The Marchand Woman

When the tape was finished Carole said, “Thank you. You could have made it much harder for me.”

“I promise you there won’t be any snide asides about cornball trash.” He had relaxed during the interview, slumping back in the chair, crossing his legs, watching her amiably while she spoke. He was not a threatening figure. She sensed a great deal of sadness in him but had no clue to its source.

She asked if he wanted to drink and he declined, surprising her. “I’m a bit of a lush,” he confided, “but I keep it under control and I don’t drink when I’m working.”

“Do you mind if I have one?”

“Not at all.”

It was a two-ounce screw-top bottle of Scotch she’d dropped in her handbag on the airplane. She sucked it straight from the nipple of the bottle. “We go off the record now,” she said. “All the way off the record. This is exclusively between you and me and it goes no farther.”

“Fair enough. What do you want me to do?”

“Did you ever know my brother?”

“Warren Marchand? No, not personally. I admired his work a great deal. He was a hell of a writer.”

“I thought you might have known him. That series you did for the Examiner about the CIA mercenaries in the Montagnard country.”

“That was years ago. I’m astonished you’d remember it.”

“I remember it because it was the kind of thing my brother would have done.”

“I take that as a considerable compliment.”

“It was meant as one,” she said. “Is that the only time you’ve departed from your usual Hollywood beat?”

“No. I did a series on the Alaska pipeline a few years ago. And I was in Angola a while during that mess. I covered the aftermath of the Allende assassination in Chile, too. Once in a while I ask for a hard-news assignment. It reminds me of the real world out there beyond the tinsel.”

“Do you still keep in touch with any of the people you interviewed on those stories?”

“Which people?”

“Mercenaries.”

His eyelids dropped; he gave her a long scrutiny before he replied. “This is hardly the century for that kind of romantic gesture, you know.”

“Maybe it’s a good idea whose time has come back. I’m descended from good solid Norman stock. People whose record of violence and rapacity would make Caligula look like Shirley Temple. If you look at it that way it would be completely out of character for me to sit by and do nothing in the face of this—this, what can I call it? Obscenity? Affront?”

“You’re being irrational, you know.”

“Of course I am. If God had wanted us to be entirely reasonable he’d have made us in the image of a Univac computer.”

Dwiggins said, “Forgive me if I pick this up as if it were ticking.”

“It won’t be any risk for you, whatever happens.”

“I don’t want to be the one to send you into the jungle.”

“You’re a good guy, Dwiggins.”

He said, “What do you know about terrorists?”

“Not much.”

“I’ve made a few observations over the years. Want to hear them?”

“Certainly.”

“The terrorist is a juvenile delinquent, whatever his age. He’s not much different from a kid who gets into drugs or joins the Moonies or makes his bedroom into a shrine to some rock group. Does that surprise you? He senses misplaced feelings all around him, and inside him. The terrorist can’t stand the idea of being an ordinary person like anybody else. And he can’t stand the idea that ordinary people may actually enjoy their lives. In a sense he has an amazing affinity for the banal—violence, I think, is one of the stupidest but most natural responses to frustration, and what’s the real difference between terrorism and football? The problem isn’t terrorists, the problem’s the world that creates them. When things get so big and complex and impersonal that no individual feels he can affect anything around him, he becomes sullen and apathetic and he resents his impotence and sooner or later he explodes. One way or another. We all have our own private explosions. We’re all caught up in the obsession with novelty—marching to ever new tunes, excited by ever new fads of salvation—astrology, drugs, gurus, revolutions. One man’s ‘est’ is another man’s terrorism. Do you see what I’m saying to you? I think you seem to have managed to convince yourself that the people who killed your boy aren’t human. It’s the key psychosis of warfare. The enemy isn’t human because he’s the enemy.”

“Dwiggins,” she said with a tight little smile, “you can take your social theories and wrap them in sandpaper and shove them all the way up.”

He professed not to hear her. “I’m not excusing them. God knows they’re more to be censured than pitied. But look, when children drop and smash their toys you don’t murder them, you just clean up the mess as best you can.”

“These are not infants. They’re responsible for their acts.”

Dwiggins sighed. “You’re convinced they’re not going to be apprehended?”

“I have no doubt of it.”

“You may be right. If they’re half clever they’ll stay out of reach until the world loses interest in them. There won’t be any extended outcry for their capture. The people—including politicians—the people get exercised but they never get concerned. The voice of the people is mainly an indifferent groan.”

She let him run on. He was talking himself into it; she didn’t need to prompt him.

He made a last-ditch effort at resistance. “You don’t like to feel that you’re an ordinary person who can be pushed around by these events. That’s something you have in common with the terrorists—your motives aren’t much different from theirs and now you’re proposing to use their methods, too. Does that leave any difference between you and them?”

“I never aspired to the sainthood.”

“It’s a kamikaze idea.” Dwiggins’ elbows were on his knees. He exposed his palms to her. “You are nuts, you know that?”

“I grant the possibility.”

“Certifiable,” he said. “It costs money, I expect, and nobody could make any promises.”

“I know. I have some money and I don’t expect promises.”

He said, “I want to cover this story.”

“Let’s see how it works out first. I may let you know how things go. Then again—”

“That’s not good enough.”

“I did you a favor,” she told him, “and I asked you one in return. If you want to renege I’ll try someone else, but—”

“What do you want? A private army?”

“I want one man. Someone who can find them—someone who knows that part of the shadows.”

He brooded at her and she met his glance. She was tired of his evasions and admonishments; apparently he saw that, for he gave a quick little nod. “I’ll ask around. Where will you be?”

She felt at the same time relieved, satisfied, and all at once frightened—as if a door were slowly closing, shutting her into a private hell.

Chapter 6

In the fading September light the trees were heavy with dark leafery and she walked heavily. The funeral was still an open wound and she had no idea when it might begin to heal; she anticipated nothing.

O’Hillary in his office was as before: all plastic surface, ru

“I appreciate your coming,” he said. He pronounced “appreciate” with a very precise “c.” “We’ve debriefed Ambassador Gordon and some of the other hostages. I thought you might like to know the results. I’m afraid for the most part they’re negative. We know there were at least seven terrorists. The leader was a big man with a bushy beard. The beard may have been false, of course. The others wore masks or hoods at all times. They spoke with Spanish accents. At least one or two of them have some background in seamanship—they transported the hostages in a sailing boat. Now as to the death of, ah, Robert Lundquist, I’m afraid we’ve learned less than we’d have liked to learn by this time. As you know, one of the Marines on the security detail had been struck a severe blow on the head, and evidently your son was concerned there might be concussion—he badgered the terrorists to get medical attention for the Marine. After a while your son was taken out of the hut. The others thought he was being taken to see the leader so he could press his request for medical attention for the Marine. That was the last any of them saw of him. They didn’t see the murder take place, so I’m afraid his murderer won’t be identified until we’ve apprehended the terrorists and interrogated them.”