Part 20 (1/2)
He shook his head. ”For being a high-priced writer, you're not too smart, are you? Just what did you expect to find out here?”
”The truth.”
”And if you find the truth, will you be able to die happy?”
I never liked those Siamese-twin questions where it's a.s.sumed two queries are linked at the hip. Since I didn't have an answer for it, I kept my mouth shut.
”Just as well,” he said. ”You'll find no truth here, only more lies.”
The only pictures I'd seen of Doc Palmer were of him when he was young and in the army. This man looked like he could be Doc Palmer's father, or the way a young Doc Palmer might look when he got old.
”Some very powerful men don't want me to find the truth about Doc Palmer,” I said.
The old man sniffed. ”Go back to where you came from, kid. Doc Palmer is dead.”
”It's not that easy. The same men who don't want me learning the truth about Doc Palmer are attempting to frame me in an attempt to a.s.sa.s.sinate the president.”
That got his attention. ”What the blue blazes are you talking about?”
”Do you have a copy of my book?”
He scowled at me.
”It's easier to show you if you do,” I explained.
I must have piqued his curiosity, for he marched me behind the barn to the lip of a garbage pit.
”I think it's in this end,” he said.
The scent of rotten milk and meats and vegetables stirred in an unholy stew of odors. I waited for him to reach for a rake or a pole or something to aid the search.
”Jump in,” he said.
”What?”
”You're the one who wants to find it, remember? I'm the one who threw it there.”
There was a three-foot drop into banana peels, eggsh.e.l.ls, coffee grounds, and what looked like some kind of ledger paper saturated with salad oil.
He motioned with the gun for me to jump.
I picked my spot carefully. My feet hit a large piece of cardboard, then slid from under me. I went down hard, the corner of a milk carton jabbing me in the back. Scrambling to right myself, I stuck my foot in a mess of coffee grounds.
”Try over there,” he said from above, oblivious to my discomfort.
Luckily, I managed to find my book in short order beneath a flattened Wheaties cereal box. The cover had cottage cheese on it. I brushed the curds off.
”Toss it up,” he ordered.
I tossed him the book and began searching for a foothold to climb out.
”You stay down there,” he said.
”I'm not staying down here! You'll have to shoot me.”
He repositioned the shotgun so that it was pointed at my head. ”Don't tempt me,” he said. ”This way I can look at what you want to show me and keep an eye on you at the same time.”
I looked around and was tempted to pelt him with a fuzzy blue stalk of celery. Instead, I said, ”First chapter, first word.”
Tucking the shotgun under his arm, he pulled a pair of reading gla.s.ses from his s.h.i.+rt pocket, then opened the book to the first chapter. He began to read aloud.
”No . . . just the first word,” I said, trying to find a place to stand where something wasn't squis.h.i.+ng up between my toes. ”Now . . . second chapter, second word . . .”
With the third chapter he caught on to the scheme. I let him continue on his own for a while, offering only, ”It ends at the thirteenth chapter.”
After reading the thirteenth word, he closed the book and laughed. ”If that don't beat all. And you had no idea they'd done this to you with your own book?”
”Go ahead, rub it in.”
”What did you do to deserve this . . . mess with someone's daughter? Oooeeee. They really did a job on you, didn't they?”
He reached down, offering me a hand.
”Thank you,” I said.
”Call me Doc.”
CHAPTER 15.
With the shotgun harmlessly at rest on his forearm, Doc Palmer walked me back to my car. I did a little jig as we walked, trying to shake the coffee grounds off my feet. ”Doc, is there some place I can . . .”
He groaned loudly. ”I'm getting too old for this kind of thing. I gotta sit down.”
I thought he was going to take me inside the house. Instead, he slumped onto the front b.u.mper of my rental car. He propped the shotgun beside him, pulled out a handkerchief, doffed his cap, and proceeded to mop his forehead. As he did, he chuckled again, still amused at how I'd been set up with my own book. ”They're clever. Yessiree . . . you gotta give them their due.”
The coffee grounds wouldn't come off. I tried wiping one foot clean with the other. ”Doc, is there a-”
”You know,” he mused, ”I've always wondered if things would be different had Noonan survived. What do you think? Can one man change history?”
Noonan. I recognized the name. ”You're talking about Lieutenant Roy Noonan . . . the man the president attempted to rescue in the Ho Bo Woods.”
Doc Palmer looked at me with great sadness. He took no joy in what he said next. There was no righteous indignation, no satisfaction at setting the record straight, only sadness, the kind that comes when you're forced to peel back reality's skin and show someone how ugly life can be. He said, ”Lloyd Douglas may have pulled Noonan out of the Ho Bo Woods, but only after he murdered him.”
”No . . . I can't accept that.” My denial rang hollow. Even as I stood there with coffee grounds on my feet, the story I'd written, now a screenplay, was being filmed for a television special, and all of a sudden I sensed what I hadn't sensed before-that the reason it would make such a great television movie was because it was no more real than any other movie made in Hollywood.
The account as I had heard it portrayed Lieutenant Noonan as a likable fellow, das.h.i.+ng, handsome, but ambitious, and his ambitions often put his platoon in needless danger.