“No, when your gold-plated invitation arrives,” the other guy said.
The authorities there were just as witty in Budapest as they were in Philly.
“Hold up.”
Brutus considered putting the pistol back together first but decided to forget it. He grabbed his wallet from his desk and followed the M.P.s out, pulling the door locked behind him. A dozen minor infractions of protocol committed over the past few days came to mind, none of which warranted a personal summons from Sullivan.
Brutus refused to be the first to speak. He allowed the cops to feel that they had adequately established their authority. Unfortunately, they weren’t just fronting — he really was more or less at their mercy. There were all kinds of stories about out-of-uniform soldiers dragging men from their rooms, taking them behind the latrines, and treating them like Rodney King for a day. Brutus wasn’t about to make the first move.
Sullivan’s office was over in the executive suite of newer buildings on the western edge of the camp. Brutus’s sometime-girlfriend, a civilian named Magda, occasionally worked there as an interpreter. She spent most of her time in the restricted area, and wouldn’t talk about what went on there. He couldn’t even bring up the topic. The cops directed him into the back of a Humvee, which slid on the ice around the turns. Other soldiers watched without surprise as the three of them passed. Brutus read their eyes: he had had this coming for a long time.
Lieutenant Colonel Sullivan sat smiling behind his desk. Brutus had never even spoken to him, other than “yes” and “sir.” This ought to be good, he thought. He saluted and stood at attention. “Private First Class Jonathan Gibson reporting as ordered, sir.”
Up close, Sullivan appeared cross-eyed; he had the lazy eye of a sniper who had spent too many hours staring down the scope of a rifle either out in the field or from the roof of an embassy someplace. His bright green eyes glowed in violent contrast to the taut, ruddy complexion of his skin. A framed blueprint of a small military bridge occupied the entire wall behind him. Sullivan had overseen its reconstruction over a river in Serbia and was awarded a commendation from the highest echelons of SFOR. Young for a man of his rank, he had a reputation as a cunning, brutal officer. He was the biggest ballbreaker on the continent. It was said that his assignment to Hungary was a form of punishment, or possibly even exile. A soldier in his command had once died under allegedly crooked circumstances. Brutus had to stay sharp. Smile and nod.
“At ease,” Sullivan said. “Relax, Brutus.” His voice was calming in an authoritative way, kind of like how they portrayed Satan’s in old movies. Brutus remained standing. Sullivan saw the surprise on his face. “You don’t mind if I call you Brutus, do you?”
“No, sir.”
Sullivan dismissed the soldiers. He had a large manila envelope on the desk. The words PFC GIBSON JONATHAN and PHILADELPHIA, PENNA. were typed on a white label.
“Do you know why you’re here?”
“No, sir.” A million possibilities ran through his mind. They probably knew about Magda. Relations with the civilian population had been forbidden since another G.I. got convicted of rape in Japan some months earlier and set off a diplomatic shitstorm. Word had it that parents in Okinawa, probably in Hungary too, were trying to cash in on the American occupation by sending their daughters out to fuck soldiers and then yell rape. Uncle Sam was known to throw a lot of money around to keep the stories out of the papers. At Taszár, the authorities didn’t care if a G.I. poked another Hungarian honey, not until they needed an excuse to climb up his ass.
Sullivan slid the envelope across the desk. Brutus became aware not only of his own nervousness but also how much Sullivan relished that nervousness. He bathed in it, took strength from it. He was probably stroking a hard-on under his desk. He looked like a snake about to lunge at a rat. A thought ran through Brutus’s mind: a snake without poison is still a snake. He couldn’t remember where he’d heard that. Maybe from his buddy Elvin. He opened the envelope, which was empty except for a single eight-by-ten photo.
“Look at the photograph, Private.”
It was black-and-white and extremely grainy, with a spooky, timeless quality. It could have been taken twenty minutes or twenty years earlier: a hard-core shot of two men, one black and one white, engaging in anal sex. From the angle and quality of the print, he couldn’t make out either of their faces. The black man was getting fucked up the ass, and Brutus knew what was going to happen next.
“What’s the matter, Brutus? That is you, isn’t it? That nigger faggot, I mean.” All the softness left his voice. A thin smile crept across his face.
“No, sir.”
“Do you always catch, Brutus? Don’t you get the urge to pitch once in a while?” Sullivan stopped smiling. “Listen to me. This is you in the photograph. Do you understand?”
“Sir, I—”
“Do. You. Under. Stand?”
Brutus looked deep into Sullivan’s face and saw nothing at all he could work with. His mind raced. A snake without poison is still a snake. It wasn’t him in the photo, of course, but that would be his word against Sullivan’s. How many men had Sullivan pulled this on? How many different people had been in that picture? Did he have another version with the roles reversed in the unlikely case that he wanted to blackmail a white dude? A Latino? Sullivan was setting him up. Blackmail — the word rolled over and over through his mind. He entertained the idea that the white guy in the photo was Sullivan.
“Yes, sir. I understand.”
Brutus did understand. For the first time in his army career, he knew exactly what was happening to him. He was being set up, made into an example at Taszár and at every post Sullivan would have for the remainder of his career.
“You see that it’s you in the photograph?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It pleases me to know you’re as smart as our best testing demonstrates. So you understand that you have officially entered into a world of shit? So to speak.”
“Very much so, sir.”
“And, Private, that I alone can get you out of it?”
“I pretty much guessed that too, sir. And if I’m not mistaken you’re going to make me some kind of deal.” Brutus sidestepped the usual formalities, testing his limits. He wished he had his pistol with him, but didn’t know what he would do with it. Better this way.
“You’re perceptive, Private. But this is not the time to discuss such matters. For now, let’s just say that you are going to help me with something. When you’re finished, you get to keep this photograph as a souvenir. Fuck with me, and this is going on the front page of Stars and Stripes. You get where I’m coming from?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You won’t end up in some cushy, American prison. Oh no. It would please me very much to visit you in the filthiest cell this whole stinking country has to offer, and I will blow you sweet kisses while you’re bent over in front of some skinhead mother killers far meaner than the featherweight in this picture. Dismissed, Private.”
Brutus saluted and turned to leave.
“Oh, one more thing before you go, Private. With a name like Brutus, I assume you’ve read Julius Caesar?”
“Yes, sir. Several times, sir.” He even had “Et tu Brute” tattooed on his left bicep.
“Well. A nigger who reads Shakespeare is like the one monkey out of a thousand that gets lucky at a typewriter and writes a sonnet. That makes you one lucky monkey, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So when I tell you to beware the ides of March, you know you better fucking listen, right?”
“Yes, sir.” Brutus couldn’t stand the sound of his own voice: yessuh, yessuh, yessuh. “But it wasn’t Brutus, sir.”