Spencerville

home?”
    “No.”
    “Would you like to go home?”
    The man didn’t reply for a few seconds, then said, “Maybe. Maybe for visit.”
    “You have family in Phu Bai?”
    “Oh, yes. Many family.”
    “You are welcome back? You may go to Vietnam?”
    “No. Not now. Someday. Maybe.”
    The man appeared to be in his mid-forties, and Keith imagined that for some reason or another, he was persona non grata in his native land. Perhaps he’d been a government official under the old regime, or a military officer, or had worked too closely with the Americans, or done something more sinister, like been a member of the old, despised National Police. Who knew? They never told you. The point was that in Phu Bai there was a police chief, and the police chief had a list, and on that list was this man’s name. That police chief was sort of the Phu Bai equivalent of Cliff Baxter, except that Keith’s problem with Baxter wasn’t political or philosophical—it was purely personal. But the bottom line was the same—some people could not go home again because other people didn’t want them to.
    Keith said to the man, “Back to the hotel.”
    “Yes? No stop?”
    “No. No stop.”
    At the Hay-Adams, Keith gave Vu Thuy Hoang a ten-dollar tip and free advice. “As soon as you can, go home. Don’t wait.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
    T he following morning, the phone rang in Keith’s room, and he answered it.
    Charlie Adair said, “I’m downstairs. Whenever you’re ready.”
    Keith resisted several sarcastic replies. At some point in the middle of the night, he’d come to agree that none of this was Charlie’s fault. He said, “Five minutes.”
    Keith straightened his tie in the mirror and brushed the jacket of his dark blue Italian silk suit. If he didn’t count putting on a sport jacket and tie for Sunday service at St. James, this was the first suit he’d had on since his retirement party almost two months before, and he didn’t like the way he looked in it. “You look like a city slicker, Landry.” He left the room and took the elevator down.
    Charlie greeted him with some wariness, trying to judge his mood, but Keith said to him, “You’re right, it’s not your fault.”
    “Good insight. Let’s go.”
    “The ticket.”
    “Oh, right…” Charlie found the airline ticket in his jacket and gave it to Keith. “I booked you to Columbus on USAir, nonstop. There’s a rental car reservation slip, too.”
    Keith examined the ticket and saw he was leaving National Airport at 7:35 and arriving at 9:05. He asked, “Couldn’t you get something earlier?”
    “That was the next available nonstop in first class.”
    “I don’t care about nonstop or first class. Anything earlier to Toledo or Dayton?”
    “Dayton? Where’s that? Look, the White House travel office booked it. I don’t think there are a lot of flights going out there, buddy. Just be happy it’s Columbus, Ohio, and not Columbus, Georgia. See the travel office later if you want.”
    “This is okay. Let’s roll.”
    They walked out the front door to where a Lincoln sat waiting. It was raining, and the driver walked them to the car, holding an umbrella over their heads.
    In the backseat, Charlie said, “I spoke to the secretary’s aide, Ted Stansfield, last night, and he was delighted you could come.”
    “What were my choices?”
    “That’s the way they talk. Mock humbleness. The secretary of defense will say to you, ‘Keith, I’m delighted you could come. I hope we haven’t inconvenienced you.’”
    “Is that when I tell him to fuck off?”
    “I don’t think so. He’s prepared to welcome you back on the team, so if he says, ‘Good to have you back,’ you say, ‘Good to be back in Washington,’ like you didn’t quite catch his meaning. Then you go shake hands with the president. If they’ve briefed him that you’re wavering, he’ll say, ‘Colonel, I hope you give this offer your full consideration and that you’ll accept it.’ Then you say, ‘I will, sir,’ meaning you’ll give it your full consideration and not meaning you’ll accept it. Get it?”
    “Charlie, I was a master of the equivocal phrase, an expert at the meaningless sentence, a scholar of the ambiguous word. That’s why I don’t want to come back. I’m relearning plain English.”
    “That’s very disturbing.”
    Keith added, “I assume you didn’t tell Ted Stansfield that I didn’t want the job.”
    “I didn’t, because I wanted you to have some