The Best Horror of the Year. Volume 4

“Uh-uh. Don’t get me wrong: I wanted to see Paris, London — everything. But the money — the money wasn’t there. The closest I came to all this were the movies in Madame Antosca’s French 4 class. It was one of the reasons I joined up: I figured I’d see the world and let the Army pay for it.”

“How’d that work out for you?”

“We’re here, aren’t we?”

“Not because of the Army.”

“No, precisely because of the Army. Well,” she said, “them and the spooks.”

“You still think Mr. — oh, sorry—You-Know-Who was CIA?”

Frowning, Vasquez lowered her voice. “Who knows? I’m not even sure he was one of ours. That accent… he could’ve been working for the Brits, or the Aussies. He could’ve been Russian, back in town to settle a few scores. Wherever he picked up his pronunciation, dude was not regular military.”

“Be funny if he was on Stillwater’s payroll.”

“Hysterical,” Vasquez said. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“I assume this is your first trip to Paris.”

“And there’s where you would be wrong.”

“Now you’re shittin me.”

“Why, because I ordered a cheeseburger and a Coke?”

“Among other things, yeah.”

“My senior class trip was a week in Paris and Amsterdam. In college, the end of my sophomore year, my parents took me to France for a month.” At what she knew must be the look on her face, Buchanan added, “It was an attempt at breaking up the relationship I was in at the time.”

“It’s not that. I’m trying to process the thought of you in college.”

“Wow, anyone ever tell you what a laugh riot you are?”

“Did it work — your parents’ plan?”

Buchanan shook his head. “The second I was back in the US, I knocked her up. We were married by the end of the summer.”

“How romantic.”

“Hey.” Buchanan shrugged.

“That why you enlisted, support your new family?”

“More or less. Heidi’s dad owned a bunch of McDonald’s; for the first six months of our marriage, I tried to assistant manage one of them.”

“With your people skills, that must have been a match made in Heaven.”

The retort forming on Buchanan’s lips was cut short by the reappearance of their waiter, encumbered with their drinks and their food. He set their plates before them with a, “Madame,” and, “M’sieu,” then, as he was distributing their drinks, said, “Everything is okay? Ça va?”

“Oui,” Vasquez said. “C’est bon. Merçi.”

With the slightest of bows, the waiter left them to their food.

While Buchanan worked his hands around his cheeseburger, Vasquez said, “I don’t think I realized you were married.”

“Were,” Buchanan said. “She wasn’t happy about my deploying in the first place, and when the shit hit the fan…” He bit into the burger. Through a mouthful of bun and meat, he said, “The court martial was the excuse she needed. Couldn’t handle the shame, she said. The humiliation of being married to one of the guards who’d tortured an innocent man to death. What kind of role model would I be for our son?

“I tried — I tried to tell her it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t that — you know what I’m talking about.”

Vasquez studied her neatly-folded crêpe. “Yeah.” Mr. White had favored a flint knife for what he called the delicate work.

“If that’s what she wants, fine, fuck her. But she made it so I can’t see my son. The second she decided we were splitting up, there was her dad with money for a lawyer. I get a call from this asshole — this is right in the middle of the court martial — and he tells me Heidi’s filing for divorce — no surprise — and they’re going to make it easy for me: no alimony, no child support, nothing. The only catch is, I have to sign away all my rights to Sam. If I don’t, they’re fully prepared to go to court, and how do I like my chances in front of a judge? What choice did I have?”

Vasquez tasted her coffee. She saw her mother, holding open the front door for her, unable to meet her eyes.

“Bad enough about that poor bastard who died — what was his name? If there’s one thing you’d think I’d know…”

“Mahbub Ali,” Vasquez said. What kind of a person are you? her father had shouted. What kind of person is part of such things?

“Mahbub Ali,” Buchanan said. “Bad enough what happened to him; I just wish I’d know what was happening to the rest of us, as well.”

They ate the rest of their meal in silence. When the waiter returned to ask if they wanted dessert, they declined.

II