“Stuff. Stuff you’d rather not know about. Stuff I’d rather not know about either.”
“I’m a good listener.” Her smile was so soft; her lips much too luscious. “You listened to me. You helped me when I needed it the most. I’d like to return the favor.”
“Honestly, Shirley, just sitting here with you right now is more help than you could possibly know.”
She nodded, simple as that. Then she slid her left hand into his right, and he realized her wedding ring was gone.
They sat in a companionable silence, enjoying their drinks and each other’s presence, just easy to be together. Easy as his stomach growling, then Shirley asking, “Hungry?” before they prepared a simple meal, with him as her sous chef and chief bottle washer in the kitchen.
Food for his stomach; food for his soul.
Saying goodnight was a little awkward. He wanted to kiss her, badly. He thought she wanted him to, but his head was so messed up in so many ways that he didn’t trust his instincts and didn’t want to act on them in case he screwed things up with a truly valued friend he wanted to keep that way.
They parted with a lingering handshake, their eyes making out like crazy.
Gregg checked in on Izzy. He was doing good. A little messed up, too, but all things considered, he was definitely on the upswing. Margie’s expected arrival the next day no doubt had a lot to do with his high spirits.
Once alone in his appointed guestroom that opened out to the veranda, Gregg couldn’t stop wondering how the world had suddenly righted itself with no more than Shirley holding his hand. She had even laid her head on his shoulder, and it felt so good, so right. Damn, he could have cried.
He wondered if she was unable to sleep, too, if she was watching the shadows of the palms waving in the breeze, moving across her walls while he watched them dance across his own dark room.
Dark was not his friend. It invited too many night sweats and nightmares that could bring him screaming awake.
The French doors leading onto the veranda were open. He imagined that he could smell Shirley’s perfume and that she was standing just outside in a shimmery silk nightgown. He imagined…No, don’t go there, he told himself. You’re just going to get more frustrated. The slight breeze caressed his skin, bringing more scent of jasmine that smelled a lot like Shirley. It made him feel hot, almost feverish.
He was not getting any sleep, and considering what sleep had become, he did not completely regret the insomnia.
Gregg swung his feet off the bed. He was just wearing cotton boxers, but it was only him and the quiet tropical night. Overhead the sky was brilliant with stars. The fountain near the veranda beckoned him with the soft tinkling of water. He bent over and splashed his face, then stuck his whole head under. Swishing the water away as though coming up from a wave, he slung back his long, blond hair.
He heard a soft laugh and turned.
She was wearing a long white nightgown. It wasn’t silky or shimmery or exposing much flesh, but what he saw standing in it was more seductive than a Playboy centerfold.
His erection pushed against his boxer shorts. He stood there looking at her and she at him. Her face was shadowed slightly, but he could see some indecision in her eyes. Still, she moved closer. Closer still. Until she stood almost touching him, her gaze searching his. Her hands barely moved. She just opened her palms toward him, something inside her deciding…
Almost imperceptibly her expression changed. He saw her eyes differently, the way her tongue moved over her lips, no longer another man’s widow, but a profoundly alone, very beautiful young woman. Reaching out to a profoundly alone and deeply wounded man who wanted her in that moment more than anyone or anything he had ever wanted before in his life.
Shirley placed his hand over the rise of her breast, right over her heart, and lifted her face to his.
Chapter 45
Izzy sat with Gregg on the veranda, just the two of them and the sound of the surf coming up from the beach, the band Chicago on the turntable inside, accompanied by the murmuring voices of Margie and Shirley, comfortable as long-lost cousins together.
Even if JD was responsible for Margie’s expedited visit, there wasn’t any contest as to who Izzy would rather spend the afternoon with. Not to mention, whenever JD wanted a meeting, it typically involved dicey situations better avoided.
“What do you think JD wanted to meet with us about?” Gregg asked.
Izzy noticed Gregg was shaking his right leg again. It was a nervous habit Gregg had developed sometime between Bronx getting cut in half after the drug group and escaping sure death by slithering over a snake in a cave. Izzy had also noticed the leg shaking tended to stop when Shirley showed up.
“Your guess is as good as mine, buddy,” he said, checking his Seiko again. “I’m not sure why but it always feels like a time bomb ticking when JD wants to see us.”
“You’re not sure why?” Gregg guffawed. “Really, Iz, your gift for understatement is unsurpassed.”
“Although quite easily surpassed by JD’s gift for the unexpected—and, most surprisingly, not always in the worst of ways.”
Gregg looked around as if JD might materialize out of thin air—which wouldn’t be the first time if he did. “I never in a million years thought I’d say this, but the guy has a way of growing on you. I’ve actually kind of missed him—not much, just a teeny-tiny bit—so for the first time I’m not completely dreading seeing his face again.”
They exchanged glances, and Izzy knew they were both thinking of the healing scar tissue on JD’s now less-than-perfect face. He was still handsome to a fault, and the women would probably go nuts for the new pirate look he was sporting, but the reason for the disfiguration was hardly a mystery, despite JD’s unwillingness to discuss the details.
“He took that for me. And he would have done it for you, too, Gregg.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“But there’s a lot we don’t know about him still. He’s way deep. Shadowed even. I can’t help but wonder how a child grows up to be J. D. Mikel.”
“Whatever it was cannot have been, how you say clinically, anywhere within normal limits.”
Not for the first time Izzy found himself thinking about that. Being a child psychiatrist, he was fascinated by whatever workings of JD’s mind intersected with historical influence to produce such an amalgam of the honorable, with a gift for the deadly and the dark; by how JD’s worldview had evolved to form him into such a complex, elusive creature that even professionals like himself and Gregg would probably never quite figure him out.
But that hadn’t stopped them from trying, or from enjoying the common ground that bound them beyond friendship: their commitment to, and love of, the study of the mind.
“Actually, Dr. Kelly, from one shrink to another, I have some theories on our unlikely friend, Agent Mikel. Would you care to hear them?”
“By all means, Dr. Moskowitz. Please proceed.”
“I heard a lecture once about assumptive worlds that I never forgot. It impressed me because it made so much sense that as we grow up in our individual families and see how things work emotionally, so many of our perceptions and beliefs about the way the world works become ingrained assumptions that want to stick with us our whole life long. It’s almost like having a permanent prescription lens over your eyes. A prescription unique to you that only lets you see the world in that very specific way. It’s like everything that happens, everyone you meet, everything you experience, you perceive through that lens, and because that’s your assumptive world, you just assume everyone else sees things the same way, that their experience of the world and conclusions about that world will be similar to yours.”
“Indeed.” Gregg nodded. “And yet, how far from the truth is that?”
“About as far from Nha Trang to California. Or Manhattan.”
“At least,” Gregg agreed. “And yet we’re still so surprised when someone we think we know acts out of character—or the character we thought
they had. Not that I’m naming names.”
“Exactly. And there’s a good chance that JD had certain moral standards impressed on him in his formative years, that qualities like honor and loyalty were desirable traits that became part of his assumptive world, only for some event or trauma to fracture the world as he knew it. And when that happens to anyone, when things go so wrong and aren’t the way we thought they were supposed to be, and we even find ourselves breaking our own rules…Well, it happens. Just look at all the messed up GIs we were sent over here to help.”
Gregg’s laugh was humorless. “Just look at us.”
“Unfortunately so. And in that, I think on some level we can relate to whatever happened to JD. We just don’t know what his own event, or events, were. But I think it safe to surmise that JD had a fracture, a big one, and things really changed for him to make him so contradictory in so many ways—ways that I’m afraid you and I have begun to relate to.”
“Relating to JD, now that’s scary. But I’d be a liar if I said my personal assumptions about good people, bad people, good things, and bad things hasn’t stopped fracturing since my own assumptive world got kicked on its ass.” Looking into the distance, Gregg muttered, “Especially once I got back to The World.”
The World, which was how they always referred to going back home. Izzy thought about how they always counted the days, and how close he was getting to 364 and a wake-up, but how that great and glorious DEROS—Date of Estimated Return from Overseas—no longer quite held the same promise as it had before Gregg returned from The World more messed up than when he had left Vietnam. As troubling as that was, they had both accumulated more psychic and moral damage with their inadvertent participation in activities that had helped shift the heroin trade into the hands of the American “good guys” that were profiting from the GIs who were happily buying the stuff. Meanwhile, the beleaguered Hmong people kept getting kicked everywhere by everybody on every side, with JD’s brother Zhang still trying to outthink and outwit the new bullies muscling in on a high-stakes game of chess.
Or, perhaps, more like the elegant and strategic game of Go. It had rapidly become something of a new passion for Izzy during his recuperation at the mission, ever since receiving an elaborate, and very expensive looking, board with black and white pieces as a gift with a note that read: A certain pale someone won’t be needing this now. Get well soon, my friend. I look forward to playing a game with you.
As if the thought conjured the giver of the gift, the unmistakable sound of helicopter rotors swooped in and “All Along the Watchtower” blasted from an electric-blue gunship that shook the nearby palm trees as it lowered, until a cooler was dropped onto the grass, followed by a striking figure in white-linen pants and an open Aloha shirt, who saluted them with a cagey grin as the chopper lifted off.
“French champagne anyone?” JD called as Margie and Shirley raced out the door to assist with the contents of the hefty cooler he parked on the veranda.
“You must have a case of—you have to be kidding, it’s Perrier-Jouet! And caviar!” Shirley exclaimed, planting a kiss on JD’s cheek. She pulled back, took a look at the sweeping scar on his other cheek and winced. “Oh my, Captain Hook has some competition. Does it hurt?”
“Only when it’s not being kissed.”
Margie took care of that.
“Much better.” JD gave her a wink and Izzy couldn’t bring himself to feel jealous. Well, okay, maybe a little. But not enough to begrudge JD a small measure of the healing touch that Margie had been so generous in dispensing in more places than Izzy’s own cheek.
After they all made the rounds of welcoming JD back to the mission, Margie and Shirley discreetly excused themselves after JD said he couldn’t stay long. A boat was coming to pick him up at the beach and, if they didn’t mind, he needed a little time alone with their guys.
As the three of them took a walk, JD offered, “I’ll be out at my place in the islands offshore for a couple of weeks. You’re welcome to visit and bring your ladies.”
It was only then that Izzy noticed JD was again wearing two silver bracelets on his wrist.
“Looks like you must have seen a certain lady who had both of these the last time we saw you.”
JD shrugged. “You know you’ve definitely broken up when the girl gives you your jewelry back.”
“Soo…you saw Kate?” Gregg asked with the casualness of discussing the weather. Izzy knew any previous competition for her affections was a thing of the past. Neither man wanted her now, and ironically for basically the same reason: Kate had betrayed JD in the worst possible way, no matter which way you sliced her own assumptive world.
“I did,” JD confirmed. “Paris. Last week. Kate sends her regards as well as her regrets for, as she said, too many things to mention.”
Izzy exchanged a look with Gregg.
In unison they asked, “And how are you feeling about that?”
JD laughed, a great big laugh that was something new coming from him. “Honestly, a little weird but overall, okay. It’s all cool, guys, you can punch out. No need to shrink overtime on behalf of my mental health. And by all means, save yourselves the time of trying to psychoanalyze me.”
He raised a brow in their silence.
“Yeah, well…” Gregg shrugged.
“We have to entertain ourselves somehow,” Izzy filled in.
“Tell you what,” JD allowed, “if you figure me out before I do, let me know. Meanwhile, let me entertain you. Maybe. Depends on how you want to handle it when I tell you that the mission is going to receive a grant, a very substantial endowment for a children’s trauma center from a recently deceased man who couldn’t adjust from being King to a pauper on Saigon’s mean streets. He had a sizeable estate and…Let’s just say I managed a little leverage regarding where a major portion of it went.”
“Wow, that is fantastic!” Izzy couldn’t help himself. Talk about assumptive worlds! How did he go from being a good Jewish boy to dancing on the grave of an insane tyrant? He would figure that out later. Right now he was more concerned with specifics. “There have to be strings attached. What are they and how many?”
“Just one or two or three. Like having a clinical psychologist and a child psychiatry specialist on board who just received Fulbright fellowships if they agree to set it all up. And, should they agree, the child psychiatrist in question—that would be you, Dr. Moskowitz—will be receiving an immediate honorable discharge to take the position if he is amenable. And perhaps that amenability could be induced if a certain army nurse would like to work here with you?”
“Uh…uh…” Izzy was gob smacked. “But I’m just ten days short and…”
“What are the other strings?” Gregg filled in, glancing toward the mission, his face filled with more hope than Izzy had seen since Gregg had left on his own DEROS eight months before.
“There is a rumored psychiatric facility said to be secretly set up as a black ops site out on the border. My sources are mixed on the subject, which means I need to do more independent research. That will take a little while. If it turns out to be real and as disturbing as it sounds, I’ll be in need of a couple of top notch shrinks to go under cover with me to what is called The Killing School.”
“The Killing School,” Gregg repeated. “What the hell kind of school is that?”
“I think we do good work together,” was JD’s answer.
“Uh…uh…” Izzy felt as though his vocabulary had been reduced to a single syllable, but he couldn’t deny that he was intrigued. As long as snakes and caves and maniacal albinos weren’t part of the deal.
As if reading his mind, JD said, “Go back to New York, Izzy. Take a month or three; longer if you need it. And take Margie along with you. I already have two first-class tickets. See what it’s like back in the world, see where you belong and who you belong with.”
And with that JD reached into his pants pockets and pulled out from either side a silver bracelet.
“One for
you,” he said, extending a bracelet to Gregg, “and one for you,” the other one held out to Izzy. “These are from Zhang. A token of his and the tribal people’s appreciation for your courage and your service to them and others. They will remember you.” JD bowed deeply. “It is my honor to present these to you.”
There was a moment’s hesitation, a glance exchanged, both Izzy and Gregg knowing that with such honors came great responsibility.
Izzy bowed back to JD and with the minimal amount of Vietnamese he had picked up, expressed his gratitude with, “Lòng biết o’n.”
“And the honor is mine to accept such a gift,” Gregg intoned, also bowing.
“And then so it is,” JD confirmed as he placed the bracelets on their left wrists. “Although I have not always been worthy of the cup of your friendship, never doubt that whatever you decide, or wherever you go from here, I will always consider you my most trusted friends. And I will always have your backs.”
Epilogue
On the boat ride over to the island he called home, JD knew it wouldn’t quite be the same when he arrived. Not without Kate to share the hammock beneath a tropical, dusky sky, or to share a dinner of crispy fish and pineapple from the headman’s sister with Kate saying, “I’m calling the front desk and extending my stay.”
Although Kate would not be at his little bungalow, and she would not be picking out stereo albums to dance to—“One” was his theme song now—at least the things that mattered most to him would still be waiting. The Jungle Book his mother had read to him as a boy; the handkerchief with lipstick traces beside an embroidered PJ, but now missing a gold coin to go with it; the rest of his treasures from the past in a sandalwood box. The centuries-old Go board the abbot had presented to him in a deeply meaningful ceremony.
He had written about that, and so much more, in the journals and stray pages he had accumulated over two decades of writing. Writing about his mother, the truths, the lies, the suspicions, his education few in the Western world would readily understand. Their world was too new, and that informed their realities.
UNKNOWABLE (Murder on the Mekong, Book 2) Page 36