11:51 a.m.
The white haze and morphine were gone. The pain all over my body made me feel more like myself. I was going home in the late afternoon. My concussion was healing. The nose splint made me sneeze.
Lee and Scotty sat on opposite sides of the bed and held my hands. We all bore wounds from early-wartime altercations.
I pointed to my nose. “You should see the other girl.”
Lee and Scotty laughed; Scotty plumped up my pillows. Lee said, “I tried to enlist. I wasn’t going to mention it until I got in. Thad Brown got Jack Horrall’s okay. I took the physical, but I’m 4-F. That punctured eardrum from my fight with Jimmy Bivens.”
Scotty gave Lee a big stage look. Lee said, “Don’t flatter yourself, Bennett. You don’t hit that hard.”
We all laughed. Scotty gave me a look. Lee caught it. He wiggled my feet and said, “I should go now.”
Scotty said, “Wait downstairs for me, Blanchard. I’ll drive you back to the Hall.”
Lee blew me a kiss and walked out. Pain shot down my jaw. I sneezed and felt stitches tug loose.
Scotty handed me a tissue. I said, “You’re going to tell me something.”
He said, “That I’m breaking it off with you. Right’s right and wrong’s wrong, and we all know which one this is.”
I squeezed his hand. “I would have said ‘one more time when I’m feeling and looking better,’ but you’re right.”
Scotty said, “Right’s right.”
I said, “You’ll have to make do with Joan Crawford.”
Scotty blushed. “Who told you?”
“Brenda Allen. She saw you with La Grande Joan at the Trocadero. She called it an astonishing moment. You were with Joan Crawford, and Dudley Smith was with Bette Davis. It was when she knew that the war had changed everything.”
Scotty shivered. I said, “You shouldn’t be ashamed of being afraid of him. It’s the proper response.”
“He collects protégés and discards them. You’ve seen it. Lee Blanchard didn’t cut the mustard, and now there’s me.”
I smiled. “You’re learning.”
“He’s like a centipede. He’s got his feelers spread out, but you can’t see them. He’s got this graph taped up in his cubicle. It’s all about the Watanabe case and what you’d call ‘related opportunities,’ and it’s in this special shorthand of his. I’ve been studying it when no one’s around, and I’ve put some things together. You wouldn’t believe what I’ve figured out.”
“It’s what you do with what you’ve learned.”
Scotty shrugged. The good lad, the bad lad. The bright lad who cracked puzzles that stumped other kids. The troubled lad, always.
“I’m joining the Marines, right after New Year’s. I just talked to Dud about it, and he already got Chief Horrall’s okay. I can go fight the war and come back on the Department. That’s the thing about Dudley that gets me. He’s so damn generous.”
I laced up our fingers. “Don’t get killed, sweetie.”
“Not this boy.”
“I’m going to try to enlist again. Ward Littell told me that a lot of the Federal holds have been lifted.”
Scotty touched my cheek. “That’s you, Kay. You bite this big bull’s nose off and go to war. It’s like your speech. Your options are do everything or do nothing.”
My eyes wetted up. Scotty handed me a tissue and went pensive. I said, “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“I was thinking about Dud. He’s got a job for me later today, and God knows how many more between now and New Year’s. He knows that I’m inclined a certain way, so he uses me. I just want to get to some safe little island, so I can kill Japs with a clear conscience.”
I said, “Tell me about this graph.”