“Cassidy, do you ever feel pointless?”
“Everybody does,” he said. “Sometimes. Comes of thinking too much.”
“Like there’s no design behind our existence? That it’s all just random and that time blunts all the little personal tragedies and that none of it matters for very long? Not the living, not the dying … that’s all just for now and now just lasts a minute, before it’s gone, just gone.”
“Look, it’s a universal fear.”
“Well, that’s the excuse I use for everything. What difference does any of it make? As a little girl I used to sit in the cemetery in the little village in the Cotswolds where we summered. And I’d wonder, who were these people who slept beneath me now? Their lives were important to them—my God, Hardy wrote his novels about them—and then they were gone and a little girl was sitting on their gravestones … what difference had their lives made? Well, what difference does it make if I’m a whore and Max is a gangster and your leg is all torn up and Irvie’s dead? We’re all going to be dead and forgotten so soon … Anyway, I feel like an imbecile telling you all this rubbish. It’s all my excuse for being no better than a cheap tart. Let’s pretend I didn’t say it, is that possible, Cassidy?”
“Probably not.”
“No, I suppose it isn’t. Well, hard cheese for me.”
“It’s not important.”
“Who says?”
“Writer, Scott Fitzgerald. He said there aren’t many things that are important. And they’re not very important.”
“I must remember that.”
“Why? It’s not important.”
She laughed. “He was right. It’s all pointless.”
“It’s the war,” he said.
“I wish that’s all it were.”
“You know, I really do think I’m in love with you, Cindy.”
“I suppose you are. It’s not me. It’s the war.”
“I’m afraid it’s you. I’ve known it for a while. I think I was lost from the day you came to my hospital room and lied about the flowers being Max’s idea … I think maybe I started loving you right then.”
“You’re going to be sorry, you know that.”
“Oh, I don’t think so.”
“Your judgment is clouded now. You’re in love with a worthless little tart.”
He grabbed her, turned her to face him, stared into her pale, wounded face. He hadn’t realized she was fighting back tears. He kissed her cheek, tasting the salty warmth, then kissed her mouth and she opened herself and took him inside.
Breathless, he leaned back, still holding her. “Don’t talk that way anymore. I’ve got to think about what I’m going to do … But no bargains between us, no business relationship. Anything we do for each other, we do. No strings attached. No deals, no bargains. Got that straight?”
“Forget me, Cassidy. It’s bound to turn out badly. It’ll all go wrong and why should you get dragged down, too—”
“Shut up, Cindy. You don’t scare me—”
“I’m just trying to warn you—”
“Why? None of it’s very important—”
“Because if I could love anyone, I’d love you.”
“You can. You already love me—”
“I know, I know,” she whispered. “Kiss me once. It won’t make any difference soon enough. Just another little girl someday, thinking in a cemetery, sitting on a gravestone, wondering who we were …”
He held her and wanted to hold her until they were no longer afraid, until whatever was going to happen happened and they had taken their places in the long procession and the story was told and he kept holding her and he felt himself crying for the first time in years and years and years, since his mother had died, and just for an instant he thought it was the biting wind in his face or maybe it was the war but, no, of course, he knew what it was. It was Cindy Squires.
The door behind them banged open and Terry and Giuseppe came out, followed by Bennie, who looked at Cindy, then at Cassidy, blinking behind his lenses. Giuseppe was pointing out into the darkness. “Keepa watchin’ out there, you’ll see the fireworks. Not every night, mosta nights.” He shrugged palms-up, as if it were not his responsibility. “Justa keepa lookin’.” He went back inside. Cassidy wished they’d all go back inside and leave him alone with Cindy. His heartbeat was racing. He couldn’t let himself look at her, not while Bennie was there.
She pulled away from his side, leaned on the railing. Terry produced a pair of binoculars and scanned the night. “Hell,” he said, “this could take hours. Let’s mount watches. I’ll take the first. An hour. Then you’re up, Lew.”
Bennie held the door for Lew and Cindy. Back in the dining room the others were setting up a card game. Bennie sat in with them, facing Cassidy and Cindy. She wrapped herself in her coat, curled up on two chairs, and went immediately to sleep. Cassidy watched her. Her mouth dropped open about half an inch and she began to snore very softly, like a child. He watched her for an hour and thought about what had just happened between them and about what he ought to do about it and then Terry came in and handed him the binoculars. They felt like ice. “Let us know if you see anything,” he said. He went to join the poker game.
It came about half an hour into his watch.
At first it looked like a magician’s pinkish-orange paper flower popping up, unfolding in the black void of ocean and the night. For a moment he forgot he had the binoculars, simply strained to see what was going on out there. The ball of color grew larger and brighter, glowing, creating a halo around the darker center.
He brought the binocs to the bridge of his nose and adjusted the focus now that he had something to focus on.
Fire. An immense explosion of fire, so far away as to be soundless against the surf and the wind.
He banged at the door. “Get out here!”
They came through the doorway in a rush. Cindy was rubbing her eyes with her fists, like a child awakened on Christmas Eve to see Santa passing overhead.
“Judas Priest!” Lennie whispered. Cassidy handed him the binoculars.
“What is it?” Cindy yawned into her fist.
Bennie leaned his huge hands on the railing and whistled. He slipped his fedora off, passed his hand over the high dome of his balding head. “Extraordinary …”
“What is it?” She sounded sleepy and impatient.
“Merchant ship,” Terry said. “One of ours. This is the war, right off New York City. The U-boat wolf packs are hunting all along our coastline.”
“The Nazis,” she said in wonderment.
“Well, they’re keeping it pretty quiet,” Terry said. “People would go nuts if they realized just how bad it is. Better than a hundred ships have gone down so far.”
“It’s a gauntlet,” Bennie mused.
The fire had flattened out and was burning along an imaginary line. The waterline. Not so imaginary. The line between one kind of death and another.
“There must be men in the water out there,” Cindy whispered. “Drowning and burning … and screaming …”
Cassidy held her arm, pulled her close in the darkness.
“That’s right,” Terry said.
“Why don’t we do something? What about our navy?” Her voice was small, shaking.
“There isn’t enough navy,” Terry said.
There was another silent explosion. Two merchant ships.
Voices were calling on the beach.
“Coast Guard patrols. Can’t have the public coming out for the free show—”
“Like us,” she said.
The fires were burning unchecked, spreading as the oil and gasoline drifted on the water.
An hour later they were still burning.
Cindy went inside and Cassidy followed her, leaving the rest of them passing the glasses back and forth. It had begun raining steadily but they couldn’t tear themselves away.
She sat with her head on her arm on the table.
“Damn it, this is all insane, Cassidy.” Her vo
ice was muffled. “Fireworks. Men out there filling up with saltwater and burning oil. And we drive down for a casual outing to watch. It’s like my grandparents crossing Europe to get to the Crimea. Making camp on the hills above the battle. Women in fine dresses. Servants setting up the trays for tea. They could hear the screams of the dying … Take me home, Cassidy, or get me drunk. This whole night is just too crazy.”
“I don’t think our friends want to go yet.”
“Oh, well, then God knows we have to stay. While Terry and the Immovable Object and their creepy gangster pals get their kicks. Fuck them. Fuck all of us …”
He sat down beside her to wait. She probably didn’t know it but she needed company. Or was it that he did?
Well, as Fitzgerald said, it wasn’t important.
Morning came gray and harsh and raining. The slate cloud cover merged at the eastern horizon with the iron sea and a great fogbank was out there, moving inland. Giuseppe made coffee and his wife bustled in with baskets of hot rolls and bread with slabs of cold butter. The blackout curtains were rolled up and secured on hooks. Cindy’s eyes were red and she sipped her coffee, staring blankly at the fog. She’d come back from the bathroom looking scrubbed and girlish. She made a face and said, “I brushed my teeth with toilet paper. Aren’t we ever going home? Are we stuck here for eternity? Like Outward Bound?” The jukebox was playing “Come Back to Sorrento.”
With morning’s light the poker game broke up. Lennie stood and stretched long simian arms. They’d all taken off their coats, showing guns in shoulder holsters. Marvin gnawed on a roll after dunking it in his coffee. Artie wore a lemon-yellow tie with a dark blue shirt and yellow suspenders and didn’t look any different than he had upon arrival. His beard hadn’t even grown, while the others had stubble darkening their faces. Artie was something else.
Cassidy watched Artie and decided he was the one hardcase in the bunch, the real ice man.
“Come on, you guys,” Lennie said, waving his arms at the thick miasma of cigar and cigarette smoke. “Let’s get some fresh air. Bring our bags in so we can at least get cleaned up. Come on, up and at ’em.”
Lennie swung the door leading to the parking lot wide open and took a deep breath. “Come on, come on,” he said, and the other three followed him across the damp wooden porch. The rain had eased off and the fog had reached the shore. Bennie and Cassidy stood in the doorway enjoying the chilly damp breeze. Cassidy took a step through the doorway, then felt Bennie’s hand tightening on his arm. The cane slipped from his grasp and clattered on the floor.
“Wait,” Bennie said softly, “wait a minute …”
Like robots, several heads, then shoulders, were rising up out of the sand-blown scrub brush rimming the parking lot, rising almost in slow motion, as if they were a lost legion coming like phantoms from the sea. Their hats were pulled low against the streaky rain and mist and their trench coats were soaked through. They came without a sound, five of them ranged along the final rise of the dune.
They were carrying Thompson submachine guns.
Halfway across the lot toward the long, gleaming Lincoln Continental, beaded with rain, Chicago Willie saw them, yelled something inelegant, hey, who the fuck are these guys …
Lennie turned to look and in a blur he had his gun in his hand, had dropped flat on the ground with the automatic out in front of him, had fired once, a roar that split the morning stillness …
A puff of sand rose in front of one of the men from the sea.
Artie made a dash, like a sprinter kicking for the tape, got to the Lincoln, yanked the door open, pulled a shotgun from the front seat …
A burst from one of the tommy guns took Chicago Willie off at the knee, dropping him where he stood, screaming in a widening pool of blood. He got his gun free and another quick burst stitched his epitaph across his chest …
Marvin tried to scuttle back toward the doorway and another of the men with the tommy guns raised the muzzle …
Bennie slammed the door shut a millisecond before it was raked with slugs. Marvin let out a frightened yelp and they heard him slammed heavily onto the wooden porch, heard him battering weakly at the door, trying to get in …
Cassidy got to the window in time to see Artie pull the trigger on the shotgun and blow one of the tommy-gun men back over the lip of the scrubby dune, his gun rattling off a salvo into the gathering fog …
A large square-shaped man appeared for the first time from below the crest of the dune as if he’d waited for the opening volleys to pass and opened up on the Lincoln, ripping curling holes across the long hood, filling the fog with an explosion of glass, ripping huge gaps in the fabric top, blowing a row of holes across the door shielding Artie and his shotgun …
Chips and slivers of parking lot were flying all around the prone figure of Lennie, who fired back, having to know it was hopeless, having to know it was all over …
It had taken five or six seconds so far.
Terry stood beside Cindy, his face ashen, leaning on her chair. She had her hands over her ears.
Bennie stood stock-still by the window, the huge .45 looking like a gambler’s derringer in the massive fist …
Cassidy said, “Come on, everybody, it’s time to get the hell out of here.” He grabbed his cane, yanking Bennie away from the window just before more slugs tore into the roadhouse’s wooden siding and the window exploded back across the table.
Cassidy grabbed Cindy, pulled her upright, and headed toward the door onto the rear balcony from which they’d watched the burning ships. Terry, weaker than he’d expected, gamely followed, his face almost blue with weakness and pain. He looked at Cassidy. “It’s my back … let’s go, Jocko, I’ll make it.” Bennie followed.
Cassidy turned back, saw Marvin’s precious attaché case on the table, pushed the others ahead, dashed back in to get it. They were still firing in the parking lot. He heard Artie let fly again with the shotgun. Very soon Artie was going to be dead. Men were yelling out there. He took the case and went back out the door. The rest of them were down the steps. He limped downward, hard on his knee, and fell the last three steps. But Bennie was there to catch him.
They ran across the wet sand, angling off toward the first dune between them and the water. Each jolt was an agony for his knee and the cane was useless in the sand. He flung it away into the fog. Terry fell over a half-buried piece of driftwood, Cassidy stopped, helped him up. “Come on, beautiful,” he said.
“A day at the fucking beach,” Terry gasped.
Bennie had swept Cindy over the top of the dune and rolled down the other side with her.
Cassidy staggered onward, Terry’s arm around his neck, holding on, and then they too had crested the dune and he was lowering Terry as gently as he could.
“Put a fork in me, momma,” Terry whispered, “I’m about done. Leave me here, I’ve got a gun, Jocko. I can slow the bastards down … you go ahead.”
“No, this is all right,” Cassidy said, sinking down beside him on the wet sand. “Listen, pal, I’m not feeling too damn chipper myself.” He sat quietly, gulping air and smelling the fog which had engulfed them. He peered into the mist. Bennie and Cindy were scrambling up the slope toward them. Driftwood, wet sand, dune grass, fog blowing thickly off the water. “Let’s just dig in here and see what happens. The fog’s on our side. Hell, I don’t think these guys are after us.”
“Who are they?” Terry asked, gritting his teeth, shifting his weight, trying to ease the pain in his back.
“I don’t know …” But Cassidy had seen the last man up, the big square man who’d waited, and he’d have sworn he’d recognized him. He was almost sure. Almost.
He held on to the attaché case. Cindy huddled against him, shivering. Bennie leaned over Terry: “Are you okay?”
Terry nodded slowly, eyes shut. “Not quite up to par yet, I guess.” He laughed softly, opened his eyes, and winked at Cassidy. He reached inside his coat and came out with a .38 Special. “Here, Lew. You’d bette
r take this. I’m weak as a cat …” Cassidy took the gun.
They sat listening to each other breathe and the rolling, lapping surf. Cindy said, “It’s stopped.” She cocked her head, brushing her hair away with a sand-covered hand. “Listen, the shooting’s stopped …”
“They’re all dead, then,” Bennie said.
As if to punctuate the gun battle there was a muffled roar, like something suddenly blowing up, a whooshing sound and a crack, then nothing.
They waited another five minutes, then Cassidy said he was going to have a look. They couldn’t sit there on the wet sand forever.
Cindy sighed. “Please be careful.”
He looked down at her, trying to convince himself that last night had really happened. She smiled tentatively. He got up and limped up over the rim of the dune and kept on going. When he looked back, the dune was gone in the fog. He was caught in the middle, plodding onward, no longer able to see where he’d been, not yet able to make out what lay ahead. For a moment he thought he smelled smoke, an oily fire. What the hell was he going to do? Was he going to start shooting people? Was he going to keep on playing footsie with Dewey and Luciano and the cops? Was he going to keep telling Max Bauman’s girl he loved her? He was wandering in the goddamn fog …
The outline of the roadhouse loomed suddenly above him. It rested on stilts sunk into concrete pilings and there were the stairs they’d descended. He leaned against one of the stilts to catch his breath and rest his knee. There were no sounds coming from above so he went to the last set of stilts. The voices finally reached him, filtering through the wind and fog. He couldn’t make out what they were saying. He held his breath, listening, trying to identify just the one. He edged closer to the corner of the building. The parking lot was above him now, the dune curving ahead of him, nothing to protect him but the fog.
Suddenly the voices came clear, just ahead, and he froze.
They were breathing heavily, slipping and sliding down the steep wall of wet sand. He waited until he’d heard them pass, heard the heavy metallic slapping of the tommy guns jostling. He edged forward again and saw the shapes of the men from behind.
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