Nature of the Game (2 page)

Kent wrote a great novel about Vietnam that he called
Sympathy for the Devil
.

Scooped
, said journalist me.

“Too bad,” said my source. “I like what you got, but kinda wish it was more about the—I don't know—the heart of what goes on.”

“You mean like
The Heart of the Matter
?” I asked, and watched his face glow until I told him the great novelist
Graham Greene
had already grabbed that wonderful title.

My source shrugged.

Then he went back to revealing what spies can do with a
B-52 bomber
.

Authors are stubborn. Inspiration hit me with the
River
concept, and when none of my colleagues or sources could offer me a better title or a more convincing argument that I was wrong, I created an epigraph for the novel from its completely fictional spymaster, Deputy Director of the CIA General William “Billy” Cochran, that summed up a timeless truth: “Every ship of state sails on a river of darkness.”

So that's the title my novel bore when first released in 1991.

Of its often glowing reviews, my favorite and most humbling came from
Rambo
's creator
David Morrell
in
The Washington Post
. He loved my title's metaphor, and after comparing the book to works by
John le Carré
and
Charles McCarry
, he wrote:

“Grady has given us…an astonishingly effective and accurate fictional portrayal of American covert intelligence operations from the 1960s onward…. What distinguishes this thriller…is the vividness of the book's characters, the relentlessness of its pace and the authenticity of its covert-operations tradecraft. The action scenes are exemplary, the sense of fear is palpable…. the best thriller I've read this year.”

Crime novelist
James Ellroy
called my story: “Brutal, moving…claims your soul and nails it to the wall.”

Decades after its first publication, I still get fan mail praising the book.

And that's great.

Enough reason to republish it now, with the added importance of remembering that my generation got here—for our Third Act—by crawling out of our First Act daze as my novel ends.

Plus, I get to make the story resonate more by using the perfect title that I realized on the day that I ripped open the box of my saga's brand new published book edition.

Three thoughts collided when I first saw the book I'd risked my life to write.

First came the awe every author feels when he sees his inspiration made real
right there
in front of his eyes, whether it's a movie or TV production, a hardback book or a poem in an obscure journal or the wondrous lines flowing from an e-book screen. That awe says:
Some stranger can now see a vision as best as I could capture it
.

Second came thoughts of
Rudyard Kipling
, who I thought coined “the game” to describe the world of spies. In fact, Kipling's
Kim
popularized “the great game” to describe the rivalries between the British and Russian empires before World War II, a phrase probably coined by a British spy, but never mind reality, I was in the midst of a creative collision.

Third flashed my memory of that bar night with my source, the title regret generated by what I'd heard on the rental car radio, the Rolling Stones song “Sympathy for the Devil” with Mick Jagger proclaiming: “…what's puzzling you is the nature of my game.”

An epiphany burst out of my mental collision.

Not
your
game, Mick:
the
game.

Let the reader sort out the devils and angels.

Then, seeing my published book that first time, too late I realized what
was
the perfect title for the noir saga in which Jud, Wes, and Nick shoot through the spy history of their Baby Boomer generation:
The Nature of the Game
.

But now, thanks to this new edition in a new format, I can reveal and revise one of my best novels. That's the title that
is
.

James Grady        
Washington, D.C.

WANDERER

A
t seven minutes to midnight on an L.A. winter Sunday, Jud Stuart looked into the bar mirror and realized that the skinny guy in the plaid sports coat had been sent to kill him.

It's about time
, thought Jud.

Perched on a stool by the front door, the skinny guy snapped a kitchen match to light a Camel. Nine stools away, Jud smelled sulfur over the tavern's dried urine and stale beer. In the flicker of the match, Jud studied the killer's face and was sure they'd never met.

Jud's shaking hands knocked over the empty shot glass as he raised his beer schooner like a chalice. He drained the cup of its tangy brew, and along with fear and anger, a cold sense of relief flowed through him. After a thousand aimless and drunken days, he was on familiar ground. The assassin made sense.

The bartender was beefy and lied about having played college football. He sidled down to Jud, bobbed the toothpick in his mouth toward the coins by Jud's empty glasses.

“Ain't enough there for another round,” he told Jud.

“Then I better go straight,” muttered Jud. He was a big man on a barstool, barrel-chested with a truck-tire gut. Short reddish-brown hair. His arms were thick as most men's calves. Once his face had been boyishly handsome, now it was slack, pale. Except for the flat blue of his bloodshot eyes.

Deception was the only way he could think of to escape. He closed his eyes, deliberately fell backward off the barstool, his arms wide to secretly use a judo breakfall.

But the alcohol in his blood ruined his timing, and he crashed honestly to the tile, smacking his head and blacking out.

“Looks like a walrus,” said the bartender.

The drunks at the bar didn't look and didn't laugh. The man in the plaid sports jacket had paid more for his clothes than anyone else in the bar; he was cleaner. He watched the bartender sweep Jud's change into his own pocket as he walked around the bar.

“Get up!” yelled the bartender. “Get up or it's the bull pen.”

The bartender kicked Jud's blue-jean-clad shin. Unconscious, Jud's stillness was true.

“Shit!” The bartender grabbed Jud's ankles. “I don't get paid to haul shit.” He jerked: Jud's body scooted an inch.

“Hell,” said the bartender, “he must weigh a ton!”

“I'll help you,” volunteered Plaid Jacket.

The bartender handed him one of Jud's feet. Jud wore cheap black high-top sneakers and no socks. The bartender jerked his head toward the back door, counted, “One, two, three!”

They pulled Jud across the floor. His chopped-sleeve sweatshirt slid up over his massive belly and hairless chest.

The bartender said, “You're stronger than you look.”

“Yes,” answered Plaid Jacket.

Jud felt his head bounce as they dragged him out the back door. He kept his eyes closed, his weight lifeless. The men dragging him rested on the porch landing.

“The bull pen,” said the bartender, nodding down to the wood-fenced, packed-dirt yard. “'Course these guys are steers.”

Their laughter echoed in the cool night. The bartender squinted down the shadowed staircase.

“Ain't nobody else sleepin' it off down there,” he said. “Let's see if he can do it hi'self.”

Jud let them muscle him to his feet. His head hung low on his chest, so he risked opening his eyes a slit. Saw a hand belonging to a plaid sleeve holding his right arm.

“Hey! Buddy!” The bartender shouted in Jud's left ear. “You all right? You can make it, right?”

To Plaid Jacket, the bartender said, “He can make it.”

The bartender shoved Jud down the steps. Whirling, bouncing off the brick wall and the railing, Jud crashed to the ground. After a few seconds, he rolled on his side.

“See?” said the bartender. “Drunks, you can't hurt 'em.”

He led Plaid Jacket inside for a beer on the house.

Get up
, Jud told himself as he lay gasping in the dirt.
Only got until Plaid Jacket establishes his cover
.

He found the wall and used it to brace himself. Sitting. Standing. Leaning against the bricks. Not falling down.

From inside the bar, Jud heard laughter. Willie Nelson singing about
federales
and finks. Jud was surprised the bar had a jukebox. The only person inside who'd waste pocket change on music would be Plaid Jacket. Not a waste for him, realized Jud: cover.

A seven-foot wood fence surrounded the bull pen in the California night. The falls had knocked some of the liquor from his system. Jud shuffled to the fence, to the gate.

Locked. He caressed the lock's smooth face. If he had tools, thirty seconds. If his hands didn't shake. He gripped the top of the fence—couldn't lift his bulk off his toes.

In the bar, another record started, a woman singing sweet and clear. Jud loved women who could sing sweet and clear and loud enough to cover whatever Plaid Jacket had planned.

Last good chance. Jud retreated until he was under the porch. Three deep breaths: he charged, resisting the urge to yell as he careened through the darkness like a human cannonball.

Smacked into the wooden gate.

Sprang back like a beach ball, sprawling on the ground as the fence shook and the gate held.

Jud lay on his back, his shoulder swelling, eyes open to the night where smog hid the stars. He could surrender, fade into blackness. He imagined Plaid Jacket laughing on his barstool.

They could have at least sent someone with more class
.

He got up.

Inside, the woman stopped singing. Glasses clinked. In his mind, Jud saw Plaid Jacket slide off his stool, fish in his pocket for a quarter, feed the jukebox, and turn. Motion established. Cover.

Jud staggered up the stairs. Found no loose boards, no bricks or pipes, no jagged piece of glass. He stared at his trembling hands. The skills of a dozen teachers had been soaked out of that flesh. Tonight, there wasn't a drunk in the bar who couldn't beat him. And it wasn't a drunk who'd try.

Dion's “The Wanderer,” which had been a hit when Jud raged through adolescence, spilled out into the night.

Iron bars covered a window in the wall behind the half-open door. A drainpipe ran beside the window to the roof.

“Hey!” came the bartender's yell from inside the Oasis. “Where you going?”

Jud slid behind the door, stepped on the windowsill, and grabbed the bars. He teetered but made it, back against the bricks, clinging to the drainpipe and heels on the window's ledge.

Then he did his best to let go inside, to relax, to not-think.
One chance, one play
.

A form interrupted the light filtering through the open door. From his perch, Jud could see the top of a man's balding head and the shoulders of his plaid jacket.

“Somebody has to make sure he's okay!” the man yelled. He stepped onto the porch, intent on the darkness of the yard. While his eyes scanned the stairs inches from his shoes, his hand reached behind him, pushed the door shut.

Jud loosed his grip and fell off the windowsill, his arms wide as he surrendered to gravity and the night.

He slammed into Plaid Jacket like a walrus plopping on a leopard seal. The two men crashed down the wooden stairs, thudding onto the packed dirt. Jud landed on top.

The man beneath him was bony and still, his head at an awkward angle. Jud probed the man's neck; found
no pulse
.

Next thing Jud realized he was leaning against the fence. Vomiting. His head swam and bile burned his throat each time he gasped. Tears stung his eyes and he blinked them away.

It was the fall
, Jud agreed.
If I hadn't been drunk, I'd be dead, too. He was supposed to be stunned so I could run. He wasn't supposed to die. Not him, too
.

Jud silenced his conscience, bent to search the corpse.

A dime-store notepad and pen in the plaid jacket. A pack of Camels and a box of kitchen matches. From the pants came two hundred dollars in bills and loose change. Fingernail clipper. A handkerchief. A set of car keys, house keys. A wallet. Half a dozen credit cards matched the California driver's license, which matched the face well enough. No work ID of any kind. First-rate paper cover. Innocent. He found no gun, but a good field man wouldn't need one. Jud strapped the man's digital watch to his own bare wrist, filled his pockets with the dead man's things, looked down. Swallowed hard.

Walked up the stairs, eyes forward.

No one else who didn't belong had come into the bar. Plaid Jacket's backup might be waiting outside.

Fuck it
, thought Jud.
Don't back down
.

The bartender had his rear to the room, watering a rummy's shot. He glanced in the mirror as Jud walked by.

“Hey!” called the bartender, turning. “What about you?”

“Keep the change,” Jud muttered.