from Yale, they’d gone and had a beer, just the two of them. In the bar that night, he asked him what he’d taken away from Vietnam. He wanted to know the one thing that he carried around with him after that experience. He wanted to know how it had shaken his soul. What lesson had he learned from it?
He remembered his brother smiling. “No one’s ever asked me about it like that,” he said. But he didn’t answer the question right away. Instead, he talked about what he’d experienced when he got back. How people had treated him badly. Well, no, they hadn’t treated him badly. They’d just behaved badly. He’d hated how mediocre everybody seemed. How lazy. How misinformed. And all he could think about was that he’d risked his life for these people. He’d risked his life for these awful fucking people.
“I’ll tell you, Teddy, what I took away from it. The American public isn’t worth dying for. It’s just not worth it.”
At the time, Cogan didn’t really get it. He was twenty-one, ready to take on the world, a hard-charger who was not only going out to make his fortune, but damn if he wasn’t going to help people while he did it. Yet he had enough respect for his brother, and his life experience, to realize there must be some truth to the statement, and that someday he’d inevitably come to appreciate it.
As time passed and he settled into his career and life, he did. But he also began to interpret the remark in slightly different ways. Late one evening, after a particularly hard night (and day) at the hospital, he heard himself interpret it in a way that was altogether different.
“You know, I’ve been thinking,” he said to the woman lying next to him. “If the American public isn’t worth dying for, then why is it worth saving?”
“That’s easy,” she said. She moved closer to him and put her hand on his chest. “They’re worth saving,” she whispered tenderly in his ear, “so I can make more money.”
“I’m serious,” he said.
“So am I.”
Now, sitting across from him, that same woman is smiling nostalgically.
“Remember?” he says.
“Yeah. I was happy then.”
“And you’re not happy now?”
“In a different way.”
“Better or worse.”
“Different.”
He takes a sip of his drink and wipes his mouth with his napkin. It’s one of the more personal moments they’ve shared over the last month. He’s tempted to try to draw it out further, but quickly thinks better of it. Any time he’s gotten too personal, it’s only led to friction. Instead, he asks, “What do you know about Madden?”
“Why?”
“Outside of work, do you know anything about him?”
She shrugs. “He goes to my church. The old one. On Oak Grove. Church of the Nativity. Or I should say, I sometimes go to his, for my attendance has been seriously lagging these days.”
“No dirt? No rumors?”
She shakes her head. “He’s a pretty private guy. I don’t know anybody who socializes with him. He’s got a couple of kids. He’s married.”
From his front shirt pocket he takes out the folded-up copy of the Mercury article she’d given him. Opening it, he holds it up in front of him, but at an angle, pointing it toward the window, hoping whoever is watching will somehow see it. He’s highlighted a few of the paragraphs with a yellow highlighter. “Read this again,” he says.
She takes the article from him and skims it quickly, murmuring aloud the passages he’s highlighted.
“OK,” she says when she’s through.
He deliberately holds it up between them again and points to one of the yellowed passages. “Do you see this part? The part where it talks about the doctor who sexually abused him.”
She nods. “Yeah.”
“I was thinking maybe your investigator should look into it. Take him off the girl and the family for a couple of days. As long as we’re going after everyone, we might as well go after the detective. He’s potentially got a built-in bias toward doctors. Who knows how far he’s willing to go to destroy me.”
“You think he’d do something illegal?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know enough about him to make that call.”
“The abuse story checks out,” she says. “I’ve had my guy poking around already. His childhood doctor was dismissed from the hospital.”
“The doctor is still alive?”
“Died several years ago. Why, is this something you’ve looked into? Is that the information you’re withholding from me?”
“No.”
“You’re not going tell me? Not even a hint?”
He shakes his head.
“I don’t get it, Ted.”
He looks