The column was an epitaph for three young black men, all of whom had died yesterday on the streets and sidewalks of Washington. All three had apparently been engaged in the crack trade. All three had been shot to death. All three had presumably been killed by other young black men also engaged in the crack business. Three murders was slightly above the daily average for the metropolitan area, but not significantly so.
Mergenthaler had obviously spent most of the day visiting the relatives of the dead men: the column contained descriptions of people and places he could not have acquired over the phone.
When Yocke resumed his seat, he said, “Ott, you’re going to burn yourself out.”
The older man spotted something in the document he wanted to change. He punched keys for a moment. When he finished he muttered, “Too sentimental?”
“Nobody cares about black crackheads. Nobody gives a damn if they go to prison or starve to death or slaughter each other. You know that, Ott.”
“I’ll have to work some more on this. My job is to make people give a damn.”
Yocke left the columnist’s cubicle and went to his desk out in the newsroom. He found a notebook to scribble in amid the loose paper on his desk and got on the phone to the Montgomery County police. Perhaps they had made some progress on the beltway killing.
Jack Yocke had two murders of his own to write about, whether anyone gave a damn about the victims or not.
After all the guests had left, Toad Tarkington was washing dishes in the Graftons’ kitchen when Amy came in and posed self-consciously where he could see her. She had applied some eyeshadow and lipstick at some point in the evening, Toad noted with surprise. He consciously suppressed a grin. This past year she had been shooting up, developing in all the right places. She was only a few inches shorter than Callie.
“Little past your bedtime, isn’t it?”
“Oh, Toad, don’t be so parental. I’m a teenager now, you know.”
“Almost.”
“Near enough.”
“Grab a towel and dry some of these things.”
Amy did as requested.
“Nice party, huh?” she said as she finished the punch bowl and put it away.
“Yeah.”
“Is Rita coming for Christmas?”
“I hope so.” Rita, Toad’s wife, was a navy test pilot. Just now she was out in Nevada testing the first of the Navy’s new A-12 stealth attack planes. Both Toad and Rita held the rank of lieutenant. “Depends on the flight test schedule, of course,” Toad added glumly.
“Do you love Rita?” Amy asked softly.
Toad Tarkington knew trouble when it slapped him in the face. His gaze ripped from the dishes and settled on the young girl leaning against the counter and facing him self-consciously, her weight balanced on one leg and her eyes demurely lowered.
He cleared his throat. “Why do you ask?”
“Well,” she said softly, flashing her lashes, “you’re only fifteen years older than I am, and I’ll be eighteen in five years, and …” She ran out of steam.
Toad Tarkington got a nice chunk of his lower lip between his teeth and bit hard.
He took his hands from the water and dried them on a towel. “Listen, little one. You’ve still got a lot of growing left to do. You’ll meet Mr. Right someday. Maybe in five years or when you’re in college. You’ve got to take life at its natural pace. But you’ll meet him. He’s out there right now, hoping that someday he’ll meet you. And when you finally find him he won’t be fifteen years older than you are.”
She examined his eyes.
A blush began at her neck and worked its way up her face as tears welled up. “You’re laughing at me.”
“No no no, Amy. I know what it cost you to bring this subject up.” He reached out and cradled her cheek in his palm. “But I love Rita very much.”
She bit the inside of her mouth, which made her lips contort.
“Believe me, the guy for you is out there. When you finally meet him, you’ll know. And he’ll know. He’ll look straight into your heart and see the warm, wonderful human being there, and he’ll fall madly in love with you. You wait and see.”
“Wait? Life just seems so … so forever!” Her despair was palpable.
“Yeah,” Toad said. “And teenagers live in the now. You’ll be an adult the day you know in your gut that the future is as real as today is. Understand?”
He heard a noise. Jake Grafton was lounging against the doorjamb. Jake held out his hands. Amy took them.
He kissed her forehead. “I think it’s time for you to hit the sack. Tell Toad good night.”
She paused at the door and looked back. Her eyes were still shiny. “Good night, Toad.”
“Good night, Amy Carol.”
Both men stood silently until they heard Amy’s bedroom door click shut.
“She’s really growing fast,” Toad said.
“Too fast,” said Jake Grafton, and he hunted in the refrigerator for a beer, which he tossed to Toad, then took another for himself.
Ten minutes later Callie joined them in the living room. The men were deep into a discussion of the Gorbachev revolution and the centrifugal forces pulling the Soviet Union apart. “What will the world be like after the dust settles?” Callie asked. “Will the world be a safer place or less so?”
She received a carefully thought-out reply from Toad and a sincere “I don’t know” from her husband.
She expected Jake’s answer. Through the years she had found him a man ready to admit what he didn’t know. One of his great strengths was a complete lack of pretense. After years of association with academics, Callie found Jake a breath of fresh air. He knew who he was and what he was, and to his everlasting credit he never tried to be anything else.
As she sat watching him tonight, a smile spread across her face.
“Not to change the subject, Captain,” Toad Tarkington said, “but is it true you’re now the senior officer in one of the Joint Staff divisions?”
“Alas, it’s true,” Jake admitted. “I get to decide who opens the mail and makes the coffee.”
Toad chuckled. After almost two years in Washington, he knew only too well how close to the truth that comment was. “Well, you know that Rita is out in Nevada flying the first production A-12. She’s going to be pretty busy with that for a year or so, and they have a Test Pilot School — graduate bombardier flying with her. So I’m sort of the gofer in the A-12 shop now.”
Jake nodded and Callie said something polite.
“What I was thinking,” Toad continued, “was that maybe I could get a transfer over to your shop. If I’m going to make coffee and run errands, why not over at your place? Maybe get an X in the joint staff tour box.”
“Hmmm.”
“What d’ya think, sir?”
“Well, you’re too junior.”
“Oh, Jake,” Callie murmured. Toad flashed her a grin.
“Really, Callie, he is too junior. I don’t think they have any billets for lieutenants on the Joint Staff. It’s a very senior staff.”
“Then it needs some younger people,” she told her husband. “You make it sound like a retirement home, full of fuddy-duddies and senior golfers.”
“I am not a fuddy-duddy,” Jake Grafton told her archly.
“I know, dear. I didn’t mean to imply that you were.” She winked at Toad and he laughed.
The lieutenant rose from the couch, said his good-byes, and after promising to tell Rita the Graftons said hello, departed.
“Really, Jake,” Callie said, “you should see if he could transfer to the Joint Staff.”
“Be better for his career if he cut his shore tour short and went back to sea in an F-14 squadron.”
“Toad knows that. He just thinks very highly of you and wants to work nearby. That’s quite a compliment.”