The Anderson Tapes by Lawrence Sanders Page B

got in the army. This Anderson … Jesus Christ, he reminds me so much of a guy I had. He was from Tennessee. Best shot I ever saw. I was a First Looey then. I had this patrol, and we were going down a dry creek bed. This mountain man was point. The target. We went through three points in three days. They fired on the point and that’s how we knew where they were.
    D’MEDICO: That’ s nice.
    ANGELO: Yes. So this Tennessee mountain man was point, about twenty yards or so ahead of me. A gook comes out of the bushes and charges at him. The gook has a kitchen knife tied to a long pole with string. He was probably hopped up. He comes charging out screaming. My guy could have shot him dead—one, two, three. Like that. But he didn’t. He laughed. I swear to God, he laughed. He had his blade on his rifle, and he waited for the gook to come to him. It was classic. Jesus, it was classic. I had been through all the bayonet stuff: advance, parry, thrust. Book stuff. And this was right out of the book. Classic. They could have taken pictures of it for an army manual. My guy took the position, shuffled forward, and when the gook shoved at him, he parried, got his stick in the gook’s stomach, withdrew, stuck again into his balls, turned the blade, withdrew, shoved the bayonet into the ground to clean it, and turned and grinned at me. He liked it. There were guys like that. They liked it. They enjoyed it. War, I mean.
    D’MEDICO: What happened to him?
    ANGELO: Who?
    D’MEDICO: Your guy.
    ANGELO: Oh. Well, the company went back to Tokyo on leave. This Tennessee guy got caught raping a nine-year-old Japanese girl.
    He got racked up.
    D’MEDICO: Where is he now?
    ANGELO: Still in Leavenworth as far as I know. So tell me about this Anderson. What do you know?
    D’MEDICO: He came out of the South about ten years ago. A helluva driver. I think he was driving alky for Solly Benedict down there.
    Anyway, he sliced someone and had to come north. Solly called me about him. About the same time my cousin Gino had a hustle planned. Did you ever meet Gino?
    ANGELO: No, I don’t believe I ever did.
    D’MEDICO: Christ, my face is killing me. Well, it was a warehouse job.
    Drugs. Pep pills, I think they were. It was cased perfect, but someone tipped the Safe and Loft Squad. We took care of him later. Anyway, I recommended Anderson as the driver, and Gino says okay. The plan was for Gino and two muscles to pull up in his car, Anderson driving. Park a block away. Anderson is told to stay there until Gino returns. The idea is that they’ll break the warehouse, the two dumdums will drive the truck out, and Gino will return to where Anderson is waiting in the car.
    ANGELO: So?
    D’MEDICO: So everything goes wrong. Floodlights, sirens, bullhorns, riot guns, barkers … the whole bit. The two muscles get cut down. Gino takes a bad one in the gut and staggers around the corner. He’s told Anderson to stay there, and with all this going on, Anderson is still there.
    ANGELO: A mountain man.
    D’MEDICO: Yes. He didn’t cut. Well, he gets Gino into the car and gets him to a sawbones. It saved his life.
    ANGELO: What’s he doing now?
    D’MEDICO: Gino? He’s got this little candy store in Newark. He takes some numbers, handles a few loans. Penny-ante stuff.
    He’s not too good … but he’s alive. I feed him what I can. But I never forgot. Duke sitting there while the shit hit the fan. He’s some man.
    ANGELO: I figured that. Then what happened with him?
    D’MEDICO: He didn’t want any jobs. He wanted to freelance. He cleared everything with me first, and I gave him the go-ahead. He did very well. He’s a smart boy, Pat. He learned fast. He hit some East Side apartments for a bundle. Ice, mostly. Never carried a stick. Got clever. In and out so fast and so smooth they could never figure how. He was doing all right. Maybe three or four jobs a year. Always made his contribution and never screamed. I kept track and found out he was bent,