Cooch Read online

  Without giving the situation more thought, Alex rolled from the swing and walked into the living room.

  “Elena,” he said, “you just can’t go out with that jerk. He brags all over school that no girl has ever turned him down, and that they all beg him to go to bed with them. He’s just using you.”

  “Mother!” Elena cried. “Will you tell this brat to mind his own business? I’m just going on a date with a popular, good-looking guy. I’m not going to bed with him or anyone else.”

  Alex’s mother turned to him, and spoke in her formal, Spanish-accented English. “I think that you are perhaps exaggerating, Alex, and your language is not appropriate. The Harris boy comes from a nice family, and I am sure he knows Elena is a nice girl. Let us not hear any more about these kinds of rumors, when the young man is not here to defend himself. It is not proper.”

  Alex looked at the determined expression on his mother’s face and knew he couldn’t make her share his concerns. He walked to the stairs and started up to his room. Over his shoulder he said, “I sure hope you’re right, Mom.”

  Two days later, in the early evening, he heard a car pulling up to the front of their house, and walked to his bedroom window to look. He saw Harris stop in front of the house in his father’s Cadillac, and then heard him beep the horn for Elena. What a jerk! Alex thought. Harris can’t even get out of the car to walk up and meet Mom and Dad. He saw Elena run down the walk and get into the car. Suddenly it occurred to him that the dance didn’t start for nearly two hours.

  On an impulse Alex ran downstairs and jumped onto his bike, pedaling furiously in pursuit of the car. As he rounded the corner by the big poplar, Alex saw the Cadillac pulling from a stop sign several blocks down the street. He was gaining on it. As the car approached the high school, it stopped for another stop sign, and a young man ran from the corner and jumped into the back seat. The Cadillac turned away from the high school, accelerating toward the area above town where most high school students with cars went to “make out.” It was a small oval pasture on a hill above the river, about two miles from town. Alex turned his bike toward it. His thigh muscles were on fire as he pedaled up the steep hill below the parking area and finally crested it.

  The blue and chrome tail fins of the Cadillac were sticking out from behind a tree. Alex slowed to jump from his bike, and pushed it to rest on its side beside a large bush. He moved behind forsythia, heavy with golden blossoms, and began to sneak forward. If everything was okay and he got caught, he’d never hear the end of it from Elena, and his mom wouldn’t be very happy either, which was worse. The Cadillac was quiet, and the only car in the pasture.

  He sneaked closer, feeling like a pervert, but determined to make sure Elena was okay. When he was finally close enough to hear the hum of conversation from the Cadillac, he could hear Elena yelling at someone but couldn’t make out what she was saying.

  Suddenly the passenger door burst open and Elena jumped out of the car. At the same time, the back door came open, and Harris’s best friend and fellow football jock, Billy Ray Sutter, jumped out and grabbed Elena, wrapping his big hands around her biceps from behind and pulling her back against his chest. Harris got out of the car and walked quickly around it. He smiled as he saw Billy Ray holding her, reaching for his zipper and pulling it down as he stood in front of her. He reached up and began to unbutton the front of her dress, then suddenly ripped it open and tore her simple bra apart, exposing her substantial breasts.

  “Jesus Christ, Billy Ray! Look at the tits on her!” Harris exclaimed. He reached up and fondled one breast and then the other. Elena was struggling against Sutter’s grip and trying to kick Harris. She screamed and Harris slapped her hard once, then twice. “Get her on her knees, Billy Ray, so she can’t kick at me. Once she’s down there, the little spic might as well suck me off.” Sutter grinned and forced her to her knees from behind as he held her.

  Alex burst from the bushes in a rage, running toward Harris, screaming. Both men were frozen in surprise when Alex’s shoulder hit the outside of Harris’s right knee in a driving tackle, causing it to collapse to the inside with an audible tearing sound. Harris screamed in agony as he fell to the ground, rolling and holding his knee.

  Alex rolled to his feet and turned for Billy Ray, who had released Elena and was raising his hands. Alex went at him with a howl, reaching for his face, as Billy Ray hit him in the stomach hard, once with each fist. The wind went out of Alex as he felt his hands close on Billy Ray’s face. He curled his fingers down reflexively and felt a soft spot under his right hand as the pain began to take him. He dug his fingernails into it, then twisted and pulled as he fell to the ground. He was rewarded by a rending scream of anguish from Billy Ray.

  Alex was on his hands and knees, still trying to catch his breath, when Elena started to pull him to his feet.

  “C’mon, Alex,” she whispered. “We gotta get out of here before they can get after us.” Both of her assailants were on the ground, moaning and whimpering.

  “You take my bike. I’ll run,” Alex said, struggling to his feet. As Elena ran for the bicycle, Alex began to jog painfully down the hill.

  An hour later Alex’s mother was still in the bedroom with Elena and his father was on the phone yelling at someone when the sheriff’s car came to the house and slid to a stop, emergency lights flashing red against the shingles of the modest house. The neighbors rushed to their porches, excited for a break in the routine of small-town days. The county sheriff and one deputy walked to the door and pounded on it. Alex’s father, Mick Cuchulain, rolled his wheelchair to the door and opened it.

  “We have a warrant for the arrest of Alex Cuchulain,” the sheriff said loudly.

  Mick looked at him for a second. “I don’t think I’m going to like this. What are the charges?”

  The sheriff flushed. “Your two brats crippled both the Harris and the Sutter boys tonight, Cuchulain. He’s under arrest for assault and battery, criminal maiming, attempted robbery, and attempted murder. We may take your daughter as an accomplice.”

  Mick’s face flushed crimson as he shouted, “This is total bullshit, Sheriff. Those boys tried to rape my daughter and force her to blow them besides. My son defends her, and now you’re going to throw him in jail? What the hell kind of scumbag sheriff are you, anyway?”

  The sheriff flushed even more. “I ain’t got any room in my jail for a cripple, Cuchulain, so you’d better shut your fuckin’ mouth, or I’ll ship you down to Columbia for disturbing the peace. I got a warrant here for your boy, so you’d better get him out here.”

  Alex, who had been listening from inside, stepped to the door. The sheriff said, “Cuff him, Denton,” and the deputy stepped forward, reaching for the handcuffs in his belt pouch. Mick Cuchulain punched the deputy in the stomach from his wheelchair, then reached for his gun. The sheriff grabbed his gun from its holster, and stuck it into Cuchulain’s face, cocking it.

  “I don’t mind shootin’ a cripple, Cuchulain. It’d save me a lot of trouble.” He nodded to the deputy. “Put the goddamned cuffs on the kid, Denton.”

  As the sheriff drove away with Alex and Denton in the backseat of the cruiser, Mick worked to quiet his rage. He wheeled his chair inside and went to the phone, dialing directory assistance in Washington, DC. After twenty minutes, he managed to reach a staffer working late in the office of Laurence Grail, senior senator from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. It took another twenty minutes to convince the staffer that the senator might indeed be willing to talk to someone from South Carolina with no political connections. It was of great assistance when, late in the conversation, the staffer found the list of “put through immediately” names that was distributed to all staffers.

  “You don’t happen to be Michael P. Cuchulain, do you, sir?” the staffer asked with newfound respect in his voice.

  “I am,” said Cuchulain, “and, as I said before, I need to speak to the senator immediately!”
/>   “He’s at a state dinner at the White House, Mr. Cuchulain. They won’t interrupt, so the best I can do is to contact him when he leaves. That will be at eleven or so. Is that too late?”

  “There is no time too late. Please ask him to call me; tell him it’s important to me.”

  At a quarter after eleven that evening, the staffer reached Senator Grail in his car. He apologized for the lateness, then passed on the message. Interestingly, the senator said, “There is no time too late for Mick Cuchulain. Ever. Give me the number.” He wrote it down and broke the connection, squinted at the faintly lit keypad on the clunky wireless car phone, and punched in the numbers.

  The staffer was deeply puzzled, as he tried to remember anyone named Cuchulain who had that kind of pull with Senator Grail.

  The phone rang at Michael P. Cuchulain’s house.

  Northern

  Virginia

  ON Saturday morning at six thirty, Randall Moreau, the deputy director of operations, the DDO, of the US Central Intelligence Agency, was walking up the driveway of his McLean, Virginia, home in his pajamas and bathrobe, carrying the rumpled Washington Post and New York Times that had been thrown by the paperboy into the tall hedge beside the garage. His bare feet were chilled, causing him to relish the thought of his first cup of coffee and his only uninterrupted newspaper time of the week. He was fighting mild feelings of misanthropy when his phone rang, making it quite likely that the emotion would again prove justified. He snatched the phone off the hook in the kitchen and snarled, “This better be good!”

  “It’s Larry Grail. How about buying me a cup of coffee? Now,” the distinguished-sounding voice said.

  Moreau recovered quickly. “Sure, Senator. Anything for a neighbor,” he said mildly. “I just got it made. I’ll see you here in ten minutes. Don’t slam the door and draw attention to us, or the neighbors will start running for their air raid shelters. In fact, bring your tennis racket.”

  He changed into tennis clothes and was standing just outside the kitchen door as a car pulled up. Grail stepped out, dressed in tennis whites with a sweater draped elegantly around his shoulders, looking both athletic and presidential. There had been talk of him running. The two men walked into the kitchen, making small talk.

  They sat at the kitchen table with steaming coffee in front of them, waiting for the bagels to toast. The DDO sat quietly, waiting. After a few moments, Grail looked at him and said, “I’m going to tell you a story that you may have heard. This could be a career-enhancing opportunity for you, so listen carefully.”

  “In 1972 I was a marine lieutenant in Vietnam, lying in a filthy rice paddy with blood pouring out of multiple wounds and mortar fire screaming in all around me. I knew it was over for me, when someone picked me up and ran off the paddy with me over his shoulder. I got hit with shrapnel a couple of times more, and I could feel more of it hitting him. He took a heavy shot just as he dropped me. I got a Silver Star, some scars, and a senate seat. He got the Medal of Honor and a wheelchair. His name is Mick Cuchulain, and he lives in Audley, South Carolina.

  “His son is in trouble down there—in jail. Mick says he is being railroaded, but I don’t give a rat’s ass if he is or not; I want you to look into it. If the kid is okay, fix it and fix it right. If he’s a no-good, call me, and I’ll send someone good down there to defend him.”

  Moreau looked at him mildly. “You know we can’t operate in the States, Senator.”

  Grail looked at him coldly. “I gave some thought concerning who could best handle this problem. Let’s skip the horseshit, because I want this handled beginning today, with action down there within a day or two. If you get it right, I owe you big time. I know it’s against current law, and I don’t give a shit. Do you want the job, or not?”

  Moreau smiled faintly at Grail. “I’ll take care of it, Senator. Do you have the particulars?”

  Senator Grail handed him a handwritten sheet of paper, folded. Then he stood.

  Moreau stood. They shook hands. Grail walked out to his car and drove off.

  Walking back to the kitchen table, feeling smug and almost whistling, Moreau held the paper between his knuckles to keep from smudging the fingerprints on it. A handwritten paper, complete with fingerprints, from the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee was almost as good as a recording, and having a big favor coming from Grail was better—it could get him the director’s job. He thought he’d reconsider submitting his retirement papers. He poured a fresh cup of coffee and put his feet up on the table, reading over the memo from Grail and thinking. After fifteen minutes he picked up the telephone and dialed a local number. When it answered, the voice said only, “Mac.”

  “I need to see you at my place, soon,” said Moreau.

  There was a pause. “Okay—thirty minutes.”

  A little later Moreau walked MacMillan into the kitchen and waved him to a chair. He told MacMillan the story—all of it—so he would understand the importance of this mission. Moreau knew he would owe him a big one if he pulled it off, but it was important enough that he dare not use anyone but MacMillan; he had an uncanny way of doing the right thing at the right time, and he was mean. He was a little disturbed that Mac seemed happy to have the job.

  Audley

  THE sheriff’s office, the jail, and the county courthouse shared a three-story brick building in the middle of Audley, on the corner of Lee and Jackson streets. It was a squat red-brick cube with a faded asbestos shingle roof, sitting dull and devoid of imagination in the midday sun. Its double-hung windows were open in many offices; others had small air-conditioners jutting from them, roaring in vain at the unseasonable South Carolina heat.

  An almost new, plain, black Chevrolet pulled to the curb in front of the building. It was an official car, with several antennae waving their importance. A middle-aged man got out of it, locked the doors, and walked toward the building. He was big, square, and thick, with the walk of a much lighter man. His toes pointed in slightly and his gait was light, almost dainty, with hips thrust slightly forward in his stance. His face was lined and rugged, the nose broken at some point and poorly set. An old scar ran from the corner of his left eye to the base of the earlobe. He wore a once-expensive sport coat, and neatly pressed gray slacks falling to brilliantly shined black oxfords.

  He opened the door marked “County Sheriff” and walked up to a female deputy who was eating a chocolate-covered donut with colorful sprinkles and drinking from a large paper cup with “Big Sips” emblazoned in red on its side. She looked up as he stopped in front of her. She wolfed the last bite of donut, smearing her chin, and said, “He’p ya?”

  He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a small folder, flipped it open a little officiously, and held the picture ID with its Department of Justice seal in front of her face. “Inspector Francis, FBI. I have an appointment with Sheriff Huntley.”

  “Yes, sir! We been expectin’ ya. Y’all follow me, sir.” The expanse of uniform trousers undulating in front of him convinced the inspector that he had not surprised her in her first dietetic indiscretion. She stopped and knocked loudly on a closed, glass-topped door with gold letters that read “Buford J. Huntley, Sheriff.”

  “Inspector Francis to see you, Sheriff.”

  The door opened quickly and the sheriff reached to shake his hand and lead him inside, waving him to a chair in front of the desk. Huntley was wearing a short-sleeved white shirt, the buttons stretched at the waist over a large stomach; large rings of perspiration stained his shirt beneath the underarms. His polyester navy-blue tie, embroidered with the logo of the National Sheriff’s Association, stopped several inches short of his large silver belt buckle. Huntley was wearing a belt holster with the black plastic grips of a nickel-plated, large-caliber Smith & Wesson automatic sticking up from it. His badge was just in front of the pistol, pinned to a leather holder on his belt. He had a crew cut no more than half an inch long and a broad, fleshy face that squeezed his eyes into a slightly porcine look. Huntley was
a big man, probably six two, and weighed at least two hundred and sixty. Francis guessed he was a former high school football hero, and had worked himself up the ranks of the sheriff’s department and into the favor of the powers-that-be in Audley.

  Francis again reached into his pocket and handed his credentials to Huntley. The sheriff studied them for a second and handed them back.

  “We don’t see many FBI folks down this way, Inspector. Got us a nice peaceful little county here and don’t often have the need. What brings you down our way and what can we do to he’p you?”

  “Sheriff, we have information that you are holding a minor named Cuchulain in your facility, and I’d like to inquire as to the charges and have a few words with him—in your presence, of course.”

  The sheriff looked surprised and a little wary. “I thought you FBI folks just chased bank robbers and shit, Inspector.” He thought for a second or two, then said, “I reckon a little professional law enforcement courtesy cain’t hurt none, though. The Cuchulain kid is a vicious troublemaker. He almost blinded one of our finest young men, just a senior in high school, and ruined the knee of another fine young man in a robbery attempt outside of town. Just jumped them poor boys before they even had a chance to say a word, and hurt them real bad. Vicious little shit, that Cuchulain.

  “So—we’re going to try him as an adult and charge him with attempted murder, criminal maiming, attempted robbery, and assault and battery. I reckon he’ll get thirty years or so—and society will be better off without him.”

  Francis was quiet for a few seconds, and then said, “Any witnesses, other than the boys who were hurt?”

  “Ah, the kid’s big sister claimed she was on a date with one of the boys. She says these guys started to feel her up, so she yelled and her brother came running out of nowhere to defend her, but you know how often brothers and sisters will lie about that shit. Besides, we checked her story, and the boy who she said was her date already has a steady girlfriend—a girl from a real nice family. We figger she was maybe looking for a little action, or working a scam with the kid brother.”