Monday, December 22
Legend has it that the Greek mathematician Archimedes, upon stepping into a bathtub, suddenly realized that his body displaced water, and that the volume of that water must be equal to the volume of his own submerged body parts.
As simple as the concept is today, it was a great discovery for the ancients because it allowed them to precisely measure the volume of irregular objects—such as Archimedes’s torso. It’s a handy ability when trying to determine if gold is really gold, since an ounce of gold displaces a different volume than an ounce of silver or an ounce of lead. This was exactly the problem Archimedes was working on at the time, as too many disreputable people were coating inferior metals in gold and trying to pass them off as legitimate coins.
The old stories tell us that Archimedes was so excited at this discovery that he cried, “Eureka! Eureka!” and then jumped out of the bath and ran through the streets of Syracuse naked.
My eureka moment is less dramatic. It comes in the shower on Monday morning just as I’m massaging shampoo into my scalp. And though the temptation is great, I decide against running through the streets naked. It’s far too cold.
Dressing quickly and wolfing down some orange juice and a pastry, I’m halfway to my car when I pause, a cautionary thought rising up, as if to block my way. I shake it off and start toward the car again but find myself hesitating once more. Turning, I hurry back into the house, to my bedroom, and to the gun safe within. Extracting my Walther P22 and two extra magazines, I quickly load the gun and shove the extra magazines into my pocket.
Not exactly tactical, but it’ll do.
My black Movado watch says 8:13 A.M. when I punch the code into the cipher lock on the south door and hurry into the hangar, hustled along by the cold and the wind. I race up the stairs to see if Jimmy is in his office, but the lights are out and his computer is off. Diane, however, is stretched back in her chair like she never left the place. The woman has no concept of evenings or weekends, but then, she’d say the same thing about us.
“What’s got you in a tizzy?” she asks as I plop down in the chair opposite her desk and then immediately stand and walk back out to the mezzanine, leaning on the rail that overlooks the hangar floor. “Steps?” she calls after me, but before she can rise and follow, I’m back in her office.
“Has Jimmy called?”
“No.”
“But he’s on his way, right?”
“I’m sure he is,” Diane says in a placating tone.
“He’s usually here before me,” I say absently. “What makes you so sure he’s on his way?”
“Because on Friday he said, ‘See you Monday morning.’ And, well, it’s Monday morning.”
“But you’re not sure?”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” Diane barks, throwing an eraser at me that ricochets off my arm and lands in the corner. “I’m sure he’s on his way,” she says with far too much energy, and then asks, “How’s that?” But instead of waiting for an answer, she orders me to take a seat and then says, “Spill. What’s going on?”
But I can’t spill; not yet.
“When Jimmy gets here,” I say.
From the bottom drawer of her desk, Diane produces a bag of chocolate-covered macadamia nuts. She pulls out six of the nuts and places them on a napkin. Returning the bag to its not-so-secret hiding place, she picks up one of the morsels and puts it carefully in her mouth, the way one might place a fresh briquette on a barbeque. Small, satisfied noises issue from somewhere deep in her chest as the chocolate melts, and then she crunches down on the nut, savoring it with just as much gusto.
When half the nuts are polished off in this manner, she drags the napkin across her desk and brings it to rest right in front of me. Hesitantly, I start to reach for one of the nuts, but the old witch suddenly pulls the napkin back a few inches.
“Spill,” she says again.
And I do—just like that. I would have held out longer if she beat me with a hard stick and strung me up by the ankles. The use of chocolate-covered anything is just wrong. I don’t think either criminal law or the Geneva Convention cover the use of chocolate during interrogations, but they should. It’s just unethical.
When Jimmy arrives twenty minutes later, I have to explain my revelation all over again, and then it’s his turn to plop down in Diane’s guest chair. “Our theory was wrong,” he says, strumming his fingers incessantly on her desktop.
“The theory wasn’t necessarily wrong,” I say. “It was just … in progress.”
Diane, of course, is trying to ignore us as she searches databases and begins to cross-reference the new information. Her task is made all the more difficult by my pacing, Jimmy’s strumming, and the ceaseless barrage of words flying around the office as the two of us reexamine the case from a new perspective.
Once again, we have to be careful not to inadvertently mention shine. Even preoccupied as she is, Diane would pick up on the reference and demand to know what this shine was that we were talking about. She might even break out the chocolate-covered macadamia nuts.
Our discussion drags on, growing louder at times, and then more quiet and reflective at others, until Diane can take it no longer. Rising from behind her desk, she says, “Out, out, out!” as she herds us toward the stairs.
“Go to Valhalla,” she orders. “I’ll call you when I’m done.”
Valhalla.
She has a way of saying it as if it’s a curse, when, in fact, it’s the name she herself recently assigned to the break room. During all the comings and goings last week, she found time to hang a four-foot sign on the west wall that reads VALHALLA in narrow, foot-high letters. It’s an early Christmas present for me and Jimmy, and it’s adorned with Viking knots and images from Norse mythology, including the Midgard Serpent.
“It’s not a break room when you practically live here,” Diane told us when she presented it. “I thought a more appropriate name was called for. Hope I’m not stepping on your man territory.” She frames the last two words in air quotes—as if we’d staked a claim to the break room at some point.
Jimmy liked it, though.
“Valhalla,” he’d said with an approving nod, “where warriors go to rest.”
At that, Diane just rolled her eyes, but she’s an old fraud. You could tell she was pleased by the crease at the corner of her mouth. I won’t be surprised if other Viking-themed items find their way into Valhalla in the coming months.
And so Jimmy and I retreat to the break room now known as Valhalla.
We spend the next two hours watching John Wick for the ninth or tenth time, and when the movie is over we wander out onto the hangar floor, lean up against Betsy’s wing, and stare up forlornly at Diane’s office, once more playing the part of pitiable waifs. After a while, we make our way quietly back to Valhalla.
Noon arrives, and we’re just discussing lunch options when we hear the distinct clump, clump, clump of Diane’s heels on the stairs. She’s in a hurry, and when she enters Valhalla, there’s a satisfied glow in her eyes. Her hair is off-kilter again, but this time not from neglect. She has a habit of running her hands through it as she works.
When she pauses in the entrance, I realize I’m holding my breath.
“I think I found him,” she says … and the air rushes from my body.