back in Rock Creek, telling him I was over there in Germany
and hassling them again. They were asking him why the hell he
had let me travel. And they were telling him to recall me.’
‘They can’t dictate where a special unit investigator goes.’
‘They can now, because of Willard. They’re old buddies. I just
figured it out. Swan as good as told us, but it didn’t click right
away. Willard has ties to Armored from his time in Intelligence.
Who did he talk to all those years? About that Soviet fuel
crap? Armored, that’s who. There’s a relationship there. That’s
why he was so hot about Kramer. He wasn’t worried about
embarrassment for the army in general. He was worried
about embarrassment for Armored Branch in particular.’
‘Because they’re his people.’
‘Correct. And that’s why Vassell and Coomer ran last night.
They didn’t run, as such. They’re just giving Willard time and
space to deal with us.’
‘Willard knows he didn’t sign our travel vouchers.’
I nodded. ‘That’s for sure.’
‘So we’re in serious trouble now. We’re AWOL and we’re
travelling on stolen vouchers.’
‘We’ll be OK.’
‘How exactly?’
‘When we get a result.’
‘Are we going to?’
I didn’t answer.
After lunch we crossed the river and walked a long roundabout
route back to the hotel. We looked just like tourists, in our
casual clothes, carrying our Samaritaine bags. All we needed
was a camera. We window shopped in the Boulevard Saint
Germain and looked at the Luxembourg gardens. We saw
296
Les Invalides and the Ecole Militaire. Then we walked up the
Avenue Bosquet, which took me within fifty yards of the back
of my mother’s apartment house. I didn’t tell Summer that.
She would have made me go in and see her. We crossed the
Seine again at the Pont de l’Alma and got coffee in a bistro
on the Avenue New-York. Then we strolled up the hill to the
hotel.
‘Siesta time,’ Summer said. ‘Then dinner.’
I was happy enough to go for a nap. I was pretty tired. I lay
down on the bed in the pale blue room and fell asleep within
minutes.
Summer woke me up two hours later by calling me on the
phone from her room. She wanted to know if I knew any
restaurants. Paris is full of restaurants, but I was dressed like
an idiot and I had less than thirty bucks in my pocket. So I
picked a place I knew on the Rue Vernet. I figured I could go
there in jeans and a sweatshirt without getting stared at and
without paying a fortune. And it was close enough to walk. No
cab fare.
We met in the lobby. Summer still looked great. Her skirt
and jacket looked as good for the evening as they had for the
afternoon. She had abandoned her beret. I had kept mine on.
We walked up the hill toward the Champs Elysees. Halfway
there, Summer did a strange thing. She took my hand in hers. It
was going dark and we were surrounded by strolling couples
and I guessed it felt natural to her. It felt natural to me, too. It
took me a minute to realize she had done it. Or, it took me a
minute to realize there was anything wrong with it. It took her
the same minute. At the end of it she got flustered and looked
up at me and let go again.
‘Sorry,’ she said.
‘Don’t be,’ I said. ‘It felt good.’
‘It just happened,’ she said.
We walked on and turned into the Rue Vernet. Found the
restaurant. It was early in the evening in January and the owner
found us a table right away. It was in a corner. There were
flowers and a lit candle on it. We ordered water and a pichet of
red wine to drink while we thought about the food.
297
‘You’re at home here,’ Summer said to me.
‘Not really,’ I said. ‘I’m not at home anywhere.’
‘You speak pretty good French.’
‘I speak pretty good English too. Doesn’t mean I feel at home
in North Carolina, for instance.’
‘But you like some places better than others.’