.....The Teapot Cafe lounged near the heart of Harding, a rustic haven of wood frame and curtained glass.
.....Inside, amber shafts of sunlight snuck through between the dark red curtains, highlighting flecks of dust that danced across the room.
.....Muted lighting complimented the gleaming mahogony and copperplate rails of the bar. It held front court in the restaurant, with the dining area parked behind the high-backed barstools.
.....While indulging in a drink, no one wants that enjoyment spoiled by the sight of someone eating. It isn't good for the appetite.
.....Out of the drinker's line of sight, linen napkins and silver- ware were already in place for the evening's diners.
.....For a town the size of Harding, The Teapot Cafe wasn't considered a cafe, it was fine eating. Mostly, everyone went to Applebee's and saved the Teapot for special occasions.
.....It was the bar itself that maintained a steady business on any given night, the refuge of the folks that fancied an after work drink or two but didn’t feel like rubbing shoulders with the riff raff down at The Larkspur.
.....Wolfe entered the restaurant just short of Happy Hour. At four-thirty in the afternoon it was early, and the nine-to-fivers were still locked down and eyeing their clocks.
.....Still, the bar had a couple of troopers at their posts. Doc Taylor held down his end of the bar with a Bloody Mary, rolling a cigarette as he flirted with the bartender.
.....A talking head on the television was nattering from behind his comfy news desk, about some far-off backwater conflict. More nameless people dead in some country most folks had never heard of. The anchor was killing time until a sports figure or starlet did some damn fool thing again.
.....As Wolfe crossed the floor of the bar, the bartender turned and muted the volume of the television with the remote.
.....Despite twenty years past being a Harding High cheerleader, Tanya was still something of special interest for someone pushing forty. Or for that matter, any local straight male pushing thirty or even twenty...
.....With long, blonde hair hanging loose across her shoulders and tight jeans emphasizing that some things in the town hadn’t really changed all that much in the past twenty years, Tanya Thibeaux was a more than comforting sight for Wolfe. He seriously doubted that she remembered him, however.
.....But he had never forgotten her.
.....He waved a hand at her effort. “Don’t turn it down for me.”
.....The barfly at the nearest end of the bar was putting out negative energy, so he kept moving. With a nod and a smile that crept all the way to her amazing green eyes, Tanya set aside the remote and turned back to the cash register.
.....Wolfe claimed a stool near the old black man, keeping one seat between them for masculine propriety.
.....Doc shook his head. “Christ, why do the old dudes always sit next to me and block my action?”
.....“I’ll be your wingman,” Wolfe countered. “So, how’s that Mary?”
.....“Best one in town.”
.....“I’d imagine,” he nodded as the bartender leaned in. “I’ll take one of those.”
.....Doc eyed Tanya’s denim clad ass as she moved back to the well. “The hot chicks’ll come in here and take one look, think that this is coot corner.”
.....Tanya grabbed a pint glass and spun it expertly between her fingers before jabbing it into the well, scooping it to the top with ice. She set the glass down next to the cutting board and plucked a wedge of freshly-cut lime from the tray, squeezed the juice into the glass. She tossed the wedge in after.
.....“The war keeps going the way it has been and us coots’ll start looking better everyday,” Wolfe observed. “We’ll be all that’s left.”
.....Doc and Tanya exchanged a glance, then went back about their business.
.....She indicated the glass. “Mild, Medium, or Spicy?”
.....“Glad you asked... Spicy.”
.....She kept on with the mix, grabbing a bottle of Absolut Citron and filling the glass just below halfway. She followed the vodka with three dashes of Worcestershire sauce, the dark liquid swirling in the mix.
.....Doc glanced over at him. “That’s dangerous talk in this town.”
.....“Should I have ordered it Medium?”
.....Tanya glanced over at him. “You want it Medium?”
.....“Just keep doing what you’re doing.”
.....She eyed the doctor with a lopsided grin. “Just this town?”
.....She kept on with the mix, adding three dashes of Tabasco, celery salt, and ground black pepper...
.....Wolfe had to admit, that looked like one very promising Bloody Mary. “I just like to test the waters of any bar I walk into...”
.....“Son, most folks just check out the jukebox,” Doc offered.
........ a layer of A-1 Sauce, a quarter teaspoon of horseradish, and topped off the pint glass with tomato juice. She grabbed a mixing glass and poured in the contents, capped it off and began to shake it vigorously.
.....Doc and Wolfe paused to appreciate the vigorous shaking that went into making a Bloody Mary.
.....Doc chuckled. “The water’s fine... c’mon in.”
.....She poured the drink back into the pint class, garnished it with an olive and a pair of pickled beans and set it down on the bevnap in front of Wolfe. “This one’s on the house, Dan.”
.....Wolfe blinked up at her. “How...”
.....“Dan Wolfe, right?”
.....Doc reconsidered the man, then turned back to building his cigarette.
.....Wolfe took a sip and smiled. “Thanks...?”
.....“Tanya. Tanya Craw... Thibeaux,” she corrected. “Remember, cheerleader? A year ahead of you in high school?”
.....Wolfe nodded and smiled. “Of course I remember you, you haven’t changed a bit.”
.....“Right.”
.....“No... I’m just surprised you remember me.” He paused and sniffed: that was one spicy drink. “It’s been twenty years since we’ve seen each other and... well, that’s almost spooky.”
.....“It’s always been my job,” Tanya shook her head, long locks dancing. “You were easy. You pretty much look the same, except that you grew into your face. It’s all proportional now.”
.....“Wow.” He batted a smoke out of the pack and reached for his Zippo. The Doc snapped his fingers and offered him the dancing blue flame. Dan was genuinely impressed.
.....“Whoa,” he blinked. “How did you...?”
.....Doc huffed out the flame and holstered his thumb. “A true master never reveals...”
.....Tanya rolled her eyes. “He picked it up from...”
.....“Shush, you,” Doc said, cutting her off.
.....Wolfe exhaled a cloud of smoke as he looked around the joint.
.....“So... you working for your dad here, now?”
.....“He died a couple of years ago.”
.....“Sorry,” Wolfe winced. Tanya waved it aside. “I just thought that you would go on to... you know.”
.....“Yeah. Weird, isn’t it?”
.....“What’s that?”
.....“Everyone else always seems to have a better idea of what you’re gonna become that you do.”
.....“Yeah. I remember... being a cartoonist, I was supposed to go be an animator for Disney.”
.....“So what happened?”
.....“I always hated Disney.”
.....Doc gave him an look of mock horror. “Why do you hate America?”
.....“I don’t hate America, I hate the damn squeaky-voiced mice and singing teapots.”
.....“Hey...” Tanya cautioned, and Dan apologized with a grin.
.....“Same thing,” Doc continued.
.....“If anything, it was Disney who might've hated America.”
.....“How do you figure that one?”
.....“Mothers and apple pie equal America, right?”
.....“So they say,” mused Doc. “Although I've never been all that fond of apple pie myself. No one's ever called me un-American for that.”
.....“What I'm saying is...”
.....“Had someone call me a Canadian once, but I wasn't eating pie at the time.”
.....“Look... mothers are all about America and Disney always seemed to have some issue with mothers. Whacking them any chance he got. Remember Bambi’s mother?”
.....Tanya shook her head. “That scene with the hunters kind of messed me up when I was a kid. I still can’t eat venison.”
.....Wolfe nodded. “Issues, man. The man had serious freaking issues.”
.....“And you picked up on that as a kid?” the Doc inquired. “Pretty precocious.”
.....“No, I just hated the singing teapots then, like I said. Later on I picked up on the subtext.”
.....“So what did you end up doing,” Tanya prompted. “After you got out of here?”
.....“I became an art teacher instead.”
.....“You?”
.....“Yeah. Funny, isn’t it... remember how much grief I used to give the teachers?” He grinned at the memory, the first time he could recall being amused at anything that had happened in high school.....
.....Tanya gave him a blank look. “Nope.”
.....His face fell. “Oh.”
.....“You just never seemed like a people person to us. The Lone Wolfe, right?”
.....“Oh, God... don’t remind me,” he winced, throwing up a hand. “It sounded kinda cool then. Now it just seems cheesy.”
.....“Yeah,” Tanya agreed.
.....“No one gets to pick their own nicknames,” Doc noted. “Which is a good thing, I ‘spose.”
.....“Hush, you,” Tanya chided. “So how’s that doing it for you? Teaching?”
.....Wolfe considered his Bloody Mary. “I’m not really teaching anymore.”
.....Tanya cocked an eyebrow.
.....“All that ‘No Child’s Behind Left’ bullshit,” he explained. “Now all it’s about is rehearsing for the exit exam. Not my speed.”
.....“So what are you up to now?”
.....He shrugged. “Drinking a Bloody Mary... and a damned fine one, I might add.”
.....Tanya snapped a towel and lifted up Wolfe’s drink to give the bar a swipe.
.....“Nothing much else to do around these parts but practice,” she noted as she replaced his red-ringed bevnap with a fresh one.
.....The doctor offered his drink in toast to Wolfe. “Well, son... welcome back to Harding, Wyoming.”
.....They clinked glasses and the doctor continued: “Where the men either collect subsidies for ignoring their untilled land or pull disabilities for ‘injuries’ sustained in the oil fields.”
.....Tanya snorted. “And then sit around The Larkspur all day bitching about welfare queens driving Cadillacs.”
.....Doc stubbed out his smoke. “Being in between jobs is a job in itself around here.”
.....Wolfe laughed. “Back in California we earn our retirement the honest way.”
.....“Win the lottery?”
.....“Sort of.” Wolfe nodded. “We find someone to sue. Take someone else's money and retire on it.”
.....Tanya glanced at Doc, who had abruptly taken to considering his Mary glumly.
.....“Ain’t just California, son,” he finally muttered.
.....Wolfe caught the sudden bad vibe and shifted the conversation back on track. “So who’s working out in the oil fields, then?”
.....“Only Mexicans work the fields these days.” Doc replied. “Shiftless wetbacks... taking all our jobs.”
.....Wolfe caught the sarcasm. “The lazy bastards.”
.....“Yeah.”
.....The footage on CNN switched to the grainy image of the smoking hole in the middle of a Pennsylvania pasture. Tanya turned and retrieved the remote, clicking the monitor off of mute.
.....“...joins us to talk about his new book in which the former military pilot claims that he had orders to shoot down United Flight 93...”
.....“Gawd, what next?” she said, shaking her head. Every day it was something new, or something old with a different spin. Half the time she couldn’t even begin to know what to think.
.....“It’s all true,” a low voice grumbled. The quiet man at the other end of the bar finally roused himself enough to join in the proceedings. Tanya turned and considered him, eyeing what was left of his drink. “Except what isn’t... what they say is true.”
.....“What is?” Doc asked, taking the bait.
.....“That we took out Flight 93,” he returned, nodding at the television.
.....They considered the man for the first time; the lines of his face suggested someone in his mid-thirties, but the haunt of his eyes notched the estimate up a decade. The age game wasn’t helped any by the fact that he sported a week’s worth of neglect in his grooming.
.....“If the guy that they’re talking about is who I think it is,” he continued, eying them over his glass. “He’s the one that took the call and brought her down.”
.....Ice clinked as he finished off his drink.
.....Wolfe eyed him cautiously. “How would you know?”
.....The man rattled the ice in his empty glass and looked across to Wolfe, the request unspoken. Wolfe nodded to Tanya, who poured the man another shot of Tullamore Dew on his remaining rocks, then added a few more ice cubes for him.
.....He nodded in reflection. “I was jockeying one of the F-16s when the whole thing went down.”
.....He took a sip from the fresh tumbler of whiskey and closed his eyes. “It was fucked up.”
.....“What was?” Wolfe prompted.
.....The man opened his eyes, his mien even more haunted than before.
.....“We could have stopped it all from happening, if we’d been allowed to do what we were trained to do.”
.....“What F-16s?” Doc prompted.
.....“NORAD scrambled us out of Otis.”
.....Doc frowned. “Otis?”
.....“Air National Guard Base. About 180 miles nor’east of The Big Apple,” he gestured vaguely towards what he felt was the northeastern corner of the bar, then continued. “After we were scrambled, we were told to maintain cruising speed instead of going full-blower...”
.....“What’s the difference?” Wolfe wanted to know.
.....“600 mph versus 1200. If we’d been allowed to go full speed into New York, we woulda had about a four-minute window to take out Flight 175 before it hit the first tower.”
.....“But no one knew...” Tanya interjected.
.....The man laughed.
.....“They knew,” he said, raising his glass in sarcastic tribute. “The ever-lovin’ They. A lot of Beltway folks made a serious chunk of money when those buildings went down. A lot of special plans that were unthinkable before, got a green light in the days following. They knew. Maybe not every goddamned detail, but enough to know to stop it from happening.”
.....The trio at the other end of the bar exchanged dubious glances, nonetheless considering the implications.
.....The man shook his head. “Hell, maybe they did know every detail...”
.....“Something like that can’t stay covered up all this time,” Tanya insisted. “Someone would have came out and...”
.....The man laughed ruefully. “They come out all the time, honey. Here and there, they tell their stories. Sometimes to their wives, or in bars, or maybe even to a reporter, their stories all come out, eventually.”
.....“So why isn’t it being reported?” Wolfe glanced at the television. “I mean, reported as news, not just on something like Larry King.”
.....“Oh, it’s being reported,” the man replied. “It’s just not promoted.”
.....“Right.”
.....“Like Flight 93...when the myth plays better than the truth, it becomes the truth.”
.....“What myth?” Wolfe demanded.
.....He had long harbored his own suspicions that the public wasn’t being given the full story, but this guy was coming across like one of those late night callers on the Art Bell radio show, talking about shadow people or little gray aliens that had anally abused them. And never called them back.
.....He was beginning to get irritated at the guy.
.....“That some sales manager on a hijacked flight to San Francisco rallied a small band of heroes to sacrifice their lives for the greater good.” The barfly shrugged. “Why sacrifice PR gold when the truth is such a bitter pill?”
.....“What truth?” Wolfe retorted, and the man’s eyes grew hard.
.....“That we blew those poor bastards out of the sky before they even had a chance,” he snapped back at Wolfe.
.....He emptied his glass and smacked the glass down on the bar.
.....“Could I get another one of these?”
.....Tanya shook her head. “Sounds like you’ve had enough.”
.....The man nodded and his shoulders sagged. The brief fire was gone as fast as it had flared. With a sigh, he picked up his pack of Pall Malls and stood unsteadily, considering the folks at the other end of the bar. The haunted look was back.
.....“Guess you’re right. Sooner or later I guess we all will.”
.....He weaved a little, then eased his way to the door in that careful manner of walking that drunks adopt when trying to fool management. The door closed behind him.
.....“That got weird fast.” Wolfe chuckled uneasily. “What the hell was that all about?”
.....“He just sort of adopted us a while back.” Doc said. He looked troubled. “Just showed up out of nowhere.”
.....“He’s been staying out at the Watergate,” Tanya added.
.....“Great, that’s where I’m at.”
.....“Maybe you should give him a ride.”
.....Wolfe shook his head. “I’ll pass.”
.....“I’ve heard that version of what happened before, you know,” Doc mused aloud. “At least it was mostly the devil in the same details.”
.....“That’s because you’re a conspiracy theorist,” Tanya countered as she wiped down the other end of the bar. “Always expecting the black helicopters to arrive any day.”
.....“We got the black helicopters already, it’s just not the UN that’s flying them,” Doc noted wryly. “Just because you’re a conspiracy theorist doesn’t mean you’re wrong.”
.....“Or sane.”
.....Doc shook his head. “Y'know the damned thing about it all?”
.....“What's that?” Wolfe prompted.
.....“If that's really what happened, then they did the right thing,” Doc mused. “The public wouldn't have liked it, but they woulda understood. That plane was heading into Washington and who knows what kind of hell woulda been unleashed.”
.....“So why do you think...?”
.....“Nature of the beast, I suppose.” Doc shrugged. “They've just gotten so used to covering up every damned thing they do that it's become part of the job.”
.....He took another pull off of his Mary. “Hell, they probably don't even know the truth themselves, by now.”
.....Tanya nodded to Wolfe’s empty drink. “You good?”
.....He shook his head.
.....“I’m good...I don’t wanna start spilling the beans about what really happened that day back on the grassy knoll.”
.....Doc nodded knowingly. “Right... the ever-popular Toddler Theory.”
.....“I’m not that old, Doc.”
.....“Speaking of old,” Tanya interrupted. “Back in town for the big Two-Oh, Dan?”
.....“Nice segue, Tanya.” Doc observed, burying a smile in his drink.
.....“I'm not in the mood for anymore crazy talk.” Tanya tipped her head towards the end of the bar. Doc didn't need to turn to look back at the camera nestled up deep in the rafters. He knew the beady red blink of the security camera all too well. Some security.
.....“Yeah.” Wolfe shrugged. “I got an notice about the reunion out of nowhere. Hell, I didn’t even remember that the thing was coming up. So I figured... what the hell. Morbid curiosity got the best of me.”
.....Inside, amber shafts of sunlight snuck through between the dark red curtains, highlighting flecks of dust that danced across the room.
.....Muted lighting complimented the gleaming mahogony and copperplate rails of the bar. It held front court in the restaurant, with the dining area parked behind the high-backed barstools.
.....While indulging in a drink, no one wants that enjoyment spoiled by the sight of someone eating. It isn't good for the appetite.
.....Out of the drinker's line of sight, linen napkins and silver- ware were already in place for the evening's diners.
.....For a town the size of Harding, The Teapot Cafe wasn't considered a cafe, it was fine eating. Mostly, everyone went to Applebee's and saved the Teapot for special occasions.
.....It was the bar itself that maintained a steady business on any given night, the refuge of the folks that fancied an after work drink or two but didn’t feel like rubbing shoulders with the riff raff down at The Larkspur.
.....Wolfe entered the restaurant just short of Happy Hour. At four-thirty in the afternoon it was early, and the nine-to-fivers were still locked down and eyeing their clocks.
.....Still, the bar had a couple of troopers at their posts. Doc Taylor held down his end of the bar with a Bloody Mary, rolling a cigarette as he flirted with the bartender.
.....A talking head on the television was nattering from behind his comfy news desk, about some far-off backwater conflict. More nameless people dead in some country most folks had never heard of. The anchor was killing time until a sports figure or starlet did some damn fool thing again.
.....As Wolfe crossed the floor of the bar, the bartender turned and muted the volume of the television with the remote.
.....Despite twenty years past being a Harding High cheerleader, Tanya was still something of special interest for someone pushing forty. Or for that matter, any local straight male pushing thirty or even twenty...
.....With long, blonde hair hanging loose across her shoulders and tight jeans emphasizing that some things in the town hadn’t really changed all that much in the past twenty years, Tanya Thibeaux was a more than comforting sight for Wolfe. He seriously doubted that she remembered him, however.
.....But he had never forgotten her.
.....He waved a hand at her effort. “Don’t turn it down for me.”
.....The barfly at the nearest end of the bar was putting out negative energy, so he kept moving. With a nod and a smile that crept all the way to her amazing green eyes, Tanya set aside the remote and turned back to the cash register.
.....Wolfe claimed a stool near the old black man, keeping one seat between them for masculine propriety.
.....Doc shook his head. “Christ, why do the old dudes always sit next to me and block my action?”
.....“I’ll be your wingman,” Wolfe countered. “So, how’s that Mary?”
.....“Best one in town.”
.....“I’d imagine,” he nodded as the bartender leaned in. “I’ll take one of those.”
.....Doc eyed Tanya’s denim clad ass as she moved back to the well. “The hot chicks’ll come in here and take one look, think that this is coot corner.”
.....Tanya grabbed a pint glass and spun it expertly between her fingers before jabbing it into the well, scooping it to the top with ice. She set the glass down next to the cutting board and plucked a wedge of freshly-cut lime from the tray, squeezed the juice into the glass. She tossed the wedge in after.
.....“The war keeps going the way it has been and us coots’ll start looking better everyday,” Wolfe observed. “We’ll be all that’s left.”
.....Doc and Tanya exchanged a glance, then went back about their business.
.....She indicated the glass. “Mild, Medium, or Spicy?”
.....“Glad you asked... Spicy.”
.....She kept on with the mix, grabbing a bottle of Absolut Citron and filling the glass just below halfway. She followed the vodka with three dashes of Worcestershire sauce, the dark liquid swirling in the mix.
.....Doc glanced over at him. “That’s dangerous talk in this town.”
.....“Should I have ordered it Medium?”
.....Tanya glanced over at him. “You want it Medium?”
.....“Just keep doing what you’re doing.”
.....She eyed the doctor with a lopsided grin. “Just this town?”
.....She kept on with the mix, adding three dashes of Tabasco, celery salt, and ground black pepper...
.....Wolfe had to admit, that looked like one very promising Bloody Mary. “I just like to test the waters of any bar I walk into...”
.....“Son, most folks just check out the jukebox,” Doc offered.
........ a layer of A-1 Sauce, a quarter teaspoon of horseradish, and topped off the pint glass with tomato juice. She grabbed a mixing glass and poured in the contents, capped it off and began to shake it vigorously.
.....Doc and Wolfe paused to appreciate the vigorous shaking that went into making a Bloody Mary.
.....Doc chuckled. “The water’s fine... c’mon in.”
.....She poured the drink back into the pint class, garnished it with an olive and a pair of pickled beans and set it down on the bevnap in front of Wolfe. “This one’s on the house, Dan.”
.....Wolfe blinked up at her. “How...”
.....“Dan Wolfe, right?”
.....Doc reconsidered the man, then turned back to building his cigarette.
.....Wolfe took a sip and smiled. “Thanks...?”
.....“Tanya. Tanya Craw... Thibeaux,” she corrected. “Remember, cheerleader? A year ahead of you in high school?”
.....Wolfe nodded and smiled. “Of course I remember you, you haven’t changed a bit.”
.....“Right.”
.....“No... I’m just surprised you remember me.” He paused and sniffed: that was one spicy drink. “It’s been twenty years since we’ve seen each other and... well, that’s almost spooky.”
.....“It’s always been my job,” Tanya shook her head, long locks dancing. “You were easy. You pretty much look the same, except that you grew into your face. It’s all proportional now.”
.....“Wow.” He batted a smoke out of the pack and reached for his Zippo. The Doc snapped his fingers and offered him the dancing blue flame. Dan was genuinely impressed.
.....“Whoa,” he blinked. “How did you...?”
.....Doc huffed out the flame and holstered his thumb. “A true master never reveals...”
.....Tanya rolled her eyes. “He picked it up from...”
.....“Shush, you,” Doc said, cutting her off.
.....Wolfe exhaled a cloud of smoke as he looked around the joint.
.....“So... you working for your dad here, now?”
.....“He died a couple of years ago.”
.....“Sorry,” Wolfe winced. Tanya waved it aside. “I just thought that you would go on to... you know.”
.....“Yeah. Weird, isn’t it?”
.....“What’s that?”
.....“Everyone else always seems to have a better idea of what you’re gonna become that you do.”
.....“Yeah. I remember... being a cartoonist, I was supposed to go be an animator for Disney.”
.....“So what happened?”
.....“I always hated Disney.”
.....Doc gave him an look of mock horror. “Why do you hate America?”
.....“I don’t hate America, I hate the damn squeaky-voiced mice and singing teapots.”
.....“Hey...” Tanya cautioned, and Dan apologized with a grin.
.....“Same thing,” Doc continued.
.....“If anything, it was Disney who might've hated America.”
.....“How do you figure that one?”
.....“Mothers and apple pie equal America, right?”
.....“So they say,” mused Doc. “Although I've never been all that fond of apple pie myself. No one's ever called me un-American for that.”
.....“What I'm saying is...”
.....“Had someone call me a Canadian once, but I wasn't eating pie at the time.”
.....“Look... mothers are all about America and Disney always seemed to have some issue with mothers. Whacking them any chance he got. Remember Bambi’s mother?”
.....Tanya shook her head. “That scene with the hunters kind of messed me up when I was a kid. I still can’t eat venison.”
.....Wolfe nodded. “Issues, man. The man had serious freaking issues.”
.....“And you picked up on that as a kid?” the Doc inquired. “Pretty precocious.”
.....“No, I just hated the singing teapots then, like I said. Later on I picked up on the subtext.”
.....“So what did you end up doing,” Tanya prompted. “After you got out of here?”
.....“I became an art teacher instead.”
.....“You?”
.....“Yeah. Funny, isn’t it... remember how much grief I used to give the teachers?” He grinned at the memory, the first time he could recall being amused at anything that had happened in high school.....
.....Tanya gave him a blank look. “Nope.”
.....His face fell. “Oh.”
.....“You just never seemed like a people person to us. The Lone Wolfe, right?”
.....“Oh, God... don’t remind me,” he winced, throwing up a hand. “It sounded kinda cool then. Now it just seems cheesy.”
.....“Yeah,” Tanya agreed.
.....“No one gets to pick their own nicknames,” Doc noted. “Which is a good thing, I ‘spose.”
.....“Hush, you,” Tanya chided. “So how’s that doing it for you? Teaching?”
.....Wolfe considered his Bloody Mary. “I’m not really teaching anymore.”
.....Tanya cocked an eyebrow.
.....“All that ‘No Child’s Behind Left’ bullshit,” he explained. “Now all it’s about is rehearsing for the exit exam. Not my speed.”
.....“So what are you up to now?”
.....He shrugged. “Drinking a Bloody Mary... and a damned fine one, I might add.”
.....Tanya snapped a towel and lifted up Wolfe’s drink to give the bar a swipe.
.....“Nothing much else to do around these parts but practice,” she noted as she replaced his red-ringed bevnap with a fresh one.
.....The doctor offered his drink in toast to Wolfe. “Well, son... welcome back to Harding, Wyoming.”
.....They clinked glasses and the doctor continued: “Where the men either collect subsidies for ignoring their untilled land or pull disabilities for ‘injuries’ sustained in the oil fields.”
.....Tanya snorted. “And then sit around The Larkspur all day bitching about welfare queens driving Cadillacs.”
.....Doc stubbed out his smoke. “Being in between jobs is a job in itself around here.”
.....Wolfe laughed. “Back in California we earn our retirement the honest way.”
.....“Win the lottery?”
.....“Sort of.” Wolfe nodded. “We find someone to sue. Take someone else's money and retire on it.”
.....Tanya glanced at Doc, who had abruptly taken to considering his Mary glumly.
.....“Ain’t just California, son,” he finally muttered.
.....Wolfe caught the sudden bad vibe and shifted the conversation back on track. “So who’s working out in the oil fields, then?”
.....“Only Mexicans work the fields these days.” Doc replied. “Shiftless wetbacks... taking all our jobs.”
.....Wolfe caught the sarcasm. “The lazy bastards.”
.....“Yeah.”
.....The footage on CNN switched to the grainy image of the smoking hole in the middle of a Pennsylvania pasture. Tanya turned and retrieved the remote, clicking the monitor off of mute.
.....“...joins us to talk about his new book in which the former military pilot claims that he had orders to shoot down United Flight 93...”
.....“Gawd, what next?” she said, shaking her head. Every day it was something new, or something old with a different spin. Half the time she couldn’t even begin to know what to think.
.....“It’s all true,” a low voice grumbled. The quiet man at the other end of the bar finally roused himself enough to join in the proceedings. Tanya turned and considered him, eyeing what was left of his drink. “Except what isn’t... what they say is true.”
.....“What is?” Doc asked, taking the bait.
.....“That we took out Flight 93,” he returned, nodding at the television.
.....They considered the man for the first time; the lines of his face suggested someone in his mid-thirties, but the haunt of his eyes notched the estimate up a decade. The age game wasn’t helped any by the fact that he sported a week’s worth of neglect in his grooming.
.....“If the guy that they’re talking about is who I think it is,” he continued, eying them over his glass. “He’s the one that took the call and brought her down.”
.....Ice clinked as he finished off his drink.
.....Wolfe eyed him cautiously. “How would you know?”
.....The man rattled the ice in his empty glass and looked across to Wolfe, the request unspoken. Wolfe nodded to Tanya, who poured the man another shot of Tullamore Dew on his remaining rocks, then added a few more ice cubes for him.
.....He nodded in reflection. “I was jockeying one of the F-16s when the whole thing went down.”
.....He took a sip from the fresh tumbler of whiskey and closed his eyes. “It was fucked up.”
.....“What was?” Wolfe prompted.
.....The man opened his eyes, his mien even more haunted than before.
.....“We could have stopped it all from happening, if we’d been allowed to do what we were trained to do.”
.....“What F-16s?” Doc prompted.
.....“NORAD scrambled us out of Otis.”
.....Doc frowned. “Otis?”
.....“Air National Guard Base. About 180 miles nor’east of The Big Apple,” he gestured vaguely towards what he felt was the northeastern corner of the bar, then continued. “After we were scrambled, we were told to maintain cruising speed instead of going full-blower...”
.....“What’s the difference?” Wolfe wanted to know.
.....“600 mph versus 1200. If we’d been allowed to go full speed into New York, we woulda had about a four-minute window to take out Flight 175 before it hit the first tower.”
.....“But no one knew...” Tanya interjected.
.....The man laughed.
.....“They knew,” he said, raising his glass in sarcastic tribute. “The ever-lovin’ They. A lot of Beltway folks made a serious chunk of money when those buildings went down. A lot of special plans that were unthinkable before, got a green light in the days following. They knew. Maybe not every goddamned detail, but enough to know to stop it from happening.”
.....The trio at the other end of the bar exchanged dubious glances, nonetheless considering the implications.
.....The man shook his head. “Hell, maybe they did know every detail...”
.....“Something like that can’t stay covered up all this time,” Tanya insisted. “Someone would have came out and...”
.....The man laughed ruefully. “They come out all the time, honey. Here and there, they tell their stories. Sometimes to their wives, or in bars, or maybe even to a reporter, their stories all come out, eventually.”
.....“So why isn’t it being reported?” Wolfe glanced at the television. “I mean, reported as news, not just on something like Larry King.”
.....“Oh, it’s being reported,” the man replied. “It’s just not promoted.”
.....“Right.”
.....“Like Flight 93...when the myth plays better than the truth, it becomes the truth.”
.....“What myth?” Wolfe demanded.
.....He had long harbored his own suspicions that the public wasn’t being given the full story, but this guy was coming across like one of those late night callers on the Art Bell radio show, talking about shadow people or little gray aliens that had anally abused them. And never called them back.
.....He was beginning to get irritated at the guy.
.....“That some sales manager on a hijacked flight to San Francisco rallied a small band of heroes to sacrifice their lives for the greater good.” The barfly shrugged. “Why sacrifice PR gold when the truth is such a bitter pill?”
.....“What truth?” Wolfe retorted, and the man’s eyes grew hard.
.....“That we blew those poor bastards out of the sky before they even had a chance,” he snapped back at Wolfe.
.....He emptied his glass and smacked the glass down on the bar.
.....“Could I get another one of these?”
.....Tanya shook her head. “Sounds like you’ve had enough.”
.....The man nodded and his shoulders sagged. The brief fire was gone as fast as it had flared. With a sigh, he picked up his pack of Pall Malls and stood unsteadily, considering the folks at the other end of the bar. The haunted look was back.
.....“Guess you’re right. Sooner or later I guess we all will.”
.....He weaved a little, then eased his way to the door in that careful manner of walking that drunks adopt when trying to fool management. The door closed behind him.
.....“That got weird fast.” Wolfe chuckled uneasily. “What the hell was that all about?”
.....“He just sort of adopted us a while back.” Doc said. He looked troubled. “Just showed up out of nowhere.”
.....“He’s been staying out at the Watergate,” Tanya added.
.....“Great, that’s where I’m at.”
.....“Maybe you should give him a ride.”
.....Wolfe shook his head. “I’ll pass.”
.....“I’ve heard that version of what happened before, you know,” Doc mused aloud. “At least it was mostly the devil in the same details.”
.....“That’s because you’re a conspiracy theorist,” Tanya countered as she wiped down the other end of the bar. “Always expecting the black helicopters to arrive any day.”
.....“We got the black helicopters already, it’s just not the UN that’s flying them,” Doc noted wryly. “Just because you’re a conspiracy theorist doesn’t mean you’re wrong.”
.....“Or sane.”
.....Doc shook his head. “Y'know the damned thing about it all?”
.....“What's that?” Wolfe prompted.
.....“If that's really what happened, then they did the right thing,” Doc mused. “The public wouldn't have liked it, but they woulda understood. That plane was heading into Washington and who knows what kind of hell woulda been unleashed.”
.....“So why do you think...?”
.....“Nature of the beast, I suppose.” Doc shrugged. “They've just gotten so used to covering up every damned thing they do that it's become part of the job.”
.....He took another pull off of his Mary. “Hell, they probably don't even know the truth themselves, by now.”
.....Tanya nodded to Wolfe’s empty drink. “You good?”
.....He shook his head.
.....“I’m good...I don’t wanna start spilling the beans about what really happened that day back on the grassy knoll.”
.....Doc nodded knowingly. “Right... the ever-popular Toddler Theory.”
.....“I’m not that old, Doc.”
.....“Speaking of old,” Tanya interrupted. “Back in town for the big Two-Oh, Dan?”
.....“Nice segue, Tanya.” Doc observed, burying a smile in his drink.
.....“I'm not in the mood for anymore crazy talk.” Tanya tipped her head towards the end of the bar. Doc didn't need to turn to look back at the camera nestled up deep in the rafters. He knew the beady red blink of the security camera all too well. Some security.
.....“Yeah.” Wolfe shrugged. “I got an notice about the reunion out of nowhere. Hell, I didn’t even remember that the thing was coming up. So I figured... what the hell. Morbid curiosity got the best of me.”
No comments:
Post a Comment