“I know what you mean, Ry. That story about the coffin, it’s almost …”
“Funny. Yeah, it’s almost funny. It was funny at the time. We laughed our goddamn asses off over that line. Christ, we’d laugh at anything. I remember one Saturday night that year, yearling year, this goes back two years now. I remember one night I was up in the barracks writing letters, and I heard a ruckus out in the area, so I looked out my window. It was about midnight, and these two firsties from my company were coming back from Snuffy’s, the bar where all the firsties went to drink. They were totally drunk. They were doing PLF’s … you don’t know what a PLF is. Okay. A PLF is a ‘Parachute Landing Fall,’ which they teach you at the Airborne School when you’re on the Firstie Trip. You jump off a wall, land on your feet with your knees bent, and roll to absorb the shock of landing. It’s a training exercise for Airborne. So these two firsties are doing PLFs off this little wall onto the area. Finally, they both end up on the area, rolling around laughing, and one of them, a little guy who’d spent a lot of hours walking punishment tows—I’m sure he was a Century Man, which means he’d walked over a hundred hours—the little guy starts screaming, ‘I love this fucking area! I love this fucking area!’ and he starts humping the area. Then the other guy starts humping the area. And they’re both screaming, ‘I love this fucking area!’ and humping, like they’re fucking the area. Guys are looking out their windows to see what all the noise is about, and they see these two firsties fucking the area, and they’re hooting and hollering out the windows, cheering them on, and the two firsties are humping and humping and screaming, and somebody puts on the Rolling Stones, ‘I Can’t Get No (Satisfaction),’ and turns the speakers out the window into the area, and I swear to you, there was almost a goddamn riot going on. Music and screaming and laughing and these two crazy area-birds fucking the area. Finally somebody calls one of the orderly rooms from the Cadet Guard Room to say the officer in the charge is on his way, because they can hear it all the way over in Central Area, and the firsties scramble into the barracks, everybody pulls up their shades and turns off their lights, and just like that … it’s over. You believe that?”
“Yes. Of course I believe you, Ry.”
“You think they’d understand?”
“I think so.”
“Yeah, it all sounds funny in retrospect, when you tell it like a story, you know? Well, how about this one. There was this upperclassman and this plebe. The plebe was real smart. Too smart. He thought he could get away with playing the game by his rules. The upperclassman decided he wouldn’t let him. So the upperclassman broke him, just busted the little fucker in half, like a watermelon, cracked him wide open. Saw his insides, the upperclassman did. And you know what? He looked in there when he got him cracked open, and he didn’t understand what he saw. Isn’t that some shit? All that trouble he went to, breaking the plebe open, and once it was done, he didn’t know what he was looking at. That’s West Point for you. Right there. They teach you all about leadership, about influencing the behavior of others, they teach all this shit, and when you put it to use, you don’t know what the fuck is really going on. You’re just banging away in the dark in the general direction of the target. And West Point stands there and lets it happen. They let it happen, because they know they control the light switch. They know it’ll stay in the dark. They know it’ll never get out. None of it. You know why, Irit? I mean, you know why, besides West Point controlling things?”
“Tell me, Ry.”
“I’ll tell you why. It’ll never get out, what goes on up there, because when it’s over, you’re too fuckin’ embarrassed to admit to yourself that it happened. You’re too fuckin’ embarrassed to admit what happened to you when you were a plebe. You’re too fuckin’ embarrassed to admit what you did with the power you had when they made you a squad leader. You’re too fuckin’ embarrassed to tell somebody what it was like to stand down there in the sinks and have some goddamn naked plebe come up to you and salute and tell when he took his last crap, and you’re sitting there checking between his goddamn toes for athlete’s foot, and you’re squad leader and mother and father and every other goddamn thing to these guys, and you’re only nineteen or twenty years old yourself, and you’re coming on like God’s right-hand man. You’re too fuckin’ embarrassed to admit what you learned about what goes on between cadets when they’re that close together, because you didn’t really understand it all yourself, and what you did think you understood—who would fuckin’ believe it, anyway? It all happened inside this goddamn vacuum, this goddamn monastery, and you knew the whole time that West Point wasn’t the real world. It wasn’t intended to be the real world. You knew it was a giant fantasy, a big goddamn game. You knew it was a goddamn game from the first day when that guy told you to drop your bags, and you went ahead and dropped them, and you didn’t question it, because you knew why. Once you’d dropped your bags, you accepted the goddamn rules and you played the goddamn game. But it was real, too. West Point was fuckin’ real. Real enough to hurt. And Christ almighty. Real enough to kill.”
Slaight stood there with his empty glass in his hand. He had been pacing back and forth, and he was soaked with sweat, despite the air conditioning in Irit’s penthouse. He was sweating and he was tired and he was well on his way to being drunk. He was killing the fuckin’ pain. Irit listened to him rant and rave for another twenty minutes, and now it was her turn to speak, and Slaight knew it. He flopped down on the sofa next to her.
“Ry, you’ve got to go to New Orleans, and you’ve got to tell this girl, Samantha Hand, what you know about her brother. You’ve got to go, Ry. You’ve told me. Now you’ve got to tell her, I don’t care how much it hurts. You owe it to her.”
“Yeah. I know.” Slaight’s eyes were closed. He didn’t want to think about West Point any more. He didn’t want to think about David Hand. He didn’t want to face the idea of going to see Samantha Hand. But he knew he had to because Irit was going to make him do it. Good ole Irit. What would he do without Irit? Huh? What would he fuckin’ do?
“Irit. Let’s go to bed. Tomorrow, sweetness. Tomorrow. I’ll make all the arrangements tomorrow. I promise you. Right now, all I want to do is climb in bed with you. Right now, all I want to do is climb in bed and feel your body next to mine, Irit. I need you, Irit. You know that?”
“Yes, Ry. I know it.”
“You don’t mind, do you? I mean, me needing you and all? Is this driving you crazy, Irit? It’s about ready to rip my guts out, and I don’t want it to hurt you. I don’t want West Point to hurt you, Irit. I love you too goddamn much. You know that? I love you. I love you, Irit Dov, and I need you.”
“I know, Ry. I love you, too. I love you in some way I don’t completely understand. But that doesn’t matter for now. Come. Let’s get you in the shower, and into bed. Tomorrow, we’ll think about New Orleans. Okay?” She looked at the shirtless body next to her. He was already asleep.
24
Two days later, Ry Slaight and Irit Dov stepped off the plane into the kingdom of steam. Heat rose from the streets of New Orleans in vertical ranks of waves, rippling, swirling gas vents from the center of the earth. It was hot in New Orleans, hot and humid. New York was bad in July, but this was unbelievable.
They rented a car and drove to the French Quarter—the Qwa-a-atah, it was called in New Orleans, the old part of the city down on the banks of the Mississippi where the river made a sharp U-shaped turn from south to north. They checked into the Provincial, a small rooming house on Ursulines Street, and spent their first afternoon wandering through the Quarter. Cypress trees lapped up the sun, spread their flat, scalelike foliage in courtyards and alleys between the old buildings of the Quarter like living ceiling fans. Wind off the Mississippi ruffled the cypress leaves, spinning them like tiny green knife blades. Everywhere there were bars and restaurants open to the street, real ceiling fans turning overhead inside, stirring the humid air, sucking cool air from the concrete floors, passing it slowly over th
e sleepy midday drinkers on its way to the ceiling and out the open store fronts to the street, where the hot sun superheated the cool air and spun it skyward. Slaight had never seen anything like it. The place was like a giant broiler. People didn’t live in New Orleans. They just sat there and slowly cooked themselves to death.
Slaight called a classmate who lived in another section of town, and he met them in the Quarter for supper. His name was Nathan Tabor. He was in one of the other companies in the Third Regiment; he and Slaight had had a few classes together over the years. He asked Slaight what he was doing in New Orleans, and Slaight told him “leave.” Slaight asked him about the restaurant owned by David Hand’s father, a place in the French Quarter called Anthony’s.
“Anthony’s is the restaurant in the Quarter,” explained Tabor. “You’ve got to know somebody to get a table in the place. What I mean is this. The restaurant is really two places—there’s the Anthony’s that the tourists know about, this famous place in the Quarter, right? You just walk in off the street, and there’s this big room and a lot of tables, and you sit down and eat. Then there’s Anthony’s—a series of back rooms, small private dining rooms upstairs and in connecting buildings, not visible from the street. You have to know one of the back-room waiters to get a table. You call a special number, ask for your waiter by name, and he takes your reservation. When you go, you don’t enter by the front door. Just to the left of the front door is a narrow alley between buildings. You walk down that alley, and at the end, you pick up a phone on the wall and ask for your waiter by name. When he answers, you give your name and the time of your reservation, and you’re buzzed into a back room, and escorted to your table. You get a different menu from the tourists, a different kitchen, a whole different scene. There are actually two waiters for your table—your main waiter and his son, who serves as his assistant. Your main waiter takes your order and places your order with the kitchen. Now, the way they work it at Anthony’s is like no other restaurant in America. Your waiter is actually a wholesaler to your table. He buys from the kitchen at wholesale, and sells to you at the price marked on the menu, and he pockets the difference. That’s his salary. So if you’ve got a good waiter, he’ll watch your food when it comes from the kitchen, and if it doesn’t meet his approval, he’ll refuse it—send it back for you. He’ll make sure what you get is perfect. All the time, his son is there at your table, pouring wine, tossing salad, making sure everything is okay. You pay a little extra for this service—not much, really, but you pay. A good waiter at Anthony’s can make between five hundred and seven-fifty a week, which he splits by some mutually agreed-upon percentage with his son. The son inherits his job when he retires. Those waiters are really something. They’ll cultivate a regular clientele of regulars from New Orleans, and then some big spenders from out of town with the connections to get in. They clean up. The guy who owns the place started out as a waiter, inherited the job from his father. Later, he quit and went into other business, made it, and came back and bought the goddamn place. One of the classic success stories of the Quarter. He’s a real power these days. Anybody who’s anybody in this town had better be on the good side of William Hand, or he gets stiffed at Anthony’s, and if that happens, forget it. In New Orleans, if you’re going to make it, you need Anthony’s more than Anthony’s needs you. This town lives on lunches and dinners at Anthony’s and a couple of other places. But Anthony’s is the one. Why you ask? You want to eat there? I might be able to fix you up, if you give me a couple of days.”
“Yeah, thanks, Tabor. Maybe in a couple of days. We’ll give you a call. We’re just trying to get our feet on the ground. This heat is enough to float you away.”
“July is not your ideal time to visit New Orleans,” said Tabor.
“Yeah. I’m beginning to get that idea.”
“What brings you down here this time of year besides leave, anyway?” Tabor was one smart son of a bitch, and Slaight didn’t want him digging around.
“Curiosity, man. My girl, Irit, she’s never been here, and neither have I. And you only got one leave right? Now or never.”
“Sure. Gotcha.” They said good night and walked down Royale Street to the rooming house. They spent their first night drinking straight gin on the rocks, huddled next to a pathetically inadequate air conditioner hard-pressed to make a dent in the heat, wondering what they’d do to stay cool the next day. They needn’t have wondered.
At the ungodly hour—for Slaight, anyway—of 9:30 A.M., Slaight drank two gin and orange juices’ worth of courage, turned the corner outside the Provincial, walked the three blocks down to 152 Chartres Street, and rang the buzzer on the cast-iron gate of the fence surrounding a marvelous old Victorian mansion set back from the street by an intricately designed garden, inset with winding brick walks and flower beds and flowering bushes of one kind or another. It was truly an imposing structure, the Hand house, and Slaight expected to be met by a black maid in a white apron when the gate swung open. Instead, a tinny voice sounded over a small speaker mounted on a cast-iron Greek column at the right side of the gate.
“Who is it?” inquired a tinny voice of indeterminate sex.
“It’s Ry Slaight. I’m here to see Samantha Hand.” There was a pause. Another voice came over the speaker, female.
“Yes. Who is it?”
“It’s Ry Slaight, ma’am. I’m here to see Samantha Hand, please.”
“This is Samantha,” the voice crackled from the speaker. “I don’t want anything to do with you, Rysam Slaight. Go away. Go away this very moment, or I will call the police and have them arrest you for harassment.”
“Samantha, you’re not giving me a chance.”
“You’re damn right I’m not giving you a chance, Slaight. Now, go away.”
Slaight gave up when he heard the speaker click, signaling that it had been turned off. He walked back to the Provincial, poured himself another gin-and-orange-juice, and announced the grim news to Irit.
“I will go myself,” said Irit. “We will not come down here without giving this Samantha person the information which is by rights hers. Wait for me here.” Slaight didn’t argue. He sipped his drink in the dark silence of the room overlooking Ursulines Street, which had begun to buzz with the commercial truck traffic of the warehouse district through which it passed.
Irit repeated the buzzer process at the gate to 152 Chartres Street. Again the voice:
“Who is it?”
“My name is Irit Dov. I have information about the deceased cadet, David Hand. Let me in, please.” Again a pause. The gate buzzed, and opened a crack. Irit pushed her way through. She walked to her left along a brick path. Before she had gone more than a dozen steps, a light-complexioned, extremely thin blond woman who appeared to be in her early twenties stepped suddenly from behind a bush. The two women faced each other in the bright, early morning sun.
“I’m Samantha Hand,” stated the blonde flatly. “You’ve come with Ry, haven’t you? I know. My brother mentioned your name in his letters. You’re Ry’s girl friend. What do you want?”
“You made a grave mistake in your letter to Ry. I read it. And yes, I am here with him. You should not have turned him away. He had nothing to do with the death of your brother, David. But Ry does know how he died. He has come here to tell you everything he knows about your brother and his death. Like you, he believes your brother was murdered. But unlike you, he has the facts. He knows of the autopsy on your brother. He wants to find your brother’s murderer. Ry has been drawn into this, not by your letter, but in other, more complicated ways. For reasons which he will have to explain to you himself, the death of your brother hurt him very deeply. You must talk with him. He has not come to defend himself against your letter, for he has no need to. He has come to tell you everything he knows, and you will do yourself and your family a grave disservice if you do not listen.”
Irit delivered her well-rehearsed lines in the peculiar lilting English native to Israel. Samantha Hand seemed stun
ned, speechless. Irit spoke:
“You have reason for concern, Samantha. But you have no reason for fear. Ry cannot hurt you any more than he has already hurt himself. I have listened to him and watched him since he learned of your brother’s death in May. It has consumed him. Your letter only served to crystallize what had already become a nearly self-destructive passion. He is determined to find your brother’s killer. You can help him. You can refuse to help him. But you must listen to him, you must hear him out. If you do not, I hardly know what to expect from him. I fear for his emotional health, and I fear for his safety. You must give him the benefit of the doubt. You must listen, no matter how difficult it is for you. I assure you, this journey has been equally painful for him.”
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