“Who?”
“One of them’s my brother.”
“Your brother?”
“He’s a lawyer. He’s working with—”
“I know exactly who he is,” interrupted Greene, “and who he’s working with. They’re about as subtle as jackals.”
“You never mentioned him to me. How come?”
“There was no reason to. They’re a bunch of hotheads over at Justice. They were organized by a Black named Nevins. We keep close tabs on them; they mess around with hardware contracts more than we’d like. But they haven’t got anything to do with us.”
“They do now. It’s why I called you. One of the six in Nam broke. They’ve got a deposition. A list. Eight officers, seven identified.”
Greene’s cold eyes narrowed. He spoke slowly, quietly. “What the hell are you saying?”
Andrew told him. When he finished, Greene spoke without moving an inch of his powerful body.
“That Black son of a bitch, Nevins, flew to Saigon two weeks ago. The matter wasn’t related.”
“It is now,” said the major.
“Who has the deposition? Are there copies?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why is the subpoena being delayed?”
“Again, I don’t know,” said Andrew.”
“There must be a reason! For Christ’s sake, why didn’t you ask?”
“Hold it, Marty. Everything came as a shock—”
“We’re trained for shock,” interrupted Greene icily. “Can you find out?”
Andrew swallowed part of his bourbon. He had not seen the captain like this before. “I can’t call my brother. He wouldn’t tell me if I did.”
“Nice family. May the brothers live and be well. Maybe I can do better. We’ve got people at Justice; procurement covers itself. I’ll do what I can. Where are our files in Saigon? They’re the bottom line.”
“They’re not in Saigon. They’re in Phan-thiet on the coast. In a fenced-off area of a warehouse, I’m the only one who knows the location. A couple of cabinets among a thousand G-Two crates.”
“Very smart.” Greene nodded his head in approval.
“I’ll check them the first thing. I’m flying out this afternoon. A sudden inspection trip.”
“Very nice.” Greene nodded again. “You’ll find the man?”
“Yes.”
“Check Barstow. He’s a smartass. Too many decorations.”
“You don’t know him.”
“I know the way he operates,” said Greene.
Andrew was stung by the similarity of words. His brother had applied them to Eye Corps. “He’s a good man in the field—”
“Bravery,” interrupted the captain, “hasn’t got a goddamn thing to do with it. Check Barstow first.”
“I will.” Andrew smarted under Greene’s pronouncements. He had to get some of his own back. “What about Baltimore? I’m worried about that.”
The envelopes in Baltimore were picked up by Greene’s twenty-year-old nephew.
“He’s perfect. He’d kill himself first. I was up there last weekend. I would have known.”
“Are you sure?”
“It’s not worth discussing. I want to know more about that goddamned deposition. When you crack Barstow make sure you get every word he put down. They probably gave him a copy; see if he’s got a military lawyer.”
The major drank again, averting Greene’s narrow eyes. Andrew did not like the captain’s tone of voice. He was actually giving orders; he was out of line. But on the bottom line Greene was a good man to have around in a crisis. “What can you find out over at Justice?”
“More than that Black bastard would ever guess. We’ve got funds set up for the mavericks who interfere with armaments contracts. We don’t care who makes a few extra dollars, we want the hardware. You’d be surprised how the lowly paid government lawyers take to Caribbean vacations.” Greene smiled and sat back in the booth. “I think we can handle this. The subpoena won’t mean a damn thing without our records. Line officers bitch all the time, what else is new?”
“That’s what I told my brother,” said Andrew.
“Him I can’t figure,” said Greene. And then the captain leaned forward. “Whatever you do in Nam, think it out. If you use prejudice, get your facts and do it by remote.”
“I think I’ve had more experience in those areas than you.” Andrew lighted a cigarette; his hand was steady in spite of his increased irritation. He was pleased with that.
“You probably do,” said Greene casually. “Now, I’ve got something for you. I figured it could wait till our next meeting, but there’s no point in holding it.”
“What is it?”
“A congressional tracer came in last Friday. From a pol named Sandor; he’s on the Armed Services Committee. It concerned you, so I pulled it.”
“What did they want?”
“Limited. Your rotation schedule. How permanent you were in Washington. I inserted a routine response. You were high-echelon material, War College candidate. Very permanent.”
“I wonder what—”
“I haven’t finished,” interrupted Greene. “I called this Sandor’s aide and asked why the congressman was interested in you. He checked his papers and said the request came from a friend of Sandor’s, a man named Dakakos. Theodore Dakakos.”
“Who is he?”
“A Greek shipper. In your family’s class. He’s got millions.”
“Dakakos? Never heard of him.”
“These Greeks are pistols. Maybe he wants to give you a present. Like a small yacht or your own battalion.”
Fontine shrugged. “Dakakos? I can buy a yacht. I’ll take the battalion.”
“You can buy that, too,” said Greene, sliding across the seat out of the booth. “Have a prosperous trip. Call me when you get back.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Find out everything there is to know about a Black son of a bitch named Nevins.”
Greene walked rapidly past the booths toward the entrance. Andrew would wait five minutes before leaving. He had to get to his apartment and back. His plane left at one thirty.
Dakakos? Theodore Dakakos.
Who was he?
Adrian got out of the bed slowly, one foot after the other, as quietly as possible so he would not wake her. Barbara was asleep, but her sleep was fitful.
It was barely nine thirty in the evening. He had picked her up at the airport shortly after five. She’d canceled her Thursday and Friday seminars, too excited to lecture detached summer students.
She had been awarded a grant to assist the anthropologist Sorkis Khertepian at the University of Chicago. Khertepian was in the process of analyzing artifacts taken from the site of the Aswan Dam. Barbara was exhilarated; she had to fly down and tell Adrian all about it. She was intensely alive when things went right in her world, a scholar who would never lose her sense of wonder.
It was strange. Both he and Barbara had entered their professions in a sense of outrage. His was traced to the acid streets of San Francisco, hers to a brilliant mother denied her rightful place in a midwest college because she was a mother. A woman who had no place in the higher offices of a university. Yet each had found values that far outweighed the anger.
It was part of the bond between them.
He walked quietly across the room and sat down in an armchair. His eyes fell on his briefcase on the bedroom desk. He never left it in the sitting room at night; Jim Nevins had cautioned him about being careless. Nevins was at times a little paranoid about such matters.
Nevins, too, had come to his profession in outrage. It was the outrage that often sustained him. Not merely the frustrations of a Black man climbing over the barriers erected by a skeptical white establishment, but the anger of a lawyer who saw so much illegality in the city where laws were made.
But nothing outraged Nevins more than the discovery of Eye Corps. The idea of military elitists suppressing evidence of massive cor
ruption for their own ends was more dangerous than anything the Black lawyer could think of.
When Major Andrew Fontine’s name appeared on the list, Nevins had asked Adrian to remove himself. Adrian had become one of his closest friends, but nothing could stand in the way of prosecuting Eye Corps.
Brothers were brothers. Even white brothers.
“You look so serious. And so naked.” Barbara swept her light-brown hair away from her face, and rolled on her side, hugging the pillow.
“I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”
“Heavens, no. I was only dozing.”
“Correction. Your snoring could be heard on Capitol Hill.”
“You lie through your legal teeth.… What time is it?”
“Twenty of ten,” he answered, looking at his watch.
She sat up and stretched. The sheet fell away to her waist; her lovely, full breasts separated, their slow expansion, the movement of the nipples holding his eyes, arousing him. She saw him watching her and smiled, pulling the sheet over her as she leaned against the headrest.
“We talk,” she said firmly. “We have three days to wear ourselves to a frazzle. While you’re out during the day slaying bears, I’ll preen myself like a concubine. Satisfaction guaranteed.”
“You should do all those things nonacademic ladies do. Spend hours at Elizabeth Arden’s, wallow in milk baths, eat bonbons with your gin. You’re a tired girl.”
“Let’s put me aside,” said Barbara smiling. “I’ve been talking about me all night—almost. How’s everything down here? Or shouldn’t you say? I’m sure Jim Nevins thinks the suite is bugged.”
Adrian laughed, crossing his legs. He reached for a pack of cigarettes next to a lighter on the armchair table. “Jim’s conspiracy complex remains undaunted. He refuses to leave case files at the office anymore. He keeps all his important papers in his briefcase, which is the biggest damn thing you ever saw.” Adrian chuckled.
“Why does he do that?”
“He doesn’t want copies made. He knows the crowd upstairs would take him off half the cases if they knew how much progress he was making.”
“That’s astonishing.”
“It’s chilling,” he said.
The telephone rang. Adrian got out of the chair quickly and crossed to the bedside table.
It was his mother. She could not hide the anxiety in her voice. “I’ve heard from your father.”
“What do you mean, you’ve heard from him?”
“He flew to Paris last Monday. Then he went on to Milan—”
“Milan? What for?”
“He’ll tell you himself. He wants you and Andrew here on Sunday.”
“Wait a minute.” Adrian’s mind raced. “I don’t think I can do that.”
“You must.”
“You don’t understand, and I can’t explain right now. But Andy’s not going to want to see me. I’m not sure I want to see him. I’m not even sure it’s advisable under the circumstances.”
“What are you talking about?” His mother’s voice was suddenly cold. “What have you done?”
Adrian paused before answering. “We’re on the opposite sides of a … dispute.”
“Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter! Your father needs you.” She was losing control. “Something happened to him. Something happened to him! He could barely talk!”
There were several clicks on the line, followed by the urgent voice of a hotel operator. “Mr. Fontine, I’m sorry to break in, but there’s an emergency call for you.”
“Oh, God.” His mother whispered over the line from New York. “Victor—”
“I’ll call you back if it’s got anything to do with him. I promise you that,” said Adrian swiftly. “All right, operator. I’ll take—”
It was as far as he got. The voice now on the line was hysterical. It was a woman, crying and screaming and barely coherent.
“Adrian! My God, Adrian! He’s dead! He was killed! They killed him! Adriannnnnnn!”
The screams filled the room. And the terror of the screams filled Adrian with a shock he had never felt before.… Death. Death that touched him.
The woman on the telephone was Carol Nevins. Jim’s wife.
“I’ll be right there!”
“Call my mother,” he told Barbara, as he dressed as fast as he could. “The North Shore number. Tell her it’s not dad.”
“Who is it?”
“Nevins.”
“Oh, my God!”
He raced into the corridor and down to the elevators. He kept his finger on the button; the elevators were slow—too slow! He ran to the exit doors, crashed them open and leaped down the angling staircase to the lobby. He sped to the glass doors of the entrance.
“Excuse me! Pardon me! Let me through, please!”
Out on the curb he ran to his right, to the lighted sign of an empty taxi. He gave the address of Nevins’s apartment.
What had happened? What in God’s name had happened?! What did Carol mean? They killed him! Who killed him. Jesus! Was he dead?!
Jim Nevins dead? Corruption, yes. Greed, of course. Mendacity, normal. But not murder!
There was a traffic light at New Hampshire, and he thought he would go mad. Two more blocks!
The cab plunged forward the instant the light flickered. The driver accelerated, then halfway down the block came to a sudden stop. The street was jammed with traffic. There were circling lights up ahead; nothing was moving.
Adrian jumped out on the street and began threading his way as fast as possible between the cars. Across Florida Avenue police cars blocked the entrance. Patrolmen were blowing whistles, signaling with iridescent orange gloves, funneling the traffic west.
He ran into the blockade; two police officers several yards away at either side yelled at him.
“No one goes past here, mister!”
“Get back, buddy! You don’t want to go in there!”
But he did want to go; he had to go! He ducked between two patrol cars and raced toward the swirling lights near a mass of twisted metal and shattered glass that Adrian instantly recognized. It was Jim Nevins’s car. What was left of it.
An ambulance’s rear doors were open; a stretcher on which a body lay strapped, covered completely with a white hospital blanket, was being carried from the wreckage by two attendants. A third man, holding a black medical bag, walked alongside.
Adrian approached, pushing away a policeman who held out a prohibiting arm. “Get out of the way,” he said firmly, but with his voice trembling.
“Sorry, mister. I can’t let—”
“I’m an attorney! And that man, I think, is my friend.”
The doctor heard the desperation in his words and waved the officer away. Adrian reached down for the blanket; the doctor’s hand shot out and held his wrist.
“Is your friend Black?”
“Yes.”
“With identification that says his name is Nevins?”
“Yes.”
“He’s dead, take my word for it. You don’t want to look.”
“You don’t understand. I have to look.”
Adrian pulled back the blanket. Nausea swept over him; he was at once hypnotized and terrified at what he saw. Nevins’s face was half ripped off, blood and bone more apparent than flesh. The area of the throat was worse; half his neck was gone.
“Oh, Jesus. My God!”
The doctor replaced the blanket and ordered the attendants to continue on. He was a young man with long blond hair and the face of a boy. “You better sit down,” he said to Adrian. “I tried to tell you. Come on, let me take you to a car.”
“No. No, thanks.” Adrian suppressed the sickness and tried to breathe. There wasn’t enough air! “What happened?”
“We don’t know all the details yet. Are you really a lawyer?”
“Yes. And he was my friend. What happened?”
“Seems he made a left turn to go into the apartment driveway and halfway across, some outsized rig rammed him at full speed
.”
“Rig?”
“A trailer truck, the kind with steel gridwork. It barrelassed down like it was on a freeway.”
“Where is it?”
“We don’t know. It stopped for a couple of moments, its horn blasting like hell, then pulled out. A witness said it was a rental; it had one of those rent-a-truck signs on the side. You can bet the cops have APB’s out all over the place.”
Suddenly, Adrian remembered, amazed that he was able to do so. He grabbed the doctor’s sleeve. “Can you get me through the police to his car? It’s important.”
“I’m a doctor, not a cop.”
“Please. Will you try?”
The young doctor sucked air through his teeth, then nodded his head. “Okay. I’ll take you over. Don’t pull any shit, though.”
“I just want to see something. You said a witness saw the truck stop.”
“I know it stopped,” replied the blond-haired doctor enigmatically. “Come on!”
They walked over to the wreck. Nevins’s car was caved in on the left side, metal stripped everywhere, windows shattered. Foam had been sprayed around the gas tank; white globules had drifted through the smashed windows.
“Hey, Doc! What are you doing?” The policeman’s voice was tired and angry.
“Come on, kid, get back. You, too!” A second patrolman yelled.
The young doctor raised his black bag. “Forensic washout, fellas. Don’t argue with me, call the station!”
“What?”
“What forensic?”
“Pathology, for Christ’s sake!” He propelled Adrian forward. “Come on, lab man, take the samples and let’s get out of here. I’m beat.” Adrian looked into the car. “See anything?” asked the doctor pointedly.
Adrian did. Nevins’s briefcase was missing.
They walked back through the cordon of police to the ambulance.
“Did you really find anything?” asked the young doctor.
“Yes,” answered Adrian, numbed, not sure he was thinking clearly. “Something that should have been there, but wasn’t.”
“Okay. Good. Now I’ll tell you why I took you over.”
“What?”
“You saw your friend; I wouldn’t let his wife see him. His face and neck were blown apart with broken glass and metal fragments.”
The Gemini Contenders: A Novel Page 29