The Matlock Paper (27 page)

The girl’s dress had long sleeves. He grabbed her
right arm and ripped the fabric up past the elbow. She fought him back but he overpowered her.

There were no marks. No signs.

She kicked at him and he slapped her face, hard enough to shock her into momentary immobility. He took her left arm and tore the sleeve.

There they were. Faded. Not recent. But there.

The small purple dots of a needle.

“I’m not on it now! I haven’t been in
months!
”

“But you need the money! You need fifty or a hundred dollars every time you come over here!… What is it
now?
Yellows? Reds? Acid? Speed? What the hell is it
now
? Grass isn’t that expensive!”

The girl sobbed. Tears fell down her cheeks. She covered her face and spoke—moaned—through her sobs.

“There’s so much trouble! So much … 
trouble!
Let me
go, please!
”

Matlock knelt down and cradled the girl’s head in his arms, against his chest.

“What trouble? tell me, please. What trouble?”

“They
make
you do it.… You
have
to.… So many need help. They won’t help
anyone
if you don’t do it. Please, whatever your name is, let me alone. Let me go. Don’t say anything. Let me
go!… Please!
”

“I will, but you’ve got to clear something up for me. Then you can go and I won’t say anything.… Are you down here because they threatened you? Threatened the other kids?”

The girl nodded her head, gasping quietly, breathing heavily. Matlock continued. “Threatened you with what? Turning you in?… Exposing a habit? That’s not worth it. Not today.…”

“Oh, you’re outta sight!” The girl spoke through her
tears. “They can ruin you. For life. Ruin your family, your school, maybe later. Maybe.… Some rotten prison. Somewhere! Habit, pushing, supplying … a boy you know’s in trouble and
they
can get him off.… Some girl’s in her third month, she needs a doctor … 
they
can get one. No noise.”

“You don’t need
them!
Where’ve you
been?!
There are agencies, counseling!”

“Oh, Jesus Christ, mister! Where have
you
been?!… The drug courts, the doctors, the judges! They run them
all
 … There’s nothing
you
can do about it. Nothing
I
can do about it. So leave me alone, leave
us
alone! Too many people’ll get hurt!”

“And you’re just going to keep doing what they say! Frightened, spoiled little bastards who keep on whining! Afraid to wash your hands, or your
mouths
, or your
arms!
” He pulled at her left elbow and yanked it viciously.

The girl looked up at him, half in fear, half in contempt.

“That’s right,” she said in a strangely calm voice. “I don’t think you’d understand. You don’t know what it’s all about.… We’re different from you. My friends are all I’ve got. All any of us have got. We help each other.… I’m not interested in being a hero. I’m only interested in my friends. I don’t have a flag decal in my car window and I don’t like John Wayne. I think he’s a shit. I think you all are. All shits.”

Matlock released the girl’s arm. “Just how long do you think you can keep it up?”

“Oh, I’m one of the lucky ones. In a month I’ll have that scroll my parents paid for and I’m out of it. They hardly ever try to make contact with you later. They say they will, but they rarely do.… You’re just supposed
to live with the possibility.”

He understood the implications of her muted testimony and turned away. “I’m sorry. I’m very, very sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m one of the lucky ones. Two weeks after I pick up that piece of engraved crap my parents want so badly, I’ll be on a plane. I’m leaving this goddamn country. And I’ll never come back!”

He had not been able to sleep, nor had he expected to. He had sent the girl away with money, for he had nothing else he could give her, neither hope nor courage. What he advocated was rejected, for it involved the risk of danger and pain to untold children committed to the well-being of each other. He could not demand; there was no trust, no threat equal to the burdens they carried. Ultimately, it was the children’s own struggle. They wanted no help.

He remembered the Bagdhivi admonition:
Look ye to the children; look and behold. They grow tall and strong and hunt the tiger with greater cunning and stronger sinews than you. They shall save the flocks better than you. Ye are old and infirm. Look to the children. Beware of the children
.

Were the children hunting the tiger better? And even if they were, whose flocks would they save? And who was the tiger?

Was it the “goddamn country”?

Had it come to that?

The questions burned into his mind. How many Jeannies were there? How extensive was Nimrod’s recruiting?

He had to find out.

The girl admitted that Carmount was only one port
of call; there were others, but she didn’t know where. Friends of hers had been sent to New Haven, others to Boston, some north to the outskirts of Hanover.

Yale. Harvard. Dartmouth.

The most frightening aspect was Nimrod’s threat of a thousand futures. What had she said?

“They hardly ever make contact.… They say they will.… You live with the possibility.”

If such was the case, Bagdhivi was wrong. The children had far less cunning, possessed weaker sinews; there was no reason to beware. Only to pity.

Unless the children were subdivided, led by other, stronger children.

Matlock made up his mind to go down to New Haven. Maybe there were answers there. He had scores of friends at Yale University. It would be a side trip, an unconsidered excursion, but intrinsic to the journey itself. Part of the Nimrod odyssey.

Short, high-pitched sounds interrupted Matlock’s concentration. He froze, his eyes swollen in shock, his body tense on top of the bed. It took him several seconds to focus his attention on the source of the frightening sound. It was the Tel-electronic, still in his jacket pocket. But where had he put his jacket? It wasn’t near his bed.

He turned on the bedside lamp and looked around, the unrelenting, unceasing sounds causing his pulse to hammer, his forehead to perspire. Then he saw his coat. He had put it on top of the chair in front of the French window, halfway across the room. He looked at his watch: 4:35
A.M
. He ran to the jacket, pulled out the terrible instrument, and shut it off.

The panic of the hunted returned. He picked up the telephone on the bedside table. It was a direct line, no switchboard.

The dial tone was like any other dial tone outside the major utility areas. A little fuzzy, but steady. And if there was a tap, he wouldn’t be able to recognize it anyway. He dialed 555-6868 and waited for the call to be completed.

“Charger Three-zero reporting,” said the mechanized voice. “Sorry to disturb you. There is no change with the subject, everything is satisfactory. However, your friend from Wheeling, West Virginia, is very insistent. He telephoned at four fifteen and said it was imperative you call him at once. We’re concerned. Out.”

Matlock hung up the telephone and forced his mind to go blank until he found a cigarette and lit it. He needed the precious moments to stop the hammering pulse.

He hated that goddamn machine! He hated what its terrifying little beeps did to him.

He drew heavily on the smoke and knew there was no alternative. He had to get out of the Carmount Country Club and reach a telephone booth. Greenberg wouldn’t have phoned at four in the morning unless it was an emergency. He couldn’t take the chance of calling Greenberg on the Carmount line.

He threw his clothes into the suitcase and dressed quickly.

He assumed there’d be a night watchman, or a parking attendant asleep in a booth, and he’d retrieve his, Kramer’s, automobile. If not, he’d wake up someone, even if it was Stockton himself. Stockton was still frightened of trouble, Windsor Shoals trouble—he wouldn’t try to detain him. Any story would do for the purveyor of young, adorable flesh. The sunburned southern flower of the Connecticut Valley. The stench of Nimrod.

Matlock closed the door quietly and walked down the silent corridor to the enormous staircase. Wall sconces were lighted, dimmed by rheostats to give a candlelight effect. Even in the dead of night, Howard Stockton couldn’t forget his heritage. The interior of the Carmount Country Club looked more than ever like a sleeping great hall of a plantation house.

He started for the front entrance, and by the time he reached the storm carpet, he knew it was as far as he would go. At least for the moment.

Howard Stockton, clad in a flowing velour, nineteenth-century dressing gown, emerged from a glass door next to the entrance. He was accompanied by a large, Italian-looking man whose jet black eyes silently spoke generations of the Black Hand. Stockton’s companion was a killer.

“Why, Mr. Matlock! Are you leavin’ us?”

He decided to be aggressive.

“Since you tapped my goddamn phone, I assume you gather I’ve got problems! They’re
my business, not yours!
If you want to know, I resent your intrusion!”

The ploy worked. Stockton was startled by Matlock’s hostility.

“There’s no reason to be angry.… I’m a businessman, like you. Any invasion of your privacy is for your protection. Goddamn! That’s
true, boy!
”

“I’ll accept the lousy explanation. Are my keys in the car?”

“Well, not in your
car
. My friend Mario here’s got ’em. He’s a real high-class Eyetalian, let me tell you.”

“I can see the family crest on his pocket. May I have my keys?”

Mario looked at Stockton, obviously confused.

“Now, just a minute,” Stockton said. “Wait a bit,
Mario. Let’s not be impulsive.… I’m a reasonable man. A very reasonable, rational person. I’m merely a Virginia …”

“
Cracker
, trying to make a dollar!” interrupted Matlock. “I’ll buy that! Now get the hell out of my way and give me the keys!”

“Good Lord,
you all
are downright
mean!
I mean,
mean!
Put yourself in my place!… Some crazy code like ‘Chargin’ Three-zero’ and an urgent call from Wheelin’, West
Virginia!
And instead of usin’ my perfectly good telephone, you gotta make space and get
outta
here! C’mon, Jim. What would
you
do?!”

Matlock kept his voice chillingly precise. “I’d try to understand
who
I was dealing with.… We’ve made a number of inquiries, Howard. My superiors are concerned about you.”

“What-do-you-mean?” Stockton’s question was asked so swiftly the words had no separation.

“They think … we think you’ve called too much attention to yourself. President and vice-president of a
Rotary Club!
Jesus! A one-man fund-raiser for new school buildings; the big provider for widows and orphans—charge accounts included; Memorial Day picnics! Then hiring locals to spread rumors about the girls! Half the time the kids walk around half naked. You think the local citizens don’t talk?
Christ
, Howard!”

“Who the hell are you?”

“Just a tired businessman who gets annoyed when he sees another businessman make an ass of himself. What the hell do you think you’re running for? Santa Claus? Have you any idea how prominent that costume is?”

“Goddamn it, you got it in for me! I’ve got the finest combined operation north of Atlanta! I don’t
know who you people been talkin’ to, but I tell you—this I’il old Mount Holly’d go to hell in a basket for me! Those things you people dug up—they’re
good
things!
Real
good!… You twist ’em, make ’em sound bad! That ain’t
right!
”

Stockton took out a handkerchief and patted his flushed, perspiring face. The southerner was so upset his sentences spilled over into one another, his voice strident. Matlock tried to think swiftly, cautiously. Perhaps the time was now—with Stockton. It had to be sometime. He had to send out his own particular invitation. He had to start the last lap of his journey to Nimrod.

“Calm down, Stockton. Relax. You may be right.… I haven’t time to think about it now. We’ve got a crisis. All of us. That phone call was serious.” Matlock paused, looking hard at the nervous Stockton, and then put his suitcase on the marble floor. “Howard,” he said slowly, choosing his words carefully, “I’m going to trust you with something and I hope to hell you’re up to it. If you pull it off, no one’ll bother your operation—ever.”

“What’s that?”

“Tell
him
to take a walk. Just down the hall, if you like.”

“You heard the man. Go smoke a cigar.”

Mario looked both hostile and confused as he trudged slowly toward the staircase. Stockton spoke.

“What do you want me to do? I told you, I don’t want trouble.”

“We’re
all
going to have trouble unless I reach a few delegates. That’s what Wheeling was telling me.”

“What do you mean … delegates?”

“The meeting over at Carlyle. The conference with our people and the Nimrod organization.”

“That’s not my affair!” Stockton spat out the words. “I don’t know a thing about that!”

“I’m sure you don’t; you weren’t meant to. But now it concerns all of us.… Sometimes rules have to be broken; this is one of those times. Nimrod’s gone too far, that’s all I can tell you.”

“You tell
me?
I live with those
preachers!
I
parlay
with them, and when I complain, you know what our own people say? They say, “That’s the way it is, old Howie, we all do business’! What kind of talk is that? Why do
I
have to do business with them?”

“Perhaps you won’t much longer. That’s why I have to reach some of the others. The delegates.”

“They don’t include me in those meetings. I don’t know anyone.”

“Of course you don’t. Again, you weren’t meant to. The conference is heavy; very heavy and very quiet. So quiet we may have screwed ourselves: we don’t know who’s in the area. From what organization; from what family? But I have my orders. We’ve got to get through to one or two.”