'Regulations, hell, sonny boy. This is a war, and we aren't stateside, In case you haven't noticed. I've got a major hospital to run here, as well as being responsible for half a dozen field hospitals just behind the front. This isn't your spit and polish regular Army unit, it's a medical unit, and I make sure it runs as smooth as a baby's bottom. A little recreational game of chance now and then lets everyone blow off some steam. No one's forced to play, and if the brass doesn't like it they can get someone else to be CO. Send me back to England! Who the hell wants to be in North Africa anyway?'
I couldn't find a lot to disagree about. I liked his attitude. Unfortunately, I had just a few hours to prod these folks with a stick and see who jumped the highest.
'How much money did Sergeant Casselli owe you?'
'Listen, Lieutenant Boyle, if you want to run some chicken shit Investigation into card games at this hospital, you go right ahead, after you figure out who killed Casselli and stole my drugs. Otherwise, I'm liable to think you're a lazy sonofabitch who couldn't figure out how to pour piss out of a boot if the directions were written on the heel. Now is there anything of substance you have for me?'
'Well, yes, there's something I've been wondering about. How do medics in the field administer morphine? Do they have needles?'
'No, they have self-contained doses in sealed syrettes. That's usually enough to take care of the pain until the soldier gets to an aid station.'
'So how do the doctors know how much a wounded GI has had already?'
Walton stopped puffing on his cigar for a second, and looked at me as if he were deciding whether to answer me or throw me out. I waited for him to ask me why I wanted to know all this, but instead his eyes narrowed and he gave me a little lecture.
'Medics are supposed to pin each used syrette to the wounded mans collar so he won't be accidentally overdosed at the aid station. Sometimes, in real cold weather, the effects of morphine may be delayed until the body warms up. When it's a cold night, you can usually count on some nervous medic giving too many doses for the GI's own good. Soon as we warm him up, we have double trouble, the wound and a morphine overdose.'
'So what do you do?'
'Give him a morphine antidote, nalorphine. It's a new drug, and works pretty well, unless you wait too long to administer it. Then we treat the wound, and make sure the patient survives both problems.'
'Nalorphine, penicillin. Lots of new drugs around here.'
'War is the great accelerator of medical progress, Lieutenant Boyle. I sometimes wonder if after all the deaths in battle are added up, we save more lives in the long term with the medical advances we make.'
It wasn't what I expected from Colonel Maxwell Walton. It sounded thoughtful, and he wasn't yelling. I didn't like his theory of medical progress, but maybe he was right. I didn't care to do the accounting. I had all I needed. I got up, thanked him for his time, and turned to leave.
'Two C notes,' he said. 'What?'
'You asked what Casselli owed me. He's dead, I'm out one good supply sergeant, and short two hundred bucks. Does that make me a murderer in your book?'
'Not much there in the motive department.'
The telephone on his desk rang.
'I agree. Now go find someone who's got one.' He picked up the phone and barked his name into it.
I left, crossing Walton off my list of suspects for now. He hadn't looked at all surprised to see me, which meant either he was a good actor or he wasn't the one who'd called up a French hit man. He was right about motive, too. There was nothing in it for him, as far as I could see. He could be getting a cut of the take, but all this killing on his home turf seemed too messy. He wouldn't want to draw so much attention to his own command. And how could he be connected to the French underworld in Algeria? Actually, that last question applied to everyone involved in this case. There had to have been some advance work done. I could see Villard and his pals setting up their own smuggling operation to take advantage of whichever way the war went. But how could anyone on the inside of the U.S. Army hook up with them so quickly? I gave up trying to figure that one out and went to look for Corporal Willoughby. Something told me he knew more than he let on about what went on around here.
I left the main building and started to cross the courtyard, heading toward the supply depot, when I caught sight of Willoughby. I started to yell to him, but caught myself He was headed for a row of supply trucks parked on the side of the road that ran between the hospital and the depot. I could see a work crew loading the last two trucks with crates and cases of who knows what. Willoughby made for the first truck, swiveling his head around to be sure no one spotted him. He was paying attention to the work crew, not me, so I stayed behind him and watched as he climbed in. I trotted over to the side of the canvas- covered deuce and a half where I could hear Willoughby clattering around inside. Maybe he was checking to be sure everything was tied down tight. Or maybe he was pilfering Chesterfields. I decided to wait a minute and let him get deep into whichever it was. Then I walked to the back of the truck and lifted the flap.
'I thought the point was to send that stuff to the front,' I said. Willoughby turned, one hand holding the top of a wooden carton, the other in the pocket of his fatigue pants. I was pretty sure he wasn't making a personal donation. I hoisted myself up into the truck bed and made my way down a narrow aisle between stacks of cartons, all marked 'U.S. Army Medical Supplies.'
'Graduated from Chesterfields, have we, Corporal?'
'It's sergeant, now, sir,' Willoughby said, with a certain pride that didn't really match the circumstances. 'Colonel Walton decided I should have the same rank as Casselli.'
'You won't for long,' I said as I grabbed his left arm and pulled his hand out of his pocket. A bunch of little cardboard containers, about as long as your finger, fell to the floor. One was still in his hand and I took it.
'Solution of Morphine, 1/2 Grain, Syrette. Warning: May Be Habit Forming,' I read. These were the morphine syrettes Walton mentioned.
'So, Willoughby, are you volunteering for duty as a front-line medic?'
'Sir, this isn't what it looks like,' he said, with a wide-eyed nervousness as the thought of going to the front or to prison began to dawn on him. I didn't know which would be worse and I could tell he didn't want to find out.
'Did you not heed the warning, or is this a business deal?'
'I'm not an addict, if that's what you mean,' he said, in a disgusted tone of voice, as he leaned down and picked up the syrette boxes on the floor. He put them back in the shipping carton, stacking them neatly, as if he could undo everything by putting them back.
'Addict or thief, it really doesn't matter now, boy-o, your little racket is done for,' I intoned, going for the intimidating sound of a Boston cop making a collar. I wanted Willoughby to look at me and see his entire future in my hands. This might be just the link I needed. If Willoughby had a connection on the black market to dispose of this stuff, he might be able to tell me who else was involved and how the whole thing was set up. If it was for personal use, then tough luck for him. Morphine withdrawal in a cell wasn't anything I wanted to see.
'I don't have a racket, sir.'
'Roll up your sleeves and shut up.'
He did both and I checked his veins. No telltale tracks.
'Or a habit,' he said quietly.
'That's too bad. They might have gone easy on you if you did. Diminished capacity, the lawyers call it.'
'Lieutenant, you gotta believe me, I've never done anything like this before. It was supposed to be a one- time thing, just to get a little extra cash!'
'Never? What about those packs of Chesterfields?'
'Aww, come on, sir, with all this stuff lying around, everyone takes something. Couple of cartons get dropped, break open, you know how it is.'
I did, but I wasn't going to admit it. It was a tradition in my family among those of us who were cops, which included every male over twenty, that when we recovered stolen goods, there was a right to 'spillage.' Just the thing Willoughby was talking about. If we caught a guy who boosted a truckload of booze, everyone would go home with a case. I figured that the owners owed us, since we recovered their stolen property. Who's to say that the thieves hadn't disposed of a percentage before we got to them? The crooks wouldn't tell if they wanted to keep the bluecoats from pulling out their billy clubs. I gave up thinking about the good old days and zeroed in on Willoughby.
