Then it clicked home, as such things usually did if you didn't push too hard. It was the rug. What he thought of as his Not Lindsay rug.
About five feet long and two wide, Not Lindsay was a repeating diamond pattern in blue, red, white, and brown. He had bought it in Baghdad, but had been assured by an Iraqi policeman he trusted that it was of Kurdish manufacture. 'Very old, very beautiful,' the policeman had said. His name was Latif abd al-Khaliq Hassan. A good troop. 'Look Turkey, but no-no-no.' Big grin. White teeth. A week after that day in the marketplace, a sniper's bullet had blown Latif abd al-Khaliq Hassan's brains right out through the back of his head. 'Not Turkey, Iraqi!'
The rug-merchant wore a yellow tee-shirt that had said DON'T SHOOT ME, I'M ONLY THE PIANO PLAYER. Latif listened to him,; nodding. They laughed together. Then the merchant had made a startlingly American jackofF gesture and they laughed even harder.
'What was that about?' Barbie had asked.
'He says American senator bought five like these. Lindsay Graham. Fivei rug, five hundred dollar. Five hundred out front, for press. More on the down-low. But all senator rug fake. Yes-yes-yes. This one not fake, this one real. I, Latif Hassan, tell you this, Barbie. Not Lindsay Graham rug.'
Latif had raised his hand and Barbie slapped him five. That had been a good day. Hot, but good. He had bought the rug for two hundred dollars American and an all-territories Coby DVD player. Not Lindsay was his one souvenir of Iraq, and he never stepped on it. He always stepped around it. He had planned to leave it behind when he left The Mill - he supposed down deep his idea had been to leave Iraq behind when he left The Mill, but fat chance of that. Wherever you went, there you were. The great Zen truth of the age.
He hadn't stepped on it, he was superstitious about that, he always detoured around it, as if to step on it would activate some computer in Washington and he would find himself back in Baghdad or f**king Fallujah.But somebody had, because Not Lindsay was mussed. Wrinkled. And a little crooked. It had been perfectly straight when he left this morning, a thousand years ago.
He went into the bedroom. The coverlet was as neat as always, but that sense that someone had been here was equally strong. Was it a lingering smell of sweat? Some psychic vibe? Barbie didn't know and didn't care. He went to his dresser, opened the top drawer, and saw that the pair of extra-faded jeans which had been on top of the pile was now on the bottom. And his khaki shorts, which he'd laid in with the zippers up, were now zippers-down.
He went immediately to the second drawer, and the socks. It took less than five seconds to verify that his dog tags were gone, and he wasn't surprised. No, not surprised at all.
He grabbed the disposable cell he had also been planning to leave behind and went back into the main room. The combined Tarker's-Chester's telephone directory was sitting on a table by the door, a book so skinny it was almost a pamphlet. He looked for the number he wanted, not really expecting it to be there; Chiefs of Police did not make a practice of listing their home phone numbers.
Except, it seemed, in small towns, they did. At least this one had, although the listing was discreet: H and B Perkins 28 Morin Street. Even though it was now past midnight, Barbie punched in the number without hesitation. He couldn't afford to wait. He had an idea that time might be extremely short.
4
Her phone was tweeting. Howie, no doubt, calling to tell her he was going to be late, to just lock up the house and go to bed -
Then it came down on her again, like unpleasant presents raining from a poison pihata: the realization that Howie was dead. She didn't know who could be calling her at - she checked her watch - twenty past midnight, but it wasn't Howie.
She winced as she sat up, rubbing her neck, cursing herself for falling asleep on the couch, also cursing whoever had wakened her at such an ungodly hour and refreshed her recollection of her strange new singularity.
Then it occurred to her that there could be only one reason for such a late call: the Dome was either gone or had been breached. She bumped her leg on the coffee table hard enough to make the papers there rattle, then limped to the phone beside Howie's chair (how it hurt her to look at that empty chair) and snatched it up. 'What? What?'
'It's Dale Barbara.'
'Barbie! Has it broken? Has the Dome broken?'
'No. I wish that's why I was calling, but it's not.'
'Then why} It's almost twelve-thirty in the morning!'
'You said your husband was investigating Jim Rennie.'
Brenda paused, getting the sense of this. She had put her palm against the side of her throat, the place where Howie had caressed her for the last time. 'He was, but I told you, he had no absolute - '
T remember what you said,' Barbie told her. 'You need to listen to mi, Brenda. Can you do that? Are you awake?'
'I am now.'
'Your husband had notes?'
'Yes. On his laptop. I printed them.' She was looking at the VADER file, spread out on the coffee table.
'Good. Tomorrow morning, I want you to put the printout in an envelope and take it to Julia Shumway. Tell her to put it in a safe place. An actual safe, if she's got: one. A cash strongbox or a locked file cabinet, if she doesn't. Tell her she's only to open it if something happens to you or me or both of us."
'You're scaring me.'
'She is not to open it otherwise. If you tell her that, will she do it? My instincts say she will.'
'Of course she will, but why not let her look?'
'Because if the editor of the local paper sees what your husband had on Big Jim and Big; Jim knows she's seen it, most of the leverage we have will be gone. Do you follow that?'
'Ye-es...' She found herself wishing desperately that Howie were; the one having this post-midnight conversation.
'I said I might be arrested today if the missile strike didn't work. Do you remember me telling you that?'