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him. He's here. The goddamn son of a bitch is dead."
    "It's a friend of Scoot's," Pirate said.
    Scoot was kneeling beside one of the body bags, running his hands
over it and laughing.
    "Close friend," said Pirate.
    "He nearly got in and out before I could pay my respects," said
Scoot. He unzipped the bag in one quick movement and looked up,
challenging di Maestro to stop him. That smell that set us apart came
from the bag.
    Di Maestro leaned over and peered down into the bag.
    "So that's him."
    Scoot laughed like a happy baby. "This makes my fuckin' month . And I
almost missed him. I knew he'd get wasted some day, so I kept checkin'
the names, but today's the day he comes in."
    "He's got that pricky little nose," di Maestro said. "He's got those
pricky little eyes."
    Picklock stirred in the truck bed, sat up, rubbed his eyes, and
grinned. Like Scoot, Picklock was generally cheered by fresh reminders
that he was in Vietnam. The door at the far end of the shed opened, and
I turned around to see Attica saunter in. He was wearing sunglasses and
a clean shirt, and he brought with him a sharp clean smell of soap.
    "Chest wound," di Maestro said.
    "He died slow, at least," said Scoot.
    "That Havens?" Attica's saunter picked up a little speed. He tilted
his head and tipped an imaginary hat as he passed me.
    "I found Havens," Scoot said. There was awe in his voice. "He almost
got through."
    "Who checked his tag?" Attica asked, and stopped moving for an
instant.
    Di Maestro slowly turned toward me. "On your feet, Underdog."
    I picked myself up. A fragment of that peace that had altered my
life had returned.
    "Did you check the tags on Captain Havens?"
    It was a long time ago, but I could dimly remember checking a
captain's tags.
    Attica's rich dark laugh sounded like music—like Glenroy Breakstone,
in fact. "The professor didn't know shit about Havens."
    "Uh huh." Scoot was gloating down into the bag in a way that made me
uneasy.
    I asked who Havens was.
    Scoot tugged his ponytail again. "Why do you think I wear this
fuckin' thing? Havens. This is my protest ."
The word struck him. "I'm a
protestor, di Maestro." He stuck up two fingers in the peace symbol.
    "Baby," di Maestro said. "Bomb Hanoi."
    "Fuck that, bomb Saigon." He leveled an index finger at me. His eyes
burned far back in his head, and his cheeks seemed sunken. Scoot was
always balanced on an edge between concentration and violence, and all
the drugs did was to make this more apparent. "I never told you about
Havens? Didn't I give you the Havens speech?"
    "You didn't get around to it yet," di Maestro said.
    "Fuck the Havens speech," said Scoot. His sunken, intent look was
frightening exactly to the extent that it showed he was thinking. "You
know what's wrong with this shit, Underdog?" He gave the peace symbol
again and looked at his own hand as if seeing the gesture for the first
time. "All the wrong people do this. People who think there are rules
behind the rules. That's wrong .
You fight for your life till death do
you part, and then you got it made. Peace is the fight, man. You don't
know that, you're fucked up. "
    "Peace is the fight," I said.
    "Because there ain't no rules behind the rules."
    That I nearly understood what he was saying scared me—I did not want
to know whatever Scoot knew. It cost too much.
    Havens must have been the reason Scoot was on the body squad instead
of out in the field where he belonged. I had been wondering what
someone like Scoot could do that would be bad enough to banish him from
his regular unit, and it occurred to me that now I was about to find
out.
    Scoot stared at di Maestro. "You know what's gonna happen here."
    "We'll send him home," di Maestro said.
    "Gimme a drink," Scoot said. I poured the rest of the Jack Daniels
into my glass and walked across the shed to get a look at Captain
Havens. I gave Scoot the glass and looked down at a brown-haired
American man. His jaw was square, and so was his forehead. He had that
pricky little