Richard House - The Kills

Rem said he couldn’t believe it himself. Some things are beyond imagining.

Santo, seeing the conversation heading in a bad direction, pointed out the new manager. ‘Speaking of Chicago. He’s from your town.’

Rem looked across the commissary at the tall thin boy, still couldn’t place him, but doubted that they knew each other from Chicago. More robust than Fatboy: corn-fed and wholesome. ‘Looks lost.’

‘Talking of dumb-assed, you hear what KCP did to him yesterday?’

‘KCP?’

‘Transport. They hear this new guy is coming in from Southern-CIPA, which is right on the other side of Amrah. He’s here three hours and he has to go back for one last duty. This is a journey you can’t make without security, without armoured cars, guns, SWAT teams, nuclear devices. So he goes to Transport, places his request, says he has to get to CIPA, as soon as. They take a dislike to this guy, because, well, I don’t know, they just don’t like him. So they give him the brush-off and tell him to come back in an hour. So, he’s back in an hour, and the office is closed, and there’s a sign saying come back in another hour. These guys are just messing with him.’ Santo took in a deep breath. ‘An hour later he’s at the counter, and there’s a new sign saying “back in five”, only they aren’t back in five. So he calls them, tells them he has to be back at Southern-CIPA in two hours for a function. He’s supposed to be laying on the food for this function. Cutting sandwiches. Making coffee. He goes away. He comes back a third time. Still nobody there, this time the sign says, “vehicle in loading dock”. He goes to the loading dock and there’s nothing there except a fat-assed BFV. A tank. And just for good measure they’ve leant a bicycle against it with a dishwalla and one of those headscarf turbans. You know what he does?’

‘This already didn’t happen.’

‘You know what he does? He dresses up. He puts that shit on, he dresses like a fratboy heading to a hazing. He takes the bike, and he cycles all the way to Southern-CIPA.’

‘It’s not true.’

‘It’s true. Fact! Jalla Road. Ask him. Ask him how he got to the tea-party at Southern-CIPA yesterday. Ask him.’ Santo shook his head. ‘What is it with Chicago these days? Is there some kind of crazy in the water? I’m putting money on him for a kill.’

Rem looked across the room. The boy checked items on a clipboard. Something about the turn of his head, not directly down, but tilted, gave Rem the reference he couldn’t place. Nut. The boy looked like his dog.

* * *

Matt survived two strokes in his first week in hospital, and suffered a blood infection in the second, which temporarily turned his skin yellow, but responded immediately to treatment. He held on. This is what they told themselves: Cathy, Cissie, the attending medics. Matt was holding on with superhuman determination. The doctors ordered scans and tests, amazed that he demonstrated any brain function at all given the damage caused by his fall. They depended a good deal on the word instinct.

Cathy came to the hospital when she could, and kept in touch with Cissie by phone on the days she could not visit.

Cissie’s quiet unnerved her. She ran her day to a bare routine of arriving and departing, picked the same seat, sat in the same attentive poise, wrung her hands and waited. On the phone Cissie had nothing to say, and in her stillness Cathy saw a kind of madness.

The news that Matt had been transferred to Kansas City came as a relief.

* * *

The arrival of the Division Chief signalled another change in HOSCO: a potential reshuffle of directors and deputies assigned to the regions. No one could put a name or a face to the Division Chief for the Middle East, or could find such a man on the company website — that the position might be vacant meant little to the men of Unit 409 who were bothered only by the disruption that accompanied any such visit or site inspection. Since the assault on Jalla Road resentment had begun to grow and the Iraqi Ministry for Infrastructure and Sanitation had become more diligent. Permits for clearances and demolitions were stalled. Rem guessed that the delay depended on the right amount of money hitting the right person or the right clan before they would be able to continue with their work. This, he thought, would be the real motivation behind the visit. He doubted it had anything to do with Fatboy and substandard equipment.

Still, curious enough to show up, Rem accompanied Santo to the meeting.

* * *

The commissary was sectioned off with small rope barriers to mark out a rough rectangle. Men from the unit sat on either side of the tables interested in the boxes stacked alongside the vending machines. Two of the tables were marked with a ‘reserved’ sign.

The Division Chief arrived with a posse of bureaucrats: uniformly dressed in white shirts, chinos, buckskin boots.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Santo whispered, ‘would you look at that. The Banana Republic hive mind. They sleep in one big bed, swap clothes. Have interchangeable limbs. They have no genitals.’

Rem watched the group approach, the Division Chief concealed by the huddle, then, as the deputies spread out, revealed. Large in every sense, he wore a white linen suit and carried a light-blue handkerchief with which he mopped his forehead. Disproportionate, tall, and so overweight that walking appeared cumbersome. The man swung his arms, breathed through his mouth, had a sprightly edge, and seemed, at least to Rem, uncommonly alert.

Santo swore under his breath. A chuckle stirred through the unit, then the men fell unusually silent.

The Division Chief was introduced by the section head, Mark Summers, who appeared decorous beside the chief.

Santo complained that he hadn’t heard the Division Chief’s name, and the answer came back, whispered down the row: Mann, David Mann. Division Chief for Europe.

‘What happened to the last guy? The one for the Middle East?’ Santo asked in a voice that was not so quiet. ‘You think he ate him?’ The men looked back and considered the possibility.

Summers stood beside the boxes and began to speak. His shirt was wet at the armpits, his hair matted. The boxes contained new protective jackets.

‘These,’ he said, struggling out one of the black flak vests, ‘are what we’re offering all ground personnel. Gratis. You can take these now.’ He opened the vest, spoke about the new neck guards, the crotch-bib.

‘What did I tell you?’ Santo nudged Rem. ‘I must be psychic. They’ll take pictures now, and this goes in the company magazine. Gets sent to the newspapers.’

To Summers’ embarrassment the men stopped in their seats. Rem kept his eye on Mann and was surprised that he did not intervene, but appeared, instead, to study the men.

Summers, quieter, squeakier, said that the men could sign for the jackets at the PX. ‘One each,’ he said. ‘One.’

* * *

Rem hung around the visiting party as Summers and Mann were shown ‘the ovens’. He overheard Summers ask if he could see the men’s quarters, and the mistake stuck with Rem, not because of its irony, but for the lack of understanding. Neither Summers nor Mann had visited a live compound before. They couldn’t have. The accommodation was no different from HOSCO’s usual provision: inadequate for a combat zone. As European Division Chief, David Mann could be forgiven. Summers had just never left his office.

Rem followed with his arms folded.

* * *

That evening Rem found Paul Geezler in the commissary. Paul Geezler. In Iraq. Amrah City.

Rem picked a soda from self-service and stood at a distance. Geezler wore a blue shirt with HOSCO sewn in white along the right breast pocket, a plate of pasta-bake in front of him.