submachine gun. "Well, he takes his little stick and he
points it at your picture on your card, next to the door, and he says
loud enough so's I can hear, he says, "You little communist cunt. You
little communist fag whore. We're going to get you." Then he turns
around, and sees that I heard him, and he says to me that I may as well
forget about you being a classmate much longer, because you already got
one foot out the gate. Then he says, "He's got one foot out the gate, we
got his cock on the block, mister, and when we chop it off, his other
foot'll go, too." Well, Slaight, you and me's walked some goddamn hours
together, but I never knew you was in so deep, man. I didn't know.

I had to come over and tell you about this, man, because no matter what
you done, it don't deserve that kind of shit." Buck invited Charlie
Napier to sit down for a cup of coffee, but he had to get back to his
room for confinement. Slaight barely managed to mutter thanks as Napier
shuffled off. "Slaight, what are you gonna do?" asked Buck. "I'm going
back to the room. I'm going to check my files, see if anything is
missing, see if he took anything when somebody else was on guard, maybe
not as decent as Charlie, then I'm gonna sit back and wait. Grimshaw
will be around either tonight or early tomorrow, depending on whether or
not he had a chance to report to  King, or whoever he's reporting to, or
if he's reporting at all."

"You don't think he did that on is own initiative, do you?"

"He could have. He knows I'm in deep shit. He just might figure, if he
can come up with the crowning blow, it'll make his career. Guys have
been known to do a lot less to advance their careers.

But that doesn't fit with what Napier was saying about him muttering
about Beatty."

"Beatty?"

"Yeah. The guy down in the Pentagon, the civilian fucker. He was all
through the stuff in the pouch, remember?"

"Yeah. I remember now."

"Jesus. I wonder who Grimshaw's talking to: King, Hedges, or Beatty?

Hard to figure."

"What do you think he was after?"

"Come on, man. Take a fat guess."

"Your Hand files."

"Man wins the big purple teddy bear."

"If he didn't find them, they weren't there.

So where are they, Slaight?"

"You do not want to know. That is one piece of information you do not
want to know." Slaight called Captain Bassett from Buck's phone as soon
as he returned to the barracks, relaying the word he'd gotten from
Charlie Napier. Bassett said Grimshaw's search of his room had been
illegal right down the line: no shake-down of entire company, no
probable cause, and no criminal investigation to justify search and
seizure. "You've got to be suspected of having committed a crime for any
kind of search of your effects to be legally conducted, Slaight. Even if
there is reason to suspect you committed a crime, there must also be
reasonable cause to believe that illegal items of potential evidence
were in your possession. Since Grimshaw left your room empty-handed,
obviously any probable cause he had was a figment of someone's
imagination--probably his. So don't worry."

"But what do I do if he comes around to my room?"

"First you ask him what you're being charged with. Then you ask him if
he's shaking down the company, in essence, force him into admitting that
he's not shaking down, that he has no probable cause. Then, once you've
got the upper hand, you do what he tells you. Answer all his questions
truthfully. Remember, there's no Fifth Amendment with the Honor Code. If
he wants to confiscate something, ask him to describe the article or
piece of paper exactly; then ask him if he's giving you a direct verbal
order. If he is, produce what he wants, if it's in your possession or
capability to do so. Oh.

Goodness. Almost forgot. Make sure you've got witnesses. Make sure there
are a couple of your classmates in there for the whole thing."

"But, Captain Bassett, with him muttering about Beatty, we both know
what he's after."

"Indeed we do. However, you haven't got those files. I don't have those
files. I entrusted those files to a third party, who shall remain
nameless, and from there, I don't know where they went. So I don't know
where the files are, you don't know where they are, you can produce no
files. You have no ability to produce those files. In fact, I would say
that you have no legal authority to produce those files at this point."

"It's gone that far, huh?"

"You have no legal authority, Slaight. Those files could be used as
evidence. Let us just say, in terms you can understand, those files are
being held in escrow-- though escrow is hardly a criminal term. But in
this case, it applies. They are in safekeeping. In reserve. To you, they
are as good as gone, so you can tell Grimshaw that. Gone. There's your
word. Gone."

Grimshaw was waiting for Slaight in Room 226 at 9:15 Monday morning,
October 28, 1968, when Slaight, Buck, and Lugar returned from their
first class, History of the Military Art. They hadn't slept much the
night before, awoke at 6 a.m., the class started at 7:45 a.m. and ran
until 9:05 a.m. Slaight was tired. He was not in the mood for Grimshaw,
who stood, legs apart, in the middle of the room like he owned the
place. Perhaps, as tactical officer of Company D-3, he did own the
place. The prerogatives of command, and all that. But Grimshaw's stance,
and the surly, bitter look on his face, plunged whatever semblance there
was of commander and commanded into the septic tank of mutual
disrespect, barely contained.

Slaight called the room to attention. Grimshaw indicated with his AK-47
stick that Slaight should be seated at his desk, and with a sweep of the
stick, all others should leave the room. "Sir, I respectfully request
that these men be allowed to stay in this room. I know what happened
here on Saturday night, Sunday morning, and I believe we are going to
have some disagreements. My attorney has advised me that I should have
witnesses present for whatever happens today."

"And if I order? these dullards from the room, Mr. Slaight? What then?"

"I will phone my attorney, ask him to drop whatever he is doing, and
come over here to act as my counsel in this matter."

"Mr. Slaight. The matters we have to discuss are of no concern to either
these men or your attorney, as you call him." Grimshaw sneered the word,
like Bassett was some kind of subhuman species hardly worthy of
recognition by Higher Beings  ... Higher Beings, of course, comprising
that select minority of army officers who were, in the following order:

West Pointers, Infantrymen, combat veterans. Airborne and Ranger
Qualified  ...  recipients of Silver Stars, Bronze Stars, Air Medals,
and anything else they could get their hands on in Vietnam. Captain T.
Clifford Bassett was not a Higher Being. "Sir, I beg to differ," said
Slaight, who had taken his seat, as indicated. The rest of the guys
stood around uncertainly. "Everything you and I will discuss this
morning has been discussed with these men.

Everything you and I will discuss has been discussed with my attorney.

So go ahead, sir. You went through my files. What is it you want to ask
me?" Grimshaw was enraged, but contained it nicely. He slapped his thigh
once or twice with the black leather gloves held in his left hand. He
gazed about the room as if looking to write some quill, just to get
things off on the right--or was it left?--foot. He leveled his gaze at
Slaight. "Stand at attention, young man." Slaight Jumped to his feet. "I
want everything in your possession relating to Mr. W lliam Beatty.

Everything, Slaight, and I want it now."

"William Beatty, sir?"

"You know who I mean, goddammit."

"I don't have any materials in my possession relating to a Mr. William
Beatty."

"I know that, Slaight.

I've been through this room ..." He cut himself off with a sharp intake
of breath and the snap! of his teeth cracking together. "You've got it
somewhere else. Where is it?"

"Sir, I don't know what you're talking about. I've never had materials
in my possession relating to this William Beatty, whom I do not know. I
don't know what your connection is to Mr. Beatty, sir, but I've nothing
relating to Beatty."

"Then what have you done with it, goddammit?"

"Done with it, sir? I don't have 'it," whatever 'it' might be."

"You mean to tell me you have nothing, nothing to do with Beatty in your
possession at all?"

"That's right, sir." May as well drop the bomb. "I have heard his name
once or twice, sir, if that does you any good. But of course  ...  I've
heard quite a few cadets know this Mr. Beatty. I am only sorry that I
haven't made his acquaintance. Had I the pleasure, maybe I could help
you, sir."

"Don't get smart with me. Slaight."

"I'm not getting smart, sir. I am volunteering information I thought
might be of use or interest to you.

Mr. Beatty seems to have quite a following among certain cadets. It so
happens I am not one of them. I am sorry, sir." Slaight paused, waiting.

"Sir, may I ask a question?"

"Go ahead."

"Is the nature of your inquiry here this morning official in any
capacity, sir? I mean, are you conducting a shake-down of the company
for data on this Mr. Beatty? Or have you singled out my room?"

"This is no shake-down, and yes I've come directly here. That is
self-evident. Now, don't you go trying to play barracks lawyer with me,
Slaight, because i n guarantee you'll lose."

"Yessir. One more question. Are the nature of your requests for my
supposed materials on Mr. Beatty direct verbal orders, sir?"

"You damn well fucking better believe they are, mister. And if I find
you've disobeyed me, I'll rip skin off your buttocks with pliers,
goddammit. If I find out you've lied, you are out, Slaight. You
understand that?

Finished."

"Yessir. One last question, sir, I simply forgot. When do I hear about
my Aptitude Board?"

"You'll hear when we're goddamn good and ready to tell you, Slaight. And
not a moment before. And if you think you're going to get legal
representation before that board, mister, you'd better think again,
because you're not."

"I've been thinking about it a lot, sir. I simply want some time to
prepare. I'd like to know the nature of the charges against me."

"You'll find out, Slaight. Soon enough." With that, Grimshaw tipped his
black gloves to his hat brim and stalked from the room. The cadets
settled on the bunks. Somebody went for Cokes. Buck played an album by
Waylon Jennings, which seemed to take the ugly edge off things. "What do
you think, Slaight?" asked Lugar. "I don't know. How 'bout you?"

Lugar shrugged in reply.

"Goddamn-goddamn," said Leroy Buck. "We could have a million fuckin'
ideas, and I don't think we oughta go talking about them around here.

I'm beginning to think these goddamn walls have ears. I wanna get me
some MPR. Mid-period rack's always best. No telling when the next
shitstorm's gonna hit. Could be today. Could be tomorrow. Who fuckin'
knows? When in doubt, fellas, follow the example of ole Leroy. Get
rack." They did. Slaight was asleep when two loud knocks sounded on his
door at 11:15 that Monday night. The company and battalion honor
representatives entered without invitation. They were in Dress Gray,
unusual after taps in the barracks. Slaight looked up. The lights went
on. He was still half asleep, but he knew they were on honor business.

He'd been charged with an honor violation. The questions crammed his
mind: When? By whom? For what? "I think you know why we're here," said
the battalion honor rep ominously. He was a stubby little guy who'd been
an all-state football player in West Virginia in high school. He came to
West Point as a football recruit. He never got over it when he
discovered that at 175 pounds dripping wet, he couldn't cut it in
college ball. The D-3 company honor rep was from Arkansas, slow-talking,
fast-witted dude who played lead guitar in the cadet rock and roll band,
"B. Arnold and the Traitors." He was handsome, loose, hip, a cadet rock
and roll star. Slaight could tell by the look on his face this
after-taps honor visit didn't sit well with him. "Get dressed. Dress
Gray," commanded Dudley, the battalion honor rep. "You're going before a
subcommittee tonight."

"Tonight? What the fuck is this all about? It's past taps, man. What is
this, anyway? Selma, Alabama?" Slaight was pulling on his trousers, and
he was good and pissed. "Come on, Ry. Just co-operate. Let's get it over
with," said Sam Kip, the company honor rep. "The less you say, the
better." "I wanna make a phone call," said Slaight as he zipped up his
dress coat. "No phone calls," said Dudley.

"Let's go. The subcommittee is waiting up in Building 720 right now."
"At least tell me the charges," said Slaight, stopping in front of his
mirror to check his hair. "You'll find out soon enough," said Dudley.

"Let's go. We want to get this over with by 2400 hours." They walked
single file, Slaight between the two honor reps, up to a conference room
in Building 720. It was the same room they used when they boarded out
Crolius. Out the window, he could see the Cadet Chapel, its stony
presence outlined against the moonlit sky. Slaight was told to take a
seat. Six of his classmates sat in a semicircle in front of him. They
weren't guys he knew, His company and battalion honor reps were not
permitted to sit on the subcommittee, but they stayed in the room as
observers. One cadet, a five-striper, probably a battalion commander,
spoke: "You have been charged with an honor violation, and this
subcommittee has been convened to determine if there is sufficient
evidence to warrant a full Honor Board. Do you understand?"

"Yeah.

What's the charge?"

"The charge is that you lied to an officer, in that you told the officer
you would not divulge certain information to others, and then you went
and divulged said information."

"What officer?

When? What information? How in hell do you expect me to answer this
charge when you don't give me any details?" The cadets on the
subcommittee glanced at each other. They didn't have the details,
either. Slaight leaped into the gap. "Who brought the charges in the
first place? Let's start there." The cadets drew their heads close
together in a huddle and conferred. "The charges were originally brought
by Major Grimshaw, your tactical officer, who spoke to your company
honor rep, Sam Kip, late this afternoon." "Yeah? What did he say?" "He
said basically that you'd lied, just as we outlined."

"Well, that's the sketchiest fuckin' outline I've ever heard in my
goddamn life. You guys yank me out of bed up here and pull together a
subcommittee to tell me Grimshaw says I lied, and you don't even know
what I'm supposed to have lied about? Jesus fuckin' H. Christ. Who's
running this Honor Code show?

You guys or Grimshaw?" Sam Kip stepped forward. "Maybe I'd better call
Major Grimshaw and get him to elaborate." "Do it," said the
five-striper. Kip disappeared. Slaight could hear a phone being dialed
in the office next door, the muffled sounds of a conversation. Kip was
gone for five minutes. "We've got to wait for him to call back," he
announced to the subcommittee, when he returned to the board room. "So
who's Grimshaw got to call?" asked Slaight, taking a shot in the dark.

"I don't know." Slaight studied Kip's face. He didn't know. The phone
rang in the office next door. Kip left to answer it. Another five-minute
conversation. He returned. Slaight was told to leave the room. He walked
out in the hall, stood there for a moment, and figured: If they can do
it, so can I. He walked in the next office, picked up the phone, and
dialed Buck's number. Buck picked up. "Leroy, they got me in the
conference room up in 720, holding a goddamn honor subcommittee. Get
Lugar and come on up here. The Honor System booklet says these things
are supposed to be open to the upper classes, but they yanked me up here
so fast, I didn't get a chance to tell anybody." "On our way," said
Buck. Slaight returned to the hall, pacing. The door open, and Sam Kip
signaled for him to return. He took his seat. The five-striper spoke
again: "Major Grimshaw did not bring the charges. He relayed charges
brought by the commandant of cadets. The facts, as Grimshaw outlined
them, are these: You told General Hedges twice--once last summer and
once in August, during re-orgy week--that you would not discuss certain
matters with others. This morning you told Major Grimshaw you had
discussed these matter with cadets and someone you referred to as your
attorney. That is the charge. You lied to the commandant in that you
promised you would not divulge certain information. Then today, you
admitted to Major Grimshaw you had." At that moment. Buck and Lugar
strode into the room. "What are you two doing here?" asked the
fivestriper. "More to the point, what are you doing here?" asked John
Lugar, a smile plastered across his red freckled face. "We're holding an
honor subcommittee, and you are not permitted ..." "Says here we are,"
said Lugar, opening a small book with a light blue jacket. "Say right
here in the Honor System pamphlet that all honor committee hearings are
open to the upper classes. Here. Wanna see?"

Lugar held out the small blue pamphlet. "Where'd you get that?-" asked
the five-striper. "In the library. I checked it out. Found it under
'standards and traditions."

" The five-striper examined the pamphlet. "This is last year's. Doesn't
apply."

"What do you honor reps do? Change the Honor System every year and not
tell anybody about it? What is this shit?" Slaight stared the
five-striper in the eye. "Last year's Honor System pamphlet does not
apply here. These two must leave." "Okay," said Lugar. "You show me in
this year's pamphlet where it says we've got to go. Show me the exact
paragraph. Every honor meeting I've attended in the last three and a
half years, the honor rep said all upperclassmen could attend Honor
Committee functions. Now show me the System pamphlet that says we've got
to leave." "I don't have it with me," said the five-striper lamely.

"Then we stay. Go ahead with your business," said Lugar. "But this is
different. Even if I had the pamphlet, Major Grimshaw said this was  ...
sensitive."

"Major Grimshaw!" Slaight spat his name like a piece of bad meat. "What
the fuck does Grimshaw have to do with this? He runs the Honor Code now?

Who's in charge here, anyway? You or Grimshaw? Come on.

Is it all just a bunch of rhetoric, a bunch of shit--'the code belongs
to the corps'? Or are you going to abide by Honor Code custom and let
them stay?" The five-striper looked nervous. A neat stack of cadet
chevrons had not prepared him to make decisions. "Okay. You guys can
stay. Sit down over there." He indicated folding chairs along one wall.

Lugar and Buck sat down. Buck unzipped his dress coat and withdrew a
yellow legal pad of paper and a pen and prepared to take notes. "No
notes!" screamed the five-striper. "Whatssamatter? You ashamed of what's
goin' on here?" asked Buck. "No ..."

"Then you won't mind if I note the proceedings--for the edification of
my colleagues back in the barracks, of course, who have an equal right
to be present at this hearing." The five-striper sat mute. "Okay, guys,
let's get back to it," said Slaight, energized by the presence of his
friends. "Question: What information did I promise the com I wouldn't
divulge?" "I don't know," said the five-striper. "Any of the rest of you
know?" asked Slaight. Heads shook, no. "Question: How can it be
determined if I divulged this so-called certain information if we don't
know what in hell it is?" Blank stares.

"Major Grimshaw said you told everything to the guys who were in your
room this morning and to your attorney," said one of the subcommittee
reps. "Everything? Everything about what?" "I don't know," said the
five-striper. "For the record: The guys in my room this morning were
Buck and Lugar, sitting right over there," said Slaight, looking slowly
around the semicircle sitting before him. "My attorney's name is Captain
T. Clifford Bassett. I've told all three of them lots of stuff. Now it
appears to me that we can handle this thing two ways." Slaight paused.

"Go ahead," said Sam Kip, the D-3 honor rep, breaking the silence.

"Okay, Sam. Thanks. Method One: We can deal with these so-called charges
of Grimshaw's about so-called certain information with raw
technicalities, itty-bitty rule by itty-bitty rule. Method Two: We can
deal with the facts. Which will it be?" The honor subcommittee huddled.

"Let's hear your reading of the technicalities," said the five-striper.

"Okay. Grimshaw says I lied to the com. The alleged lie involved the
mysterious certain information. You don't have the certain information,
thus you can make no determination as to whether or not I divulged the
certain information. All you've got is Grimshaw telling you I told him I
told Lugar, Buck, and the lawyer everything. Everything about what?

Everything could be the schedule of my bowel movements. You don't know.

So you can make no determination as to whether there are enough facts
to. warrant an Honor Board, because you have no facts. Zero facts.

Nothing." The subcommittee huddled again. "I see what you mean," said
the five-striper. "Now. You want to know what went down between me and
the com? I'll tell you what went down. The com called me in twice and
offered to make me a battalion commander--me! a battalion CO.!--if I'd
keep my mouth shut about what you call certain information. That is, if
I would shut up and forget certain things, I'd be wearing stripes.

Observe my sleeve, guys. You see any stripes? I'm a file-closer, a cadet
sergeant. I made no deal with the com. I promised him nothing. So
Grimshaw's bullcrap about me promising I wouldn't divulge the mystical
certain information is just that. So much bullcrap. I will say this. The
com told me not to go talking to anyone about this certain information,
and I went ahead and talked about it. So I disobeyed his order.

Disobedience is a violation of regulations, guys. Not honor. If the com
wants to write me up for it, he can. In fact, they're calling an
Aptitude Board on me pretty soon, so I'd imagine it'll all come out
then. But this shit Grimshaw came off with to Sam Kip--it's no honor
violation, guys. You've got nothing on me." "I guess not," said the
five-striper. "But Hedges  ... he's not going to be happy about this."

"Hedges!" It was Lugar, walking over from his seat by the window. "What
the fuck does Hedges have to do with this?"

"We've got to file a report, showing the minutes of the subcommittee,
our finding, and the reasons for our finding."

"Show me in this goddamn Honor System pamphlet where it says you've got
to report to the com," said Lugar, enraged. "It doesn't. I know. Hedges
put out the word informally last year, when he first became com. We've
got to report everything to him, whether a subcommittee finds for a full
Honor Board or not and whether the full board finds a guy guilty of a
violation or innocent. We report everything to him."

"In writing?"

"Yes. He even had a special form printed up for us."

"So no matter what happens after an honor charge has been made, a guy
will still have written records in his file about it, huh?"

"I guess so. I don't know what happens to the reports we give Hedges."

"You don't know!" Lugar was seething now. "You don't know!

Jesus, what are you running here? An Honor Code or an inquisition?"

"Don't get uptight, John," Sam Kip stepped in. "What's the finding of
the subcommittee?" They huddled briefly. "No evidence. No Honor Board.

You can go now," said the five-striper. "What are you going to say in
your report to Hedges?" asked Slaight. "I don't know. We'll think of
something. This kind of thing has happened before. We'll cope. Don't be
surprised if we have to run another subcommittee on you later this week,
if they come up with some evidence. We'll let you know."

"Give me some notice next time, huh, guys?" said Slaight over his
shoulder, as he, Buck, and Lugar walked out. "This is the essence of
cool  ...  the midnight honor patrol." "You think you're the essence of
cool, Slaight," said Arthur Dudley, the battalion honor rep. Slaight
wheeled. He felt the tug of Buck's hand on his left sleeve. "Don't say
anything, Ry," said John Lugar. Slaight gritted his teeth, turned, and
left. Things were bad, Arthur Dudley was doing his damnedest to make
them worse, but at this point, Lugar was right. Dudley didn't count. The
three friends walked back down the stairs to New South Area. It was
quiet, a few windows lighted dimly by desk lamps aiding the "hives," the
cadets who really dug in and studied, maybe the late-night letter
writers, the guys who in the wee hours felt the bottom edges of cadet
loneliness and reached out with pen and paper for girl friends near and
far. D-3 had a guy like that. Jay Bloomingburg, from some small town in
northern Washington State, of Canadianamerican stock. He was always
writing to girls, always, late at night, alone at his desk while his
roommate slept. It was like writing a girl was something he could only
do alone.

Sometimes, if his roommate stayed up late studying, you could find him
in the shower room, sitting on one of the wooden benches writing his
letters on a clipboard. He was a gentle guy and deeply religious--to the
point of seeming simple-minded at times, though he was actually an
intelligent, engaging person when you got right down to it. He sang in
the chapel choir, taught Sunday school, and attended daily prayer
services every morning when other guys were getting ABR, precious after
breakfast rack. Though it wasn't talked about openly around the company,
it was known that Bloomingburg was still a virgin. Despite all his
letter writing, he'd never been laid. He didn't want to be. He was going
to wait until he married, he was that old-fashioned. Bloomingburg was
waiting in the hall outside Room 226 when they returned from Building
720. The CQ had told him that a bunch of firsties had disappeared in the
direction of 720 in Dress Gray, and Bloomingburg wanted to know what
happened. He was concerned. John Lugar used to tease him that his middle
name was "Sincere," but it didn't bother Bloomingburg. He knew it was
true. When Lugar, Buck, and Slaight reached Room 226, Bloomingburg
followed them in. He saw their Dress Gray uniforms, checked his watch.

It was 1:30 a.m. He smelled honor. "What happened, guys?" he asked in
all innocence. "None of your fuckin' business, man," snapped Slaight.

"Hey, Ry. I just wondered. I was worried when I heard  ..."

"Yeah? Well, you hear too fuckin' much, and you worry too fuckin' much,
and you oughtta go back to writing your fuckin' letters, man, and leave
us alone."

"Ry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to  ..."

"You didn't mean  ... shit. Why don't you go dig out your fuckin' Bible
and say us all a prayer. That's what we could really use. A fuckin'
prayer." Slaight sneered at the word prayer. Bloomingburg left, and in a
moment, returned with his Bible. "Aw, fuck, put an eyeball on this,
guys," laughed Slaight, pointing derisively at Bloomingburg. "Hey, Ry,
knock it off," said Lugar, who openly professed atheism, but admitted he
would buckle under to a Catholic wedding to his girl friend, Josie Irene
Sevems, when the time came. Bloomingburg sat down on Lugar's bunk and
started flipping through his Bible. "When you gonna come down off the
God act, man?" asked Slaight. "Come on, Ry. Cut the shit," said Leroy
Buck, a Southern Baptist from a congregation of about thirty back in
Burning Tree, Indiana. "Hey! What fuckin' good is God gonna do up
against an SOB like Hedges, huh? What the fuck you think you're gonna
find in that goddamn book, anyway? Blueprints for happiness? A goddamn
map through the West fuckin' Point mine field? Think you gonna find you
a piece of ass in there. Jay, huh?" Lugar grabbed Slaight by the T-shirt
and hauled him up from his desk chair. Lugar outweighed him maybe ten
pounds, but it was all muscle. He coached the company intramural boxing
team and had fought his way into Brigade Finals, West Point's version of
the Golden Gloves, every year but one, his plebe year. He was walking
the area that year and couldn't train properly. "One more word out of
you, Slaight, one more goddamn word and I'm gonna check you into the
hospital myself.

Only you're not gonna like the way I put you there." Slaight peered into
Lugar's eyes. They were bloodshot with fatigue. "I know you've had some
trouble, Ry. I just thought I might be able to help," said Jay
Bloomingburg. He had his Bible open now, and in a low voice he began
reading from the 23rd Psalm--Yea, though I walk--and Slaight was in
shock, trite, trite, I don't believe this ... Slaight's folks made him
go to Sunday school downtown until he was fourteen. Fourteen! Nobody
went to Sunday school when they were fourteen. But Ry Slaight did, in
his black tie-shoes and his black suit with the little speckles in the
fabric, a 1950s special that had been bought from Sears three sizes too
large so he could wear it all the way through junior high. Bloomingburg
was reading the 23rd Psalm, his voice a steady drone. They made him
memorize the damn 23rd Psalm, just like they made him memorize
everything else. And none of it amounted to a hill of shit. None of it.

Not until his dog died. His folks had bought the dog, a dachshund, when
he was born, so he'd have a companion, somebody to grow up with out on
the farm twenty miles outside Leavenworth where his father ran his
riding stables. Wild Acres. Since he had no brothers or sisters, the
dog. Rags, so named because all his life his little dog nest had been a
pile of old dishcloths and rags, old Rags had been the guy he grew up
with. He died at sixteen, an elegant old creature with a gray muzzle and
gray eyebrows where once light tan hair had offset his sleek black coat.

When Rags died, Slaight was crushed. He came home from school to find
the dog laid out on a piece of plywood next to the house, and he just
knelt there. His mother, Jill Ritter Slaight, didn't know what to do to
help the boy, so she went in the house and brought out the family Bible.

Its satin bookmark unfolded the 23rd Psalm, so she stood there in the
spring Kansas sun, birds chirping in the trees around the house,
squirrels chattering like they knew their foremost adversary had fallen,
Slaight's mother stood there in the sun and read the 23rd Psalm aloud.

The sun hit the back of Slaight's neck, his tears stung his cheeks, he'd
just begun to shave, and his dog lay dead. The words he heard, the words
his mother was reading, hit him for the first time. It went beyond
jarring his memory of a passage he had to memorize six years before. It
went beyond all that talk in Sunday school, endless discussions of the
true meaning of things. His mother's voice went way beyond and landed
somewhere deep in what he would come to know as his subconscious, some
invisible place inside himself where he hid secrets--secrets he and Rags
had shared growing up, secrets he shared with no one, secrets he didn't
even share with himself. He listened to his mother, listened to her
finish reading the Psalm. He stood up straight, embraced his mother and
said: Ma, let's go bury Rags, and they did. He knew strength that day at
sixteen, the strength that comes from knowing death and moving on, the
strength that was in his mother's voice--he'd known about it for years,
but never focused on it so clearly-- and the strength in her words, in
the words of the 23rd Psalm. He didn't understand the strength, didn't
know where it came from, where it was going, or what to do with it. He
just felt it. Now in Room 226, New South Barracks, Jay Bloomingburg's
high-pitched voice carried those words again. The four of them--Slaight,
Buck, Lugar, Bloomingburg--sat in the room in their drawers, as cadets
always did at night in the barracks. Bloomingburg read, and they felt
drawn together, Slaight perhaps more than the others with his memory of
his dog Rags, Slaight, cynical, logical old Slaight, at twenty-one,
ready to bite poor Bloomingburg's head off because all he wanted to do
was reach into his little bag, pull out the tools at his disposal, and
help. Irit said it all the weekend before, that night they blew away the
physical surveillance that someone had been running on Irit. They were
drunk in bed, and it was dark except for the glow of the clock radio at
bedside. Out in the living room, they could hear Leroy Buck settling in
for the night on the sofa. Lugar and his girl friend had left for the
hotel. All of them were blasted out of their skulls, laughing at Buck
and his accent and his stories, reveling in the glow of their "victory."

She lay next to him, spooning; he could feel her bosoms pressing against
his bare back, and she whispered in the darkness ... Ry, don't you know
you're becoming the thing you're fighting, the thing you hate? You
behaved the same way I would expect those men to behave, plotting your
elaborate plans, going through your rehearsals. You are driven, Ry.

Driven. Why? Why go on? What do you expect to accomplish?

He lay next to her and wondered. Why? She was right, of course. He was
driven like a crazy man. But didn't she understand? Could she
understand? want to find out what's going on. Int. Can you understand
that? What's geing on. You know how I'm always telling you about those
officers up at West Point coming back from Vietnam, those sergeants I
met at Leonard Wood, how they're always talking about that feeling, that
feeling of being there? Well, I think I'm getting close, Irit, I think
I'm almost there. I'm going to find out how it feels, how it feels to
have been there. I'm going to figure out what's going on, Irit, if it's
the last goddamn thing I do. She nodded silently in the dark, holding
him tightly, as if she didn't hold him he would up and go away.

Bloomingburg finished reading the 23rd Psalm and some other passage in
the Bible he said was a favorite, folded the black book, and looked up.

Slaight was sitting at his desk with tears streaming down his cheeks, a
great flood of tears, not just a sprinkle but a thunderstorm, dribbling
down his cheeks, down his neck, soaking the neck of his T-shirt. He was
sobbing openly, gulping air like a lawn mower engine running rough,
gasping, sucking air through soggy nostrils, hands atop his head, elbows
askew, knees jiggling, big bloodshot brown eyes pouring water like the
old double faucets down in the sinks of Central Area. Slaight gasping,
gasping, skirting hyperventilation only by bending at the waist, putting
his head between his knees, squeezing air from the lungs, slowing the
frantic pumping of the diaphragm, his heaving, quivering rib cage. Lugar
and Buck looked on, not knowing quite what to do. Bloomingburg got up
from the bunk, walked over to Slaight's desk, wrapped his thin arms
around Slaight's back, and held him, Slaight's wet face tight against
Bloomingburg's stomach. He held Slaight. Each time he felt the sobbing
cadet start to gasp, struggling for air, he held him tighter, matching
his breathing with Slaight's, slowing down, slowing, slowing, until
finally Slaight was just sitting there at his desk, wrapped in the thin
drawersand-T-shirt-clad body of Jay Bloomingburg. He wasn't crying any
more. He felt empty and selfish. He knew he was drawing strength from
this guy, this super-straightreligious nut he had considered a mark. A
sucker. The fall guy in a thousand little intercompany practical jokes.

Bloomingburg's problem was that he was a true believer. Anybody could
con Bloomingburg out of anything. Even the notorious Billy Dickey, the
well-bred dude scam artist from Raleigh, North Carolina, a classmate
over in the other battalion, old scamster Dickey could touch Jay
Bloomingburg on something as basic as a chain letter, he could sell him
chances on cadet lotteries nobody ever seemed to win. Bloomingburg as a
firstie was as gullible as a plebe. Most of the firsties in the company
owed him money borrowed for weekends long gone and forgotten.

Bloomingburg could not say no. Slaight all of them, really had always
written him off as a kind of quaint, gentle weakling, a
nineteenth-century gentleman caught by accident in a poorhouse crammed
with louts and fools. Yet there was Bloomingburg, and there was Slaight
in his arms. Chancing upon the scene who could identify the strong from
the weak? Who knew what lay within those secret places inside each
cadet? Not Slaight. Not Buck. Not Lugar. Did Jay Bloomingburg? Slaight
mustered up synthetic courage  ...  he found it easier than he had
supposed  ...  perhaps the courage wasn't so synthetic  ...  raised his
head and looked at the face above him. Bloomingburg was moving his lips
in silent prayer! None of the other guys could see him, for his back was
turned to them, but Slaight could. Slaight held still and let
Bloomingburg finish his prayer. He looked down at Slaight and smiled.

"You're okay, Ry. I know what you're going through. You'll be okay.

Everything will turn out all right." Slaight looked at the guy's face he
knew nothing of what had been going on for the past six months and he
believed him. Jesus. That was weird. Believing old Bloomingburg--about
anything, much less this  ...  all the shit flying around his head ...
But Bloomingburg had this look, some look on his face Slaight had never
seen before, and it said he knew. He fuckin' knew. "Thanks, man," said
Slaight coarsely, coughing. "I guess I kinda lost it there for a minute.

I'm sorry I laid that stuff on you, man. I didn't mean it. But this
middle-of-the-night Honor Code stuff  ...  man. They ought to just issue
those guys white robes and get the whole thing out in the open."

Bloomingburg walked over to the bunk, picked up his Bible, neither
agreeing nor disagreeing with what Slaight said. "Anything I can do for
you. Jay ..." Slaight's words trailed off. "Hey!" Bloomingburg turned,
all smiles. "You can help me with my poly sci paper next week. You know
how I always pick topics that are too broad, and end up with fifty books
and five footnotes and go Dee," meaning Deficient, flunking, 1.9 or less
out of 3.0. "Well, you can help me pick a topic and poop me up on how
you do those papers. I've seen you. You spend about an hour in the
library taking notes, an hour in the periodicals room, check out four
books, and they hand you a 2.8 or a 2.9 like you deserved it or
something." "Well. You said it yourself. I do." Slaight laughed. They
all laughed. It was pushing 3 a.m., and the atmosphere in the room was
like the last three hours had never happened. Buck checked the TV movie
listings in the Times. "Goddamn-goddamn," he announced, drawing
everyone's attention. "Thunder Road is playing the late-late show on
Channel 5 in ten minutes. Anybody wanna go downstairs and get a Coke and
watch it? Gotta watch fuckin' Thunder Road, man. Music alone's worth
staying up." "Can I come?" asked Bloomingburg. He had never joined their
late-late show craziness before. Ever. "Sure," said Buck. "Bring your
Brown Boy.

Gets cold down there in the basement."

"You might miss chapel tomorrow morning. Jay," teased Lugar.

Bloomingburg blushed. "Shit, Lugar. I don't think God'll mind this
once," said Slaight. "Don't guess He will," said Buck. "Come on." They
watched Robert Mitchem drive fast cars for fast money and die young, and
they climbed in the rack at 5 a.m., an hour before reveille. Company D-3
wouldn't see much of them the next day. they were too busy catching up
on lost racktime.

Noon, Thursday, October 31, 1968. The plebe mail
carrier delivered a letter to Room 226. It was a blue envelope,
addressed to Slaight, and it looked familiar. He stuffed the letter in
the pocket of his short overcoat and walked out to ranks. The regiment
marched off to lunch. As they rounded the corner onto Brewerton Road,
they could smell it. Whole companies of cadets moaned in unison as they
made the turn. Veal cutlets. Brussels sprouts. Mashed potatoes. The odor
was like last night's leftovers had been left to rot on the tables. The
high mustard cabbage stench of the sprouts was mixing with cheap veal,
frying in what was probably reconstituted french-fry oil  ...  moans
could be heard in Central Area, in Old South, everywhere the mess hall
could be smelled. Seated at the table in the south wing of the mess
hall, Slaight tore open the envelope. It was from Samantha. Her
handwriting was crisp, real longhand, not the phonypreppy rounded t's,
p's and g's a lot of other girls affected. She wanted to know what had
been going on with her brother's case. She mentioned Vassar, where her
studies were as challenging as the life-style was tedious  ...  five
days of tough academics, then two days dating around the Ivy League
schools. That was why Slaight referred to Vassar as the West Point of
the Seven Sisters.

Vassar girls couldn't wait for weekends, to get away. They were just
like cadets. At the bottom of her letter, she mentioned she had gone
through her brother's letters a second time. It had taken her this long
to summon the inner strength to face them. She discovered David Hand had
a second, less obvious obsession, other than Ry Slaight: someone called
William Beaty. she didn't say whether or not it was the first letter she
received from Hand mentioning Beatty. I met this real gentleman from
Washington last week, just by chance. I was out walking around the Plain
on Saturday, and he pulled up in a car and asked if I wanted a ride. I
climbed in, just to get warm. It was one of those really cold December
days. Anyway, his name is William Beatty, and he is some kind of deputy
Secretary of Defense down in the Pentagon. He comes up to West Point all
the time, knows lots of cadets and officers. He asked me if I wanted to
have dinner with him at the Thayer that night, and I said yes, of
course! What a good deal! It was a nice dinner, and he asked me if I
would escort him to chapel Sunday morning. Another good deal! I got to
go to late services, instead of going early at 0800! We had brunch in
the mess hall together. He was really impressive--very intelligent, and
of course incredibly well versed on military matters. The strange thing
was, he seemed to know everybody Sunday morning at brunch, and most of
the guys who came up to talk with him were really high-ranking firsties,
and all of them who weren't in my regiment recognized me! (Plebes can't
be recognized by guys in their own regiment until June Week, or else.)

He told me he's coming up here again after Christmas, so I guess I'll
see him then. Oh yes. The other thing was that he told me to be sure to
join the Military Affairs Club this year, so I can get two trips to the
Pentagon every year, starting next year. He said he would show me around
personally. He's the most impressive man I've met so far as a cadet,
Sam, and he's not even an officer. Isn't that something? Slaight read
the Beatty Xerox a second time, then passed it to Lugar and Buck. On his
way to class after lunch, he dropped the letter off with lawyer Bassett.

Hand's description of his weekend with William Beatty had been uncannily
perceptive. It fit precisely everything Slaight had heard about him.

Beatty pulled a kind of  ... power seduction  ...  that was it!  ...
power seduction  ... impress the hell out of them with Pentagon gossip
and offers of introductions to men in power. Beatty made it abundantly
clear, Slaight had learned, that he invited cadets down to the Pentagon
for very good reasons. If a firstie was going into the Infantry, Beatty
would arrange a lunch with the colonel in charge of Infantry Branch
personnel  ...  the man in charge of assignments to choice command slots
in choice posts around the globe. If a firstie showed unusual interest
in his Ordinance Engineering course, which was essentially a course in
the study of the science of weaponry, Beatty would arrange to escort him
out to the research and development command at Fort Belvoir. The only
piece that didn't fit was David Hand himself. What was Beatty doing
impressing a lowly plebe? His normal proteges were first-classmen.

Plebes  ...  well, they had three years to go before Pentagon contacts
and trips to research centers would do them any good. When Slaight
returned from his two afternoon classes at 3:15 p.m., the D-3 CQ had two
messages for him: See Bassett today. See the commandant, 1730, 5:30
p.m., Friday, November 1, 1968. Tomorrow. Bassett wanted to shoot the
breeze. The request for legal counsel before the Aptitude Board was
still neatly lodged in legal wrangling, so everything was going as
planned on that front. Slaight told him about the abortive honor
violation charges Hedges had lodged against him on Monday. Bassett
packed his pipe and nodded, lit it, filling his windowless office with
smoke which disappeared into the ceiling, through an exhaust fan, hidden
behind an egg-crate plastic false ceiling with concealed fluorescent
lighting, heating and air-conditioning ducts, electric wiring, sundry
untidiness. All classrooms in Thayer Hall were like that: windowless,
lit by fluorescence. Bright colors and small, fifteen-to-sixteen-man
classes made the place tolerable. Just barely. Not Bassett's closet.

Nearly waist-deep in organized chaos, the only way to survive,
obviously, was to stay stoned on coffee and this strange, bitter mix of
pipe tobacco. Bassett didn't seem surprised at the honor subcommittee
...  he never seemed particularly surprised at anything, having
concluded, apparently, at West Point the totally bizarre was perfectly
normal. You got the impression if Bassett learned a day had passed
without incident, he'd get really upset. Too quiet, he'd mutter. Better
keep our antenna out. Once Bassett chuckled and used a slogan Slaight
had seen on the bumper of VW buses outfitted for hippiedom on the
highways: "Paranoia is its own reward." Slaight was adjusting to the
confines of Bassett's cubbyhole when the lawyer cleared a hole in the
papers on his desk, and produced three typescript documents. One was an
official paper documenting that Hedges had ordered Slaight's name
withdrawn from the list of cadets excused from class for SCUSA. No
longer did they need the word of the frightened major who had been OIC
of Slaight's committee. The second was a copy of the report of the cadet
honor subcommittee to the commandant on the disposition of charges
against Ryan Parker Slaight III. "Recommend no further action be
taken," was the last line of the report. "Recommend!" yelled Slaight,
coughing. "Who the hell are they recommending to, anyway? Hedges or the
chairman of the Honor Committee?"

"Rather clear, don't you think?" Bassett held up the cover letter on the
report. It was addressed to, and initialed by. Brigadier General Charles
Sherill Hedges, Commandant of Cadets. "That kind of puts the lie to the
old 'cadets run the code' myth, doesn't it?" "Indeed it does," said
Bassett, bouncing his eyebrows gleefully. "How do you think I came to
possess this little item? Divine intervention?"

"No. How?"

"One of your classmates. Certain of your classmates have made the same
conclusion you've just made and are taking the situation into their own
hands--principally in the Fourth Regiment, I might add. I am not at
liberty to disclose to you the identity of the man who passed this
document to me--lawyer-client privilege, you know--but he gave his
permission that you be allowed to see it. You've got more friends than
you know, over in the happy Fourth. I would guess--roughly, this is--

about a hundred of them. They've got the neatest little cheating system
you've ever seen."

"And you got the report to Hedges from one of them? That thing could
only have come from--from an honor rep. Christ!" Bassett grinned and
puffed.

"Lawyer-client privilege. Cannot disclose." Slaight had hit the nail on
the head. There was at least one honor rep involved in a cheating ring
in the Fourth Regiment. Phew! Hot stuff. "Take a look at this," said
Bassett, peering over his glasses. His red nose looked like a small
plum. Slaight read the poop-sheet. It was a deposition, or sworn
statement, telexed from somewhere. All identifying marks had been taped
out with white tape before Xeroxing. Slaight skimmed the telex. His
eyes stopped skimming when he hit the part about the second-class
epaulet found at the scene of the crime. "A cow epaulet was found up
there at Popolopen, where Hand was floating?"

"Not where he was floating. Read on. It was found beneath his neatly
folded uniform. The young man was nude when fished out of the lake, if
you'll recall." Slaight kept reading, closer now. The telex was a copy
of a sworn statement taken from one of the military policemen who had
been on the scene the morning Hand's body was discovered. Other than
Hand's uniform--complete with personal effects, shoes and all-- the only
thing found on the scene was a cow epaulet, an epaulet belonging to one
of Slaight's classmates, for they had been cows back in May when Hand
drowned. The epaulet disappeared and was never seen again by the MP. Two
days later, he found himself on his way to Korea, where the sworn
statement had been taken. Slaight handed the poop-sheet back to Bassett
with a quizzical look on his face. "A Harvard Law classmate of mine, not
quite so fortunate as myself, is boring himself to death in Seoul these
days. I got on the army long-distance system one night, patched myself
through the main Pentagon switchboard, and tracked him down. He found
the MP and took the statement." Bassett knocked his pipe on the heel of
his shoe, pausing to reload and relight. "As you can see, this telex
appears to narrow our prospective suspects drastically--your classmates
who were scheduled to speak at Hand's high school along with the man
from '68."

"Jesus. That is a help."

"Not so fast, Slaight. Don't jump to conclusions. Creep up on them,
slowly, so they don't see you coming." Bassett grinned. His wide round
face was infectious, the delight he took, rooting around in the
academy's dirty laundry. "I stayed late at the office early this week
and made some calls to Mr. Hand's alma mater, his high school. The
guidance counselor who arranged the cadet recruiter lectures confirmed
who actually spoke that day. The same three who were scheduled to speak
by the academy. We should have known. Cadets are so marvelously
responsible  ...  predictable." "Yeah. Don't I know it," said Slaight.

"The same guidance counselor, who was quite eager to be of help
actually, provided me with three interesting bits of information.

Follow me closely: One of your classmates was from New Orleans and spent
all his free time at home. Your other classmate was from the same
company--they were roommates--and he stayed with the same family. Their
time in New Orleans is entirely accountable. The guidance counselor
reserved a room in one of the larger French Quarter hotels for the man
from the class of 1968. The same guidance counselor was David Hand's
guidance counselor and was instrumental in his decision on the Military
Academy. The same guidance counselor introduced Hand to the cadet from
the class of 1968. Later, she said. Hand had referred to the cadet when
discussing his decision to attend West Point. She was unbridled in her
opinion that our man from '68 had had what she called a 'quite profound
effect on David." Little did she know."

"She remember his name?"

"Of course. Her memory matches exactly the name we have from the
Registrar's Office. She even recalled that young David had written her
not long after entering West Point, complaining. She was careful to
point out almost all college freshmen complain. No college ever lives up
to its reputation, she said. Anyway, she said she received a letter from
young Hand while he was in Beast Barracks complaining that his squad
leader did not live up to the image he had of cadets from his
acquaintanceship with our man from '68." Bassett chuckled, pipe smoke
seeming to emerge from his ears, his shirt collar, everywhere at once.

"You were not exactly David Hand's catalogue cadet, Slaight. In other
words, he was telling his guidance counselor he wasn't getting what he'd
ordered through the mails. "Oldest story in the book," she said. Feisty
old babe." "Then it looks like we've got our man," said Slaight, his
voice having lost its edge of excitement. There was something of a
letdown when you sensed that things were coming to an end. "Not so fast,
young buck. This still leaves us the other three cadets in New Orleans
at the same time. Now I'll admit. According to your interview with the
Boy in Blue, the chances are strong, very strong that he's our man. If
you can get a positive physical identification from a photograph, I'd
say we're coming close to a case. Opportunity  ...  motive  ..."

"What about the cow epaulet?"

"Throwing the dogs off the scent. He probably thought there'd be a real
investigation. What better way to draw attention from himself than to
point all signs at your class, the year the murderer graduated and left
West Point for good. Classic ploy. I could cite criminal cases  ...  let
me see  ..."

"Come on, Clifford, enough with the cases. Try them out on your cow
students this year. Right now, I'm interested in this case, the David
Hand case, and how we can nail this SOB. I've got to go see Hedges
tomorrow at five-thirty again. No telling what's going to happen, his
honor charges failing and all. I need total legal advice. What strategy
do you suggest for Halloween, lawyer Bassett? Trick or treat?" They
laughed. Bassett called his secretary for coffee. "Two things," said
Bassett, puffing up a storm. He always puffed away and said two things
or three things when he was getting ready to unload what he called his
"heavy artillery."

"One: I have been told not to give legal advice to you, Ryan Parker
Slaight III, from this day forth."

"What the fuck?"

"The colonel called me in this morning--the department head, the tenured
professor of law--and he told me not to counsel you any more. He said if
you needed legal counsel, you'd be assigned counsel. I explained to him
that I was the counsel of your choice, and that army regulations
stipulate a soldier is entitled to counsel of choice unless the military
situation dictates that provision of such counsel is impossible or
impractical. Or too expensive. I've got plenty of time on my hands, and
most of these claims from all the summer moves have been filed and are
now out of my hands, believe it or not." Slaight looked at Bassett's
cluttered office. It was hard to believe.

"My teaching duties take up minimal time. I have only one or two other
cadet clients. I gave the colonel every reason in the book I should
remain your lawyer. Finally, he told me to do as I was told and to get
out. Before leaving, I asked him if he was giving me a direct verbal
order to that effect. His words were--I have them copied down here
somewhere--here:"Bassett, if you counsel that little prick Slaight on
this Hand business again, I'll personally see you get twelve months in
Vietnam to contemplate your actions." That was precisely what I had
waited for. I hurriedly copied down the colonel's words, in his
presence, dated the sheet of paper and signed it, ran out to his
secretary and had her notarize the signature, time and date. Then I
walked back into his office with my copy of his threat in hand, and I
told the colonel if he even picked up the phone to get me on orders for
Vietnam, I'd have a federal district court restraining order on his desk
before he could get the JAG branch in the Pentagon to call back. That
pissed him off, but he didn't say anything more about counseling you, so
I am operating on the assumption that our lawyer-client relationship is
intact."

"Jesus. They're really uncorking on you, too, huh?"

"Indeed.

But in so doing, they tipped their hand. I made no secret of the fact I
am in possession of this telex. They're willing to threaten me with
Vietnam to back me off. I have a theory, Slaight. You know me well
enough to know how I deplore theories and speculation. Well, this one is
just too obvious to pass up. I think they know who killed David Hand. I
think they know we're close to identifying the killer. They're willing
to try almost anything to stop us. This would explain the threat of
Vietnam duty by the colonel, the surveillance of your girl friend, the
illegal search of your files, the phony honor charges, and of course,
the Aptitude Board. Army officers are like surgeons, Slaight. They like
to cut. They like it. When they see something wrong, their first
instinct is, cut it off. Worry about the rest of the body later. There
has been enough cutting in this David Hand case that I've begun to
fathom its style. I believe the style is that of William Beatty, my
favorite character in our amateur soap opera. We know this much: He was,
shall we say, friendly with David Hand. According to what the sergeant
major told you, he was up to his neck in Pentagon machinations behind
the David Hand case. And Beatty fits this in another, more interesting
way."

"What's that?"

"He is a colleague of Colonel Addison Thompson," said Bassett gravely.

He stared at notes he had scribbled on a sheet of paper in front of him,
like he wished an answer would leap from the page and squirt him in the
eye. The name of the head of West Point's Department of Social Sciences
was never taken lightly. Now it was being linked, through Beatty, to
David Hand. "As you probably know. Colonel Thompson is about- the
closest thing we've got around here to an honest-togod academician. He
has his master's, his Ph.D., and honorary degrees from Lord only knows
how many distinguished colleges and universities, including most of the
Ivy League. He is the man credited with having 'liberalized' education
at West Point, pushing for more elective subjects, more concentration in
specific areas, if not actual majors, and less of the broadbrush-stroke
approach West Point has pursued for so long. For many people in this
country. Colonel Thompson is the modern Military Academy. He helped
establish the Air Force Academy. He spends fully a third of his year
down in the Pentagon, consulting on matters relating to national
security. He is the army's professor emeritus to the rest of the world,
and the rest of the world loves him."

"So?"

"So that's just the surface of Colonel Thompson. What is less known
publicly, but appreciated privately in government and big business, is
the rest of his career. During World War II, he was a key aide to
General George C. Marshall, the Army Chief of Staff. There are those
military historians--and they are not few in number--who credit Thompson
with authorship of the"Marshall Plan," the economic blueprint for
European recovery from the war. It is known, in certain circles, that
Colonel Thompson was one of the authors of the National Security Act of
1947, the law passed by the Congress establishing the CIA.

Thompson has served as an adviser to every director of Central
Intelligence since Dulles. He is tight with such public and
not-so-public power brokers as the Editorial Board of the Times, major
bankers and brokers on Wall Street, and most of the Council on Foreign
Relations. The truly astounding thing about a man like Thompson is that
he is able to continue his influence  ...  no. Let me correct that. He
is able to make his influence grow despite any political ties to either
party. Democrat or Republican. He is recognized by both sides as a
patriot, a statesman, a scholar, and a gentleman. That he is also an
army officer has hardly mattered. But by far the most frightening of the
five hats he wears--if we can call them that--is the hat patriot. There
is nothing more pernicious than a patriot without identifiable politics.

One has only to recall Hitler of the 1930s to reacquaint oneself with
that lesson of history."

"Jesus. So you're saying Colonel Thompson is a lot more than the head of
the Social Science Department."

"Yes. And a lot less. According to certain friends of mine at Harvard
with an interest in international relations, Thompson's politics haven't
changed much since the days of Joe McCarthy. His image as the Great
White Liberal of the Service Academies is a wonder of modern public
relations.

It's easy to be a liberal, Ry, when your liberalism is contained neatly
within this tight, beautiful ghetto called West Point. Outside the
academy, I am told, our Colonel Thompson is something less than liberal
in his views of domestic and international affairs."

"The war?"

"He has been known to advocate the bomb-them-backtothestone-age approach
to war in Southeast Asia."

"So William Beatty is a colleague of Colonel Thompson's, huh?"

"Well, both a colleague and a protege. You see, it was Thompson who put
him where he is in the Pentagon, so he owes his career to the man. But
Beatty's job is now of such a nature that they operate in the same
circles, see the same people, attend the same parties, socialize with
the same defense industrialists and bankers and Wall Streeters, so in a
sense they have become colleagues. But everyone knows where they stand
with Colonel Thompson. He probably has more debts outstanding in
Washington, D.C., than the President himself, because he's simply been
at it longer than the President. He has there at the beginning of
everything. Everyone owes him something. I know William Beatty does."

Bassett relit his pipe. "So. I think Beatty is some kind of key to this
thing, and I think the key leads directly through Thompson, but for the
life of me, I cannot figure out how. Much of this material on Thompson
is so old, it either doesn't hold water any more, or all the water has
evaporated. So there are one hell of a lot of dry wells surrounding the
man. But for.every dry well, let me assure you, he has sunk ten new
ones, and they produce."

"So how does David Hand fit in with William Beatty, and how do they fit
in with Colonel Addison Thompson?"

"If I could answer that question, Slaight, we could fold up shop."

"Yeah."

"So when you go in to see Hedges, if you get a chance--the barest
opening--probe him about Beatty a little. See what kind of reaction you
get. I've done some asking around. It seems our friend Hedges, as a
cadet, was one of Colonel Thompson's first 'boys," after he left
Washington and took his permanent professorship here at the academy.

Their relationship doubtlessly continued while Hedges was liaison in the
Secretary of Defense's office between the DIA and the CIA. Thompson has
cronies up to here"--Bassett slapped the bottom of his chin with the
back of his hand--"in both intelligence agencies. I think it's safe to
say Hedges and Thompson are not strangers to one another."

"Christ. This thing just gets deeper and deeper, doesn't it?"

"Yes, Ry, it does. If you'd applied yourself while studying law under
me, you would have noticed the same thing about the law. It just gets
deeper and deeper. You follow the cases further and further back,
looking and looking for that one decision that gives you an 'in," some
little kernel of information or legal interpretation which you can cull
out and apply to the present and attempt to affect the outcome of things
as they stand today. But you were  ...  ah  ...  one of my sterling 2.3
students, right, Slaight? Just high enough for long weekends, not high
enough to show you were really trying."

"Yeah. Nothing personal, but law wasn't exactly my favorite subject."

"What was your favorite, Ry? I'd really like to know."

"Mechanics, believe it or not. I carried about a 2.8 in both solids and
fluids."

"Mechanics?" Bassett removed his pipe and exhaled incredulously. "Yeah.

There was something so  ...  neat about mechanics. It all added up. They
called it 'resolution of forces." I always liked that phrase." "I do see
what you mean," said Bassett, leaning back, propping unshined shoes on
his paper-strewn desk.

"Captain? Thanks for standing up for me with the professor of law like
you did. With my 2.3 average under you, I know I don't deserve it." They
laughed. "Forget it, Slaight. If they ever do send me to Vietnam, I'll
end up in some air-conditioned trailer in a base camp, processing claims
just like I'm doing here. Boring myself to death. At least here at the
academy, things are happening. Listen. I want to see you tomorrow after
your confab with Hedges."

"Here? In your office?" Bassett puffed on his pipe for a moment, his
eyes glistening. "No," he said. "Come over to the Officers' Club and
meet me in the bar. Tomorrow night is"Happy Hour." There are always lots
of Tactical Department types present for duty at Happy Hour. Let's rub
it in their noses a little. Give them something to gossip about."

Bassett chuckled at the plan, his round face beaming, eyes darting
around, looking over the top of his glasses. "Happy Hour.

Jesus."

"Yes, Mr. Slaight. Happy Hour."

"See you then." Slaight was gone, on the run. He had work to do. Calls
to make. His meeting with Hedges was twenty-four hours away.

Friday, November 1, 1968, 1730 hours.

"Sir, Mr. Slaight reports to the commandant as ordered."

"Have a seat, mister." Slaight sat down. Things seemed different  ...
almost casual.

The commandant was seated behind his desk with his uniform jacket open,
his short collar unbuttoned, his tie askew. He busied himself finishing
some paperwork. Slaight waited. "I've called you in today, Mr. Slaight,
to let you know that this business with the plebe, David Hand, has been
resolved. You've got nothing to worry about now. You can go back down to
the barracks and enjoy your firstclass year. How should I put this? You
have  ...  ah  ... pointed out certain matters, and they have been
resolved. Any questions?" Hedges stared intently at Slaight's face.

"Resolved, sir? How do you mean, resolved?"

"The situation is over, Slaight. Finished. You are to stop your
meddling, get down to the barracks, and start acting like a cadet again,
instead of a cheap private eye."

"I still don't understand, sir. Hand was murdered. I want to know who
killed him and what's being done about it." "You are right, Slaight,"
said Hedges, chewing his words like tough steak. "The little fag was
killed. And the man who killed him  ...  he took the only honorable way
out. He volunteered for Vietnam. He's over there right now, a platoon
leader in the Big Red One. A combat leader."

"Honorable?

Honorable " Slaight's voice raised in involuntary octave. "General
Hedges, are you kidding me? You mean you know who killed Hand, and
you're saying Vietnam is his honorable way out?"

"That's right, son. The man's in Nam right now. This minute. Combat.

Volunteered for Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols, the Lurps. Honorable
duty. Necessary. Same thing." Slaight sat there in Hedges' office so
stunned he couldn't speak. Finally the words came. He would call Hedges
"General" from now on, a subtle gesture, but one to which a man like
Hedges would be attuned. It meant he'd never again hear the word "Sir"
from Slaight's lips. "General, can I ask the man's name, the man who
killed Hand?" Hedges stopped his poop-sheet shuffling and looked at
Slaight. "You already know, don't you, mister?"

"Yes, General, I do."

"Julian Vanriper, '68. Damn fine man when he was here. Doing a fine job
with the Big Red One Lurps, I'm told." Vanriper. He'd been C.O. of Beast
and then Fourth Regimental commander, a straight-laced SOB with a
reputation for writing up his own classmates, an almost unheard-of
practice in the co-operate-and-graduate atmosphere of the academy in the
1960s. No wonder he and Hand had a thing going! Neither one of them gave
one half a shit about anyone but himself. Theirs must have been a
shared, insular paranoia. In the end, what they had mistaken for emotion
had consumed one of them. Hand. At least the West Point
co-operate-and-graduate philosophy had that much figured out. To do
otherwise was to cannibalize your fellows, living off their energy,
their blood, their lust for The Life. At West Point, you either
joined-up or you died. Slaight wondered if the same thing held true for
other bureaucracies, other colleges, big civilian multinational
corporations. He wondered if the cannibalism represented by the
homosexual murder of David Hand was endemic to the military, to West
Point. He'd been at it for six months, and he still didn't know what in
hell was going on. He was beginning to conclude he'd never understand it
when Hedges interrupted. "There's no use in your going any further with
this thing, Slaight. As I said, everything has been taken care of. There
will be no charges preferred against Vanriper.

You may as well forget the provost marshal, Slaight. You have no
evidence. Only conjecture, son. And your kind of conjecture won't stand
up in a court-martial. All it will do is get you deeper in trouble. If
you know what's good for you, mister, you'll forget you ever heard of
David Hand. You'll forget the whole thing."

"If I knew what's good for me. General, I'd never be in here with you in
the first place."

"That's correct, mister. You wouldn't."

"So I guess I don't know what's good for me. General."

"No, Slaight, you don't. And that's been your whole problem, right from
the start. You'd better start learning the rules around here, mister,
and you'd better start playing by those rules. Or you're out. You hear
me?"

"General, I already know the rules. West Point's rules. The army's
rules. Your rules. All the rules. I guess I just haven't been playing
the game by those rules. General." Any of them."

"Mister, you think you know the way the game is played around here. I am
here to tell you that you do not. Am I understood?"

"Yes, General."

"Now. Let's come to an agreement here. Are you going to start playing by
the rules, Slaight?"

"General, if you mean by that, am I going to keep my mouth shut about
the David Hand case, the answer is no, General. No." Hedges' face turned
burgundy red, and his head seemed to sink into the lapels of his uniform
jacket. A transformation began to take place. Slowly, his gaze never
leaving the cadet sitting in front of him. Hedges buttoned his
ribbon-bedecked uniform jacket. He buttoned his shirt collar and
straightened his tie. Over and over again, he ran his left hand along
the bottom of his jacket, ensuring the left flap covered the right.

Standing up, he jerked his arms, exposing his cuffs. An informal,
friendly figure when Slaight first walked into his office, Hedges was
now standing erect, the very essence of military bearing. He walked
around the edge of his desk and stood a few feet away, rocking slowly
back and forth, heel-to-toe, heel-to-toe. His tongue ran from one cheek
to the other across his teeth. Slaight could see it. Hedges was
thinking. He was rehearsing his lines. "I am going to see you out of
here, Slaight. If it takes me my full tour of duty as commandant, I am
going to see you out of here, mister. I am going to stand at the main
gate next to the MP shack, and I am going to personally supervise your
departure. I am going to get you, mister. When I am through, you're
going to have no place left to hide. You will not know which way is up.

Lurp patrols in Nam are going to look like a good deal, compared to the
state you'll be in, Slaight. Just wait and see."

"If that's the way you want to play the game. General, then I guess
that's the way we'll play it." Silence. Hedges ground his teeth. Slaight
could see his jaws working. He walked forward and stood two feet from
the chair in which Slaight was still seated. Slaight took the signal,
and stood. "You'd better have your ducks lined up, mister. You'd better
know what you're doing if you decide to go up against Charles Sherrill
Hedges." Slaight stared at Hedges. He still refused to lock eyes. "Have
I made myself understood, mister?"

"Perfectly, General. Perfectly."

"Then you drive your goddamn communist ass out of my office, Slaight.

The next time I see you, Slaight, it's going to be from the rear, when
your ass is on its way out that gate." Slaight grabbed his hat and
saluted. "Good afternoon. General," he said. At the door, he glanced
over his shoulder.

Hedges had clenched his right fist and was shaking it in the air after
him. In the hall outside the commandant's office, Slaight passed the
cadet first captain, the brigade commander, the highest ranking cadet.

Pete Locke, from an army family. His father was retired and lived in
Arlington, Virginia. Slaight and Locke exchanged nods. They didn't know
each other. Locke was on his way in. Slaight presumed it was their daily
meeting, the com and the first captain, getting together for a few
minutes before supper to discuss tomorrow's business. He was looking
forward to meeting Captain Bassett at the O-Club bar. He presumed wrong.

"Have a seat, Locke," said Hedges, indicating the chair Slaight had just
vacated. "Pete, I want that kid out of here. I don't care what it takes,
I want him out." "I'm not sure I understand you, sir," said the first
captain. "I said I want Slaight out, goddammit! Do I have to spell the
word for you? That Aptitude Board we're running on him probably won't
work. He moved from the middle fifth of the class to the second fifth
because of the damned efficiency report his battalion C.O. filed on him
for AOT this summer.

But I want him out, Pete. Demerits, honor  ...  I don't give a damn what
it takes. I want him out, and I want him out by Christmas. Now get
cracking." First Captain Locke saluted and left. He had known the com
was out for Slaight's ass, but this. Never had an officer told him, in
so many words, to "get" another cadet on honor, which is exactly what
Hedges had just done. He paused in the com's outer office. He saw one of
the buttons light up on Hedges' secretary's phone  ... she had been
dismissed for the day, as had his aide. Behind the closed door to the
com's office, Locke heard Hedges dial the phone.

He counted the digits. It was a long-distance call. Then he heard
Hedges' muffled voice: "Bill Beatty, please. General Hedges calling."

So! He was calling that guy in the Pentagon again! Locke walked
downstairs, wondering what to do. The com had put him in a
difficult--no, an impossible--situation. If he tried to "get" Slaight on
an honor violation, that in itself could be interpreted as an honor
violation. On the other hand, if he didn't he would be disobeying an
order from the commandant. He decided he'd better pay a visit to this
guy Ry Slaight over in the Third Regiment and see what was up. Inside,
tie loosened and feet resting atop his desk. Hedges talked long-distance
to William Beatty in Washington. "Bill, everything is go. You can start
the ball rolling on Rylander next week. I've got Slaight scared stiff,
and if we don't get him with this Aptitude Board, we'll drive his ass
out of here some other way. Let me assure you. We'll have him in greens
with PFC stripes on his sleeves by the first of next year. Then he's in
your court. I'm sure you know what to do with him. A passing
acquaintanceship with our friend Charlie over in Southeast Asia probably
wouldn't hurt." Chuckling merriment danced across the long-distance
wires between West Point and the Pentagon. Matters were firmly in hand.

Soon, Hedges could take the steps necessary for his final move: across
the street, through the courtyard, and up the stairs and into the supe's
office. To stay. First Captain Peter Locke surprised Slaight when he
walked into Room 226, New South Barracks, just after supper. Lugar
looked up, and at the sight of the tall, good-looking six-striper,
almost snapped to attention. It took supreme concentration to treat a
guy like Lock as  ...  classmate, an equal. He had one of those young
Gregory Peck faces, the dark handsome good looks of a born general. It
had always seemed there was an unwritten requirement that first captains
and other highraking cadets be attractive ...  not just good-looking,
but ... idols. Statues to the American ideal of cadet. Pete Locke filled
the bill. At 6'1", 185 pounds, a letter man in soccer and lacrosse, he
was the ideal first captain. There was a certain
awkwardness--intimidation--in his presence. Slaight couldn't recall ever
having laid eyes on Peter Locke, except standing in formation way out in
front of the Corps of Cadets with his brigade staff  ...  and that
afternoon, on his way in to see the com. Locke walked in and introduced
himself. "Maybe we should go somewhere and talk," he began. "Forget it,
man," said Slaight. "Anything you've got to say to me, you can say to
him." He nodded his head at Lugar. Leroy Buck wandered in, wearing his
gray cadet bathrobe. "Him, too," said Slaight. "Well, I don't know what
kind of trouble you've got yourself in with the com, but today, it just
got too deep for me," said Locke. "How so?" asked Slaight. "The com told
me--I guess he ordered me--to 'get' you today. He said he wants you out
by Christmas. He told me he didn't care how I did it. He mentioned
demerits and  ..." Locke paused, gazing at the toes of his shoes,
gleaming black mirrors under the overhead lights. "And?"

"And he mentioned honor. That's what got me. He was telling me to get
you on an honor violation, and he didn't care how. I decided then and
there, I had to come over and tell you about it. Nobody  ...  nobody has
ever come to me and talked about 'getting' someone on honor. Least of
all, the com." "Jesus. Thanks, man," said Slaight. He offered Locke a
Coke from a garbage can full of ice glommed from the mess hall after
supper. Locke accepted and sat down. "Look, Slaight, I don't know what
you've done, but nothing in my experience warrants the kind of thing the
com was talking about today. I mean, I've seen him go to some lengths to
make examples of guys  ...  Charlie Napier is a good case. Six months
for shacking up. You wouldn't believe what I went through over that."
"I'd believe you," said Slaight, studying Locke's face. He was tired ...
all firsties looked permanently tired  ... but Locke's face showed a
deeper dimension of fatigue, lines, like a pair of firstie's winter
uniform gloves, ragged out, resewn, and ragged out again. "Anyway, you
sure manage to take up a lot of his time. I have to report to the com
twice a day, you know. Once before lunch, and once just before supper.

For the past couple of months, it seems like every time I report, he's
muttering something about you, or talking to some guy in the Pentagon on
the phone."

"What guy?" Slaight tried unsuccessfully to contain his eagerness. "He
was on the phone to him again today when I left. Somebody called William
Beatty. I've heard of him. I know we've got classmates who are friends
with this Beatty. But I have no idea why he's always talking to Beatty
on the phone about you." "What makes you think the subject is me?" asked
Slaight. "I've been in his office when he took calls from Beatty. Every
single time, they talked about you. It was all very circumspect,
naturally. I could never fathom the real nature of their conversations,
and to tell the truth, never really tried. Being first captain, you
learn one thing real quickly. Sometimes, the less you know, the better
off you are." "Know exactly what you mean," said Slaight. "Do you feel
like telling me what this is all about?" asked Locke. "This is one of
those areas with a big sign outside, and it says, 'you don't want to
know," " said Slaight.

"Can I ask you this? Does it involve honor?" "No way," said Slaight.
"You know Hedges charged me with a violation not long ago, don't you?"

"Yes. I saw the report of the subcommittee."

"He shot his wad with that one. What's going on between me and Hedges
now is personal. I guess that's the best way to describe it. Personal.

Pisses me off that he tried to drag you in on it."

"Well, all I can tell you is this. I've never seen anyone, last year or
this year, go up against Hedges and win." "That's okay," said Slaight.

"I'm not sure winning is the point any more."

"If it isn't winning, then what is the point? Why don't you just knuckle
under and get Hedges off your back?"

"I'm not sure what the point is. But I'm way past knuckling under,
straightening up, and flying right  ... all that shit." "I see," said
Locke. "Well, I'll tell you what. You'd better keep your nose clean.

He's going to have every tac in town watching every move you make. If
you sneeze at a parade, he might call it 'gross disrespect," and put you
on the area. Once he's got you walking the area, it's all over for you.

He'll get you on demerits, for sure."

"Thanks for the warning, man." Slaight stood up. Locke's brawny lacrosse
attack-man shoulders almost filled the door. "Hey," said Slaight.

"Anything I can do for you  ... ask." "Sure thing," said the first
captain, disappearing around the corner downstairs. Slaight grabbed one
of the phone booths and called the news to lawyer Bassett. "Take a
weekend leave and get yourself out of there for a while," said Bassett.

"Now? This weekend?

We've got stuff to do."

"You wanted total legal advice. I'm your lawyer.

There it is. Get out of here. See you Monday." Slaight spent the weekend
with Irit in New York. Saturday afternoon, they browsed the galleries
along Madison Avenue near her boutique and stopped off at Parke Bernet
to see some antique jewelry on display, due to be auctioned in a few
weeks. That night, she talked him into doing something she'd been
working on for weeks: She got Slaight to call his father. From Irit's
penthouse, Slaight told his father the whole story, from beginning to
end, right up to the visit from the first captain. His father asked a
few questions, but mostly he uh-huhed, uh-huhed, and grunted yeses and
noes as Slaight plowed the same old ground, the same recitation of
people, places, facts, the questions, the unresolved answers. When he
was finished, his father surprised him. "I find it all hard to believe,
son, but I believe you. And I'll stand behind you, all the way, whatever
you do. I'll do anything I can to help you." Slaight didn't know what to
say. It had been so long since he and his father had done more than
exchange good mornings over the breakfast table when he was home on
leave  ...  well, he just didn't know what to do. His father broke the
silence. "What are you going to do now, son?"

"I don't know. Dad. But I'll tell you one thing. Hedges isn't going to
run me out of here. I'll walk the area till my feet wear off, I'll drive
around to his office every day till I graduate, but he's not going to
get me."

"Do you have a plan, son?"

"Not really. But I'll follow the advice of my lawyer, Captain Bassett.

And I've got a few other sources to touch. We're not finished yet. If it
comes down to it, and I think it will when they convene that Aptitude
Board, I've got some dirt to throw at them they don't know about yet."

"Son?"

"Yeah, Dad."

"Don't go throwing dirt around like you're saying. Your grandpa always
used to say it ends up getting all over the guy doing the throwing, no
matter how smart he figures he is."

"I'll remember that. Hey, Dad, can I ask you one last question before we
hang up?"

"Sure, son. What is it?"

"All this time ... * I mean, I've been at West Point over three years
now, and I'm twenty-one years old  ... all this time, how come you never
told me about the war? How come?"

"I never figure you'd  ...  understand, son.

That's all. I didn't want you growing up with a bunch of romantic
notions about war, and I thought if I told you what I'd done, you'd want
to be like me, do the things I did, act the way I acted. No man in his
right mind is proud about going to war, son. You're sad. I didn't want
you to grow up, I guess. I didn't want you to end up sad. You understand
what I am saying to you?" Slaight could hear the plaintive tone in his
father's voice. "Yeah, Dad. I understand."

"I see you do, son. Talking to you tonight  ...  I can see that all I
did was make you more curious." His father paused, and Slaight could
hear him lighting a cigarette, the top of his Zippo lighter snapping
shut, an exhalation of breath. "Listening to what you had to say
tonight, son, I see that you know more about what men are capable of
doing to each other than I knew when I was twice your age. I knew about
war, I knew about killing with rifles and artillery and the rest of it.

But I didn't know this other stuff ..." His father coughed. "I didn't
know this other stuff. There are all kinds of war, son. All kinds of
violence, the little everyday wars people fight." In his mind's eye,
Slaight could see his father at home, sitting in the big overstuffed
chair near the fireplace. He was glad Irit talked him into calling his
dad. "What do you mean. Dad? What did Ma teach you?"

"Well, she let me know about those people from Kansas City who stabled
their horses with us. She finally made me understand what they really
stood for. All those years we stabled their horses and trained their
kids, and I organized their hunts and the jumping every spring  ...  and
I never knew. I was never really one of them, but because of riding and
our stables out at Wild Acres, they took me  ... us  ...  in. They made
me believe I was one of them. Finally your mother made me realize the
truth. We were just tolerated, was all. It's a quiet violence, that
social stuff. Son, I hope you're able to cope with what you learn about
those men up at West Point, because I'll tell you the truth. Wouldn't
have been for your mother, I never would have coped." His father paused
again, and Slaight waited. "No matter what happens, son, try to
understand those men and what they're doing to you. If you can do that,
you're halfway home. Whatever you do, try to keep in mind they're only
human. God made them. God made you. Don't let your hatred for them and
what they're doing consume you. Don't let them get to you, son, because
if they do, you'll end up like them. Please. For your old dad. Try not
to hate. Try your damnedest. Someday, you'll be thankful you didn't."
"Okay, Dad. I'll try." "Whelp." His father always said "whelp" instead
of "well."

"Whelp, better be going. You take care of yourself. And take care of
your girl friend. She seems like an awfully good woman." They said
goodbye.

Monday morning, Slaight found lawyer Bassett deep in the bowels
of Thayer Hall. He looked up from his desk, glasses falling to the tip
of his nose. "What are you here for? Wanna know about life insurance?

Great idea. Get some." They laughed. Old Bassett had a sense of humor
that cut through the bullshit at its thickest. "Any news?"

"Yeah. Your Aptitude Board is one week from today.

Got official notice this morning. Something's up, Slaight. Hedges is too
confident. He's been sitting on something for a long time. I can feel
it. You know that long, dead period between your meeting with him during
re-orgy week and your next meeting in late October? And now he's willing
to give you a full seven days' advance warning, seven days to line up
your ducks for the Aptitude Board. He's got something big going, Ry.

Something bigger than the Hand thing. I just feel it, that's all. When I
was working down on Wall Street, sometimes you could feel an opposing
attorney getting ready to make an unexpected move. They'd get  ... cocky
...  Hedges is cocky. They always make some little mistake that tips you
off. Well, I've been watching Hedges for quite a while now. This
seven-day warning is it. He's getting ready to move. Move fast. Move
heavy. I don't know, for sure, but I think he's got more going here than
the David Hand murder."

"So what do we do?"

"We don't do anything. You get on the phone to your friend the sergeant
major out in Santa Fe. Have him hit the NCO grapevine in the Pentagon.

See what's going on. Hedges has his hands tied up here. He's' committed
on your Aptitude Board, and he committed when he told the first captain
to get you on honor. But all his options are still open down in the
Pentagon. I can't be sure  ... but if he's moving, it's down there. Tell
the sergeant major to pull out all the stops. We need a handle on what's
going on at Department of the Army level. We need it by midweek. There's
more at stake here than the death of one cadet, Slaight, and we need to
know what it is."

Wednesday afternoon, November 6, 1968, at 3:20, the
message was waiting for Slaight, taped to his door by the CQ.

SLAIGHT--CALL SGT MAJ ELDRIDGE ASAP Slaight dropped a dime, dialed the
505 area code, and the local number for the sergeant major's house.

"Sarenmager, sir." It was the way sergeant majors always referred to
themselves and to each other--Sarenmager, a wedding of the two words.

"Sergeant Major, it's Ry Slaight. What have you got for me?"

"You on a clean phone?"

"I'm in another company area, in a phone booth. That heavy, huh?"

"You better believe it. Slaight. I had to put my soul in hock to the
supply sergeant for this poop." The sergeant major chuckled to himself
at his old army lingo. Slaight chuckled, too. It was impossible not to
love a good army sergeant major. H they had them in civilian life, John
Lugar once said, executives would have to hire consultants, who'd have
to go to linguistics experts to try to come up with something to call
them. The attempt would be an expensive failure, Lugar said, because
there just wasn't a civilian word to describe the function and worth of
a good sergeant major. "Shoot. I'm taking notes," said Slaight, leaning
against the wood side of the phone booth. "That guy Beatty--William
Beatty--he flew up to West Point this morning on a special Department of
the Army plane. I couldn't get a complete line on what he's up to, but
he was scheduled to meet with Hedges first thing this morning. And word
is, he'll be up there for a week, maybe a week and a half."

"So what do you figure is going on?"

"I can't tell you much, Slaight. My sources are not the best, and my
information is incomplete. But I know this. More than one of my buddies
down in the Pentagon told me our boy Beatty has been cranking up
something big for the past couple of weeks. Something so big, he
imported a special staff of typists and clerks to do his work for him.

Everybody was told they were free-lance office workers, like Kelly
Girls. But one guy looked into it, and the clerks and typists all came
from Associated Electronics, one of those new computer/weapons R & D
companies with their fingers in every defense pie but hairpie." Again
the chuckle. Slaight stifled a laugh. "Fast as they were there, they
were gone. The clerks and jerks from outside, I mean. Then Beatty
schedules this visit to West Point. Your man Bassett was right.

Something's going on. I got a line on the Pentagon switchboard. Him and
Hedges have been on the phone, five, maybe six times a day for the past
couple of weeks. And that guy Thompson, he's been talking to Beatty
every day, too. I don't know what's happening, Slaight, but you touched
a nerve with this thing. One of my guys down there says this is the
hottest he's ever seen it. Ever. He said not even the Tet Offensive
generated this much heat. I don't know how this kid David Hand plugs
into the action, but he does. One of my guys put an eyeball on some poop
in Beatty's outer office one day, and it was stuff on Hand. He couldn't
tell what it was, but he saw the name. You touched a fuckin' nerve,
Slaight."

"Jesus. Sounds like it."

"You want some advice from an old retired sergeant major?"

"That's why I'm talking to you. Sergeant Major.

You know that."

"It's time you had a one-on-one with this guy Beatty.

He's your man. If I was you, I'd get him alone. Bluff him. Sprinkle
David Hand*s name all over the damn place. Let him know that you're onto
his involvement in the David Hand thing. Watch him close. If he starts
to squirm, push him. Make him think you're right on the verge of doing
something really rash, like going to the papers. But don't be specific.

Just let him believe you're cracking, and you're making your move this
weekend. When you've got him really sweating, walk out without saying a
word, like you're heading off to do whatever it is he thinks you're
going to do. If I'm not wrong, this guy Beatty's the kind who believes
in ghosts. He's got to, sitting where he's sitting. Give that SOB
something to be afraid of, and he'll pull every string there is, he'll
do anything to protect his anonymity. He's a back-room fucker. He'll
want to stay that way. You get him to think you're gonna expose him, and
it'll be all over. That's the way I figure it, anyways."

"Thanks, Sergeant Major."

"Don't mention it. Hey. Ry. Lemme know how things go, huh?"

"Sure." Slaight hung up and dialed Bassett, relaying his notes from the
conversation with Sergeant Major Eldridge. "Do it," was all Bassett
said. "Do it." Slaight dropped another dime and called a cadet in the
First Regiment who he knew was close to Beatty. Unsuspecting, the cadet
told him Beatty was staying in the Eisenhower Suite of the Hotel Thayer
and would probably be there the rest of the afternoon. The cadet had
just talked to him. He was to "escort" Beatty to supper in the mess hall
that evening, at six. It was four o'clock. Slaight had two hours.

William Beatty was sitting behind a huge desk at the far end of the
Eisenhower Suite. Slaight recognized him from photos in Assembly
magazine, photos from awards ceremonies at the Pentagon, visits to
various army posts, speeches at Founders Day Dinners. "Can I help you,
young man?" he asked, smiling. He removed his glasses. Even from a
distance. Slaight could see his face was unlined, smooth, fleshy like a
baby's. An extra chin dangled beneath a dim, five o'clock shadow.

Slaight closed the door to the suite behind him. The room was a memorial
to things West Point. Everywhere were the colors, black-gray-gold, the
motto, "Duty, Honor, Country." Slaight didn't pause to examine the
plaques, mementos, flags, and photographs of famous occupants of the
suite. He walked straight for Beatty's desk. "My name is Ry Slaight," he
announced as he reached the middle of the room. "I know who you are,"
answered Beatty. "And I've come to talk about the murder of David Hand."

Slaight halted, hat gripped tightly in his left hand, the stiff collar
of his Dress Gray coat rubbing his chin. Beatty's smile dissolved into
terminal weariness, arid, so dry and scaly you knew even his sweat
glands were tired, tiny facial ducts and pores shriveled, empty,
finished. Beatty fumbled in his jacket pocket, withdrew a vial of pills,
and popped two in his mouth, swallowing. "I have this  ...  condition
..." he stuttered. "I don't care what condition you have, Mr. Beatty.

I'm here to talk about a young man, David Hand, who seems to have passed
away quietly, with no official fanfare, and very, very little sympathy.

And you two were such good friends." Slaight enunciated slowly, watching
Beatty. His face sagged, like a sponge, oozing up just a bit, then down,
reacting to forces unseen beneath the surface. "Sit down, Mr. Slaight,"
said Beatty weakly. Slaight remained standing. "I guess I've known this
day would come for a long time now," said Beatty, looking out the
window, past the barren leafless trees, at the Hudson. "What are you
going to say to me, Mr. Slaight? Go ahead. Say it." Slaight started
pacing, back and forth across the carpet in front of Beatty's desk.

"Look. This kid was murdered. I know it. The commandant, Hedges, he
knows it. You know it. And we all know who killed him, don't we, Mr.
Beatty? Don't we?" Beatty nodded, still staring out the window.

"Vanriper. He was one of your boys, wasn't he, Mr. Beatty? Wasn't he one
of the guys in your crowd last year, one of the guys you're always
taking down to the Pentagon and introducing around? Wasn't Vanriper one
of your sterling crew  ...  a general-in the-making? Wasn't he?" Beatty
nodded. "Well, goddammit, everybody knows he killed Hand, and nothing's
being done about it. Nothing. There has been no Article 32
investigation, no charges, no courtmartial, no nothing. The guy who
murdered Hand killed him in cold blood, grabbed the poor bastard and
held him underwater till he drowned  ...  he's free as a bird right now.

That wouldn't have anything to do with the fact he's a homosexual, would
it, Mr. Beatty?" Beatty turned and faced Slaight. "What about it, Mr.
Beatty? Hand was a fag. Vanriper was a fag. A murder was committed, and
nothing is happening. I want answers. I want to know why Vanriper is
over in Vietnam right now, bopping around, a free man."

"You're wrong there, Mr. Slaight. He was killed on patrol two days ago.

I received word of his death yesterday."

"So that's why you're up here at the academy! You know who killed Hand,
and now that he's dead, too, you've got nothing left to investigate and
all that's left is tying off a few loose ends. Well! I've got a file on
the David Hand murder that will choke the goddamn New York Times, as
well as any congressional committee looking to throw its weight around.

I'm one loose end you're not going to tie off, Mr. Beatty. You're in
this thing up to your neck ..." Beatty stood, and Slaight, startled,
stopped pacing and faced him. "And so are you, Mr. Slaight. And so are
you." Beatty leaned forward, his hands resting on the green desk blotter
before him. "We've got a file on you, too, Slaight. A nice fat file full
of details about you and your  ... shall we say  ...  relationship with
the late Mr. Hand. We know all about you and your supposed 'counseling'
sessions with Hand, those many hours he spent in your room, the two of
you alone, behind closed doors.

We know about the times you two were spotted together in the sinks, when
you held Hand downstairs for 'special inspection' just before taps.

Beast Barracks was, well, conducive to certain freedoms as well as
discipline, was it not, Mr. Slaight?" Beatty stared at Slaight through
squinty eyes. "You haven't got jack-shit on me, Mr. Beatty," said
Slaight, staring levelly across the desk. "And this bluff you're running
is losing air so quick, I can hear it hiss."

"Oh, Mr. Slaight! Such bluster!" Slaight stuttered in anger. "Page after
page, Mr. Slaight. An entire log, hour by hour, clocking the time you
spent alone with Hand.

Firsthand accounts. Affidavits from individuals in your squad, from your
fellow squad leaders, from upperclassmen. An impressive collection, Mr.
Slaight. Equal in every way to the circumstantial so-called evidence you
have, I'd bet."

"And what does it add up to, Mr. Beatty? Tell me. Where in your Beast
Barracks catalogue about Hand and me is the grenade you can pull the pin
on? What are you trying to say? Me and Hand got it on?

You got a tape of pillow-talk from sweet thing David, bragging that he
fucked his squad leader during Beast? Come on, Beatty. The shit's been
deep too goddamn long, and I'm getting tired of the stink. Put up or
shut up."

"We've got it, Mr. Slaight. Believe it." Slaight paused.

Beatty wasn't just bluffing. He probably had a stack of affidavits. He
might even have listened to Hand blowing smoke about Beast, making up a
bunch of shit to counter the crippling breakdown he suffered when
Slaight hit him with all that stuff about his sister. If Beatty was
bluffing, it was at least formidable. He had obviously planned for a
frontal assault by Slaight well in advance. Slaight considered his
position. It wasn't good. Beatty was calling him a fag, in effect; it
was more than a bluff, it was a dare. Slaight felt quickly for his
options and found only one: retaliate in force, but scout him, feel him
out first. "I'll believe it when I see it, Mr. Beatty. That's what I'm
here for. Haul out the shit and show it to me. So far, all I've seen is
talk. You want me off this Hand thing, you're going to have to scrape me
off with data. Now give." Beatty reached in the pocket of his suit
jacket for a pair of glasses, and opening his briefcase, withdrew a
thick manila envelope. He squeezed open a metal clasp and spilled its
contents onto the blotter. Slaight glanced at the tier of paper work. A
glance was enough. It had the aroma: official. "Let me see," said
Beatty, fitting his glasses over his slightly protruding ears. "There's
so much here ..." He continued to flip through the papers. "And it's all
so  ...  interesting." He enunciated the word with the precision of a
lawyer giving his final arguments to a friendly jury. Confidently. A
smile passed his lips as he withdrew a legal-length document, at least
twenty pages thick, holding it before him, Joe McCarthy-style, so
Slaight could see only the blank side of its last page. "Here we have
it, Mr. Slaight," said Beatty, his smile widening into a darting grin,
an odd rapid succession of twitches hovering somewhere this side of
euphoria. He flipped through the pages of the document, saying nothing.

After a moment reviewing its contents. Beatty closed the document,
gripping its sides tightly. Slaight stood there, studying the man. Then
he noticed. Beatty's hand had formed fists. With an abrupt slam, Beatty
brought the twenty-odd pages hard atop the desk, scattering the rest of
the paper work. He looked up at Slaight, removing his glasses with his
left hand. The smile was gone. "What we have here, my boy, is a simple
case of adolescent obsession. Understandable. Ordinary. Even admirable,
from at least one angle."

"And that angle, Mr. Beatty?" Slaight scouted.

"Your  ...  ah  ...  interest in the death of David Hand  ..." Again
Beatty spoke the word with spooky authority. "Your  ...  interest, as
you have made abundantly clear, has far exceeded normal bounds and
reflects nothing but jealousy on your part, Mr. Slaight. Raw jealousy."

"Jealousy? Of what?"

"You had your problems with his sister, Samantha-- David said she could
be quite the bitch--and you took out your hostility on David. And so,
Mr. Slaight, you found yourself  ...  your true self ...  but you lost
David. He was a pretty boy, and his loss must have been expensive. For
you." Beatty smiled evenly, his squinty eyes opening slightly to take in
Slaight's barest reaction. All the cards were out now. The bluffing was
over, and Beatty was calling. Slaight was just beginning to drift, that
same  ...  so this is the way it happens  ... drift, when the notion
seized him. Thank God for Military Art, he muttered inwardly. Scouts in.

Now. Retaliate. In force. No other choice.

The instinct came from deep inside him, down there for Lord only knows
how long  ...  the streets back home, the old man and his way with
horses, Ma, her poundcake wisdom uttered in her slow Kansas drawl after
supper as she washed and he dried  ...  retaliate. And Ma, she always
had the same parting words, no matter the problem, or its solution. Take
care, son. She was right, every time, Slaight recalled, his skidding
memory racing across his past and coming to a halt right here, now, at
West Point, Beatty standing in front of him waiting to see if he'd fold
or move. Slaight smiled to himself. They even taught it in Tactics at
West Point. The word was discretion, only he'd always like Ma's better:

take care. Nodding his head slowly up and down, as if to signal yes,
Slaight slumped into an overstuffed chair at the side of the desk in
mock resignation. He sighed ; audibly, folding his hands in his lap
across the zipper of his Dress Gray jacket. "Christ, Mr. Beatty, this is
really something," said Slaight, staring at the spit-shined toes of his
shoes. Belt,  shoulders sagged, relaxing, and a smiled crossed his face.
Slaight crossed his legs and tapped the toe of his right foot in the air
soundlessly. "I mean, you've got this file, you've got this mystery
document I still haven't seen, I mean, all I'm hearing is , words, and
still  ..." Slaight lingered, as though he was uncertain as to what he
should say next. Beatty eased himself onto his chair. Now they two faced
each other across the pile of scattered documents, paper work, the
connective tissue of organizations large and small, the blood of
bureaucracy. Poop-sheets. They made Slaight feel comfortable. Words on
paper. And he hadn't been shown a single one. "What I'm trying to say,
Mr. Beatty, is  ...  it's all so fuckin' ordinary." He let the word
hang. Beatty didn't react, waiting. Slaight looked up from the toe of
his shoe and fixed Beatty with a stare. "So fuckin' ordinary, man.

Everything I've heard about you, I expected you'd come loaded to do some
real business, and here you sit behind this pile of crap, and all you're
doing is saying, Slaight, you're either a closet queen or a faggot, you
fell for Hand like the rest of us, and that's what drove you to crank
this thing until you're sitting in a room with a deputy Secretary of
Defense. Jealousy. For crying out loud, Beatty. Is that all you can come
up with? Jealousy is the cheapest, two-bit human twist, man. The kind of
jealousy you're pushin' could be satisfied with the back of my hand or a
tonguelashing over two martinis. Christ, man, your act is so full of
shit I can hear your asshole puckering." Slaight glared at Beatty,
drilling him, not at all sure his ploy would work. Beatty stared back
silently. Smart. The level was verbal, spoken words, and so long as it
remained that way, Slaight figured Beatty had the upper hand. It
frightened him, scared the shit out of him, but he knew he'd have to
act, move, if he was going to nail Beatty. "What's the matter with these
poop-sheets? How come you haven't handed me the piece that's going to
sen me back to the barracks with my thumb in my ear, looking for a place
to hide?" "Unnecessary," said Beatty. "You know the facts at least as
well as I."

"THE FUCK I DO," yelled Slaight, swinging his right foot across the top
of the desk, scattering papers into Beaty's lap, against the wall,
carrying academy knickknacks like army mules and replicas of Civil War
cannons with them. Beatty leapt to his feet, his face crimson.

"I'll see you in Leavenworth for that, mister!" he screamed in a
high-pitched whine. "That's assault! I'll have you court-martialed, you
insubordinate little  ..." His voice sputtered off into a series of
wheezes and gasps for air. Slaight remained sitting, recrossing his
legs. "You haven't got diddlyshit in that pile, Beatty. If you did, you
would have tacked me one tack at a time to the top of this desk,
poop-sheet by poop-sheet. You're smart, Mr. Beatty. But you forgot
something. If you're gonna bring guns, you'd better be ready to use
them. You didn't. Elemental tactical error. They teach it plebe year.

Feints don't work when you got nothing to back them up with. Your shit
is in the wind, Beatty. Sit down." Beatty reached for the phone,
dialing, still sputtering. Before he hit the third digit, Slaight
reached across the desk and hit the cradle buttons, and the line went
dead. He leaned closer to Beatty. "This is how it shakes down. You're
calling me a faggot. You wanna call names?" Slaight stood up, reaching
for his cap. "Let's go. Right now. Out that door. Let's go public, Mr.
Beatty. No sense name-calling behind closed doors. Let's go public. You
lay out your garbage, and I'll lay out mine. The networks and the papers
will be up here in battalion force, and we'll see who comes out on top.

You wanna call me a faggot? Okay by me. But you do it out there where
people can hear you, because in here, it don't fuckin' count." Slaight
was standing by the door, hat in left hand, beckoning with his right. It
was a gamble, a dangerous gamble, and a shitstorm waited outside if
Beatty moved. But it was all Slaight had. He waited. Beatty didn't move.

He sat down, staring at the cluttered desk, picking a cuticle on his
left hand with his right forefinger. "It's all over, Mr. Beatty. You
know why? I've got enough bad shit in my files on the David Hand murder
to crack the granite this place sits on. You'll feel the tremors from
West Point all the way down in your office in the Pentagon, Mr. Beatty.

You'll feel the tremors right there in the office of the Secretary of
Defense. And if my information is correct, a lot of other big dudes down
there will feel the same tremors when the David Hand murder case breaks
open. You know the old term 'kneelevel wind," _.lr. Beatty?" Beatty
shook his head no. "That's what happens when knees start shaking.

Kneelevel wind. You better get used to it, Mr. Beatty. You better invest
in some paperweights for your desk, because there's gonna be a goddamn
hurricane of kneelevel wind waen I'm finished, Mr. Beatty. When I unlock
that file of mine showing the butt-fucking and cocksucking that went on,
when I'm finished showing how Hand was killed, and why  ...  Well. I
leave it to your imagination. Adhere do you think the chopping will
start? With you? Somebody else? One of the generals you wrote letters to
concerning Hand? Hedges? Thompson? Where will the ax fall first, Mr.
Beatty? You'd better start figuring." Slaight paused, stopped pacing,
and glared at William Beatty. He would get no answer. He didn't need
one. The answer to his question was all over Beatty's face, a soft,
doughy confection of every deal he'd ever made, every string he'd ever
pulled, every connection he'd ever touched, every bureaucratic ploy he'd
ever executed, every career he'd either helped or destroyed. Slaight
stared at the man before him. "I'll be going now, Mr. Beatty. I see
we've got nothing to say to each other at this point. Maybe next week,
when the fur begins to fly. Just remember this, Mr. Beatty. Your good
friend David Hand  ...  his death came cheap. Just like every other poor
SOB who gets fucked in the ass, one way or another, up here at West
Point every day. But from this moment on, Mr. Beatty, it's going to cost
you. Hand was a bright, charming, pretty boy, like you said. The way you
two got along  ... he deserves better, don't you think?" Slaight walked
out of the Eisenhower Suite, out of the hotel, headed north, toward the
barracks. William Beatty picked up the telephone and made several
telephone calls, three to the Pentagon, and two local: Hedges and
Thompson. His conversations were brief. There was no time for
elaboration. It was over. The deputy Secretary of Defense started
packing his bags. He would fly back to Washington that night. The next
few days were going to be rough. There were so many pieces to be picked
up, so many moves to be made, so many debts to be called in. And now
they were maneuvering defensively. They had to move fast. Somehow,
Hedges had miscalculated. Slaight knew. Beatty didn't know how, and at
this point, it didn't really matter. Slaight knew. Slaight talked to
lawyer Bassett, the sergeant major. Dr. Consor, his rather. Over the
weekend, he talked to Irit, and he made up his mind. Sunday night,
Bassett outlined a plan. The next morning, Slaight would make his move.

On November 11, 1968, at 9:15 a.m., Cadet Slaight reported to the
superintendent of the United States Military Academy. He carried a brown
metal Sears and Roebuck file box. The supe was "extremely busy,"
according to his aide. But when he was informed of the nature of
Slaight's visit, entry was easily gained. The superintendent had been
stunned earlier to learn that over the weekend, his commandant. General
Hedges, and the head of his Social Science Department, Colonel Thompson,
had departed West Point on special orders. Thompson had taken a
high-level position on the National Security Council, and Hedges was
scheduled to work for something called the Office of Emergency
Preparedness. No explanations were given for their sudden reassignments
to powerful posts in the federal government. But a much greater shock
awaited the superintendent in a pile of paper work that had appeared
mysteriously on his desk sometime over the weekend, when his office was
closed. The death of a cadet sometime last May  ... he barely remembered
the name  ...  an accidental drowning as he recalled  ...  but the paper
work. Xeroxed and organize: into neat categories, alleged that the cadet
had been murdered, and that he, the superintendent, had covered up his
murder. It was all done in a very gentlemanly fashion. No formal
charges. No allegation of criminal acts. Just a request from the
Department of the Army for his resignation, undated. Rylander was
dumbstruck. When Slafght unlocked his metal box and began laying out his
files, recounting the events of the past six months with calm, almost
icy precision, the superintendent just sat there and listened. It all
made sense now--the whole story. That SOB Hedges had been gunning for
him all this time, and he'd been too slow, too old, to have seen what
was going on behind his back. The story of the cadet's murder was
complex and ugly. The superintendent listened with grim fascination. It
was the way things were these days, the general concluded. You falsified
your body counts, and you awarded yourself medals for imaginary valor in
an imaginary war. If you could do that, you could do anything. And this
was it. This was the war in Vietnam brought home on the shoulders of the
men who fought it. This was Hedges' personal little war. The
superintendent had simply fallen behind, caught in the dust of men like
Hdeges, who would weld together from the junk pile of their careers the
army of the future. For the sake of the country, the superintendent
hoped it would run. When Slaight had finished the story of the murder of
David Hand and the elaborate cover-up which followed, Rylander stood,
motioning for Slaight to follow. They walked through the outer office,
into the hall, and climbed a set of stairs growing more and more narrow
the higher they climbed. The superintendent pushed open a door, and they
were outside, atop a small parapet, the roof of a tower dominating the
Academic Building Headquarters. "This is where I come to do my
thinking," said the supe. "Like it?" Slaight looked around. You could
see everything from up there  ...  all the way down the Hudson to the
Bear Mountain Bridge, upriver to Cold Spring, the cadet barracks, the
Chapel, the Plain--everything. "You did the right thing, Slaight," the
superintendent said. "Don't worry about an Aptitude Board or anything
else. I'll take care of everything before I go."

"Before you go, sir?

You're not going to take the fall for Hedges! Not after what I've told
you!"

"No. I'm not caving in on this Hedges business. They already have some
young buck picked to replace me next month. I've known about it for some
time. He's a big Vietnam hero, biggest hero they've got right now.

Commands something called the American Division. Racked up the biggest
body count in the war. They're bringing him here, so you cadets can see
what a real Vietnam hero looks like up close. He'll be cracked up to
look like Christ in a green beret when he arrives for the
change-of-command."

"I didn't know anything about that, sir."

"Neither did Hedges, apparently, or he wouldn't have bothered with this
damn-fool scheme to pin the coverup of that murder on me. Hedges. He's
one to watch. He's going places."

"You're not going to nail him, sir? For what he did? He committed at
least three felony violations of military law that I know of."

"Nail Hedges? With him down there on the staff of the OEP? If I tried
that, the White House would get involved, and the whole business would
come out. We can't allow that to happen. Not to the academy." Slaight
stood atop the parapet watching the Hudson go by. The supe wouldn't go
down in flames, but he'd go quietly, just so the academy wouldn't get
hurt, so the good name of the academy wouldn't be dragged through the
mud. The academy. Jesus. "What are you going to do now, son?" The supe
looked at him. The cold November wind ruffled the lapel of his uniform
jacket. "This army needs men like you, Slaight.

What you did here--it took guts. We need your kind."

"What I did had nothing to do with guts, sir." The superintendent looked
at the cadet, studied his face. The boy's eyes were empty pools of
hatred and fear.

He'd gone too far, too fast. He'd paid for it. He'd seen the look
before. "What am I going to do, sir? I want out. I've had enough. The
academy will never be the same for me, sir. Not after this. You can do
what you want to protect the good name of West Point, sir, but I'm not
so damn sure there's anything left worth protecting any more." The
superintendent stared across the Hudson, his back to the cadet. "You're
not going to  ...  go public  ...  with all the information you've got?

If you give it to the newspapers, they'll use it against us. They'll
smear us. The army's got enough trouble with the demonstrators and the
war and everybody against us. Don't give them this." Slaight thought
fast. He'd learned his lesson. He'd paid his dues. The time had come for
him to be the one making the deal. He held all the cards. "I won't go
public with this stuff on Hedges and Beatty and Thompson and David Hand
if you get me out of here free and clear, sir. I want to be discharged
from the service. I don't want to graduate from West Point. I don't want
to be an army officer. And I don't want to go the resignation route. I'd
have to serve four years as an enlisted man that way, sir, and they'd
get me. You know they would. The superintendent studied the cadet. He
was right. Even if Slaight graduated and was commissioned a second
lieutenant, Hedges and his crew would figure a way to get him. Hell.

When you set out to get the superintendent of the United States Military
Academy, the life of a second lieutenant is small potatoes indeed. "All
right. I'll take care of it. But give me a few days. It's going to take
me awhile to get the paper work through without tipping off Beatty or
Hedges, any of their allies."

"In the meantime, sir, I want to go on leave. I'm finished with West
Point. Finished."

"Done. I'll sign the leave papers myself. Now. About your files  ..."

"You can take my file box, sir. It's yours. But I must tell you I'm
keeping copies of everything for my own protection. You'll have to take
my word that I won't give them to the newspapers."

"I'll accept that." The superintendent and the cadet walked down the
stairs from the tower.

Slaight picked up his short overcoat and hat, heading back to the
barracks. It was almost 10:30. The guys in the company would be back
from class. They were waiting in his room when he got there, Lugar and
Buck and Towne and even Bloomingburg. AH the guys who knew what was
happening. Kip, the company honor representative, walked in. They had
their class shirts off. Somebody put a Buck Owens record on. Out in the
hallway, plebes could be heard delivering the mail, collecting the
laundry. Somebody called one of them a dullard, and there was a
resounding crack as the plebe snapped his heels together and hit the
wall. Another plebe spouted the menu for lunch: meat loaf, lima beans,
mashed potatoes, sir. Things were returning to normal. The guys said it
was all over the Corps that morning about Hedges and Thompson leaving on
special orders. Even Grimshaw and Regimental Commander King were gone,
back to the Big Red One in Nam. Their departures were greeted with
typical cadet enthusiasm. Having Grimshaw and King out of the way was a
"good deal." Slaight told the guys in his room about meeting with the
superintendent. He told him how Hedges had tried to pin the cover-up on
the supe, how the supe figured Hedges had been out for his job. He told
them everything. Then he said he was leaving. No one spoke. Leroy Buck
picked up the Times, turning to the financial pages. Lugar pulled his
Brown Boy around his shoulders. It was like they expected Slaight to
announce he was resigning, and if they waited long enough, the notion
would pass--he'd forget it, pick up a book, and they'd all settle back
into being firsties again. The whole room looked up in unison when First
Captain Pete Locke walked in and broke the silence. "The supe tells me
you're resigning, Slaight. I've just come from his office. He told me
everything. Listen, man. You can't do that. You can't resign now. Not
after everything that's happened. We need you, Slaight. You're like a
symbol that the  ...  ah  ...  system works. You know?" "Yeah," said
Slaight. "I know what you mean."

"I've got real problems with our classmates over in the Fourth Regiment.

I've been told you know about them."

"Yeah."

"Well? You gonna stay? Those guys over there look up to you, Slaight.

Guys you don't even know. They've been watching you--watching to see
what happened to you. And these guys, the guys in your company. Your
friends. This thing is bigger than you, especially now."

"Yeah." It was John Lugar. He was standing, facing Slaight. "If you
leave now, it's like  ...  it's like saying they beat you, Slaight.

Ifs like giving up. You won, man. Don't you see that? You've got to
stay. What good is everything that happened to you, that happened to us,
man, if you take a walk?" Slaight was sitting behind his desk, toying
with a row of pencils, moving one over the other in hopscotch fashion,
avoiding the eyes around him. Leroy Buck put aside the Times, flipping a
lock of blond hair out of his eyes. The motion of his head caught
Slaight's attention. "Slaight, you fuckstick. Look around this here
room." Buck's southern accent warmed the air. He pointed soundlessly to
the file cabinets and stacks of poop-sheets and magazines and
newspapers. The room was truly a headquarters, Slaight its natural
commander. The presence of the first captain, Pete Locke, was testimony
to that. "You just gonna up and leave this shit, Slaight? You lazy,
no-good-for-nothin' dimbo. Dontcha see there's still shit to do? C'mon,
man. You leave now, and ole Hedges won. He said he'd see your ass out of
here, and leavin' like this  ...  goddamn-goddamn  ...  you're lettin'
him win, Slaight. You can't do that." Slaight looked around the room.

They were all watching him, and they were right. He was copping out. He
was a leader, a natural-born leader. The day he decided to get to the
bottom of the David Hand case, he had created an issue. It was like he'd
held aloft a guidon, and they had followed him. Now that he'd gotten to
the bottom of it, he was telling them something else, a secret he'd kept
from them and from himself the whole time. Without saying it aloud, he
was hinting at his ambivalence about his ability to lead. He was afraid
of it at the same time it turned him on. The death of David Hand had
caused him to catch a glimpse of his strength, his inbred ability to
wield power. For a long time, he had derived an enormous satisfaction
from his ability to influence others. He thought he knew most of its
components, all of its dimensions. He'd tested himself. But now he knew
something about his abilities he hadn't known before, and he knew he had
to tell his friends about it. He didn't know what to say, where to
begin. "The thing was never winning or losing, Buck. Not really. The
thing was  ...  Jesus  ...  to test the system. Did the fuckin' system
work? It was part of playing the game, Leroy. Thing was, we decided to
play the game right to the hilt. We took the system at its word. We
played by their rules. Hell, you play by their rules the day you walk in
here and drop your fuckin' bags when the man tells you to drop 'em."

"What the fuck does dropping your goddamn bags have to do with the price
of eggs?" asked Buck angrily. "Gimmie a break, man. What I'm sayin' is,
we accepted the terms. So you've got to measure the results in their
terms. Did the system work? Yeah. Hedges is gone. Thompson is gone.

Grimshaw is gone. They're all fuckin' gone. They never got me, man. I'm
leaving, but I'm leaving on my terms. I made the deal. You understand
that? I'm keeping my mouth shut, and the supe is fixing it so I'm
discharged from the army. It's my decision, and my deal. Nobody is
forcing me."

"So what?" Lugar was on his feet. "You wouldn't make a deal with Hedges,
but now you're making a deal with the supe. What's the fuckin'
difference, Slaight? Ends up the same, no matter who makes the deal. The
whole thing is hushed up. Nobody'll ever know what happened.

You're full of shit, Slaight. You just saw a good deal, and you took
it." Lugar was mad as hell, and his face blazed more red than his hair.

"Hey, fuck you, Lugar. You wanna blow the whistle on Hedges and the rest
of them? Go ahead. You guys know everything I know, including you,
Locke. You guys could call the New York Times. Any one of you. You don't
need me to put Hedges up against the wall. You got your own minds to
make up about that. I'm not going to help you." No one spoke. Slaight
was challenging them, and his voice had a tired, angry edge on it.

"Okay, Ry. You made your point." It was Kip, the honor rep. "But what
about the point Lugar raised? To me, it makes a difference, who makes
the deal, and what the deal is." Kip's calm voice eased the tension in
the room. "Okay. Lugar's right. You wanna accuse me of taking the better
of two deals, getting out when the getting is good? You've got me. I've
got no excuse. I'm doing it. But we all know how much the old West Point
"No excuse, sir' line is worth. It's supposed to work for plebes, but
hell, it didn't even work back then." Leroy Buck chuckled, then everyone
laughed, recalling some private plebe experience, when 'no excuse' had
proved itself inadequate as an excuse. A plebe materialized at the door
with a dozen Cokes. Somebody gave him a couple dollars, and he left.

Guys slurped thirstily from paper cups. "You guys have got to understand
that it wasn't easy for me to decide to leave West Point." The room fell
silent. Straws stood at attention in half-empty cups.

"Breaking that commitment, the commitment you make the first day of
Beast  ...  it was tough. But when you come right down to it, the issue
was never who was gonna win, who was gonna lose. The issue wasn't even
David Hand. The issue was West Point. I had to make up my mind about
West Point, and I did. I don't belong here. I guess I never did belong
here. But it took all this shit comin' down for me to figure it out. I
owe West Point one hell of a big debt. This place taught me I wasn't cut
out to be an army officer. Know what I mean?" Slaight glanced around the
room. There was no reaction, only the same stunned silence. Then Leroy
Buck spoke. "But you're a fuckin' leader, Slaight. That's what it's all
supposed to be about, being' a leader. You always had it knocked. Fuck,
I remember back when we was plebes  ..." Slaight interrupted him. "Look.

The system says, way down deep, either you join up or you die. That's
the nut of truth inside the fuckin' combat example they're always
talking about. Well, the way I figure it. Hand never joined up, and he
died. The thing I learned these past few months is that I never really
joined up, either. And I don't want to die. What I'm saying is this: The
system works. West Point is right." John Lugar walked across the room
and stood in front of Slaight. His powerfully built boxer's body bulged
beneath his laundry-wracked tattered T-shirt. "What are you saying,
Slaight? You're saying Hedges and the rest of them were right. You're
too fuckin' smart to try and pass that gas. And you're no chickenshit.

Every guy in this room knows that. So what do you mean, the system
works? You're not making any sense, at least not to me." Heads around
the room nodded assent. Slaight had known it was going to be difficult
to make his friends understand what was inside him, that it might be
impossible. He stopped fiddling with the row of pencils and stood up.

Walking around John Lugar, he began pacing the length of the room. Sweat
poured from his armpits, and his head ached. "The thing was always West
Point, guys. You're asking me what I mean, the system works. Okay. West
Point will survive. That's what I mean. The institution will survive,
that's what I mean when I say it works. It's the nature, the fuckin'
job, of places like West Point to survive, to go forward. We use the
word 'system' too loosely. You've got to stop thinking of West Point as
a machine, and start thinking of it as a living thing, alive. Living
things, reproduce themselves. That's the way they survive. Fuckin'
amoebae reproduce themselves. If they didn't, they'd be extinct. There'd
be no fuckin' amoebae. Same with West Point. This place survives the
same way amoebae do. The system works because we're the system, man. We
used to be kids, civilians. Now we're cadets, In June, we'll be officers
...  I mean, you'll be officers. Grads. West Pointers. In July, it'll
start all over again. Another bunch of beans, another Beast Barracks,
another year, another class of grads. It works. It's alive."

Bloomingburg, who Slaight noticed was for once without his Bible, spoke:

"I understand what you mean, Ry." His voice crept just above a whisper,
but everyone heard him. "I figured you. would. Jay."

"Me, too." It was Leroy Buck, standing at the stereo, turning the record
over. "So West Point will survive, and maybe it's right that West Point
should survive this shit. I mean, look at the fuckers who were involved.

Hedges. A goddamn psychopath. Grimshaw. A paranoid. Thompson. A secret
Nazi.

Beatty. A mystery man with connections in the highest levels of the
military and civilian establishments of this country. West Point was
right, the system worked, because Hedges and his crew didn't count on
guys like us, guys like Captain Bassett, Sergeant Major Eldridge, guys
who were willing to pay the price. You wanna believe in something, man,
you don't just sit back and watch, waitin' to see if it works. You jump
in there and make it work. Hedges wasn't willing to pay that price, man,
and he isn't com any more. Same with the rest of them. They took it all
for granted. They had power, and they'd had it so long they forgot power
is earned. You work for it. Those fuckers  ...  they made the fatal
mistake. It's a mistake that was just sitting there waiting for them,
like a pothole in a road. One of the oldest in the book. They forgot
power is a privilege, bestowed upon those who earn it, and began
thinking of power as a right."

"What about David Hand?" It was Pete Locke, first captain, standing over
near the door, arms folded across the breast of his Dress Gray jacket.

"How does he fit in? And how about Vanriper? Hell, he was a regimental
commander. He was going to be a general. Everybody talked about him that
way."

"Vanriper believed in ghosts. He thought Hand was going to blackmail
him, come back and haunt him some day. I know enough about Hand now to
know Vanriper was wrong.

Hand wouldn't have done it. Hand was too  ...  vulnerable to have
attempted blackmail. So the ghosts weren't real. They were in Vanriper's
head. But he imagined them, believed the ghosts to be real enough that
he killed Hand to erase them from his mind. He murdered. It was the West
Point way. Hand, the enemy. Trouble was, Vanriper was a fag, too. He was
killing the part of himself he hated, the faggot in him. West Point does
not allow for the possibility that the enemy is you." The record changer
clicked, and a Marty Robbins album plonked onto the turntable. Nashville
crooning eased gently from the speakers in the corners, taking the edge
from Slaight's tirade. He stopped pacing the room, realizing that he had
begun talking to his classmates and had ended up lecturing them. He felt
foolish. He was omitting what he'd really wanted to tell them, the part
that hurt, the part about himself. "How 'bout Hand, Slaight?" Leroy Buck
asked. "You still ain't said nothing 'bout Hand."

"Yeah, I know. Hand is ...  well, he's more complicated, and I'm not
sure I understand David Hand, even after all the shit that's gone down.

One thing I'm pretty sure about: West Point was right when it came to
David Hand. The system said: Check your bullshit adolescent arrogance at
the door, and watch your step, mister. David Hand ignored those rules,
and now he's dead.

I'm not sure his death is evidence that he couldn't have gotten away
with ignoring the rules, if Vanriper hadn't killed him. Guys get away
with breaking and ignoring rules every day around here. Some of them
make a career out of the practice." Lugar and a few others chuckled.

Pete Locke smiled. "In Hand, though, the drive ran deeper. Hand was such
a good cadet  ...  you know, he just had it down  ...  he got bored with
the challenge of becoming a cadet, the challenge of plebe year, and he
began testing the system. I have an idea Hand was such a good plebe
because"--Slaight stared out the window--"because he was a fag. He was
already a plebe, before he got here, if you get what I mean. That's why
he had it knocked."

"Are you saying fags make better plebes, Slaight? Or that being a plebe
is faggy?" John Lugar asked the question. He was genuinely curious. The
rest of the guys appeared to be studying the bottoms of their empty Coke
cups with unusual interest. "All I'm saying is, Hand understood
something about what goes on here at West Point that we didn't
understand. At least, I certainly didn't understand it when I was his
squad leader in Beast, and I'm not so goddamn sure I understand it now,
either. One thing about him, however, is clear. Hand bucked the system,
and he enjoyed it. He thrived on it. He loved it." Leroy Buck looked up.

"Yeah," he drawled. "You could fuckin'-A say that again." The room fell
silent. Marty Robbins was singing about trains and love gone wrong, an
embrace of musical subject matter only country and western singers had
the balls, or bad taste, to assault. Slaight had no idea why, but it
worked. "Well, I did, too, goddammit," said Slaight. Every head in the
room turned to face him. He was standing by the window, leaning against
a file cabinet. "I've bucked the system one way or another for three and
a half years, but it wasn't until this Hand thing that I discovered how
much I liked it. I fuckin' loved it, just like Hand. Me and him were the
same that way. I knew it back in Beast last year, but I'd never admit it
to myself. But I fuckin' know it now." Leroy Buck put a Tammy Wynette
record on the stereo, "Stand By Your Man." He sat down on the bed and
whistled that soft whistle of his, through his teeth. "The thing that
got to me  ...  Christ, this is tough to explain. It bothered me when I
knew, down deep, how much Hand and I were alike. But the thing that
really got me was the more I fought the system--Hedges and the rest of
them--the more I became like them. The process was absorptive. You
couldn't get away from it, because after a while, it surrounded you, and
you were inside it. You become the thing you're struggling against. I
saw it first in Hand, when I began to find out more and more about him.

At first, I thought he didn't fit in. Then I realized he did. I mean,
look where he fit! Beatty  ...  Thompson, they were thick with Hand.

When he got killed, paper work flew like you wouldn't believe, Hedges
and upward. Lord only knows how high. But it was invisible. Let me ask
you something. You think if Hand wasn't a fag things would have been
handled differently? You damn straight they would have! Christ, the
flood of poop-sheets and snoops and MPS and investigators that hit this
place would have blinded us. But Hand--not a flutter. He was in there,
guys. Deep. I'm not sure, but with Hand, it might not have been a case
of becoming the thing you're fighting. To us.

Hand appeared to buck the system. I think it's possible Hand was part of
the system the whole time." Guys were studying their fingernails,
playing with their shoelaces, polishing their belt buckles with their
shirttails. They were listening, but they consciously avoided Slaight's
gaze. Everyone except John Lugar. He spoke, his voice low, tinged with
carbon-steel acuity. "Enough of this shit about Hand and West Point and
the system, Slaight. What about you? If you've got all this stuff
figured, and looks to me like you do, how come you're taking a walk?"

"I made up my mind to resign quite awhile ago. When I figured I was
getting my kicks the same way as Hand was, I decided it was time to cash
my check. I never told you guys, I never told anybody, because  ..."

Slaight stopped and looked around the room- He'd known it would come to
this. "Because if I did, I'd have to tell you why. I didn't want you
guys knowing the real reason I was so obsessed by the death of David
Hand. I just wanted you to help me nail the son of a bitch who killed
him, I couldn't tell you how much of myself I'd seen in Hand. I didn't
want you guys knowing I was comparing myself to a fag." Lugar gave
Slaight a look that said he knew there was something Slaight was holding
back. It was instinctive among cadets. You knew you had to respond.

"There's something else, too," said Slaight, choosing his words
carefully. "You guys all know me. I've always been kind of an
underground leader, a force just beneath the surface of things here at
West Point. I've enjoyed the combative feel of it, staying just out of
sight, out of reach, but still whipping it on 'em anytime I felt the
urge. Then this Hand thing forced me out in the open, and I was tested,
really tested, for the first time. I found out I was good. Better than I
thought I was. At a certain point, last summer, I knew I had them. I
can't explain how or why. I just knew. And it made me nervous  ...
scared the shit out of me." Lugar looked up, startled. "How come?"

"Because I knew then I believed the bullshit. You know. We're always
joking around. Who believes this bullshit, anyway, the party line crap
they're continually feeding us? Punching each other in the arm during
lectures, when some air corps major gets up there on the stage, and he's
having an orgasm about his gun ship, his fuckin' mini-guns and his
recon-by-fire and all that shit. It's a gas, right?" Lugar nodded and a
couple of guys chuckled at the memory. There had been so many lectures
like that ... "But there's a bottom line to the bullshit, and the bottom
line says we're better than the rest of them. We're special. We're being
let in on The Secret. I found my own private version of that bottom line
and explored it, and discovered they're right. I am special. I am
better. That bothered me. But it isn't what scared me." Slaight had
captured their attention again, every one of them, as he usually did
when he turned it on, clipped an edge on his voice, widened his eyes and
lit a tiny fire in them, moved his hands expertly, like a pianist's,
touching the keys of control. He had them now, and he kept it up. He
wanted them to remember every syllable he uttered. He knew they would.

He had the power, and one last time, he'd exercise it, touch them with
invisible brush strokes of color  ...  change them ... "Hell, believing
the bullshit is okay. Every goddamn place pushes one version of it or
another. Up at Harvard, they think an MBA is a master key to the vault
in the Chase Manhattan Bank. Fuck. The secrets of clubs at Yale like
Skull and Bones are darker then the cracks inside King Tut's tomb."

Laughter. They were rolling. Time to pull in the reins. "Once I'd
accepted the fact I believed the bullshit, I started testing it, from
both ends. I tested the bullshit itself: Are we in fact better? And I
tested my belief in it. Fuckin'-A if the equation didn't balance!" More
laughter. After three years of engineering, their humor was calculable.

"That's when I got scared. Once the fucker balanced, I kept testing and
it didn't tilt one way or the other. I ran out of parameters. I had
nothing left to test with. I started crowding the edge. Down near the
end, I was just whipping it on, firing blind, running amok. And it was
working, clicking, like it was coming straight out of a field manual.

But it wasn't. It was coming out of me, and that's when I knew something
West Point never prepared me for. I was using power that was coming from
a place I didn't know about, some place outside of me. I had no idea
where it was coming from. I didn't understand it, thus I couldn't
control it. Everything here at West Point is so goddamn rational, you
get used to it. You depend on it. And this feeling of power that came
from nowhere, it was crazy, I guess the feeling was, it controlled me.

The only time I ever felt anything like it was last year in Beast, when
Hand was in my squad. I don't know what you call it. Strength. Power.

Magic. Spirit. But he had it. You could fuckin' see it." Their eyes
remained fixed on Slaight as he wound down, striking them with the name
Hand like an uppercut to the solar plexus, leaving the room winded, a
vacuum sucking air. "Goddamn-goddamn," said Leroy Buck, breaking the
silence, attesting the veracity of Slaight's description of Hand. He
changed the record. Johnny Cash sang

"Orange Blossom Special." Buck whistled along with the tune through his
teeth. "West fuckin' Point," said Buck. He blew that soft whistle of
his: "Slaight, you know somethin'? You as gray as the fuckin' area out
there. You go on down to New York City, and you shack up with Irit Dov,
and you go ahead and be a goddamn civilian, and you'll still be a gray
son of a bitch, Slaight, just as gray as them fuckin' trou you wearin',
gray as your T-shirt, gray as fuckin' Dress Gray, Slaight." "And you're
an arrogant fucker, man," said John Lugar, laughing. The room cracked
with laughter, the tension broken. Pete Locke, the first captain, shook
hands with Slaight and excused himself, asking Slaight to stop by before
he left. One by one they stood up and shuffled out the door, mumbling
stuff like See you later, man, and Let's get together in the city
sometime. Slaight was nodding and saying, Yeah, sure. Finally there
remained Slaight and Buck and Lugar. John Lugar stretched out on his
bunk and pulled his Brown Boy around his shoulders. Leroy Buck walked to
the door, stopped, and turned. "Gonna get me some rack, Slaight. See you
at dinner formation." He shuffled down the hall. As he turned the corner
, Slaight heard him: "Heeeaaauh," came the seal honk.

"Fuckin'-A, Slaight."

"Heeeaaauh," answered Slaight, exchanging primitive noises of cadet
sanction. He walked down the hall to the phone booth, dialed a number in
the 212 area code, When he heard the voice on the other end, he said:

"Irit, it's me.

Drive up and get me this afternoon, will you?" She said okay, and hung
up. On his way back to his room, Slaight collared a plebe and issued him
a wake-up time and method, two knocks, crack the door, and whisper. Then
he crawled under his Brown Boy and got some rack before lunch.