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“Now,” he said, as they finished their drinks, “is there anything else you need? Do you want me to go with you when you go up to the school?”
“I’ll handle the school on my own,” Thomas said. “Don’t worry.”
“How are you fixed for money?”
“I’m rolling,” Thomas said. “Thanks.”
“If anything comes up,” Rudolph said, “call me.”
“Okay, mayor,” Thomas said.
They shook hands and Rudolph left his brother standing next to the table on which lay the reports from the Police Department and the detective. Thomas was picking them up to read as Rudolph went out the front door.
Teresa Jordache, Thomas read from the police file, alias Theresa Laval. Thomas gri
He shaved and showered, using the perfumed soap in the bathroom, and had another drink and put on a clean shirt and the blue Marseilles suit, then went down in the elevator and walked over to Fifth Avenue in the dusk. On a side street he saw a steak place and went in and had a steak with half a bottle of wine and apple pie à la mode, to salute his native country. Then he strolled over to Broadway. Broadway was worse than ever, with noise coming out of the music shops and bigger and uglier signs than he remembered and the people pushing and sick looking, but he enjoyed it. He could walk anywhere, go to any bar, any movie.
Everybody was dead or in jail. Music.
The Hilltop Military Academy was on top of a hill and it was military. A high, gray, stone wall enclosed it, like a prison, and when Thomas drove through the front gate in the car he had rented, he could see boys in blue-gray uniforms doing close-order drill on a dusty field: The weather had turned cooler and some of the trees on the grounds had begun to change color. The driveway passed close to the parade grounds and Thomas stopped the car and watched. There were four separate groups wheeling and marching on different parts of the field. The group of boys nearest to him, perhaps thirty of them, were between twelve and fourteen, just about Wesley’s age. Thomas stared at them as they passed him, but if Wesley was among them he didn’t recognize him.
He started the car again and went up the driveway to a stone building that looked like a small castle. The grounds were well kept, with flower beds and closely mown lawns and the other buildings were large and solidly built, of the same stone as the little castle.
Teresa must get a fancy price for her services, Thomas thought, to afford a place like this for the kid.
He got out of the car and went into the building. The granite hallway was dark and chilly. It was lined with flags, sabers, crossed rifles, and marble lists of the names of graduates who had been killed in the Spanish-American War, the Mexican Expedition, the First World War, the Second World War, and the war in Korea. It was like the head office of a company, with a display advertising their product. A boy with close-cropped hair and a lot of fancy chevrons on his arm was coming down the steps, and Thomas asked him, “Son, where’s the main office here?”
The boy came to attention, as though Thomas were General MacArthur, and said, “This way, sir.” They obviously taught respect to the older generation at Hilltop Military Academy. Maybe that was why Teresa had sent the kid here. She could use all the respect going.
The boy opened the door to a big office. Two women were working at desks behind a small fence. “Here you are, sir,” the boy said, and clicked his heels before turning smartly back into the hallway. Thomas went over toward the nearest desk behind the fence. The woman there looked up from papers she was making checks on and said, “May I help you, sir?” She was not in uniform and she didn’t click her heels.
“I have a son in the school,” Thomas said. “My name is Jordache. I’d like to speak to whoever is in charge here.”
The woman gave him a peculiar look, as though the name meant something not particularly pleasant to her. She stood up and said, “I’ll tell Colonel Bainbridge you’re here, sir. Won’t you please take a seat.” She indicated a bench along the wall and waddled off to a door on the other side of the office. She was fat and about fifty and her stockings were crooked. They were not tempting the young soldiers with much sex at the Hilltop Military Academy.
After a little while she came out of the door and opened a gate in the little fence and said, “Colonel Bainbridge will see you now, sir. Thank you for waiting.” She led Thomas to the rear of the room and closed the door after him as he went into Colonel Bainbridge’s office. There were more flags there and photographs of General Patton and General Eisenhower and of Colonel Bainbridge looking fierce in a combat jacket and pistol and helmet, with binoculars hanging around his neck, taken during World War Two. Colonel Bainbridge himself, in a regular U.S. Army uniform, was standing behind his desk to greet Thomas. He was thi
“Welcome to Hilltop, Mr. Jordache,” Colonel Bainbridge said. He was not standing at attention but he gave the impression that he was. “Won’t you sit down?” His expression was peculiar, too, a little like the doorman’s at Rudolph’s building.
If I stay in America much longer, Thomas thought as he sat down, I guess I’ll have to change my tailor.
“I don’t want to take up much of your time, Colonel,” Thomas said. “I just came up here to see my son, Wesley.”
“Yes, of course, I understand,” Bainbridge said. He was stumbling a little over his words. “There’s a games period shortly and we’ll have him sent for.” He cleared his throat embarrassedly. “It’s a pleasure to have a member of the young man’s family finally visit the school. I am correct in assuming that you are his father, am I not?”
“That’s what I told the lady outside,” Thomas said.
“I hope you’ll forgive me for the question, Mr. … Mr. Jordache,” Bainbridge said, looking distractedly at General Eisenhower on the wall, “but in Wesley’s application it was clearly stated that his father was dead.”
The bitch, Thomas thought, oh, the stinking, miserable bitch. “Well,” he said, “I’m not dead.”
“I can see that,” Bainbridge said nervously. “Of course I can see that. It must be a clerical error of some kind, although it’s hard to understand how …”
“I’ve been away a few years,” Thomas said. “My wife and I are not on friendly terms.”
“Even so.” Bainbridge’s hand fluttered over a small model brass ca
“She may handle some antiques,” Thomas said. “I wouldn’t know. Now, I want to see my son.”
“They’ll be finished with drill in five minutes,” Bainbridge said. “I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you. Very happy. Seeing his father may just be what he needs at this particular moment …”
“Why? What’s the matter with him?”
“He’s a difficult boy, Mr. Jordache, very difficult. We have our problems with him.”