The Gun Runner's Daughter Read online

  After a time he broke their gaze to gesture to the bartender and hold up two fingers. Felice approached with two beers and one shot of bourbon, asking Allison protectively: “You want this, doll?” Alley nodded, and after Felice had gone the man extended the silence long enough to drain his shot and light, from a pack on the bar, a Marlboro Light.

  When he spoke, it was in a low, hoarse voice, flat with a Californian accent, and a conversational tone, as if resuming a long-standing discussion between old friends.

  “So, thanks for everything. Wanna do me a favor?”

  He sounded, she thought, exhausted. She nodded, and for a moment he paused, as if noticing, with unknown perspicacity, something about her. Then he went on in a slightly less aggressive pitch.

  “Tell your old man I’m under subpoena to the House Intelligence Committee, and I got to be in Washington tomorrow. I don’t want him to think he chased me away.”

  Alley nodded okay, and there was a silence, during which she drank a single sip of beer. Then she spoke again:

  “I’m afraid your trip’s been a waste of time, Mr. Dymitryck.”

  “Nicky.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Call me Nicky. And not at all. I’ve had a very interesting time.”

  Now Alley allowed herself a smile. It was, she thought, her first in a long time.

  “Well, Mr. Dymitryck, you have an interesting idea of what’s interesting.”

  “Um-hmm.” He seemed to say this to himself. Then he returned his attention to her.

  “Hey, Allison?”

  “Yes, Nicky.”

  Still speaking pleasantly, the man went on. “You think I’m one of your little pals from the New Yorker, right? You think I’m looking for a quote from you to dump in my chatty little fact piece? Well, let me tell you something. I don’t give a fuck about you. So, think what you want to, okay? But don’t kid yourself that you know the first thing about what I’m looking for, or what I found.”

  Absorbing the change in pace immediately, she found herself, suddenly, glad. She smiled now, widely, and as she spoke, in a new tone also, she watched this man coming to attention.

  “Excuse me, you’re quite right. I thought you were a knee-jerk liberal from a paranoid rag come out here looking to confirm, somehow, what you already believe. Now I see you’re in fact a deeply mysterious character with a black eye who can use the word fuck. ”

  He smiled back, as if happily, but she noticed his eyes squinting.

  “Oh, my dear. My worst enemy wouldn’t call me a liberal. A liberal’s someone like your buddy Martha’s father. Or his good friends John Kerry or Ted Kennedy, who so support your father’s business activities. You can say whatever you want about me. But you can’t call me a liberal.”

  Allison felt her smile fade. That both Democratic senators from Massachusetts were friends of her father’s had to do with the high importance of munitions manufacture on the East Coast: no one could be elected here without the support of the enormous high-tech defense industry, with the thousands of jobs it guaranteed to the state. But was this guy really inviting her to debate the politics of the arms trade? That, she thought, for sure was a change from what most people wanted from her. She licked her lips and then answered precisely.

  “I follow you exactly. The difference between you and someone like Kennedy or Kerry is that they got themselves elected. That’s called a constituency, Nicky dear, and their constituency, like it or not, works for Raytheon and Electric Boat. Please don’t interrupt me.”

  This last statement was in response to his indraw of breath, ready to answer, and in turn he exhaled and watched her go on.

  “Their constituency built this country’s defense during the Cold War. Now that the war’s over, they’re supposed to be fired, right? They did their job, and they’ve got families, and pensions, and mortgages, but sorry: we don’t need them any more. Well, Mr. Dymitryck from the North American Review, you know, and I know, that every piece of equipment we build and sell can be just as easily bought from France, or Germany, or Russia, or England, and those bastards’ll equip them for nuclear payloads in the bargain. And you know, and I know, that if we don’t sell them, they will. So don’t give me your moralizing, tired, liberal—repeat, liberal—bullshit, okay?”

  Far from silenced, Nicky answered the moment she stopped.

  “You know, that answer’s always depressing. But it’s the worst when you hear it from someone your age. Listen, the same company that builds F-16s in America sells separately packaged nuclear conversion kits, so so much for your precious moral high ground. And as for your heroic blue-collar constituency who needs arms exports to survive, open your eyes. They’re being pink-slipped from Lynn to Salem while their employers conduct a massive industry downsizing and hold up shareholder profits by exporting our jobs and our technology in offset deals, and no one in this country, in this whole fucking country, gives a good goddamn. You take what the CEO of Defense Dynamics makes in one year, it could pay two hundred people fifty-thousand-dollar salaries and still leave him seven figures to keep up his house on South Beach. Don’t kid yourself: Kennedy’s constituency, and Kerry’s, and Clinton’s, aren’t blue collar, but they are your father: CEOs drawing multimillion-dollar salaries and feeding them into election coffers while they’re downsizing workforces and laying off thousands of workers. You know that.”

  “No, I don’t. I know that there’s an industry in trouble, and millions of people depend on it.”

  “Bullshit. There were larger military drawdowns after Korea, after Vietnam. We survived those. The Pentagon Defense Conversion Committee just last winter said the national impact’s smaller now than after those.”

  “Yeah. It’s arms exports that’s keeping it smaller. It’s people like my father who are giving us the breathing space to convert technology.”

  They were both speaking very quickly now, and without smiling.

  “No way. It’s people like your father keep us from retooling. See Japan have a problem with conversion after the Second World War? See Korea struggling to convert to auto production? How come they can do it and we can’t?”

  “Oh, write the president. My father doesn’t make these damn things. He just fulfills orders your c

  His face showed contempt, seeming to age with the expression. “I’m surprised to hear the daughter of the great Zionist using that kind of defense. And in any case, it’s wrong and you know it. Your father originates deals all over the world. It’s the backbone of Clintonian democracy that anything can be sold, anywhere, and he’ll throw in the State and Commerce Departments as salesmen. Do you know you can get an export license for cattle prods under the Export Administration Act? Who exactly do you think’s defending democratic sovereignty with cattle prods? And if, in the unlikely event that the administration won’t sign off, then what the fuck, your daddy just ships to Taiwan and diverts. Or uses Israeli stockpile. Or does whatever he wants: an end-user certificate means nothing anymore. If I had a Falcon jet at my disposal, I could be back here with a Thai EUC for two dozen AMRAAM missiles before this bar fucking closes.”

  “Well, that’s likely, given that last call here’s at four. So tell me this, Mr. Dymitryck from the NAR. What did my father get his ass arrested for, if it’s the goddamned Wild West out there in the arms market?”

  And at the question Nicky, suddenly, stopped and slowly smiled.

  “You see, you haven’t been listening to me. I told you, I’m not writing an article for the New York Review of Books. I know all about the sleazy politics behind your dad’s arrest. I don’t give a fuck about that.”

  3.

  Allison hid her shock in a draw from her beer. This was, she thought, a very, very smart person, as smart as Dee, as smart as Martha.

  He was, even with the black eye, an oddly attractive person. She watched him now, for a moment, watching her while he ordered another drink with an authoritative nod down the bar. When he turned his face to her again, she noticed the thi
ckness of his lips around the cigarette they held, and again, the diffuse bruise from his eye onto his cheek. Her dad’s people had hit him, she thought, very hard indeed. Would they have killed him had Dee not shouted?

  “Jesus, Mr. Dymitryck, I don’t know what. You were interested enough to get him arrested in the first place. I’m sorry you didn’t hit the end of your attention span a little earlier.”

  He laughed outright now, his face transforming with the smile, and Allison had a feeling that, under other circumstances, this was a person who laughed easily. When he stopped and spoke again in his funny, raspy voice with its flat Californian accent, it was with a different expression. Appreciation, or very nearly, Allison thought.

  “I’m gonna tell you something, Allison, and you can take it to the bank and deposit it with one of your daddy’s checks from Bank Leumi. You ready? When I’m done with your dad, he’s going to be truly sorry he didn’t have me killed this afternoon.”

  Quickly, something tightened in Allison’s stomach. But without taking the time to understand what, she answered.

  “You’re living in a fantasy, Mr. Dymitryck. My father doesn’t have people killed. Or beaten up.”

  Nicky answered only with a withering look.

  But there was something else bothering her, and now, with a small shock, she defined what it was: how had he known her father sent her checks from Bank Leumi?

  She thought about that for a moment, feeling her cheeks suddenly hot, before she turned back.

  “Now let me tell you something. In fact, let me tell you two things. Firstly, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Secondly, if you’re looking for some secret about my father, don’t even bother asking.”

  “Thanks. Thanks for your advice. Now, I got to go check my boat.”

  “Your boat?” During their conversation, she had forgotten that he meant to leave the island tonight. Suddenly it seemed extremely important that he not leave. Not until she knew what he meant by that Bank Leumi reference. She spoke quickly.

  “Good luck. I’ll keep your seat warm. There’s no way on earth you’re getting a seat on that boat.”

  He stood. “I agree. But I do believe I can get a ticket on the freighter at eight. Watch my bags?”

  Looking down, she saw at the foot of his stool a small leather garment bag and a matching briefcase. Her heart quickening, she looked up, and nodded. Then the small man was walking, slightly unsteadily, out of the bar, and she was alone.

  4.

  The clearest thought she could bring to mind was that this man was going to disappear in a minute, as Dee had just done, and like Dee—her stomach plummeted at the thought—he could be hard to get back. For a moment she was torn between getting rid of him and keeping him here. While he was here, this little man could get sloppy drunk and tell all. She could confront him with a direct question about his interest in Ocean View. She could seduce him. That thought, as crazy as it was, sent a movement of excitement through her.

  Then she turned to Nicky’s briefcase at her feet, and her heart, already quickened, began to pound.

  What had he meant by that Bank Leumi comment? This was, perhaps, her only chance ever to find out. Casually, she picked it up and carried it down the length of the bar to the women’s room. It was occupied, and for a couple of endless minutes she experienced severe anxiety. Then, from within, the toilet flushed and the door pushed open.

  Inside, the door locked, she sat on the closed toilet and opened the case on her knees. There was an empty pint bottle of Jim Beam, a couple of floppy disks in a plastic case, a roll of film, and a number of green files pertaining to various subjects: Greg Eastbrook, Jennifer Harbury, a union dispute in southern California. Under this, there was a single manila file marked “Diamond.”

  The name was familiar. She opened the thin file and found, inside a Xeroxed map of South Beach from Long Point to Ocean View. Under this was another, broader map, and under that two pictures: one from a newspaper in the ’80s, showing herself, her father, and Pauly on the steps of the Capitol Building coming from the Iran-contra hearings; the other a grainy print showing herself sitting on the porch of the Up Island General Store.

  She paused now, breathing through an open mouth. Next in the file were some newspaper clippings about her father, both then and now; then a document that proved to be a lease for one of the Ocean View Estate rentals signed by a Stanley Diamond. Briefly, dizziness passed over her mind, and she closed the file.

  She remembered Diamond now. His had been one of the checks she’d deposited when she had first arrived onisland, in mid August.

  But there was no time to panic: Nicky could be back a ny time. She replaced the file, then quickly completed her search of the briefcase: underneath was a book, The Wild Colonial Boy, a novel. She lifted it out, and a piece of Corrasable typing paper, folded in four, fluttered to the floor. She retrieved it, unfolded it, and received her second shock.

  “Mother.” The word escaped her mouth before she could stop it. It was a poem, her own, written after Pauly died and typed on the old Olivetti at Ocean View.

  That was how he knew about the Bank Leumi checks.

  This man had not just photographed Ocean View, he had been in her house. And searched it.

  In the brief instant before she became scared, looking up, she wondered what he had been looking for.

  Whatever it was, however, she knew that he would not have searched her house without good reason to believe she had it.

  Which was one of the things that now made fear come.

  Hands shaking, she repacked the briefcase and closed it, wondering with a feeling of horror if this was the only copy of her poem. She opened the bathroom door, looked out to see that he had not yet returned, then hurried back to her bar seat and dropped the briefcase again on the floor.

  Mother. She said the word again, to herself, and added this time the qualification: “Fucker.”

  And then Nicky was back.

  5.

  Funny, she managed to think, as she watched him coming in, how well dressed this guy was for a self-proclaimed radical. He wore, over jeans, a splendid gabardine jacket, and a silk shirt that must have cost, a lone, more than most journalists made in a week—and alternative media writers, like himself, in a year. Something about that reassured her.

  Taking his seat at the bar, he told her he was on the eight o’clock ferry, and she nodded with something like pleasure. Then there was a silence, which he filled by downing his shot of bourbon, and then she spoke.

  “Want to dance?”

  “Pardon me?”

  “I asked you if you want to dance. I mean, you don’t care about my father’s crime. And I’m not going to tell you anything. But you’re not going away. So you want to dance?”

  He watched her without answering, and she spoke again.

  “Oh all right. Listen, the truth is, Clinton authorized the shipment during a Whitewater shredding party with my dad, during which he groped me. Now let me ask you a question.”

  “Shoot.”

  “You’ve been chasing my father, or people like my father, your whole career. Now you’ve closed him down. Why don’t you take a break?”

  “Oh, I haven’t gotten what I want from your father yet.” He was not watching her now, as if the conversation had degenerated into real animosity.

  “Why? What are you, the self-appointed protector of the Constitution?”

  “Nah, the Constitution’s a crock.”

  Surprised, Alley laughed, and Nicky looked up. Then he leaned back, and laughed too.

  “I mean, what a malign, mistrustful little document. Talk about lowest common denominator, man.”

  Both laughed now, for a long time, and Allison registered that she, too, was drunk. Certainly she couldn’t remember the last time she had laughed so much. When she could speak, she repeated her question.

  “So? What is it then?”

  He turned, watching himself in the bar mirror while he thought for a moment. Then
he turned back.

  “You see, arms are like roaches in a restaurant. Everyone has them, but most restaurants, they stay hidden till the customers are gone and the lights are off. If you see them during business, you’ll never see just one, and that’s because you don’t see them at all unless there’s a serious infestation. You with me?”

  “Um-hmm.”

  “Good.” For a moment, he marshaled his thoughts. Then he went on.

  “Now, a guy like your father, if you’re smart, you don’t just whack him with a newspaper the second you see him on the counter. What you do is, you try to let him lead you back to the nest.”

  “Very funny. That still doesn’t answer my question.”

  “Which is?”

  “Why you care?”

  “I’ll tell you. Then you let me ask you a question. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  He paused now, thinking. Then he answered her, speaking carefully and holding his eyes, wide open, on hers.

  “There’s nothing surprising about me caring, Ms. Rosenthal. What’s surprising is that you even ask. You think you come from some rarefied world of insider knowledge. Bullshit. Your cynicism, your worldliness, that’s nothing new. If you had some historical perspective, you’d know that you’re a product of the seventies’ commercialization of the counterculture—you’re co-opted; and of eighties Reaganism—you’re cynical. That’s how they got Watergate and Iran-contra by you, for one thing. I care because I didn’t let them do that to me.”

  As if having taken a blow to her body, Allison pulled together a counterpunch.

  “I’m cynical? You mean you’re an idealist.”

  “Not at all. I accept entirely your father’s profession. I’m interested in the people who tell him what to do. That’s all.”

  Allison had recovered herself now. “Is that all? Thanks for the mission statement. Now, let me tell you one thing I know about you, Mr. Dymitryck.”