Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [208]
The door opened and Keefer came in, spick-and-span in freshly pressed blues, his breast-pocket ribbons crowded with battle stars. The lower gold stripes on his sleeves were faded, the upper ones bright yellow. He carried a small black leather satchel. “Steve, I’m shoving off. Got time for some lunch?”
“I don’t think so, Tom- Lieutenant Greenwald, Lieutenant Keefer, our gunnery officer- Get your plane priority okay?”
“Yes, by dint of a great deal of charm lavished on a dried-up old pig in Transportation. I thought I might have to marry her first.”
Maryk smiled sourly. “Well, have yourself a time.”
The gunnery officer patted the satchel. “Recognize this?”
“The novel?”
“First half. I’m going to try to peddle it back East.”
“Hope you make a million dollars, boy.”
Keefer glanced at Greenwald, hesitated, looked back at Maryk, and said with a grin, “Well, I’m off, in a blaze of sheep dung.” The door closed.
“Look,” said Greenwald, slouched, studying the toes of his shoes. “I’m a pretty good lawyer, as it happens.”
“You have to be goddamned good to get me out of this.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because as far as the thing will ever get in the Federal Office Building, I’m guilty. For all I know I’m guilty any way you look at it. Give a lamebrain enough time and he’ll foul himself up-”
“I’m hungry,” said the lawyer. “Where can we get some chow and talk about it?”
“There’s a cafeteria over at Pier 8--”
“Come along.”
Maryk looked at the lawyer and shrugged. “Okay,” he said, reaching for blue trousers crumpled at the foot of the bed.
“If you’re going to plead guilty,” said Greenwald-his voice was pitched high over the clatter of cutlery and tin trays, and the gabble of hundreds of Navy Yard workers feeding themselves amid steamy odors of tomato soup, cabbage, and human being-“then the whole thing becomes a formality. Even in that case the idea is not just to stand up and say ‘Guilty’ in open court. You bargain with Challee. It’s a queer case, and a messy one, and for the sake of a sure score Challee might go easy-”
The exec listlessly forked scrambled eggs into his mouth and took a swallow of coffee. “I’m no good at that bargaining-”
“Well, of course, your counsel does that for you-”
“Look, Greenwald, I may be guilty by the book but I don’t feel like pleading guilty. Christ, I wasn’t trying to take over the ship, I was trying to save it. If I was wrong about Queeg being nuts, well, that’s one thing, but I was trying to do what I thought was right-”
Greenwald nodded, lolling his tongue on his lower lip. “No criminal intent.”
“That’s it. No criminal intent.”
“Well, don’t plead guilty then. Make them work to hang it on you- What did your friend Keefer think of Captain Queeg?”
The exec’s eyes shifted in a narrow surly side glance. “Look, it’s all my responsibility-that’s the way it’s got to be-”
“Did Keefer think Queeg was a paranoiac, too?”
“I don’t know what he thought. Leave him out of it.”
Greenwald played with his nails. “He looks like a guy I once knew in school. Fellow name of Pelham.”
The exec’s face was sullen and bitter, his gaze far away. He drank off his coffee. “Pretty lousy joe they serve here.”
“See here, Maryk, I’m willing to be your defense counsel, if you want me.”
Maryk nodded, and looked into the lawyer’s eyes, his frown fading into timid gratitude. “Well, okay, thanks. I need somebody-”
“Don’t you want to know my qualifications?”
“I guess they’re okay or the legal office wouldn’t have sent you around-”
“Well, listen anyway. I am a red-hot lawyer in civilian life. I was making twenty thousand a year when I was only out of school four years.” Greenwald’s boyish face took on a peculiar inner smile, a mere glow around the eyes; he held his head bashfully sidewise, looking at a spoon with which he traced rings in a slop of coffee on the table. “Not only that, my third year out of school I pried a hundred thousand dollars out of the government for some Cherokees who’d been cheated out of their land forty years ago.”
“Jesus.