The Affair

They stood there, filling the aisle, two to my right and one to my left.

“Sit down,” I said. “Please.”

The sergeant said, “Our orders are to take you to Kelham.”

I said, “That isn’t going to happen, sergeant.”

No answer.

The clock in my head showed a quarter to eight.

I said, “Here’s the thing, guys. To take me out of here against my will would involve a considerable amount of physical commotion. At a rough guess we would bust up at least three or four tables and chairs. There might be personal injuries too. And the waitress will assume we’re Bravo Company perso

No answer.

“Sit down, guys,” I said.

They sat down. But not where I wanted them to. They weren’t dumb. That was the problem with a volunteer army. There were selection criteria. I was in an aisle seat at my table for four, facing forward. If they had all joined me at the same table, I would have had freedom of movement. But they didn’t all join me at the same table. The sergeant sat down face to face with me, but the specialists sat across the aisle, one each side of a table for two. They pulled their chairs out at an angle, one of them ready to intervene if I made a break one way, and the other ready if I broke the other way.

“You should try the pie,” I said. “It’s really good.”

“No pie,” the sergeant said.

“You better order something. Or the waitress might throw you out for loitering. And if you refuse to go, she knows who to call.”

No answer.

I said, “There are members of the public here, too. You really can’t afford to attract attention.”

Stalemate.

Ten minutes to eight.

The phone by the door stayed silent.

The waitress came by and the sergeant shrugged and ordered three pies and three cups of coffee. Two more people came in the door, both of them civilians, one of them a young woman in a nice dress, the other a young man in jeans and a sport coat. They took a table for two, three along from the specialists and directly opposite the old couple from the hotel. They didn’t look much like the kind of folks who would get straight on the phone with their congressman because of a little public mayhem, but the more warm bodies in the room the better.

The sergeant said, “We’re happy to sit here all night, if that’s what it takes.”

“Good to know,” I said. “I’m going to sit here until the phone rings, and then I’m going to leave.”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t let you communicate with anyone. Those are my orders.”

I said nothing.

“And I can’t let you leave. Unless you agree to go to Kelham.”

I said, “Didn’t we just have this discussion?”

No response.

The phone didn’t ring.

Five minutes to eight.

At eight o’clock the guy in the pale suit paid his check and left, and the old lady from the hotel turned a page in her book. Nothing else happened. The phone stayed quiet. At five past eight I began to hear noise outside, behind us, the sound of cars and crunching tires, and I sensed a change in the nighttime air, like pressure building, as Bravo Company started to arrive in town, first in ones and twos, then by the dozens. I assumed Reed Riley had led the parade in his borrowed staff car, with his father in the seat beside him. I assumed the old guy was at that moment stationed at Bra

The three Rangers boxing me in had eaten their pies one at a time, with the other two always alert and watchful. They were pretty good. By no means the worst I had ever seen. The waitress collected their plates. She seemed to sense what was going on. Every time she passed by she gave me a concerned look. There was no doubt whose side she was on. She knew me, and she didn’t know them. I had tipped her many times, and they hadn’t, not even once.

The noise from outside continued to build.

The phone didn’t ring.

I spent the next few minutes thinking about their Humvee. I knew that like every other Humvee in the world it would have a big General Motors diesel in it, and I knew that like every other Humvee in the world it would have a three-speed automatic transmission in it, and I knew that like every other Humvee in the world it would weigh north of four tons, all of which I knew would make it good for about sixty miles an hour, tops. Which I knew wasn’t race-car fast, but which I knew was fifteen times faster than walking, which I knew was a good thing.

I waited.

Then, just after eight-thirty, three things happened. The first was unfortunate, and the second was unprecedented, and the third was therefore awkward.

First, the young couple left. The girl in the nice dress, and the boy in the sport coat. He laid money on the table, and they got up together and walked out holding hands, fast enough to suggest that an evening prayer meeting was not the next item on their agenda.

And second, the old couple left. She closed her book, he folded his paper, and they got up and shuffled out the door. Back to the hotel, presumably. Far earlier than ever before. No obvious reason, except possibly a sudden hopeless intuition that old man Riley would cancel the Lear and decide on an early night in town.

At that point the waitress was in the kitchen, which left just four people in the room, one of which was me, and three of which were my babysitters.

The sergeant smiled and said, “Just us now.”

I didn’t answer.

He said, “No members of the public.”

I didn’t answer.

He said, “And I don’t think the waitress is the complaining type. Not really. She knows this place could end up on the shit list easy as anything. For a month. Or two. Or for however long it takes to put her on welfare.”

He was leaning forward across the table. Closer to me than before. Looking straight at me. His two men were leaning forward across the aisle, elbows on knees, hands loose, feet planted, watching me.

Then the third thing happened.

The phone rang.

Chapter

83

The three Rangers were good. Very good. The phone was a traditional old item with a big metal bell inside, which rang for a whole lazy second before adding a reverberation tail that took another whole lazy second to die away, whereupon the sequence would repeat itself endlessly until either the call was answered or the caller gave up. An old-fashioned, comforting sound, familiar for a hundred years. But on this occasion before the first ring was halfway over all three Rangers were in motion. The guy directly to my left was instantly on his feet, lunging behind me, putting big hands on my shoulders, pressing me down into my seat, hauling me back past the vertical, keeping me in a weak and inefficient position. The sergeant opposite me was instantly leaning forward, grabbing my wrists, pressing them into the tabletop with the flat of his hands. The third guy came up out of his chair and balled his fists and blocked the aisle, ready to hit me anywhere he could if I moved.

A fine performance.

I offered no resistance.

I just sat there.

Everyone has a plan, me included.

The phone rang on.

Three rings later the waitress came out of the kitchen. She paused a beat and took one look and then pushed past the Ranger in the aisle and headed for the phone. She picked up and listened and glanced my way and started talking, looking at me the whole time, as if she was describing my current predicament to someone.