Read Online Rag and Bone by James R. Benn - Free Book Online Page B

the day today, and not speak to anyone, not even me, tomorrow.”
    “It’s amazing he got this far.”
    “I don’t know if he can survive,” Kaz said as we walked through Kensington Gardens. Fog shrouded the Round Pond,the damp creeping into my bones. I picked up the pace as best I could, the throb in my head keeping beat with my steps.
    “Was he wounded?” I asked, but I didn’t think Kaz was talking about a physical injury.
    “He tried to kill himself last week. He kept a knife from his dinner tray and had it to his throat when I came into his room.”
    “How did you stop him?”
    “I told him someone very important was going to come and listen to what he had to say, and that he had to remain alive to tell what he had seen.”
    “You don’t mean—”
    “Yes, Billy. He took the knife from his throat in order to tell you his story.”
    I didn’t like it. I didn’t like anyone putting off death just to meet me. I was bound to be a letdown. I didn’t like keeping a secret from Kaz, and I didn’t like being suspicious of him. I didn’t like how I knew I wasn’t going to tell a soul at Scotland Yard about Kaz and his pocket automatic, and I didn’t want to be responsible for carrying a Polish cause to Uncle Ike’s doorstep. I sure as hell didn’t like my head pounding and my stomach feeling like a rat had curled up and died in it. I felt cold sweat at the small of my back, my face went prickly, and I went to my knees, bowing to the pond, heaving coffee-flavored bile on the royal grass, as my head spun from the effect of last night’s alcohol and today’s guilt.
    I felt Kaz’s hand on my back, patting it like you’d do with a crying baby. He helped me up as soon as I was sure I had nothing left to give, and steadied me as we walked, slowly now, around the pond, past the statue of Peter Pan that seemed oddly out of place and still timeless, in the midst of London at war.
    “Do you feel better, Billy?” Kaz asked.
    I didn’t, and I wanted to come clean with him, but a small voice whispered inside my head, telling me he was a suspect. I argued with the small voice, and finally we agreed he was a potential suspect, which was something different, but it still meant I should play my cards facedown.
    “Yeah, I’m fine. Keep me away from vodka for a while, OK?”
    “OK, Billy.”
    We walked through the clearing mist, a cold breeze blowing at our backs. The sky revealed itself, sullen and gray, heavy with the promise of rain. I liked being with Kaz in these early hours, even with a hangover, even with my doubts. He was a friend, someone I could count on to back me up, no questions asked. I silently vowed to do the same for him, until whatever was between us became too powerful for anything I did to matter.
    A POT OF coffee, a bath, and a couple of hours later I was at Norfolk House, trying not to think about vodka and half-mad Poles. I needed a jeep and a map to get me to High Wycombe, where the Eighth Air Force was headquartered. Someone there should know what Soviet Air Force officers were doing in London. I asked at the duty officer’s desk where the chief of staff’s office was.
    “I’d stay away from there if I was you, Lieutenant,” the sergeant at the desk said after giving me directions. “That new guy, Eisenhower’s chief of staff, he got here yesterday, and no one’s come out of there with a smile on his face.”
    “That’s Beetle for you,” I said. General Walter Bedell Smith, known as Beetle, was Uncle Ike’s man through and through. No-nonsense, a face like a bulldog, and a personality to match. He didn’t have much patience for those who didn’t pull their weight and then some. Actually, he didn’t have a drop of patience in his body, which is why I tried to steer clear of him at all times.
    I made my way up the stairs and down a long hallway, while the sounds of typewriters and teletypes echoed against the black-and-white tiles. Clerks, secretaries, and junior officers scurried