Zero History

16. HONOR BAR
She was waiting for Milgrim when he got back to his hotel. On the upholstered bench
where they kept their complementary MacBook leashed, on the left side of the crossbar of
the T-shaped lobby, opposite the desk.
He hadn’t seen her there as he asked the Canadian girl for his room key. “Someone’s
waiting for you, Mr. Milgrim.”
“Mr. Milgrim?”
He turned. She was still seated there, just closing the MacBook, in the black sweatshirt.
Flanked on the bench by her large white purse and a larger Waterstone’s bag. She stood,
slinging the purse over her right shoulder and picking up the Waterstone’s bag. She must
have had the card out, ready, because he saw it in her right hand as she approached him.
“Winnie Whitaker, Mr. Milgrim.” Handing him the card. Badge-like emblem in gold
foil, upper left corner. WINNIE TUNG WHITAKER. He blinked. SPECIAL AGENT. Looking past that,
desperately seeking escape, into the Waterstone’s shopping bag, where he saw at least two
Paddington Bear fuzzy toys, with their iconic yellow hats. Then back to the card. DEPARTMENT OF
DEFENSE. OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL. DEFENSE CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIVE SERVICE. “DCIS,” pronouncing the individual
letters of the acronym, then pronouncing it again as “dee sis,” stress on the first.
“You took my picture,” Milgrim said, sadly.
“Yes, I did. I need to have a talk with you, Mr. Milgrim. Is there somewhere more
private?”
“My room’s very small,” he said. Which was true, though as he said it he realized there
was absolutely nothing in his room that he had to keep her from finding. “The honor
bar,” he said, “just up the stairs here.”
“Thank you,” she said, and gestured with the Waterstone’s bag for him to lead the way.
“Have you been waiting long?” he asked as he started up the stairs, hearing his own
voice as though it belonged to a robot.
“Over an hour, but I got to tweet my kids,” she said.
Milgrim didn’t know what that meant, and had never fully taken the measure of the
honor bar, and wasn’t sure how many rooms it might actually consist of. The one they
entered now was like one of those educational display corners in a Ralph Lauren flagship
store, meant to suggest how some semimythical other half had lived, but cranked up,
here, into something else entirely, metastasized, spookily hyper-real.
“Wow,” she said appreciatively as he looked down at the card, hoping it would have
become something else entirely. “Like the Ritz-Carlton on steroids. But in miniature, sort
of.” She put her bag of Paddingtons carefully down on a leather hassock.
“Can I offer you a drink?” asked Milgrim’s robotically level voice. He looked down at
the horrible card again, then tucked it into the breast pocket of his jacket.