Chapter 55
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Jack tried not to read as he copied. He was nosy to the point of embarrassment. His friends knew better than to leave anything private uncovered on their desks. He read upside down very well. Captain Yan had edited heavily when he read the report on Albert Weise to them in his office. This report contained much more detail about Albert’s time in Folsom Prison and a stack of bank records, deposit and withdrawal, savings, checking and money market-which was probably what he was supposed to look into.
He had just finished copying, carefully rearranging his messenger bag to accommodate the two inch stack of paper, when Sergeant Washington coughed loudly from outside the door. He briefly opened the door a crack and then closed it again. A few minutes later Washington entered with the Captain following. Sergeant Washington moved very lightly for such a big man. Perhaps this was part of his secret of sneaking up on people, but Jack was sure not all of it. Moving softly and lightly didn’t make people disappear. Washington sat opposite him, on the right side of the Captain, pulling his chair back and to the side so he could watch Jack, the Captain, and the door without having to move his head.
He wondered if the Captain had indeed gone to the can and if he had, did the Sergeant go in and check the stalls for gangsters before he let the Captain go in? As he sat he tried to match Sergeant Washington’s patience. The Sergeant was more than a secretary, more than a bodyguard. He almost seemed as if he were some medieval vassal. He could imagine Washington standing in front of the Captain, his sword dulled from the swath he’d cut through the Captain’s enemies, a collection of ears from past battles hanging dried and shriveled around his neck.
While he waited he discovered another of the sergeant’s traits-the skill of stillness. Washington sat quietly watching, absorbing what was going on around him at a level below what was required to contribute to the conversation. It was a level where he could judge; is this action a threat? Is this word a threat? If the answers were no, he didn’t react. But if he perceived any kind of threat, as when Jack raised his voice in excitement a little too much in answer to the Captain’s question about his military record, Washington was instantly alert and moving toward action.
Jack was tempted to make a sudden move at the Captain, just to see how fast both of them could react. The thought frightened him. He had always considered his judgment to be good-until now.
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The Captain glanced down at his watch and stood, saying apologetically, “Mr. McDonald, I am very sorry. I was very much enjoying our chat. You must bring the delightful Ms. Schacter by my home. Bring your sister also, as soon as she is ready to socialize. And the next time your Hong Lee is in town, please do arrange to stop by.”
With that, Jack was dismissed. The Sergeant motioned him to lead the way. The crowd of Chinese businessmen who stood waiting for the use of the room they’d just vacated bristled when they saw him. He had felt their enmity before he left the room. When they saw what was coming behind him they carefully changed their expressions. The anger that had washed over him turned to respect, and with it a good dose of fear.
Just before he walked out the front door of the restaurant, he turned to watch the Captain glad-handing two of the most prominent men in the waiting crowd. He was not seeking favor with them. Quite the contrary, he was accepting the praise that was his due.
BOB WHITE straightened his leg, letting go of his stiff-necked composure long enough to wince and say, “Dang.”
Bob never cussed. Well, hardly ever.
Alice and Bob played hard. There were nights out-theater, concerts, ballet, and day trips to wine country. Alice slept little, and loved to go and do. When she was home, she was on-line until after midnight, then up at dawn to work out. This was followed by another large day, then an evening out again. Keeping up with her took a toll on Bob.
Bob grinned. “That Alice is something, isn’t she? A gal with her spirit and drive is wearing on a body. Remember when you told me about those fellows in Sweden a few years ago who were taking healthy cartilage out of a man’s knee, growing it up big and strong in a sort of Petrie dish, then putting it back in?”
“I remember, Bob. We looked at it back then and they were only getting about a fifteen percent success rate. Why?”
“Looks like they are a whole lot better at the process now. I got bone rubbing on bone in my good leg. I need some kind of shock absorber in there. The idea of more plastic and screws and such inside me gets me to aching. What do you think?”
Bob had asked him for his opinion, already having made up his mind and simply wanted his friend to support him.
“I think it’s great. Go for it!” He hated to think of Bob under the knife again, but he’d vote for anything that would take away part of Bob’s pain. Bob had been depressed over the last six months as his good leg degenerated. He was sad because he had accepted limitations on his mobility as permanent. Even though he was only nine years older than Jack, he had begun to think of himself as old. Alice had given him reason to care again.
He placed the stack of papers on the desk in front of Bob. Bob reached across, picked up the stack and thumbed through it. “Yan?”
Jack nodded and Bob started reading in earnest. Bob was a slow reader. He said it was a mild case of dyslexia. He thought his friend Bob read slowly because he was more thorough than anyone else he had ever met.
Jack wandered around Bob’s office, knowing he could have been playing congas and it wouldn’t have bothered Bob. His friend had changed a few his pictures. When he was in the VA hospital the first time, Bob thought long and hard about the skills that made him a superb Ranger. He wanted to take those skills and use them to do something fun that took him outside. Bob took up photography. Nature photography. He would research and plan and then sit, observe, and wait for the right opportunity better than anybody.
Bob had started with black and white, gone to color and now he was back to black and white. The new picture was of what looked like an Egret or some such. It was stalking in a fallow rice paddy. He thought it could have been somewhere in the Euphrates Valley, but when he looked at the tag on the frame it said Egret Stalking in Fallow Rice Fields near Yuba City. Bob was creative with his titles.
Jack sat in the tufted leather wingback chair that gave a good view of the Golden Gate and the picture and leaned back. He hadn’t realized he’d fallen asleep until he had the nightmare. This time it was a bad one. He went out the door with his ‘chute wrapped tightly with bailing wire. After the chute didn’t open he stabilized his body position and pulled the reserve handle. The handle came off in his hand just like it was supposed to, but instead of a reserve, out came eight-by-ten pictures of all the people he had killed. He fell to terminal velocity. Still the pictures turned and paused right in front of his face.
The first one was the man whose throat he’d slit to stop the screaming, then the boy, the one who hadn’t even reached puberty, and then all the terribly long list of the rest. Bob woke him. Having seen this before, Bob stood back out of range and gently said his name until he woke up. He didn’t have to say anything to Bob about it. Bob’s scars were on the outside. Except for his back, most of Jack’s scars were on the inside. He didn’t know if Bob would trade with him if he could.
“Did you read the papers?” Bob asked.
He had, twice, before he came to see Bob. He told Bob how he’d acquired them and what the Captain said, almost word for word.
“I think the Captain is stuck and he’s asking me in to help. He knows if he asks the Feds for help, they’ll leak like a sieve. He’s deathly afraid someone will leak the conspiracy theory to the press. Yan knows the City would explode if the story came out. He figures he can trust me to find the information. If I look like I’m going to talk to the Feds, he blackmails me with the information I shouldn’t have.”
Bob rubbed his chin in a gesture he had seen a thousand times before. “What aren’t you saying?”
He walked over to the window, unable to face even his best friend while saying what he said. He stared at the Golden Gate, lit brightly by the setting sun. The world seemed a lot darker now.
“He knows someone financed Albert Weise and he wants us to find out who it is.”