pretty face to detect… anything. It was about as easy to read as a brick. He couldn’t stand it. This was the very girl he had lusted for on this very same spot… even in the middle of a crisis that had rendered him speechless at the time. Was it possible that she really didn’t remember? All at once, without planning it, he heard himself saying, “Well, here we go again. The long march.”
She was already walking when she glanced back and said, “Long march? It’s just down the hall.”
It was the tone that says, “I have no idea what you’re talking about and it’s not worth my time to find out.” As before, she led him to just outside the Chief’s office and stopped. “I’ll let him know you’re here.” Then she disappeared inside.
In no time she came out of the office. “You can go in.”
Nestor tried one last time to get a sign… from her lips, her eyes, her eyebrows, a tilt of the head—just a sign, any sign, goddamn it! Her loins weren’t even a part of the anatomy at this moment. But all he got was the brick.
With a sigh Nestor went inside. The Chief didn’t even look up at first. ::::::Christ!—he’s big.:::::: He knew that, but now it was as if he were taking it in all over again. Not even his long-sleeved navy shirt with all the stars across the collars could hide the sheer physical might of the man. He had a ballpoint pen in his hand. He seemed to be absorbed in some computer-generated material on his desk. Then he looked up at Nestor. He didn’t stand or offer his hand. He just said, “Office Camacho…” It wasn’t a greeting. It was a statement of fact.
::::::Hello, Chief?… It’s good to see you, Chief?:::::: None of it was going to sound right. He settled for the one word, “Chief.” It was a plain acknowledgment.
“Have a seat, Officer.” The Chief pointed to a straight-backed chair, armless, directly across from the desk. It was all such a replay of the first meeting, Nestor’s heart sank. Once he sat down opposite the Chief, the Chief looked at him with a long, level gaze and said, “I have some things—”
He stopped and looked toward the open door. Cat was peeking through it. “Chief?” she said in a tentative voice. Then she beckoned, and the Chief got up, and they stood tête-à-tête in the doorway. Nestor could hear her first words, “Chief, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I thought you should know.”
Then she lowered her voice until he could hear nothing but a low buzz. He thought he picked up the name Korolyov, but he also knew it could be sheer paranoia. Korolyov was the reason he had been disobeying the curfew, and that was no doubt the reason the Chief had ordered him to come in. ::::::Oh, Dios Dios Dios:::::: but he was too discouraged to pray to God. And why would God stoop to help him in the first place? ::::::“Oh, Lord, thou who hath forgiven even Judas, I have committed the sin of deceit, which involves cheating as well as lying”… Oh, the hell with it. It’s hopeless! Judas at least did a lot to help Jesus before he sinned against him. And me? Why should God even bother to notice me? I don’t deserve it… I’m truly fucked.::::::
The Chief and Cat kept buzzing at a very low volume. Occasionally he would cut loose out loud with a profane oath. “Oh, for Christ’s sake”… “Jesus Christ”… and one “Holy freaking Jesus”… Fortunately, he actually said “freaking.”
Finally he ended his little parley with Cat and started back toward his desk—but then wheeled about and said out loud as she headed back to her desk, “Tell ’em they can say whatever they want, but there’s no way I would have turned that plane back, even if I’d known about it. The man’s got a Russian passport, he hasn’t been charged with anything, he hasn’t been singled out as ‘a person of interest,’ nobody has even directly accused him of anything, not even the freaking Herald. So how do you turn the plane around? You’ve got a notion? Those newspaper execs have never run a damn thing in their lives. They just sit on committees and try to think up ways to justify their existence.”
Nestor was dying to know what the Chief and Cat had been talking about. It had Korolyov written all over it. But Nestor was