It Takes Two (28 page)

“Oh, I did come home,” I said. “Was ordered to testify at the kangaroo court-martial the Navy brass set up for our captain. Shared a four-man cabin from Yokohama to ’Frisco. Had a week’s liberty in Tampa. But I’d already figured that if I didn’t get right back to sea for real, I never would—that I’d be beached forever.”

“Brave man.”

“Desperate. Sailing blind. Anyway, I put in for sea duty. Ferried a new troop ship from the yard at Norfolk out to Japan. Then, boom—Bruce Asdeck or somebody picked my name out of some shit-pile hat. When the ship docked at Yokosuka, I got handed a set of orders and put ashore.”

“And you never heard anything else?”

“About Mike? He left me his insurance. I wrote his sister in Baltimore to see if she was OK for money. She said she was.”

Bud laughed. “Luck,” he said lightly. “The brass never caught on to you two horny monkeys. That was your luck.”

I stared at him a long time. Finally I said, “Of course they caught on to us. That’s how I got a job running a glorified whore-house in Japan. That’s how I got here.”

“Jesus,” he groaned after what seemed like a minute. “I don’t—”

“Sarge,” I said, thinking fast now, suddenly sober out of pure desperation. “You don’t know how lucky you are. To get hooked up with me. As a team, we don’t know how lucky we can get.”

He looked away and then back at me. “What kind of team? Thought you said—”

“I said business. Here’s my proposition. You quit your dead-end Lee County job as quick as you can. You start up a private security business the next day. I already briefed the Admiral. One of his investors will kick in seed money. You’ll be on your way.”

Bud sipped his coffee. “On my way to digging irrigation ditches for some friggin’ tomato farmer after six months.”

“Horse shit,” I answered. “The Caloosa Hotel will be your first and only client. Long-term contract. Your bravery and honesty, coupled with my fuck-all determination, that ought to be enough to keep this place safe—from the Klan and your boss. Plus which,”—and I took a breath before finishing the sentence—“I’m  getting to like being around you, a lot more than I figured would ever happen.”

He was grinning. But he had a narrow, quizzical look in his eyes. “You know,” he said, “you’re the first person since my granny and my old coach to see much in old Buddy-Bud besides shoulders and fists. To see, hell, value and potential? Heart and head? Only that sounds like Boy Scout shit, cheer-leading for myself.”

I grinned back. Now he was hearing me. “Those officers who cited you for bravery,” I said. “They saw something.”

He shook his head. “I only did what any man trained to use a rifle would do in the same spot,” he muttered. “Platoon leader’s different than being Joe Cop or Joe House-Dick.”

I asked him to think over my proposition seriously. He said he would, but that his inclination was to say flat-out no. Crossing over from law enforcement to what amounted to the other side wasn’t anything he’d ever considered. He didn’t see any reason to take such a chance. We were buddies and that didn’t need to change.

I shoved back my chair and stood up. “Let’s hit the beach.”

He rose unsteadily. I took his shoulder and turned him. We were both plastered. “Come on,” I said. “Walk.”

Heading out toward the Caloosahatchee, we turned east along the riverside path at the far end of the parking lot. There was a soft breeze and intermittent moonlight. We could see each other’s faces.

I was tired and disappointed that he hadn’t jumped at my offer. Halting beside an old orange tree that overhung the water, shielding us from the hotel’s lights, I took a few deep breaths.

Bud rolled on for a dozen paces, then turned and came back. “Cool off, Dan,” he said. “Because this thing—this friendship, me being buddies with you, and getting to feel like we, well, you know—this ain’t anything I expected.”

“Fuck. That’s what I just said.”

“And you’re telling me the admiral thinks we could really do the security detail at arm’s length and private?”

Nodding, I took a step closer to him. I didn’t care what the admiral thought, not anymore.

“Guess there’s ways it might work,” he said. “So’s not to give anybody ideas.” He looked me in the eye and repeated the phrase, trying to soothe me: “It could work, Dan. It’s OK. It’s OK.”

It didn’t feel OK. “You want me to stay at arm’s length, Bud?”

“Dan, I ain’t no pansy. Nor you either. It was just the goddamn war. And you cooped up in that cabin with another man and all.”

We didn’t move. Then he said, “Arm’s length would be better. Safer all around. Luck or no luck.”

“Luck or no luck,” I said. “OK, OK.”

Peeling off my shirt and wadding it up, I added, “Let’s get in the water. Clear our heads. Soak the beer out.”

Tossing my shirt aside, I reached for Bud’s wool jacket. “Skinny dipping,” I muttered, pushing the coat down his arms, exposing the holster and pistol. “Cool us off,” I said, unbuttoning his shirt.

Cooling either of us off was the last thing on my mind. Getting wet and naked suddenly seemed like the only solution to the muddle.

He put his hands on my bare shoulders. “Too dangerous,” he said. “Might get in trouble. Better stay here.”

I touched his side lightly, my hand brushing his scar. His hands tightened on me. We stood that way, frozen in moonlit shadows for half a minute. I’d just begun to unfasten his belt buckle when somebody on the hotel dock behind me coughed. I felt Bud’s gut stiffen as he looked up.

We sprang apart. His shoe caught on an exposed orange-tree root and he almost went down. I grabbed his arm automatically. He found his balance and looked toward the dock.

Emma Mae, beer bottle in one hand, waved at us with the other. “Tide’s running,” she called. “We’re just checking the lines on the fishing boat.”

Slim Nichols, Bud’s girlfriend, stood beside Emma Mae, staring.

Given the circumstances and the amount of beer we’d put down, I guess Bud did the only reasonable thing. Shaking free of my arm, he pushed me back a step and, as gently as possible, slugged me in the jaw.

The lifeboat slid down a big Pacific roller into a deep trough, taking on water. The stink of scotch whiskey and diesel oil stung my throat and lungs. Painfully pulling upright to empty my guts over the gunwale, I spotted another boat, an empty inflatable. The sun was dropping toward the horizon fast, half blinding me. Rubbing my salt-caked eyes, I tried to keep the buoyant raft in sight. Darting in and out of fog and mist, the raft suddenly became the hotel’s fishing boat. She was backing toward me, her reversed propellers kicking up white foam. On the boat’s after-deck, four figures—Bud Wright, Mike Rizzo, Wanda Limber and Slim Nichols—sipped from bottles of beer, threw the empties into the ocean, laughed and chatted. I called out. There was no response. The boat drifted past me, toward the setting sun. As if accidentally glancing back, Slim spotted me, waved almost casually and alerted the others. I held up the bottle of scotch, which was now Bacardi rum. The party of four saluted. A wind kicked up. The boat’s diesel engine turned over, caught, roared and settled into forward action. The party moved away.

I bit the pillow and gagged. Beer-shrimp nausea and cold-fuck embarrassment rolled over me. I needed to pee. Hauling myself onto my feet, I glanced out the cracked-open window. The venetian blinds were open. The Florida sun was just up. Birds were cawing and hawking out on the river. Off in the distance a tug charged busily downriver, her diesels singing, the crew headed westward toward the Gulf, perhaps bound for some ship in distress.

After a long piss, hot shower and fast cup of coffee in the hotel kitchen, I filled a Thermos bottle with more coffee and headed over to Bud’s rooming house. The front door was locked but the spare key lay where Bud kept it, under the porch steps.

He opened the door to his room wearing only a T-shirt. Prudently, I didn’t look down. He tried to shut the door in my face. I blocked it with my foot.

“Get outta here,” he said. “I got coffee,” I said.

“Hold the noise down. I can make my own coffee.”

“Lemme in.”

Turning, he reached for his pants. “Fucking grab-ass game last night’s probably gonna cost me my job.”

“Bull shit. Two drunks fighting. Probably looked like a couple of bears in a circus. And it was real dark. You got any clean cups?”

“Look in the lavatory sink. Fuck, you know she saw us. That’s my girl, in case you forgot.”

“Did I tell you your girl applied for a job at the hotel yesterday morning?”

“You fucker. What the hell are you doing to me?”

I poured coffee into the two cleanest cups I could produce. “What’s your girl gonna do? Tell the whole town the man she puts out for is turning queer? And so she wants to go work for the man that’s queering him? Some babe.”

“Watch it, watch your mouth.”

“We were stupid, OK? I was stupid. The beer made me stupid. Should’ve marched you back over here instead of down to the river. Or invited you upstairs.”

“Stow that. Could be you hoped to get me fucking disgraced and fired. I’ll be damned if I’ll work for you. You get me drunk and try to talk me into—”

“You don’t understand anything, do you, Sarge? Am I wasting my breath?”

The words turned alternately hot and icy in my throat. I gulped steaming coffee and almost burned my mouth.

Bud turned away, confused and angry, talking to the wall. “Fucking understand one thing, mister. Probably be better for me to stick to women after this.” He turned to face me. “I ain’t gonna be labeled a queer homo like some fruit-cocktail hairdresser.”

“Listen,” I said, moving toward him. “You’re no fruit. Neither one of us is. I had a lot to learn—about what I want.”

“Well, you didn’t learn enough.” Bud grabbed the desk chair, wrapped a leg around it and leaned his forearms on the back rail. “I know about wanting to touch somebody,” he continued. “Wanting to get close to another swinging dick, like my old coach. What you didn’t learn is that’s all little boy stuff. Grown men have got to learn to bury it. Put their dicks where they naturally belong.”

By then, I’d sat too, on the round, padded arm of the sofa. “That’s all fine,” I said. “If a man’s lucky enough to naturally like women.”

“You know,” he said, glancing up at me, “I think maybe the old
Indianapolis
is where your luck ran out. Because of what you and your—your friend—was doing that you wasn’t supposed to.”

I wanted to deck him. But he sounded serious. And I realized that he still misunderstood me, and that I needed to teach him better.

“You think me and Ensign Rizzo sharing a bunk sank the ship? You figure it helped that Jap sub captain find us? Jesus, man.”

“It’s what happened is all I’m saying.”

“Tempt fate and go straight to hell? Imagine if Dugout Doug had ever kissed Nimitz’s ass. We’d have lost the war.”

Bud stood up, walked to the bathroom and returned with a towel, shaving mug and razor in his hands. “Saturday morning,” he said, a goodbye look on his face. “But I better go face the music anyhow.”

“Assuming there is any music.”

“Just listen to me, Dan. Maybe I don’t want to learn all you know. Maybe what you learned in the Navy is crazy, tainted. You puttin’ your hands on me with other people around, trying to get my shirt off. Crazy. That hotel you run. Crazy. Admirals showing beaver movies to ladies. Men wearing lipstick.”

“Redheaded lieutenants who ought to know better,” I countered. “Ex-Marines who don’t know shit. Never will.”

“What?”

“I said: Why the fuck did I give up a regular commission? Florida’s not worth shit. Nothing like I expected.”

“You mean me, Lieutenant? Fucking jarhead who won’t give you all the ass you ask for? Fuck, I never gave it to nobody before. You know that?”

Shrugging, I admitted I did know that. But he wasn’t listening.

“Sure,” he continued, coming closer, dropping the shaving gear and towel on the chair. “I got off in the showers with somebody else before I ever met you. Played a little barracks grab-ass here and there. But that was it. I-T, period—it. Just women since the day I got discharged. Only you don’t care about that score, huh? Only buddy-fucking. Well, that has stopped. Finished. The End.”

“Grown men have to make their own luck,” I said quietly. We were glaring at each other, standing close enough to feel each other’s excited breath. “The two of us deserve to get lucky together. I mean that.”

When he didn’t say anything, or even blink, I upped the ante. “Go down and quit your job this morning,” I said. “Put in your papers. Forget your double-crossing boss. Take a guaranteed ten percent pay raise and start work Monday morning as my hotel security chief. I’ll even throw in a room as part of your wages. You can bank the rent you’re paying here.”

That’s when Bud blinked and swallowed hard. But he still didn’t say anything.

So I kept spilling my guts. “They want to keep us down,” I whispered. “It takes two to fight the bastards.”