The Double

Sixteen

Lucas called the rental car manager, a man he’d done business with many times before, and explained the situation. It wasn’t a pleasant conversation, but it ended reasonably well and freed Lucas to find some medical attention for Marquis. Over Marquis’s mild protests, Lucas drove him to the VA Medical Center on Irving Street in D.C.

Lucas sat in the waiting room with veterans of Korea, Vietnam, Kosovo, and various Middle East wars while Marquis saw the doctor. A WWII veteran in his late eighties, assisted by an oxygen tank and caregiver, sat waiting, too. Some of the patients had no visible ailments, some of them were amputees with prosthetics or no limb replacements at all, others were wheelchair bound, and one bore the unmistakable neurological damage of Agent Orange. Now middle-aged and elderly, they’d been treated in places like this one since they were young men and women. They’d continue to be under VA care for the rest of their lives. No one would ever film a Budweiser commercial here.

It was late afternoon when Marquis emerged from a treatment room. He had some ointment on his face from where the air-bag fuel had stung him, and he was walking a little more stiffly than usual.

“Everything in working order?” said Lucas.

“Doc said I’ll be pretty sore tomorrow. But I’m fine.”

“They give you anything good?”

“Vicodin. But you know I don’t like pills.”

“I’ve got some good smoke if you’re interested. It’ll take your mind off damn near everything.”

“Much appreciated,” said Marquis. “They had a fine nurse back in there, man. I was hoping she’d give me a thorough examination.”

“They don’t nut-check car accident victims.”

“A man can dream.”

Lucas had dropped Marquis off when they’d arrived. As they walked out the front doors of the hospital, he pointed across the lot. “There’s the car.”

“Can’t you get it and pick me up?”

“Don’t be a bitch.”

Lucas stopped at his apartment for some weed, then drove Marquis to the rental car agency and dropped him off at his Buick.

“I’m real sorry about this,” said Lucas.

“Ain’t no thing,” said Marquis.

They bumped fists.

Back in his apartment, Lucas checked his iPhone, which he’d left behind that morning in favor of a disposable. Charlotte Rivers had called to tell him that she was available in the early evening if he had the time. His heart pumped faster as he left a voice mail, telling her he’d be there. Tom Petersen had also called to give him an update on the Bates trial. Lucas hit him back. Reaching Petersen, he heard a car’s engine, wind coming through open windows, and Led Zep.

“I’m on Route Five, headed back from La Plata,” said Petersen.

“How’s it going?”

“I put Brian Dodson on the stand today.”

“The mechanic.”

“Him. Truthfully, I’ve got nothing on Dodson. The tire tracks are inconclusive, of course. There’s nothing else definitive that puts him down in Southern Maryland at the time of Edwina Christian’s death.”

“Did you ask him what kind of business he had that would take him to Barry Farms?”

“He said that his sister lives there. There was a present in that bag he was carrying into the units. A doll for his niece.”

“I guess I was wrong on that one.”

“Maybe she does live there. Doesn’t mean he was visiting her that day. He was cagey. But I was able to bring up his old criminal record. The prosecutor objected, and the judge instructed the jury to disregard. But I think I got their attention.”

“You planted a seed of doubt.”

“Yes, Jack, I did. By the way, Calvin Bates would like to speak with you.”

“What’s he want?”

“Something about a card game. He wasn’t making much sense, and frankly I wasn’t really listening. I was busy trying to keep him out of prison for life. He’s in the D.C. Jail until the trial ends.”

“I’m tied up right now.”

“It won’t be right away. I’ll get back to you on this and set up a meet.”

“Right.”

Lucas took a shower and dressed for his girl.

She was waiting for him in her suite, wearing a man’s wife-beater and a black thong. He kissed her as the door shut behind him, and she kissed him back. It felt familiar and brand-new.

“What’s that?” said Charlotte, reaching for the bottle of Barolo in his hand. He had bought it on the way over, but he didn’t really know wine and was hoping he’d done well.

“I wanted to contribute something for a change.”

“You’re here. That’s all I want.”

“I’ll put it on the dresser,” he said, and he placed the bottle next to the one she had ordered up.

She followed him into the bedroom, and as he turned she came into his arms and they kissed again.

“Maybe we should talk first?” said Lucas.

“About what?” she said.

Soon they were on the bed, naked, joined and moving fluidly, damp with sweat. Their lovemaking was nearly violent, Charlotte’s back arched, Lucas buried inside her. There had been little foreplay.

“God,” said Charlotte, after they came.

“When worlds collide.”

In bed, they drank some of the wine Lucas had brought. It wasn’t as good as the Barolo the hotel stocked, but neither of them mentioned it.

“They really take care of you here,” said Lucas.

“It’s nice.”

“You have an arrangement with the manager?”

“I told you, my firm spends a lot of money here on visiting clients.”

“What does the manager think you’re doing in these rooms?”

“I don’t know what he thinks. He’s smart enough not to ask.”

“You never sleep here...”

“I’d like to.”

“With me?”

“I’d love to spend the night with you. But you know I can’t. I have to go home at night.”

“When you go home... when you leave me, I mean...”

“Don’t.”

“Do you ever fuck your husband right after you see me?”

“Stop it, Spero. Just stop.”

“Sorry.”

“I’m frustrated, too.”

“I know you are.” But he wasn’t sure.

Charlotte put her glass on the nightstand, turned into him, and lay across his chest. She kissed him and held it for a long while.

“I’d watch you sleep,” she said. “Are you a sound sleeper?”

“I guess.”

“My grandfather was a marine in the Pacific. He fought in the Philippines. Grandma said he never had a good night’s sleep for the rest of his life. He suffered from nightmares.”

“It’s not uncommon.”

“Do you ever have nightmares?”

“Never,” said Lucas, and then told another lie. “I don’t even dream.”

“Noises would set my grandfather off. Once I was with him when I was a little girl. We were walking across a parking lot, and he was holding my hand. A car backfired in the street, and he hit the ground. I didn’t know what was wrong with him.”

“Those guys caught hell over there,” said Lucas. “Then they came home and quietly lived with whatever was crawling around in their heads. Only a few got treatment. There was no such thing as PTSD then. What I mean is, there wasn’t a name for it.”

“What about you? How do you deal with what you saw and did?”

Lucas, on his back, looked at her, her hair that smelled like rain, her lovely back, her breasts pressed against his chest.

“I deal with it like this,” said Lucas. “Being with a woman like you puts me in the here and now.”

“Thank you.”

“I mean it.”

“When you were over there...” Charlotte reached up and touched his face. “Did you kill many men?”

Not just men.

“Yes,” said Lucas, staring up at the ceiling. “I told you I did.”

“And you have no problem with that?”

“I was there to kill the enemy. They were trying to kill me. They would’ve killed my friends.”

“All of them? Were they all shooting at you and your friends?”

“Combat’s not an exact science,” said Lucas. “You make a decision and you commit.”

Lucas thought of the woman.

It had been a particularly brutal day of fighting on a residential street of Fallujah. They were all brutal days. The city was a fortress, the streets mined, the bunkerlike houses booby-trapped. Fortified buildings, some with walls several feet thick, many roofed with firing slits. Unlike other areas of combat in Iraq, Fallujah was loaded with experienced, fanatical insurgents, veterans of Afghanistan and Chechnya, Iranians, Europeans, and Asians, well-armed with AK-47s, RPGs, and PKM machine guns. Russian weapons, rifles from Iran, full-auto assault weapons manufactured in Germany. Enemy combatants wearing Kevlar helmets and full-body armor made in America. Some carrying the M-16s they’d taken off dead soldiers and marines. Their fighters were ready.

The woman. He’d observed her on her cell phone, running from house to house. He’d seen her raise two, three fingers as she talked. He supposed she was using the phone to observe and report the tactical positions of him and his fellow marines to the insurgents who had them pinned down. At least, that was Lucas’s best guess. There was no opportunity or reason to ask her.

An hour earlier, he had lost his lieutenant, Randy Polanco, a man he’d admired and idolized, a thirty-two-year-old father of three who’d left his family in Houston and returned to active duty to be with his men. He’d been cut in half, parts of him vaporized, by an IED. The news of Lieutenant Polanco’s death had energized and enraged Lucas and the men of his unit. There would be many enemy kills that day.

Lucas, peering over a tank-blown Texas barrier pocked with AK rounds, sighted the woman as she prepared to dash across the courtyard. Without hesitation or deliberation he shot her with a burst of his M-16. Feeling no emotion, he watched blood arc off her torso as she fell in a heap to the courtyard floor. Later, after the fighting had momentarily ceased, he went to where she lay, triggered his rifle, stitched her from groin to neck, and watched her body jump and come to rest. Lucas walked on, detached, because it meant nothing to him. She meant nothing in death.

“No regrets?” said Charlotte.

“None,” said Lucas.

But he did dream.

“I shouldn’t have asked you so many questions,” said Charlotte, later, as they had gotten off the bed. “What you did in the war is none of my business.”

“It’s okay,” said Lucas. “I like talking to you.”

She kissed him. “I should take a shower.”

“I’ll come in with you.”

“If you come in the shower with me, only my tits will get clean.”

“But they’ll be really clean.”

“I think I can manage myself. Besides, you don’t want to get that hand wet.”

“I think it’s too late for that.”

Charlotte smiled. “You know what I mean.”

“My hand can get wet now. It’s fine.”

“Let me see it.”

Lucas took off the bandage. The cut was no longer throbbing or swelled, and beneath the stitches its crescent shape was more defined. Charlotte held his hand and looked at the wound.

“Does it still hurt?”

“Not really.”

“Tough guy.”

“Not really.”

“You don’t have to be so stoic all the time. You’re much more complicated than you let on.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Still waters,” she said.

“Maybe.”

“I wish—”

“What?”

“I don’t know how to help you.”

“You are.”

She kissed him and walked naked to the bathroom. She looked over her shoulder at him briefly, and in her eyes he saw pity, and maybe something like fear. He watched her, thinking, Please don’t go. But he knew she’d soon be gone, back to her home, her husband, her life.

Lucas drove home thinking of what came next. It seemed to him that now there was only one way to find Billy Hunter and the painting. This disturbed him, and excited him, too.

In his apartment, he smoked some herb, grabbed a green bottle of beer from the refrigerator, and put a classic Keith Hudson dub CD on the stereo. High and pensive, he sat down in his favorite chair and phoned his brother.

“What’s that you got playin in the background?” said Leo. “Sounds nice.”

“Pick a Dub.”

“That record. You must be up on something good.”

“This smoke I’ve got is sweet. You could come over and burn some of this tree.”

“You know I don’t play that.”

“‘To each his reach...’”

“‘And if I don’t cop it ain’t mine to have.’ You quoting Parliament? Now I know you’re high.”

“Baba had that one on vinyl.”

“I remember. Dad said it was gonna be worth something someday.”

“Look, Leo...”

“What?”

“I’m in a fix. That woman I been seein...”

“I told you, man.”

“I know.”

“Get out of it. It can’t come to any good.”

“I don’t know if I can. I’m in love with her. She’s the only one I can talk to.”

“You’re talkin to me.”

“It’s not the same thing.”

“Why, ’cause I don’t have a lady-garden?”

Lucas chuckled. “Where’d you get that?”

“British friend of mine. They have the most creative names for pussy.”

Lucas swigged his beer. “Leo?”

“What?”

“I think I’m about to go someplace bad.”

“With this woman?”

“Work.”

“So don’t do it. Whatever it is, stop.”

“It’s not that simple. I took a job and I’ve got to see it through.”

“Marine Corps must have loved you. High school wrestler, all those pins. They targeted guys like you.”

“It’s who I am,” said Lucas.

“Nah. Don’t talk that bullshit to me.”

“Anyway...”

“Don’t hang up.”

“No, I need to go. I just wanted to say hey. It’s good to hear your voice.”

“Spero...”

“Talk to you soon. Love you.”

“I love you.”

Lucas ended the call. He sat for a while longer, listening to music, deliberating. Then he phoned Winston Dupree.

“Winston, it’s Spero.”

“What’s up?”

“The sky is up. Birds are up, too.”

“Oh, shit. You’re high, boy.”

“A little. How’s that tendonitis?”

“Acute. Why you asking after my health?”

“I got some work for you. You interested?”

“Depends on what it is.”

“Let’s meet tomorrow,” said Lucas.

“Come by my spot,” said Dupree. “You can meet my dog.”