Me, The Mentor: Chapter 18

“Hi, Michael.  I assume you’ve made it home.”

I had ini­ti­at­ed the call to L.T. the day fol­low­ing my arrival home.  I knew that if I didn’t go ahead with it, I might put it off interminably.

“Yeah,” I respond­ed.  “Got home yes­ter­day evening.   You hear­ing any­thing about what went down in Del Rio?”

“Not much.  Any news doesn’t seem to have spread much out­side the town.  There was some news in the local paper indi­cat­ing that sev­en peo­ple had been found dead at the Shaddoe ranch and that there were a num­ber of guns found at the scene.  One of the dead was list­ed as the local sher­iff so law enforce­ment there is pret­ty riled up and the Texas Rangers have been called in to do an investigation.

“There was infor­ma­tion in the news sto­ry that an indi­ca­tion of work by one of the Mexican car­tels was involved.  I have a feel­ing that, once the state law enforce­ment com­pletes their inves­ti­ga­tion, Shaddoe’s group will be com­plete­ly out of busi­ness and his deal­ings, along with those of the oth­ers, will be revealed.”

“I’m glad it seems to be work­ing out,” I said with­out much enthu­si­asm. “Look, L.T., your guys cleaned up every­thing at the hotel.  I appre­ci­ate that.  I had to leave all our equip­ment for them so I’d like for you to arrange to get my stuff back to me — the .308, the pis­tols, and espe­cial­ly, the Bullpup that I con­fis­cat­ed from the ranch.”

“No prob­lem.  I’ll have every­thing shipped to you with­in a few days.”

“Thanks.  What’s going to hap­pen to Willa’s body?”

“We’re arrang­ing to ship her back to her par­ents in Vermont.  We’ve already con­tact­ed them and told them that she died in a vehi­cle crash on her motor­cy­cle.  In order to con­ceal the fact that she was shot, we’re seal­ing the cas­ket.   We told them that she was so hor­ri­bly burned that an open cas­ket was out of the question.

“You doing okay?”

“I guess so.” 

There was a lengthy pause as I tried to com­pose exact­ly what I want­ed to say to L.T.

“L.T. I’ve told you before that I didn’t want to be doing this any­more.  You were per­sua­sive and got me to go on this mis­sion, but I’m telling you now that this is absolute­ly the last time.  I appre­ci­ate the fact that you’ve always been there to back me up and pro­vide sup­port, but I’ve had it.  No more.

“The unusu­al cir­cum­stances of this com­mis­sion will prob­a­bly nev­er arise again. And I def­i­nite­ly don’t want to be respon­si­ble for train­ing any­one to fol­low in my foot­steps or to take on the respon­si­bil­i­ty for some­one else’s life.

“Willa’s death shook me to the core.  The only peo­ple who’ve ever died by my hand were the ones I delib­er­ate­ly went after.  It’s dif­fer­ent when some­one dies because of inac­tion or error.”

“But Michael, you can’t blame you…”

“Blame myself?” I blurt­ed.  “That’s exact­ly what I’m doing.  And no amount of con­ver­sa­tion is going to change that.

“But it’s time to end this.  As the Japanese would say, I’ve become ronin.  Any future actions by me will be of my own voli­tion … if there are any, although, right now, I can’t see that in my future.  I under­stand there are a lot of bad play­ers out there, but you’ve got a whole orga­ni­za­tion from which you can draw sup­port.  You don’t real­ly need me.  Our arrange­ments have just been a con­ve­nience, a way for the gov­ern­ment to side­step responsibility.

“I under­stand that.  I always did, and it nev­er col­ored my deci­sions. It’s time to call it quits.

“You’ve been a friend.  Despite our dif­fer­ences and spats and dis­agree­ments, I always knew you’d be there in case I got into trou­ble. I won’t for­get that, but I also won’t allow it to con­tin­ue.  I can’t.”

“Michael, I wish we could get togeth­er and talk about this, not just over the phone.” 

I sensed res­ig­na­tion in his tone as he continued. 

“No, there’s noth­ing to be gained by …”

“But I don’t think your deci­sion would be any dif­fer­ent,” he inter­rupt­ed.  “I know you as a per­son of res­o­lu­tion, that when you make up your mind on some­thing, that’s usu­al­ly the last word.

“Sure, I’ve been able to sway you on occa­sion in the past, but each time it was some­thing spe­cial, some­thing rare, some­thing — what — chal­leng­ing? No, I can tell this time is dif­fer­ent, so I won’t even try.

“Let me just say this.  If you ever need any­thing, any­thing at all, and if I have the pow­er to pro­vide it, just ask.  As long as I’m here, know that you can call on me at any time.”

“Thanks, L.T.  I appre­ci­ate it. One last thing.”

“Yeah?”

“That half mil?”

“Yeah?”

“See that Willa’s fam­i­ly gets it, will ya?”

With that, I ter­mi­nat­ed the con­nec­tion, one of the few times that I was able to do so before L.T. could.

I weari­ly, but grate­ful­ly, sat down in the Eames chair, poured myself a very full glass of Pinot Grigio, put my feet up on the foot­stool, and gazed out the win­dow at the large field of blue­grass turn­ing a dark gold­en hue from the extend­ed dry spell of August.

I knew that Nelson would be mak­ing hay soon.

Epitaph

And so ends the adven­tures of Michael Tate.  Yet his fas­ci­na­tion with weapons of all types, his inter­est in how the machi­na­tions of evil­do­ers affect ordi­nary peo­ple, and his demon­strat­ed inabil­i­ty to resist a “call to arms” make one won­der if we have real­ly seen the last of Michael.

Can his bucol­ic life on a small farm in rur­al Clark County, sur­round­ed by good neigh­bors, a new mod­ern house ide­al­ly suit­ed to only him, and the com­fort of his Eames chair while sip­ping a glass of chardon­nay all work to keep him from fur­ther for­ays into the dark world of assassination?

Maybe it was not just Lamont Cranston who could see “what evil lurks in the minds of man.”

A life of retire­ment is eas­i­ly appreciated.

And yet ...