Whitney Terrell - The Good Lieutenant

“Personally, I think you’re making it a little more complicated than it needs to be, sir,” Fowler said, as neutrally as possible.

“Really? How’s that?”

“Everybody wants recognition,” Fowler said.

It hadn’t been completely unreasonable for Fowler not to pester Hartz about the party. After all, it seemed like she’d been invited. No one had said otherwise. And up until a month ago, Hartz had seemed like he’d started to pay a bit better attention to her. Nothing magic. Just a few of the old saws that Fowler had already heard in ROTC: “Don’t ask your men to do anything you wouldn’t do.” And, “Be the first one out of the foxhole and the last one in.” But they were, at least, a form of recognition, a suggestion that she might be someone worth giving advice to. Weighing against this was the incident with Masterson and the shackles, a disaster on every front, after which — paranoid coincidence or not — Hartz had restricted his communication down to a few bemused and possibly pitying glances cast her way. And then this morning had signed her up for staff duty again. Which she had been planning to discuss with him … well, right now seemed like a good fucking time. Hartz circled his desk and pulled on his coat.

“That’s what this party is ,” Hartz said. He was back at ease now and their talk had fallen into its usual comfortable banter — more intimate, Fowler liked to think, than he was with his other lieutenants. As if she were an equal or even possibly a friend. “Recognition for the wives. And the random townie girlfriends. You think the colonel wants to spend seventy dollars a head on dinner? Plus footing the bill for a bunch of junior officers who don’t know the difference between Old Style and champagne? And having tomorrow be a total wreck, with everybody hung over and not worth spit?”

“Sounds awful,” Fowler said.

Hartz was quick enough to catch her sarcasm — though not quite quick enough to determine its source. That realization formed more slowly, a speck of distant dark clouds that worried the ruddy plains of his forehead: Fowler has a beef. He tucked his wife’s dress box under his arm and waved the second package, which contained a shoulder wrap for Colonel Seacourt’s wife. “Steve’s gonna appreciate this,” he said. “I told him about your Eisenhower comment too. We both liked it.”

“Really? I thought you were kind of pissed.”

She could see, from a slight tightening in his smile, that he still was. “Maybe a little bit. In the moment. I don’t exactly like being corrected by one of my own soldiers in the middle of a lecture. So I’d say that while the content was fine, what you really need to work on, Lieutenant, is delivery .”

“Fair enough,” Fowler said. Given the mildly positive tone of the conversation, she made a quick judgment — risk of unpreparedness versus risk of embarrassment — and grabbed her dry-cleaned formal uniform as they headed down the hall.

“But I do agree with this idea of yours that a good officer doesn’t need to make a big stink about doing the right thing. You don’t need to be recognized. That’s why the colonel and I value the way you’ve handled this party.”

“How did I do that?”

“Well, for one, Wilson and Jaffrey”—these were the two other male lieutenants in Echo Company—“have been siccing their wives on Sarah for the past three months. Suggestive comments. Notes. ‘Do you want to go to lunch, Mrs. Hartz?’ ‘Anything I can pick up for you at Costco, Mrs. Hartz?’ ‘The one thing I’d really, really like, before Tom goes away, is to have one really nice evening out, Mrs. Hartz.’”

He dealt Fowler a shifty, sideways glance, inviting her to share his disbelief at these kinds of tactics. But all Fowler felt was a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Wives can do that?”

“Certain wives only do that,” Hartz assured her. “But not a word from you. Which, again, is something that I’ve communicated to the colonel and which he does appreciate. And I do too. You recognize that a party like this isn’t important. It’s not what we’re about. And you know, after this incident you had with Captain Masterson—”

So that was it, then: the missing shackles. The conflict she’d initiated with Masterson. Meaning if she’d just shut up then, she’d be going to the party. Or she could make a huge stink now and also go. But there were no reasonable options in between.

“A party like this is a social occasion,” Hartz continued. “It’s not a military maneuver. It’s a family event. We may not like what our brothers are doing at every possible moment. But brothers also don’t turn on brothers.”

“I think you mean ‘fraternity event,’” Fowler said.

“You been to many fraternity parties, Lieutenant?” Hartz asked.

“No,” Fowler admitted.

“Imagine Lieutenant Anderson, five bourbons into the night, trying to hump a farm girl from La Cygne. Or, if the farm girl’s already passed out, trying to hump you.”

“I’ve seen worse,” Fowler said.

“Like he cares,” Hartz said. “Besides, who would you bring?”

They were in the parking lot out back of the battalion headquarters now. This was the moment, right now, when she could’ve argued back. When she could’ve demanded that Hartz take her off staff duty and give one of his other lieutenants the assignment, no matter what their dumb wives said. Hartz had led her to this moment deliberately so that afterward she could have no complaint. It was six o’clock, already dark, the snow piled up in lonely humps in front of the parked cars, the blacktop glistening with the day’s melt, which would itself soon freeze. And she allowed the moment to pass.

“We can all reinvent ourselves, Lieutenant,” Hartz assured her as they reached his car and he handed her a package so he had a free hand to search his pockets for his keys.

After Hartz left, she sat in her pickup, dry-cleaned uniform on her knees, and then, as if she’d been shot with adrenaline, began hammering the steering wheel with her fist. What the fuck was that supposed to mean! Reinvent herself how? She’d done what Hartz wanted but the line sounded disappointed, as if she should’ve argued. Except he didn’t want her to argue, right? And why did she care what he wanted? She had a vision of herself standing at reveille wearing the dress that Hartz had purchased for his wife, a pair of pumps, and waving a kerchief and batting her eyes as the colonel walked by.

That lasted until she saw a small package on her dash, a little white square tied up with what looked like red insulated electrical wire. Inside was a blank CD with the words Listen to me written on it in red Sharpie.

“This better be good,” she said, and put it in, engendering a burst of heavy metal so loud that she pawed the volume, and then, to her surprise, Beale’s dopey voice came on over her speakers. “Lieutenant Fowler, this is your mission, should you choose to accept it. Please back up, exit the parking lot, and go right on McCormic Road. Beep! ”

“Oh, no,” she said, staring at herself in the rearview mirror. “No, no, no! You do not do what he says.” Then, to her CD player, she said, “Fuck off, Beale. I’m busy!”

But she was not busy. And there had been some obvious effort made to have the recording work like a real GPS, the words timed out as if someone had actually driven the route. So after she sat alone for a few minutes, listening to the trickling dregs of the parking-lot snow, she heard another beep. Right on Huebner Road , Beale said.

“All right, screw it,” she said, and jammed her truck in reverse.