“I don’t think so.”
Nettles shot a surprised glance at Debbie,
Debbie took a deep whiff of air and shook her head.
“Not until you clean up. Take a sponge bath in here and I’ll find someone to loan you some cologne or perfume. You might want to – use it down below. To be honest, Ms. Nettles, you and Leary and this bathroom smell like a whore house. One whiff and he’ll know what you’re been doing while he was waiting for you. There’s no reason to ask for trouble.”
“You have no right- this is between my husband and myself.”
“Outside this building it’s between you and your husband. Inside this office, I have an interest in preventing any – disruption. Again, you have a choice. You can get cleaned up or you can talk to your husband on the way out of this building – for the last time.”
She looked like a ripe tomato ready to explode as a red flush crept down from her flushed face over her chest and arms. Leary grabbed her hand.
“It’s okay, Annie. Just roll with it and do what she says. There’s no point in getting into a fight in the office. Just go down and talk to him. This will pass.”
“How about getting out and leaving me a little privacy,” Nettles said in Debbie’s direction.
Stepping outside with Leary, Debbie turned to him and said, “You need to get out of here. If you by any chance wind up near her when they get together, and you stink of sex, he won’t have to be a genius to figure it out. And seriously, he could tear your head off without working up a sweat. Head on over to the Cop Shop and work on that Dempsey deposition, fill in the holes. That should take a few hours. Then grab some lunch and call me before you come back.”
He looked back toward the bathroom door, then at her.
“Honestly, Ms. Bascomb, we didn’t intend to cause any trouble. Sometimes, you know, nature calls. We’re lawyers, but we’re still people.”
“That’s debatable.”
She looked him over. He still had that delicious, bad boy, don’t give a damn attitude that drew women like moths to a flame, and at another time she’d be having fantasies about him, but this was business.
“This isn’t over, Patrick. We’ll let it go for today, but we will talk about it again. And any further problems won’t be dealt with a slap on the wrist.”
He grinned at her with an infuriatingly confident expression, saying, “But who would you replace me with, Ma’am? I am the best you’ve got.”
“That’s true. But nobody is so good they can’t be replaced. Try to remember that. That’s not just an idle threat. I will fire you if you can’t control that rampant sex drive of yours.”
The smile faded a little as he said, “You’re the Administrator, but Johnny August would have to approve my firing, and he appreciates me.”
She stared at him stone faced.
“That’s true, Patrick, he likes winning. But he hired me because he doesn’t like running a menagerie of young legal stars who do whatever they want instead of what they’re needed to do. It’s gotten him bad press and he doesn’t want any more of it. If he doesn’t back me, I walk. And I hate to break it to you, but if he has to choose between us, you’re the one going.”
He stared at her with no expression for a moment, but a slow smile grew.
”I guess he hired you to be more than a pretty face.”
And then, “But you do have one. It’s such a waste on a stern administrator. You ought to look more like Nurse Ratchet from that great old movie, ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.’ Although actually, if she’d ever let her hair down, I thought she would have been pretty hot too.”
She just shook her head.
“You know you’re incorrigible. You just got your ass chewed out for messing with a female colleague and you’re flirting with your female boss. Don’t you have any sense at all?”
“Unfortunately, in dealing with pretty faces, none at all. It’s the curse of the Irish.”
“Okay, get out of here.”
Twenty minutes late Annette Nettles walked out of restroom, rearranged, hair in place, smelling fresh. She couldn’t shake the flush on her face and upper chest and that “just fucked” expression that Debbie thought any woman would recognize, but might escape most men.
“Do I pass inspection?” she said, obviously trying to contain her irritation.
“You’ll do. Just try to watch how you walk.”
Ian Nettles was pacing up and down in front of the front desk as they came back.
The expression that grew on his face told Debbie that he’d read the signs.
“Hello, Annie. I gather I must have interrupted…something important?”
“Yes, you did, Ian. That’s what happens when you swoop in with no warning into your wife’s place of business and expect the whole world to come to a stop for you because you’re so important. Other people have lives and careers.”
“You’re right. I should have given you some warning, a heads up. Like you did when you walked out on me while I was out of country and just left me that lovely note that you had taken that job down here in Florida without a word to me. No letters, no communication for two years while you were making your new life down here.”
She stood up straight in front of him, a tiny figure against his size.
“Yes, that was me being inconsiderate. I forgot the telephones work both ways, as do emails and snail mail, or airplanes, trains and cars. No way you could reach me.”
He drew himself up and the air seemed to grow still, but she didn’t flinch or move away from him.
“I was busy.”
“For two years?”
“And I wasn’t really sure what to say to you.”
“You finally figure it out?”
“Not really. But I was curious. You never divorced me. I figured that would be the next step.”
“I figured you’d be the one.”
"I guess we both figured wrong.”
He gave her that head to toe examination and said, “I gather you haven’t practiced celibacy for the last two years. New boyfriend?”
“Boyfriends. I still like sex and I didn’t have a husband around to take care of that for me. How many bimbos and whores have you been with on how many continents in the last two years?”
“Everybody is not like you.”
She drew back and stood up straight, thrusting her breasts out for him in almost a taunting gesture.
“So why are you here, Ian? Two years late?”
“I’d hoped to have a chance to sit down and talk with you. But you’re right. I should have called and we should have set up some neutral ground. It – this is not going to work. You’re not in any mood to talk calmly and I –I’m afraid I’d do or say some things I shouldn’t. I’ve got an assignment – down South – and I’ll take care of that. Then I’ll call you and if you’re still interested, we can meet and – discuss things. Whether or not we want to keep up this sorry pretense of a marriage.”
“That’s strictly up to you. I’m happy with the way things are. I don’t need a divorce because I’m not planning on remarrying, and being married hasn’t kept me from having an active – and full – social life. So if you want to talk, just call.”
She looked at Debbie and said, “Now, Ms. Bascomb, if you don’t mind, I’m going to get back to the work they pay me for.”
She walked toward the rear without looking backward at her husband or Office Manager.
Nettles looked at his wife’s retreating back and then at Debbie.
“Well, that didn’t work out exactly the way I planned it. I – uh – I’m sorry for creating a disruption. Probably a bad idea, now that I think about it. Not really sure when I think about it exactly what I wanted to happen.”
She reached into a pocket of her blouse and pulled out a card. She grabbed a pen off the receptionist’s desk and wrote on it, then handed it to Nettles. She had to look up. It constantly surprised her just how big he was.
“What’s this?”
“Why?”
“You don’t sound like you know Jacksonville at all. If you come back, and I think you will, call me and I can help you in finding some place to stay and some decent restaurants. So you can take some time before approaching your wife again.”
“I repeat – why?”
“I’ve been where you are – on the other side. I divorced my husband. No matter what happens, it’s going to hurt. You want her back, don’t you?”
When he didn’t answer, she said, “Yeah. Divorce is supposed to be easy, and it is, about like pulling a lung out barehanded. Just keep the card and if you feel like it, call me when you get back into town.”
As she walked back to the elevator, she found a familiar figure standing in front as the door opened.
“I appreciate your concern, but as you could see, I had everything well in hand. I can take care of myself now.
He just looked back at her with a smile.
“I was just here to give the Widowmaker a hand if he pissed you off. I didn’t want you to hurt him.”
He stepped inside and gestured to her.
“I’ll ride up with you if you promise not to get physical.”
“You wish.”
He just smiled and she knew they had passed another milestone in learning to live with each other again.
She told herself on the way back to her office that if she could make Annette Nettles a happier wife, she’d probably be a better lawyer. And if she was attracted to Nettles’ husband, that didn’t matter. Ian Nettles was an infinitely worse, more maddening Bill Maitland. If twenty years had taught her anything at all, it was NOT to fall for men cursed with obsessions.
CHAPTER NINE – THE WORLD IS A VERY SMALL PLACE
November 10, 2005
Wednesday, 1 P.M.
She had come back in from meeting with attorneys and two investigators who were handling the preliminary work on a 14-year-old who was charged with murder in the drowning death of his six-month-old half-brother. The 14-year-old had been left alone in a bathroom with the sibling and by the time mom had come back in she found him holding his baby brother face down in the water.
Nobody could yet believe the State Attorney was even serious about the murder charges and it was almost certainly the opening gambit in a court chess game, but the PD had to at least begin with the assumption that something along those lines might be coming down the road.
It was depressing as hell. And she felt like some days she had about as much depression as anybody could stomach in the last six months. The family had lost a six-month old baby and dead babies never failed to put her into depression. And they were likely to lose the 14-year-old into the system for years of therapy probably tied to some form of incarceration.
And seeing the look on the mother’s face as she was deposed, Debbie knew no matter what happened, her life was destroyed. No matter what happened to the 14-year-old, she would never be able to return her life to where it had been one minute before she left the two of them alone in that bathroom.
She grabbed a cappuccino in the first floor Starbucks and headed back to her office. There would be a dozen emails and memos and she had started wading through them. But the one marked [email protected] grabbed her attention. She clicked to open it.
It was dated 11-10-2005 -9 p.m.-Republic of the Congo
“Debbie:
I am sitting in an air conditioned office typing this message to you in an environment that would be right at home in Jacksonville. The AC hums, there are cokes in the Westinghouse fridge, and I’m watching a late CNN newscast on satellite television.
Of course, outside there are dirt roads, little brick homes like something you’d see in the Netherlands with bright flowers in flower pots on the porches, and then some huts like nothing other than an old Tarzan movie. There is an honest to god trading post and a communal well – the only one that hasn’t been poisoned or blown up.
If it was morning you could look out and see women with clay pots to carry water from the well balanced on their head. Still see some bare breasts like something out of National Geographic. Of course some of the younger are wearing Guess Jeans and men’s Izod polo shirts. It’s not Tarzan’s Africa anymore.
And, of course, at the main dirt roads leading into and out of the village, you’ve got naked men hanging from trees with their guts trailing out to the ground below them. That’s something you won’t hardly see any more in most parts of the world. Made somebody mad, obviously. Great sport for the wild, and domesticated, village dogs who try to pull the guts out.”
She looked at the words but found it hard to believe they were real. In the month since Clint had flown out of Jacksonville, the reality that he was a half a world away trekking through an violent and bloody African battleground had seemed more and more fantastic. And it was easier to deal with if she could make it seem like a dream.
“Sorry I haven’t been in contact with you prior to this. But we’ve – I’ll tell you a little more about who ‘we’ is in a bit – been on the move quite a bit since I got here. Learned some things but still haven’t gotten close to an interview with The Saint.
Like I said, we move around a lot. Crown Media, that’s the company paying Thomas – tell you who he is in a minute - and me to be here rented this place for us. Various government and corporate interests use it from time to time, hence the amenities. We’ll be here for the night so I wanted to catch you up. I’ve already filed a report with Crown so the rest of the night is mine.
Let me give you the lay of the land first. I gave you a rough description of where this little patch of Hell on Earth is, but more specifically I’m sitting in the Southeastern edge of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. That’s not The Republic of the Congo. North of here. Names get confusing.
This is a 2500 square mile no-man’s land that sprawls over parts of the Democratic Republic, Angola and Zaire. There’s jungle and worse jungle, some grass lands, great waterfalls, still some elephants, reports of a few gorillas in the mountains north of here. It’s beautiful country, if it weren’t for the people.
More importantly, there is gold and silver, manganese, cobalt, copper, diamonds – lots and lots of diamonds – uranium, radium, iron ore and coal. This place is a colonialist’s wet dream. There is SO much money waiting to be pulled out of the ground because volcanic activity has pushed everything up to where you can almost walk along and pick up diamonds. I’ve heard stories that natives have found diamonds in river beds.
In fact, if this were an independent country, it would be the Saudi Arabia of Africa. Forgot to mention there are credible reports there is an ENORMOUS pool of crude under my feet a few miles away. So why aren’t the natives - the people who really own all this – living large?
Because there is so much wealth. Nobody has been able to stake a claim that stands and nobody is willing to let anyone else grab it. Thomas, that’s the guy I’ll tell you about, has been a correspondent for a while and he knows people in the intelligence services. He says they tell him that there was a period in the 60s when the extent of the wealth first became known, the Russians moved in. The CIA moved in to block them and for a few years there was an unofficial hot war going on here.
It finally stopped when it looked like it was going to expand and the Cuban Missile Crisis was recent enough to convince people nobody wanted a nuclear standoff. So they let their proxies slug it out.
Over the next few years through the end of the 20th, you had mercenaries aligned with the Americans, the Russians, the Chinese, the British, the French and – I think – the Cubans for a while killing each other and terrorizing the native residents. And then there were mercenaries working for five or six international oil companies, a few mining cartels and God knows who else.
Plus of course, you’ve got regular clashes between Democratic Republic troops trying to keep some claim on the territory and troops fro
m Zaire and Angola who want to remind the other African countries that the Democratic Republic’s claim to this land is highly contested.
So, Hell on Earth in what could be a local Paradise. Probably a moral there somewhere.”
She turned from the computer monitor and opened her desk drawer. She pulled out the paperback copy of “Horseman, Ride on By” Clint had autographed for her. Clint smiled up at her from the back cover. She realized she didn’t have any other pictures of him. She could Google him, but there were no personal pictures. Pictures of him smiling at her over a dining table. Pictures of him lying back relaxed on his bed, hands behind his head, smiling and shaking his head as if he couldn’t believe she was naked in his bed. She could remember his voice, but how long would that last. That calm, reassuring voice that had helped her through the first bad nights.
She returned her gaze to the email.
“Just so you won’t think I’ve become sort of geopolitical nerd, I should add most of that comes from Thomas. Thomas Hightower, He’s the correspondent I told you about. He’s not that old, mid-30s, but he’s been in the business almost 20 years. Been everywhere. Has the most fascinating stories.
More importantly, he’s been in almost every combat zone, every really bad international sewer over the last 20 years. I think he’s got eyes in the back of his head and he knows exactly what to say to kids armed with automatic weapons who would as soon kill you as look at you.
I don’t know why exactly, but we got along from our first meeting. I’m a complete novice at this stuff but he’s been patient and treated me like an equal partner instead of a tag along. For myself, I admire the guy. I’m here and I hope I get of this place alive, but he does this all the time. I really can’t imagine what that would be like and he’s spent 20 years doing it.
But I know now why he does it. I just know I couldn’t do it.
The first week we were here we moved around talking to people, getting a feel for which mercenaries were in what parts of the country, where the ‘no go’ sections were that nobody was safe without an armed escort and even then you couldn’t be sure.
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