The Charm School

would not want Lisa to spend much time in Burov’s hands, because Alevy, above being an intelligence officer, was a man in love. And Alevy would not want Hollis to spend too much time in Burov’s hands either, because Alevy did not want Hollis’ brain in Burov’s possession too long.
    Lisa broke into his thoughts. “I think we underestimated Burov’s intellect.”
    “Yes, I was impressed with his little speech.” Hollis added, “What makes him tick is a weighted chain. He’s cuckoo.”
    Lisa laughed. “You
are
too glib for your own good. Let’s go back and tell him that one.”
    “Later.”
    “What do you want to do between now and six P . M .?”
    “Explore. Discover. Are you up to a long day?”
    “Sure. I like watching you work. You intrigue me.”
    He put his arm around her, and they continued down the main road.
    They passed the shopping plaza, then the headquarters building and approached the VFW hall. Hollis said, “I’m to run into Poole here by accident at ten A . M .”
    They climbed the porch steps and went into the building. There were about a dozen instructors in the rec room and twice that many students. Four men played billiards at one end of the room, and a group was in front of the television watching
Platoon
.
    They found Poole at a card table with three students playing poker. Poole had a stack of chips in front of him and a wad of camp scrip. One of the cardplayers was Jim Hull, the young man whom Lisa had caused some discomfort in the gym. He smiled at Lisa, but she gave him a frosty look that sent him back to his cards.
    Poole looked up from his hand. “Oh, hello, Colonel. Ms. Rhodes. Do you want to sit in?”
    “No, thanks. Someone told me you were on the firewood committee.”
    “Oh, sure. I’ll be with you in a second. Let me finish out the hand.”
    Hollis and Lisa sat at a nearby table.
    The men played out the hand, and one of the students took the pot with aces and sixes. Poole said to the three students, “That’s called the dead man’s hand.”
    “Why?” one of them asked.
    Poole explained, “It was the hand that Wild Bill Hickock was holding when he was shot in the back by someone in Deadwood. That’s a town somewhere in the American West. I don’t remember what state. But it’s an unlucky hand, even if you win with it. Aces over sixes. When someone gets that hand in poker, you say ‘dead man’s hand.’” Poole stood. “I’ll be back later. Don’t swipe my money.”
    The three young men smiled.
    Poole led Hollis and Lisa outside and stood at the edge of the main road some distance from the VFW hall.
    Hollis remarked, “Dead man’s hand is aces over eights.”
    “Really? How stupid of me.” He grinned and whispered, “I have to pull a fast one on them at least once a day, or I’m depressed.”
    Lisa asked, “Have you ever been caught?”
    “Sure. About a dozen times. Then Lena—that’s my wife—does a week in the slammer.” He looked at Hollis, then Lisa. “She doesn’t care. She’s proud of me when they take her away. She did four years in a logging camp before she came here. The cells here are like R and R in comparison, and she doesn’t have to do laundry in the slammer or make the bed because there are no beds. I cook her a big meal when she comes home.”
    Lisa said, “But surely they can do more to her and to you if they chose to.”
    “They can. But they hesitate. I explained to you, they’re using more carrots and fewer sticks now. They’ll go through the stick phase again one day. In fact, I kind of sense it coming.”
    “And will you still sabotage the curriculum?” Lisa asked in a quiet voice.
    “Absolutely. You know, it may not seem much to you—these little lies, like the aces and sixes. But I remember a true story I read once about a British flier imprisoned with other pilots in a German castle during World War Two. He was there a few years, not fifteen or twenty years, but his sense of frustration at not being able to do damage to his enemies became obsessive. So he would cut slivers of dry rot from the castle timbers and implant them in sound timbers, knowing that fifty or a hundred years later, the whole castle would be eaten by rot. Can you understand the psychology of that?”
    “Yes,” Hollis replied. “I’ve heard of similar stories.”
    Poole put his arms around them and drew them closer. He spoke softly. “Well, that’s sort of what we feel here and what we do here. Only we have our modern version