Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson

for tomorrow’s breakfast.”
    Sands said, “I understand the mango and banana are good this time of year. All the tropical fruit.”
    “Is that a joke?”
    “Yes, it is.” They entered the market with its low patchwork tarpaulin roof and its atmosphere of rank butchery and vegetable putrefaction. Unbelievably deformed and crippled beggars scrambled after them, dragging themselves along the hard earthen floor. Little children approached too, but the beggars, on wheeled carts, or on leg stumps socked with coconut shells, or scar-faced and blind and toothless, lashed out at the children with canes or the butt ends of severed limbs and hissed and cursed. Aguinaldo drew his sidearm and pointed it at the roiling little pack and they reared backward in one body and gave up. He dickered briskly with an old lady selling papayas, and they got back into the street.
    Eddie took Sands in his Mercedes back to the Del Monte House. Nothing had, as yet, transpired between them. Sands held back from asking if their meeting had a point. Eddie went inside with him, but not before he’d opened the car’s trunk and taken out a heavy oblong package of brown paper tied with string. “I have something for you. A going-away gift.” At his urging they sat again in the backseat—upholstered in leather and covered with a white bedsheet going gray.
    Eddie held the package on his knees and unwrapped an M1 carbine of the paratrooper’s type, with a folding metal stock. Its barrel’s wooden foregrip had been refinished and etched with an intricate design. He handed over the weapon to Skip.
    Sands turned it in his hands. Eddie moved a penlight over the engraving. “This is remarkable, Eddie. It’s fantastic work. I’m so grateful.”
    “The sling is leather.”
    “Yes. I can see that.”
    “It’s quite good.”
    “I’m honored and grateful.” Sands meant it sincerely.
    “A couple of boys at the National Bureau of Investigation had a go at it. They’re wonderful gunsmiths.”
    “Remarkable. But you call it a going-away gift. Who’s going away?”
    “Then you’ve received no order as of yet?”
    “No. Nothing. What is it?”
    “Nothing.” The major smiled his affected Henry Higgins smile. “But perhaps you’ll get an assignment.”
    “Don’t put me in the bush, Eddie, don’t put me in the rain! Don’t put me in a dripping tent!”
    “Have I said anything? I’m as ignorant as you are. Have you spoken about it with the colonel?”
    “I haven’t seen him for weeks. He’s in Washington.”
    “He’s here.”
    “You mean in Manila?”
    “Here, in San Marcos. In fact, I’m sure he’s in the house.”
    “In the house? For God’s sake. No. It’s a gag.”
    “I understand he’s your family.”
    “It’s a gag, right?”
    “Not unless he’s the one making such a gag. I spoke to him by telephone this morning. He said he was calling from this house.”
    “Huh. Huh.” Sands felt stupid to be making only syllables, but he was past words.
    “You know him quite well?”
    “As well as—huh. I don’t know. He trained me.”
    “That means you don’t know him. It means he knows you.”
    “Right, right.”
    “Is it true the colonel is actually your relative? He’s your uncle or something?”
    “Is that the rumor?”
    “Perhaps I’m prying.”
    “Yes, he’s my uncle. My father’s brother.”
    “Fascinating.”
    “Sorry, Eddie. I don’t like to admit it.”
    “But he’s a great man.”
    “It’s not that. I don’t like to trade on his name.”
    “You should be proud of your family, Skip. Always be proud of your family.”
    Sands went inside to make sure it was a mistake, but it was completely true. The colonel, his uncle, sat in the parlor having cocktails with Anders Pitchfork.
    “I see you’re dressed for the evening,” the colonel said, referring to Skip’s barong, standing and offering his hand, which was strong and slightly wet and chilled from holding his drink. The colonel himself wore one of