Honor and Duty (44 page)

“Yes, sir,” I said, my voice weak, my will uncertain.

“Like fence-sitting? Like that fence up your butt more than you hate cheaters? Don’t tell me that! You’re going to help me find, fix, and frappé Big Dick before he spits in our soup.”

“What do you want me to do, sir?” I asked.

“Good man! First—”

“Sir, I’m sorry. But I’m not sure if I want to help you on this. I just wanted to know what it involved.” Honor required me to come clean. “I want to know how much profile there is in this.”

He took a deep breath, then blew it out. I shivered a little inside from his building anger.

“How old are you?” he asked.

“Twenty, sir.”

“Time to be older. Time to be a company commander, responsible for the lives and deaths of others, not a Cow squad leader with eight little kids who sweat poop, meals, tenths, sports, brace palsy, constipation, and sleep. Major Noll says you’re his best squad leader. Fine. That’s mouseshit. Time to be a man. To figure out the meaning of
duty.
Who gives a crap about ‘profile’? What are you, a careerist in the making?

“Ting, someone’s screwing with West Point. That’s not as bad as screwing with God or trying to kill the President, but it’s still major-league cheap.”

He stood up. “Maybe you haven’t heard. We have the Code, which I promise you does not exist anywhere else in the world. BY GOD, I’LL NOT HAVE ANY JOKER COME INTO MY SECTION AND DICK IT UP!” He kicked his chair, which bounced off the desk, making the goosenecked lamp collapse and books fall like dominoes on my hat while the chair tipped and crashed to the floor. Maher paced in a tight circle, a panther confined, tortured, by the anonymity of Big Dick. The casters on the upended chair continued to spin. Did all my profs become angry in my presence? What was it
about me that inspired them to shout at me? Was it my face? Was I frowning?

He stopped in front of me. I was almost crouched in my chair, my body torn between congratulating him and shaking his hand and jumping through his window into the icy river. He sighed.

“You guys give up so much—women and wine and song at the height of your youth—giving up everything so you can serve in a war where your own country’s a bigger pain in the ass than the enemy. You get four years of college in your first three years. You put out too much to allow this thing—this piracy—this
bullshit
—to go on in your face. I’m going to stop it. I just want to do it smart. You
want
this kind of crap happening here?” he demanded.

“No, sir.”

“I’ve got three guys who gave identical answers on every writ I gave last week. My writ file’s been moved inside my own cabinet. After I changed a question on the last writ, I still got the approved solution for the original problem.

“I’d can their butts right now, but they’re not the problem. They wouldn’t break in here. Someone else did. Someone smart enough to hive the answers once they knew the questions. The jokers in the section’d still flunk if they knew the questions. I know you guys are scared shitless of being kicked out, scared of facing your dads and telling them you couldn’t finish after making it this far. But humans don’t get to be West Pointers. Ony
honorable
humans.

“You want the ring, to graduate and throw the hat, right?”

“Roger that, sir,” I said with a thin voice. I saw my father, not as I had seen him last but in his Chinese Army uniform with a high collar like mine, Sam Browne belt strapped across his chest, rigidly upright, shoulders squared, his hard face resolute, showing no pain. What would he do? Could he turn in a comrade?

I saw Uncle Shim. I heard him say, subdue the self, and honor the rituals and proprieties. I breathed deeply; he’d turn them in. And I had made a promise to him in a eucalyptus grove.

“We got a joker in our ranks who’s working for all the ass-wrongs in the world. He won’t throw himself on a grenade to save his men. This guy’d throw a rifleman on the grenade and then write
himself
up for the Medal of Honor and let people buy him drinks.

“You know how that feels or you don’t. It’s the difference between being alive and just going through the motions. Feel bad, thinking about a classmate screwing the system?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. That’s duty! Working against your classmates—hell, I know it’s hard. Listen up: Big Dick is
not
your classmate. He has no classmates. He gave you guys up. He’s the wolf in the coop, taking victims in the night. And he’s eatin’ it up.

“Want to stop him?” His eyes burned into mine.

“You have options. You can help me. You can fight me. You can tell your classmates in the section that the P has figured their game and they’d better stack arms and fold their tents.”

He walked around his chair to look out the window. “Doesn’t matter. I’m going to get them. The ones who shot themselves in the foot, they’re going to face themselves. The Code’s going to get another test, and it’s going to sort this one out. That’s what
I’m
talking about, and you can write that in your book.”

“Sir, why not ask them who’s supplying their answers?”

“They’re organized, Ting. They won’t tell me. See, they’ve suspended West Point. They’re doing something else, something very bad, something from a bad dream. So I blow the whistle, have three guys found on Honor—with Big Dick laughing in the middle of my bedtime prayer. By
God
I want him! This place is for men who feel allegiance to something—not just college jocks and surfers! This guy’s shitting in our water supply!”

“How much time do I have to think this over?”

“Take your time.” He shrugged his shoulders and made a Maurice Chevalier face of resignation, with an extravagantly cinematic French accent. “West Point, she iss burning down; weedow and orphans, zey are on ze fire. Voilà—you have a fire hose. No problem, m’sieu; I can afford to give you …” He looked at his watch. “Five minutes.”

“How about one day, sir?”

He exhaled loudly. “Okay, it’s hard. Think it over during Christmas leave.”

Maher extracted my crushed cap from the litter on his desk and passed it to me. He righted his chair and sat in it, heavily. He rubbed his face again. I figured if I remained in his company for long, he wouldn’t have any features left.

He removed a notepad from his shirt. He wrote on it, then held it up for me to read. I squinted: OPERATION
BENEDICT ARNOLD, followed by the names of three sectionmates. The cheaters. My heart sank. He ripped off the sheet, tore it up, then popped a Zippo and burned the shreds in an old metal ashtray.

“No op order for you; no privacy in barracks. I don’t want a paper trail that could alert the ene—the cheats. So it’s you and me, babes, plus any no-goat buddies you trust, to call in for paragraph 1-b, Friendly Forces.

Clint and Bob were goats, leaving me Mike, Sonny, Arch, Deke, Pee Wee, and Curve Wrecker, with Rocket Scientist, Hawk Latimer, and Spoon in reserve. I felt better.

“Go slow,” he said grimly. “Been studying collegiate cheating rings. They begin fraternally. They end in extortion and violence. Here, brilliantly, we’ve trained the cheaters to kill. You a killer, Kai Ting?”

I took a breath. “I’ve caused others to die,” I said.

27

Southampton, Long Island, December 19, 1966

“Follow me, sir,” said Seff, the driver. I stepped through the lightly falling snow to the colonnaded portico.

“Good afternoon and Merry Christmas, sir,” said a large butler at the great entrance. “I am Watkins. May I take your bag?”

“No, thank you,” I said. Seff and Watkins wore Academy colors—black suits, gold buttons, gray faces. They were Caucasian, middle-aged, and, but for a vague disapproval, inscrutable. I probably earned a fourth of Seff’s income, but I wore my uniform better; his alignment was off, his shoes were scuffed, his salt-and-pepper hair touched his ears. Five demerits, I thought, worried about what I was seeing. The plush Lincoln Continental limo, the gloved chauffeur, the bruising butler, the size of the mansion, the diameter of the columns,
suggested architecture by Frank Lloyd Wright and funding by Fort Knox.

From the door came the English hymn adapted from Beethoven’s Ninth, “Ode to Joy,” which offset the crash of the chilling surf beyond the house.

The entryway led to a cinematically grand, white staircase with a broad, black bannister. Above was a large skylight that might have been a trapdoor to heaven. It was bordered with small, brilliant lights which cheered the wintery morning. The compacted clutter of oversized red vases, turquoise pottery, tall, blooming greenery, and a series of broad teak display tables covered with illuminated objets d’art defeated the openness of the stairs and the skylight. I smelled tea. Beethoven came from all directions. To the left was a large sitting room occupied by more expensive collectibles; to the right was a long, black wainscoted hallway leading to a great library; to my front was the butler Watkins, patient with my circumnavigating, pop-eyed gawk.

“Just like home,” I said.

He left me in a sitting room. A snarling, green-splashed, white glazed lion confronted me with its fangs and I bared my teeth at it, saying “Arr!” I was surrounded by a profusion of large, museum-quality Asian art. A fire burned quietly in a magnificent stone fireplace. I heard footfalls and put down my bag.

“Hello, Ding Kai, and welcome to Long Island. You look devilishly handsome out of uniform. ‘Civvies,’ right?” She approached with a warm smile and dazzling teeth, offering both hands. I took both. I loved her voice, full of energy, ripe with sharp intelligence, laced with hidden meanings I hoped someday to understand.

“Hi. What do I do with your hands?”

“Exactly what you’re doing, but now you have to give them back. I’m so glad you came. Was the drive tolerable? Seff is so taciturn.” She wore a white linen shirt under a blue cashmere sweater, with old but snug jeans and open-toed sandals. She looked so sensational I felt completely stupid.

“You look great,” I said, proud of my understatement.

“Did you bring them?” she whispered.

I nodded. She took my hand and led me quickly through the entryway past a dining room fit for half the Corps Squads, past the gaze of a Chinese maid with raised eyebrows, and an older Chinese woman whose eyebrows were flat with the unrelenting
judgment of a stern parent. I wanted to adjust my glasses. Pearl said nothing and we passed a dark, object-filled study that was as European as the sitting room was Asian. We entered a large, white sunroom with red upholstered lacquer chairs. It was simple and uncluttered.

“My favorite place,” she said, looking out the great windows. “It’s the sea, motioning to me.” The ocean was angry, whitecapped, and silent. This sea touched Europe, not Asia. Beyond the windows was a great snow-covered lawn, and maples that in summer would shade mountains.

“Who were they?” I asked, motioning toward the hallway.

“The older woman is Zee
taitai
, my maid.” She looked at me. “She was my wet nurse, and has been with me all my life.” Pearl smiled hollowly. “She is very protective. It takes all my skill to go to the Waldorf, or visit you at West Point, without her.”

She sat down, licking her lips. I opened my Academy overnight bag and gave her the slightly aromatic, tinfoiled package.

She opened it and sighed. “May I?” she pleaded, almost squealing when she bit into the hot dog, drawing my admiration as she deftly combined Chinese enthusiasm with Emily Post delicacy. I had gotten six Coney Island red hots at the Port Authority.

“Ding Kai, come stay with us for Christmas,” she had said to me on the phone. “My father wants to meet you. You’ll have the best Chinese food in the world. Please do not bring gifts—Father is not Christian. But there is something I want you to get for me. I’m
dying
for red hots. My maid bought them for me at Coney Island when I was a girl, sad that I would make such big noises while eating
gwailo
food. Ding Kai, I eat the best Chinese and French cuisine available, but I can’t get hot dogs.”

Mrs. Zee entered with a tray of hot tea with crumpets and creamer, English style. She frowned elegantly at the hot dog wrappers, gathering them with surprising violence. She looked at me through the corners of her eyes, reminding me of the pretended indifference of a giant monitor lizard at the zoo as it closed in on dinner.

“Syesyeni, taitai,”
thank you, I said, showing off.

“Bu k’e-chi,”
she replied, looking at Pearl. She left with stately speed. We drank without the cream, watching the cold waves.

“Best if you call her ‘Ah Wang,’ her first name,” said Pearl.

“Her husband, who left her when she was a child bride, was Lao Zee.” Old Zee. “If I addressed her with the honorific,
taitai
, I could never have accepted her services.
Taitai
is for equals. You must address her correctly.”

I listened without blinking.

“This is the summer home. The Lims, our cooks, are not fashionable in our Manhattan place, and easier to hide here. Someday, I hope, the Lims can be accepted in the brownstone.”