charades?”
“Paul…”
“Yes?”
“I can’t do this.”
“Then how about rock, scissors, and paper? Do you know how to play that? It’s easy—”
“I can’t stay here. This has been an upsetting day for me. This wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be any good, anyway.” And so on.
I said, “I understand. Go get some sleep. I’ll call you when I get the wake-up call.”
“Okay. Sorry. I’ll leave the bathroom doors unbolted.”
“Fine. See you in a few hours.”
“Good night.” She went toward the bathroom door, turned and came back, kissed me lightly on the lips, started to cry, then disappeared into the bathroom. I heard the water running, then heard the other door open to her room, then silence.
I undressed and hung my clothes and got into bed. I must have passed out within seconds, then the next thing I remember is the phone ringing. I answered it, expecting to hear a wake-up call, or hear Cynthia’s voice asking me to come to her room. But, no, it was the deep, bass voice of Colonel Fowler. “Brenner?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sleeping?”
“No, sir.”
“Good. Do you take milk?”
“Excuse me?”
“I don’t have any milk or cream, Brenner.”
“That’s okay—”
“I wanted to let you know.”
“Thank you, Colonel.”
I thought I heard a laugh before the phone went dead. My watch said it was nearly five A.M., so I got up, stumbled into the bathroom, turned on the shower, and got under it. What a day. Half of it didn’t even seem real. I was firing on two cylinders and my tank was on empty. But I needed about forty-eight more hours at this pace, then I’d be out of here in a blaze of glory, or I’d crash in flames.
Personal and career considerations aside, there was something very wrong here at Fort Hadley, a festering sore, and it needed to be lanced and washed clean. That much I knew I could do.
Through the rippled glass and steam on the shower door, I saw a figure standing in the entrance to Cynthia’s room. “Okay if I come in?”
“Sure.”
She was wearing something white, probably a nightshirt, and disappeared into the stall where the toilet was. A few minutes later she reappeared and went to the sink, her back to me. She washed her face and called out over the noise of the shower, “How do you feel?”
“Fine. How about you?”
“Not bad. Did I hear your phone ring?”
“Yes. Colonel Fowler. Just a harassment call.”
She laughed. “You deserve it.” She began brushing her teeth.
My phone rang again, and I said, “That’s the CQ. Can you get it?”
She rinsed her mouth. “Sure.” She went into my room and came back a few seconds later. “It’s five-thirty.” She went back to the sink, gargled, then asked me, “Are you taking one of your marathon showers?”
“Yes. Do you want to save time?”
Silence. Maybe that was too subtle. “Cynthia?”
She turned away from the sink, and I heard her say to herself, “Oh, what the hell.”
I saw her pull off her nightshirt, and she opened the shower door and stepped inside. “Do my back.”
So I did. Then I did her front. We embraced and kissed, and the water ran over us, and our bodies pressed closer together. The body remembers an old lover, I think, and a flood of good memories came back to me, and it was as if we were in Brussels again. Woody remembered, too, and rose happily, like an old hound dog whose master walks in the door after a year’s absence. Ruff, ruff!
“Paul… it’s all right… go ahead.”
“Yes, it’s all right. It’s good. Here or in bed?”
“Here. Now.”
But, as luck would have it, the phone rang again, and she said, “You’d better get that.”
“Damn it!” We separated, and Cynthia hung the washcloth on my hook and laughed.
I threw the washcloth aside and said, “Don’t go anywhere.” I got out of the shower, grabbed a towel on my way, and picked up the phone on my nightstand. “Brenner here.”
“Well, now, you’re a hell of a hard man to find.”
“Who’s this?”
“It ain’t your mommy, son.”
“Oh…”
Chief Yardley informed me, “Bill Kent just told me you decided to stay on post. Why don’t you come on home to your trailer?”
“What?”
“I spent the whole damn day tryin’ to figure where you were at, and I get here and you’re AWOL, boy. Come on home.”
“What the hell—are you in my trailer?”
“Sure thing, Paul. But you ain’t.”
“Hey, Chief, do you practice that cracker accent, or what?”
“Sure ’nuf, boy.” He laughed. “Hey, tell you what—I’m cleanin’ this place out for you. No use payin’ rent someplace you ain’t gonna see again.”
“You have no right—”
“Hold that thought awhile, son. We might get back to that. Meantime, come on down to my office and gather up your stuff.”
“Chief, there is government property in there—”
“Yeah, I saw that. Had to bust a lock. Got a gun here, some official-lookin’ papers, some weird book fulla codes or somethin’… what else we got here? Pair of cuffs, some uniforms and ID from a guy named White… you sleepin’ with some guy?”
Cynthia came into the room wrapped in a bath towel and sat on the bed. I said to Yardley, “Okay, you skunked me.”
“Let’s see… box of rubbers, prissy little bikini shorts . . that yours or your boyfriend’s?”
“Chief—”
“Tell you what, son—you come on over to the station and pick this here stuff up. I’ll be waitin’ on ya.”
“You deliver the government property to the provost office. I’ll meet you there at noon.”
“Let me think on that awhile.”
“You do that. And bring Wes with you. I’d like to talk to him.”
Silence, followed by, “You can talk to him at my office.”
“I’ll just wait to see him at the funeral service here. I assume he’ll attend.”
“I reckon he will. But we don’t conduct business at funerals around here,”
“You should. That’s where everybody shows up after a murder.”
“I’ll tell you what—I’ll let you talk to him because I want to see the son-of-a-bitch who done this in the pokey. But I’m lettin’ you know now, my boy was on duty when it happened, and his partner will verify that, and we got tapes of his radio calls all night.”
“I’m sure of that. Meanwhile, you can have access to the hangar as of now. I want to send my lab people to Captain Campbell’s house.”
“Yeah? What for? Y’all took every damn thing. My boys had to bring their own damn toilet paper.”
“I’ll see you and Wes at noon. Bring my stuff and the government’s stuff.”
