kinds of scenarios played out in his mind. None of them were very good.
He snatched the phone from his desk and dialed information. He heard a female voice and was about to ask for the number of the CDC in Atlanta when he did the acoustical version of a double take. He listened to the voice more carefully.
“God, Harry, you are so big. I don’t think Chantelle and I can take you but we’re willing to try. You just have to promise to be gentle.”
“
“We’re both still virgins, you know, Harry. You’ll be our first time.”
“Who the hell is this?” Mercer demanded. Before the woman could reply, Mercer heard the sound of snoring through the open line. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered and killed the connection.
He left his travel bag on the desk and mounted the circular stairs to the second floor. Just as he thought. Harry White was sprawled on one of the couches, the cordless phone lying on his chest, rising and falling in time with his snoring. The nearby coffee table was covered in so many water rings left by highball glasses it looked like it had been mauled by a squid. The cut crystal ashtray atop was overflowing. Harry wore faded chinos, an over- laundered white shirt made of some indestructible synthetic, dark socks, and sneakers. His ubiquitous blue windbreaker was thrown over the back of one of the bar stools, a dog leash uncoiling from a pocket.
On the opposite couch, in an equally sprawled position, was Harry’s dog. The obese basset hound lay on his back so that his belly sagged in avalanches of fat. While one ear dangled almost to the floor, the other was spread across the leather like a mangy napkin. The dog lifted one bloodshot eye, spotted Mercer, and tried to wag his tail. The effort seemed too great, so he went back to sleep, snoring just a shade softer than his master.
“
“Phone sex, Harry? At your age you get a hard-on only during leap years and you waste it on phone sex.”
The old man ran his tongue around his mouth and was obviously repulsed by what he found. “Hi, Mercer.” Harry’s voice rang with the lilt of a train wreck. “I wasn’t wasting it. I just wanted to see what it was all about.”
“Since you were asleep, I can tell it worked wonders. How long were you on for?”
Harry looked at his watch, his wrinkled face pulling taut with concentration. “Holy shit, it’s four thirty. Hey, I gotta go. I told Tiny I’d be back by now.”
“How long, Harry?”
“I’m not sure. I think I fell asleep around three thirty.”
“Two bucks a minute?”
Harry looked away, not because he was embarrassed by what he’d been doing, but because he’d been caught. “I think they said something about four dollars but I can’t be sure.”
Some friendships develop over many years; some are mere conveniences because of job or neighborhood. Some defy explanation. Harry White was fast approaching his eighty-first birthday, more than twice Mercer’s age, and yet they had been friends from the moment they met at the dive down the street called Tiny’s. A few who knew them assumed Mercer saw a father figure in the octogenarian, especially since he’d lost his parents at a young age. Others thought Mercer helped old Harry as though he were a charity case. Neither explanation was even close. Mercer had analyzed their relationship a few times and the best he could figure was that the two of them were the same person, just separated by a few decades.
Harry White had fought for his nation during World War Two, never bothering to get veterans benefits afterward because he’d done it out of a moral obligation and wanted nothing back for his service. He gave everything and asked only for loyalty in return. He knew firsthand that no matter how blurred the line between right and wrong, there was still a threshold that couldn’t be crossed. He believed that actions and words were of equal importance and that a favor asked was a favor granted. He personified what it meant to be part of the Greatest Generation.
Without consciously knowing it, Mercer had held himself to the standard set in those days and lived by a similar code. So in fact Mercer and Harry were from the same generation, men who had known deprivation in their youth, who had survived combat, who still mourned friends, and who still believed in the rightness of their deeds.
Harry suddenly became indignant. “And anyway you weren’t supposed to be home until the end of the month.”
Mercer slid around the bar and poured himself a vodka gimlet using Jamaica Gold, lime juice, and Ketel One. He put together a Jack and ginger for Harry, adding just enough ginger ale to make the whiskey tingle. “Nice to know you care, you bastard. The Central African Republic is in the middle of a civil war, or haven’t you been following the papers?”
“I’ve stolen your paper every day since you left.” Harry found his customary place at the bar and took an appreciative gulp before lighting up a Chesterfield, his blue eyes vanishing into folds of skin to blink away the smoke. “But if it ain’t a headline or on the crossword page, I don’t pay attention.” A tiny trace of concern edged into his booze-and butt-ruined voice. “Everything okay? I mean nothing happened to you?”
Before Mercer told his story he grabbed the cordless from the couch. Drag whimpered in his sleep. In the months since Harry had found the basset bawling at the Dumpster behind Tiny’s trying to get food, he and Mercer had come to the conclusion that the dog couldn’t be dreaming of rabbits. Snails, maybe, or arthritic sloths were more his speed. Mercer dialed information and got the number for the CDC in Atlanta.
After dealing with a Byzantine automated answering system, Mercer managed to get an operator and request the personnel office.
“Human Resources, John speaking. How may I help you?”
“Hello, John. My name is Harry White. I just got back from Africa and I think the airline gave me a piece of luggage belonging to one of your people.”
“The name.” It sounded to Mercer as if John took his social cues from the automated system.
“Stowe, Cali Stowe.” Mercer spelled it.
“We don’t have anyone-oh wait.” There it was, the pause Mercer feared he would hear. “Um, yes. Let me transfer you to Mr. Lawler.”
“That won’t be necess-” John had already started to reroute the call.
A moment later a guarded voice came on the line. “This is Bill Lawler. I understand you’re asking about Cali Stowe.”
“No, Mr. Lawler. I just want to make sure that if I send a piece of her luggage mistakenly dropped off at my house by the airline that she would get it. She mentioned that she worked for the CDC when I met her on a flight today.”
“Ah, yes, she is an employee. You said she was on a flight today? May I ask from where?”
“So she works there. Great. I’ll put her bag in the mail first thing in the morning. Thank you.” Mercer cut the connection before Lawler could ask any more questions.
“What the hell was that all about?” Harry cocked one bushy eyebrow. “And more importantly, if I find her bag does that mean I can go through her underwear?”
“There is no bag,” replied Mercer, his voice filling with frustration and exhaustion. “I met Cali Stowe in Africa. She told me she worked for the CDC but when she and I split at JFK I spotted her getting into a government car.”
“And?”
“And the guy I just talked to at the CDC seemed pretty interested in why I was asking about her. I think she uses them as a cover for something else. Cali’s name shows up on their computer but it flags whenever someone tries to get information about her.”
Harry ground his cigarette into an ashtray and drained the last half of his drink. He spoke while Mercer rummaged through a drawer behind the bar. “Any suspects on who signs her paycheck?”
“Dozens of suspects but no clue.” Mercer found a blue pushpin and pressed it into the CAR on the world map hanging behind the bar, adding one more to the dense forest of pins studding the framed chart. There were easily eighty other gaily colored tacks denoting the places Mercer had traveled for work and pleasure. There were almost a dozen clear ones, showing places where he had been involved in covert actions. His eyes lingered on the
