Tiger's Tail by Gus Lee

Author:Gus Lee [Lee, Gus]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-48083-5
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 1996-09-09T04:00:00+00:00

22

UNCOMMON DECEITS

The flagpole outside the SJA office was at half-mast, but the SJA office seemed upbeat in the wake of Nagol's death. The door draft hit Muldoon, the big Howdy Doody sentry. He saw my IG brass, tried to stand and fell out of his chair. I helped him up. Typing stopped and I took jeep keys from the vehicle control board.

“Put on your field jacket.” I gave him his crutches.

“Yeah—I mean, yessir!” he croaked. I held the door and he crutched out. Snow swirled. His freckles turned green: the dumb gook janitor, the guy he had tried to thump in the Vegas who had destroyed his knee, and today's IG, were all the same man.

“Aw, crap!” he squawked, grimacing, waiting for the blow.

“Specialist Muldoon, Koreans are not your servants. Never call anyone ‘slicky boy’ again. Get your own Java. Get in.”

I drove to Wizard Q. Muldoon's traumatized Adam's apple bobbed as he tried to swallow dry spit. “Who's acting deputy now?”

“Ain't got one, sir. Hard ta replace ole Count Dracula.”

“How long you been in-country?”

“Sir, I'm a Double-Digit Midget, down to ten days and a wake-up. Not like some officers, here till hell makes ice. DEROS”—Date Estimated Return Overseas—“to Bliss, Texas.” He smiled like the boy he was. He coughed painfully. “Sir, I'm short as a bug dick.”

“Why the sidearm?”

“Sir, we got bo-coo cash. SOP is sidearms. Oink, oink.”

“Remember Captain Buford, the IG who came in last week?”

“Yessir. The officer got toasted in the jeep.” I parked. “You know, you're not a fighter. You ought to give up bullying.”

He spoke quietly. “Sir, my fightin’ days are over.” “Muldoon, who arranged our Vegas welcome party?” He gulped painfully. “Count Dracula and Willoughby.” I made the note. “How you likee Java, boss-man?”

Muldoon blushed. I winked at him and helped him out.

The guard looked up, stiffened, and picked up the phone. He punched the intercom button. “Sir, visitor…. Yes, sir, it's him. With Muldoon.” He hung up and stood, smoothing his fatigue blouse.

“Coffee, sir?” He smiled unhappily. I shook my head, helped Muldoon sit, and got him a cup of Java. I removed my field jacket and sat under a poster of the television M**S*H cast; pretending to study a new magazine called People. The guard straightened his desk. Muldoon stared at his Java. I thought about the Wizard's map.

Prosecutors rely on fair courts and good hands. I was in a crooked court facing a stacked deck. I had one ace: McCrail.

And playing it would jeopardize the sergeant major and his long campaign to free old comrades. But McCrail was hard to kill, and the Wizard seemed a cheat but not a murderer. Since I did not know Nagol's prior influence on the Wizard, I could not calculate the effect of his death. I sensed an improvement.

The intercom buzzer sounded. “Send him in.” I passed the fountain. It looked very clean. Now to face an elder.

Giving this man gum would probably not help.

“Sit,” said the Wizard, the dentist to the patient. I closed the door, looking at the covered map on its back.

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