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"How long was he there?"
"Couple months is all. He heard about some action in a place called la Drang. I guess he pulled strings, maybe his old man again or just his personal charm. It was a hell of a battle, some say the worst of the war. After that came LZ Albany: something like three hundred fellas killed in the space of four days. Must have found himself caught in the thick of it with no way out. We heard later he was hit, but we never got a sense of how serious it was."
"And then what?"
Yount paused to extinguish his cigarette. He missed the ashtray altogether and stubbed out the burning ember on the bar. "That's as much as I know. He's supposed to be medevacked out, but he never made it back. Chopper took off with a bellyful of body bags and a handful of casualties. Landed forty minutes later with no Duncan aboard. His daddy raised hell, got some high Pentagon official to launch an investigation, but it never came to much."
"And that's it?"
"I'm afraid so. You hungry? Ask me, it's time to eat. "
"Fine with me," I said.
Porter gestured to the bartender, who ambled back in our direction. "Tell Patsy to put together couple of Hot Browns." "Good enough," the man said. He set his towel aside, came out from behind the bar, and headed for a door I assumed led to Patsy in the kitchen.
Yount said, "Bet you never ate one."
"What's a Hot Brown?"
"Invented at the Brown Hotel. Wait and see. Now, where was l?"
"Trying to figure out the fate of Duncan Oaks," I said.
"He's dead."
"How do you know?"
"He's never been heard from since."
"Isn't it possible he panicked and took off on foot?"
"Absence of a body, anything's possible, I guess."
"But not likely?"
"I'd say not. The way we heard it later, the NVA were everywhere, scourin' the area for wounded, killing them for sport. Duncan had no training. He probably couldn't get a hundred yards on his own."
"I wonder if you'd look at something." I hauled up my bag from its place near my feet. I removed the snapshot, the press pass, and the dog tags embossed with Duncan's name.
Young tucked his cigarette in the corner of his mouth, examining the items through a plume of smoke. "Same things Magruder showed me. How'd he come by them?"
"A guy named Be
"Name doesn't sound familiar."
"That's him in the picture. I'm assuming this is Duncan."
"That's him. When's this taken?"
"Quintero's brother thinks la Drang. Be
"Same as Duncan," he said. "This'd have to be one of the last pictures of Duncan ever taken."
"I hadn't thought of that, but probably so."
Yount returned the snapshot, which I tucked in my bag.
"Be
"Never said a word. How's Quintero tie in?"
"I can give you the superficial answer. His brother says he went to Manual; I'm guessing, at the same time Duncan went to Male. It seems curious he'd end up with Duncan's personal possessions."
Porter shook his head. "Wonder why he kept them? "
"Not a clue," I said. "They were in a lockbox in his room. His brother came across them maybe six months back. He brought them to California." I thought about it for a moment, and then I said, "What's Duncan doing with a set of dog tags if he was never in the service?"
"He had them made up himself. Appealed to his sense of theater. One more example of how he liked to operate: looking like a soldier was as, good as being one. I'm surprised he didn't hang out In uniform, but I guess that'd be pushing it. Don't get me wrong. I liked Duncan, but he's a fella with shabby standards."
A woman, probably Patsy, appeared from the kitchen with a steaming ramekin in each of her ovenmitted hands. She put a dish in front of each of us and handed us two sets of flatware rolled in paper napkins. Young murmured "thanks" and she said, "You're entirely welcome."
I stared at the dish, which looked like a lake of piping-hot yellow sludge, with a dusting of paprika and something lumpy underneath. "What is this?"
"Eat and find out."
I picked up my fork and tried a tiny bite. A Hot Brown turned out to be an open-faced sliced turkey sandwich, complete with bacon and tomatoes, baked with the most divine cheese sauce I ever set to my lips. I mewed like a kitten.
"Told you so," he said, with satisfaction.
When I was finished, I wiped my mouth and took a sip of beer. "What about Duncan's parents? Does he still have family in the area?"
Yount shook his head. "Revel died of a heart attack a few years back: 1974, if memory serves… His mother died three years later of a stroke."
"Siblings, cousins?"
"Not a one," he said. "Duncan was an only child, and his daddy was too. I doubt you'd find anyone left on his mother's side of the family either. Her people were from Pike County, over on the West Virginia border. Dirt poor. Once she married Revel, she cut all ties with them."
He glanced at his watch. It was close to 8 P.M. "Time for me get home. My program's coming on in two minutes."
"I appreciate your time. Can I buy your di
Yount gave me a look. "Obvious you haven't spent any time in the South. Lady doesn't buy di
At his suggestion, I spent the night at the Leisure I
At ten the next morning, I parked my rental car on a side street not far from Louisville Male High School, at the corner of Brook Street and Breckinridge. The building was three stories tall, constructed of dark red brick with white concrete trim. The surrounding neighborhood consisted of narrow red-brick houses with narrow walkways between. Many looked as if the interiors would smell peculiar. I went up the concrete stairs. Above the entrance, two gnomelike scholars were nestled in matching niches, reading plaques of some kind. The dates 1914 and 1915 were chiseled in stone, indicating, I supposed, the year the building had gone up. I pushed through the front door and went in.
The interior was defined by gray marble wainscoting, with gray-painted walls above. The foyer floor was speckled gray marble with inexplicable cracks here and there. In the auditorium, dead ahead, I could see descending banks of curved wooden seats and tiers of wooden flooring, faintly buckled with age. Classes must have been in session, because the corridors were empty and there was little traffic on the stairs. I went into the school office. The windows were tall. Long planks of fluorescent lighting hung from ceilings covered with acoustical tile. I asked for the school library and was directed to the third floor.