The Eleventh Man - Ivan Doig [92]
"By the way, how did you like the show, over all?" Danzer switched to, as though it was considerate of him to ask. "Lou-don's loud mouth aside, the bit of basketball was interesting, wasn't it? I thought you would get a kick out of it." Is that what you thought. Somehow I doubt it. Danzer steadied his gaze on his reluctant listener. "I never had anything permanently against Vic, you know. If his idea in life was to play shirts and skins, I'd have been glad to see him do it," not quite saying on the side of the redskins, naturally.
"Life never did cut Vic a break," Ben answered shortly. Or the other three who lined up with us in that stadium. He did not want to go over that territory, the team's lives taken by the war, in the clammy companionship of Danzer. "Moxie's all right, by the way. I checked. His outfit's dug in high and dry in a lucky pocket at Normandy, not much resistance."
"Is that what that was about, the code traffic ahead of the captain's morning messages," the other said blandly. "The skipper thinks you have more radio priority than Roosevelt." He thought to tack on, "Good for Moxie," before bringing the conversation to where Ben saw it had been aimed all along.
"I have a bit of news of my own," Danzer delivered it with relish on the side. He looked off around the room as if gathering his statement. "I know where our buddy Dex is and the reason why."
Ben felt a lurch the ship was not responsible for. He shifted in the chair as he eyed his now truly unwelcome caller.
"Is that so. You're busier than you look, Nick."
Danzer spread his hands. "This fell in the family lap. A boot representative"—it took his listener a moment to translate that to traveling shoe salesman—"we deal with has a line of work wear he thought might interest the Forest Service. Just right for smoke jumpers, you know? The Cariston stores are one of his accounts too, so imagine his surprise when he paid a call to Seeley Lake and spotted Dex in there with the conchies. The rest of the conchies, I think it's safe to say."
Knowing what the answer would be, Ben grimly asked anyway:
"Are you spreading this around, back home?"
"Word might get out, I imagine. You know how these things are. People have no idea the heir to Cariston Enterprises is taking the yellow road through the war otherwise, do they." The offhand manner in which Danzer said it made Ben realize he had underestimated the man's disdain for the rest of humankind. He was the sort whose contempt you couldn't tell from the wallpaper. It was always there in back of whatever he said or did.
"That was one of your pieces I did happen to see, on Dex"—Ben stared back while Danzer delivered this straight at him—"and 'conscientious objector' did not leap out at me. At any rate, it might not reflect on him any too well, do you think? What with the rest of us putting in our tour of duty."
I get the message, you manipulating bastard. Make you look good or you and your Toggery bunch smear Dex and me along with it for covering for him. Silently Ben wrung the neck of the words he had just heard. Tour of duty. That's what Danzer was doing with it, all right, touring duty like a cynical sightseer for every spot of advantage it might offer him. The pampered tourist of the war who knew how to keep on pampering himself. The gleaming face confident it would never know doom until its allotted threescore and ten years, or more. For several seconds he did not trust himself to respond to Danzer, because the response he most wanted to give was to knock some teeth out of that smile.
"Nobody's perfect," he at last managed to keep it to, too much at stake not to, "but I do my goddamnedest to give everyone I write about a fair shake."
"Then I've been speaking out of turn about Dex and all, haven't I," Danzer provided with the grace of one who had won. "A man's best