Authors: Keith Yocum
“Dennis,” Marty said, “did I tell you I’m going in for an MRI?”
Pause. “An MRI? Is something wrong, Marty?” Dennis said.
Pause. “Yeah, I’m afraid something is wrong. I think I have a brain tumor.”
Pause. “Oh, my God, Marty. Jeeze, when did you find out something was wrong?”
Pause. “I must have a tumor, Dennis, because I could have sworn that I told you not to fuck this little assignment up. And it looks like you fucked it royally. So I must have a brain tumor, right?”
Pause. “You shouldn’t joke like that, Marty. It’s not funny.”
Pause. “Don’t tell me what’s funny, Dennis, you stupid idiot. You blew this simple little assignment. Now I’ve got to deal with State on this thing. The IG got a personal call from an under secretary of state. Do you understand how much shit there is flying around now because of you? Jesus, Dennis, I was trying to inch you into work, you goddamn ingrate.”
Pause. “I’m sorry, Marty, I really am. Listen, the assignment is almost over. I promise there’ll be no more complaints. I promise—you can trust me on this.”
Pause. “I already trusted you. Do you have any idea how much shit I’ve taken for you over the years? It was OK because you delivered, Dennis. But you started screwing up big time, and it hasn’t been worth it in a while. I felt bad for you, with Martha and all. And now you turn around and kick me in the teeth. I can’t deal with you any longer, Dennis.”
Pause. “Marty, it’s OK. You’ve given me this opportunity, and I’m thankful. Really I am. I’m almost done here. I’ll be back stateside with the final report within a week. You won’t get another complaint about me. I promise. Really.”
Long pause. “Marty? Are you there?”
Long pause. “You’re this close to being cashiered out, Dennis. This one is going right into your file. You got that?”
Pause. “Got it. See you back in Langley in a week. No more problems from here. I promise.”
Pause. “Hang on. One more thing, Dennis. About your daughter.”
Pause. “My daughter?”
Pause. “Yes, your daughter, Beth.”
Pause. “What happened to my daughter?”
Pause. “Nothing. She called here looking for you. No one in your family has ever called here looking for you before. I don’t remember a call from Martha, much less your daughter. But she called yesterday. Kind of awkward, Dennis, because she didn’t know what your phone number was or how to get hold of you. She got bumped to a number of operators. I finally spoke to her.”
Pause. “Beth spoke to you? Is anything wrong?”
Pause. “Turns out she was just trying to reach you. She said she was worried about you.”
Pause. “Worried? That’s odd.”
Pause. “Call your daughter, Dennis. And please ask her to stop calling the operator at Langley.”
Pause. “Sorry, Marty. I’ll talk to her.”
Dennis ended the call and took a deep, anguished breath, letting the air filter out of his lungs slowly in a muffled hiss.
They called it Grand Rounds, a not-so-inappropriate reference to a hospital-residency training program. It happened every Tuesday at 9:00 a.m. sharp.
Miller was the director of the West Australian office and ran a tight little ship.
Most of the investigators had coffee or tea in front of them, along with folders of their active cases. Miller would invariably start off with new directives from headquarters, and then he would list new national notifications or investigations of note, including their connection to Western Australia, if any. Next, he would give a brief pep talk that Judy found mawkish, invariably invoking military phrases like “let’s keep a tight order out there,” and “this war is being fought one battle at a time,” etc.
Finally Miller would turn to each investigator to give a brief update on current investigations; if two agents were involved, they’d co-present. Sometimes Miller would simply nod at an agent’s summary, but other times he would ask sharp questions, and it was important to remain vigilant, Judy found, or you’d get the full public wrath of the slightly pompous director.
The only female agent on the West Australian team, Judy was always called upon first by Miller. Initially, Judy was impressed with Miller’s decorum, as if he were opening a car door for a woman, or giving up a seat on a bus to a woman. She soon found the gesture irritating and sexist; Judy didn’t need to have her car door opened or be picked to go first because she was a woman.
She was working on seven active cases, two in conjunction with investigator Daniel Frankel, and four cases in progress in the justice system, one of which was going to trial soon.
Judy quickly ran through her cases, hoping Miller would not interrupt.
She finished the most recent case with Daniel: a drug-related murder.
“Victim was an unidentified ethnic Chinese male, estimated twenty-eight years of age,” Daniel said, looking at his notes. “An undocumented immigrant. Cause of death was a single round to the chest by an extremely powerful weapon, eh, Jude?”
“Quite,” she said. “Lynchy said he’d never seen anything like it. Round went through the victim and then through four walls, finally lodging in an outhouse.”
There were a couple of giggles from other agents at the bizarre juxtaposition of a toilet and the death of a drug gang member. Even Judy and Daniel exchanged quick glances and smiled. In the cynical, depressing world of criminal investigations, it was a pleasant relief to laugh at preposterous coincidences or peculiar anomalies. If not then, Judy had come to realize, when would any of them ever laugh?
“What kind of weapon was it?” Miller asked.
“They’re not sure, but Lynchy thinks it’s something brand new and exotic,” Daniel said.
“Like what?” Miller persisted in his not-pleasant tone of voice.
Judy and Daniel exchanged glances; the last thing they wanted was their director to start picking apart a brand new investigation in front of the other agents.
“The closest they’ve come is suggesting it’s a new assault weapon, perhaps South African. Lynchy said it might be a . . .” and here Judy looked down at her notes, “a Klaxon personal assault weapon. Oversize round. Manufacturer brags that it’s the most powerful assault weapon in the world. That’s all we have at this point,” she said, looking up.
“Motive?” Miller asked.
“Some kind of turf battle going on between two of the Triads,” Judy said.
“That’s some kind of bloody turf battle,” Miller said, “if they’re using assault weapons like that. Please write that up, Judy, and let’s send it back east. Let’s see if anyone else has seen anything like that.”
Judy and Daniel nodded, glad to be done with their part of Grand Rounds.
“Oh,” Miller said as an afterthought, “how’s that Yank thing going?”
There were several muffled giggles again around the big table as other agents pretended to adjust notebooks or reach for their coffee mugs. Judy was painfully aware that babysitting the Yank was an absurdly low-level assignment given to her because of her perpetual not-quite-equal status in the group. The fact that an attractive Aussie woman would make the Yank more docile and happy was not lost on anyone.
“It’s fine, sir, but I’m not entirely sure why it’s necessary that we have anything to do with his investigation. It seems a complete waste of time and resources.”
“Now, now, Judy,” he said in his most patronizing manner, “it’s an agreement we’ve signed with the Americans. I did one of these about nine years ago. It demonstrates to the Yanks that they just can’t traipse around Australia willy-nilly and do whatever they want, whenever they want. No, this is a good thing, and important for Australia’s dignity.”
Leave it to our posturing director to turn this bloody babysitting job into a matter of utmost patriotic importance,
Judy thought.
“Right,” she said, closing her file folder.
***
The evening was pleasantly cool, and Dennis found himself walking the streets of Perth, staring into the store windows and following the flow of pedestrians as they made their way home after work.
He did not know where he was going, or really why he was leaving the hotel. He felt compelled to do something other than sit in the steak bar.
He kept walking, noticing the unusual odors of a foreign city—even the auto exhaust had a stronger diesel odor about it. He kept a steady, almost heady pace with the few commuters he encountered.
Crossing the street turned out to be dangerous for Dennis; twice he forced cars to swerve around him as he looked left instead of right as he crossed.
After a while, he found himself across the street from an ornate brick building; it was lit up spectacularly like a night launch at Cape Canaveral. At the top of the three-story, corner building was a Victorian cupola with the word Hotel lit up. He could see people inside a pub on the ground floor, and he made his way toward it.
He found an open spot at the bar, ordered one of the beers he saw on tap, and glanced down the bar. Some men were alone, savoring every sip of their ice-cold beers before they headed home for dinner with the family. A few old-timers hunkered expertly over their beers, elbows planted firmly on the mahogany, looking like they were just starting a long evening of imbibing.
Groups of young men and women did what they did in bars everywhere: laugh, flirt, and drink very fast.
Dennis moved quickly through his first drink, taking in the surroundings and feeling vague amusement at the energy level of the pub. Most traditional businessmen’s bars he haunted around Northern Virginia and DC were glum, quiet places for settling in for a night of CNN or meaningless sporting events on the TV above the bar.
This pub had some serious drinkers, he could see, but also a smattering of young people giving it a celebratory feel.
“You a Yank?” the man to his right asked.
Dennis turned to see a tall, smiling, leather-faced man in his late sixties.
“Yeah,” Dennis said. “How can you tell?”
“Your accent, mate.”
“Ha. I barely said anything.”
“Doesn’t take much.” The man smiled. “Name’s Rusty.”
Dennis reached out and introduced himself, conflicted about whether he was up for company. Sometimes Dennis simply wanted to sit at a bar by himself, nurse his drink in near-isolation, and go home. Other times, he could talk for hours with a stranger about the most arcane subjects except, of course, politics and religion. Those two subjects are
verboten
to public drinkers everywhere.
“Here on business or pleasure?” Rusty asked.
“Definitely business. Always business; I never travel for pleasure.”
“Ah, then, you’ve come to the right place,” he said. “In Perth you can work and enjoy yourself at the same time. It’s a bonza place: one of the best cities in the Western world. It’s our best kept secret, Dennis, and we’d just as well keep it that way.”
“Well, if I could get used to the cars driving on the other side of the street, I might actually survive this trip,” Dennis said. “I think I was almost hit three times coming here.”
“Ah, right. Every now and then a tourist is struck crossing the street. Bloody unfortunate, I’d say.”
Dennis found himself drawn into an entirely pleasant conversation with Rusty, who displayed the proper bar etiquette that made for engaging, noncontroversial discourse. Besides, Rusty started using Dennis’s name immediately, making him feel even more comfortable. He was the perfect, distanced companion for Dennis.
Perhaps it was his strange mood, or maybe it was Rusty’s gentle, welcoming behavior, but Dennis soon found himself acting very un-Dennis-like. He blurted out the litany of his travails, from his wife’s death to his depression, and even his problems with his boss.
Rusty was very attentive and commiserated with Dennis.
“Ah well, Dennis,” he said, “a death in the family is a real tough one. But you’re still tickin’, mate! You know, my wife passed away three years ago. It’s been a tough few years, but I feel like I’m coming out of my shell now.”
“What helped you get through it?” Dennis asked.
“Well, my religion helped some,” Rusty said. “I was raised Catholic. It’s the only religion I know. Just going to Mass every Sunday, sitting there and contemplating life’s challenges—about our miniscule little lives in this great universe—well, it helped.”
“I don’t go to church,” Dennis said. “Hell, maybe I should start.”
“And my family was helpful. My three grown children were very attentive and kept me busy. And there’s nothing like playing with your grandchildren to take your mind off your own problems and be reminded that life continues.”
“I don’t have much of a family,” Dennis said. “Just a daughter, and we’re not really close.”
“Well, get close, then,” Rusty said effusively. “What are you waiting for?”
“I mean, it’d be kind of weird for me to suddenly start acting like we’ve been so tight all these years,” he said. “I mean, how do you just
do
that?”
“Nonsense,” Rusty said. “You just do it. There’s no bloody book on how to do these things; you just do it, mate. The worst thing you can do is not try.”
Dennis looked at his bar mate. “Rusty, what do you do for a living?”
“I’m retired. Been retired for years.”
“What did you do when you did work?”
“I was an upholsterer.”
“What did you upholster?” Dennis asked.
“Seats, what else?”
“For furniture?”
“Well, no, for the railroad,” he said. “I upholstered and repaired seats for the railroad.”
“For the railroad,” Dennis repeated.
“Right,” Rusty said, taking a big sip from his frosty glass.
“How long did you do that for? I mean upholster seats for the railroad?”
“Thirty-one years, six months, and three days,” Rusty said. “But who’s counting?”
Dennis laughed. “Well, I have to say that I’ve traveled around the world and met a lot of people, but I’ve never met an Australian railroad upholsterer before.”
“Well, mate”—Rusty slapped him on the shoulder—“there’s no telling the people you’ll meet in this crazy world. But don’t forget—and I hope I’m not being too preachy here, Dennis—that it’s never too late to mend the things in your life that need mending. You seem like a bloke who’s got a lot on his mind, so it’s good to stand back and take the long view, if you see what I mean.”