Free The Blue Helmet by William Bell

a table, balanced on a pile of file folders, duct-taped within an inch of its life.
    Cutter led me into the kitchen. “Can you make some tea?” he asked, his voice small and raspy.
    I set about filling the kettle and rinsing the teapot. “How’s it going?”
    “Fine, yeah, fine,” he lied, his eye twitching.He ran his fingers through greasy hair, sat down and began to dry-wash his hands.
    “Lee, you’re my best friend,” he said, looking up at me.
    I shrugged my shoulders, felt a hot flush creeping into my face. “Can I make you something to eat?”
    “No. Can’t hold anything down today. Put some honey in the tea. Never mind, I don’t have any honey. Don’t even like the stuff.” His voice rose to a shout. “I got them dead to rights, Lee!”
    I sat at the table across from him. Sometimes, I had found, it was better to play along with him until I found out what was itching. “That’s good,” I replied. “So you’re sending off your results in the mail?”
    “Results, yeah, results. In the mail. See, I put it all together. They won’t like my findings. I’m in the shit, now.”
    Cutter never swore. He was more than upset. He was scared. I wondered if I should call Andrea.
    “Someday, Lee, the world will be ruled by the corps. They’ve already gained enough power to influence governments—the corps call it partnership—and democracy is almost dead, but in the near future they’ll have taken over completely.Look at the wars of the last fifty years,” he went on, calmly, resigned, “they were all fought for money. All for the benefit of the corps.”
    The kettle whistled and I got up, dropped a couple of teabags into the pot and poured the water in. I took two mugs down from the cupboard and put them on the table.
    I took a chair. “Go on,” I said. I figured if he kept talking he might work himself loose from whatever had hold of him.
    “They taught us in school,” Cutter went on, “that wars were fought to end evil, or to spread democracy, but it was all lies. Wars were fought for silk and tea, spices, gold, diamonds. Nowadays it’s oil and gas and minerals.”
    He seemed to run down, like a CD player with a dying battery. He stared into his mug. I tried to make small talk, but he seemed to have slipped away somewhere.
    Finally I went into the office. Cutter followed me. I picked up the package. It was addressed to the Secretary-General of the United Nations. At the door, I said, “Maybe you need some sleep.” I didn’t know what else to suggest.
    His voice was a notch above a whisper. He stared at the floor between us. “There are morethan fifty wars going on somewhere in the world, right this minute,” he said.
    He took my hand and shook it. “I’ll see you, Lee,” he said. Then he smiled and added sadly, “I was a peacekeeper, once.” He closed the door softly behind me.
    As soon as I turned the corner, I phoned Andrea and told her I was worried about Cutter. She said she’d call his doctor. He wasn’t due for more meds, yet, Andrea said. Maybe he was just having a bad day.
    “He’s worse than bad,” I said.
    “People like Bruce are like that,” she said. “They just have to ride it out.”
    I wasn’t satisfied, but what did I know? What could I do? As if she was reading my mind she added, “The people around the person want to help, but sometimes there’s nothing
anybody
can do.”
    I took his package to the post office. I didn’t see him or hear from him for over a week. He wasn’t answering his phone. I knocked on his door a couple of times. It was as if he’d gone away.

THIRTEEN
    “T HIRTY-ONE !” I CROWED, and scooped up the pennies from the middle of the table.
    Reena threw down her cards. “I swear, if I didn’t have
bad
luck I wouldn’t have any luck at all.”
    “Stop complaining,” I said. “You won the deal. And you shouldn’t swear.”
    She blew her cigarette smoke in my direction. “Thanks for the advice, Father Mercer.”
    An hour or so