"Sorry, no. Maybe after sentencing."
"That'll do me so much good," Valentine said.
"You're frustrated. I understand. Go back to your room and think it over. Sime's offer is our only hope."
"Our? You're not going to be standing in the Garage with a rope around your neck by the end of the week."
She crushed her cigarette. "You think I don't feel for the people I defend? It's a rotten world. A lot of the men who wind up here just got an extra spoonful of rottenness. Maybe they were born with it, or maybe it got fed to them in little mouthfuls over their lives. In either case, I do what I can for them."
Valentine put his head in his hands. Keep it together, Ghost. "I'm sorry. You've done more for me than I should expect, considering."
"If it makes you feel any better, Val, I did turn up one thing. I couldn't see much of it, but Southern Command did investigate Martinez. There's some kind of intelligence file that I saw cross-referenced in the docs. Whatever they were looking into came up negative, so the file got sealed. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"
"All I know is he shot two of my complement. And that he kept a few thousand men drunk and hiding in the hills when Southern Command needed them."
"We'll talk tomorrow morning. It looks like your trial is going to be on Thursday."
Two days.
"Thank you, Captain. You should eat-you don't look so good."
She pulled out a cigarette. "I'm paving my own trip to the Garage with these. See you in sixteen hours."
* * * *
Valentine spent the next day in a kind of weary anxiety. They would try Roderick in the morning-he was not going to contest the proceedings, so it would go quickly-and then Valentine's trial would begin in the afternoon. He tried to write letters and found himself unable to find words, went through the motions of his job rebinding books at the prison library in a funk, unable to finish anything. He and Luecke met again, but found they had little to say to each other. She simply asked if he'd take Sime's deal. He shrugged and said that he hadn't made up his mind yet, and she said she had the statement for the tribunal ready if he did decide to plead guilty.
Valentine believed any speech she might make would be scrimshaw on a casket. What would happen to him would happen regardless. The only words that would count would be those that would place him in prison, or send him to the Garage.
The hours slipped away until sundown, and the prison slowly bled off the heat it had soaked in during the day. Valentine lay in his cot, arms and legs thrown wide to allow the perspiration to disperse.
There was a knock at the door and Valentine heard keys rattle.
"Room search," Young said.
Valentine knew the routine. They took him to a holding cell- this one had real bars-while two guards searched his room. The process usually took a half hour or so.
This time it took an hour. Were they worried he'd constructed some kind of weapon to use in court?
When they returned him to his cell Valentine noticed the usual cart outside, piled with his linens. Young looked at the other guard. "I'll take it from here, Steve-o."
"You sure?" the guard asked.
"I'm sure. Enjoy your dinner."
Steve-o, the other guard, extended his hand. "Good luck, Major Valentine."
"You mean good luck tomorrow, don't you?" Young said.
"Yeah. That's what I meant."
Valentine shook the hand.
"Just wanted to say I done it," Steve-o said. He wandered down the hall, whistling "There's No Business Like Show Business." Maybe he'd picked the tune up from Roderick.
"You've got a letter," Young said. He looked again at the envelope. "It says that it's not to be delivered to you until after your trial. But we had to check it anyway. No reason we couldn't check it before."
"Of course," Valentine said, wondering.