Tales of the South Pacific - James A. Michener [183]
"Then what happened, cookie?"
"We stepped out! And brother, this dame was just what I said, class. When we went into a club or restaurant, guys like you looked up, but plenty!"
"What did she take you for, cookie?" the voice inquired. "But plenty?"
"As a matter of fact," the cook replied. "She did. I spent one hundred and eighty bucks on that dame in four days."
"Whew!" a seaman whistled.
"The hell you did, brother!" the persistent voice cried.
"So help me, I did!" the cook answered. "One hundred and eighty bucks in four days. And it was worth more to me."
"I suppose some of that was a hotel bill?" the drooly voice asked.
"Hell, no! We stayed at her place!"
"Oh, she ran a flop house!" the voice interpreted. "I told you what you got you could of had for two bucks."
"So what if I could?" the cook asked. "To me it was worth one hundred and eighty. We had taxis everywhere. Best seats everywhere. Went to two shows. Bought her some presents. Hell, I seen you guys lose a hundred and eighty bucks in one night at crap. What you got for it? Me? For my dough I had me the best time in Frisco, for four days, with a dame that was strictly class!"
The men looked at cookie. They thought of him differently now. Even the heckler grudgingly granted him a point. "You got to admit it ain't to be sneezed at," he said. That was the limit he would go in approval, but his ambiguous surrender pleased cookie. He grinned.
All this time I was aware of a rasping sound in a corner to my right. As cookie stopped speaking, I turned to see what caused the sound. "It's only Norval," a seaman said. I twisted my head farther and saw a thin, sour-faced fireman, perhaps twenty-three years old. He looked at me with that grim stare which officers see so often and which always means: "What the hell are you doing here?"
"Don't mind Norval," a chubby seaman advised.
What was supposed to be wrong with the man in the corner I never discovered. During that long, fateful night he sat in the shadows. First he sharpened his bayonet to razor edge. Then he honed an eight-inch dagger which he took from his belt. When this was done he took off his shoes, and I saw they were studded with long steel spikes. He sharpened each one of these, carefully, patiently, like a ball player who hears the opposing second baseman is a tough hombre.
All night Norval sat there. From time to time he looked up at the foolish gossips about the table. Twice he caught my eye. He glared at me contemptuously, blew breath through his nose, and returned to his scratching, raspy files. When I last saw him he was filing down the sear on his revolver, to make it fire at the slightest suggestion from his trigger finger. The steel of the sear was hard, and Norval's files made a thin, piercing sound.
"Lay off, killer!" a seaman cried.
Norval continued with his sear. He did not even look up, but the contempt of his shoulders and the toss of his head eloquently asked his old question: "What the hell are you doing here?"
"I had a swell time in Frisco," a machinist's mate said. "My wife came out with me. We had a hard time finding a room, but we finally did. Gee, we went to the zoo, and the art gallery, and the Cliff House, and just about everywhere, I guess." The room was silent. The last place in America most of these men had seen was Frisco. Their last fun was there, their last liberties. Some thought of the zoo; some remembered four movies in a row.
"A funny thing," the machinist's mate continued. "This may seem funny to some of you guys. But my wife and me decided we didn't want to have any kids till after the war. But being there in Frisco and knowing... Well, we got a little girl now. Like to see her?" At the first sign of encouragement he whipped out a picture of as undistinguished a baby as I have ever seen. Men with no children looked at the bundle, grunted, and passed it on. Fathers appraised the infant, said nothing, and handed it along.
"I spent four days in Frisco, too,"