*
General Whittaker rose from his chair, slowly, but agile for his age. His body looked slender compared to the pictures I’d seen of him in his robust years, yet he still had a military bearing. A burgundy colored jacket, not exactly a smoking jacket, but not a sport coat either, covered a long-sleeved khaki shirt. The jacket had been tailored to expose a matching measure of shirt cuff on each of his arms which were thin enough that the garment hung as cleanly as it would on a store mannequin. He was well dressed and neat except for a tangled crop of white hair freely growing from his ears. His wrists were frail. The skin on the backs of his hands, mottled. Still, his handshake remained mildly firm, yet cool to the touch.
“Mr. Kile,” he said, “as you stated in one of your books, I like people better than principles, and people without principles best of all. From what I’ve learned, you should be one of my favorites. And I like your tie, but you didn’t need to wear one on my account.”
So far I had learned that my ties were a matter that could divide families. I agreed with the general, I liked the tie, but I doubted I would ever wear it again. Women who show cleavage don’t fully realize the power they possess over mortal men, and please don’t tell ‘em.
“Are you married, Mr. Kile?”
“Once.”
“Divorced?”
I nodded without hiding my irritation at his questions.
“Too bad.”
“My ex-wife would disagree with you.”
“Kids?”
“With due respect, General, that’s enough of that. This isn’t a lonely hearts meeting.”
He smiled. His face revealed that he did not often smile.
“Before we get started I want to return the check your attorney, Mr. Franklin, gave me yesterday.” I put it on his desk. “I can’t help you with your case.”
He left the check lying there and flicked his wrist a few times as if shooing a fly. I took this as an invitation to sit down; I did. After looking at his pocket watch, likely the one the articles reported he had carried since his youth, he said, “You are on time; I like that, sir.”
His study was as elegant as the rest of the house, though more masculine. A massive mahogany desk sat between us, a wall of glass behind him showing off the Pacific Ocean as if it flowed simply to grace his home. The moon glazing the night fog sitting on the horizon gave the sheen of a protective coating. The way the sky looked, we might have another hour of good visibility, depending on the wind. The light in the study had been designed to be soft and indirect. According to the daily column in the newspaper that announces the ages of people they figure the rest of us care to know, the general was eighty-seven. One of the articles on him that I read before coming said he suffered from chronic uveitis, an inflammation of the eye. The condition could explain the subdued lighting.
The sidewall of the general’s study closest to his desk was mostly bookcases, with some wall area left for photos from his career, the wall on the other side busy with more photos and plaques. One four-shelf bookcase held only VCR tapes. He noticed my looking and said, “Family events mostly, I’ve had the older ones originally in film converted.”
“I wish I had done more of that. My early family life is mostly in still pictures, but I’ve got a ton of those.”
The general ran a hand through his thin pepper-colored hair, which each day was surrendering more of its territory to salt-colored hair. “Mr. Kile, if you won’t help me, why in tarnation did you come?”
“You’re a great American, General Whitaker. It would be disrespectful not to tell you in person.”
“Call me General. Everybody does, even my daughter. As long as you were kind enough to come, before you leave please do me two favors.” Not used to being opposed, he went on without waiting for my decision. “The first, you should find decidedly easy. Drink an Irish on crushed ice with a lemon twist.” He picked up a handheld bell and rang it. Charles came through the door instantly with a pewter tray centered by a short frosted glass, apparently filled with the whiskey of my Irish ancestors.
The reports said the general could no longer drink himself, but enjoyed watching others imbibe. If he liked them, he felt he was drinking with them. If he didn’t like them, well, they didn’t get offered the drink in the first place.
The general gave the impression that being eccentric could be a lot of fun. Of course you had to be somewhat wealthy to be eccentric. If one is poor and unconventional in manner and deed, one is simply considered a bit nutty.
“You said two things, General?”
“That I did. While sipping your Irish, read this letter. It is addressed to you. You will notice it is not opened. The letter is from one of my dearest friends, yours too, Mr. Barton Cowen.”
I took the letter gingerly between two fingertips and held it for a moment, feeling like a mouse eyeing trapped cheese. Barton Cowen was the father and husband of the family killed by the thug I shot dead on the courthouse steps to earn my four years inside with Axel. Bart came to see me every week while he relentlessly inspired public opinion until the governor’s office granted my pardon. Like the mouse, I could not turn from the trap.
When I finished reading Bart’s request that I help the general, I sat motionless, looking, I suspect, like an envelope without a name or address on its face. But I knew I had no real choice.
“General, tell me about the case.”
“The older I become,” he said, “the more impressed I am with what a man is, rather than what he seems. And I like who you are.”
“Were it not for Mr. Cowen I would have spent three more years as a guest of the state before walking out an ex-con rather than a pardoned man. But you knew that, General. You knew I could not refuse you after reading this letter.” I dropped it onto his desk.
“What I knew, Mr. Kile … may I call you Matt?”
“I’d prefer you did, General. Please go on.”
“What I knew, Matt, was that you were intrigued. Perhaps it was my reputation mixing with your curiosity. Perhaps from the stories, you wished to learn if I would offer you a drink. Then it may have simply been that you are divorced and hoped to meet my celebrated daughter.”
“Hmmmm.”
“And what does that mean?”
“It means, hmmmm. But to revise and extend my remarks as you regularly heard members of congress say during your years on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ‘I had the pleasure of meeting your daughter on the way in. She is a lovely woman.’”
“Nicely said. A man predisposed to be a fighting man learns to do so. A woman predisposed to being a seductress hones her skills similarly. Both arts designed to control the man before them. My daughter is not an excessively promiscuous woman, but, like her mother, she enjoys men and is an unapologetic tease.”
I recalled a quote from Count Tallyrand, In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily.
The tone in which the general spoke about his daughter suggested he was not stressed in the slightest by her choices or personality. I also guessed he liked the style of woman she had grown to be, or so it seemed from his reference to her mother.
“But, yes,” he said, picking back up with what he had been saying before discussing his daughter. “I expected you would come. From your history, I knew you felt a responsibility to set things right. Tell me, Matt, what is your opinion on firing squads?”
“Well, General, they do get the job done. Of course, there are no appeals so one must be certain of the guilt of the person put against the wall.”
“You were sure when you took out that crud on the courthouse steps, eleven years ago.”
“Yes, General. I was. He deserved it. Now whether it did more good than harm I can’t really say.”
“That disgusting fellow would have killed more people. Destroyed more families. What you did was the right thing.”
“I do think that, General. Yes, I do. Still, it hurt those I love, confused their lives. I didn’t really think about that part of it when I should have.”