The Devil's Only Friend (23 page)

I could feel the heat radiating from Federle. His breathing got deeper and deeper as he became absorbed in fixing me up.

“You've never been—it's like
black sand
—I bet you never saw such a thing. Brother, I can tell you, it gets hot here, but you don't know what heat is. You can't drink enough water to make up for the sweat that comes out of you, and you're covered in sand, like dust, really, turned to black like the dingiest darkie you ever saw. Well—all they told us was that we had to get to the airstrip, we had to break in to get to the airstrip in advance of the regular army boys—”

He broke off, and I opened my eye to see him mopping the sweat from his brow with his rolled-up shirtsleeve. His face had gone slack, his eyes wide and staring. But then he broke into a heated smile that seemed off-kilter.

“You want to hear about it?” he said.

I shrugged and kept my eye on him for a moment more, and then I settled down again.

“If you're on the beach like that and
everybody
is shooting, everybody on every side of you, it doesn't sound like rifle pops anymore. It's like a roar. Listen. Nobody would believe it, but in a case like that, you can
see
the bullets while they're flying. It's the God's truth, sometimes you can set your head to the side a few inches to dodge a bullet if you can see it coming at you. But you can't keep your eyes on everything, Pete.

“Always on the little islands there's the beach and then a line of trees that starts some way up from the shore. If you can make it to the trees—from the ships they're half the time lobbing shells into the trees while you're trying to get up in there. If there are more guys coming off the boats behind you, they're shooting, too, shooting from behind you. Plenty of guys go down this way. Maybe—”

He stopped talking for a while as he thought about it. I could feel sweat easing out of my whole body from the stillness of the air, but there was nothing to be done about it. Federle's hands seemed strikingly hot whenever his knuckles or fingertips pressed against my skin, and I thought that there must have been a coal fire burning inside him.

“Those stupid Japs—can you imagine? Why wouldn't they just give up? We would've given them food to eat, clean water. They were all starving, even the kids. I can see how you wouldn't—if you were a soldier, and the enemy was coming along, you could see that it was all over for you, you might still want to fight rather than let them take you—if you were a soldier. But there were
women and children
all over the place. Hundred-year-old grannies hunkering down, hiding in caves or in holes in the ground. Why wouldn't they come out? I can't tell you—the flamers—we'd clear out the caves all right, whenever we got to them, the bunkers, pill boxes.”

“You had to do it, Ray.”

“I had to? Some of the guys—I don't want to put a shadow on them—but some of the guys wouldn't go. Some guys put the gun on themselves. What do you think of that?”

“I don't know,” I said.

“How it was, we couldn't blame them. We didn't say anything about it. Sometimes—every day—I thought of eating a bullet myself. You can't help from thinking, can you?”

“But there must be a reason to go on, right?”

“You'd think there must be,” he said. “Anyway, for you, Pete, you ain't in such bad shape after all.”

Finally it was time for Federle to work on my back. He prodded me forward until I was resting my head on my forearms on the table. Federle scrubbed hard with the gauze and alcohol because the stitches in my back had broken in places and there were partly healed grooves where the stitches had become covered too much with flesh. From the stinging I could feel where the skin would still have to work at closing over. But the pain was nothing.

“We were finished up, more or less. So I was catching a breath, we were packing in some grub along the shore, up at the top of a short rocky bluff. A breeze was blowing over us, the waves were breaking over the rocks, and the army had come in behind us to mop up. We weren't really finished. We'd have to go on to another island, we knew, but we were taking it easy, you know? And I saw down in the water the plumpest little baby, the healthiest little Jap baby after all the tiny skeleton babies we had been seeing—and the sight of it made me happy for just that second before I realized that he was just swollen up from being dead. He was dead, somebody's baby, floating in the water. Probably his own mother had thrown him in to keep him away from us.”

“Come on, Ray.”

“It wasn't too long after that I got burned up. You'd think it would make you crazy. It does make you crazy. While you're there, while you're in the middle of it and the whole earth is cracking up around you, you have to forget about all that stuff you thought about yourself before that time. You have to forget about your mother, your sisters, what you learned in school. You get scrambled up. You only think about moving up the next hill, moving up to get behind the next tree if you're thinking at all.

“When I got put afire I kept running. I kept running. Finally I fell down, and while I was lying there, it was a dream. All those layers sliding back and forth—I was looking up at the clouds, it was all I could see. But somehow I thought I was facing down. I was looking down into hell, Pete. The ground had opened up to take me, and I could see straight down into it, all the way down to the pit. After everything, it was a relief.”

He had to dig into the skin between my shoulder blades to excavate a few stitches that had been covered over. He kept one hot palm pressing me down to the table while he worked the knife's needle tip into me. Then he set the knife down across the back of my neck and worked with the forceps, alternating tools until he was satisfied that he had pulled out everything that needed to go. The alcohol jerked me to attention with the sharp burning along the two torn lines, and the rough swabbing and scrubbing Federle did afterward made me clench my fists and jaw.

“Listen, Pete. Sometimes now when I'm not pulling a shift, I walk the floor of the little place up there, when everyone is asleep. You know how it is. I told you. Sometimes I think of picking up a knife and killing them all in their beds. That's what it does to you. After you've killed somebody else's wife, some other poor sap's kids, really everything he had to show from his life in this world, you can't leave it all behind you. Every day you've just got to make sure you hold on. When you give up, then it's over. You see what I mean?”

I pushed myself up from the table and felt how the position had made my hands fall to sleep. Though I was slick with sweat, my fingers were cold. I had to look at Ray Federle.

“You know I could just keep my mouth shut about all this, Pete. I know you think you're not a lucky guy.”

“Ray, I'm sorry about all of it.”

“You're older than me, Pete. I hadn't ought to talk at you like this, but—”

“I don't mind you talking.”

“I want to explain. When I see those Hardiman boys getting rich, prancing around while boys are getting slaughtered— You see how it is? Don't you see what they're made of?”

“I can see all right,” I said.

“Don't you think I can see something about them? Could I be wrong about it?”

“Listen, Ray, we'll look into it together. That's what we're supposed to be doing, right?”

He began to tuck his kit back into the canvas bag. He seemed resolved not to say anything more to me about the Hardiman boys. He slipped his slender knife back into the front pocket of his work trousers.

“I wouldn't ever hurt Patty or the girls, Pete. You know I wouldn't. But I thought it might help you to see—”

“It helps me out.”

He pulled the flap through the buckle of his kit and gathered up the carrying strap. A shadow crossed his face, and he glanced around for a clock.

“You should get some rest yourself,” I said. “Thanks for the work on the stitches.”

“What I need to do is get to work,” he said. “I'm set to be late. Do you mind if I take the car?”

“It's fine.”

“Listen, Pete. If something happens to me, will you see if you can get a little money from Lloyd so Patty can take care of the girls?”

“You shouldn't talk like that.”

“You're right. But just the same.”

“If you want them to be taken care of, make sure you can take care of them yourself.”

He broke toward the door. “I will,” he said. “We'll go out tomorrow, won't we?”

“We'll have to,” I said.

“You'll be able to get some sleep now.”

“That's what I always hope for.”

After he left, I sat in the soft chair for a long time before I put myself to bed. I sipped a little whiskey and thought of my old partner, Bobby Swope, who had made me promise to look after his own wife and bastard child as he lay dying—just as the blood was running out of him. They all wanted to make me promise, and I had not been able yet to stay true to any promise I had ever made. The liquor ran up into my head quickly, and though I had ample cause to worry about Ray Federle, about the car he drove, the gun he had bought for me, and about the razor-sharp knife he carried with him, I did nothing to go after him.

CHAPTER 23

Sunday, April 16

It might have been a dream that made me angry before I ever woke up, but the timid knocking at my door made me see red. It seemed that the outside world was always knocking. I tossed away the sheet that had been tangled around me and struggled toward the apartment door. I heard the handle rattling and the whole door shaking gently against the frame. To judge from the light on the window shade, Sunday morning had started without me.

“All right!” I said.

Lloyd's secretary, James, stood close to the door with a few beads of sweat sprouting along his hairline. He seemed to go a shade paler when he saw me, and his eyes widened as if a puff of air had hit him.

“What?”

“I should come in,” he said.

I stepped aside to let him in. He stood stiffly, partly turned away.

“I wanted to tell you I'm sorry, but I was unable to procure any penicillin.”

“I keep myself pickled,” I said. “It keeps away the germs.”

He seemed to be bursting out of his tight collar. An anemic vein snaked across his temple, throbbing, and another swelled along the front of his neck.

I came a little closer to him, took his shoulder, and turned him toward me.

“What is it?”

“Did you want to— You might put on a robe.”

My pecker, fluffed up erratically from bad sleep, drooped out the front of my shorts like it wanted to shake hands. Without stepping back, I tucked myself in and stood a bit nearer.

“Mr. Lloyd has asked— There's been a problem.”

“You mean there's been a murder.”

He let his eyes loose to glance around the place.

“Are we alone?” he said.

“I got a girl in the back,” I said. “Parts of her, anyway.”

He took a big step back and finally met my eye. He had trouble holding the look because I was not wearing my patch, and the eyehole put him off.

“I'm allowed to make a joke, ain't I?”

“It would be lost on me, sir,” he said. “There's been some trouble at young Whitcomb's house.”

“You mean they found Chew's carcass.”

“Hank Chew? It's a young woman, sir.”

The throbbing at the center of my sinuses ratcheted up like someone was inflating a rubber bladder inside my head.

“They found a girl at the house?”

“On the grounds. It's shielded from view—”

“You haven't called the police?”

“It was thought that you might—”

“Listen,” I said, “you'd better— What's the time?”

“Half past nine,” he said without checking his fancy wristwatch.

“You'd better call it in. But give me half an hour. Where is the Old Man?”

“Mr. Lloyd has been removed from the premises.”

“Can I see him later?”

“Given the circumstances—”

“And Whit Lloyd?”

“I believe Mr. Lloyd is in California.”

“Jesus Christ,” I said. “You people.”

“I'd better go.”

“I'll find you if I want you,” I said. “Don't think you can just cut out on me.”

“Just as you say, sir.”

He slipped out the door and made his way quietly off. I tried to gauge the time it would take to get to the Lloyd place. There wasn't enough time—never enough time. I couldn't say if Federle had managed to make it home with the Chrysler and the key, and I was not in any mood to speak to his woman. But there was no other way. I went to the bathroom and swabbed my face in the sink. My hair looked dead, so I ran a comb through it to put it straight back.
I'm as good as dead, to judge from that mug,
I told myself.
A hell of a way to start the morning.
I found clothes to wear, slipped into my hat and jacket, and stepped out the door.

I thought I could find Federle's room by judging how the fire escape ran upward, but there were two floors above mine. I walked as quietly as I could down the hall of the first floor and found the layout of the rooms all wrong. I got turned around, and there was nothing to tell me which door to knock on. When I reached the stairs, I was able to get myself straight, and I went on up to the top floor. It was clear to me then where the fire escape was, and I stumbled along until I found a door with half a dozen tiny handprints smudged onto the lower part of it. I knocked softly.

Patty Federle pulled the door open as if she had been expecting me to stop in for tea. She said nothing but stepped back curtly to let me in. The apartment was full of light. Her expression was blank, but my own cloud of guilt made it seem that she was not pleased to see me. There was no sign of the children.