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Chapter Sixteen
We gave Trifonov his Steyr back and let him out at the Delta gate. He probably signed the gun back in and then legged it to his room and picked up his book. Probably carried on reading right where he left off. We parked the Humvee and walked back to my office. Summer went straight to the copy of the gate log. It was still taped to the wall, next to the map.
"Vassell and Coomer," she said. "They were the only other people who left the post that night. "
"They went north," I said. "If you want to say they threw the briefcase out of the car, then you have to agree they went north. They didn't go south to Columbia. "
"OK," she said. "So the same guy didn't do Carbone and Brubaker. There's no connection. We just wasted a lot of time. "
"Welcome to the real world," I said.
The real world got a whole lot worse when my phone rang twenty minutes later. It was my sergeant. The woman with the baby son. She had Sanchez on the line, calling from Fort Jackson. She put him through.
"Willard has been and gone," he said. "Unbelievable. "
"Told you so. "
"He pitched all kinds of hissy fits. "
"But you're fireproof. "
"Thank God. "
I paused. "Did you tell him about my guy?"
He paused. "You told me to. Shouldn't I have?"
"It was a dry hole. Looked good at first, but it wasn't in the end. "
"Well, he's on his way up to see you about it. He left here two hours ago. He's going to be very disappointed. "
"Terrific," I said.
"What are you going to do?" Summer asked.
"What is Willard?" I said. "Fundamentally?"
"A careerist," she said.
"Correct," I said.
Technically the army has a total of twenty-six separate ranks. A grunt comes in as an E-1 private, and as long as he doesn't do anything stupid he is automatically promoted to an E-2 private after a year, and to an E-3 private first class after another year, or even a little earlier if he's any good. Then the ladder stretches all the way up to a five-star General of the Army, although I wasn't aware of anyone except George Washington and Dwight David Eisenhower who ever made it that far. If you count the E-9 sergeant major grade as three separate steps to acknowledge the Command Sergeant Majors and the Sergeant Major of the Army, and if you count all four warrant officer grades, then a major like me has seven steps above him and eighteen steps below him. Which gives a major like me considerable experience of insubordination, going both ways, up and down, giving and taking. With a million people on twenty-six separate rungs on the ladder, insubordination was a true art form. And the canvas was one-on-one privacy.
So I sent Summer away and waited for Willard on my own. She argued about it. In the end I got her to agree that one of us should stay under the radar. She went to get a late dinner. My sergeant brought me a sandwich. Roast beef and Swiss cheese, white bread, a little mayo, a little mustard. The beef was pink. It was a good sandwich. Then she brought me coffee. I was halfway through my second cup when Willard arrived.
He came straight in. He left the door open. I didn't get up. Didn't salute. Didn't stop sipping my coffee. He tolerated it, like I knew he would. He was being very tactical. As far as he knew I had a suspect that could take Brubaker's case away from the Columbia PD and break the link between an elite colonel and drug dealers in a crack alley. So he was prepared to start out warm and friendly. Or maybe he was looking for a bonding experience with one of his staff. He sat down and started plucking at his trouser legs. He put a man-to-man expression on his face, like we had just been through some kind of a shared experience together.
"Wonderful drive from Jackson," he said. "Great roads. "
I said nothing.
"Just bought a vintage Pontiac GTO," he said. "Fine car. I put polished headers on it, big bore pipes. Goes like shit off a shiny shovel. "
I said nothing.
"You like muscle cars?"
"No," I said. "I like to take the bus. "
"That's not much fun. "
"OK, let me put it another way. I'm happy with the size of my penis. I don't need compensation. "
He went white. Then he went red. The same shade as Trifonov's Corvette. He glared at me like he was a real tough guy.
"Tell me about the progress on Brubaker," he said.
"Brubaker's not my case. "
"Sanchez told me you found the guy. "
"False alarm," I said.
"Are you sure?"
"Totally. "
"Who were you looking at?"
"Your ex-wife. "
"What?"
"Someone told me she slept with half the colonels in the army. Always had, like a hobby. So I figured that might include Brubaker. I mean, it was a fifty-fifty chance. "
He stared at me.
"Only kidding," I said. "It was nobody. Just a dry hole. "
He looked away, furious. I got up and closed my office door. Stepped back to my desk. Sat down again. Faced him.
"Your insolence is incredible," he said.
"So make a complaint, Willard. Go up the chain of command and tell someone I hurt your feelings. See if anyone believes you. Or see if anyone believes you can't fix a thing like that all by yourself. Watch that note go in your file. See what kind of an impression it makes at your one-star promotion board. "
He squirmed in his chair. Hitched his body from side to side and stared around the room. Fixed his gaze on Summer's map.
"What's that?" he said.
"It's a map," I said.
"Of what?"
"Of the eastern United States. "
"What are the pins for?"
I didn't answer. He got up and stepped over to the wall. Touched the pins with his fingertips, one at a time. D. C. , Sperryville, and Green Valley. Then Raleigh, Fort Bird, Cape Fear, and Columbia.
"What is all this?" he said.
"They're just pins," I said.
He pulled the pin out of Green Valley, Virginia.
"Mrs. Kramer," he said. "I told you to leave that alone. "
He pulled all the other pins out. Threw them down on the floor. Then he saw the gate log. Scanned down it and stopped when he got to Vassell and Coomer.
"I told you to leave them alone as well," he said.
He tore the list off the wall. The tape took scabs of paint with it. Then he tore the map down. More paint came with it. The pins had left tiny holes in the Sheetrock. They looked like a map all by themselves. Or a constellation.
"You made holes in the wall," he said. "I won't have army property abused in this way. It's unprofessional. What would visitors to this room think?"
"They'd have thought there was a map on the wall," I said. "It was you that pulled it down and made the mess. "
He dropped the crumpled paper on the floor.
"You want me to walk over to the Delta station?" he said.
"Want me to break your back?"
He went very quiet.
"You should think about your next promotion board, Major. You think you're going to make lieutenant colonel while I'm still here?"
"No," I said. "I really don't. But then, I don't expect you'll be here very long. "
"Think again. This is a nice niche. The army will always need cops. "
"But it won't always need clueless assholes like you. "
"You're speaking to a senior officer. "
I looked around the room. "But what am I saying? I don't see any witnesses. "
He said nothing.
"You've got an authority problem," I said. "It's going to be fun watching you try to solve it. Maybe we could solve it man-to-man, in the gym. You want to try that?"
"Have you got a secure fax machine?" he said.
"Obviously," I said. "It's in the outer office. You passed it on your way in. What are you? Blind as well as stupid?"
"Be standing next to it at exact
ly nine hundred hours tomorrow. I'll be sending you a set of written orders. "
He glared at me one last time. Then he stepped outside and slammed the door so hard that the whole wall shook and the air current lifted the map and the gate log an inch off the floor.
I stayed at my desk. Dialed my brother in Washington, but he didn't answer. I thought about calling my mother. But then I figured there was nothing to say. Whatever I talked about, she would know I had called to ask: Are you still alive? She would know that was what was on my mind.
So I got out of my chair and picked up the map and smoothed it out. Taped it back on the wall. I picked up all seven pins and put them back in place. Taped the gate log alongside the map. Then I pulled it down again. It was useless. I balled it up and threw it in the trash. Left the map there all on its own. My sergeant came in with more coffee. I wondered briefly about her baby's father. Where was he? Had he been an abusive husband? If so, he was probably buried in a swamp somewhere. Or several swamps, in several pieces. My phone rang and she answered it for me. Passed me the receiver.
"Detective Clark," she said. "Up in Virginia. "
I trailed the phone cord around the desk and sat down again.
"We're making progress now," he said. "The Sperryville crowbar is our weapon, for sure. We got an identical sample from the hardware store and our medical examiner matched it up. "
"Good work," I said.
"So I'm calling to tell you I can't keep on looking. We found ours, so we can't be looking for yours anymore. I can't justify the overtime budget. "
"Sure," I said. "We anticipated that. "
"So you're on your own with it now, bud. And I'm real sorry about that. "
I said nothing.
"Anything at your end? You got a name for me yet?"
I smiled. You can forget about a name, I thought. Bud. No quo, no quid. Not that there ever was a name in the first place.
"I'll let you know," I said.
Summer came back and I told her to take the rest of the night off. Told her to meet me for breakfast in the O Club. At nine o'clock exactly, when Willard's orders were due. I figured we could have a long leisurely meal, plenty of eggs, plenty of coffee, and we could stroll back over about ten-fifteen.
"You moved the map," she said.
"Willard tore it down. I put it back up. "
"He's dangerous. "
"Maybe," I said. "Maybe not. Time will tell. "
She went back to her quarters and I went back to mine. I was in a room in the Bachelor Officers' row. It was pretty much like a motel. There was a street named after some long-dead Medal of Honor winner and a path branching off from the sidewalk that led to my door. There were posts every twenty yards with streetlights on them. The one nearest my door was out. It was out because it had been busted with a stone. I could see glass on the path. And three guys in the shadows. I walked past the first one. He was the Delta sergeant with the beard and the tan. He tapped the face of his watch with his forefinger. The second guy did the same thing. The third guy just smiled. I got inside and closed my door. Didn't hear them walk away. I didn't sleep well.
