From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [221]
“He’s here,” he said. “And he’s already got one for you.”
Prew followed him inside, into the subdued atmosphere of richness with the pyramids of glasses doubling themselves in the mirror and the smooth-spoken barmen that always made you feel low class, and on through out onto the terrace.
The two men were sitting in a booth for four with the sea rising dark behind them, beyond the light. One was tall and very slender with a tiny grey moustache and close clipped grey hair and very bright eyes. The other was a big man, over two hundred, with the beginning of a double chin and shoulders almost as wide as the table.
“This is Prewitt,” Angelo said, “that I been telling you about. My buddy. And thats Hal,” pointing to the thin one, “about whom I’ve been telling you about. And this is Tommy.”
“Hello,” Hal said, in a clipped voice that sounded foreign.
“Hello, Prew,” Tommy said, in a deep bass voice from down in his barrel chest. “You dont mind if we call you Prew?”
“Thats all right,” Prew said. He put his hands in his pockets. Then he took them out. Then he leaned against the booth. Then he stood up straight again.
“Come on, you dears,” Hal said in his accented voice. “Sit down.”
Here it comes, Prew thought. He sat down beside the big man, Tommy.
“You know Tommy,” Angelo said to Prew. “He’s the one I told you about was Bloom’s girl friend.”
“Well,” Tommy smiled smugly. “I do declare. I am acquiring a reputation.”
“But they’ve busted up now,” Angelo said.
“Yes,” Tommy said stiffly. “Everyone makes mistakes. That bitch. He is not only a pig, but he’s as queer as a fruit cake.”
Hal laughed delightedly. “What will you have to drink?”
“Champagne cocktail,” Maggio said.
Hal laughed. “Darling Tony and his champagne cocktails. I had to buy champagne and learn to make them for him. He has an artist’s stomach. Saint Anthony Maggio, of the champagne cocktails.”
“Nuts,” Tommy said. “Horse nuts.”
Hal laughed delightedly. “Our friend dislikes the Catholics. He used to be one. Personally, I have no more against the Catholics than any one else.”
“I hate them,” Tommy said.
“I hate the Americans,” Hal smiled. “I used to be one of them.”
“Why do you live here then?” Prew asked.
“Because, sadly enough, dear, I have to make a living. Isnt it disgusting? But then I do not consider Hawaii exactly American. Like so many other places, it is not American by choice so much as by necessity. The necessity of armed force. Like all the pagans they were doomed from the start to be converted to our particularly morbid type of Christianity.”
“What do you want to drink, Prew?” Tommy put in.
“Champagne cocktail,” Maggio said.
Tommy gave Maggio a withering look and then turned to Prew again.
“Sure,” Prew said. “Thats okay, I guess.”
“You must excuse me,” Hal smiled. “When I get to discussing things I forget everything. Sometimes I even forget to eat.”
Hal motioned for the waiter and gave the orders and then turned back to Prew. “You are the type of mentality I like to talk to. It reaffirms my somewhat threadbare faith in the human race. You have an inquiring mind and all it needs is the proper direction.”
“I dont need any direction,” Prew said. “I make up my own mind. About everything. Including queers.”
Across the table Maggio shook his head warningly and scowled. Tommy was looking away at the time.
Hal was sighing heavily. “That is a harsh word to use. But then we are used to that. And of course, you are slightly ill at ease now, your first time meeting us and all.”
Prew shifted in his seat and looked up at the blank-faced waiter who was setting the drinks before them. “Yes,” he said. “Thats true. I am. But I just wanted to have it straight I never like to have people tell me how to make up my mind.”
“Ah,” Hal said. “A man after my own heart.”
“Listen,” Tommy said abruptly. “Whose date is he, anyway? Yours