Fallen Angel

by Chuck Logan

  “What?” Tony asks.

  Davis points to a sign—Inpatient Pharmacy—and the door under it that is controlled by a simple touchtone lock. “Now that’s real smart,” he says. “Put the class-A narcotics in the basement a hundred yards from the loading dock.”

  Tony can’t help grinning. “Why am I not surprised at the way your mind works?”

  Davis shrugs. “Just saying . . .”

  Tony keeps the easy smile, but his eyes harden. “Save it, hotshot. I seen guys like you before.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  Tony lowers his eyelids a fraction. “Yeah. Guys with Mex Special Forces lighters. Guys who live outside the wire.”

  Back on the ward, first thing, Davis checks his room. He’d left a pattern of lint arranged on his go-bag zipper. It’s undisturbed. Then a nurse finds him, asks him to follow her to her computer station, and gives him a form to fill out for mental health. He shows his veteran’s ID card and recites the last four digits of Lemmer’s Social Security number so she can access his file. The form is a medical history along with a combat-trauma checklist. At the bottom, the form requires a list of his decorations. He skips his other medals and scrawls, “Purple Heart, four clusters,” which is, after all, the only one you can’t fake.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Lunch in the 4J dining area. Seating is segregated according to who can eat under their own power and everyone else. Coming off the cafeteria bar, Davis spots Jesse sitting by herself at a table to the side. She has a book propped open as she picks at her chicken salad and cottage cheese.

  He slides into a chair at the far end of her table and eats quickly. It’s fuel. When he raises his eyes, she’s staring down the table at him.

  “Do me a favor,” she says.

  He grins. “What, move?”

  “No, take off the glasses.”

  So he slips off the dark frames and tucks them in his pocket.

  “That’s more you,” she says. “The glasses don’t work.”

  Encouraged, he slides his tray down the table and takes the chair cross from her. Casually he gestures in her general direction with his fork. “I thought you lived in a sweatsuit?”

  She’s changed into a crisp light-blue blouse, jeans, a layer of makeup base to soften her scars, and just a touch of lipstick. “I’m meeting someone this afternoon,” she says.

  “Oh?” Alert, he studies her more carefully. “Family?”

  “My shrink, after hours, down in the cafeteria with Tony and Neville as chaperones.” She holds up her left hand with the plastic Wander Band.

  “Tony? The big guy I talked to?”

  “Yeah, and Neville, the bigger guy.”

  For a moment they both drop their eyes and toy with their food. Then he reaches over and tilts up the book next to her tray to read the title: Chickenhawk by Robert Mason. “Hey, I read that book. My dad had a copy.” He squints slightly. “So you were in choppers, right?”

  Her eyes go guarded.

  Davis glances at the other patients in the room and says, “People talk.”

  She nods. “Kiowas and the Hawk. Mainly the Hawk.”

  “Uh-huh.” He pushes his tray aside and, in a tight dazzling display of dexterity, fingers a cigarette from the pack folded into the sleeve of his shirt and proceeds to twirl it like a miniature baton.

  “You nervous?” she asks, indicating the twirling cigarette.

  “For sure.” Then he looks directly into her eyes. “So what do you think?”

  “About what?”

  “The book,” he says. “You think it’s any good?”

  She pushes her tray aside and lifts the book’s cover with a finger and lets it drop. “Different world: Hueys, Vietnam. Compared to the Black Hawk those guys were flying hotrods. Some of the stuff he describes . . .” she shakes her head. “Heading straight ahead into hot LZs with no body armor. It’s like teenage kids drag racing or playing chicken. Makes me feel like a bus driver.”

  “Really?” he says to keep the conversation going. “Give me an example.”

  “Like chopping a hole down through trees with the blades to make an emergency landing. We’d never endanger an aircraft like that.”

  “Then again,” he says, “there weren’t exactly a lot of trees where you did your flying, were there?”

  Their eyes meet. “No, there weren’t,” she says.

  Davis continues twirling the cigarette. “Chickenhawk rules. Whatever it takes. They were in a serious war. Check it out. We haven’t fought a real army since 1971 . . .” He ends the thought in mid-sentence because he’s starting to draw stares from the next table. So he shrugs, stops twirling the cigarette, breaks it in half, and tosses it into his tray. “So where are you from?”

  “North Dakota.”

  He nods. “Oil patch. Only state that’s added jobs in this economy. Known for its work ethic. Maybe because you guys stick it out through the winters and all that prairie wind.”

  “You seems to know a little bit about a lot of things,” she says.

  “I read all the time, Doonesbury mostly.”

  “So tell me something I don’t know,” she says.

  It’s a subtle thing, what he does with his face and his eyes and his posture. How he leans closer and changes from ward bum into this durable person with real serious heft to his face. And she realizes his brown eyes are always casually in motion, unobtrusively tracking everything around them as they talk.

  Not telling her anything, but showing her something.

  His voice loses the casual lilt and comes straight at her: “I do this mind-reading trick. And you’re thinking how you’d like to get out of this place. And I can help you.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep. Jesse, right now I’m the only friend you have in the world.”

  One second, two seconds, three seconds of silence.

  She purses her lips and pierces him with a single blue, steel glance. “I’ll have to think about that,” she says.

  “Do that,” he says.

  ***

  All right. It’s time.

  Davis paces outside his room working an edge. His eyes monitor up and down the hall, tracking the patients, the staff. Then he checks the wall clock for the tenth time in two minutes. Okay. When she signs out to meet her visitor, she’ll have two staff as escorts. Tony who comes on like Big Brother Shrek. And the other, bigger one, Neville. So Big Shrek and Bigger Shrek.

  He’ll tag along, distract her keepers, get a good hold on her wrist, and make a run for it. Shouldn’t be too hard. She said afternoon. Thank God it’s Friday. The place clears out at four. The cafeteria is on one, near the exits. Snip off the Wander Band and disappear into the crowd.

  So just do it.

  The decision made, he enters his room, grabs the go-bag, steps into the bathroom, and shuts the door. He opens the duffel, removes the folded vest that weighs about fifteen pounds, and straps into the harness. Then he pulls on an extra-large hooded blue sweatshirt. The garment is roomy enough to disguise the compact vest and all its goodies. What else? Mouse’s cold phone. A roll of fifties and hundreds. His car keys. He reaches under the shirt, slides out the Colt, inserts a magazine, jacks the slide to load a round, and sets the safety. Making a break with her could trigger an attack. They gotta be here, probably watching every move she makes.

  He studies the nearly empty bag. Can’t bring it along. So he takes out a roll of duct tape, mashes the bag into a ball, binds it in the tape, and tucks it under his arm. Then he spends a few minutes wiping down the room, erasing his fingerprints.

  He closes the door behind and conducts another hall check, then takes a brisk walk past her room, where he sees her sitting on her bed staring at a ragged doll she holds in both hands. He ducks in the TV room, which, yes, is empty, so he stuffs the bag in the bottom of the trash container. The minute he gets her off the grounds he’ll call Mouse, who’ll make William Lemmer’s VA file vanish. Just like that.

  Okay. Here come the two Shreks
marching down the hall like a couple of old-time big-house screws. They stop at Jesse’s room.

  Tony is placid with menace at the sight of Davis as he takes his turn at the sign-out sheet and says amiably, “Mind if I follow along? I could use a cup of that designer coffee. It’s funny, from the East Coast all the way to Wisconsin, you put espresso in coffee, it’s called a Black Eye. Past Wisconsin, they call it a Depth Charge.”

  “I got your black eye,” Tony squints, knitting his brow. “Just keep your bullshit to a minimum.”

  “You got it,” Davis smiles.

  Chapter Sixty

  Coming less than four hours after her reckless conversation with Lemmer in the cafeteria, Jesse is blindsided when he joins them. Then, as they step off the elevator, he eases in close and whispers in her ear, “You thinking of relocating, now’d be the time.” The little gesture is not lost on Tony, who shoulders between them.

  The cryptic remark puts Jesse on guard, and now she is wary when she sees Janet George standing at the entrance to the Patriot Café. Without speaking, they shuffle past the counter and order coffee. Janet pays with a credit card, and they carry their cups to an open table. Lemmer, Tony, and Neville are still in line, ordering drinks.

  As Jesse slides into a chair, she nods toward the Starbucks counter. “The guy in the baggy blue sweatshirt next to Tony? You ever see him before?” Jesse asks casually.

  Janet shakes her head as she takes a sheet of paper out of her briefcase. “Who is he?”

  “New patient, I guess.”

  Janet places the paper on the table between them. A name is written in legible longhand: Sgt. Spencer Holstadt; Investigations; Grand Forks County Sheriff’s Department. And two phone numbers with the Grand Forks area code prefix: 701. After she’s satisfied that Jesse has read the name, title, and numbers, Janet turns the page facedown. Then she takes a moment to raise her cup and blow on the hot liquid. She takes a sip, sets the cup down, and looks Jesse straight in the eyes. “Before we discuss what’s written on this piece of paper, I have to ask you a question.”

  “Me first,” Jesse says, leaning forward, ignoring her coffee. “In your previous job, you ever work undercover, like wear a wire, record conversations?”

  “What? You wanna frisk me?”

  Jesse gives a scar-broken smile. “You,” she nods toward Lemmer, “him. Everybody.”

  Janet just gives her a cold-eyed stare and taps her finger on the blank sheet of paper.

  “So ask,” Jesse says.

  “Do you think Sam Dillon committed suicide?”

  Jesse drops one hand to her lap and presses the fanny pack. “No.”

  Janet nods at the paper. “Neither does he. Dillon’s file landed on his desk. They knew each other. Dillon’s truck was parked in front of the house with his fishing boat in back. He’d packed for a getaway, he had sandwiches and beer on ice in a cooler . . .”

  “You talked to this guy, huh? What happened to the rules, confidentiality and all that?” Jesse asks.

  “Let’s say I loosely interpreted subpart 2 of the rules governing confidentiality—where it says I can disclose private information, without informed written consent, if it’s necessary to protect against a clear and substantial risk of imminent serious harm being inflicted on the client by the client or another individual,” Janet recites.

  “Again, in English,” Jesse says.

  “I may have been party to information that could shed light on Dillon’s wrongful death. So I passed it on to the relevant public authority.”

  Jesse points to the paper. “Could that get you in trouble?”

  “There’s talk-talk and there’s real-real. Sam Dillon visits, and afterwards you start making real progress. You tell me what he’s been digging up: the diagrams, an altered after-action report. His remark about no phones, no emails. Then he’s dead. The circumstantial evidence at the scene is definitive for suicide. Then, Tony tells me, you get a letter from him, maybe the last communication he made in the world. The next day you steal a car, drive to Michigan, and confront a guy who used to work for the CIA. Sergeant Holstadt in Grand Forks would really like to read that letter.”

  Jesse bites her lip. “I don’t know.”

  Janet leans forward and lowers her voice. “I’m willing to stick my neck out to explore the hypothetical. Like, say, what happened in Iraq—there’s no way to get a handle on that through the army. If it was some special-ops fuckup,” Janet shakes her head.

  Jesse nods slowly as she moves her hand back in her lap and fingers the shape of the letter in her waist pack. “Like Pat Tillman’s death,” she says softly. “The brass lies, gets caught in their lies, and then they all get promoted. Everybody moves on, and Tillman’s grave is still covered in lies.”

  Janet shrugs. “Army politics is out of my league. But Sam didn’t die in the desert, he died in Grand Forks.” She taps the paper. “If you have anything that suggests someone had a motive to kill him, that could be where it starts to unwind.”

  Jesse clamps her arms across her chest and hugs herself. “Or this conversation could sound like you lost your shit to Stockholm Syndrome and I’m crazy as a loon.” Her eyes flit over the cafeteria. “Are we being recorded?”

  “Christ, no.” Janet’s jaw actually drops.

  “But can you be sure?” Jesse shoots a look across the cafeteria at Lemmer. But as she stands up, she takes the sheet of paper from the table, folds it in quarters, and sticks it in her pocket.

  “What are you going to do?” Janet asks.

  “I don’t know.” Abruptly she turns and walks toward Tony, Neville, and the latest wild card, Lemmer.

  The lobby throngs with people heading for the doors. Tony and Neville squire Jesse through the press of bodies; Davis, dodging people, moves closer to her side. When they get to the central elevator alcove Jesse turns and faces Davis, who is tensed on the balls of his feet, eyes darting, monitoring the foot traffic.

  “You still here?” she fairly spits.

  “What?” Davis grinds his teeth, unprepared for the anger on her face that’s pure Congreve—all hell and scorn and fury. Five of the six elevator doors open at practically the same time, and they are engulfed in off-loading people.

  “What’s with you? Stop dancing around. So you’re the last friend I got in the world, huh?” Jesses skewers him with a look. “So tell me—Buddy—you’re so good at watching everything, who’s watching us right now?”

  “I wish I knew,” Davis mutters as they jostle through the press of bodies toward an open elevator going up. Tony and Neville are just stepping in when Davis shoots out a hand to seize her wrist.

  Jesse, hyperalert, shrinks from his touch and skips ahead, squeezing in between the two Shreks, and Davis can only bring up the rear, swearing under his breath.

  “Shit.”

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Just outside the door to her room, Jesse is down on one knee tying the laces of her gym shoe when Davis ambles up. She’s changed into sweatpants and a gray ARMY T-shirt with cut-out sleeves. The fanny pack containing Sam’s letter, and now Sgt. Holstadt’s numbers, is still strapped tight around her waist.

  “What’re you doing?” he asks.

  “What’s it look like I’m doing, you moron?”

  A few feet away Tony, standing with Neville, chuckles. “She’s going down to the exercise room on three.”

  “I could do with a workout,” Davis says.

  “Fuck you, Lemmer,” Jesse says, pulling the knot tight.

  The exercise room is smaller than a handball court, but it crams in two side-by-side elliptical cross-trainers, a rack of weights, and a seated leg press. Jesse climbs on one of the machines. Davis gamely gets on the other. Tony and Neville lounge in the hall on either side of the door, which they have propped open, and Davis figures that’s Tony’s way of keeping an eye on him.

  Jesse plods and stares at the columns of numerals on the control panel; ages keyed to your heartbeat. Pick a number and a pace. Burn fat. Or
train cardio. No combination of numbers to tell her who to trust.

  She steals a look at the exhausted man pumping away beside her. He stares straight ahead with eyes that resemble two proverbial piss holes in the snow. And she remembers the first words he said to her: Just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you. Which, she figures, is his warped sense of humor.

  She exhales and considers the prospect of calling the Grand Forks cop, which evokes an image of Sam’s weathered face and creates the homesick effect of making the institutional walls close in tighter.

  After five minutes of pumping beside her, Davis is starting to pant.

  “You smoke too much,” Jesse points out with a tight smile.

  “Yeah,” he says. And I’ve slept six hours in the last three days and I got fifteen pounds of iron hanging under this shirt. And he doesn’t like this room with only one way in and out. He bites his lip as a pained expression floods his flushed face.

  Seeing his turmoil, a nuance of concern comes through the aggravation. “You all right?” Jesse asks.

  “Ah, I don’t know exactly how to say this, but could you do me a favor?” he asks in a voice pitched so low it barely carries over the squeaking of the machine’s handles pumping back and forth.

  “Like not piss on you when you’re drowning?” She’s instantly back on guard.

  “More like scratch my back, right under the left shoulder blade.”

  “You gotta be kidding.”

  “I’ve never been more serious.”

  Jesse thinks about it. He’s crawled back into that very grave-eyed tone-of-voice thing he does. Curious, she releases the handle and reaches over with her right hand and digs her fingers into the heavy cotton material over his shoulder and encounters a hard pad of webbing. Her eyes enlarge as she feels down his left side and encounters a compact hog-leg shape. Now she lowers her voice. “What are you—strapped?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Not so loud,” Davis answers.