The Second Saladin

Chardy sat back, took a drink of his coffee. “That was some night.”

“And wasn’t there a girl who wouldn’t leave you alone? At the Golden Window. And then you disappeared on us for three days after you got through the thing with Cy Brasher.”

“Oh, yeah,” Chardy said.

“And of course we knew where you’d been.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Chardy, leering as if he remembered the tart. And then he did, a Eurasian girl. She lived in a crappy little apartment in the city with three children. She’d given him a dose, too. And Frenchy had her, but that was on another trip, when Marion wasn’t around.

“Marion, I just can’t get it out of my head. We really had some times in those old days.”

“I used to think about it too, Paul.”

“But you quit? God, how? I’m still stuck back in the sixties.”

“You were very young then. That was your youth. You always remember your youth. And for me I suppose it had to do with starting a new life. A new family. New friends. You just have a different circle.”

“But you must miss him. The Frenchman. I miss him terribly.”

“I do, Paul. Of course. Frenchy was one in a million. I miss him all the time.”

“Old Frenchy. He taught me so much. Oh, he taught me a lot.”

“But Paul, it can be dangerous back there. I never told you this — or anybody this. But after Frenchy died, I had a very rough time. I had to go into a place for a while. And they made me see how he was killing me. And I had to let him go. I had to let it all go, and move ahead.”

“I wish I could.”

“You can. Frenchy always said you were the strongest.”

“Ah, Frenchy. The old bastard. Marion, where did they put him? I’d love to go see him. Just once, for old times’ sake.”

“He’s in Cleveland, Paul. A very nice place. He was cremated, and he’s in a vault in a nice cemetery outside Cleveland.”

“Maybe I’ll go there sometime,” Chardy said.

“Paul, have you been drinking?”

“Not enough,” he said, laughing loudly.

She nodded, disturbed. She was still a pretty woman; or rather he could still see her prettiness underneath her age, her thickness. She’d seemed to turn to leather. She was so tan she glowed. Her legs were still slim and beautiful. She’d been a stewardess, he seemed to remember. Yes, Frenchy always had a gift for stewardesses; they responded to him somehow.

“I’m just so mad he was dead all that time and I didn’t even know. The bastards could have told me that, at least.”

“I never liked the secrecy. I hated all that.”

“Ah, they don’t know what they’re doing.” He dismissed them with a contemptuous and exaggerated wave of his hand. He laughed loudly, threw down some more coffee. “Christ, the bastards,” he said.

Marion watched him. “You have been drinking.”

“A bad habit. Nothing serious. I drink, I shoot my mouth off. I make enemies, I take afternoons off. I get sentimental, look up old friends.” He laughed again. “Look at me now. Chasing ghosts.”

“Paul, you need help.”

“No, no, Paul’s fine. Old Paul, the strong one. He’s the strong one. Frenchy really said that?”

“He did.”

“I loved him. Marion, I have to know. What did they do to him?”

She seemed to take a large breath. She stood at the window. She looked out upon other Normandy-style mock farmhouses.

“It’s such a pretty neighborhood, Paul. It’s so leafy and bright. It’s a wonderful place to raise children. They have pools all over the place and playgrounds they call ‘tot lots.’ They have little shopping malls they call ‘village centers.’ It’s a wonderful place. I’m so happy here.”

“Marion. Please tell me. I have to know.”

“Paul, I don’t want to go back there. I had so much trouble. You don’t know how much trouble I had. I think it would be better if you left. This just isn’t working. I can’t go back there. Do you know how hard I had to work to get to this place, Paul? To have this life? This is the life I wanted, Paul, I always wanted.”

“Help me, Marion. Please help me. I need your help.”

“You’re not here for the old times, Paul. You’re not here out of love or loyalty. You’re still in it. I can smell it on you, Paul.”

She stood by the window.

“It’s so important, Marion.”

“It really was awful, wasn’t it, Paul? All the things you and Frenchy did. You thought you were such heroes, such big men, flying all over the world. Your duty, you called it. You were fighting for freedom. You were fighting for America. But you were just thugs. Gangsters. Killers. Weren’t you? Maybe that’s the shoe that fits.”

“I don’t know, Marion. I don’t know what we were.”

“Frenchy told me, years later he told me, that in Vietnam accidents happened all the time. The wrong people always died. And in South America the soldiers you worked with were brutal men, who hated everybody. There was just too much violence sometimes, it couldn’t be controlled. It just slopped all over the place.”

“Terrible things happened. That’s what it was about.”

“‘Hairy.’ Isn’t that the word? That was Frenchy’s favorite word. ‘Very hairy, babe,’ he’d say when he came back, just before he drank himself insensible What it means, though, is that a lot of people had just gotten killed in some terrible and arbitrary way, for no reason. Isn’t that what it means?”

“Sometimes.”

“Do you know, Paul, that Frenchy didn’t make love to me for the last five years of his life? Tried, tried hard. He just couldn’t do it. The war was eating him up. It was destroying the great Frenchy Short. He was trying to get out before it killed him and he knew he wouldn’t make it. He knew. That last trip, he knew.”

“He knew?”

“Here they come, Paul. Look.”

Beyond the yard, beyond the fence, two boys and a girl in bathing suits and sneakers were running down the street, the smaller boy way ahead, running crazily, chugging like a cylinder, the second boy too cool to notice, the girl taking up the rear, laughing.

“They’re good kids, Paul. So good. I only have them a month and five or six weekends a year, and they didn’t come out of my body but, Jesus, I love them, Paul. Oh, Jesus, I love them.”

She turned; he could see she was crying.

“Paul, you’d better go. I really don’t have the energy to make introductions. All right? Just go; just get out of here.”

“Marion. Please help me. How did Frenchy die? Go back, just one time. It’s so important. You have no idea how important it is.”

She started to sob. He went quickly to her, but when he touched her she recoiled.

“I’m all right,” she said fiercely. “I’m fine.” Her face had swollen; her eyes were red and wet.

“Did he drown?”

“That’s what the Austrian death certificate said. But—”

“Yes?”

“Paul, when they were getting him ready for cremation, I got a call at the hotel. This was in Cleveland. It was the mortician. He asked me to come by. I drove over in the rain in a rented car. He was an old man, the only one there. He said he was sorry to bother me, he didn’t want to make any trouble. The instructions said closed casket. But somehow something had happened in the mortuary. The box had been opened by mistake. He wanted to know if I wanted to make any kind of inquiry. Something was wrong; I should know about it. He was just trying to protect himself, he said. So I said, what is it, what is wrong?

“Paul, he took me back and he showed me. I had to look at it, Paul.”

She paused.