Death Instinct - Jed Rubenfeld [24]
“A notorious philanderer,” added Younger.
“You’re no philanderer.”
“I meant Alice’s husband. But thank you.”
“You’re more of a womanizer.”
“Ah. A fine distinction,” said Younger. “I’m not a womanizer. I don’t sleep with them. Unless I like them. Which is rarely. You don’t—stray?”
“Me?” Littlemore laughed. “I always ask what my dad would do. He would never have done something like that, so I don’t.”
“How is he—your dad?”
“Good. I still visit with him most every weekend.” Littlemore drummed his fingers on the table. “What kind of name is Drobac anyway?” Colette had told the police that the kidnapper who escaped—the leader of the three men—had been called Drobac by his confederates. “And why’d he ask us, ‘Where are they’? Where are what?”
“Why did he kill his own man?” rejoined Younger.
“That’s easy—to keep him from talking.” Littlemore put his heels up on the table, and his voice changed tone. “But you know what I really don’t get?”
“What exactly I’m doing with Colette,” said Younger.
“You bring her back from France,” said Littlemore, warming to the theme, “but you got her living in Connecticut. You go crazy when she disappears, but you act, I don’t know, all proper when she’s around.”
“You’re wondering when I plan to propose.”
“Why’d you bring her across the Atlantic otherwise? Unless you plan to ruin her.”
“You seem anxious about my marital prospects tonight.”
“Well, are you or aren’t you?” asked Littlemore.
“Planning to ruin her? Tried that already,” said Younger. He took a long drink. “Want to hear about it?”
“Sure.”
FIVE
IN OCTOBER 1917, Lieutenant Dr. Stratham Younger was transferred to the American field hospital in Einville, not far from Nancy, where U.S. Army troops had finally been deployed in the front lines. At that time American soldiers served under French command; Younger ended up treating more Frenchmen than Americans. Throughout the harsh winter and the following spring, attached to the First Division and later to the Second, Younger traversed the Western Front, assigned wherever the need was greatest: the Saint-Mihiel salient, Seicheprey, Chaumont-en-Vexin, Cantigny, the Bois de Belleau.
It was there, near the woods of Belleau, on the outskirts of Château-Thierry, that he met Colette.
Dawn was breaking. With a reddening sky came a lull in the savage bombardments of the night. Younger, on foot, emerged from the woods into an open field, dragging a wounded old French corporal to the medical compound. The compound was intact—white tents, tables, and instrument chests all in place—but not a doctor or orderly was in sight. The medical staff had obviously decamped in a hurry.
Noises came from across the field. French infantrymen had gathered at a Red Cross truck. They reminded Younger of children crowding around an ice cream van, except for an air of male wildness about them.
With the corporal’s arm draped over his shoulder, Younger crossed the field through pockets of mist clinging to the rutted soil. A young woman stood outside the truck, hemmed in by a semicircle of boisterous men. Her back to them, she leaned through a window into the cab of the truck. The men called out—in French, which Younger understood—invented maladies and mock pleas for treatment. One of them, with a particularly raucous voice, begged the girl to reach inside his shirt; his heart, he said, was pounding and swelling dangerously.
The girl emerged from the cab, a brown bag in her hands. She was slim, graceful, dark-haired, about twenty years old, chin held high, eyes unnaturally green. Dressed in a plain wool skirt and light blue sweater, she was evidently not a nurse.
She spoke to the men. Younger couldn’t hear what she said, but he saw her toss her bag to the loudmouthed one, who caught it, dropping his rifle in order to do so, which provoked laughter from the others. The girl spoke again. One by one the men fell silent and, abashed, began skulking away. She had no air of triumph. She looked—weary. Beautiful, distracted, and weary. As