“No doubt,” said Monroe. As the elevator doors opened, Monroe’s cell phone chimed in his hand, indicating that he had a message.
Outside the main building, he checked his messages. Alex Pappas’s voice told him he’d like to meet. Monroe hit auto-return and got Alex on the line.
“Pappas and Sons.” He sounded stressed amid the considerable noise in the background.
“It’s Ray Monroe.”
“Mr. Monroe, you got me in the middle of my lunch rush.”
“Call me Ray. Look, I didn’t know -”
“If you’d like to talk again, I’m stopping by Fisher House after work. Same time as the other night.”
“Okay. I was thinking we’d take a drive, go visit my brother.”
“I can’t talk now. I’ll see you then.” Pappas abruptly cut the connection. Monroe stood looking at the phone for a moment, then dropped the cell back into his pocket.
He went into building 2 and took the elevator up to Kendall’s floor. When he knocked on the open door to her office, he could already see that she was not there. Gretta Siebentritt, the outpatient therapist who shared the office with Kendall, swiveled her chair to face him.
“What’s up, Ray?”
“Lookin for my girlfriend. Is she hiding from me?”
“Hardly. She’s in conference with Private Collins. He’s been occupying a bit of her time.”
“The soldier about to do the voluntary amputation?”
“Him. Anything you’d like me to tell her?”
“I’ll get up with her later.”
Monroe ate lunch alone, thinking about James, Alex Pappas, Baker, and the trouble that was bound to come.
For his lunch appointment, Charles Baker had chosen to wear a deep purple sport jacket with white stitching on the lapels, triple-pleat polyester black slacks, a lavender shirt, and a pair of black tooled-leather shoes that almost looked like gators. He had put the outfit together over the past year, shopping at thrift places and the Salvation Army store on H Street in Northeast. He had never before had the occasion to wear the rig in full, and looking in the mirror on the way out of his group home, he felt that he looked clean and right.
“Where you off to?” said a man called Trombone, a recovering heroin addict with a very long nose, one of the four men on paper with whom Baker shared the house. “You look like folding money.”
“I got people to meet and places to be,” said Baker. “And none of’em are here.”
Baker did feel like a million dollars, walking out of the house.
But when he got downtown, coming off the Metro escalator at Farragut North, moving along into the bustle of Connecticut Avenue, he got that feeling again, the feeling he had whenever he left his insular world, that he was out of step and wrong. Around him, workingmen and women of all colors, finely and effortlessly attired, carrying soft leather briefcases and handbags, walking with purpose, going somewhere. He did not understand how they had gotten here. Who taught them how to dress in that quiet, elegant way? How did they get their jobs?
Baker put his thumb and forefinger to the lapel of his purple sport coat. The fabric felt spongy. All right, so he wasn’t in step with all these silver spoons down here. He’d dazzle Mr. Peter Whitten with his personality and force of logic. Flash him some Dale Carnegie smile.
The restaurant was an Italian place with an O on the end of its name, on L Street, west of 19th. He entered to the sound of relaxed conversation, the gentle movement and soft contact of china, silver, and crystal. Murals had been painted on the walls, looked to Baker like those fancy old paintings he’d seen at a museum he’d been to once, when he was coming in from the cold, wandering around, down on the Mall.
“Yes, sir,” said a young man in a black suit, stepping up to meet Baker as he walked through the door.
“I’m havin lunch with somebody. I got an appointment with Mr. Peter Whitten.”
“Right this way, sir.” The man made an elaborate movement with his hands and swiveled his narrow hips. The word prey flashed in Baker’s mind, but here was not the place to be scheming, and he followed the young man through the maze of tables, along the granite-top bar, where a solid-built dude in a leather blazer sat, eye-fucking him as he passed. Even the brothers down here took him for ghetto, thought Baker. Well, fuck them, too.
Peter Whitten was waiting at a two-top covered with a white tablecloth, close to the bar. Everything about him, from the natural drape of his suit to the carefully cut, just-over-the-ear hairstyle, said money. His face was neither friendly nor confrontational, and all of his features were straight. His hair was silver and blond, his eyes a light blue. Like an actor cast as the wealthy father on a soap opera, he was handsome in a predictable way. He didn’t get up but stretched out his hand as Baker arrived.
“Mr. Baker?”
“It is me,” said Baker, taking his hand and giving a smile. “Mr. Whitten, right?”
“Have a seat.”
The young man had pulled his chair out, and Baker dropped into it and maneuvered his legs under the table. Baker touched the silverware before him, moved it a little, and almost at once another man in a tux was beside the table, setting down a menu and asking Baker if he would like something to drink.
“Would you care for a beer or a cocktail?” said Whitten helpfully.
Baker looked at Whitten’s glass.
“I’ll just have water,” said Baker.
“Flat or sparkling?” said the waiter.
“Regular water,” said Baker.
The waiter drifted. Baker opened the menu, looking to do something with his hands, not knowing how to start the conversation. He was aware of Whitten staring at him as his eyes scanned the menu. Prima piatti, insalata, pasta e risotto, secondi piatti. How’d they expect an American to know what to order in this piece? Fagottini… Baker knew there was something he didn’t like about this restaurant.
“Do you need some help with the menu?” said Whitten. He wasn’t smiling, but there was something like a smile in his eyes.
Baker had made an error. He shouldn’t have met Whitten here. It was wrong, arrogant even, for him to presume he could play on the man’s home court.
“I’m all right,” said Baker. “It all looks so good. I just need some time.”
“Maybe we better talk first,” said Whitten, folding his hands on the table, at peace in his world.
Baker closed the menu and laid it down. “Okay. You read the letter, so there’s no mystery as to what this is about.”
“Yes.”
“I’m lookin for a little help, Mr. Whitten.”
Whitten stared at him.
“I feel like I got some, uh, reparations comin to me, if you know what I mean. Since that day you and your friends drove into our neighborhood, my life has been hard. It’s not like I haven’t tried to make it, either. I’m not a bad person. I have a job.”
“What do you want?”
“Some compensation for what you and your friends did. I think that’s fair. I’m not tryin to break the bank or nothing like that. I mean, look at you; obviously you’ve done good in life. You sure can spare it.”
“Spare what?”
“Huh?”
“How much do you want?”
“I was thinking, you know, fifty thousand dollars would be about right. That would do it. A good foundation for me to build somethin on. Get me back on the track that I would have been on from the beginning, if you and your friends hadn’t come into our world.”
“And what would you do if I said no?”
Baker’s face felt flushed. The waiter poured him water from a pitcher, and Baker drank a long swig at once.
“Are we ready to order?” said the waiter.
“We ain’t ready just yet,” snapped Baker.
The waiter looked at Whitten, who shook his head slightly, telling him that everything was all right and that
