From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [478]
“You know I believe she does,” Pete said. “It surprised me. How much she knew about it. I liked her a lot.”
“You did, hunh?” Stark grinned. “Well then you ought to look her up on board ship. Dont you think, Milt?”
“She’ll be upstairs,” Pete said. “Officer Class. I’ll be down the hole. I wont even see her.”
“Dont let that bother you,” Stark grinned. “Just look her up and ask her to invite you up to her stateroom. She’ll do it. Aint that right, Milt? . . . And then while you’re there ask her for a piece of ass. She’ll give you that, too. She loves this Compny.”
Pete was a little slow on the uptake. But a shocked look began to spread over his face, as it dawned on him what Stark had said.
“Shut up, you son of a bitch,” Warden said.
“You think I’m lyin, Pete?” Stark guffawed. “I aint, though. Ask Warden; she give him some. She had him fooled. Ask me; she gave me some, too. Ony she never fooled me any.
“But you want to watch out though,” Stark said confidentially, “and take a good pro afterwards, or you’re liable to come out with a good dose of the clap.”
Warden, watching the thin mask of ribald laughter on Stark’s face that just barely hid something else, felt a pause coming. He’d have to run down in a minute, and Warden was content to wait. A tremendous gratification filled him. This was what he had been looking for all day and couldnt find.
“All right, you son of a bitch,” he said when the pause came full. He enunciated it carefully and clearly. “Now I’ll tell you something. You want to know how she got the clap at Bliss? You want to know who gave it to her? I’ll tell you. It was her beloved husband, Capt Dana E Holmes, who give it to her.”
Under the flush of the whiskey, Maylon Stark’s face went white as a sheet. Warden watched him with a completely inexpressible, absolutely luxurious, positively exquisite satisfaction.
“I dont believe it,” Stark said.
“Its true, though,” Warden said, feeling himself grinning supremely happily.
“I dont believe it,” Stark said. “They said it was a Lieutenant who was Adjutant at the Officers’ Club. He got relieved for having it. I talked to a couple of the guys who said they seen them. Besides, it happened six months before I ever met her. But I talked to them.”
“The story wasnt true, though,” Warden said.
“I dont believe it,” Stark said. “It has to be true.”
“Its not, though,” Warden said gently.
“It has to be,” Stark said.
“Its not, though.”
Pete was watching both of them, a first faint glimmer of dawning beginning to push up into his face through the bewilderment.
Behind them the music went off the radio and the announcer came on.
“Lucky Strike green has gone to war,” the announcer said. “Yes, Lucky Strike green has gone to war.”
“I’ll kill him,” Stark said, working his whole face to get the words out of his throat. “I’ll kill the son of a bitch. I’ll kill him.”
“You wont kill anybody,” Warden said sympathetically tenderly. “Any more than I killed anybody.”
“I was going to marry that woman,” Stark said. “She was eight years oldern me, but I was going to marry her. I was going to get out of the Army, so I could marry her. I would have married her, too.”
“And done what?” Warden said gently. “Taken her, a rich man’s daughter, to live on a Texas cropper’s farm?”
Stark’s face was chalk white. “She was in love with me, too. I know she was. A guy can tell when a woman’s in love with him. We went together on the sly in Bliss for over six whole months. I was going to marry her, too.”
“But you didnt,” Warden said kindly. “Instead you threw her over.”
“I would have,” Stark said.
“Without even givin her a chance to say her side of it,” Warden chided tenderly, aware of Pete still watching them, first one then the other. Well, it ought to take his mind off his troubles. You didnt come by a juicy tidbit like this every day.
“She didnt tell me,” Stark said desperately.
“But you didnt ask her,” Warden said tenderly, determined to leave no loopholes.
“Shut up,” Stark said. “Shut