The Fools in Town Are on Our Side

Carmingler arrived at four that morning after the police had gone and after they had taken Beverly away. I don’t remember much about that except the confusion and the noise. Carmingler came in without knocking and I didn’t look up until he cleared his throat. He told me who he was and I noticed that he carried a copy of the Washington Post.

He was younger then, of course, only twenty-nine or thirty, but he already wore a vest and diddled with his Phi Beta Kappa key. He also smoked a pipe, but was polite enough then to ask if he could light it. He never asked me that again.

“The colonel’s dead,” he said after he got his pipe going. He never seemed to say anything important until he had lighted the pipe.

I said, “Oh.” I wasn’t really interested.

“The story’s here in the Post,” he said and tapped the newspaper.

I said nothing.

“The police are calling it suicide. They say he shot himself because of what happened to Beverly.”

“But it wasn’t,” I said, “and he didn’t.”

“No. We got the police to say that and it took a little doing. Somebody shot him, of course. They tried to get to him through his daughter. They must have told him what was going to happen to her; probably had it timed down to the minute. He was supposed to break. They even let him make that phone call to you so that he could be sure she was home.”

“He just sat there and let it happen,” I said.

“He couldn’t do anything else. There was always the chance that they were bluffing. When it didn’t work, they gave up and killed him. Not much point to that, really.”

“What about my wife, goddamn it?” I yelled. “What was the point there?”

Carmingler was unruffled. “He might have cracked when they were halfway through. If so, he’d have to talk to her — she’d have to tell him what — well, that’s how it happened.”

“Who was it?” I said.

“The colonel had been in the East.”

“East what?” I said. “East Baltimore?”

“Europe,” Carmingler said. “Someone from there probably, but we’re not sure.”

“You’re not sure?”

“No.”

“You want a drink?”

“No.”

“What the hell do you want?”

“We have to know about you.”

“What about me?”

“If you’re coming with Section Two?”

I stared at him. “Jesus, you’re a cold-blooded shit.”

He shrugged. “Not really. We just have to know.”

“Why?”

Carmingler made a vague gesture with his pipe. “With the colonel dead, there’ll be a shake-up. Top to bottom. The Section’s a small, specialized organization. He was counting on you heavily. We want to know if we can.”