From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [432]
Chapter 49
IT WAS WHAT ROSE told him about The Warden that made him go back. He knew it was reckless. Once, just for gossip, that was all right. But any more than once was pushing your luck. He went back anyway.
In all, he went back five times, before he finally ran into Warden. Each time he took the pistol and extra cartridges out of the drawer to take with him, and each time he put them back when he got home. Georgette and Alma did not even know he had been out of the house at all. They noticed he seemed to be in a much better humor lately; but they did not know why.
He was careful to spread the trips out over a period. Somehow, he had a hunch Warden could fix it. If Warden was anything, he was a fixer. So he kept going back doggedly, but to go back two days in a row was pushing your luck too much for even his doggedness.
The first three times he drew a blank because the Company was still out at Makapuu building pillboxes. Charlie was adamant. Charlie was beginning to think this job never get done. Even Rose, when she was not sitting with her S/Sgt of Field Artillery, was worried.
The fourth time he went back was the night of November 28th, the day they got back in from the field, and he ran into a whole bunch of them—tanned, horny handed, cracked nailed, freshly shaved, tough—Chief Choate (a S/Sgt now), Andy and Friday, Sgt Lindsay, Corp Miller, Pete Karelsen, Malleaux the supply sergeant, Scholar Rhodes, Bull Nair, and a bunch of the new draftees. It was funny how quick the draftees in the Company had fallen into the scheme of things and picked up the Blue Chancre as their hangout. They all looked good, even the draftees. The old bunch were all glad to see him. They slapped him on the back as if he had just won the inter-Company track meet single-handed like a decathlon. Stark was not there. He had wanted to see Stark. He had a hard time to keep them from getting him drunk. Warden did not show, and he did not mention him.
But he took a chance and went right back the next night, in spite of the risk. He did not think any of them would turn him in. And somehow he had a hunch; he had more than a hunch, even though none of them had mentioned The Warden either. The same ones were not all there, but the ones who werent there when he arrived were either coming in or going out the rest of the evening, either on their way to or on their way from Mrs Kipfer’s or the Service Rooms or the Ritz Rooms or some of the others, because this was an occasion, this was the feast after the six weeks of fasting out in the desert. The Warden was not mentioned this time either.
While he drank beer and watched the door, Prew tried not to think how some of them were either going to or coming from the Ritz where they might have just been in the bed with Georgette. But his hands got sweaty anyway.
He saw Warden, it seemed, almost before he came in sight around the pushed-back latticework of the open front. Warden did not come in. He did not even look in. He sauntered on past and disappeared beyond the other side of the open front. Apparently nobody else in the place saw him at all. Prew waited a couple of minutes and finished his beer, before he went out.
Warden was leaning against the wall at the corner of the alley smoking.
“Well, I’ll be dammed!” he said. “Look who’s turned up.”
“Bad pennies,” Prew said.
“I thought you’d be back in the States by now,” Warden said.
“Did you see Rose?”
“This afternoon. I figured you couldn’t stay away forever.”
“Listen,” Prew said. “Whats the deal?”
“Lets go across the street,” Warden grinned. “This is no place to talk unless everybody’s got a pass in their pocket.”
“I’ve got my SP Card.