The Drifter (Peter Ash #1)(13)

She laughed softly, a brief musical sound. “I can see why James liked you, Lieutenant.”

Peter walked around and opened her door. An officer and a gentleman. It wasn’t that she expected it, but something about her seemed to encourage that kind of behavior in Peter. In all men, he suspected.

She was tall enough that she didn’t have to hitch herself up onto the bench seat. She’d left her enormous purse inside, but had put the money in a brown paper grocery sack, folded the top, and tied it up with string. The money filled less than half the bag. She held it on her lap with both hands.

“Are you sure you want to bring that along?” Peter asked. “We can always come back and get it.”

Dinah shook her head. “I’ll leave it in the truck until I’m certain. But I don’t want to have to make a second trip.” There was something there she didn’t want to talk about, and he didn’t push her.

He turned the key and let the engine warm up for a minute. She sat with her spine perfectly straight, looking around. “This truck is an antique, isn’t it?”

Peter gave her a look of mock outrage. “The word is ‘classic,’” he said. “Nineteen sixty-eight Chevy C20 pickup, at your service. Very few original parts.”

She looked at the polished green metal door covers and instrument panel. The floor mats were clean and the seat covers new. The slot for the old AM radio was filled with a piece of fine-grained walnut carefully fitted in place and varnished to a high gloss. The shifter knob was a glass ball with a hula dancer trapped inside. Peter couldn’t take credit for the shifter knob. The hula dancer had come with the truck.

“I didn’t think it would be so orderly,” she said. “Or quite so clean.”

“It’s easier to get stuff done if you know where your tools are.” Although Peter had to admit it had been a few days since he’d showered. And he was starting to smell of dog. With Dinah sitting beside him, he was acutely aware of it.

Now she was looking at him with those glacier-blue eyes.

“How did you become a Marine? Jimmy said you studied economics in college.”

“When I was in high school, my dad was building a giant vacation house for a bond trader from Chicago. He told me that economics explained how the world really worked. I liked that idea, that I could learn how the world really worked.”

He laughed softly at himself.

“It seems pretty na?ve now. Anyway, I got a scholarship to Northwestern, and dove into economic theory headfirst. But after a summer internship on Wall Street, I got to see modern finance in practice and didn’t like what I saw. Everybody was out to make as much money as possible, and it didn’t matter how they did it.”

He shrugged.

“I wanted to do some good in the world. Be a part of something bigger. Maybe learn something else about how the world worked. So I joined the Marines.”

“Was it a good choice?” She seemed genuinely interested.

“It was a long time ago.” He put the truck in gear. “Where are we going?”

“Can you get to Martin Luther King Drive?” He nodded. It was the quickest way to the worst part of town. She said, “Head south on MLK and I’ll give you directions from there.”

He pulled smoothly into traffic, drove to the end of the block, and turned the corner.

Looking in the rearview mirror, he said, “I’m guessing you’re the jazz fan of the family. Maybe you caught it from your parents?”

Dinah looked at Peter sideways. “What was your clue?”

“Not many Dinahs out there,” he said. “I’m figuring you were named for Dinah Washington. And your boys, maybe Charlie Parker and Miles Davis?”

“I’m impressed,” she said. “Yes, my father loved jazz. There was always music in the house when I was growing up. I suppose I caught it from him.”

She smiled to herself. “James, though. James was more of an old-time R-and-B guy. Ray Charles, Sam and Dave, the Staple Singers. Maybe that was why I fell in love with him in tenth grade. He loved to sing. We were in the church choir together.”

Peter thought of Jimmy in Iraq. He wasn’t singing. He was doing push-ups, or checking his gear, or studying maps. Mostly he was talking to his guys. Getting their heads straight. Keeping them right.

Dinah said, “When the boys were little, and James was home on leave, he’d sing them to sleep. He’d lie on the couch with them on his chest, his big arms around them, and sing so softly I could barely hear him. But that deep voice of his, it would go right through them. ‘Swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me hooome . . .’” Her voice was smoky and low.

Peter didn’t even know that Jimmy had a music player. Some guys were like that, especially when they were fire team or squad leaders. They sort of put themselves aside. Submerged themselves in the squad. The war wasn’t about them. It was about the men they were charged with leading. With protecting, as much as possible, from the war. While still doing their best to win it.

Maybe if Jimmy had kept singing, he wouldn’t have killed himself.

Peter checked the mirror again. There was a black SUV a half-block behind them. A big Ford. Peter couldn’t see the driver’s face. But he thought there would be a starburst of scars marking the right side of his face, and his right earlobe would be missing.