The Colonels, page 26
part #4 of Brotherhood of War Series
The third hand, the kid folded again after looking at his cards.
The fourth hand, the kid stayed all the way, losing maybe fifty, fifty-five bucks, when he called the warrant officer who had a full house, tens over threes.
The fifth hand, the kid opened for twenty dollars, and as he dropped the twenty, folded in half lengthwise, onto the blanket, he said: “Last hand. Take a chance.”
Everybody but the AGC lieutenant stayed in.
The kid took one card. He looked at it, and then laid it on top of the others.
“Up to you,” the artillery captain said.
The kid thought it over.
“Another twenty,” he said, and dropped two tens onto the blanket.
That folded the warrant officer. The Medical Service captain dropped a twenty onto the blanket.
“Your twenty and twenty,” the artillery captain said, when it came to him.
“And twenty,” the kid said, counting out forty bucks in fives and tens and dropping it on the blanket.
That folded the Medical Service Corps captain.
“You’re bluffing, sonny,” the artillery captain said.
“I’m giving you a chance to get your money back,” the kid said. “This is my last hand.”
“You said that before,” the artillery captain said. He looked at the kid, and then at his cards.
“Your twenty and fifty,” he said.
The kid counted the money in front of him. He had eighteen dollars in folding money. He had twenty-three dollars and change worth of chips. He pushed the chips and folding money, forty-one dollars’ worth, into the center of the table. Then he reached in his pocket and threw his wallet after it.
“Call,” he said.
“Full house,” the artillery captain said, turning over three jacks and a pair of eights.
He looked at the kid.
The kid turned his cards over. Four kings. Three kings, a six, and another king. The way he’d handled his cards, laying them in front of him as he got them, not touching them except to discard one of them, everybody knew he’d been dealt three kings, and gotten the fourth when he’d drawn the one card. He had tried to draw another six.
A real poker player would have drawn two cards, hoping to make either the fourth king, or get a pair.
“I guess that’s mine, huh?” the kid said. He started to reach for the pot.
“What’s in the wallet?” the artillery captain said.
“For Christ’s sake, he was only nine dollars shy,” the chief who ran the game said.
“If you’re shy, you got to say so,” said the artillery captain. “He didn’t say anything.”
“There’s enough in the wallet to cover the nine bucks,” the kid said.
“I want to see it,” the captain said.
“That’s the same as calling me a liar,” the kid said. “Is that what you’re doing?”
The artillery captain, with a sudden move, grabbed the wallet. He opened it.
“The fucking thing is empty!” he said, triumphantly, and tossed the wallet to the chief whose game it was. “That’s my pot, and that’s the last time you play with us, fuckhead!”
The kid said: “Chief, there’s a ten dollar bill folded up in the plastic window with my driver’s license.”
The chief looked. There was. He unfolded it, snapped it open so everybody could see it, and then dropped it in the pot.
“It’s his pot,” he pronounced.
The kid pushed his chips to the chief, who counted out twenty-three dollars and seventy-five cents from the bank and gave it to him. He counted the money he had from the pot, put all the twenties together and the tens and the fives and the singles.
“Good night,” the kid said.
The chief warrant whose game it was nodded. None of the others said a word. They had watched him count his money, and they were all a little pissed that this dumb little second john was walking out with $320 of their money. He’d played bad poker and bet all but his last fucking dollar, and was still walking out with their money. That wasn’t poker, that was bullshit. They would not let him play again.
The kid was pleased. They had not been watching him early in the game, when he had begun to palm a ten dollar bill here, a five there, whenever he had won a pot, and to stick them in his pocket so the others wouldn’t notice. He had come in the game with $105, and he had no intention, if the cards went against him, of leaving the game with less than that. After the first two hours, he had been playing with their money. If he lost that, he would have quit. As it turned out, he was walking out with $650 of their money, not $320.
The kid was pleased with himself. He was going to go in the boonies and play boy scout in the morning; but he’d be back on Friday and be given the rest of the day off. There was a used car lot on Bragg Boulevard with a sign that said, “$100 Down on Any Car on the Lot.” He would go buy a car, any car, just so he would have wheels. He could get a better car later. But the first thing to do was buy a car, and the second was to drive over to the Special Warfare School and give Colonel MacMillan his two hundred back.
XI
(One)
Hangar No. 4
Laird Army Airfield
Fort Rucker, Alabama
23 January 1959
Mrs. Jane Cassidy sat in Major Lowell’s small office at a desk back to back with that of the major. The section’s three pilots (one of whom was WOJG William B. Franklin) and two clerks (one a PFC, the other a GS-4 clerk-typist) were installed in half of the larger of the rooms of the two-room “suite.” The armorer officer (CWO “Dutch” Cramer and his three enlisted men: two armorers and one aircraft frame mechanic, all senior noncoms in their late twenties) had the other half.
Lowell really hadn’t known what to expect the first duty morning after the New Year’s party. He would not have been surprised if Jane had not come to work at all, and he would have been equally unsurprised if she had been waiting for him as a mistress waits for her lover.
She had stood up when he walked in. He’d looked at her. She avoided his eyes.
“Good morning, Major Lowell,” she said.
“Good morning, Jane,” he’d replied.
She had raised her eyes to his.
“I’ve made coffee,” she said. “Would you like a cup?”
“Yes,” he said. “I would. Thank you.”
She had fetched the coffee from the machine in Dutch Cramer’s room, and set it before him on his desk.
Then she had sat down at her typewriter and begun to type. She had been obviously unnerved by the encounter, but Lowell had decided that the ball was in her court. If she wanted a transfer, she would have to bring it up.
She did not bring it up. She acted as if New Year’s Eve simply hadn’t happened. It was too easy a solution, he thought. Sooner or later, there would be a reference to it. But until there was, he decided, the action indicated for the situation was no action at all.
The next day, she brought a framed photograph of herself with her family and put it on the desk.
The crucifix, he thought, held up in the face of Lucifer to ward him off.
And that was all that happened between them.
Lowell was not unaware, however, of Jane Cassidy’s physical charms. The smell of her perfume or simply looking at her triggered a hunger in his groin. And when she reached to answer the telephone they shared, as she did now, he was acutely aware of what her breasts looked like beneath the layers of clothing that modestly restrained and concealed them.
With a little bit of luck (that was already showing up on the horizon), he would shortly leave the Rocket Armed Helicopter Section, Rotary Wing Branch, Aircraft Test Division—and Mrs. Jane Cassidy—and put the whole thing behind him. It would become one of his better memories, he thought. The memory of her in his bed would endure for a long time.
“One moment, please,” Jane Cassidy was saying to the telephone, which was mounted on a swinging platform bolted to the wall. She covered the mouthpiece with her hand.
“General Jiggs, Major,” she said.
She put the handset on the telephone platform and pushed it over to him, in the process innocently giving him a view down the open collar of her blouse. The cups of her brassiere were stitched in a circular pattern, like a bull’s-eye.
“Major Lowell, sir.”
“I understand you’re about to go over to Knox,” Jiggs said.
“Yes, sir,” Lowell said. “They’ve formed a company. I thought I should go see what help I could be.”
He desperately wanted command of the rocket-armed helicopter company. He thought that when the time came he could ask for it, and that he would probably be given it. In the meantime, he wanted to be as close to the company as possible.
“Tell me your plans,” Jiggs said.
“I’m taking Dutch Cramer, Bill Franklin, and Sergeant Piller, one of the armorers, with me, sir,” Lowell said. “We’re going over in the morning.”
“How are you traveling?”
“In the Commander, sir,” Lowell said.
“In order to get everybody TPA, or because no aircraft was available?”
“No aircraft was available, sir,” Lowell said. “It was either take my airplane or go commercial, and it’s a hell of a roundabout way to get from here to there.”
“I just found that out,” General Jiggs said. “And concluded that two and a half hours sitting around Atlanta between planes was not a wise expenditure of my time.”
“You’re going to Knox, sir? Would you like to fly over with us?”
“What I think we should do, Craig, is for you to leave your people behind, then you and I should go over together. Unless there is some objection, I’ve laid on a school L-23 for 0530 tomorrow morning. We’ll spend the night and come back the day after tomorrow. You can send your people over then, if you like.”
“Yes, sir,” Lowell said. For some reason, Jiggs wanted to go to Knox with him alone. He was very curious about that, but knew he dared not ask. If Jiggs had thought he was entitled to an explanation, he would have given him one.
“Are you checked out in the L-23?” Jiggs asked.
“No, sir. Not at Rucker.”
“Is there some reason you couldn’t take a check ride this afternoon?”
“No, sir,” Lowell said. “But we could take the Commander.”
“A school L-23 will be at Laird Operations in thirty minutes with an instructor pilot,” General Jiggs said. “If you bust the check ride, call me when you get back. Otherwise, I’ll see you at 0530 tomomow.”
“Yes, sir.”
Lowell broke the connection with his finger after he heard General Jiggs hang up, then dialed the number of Colonel William Roberts.
“What is it, Lowell?”
“General Jiggs just telephoned, sir,” Lowell reported. “He wants me to go to Fort Knox with him in the morning, RON. And he wants me to leave Mr. Franklin, Mr. Cramer, and Sergeant Piller behind.”
“You’ll travel in your aircraft?” Colonel Roberts asked coldly.
“No, sir. The general has laid on an L-23.”
“I wasn’t aware that you’re checked out in the L-23.”
“The general has arranged for a check ride in half an hour, sir.”
“I see,” Roberts said. “Thank you for keeping me abreast, Major.” Then he hung up.
“Jesus!” Lowell said, as he hung up the phone.
“Something wrong?” Jane Cassidy asked.
“I’m going to Fort Knox with General Jiggs in the morning,” Lowell said. “And for some reason, this displeases Colonel Roberts.”
“I’m surprised that you’re surprised,” she said.
“Huh?”
“Colonel Roberts is one of those people who wants to keep all his puppies in their kennels where he can keep an eye on them,” she said. “And here you are, running off with another pack.”
He chuckled.
“That’s a good way to put it, I guess,” he said.
“In many ways, you’re very innocent,” she said. “You don’t really understand why you make people like Colonel Roberts uncomfortable.”
“Innocent?” he said, in surprise. He had never been accused of that before.
“Socially speaking, I mean,” Jane Cassidy said. It was oblique, but it was unmistakably her first reference to what had happened between them. The proof was in the faint flush that came to her face.
He ended it quickly. “See if you can find either Mr. Cramer or Mr. Franklin, will you, please?” he asked.
She nodded and walked out of the office.
Warrant Officer Franklin came in a moment later.
“You wanted to see me, sir?”
Lowell told him what had happened.
“Tell Dutch and Sergeant Piller, will you, Bill?”
“Dutch is on the flight line,” Franklin said. “Mrs. Cassidy went after him.”
“OK, then I’ll tell him. Or she will. But you too. OK?”
“Fly good,” Frankin said. “It would be very, very embarrassing to bust a check ride under these circumstances.”
“Screw you, Bill,” Lowell smiled. “And close the door when you leave. I’ve got to change clothing.”
He took off his tunic and laid it on the desk, and then added his necktie. Then he took off his trousers and put them on a hanger, added the tunic and tie, and hung it all on a nail pounded into the concrete blocks.
He had just put on his flight suit when Jane Cassidy came back into the room.
“Mr. Cramer was busy,” she said. “So I told him what’s happened.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“Aren’t you going to be cold, wearing just that?” she asked.
“There’s a heater,” he said.
He turned his back to her, and took a zippered nylon flight jacket from another hanger suspended from a nail in the concrete block wall. He thrust his arms into the sleeves, and felt for the zipper.
“That’s only cotton,” she said. “I should think you’d freeze to death.”
“No,” he said.
“I guess that some people are just warmer-blooded than others,” she said.
There was a meaning beyond the words. He turned to face her.
“When are you coming back?” she asked.
“I’ll be at Knox only overnight,” he said.
“Tom’s leaving tomorrow for St. Louis,” she said. “They’re having trouble with one of the purifiers.”
“Oh,” he said.
“He’s taking the children with him,” she said. “It was his idea. They’ve never been there before.”
“Do you want to go with them?” he asked.
“No,” she said.
Without being aware that he was doing it, he reached out and touched her face. She caught his hand in both of hers and held it against her chest. His fingers spread and touched her breast and tightened.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t want to,” Jane Cassidy said.
“I’m afraid for you.”
“You’re afraid it will get out of control,” she laughed. “It won’t. I don’t fancy myself falling in love with you.”
“That’s not beyond possibility,” he said.
She pushed his hand off her breast and turned around.
“Then forget it,” she said, coldly. “I can’t afford that. I won’t have it!”
He put his hand out toward her hair, and then withdrew it.
“Where the hell would we go?” he said.
“Moving Jannier in with you wasn’t the smartest move you’ve ever made,” she said. “But that isn’t the problem. I’ve arranged for a place to go.”
“What is the problem?”
“That dumb remark of yours about love,” she said. “And from you, of all people.”
“What is it you want from me?” he asked.
She turned to face him again. Her face was calm, but there was excitement in her eyes. Her hand moved to the thin cloth of his flight suit. He was erect. She grasped him firmly.
“This,” she said. “Only this. Nothing else. Can you understand that?”
She turned him loose.
“Can you?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“We have a place in Panama City,” she said. “I told Tom I would drive down there to check on it while he’s gone. It’s off by itself. Safe, in other words.”
(Two)
The pilot of the L-23F waiting for Lowell at Laird Operations was a lieutenant colonel, wearing an army green uniform onto which were pinned the starred wings of a Master Aviator. He was one of the old-timers, the professional pilots, maybe going back as far as War II, an officer who had spent ten years doing nothing but flying single-engine two seaters. A card-carrying member, Lowell knew, of the Cincinnati Flying Club.
Lowell saluted him.
“Good afternoon, sir,” he said. “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting.”
There was no direct reply to this.
The lieutenant colonel pointed at the L-23, which was the military version of the Beechcraft Twin Bonanza, a six-place, twin-engined, low-wing airplane.
“How much L-23 time do you have, Major?” he asked. He did not offer either his name or his hand.
“A couple of hundred hours,” Lowell said.
“And how much twin engine time?”
“Counting civilian time, about twelve hundred, sir.”
“Most of it in the Commander?”
Charm time having failed, fuck you, Colonel.
“Most of it, Colonel. May I proceed with the preflight?”
“How much time in the F model L-23?” the lieutenant colonel pursued.
“When my Commander was in for a 500-hour overhaul,” Lowell said, “I rented a Queenaire and put twenty-five, thirty hours on it.”
“Then you actually have no time in the L-23F?”
“Colonel, it’s the same airplane,” Lowell said.
“No, Major,” the lieutenant colonel said. “It is not.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Major, you don’t seem to have the qualifications to take a check ride in this aircraft.”
“Colonel, I was ordered here to take a check ride.”
“And does General Jiggs know that you haven’t gone through the transition course?”
