Hell Bent Read online

  “You’re not taking pictures anymore?”

  “Can’t,” he said. “Can’t do it one-handed. My sister keeps saying I could, but she’s wrong. Drives me crazy with her fucking optimism. I’m trying to get used to the new me, and she keeps insisting that nothing’s changed. You know how irritating that can be?” He shook his head. “So I’ve got this job at the camera shop in Concord. Minuteman Camera. Everything in Concord is named Minuteman-this or Patriot-that. They’re doing me a favor, I know, giving me this job. They don’t need me. Charity, is what it amounts to, not that I’m making much money. I sell cameras, picture frames, shit like that. I think they hired me because I’m—I was, I mean, I used to be—a fairly well known photojournalist, published in the Times, Newsweek, the Geographic, won some prizes. The lady who owns the shop, Jemma, nice lady—she hired me, I’m positive, because she feels sorry for me—she’s trying to get me to teach some classes. It’d be good for business, she says. I tell her, I wouldn’t know what to say. The only thing I know about taking pictures is, be in the right place at the right time, always have your camera with you, and hope the light’s good.” He smiled. “It’d be a very short course. Get through the whole curriculum in about two minutes.” He leaned forward and fixed me with his eyes. “You remember the photos that came out of Vietnam?”

  “Sure,” I said. “There were some absolutely indelible images.”

  “Buddhist monk immolating himself,” Gus said. “Viet Cong soldier, looked about twelve years old, mowing down people with a gun bigger than him. VC officer getting shot in the head. You see the horror on his face at the precise instant the bullet exits his temple. Kids with no arms. Caskets being off-loaded from airplanes. Straw huts up in flames. Old peasant ladies, terror on their faces, watching their homes being torched. Crazy stuff, stuff nobody would believe if they didn’t see it. Iconic photos. Better than a thousand words. That’s what I was after over there. Images that would tell a story, that would stick in your head, that would make a difference. How much of that do you see coming out of Iraq?”

  I shrugged. “Not much, I guess.”

  “Embedded journalists,” he said. “They take the pictures they’re supposed to take. They don’t get to see the caskets, the body bags, the blood and brains splattered against the sides of buildings, the dead American kids half hanging out of blown-up Hummers, the mutilated Iraqi children …”

  Gus blew out a sigh, then turned and looked at me with his eyebrows arched, as if he’d asked me a question.

  I smiled and nodded but said nothing.

  “See, Brady,” he said after a minute, “the thing is, it was those images that made all the difference in Vietnam. People wouldn’t put up with that. Embedded journalists are controlled. They’re good, dedicated reporters, most of ‘em, don’t get me wrong. They work hard and they encounter plenty of danger. A lot of ‘em have been killed. Way over a hundred, last I heard. But still, they go where they’re told. They only see and hear what the military and the pols approve. Everybody knows that. They get the stories the brass want them to have, and the brass take their orders from Washington. They want to put their spin on everything. They use the media to promote their own agendas. You ever see a photo of body bags coming out of Iraq?”

  “I don’t think so, no.”

  “That’s because they’re off-limits to the media. So all the American kids who’ve been killed over there? Numbers, that’s all. Abstractions.” He blew out a breath. “Look, don’t get me wrong. There are a lot of good journalists over there, doing their best to get the stories and the images. But if they’re not allowed to be in the right place at the right time, it doesn’t matter how good the light is, you know what I’m saying?”

  I nodded. “So what about you, Gus? Were you in the right place at the right time?”

  “I’ve always been independent,” he said. “On my own. Not embedded. I owed nobody nothing. There were a bunch of us freelancers. They hated us.”

  “Who did?”

  “The brass. They couldn’t control us. Couldn’t censor us, couldn’t tell us where to go, what to shoot. They knew we were after the stories they didn’t want told. The senselessness of it. The failure of it. The friendly fire fatalities. The crappy equipment. The wrongheaded decisions. The dead children. They were all about covering up. Getting their own version of the story out there. Not the truth.” He looked at me. “You probably think I’m paranoid. The PTSD, huh?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe I am. Paranoid. They tell me I am. Paranoid and depressed and unpredictable. That’s why I went nuts on Claudia. It’s why I don’t trust you or Alex. But what it was like over there? That’s not paranoia.”

  I touched my right hand, indicating his missing one. “Are you saying …?”

  “Huh?” He frowned. “Oh.” He patted the stump of his right arm. “This was an accident. One of the things that happens over there all the time. Nothing special. Ordinary, actually. Just another random little thing that changes somebody’s life. You might say it happened because I was in the right place at the right time.” He smiled. “I had my camera with me, too. But the light was all wrong, and when I woke up, my camera was gone, and so was my hand.” He shook his head. “Look. I went over there to take pictures. To do what I’m meant to do, like your dog with birds. I thought I could make a difference. Get the truth. Then this happened, and I had to come home, and I can’t do it anymore.”

  “So you didn’t get any photos?”

  “When I woke up in the hospital after the explosion,” he said, “my camera was gone. I assume it suffered the same fate as my hand.”

  “All your photos were in your camera?”

  He narrowed his eyes at me for a minute, then said, “Let’s change the damn subject. Okay?”

  “If you’ve got some photos, some iconic images—”

  “I don’t want to talk about photography right now.”

  I shrugged. “Up to you.”

  “Another time, maybe.”

  I nodded.

  “I can really tell you anything,” he said, “and you’ve got to respect my privacy. Right?”

  “Yes. That’s right.”

  He looked at me. “Because sometimes …” He waved his hand in the air.

  “Sometimes what?” I said.

  He shook his head. “Not now.”

  “You shouldn’t do anything without talking to me,” I said. “You understand what I’m saying?”

  He smiled. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “That’s easier said than done,” I said.

  I left a few minutes later. He walked out to my car with me. The north wind was whipping the tops of the trees and skittering the clouds across the moonlit sky. I half-expected to see a wedge of honking geese up there. It was the season of migration.

  Through the screen of hemlocks, orange light glowed from the old colonial where Herb and Beth Croyden lived. I pointed over there. “Do you see much of your landlords?”

  “They leave me alone,” he said. “I think I could ask them for anything, they’d give it to me. Nice folks.” He shook his head. “I don’t ask for anything, though. I see them now and then when they take their dog out for a walk. They got a golden retriever, I think it is. They take him on the leash down to the river.” He gestured off toward the back of the property. “The Concord River’s right over the hill there. They let the dog off the leash, throw sticks for him.” He gazed off through the woods in the direction of the river for a moment. Then he sort of shivered and turned back to me. “I’m thinking of getting a dog.”

  “You can’t beat dogs for companionship,” I said.

  He shrugged. “I’m not quite ready for it. I’m afraid I’d get mad at a dog. It’s kind of a goal of mine. To feel confident enough, or secure, or safe, or whatever it is—to feel like I could take care of a dog.”

  “Sounds like a worthwhile goal,” I said.

  We talked idly for a few minutes, and then I
reached into the back seat of my car and came up with a manila envelope with some forms that I’d brought with me for Gus to fill out. He said there was a fax machine at the camera store. He’d do the forms and fax them back to me.

  He asked me how it worked. Divorce, he meant.

  I told him that Claudia’s lawyer and I would hammer out a separation agreement, make sure the two parties agreed to it, and bring it to the court. Division of property, insurance, custody, child support, alimony. If the judge signed off on it, there would be a 120-day waiting period during which he and Claudia would be legally separated. During those ninety days they could change their minds about the terms of the agreement, or even about whether they wanted to go through with it. If they didn’t, the divorce would automatically become final.

  I reminded him to tell his wife to have her lawyer contact me. He promised he would. I told him he could call me anytime—if he had questions about what I wanted on the forms, or anything else.

  We agreed to get together again after I’d had a chance to talk to Claudia’s lawyer. Then, no doubt, we’d have some new things to talk about.

  He recited two phone numbers—one at the camera shop where he worked, the other for his apartment over the garage—and I scribbled them on the back of one of my business cards.

  I held out my hand to him.

  He looked at it, then smiled and gripped it with his left hand. “Most people won’t shake hands with me,” he said. “I guess they think I’ll stick my stump at them. Freaks them out.”

  “Don’t forget,” I said. “Anything you need to talk about …”

  He nodded. “I won’t forget.”

  I left my car in the Residents Only space in front of my townhouse on Mt. Vernon Street. Henry was waiting inside the front door. His whole hind end was wagging. I squatted down so he could lick my face, then let him out the back door. I stood there on the deck and waited for him to finish snuffling the bushes and locating the places where he needed to mark.

  I still hadn’t gotten used to the vacuum left by Evie. As long as I’d lived in this place Evie and Henry had been there, too.

  She’d been gone since June. Almost four months. Sometimes I couldn’t even conjure up the image of her face or the sound of her voice. At other times, though, the feel of her skin and the scent of her hair when I nuzzled the back of her neck were so vivid and palpable that I’d have to blink to remind myself that the smells and textures and sounds existed only in my memory, and that I was alone.

  After a while Henry came padding up onto the deck, and we went inside. I gave him a Milk-Bone, then checked my phone for messages. There was one.

  I hesitated before listening to it. It might’ve been Evie. She’d called maybe half a dozen times since she’d been in California. Not once had I been there to answer the phone, so all I got was her messages. I was pretty sure that she made a point of calling when she figured I wouldn’t be there. Leaving messages was easier than talking to me.

  The message I was waiting for would report that her father had died and she was coming home. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. I didn’t want to admit that I hoped Ed Banyon would die.

  Typically, Evie’s messages were brief and glib and impersonal. Reports on her father’s health, mostly. A couple of times she’d run into a mutual friend out there who said hello. I had the sense that she felt obligated to touch base with me every few weeks. She always asked me to give Henry a big hug for her, and one for me, too. That was all. No “I love you” or “I miss you.” Just “Big hugs for Henry, and one for you, too.”

  This message wasn’t from Evie. It was Alex. “Brady?” said her familiar telephone voice. “Will you call me when you get back? I’m dying to hear how it went with Gussie.” She paused, and then in a softer tone she said, “I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you’re doing this. I want to buy you dinner. Tonight was hardly relaxing. Call me, okay? Even if it’s late. I’m wideawake.”

  Alex’s voice, and the unavoidable image of her lying in a king-sized bed in the Best Western hotel waiting for me to return her call, brought old memories and images bubbling into my brain. We’d been together for over three years. We’d loved each other. When we split, I believed that I’d never find another woman to love.

  So now Evie was a continent away and avoiding me, and Alex was here, in Concord, barely half an hour’s drive from Beacon Hill, and she was calling me on a Saturday night with that husky telephone voice of hers, telling me how grateful she was and asking me to return her call.

  I stood there in my kitchen holding the phone in my hand and gazing out the kitchen window into the darkness. After a minute, I set the phone back on its cradle and gave Henry a whistle, and we went upstairs to bed.

  FIVE

  Monday afternoon I was working on my letter to AA Movers, Inc., on behalf of Doug and Mary Epping, and not enjoying it, when Julie tapped on my door.

  “Enter,” I called.

  “I brought you coffee.” She put a mug on my desk, then sat in the chair across from me. “How goes the composing?”

  “More like decomposing,” I said. “I’m semicolon-ing and whereas-ing myself to death here.” I held up my yellow legal pad for her to see.

  “It’s delightfully messy,” she said.

  “It’ll get worse before it gets better,” I said. “I’ll have a draft for you to edit before the sun sets.”

  “Goody,” said Julie. “I love deleting your semicolons. Meanwhile, Attorney Capezza called.”

  “Lily Capezza? What’s she want?”

  “She represents Claudia Shaw. She seemed to think you’d know what she wants. I told her you’d get back to her.”

  “You could’ve put her through,” I said. “I was just hacking around with this letter.”

  Julie cocked her head and smiled.

  “Oh,” I said. “Right. Promoting the illusion that I am too busy to take a phone call.”

  “We’ve got a new client, then?”

  “I guess we do,” I said. “Sorry. I should’ve given you a heads-up. Gus Shaw. Augustine. Alex’s brother. He’s getting divorced.”

  “You’re going up against Attorney Capezza, huh?”

  “Yes,” I said. “The formidable Lily Capezza. Why don’t you see if you can get her on the line for me. Might as well start the ball rolling.”

  Julie gave me a little salute, stood up, and headed for the door. Then she stopped. “So how’s Alex?”

  “You had a long talk with her the other day, didn’t you?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “There’s nothing going on,” I said, “if that’s what you’re getting at. And if there was, I wouldn’t tell you.”

  “Heard from Evie lately?”

  “No.”

  She looked at me for a moment, then shook her head, opened the door, and left.

  A few minutes later the console on my desk buzzed. I picked up the phone and poked the blinking button.

  “I have Attorney Capezza on line one for you,” said Julie.

  A moment later there was a click on the line. “Lily,” I said. “How are you?”

  “Hello, Brady Coyne,” she said. Lily Capezza had a soft, girlish voice that belied a heart of granite and a will of titanium. “I’m quite well, thank you. I do have a rather unhappy client, however.”

  “Me, too,” I said.

  “The sooner we get this thing done,” she said, “the better for all concerned, don’t you think?”

  “What are the chances,” I said, “from your client’s point of view, of a reconciliation?”

  Lily laughed. “You’re joking, right?”

  “No,” I said, “of course I’m not joking. We always go for reconciliation. Encourage them to try counseling, use the separation to work things out. You and I have always been of one mind on this.”

  “The 209A makes reconciliation moot, don’t you think?”

  I said nothing. Gus hadn’t mentioned anything about a restraining order.

 
I heard Lily chuckle in the phone. “He didn’t tell you about the abuse prevention order, did he?”

  “Come on, Lily. That’s between me and my client.”

  “He didn’t contest it,” she said. “I bet if he’d had you he would have, though even you wouldn’t have prevailed. We got it extended to a full year. Doesn’t expire till May 15, by which time I’m hoping the divorce will be final.”

  I hesitated, then said, “Why don’t you give me your perspective on it?”

  “It’s public record,” she said. “An unbalanced man suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, back from Iraq having lost his right hand to some kind of IED, terrorizing his wife and children? Sad story. All too common, I’m afraid. You’ve got to feel bad for the poor man. But first and foremost, you’ve got to worry about the wife and kids. Their safety. Their peace of mind.”

  “Terrorizing,” I said. “Strong language, Lily.”

  “The man brandished his sidearm, Brady. Come on.”

  “Oh, shit,” I said before I could stop myself.

  Lily was silent for a moment. Then she said, “Look, Brady. I don’t mean to tell you how to do your job, but between you and me, and entirely off the record, you’ve got to talk to your client.”

  “I intend to.” I blew out a breath. “So why wasn’t Gus arrested? Brandishing a sidearm?”

  “My client refused to report it and wouldn’t let me use it with the judge. She knows he’s a sick puppy. She stuck by him for as long as she could. She’s scared, Brady. She needs to be divorced, and she had to go for the 209A. She had no choice. Fortunately, your client didn’t contest the order. So the brandishing part’s not in the public record. But if it should be necessary …”

  “I hear you.” I cleared my throat. “Off the record—yes, thank you for that—off the record, to tell you the truth, I confess that I’m kind of embarrassed, Lily. My client is an unstable man, seriously depressed, and obviously not entirely forthcoming with his attorney. I hope you and I can find a way that works in the interests of both of our clients. For the sake of justice.”