The Edge of Honor (41 page)

But I’m also just a little bit mousetrapped. You know, you go along to get along.”

“Oh yes, sir. Trust me, I know that score. It’s just … it’s not that I think the CO and the XO are crooked, or involved in drug dealing, or even condone it. I just think they’re holding things together as best they can in the least damaging way they can. The problem is—”

“The problem is, we’re all at risk. The other night, up in Combat, four Migs faked a raid at us. Four Migs, two directors—they both have to work gangbusters. You get the picture? If we had had Marcowitz—”

“Got it.”

“I’m glad I ran into you on the way down to plot, though. I’m not sure we’d even have a promise of action if I had been alone when I found Marcowitz.”

“Well, yes, sir,” Jackson said, looking briefly at the horizon. “I guess you should know that Mr. Barry gave me a call after you left D and D, which is maybe how you and I managed to meet.”

Brian looked at him for a moment. Garuda must have sensed what was going on, too. Maybe he wasn’t entirely alone on his little crusade. The topside speakers blared to life as the boatswain mate on the bridge piped mess gear. Brian looked at his watch and then back at Jackson.

“No, I didn’t know that. I’ve got to make early chow.

Let’s see what happens in Subic, Chief. Then maybe we can work something out.”

“You know where to find me, Mr. Holcomb.”

Brian nodded and went below.

Rocky walked aft along the main deck passageway, past the doors of after officers’ country, and underneath the helo deck. Just aft of the helo deck, he went down a ladder to the second deck and continued aft to the warren of engineering spaces under the fantail, which included the machine shop, the electrical shop, the laundry, the after emergency diesel generator room, and the steering machinery rooms. He stopped at the doorway to the laundry and looked in. Two black pressmen were sweating over their work about fifteen feet from the door, the noise of the presses and the dryers drowning out any sounds of Rocky’s presence.

Rocky lifted the telephone off the hook and dialed the electrical shop, a space no more than twenty-five feet from where he stood. Bullet picked up the phone.

” ‘Lectric shop, EM One Wilson speakin’, suh.”

“It’s me. You clear?”

“Um-hmmh.”

Rocky hung up and walked around the corner to the electrical shop. The shop was a rectangular compartment, about fifteen feet long and nine wide, arranged against the hull at about the waterline, with a single hatch entry. Rocky swung the dog handle and stepped through the hatch, pushing the handle back down three-quarters of the way to full dogged position. That way, there would be warning if someone came in, but it would not otherwise attract attention. The shop had workbenches running down either side; a large assortment of electrical cable, light fixtures, switches, small motors, bearings, and tools were stashed in the angle-iron and strakes of the hull that ran down both bulkheads.

Bullet was sitting on a stool at the forward end of the shop, smoking a pipe, Eldridge Cleaver’s Soul on Ice on his lap.

“You heard about that guy Marcowitz?” Rocky asked.

“I heard.”

Rocky leaned against one of the workbenches and put his hands in his pockets. “They’ve taken him off the watch bill, but they haven’t done anything else yet.

Jackson says that Holcomb wants to write the guy up, take his ass to mast.”

“Be a change.”

“Sure as shit would. But they haven’t done it yet. I’m wondering if that boy’s thinkin’ about doing some kind of deal.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because. They take him to mast, the Old Man’s gotta give him a special or even a general court. That means heavy-duty investigation, lawyers, and federal time. Big incentive there to give them something.”

Bullet took a long, reflective drag on his pipe. Then he shook his head slowly. “He ain’t got nothin’ to give.

Onliest thing that boy knows is, he talked to one a the bloods and got told where he could find some dope. Ain’t no money changed hands; ain’t no dope changed hands.”

“But he can finger your guy. Your guy can finger you.”

“Won’t happen. They ax my guy, he deny. Shee-it.

What proof this skin got that my man did any fuckin’ thing?” Bullet looked bored, a man totally unconcerned.

His seeming disinterest irritated Rocky.

“Yeah. I can see that,” Rocky said. “It just makes me nervous, they start doing something different. And there’s something else. Jackson is interested in you.”

Bullet looked up. That got your attention, Rocky thought.

“Yeah,” Rocky continued. “He has your service record on his desk. Saw it this morning when we changed over duty MAA.”

“What that old fool want with my record?”

“He didn’t say and I didn’t ask. But I’ll tell you what: It makes me think Jackson is working the problem, no matter how the CO and the XO have been playing it. And you know he had help the other night: It was Lieutenant Holcomb started that bust.”

“So?”

“So, Holcomb’s a department head. Up for light commander next month.

Something’s going’ down. And there’s another thing.”

“Man, you fulla good shit tonight.”

“Yeah, well, what can I tell you—I’m concerned. We get complacent, they nail our asses.”

“What’s this other thing?”

“The fact that Louie Jesus isn’t out on the warpath for Marcowitz. I hear the guys in his diyision’d like to kick his ass ‘cause they’re standing his watches. But Geronimo hasn’t made a single move on him, hasn’t been around to stare at him and do his monster mash.”

Bullet put his pipe down and studied his boots. Rocky remained silent, giving him time to think. Finally, Bullet nodded once.

“Maybe you right. Maybe we slow it down for a while.

Lock it up until after Subic.”

“Might be a good idea. This could all be nothing, but there’s too many things in motion to suit me. I’ll try to find out what Jackson is up to, but I have to be real careful about that.”

Bullet squinted down at him. “Everybody know you be real careful,” he said. “You gonna fill it up, we gits to Subic?”

“Oh yes. But I’m going to keep it light—grass and hash. No snow, no acid till I see what’s going down here.”

“Yeah. Thass all them skins want, anyways. Ain’t got nobody doin’ skag or takin’ trips, leastwise not yet.”

Rocky nodded, another question occurring to him.

“You doin’ all right with Garlic?”

“I s’pose,” Bullet said. “I gits my money every payday, jist like you.”

“Yeah, but what I meant is, is he playing it straight with us? I heard some scuttlebutt that he’s charging some guys seven for five, not six for five.”

Bullet shrugged. “I doan give a shit. My deal was six for five an’ a three-way split on the juice. He skimmin’, he ain’t hurtin’ me none. You neither, my man.”

“I guess. But here’s the thing: If Jackson and company ever tumble to the money angle, they’ll start with Garlic, because he’s the loan shark.

We both need to watch his ass, because he can do us both.”

Bullet snorted. “You spookin’, man. You gonna be watchin’ so many dudes, you gonna go cross-eye.”

The hatch handle moved, paused, and then swung up.

Rocky headed for the door and Bullet put his pipe back in his mouth and resumed his careless pose by the bench.

The hatch opened and a young black fireman electrician came through the door, his arms full of expended light bulbs. He stopped when he caught sight of an MAA in the shop, looking to Bullet. Rocky turned back to Bullet.

“You talk to that sailor, EM One. Tell him to straighten up or Jackson is going to get on his ass.”

“Thanks, man. I be doin’ it,” said Bullet.

Rocky stepped through the hatch and was gone.

The EMFN put the load of dead bulbs in a steel trash barrel and looked over at Bullet.

“I be doin’ it? What’s with the shuck and jive?” he asked.

Bullet chuckled. “That’s how the Man expects all God’s darkies to talk.

I’m just fulfilling their expectations.

Keeps them complacent.” He tapped the Cleaver book. “Against the day, brother. Against the day.”

Chief Jackson locked his office door, yawned, and sat down at the desk, wedging his chair in against the ship’s slow roll. There was a mass of paperwork piled on the deck, courtesy of a high-speed turn earlier, after help detail. Damn stuff wouldn’t stay on the desk, so let it sit on the damn deck. He picked up EM One Wilson’s service record and flipped through it for page two, the emergency-data card, which would show relatives, next of kin, and place and date of birth. Wilson had been born in Macon, Georgia, and was thirty-five years old. His parents were both still living in Georgia, although no longer in Macon. The blocks for siblings, spouse, and children were empty. The death-gratuity-benefit block at the bottom of the page indicated that it was to be split between a woman named Alice Byron in San Diego and his parents in Georgia. Otherwise, page two was blank.

Page nine had a surprise for him. It listed Wilson’s educational profile, which showed that the electrician had graduated from both high school and a two-year college in Macon, with an associate degree in political science. Political science? Jackson lowered the record and thought about that. He looked again at the Armed Services Vocational and Basic Skills profile, which showed high lines in verbal and math.

Something didn’t compute, starting with the speech Wilson used, which was replete with street slang and almost a Stepin Fetchit dialect. A college graduate?

He went back to the record. Electrician’s A-school: class rank three of forty-one. Leadership, management, education, and training course: two of sixteen. Twelve Navy correspondence courses in eight years, all with high marks. No dummy, this guy. He went to the performance-profile page: good marks across the board, except in verbal expression, with a quick rise to E-6. But then, four years back, a plateau in the marks, with some down-checks in military aptitude and loyalty. That would explain the no chief’s hat. He flipped through the actual evals. Something had changed, something not specified or directly called out. So these were marks to stop his career: military aptitude and loyalty. Wilson was black, and, in the Navy’s secret code, those were the mark categories that took a hit when somebody’s racial attitude upset the command, whether he was black or white.

Wilson had been in Hood for three and a half years, almost time for orders. Jackson flipped back through the performance evals again and found that the plateau in his performance marks started during a tour at the San Diego Naval Station, where Wilson had been a master-at-arms.

Master-at-arms?! Damn. Another surprise. Why hadn’t the exec assigned him to Hood’s MAA force? He frowned. Something amiss here, and he was now pretty sure it had to do with race relations. He had seen that Wilson had his own circle of exclusively black friends, but, hell, that wasn’t unusual. And there had never been the slightest hint of radical activity attributed directly to Bullet. The man kept to himself. Solid achievement up to E-6 in a technical-engineering rating. So why the Sambo dialect?

Looking at his watch, he had an idea. It was 2210, which meant that Fireman Baker, one of his snitches in the 1C gang, ought to be back in forward Gyro rewinding the movie reels right about now. Baker usually had the night movie detail. He picked up the phone and dialed the 1C room.

“Forward gyro, Baker speakin’, sir.” Jackson could hear the whirring of the rewind machine in the background.

“Baker, this is Chief Jackson.”

“Oh, yeah, Chief, what’s up?”

“Baker, I need you to patch my phone into the electrical shop’s phone so that when it rings, mine rings, and when they make a call, I get me a ding up here.”

“Now, Chief?”

“Yeah, now, chief, and Baker? This is official business, which better not leave the 1C room. Do we understand each other?”

“Gotcha covered, Chief. You’ll be on in two minutes.”

“Okay. Patch me out at twenty-three-thirty.”

“You got it, Chief.”

Jackson hung up. Six months ago, he had caught Baker and another fireman soaping each other up in the shower together after taps. Rather than turn them in for homosexual activity or, worse, tell their division mates, he had turned them into snitches. All of the ship’s interior communications, including the admin telephones, went through the 1C room’s switchboards. Baker the Twinkie had turned out to be extremely useful.

The telephone dinged once and then again. He waited for a few seconds and then carefully lifted the handset. It was one of the electricians, a white man’s voice, calling Main Control. He listened in and hung up when the other two did. Ten minutes later, another ding. Another call, same guy, this time to CIC: Something about the new call circuit—the buzzers still weren’t working. Lieutenant Commander Austin’s voice and the same white voice in the electrical shop. Did it work now? he asked. No, only two of the three stations were getting the buzzer. Could they test it tonight? No, the Old Man had secured. Try again tomorrow. He hung up when they did.

A half hour later, his phone rang. He moved to answer it but then hesitated. The phone gave a half ring before going silent—not his phone; their phone. He picked up as quietly as he could, his hand clamped over the mouthpiece.

He heard two black voices this time, a younger one and what sounded like Bullet’s voice. Finally. The younger man’s voice was overlaid with heavy machinery noise that sounded like one of the main-propulsion spaces.

“Hey, man, what you want me to do with this here brine pump? I got less’n fifty ohms to ground, but the first class, he wants me to leave it runnin’.”

“Put a heating blower on it,” Bullet said. “Dry it out.

Megger it again at the end of your watch. If it’s still got grounds, you’ll have to take it offline, bring it back here where we can bake it out. Tell the top watch that. If he has a problem with that, have him call me.”

“You got it, man. But I think this sucker’s gonna die.”

“Then get some heated air to it. Now.” Bullet hung up, followed a second later by the engine room electrician.