A small and elderly Hawaiian woman opened the front door. “Aloha. Have appointment?” she said smiling.

“Yes.” Lett tried to add a smile but couldn’t quite force one out.

“Try wait, please.” She pressed the door almost shut, leaving it cracked.

Lett could hear peals of men laughing and boasting from somewhere inside. He kept his fists stuffed in his pockets, shifting his feet, teeth grinding.

“You come, please.” Lett followed the woman down a hall, passing open rooms lined with the house’s many windows. Through the glass panes and their reflections, Lett could see men in civilian clothes going out the back way, strolling by the pool, still laughing and slapping one another’s shoulders.

The woman left Lett in a main room. The low-slung rafters and columns were carved with decorative curves in the Polynesian style. Various objects stood on shelves, miniature pagodas and Buddha figurines of gold—Lett wondered if the glimmer was the real thing. A bar had more of that Filipino rum—cases of it stacked as if just delivered. The center of the living room, he now saw, had a sunken circular area. He figured it was supposed to look modern, but it only reminded him of a field latrine. His intestines quivered a little.

Charlie Selfer marched in. He was wearing civvies: a shirt with a tastefully faint Hawaiian print of palm trees on white, light gray linen trousers, white leather sandals. “What are you doing?” he barked.

“Thanks for releasing me.”

Selfer sighed, shrugged. “Look, don’t mention it. I mean, really don’t. Lansdale won’t like it. But I’ll explain it to him. He shouldn’t just leave you hanging like that.”

“That’s just it—the doc, I mean Lansdale, he’s gone AWOL.”

“You’re not supposed to be here,” was all Selfer said. “I have work.”

“I need to talk. Please.”

Selfer sighed again. He gestured Lett down into the sunken area, which held high-back rattan chairs, and dropped into a chair with a squeak of grinding wicker. Lett did the same.

“I want the next stage,” Lett said. “I want some duty. I’m ready.”

Selfer just stared at Lett, a long while. “I have to believe you really mean it,” he said finally. “We all have to believe.”

“What do you want? A thanks? You’re the one who caused all of it. You.” Lett shot up out of the chair, then dropped back down. “I had to kill a little German girl,” he muttered. “In Cologne. All on account of you.”

Selfer shook his head, but it wasn’t in denial. They sat in silence a moment, grasping at the wicker chair arms.

“So help me,” Lett said, in a whisper.

“I don’t . . . have the authority,” Selfer said. “Only Lansdale does for that. I was already pushing it by releasing you.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know. On business.” Selfer shook his head again.