My hair hurt. I became a bit overwhelmed and a lot confused.
'I guess, in short, Duff, I'm saying you and your buddy might not be nuts. Or, at least, this conspiracy thing might not be why you're both nuts.'
'Jerry, this is heavy shit. Karl says this guy he went to school with showed him a memo outlining a bunch of this Northwoods shit involving a private firm. Is it even possible?'
'It seems kind of weird some guy at soldier-level would be hip to what's going on, but these companies get so cocky it's possible they've gotten flip with their internal security. Or, maybe he's close with someone who is in the know and who leaked him info. That would seem more likely.'
'Could you find out anything that might shed some light on this shit?'
'You never can tell. What's the name of the private security firm?'
'Blackgard.'
'Hang on; let me see what comes up when I look them up.' Jerry started hitting keys, making faces, nodding. He smiled.
'What's so funny?'
'Blackgard is in the top five of the website Compwatch. com.'
'What's that?'
'It's a watchdog group about companies that benefit from defense contracting. They're huge. They do private security, which is pretty much mercenary stuff, but they also are into field food service, logistics and ancillary healthcare.'
'So there's no question they benefit from a big defense budget.'
'Yeah, but Duff, you could say the same thing about three quarters of the Fortune 500.'
'Are they big enough and powerful enough to even pull off what Karl is saying?'
Jerry typed a few things into his laptop, smiled, and spun it around so I could look at the screen.
'Jerry, what the hell am I looking at?' he showed me some sort of financial statement and it made my eyes glaze over.
'The bottom line with all the zeroes.'
'18.3 million dollars. That is a shitload of money.'
'Duff, look a little closer.'
'What? Oh shit. That's 18.3 billion dollars.'
'The answer to your question is 'yes'. They can pretty much do anything they want to do.'
'But Jerry…how? Is it all the shit that Karl is crazy about: mind control, drugs, post hypnotic suggestion. That's comic book stuff, isn't it? Is it even possible?'
'It's pretty common knowledge the military did experiments with LSD on soldiers without their knowledge to see what they could use it for. They didn't treat a bunch of black men with syphilis because they wanted to see how their bodies reacted to it, and thousands of guys who got exposed to Agent Orange are all fucked up and the VA says the stuff was harmless.'
'So that would be a 'yes' it is possible,' Jerry just raised his eyebrows and smiled.
25
Trina watered my favorite plant when I came in the door. God, how I loved that plant.
'Where have you been?' Trina said.
'I had a lunch meeting with a community member.'
'How is Kelley?'
'He's good. He's got a girlfriend, some sort of forester or nature cop, or something.'
'Hard to picture him being lovey-dovey.'
'Well, they can probably work police procedural stuff into their foreplay or something.'
'Hand cuffs, up against the wall frisks, and what not-ooooh,' Trina winked.
' Hmmm…' Was all I could think of saying. She held my look for a little while and then went back to her botany. I wasn't sure if she looked at me with pity because of Rene or was sending available signals now I was out of the matrimonial game. Frankly, I wasn't confident about any of my thoughts. My voice mail light flashed. When I checked it, it was a call from the Veteran's Administration. Always a little on the anal retentive side, I guessed they were calling to confirm the receipt of Karl's chart. I called the number the male voice left.
'Lieutenant Koniuto,' the voiced said by way of telephone greeting.
'Yeah, this is Duffy Dombrowski returning your call. I'm a counselor at Jewish Unified Services.'
'One moment please, Duffy.' I heard through the phone the sound of him getting up, closing a door, and returning.
'Yes, Duffy, how are you?' He said. He seemed a little too chipper for a military type.
'I'm good.'
'Good, good, good. Look I'm calling just to check on Karl Greene's aftercare since he came to you guys.'
'Well, Karl…hang on just a second and let me double check I have a release to talk with you.'
'That's not necessary. I got one on this end.'
'I still have to have one.' Even though I didn't follow the rules, it didn't mean I didn't know them. I flipped through the chart to find the release. There wasn't one there. In fact, not surprisingly, Karl hadn't signed any releases.
'Sorry, Lieutenant, I can't talk to you.'
'Sure you can, it's no biggie,' he said, again a little too cheerfully.
'No, I really can't. I can call you back if-' He hung up. Releases are routine stuff in human services. Everyone knows about them and knows the score. It shouldn't have been any surprise to this military guy.
I could hear Monique humming along with whatever was jamming on her IPod.
'Hey 'Nique,' I said just loud enough for her to hear. She didn't answer, but rolled her eyes up as if to say 'what', and pulled out an ear bud.
'Do you know this guy at the VA?' I showed her the 'While you were out memo.'
'Nope,' she handed it back to me.
'He just called and asked about Karl and tried to convince me it was okay to talk without a release.' Monique pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows. She asked to see the note again.
'Duff, why would a Lieutenant, or for that matter, any conventional Army guy call on a social work matter? They have a civilian counseling crew there.'
'Yeah, I didn't think of that.'
Monique went through her Rolodex.
'What are you looking for?' Monique kept looking without answering. She pulled out a card and looked at it.
'What's up 'Nique?'
'This isn't a VA number.'
'Huh?'
'In fact, I'm pretty sure it's a cell phone number.'
'Maybe the guy used his cell.'
'When was the last time a civil servant used their own dime to call anyone or for that matter, when have you heard about a federal agency giving out cell phones?'
'Never.'
'Uh-huh,' Monique said.
Before I could get too worked up about the identity my fake VA man, Trina buzzed me and let me know Sparky arrived for his 3:30. I didn't remember him having an appointment today, but I chalked that up to shots to the head.
I went out to greet the Sparkman. He sat with his elbows resting on his thighs, holding both sides of his head.
'Spark?'
