Official Privilege

by P. T. Deutermann

  He then lifted the Metro yellow flasher unit down from the rafters of the garage. He mounted the flasher unit on its magnetic base and draped the wire down to the opening in the rear window. He reached back up into the rafters and pulled down the magnetic signs for the doors, the ones displaying the logo of the Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority on them. He got down again and slapped on the Metro signs, then threaded the flasher wire through the back window but did not plug it in. He then turned off the bed light, started the truck, and hit the remote switch to open the electric door. He backed cautiously out into the alley, took one last look around, commanded the garage door to shut, and drove down the alley to East Capitol Street. He crossed East Capitol and went down to Independence, then turned right. Once on Independence, it was a straight shot downtown to the Fourteenth Street Bridge approaches and the safety of Arlington.

  An hour later, Malachi stood at the balcony glass doors of the one-bedroom apartment, sipping on some high octane shaved ice. The apartment had a truly stupendous view of the darkened office building across Ninth Street, but that suited him just fine. This place was a bolt-hole, not a home. Not that he had ever really had a home. The apartment management had assigned him a two-week temporary parking permit for the F-250. After that, he would have to figure something else out, because the duty manager reminded him that in Arlington, apartment buildings had to report vehicles garaged to the county tax office. But hell, in two weeks … He thought about Miss. Snow, his brain running very smooth with the help of the Harper. He’d seen a movie once where you knew that someone was trying to kill the good guy, but you never suspected that it was the beautiful actress that the guy falls in love with. She was entirely too sweet and too beautiful for the thought to even cross your mind. Until she pulled out this goddamn .22 automatic with a long barrel. He remembered the whole audience groaning out loud when they saw the piece. He was having the same problem getting his brain around the idea that the captain had maybe hired somebody, and that the somebody might be this Snow woman. Admittedly, discovering the surveillance out on his street had helped to concentrate his mind, but that still didn’t necessarily mean that there was a contractor out there. And yet Malachi had fired a round into the cave to see what might be stirring in there, and now there were cops, or other people, sitting in a van across his street. That round could really have spooked the captain and the great man, so who knows what they might resort to. They had a lot to lose, both of them.

  So go see. Go do a little surveillance of your own, see if this Snow-woman is a player. And also go see if her boyfriend, the Navy guy, is in the game. By God, that would be a pretty play, the captain using a Navy guy and an ex-NIS agent to clean up the trail. Who the hell would ever suspect that? I would, he thought grimly.

  But, yeah, tomorrow he would go see what Miss. Snow and company were up to. Go on over to Yuppieville tomorrow morning, check things out. No, it would be Saturday. Tomorrow night, then. First go to Old Town, see if she was with Collins, then ease over to Georgetown, maybe get into that alley. For that, he would need the truck. No: For Georgetown, he would use the telephone company van. Miss. Snow, he thought, as he chewed on a piece of fiery ice. Miss. Gracie Snow. I know where you live. I wonder if your phones are working.

  after spending saturday touring the historical town of Harpers Ferry and the haunting grounds of the An tietam battlefield park, Grace and Dan had driven up the Shenandoah Valley to Berryville and then through the rolling Virginia countryside to the Ashby Gap, where Route 50 cut through the Blue Ridge range as it headed east toward Middleburg and, eventually, Washington.

  After topping Ashby Gap, Dan pulled off into the booming metropolis of Paris, Virginia, population about eighty-six. Paris was a one-street village whose most famous landmark was the renowned Ashby Inn, located at the eastern end of the street.

  Dan parked the Suburban in the lot behind the inn while Grace went in to see about their reservations and to use the powder room to change into something more suitable for dinner than her slacks and sweater outfit.

  Dan put a tie on in the car, felt the stubble of an emerging five o’clock shadow, got out, and slipped on a blue blazer. The day had been—what were the right words—increasingly exhilarating. Grace had started out being relatively serious about the sight-seeing, but then, after lunch, he had detected a change and the beginning of some subtle flirtation—subliminal looks, several occasions where they ended up standing well within each other’s personal space, and a growing consciousness on his part that she was acting much differently from the all-business Ms. Snow of the NIS. He walked around the gravel parking lot for a few more minutes, kicking absently at small stones, before going inside. He was beginning to wish that he had tried for a room.

  He waited for Grace in the reading room to the right of the front door, along with four other people waiting for a table. After fifteen minutes, Grace came in and lit up the room with her smile. Most of the men he had seen coming in for dinner were dressed in suits, and Dan had begun to feel somewhat out of place in his corduroy slacks, gray shirt, and plain blazer. But Grace more than made up for him: She was decked out in a beautifully tailored cream-colored sand-washed silk crepe de chine suit, the skirt of which was cut just above her knees. She wore the flowing jacket over a white silk knit blouse, without jewelry, and she had done some magic with cosmetics that he was sure rendered him happily invisible.

  The waitress led them downstairs to the lower dining room. The Ashby Inn was an eighteenth-century restoration that advertised itself as a bed-and-breakfast, but it was much closer to the French concept of an auberge than a simple bed-and-breakfast. There were several small suites upstairs and an outstanding full-service restaurant downstairs. The lower dining room was done in stone, with low-hanging hand-hewn beams, and had two fireplaces. There were eight tables in the lower dining area, which looked like it had originally been part of a bank barn a few hundred years ago. Dan and Grace were ensconced in a corner table by one of the fireplaces.

  A lone bartender was all flying arms and glasses in the corner. It being a Saturday night, there was a good crowd, and the staff was bustling about at high speed.

  “I think I’ve read about this place,” Dan said, looking around. Every man in the place had been stealing surreptitious looks at Grace across the room since they had been seated.

  “It’s been voted one of the ten best inns in America,” Grace said. “More than once. I’ve never eaten here, but the food’s supposed to be exceptional.”

  “Hopefully not that minced cuisine,” Dan muttered, examining the menu suspiciously. Grace laughed at him.

  “I don’t think so, and I believe that’s cuisine minceur you’re worried about. The great big plates and the little bitty portions laid out as flowers?” Her green eyes were sparkling, and he was having trouble concentrating on the details of ordering dinner.

  “That’s the one. Commie chow,” he growled.

  “Now you sound like Snapper.”

  “Snapper eats out of a dog bowl. Mostly, I’m hungry.

  I mean, Harpers Ferry, Sharpsburg, the Antietam battlefield all in one day?”

  “You’re perhaps forgetting the little snack at the inn in Harpers Ferry?”

  “Details, woman,” he replied. “Hey, this looks good.

  And smells good. Just like you.”

  She smiled back at him with another brilliant flash of her green eyes; the lawyerish-looking man at the next table put his wineglass down in his butter plate, a move not unnoticed by his wife.

  “Wine, innkeeper,” Dan commanded in a stage whisper. The bartender, ten feet away, picked right up on it. “Aye, your worship,” he said in his best tavern accent as he tugged at an imaginary forelock. “Wine ‘tis, an’ a plague on yon feckless wenches.”

  Dan grinned as a mildly red-faced waitress came right over with a wine list. Dan selected an Australian chardonnay, which was brought to the table by the bartender in short order. The waitress returned and took their dinne
r orders. When she had left, Dan raised his glass in a toast.

  “To the first good weekend in a long, long time,” he announced.

  “Yes, I’ll drink to that,” she said, looking at him over her glass. “I’d forgotten how beautiful the Virginia countryside is at this time of year. Especially up here in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I’d often thought of getting a country place up here, except—”

  “Except that the commute would be horrible, and the Blue Ridge Mountains are no place to be if you’re alone. Too many ghosts up here.”

  “I felt them at Antietam,” she said

  “It reminded me of one of the Brace Catton Civil War books—the one that had a title with the word stillness in it.”

  “Stillness at Appomattox,” he prompted.

  “Yes. There was such a stillness there. Did you notice how even the tourists spoke softly?”

  “Nearly twenty-five thousand were killed or wounded on that field; I’ve always thought their ghosts are sleeping lightly just beneath all that tall grass. I keep going back, and I can’t really tell you why. You ought to see it on a fall Sunday afternoon; there’s a mist that comes off Antietam Creek that’ll raise the hair on your neck.”

  “I can well believe it,” she said as the waitress brought bread and topped up their wineglasses. “Still, there’s a certain charm to this area of Virginia—all the history, the Washington scene, this countryside: I could never go back to Boston. But I don’t know what I’m going to do next.”

  “Go work for a think tank. Wait for a change in administrations,” he said.

  “Where will you go next?”

  “I have no idea—literally. We get to submit a preference card, which allows us to specify which is the most important thing on our wish list: the kind of ship, the coast, or the job..Since I’m slated for command, I’ve chosen the type of ship—a destroyer type—as the priority.

  I could end up Atlantic or Pacific, or even overseas.”

  “And then?”

  “Ah. That’s the question. I’ll be very close to my twenty-year mark.

  I’ve always thought it would just go on forever. But now—”

  “What would you want to do if you got out at twenty?”

  “You mean when I grow up?” he said. She laughed. The waitress returned with dinner, and they broke off speculating about the future to enjoy the Ashby’s first class cookery. Dan ordered a second bottle of wine, and they lingered over crepes suzette after the main course.

  Dan was grateful there was no band lined up; the warmth and coziness of the dining room, the fireplaces, and a congenial crowd all made for a delightful ambience that did not need, in his opinion, to be spoiled by some aspiring singer. Besides, just the sight of Grace in war paint and an extremely alluring dress was distraction enough.

  He watched her as the evening subsided into a comfortable buzz amid the wine and good food. She was almost radiant, her cheeks the slightest bit flushed, her eyes dancing, her hands animated. The day had been so pleasant: They had been interested in the same things, admired or commented on the same aspects of everything they had seen, and laughed at the same foibles of other people or places. He realized that his answer to her earlier question about the future had been a bit disingenuous: He simply could not quite figure out how to put her into the picture. But he realized that he had become entirely entranced by this woman, felt like he had known her for a very long time, and wanted her in any of his possible futures. He put his wineglass down and almost upset it.

  “I guess I better eighty-six on the vino,” he said, eyeing the treacherous glass. “We have a long drive back to town.”

  She gave him a speculative look across the table, then put her own wineglass down and took his hand across the table.

  “Not necessarily,” she said quietly, giving him a very direct look.

  “Oh?” he replied, trying not to squeak.

  “I may have booked a room here. It is a bed-and- breakfast, or so they advertise.”

  He grinned in spite of himself. “When the hell did you manage that?”

  “At Harpers Ferry. While you were working on that minceur of apple pie a la mode. I took a shot, and they had a cancellation—she said they’re normally booked here weeks ahead.”

  “Wahoo,” he said, looking around for the waitress.

  She was not in evidence at the moment, but the bartender, who might have been watching them, raised his eyebrows at him.

  “Innkeeper,” Dan declared, “be there cognac?” They went up to the room an hour later, Dan trying very hard not to grin from ear to ear as he followed Grace up the stairs from the dining room, fully aware of the envious stares from the remaining male patrons.

  Their room was on the second floor, in the back of the building, and their bedroom windows overlooked a spectacular panorama of open mountain meadows interlaced with a series of cattle ponds stretching down the side of Ashby Gap, seemingly for miles and miles. A full moon was suspended over the Blue Ridge Mountains, painting each of the ponds a bright, glimmering silver. By unspoken consent, they did not turn on any lights, just sat down on the bed, hand in hand, absorbing the view. When she finally turned to him, the sweetness of her kiss took his breath away, and then they began the glorious exploration, fingertips, hands, and lips, the momentary awkwardness of tugging and undoing of clothes, until they finally stretched out next to each other in the moonlight. He ran his fingertips over her whole body as she relaxed on the covers, wondering at the satiny feel of her skin and his own tumbling emotions as he held back just to look at her. Then he moved, pushing her gently down onto her back and sliding his body between her legs, suspending his weight so that he covered her but barely touched her. He kissed her again and she held his face against her lips, first searching and then demanding. He kissed her lips and then her face and then her throat as she guided his head lower, onto her breasts, her hardened nipples, and then back to her lips again. They both had an enormous reservoir of pent-up need to control, and they could both experience the luxuriant sensation of satisfying their hunger, pacing the need, knowing instinctively that when they eventually lost all that control, it was going to be sweet and good. He shifted his body to lay one muscular thigh directly between her legs, and she gripped with her own thighs and began to move, moaning softly now, hands down at her sides, her head thrown back. He let her feel his strength and then started all over again, kissing her throat, her breasts, and then working lower, sliding his thigh away and replacing it with his mouth, focusing every ounce of his energy on her until she arched her back and cried aloud. Before she really had time to come down or even catch her breath, he pushed back up and entered her, holding her knees up with his hands and going as deep as he could while she groaned with the feel of it. He held her that way for almost a minute, until she began to move, and then it went hard and fast, a rising frenzy of powerful thrusting, her legs slipping behind his hips, locking him in while they fed their individual needs, so long deprived. When he came, she didn’t stop, but gripped him tighter and drew a great gasp from him before letting him subside, first on top and then alongside of her, his head on her breast, her fingers in his hair and her lips on his forehead with soft murmurs of love, comfort, and the certain knowledge that the entire night lay before them.

  After a few minutes, when he thought she had gone to sleep, she pulled him up so that they were face-to face. Eyes wide, she looked expectantly at him. She seemed to be waiting for him to say something. He hesitated for just a fraction of a second as the name Claire spirited across his mind, but then he said the words, realizing that as he said them he wanted to say them, wanted to tell her.

  “I’ve fallen in love with you, Grace Ellen Snow.”

  She sat up then and gently pushed him back down onto the covers, then slid her body on top of his. She took his face between her hands, her eyes lustrous in the moonlight, her perfumed hair framing her face.

  “I know how hard that was to say,” she whispered.

  “No it wa
sn’t. Well, a little. But not because of you.”

  “If you loved her, you can’t just throw away all those memories and feelings. I guess what I’m saying is that there’s time enough to share, and I don’t ever expect you to forget her memory or the love you had.

  That’s part of you, and that’s one of the reasons I’ve fallen in love with you.” She bent down to kiss him, then melted down on top of him, her face buried in his shoulder, her breathing softening into sleep. He lay awake for nearly an hour, reveling in the glorious treasure life had just handed him, too happy to sleep.

  at just before midnight on Saturday, Malachi took one of the last Metro trains going into the city. He got off one station later at Clarendon.

  He was wearing khaki slacks, a short-sleeved shirt, a dark windbreaker, and a pair of high-topped tan leather boots. The train was practically empty at this time of night, and Malachi was alone in the car except for six teenaged girls, who burst into fits of giggling interspersed with furtive looks in his direction. It would have been fun to produce a chain saw, he thought. At the Clarendon station, he rode the escalator up to the concrete island between Wilson and Clarendon boulevards.

  Crossing the street, he walked back up along the row of Vietnamese shops and restaurants and turned right on Hudson Street. He walked down one block to a small run-down-looking house nestled in an alley next to an apartment building.

  Behind the house was a single-car garage with a sagging roof and a visible port list, whose door opened onto the alley. A single streetlight, which was hanging at an odd angle from a heavily wired telephone pole, left the front of the garage in shadow. He paused to look down the alley but saw nothing moving in the light. He checked the street and the sidewalks, but no one was visible.

  This neighborhood was not necessarily an area where Caucasian strangers were welcome after about ten o’clock at night, the Vietnamese having several interesting operations of their own going. He could hear a I small dog yapping away somewhere nearby, and the smell of Oriental food hung in the air. A brave dog, he thought, to bark so long and loud near an entire block of Vietnamese restaurants.