High Hunt

3

A car pulled up outside, and Jack turned his head to listen. “I think that’s the Mama Cat,” he said. “Sounds like my old bucket.” He got up and looked out the window. “Yeah, it’s her.” He scooped up the empty beer cans from the coffee table and dumped them in the garbage sack under the sink. Then he hustled outside.

They came in a minute or so later, Jack rather ostentatiously carrying two bags of groceries. I got the impression that if I hadn’t been there, he wouldn’t have bothered. My current sister-in-law was a girl of average height with pale brown hair and a slightly sullen look on her face. I imagine all Jack’s women got that look sooner or later. At any rate Margaret didn’t seem just exactly wild about having a strange GI brother-in-law turn up.

“Well, sweetie,” Jack said with an overdone joviality, “what do you think of him?”

I stood up. “Hello, Margaret,” I said, smiling at her as winningly as I could.

“I’m very happy to meet you, Dan,” she said, a brief, automatic smile flickering over her face. She was sizing me up carefully. I don’t imagine the pint and the half-full beer can on the coffee table made very many points. “Are you stationed out here at the Fort now?” I could tell that she had visions of my moving in on them as a semipermanent houseguest.

“Well,” I said, “not really what you’d call stationed here. I’m being discharged here is all. As soon as they cut me loose, I’ll be moving back up to Seattle.” I wanted to reassure her without being too obvious.

She got the message. “Well, let me get this stuff put away and then we can talk.” She pulled off the light coat she was wearing and draped it over one of the kitchen chairs.

I blinked. She had the largest pair of breasts I’ve ever seen. I knew Jack liked his women that way, but Margaret was simply unbelievable.

“Isn’t she something?” Jack said, leering at me as he wrapped a proprietary arm about her shoulders. The remark sounded innocent enough, but all three of us knew what he meant.

“Come on, Jack,” she said, pushing him off. “I want to get all this put away so I can sit down.” She began bustling around the kitchen, opening cupboards and drawers. The kitchen area was separated from the living room by a waist-high divider, so we could talk without yelling.

“Dan just got back today,” Jack said, coming back and plunking himself on the couch. “He’s been in Germany for a couple of years.”

“Oh?” she said. “I’ll bet that was interesting, wasn’t it, Dan?”

“It’s got Southeast Asia beat all to heck,” I said.

“Did they let you travel around any—I mean visit any of the other countries over there?”

“Oh, yeah. I visited a few places.”

“Did you get to London at all? I’d sure like to go there.” Her voice sounded a little wistful.

“I was there for about ten days on leave,” I told her.

“I never made it up there,” Jack said. “When I was with the Sixth Fleet, we stayed pretty much in the Mediterranean.”

“Did you get to see any of the groups while you were in London?” Margaret persisted. She really wanted to know; she wasn’t just asking to have something to say.

“No,” I said. I didn’t want to tell her that groups weren’t particularly my thing. She might think I was trying to put her down.

“My wife’s a group-nut,” Jack said tolerantly. “That one cabinet there is stacked full of albums. Must be twenty of the damn things in there.”

“I dig them,” she said without apologizing. “Oh, Jack, did you get the kids to bed OK?”

“All fed, bathed, and tucked in,” he told her. “You know you can trust me to take care of things.”

“Patsy’s been getting a little stubborn about going to bed,” she said. “She’s at that age, I guess.”

“I didn’t have no problems,” Jack said.

“Are you guys hungry?” she asked suddenly. Woman’s eternal answer to any social situation—feed ’em. It’s in the blood, I guess.

“I could eat,” Jack said. “How about you, Dan?”

“Well—”

“Sure you can,” he insisted. “Why don’t you whip up a pizza, Mama Cat? One of those big ones.”

“It’ll take a while,” she said, opening herself a beer. She turned on the overhead light in the kitchen. She looked tired.

“That’s OK,” he said. “Well, Dan, what are you going to do with yourself now that you’re out?” He said it as if he expected me to say something important, something that would impress hell out of Margaret.

“I’ll be starting in at the U in October,” I told him. “I got all the papers processed and got accepted and all by mail. I’d have rather gone someplace else, but they were going to bring me back here for separation anyway, so what the hell?”

“Boy, you sure run rampant on this college stuff, don’t you?” He still tried to use words he didn’t know.

“Keeps me off the streets at night.” I shrugged.

“Dan,” Margaret said. “Do you like sausage or cheese?” She was rummaging around among the pots and pans.

“Either one, Margaret,” I said. “Whichever you folks like.”

“Make the sausage, sweetie,” Jack said. He turned to me. “We get this frozen sausage pizza down at the market. It’s the best yet, and only eighty-nine cents.”

“Sounds fine,” I said.

“You ever get pizza in Germany?” Margaret asked.

“No, not in Germany,” I said. “I had a few in Italy though. I went down there on leave once.”

“Did you get to Naples?” Jack asked. “We hauled in there once when I was with the Sixth Fleet.”

“Just for a day,” I said. “I was running a little low on cash, and I didn’t have time to really see much of it.”

“We really pitched a liberty in Naples,” he said. “I got absolutely crazed with alcohol.” We drifted off into reminiscing about how we’d won various wars and assorted small skirmishes. We finished the pint and had a few more beers with the leathery pizza. Margaret relaxed a little more, and I began to feel comfortable with them.

“Look, Dan,” Jack said, “you’ve got a month and a half or so before you start back to school, right? Why don’t you bunk in here till you get squared away? We can move the two curtain-climbers into one room. This trailer has three bedrooms, and you’d be real comfortable.”

“Hell, Jack,” I said, “I couldn’t do that. I’d be underfoot and all.”

“No trouble at all,” he said. “Right, Marg?”

“It wouldn’t really be any trouble,” she said a little uncertainly. She was considerably less than enthusiastic.

“No,” I said. “It just wouldn’t work out. I’d be keeping odd hours and—”

“I get it.” Jack laughed knowingly. “You’ve got some tomato lined up, huh? You want privacy.” I don’t know if I’d ever heard anyone say “tomato” for real before. It sounded odd. “Well, that’s no sweat. We can—”

“Jack, how about that little trailer down the street at number twenty-nine?” Margaret suggested. “Doesn’t Clem want to rent that one out?”

He snapped his fingers. “Just the thing,” he said. “It’s a little forty-foot eight-wide—kind of a junker really—but it’s a place to flop. He wants fifty a month for it, but seeing as you’re my brother, I’ll be able to beat him down some. It’ll be just the thing for you.” He seemed really excited about it.

“Well—” I said doubtfully. I wasn’t really sure I wanted to be that close to my brother.

“It’ll give you a base of operations and you’ll be right here close. We’ll be able to get together for some elbow-bendin’ now and then.”

“OK,” I said, laughing. “Who do I talk to?” It was easier than arguing with him. I hadn’t really made any plans anyway. It was almost as if we were kids again, Jack making the arrangements and me going along with him because I really didn’t care one way or the other. It felt kind of good.

“You just leave everything to me,” Jack said importantly. He’d always liked to take over—to manage things for people—and he’d always make a big deal out of everything. He hadn’t really changed at all. “I’ll check it over from stem to stem and make old Clem give you some decent furniture from the lot—He owns the place where I work as well as this court. We’ve got a whole warehouse full of furniture. We’ll put in a good bed and a halfway decent couch—we might even be able to scrounge up a TV set from someplace.”

“Look, Jack,” I said, “it’s only going to be a month or so. Don’t go to any special trouble.” I didn’t want to owe him too much. Owing people is a bum trip.

“Trouble? Hell, it’s no special trouble. After all, you’re my brother, ain’t you. No brother of mine is going to live in some broken-down junker. Besides, if you’ve got some tomato lined up, you’ll want to make a favorable impression. That counts for a lot, doesn’t it, Marg?”

“You really will want some new stuff in there,” she agreed. “Nelsons lived in there before, and Eileen wasn’t the neatest person in the world.” Now that I wasn’t going to move in with them Margaret seemed to think better of me. I could see her point though.

“Neat?” Jack snorted, lighting a cigarette. “She was a slob. Not only was she a boozer, she was the court punchboard besides. Old Nels used to slap her around every night just on general principles—he figured she probably laid three guys a day just to keep in practice, and usually he was guessin’ on the low side.”

“How would you know about that, Mister Alders?” Margaret demanded.

“Just hearsay, sweetie, just hearsay. You know me.”

“That’s just it,” she said, “I do know you.”

“Now, sweetie—”

There was a heavy pounding on the side of the trailer. I jumped. “OK, in there,” a voice bellowed from outside, “this is a raid.”

“Hey,” Jack said, “that’s Sloane.” He raised his voice. “You’ll never take us alive, Copper!” It sounded like a game that had been going on for a long time.

A huge, balding man of about forty came in, laughing in a high-pitched giggle. His face was red, and he wore a slightly rumpled suit. He looked heavy, but it wasn’t really fat. He seemed to fill up the whole trailer. His grin sprawled all over his face and he seemed to be just a little drunk. He had a half-case of beer under one arm.

“Hi, Margaret, honey,” he said, putting down the beer and folding her in a bear hug. “How’s my girlfriend?”

“Sloane, you drunken son of a bitch,” Jack said, grinning, “quit pawin’ my wife and shake hands with my brother Dan. Dan, Cal Sloane.”

“Dan?” Sloane asked, turning to me. “Aren’t you Alders’ college-man brother?”

“He went in the Army after he got out of college,” Jack said. “He’s out at the separation center now.”

“You on leave?” Sloane asked, shaking my hand.

“I told you, Cal,” Jack said, “he’s at the separation center. He’s gettin’ out. Why don’t you listen, you dumb shit?” The insults had the ring of an established ritual, so I didn’t butt in.

“Hey, that’s a reason for a party, isn’t it?” Sloane said.

“Isn’t everything reason enough for you?” Jack demanded, still grinning.

“Not everything. I didn’t drink more than a case or two at my Old Lady’s funeral.”

“Dan here’s been drinkin’ German beer,” Jack boasted. “He can put you under the table without even settlin’ the dust in his throat.”

“Didn’t we meet a couple times a few years back?” Sloane asked me, pulling off his coat and settling down in a chair.

“I think so,” I said.

“Sure we did. It was when Alders here was still married to Bonnie.” He loosened his tie.

“Yeah,” I said, “I believe it was.”

We talked for about an hour, kidding back and forth. At first Sloane seemed a little simple—that giggle and all—but after a while I realized that he was really pretty sharp. I began to be very glad that I’d called Jack and come on out here to his place. It began to look like I had some family to come home to after all.

About eleven or so we ran out of beer, and Sloane suggested that we slip out for a couple glasses of draft. Margaret pouted a little, but Jack took her back into the hallway and talked with her for a few minutes, and when they came back she seemed convinced. Jack pulled on a sport shirt and a jacket, and Sloane and I got ourselves squared away. We went outside.

“I’ll be seeing you, Margaret,” I said to her as she stood in the doorway to watch us leave.

“Now you know the way,” she said in a sort of offhand invitation.

“Be back in an hour or so, sweetie,” Jack told her.

She went back inside without answering.

We took Jack’s car, a slightly battered Plymouth with a lot of miles on it.

“I won’t ride with Sloane when he’s been drinking,” Jack said, explaining why we’d left Sloane’s Cadillac. “The son of a bitch has totalled five cars in the last two years.”

“I have a helluva time gettin’ insurance.” Sloane giggled.

We swung on out of the trailer court and started off down South Tacoma Way, past the car lots and parts houses.

“Go on out to the Hideout Tavern,” Sloane said. He was sprawled in the back seat, his hat pushed down over his nose.

“Right,” Jack said.

“I hear that a man can do some pretty serious drinking in Germany,” Sloane said to me.

“Calvin, you got a beer bottle for a brain,” Jack told him, turning a corner.

“Just interested, that’s all. That’s the way to find out things—ask somebody who knows.”

“A man can stay pretty drunk if he wants to,” I said. “Lots of strange booze over there.”

“Like what?” Sloane asked. He seemed really interested.

“Well, there’s this one—Steinhäger, it’s called—tastes kind of like a cross between gin and kerosene.”

“Oh, God”—Jack gagged—“it sounds awful.”

“Yeah,” I admitted, “it’s moderately awful, all right. They put it up in stone bottles—probably because it would eat its way out of glass. Screws your head up something fierce.”

We wheeled into the parking lot of a beer joint and went inside, still talking. We ordered pitchers of draft and sat in a booth drinking and talking about liquor and women and the service. The tavern was one of those usual kind of places with lighted beer signs all along the top of the mirror behind the bar. It had the usual jukebox and the usual pinball machine. It had the uneven dance floor that the bartender had to walk across to deliver pitchers of beer to the guys sitting in the booths along the far wall. There were the solitary drinkers hunched at the bar, staring into their own reflections in the mirror or down into the foam on their beer; and there was the usual group of dice players at the bar, rolling for drinks. I’ve been in a hundred joints like it up and down the coast.

I realized that I was enjoying myself. Sloane seemed to be honestly having a good time; and Jack, in spite of the fact that he was trying his damnedest to impress me, seemed to really get a kick out of seeing me again. That unholy dead feeling I’d been fighting for the last months or so was gone.

“We got to get Dan some civilian clothes,” Cal was saying. “He can’t run around in a uniform. That’s the kiss of death as far as women are concerned.”

“I’ve got some civvies coming in,” I said. “I shipped them here a month ago—parcel post. They’re probably at the General Delivery window downtown right now.”

“I’ve got to run downtown tomorrow,” Jack said. “I’ll stop by and pick them up for you.”

“Don’t I have to get them myself?” I asked. “I mean, don’t they ask for ID or anything?”

“Hell, no,” Jack scoffed. “You can get anybody’s mail you want at the General Delivery window.”

“Kinda shakes a guy’s faith in the Hew Hess Government,” I said. “I mean, if you can’t trust the goddamn Post Office Department—say, maybe we ought to take our business to somebody else.”

“Who you got in mind?” Sloane asked.

“I don’t know, maybe we could advertise—‘Deliver mail for fun and profit’—something like that.”

“I’m almost sure they’d find some way to send you to Leavenworth for it,” Jack said.

“Probably,” I agreed. “They’re awfully touchy about some things. I’d sure appreciate it if you could pick those things up for me though. If you can, dump them off at a cleaner’s someplace. I imagine they’re pretty wrinkled by now.” I emptied my beer.

“Another round, Charlie,” Sloane called to the barman. “Put your money away,” he told me as I reached for my wallet. “This is my party.”

About a half hour later, a kind of hard-faced brunette came in. She hurried across to the booth and sat down beside Cal. She glanced back at the door several times and seemed to be a little nervous. “Hi, Daddy,” she said. She made it sound dirty.

“Hello there, baby,” he said. “This is Alders’ brother, Dan. Dan, this is Helen.”

“Hi,” she said, nodding briefly at me. “Hi, Jack.”

I looked carefully at her. She had makeup plastered on about an inch thick. It was hard to see any expression under all that gunk. Maybe she didn’t have any expression.

She turned back to Sloane with an urgent note in her voice. “Baby’s got a problem, Daddy.” It still sounded dirty. I decided that I didn’t like her.

“Well, tell Daddy.” Sloane giggled self-consciously.

She leaned over and whispered in his ear for a moment. His face turned a little grim.

“OK,” he said shortly, “wait in the car—drive it around in back.”

She got up and went out quickly.

“Dumb bitch!” Sloane muttered. “She’s been gettin’ careless and her Old Man’s suspicious. I’d better get her a room someplace until he cools off.”

“Is he pretty steamed?” Jack asked. “You’ve got to watch yourself with that husband of hers, Cal. I hear he’s a real mean mother.”

“He just wants to clout her around a little,” Sloane said. “See if he can shake a few answers out of her. I’d better get her out of sight. I’ll have her swing me by your trailer lot, and I’ll pick up my car. Then we’ll ditch hers on a back street. I know a place where she can hole up.” He stood up and put a five-dollar bill on the table. “Hate to be a party-poop but—” He shrugged. “I’ll probably see you guys tomorrow. Drink this up on me, OK?” He hurried across the dance floor and on out, his hat pulled down low like a gangster in a third-rate movie.

“That dumb bastard’s gonna get himself all shot up one of these days,” Jack said grimly.

“He cat around a lot?”

“All the time. He’s got a deal with his wife. He brings in the money and doesn’t pester her in bed, and she doesn’t ask him where he goes nights.”

“Home cookin’ and outside lovin’?” I said. “Sounds great.”

Jack shrugged. “It costs him a fortune. Of course, he’s got it, I guess. He’s got the pawnshop, and a used car lot, and he owns a piece of two or three taverns. He’s got a big chunk of this joint, you know.”

“No kidding?”

Jack nodded. “You wouldn’t think so to look at him, but he can buy and sell most of the guys up and down the Avenue just out of his front pockets. You ought to see the house he lives in. Real plush.”

“Nice to have rich friends,” I said.

“And don’t let that dumb face fool you,” Jack told me. “Don’t ever do business with Cal unless I’m there to keep an eye on him for you. He’ll gyp you out of your fillings—friend or no friend.”

“Sure wouldn’t guess it to look at him.”

“Lots of guys think that. Just be sure to count your fingers after you shake hands with him.”

“What’s the deal with this—baby—whatever her name is?”

“Helen? She’s married to some Air Force guy out at McChord Field—Johnson, his name is. He’s away a lot and she likes her nookie. Sloane’s had her on the string for a couple of months now. I tried her and then passed her on. Her Old Man’s a real mean bastard. He kicked the livin’ shit out of one guy he caught messin’ with her. Put the boots to him and broke both his arms. She’s real wild in the sack, but she’s got a foul mouth and she likes it dirty—you know. Also, she’s a shade on the stupid side. I just didn’t like the smell of it, so I dumped her in Sloane’s lap.”

“You’re a real friends,” I said.

“Sloane can handle it,” Jack said. He looked warily around the bar and then at the door several times. “Hey, let’s cut out. That Johnson guy might come in here, and I’d rather not be out in plain sight in case he’s one or two guys behind in his information. I think I could handle him, but the stupid bastard might have a gun on him. I heard that he’s that kind.”

“I ought to be getting back out to the Fort, anyway.”

“I’ll buzz you on out,” Jack said, pocketing Sloane’s five.

We walked on out to the parking lot and climbed into Jack’s Plymouth. We were mostly quiet on the way out to the Fort. I was a little high, and it was kind of pleasant just to sit back and watch the lights go past. But I was a little less sure about the arrangement than I had been earlier in the evening. There was an awful lot going on that I didn’t know about. There was no way I could back out gracefully now though. Like it or not, I was going to get reacquainted with my brother. I almost began to wish I’d skipped the whole thing.