From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [137]
“Well what do you know?” it said, booming in a high thin treble that was a very peculiar sound. “Look who’s here. If it aint my old friend, compatriot, comrade in arms, and Mess Sergeant, Sgt Stark. Fancy meeting you here, of all places in the world. I bet you never thought you’d see old Angelo here, by god, tonight,” the voice accused triumphantly. “Wheres my boy Prewitt?”
“How the hell did you manage to make it into town with money?” Stark’s voice wanted to know.
“Ah,” Maggio’s voice smirked. “It was nothing. It was simple. Anything for a friend, anything for a friend.”
The two of them came through the doorway, an arm around each other’s neck half drunkenly, past Maureen. Maggio pinched her on the bottom deliciously and said, “Hello, my love!” and Maureen laughed and pinched his ear and said “Angelo my Romeo!” Maggio loosed his arm and bowed and Prew saw Mrs Kipfer beaming in at Angelo from the entryway. Stark pulled him back erect and they came on, Angelo waving happily at everybody he could see, the conquering hero come home.
“My god,” Angelo said drunkenly happily and put his other arm around Prew’s neck. “What is this, old home week? Looks like the goddam homecoming game at NYU. Nothin but Jews and Wops and Polacks.”
He pulled their heads together in front of him and whispered.
“I’m drunk, friends. Been drinkin champagne cocktails since eleven-thirty and am drunk. And happy. But dont tell Mother Kipfer or she’ll throw me out. Also, do not tell her of this fifth of whiskey I got in my belt under this loose flowing gook shirt.”
He straightened up and looked around and waved at Sandra sitting with the sailors.
“Wonderful things, gook shirts, aint they, Baby Doll? So loose and cool. Plenty of room to move. I love gook shirts. Do you love gook shirts?”
Sandra wrinkled her pert nose at him and laughed. “I love gook shirts, Angelo.” The two sailors stared at Angelo sourly.
Maggio pulled the two heads together in front of him again. “Thats for me,” he whispered. “For all-l-l night. Unless you men picked her first, you got first choice. Man, I like em tall. I’m the midget who married the fat lady in the circus. Acres and acres,” he whispered. “Acres and acres.”
“What I want to know,” Stark said, “is where the hell all this money come from.”
“Simple,” Angelo said. “Really nothing. Nothing at all. But its a long story. Shall I tell it?”
“Sure,” Prew said. “Lets hear it.”
“Shall I really tell it? Well all right then, if you insist. But its a long story. You sure you really want to hear it? Okay then, if you’re positive. I will tell it. But lets go back to the latrine first.”
“I just been,” Stark said.
Maggio slapped himself on the belly. “Yeah, but you dint find there what I’ll find there.”
“Nuff said,” Stark said, and the three of them went arm in arm back to the ammonia strong latrine, foul with the emptied bladders of a thousand men, and while Stark broke the seal on the bottle and they had a drink Maggio told them the triumphant story.
“After you guys left for town I got to wonderin why the hell I should stay home. So I called up my queer, Hal (the one I met that night we went broke in the poker game, remember?), and made him drive up to Wahiawa and pick me up, the bastard.
“He was reluctant, but I blackmailed him with this,” he said, holding up a stiffened middle finger. “Ony I was polite about it. He’s a intellecshual and very sensitive. I tole him this was a crisis and if he couldnt stand by his friends in a crisis he didnt deserve to have any friends. He seen the light all right.
“He took me back downtown and bought me a big feed of steak and frenchfries at Lau Yee Chai’s, get that, Lau Yee Chai’s. No tonks for Maggio. When Maggio rides he hits the best. After the feed we went and drunk champagne cocktails at the good old Waikiki Tavern where all the boys hang out.
“I explained to old Hal how I’d borrowed twenty bucks off a twenty percent man in the Company and I had to have it back right away to pay him off because he was threatenin to turn