From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [65]
“Its a damned disgrace, what the service’s coming to,” the tall one said. “In the old days, a noncom would have been busted flat, to do a thing like that. It isnt like it used to be.”
“I wonder where the hell Delbert is,” the short one wheezed.
Warden, laughing silently, went on down the inside stairs and out into the sallyport past the folding iron gate that would be open until Retreat, in too big a hurry to be mad.
Somebody called to him from Choy’s but he only waved and went on, out the front of the sallyport, crossing Waianae Avenue to the officers’ quarters, walking along it through the rain till he came to the alley behind Holmes’s corner house. He stopped under the shelter of a big old elm, grinning to himself because he was breathing so heavy, feeling the autumnal chill creep up to him under his raincoat when he stopped, thinking this was a fine day for it and that if she had taken all the others there was no reason why she shouldnt take him too, before he went up finally and knocked on the door.
Inside a longlegged black shadow moved across the dimness of the livingroom doorway cutting off the light, and he caught the scissor-flash of naked legs cutting the light and opening again in another step and his breath seemed to go very deep in his chest.
“Mrs Holmes,” he called, knocking, his head pulled down between his shoulders in the rain.
The shadow moved again inside without sound and stepped through the door into the kitchen to become Karen Holmes in shorts and halter.
“What is it?” she said. “Oh. If it isnt Sergeant Warden. Hello, Sergeant. You better step inside or you’ll get wet. If you’re looking for my husband, he isnt here.”
“Oh,” Warden said, opening the screendoor and jumping in past the water that ran off the eave. “And if I’m not looking for him?” he said.
“He still isnt here,” Karen Holmes said. “If that does you any good.”
“Well, I’m looking for him. You know where he is?”
“I havent the slightest idea. Perhaps at the Club, having a drink or two,” she smiled thinly. “Or was it snort? I guess it was snort you said, wasnt it?”
“Ah,” Warden said. “The Club. Why didnt I think of that? I got some papers its important for him to sign today.”
He eyed her openly, traveling up the length of leg in the very short homemade-looking trunks, to the hollow of the hidden navel, to the breasts tight against the halter, to the woman’s eyes that were watching his progress and his open admiration indifferently, without interest.
“Kind of chilly for trunks, aint it?” he said.
“Yes.” Karen Holmes looked at him unsmiling. “Its cool today. Sometimes its very hard to keep warm, isnt it?” she said. “What is it you want, Sergeant?”
Warden felt his breath come in very slowly, and go very deep, clear down into his scrotum.
“I want to go to bed with you,” he said, conversationally. That was how he had planned it, how he had wanted to say it, but now hearing it it sounded very foolish to him. He watched the eyes, in the unchanged face, widen only a little, so little that he almost missed it. A cool cool customer, Milton, he said to himself. Leva was right about the porcupine. You and your woman’s intuition.
“All right,” Karen Holmes said disinterestedly.
With Warden, standing dripping on the porch, it was as if he was listening to her but he did not hear her.
“What are the papers?” she said then, reaching for them. “Let me see them. Maybe I can help you.”
Warden pulled them back, grinning, feeling the grin stiff on his face, masklike. “You wouldnt know anything about them. These are business.”
“I always take an interest in my husband’s business,” Karen Holmes said.
“Yes,” Warden grinned. “Yes, I sure bet you do. Does he take as big an interest in your business?”
“Do you want me to help you with them?”
“Can you sign his name?”
“Yes.”
“So it looks like his own signature?”
“I dont know about that,” she said, still not smiling. “I never tried.