The Summer House(46)
“Because I already did it once.”
Kane shakes his head. “Don’t mean I have to let you do it again.”
Huang says, “Your choice, of course. But I’m here as part of an official Army investigation as to what happened over in Sullivan, and you’ve got the four suspects in custody. How do you like all the news media attention, Chief? There’s about a half dozen reporters camped out in your parking lot, all wanting to talk to you and find out how the Rangers are being treated.”
Kane crosses his thick arms over his dark-blue uniform shirt. “I can handle them.”
“I’m sure you can now,” Huang says. “But what do you think would happen if I were to go out there and tell those reporters that the Ralston police chief is now blocking an official Army investigation? And that the day before, his staff allowed me to do my job but now he isn’t? What do you think those reporters are going to think? I’ll tell you what they’ll think. One of the nastiest words a politician or police official never wants to hear: cover-up. You think there are a lot of reporters out there now, wait until I go out and have a press conference, accusing you and your jail staff of blocking the Army’s investigation.”
Kane looks like he’s about to gnaw on his moustache in his anger.
Huang goes on and says, “Or you let me see Specialist Tyler, like I did yesterday, and when I’m through, I’ll go out and have a quick press conference with the news media, tell them that Chief Richard Kane is treating his prisoners perfectly and that you are bending over backward to cooperate with the Army. How does that sound?”
Kane’s eyes are still glaring at Huang, but he says, “You’re a goddamn slippery one, aren’t you?”
“Only if I’m coming out of a pool.”
Kane says, “You think you’re so smart, then? Huh? Like all those Asians, all you do is study twenty-four/seven, don’t have a dating life, don’t do anything outside of schoolwork and books. Couldn’t even change a car tire if you had to.”
With a smile, Huang says, “I started dating girls when I was fourteen, I run marathons four times a year, and I can cook the best cheeseburger you’ll ever taste. Chief Kane, may I see Specialist Tyler?”
The chief still looks like he’s having a crappy day, and then he grins and says, “Damn, you’re the first Chinese fella I’ve ever met. Glad you’re an American and on our side. Come along, get your ass to the interview room. You already know where it is. I’ll get him out to you presently.”
Specialist Vinny Tyler is sitting up against the concrete wall in his small cell. Across the way is his fellow specialist Paulie Ruiz, and no surprise, Ruiz is on his side, sleeping and gently snoring. Among other things, Ruiz is known in his squad for always complaining about not getting enough sleep, and when there’s downtime—like here in the Ralston jail, for example—he says he’s going to catch up on a year’s worth of sleep and does just that.
The rest of the cell area is quiet. Corporal Barnes is barely visible over in his cell, reading a paperback, and Staff Sergeant Jefferson can’t be seen.
That’s a good thing. Staff Sergeant Jefferson is one of the strongest and most powerful men he’s ever known—both physically and mentally—and Tyler knows he won’t be able to do what he has planned with Jefferson staring him down.
He picks up a single sheet of paper that’s on top of the metal sink-and-toilet combination. The words have been printed out large. With a pencil he writes in the last sentence:
I’M SO SORRY.
Then he scrawls his name and rank.
Having paper and any writing materials is supposedly forbidden here in this small jail, but one of the jail attendants, Marcy, seems to have taken a liking to him, and when he asked for a sheet of paper and a pencil to write something important, she quietly slid them into his cell.
And last night, when he told her that the pencil needed sharpening and he didn’t want to bother her and could she provide him with one of those little pencil sharpening tools, she had given him that as well.
The sheet of paper goes back on the metal commode. He takes the pencil sharpener from under his bunk, thinks of the long days ahead of him, the weeks, the months. He trusts Staff Sergeant Jefferson, believes in Staff Sergeant Jefferson, but Tyler is still so very frightened.
What if the staff sergeant is wrong? And he goes to prison for the rest of his life? And nearly as bad…suppose he’s dumped out of the Army? What then? A life ahead of changing oil in cars, being a greeter at Walmart, going to a grocery store and deciding which of a dozen cereal brands to buy, while some overweight civvy notes his Ranger cap and wants to butt in and say, Thank you for your service? Never again having that pure rush of being out on some rocky ridge, a bud on your left and a bud on your right, all of you firing and shooting and defending one another?
No longer?
Tyler sighs, takes the pencil sharpener, and puts it in his mouth, biting down hard, cracking open the plastic.
He spits out the remains into his hand.
Among the broken blue plastic shards is a shiny little razor blade.
He thinks it will be sharp enough.
Huang is in the interview room, waiting, legal pad in front of him and pen in hand, thinking of how he’s going to proceed with this morning’s interview. He made progress yesterday morning with the young Ranger, getting him to open up just a bit, and in that brief opening, Huang saw a way forward. Today he will tell Tyler about other soldiers he’s interviewed in the past, about what those soldiers have seen and done, and the guilt and dreams they’ve carried. Huang will tell Tyler that the guilt and dreams will never fully go away but, with Huang’s and others’ help, the burden can be eased.