High Hunt (5 page)

“Oh, God”—Jack gagged—“it sounds awful.”

“Yeah,” I admitted, “it's moderately awful, all right. They put it up in stone bottles—probably because it would eat its way out of glass. Screws your head up something fierce.”

We wheeled into the parking lot of a beer joint and went inside, still talking. We ordered pitchers of draft and sat in a booth drinking and talking about liquor and women and the service. The tavern was one of those usual kind of places with lighted beer signs all along the top of the mirror behind the bar. It had the usual jukebox and the usual pinball machine. It had the uneven dance floor that the bartender had to walk across to deliver pitchers of beer to the guys sitting in the booths along the far wall. There were the solitary drinkers hunched at the bar, staring into their own reflections in the mirror or down into the foam on their beer; and there was the usual group of dice players at the bar, rolling for drinks. I've been in a hundred joints like it up and down the coast.

I realized that I was enjoying myself. Sloane seemed to be honestly having a good time; and Jack, in spite of the fact that he was trying his damnedest to impress me, seemed to really get a kick out of seeing me again. That unholy dead feeling I'd been fighting for the last months or so was gone.

“We got to get Dan some civilian clothes,” Cal was saying. “He can't run around in a uniform. That's the kiss of death as far as women are concerned.”

“I've got some civvies coming in,” I said. “I shipped them here a month ago—parcel post. They're probably at the General Delivery window downtown right now.”

“I've got to run downtown tomorrow,” Jack said. “I'll stop by and pick them up for you.”

“Don't I have to get them myself?” I asked. “I mean, don't they ask for ID or anything?”

“Hell, no,” Jack scoffed. “You can get anybody's mail you want at the General Delivery window.”

“Kinda shakes a guy's faith in the Hew Hess Government,” I said. “I mean, if you can't trust the goddamn Post Office Department—say, maybe we ought to take our business to somebody else.”

“Who you got in mind?” Sloane asked.

“I don't know, maybe we could advertise—‘Deliver mail for fun and profit'—something like that.”

“I'm almost sure they'd find some way to send you to Leavenworth for it,” Jack said.

“Probably,” I agreed. “They're awfully touchy about some things. I'd sure appreciate it if you could pick those things up for me though. If you can, dump them off at a cleaner's someplace. I imagine they're pretty wrinkled by now.” I emptied my beer.

“Another round, Charlie,” Sloane called to the barman. “Put your money away,” he told me as I reached for my wallet. “This is my party.”

About a half hour later, a kind of hard-faced brunette came in. She hurried across to the booth and sat down beside Cal. She glanced back at the door several times and seemed to be a little nervous. “Hi, Daddy,” she said. She made it sound dirty.

“Hello there, baby,” he said. “This is Alders' brother, Dan. Dan, this is Helen.”

“Hi,” she said, nodding briefly at me. “Hi, Jack.”

I looked carefully at her. She had makeup plastered on about an inch thick. It was hard to see any expression under all that gunk. Maybe she didn't have any expression.

She turned back to Sloane with an urgent note in her voice. “Baby's got a problem, Daddy.” It still sounded dirty. I decided that I didn't like her.

“Well, tell Daddy.” Sloane giggled self-consciously.

She leaned over and whispered in his ear for a moment. His face turned a little grim.

“OK,” he said shortly, “wait in the car—drive it around in back.”

She got up and went out quickly.

“Dumb bitch!” Sloane muttered. “She's been gettin' careless
and her Old Man's suspicious. I'd better get her a room someplace until he cools off.”

“Is he pretty steamed?” Jack asked. “You've got to watch yourself with that husband of hers, Cal. I hear he's a real
mean
mother.”

“He just wants to clout her around a little,” Sloane said. “See if he can shake a few answers out of her. I'd better get her out of sight. I'll have her swing me by your trailer lot, and I'll pick up my car. Then we'll ditch hers on a back street. I know a place where she can hole up.” He stood up and put a five-dollar bill on the table. “Hate to be a party-poop but—” He shrugged. “I'll probably see you guys tomorrow. Drink this up on me, OK?” He hurried across the dance floor and on out, his hat pulled down low like a gangster in a third-rate movie.

“That dumb bastard's gonna get himself all shot up one of these days,” Jack said grimly.

“He cat around a lot?”

“All the time. He's got a deal with his wife. He brings in the money and doesn't pester her in bed, and she doesn't ask him where he goes nights.”

“Home cookin' and outside lovin'?” I said. “Sounds great.”

Jack shrugged. “It costs him a fortune. Of course, he's got it, I guess. He's got the pawnshop, and a used car lot, and he owns a piece of two or three taverns. He's got a big chunk of this joint, you know.”

“No kidding?”

Jack nodded. “You wouldn't think so to look at him, but he can buy and sell most of the guys up and down the Avenue just out of his front pockets. You ought to see the house he lives in. Real plush.”

“Nice to have rich friends,” I said.

“And don't let that dumb face fool you,” Jack told me. “Don't ever do business with Cal unless I'm there to keep an eye on him for you. He'll gyp you out of your fillings—friend or no friend.”

“Sure wouldn't guess it to look at him.”

“Lots of guys think that. Just be sure to count your fingers after you shake hands with him.”

“What's the deal with this—baby—whatever her name is?”

“Helen? She's married to some Air Force guy out at McChord Field—Johnson, his name is. He's away a lot and she likes her nookie. Sloane's had her on the string for a couple of months now. I tried her and then passed her on. Her Old Man's a real
mean bastard. He kicked the livin' shit out of one guy he caught messin' with her. Put the boots to him and broke both his arms. She's real wild in the sack, but she's got a foul mouth and she likes it dirty—you know. Also, she's a shade on the stupid side. I just didn't like the smell of it, so I dumped her in Sloane's lap.”

“You're a real friends,” I said.

“Sloane can handle it,” Jack said. He looked warily around the bar and then at the door several times. “Hey, let's cut out. That Johnson guy might come in here, and I'd rather not be out in plain sight in case he's one or two guys behind in his information. I think I could handle him, but the stupid bastard might have a gun on him. I heard that he's that kind.”

“I ought to be getting back out to the Fort, anyway.”

“I'll buzz you on out,” Jack said, pocketing Sloane's five.

We walked on out to the parking lot and climbed into Jack's Plymouth. We were mostly quiet on the way out to the Fort. I was a little high, and it was kind of pleasant just to sit back and watch the lights go past. But I was a little less sure about the arrangement than I had been earlier in the evening. There was an awful lot going on that I didn't know about. There was no way I could back out gracefully now though. Like it or not, I was going to get reacquainted with my brother. I almost began to wish I'd skipped the whole thing.

T
HE
following Saturday I got out of the Army. Naturally, they had to have a little ceremony. Institutions always feel they have to have a little ceremony. I've never been able to figure out why really. I'm sure nobody really give a rat's ass about all that nonsense. In this case, we walked in a line through a room; and a little warrant officer, who must have screwed up horribly somewhere to get stuck with the detail, handed each of us a little brown envelope with the piece of paper in it. Then he
shook hands with us. I took the envelope, briefly fondled his sweaty hand, walked out, and it was all over.

“You sure you got my address, Alders?” Benson asked as we fished around in the pile for our duffle bags.

“Yeah, kid, I got it,” I told him.

“
Les-ter
,” a woman's voice yodeled from the parking lot.

“That's my mom,” Benson said. “I gotta go now.”

“Take care, kid,” I told him, shaking his hand.

“Be sure and write me, huh? I mean it. Let's keep in touch.”

“Les-ter!
Over here.”

“I gotta run. So long, Dan.” It was the only time in two years he'd ever used my first name.

“Bye, Les,” I said.

He took off, weighted way off-balance by his duffle bag. I watched him go.

I stood looking at the parking lot until I located Jack's Plymouth. I slung the duffle bag by the strap from my left shoulder and headed toward my brother's car. It's funny, but I almost felt a little sad. I even saluted a passing captain, just to see if it felt any different. It did.

Jack was leaning against the side of his car. “Hey, man, you sure throw a sharp highball.” He grinned as I came up. “Why didn't you just thumb your nose at the bastard?”

I shrugged. “He's still in and I'm out. Why should I bug him?”

“You all ready? I mean have you got any more bullshit to go through?”

“All finished,” I said. “I just done been civilianized. I got my divorce papers right here.” I waved the envelope at him.

“Let's cut out, then. I've got your civvies in the back seat.”

I looked around once. The early afternoon sun blasted down on the parking lot, and the yellow barracks shimmered in the heat. It looked strange already. “Let's go,” I said and climbed into the back seat.

There was a guy sitting in the front seat. I didn't know him.

“Oh,” Jack said, “this is Lou McKlearey, a buddy of mine. Works for Sloane.”

McKlearey was lean and sort of blond. I'd have guessed him at about thirty. His eyes were a very cold blue and had a funny look to them. He stuck out his hand, and when we shook hands, he seemed to be trying to squeeze the juice out of my fingers.

“Hi, Dogface,” he said in a raspy voice. He gave me a funny
feeling—almost like being in the vicinity of a fused bomb. Some guys are like that.

“Ignore him,” Jack said. “Lou's an ex-Marine gunnery sergeant. He just ain't had time to get civilized yet.”

“Let's get out of here, huh?” Suddenly I couldn't stand being on Army ground anymore.

Jack fired up the car and wheeled out of the lot. We barreled on down to the gate and eased out into the real world.

“Man,” I said “it's like getting out of jail.”

“Anyhow, Jackie,” McKlearey said, apparently continuing what he'd been talking about before I got to the car, “we unloaded that crippled Caddy on a Nigger sergeant from McChord Field for a flat grand. You know them fuckin' Niggers; you can paint ‘Cadillac' on a baby buggy, and they'll buy it.”

“Couldn't he tell that the block was cracked?” Jack asked him.

“Shit! That dumb spade barely knew where the gas pedal was. So we upped the price on the Buick to four hundred over book, backed the speedometer to forty-seven thousand, put in new floor mats, and dumped it on a red-neck corporal from Georgia. He traded us a '57 Chevy stick that was all gutted out. We gave him two hundred trade-in. Found out later that the crooked son of a bitch had packed sawdust in the transmission—oldest stunt in the book. You just can't trust a reb. They're so goddamn stupid that they'll try stuff you think nobody's dumb enough to try anymore, so you don't even bother to check it out.

“Well, we flushed out the fuckin' sawdust and packed the box with heavy grease and then sold that pig for two and a quarter to some smart-ass high school kid who thought he knew all about cars. Shit! I could sell a three-wheel '57 Chevy to the smartest fuckin' kid in the world. They're all hung up on that dog—Niggers and Caddies; kids and '57 Chevies—it's all the same.

“So, by the end of the week, we'd moved around eight cars, made a flat fifteen hundred clear profit, and didn't have a damn thing left on the lot that hadn't been there on Monday morning.”

“Christ”—Jack laughed—“no wonder Sloane throws money around like a drunken sailor.”

“That lot of his is a fuckin' gold mine,” McKlearey said. “It's like havin' a license to steal. Of course, the fact that he's
so crooked he has to screw himself out of bed in the morning doesn't hurt either.”

“Man, that's the goddamn truth,” Jack agreed. “How you doin' back there, Dan?”

“I'm still with you,” I said.

“Here,” he said. He fumbled under the seat and came out with a brown-bagged bottle. He poked it back at me. “Celebrate your newfound freedom.”

“Amen, old buddy,” I said fervently. I unscrewed the top and took a long pull at the bottle, fumbling with my necktie at the same time.

“You want me to haul into a gas station so you can change?” he asked me.

“I can manage back here, I think,” I told him. “Two hundred guys got out this morning. Every gas station for thirty miles has got a line outside the men's room by now.”

“You're probably right,” Jack agreed. “Just don't get us arrested for indecent exposure.”

It took me a mile or two to change clothes. I desperately wanted to get out of that uniform. After I changed though, I rolled my GI clothes very carefully and tucked them away in my duffle bag. I didn't ever want to wear them again—or even look at them—but I didn't want them wrinkled up.

“Well,” I said when I'd finished. “I may not be too neat, but I'm a civilian again. Have a drink.” I passed the bottle on up to the front seat.

Jack took a belt and handed the jug to McKlearey. He took a drink and passed the bottle back to me. “Have another rip,” he said.

“Let's stop and have a couple beers,” I suggested. I suddenly wanted to go into a bar—a place where there were other people. I think I wanted to see if I would fit in. I wasn't a GI anymore. I wanted to really see if I was a civilian.

“Mama Cat's got some chow waitin',” Jack said, “but I guess we've got time for a couple.”

“Any place'll do,” I said.

“I know just how he feels, Jackie,” Lou said. “After a hitch, a man needs to unwind a bit. When I got out the last time in Dago, I hit this joint right outside the gate and didn't leave for a week. Haul in at the Patio—it's just up the street.”

“Yeah,” Jack agreed, “seems to me I got all juiced up when I got out of the Navy, too. Hey, ain't that funny? Army, Navy,
Marines—all of us in here at once.” It was the kind of dung Jack would notice.

“Maybe we can find a fly-boy someplace and have a summit conference,” I said.

Jack turned off into the dusty, graveled parking lot of a somewhat overly modern beer joint.

“I'm buying,” I said.

“OK, little brother,” Jack said. “Let's go suck up some suds.” We piled out of the car and walked in the bright sunlight toward the tavern.

“This is a new one, isn't it?” I asked.

“Not really,” Jack told me, “it's been here for about a year now.”

We went inside. It was cool and dim, and the lighted beer signs behind the bar ran to the type thet sprinkled the walls with endlessly varying patterns of different colored lights. Tasteful beer signs, for Chrissake! I laid a twenty on the polished bar and ordered three beers.

The beer was good and cold, and it felt fine just to sit and hold the chilled glass. Jack started telling the bartender that I'd just got out, and that I was his brother. Somehow, whenever Jack told anybody anything, it was always in relation to himself. If he'd been telling someone about a flood, it would be in terms of how wet
he'd
gotten. I guess I hadn't remembered that about him.

Lou sat with us for a while and then bought a roll of nickels and went over to the pinball machine. Like every jarhead I've ever known, he walked at a stiff brace, shoulders pulled way back and his gut sucked in. Marine basic must be a real bitch-kitty. He started feeding nickels into the machine, still standing at attention. I emptied my beer and ordered another round.

“Easy man,” Jack said. “You've got a helluva lot of drinkin' to do before the day's over, and I'd hate to see you get all kicked out of shape about halfway through. We've got a party on for tonight, and you're the guest of honor.”

“You shouldn't have done that, Jack,” I said. What I'd really meant to say was that I wished to hell he hadn't.

“Look,” he said, “my brother doesn't get out of the Army every day, and it's worth a blowout.” I knew there was no point arguing with him.

“Is Marg really waiting?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said. “She's got steak and all the trimmings on. I'm supposed to call her and let her know we're on the way.”

“Well,” I said, “we shouldn't keep her waiting. Hey, Jack, who's this McKlearey guy anyway?” I thumbed over my shoulder at Lou.

“He works at Sloane's used car lot. I knew him when I was in the Navy. We met in Yokosuka one time and pitched a liberty together. He's got ten years in the Corps—went in at seventeen, you know the type—washed out on a medical—malaria, I think. Probably picked it up in Nam.”

“Bad scene,” I said. “He seems a little—tight—keyed-up or something.”

“Oh, Lou's OK, but kind of watch him. He's a ruthless son of a bitch. And for God's sake don't lend him any money—you'll never see it again. And don't cross him if you can help it—I mean
really
cross him. He's a real combat Marine—you know, natural-born killer and all that shit. He was a guard in a Navy brig one time, and some poor bastard made a break for the fence. McKlearey waited until the guy was up against the wire so he couldn't fall down and then blasted him seven times between the shoulder blades with a .45. I knew a guy who was in there, and he said that McKlearey unloaded so fast it sounded like a machine gun. Walked 'em right up the middle of the guy's back.”

“Kill him?”

“Blew him all to pieces. They had to pick him up in a sack.”

“Little extreme,” I said.

“That's a Gyrene for you. Sometimes they get kill-happy.”

I finished my beer. “Well,” I said, “if you're done with that beer, I think I'm ready to face the world again. Besides, I'm coming down with a bad case of the hungries.”

“Right,” he said, draining his glass. “Hey, Lou, let's go.”

“Sure thing,” McKlearey said, concentrating on the machine. “Just a minute—goddamn it!” The machine lit
TILT
, and all the other lights went out. “I just barely touched the bastard,” he complained.

“We got to go, anyway,” Jack said. “You guys go on ahead, and I'll give Marg a quick buzz.”

Lou and I went back on out in the sunlight to Jack's Plymouth and had another belt from the bottle.

“I'd just hit the rollover,” Lou said, “and I had a real good chance at two in the blue.” His eyes had the unfocused look of a man who's just been in the presence of the object of his obsession.

“That pay pretty good?” I asked.

“Hundred and sixty games,” he said. “Eight bucks. Goddamn machines get real touchy when you've got half a chance to win something.”

“I prefer slots,” I said. “There was this one over in Germany I could hit three times out of four. It was all in how you pulled the handle.”

He grunted. Slots weren't his thing. He wasn't interested.

“She's puttin' the steaks on right now,” Jack said as he came across the parking lot. He climbed in behind the wheel. “They'll be almost ready by the time we get there.” He spun us out of the nearly empty lot and pointed the nose of the car back down the highway.

We pulled in beside his trailer about ten minutes later and went on in. Margaret came over and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. She seemed a little self-conscious about it. I got the feeling that the “cousinly” kiss or whatever wasn't just exactly natural to her. “Hi, Civilian,” she said.

“That's the nicest thing anybody ever said to me,” I told her, trying to keep my eyes off the front of her blouse.

We all had another drink—whiskey and water this time—while Marg finished fixing dinner. Then we sat down to the steaks. I was hungry and the food was good. Once in a while I'd catch myself looking at McKlearey. I still didn't have him figured out, and I wasn't really sure I liked him. To me, he looked like a whole pile of bad trouble, just looking for someplace to happen. Some guys are like that. Anyway, just being around him made me feel uncomfortable. Jack and Margaret seemed to like him though, so I thought maybe I was just having a touch of the “first day out of the Army squirrelies.”

After dinner Marg got the kids up from their naps, and I played with them a little. They were both pretty young, and most of the playing consisted of tickling and giggles, but it was kind of fun. Maybe it was the booze, but I don't think so. The kids weren't really talking yet, and you don't have to put anything on with a kid that age. All they care about is if you like them and pay attention to them. That hour or so straightened me out more than anything that happened the rest of the day. We flopped around on the floor, grabbing at each other and laughing.