Blunt Darts

him, please? Tell him it’s Lieutenant John Cuddy.”
    “Hold on, sir.” A pause.
    “Waters here.”
    “Still a lieutenant, I see.”
    “Christ, I was afraid it was you,” his voice becoming jocular. “You still padding insurance claims?”
    “No, but that’s a long story. I’m on my own now, and I need some information about a war hero in ‘Nam.”
    “I didn’t know anybody recognized heroes anymore.”
    “This was in your sector, your second tour, April of sixty-nine. A captain named Telford Kinnington led a charge from a protected position against some VC attackers. Remember it?”
    A sigh at the other end. “Jesus, I’ll never forget it. When I read the initial field report, I was scared stiff that old Telford was one of my persuasion. So I checked the reports and his file myself. He wasn’t, but a lot of the cooks and drivers he got the asses shot off were.”
    “What happened?”
    “Kinnington was a wild man. He’d been back in Hawaii a couple of times for battle fatigue. Only he’d never been in battle. He was in intelligence and had spent a tour in Saigon as a lieutenant. Wasn’t promoted because, though his two-oh-one file didn’t say so, he was damned near a psycho. Even so, he was from some big-time family up by you, so the pressure was put on to promote him. They did, and somehow he wrangled a staff position in a base camp.”
    “A staff position?”
    “Yeah. Some sort of special-liaison crap. One day, while the infantry troops were out on a search and destroy, a ‘copter spotted a concentration of VC approaching the camp. The gunships were a little too far away, so the base commander put his only remaining line troops at the points where Charlie was most likely to hit. He put Kinnington with the bakers and candlestick makers at the best natural-barrier side of the camp with sort of ambiguous orders to fend off the attack. It was the ambiguity that saved Telford’s memory if not his ass, because when the VC hit the camp at the expected place, Kinnington jumps up and leads his ‘company’ on a charge at Charlie’s flank. Just then the gunships arrive and maul the VC and Kinnington’s commandos. The son of a bitch got thirty-some killed and wounded, mostly by ‘copter fire.”
    “How the fuck did he get a medal then?”
    A derisive chuckle at the other end. “How the fuck do you think, John? The family’s friends applied Pressure. The ambiguity was emphasized and the copter killing was excused, and old Telford got him-Self commended.”
    “Dave, I appreciate your time. You coming back this way in the near future?”
    Another chuckle but different this time. “Thanks Anyway, but if my kids are gonna ride buses, I’d ooner they be in Denver than Boston.”
    “I wish I could disagree with you. See you, Dave.“
    “‘Bye, John.”
    I hesitated to call Val, because I wanted to catch my other contact before his cocktail hour, which probably began when most people were finishing lunch. But during the drive back to Boston, I had thought of more than my bully-whipping on the beach.
    “Hullo,” she answered huskily.
    “Val, it’s John.”
    “Oh, um...”
    “Val, please don’t hang up.”
    Quietly she said, “I won’t,” and sniffled. I was fairly certain she hadn’t developed a cold in the last two hours.
    We simultaneously said, “I’m sorry,” and laughed. I stopped sooner than she did. “Oh, John,” she said finally, “I’m so sorry I acted that way at the beach. It’s just that violence, in any form... well, it makes me feel sick, and...”
    “It’s all right. After I thought about it, I agreed with you. It’s just the way I am. Let’s forget it. Okay?”
    A final sniffle at the other end of the line. “Okay,” she said.
    “Val, I’ve been thinking. Stephen doesn’t seem to have confided anything to his family. Was there anybody in his class he was friendly with?”
    She paused before answering. “Gee, John, that’s a tough one. Like I told you at L’Espalier, he really is different from other kids his age. I never noticed that he palled around with any of the other boys.”
    “How about the girls?”
    Valerie chuckled. “I’m not sure he was feeling the urge yet, although after what Miss Pitts said... Hey, wait a minute. There was one girl in the class who kind of, well, looked him over, if you know what I mean.”
    Boy, did I. “What’s her name?”
    “Kim Sturdevant. I’m not sure, but I think I remember seeing them eating lunch