Yount took a swallow of whiskey and tapped the ash off his cigarette. “He’s a ‘war correspondent’ pretty fancy title for a paper like the Trib. I don’t think even the Courier-journal had a correspondent back then. This was in the early sixties.”
“Did you hire him yourself?”
“Oh, sure. He’s a local boy, a blueblood, high society: good looks, ambition, an ego big as your head. More charisma than character.” His elbow slid off the bar, and he caught himself with a jerk that we both ignored. Mentally, he seemed sharp. It was his body that tended to slip out of gear.
“Meaning what?”
“Not to speak ill of the dead, but I suspect he’d peaked out. You must know people like that yourself. High school’s the glory days; after that, nothing much. It’s not like he did poorly, but he never did as well. He’s a fellow cut corners, never really earned his stripes, so to speak.”
“Where’d he go to college?”
“He didn’t. Duncan wasn’t school-smart. He’s a bright kid, made good grades, but he never cared much for academics. He had drive and aspirations. He figured he’d learn more in the real world so he nixed the idea.”
“Was he right about that?”
“Hard to say. Kid loved to hustle. Talked me into paying him seventy-five dollars a week, which, frankly, we didn’t have. Even in those days, his salary was a pittance, but he didn’t care.”
“Because he came from money?”
“That’s right. Revel Oaks, his daddy, made a fortune in the sin trades, whiskey and tobacco. That and real estate speculation. Duncan grew up in an atmosphere of privilege. Hell, his daddy would’ve given him anything he wanted: travel, the best schools, place in the family business. Duncan had other fish to fry.”
“For instance?”
He waved his cigarette in the air. “Like I said, he wangled his way into a job with the Trib, mostly on the basis of his daddy’s influence.”
“And what did he want?”
“Adventure, recognition. Duncan was addicted to living on the edge. Craved the limelight, craved risk. He wanted to go to Vietnam and report on the war. Nothing would do until he got his way.”
“But why not enlist? If you’re craving life on the edge, why not the infantry? That’s about as close to the edge as you can get.”
“Military wouldn’t touch him. Had a heart murmur sounded like water pouring through a sluice. That’s when he came to us. Wasn’t any way the Trib could afford his ticket to Saigon. Didn’t matter to him. He paid his own way. As long as he had access, he’s happy as a clam. In those days, we’re talking Neil Sheehan, David Halberstam, Mal Browne, Homer Bigart. Duncan pictured his byline in papers all across the country. He did a series of local interviews with newlyweds, army wives left behind when their husbands went offto war. The idea was to follow up, talk to the husbands, and see the fighting from their perspective.”
“Not a bad idea.”
“We thought it had promise, especially with so many of his classmates getting drafted. Any rate, he got his press credentials and his passport. He flew from Hong Kong to Saigon and from there to Pleiku. For a while, he was fine, hitching rides on military transports, any place they’d take him. To give him credit, I think he might have turned into a hell of a journalist. He had a way with words, but he lacked experience.”
“How long was he there?”
“Couple months is all. He heard about some action in a place called la Drang. I guess he pulled strings, maybe his old man again or just his personal charm. It was a hell of a battle, some say the worst of the war. After that came LZ Albany: something like three hundred fellas killed in the space of four days. Must have found himself caught in the thick of it with no way out. We heard later he was hit, but we never got a sense of how serious it was.”
“And then what?”
Yount paused to extinguish his cigarette. He missed the ashtray altogether and stubbed out the burning ember on the bar. “That’s as much as I know. He’s supposed to be medevacked out, but he never made it back. Chopper took off with a bellyful of body bags and a handful of casualties. Landed forty minutes later with no Duncan aboard. His daddy raised hell, got some high Pentagon official to launch an investigation, but it never came to much.”
“And that’s it?”
“I’m afraid so. You hungry? Ask me, it’s time to eat. ”
“Fine with me,” I said.
Porter gestured to the bartender, who ambled back in our direction. “Tell Patsy to put together couple of Hot Browns.” “Good enough,” the man said. He set his towel aside, came out from behind the bar, and headed for a door I assumed led to Patsy in the kitchen.
Yount said, “Bet you never ate one.”
“What’s a Hot Brown?”
“Invented at the Brown Hotel. Wait and see. Now, where was l?”
“Trying to figure out the fate of Duncan Oaks,” I said.
“He’s dead.”
“How do you know?”
“He’s never been heard from since.”
“Isn’t it possible he panicked and took off on foot?”
“Absence of a body, anything’s possible, I guess.”
“But not likely?”
“I’d say not. The way we heard it later, the NVA were everywhere, scourin’ the area for wounded, killing them for sport. Duncan had no training. He probably couldn’t get a hundred yards on his own.”
“I wonder if you’d look at something.” I hauled up my bag from its place near my feet. I removed the snapshot, the press pass, and the dog tags embossed with Duncan’s name.
Young tucked his cigarette in the corner of his mouth, examining the items through a plume of smoke. “Same things Magruder showed me. How’d he come by them?”
“A guy named Benny Quintero had them. You know him?”
“Name doesn’t sound familiar.”
“That’s him in the picture. I’m assuming this is Duncan.”
“That’s him. When’s this taken?”
“Quintero’s brother thinks la Drang. Benny was wounded November seventeenth.”
“Same as Duncan,” he said. “This’d have to be one of the last pictures of Duncan ever taken.”
“I hadn’t thought of that, but probably so.”
Yount returned the snapshot, which I tucked in my bag.
“Benny’s another Louisville boy. He died in Santa Teresa in 1974, probably a homicide, though there was never an arrest.” I took a few minutes to detail the story of Benny’s death. “Mickey didn’t mention this?”
“Never said a word. How’s Quintero tie in?”
“I can give you the superficial answer. His brother says he went to Manual; I’m guessing, at the same time Duncan went to Male. It seems curious he’d end up with Duncan’s personal possessions.”
Porter shook his head. “Wonder why he kept them? ”
“Not a clue,” I said. “They were in a lockbox in his room. His brother came across them maybe six months back. He brought them to California.” I thought about it for a moment, and then I said, “What’s Duncan doing with a set of dog tags if he was never in the service?”
“He had them made up himself. Appealed to his sense of theater. One more example of how he liked to operate: looking like a soldier was as, good as being one. I’m surprised he didn’t hang out In uniform, but I guess that’d be pushing it. Don’t get me wrong. I liked Duncan, but he’s a fella with shabby standards.”
A woman, probably Patsy, appeared from the kitchen with a steaming ramekin in each of her ovenmitted hands. She put a dish in front of each of us and handed us two sets of flatware rolled in paper napkins. Young murmured “thanks” and she said, “You’re entirely welcome.”
I stared at the dish, which looked like a lake of piping-hot yellow sludge, with a dusting of paprika and something lumpy underneath. “What is this?”
“Eat and find out.”
I picked up my fork and tried a tiny bite. A Hot Brown turned out to be an open-faced sliced turkey sandwich, complete with bacon and tomatoes, baked with the most divine cheese sauce I ever set to my lips. I mewed like a kitten.
“Told you so,” he said, with satisfaction.
When I was finished, I wiped my mouth and took a sip of beer. “What about Duncan’s parents? Does he still have family in the area?”
Yount shook his head. “Revel died of a heart attack a few years back: 1974, if memory serves.. His mother died three years later of a stroke.”
“Siblings, cousins?”
“Not a one,” he said. “Duncan was an only child, and his daddy was too. I doubt you’d find anyone left on his mother’s side of the family either. Her people were from Pike County, over on the West Virginia border. Dirt poor. Once she married Revel, she cut all ties with them.”