A Crying Shame (21 page)

Mike ignored the question, not really understanding the
Links” part of it.
How'd you get past my deputies, mister?”

Quite easily, actually.” The man spoke with a curious combination of British and French accents.
I have in my possession, thanks to Paul Breaux, a rather detailed map of Despair Plantation and the swamp. I simply drove until I found the dirt road that would bring me up to the rear of the home. Here I am.”

Jon Badon?” Mike said, almost as an afterthought.
Where have I heard that before?”

That odd smile, quickly exposing strong, white teeth.
I must admit,” Badon said,
I am not unknown in ... ah ... shall we say ... certain law-enforcement circles.”

Dr. Thurman rose from his squat beside the carcass of the dead beast.
I read an article about you a couple of years ago,” he said to Jon Badon.
You're a damned mercenary.”

Badon bowed slightly.
Au contraire, Docteur.
I am, or at least, was, a professional soldier of fortune. Mercenary has such an ugly ring to it, don't you agree?”

The doctor snorted his contempt for men who make their living fighting in this war or the other. He was appalled by the number of people who seemed to be fascinated by the lives of mercenaries. Violent people, the lot of them. And to show movies about them on television—where young minds might be molded and shaped by their example. Violence-minded men. Entirely too much violence on TV and in the movies. All that should be taken off TV ... immediately. Show nothing but sports. Football, preferably. Now
there
was something a young man should set his eyes upon. No violence there, certainly. A perfect example of good, fine, clean-living men. Men who lived exemplary lives: no gambling, doping, womanizing. None of that there. And the good doctor liked to watch the players mix it up on the field; hated it when the camera swung away from a good brawl. Nothing wrong with a good fist fight, now and then.

The good doctor, like so many others, needed, as the young people put it,
to get his shit together.”

Jon Badon pegged the good doctor immediately. He had seen his type all over the world. The left hand didn't really know what the right hand was doing—to put it as subtly as possible.