scream, “Hey, objection, we never got that”; and Eddie would smile and hold up that log and say, “Yeah, then how come this says it was sent over to you on November 20?”
Someday I’m going to piss on Eddie’s tombstone.
At midnight I told Katrina I’d walk her out to her car. The little guy in the gray suit was seated fastidiously beside the entrance; American tax dollars at work.
I turned to Katrina. “Ain’t this better than pushers and dealers and whores?”
She ignored my question. “What happened to you two?”
“What two?”
“You know exactly what two.”
Oh Christ . Could I just shoot her and put an end to this crap?Not with a witness by the door, obviously, so I said, “I never really knew. I swear. Please . . . let that suffice.”
“Never knew? The chick’s a babe, Sean. The perfect woman, the type who gives men messy dreams. And you have no idea?”
So much for that. “I don’t. We dated my last three years in college. Came graduation, we both got busy. I went into intensive training, and she went into intensive training. I went on deployments, and she went on deployments. We saw each other a weekend every two or three months or so. I came back from Panama, and she’d turned into Mrs. Morrison.”
“Did you intend to marry her?”
And how did I know it would lead to this? Guys are not really into this post-affair psychoanalytic crap. Take me—you date a girl, and it works or it doesn’t. One or the other mumbles the marriage word, and the other either says, “Okay, I’ve got nothing better to do” or “actually, I’d rather have a sulfuric acid enema.” Then you either shuffle to the altar or go looking for the next prospect, without any lengthy claustrophobic pauses in between.
I admitted, “Maybe.”
Fortunately, we’d gotten to her car, a beat-up, clapped-out Nissan Sentra that probably had 200,000 miles on it the day she bought it from a used-car dealer. I opened her door and she had to climb in. I watched her drive off.
What did she think about all that? Probably that I’d been an idiot who waited too long. Or maybe that I was one of those intractable bachelors who’re afraid of losing their monopoly on the big-screen TV, letting Mr. Dickie feast wherever he wants, keeping their greedy grips on their own paychecks. Truthfully, I have some of that strain in me.
But that wasn’t it. I had always wondered about Mary.
CHAPTER TEN
I was pulled out of the shower the next morning by a phone call from Katrina telling me to turn on my TV. It was only seven, and Eddie was standing on the front steps of that big office building on 14th Street, flanked by three gimlet-eyed prosecutors, as he read from notes on a lectern:
“. . . investigation that has spanned seven months of intensive work from hundreds of dedicated people from the Army, from the FBI, and from the CIA. We have carefully considered the spectrum of charges we could bring against General William Morrison and settled on the following: two counts of murder in the first degree; treason; conduct unbecoming an officer; adultery; perjury; and lying in an official investigation. These charges have been signed off by Lieutenant General Halter and filed with the military court of the Military District of Washington.”
Eddie looked up and stared right into the camera, somehow avoiding that smarmy smile of his, somehow maintaining that all-American-boy-with-a-toothache expression. “Are there any questions?”
Of course there were questions, hundreds of them, because all you could hear was the stormy sound of journalists howling in that toxic way they do.
“No,” Eddie charmingly replied, “we don’t yet have a hearing date, but we expect expeditious treatment. The court is aware of the high level of public interest in this case. The only thing holding us up right now is the defense, who incidentally have already received a great volume of evidence and been given ample time to consider their case. I
Someday I’m going to piss on Eddie’s tombstone.
At midnight I told Katrina I’d walk her out to her car. The little guy in the gray suit was seated fastidiously beside the entrance; American tax dollars at work.
I turned to Katrina. “Ain’t this better than pushers and dealers and whores?”
She ignored my question. “What happened to you two?”
“What two?”
“You know exactly what two.”
Oh Christ . Could I just shoot her and put an end to this crap?Not with a witness by the door, obviously, so I said, “I never really knew. I swear. Please . . . let that suffice.”
“Never knew? The chick’s a babe, Sean. The perfect woman, the type who gives men messy dreams. And you have no idea?”
So much for that. “I don’t. We dated my last three years in college. Came graduation, we both got busy. I went into intensive training, and she went into intensive training. I went on deployments, and she went on deployments. We saw each other a weekend every two or three months or so. I came back from Panama, and she’d turned into Mrs. Morrison.”
“Did you intend to marry her?”
And how did I know it would lead to this? Guys are not really into this post-affair psychoanalytic crap. Take me—you date a girl, and it works or it doesn’t. One or the other mumbles the marriage word, and the other either says, “Okay, I’ve got nothing better to do” or “actually, I’d rather have a sulfuric acid enema.” Then you either shuffle to the altar or go looking for the next prospect, without any lengthy claustrophobic pauses in between.
I admitted, “Maybe.”
Fortunately, we’d gotten to her car, a beat-up, clapped-out Nissan Sentra that probably had 200,000 miles on it the day she bought it from a used-car dealer. I opened her door and she had to climb in. I watched her drive off.
What did she think about all that? Probably that I’d been an idiot who waited too long. Or maybe that I was one of those intractable bachelors who’re afraid of losing their monopoly on the big-screen TV, letting Mr. Dickie feast wherever he wants, keeping their greedy grips on their own paychecks. Truthfully, I have some of that strain in me.
But that wasn’t it. I had always wondered about Mary.
CHAPTER TEN
I was pulled out of the shower the next morning by a phone call from Katrina telling me to turn on my TV. It was only seven, and Eddie was standing on the front steps of that big office building on 14th Street, flanked by three gimlet-eyed prosecutors, as he read from notes on a lectern:
“. . . investigation that has spanned seven months of intensive work from hundreds of dedicated people from the Army, from the FBI, and from the CIA. We have carefully considered the spectrum of charges we could bring against General William Morrison and settled on the following: two counts of murder in the first degree; treason; conduct unbecoming an officer; adultery; perjury; and lying in an official investigation. These charges have been signed off by Lieutenant General Halter and filed with the military court of the Military District of Washington.”
Eddie looked up and stared right into the camera, somehow avoiding that smarmy smile of his, somehow maintaining that all-American-boy-with-a-toothache expression. “Are there any questions?”
Of course there were questions, hundreds of them, because all you could hear was the stormy sound of journalists howling in that toxic way they do.
“No,” Eddie charmingly replied, “we don’t yet have a hearing date, but we expect expeditious treatment. The court is aware of the high level of public interest in this case. The only thing holding us up right now is the defense, who incidentally have already received a great volume of evidence and been given ample time to consider their case. I
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