The Daisy Ducks (41 page)

"Yeah, well I think he's avoiding you. But as to
what happened specifically, it's really nothing much. I think it was
a bunch of guys showing their thanks. And that was, uh, how they did
it."

In my mind's eye, I could picture the place. The
memory was somewhat hazy, due to the late hour and all the
celebrating. It was out on Bragg Avenue. I should have known by the
elaborate drawings on the walls that the place wasn't a bar. Then we
were sitting around a table in there. Daisy was on my lap, doing
something pleasant to my face and ear with her tongue. Then the
little Chinese man was hovering near my left side, smiling and
bowing. He had something in his hand . . . an instrument with a cord.
Soldering iron? No . . . I remembered I smelled rubbing alcohol. Then
the pain started. Gee it stung. I slept all the way home, as did most
of the others, I guess.

I told Mary everything that had happened. I did leave
out the part about Daisy, however. I mean, I'm sensible some of the
time. She listened, deadpan, to my tale, then glanced at my
shoulder. She hadn't seen it, of course, because of
the bandage.

"What does it say?" she asked.

"It says, uh, ‘Daisy Ducks,' and then a
picture of her."

Mary lowered her head into her hands and groaned.

"A picture? Good Christ! What's she doing, a
parachute jump?"

"No. She's walking with a rifle at port arms,
snarling."

"Good Christ."

"Tommy got one, too. It's kinda cute, once you
get used to it."

"Well, we're not going to get used to it,
Charlie. You're having a skin graft as soon as we get back."

"Hmmmmph! Maybe. Maybe not."

So we went on and on about that for a while, then
turned to the matter of the money.

"So how much is there, and what's going to
happen to it?"

"We put the bills in stacks of thousands, each
with a rubber band around it. There were seventy-one stacks left
after the Fayetteville binge. Of this, I get about seventeen. Twelve
of that goes to pay for the convalescence of Roantis and Summers. The
remaining five you and I are going to use for a nice long
vacation—your choice."

She gripped my forearm and smiled.

"The rest of the money will be split up among
the other four, with Roantis getting the biggest cut. And we all
decided to give Sairy Royce four grand. It's to help Bill. He's had a
rough time. None of the guys visited him when he was down. Kaunitz
talked us into it, and he's right. Bill's going to need rehab therapy
when he gets out, and it costs."

"That's nice, but the original plan called for
you and Liatis to split it."

"Well, you know we don't need the money, and —"

"Charlie, we could use —"

"Not what I said. Sure, we could use an extra
thirty grand. Buy some more toys for ourselves. But we don't need it.
Roantis, he's had a rough time since he found out about Vilarde. Real
rough. But I think it's helping him to grow. It'll humanize him. I
think it's already started. You know, there's not a thing wrong with
that guy except that he's been in the wrong line of work for forty
years."

"And you don't think he meant to sell Vilarde
out?"

"No. Not consciously, anyway. But, as I said,
his profession finally got to him. You can't do that no-holds-barred
stuff for years and years and not start thinking like an animal."

"Well, I hope you've had —your fill of
adventuring, Charlie. I mean for good."

"Don't worry. That part of my life is over, for
keeps," I said.

Maybe if I kept saying it, it would be true.

So we finished our drinks and got up to go to dinner.
It was getting chilly now. The sun was past down, and there was a
lovely afterglow in the west. I put my hand around Mary's waist and
led her off the terrace.

"I love you, Mary," I said, "and
nobody but."

"Same here, Charlie."

And I was going to be a good boy from now on. You
bet.

Except that behind me, in my mind's ear, from out of
the golden sunset and the swelling folds of the firmament, came the
bugles.