The Eleventh Man - Ivan Doig [109]
"That works once in a while. And generally doesn't. I was about to say, if I ever get the chance to drop the supreme team stuff, I'll do it in the next breath. For right now, the worst thing I've got to do is cover Angelides' funeral." He tried to move along to a better face on things and did not quite get there. "Maybe it's just as well to have some practice at crying, hmm? Cass, the night's getting away from us. What would you think about seeing if the cabin is still standing?"
Her try at a better face at least came out better than his. "You haven't lost any of that ginger, is what I'd think."
He pretended a huff. "If you're not interested all of a sudden—"
"Didn't say I wasn't interested, preacher," she sounded much more like herself. "Pay the man again."
"Gladly. And just maybe I'll get us another drink along with it."
He headed up to the cash register, digging a few silver dollars out of his pocket as he went. What a hell of a thing, that all we've got is sack time together. But at least it's something.
The bartender, an older man bald as a peanut, was sitting there alone nursing a cigarette. He cut a squinty look at Cass, then back at Ben. "You and the little lady figure on playing a doubleheader?"
Ben pushed the money toward him on the bar. "That's what these nice round silver things are about, yeah."
The bartender still looked at him, one eyelid pulled down against the cigarette smoke perpetually drifting toward it. "Soldier, ain't you?"
Oh, please. Now the citizenry of Vaughn Junction is going to get picky about who it rents out hot sheets to? Crossly Ben indicated to Cass. "The both of us. Why?"
The man behind the bar plucked a shred of tobacco off his tongue, then asked: "Been overseas any?"
"I was in on Guam."
The bartender shoved the money back to him. "It's on the house."
When Ben returned to the table with both drinks and dollars in hand, Cass had the immediate question, "What was that about?"
"My guess is he lost a son in the Pacific."
They drank silently for a bit. Then he peeked over in the dimness at her luminous wristwatch. "Is it tomorrow yet, Captain?"
She checked. "Just past midnight. What's special about tomorrow?"
He made a satisfied sound. "I have a VIP coming in, although he doesn't know it yet. I don't know who they're going to get to stand sentry over the rocks and sand, but I sprung him for a leave to come to Animal's funeral."
Cass caught on. "The guy out on the Coast? The one you were afraid would shoot up everything in sight and himself with it?"
"That's him. Prokosch the tommy gunner."
"No crap?" Cass sat up in surprise and awe. "The guy isn't even kin and you hassled them into letting him come to the funeral? You must've had to pull strings the size of anchor ropes, all up and down the line."
He nodded pious affirmation. "Right to the top." If Tepee Weepy constituted the apex of things military. "At least it gets him away from submarine games for a few days, and he can see his girl along with it."
"Wake up, kid. Hey, hear me? Roust out, Coastie."
The off-duty sentry rolled away from the hut wall and with a groan elbowed up in his bunk. Two men with beach packs bulking on them were standing over him. The skinny sour-looking one was the chief petty officer from the Coast Guard station down the coast, the other was a peach-fuzzed seaman second class much like himself. "What's happening? The war over?"
"Dream some more, kid. Where's Prokosch?"
The off-duty man rubbed sleep crust from his eyes. "Sig? Out on patrol like he's supposed to be."
"Come on, I know that. Where the hell at?"
"How am I supposed to know, Chief?" Squinting at the twenty-four-hour clock on the radio table, he made an effort to concentrate. "He took off out of here this morning like his tail was on fire, him and the pooch. Must be up the beach quite a patch by now."
The other seaman was slinging belongings out of his pack onto Prokosch's bunk. "Hurry it up, Quince," said the chief petty officer. He glanced