In Danger's Path (33 page)

Which is why I felt the booze, and allowed myself to forget that a decent human being doesn't look up the dress of a friend, who incidentally happens to be the widow of my best friend
.

Or completely forgets Janice!

Jesus, what about Janice? What the hell would I have done about Janice if something had happened?

“I hate to rain on this parade,” Martha announced, as she daintily wiped her fingers and mouth with a paper towel. “But I have had a very busy day, and tomorrow is going to be busier. And if we're going to have a nightcap at the San Carlos, we're going to have to leave this charming company now.”

“We could pass on the nightcap at the San Carlos,” Weston said.

“I wouldn't think of it,” Martha said, as she rose to her feet.

The men shook hands, and one of the lieutenants repeated, “Welcome home, sir.”

In the car, Weston repeated, “We could pass on the nightcap at the San Carlos's bar.”

“There's something I want to show you there,” she said. “And didn't you notice that I was a good girl and didn't even touch my scotch? I'm entitled to a nightcap.”

It was too cold now to have the roof of the Buick convertible down, or even to have the windows open. In a matter of minutes, as they headed down the two-lane macadam road back to Pensacola, Martha's perfume overwhelmed the smell of the red leather seats.

[FOUR]
The Cocktail Lounge
The San Carlos Hotel
2030 6 March 1943

The bar was crowded with Navy and Marine Aviators and their women, but it was captains and majors, an older, more senior crowd, than the aviation cadets and lieutenants in Zeke's.

After a minute their eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and Jim Weston saw an empty banquette. He took Martha's arm and led her to it.

“You forgot, huh?” Martha asked, as she slid onto the seat.

“Forgot what?”

“That you weren't going to touch me.”

“Oh, Jesus, Martha!”

“Your intentions, I know, are very honorable,” she said.

A waitress took their order. Martha ordered a scotch, and after a moment's hesitation, Weston said to make it two.

“You said you wanted to show me something?”

“I do. But first, something's been bothering me.”

“What?”

“How come you were reported KIA?”

“How did you hear that I was?”

“Daddy told me you had been reported KIA on Luzon on April 3, 1942. He'd seen some kind of a report.”

“You're sure of the date?”

“I'm sure of the date. It was another of the red-letter days in my life.”

“That figures, then,” Weston said, as much to himself as to Martha.

“What figures?”

“On April first, I deserted,” he said. “I remember the date clearly, because it was April Fools' Day, and that seemed somehow appropriate.”

“You
deserted?
”

He nodded. “I deserted. Probably in the face of the enemy. I didn't mention that while reciting my inspiring tale of heroism to your mother.”

“I don't understand, Jim.”

The waitress delivered the drinks before he could reply.

He raised his to Martha.

“Thank you for a very interesting afternoon,” he said.

“Interesting?” she asked.

“How about delightful?”

“You don't mean that either,” Martha said, taking a sip of her drink.

“What do you mean by that?”

“I told you, I can always tell what you're thinking. Mostly you've been uncomfortable.”

“What gives you that idea?”

“We're back to ‘I can read your mind',” she said. “Finish the story.”

“Okay. I was on Corregidor. That's the fortress in Manila Bay….”

“I know.”

“Luzon was about to fall. Corregidor was going to fall. I decided I didn't want to become a prisoner. I had some idea I could get out of the Philippines and make myself useful as a pilot. So I just took off. Deserted.”

“Just like that? You just walked away?”

“No. It was a little more complicated. I worked for a major named Paulsen. He knew what I was thinking. So he sent me—and Sergeant Everly—to Luzon, ostensibly looking for generator parts. But he knew we wouldn't be coming back. We didn't. We used the money we were supposed to buy generator parts with to buy a boat, and headed for Mindanao.”

“It didn't bother you that whoever needed the parts wasn't going to get them?”

“There were no parts to be bought, and Paulsen knew that when he gave me the money to buy them. But there's an interesting question. What if I had stumbled on some parts? Would I have gone back to the Rock?”

“Would you have?”

“I don't know. Moot point. There were no parts. I went to Mindanao.”

“Which constituted desertion.”

“Right. Major Paulsen stayed, of course, knowing he was either going to get killed when the Japs took Corregidor, or become a prisoner. As a good Marine officer, he couldn't bring himself to desert. But without actually coming out and saying I should, he helped me to desert. Interesting question of morality.”

“In other words, he was like Greg, and you were like…you?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“For Greg, everything was black or white. You're smarter. You understand that everything is really one shade or another of gray.”

That sounded like a shot at Greg. Did she mean that, or is that the booze talking?

“Yeah, I suppose so. I can now rationalize, of course, that I was of more value as a guerrilla on Mindanao than I would have been as a prisoner, and now I'm going back to flying. But every once in a while I look myself in the mirror, and there's the guy who deserted his post in the face of the enemy. Another interesting question of morality.”

“What's this got to do with you being reported KIA?”

“I think Paulsen must have reported me KIA, two days after I didn't come back.”

“Why?”

“There's a couple of possibilities. He had to say something when I didn't come back. Desertion was becoming a real problem. We got lectures about our duty as Marine officers: ‘Marine officers don't desert; Marine officers man their posts until properly relieved.'”

“Which you decided didn't apply to you?”

“Sticking around waiting to get killed or become a prisoner when there were other options didn't make much sense to me,” Weston said.

“In other words, sometimes what people expect you to do—the conventional morality—doesn't make any sense?” Martha asked, and added: “I've come to the same conclusion myself.”

Now, what the hell does she mean by that?

“So, what I think happened was that Paulsen reported me KIA,” he said. “He had to report something. If he reported me AWOL, they would have put my name on the list of probable deserters, and the MPs would have been looking for me.”

“So you did what you thought was the right thing for you to do, right? And to hell with what other people thought you should do?”

“Yeah, I guess you could put it that way,” he said.

“I'm really glad you did, Jimmy,” she said, grasping his hand. “You're here. You're alive.”

He exhaled audibly.

Martha drained her drink and stood up. “I have to go to the ladies' room,” she said. “Order me another drink?”

“Don't you think we'd better call it a night?”

She looked at her watch.

“It is getting late,” she said. “Pay the bill. Meet me in the corridor.”

He nodded, watched her walk out of the cocktail lounge, and looked around for their waitress.

He was waiting for her in the corridor, beside the elevator, when she came out of the ladies' room.

She walked past him to the elevator.

“Good. It's here,” she said. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“I told you I had something to show you. I don't want to show it to you in the corridor.”

He stepped onto the elevator. She pushed the
DOOR CLOSE
and
STOP
buttons.

“Somebody's going to want to use the elevator,” he said.

“This won't take long,” Martha said. She reached for his hand and put something in it, then leaned against the wall of the elevator, smiling at him.

He looked down at his hand. At first he thought the small, foil-wrapped package was a piece of candy. Then he recognized it for what it was really was. “What am I supposed to do with this?” he asked.

“I think you know what it's for,” she said.

“Martha, that wouldn't make any sense at all.”

“Don't be a hypocrite, Jimmy,” she said. “You want to as much as I do. You've been looking up my dress all afternoon.”

“I'm sorry you saw that,” he said.

“You shouldn't be.”

He looked at her.

“I'm not going to beg you, you sonofabitch!” she said.

She turned from him to the row of elevator buttons.

“Which one do I push?” she said. “Your call.”

He didn't reply until she turned to look at him over her shoulder. He saw tears forming in her eyes.

“Six,” he said.

She pushed the button, the elevator started to move, and then she was in his arms.

“That's the second time I bought one of those things from the machine in the ladies' room,” Martha said.

They were lying in bed, on their backs, staring up at the ceiling.

“What?” he asked.

“Consumed with guilt, are we?” Martha said, and then went on. “I always wondered why they had a condom machine in the ladies' room. To protect the ladies? Or the men?”

“Jesus, Martha!”

“The first time I bought one, he was willing, but when I went to his room, I wasn't. Actually, it was the penthouse, here in the San Carlos. He was a very rich, and very nice, really, young Marine Aviator, and he told me he was in love with me. Maybe if he hadn't said that, I would have gone through with it. Anyway, I didn't. You're the first man since Greg, if you've been wondering. And since he was the first, you're number two.”

“Oh, Christ, Martha!”

“I've had a number of offers, of course,” she said. “But aside from…the very nice, very rich young aviator…I never really wanted to. And I didn't go through with that. Until today, when I saw you get out of the car, I had just about convinced myself that whatever I was, I was not the Merry Widow of fame and legend. You know what that means, really, in German?”

“What?”

“The title of that operetta,
Die Lustige Witwe?
Popularly known as
The Merry Widow?
Lustige means ‘lusty.' Full of lust.”

“Oh, for Christ sake!”

“But when I saw you get out of your car, I realized I was wrong. I was suddenly very
lustige
indeed.”

“Martha, for Christ's sake!”

“And now that you know, are you really disgusted with me, or do you think, as a kindness, you could force yourself to put your arms around me? Right now, I feel very lonely.”

He reached for her and wrapped his arms around her and comforted her as she sobbed against his chest.

“I thought I was going to die when Greg got killed. I did, inside. And then I started having fantasies about you. Jim would come home. Jim would comfort me.”

“Jesus!”

“Today wasn't the first time I've caught you looking up my dress,” she said, her sobs turning into giggles. “Thought I didn't notice? I noticed!”

“You're really something, Martha.”

“And then
you
were KIA, you bastard!” she said. “And I really died inside all over again. And then you came back from the dead, and
didn't
call, and I understood that I'd been a little crazy, thinking that you felt anything for me—or I felt anything for you. And then, you bastard, you show up without warning at the house, and started looking at me like that.”

“You mean looking up your dress?”

“That too,” she said. “But I meant the look in your eyes when you saw me. You know the first thing I thought when I saw you?”

“I'm afraid to ask.”