Nightmare Alley

by Len Levinson

  The elevator rose up through the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, and a young woman gave Craig Delane the eye. He thought she was probably a high-priced prostitute, and at another time he might have given her a tumble, but not today.

  The bellhop led him down the corridor to a door, opened it, and went inside, opening windows, showing Craig where everything was. The Royal Hawaiian was a fancy, expensive hotel, and everything was in order. Craig tipped the bellhop and waited for him to leave, then double-latched the door. Returning to his suitcase, he laid it on the bed and opened it up.

  It was filled with newspapers so it would be heavy and the bellboy wouldn’t get suspicious. He lifted a few newspapers, and underneath was a Colt .45 that he’d stolen from the armorer, along with a clip of bullets. Holding the pistol in his hand, he smiled grimly. His plan was to shoot himself in the head and die in style in the famous Royal Hawaiian Hotel.

  He wondered exactly how to do it, because he’d like to make a dramatic presentation. He thought he should kill himself in the chair near the window, so the sunlight would illuminate his body as he lay slumped over, bleeding from a hole in the head.

  A hole in the head? he wondered as he walked toward the mirror over the dresser and looked at himself. No, he didn’t want a hole in his head, because a .45 caliber slug wouldn’t make a little hole. It would blow his whole head apart. He’d shot Japs at close range with Colt .45s and had seen it happen with his own eyes. Blowing his head off would make more of a dramatic presentation than he wanted.

  He looked at the chair and had an idea. He’d turn the pistol around and shoot himself in the heart, right below his Combat Infantryman’s Badge. When he was found, everyone’s eyes would be drawn to the wound and then to the badge. They would know he was a hero. And he imagined he would look rather romantic, his tan shirt stained with his ruby blood.

  But somehow that wouldn’t be enough of a dramatic presentation. Something more was needed, something elegant and dashing. Perhaps a suicide note, in which he would bid farewell to his comrades-in-arms. That would be nice, but somehow it wasn’t enough.

  Then he hit on it. A bottle of champagne in a silver bucket, a half-full glass of champagne on the table beside him, the suicide note next to the glass, and him in his class A uniform (he’d have to remove the lieutenant’s bars first), slumped over in the chair, dead by his own hand, in the prime of his life.

  He liked that. Walking to the bed, he sat and lifted up the telephone on the night table, dialed for the operator, and asked her to connect him with room service. When room service answered, he ordered a bottle of the finest champagne in the house.

  He walked into the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror, frowning because he was tanned and too healthy-looking. He’d rather be pale and poetic-looking on this, the most significant day of his life. He smiled; his teeth were white and straight. Smoothing down his light-brown hair with his hands, he admired his fine aristocratic features, or at least he thought he had fine aristocratic features. Butsko had told him once that he looked like a drowned rat, and that had injured him deeply.

  There was a knock on the door. Delane closed the suitcase and hid the pistol in the top drawer of the dresser. Then he opened the door. The room-service waiter entered, carrying a bucket fulled with ice and the bottle of champagne. In his other hand the room service waiter carried a tray and two champagne glasses. He was an elderly gentleman wearing a toupee and a dyed mustache.

  “Where would you like these, sir?”

  “Over there by the window.”

  “Shall I open the bottle for you?”

  “I’ll do it myself.”

  “Yes, sir. Of course, sir. Certainly, sir.”

  The room-service waiter set the champagne bucket and its stand on the floor, and placed the tray with the glasses on the little table next to the big upholstered chair beside the window. Delane signed the tab and added a fat tip, which he wouldn’t have to pay because you can’t collect from a dead man.

  “Thank you, sir. Very good, sir. Good day, sir.”

  The waiter waltzed out of the room, and Delane twisted the wires that held the cork in place. Removing the wires and tossing them over his shoulder, he worked the cork with his thumbs until it came loose; then it rocketed out of the bottle with a loud pop, bouncing off the ceiling and a wall, finally landing on the bed.

  Delane looked at the label. It was a California champagne, because not much French champagne was available since the German occupation of France. But champane was champagne. It was the sentiment that counted, not the label.

  He poured champagne into the glass, misty fumes exuding from the mouth of the bottle as he did so. Raising the glass, he watched the bubbles rise in tiny swirls. He sipped the liquid. It tasted wonderful. Ordering the champagne had been an inspired idea. He was proud of himself.

  He moved to the dresser, retrieved the Colt .45, and carried it with him to the chair, where he sat down. He ejected the clip, jammed it back in again, and worked the slide mechanism so that a round would go into the chamber. Now the pistol was ready to fire. He clicked off the safety and placed the pistol on the little table next to his glass of champagne.

  He raised the glass to his lips and took another sip. It reminded him of when he used to drink champagne with beautiful debutantes at the Plaza and St. Regis hotels in New York City, not to mention the Pierre and the Sherry Netherland. Those had been the good old days, the best days of his life. Then the war had broken out and he’d enlisted in the Army out of warped patriotism, or at least that’s what he thought now.

  He drained the glass and filled it up again. The champagne was smooth and pleasantly tart. It made him feel better. He believed that he was a gentleman and should be able to relax and drink champagne every morning, instead of running around in the jungles of the southwest Pacific, shooting at Japs who were shooting at him.

  No more of that for me, he thought, gulping down his second glass of champagne. I’m getting out of this goddamned war once and for all. He filled the glass with champagne again and proceeded to pour the tingly liquid down his throat. He’d forgotten how much he’d liked champagne back in New York, and couldn’t understand why he didn’t drink it more often instead of the cheap whiskey he always ordered when he was out with his buddies.

  He slurped down two more glasses of champagne and got a little tipsy. He loosened his necktie and his face became flushed. Lighting up a cigarette, he leaned back in the chair, the glass half full of champagne in one hand, the lit cigarette in the other.

  After I finish this cigarette I’ll do it, he thought. I’ll just pick up that gun and shoot myself. He puffed the cigarette and thought about all those debutantes he used to screw back in New York City. He remembered the parties, the balls, Saturday afternoons at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. If it weren’t for this fucking war, I’d be all right, he thought. Goddamn stinking Japs.

  The cigarette shrank in size, its smoke curling toward the ceiling. A breeze blew in through the window, and Delane could hear traffic in the street outside. Back at the post, his buddies were running around in the woods. He wondered what they’d think when they found out he’d killed himself.

  They’ll probably think I was a coward, he thought, and then a chill passed over him. They wouldn’t think he’d done anything romantic or poetic, and he cared more about what they’d think about him than the maids and room-service waiters who’d find him dead. His brow became ruffled with painful thoughts. Did he want to be remembered as the guy who killed himself because he was afraid to go to the front?

  Delane didn’t like that. But on the other hand, he didn’t want to go back to the front. He couldn’t stand any more of the constant tension of not knowing whether he’d be alive the next day, or even the next minute. The Japs were everywhere. They could slip into your foxhole at night and cut your throat. On top of all that C rations were greasy and terrible, bugs were everywhere, and the filth was intolerable.

  I can’t handle it anymore, Delane thou
ght, stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray. He reached for the Colt .45 and picked it up, turning it around so that it pointed to his heart, and hooking his thumb around the trigger. All I have to do now is pull the trigger. The war will be all over for me. They’ll never be able to kill me.

  He wrinkled his nose and then burst into laughter. Killing himself so that the Japs wouldn’t kill him struck him as funny. What did it matter either way? He was going to die no matter what happened. Even if the Japs didn’t kill him and he didn’t kill himself, he would still die one day.

  This is silly, he realized. I’m killing myself so that I won’t be kilted. And then a bolt of terror passed through his body as he realized what Butsko would say after he was found dead in the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, a suicide note and a bottle of champagne nearby. Delane almost could hear Butsko’s voice in the room with him.

  “I always knew he was an asshole,” Butsko would say. “I always knew the son of a bitch didn’t have any guts.”

  Delane closed his eyes and placed the Colt .45 on the table. It was true: That was exactly what Butsko would say, and it was humiliating. But I don’t have to kill myself, Delane thought. I can return to the post and carry on as if nothing happened. If the Japs kill me, they’ll kill me; but if I kill myself, everyone will think I’m an asshole.

  Delane imagined Frankie La Barbara howling with laughter when he heard the news that Delane had killed himself, and that settled the matter once and for all. I’m not going to do it, he thought. Nobody’s going to laugh at me after I’m dead and gone. I’m going back to the post right now.

  But first I think I’ll finish off this champagne. He reached for the bottle and poured himself another glass, then raised the glass to his lips and sipped it down. This is good stuff. I think I’ll call down for another bottle.

  FIVE . . .

  Lieutenant Dale Breckenridge approached regimental headquarters, which resembled the orderly room of Headquarters Company except that it was four times as large. He climbed the three steps, opened the door, and stepped into the orderly room. Sergeant Koch sat behind his desk, and across the room Pfc. Levinson banged the keys of his Underwood typewriter.

  Sergeant Koch looked up. “Uh-oh,” he said.

  “What the matter?” asked Lieutenant Breckenridge.

  “I guess you haven’t spoken with Captain Spode lately.”

  “As a matter of fact, I haven’t. What’s going on?”

  “You’re in a whole lot of trouble, young Lieutenant.”

  “I am?”

  “Yes, sir. Guess who was found drunk in downtown Honolulu this morning?”

  “Who?”

  “Corporal Lupe Gomez. He was AWOL, but guess how he was carried on the Headquarters Company morning report this morning?”

  “I know,” Lieutenant Breckenridge replied. “Has the morning report gone to Division yet?”

  “What do you think?”

  “It has?”

  “You’re fucking right it has. And do you wanna guess where the former Corporal Gomez is right now?”

  “In the stockade?”

  “You got it. And do you wanna guess where the former Sergeant Cameron is right now?”

  Lieutenant Breckenridge groaned.

  “Confined to quarters pending court-martial,” Sergeant Koch said. “And do you wanna know where you’re probably gonna be before the day is over?”

  “Is Colonel Hutchins in?”

  “Yeah, he’s in.”

  “I want to have a talk with him.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Cut the bullshit, Koch. Just tell the old man I’m here and I want to talk to him.”

  “Yes, sir,” Sergeant Koch said. He picked up the telephone receiver, pressed a button, and mumbled into the mouthpiece. He winced as Colonel Hutchins’s voice boomed through both the earpiece and through Colonel Hutchins’s door down the corridor.

  “Send the son of a bitch in right now!"

  Even Lieutenant Breckenridge heard Colonel Hutchins’s voice. He turned around, pushed open the gate, and walked down the corridor, knocking on the door at the end.

  “Come in!"

  Lieutenant Breckenridge opened the door and saw Colonel Hutchins seated behind his desk, his face a beet-red color. Lieutenant Breckenridge marched to the desk, stopped, and saluted. “Good morning, sir!”

  “You dumb fuck!” Colonel Hutchins said. “What have you done?”

  “I can explain everything,” Lieutenant Breckenridge said. “It was all a mistake.”

  Colonel Hutchins didn’t invite Lieutenant Breckenridge to sit down. He picked up the stack of papers on his desk and let them drop. “I got plenty to do here and I don’t need any problems, do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “You’ve given me a big problem, and I don’t like it!”

  “I’m sorry, sir!”

  “Being sorry don’t make a fuck to me! It doesn’t take any work off my back! It just makes me mad!”

  “I was only trying to cover up for my men, sir. If I made a mistake, that was the reason. They’re good men, sir. You know that as well as I do. They’re just a little wild, but if they weren’t a little wild, they wouldn’t be the good fighters that they are.”

  Colonel Hutchins groaned and shook his head. He opened the drawer of his desk and took out his latest bottle of Old Taylor, raising it to his mouth and gulping some down. “Have a seat.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Want a drink?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Colonel Hutchins tossed the bottle to Lieutenant Breckenridge, who unscrewed the cap and touched the mouth of the bottle to his lips, tilting his head back.

  “Do you know what I have to do now because of you?” Colonel Hutchins asked. “I’ll have to go up to Division and grovel in front of General Hawkins for about a half hour, and he’s a pompous son of a bitch. He’ll chew my ass out and call me every name in the book. I don’t like that, Breckenridge. And it’s all your fault.”

  “I had to give my men a chance, sir. Just blame everything on me. Put me in the stockade. Stand me before a firing squad. I don’t give a fuck.”

  “Talk’s cheap,” Colonel Hutchins said. “I’m the one who’ll have to go to Division and get down on my knees and beg.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “That’ll make it worse. I’ll have to do it myself. You’re confined to this post until further notice. Is that clear?”

  “I know where two of the men are hiding in Honolulu, sir. I thought I might go get them and bring them back.”

  “Which two?”

  “Pfc. La Barbara and Pfc. Shilansky.”

  “The worst of a bad bunch. Where are they?”

  “In a whorehouse.”

  “They’ll probably come back with the syph and the clap.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  “How do you know they’re there?”

  “Butsko told me. The madam told him. She’s an old friend of his.”

  “Butsko knows every whorehouse in town. What did he have to say about all this?”

  “He said I’m an asshole.”

  “You are.”

  The phone rang on Colonel Hutchins’s desk and he picked it up. “Colonel Hutchins speaking. Yes. No. You did? Where was he? Oh, my God!” Colonel Hutchins groaned and hung up the phone. “Guess what?” he said to Lieutenant Breckenridge.

  “What?”

  “They just caught another one. Pfc. James O’Rourke. He was running around like a maniac on a banana plantation, of all places.” Colonel Hutchins groaned as he held out his hands. “Throw me that bottle, willya, you goddamned dope?”

  Jimmy O’Rourke had seen the Schofield Barracks post stockade from a distance many times since the division had been shipped to Hawaii, and it had always seemed ominous and foreboding to him. He’d heard all the stories about how it was the worst stockade in the whole US Army, and that the guards were a bunch of vicious sadists. It was a long dista
nce from the main road, and consisted of barracks just like the barracks all over the post except that they were behind barbed wire and turrets with armed guards were at every corner.

  The jeep stopped at the front gate of the stockade. Jimmy O’Rourke sat in the backseat, his wrists held by handcuffs. He still wore the fatigues they’d caught him with on the banana plantation. They’d sent bloodhounds after him, and the fucking mutts had tracked him down in no time at all.

  “Out of the jeep,” said one of the MPs.

  Jimmy O’Rourke climbed down and looked at the barbed-wire gate. One guard was posted on either side of the gate; and inside was a small guardhouse.

  “Here comes another one,” a guard said with a fiendish grin.

  One MP grabbed Jimmy O’Rourke by his shirt and pulled him toward the gate. “I got a prisoner,” he said, showing a sheaf of papers to the guard.

  The guard looked at the papers. “Another AWOL, huh?” He glanced at Jimmy O’Rourke. “Afraid to go and fight for your country, prisoner?”

  “I did more fighting for my country than you ever did, you fucking goldbrick,” Jimmy said.

  “Yeah?” the guard asked with a grin, showing a gold-capped tooth.

  “Yeah,” Jimmy replied.

  “We’ll see about that.”

  The other guard, who had a long lantern jaw, opened the gate. The MPs nudged Jimmy O’Rourke forward. Jimmy O’Rourke walked into the stockade and fought the tide of fear rising inside him. The guards closed the gate, and the MPs pulled Jimmy O’Rourke toward the guardhouse. One of them opened the door and pushed Jimmy inside.

  “What’ve we got here?” asked the stout sergeant sitting behind the desk, his head shaved smooth.

  “An AWOL,” said MP.

  “No shit.” The sergeant looked at Jimmy O’Rourke. “Miss your momma?” he asked. “Is that why you went over the hill?”

  Jimmy O’Rourke didn’t say anything. The sergeant frowned, stood up, and walked around his desk, stopping in front of Jimmy O’Rourke.

  “I just asked you a question, prisoner.”