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He gestured for Davidson to pick up the story.
"I finally pulled it out of him," Davidson said, "that one of the Secret Service drivers asked him one time too many to be a good kid and go get him a cup of coffee."
"You mean one of the Secret Service guys asked him too many times, or they all have been mistaking him for an errand boy?"
"Many of them, probably most have. You can't blame them, but Lester is pissed." He looked at Leverette. "The colonel tell you about the Pride of the Marine Corps?"
Leverette shook his head.
"Wait till you see him," Davidson said. "He makes Rambo look like a pansy."
"Well, sending him back to the Marines is out of the question," Castillo said, a touch of impatience in his voice. "We can't afford that. He knows too much, and a lot of jarheads would like to know where he's been and what he's been doing. And then wish they'd gone, and that would just make the goddamn story circulate wider."
"That's just about what I told him," Davidson said. "I also had a quiet word with a couple of the Secret Service guys."
"Okay. As soon as I have my Sazerac and thus the strength to get off of this couch, I will inform Corporal Bradley that he is now my official communicator."
"Gentlemen," Leverette said, "our libation is ready. You may pick your glasses up, slowly and reverently."
They did so.
"Absent companions," Leverette said, and started to touch glasses.
Yung looked as if he wasn't sure whether he was witnessing some kind of solemn special operator's ritual or his leg was being pulled.
Castillo saw on Leverette's face that he had picked up on Yung's uncertainty and was about to crack wise.
"Two-Gun's one of us, Colin," Castillo said simply. "He was on the operation where Sy Kranz bought the farm."
"I could tell just by looking at him that he was a warrior," Leverette said. "He's bowlegged, wears glasses, and he talks funny."
"I think I like this guy," Delchamps said.
"Sorry, Two-Gun," Leverette said. "I didn't know who the hell you were."
Yung smiled and made a deprecating gesture.
"So was Corporal Bradley," Torine said. "And he probably deserves a medal-for marksmanship, if nothing else-for taking out two of the bad guys with two head shots. But I don't think we ought to call him in here and give him one of these. God, this looks good, Colin!"
"Mud in your eye, Seymour," Castillo said, and took a swallow.
The others followed suit.
Castillo put his glass on the table and exhaled audibly.
"You look beat, Charley," Torine said.
Castillo nodded.
"So beat," he said, "that I forgot that I have to call the secretary of State and tell her I couldn't talk Lorimer-Ambassador Lorimer-out of riding out the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in Uruguay. I should have done that before I had this."
He held up the Sazerac glass.
Torine shrugged. "Well, what the hell, you tried. Miller told me you went to Mississippi just to see him."
"What's bad about it, Jake, is that I'm going to have to lie to her, or at least not tell her the truth, the whole truth, etcetera. And I don't like lying to her."
"Lie to her about what?" Delchamps asked.
