Damages

There have always been a lot of stories about Uncle Pete.

Few outside the Home Firm are aware of Uncle Pete's existence. He's an older gentleman who "works" here, but in what full and particular capacity, no one's really sure. I know he's on the payroll, but his job description defies any easy exegesis. He remains an enigma, albeit a deceptively good-natured one. (My first week here he left one of those miniature Hershey's bars on my desk every day. Hershey's, Hershey's Special Dark, Mr. Goodbar, and Krackel. I've always been a Special Dark man myself, and you may read into that whatever you like.)

Everyone's got a notion about Uncle Pete, but no one thus far has come up with any concrete evidence to support his or her conjectures. First of all, there's been no confirmation as to whose uncle he is. The obvious guess would be that he's related to the Queen Bee herself, but nobody's ever come up with the documentation or oral testimony to prove it. It could be that the "Uncle" derives solely from his aforementioned good-natured and avuncular disposition. Personally, I think it's an ironic sobriquet. Because I believe that the sunny surface could very well belie a dark and quite possibly sociopathic secret heart.

Here's why: the rumor about Uncle Pete to which I give the most credence is the following. Back in 1944, when he must've been in his teens, Pete—not an Uncle at this point—drops out of high school and tries to join the war effort. He's nearsighted and he's got flat feet, though, so he gets 4F-ed by his Military Entrance Processing Station. Pete's crushed, but he knows a guy who knows a guy who shines the shoes of William "Wild Bill" Donovan, grand poobah of the O.S.S. (direct antecedent of our beloved Central Intelligence Agency). Someone at intake takes pity on poor Pete, they sign the boy up, and send him off to China to help train the resistance fighters trying to stanch the red flow of Mao's godless army. While in China, he immerses himself in The Way of the Southern Fist, mastering a variety of martial arts, including Wing Chun, Nine Temple, Eighteen Kicks, White Eyebrow, White Crane, and Wudang Shaolin. Remaining on dispatch in the Orient after the war, he becomes expert in the usage of traditional Chinese weapons, such as the double-sword, double straight-sword, double hook-sword, nine-section whip, rope-dart, and chained hammer. When he finally returns to the States, he's retained by the C.I.A. as a world-class assassin, renowned for his ability to kill a man without leaving any superficial wounds. Tell me, does this man look like a cold-blooded state-sponsored murderer to you?


Yeah. I think so too.

Forty-five years later, after countless slaughters, Pete hangs up his double hook-sword, and leaves the assassination biz. Or does he? He goes to work on a freelance basis for the Queen Bee, who's just hanging out her shingle at the time. BUT WHAT DOES HE DO FOR HER? I asked him once: "What is it that you do around here, exactly?" He smiled that enigmatic smile, the same one you see in the photograph above, and he said:

"Ah...you know, kid. I clean up the occasional mess."

Indeed.