"A nickel?"
"Make a phone call, tip off their pals. Then when I go in, I get a lead cocktail, compliments of the management."
"A lead cocktail, I like that," laughed Kaz, ever the eager student of American gangster slang. "Very good, Billy."
"Yeah, great. I'm so glad my time in the Army gives you the opportunity to learn new terms for death and mayhem."
"Billy, isn't that what war is all about?"
I nodded. "That's what I don't like about it, in case you haven't noticed."
"You know, I think it is what I am beginning to like about it."
I'd thought he was kidding, but that got my attention. Kaz looked deadly serious.
"What do you mean?"
"You have a home and family to go back to, Billy. The Nazis killed my family and enslaved my country. I've lost the only woman I ever loved, or expect to love. So death? What do I have to fear from death? I have greater cause to fear what else life may offer me."
"You're not going to… do anything stupid, are you?"
Kaz laughed. "Stupid? No, not while I have you to look out for, Billy. You do provide a distraction which keeps me amused."
"Distraction? You've been shot, nearly died, then shot at again. Some distraction!"
"Exactly, I can't wait to see what happens tomorrow."
"Me either. It will help if I'm around when tomorrow comes."
We didn't say much else. Kaz looked out the window. I thought about home. That summed it up, both of us together, in our separate worlds.
Finally, I picked up my gear. "Gotta go, Kaz. You need anything?"
"No, Billy, I'll be fine until the doctor arrives."
"Okay. Do me a favor? If the doc lets you up, check with the Army base back in England at Blackpool and see if there was any funny business there with supplies. Call the Provost Marshal's office for that military district and see if they've uncovered any black market activity."
"Or murder?"
"Yeah. Or murder."
Chapter Fifteen
Colonel Walton's office looked more like a whorehouse parlor than an army hospital administrator's digs. Thick deep purple drapes hung over the windows, blocking out the sun and heat. Oriental rugs were spread over the floor, and a velvet couch sat next to the antique walnut table that served as his desk. A big, ornate telephone and a glass ashtray stood on either side; otherwise the table was bare. There was a matching table at the other end of the room with six chairs around it. Probably for poker games, although there was a map open on it now. It was a National Geographic map of the Mediterranean, dated 1935. Hardly a top-secret document. On the wall opposite the window, a bookshelf was half-filled with army manuals and a few scattered medical books.
I was seated in front of Walton's desk, waiting for him to finish the delicate business of lighting a cigar. He clipped the end, fired up his Zippo, and pulled on the stogie until it glowed red like a taillight at a stop sign. He finally blew out a substantial puff of smoke and appeared to be satisfied. He looked at the cigar like it was the only thing in his world and smiled. He took his eyes off of it and laid them on me, and the smile faded to a frown. Next topic on the agenda.
"Well, Lieutenant Boyle? What have you found out so far?"
"If I were a gambling man, Colonel, I'd bet it was an inside job."
He went back to puffing on his cigar, and gazed at me through a cloud of blue smoke.
"I am a gambling man, junior, but then you probably know that already." He blew smoke in my direction and looked at the stogie again, rolling it between his thumb and thick fingers. The tobacco leaf crinkled faintly under the pressure.
"Yessir, I do. I know that officers under your command owe you money, and that makes me wonder what they'd do to pay you back."
"Dunbar doesn't have the balls to kill a soul. The rest of them don't owe enough to worry about."
"Colonel, doesn't it bother you that gambling is against regulations? You're the commanding officer-"
"Regulations, hell, sonny boy. This is a war, and we aren't stateside, In case you haven't noticed. I've got a major hospital to run here, as well as being responsible for half a dozen field hospitals just behind the front. This isn't your spit and polish regular Army unit, it's a medical unit, and I make sure it runs as smooth as a baby's bottom. A little recreational game of chance now and then lets everyone blow off some steam. No one's forced to play, and if the brass doesn't like it they can get someone else to be CO. Send me back to England! Who the hell wants to be in North Africa anyway?"
I couldn't find a lot to disagree about. I liked his attitude. Unfortunately, I had just a few hours to prod these folks with a stick and see who jumped the highest.
"How much money did Sergeant Casselli owe you?"
"Listen, Lieutenant Boyle, if you want to run some chicken shit Investigation into card games at this hospital, you go right ahead, after you figure out who killed Casselli and stole my drugs. Otherwise, I'm liable to think you're a lazy sonofabitch who couldn't figure out how to pour piss out of a boot if the directions were written on the heel. Now is there anything of substance you have for me?"
"Well, yes, there's something I've been wondering about. How do medics in the field administer morphine? Do they have needles?"
"No, they have self-contained doses in sealed syrettes. That's usually enough to take care of the pain until the soldier gets to an aid station."
"So how do the doctors know how much a wounded GI has had already?"
Walton stopped puffing on his cigar for a second, and looked at me as if he were deciding whether to answer me or throw me out. I waited for him to ask me why I wanted to know all this, but instead his eyes narrowed and he gave me a little lecture.
"Medics are supposed to pin each used syrette to the wounded mans collar so he won't be accidentally overdosed at the aid station. Sometimes, in real cold weather, the effects of morphine may be delayed until the body warms up. When it's a cold night, you can usually count on some nervous medic giving too many doses for the GI's own good. Soon as we warm him up, we have double trouble, the wound and a morphine overdose."
"So what do you do?"
"Give him a morphine antidote, nalorphine. It's a new drug, and works pretty well, unless you wait too long to administer it. Then we treat the wound, and make sure the patient survives both problems."
"Nalorphine, penicillin. Lots of new drugs around here."
"War is the great accelerator of medical progress, Lieutenant Boyle. I sometimes wonder if after all the deaths in battle are added up, we save more lives in the long term with the medical advances we make."
It wasn't what I expected from Colonel Maxwell Walton. It sounded thoughtful, and he wasn't yelling. I didn't like his theory of medical progress, but maybe he was right. I didn't care to do the accounting. I had all I needed. I got up, thanked him for his time, and turned to leave.
"Two C notes," he said. "What?"
"You asked what Casselli owed me. He's dead, I'm out one good supply sergeant, and short two hundred bucks. Does that make me a murderer in your book?"
"Not much there in the motive department."
The telephone on his desk rang.
"I agree. Now go find someone who's got one." He picked up the phone and barked his name into it.
I left, crossing Walton off my list of suspects for now. He hadn't looked at all surprised to see me, which meant either he was a good actor or he wasn't the one who'd called up a French hit man. He was right about motive, too. There was nothing in it for him, as far as I could see. He could be getting a cut of the take, but all this killing on his home turf seemed too messy. He wouldn't want to draw so much attention to his own command. And how could he be connected to the French underworld in Algeria? Actually, that last question applied to everyone involved in this case. There had to have been some advance work done. I could see Villard and his pals setting up their own smuggling operation to take advantage of whichever way the war went. But how could anyone on the inside of the U.S. Army hook up with them so quickly? I gave up trying to figure that one out and went to look for Corporal Willoughby. Something told me he knew more than he let on about what went on around here.