The 6:20 Man

Chapter 22

It wasn’t the 6:20, but it still passed by Brad Cowl’s humble digs.

Before Devine had rented his room at the town house, he had done some investigating and knew that Cowl lived there and that this commuter train would pass by it. So he had had his eye on Mount Kisco even without Campbell using a Realtor to get him his current home.

Devine had thought, however unrealistically, that seeing how and where Cowl lived could be used as an advantage. He might be able to take an observation he made from the train and then use it in conversation with the man to impress him, to help Devine move up the rungs at the firm. None of that had happened. His only meeting with Cowl had been in that large conference room that day with all the other newbies. So now he was stuck every single day seeing how ungodly rich the man was.

So much for my grand plan.

As he thought about that, he started thinking about his last few months in the Army.

Roy Blankenship had confided in Devine about his wife’s affair. And Blankenship knew that Ken Hawkins was the one screwing his wife; he had told Devine about it. After Blankenship’s death, Devine had gotten access to the forensic records via a buddy of his in CID. That was when he had learned a lot about vertical versus inverted ligature marks. It was clear even to Devine, not a trained investigator, that it was murder and not suicide, and he had questioned his CID contact as to why the verdict had come down as Blankenship’s killing himself.

His friend told him, “The brass doesn’t like rocking boats, Travis. The war is turning against us, and the last thing they need is an officer-on-officer murder investigation in the mix.”

When Devine had told him that was all bullshit, his friend had added, “Welcome to the politics of the United States Army.”

But after Hawkins had been found dead — his body had shown telltale signs of having been attacked by animals — Devine had gone into a deep depression. He had hated Hawkins for what he had done. He had managed to get the man alone out in the mountains. And then he had unleashed on him, telling him everything he knew, the centerpiece of which was Hawkins’s having killed Blankenship.

At first Hawkins had denied it, but after Devine laid fact on top of fact the man admitted his guilt. And then he had come at Devine with a knife. The men had fought. But Devine was younger, stronger, and his inner motor just couldn’t be beat by the likes of Hawkins. He had left him there, unconscious. But he had never expected the man to die out there.

The official cause of death was internal hemorrhaging brought on by repeated blows to the head and body, blows provided by Devine. However, the official report was that Hawkins had died at the hands of the Taliban. And Devine had never corrected the record. But he also could not remain in the Army with the guilt of what he had done.

Thus the exit from the one organization where he had felt he truly belonged.

And his subsequent exile to the financial world in New York, where his old man was so, so proud of him.

My own personal prison. With no way out.

But maybe Campbell had given him a way. Now he just had to perform.

No one was by the pool at Cowl’s place. There was a gardener pruning a bush. A cardinal landed on top of a table umbrella and performed the short, jerky motions of the head that birds did. The water looked cool and inviting but for some reason made Devine slightly nauseous. He turned away as the train jolted and picked up speed, and the palace was gone.

Devine closed his eyes and sat back in his seat the rest of the way to New York. The city was tough for many natives in the summer. It was crowded with tourists who often had no idea where they were going. But assistance by accommodating locals proud of their city was usually provided and any confusion rectified.

The pavements and buildings absorbed every molecule of heat and threw it violently back at walkers and bikers and drivers. Foul air, driven by funneled winds, could almost burn your nostrils out or lift you off your feet. The subway would blow past underneath, and its thrust would come through the pavement grates with velocity, providing a surprise gust of hot air.

Yet he liked the city in the summer more than in the winter. He could sit on a rock in Central Park, or perch on a bench or take a stroll and pretend there was no one else around. And, somehow, in a metropolis of eight million, it worked. At least for him.

He walked to Broadway from Grand Central. When Devine got to the theater his phone buzzed. He looked down at the screen, where a message appeared. Emerson Campbell wanted to meet with him for a progress report. Devine knew why. Suicide had just changed to homicide. He looked around. It was a typical Sunday on a warm summer’s day in Manhattan, meaning the streets were packed and people were either leisurely walking along or rushing on their way to get somewhere.

Devine moved over to a corner of the street out of the way of passing pedestrians and called the number on the screen. A voice answered, giving him a time later that day and an address. Luckily, it was in the city. For a moment he wondered if they knew where he was. He looked at his phone. Idiot. If Apple knew where he was, of course Campbell did.

He took his seat inside the Lombard Theater, in the back and on the left. The interior had been redone with taste and quality. The place was full and there was a nice mix of young and old, more women than men. There was a heightened sense of anticipation.

The lights went down and the curtain rose, and Devine forgot about most everything else as two performers, who had achieved dazzling heights on both stage and screen and were now in the twilight of their careers, waited for, well, Godot. Although Devine already knew Godot would not be coming. That was the point, after all.

Devine was riveted, just as he was the first time he’d seen a different production fifteen years ago. Back then, the teenaged Devine had just made a momentous decision that had resulted in a bad relationship with his father becoming even worse. Consequently, Devine had seen a bit of himself in the portrayals onstage. The waiting, the creeping doubt, the revitalization of spirit, and the creeping doubt once more. Coupled with all that heaviness was another question: Was there really any real meaning in the lives being led by people? Were we all just waiting for... nothing?

He had come out of the theater back then both sure and uncertain of his decision to join the Army, if such things could coexist. And in the complexity of the human mind he knew they easily could. As could the rationale to take the life of another. He knew that better than most.

Now, as a mature man, Devine had a deeper appreciation for Samuel Beckett’s tale of two men desperately waiting for something that they could not even begin to define.

Devine had thought he would be in the military for the full ride and then muster out and maybe go work for a defense contractor. Or hell, maybe find an island far away and lie on the beach with stacks of good books. But none of that had worked out. He had gotten his MBA and gone to work for Cowl to appease his father, to be more like his siblings, to be a success in the way that success was normally defined, at least in America.

But mostly to make himself pay for having essentially killed another soldier, regardless of whether the man deserved it.

When the lights came up and the curtain came down for the final time after the actors had performed their bows and filed off the stage, Devine remained where he was sitting and looked around the theater. The seats and the trimmings and the carpet and all the other hundreds of details clearly showed the place had been given some serious TLC. It was good they kept these old structures around instead of knocking them down. Some people would knock down everything given the chance. Including other people.

But with respect to the reason he had come here, the results were disappointing. Why Ewes had mentioned the play to Stamos, he still didn’t know. He knew that Ewes had walked into Stamos’s office and told her about Waiting for Godot, encouraging her to check it out. Well, Devine had checked it out. And he still understood not one damn thing about why it was important to Ewes, or whether it was connected to her death or whatever was going on at Cowl and Comely.

But the more he thought about his conversation with Stamos, the more he homed in on her vague response and her reluctance to go into detail about what Ewes had told her about the play.

Maybe she does know, but just didn’t want to tell me the truth? She said Sara was scared. Maybe Stamos is scared, too.

Something dawned on him. Maybe she thinks I’m spying on her for Cowl for some reason. And if Cowl had something to do with Sara’s death, that would be a reason for Stamos to be afraid, and also not reveal the truth to me.

But if she was scared of Cowl, why sleep with him?

To keep on his good side? To avoid ending up like Sara?

With these troubling thoughts in mind, he rose and left, taking his official program with him, hoping that there might be a clue in there as to why Ewes was so interested in the play. He stood in the lobby and read through it twice. But it was simply a program for a play. This wasn’t some obtuse code-breaking movie where the villain intent on global domination conveniently left a trail of inscrutable clues behind so the forces of good could figure them out and vanquish him.

He left the air-conditioning and walked out into the heat.

He had one hour before his meeting with Campbell. He got a Coke and a hot dog with ketchup, mustard, and onions from a street cart and ate while sitting on a raised wall along with a million other sunseekers. After he finished, he checked his watch and gauged the time to get there. When that deadline hit, he rose and headed off.

He was no longer waiting for Godot. He was going right to the source, in a manner of speaking.

And Emerson Campbell sure as hell would be there.