Olds looked at me like he wasn’t sure whose side I was on; of course, neither was I.
“Something like that,” he said.
“Is Bradford here?”
“That’s him, there.” Olds nodded toward the dance floor. “With the little blonde. That’s Red Rigby’s wife.”
Dark-haired, slender, blandly handsome, Lt. Jimmy Bradford was doing the Charleston with a good-looking blonde. He was grinning at her and she was grinning back.
“You guys ever dance with your own wives?”
Olds grinned. “Maybe on our anniversaries.”
“Is that why, that night, Tommie didn’t notice Thalia was missing till one A.M., when the party was shutting down and it was time to go home?”
A disappointed frown creased his friendly face. “That’s not fair, Nate.”
“I’m just trying to make sense out of this. Thalia and Tommie come to Navy night for the weekly party, Thalia claims she leaves at eleven-thirty, and it’s an hour and a half later before Tommie notices his lifemate is gone.”
“He noticed a lot earlier than that.”
“When
Olds shrugged; he didn’t look at me. “After that little fuss.”
“What little fuss?”
Doris chimed in, giggly: “When Thalia got slap-happy.”
“Zip it,” Olds snapped at her, shooting daggers.
But I pressed. “What do you mean, Doris? What are you talking about?”
Doris, wincing with hurt feelings, shook her head no and gulped at her
“Pop,” I said quietly, “if you don’t level with me, I can’t help Tommie.”
He sighed, shrugged. “Thalia just had a little argument with somebody and went storming off. Nobody I know of remembers seeing her after that—it was maybe eleven-thirty, eleven-thirty-five at the time.”
“Argument with who?”
“Lt. Stockdale. Ray Stockdale.”
“Is he here? That’s one guy I’d really like to talk to.”
Olds shook his head, no. “I don’t think so. At least I haven’t seen him.”
I glanced at Doris and she looked away. She was chewing her gum listlessly now.
“But there’s plenty of guys who
“Why don’t you take me around, then?”
“Sure. Doris, you keep Miss Bell outa trouble, okay?”
I said to Isabel, “Don’t fall in love with some sailor while I’m gone, baby.”
Her Kewpie mouth pursed in a mocking little smile. She was lighting up another Camel. “Ditch a girl in a joint like this, big boy, you take your chances.”
I arched an eyebrow. “You take your chances just stepping inside a joint like this.”
I blew her a kiss and she blew me one back, and no sooner had we departed the booth than a pair of officers in white linen mufti sauntered over, and in a flash, Olds’s wife and my date were out on the dance floor fighting for their honor.
“They don’t waste much time here,” I commented.
“It’s a friendly place,” Olds allowed.
And by way of proof, over the next hour, he introduced me to half a dozen friendly brother officers of Tommie Massie’s, all of whom spoke highly of Thalia. Smoking cigarettes and cigars, drinking bootleg hootch, arms slung around giggling women who might or might not be their wives, they slouched against the bar or sat in booths or leaned against walls, glad to cooperate with Clarence Darrow’s man. Phrases recurred, and because of the circumstances, I took no notes, and even later that night, looking back on it, I found the youthful submariners in white linen mufti blurring into one indistinguishable mass of high marks for Thalia (“nice kid,” “sweet girl,” “kinda quiet but a swell gal,” “she’s crazy about Tommie”) and scorn for the rapists (“
Finally I told Olds I had all the info I needed, and sent my chaperone back to the booth. I’d told him I needed to take a leak, which was true enough. What I didn’t tell him was that I’d seen Jimmy Bradford slipping into the men’s room a moment or two before.
Soon I was sidling up to the urinal next to Bradford and we were both pissing as I said, “Don’t forget to button up, after you’re done.”
He frowned at me in confused irritation. “What?”
“That’s what got you in trouble with the cops, isn’t it? Walking around with your fly open, the night Thalia Massie was assaulted?”
