it?” she asked.
“Where’s what?”
“Scott’s cell. We recovered his NATO one in his study. I’ve already asked to have the last fifteen months of records pulled and sent over.”
“Let me have a Columbo moment. We’ll both find out tomorrow if I’m right.”
“Fair enough.”
In truth, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure we’d find it, especially if its battery was flat, which could have been the case. The reflective cat’s eyes buried in the road zipped past like slow-motion tracers. Eventually Masters said, “She was flirting with you, you know.”
“Who? Oh, you mean—”
“Yeah.”
“Did I pass the test?”
Masters swung out of the lane and passed a big rig. “Barely.”
The silence closed in like the darkness around the Mercedes’s headlight beams.
That question I was sitting on, waiting to ask Masters…I hoped I was wrong but I already knew the answer. I also hoped it would have no bearing on anything we were working on. I couldn’t hold on to it any longer. “So when were you and von Koeppen seeing each other?” I asked as casually as possible.
Silence.
“We stopped well over a year ago.”
Silence.
Eventually she asked, “How did you know?”
“Just a guess.” Masters was protective about him on the one hand and dismissive on the other. And whenever he came up in conversation, she’d change either color or the subject or both. Actually, I haven’t had much to do with him. He’s a bit of a ladies’ man, or so I’ve heard—base gossip. I couldn’t imagine what she saw in him. “It’s not going to get in the way, is it?” I asked.
“No.”
“Good.”
We sat in silence for the rest of the drive. Maybe Masters thought my lack of conversation was some kind of reproach, but I was so tired I was having trouble clearing a path from my brain to my mouth.
We drove like that all the way to the Pensione Freedom. “Oh-eight-hundred in the foyer. Okay?” she said as the Mercedes came to a stop beneath the trees opposite the pensione’s steps.
“Oh-eight-hundred,” I repeated. I felt like I should say something rousing about the progress we’d made thus far, move the mood on from our first meeting. But I’ve never been a big fan of locker-room speeches.
I got out of the car and tapped it lightly on the roof. I watched as Masters drove off slowly. Breaking glass distracted me. A couple of backpackers with Canadian flags sewn to their packs were swaying precariously, either because of the weight of the loads that towered over their heads, or because they were rolling drunk. Canadians. Probably both, I decided, as one bent to pick up the broken bottle they’d dropped. He toppled sideways and lay on the ground like a cockroach sprayed with insect killer, legs and arms flailing, unable to right himself. His buddy burst into fits of laughter and collapsed in the gutter, quivering hysterically.
They were having too much fun. I ignored them and walked up the stairs of the pensione. The foyer was empty, a bell provided for tenants requiring assistance after six P.M . The space was lit with brutal fluorescent tubes and the light bounced off the walls and turned the skin on my hands a purple color. My nose told me that bratwurst was no longer on the menu. Tonight, it was either boiled boot or cabbage and potato. Despite this, my stomach growled audibly. Half a dozen doughnuts hadn’t filled the hole for long.
I walked the two blocks to a McDonald’s I’d seen on the way in. Wary that the truce between my toothache and the drugs might be fragile, I bought a couple of cheeseburgers because they were soft and easy to eat. They tasted of clove.
I’m not sure whether codeine is a hallucinogen but I had some pretty freaky dreams, mostly about people with missing heads.
Then the case kept me awake and I went a few rounds wrestling with the sheets. The sheets won and so I got up and paced in the dark. I told myself that this case was no different from any other
“Where’s what?”
“Scott’s cell. We recovered his NATO one in his study. I’ve already asked to have the last fifteen months of records pulled and sent over.”
“Let me have a Columbo moment. We’ll both find out tomorrow if I’m right.”
“Fair enough.”
In truth, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure we’d find it, especially if its battery was flat, which could have been the case. The reflective cat’s eyes buried in the road zipped past like slow-motion tracers. Eventually Masters said, “She was flirting with you, you know.”
“Who? Oh, you mean—”
“Yeah.”
“Did I pass the test?”
Masters swung out of the lane and passed a big rig. “Barely.”
The silence closed in like the darkness around the Mercedes’s headlight beams.
That question I was sitting on, waiting to ask Masters…I hoped I was wrong but I already knew the answer. I also hoped it would have no bearing on anything we were working on. I couldn’t hold on to it any longer. “So when were you and von Koeppen seeing each other?” I asked as casually as possible.
Silence.
“We stopped well over a year ago.”
Silence.
Eventually she asked, “How did you know?”
“Just a guess.” Masters was protective about him on the one hand and dismissive on the other. And whenever he came up in conversation, she’d change either color or the subject or both. Actually, I haven’t had much to do with him. He’s a bit of a ladies’ man, or so I’ve heard—base gossip. I couldn’t imagine what she saw in him. “It’s not going to get in the way, is it?” I asked.
“No.”
“Good.”
We sat in silence for the rest of the drive. Maybe Masters thought my lack of conversation was some kind of reproach, but I was so tired I was having trouble clearing a path from my brain to my mouth.
We drove like that all the way to the Pensione Freedom. “Oh-eight-hundred in the foyer. Okay?” she said as the Mercedes came to a stop beneath the trees opposite the pensione’s steps.
“Oh-eight-hundred,” I repeated. I felt like I should say something rousing about the progress we’d made thus far, move the mood on from our first meeting. But I’ve never been a big fan of locker-room speeches.
I got out of the car and tapped it lightly on the roof. I watched as Masters drove off slowly. Breaking glass distracted me. A couple of backpackers with Canadian flags sewn to their packs were swaying precariously, either because of the weight of the loads that towered over their heads, or because they were rolling drunk. Canadians. Probably both, I decided, as one bent to pick up the broken bottle they’d dropped. He toppled sideways and lay on the ground like a cockroach sprayed with insect killer, legs and arms flailing, unable to right himself. His buddy burst into fits of laughter and collapsed in the gutter, quivering hysterically.
They were having too much fun. I ignored them and walked up the stairs of the pensione. The foyer was empty, a bell provided for tenants requiring assistance after six P.M . The space was lit with brutal fluorescent tubes and the light bounced off the walls and turned the skin on my hands a purple color. My nose told me that bratwurst was no longer on the menu. Tonight, it was either boiled boot or cabbage and potato. Despite this, my stomach growled audibly. Half a dozen doughnuts hadn’t filled the hole for long.
I walked the two blocks to a McDonald’s I’d seen on the way in. Wary that the truce between my toothache and the drugs might be fragile, I bought a couple of cheeseburgers because they were soft and easy to eat. They tasted of clove.
I’m not sure whether codeine is a hallucinogen but I had some pretty freaky dreams, mostly about people with missing heads.
Then the case kept me awake and I went a few rounds wrestling with the sheets. The sheets won and so I got up and paced in the dark. I told myself that this case was no different from any other
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