The Vultures. Mark Hannon

looked up, clenching the handkerchief and said, “How badly is he hurt? When will we know? Will he be coming home?”

      Resting his hands on her knees, he looked in her reddened eyes. Absolute honesty now, boyo, he thought.

      “We don’t know yet, Rita.” He looked at the telegram again. “I’m not sure how they update the families now.”

      The deputy nodded and said, “They send telegrams when he’s moved.” Pat stood and both parents looked at the young deputy. He put out his hand to Pat. As they shook, he said, “Rick Kania, Mr. Brogan. I got back from there two years ago. They usually send a telegram when he’s moved from place to place and give you a status report.”

      Pat nodded and put his arm around Rita.

      “If he’s in a hospital, he’s probably going to make it. The dust-off choppers... that’s the medevac helicopters, do a good job,” Kania said.

      “Can we call someone before that and find out how he’s doing, what his injuries are?” Rita asked. Pat and the young veteran looked at each other.

      “Uh, no. The Army doesn’t have any procedures for that, ma’am.”

      Jon asked from the foyer, “What do you need?”

      Pat and Rita looked over at the lawyer. “Uh, nothing right now, Jon, thanks. Just tell them I’m taking the rest of today and tomorrow off.”

      “Ok, Pat,” he said. They shook hands all around.

      “Anything you need, Mr. and Mrs. Brogan, just let me know,” Kania said.

      “You’ve got my numbers, Pat, call anytime,” Jon said.

      When they had left, Pat helped Rita stand up and they hugged. After a while, Pat said, “C’mon Rita, let’s go sit in the kitchen.”

      He got her a glass of water and held her by the shoulders as she sat at the table.

      “It’s better than before,” he said. “It took a lot longer to get to a field hospital. A lot of guys didn’t make it. During the war it could be weeks before you found out anything except that the guy was hurt.” Rita nodded and stared at the table.

      Goddamn Army, he thought.

      I never should’ve let him go, she thought.

      6.

      “All right, I think that will be enough of Plato’s government by timocracy for today,” the professor said.

      “Boy, is it,” Tom whispered, putting his pencil in his pocket and closing his notebook. HR leaned over to him and whispered, “Stop by College A, Artie scored last night.”

      Tom nodded, and the two of them walked across the frozen lawns of the campus to Main Street, where the experimental College A was housed in a storefront. Inside, the walls were covered in posters advertising student events around the neighborhood, including several sponsored by the Students for a Democratic Society. Bushy haired Artie waved them to a back room past a bespectacled older man stacking flyers.

      “Take some, spread them around, fellas. We’re mobilizing against the ROTC on campus,” the older man said.

      “Ok, professor,” HR said, taking a handful.

      “That guy’s a teacher?” Tom asked quietly.

      “You know it. That’s professor Fred and that’s what College A is all about.” Pointing to a sign over the door, he spoke the motto: “Self and Community.”

      In the back room, Artie, HR and Tom shared a joint.

      “How about a beer next door, guys? I’d like to check that place out,” HR suggested.

      “Gotta help Fred,” Artie said.

      “Gotta get home,” Tom said, picking up his books. As he shuffled down the ice-covered sidewalk towards home, Tom thought about Rory. He remembered his older brother crouching behind cars in the wintertime, hanging on to the bumper, “pogeying” as the cars drove down the icy street and smiling back at him as his feet slid over the pavement.

      “Don’t tell mom and dad,” he’d say when he hopped back onto the sidewalk a block or two later. Now he’s in the jungle in Vietnam fighting this insane war, he thought, shaking his head.

      When he got onto his street, Tom saw the sheriff’s car and another vehicle pull away from the house. He ran inside to find his mother crying at the kitchen table and his dad holding her shoulders from behind. When his dad looked up, Tom could see he had been crying too.

      “What happened?” Tom shouted.

      His dad wiped his eyes and his mom sobbed.

      “It’s Rory, Tom. He’s been wounded,” his dad said.

      Tom dropped his books and stared at them, trying to choke out some words.

      “What...how...is he going to be ok?”

      “He’s in a hospital now over there. He’s alive. That’s about all we know right now, son.” His dad nodded towards the telegram on the table.

      Tom picked it up and read it. “Don’t call? What’s this bullshit, don’t call? We gotta find out, dad!” Rory never should’ve listened to dad’s bullshit about duty. He’d be ok now.

      7.

      Bill Correlli sat in his office at W.D. Correlli Development looking at all the piles of paper on his desk. There were maps of Buffalo and its suburbs showing proposed highways and sites circled in red. There were articles and drawings of the Astrodome in Houston, plans to expand the University of Buffalo campus, there were biographies of prominent businessmen in the Buffalo area, financial reports on local banks, and, on top, the latest financial report on his own businesses.

      He couldn’t sit still thinking about the possibilities.

      Correlli looked at the maps, turning them this way and that with calloused bricklayer hands. The city of Buffalo, so long an industrial powerhouse, was shrinking. Industries were going out of town and overseas. The once-crowded port had died, killed by the St. Lawrence Seaway ten years ago, the facilities crumbling along the lake and Buffalo River. Business people downtown were afraid to look over their shoulder at the ruins nearby that were creeping towards them. They were afraid when the promise of urban renewal bulldozed the old but found nothing to replace it except subsidized housing, leaving them with instant ghetto projects and empty lots. They were moving to the suburbs, where Correlli had prospered, first laying brick, then building houses and shopping centers. Not bad for a guy who graduated with a vo-tech diploma from Kensington, he thought. He had kept away from the Mafiosi and their easy money, ducked the political schemers when he could and stayed when others were running for the Sun Belt.

      Now Correlli saw opportunity in the city. The people downtown were grasping at anything, and he had a plan.

      When his secretary buzzed, Correlli answered, “Not now, Cindy.” He focused on three items on his desk – the article that announced the Astrodome as the “Eighth Wonder of the World” showing a picture of developer Rex Yarborough, President Johnson and several Apollo astronauts smiling at its dedication; the profile of Titus Webb, that outlined his family’s bringing of art, music and architecture to Buffalo, of how he was the city’s greatest citizen and a man of vision; and the headlines from the Buffalo News – “Eigen Considers Moving Bills.”

      Now’s the time, he thought. Now’s the time for me to make the leap, to bring it all together and make a mark that will last forever. Picking up the phone, he made the call to the Webb Family Foundation.

      8.

      Pat put the long barreled and the snub-nosed Colt revolvers into an old bowling ball bag and put four boxes of .38 special ammunition on top of them. That should be more than enough. He considered putting the bag in the trunk of the Chevy but thought, You never know, and put the bag on the seat next to him. He intuitively scanned the cars and people as he headed down to police