Hold Tight (22 page)

“Yes. Very good.
That’s
what I wanted to see,” he claimed.

The sailor slowly lifted his head and looked at him.

“Quite a show. You can get dressed now.”

The sailor rolled off the boy, but lay on the bed, facing Blair. His penis was a vile shade of red, the hairs on his stomach matted and gluey.

“You can get dressed, I said. Please.”

“You don’t want to talk? About the war and stuff.”

“Of course. You know I enjoy talking with our servicemen, getting ‘the real skinny,’ as you call it.” He was pleased to have the sailor suggest it, despite their battle of wills. This was going to be easier than he thought. “But wouldn’t you feel more comfortable if you had some clothes on?”

“No. I feel comfortable like this.” He propped his head up with his arm and elbow. There was a look of defiance in his eyes.

Blair refused to acknowledge the look. “Very well. But what about your…colored friend. I can’t imagine he’d have much of interest to contribute.”

“Juke?” The sailor whispered to the boy and lightly jostled him, without taking his eyes off Blair.

The boy seemed to have fallen asleep. He murmured something, then rolled against the sailor, covering the white nakedness with a black one.

“Never mind. Let him sleep,” said Blair. He wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible, while his cleverness was still intact. “So. Any new scuttlebutt?”

The sailor’s eyes roamed the room. “What do you want to know?”

“Nothing in particular. Just some more inside information with which I can impress my drinking companions. Such as, oh, something more about Sledgehammer.”

“That Africa thing? Wahl,” he drawled, “I know about that only because of the charts they sent us. They tell us nothing, you know.”

Erich’s pencil raced over the pad, getting as much of it down as possible. He knew no shorthand. The man’s questions were certainly dangerous, but he didn’t talk like a spy. His conversation was so transparent, even direct, that Erich thought he might be what he said he was, a prying civilian who wanted to be let inside. The man wasn’t even suspicious when Fayette suggested they talk, despite all that had happened before. If the man were a spy, he must think Fayette a complete idiot. But Erich had once thought that himself.

“Oh, before I forget,” said Blair, reaching into his pocket and extracting his money clip. A book of matches fell to the floor. Blair noticed them, then forgot about them while he concentrated on keeping the sailor talking. “Your fifty dollars.” He peeled off two twenties and a ten and returned the clip to his pocket. “But you said it was going to be Dakar. French West Africa. I presume they’ll drive north and attack Rommel from the rear, after they beat the French.”

The sailor reached across the sleeping boy and accepted the money. He just held it in his hand, as if fifty dollars didn’t interest him. Blair wondered if he’d made a mistake flashing the rest of his money.

“There hasn’t been any word about
when
this invasion might be?”

“Hell, no. That’s the last thing they tell us. But there’ve been rumors,” said the sailor. “Like January.”

“Next year?” Blair couldn’t believe that.

“Or August.”

“That’s only next month.” Blair felt the sailor was toying with him, teasing him with something he really knew. Or mocking him for watching them copulate. “What makes people think it’ll be so soon?”

“War’s been going on for six months now. Time we invaded somebody.”

“But has there been anything to substantiate the rumors? Back them up?”

“Wahl, we been doing landing drills every day now, like it was gonna be sometime soon. That’s why
I
think it’s gonna be August. And the ack-ack guys just got an issue of those big-brimmed helmets like you see in Tarzan movies.”

“Hmmm.”

“Also, and this is why I don’t think it’s gonna be any earlier, everybody in my section who had leave scheduled for August or after has had their leave cancelled. But not the July guys.”

“Really?” Now
that
suggested something.

“And, best of all, the officers’ wives and families are starting to trickle into town for visits, no matter what part of the country they live in. Like they know they’re not going to see their honeys for a long time.”

When the sailor started, he sounded almost as though he was making it up as he went along. But that was only the hillbilly’s slow-witted way of speaking, Blair decided. Because it certainly sounded convincing. “Can you think of anything else that points to August? What makes people say January?”

“Nothing really. Except that they don’t want to think they’re going overseas anytime soon.”

“I see. But if you were a betting man, you’d bet your money on August?”

“At two-to-one odds, mister.”

There. He was finished with the degenerate. He did not have to pretend to be friendly anymore. “So. Africa in August. You should love Africa, sailor.” Blair smirked and nodded at the sleeping boy. “If you live to set foot on it.”

But neither the insult nor threat disturbed the sailor. He coolly looked straight at Blair and said, “You’re real smart, mister. And tough. But I scared the shit out of you a minute ago, just by fucking.”

“Nonsense. I was worried you were going to get my suit dirty.” But there was no need now for Blair to defend himself politely. “Anyway, you weren’t
fucking.
” He spat the word out. “You were the one being fucked. By a nigger.”

“Better him than you up my ass, mister.”

“I’m no pervert, you degenerate.” He kept his voice as low as the sailor’s, manfully refusing to lose his temper.

“Yeah? I hear your buddy Hitler’s got a streak of pansy in him too.”

“Hitler—!” He was sick of hearing that about Hitler, and to hear it now from a pervert? “Adolf Hitler knew how to deal with sickness like yours. When he found Roehm in bed with a catamite, he pulled out his pistol and shot both of them himself. Which is what you deserve. Only this country is soft on perversion. I’d go to prison if I killed you and your friend, and you’re not worth it!”

The colored boy just lay there, but he couldn’t be sleeping through this. Sex probably blew away the little intelligence coloreds had.

The sailor just smiled, as cool as ice. “So why do you come here, mister? Why did you pay to watch us? You envious?” And he began to whistle, then sing:

Goering has two, but they’re both small.

Himmler has something similar.

And Goebbels has no balls at all.

Blair despised that low song, which reduced everything to sex. “I come here just to see how bad things are in this country. Your kind of behavior wasn’t tolerated before Roosevelt. And it wouldn’t happen under Hitler.”

“So you and your friends’ll take care of me.”

“My friends and I will see to it that your kind is wiped from this country. Look at this city. It’s worse than Weimar Berlin. You’d think war would put an end to such filth, but no, it’s made it worse than ever. Girls sleeping with servicemen. Pansies picking up sailors. Sailors sleeping with
niggers
. War has proved how depraved this country really is. We deserve to lose!”

“I don’t see you doing anything, mister. You just like to watch, huh? That’s all you’re good for.”

“What do you know?” Blair sneered. “For all you know, I could be a Nazi spy.” He finally said it. He’d been dying to say it, just to put the fear of God into the pervert, to shake his arrogance. “What if I am? What if everything you told me tonight will go straight to Berlin, and a fleet of U-boats will be waiting for you at Dakar? Won’t you feel like a fool, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths because you were so busy satisfying your animal lusts?”

That startled the sailor. He glanced at the ceiling, then shook his head and said, “Naw. You’re not a spy. Right?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” But Blair would only go so far. This fool might believe him. “Of course not. I’m an American. A better American than you. But a city as rotten as this one is full of spies. The way you talk, you’ve probably already cut your throat.” Blair stood up. “For all you know, I’m with the FBI. Maybe I came here just to test you, to see if you knew how to keep your mouth shut. But you’ll never know that for certain, until they come to arrest you.”

“You leaving, mister?” The vague threat must have unnerved the sailor, because he spoke much louder than before.

“He’s leaving,” said Erich, although Sullivan had been reading all of it over his shoulder and was already putting his coat back on. “You ready?”

Sullivan patted his pockets and holster. “Dumbest spy I ever heard of. Or the craziest. I bet I trail this clown right back to a ward at Bellevue.” But he hurried up the steps and out the cellar door.

Blair fixed the knot against his throat and smoothed the crumpled necktie flat against his shirt. “Yes. This has been most interesting. Most entertaining. The depths we’ve sunk to.” He opened the door.

“Good riddance,” said the sailor. “See you in hell.”

For that, Blair left the door wide open. Let anyone who walked by get a glimpse of them in there. He wanted to be able to tell someone, “I just watched a nigger screw a sailor. Most amusing.” But there was nobody in the hall or on the stairs. What Blair really wanted to do was kill both of them. Going down the stairs, he felt ashamed again for seeing such indecency and not being able to punish it.

The front hall was empty. He opened the front door and stepped outside. His feelings of shame and helplessness suddenly lifted. He never had to come here again. He breathed the thick night air and wondered where he could catch a taxi. He wanted to get home and telephone Anna. She had promised to come see him the very night he learned what he had learned. He couldn’t wait to tell her what he knew, in his apartment, among his things, in his bed.

The street was dark and wide open. Stars were visible overhead. The silence was wonderful, freeing him to think about Anna, love and his success as a spy. His footsteps lightly echoed in the bay of blacked-out buildings, like a second pair of shoes.

Juke heard the man leave, then felt Hank’s warm weight get up from the bed when Hank went to shut the door.

“It’s over. He’s gone,” Hank said loudly, as if to wake Juke. But he looked down at the bed and said, “I knew you was playing possum.”

Juke rolled over and faced Hank, smirking. “Oh, but I wasn’t,” he sang. “You loved me silly, Blondie.” He watched for Hank’s response to his taunting, not wanting to show any real feelings until he had some idea what Hank felt.

Hank only bent down and picked a book of matches off the floor.

“And I fucked the bejeezus outa you,” Juke announced. “You ain’t telling me that’s the first time you got fucked.”

“That’s for sure,” Hank muttered, opening and closing the matches, reading what was printed on them. “What’s an El Morocco?”

“Huh? Just a place. A clip joint for whites with too much money. That circus queen forget her matches?” He knew Hank was stalling, ashamed to admit he’d been fucked and enjoyed it. But a guy who was truly ashamed would have pulled his clothes on fast, and Hank just stood there, bulky and naked, like they’d done nothing more than had a nice swim together.

“I guess it’s where that creep hangs out.” Hank carefully set the matchbook and the folded money on his dresser. “You want some of this?” he asked, tapping the money. It was as if he wanted to hide what had happened with a few bills.

“Ain’t you forgetting?” said Juke. “I was paying you. One dollar. You want it now? You think I might stiff you? Again?”

Hank looked at him, turned away and said, “Screw you.” But he said it without anger. He stood at the dresser, then gingerly picked up the pitcher there, poured some water into the knicked bedpan, wetted the stiff washcloth that hung from a nail on the wall and began to dab at his front.

Juke hesitated. He knew he had gotten himself where he wanted to be: under Hank’s skin. But it was a dangerous place to be. There was no telling what the man might do to shake him out. Juke had to be very careful, or he was going to get hurt. And, despite all his wishful thinking, the sex had only gotten Hank deeper under Juke’s skin.

“You might not like admitting it,” said Juke, “but your body sure had one hell of a party here.”

“Yeah,” said Hank. “I’d be lying if I didn’t say part of me enjoyed that.” He mopped himself with the washcloth, as if to get rid of the evidence.

“And I’d be lying if I didn’t say part of me enjoyed it, too. You sure know how to have a good time, Blondie.” Juke didn’t want to go too far, so he went at it from another angle. “That circus queen was sure one sick woman. What was all that shit about spies and FBI? Sounded to me like she was out to screw your head up.”

Hank slowly, absently nodded. Then he shyly turned around, holding the washcloth over his genitals. “I’m sorry I did that to you, Juke.”

“Did what? I did it to you,” Juke said with a laugh.

But Hank stayed serious. “Did it with you. For that creep.”

“Would you have done it without the creep?”

“No.” But Hank said it softly, as if he was sorry. “Only I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. Everything’s so topsy-turvy right now.” He looked down at himself while he rubbed himself clean, then stopped rubbing. “I just never thought of you that way, Juke.”

“What way?” Did he know? Had Juke given himself away during the sex? If Hank knew Juke was in love with him, then that would give Hank the upper hand. The possibility frightened Juke, and yet he found he was hoping Hank knew.

“For sex. As someone good for a lay.”

“Whadja think I was? Potatoes and gravy?”

“No. Just that you people have your sex with each other, and we have ours. I’m sure dogs never think about sex when they think about cats.”

Meow, thought Juke, but kept it to himself. No, it was better this way. The cracker was confused enough by lust. Talking to him about love would be like talking about Santa Claus. “Well, you know what they say,” said Juke. “It’s all pink on the inside.”

“Yeah. I guess.”

“But you do know how to enjoy yourself. For a white boy.”

“Yeah. Well…” Hank hung up the washcloth and quickly rubbed his front with the hand towel. He walked around the foot of the bed to where his clothes lay on the floor. He wouldn’t look at Juke while he pulled things on.