The big gray Lincoln, a special pass displayed on its windshield, had crunched to a stop on some loose gravel in the asphalt roadway. The sound of the crunching gravel had caused Granville Haynes to turn from the flag-covered casket. Turning with him were Isabelle Gelinet, the former Agence France-Presse correspondent, and Gilbert Undean, the recycled Burma analyst.
Once “Taps” was over, Tinker Burns’s enormous feet, shod in gleaming black wingtips, carried him from limousine to grave at the Legion’s official slow-march pace of eighty-eight steps per minute. Burns marched at attention, which is how Granville Haynes seemed to recall he did almost everything, with head high, chin tucked, shoulders back and arms swinging just as the Legion long ago had decided they should swing.
Burns now wore his hair longer, Haynes noticed. Hair that once had been kept at a maximum length of three quarters of an inch was now one and a half inches long on top but still far less than that at the back and sides. It was a different color, too. Instead of being a shiny tar black, it was now a shiny lard white.
There were also some new lines, Haynes saw. Creases really. But those merry green eyes still sparkled, or maybe even glittered, although not enough to spoil the solemn expression that Haynes knew was meant to portray sorrow, perhaps even grief, and had been carefully applied to the long brown face that had spent too much time under too many tropical suns.
Tinker Burns was almost halfway to the gravesite when the Army sergeant stepped over to present Haynes with the U.S. flag that had covered the casket and was now folded into the prescribed triangle. After the sergeant stepped back and saluted smartly, Haynes murmured his thanks and looked at Isabelle Gelinet, turning the look into a silent offer that she refused with an almost imperceptible headshake.
Haynes turned again and waited for Tinker Burns to come to a halt before offering him the folded flag. “You take it, Tinker,” Haynes said. “You knew him longer than I did.”
Burns tucked the homburg against his left side with an elbow and used both hands to accept the flag reverently. He stared down at it for several seconds, as if to certify its provenance, looked up at Haynes and said, “Not longer, Granny; just better.”
After performing a slow-time about-face, which left him facing the Lincoln, Burns nodded at the uniformed chauffeur, who was leaning against a front fender. The chauffeur hurried over, relieved Burns of the flag and hurried back to the Lincoln.
Still facing away from the others, Tinker Burns bowed his head—in plot, if not in prayer, Haynes thought— looked up finally, turned and said, “I’m going to miss the shit out of Steady.”
“It was good of you to come,” Haynes said.
Burns sighed and looked at the former Agence France-Presse correspondent, who wore a navy-blue dress under her unbuttoned oyster-white trench coat that had a plaid lining.
“
She shrugged. “
Burns let his green gaze wander over to the tall thin elderly man with the posture of a crooked stick. Because the weather was unseasonably warm for late January, the man wore only a brown herringbone jacket, gray flannel trousers, scuffed brown loafers that may not have been polished in years, if ever, and a purple tie.
Haynes had wondered whether the tie was the nearest thing to mourning wear the man’s closet had to offer. Or maybe, he thought, somewhat cheered, he just doesn’t give a damn what he wears.
Tinker Burns finished his own brief inspection, gave the man a charming smile and said, “Don’t think we’ve met, friend. I’m Tinker Burns. You by any chance the official representative of a grateful government?”
“Gilbert Undean,” the man said. “I knew Steady in Laos.”
“That a fact? Who you with now?”
“I’m sort of retired.”
“Sort of?”
“They called me back. Temporarily.”
Burns nodded twice, as if confirming expected news. “Believe somebody did tell me they were running short of experts on that part of the world, especially after the dust-up in Burma.”
Undean frowned. “Who’s running short?”
“Langley. Who else?”
“Don’t think I mentioned them. Don’t think I said damn all about Burma.”
“Just a hunch, Mr. Undean. I figured that if you knew something about Laos, since that’s where you knew Steady, then you probably knew right smart about Burma, since it’s just across the fence. And I also had a hunch that Langley, as caring and sentimental as always, would’ve sent someone from the old days to represent it at the grave of a fallen comrade.”
Tinker Burns smiled again, a bit quizzically this time, as if in anticipation of Undean’s reply. But when the reply turned out to be only an indifferent stare, Burns said, “Why don’t the four of us take the afternoon off, Mr. Undean, and go have us a long wet lunch somewhere on me and hear all about you and Steady during the Vientiane follies?”
“Thanks,” Undean said, “but I wouldn’t much care to eat with anyone who’d want to listen to that old crap.”
Before Tinker Burns could respond, Haynes quickly went over to shake hands with Undean and said, “Thank you very much for coming.”
“Volunteered before I got sent,” Undean said, bending forward to examine Haynes more closely. “Thing I remember best about Steady is how well he did it and how easy he made it all look.”
“A matter of style?”
“Or nerve.” He peered even more closely at Haynes through thick bifocals. “You sure look like him—or at least how I think he used to look almost twenty years ago.” Undean paused, opened his mouth as if to say something
