The Gunslinger shook a bony finger at Threets. “But he’s lying!”
Ernie elbowed me. I turned to see three black soldiers standing in the entranceway. Two of them I recognized. The same guys Ernie had talked to and shared a reefer with behind the Charley Battery motor pool up at Camp Pelham.
“Who you calling a liar?” one of them shouted. His name tag said Burlington and his rank was corporal. He stepped into the room and his two buddies followed. “My man Threets be innocent!” he shouted. “That guy,” he continued, pointing at Orgwell, “laid hands on him. He laid hands on the brother!”
By now everyone was shouting. The Gunslinger stepped toward them, ordering the three young men out of the courtroom. Involuntarily, his left hand reached for the hilt of one of his pearl-handled revolvers. The black GIs surged forward, bypassing the old general, reaching Threets and greeting him with fists tapping on fists. The Gunslinger’s aide tried to pull him back, away from the men. The presiding judge kept banging on his gavel, shouting at the MPs to clear the courtroom, and finally they reacted-not approaching the skinny old man with the revolvers, but the three young black men surrounding Threets. When the first MP grabbed the closest man, he resisted. Punches were thrown, and by now the Gunslinger had pushed his aide away and actually pulled one of the pistols out and waved it in the air. The MPs unsheathed their batons and started swinging. The black soldiers fought back.
Ernie and I were still seated, Ernie grinning ear to ear.
“We have to stop this,” I said.
“Can’t I enjoy it for just a little longer?”
“The Gunslinger’s about to shoot somebody.”
“Wouldn’t that be a hoot?”
We rose to our feet, but at the same moment, a squad of MP reinforcements bulled their way into the room. Batons swung everywhere, men shouted, and the Gunslinger fired a round into the air. I stepped toward him and held his wrist, making sure his pearl-handled revolver kept pointing at the ceiling.
“Let go of me, dammit!” he shouted.
“When you put the gun away,” I said.
Reluctantly, he lowered his hand and shoved the pistol back in its holster. “I’ll get you, Sween-o.”
The MPs left him alone as he and his aide stalked out the main entrance. The three Division soldiers who’d come to support Threets were handcuffed and thrown into the back of a quarter-ton truck. Threets was thrown in with them, along with Lieutenant Conroy.
“He’s the defense counsel,” I told one of the MPs.
He shrugged. “Colonel’s orders.”
The presiding judge glared at us, apparently wondering if he should have us arrested too. Fortunately, he didn’t give the order.
– 12-
Back in the CID office, Riley said, “What in the hell did you guys do?”
“We didn’t do nothing,” Ernie told him.
“But there was a riot at the courtroom and shots were fired. You must’ve had something to do with it.”
“Just innocent bystanders,” Ernie told him. He stalked to the overheated coffee urn and poured himself a cup of burnt ink.
I asked Riley, “Where’s the NAF inventory report?”
“The one Burrows and Slabem did?”
“Yes,” I said, “the one they won an award for.”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Not your business,” I replied. “Where is it?”
“Already filed,” he said.
“In the records room?”
“Where else?”
I stalked out of the admin office and down the hallway. At a room marked records, I entered and switched on the light. It took a few minutes of searching, but eventually I pulled out the report and plopped the thick document down on a grey table. I sat down and pulled out my notebook and a pen. It was dry, all written in officialese with plenty of graphs and charts and dozens of pages of addendums, but despite these drawbacks, it made for interesting reading.
Someone rapped on the door. Without waiting, Ernie entered.
“What the hell you doing in here?”
I told him.
“And?”
“And nothing. But some of these charts raise questions.”
“Like what?”
“Just a few possible discrepancies. Let’s go talk to somebody.”
“Where?”
“The Eighth Army Comptroller’s Office.”
Ernie groaned.
“Don’t worry,” I told him, “it should be fun.”
The head of the Non-Appropriated Fund section of the 8th Army Comptroller’s Office was a Department of the Army Civilian by the imposing name of Wilbur M. Robinson Sr. He was a round-faced man with wispy hair combed straight back and an old-fashioned, neatly trimmed mustache beneath a red-veined nose. Every letter of his name was etched into a yard-wide hand-carved nameplate that covered the front edge of his mahogany desk.
“Yes?” he said, glancing irritably up at us over steel-rimmed glasses.
I flashed my badge. Ernie chomped on his gum, studying all the awards and photographs plastered to the walls. Some of them showed a youngish Mr. Robinson shaking hands and grinning with various American generals who could now be found in the indices of history books.
“Who let you in?” he asked.
“We did,” Ernie replied, jamming his thumb into his chest.
“Who do you think you are?”
“CID agents,” I replied, “investigating a criminal case.”
“That doesn’t mean you can just barge in here.”
“Sure it does,” Ernie replied, taking a seat in one of the leather-upholstered chairs.
Mr. Robinson reached for the black telephone on the edge of his desk. Before he could lift it, I said, “The Central Locker Fund.” He stared up at me and let go of the phone. I slid one of Burrows and Slabem’s charts in front of him. “Notice anything odd about that?” I asked.
He glanced at it but quickly looked back up at me.
“What are you getting at?”
“Expenditures versus receipt of inventory,” I said. “They don’t match. Haven’t for years.”
“Ridiculous.”
I pointed at one of the lines. “The prices here are approximately three percent higher than expected,” I said. “Have been for years.”
“Prices fluctuate,” he said. “You can’t tell anything from a simple-minded chart.”
“Simple-minded like the guys who conducted the inventory?” Ernie said.
Robinson turned and studied him. Then he turned back to me. “You’re not here on official business, are you?”
“Official as the day is long,” I said.
“But nobody in your chain of command chopped off on this.”
Chopped off. The slang of an old Asia hand, meaning gave the stamp of approval.
“Answer the question, Robinson,” Ernie said. “Why are the Central Locker Fund expenditures higher than the receipt of inventory?”
Robinson stood. He wore what appeared to be an expensive grey suit, probably handcrafted by a British tailor in Hong Kong. DACs could afford regular rest-and-recreation jaunts to Hong Kong or Tokyo. GIs couldn’t.
“This interview is over,” he said.
“No, it’s not,” Ernie replied.
Robinson lifted the phone again, and this time he dialed. A few seconds later, he said, “Fred, I’ve got a couple of your boys over here.”
He was speaking, I believed, to Major General Frederick S. Nettles, acting Chief of Staff of the 8th United States Army.
I motioned to Ernie, and discreetly, and expeditiously, we left the room.
“What the hell did that accomplish?” Ernie asked me once we were out in the hallway.
“Built a fire under their butts,” I said.
“Maybe one that will spread to us.”
“Maybe. Or maybe it’ll flush out a few snakes.”
Before we left, we wandered down a hallway that led to the Non-Appropriated Fund Records Repository. Bored Korean clerks sat at desks with piles of pink and yellow onionskin in their in-baskets. We walked past them and entered the huge Quonset hut where the records were actually kept. Rows of metal stanchions supported wooden shelves that were labeled with dates and the type of merchandise being recorded. On the shelves, labeled cardboard boxes stuffed with records were piled almost to the ceiling. We wandered around the long rows, craning our necks skyward.