Lowell slipped in and slammed the door behind him, then hooked up the chain. “Jeezus! Jeezus! Jeezus!” he said, waving the morning newspaper in front of him. “Look at this!”
Harry tried focusing his eyes. The effort created waves of nausea, which only became worse as he managed to finally unfuzz the photo and story Lowell was pointing at. The picture was of a man, his hand held out toward the camera, effectively blocking his face. The evening-gowned woman next to him was looking in his direction.
The bold caption under the photograph was “Mafia Boss Pardoned. Sister Meets Him At Prison Gate.” The article which followed proclaimed: “Governor Trovati dropped a bombshell yesterday when he pardoned Big Al Marcotti who was serving six consecutive life sentences for murder. The freed prisoner told the press how grateful he was to the governor for the pardon and how he had no intention of returning to his former life. ‘I’ll probably go back to farming, like my Dad, and I’m going to take care of my kid sister, here. She stood by me all the time I was in the pen, and I’m going to try to make it up to her for all these years we haven’t had together. She’s had a tough life, and she doesn’t deserve any more hard knocks.’ Sylvia Marcotti’s only comment to the press was how she was overjoyed at the governor’s action. ‘It’s going to be wonderful to have a big brother again.’
Harry’s mouth was open. Comprehension was slow, painful and virtually indigestible.
Lowell was frantic. “Did you ever talk to her about me? Did you ever tell her my name? Huh? Did you tell her where I live? For chrissakes, Harry, snap out of it! What did you tell her about me?”
Harry began to shake his head, then stopped because of the resulting explosion of pain. “Nothing. Nothing. We never talked about anything except how we felt about each other!”
Lowell heaved a sigh of relief. “OK. Throw something in a suitcase. I’m getting you the hell out of here.”
Harry still wasn’t clear about what was happening. “Why?”
“Jeezus, Harry! What do you think a Mafia boss is going to do to a guy who just stood up his sister at the altar? Do you think he’s going to kiss you on both cheeks? That he’s going to fire his hit men? That he’s really going back to farming? C’mon, I’m taking you to the airport.” As he was speaking he moved over to the curtained window and carefully peered out.
Through the haze and headache Harry began to grasp something of his predicament.
“I’ll drive you right to the airport and you can catch the next plane to LA,” Lowell was saying to his dazed passenger as he pulled away from the curb. “I’ll foot the bill, don’t worry. Just disappear when you get there. You can pick up false ID. Don’t let anybody know where you are. And whatever you do, don’t try to contact me! Don’t mention me to anyone! I don’t want Big Al to find out I ever had anything to do with you. Sure as hell I don’t want him to know I was scheduled to be your best man at his sister’s marriage where the groom just up and walked out on her.”
Los Angeles turned out to be a bummer. It was days before Harry could find the necessary identification papers. His growing beard was slow in coming out and continued to itch for weeks, the only job he’d been able to find was delivering pizzas, and the tips were hardly worth accepting. The worst of it was the continued looking over his shoulder. He couldn’t believe he’d escaped so completely. And many times he gave silent thanks for Lowell’s presence of mind, knowing his own physical and mental condition would have frozen him on the spot if Lowell hadn’t rushed him off to the airport.
Several weeks went by before he drifted into the public library after work with the idle notion there might be something in the hometown newspaper to relieve his anxiety. “Maybe Big Al’s had a heart attack and died,” he said to himself. “Or maybe one of the mob has decided to take over and wiped him out. Damn stupid governor! I hope they wiped him out, too”
The library had issues of the Philadelphia Enquirer going much further back than Harry needed or wanted. The stack of March issues was a confused mess. Pages as well as dates were out of sequence. Harry decided to search out the fateful day. Rummaging through the issues, he found March 25, but no photograph and no caption. “Wasn’t it the 25th?” He was sure it had been the day of the proposed wedding. Then it occurred to him the story of the pardon had been in the following day’s paper. The 26th still produced no story. Harry could have sworn he had the right issue, but dates had become a jumble in his mind since he’d come to the West Coast. Putting the page aside, he continued to search through the stack of newspapers, not noticing the blinking lights indicating the library was about to close.
Walking down along the table, the library worker was turning off the reading lamps when Harry looked up, holding out the offending paper for inspection. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to know if there’s a different edition of this issue, something later in the day with different stories.”
The worker inspected the paper. “Not with the Enquirer, there wouldn’t be. I don’t know of any major papers with separate editions. A regional edition, maybe, like the New York Times West Coast issue. What were you looking for?”
“It was a picture and story. I could have sworn it was right there on this page. It was a real important item. At least, it was to me.”
“Maybe someone pulled a fast one on you, the way my crazy sister did to me on April 1st. I went out and got the morning paper when I heard it hit the front door, and there it was—my picture on the front page announcing me as the forty-one-million dollar winner of the Super Power-Ball Sweepstakes. I hooped and hollered and was ready to call the head librarian to tell him what he could do with this job, when my wife just barely caught me in time. She was in on the joke, but she sure didn’t want it to go that far.
“Yeah. Faking a newspaper page is easy to do these days. These outfits have a photocopier prints the size of a web press. A little cutting and pasting and copying can produce something you can hardly tell from the real thing”
Harry was barely listening, while wildly flipping the pages in front of him. All he could think of was the photo. And a hidden memory of something barely noticed at the time—a flashy stickpin on “Big Al’s” tie. And what would a woman in an evening gown be doing meeting a released convict? And the building in the background surely looked more like the main branch of the Bank of Philadelphia than like a Federal prison.
It took the photo in the April 20th issue to bring him crashing back to reality. There was Lowell, fancy dress-suit and all, with Millie on his arm. The heading of the story read: LOWELL SHEA AND MILLICENT MOHAN WED TODAY IN QUIET CEREMONY.
The story went on to describe their coming world-tour honeymoon—three months on a luxury liner. But Harry was really fixed on the photo, especially on the best man, whose necktie stickpin sparkled.
The anxious voice of the library worker barely penetrated. “You O.K.? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
A PARTIAL PLATE
Ezra Lewis Stockdale could be a pain in the ass sometimes, especially when he was sounding off about how he’d joined up even though he didn’t have to—what with being forty-five, having a wife and two kids back Stateside, and how he’d lied about his partial plate, since the Navy turned you down if you had more than seven teeth missing. He had eight gone.
On the other hand, Stockdale had endless stories to tell about his days working on ranches in Montana, or in the steel mills in Pittsburgh, or in a dozen other places in the U.S. and Canada. Listening to him was better than going to the ten-year old movies we’d occasionally get on the baby flattop we were on. As I look back on it, I’m sure most of his stories were made up out of whole cloth, but a sixteen-year old is pretty gullible and, back then, I believed most of what he told us.
I remember one particular day well, for good reason. I was lying on the top bunk looking over the side down at the middle bunk where Stockdale was going on at length about the bumper catch of cod he’d been in on off the Grand Banks. And Jimmy Barnwell, just a year or so older than me and occup
ant of the bottom bunk, was leaning out drinking in every word when general quarters sounded. Since we’d just been lying there shooting the shit, and it was long before taps, we didn’t need to dress. We hit the deck running and tore up the ladder to our stations—me doing lookout in the crow’s nest, Stockdale on fire control, and Barnwell with hatch duty.
The officer up there with us lookouts said a sub had been located, and it sure wasn’t an American one. I can remember it was all pretty exciting, since we hadn’t seen any action yet, and there off of Eniwetok in ‘43 we were a long way from the serious stuff going on a thousand miles to the west. We were one of a group of six CVE’s escorted by a dozen destroyers. A picket ship had spotted sub activity on their sonar. We tried to find any signs of it, but it was hard seeing with the tropical sun setting in front of us.
The sea was smooth, the sky was clear, the whole setting was remarkably peaceful—looking about as far removed from the war as it could possibly be. I swung my binoculars over to port side to take in our nearest sister ship, the Salton Bay. At first I thought there was something wrong with the glasses. The Salton Bay seemed to shudder, then a thin stream of smoke seeped from its side. A series of explosions followed, and was only the beginning. Flames from tons of ammunition and aviation fuel leaped skyward. Less than five minutes later, the ship listed sharply to starboard, and then a truly massive explosion broke her in two.
Several destroyers headed toward her to pick up survivors though, from what I could see, there couldn’t be many. Figures were dropping from the prow which was still afloat, only to be engulfed by flames spreading across the fuel-filled water. The remaining carriers, including our ship, were taking serious evasive action, and the destroyers not actually attempting rescue work fanned out to find and destroy the source of the torpedo.
I wasn’t the one who saw it, mostly because I was still engrossed with the rapidly diminishing sight of the flaming wreckage, but other lookouts spotted it—the unmistakable trail of bubbles indicating an approaching torpedo. Our ship made an agonizing attempt to avoid it, turning to face it and present as small a target as possible. At first the torpedo seemed to have passed astern, but all of us felt the ship tremble, and I fully expected we’d be joining the Salton Bay.
Later in the evening, word filtered down to the crew that the torpedo, which had struck but had failed to explode, had damaged the rudder. The best news was we were now limping our way back to Pearl for dry-dock repairs, with a single destroyer to provide escort service.
None of us regretted the change of direction—least of all Stockdale. It was late the same evening, while most of us in crew quarters were still wide-awake after the day’s events, when I ran into him. Or, rather, he ran into me—on purpose. It took only moments for me to realize he was terrified. Next I noticed how his whole face looked strange. I suppose sixteen-year-olds think they’re immortal, so I was far less affected by the day’s events.
“Collin,” he asked, “would you do me a favor?” His voice sounded even stranger than his face.
“Depends,” I said.
“I’ve already talked to Doc and told him I lost my partial plate and will have to have shore leave when we get to Pearl so I can get a replacement.”
I was surprised to see the change which had come over Stockdale, but I wasn’t surprised Doc had agreed to get him shore leave. Lieutenant Junior Grade Flannery was as easygoing as they come. There were a lot of questions about his credentials. Some of the crew insisted he was really a horse doctor, but there wasn’t much question about his personality. It even extended to occasional treats to medical alcohol cut with orange juice—as part of a medical prescription, of course.
“What’s your missing plate got to do with me?” I asked.
He reached into his chambray shirt and handed me a tissue wrapped object—his partial plate. “Would you keep this in your locker? Just in case some damn officer doesn’t believe me and decides to search mine.”
I couldn’t see why I shouldn’t do him the favor, though I wasn’t too sure about what he was trying to accomplish. It soon came out.
“Once I get ashore, I’m sure I can wangle shore duty. I’ve had enough of this damn war. After all, I have a wife and two kids. I’m too old for this. Besides, there are plenty of others to take my place.”
I was going to remind him of all of his earlier heroic talk but thought better of it. Mostly, I just got a kick out of it. I let him swear me to secrecy—though I sure wanted to share the news with others.
It took almost six days of slow cruising, painful zigzagging, and fighting a good-sized storm before we pulled into Pearl and tied up in the middle of a row of four other identical CVE’s. The five baby flattops looked like a set of kids’ toys freshly minted and right off a Woolworth’s shelves.
It was close to nightfall before we finally lowered the gangplank. Within minutes, an underwater demolition team was swarming around us to inspect the damage. I had the eighteen-hours shift in Air Plot and was on my way there when the ship’s captain spotted me. Since my workstation was right across from his cabin, he had had me run errands before—something which annoyed the hell out of the lieutenant in charge of my division, but he wasn’t in any position to squawk. This time I was handed a pouch and told to deliver it to the officer of the deck on the neighboring Raleigh Bay.
I sure wasn’t about to complain. I was only too happy to get ashore, even if it was for only a half-hour or maybe an hour if I stretched it out. Besides, from the look of the pouch, I figured I was probably carrying an important message. As I got to thinking about it, though, I decided it probably was just an invitation to the other captain to come over for breakfast or something like that, since radio silence for anything but encrypted messages was the order of the day.
As I found out later, it was during my absence when Stockdale went berserk. Minutes after I left, word came over the speakers announcing the starboard watch had shore leave until midnight, and Stockdale was on the starboard watch. According to Barnwell, a madman had come through sleeping quarters looking for guess who.
“Where’s that fucker?” Stockdale was shouting to everyone. “He’s got my teeth locked up in his locker, and I have to get ashore.”
When I heard about all of this later, it was only too evident why Stockdale was so upset. With six hours leave available and a girlfriend in Honolulu, he needed his partial plate back—bad!”
Not being able to find me, he was on the verge of breaking into my locker—something no one in his right mind would ever do. But the only thing saving my lock from irreparable damage was the fact Barnwell finally remembered the combination, which I had shared with him months before.
When I got back to the ship, shortly after Stockdale’s departure, Barnwell and I were hilarious over our aging Romeo’s dilemma. What we didn’t anticipate was the next morning’s sequel.
Reveille found Stockdale’s bunk empty. Barnwell immediately said, “He’s gone AWOL.
“Nah,” I said, “Why should he? He’s going to get leave today to get his missing plate replaced, and he figures he can get permanent shore duty while they’re being fitted.”
It was zero eight hours before we found out what really happened. A dirty and disheveled, red-eyed Stockdale came staggering down the ladder while Barnwell and I were playing a hand of crib on the bottom bunk.
“What in hell happened to you?” I asked, though I could tell from his appearance what at least part of his story would be.
“I got shit-faced last night, and when I came back I got on the wrong flattop.”
Barnwell and I couldn’t believe our ears as he went on.
“I found what I thought was my bunk and kicked the guy out who was sleeping in it. He must have been drunker than me because he never said squat, just went off and crapped out somewhere else. The next thing I knew, the damn ship was about ready to sail. I just barely made it off in time.”
“Jeezus,” Barnwell exclaimed. “The OD must have given you shit when you s
howed up eight hours over.”
Starting to shake his head and then thinking better of it, Stockdale said, “Uh, uh. I’m not even on the report. Doc Flannery was on. He just laughed like hell and waved me aboard.”
“No wonder,” I said. “You’ve got your missing plate back in.”
Stockdale’s hands covered his mouth. Barnwell and I cracked up, only to be interrupted by the speakers announcing our leaving moorage. “Just moving to dry-dock,” Stockdale said, taking out his plate. “There’ll still be time to get Doc in a good mood and forget about what he saw.”
A neighboring bunkmate who worked in the radio shack came in just then to break the news. “The Jap fleet’s out. Their battlewagons hit the carriers covering the Philippine landings and sank half a dozen of them. Suicides all over the place. The UDT says our rudder damage is minimal and we’ve already weighed anchor and are heading out to the battle zone right pronto.”
Stockdale didn’t even notice when his plate slipped from his fingers and smashed to pieces on the deck.
A PLACE IN PARADISE
Even without the new hotshot in the office, Jill Tsunaga wasn’t outrageously happy with trying to sell real estate in Hawai’i these days. In the best of times, with what seemed to be a third of the adult population out hawking properties, this was no business for seeking one’s fortune. For the past three years, the slump in the State’s economy made the selling of real estate an especially precarious way to make a living. And now, with Wilson Teal around, what Jill considered a pleasant if not always profitable occupation was rapidly becoming a pain.
Wilson, the son of one of the wealthiest coffee-processing families on the Kona Coast, had managed to acquire a master’s degree in business administration, and had just launched off into real estate with the avowed intention of making his million before age thirty-five.
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