I knew the Pentagon was just around the corner as the highway gently turned right. The traffic wasn't that bad now; it would be much worse in a few hours, as the staff of the world's biggest office complex headed home.
The car parks each side of us were the size of Disneyland
The Pentagon came into view. It looked just like the Fayetteville mall, except that the stone was a more depressing color. We lost sight of it momentarily as we went under a road bridge. One of the supports still bore a crudely painted white swastika. Josh had seen it as a sign of democracy.
'The day they clean it off,' he once said to me, 'is the day no one can speak out.' I just saw it as the halfway marker between his house and
D.C.
'About another twenty minutes,' I said. Sarah nodded and kept on staring at the massive stone building. A Chinook helicopter was lifting from the rear of it, the tailgate just closing. I always liked it once the gate closed; it kept the cold out.
I'd been to Josh's house many times before while we sorted out Kelly's future. They lived in a suburb called New Alexandria, which was south of Alexandria proper and quite a way southwest of D.C.' but people who lived there called it Belle View, after the district next door. That way it didn't sound as if they wanted to live in Alexandria but had been forced to buy a little farther away. The nearer your house was to D.C.' the bigger your bank balance had to be.
Josh's house was on the Belle View road, overlooking the golf course.
As we turned onto it I gave the taxi driver directions.
'Halfway down, mate, on the right.'
Sarah moved closer to me and leaned to whisper in my ear.
'Thank you for believing me, Nick. I'm glad you're here.'
I knew how lonely she felt. I put my fingers between hers.
The golf course was to the left, and facing it were rows of three-story, brick-built homes that in the U.K. would be called town houses. The whole area was green and leafy, and probably a wonderful place for kids to grow up in. I half expected snowflakes to start falling and James Stewart to appear around the corner.
'Just behind that black pickup.' The Asian driver grunted and pulled in. Parked on the drive outside Josh's was a double-cab bed Dodge truck with large chrome bumpers and kids' mountain bikes stashed on a rack at the back. A big For Sale sign was hanging outside the house.
A middle-aged Mexican woman in a cream raincoat emerged from the front door, which was about ten very worn stone steps above pavement level. She looked at us and smiled, then just carried on past. I looked at Sarah.
'That must be my new friend.'
Josh appeared at the door, all smiles, his head and glasses shining as brightly as his teeth. He was wearing a gray sweatshirt tucked into belted gray cargo fatigue trousers and a pair of walking boots. As he came down toward us he was still grinning away, but concentrating more on getting a good view of Sarah through the sun bouncing off the taxi windows.
He opened the door for me, and I stepped out after paying off the driver, who took my money with another grunt. We shook hands and he reminded me that he had the strongest grip of anyone I knew. He said, 'Great to see you, man. I didn't think we'd link up again so soon.' He lowered his voice.
'How did the job go?'
'Not too bad, mate. It took a day, that was all.' It was good to see him.
He released my hand and I pumped it, trying to get some blood back.
Sarah came around the front of the taxi, between the two vehicles. I held my hand out toward her.
'Josh, meet Sarah.'
'Hi, Sarah.' He shook her hand and I saw her reaction to his grip.
'Nice to meet you, Josh. Nick has told me a lot about you.' She must have been reading too many books; whoever says that in real life? Josh just gave her his biggest smile.
'I don't know what he's said, but when we get inside I'll tell you the truth.' He ushered us up the steps and through his front door.
The first thing Sarah asked for was the bathroom. Josh pointed up the stairs, 'First on the left.' As an afterthought he called after her, 'We're going into the living room, so you make as much noise as you want.' That was something I'd forgotten to warn her about; Josh didn't change his sense of humor for anybody. I wondered if that was one of the reasons his wife had eloped with a tree-hugging yoga teacher.
The holiday cases were still in the hallway.
'Where are the kids?' I asked as we walked past them.
'Jet lag is not an option with kids. It's rehearsal time in D.C.' man. The big day is tomorrow.'
I wasn't going to pursue the subject. It made me feel too much of a lowlife, and besides, it was too early to hit him with the real reason I was here.
'Of course. I hope they have a good time.'
The house hadn't changed at all. The flowery three-piece suite and thick green shag-pile carpet were still in place. The pictures were the same, and you couldn't move for them: Josh as a soldier, Josh becoming a member of Special Forces, Josh and the kids, Josh and Geri, the kids, all that sort of stuff, plus all those horrible school photographs, rows of gappy-toothed kids in uniform, with that really stupid grin that they only do when there's a camera pointing at them.
He closed the door and said, 'So, my friend, how does it all square with Sarah? What does she know?'
I stepped closer to him.
'All she knows is that Kelly's family were killed and I'm now her guardian. She knows what Kev did, and how I knew him. You're the other executor of the will. That's how we became friends. She thinks I work for a private security firm. We haven't got down to details yet.'
He nodded. That was more or less all he knew about me anyway.
'Cool.
Now a couple of details to get out of the way, mate. Do I get Maria to make up one bed or two?' It had always sounded really funny to me when Americans said 'mate,' because of the accent; the word sounds like it should only come out of Antipodeans or Brits, but Josh had got into the Brit way of speaking with me. Either that, or he'd been taking the piss all this time.
It was a good question, and I had to make the answer sound convincing.
I smiled.
'One, of course.'
'All rightttt!' A big, conspiratorial grin lit up his face. We both sat down, him on a chair, me on the settee.
'Next important question, how is Kelly? She get to her grandparents
OK?'
'She's fine. Yes, everything went OK. I spoke to her today; she's missing you and the crew. I think you'll be getting a thank-you card from her soon.'
The small talk was already killing me. Normally I would chat happily about that sort of shit; it was what our relationship was all about. But at the moment all I could think about was the fact that I was about to fuck him over big time even though I knew it was the right thing.
The door opened and Sarah came in. Josh stood up.
'Anyone for a brew?'
I laughed. To Americans, a brew means a beer; I'd once been with Josh and had said, 'Do you fancy a brew?' He'd looked at me as if I should be certified. One, we were driving; two, we were looking after kids, and three, it was nine o'clock in the morning. It had been a bit of a standing joke ever since.
Sarah was out of this one. She sort of smiled to look as though she got it, but she probably wasn't used to being offered a brew at embassy cocktail parties, and it certainly wasn't going to be a big thing in her social circle.
He turned to Sarah.
'Coffee good for you?'
