To Kill the Potemkin (21 page)

"So
this is
Spain," said Fogarty,
staring into the darkness.

"They
call this
the Coast of
Light," Sorensen said. "Light fingers, mostly."

"So
where do we
go from here,
Sorensen?"

"Same
old drill.
Get drunk, get laid,
get stoned, in that order."

"That's
it?"

"So
what are we,
tourists? C'mon."

They
strolled
through the Avenida de Sevilla,
passing bars, cafes and bodegas. A hundred yards from the gate they
stopped in
front of El Farolito, "the little lighthouse," and pushed through the
door.

A
blast of loud
rock and roll greeted them
inside. They stood for a moment on a small landing, looking down into
the
partially subterranean bar, while their eyes grew accustomed to the
cherry glow
of an old diesel sub "geared for red." A white hat flew through the
air and landed on a table full of beer bottles. In the rear a pair of
castanets
danced above a ring of clapping sailors.

Machinist's
Mate
Barnes reclined on the steps
that led down to the saloon, playing a drunken air-guitar in
accompaniment to
Jimi Hendrix. They stepped over him and picked their way through the
crowd to
the bar.

The
bartender was
a blotchy man of fifty.

"Das
cervezas
," said
Sorensen.

"You
can talk
American here, Mac. A Bud
okay?"

"Two
cold ones."

Two
bottles
appeared on the bar. "You
fellas off the
Barracuda?
"

They
nodded.

"Hear
you're in
for repairs."

More
nods.

"Hear
you sank a
Russian boat."

Sorensen
did his
best to look surprised.
"That so? Where'd you hear that?"

The
barkeep
looked around the room as if he
were searching the horizon for a ship. "The word gets around. Guys from
your boat been comin' in here for a week. Seems like everybody knows
what you
don't."

"Well,"
said
Sorensen, "that's
news to me."

"Sure,
the silent
service. I served in
subs for thirty years, Mac. I know the score."

"So
let me buy
you a beer, Chief. To
your happy retirement in sunny Spain."

"I
never made
chief. If you want to get
along in here, call me Buzz."

"Okay,
Buzz. Have
a beer."

Buzz's
face
cracked a cheerless smile.
"Never touch it." He moved on down the bar.

Sorensen
looked
at Fogarty and laughed.
"You want to tell the world about the collision? Seems the world
already
knows. So much for navy security. If an old alky lifer knows, then
everybody
knows. The Russians, everybody. Drink up, Fogarty. To freedom, truth,
justice
and the right to know."

Sorensen
threw
back his head and poured down
half a bottle of beer.

Fogarty
looked
around. It was a large
L-shaped room with sawdust on the floor and a high ceiling obscured by
smoke.
Several of his shipmates were lying in the sawdust, some in puddles.
Others
were dancing to the thumping tempo of
Crosstown Traffic
.
Here and there in booths and tables
clusters of Spanish men and women aloofly watched the action. Gypsies
meandered
through the crowd selling switchblades and watches.

Halfway
down the
bar a crowd of sailors broke
into a cheer. Sorensen and Fogarty edged through the crowd A
spring-loaded rat
trap rested on the bar. Buzz cocked it and set it in front of Willie
Joe.

"Place
your bets."

"Double
or
nothin'," someone
shouted.

"Ten
he makes it."

"Five
he don't."

"Place
your bets,
let's fade the main.
Ten down and five to go."

The
game was
simple. All Willie Joe had to do
was reach in, trip the spring bar and get his fingers out of the way
before
they were mangled and broken.

With
no
hesitation Willie Joe stuck in his
fingers, touched the metal bar and jerked his hand away.

Buzz
cocked the
trap and put down ten
dollars. "All right, who's next?"

Willie
Joe looked
around and spotted Fogarty.
"Hey, sailor, let's see if you have any guts."

"You
think it
takes guts to do this,
Willie Joe? All it takes is stupidity—"

"You
chicken?"

In
a flash
Fogarty had reached into the trap
with his hand turned palm up and tripped the lock, caught the
guillotine bar in
mid-air and crushed the trap to bits in his fist. He brushed the pieces
of pine
and steel onto the floor.

"Willie
Joe,"
Fogarty said,
"when you can do that, I'll teach you a few moves."

Buzz
wailed,
"Hey, hey, you can't do
that. Where am I gonna get another trap like that? That was my big
money
maker."

Fogarty
smiled
and pushed the ten-dollar bill
across the bar. "I'm sure you'll think of something."

Sorensen
laughed
so hard he spilled his beer.
"Besides," he said to Buzz, "you should be ashamed of yourself.
My people can't do their jobs with busted fingers."

Fogarty
went in
search of the head. Sorensen
popped another pill, ordered another beer and scrutinized the whores,
most of
whom were frumpy Englishwomen from Gibraltar. There were also a few
Scandinavians, Germans and Gypsies.

"Hey
there. Ace."

From
across the
room Lopez waved his hat. A
gaudy overstuffed Gypsy perched on his lap, and two torpedo-men slumped
over
his table, passed out. Lopez lifted one off his chair and dropped him
in the
sawdust. Sorensen sat down.

"I
wanna buy you
a drink, hero,"
Lopez said.

"Why
aren't you
in the CPO club, boozing
it up with all the other old men?"

"Because
that's
what they are is a bunch
of old men. Hey, baby..." He grabbed at a passing barmaid and
ordered,
"Dos cervezas."

"You
gonna get a
new bug. Chief?"

Lopez
crossed
himself and mournfully shook
his head. In rapid Spanish he told the whore the tale of the lost
scorpion. She
made a face and stuck out her tongue.

"Chief,
what do
you know about Russian
torpedoes?"

"They
kill you
dead."

"If
it's a
wire-guided fish and the wire
breaks, what happens?"

"I
dunno. With
ours, the fish dies.
Motor stops and she sinks. Can't have a torpedo run wild, no no no."

"You
think theirs
are the same?'

"The
Russians
aren't stupid."

"I
dunno, Chief.
We're alive,
they're—"

"Yeah,
they're
dead."

The
beers
arrived. "Here's to all the
suckers," Sorensen toasted, "on both sides of the curtain." He
wouldn't correct Lopez about the Russian sub, not until he was one
hundred
percent certain. Why spoil his leave?...

"Oh,
que
guapo guerito,"
said the whore, flirting with Sorensen.

"You
like?" Lopez
said "Take
her. I give her to you as a present. You saved the fucking ship. You
deserve
it."

"Thanks,
Chief.
Maybe later."

Lopez
spotted
Fogarty walking back through
the bar, and asked, "That the kid who did the number on Davic?"

"That's
him."

"You
never
reported it."

"I
didn't see it.
There was nothing to
report. Seems like you found out anyway."

"I'm
chief of the
boat, Sorensen."

"Did
you tell
Pisaro?"

"No."

"All
right."

"But
I will next
time."

Lopez
buried his
face in the whore's neck and
spoke into her ear. Daintily, she climbed off his lap and Lopez stood
up.
"Time for business," he said.

Arm
in arm, Lopez
and the whore headed for
the door.

Sorensen
waved
Fogarty over to the table and
ordered another beer.

"Nice
party, hey,
kid?"

Fogarty
nodded.
"It's all right."

Sorensen
laughed.
"Relax, Fogarty. Throw
all that heavy shit out of your mind and have yourself a time. Grab one
of
these Brits and fuck her brains out."

"I
never did a
whore before."

"Bully
for you.
You're not queer, are
you?"

"I
wasn't the
last time I checked."

"You're
not going
to ease up, are
you?"

Fogarty
shrugged
and drank some beer.

"Fogarty,
you're
a good boy, aren't you?
All your life you've been a good boy. I'd bet anything that you've
never been
in trouble. I mean, real trouble. With the police, knock up a girl,
burn down
the house, like that."

"No."

"You've
never
done a mean thing in your
life, right?"

"I
wouldn't say
that."

"You
know karate,
or whatever it is, but
I'd bet you never really beat anybody up."

"You'd
lose."

"No
kidding.
Who'd you mess up?"

"My
brother."

"Okay.
That's not
too hard to figure
out. Like he beat up on you for years, so you went out and learned how
to
fight, then one day he picked on you and pow! Right?"

"Something
like
that. Pretty
close."

"But
you never
went out on the street
and kicked ass. You're not that kind of guy. You're a good boy. You
believe in
peace, love, all that shit."

"I
don't have to
prove that I can break
a few bones, if that's what you mean."

"How
about a few
Russian bones, Fogarty?
Would you break them if you had to?"

"I
hope I don't
have to."

"So
do I, kid,
and don't forget it. But
the question is, what are you going to do if and when the shit comes
down?
Maybe deep down you didn't really want to join the navy. Maybe you
wanted to
stay in school. Maybe you wanted to be an electrical engineer. Am I
getting
through to you?"

Fogarty
nodded.

"What
happened?
You run out of money?
You flunk out, what?"

"It
was the
money, partly."

"Yeah,
I thought
so."

"I
joined the
navy to see the
world."

"There's
lots of
ways to see the world,
and the Submarine Service is at the bottom of the list." Sorensen
smiled,
pleased at his turn of phrase.

Fogarty
shrugged.

"Fogarty,
I'd say
you're all fucked
up."

"That's
what I
like about you, Sorensen,
your delicate way of putting things... But I guess you're right.
Sure, I'm
all fucked up. Ditto the navy, and the world, for that matter..."

"Hey,
belay that
shit. You're not drunk
enough yet. It'll look a lot better later. Whoa, what's this?"

Cakes
Colby was
headed for their table.
Thumbs in his belt, hat tipped down low on his forehead, he planted
himself in
front of Sorensen. "There's nucs and there's pukes, and then there's
you,
Jack. You want some reefer?"

"What
would an
old Tom like you know
about reefer?"

"Son,
how do you
think I made it through
twenty-five years of fixing coffee for snotnosed officers? Everybody
has to get
over one way or another."

The
decrepit
Hotel Pennsylvania was built
around a covered central patio with three floors stacked like
doughnuts. The
single sofa in the lobby was threadbare; the green tile on the floor
was
chipped. Dirty windows looked onto the narrow Calle de Pescaderos, a
side
street off the Avenida de Sevilla.

A
boyish
red-haired clerk stood behind the
front desk, which was cluttered with dictionaries and notepads, the
paraphernalia of self-taught English.

"Welcome,
Americans sailors. Bery
welcome to you and you and you." The clerk nodded to Sorensen, Fogarty
and
Cakes in turn, exposing a set of gold teeth behind a fixed grin.

"You
are wanting
three rooms, jes? For
the privation. We are very accommodate you here at El Hotel
Pennsylbania. I am
Rodrigo to help you in all things."

"How
much are the
rooms?"

"Ten
dollars
Americans in advance and
three nights the liberation. Is bery resonant, no?"

"This
guy has got
beri-beri,"
Sorensen said.

"One
night,
Rodrigo," Cakes told
the clerk.

"Four
dollares
the singular night."

He
asked for
their military IDs, copied the
numbers and gave them keys to adjoining rooms on the third floor. As
they were
signing the registration forms he asked, "You
want girls?
Muchachas?
Nice girls. Clean. Speaking
English girls from
Hibraltar. Liquores? Booze, you say? This is the correct idiot? I got
Him
Beam."

"You
got him
beer?"

"Sure.
What kind
you like? I got Herman,
Dutch? It is the next door a bar for all drinkings."

"I
don't care as
long as it's cold. Two
six packs."

"Para
servirle, senor."
Rodrigo went through a curtain into the bar and returned with a dozen
bottles
of San Miguel and stuffed them in a paper bag.

They
went up to
Sorensen's room. It was plain
and clean with cheap prints of bullfighters on the walls. Sorensen
opened
beers, threw open the windows and stepped out on the balcony. Fogarty
flopped
on the bed, commenced guzzling beer. Cakes rolled a joint, twirling it
under
his nose, lit it and sucked mightily, then passed it to Sorensen, who
took a
hit.

"This
is good
shit, Cakes. You always
have the best dope." Sorensen passed the joint to Fogarty.

"Ain't
you got no
sounds, man?"
asked Cakes.

Sorensen
shoved a
Miles Davis tape into his
recorder and turned it on.

"This
is your
last cruise, Cakes?"