Monday. I could use that. I genuinely could. So what do you say, gentlemen? Who's ready to get started?'
Again there was a momentary silence, then the roommate stepped back.
'No fight,' he said.
'Not yet. Against orders.'
Scott laughed again. A low, hard, even, humorless laugh.
'Too damn bad,' he said.
'I was really looking forward to one.'
Tommy saw some confusion mingle with anger in the face of the roommate.
What he didn't see was fear, and he thought that the man might be thinking that he was a match for the black flier.
'You'll get your chance,' the man said to Scott.
'Unless they shoot your black ass first.'
Before Scott could answer this. Tommy suddenly pointed at the roommate.
'You're on the damn list,' he said sharply.
The man pivoted toward him.
'What list?'
'Witness list.' Tommy again looked at the faces of the men in front of him. Two of the other men standing there were also among the men the prosecution was going to call. One was another roommate of the murdered captain, the other was an occupant of another bunk room in Hut
101, from down the corridor.
'You, and you, too,' Tommy said briskly.
'Actually, glad you're here. You can save me some time finding you.
What are you going to testify to on Monday? I want to know, and I want to know right goddamn now.'
'Screw you. Hart. We don't have to say anything,' the man from down the hallway said. He was a lieutenant and had been in the bag for close to a year. Second seat on a B-26 Marauder that had been shot down near Trieste.
'That's where you're wrong, lieutenant,' Tommy said coldly, endowing the word lieutenant with the same intonation that he would have attached to an obscenity.
'You are required to tell me precisely what you will testify about on Monday. If you don't believe this, then we can go and find Colonel MacNamara and he will so inform you. Of course, I would also be obligated to inform him about this little gathering here. He might conceivably also interpret it as a violation of his direct order. I don't know-' 'Screw you. Hart,' the man repeated, but with less conviction.
'No, screw you. Now answer the damn question. What are you going to testily to, lieutenant…'
'Murphy.'
'That's right. Lieutenant Tim Murphy. I believe you come from western
Massachusetts. Springfield, if I remember correctly.
Not far from my home state.'
Murphy looked away angrily.
'You have a good memory,' he said.
'All right. Hart. I will be called to testify about the fight and the other confrontations between Scott, there, and the deceased. Threats and other menacing statements made in my presence. That's what these other men will be speaking to, as well. Got it?'
'Yeah, I got it.' Tommy turned to the roommate.
'That correct?'
The man nodded. A third also shrugged in agreement.
'You got a voice?' Tommy asked the third flier.
'Yeah,' the man said in an unmistakable flat, midwest tone.
'I got a voice. And I'm gonna use it on Monday to see his sorry ass get convicted.'
Lieutenant Murphy stared past Tommy, hard at Scott.
'Isn't that right, Scott?' the man asked. The black airman remained silent, and Lieutenant Murphy snorted a mocking laugh.
'That remains to be seen,' Tommy said.
'I wouldn't bet my last pack of smokes on it.' This, of course, was false bravado, but it still felt good, tumbling from his mouth. He turned to the other men standing in the corridor.
'I'd like to hear all of your voices, one by one.'
'What the hell for?' one of the men who'd been silent asked.
Tommy smiled nastily.
'Funny thing about voices. Once you hear one, especially a cowardly one that threatens you in the middle of the damn night, well, you're not likely to forget that, are you? I mean, that voice, those words, the sounds they make, why, they damn well are gonna stick right in the front of your head for a long time to come. And you sure as hell aren't gonna forget that voice, are you? Even if there's no clear face to assign to it, you're still not going to forget the voice.'
He looked at the remaining men, including the band leader
'You have a voice?' Tommy demanded.
'No,' the band leader replied. Then he and two of the other men abruptly turned and rapidly marched away down the corridor.
None of them were big men, but they still walked with distinct size and anger. And if they had an inadvertent y'all or Yankee in their language, as did the two men who'd paid him the threatening visit in the middle of the night several days past, they had not shared it with Tommy.
Trader Vic's roommate looked over at Scott.
'You'll get your fight someday,' he said.
'I can promise that…'
Tommy could sense Scott coiling beside him.
'… nigger,' the man concluded.
Tommy stepped forward, blocking the path of the explosion he believed was coming from Scott. He pushed his face up against the roommate's, so that they were almost nose to nose.
'There's an old saying.' Tommy spoke quietly, almost whispering.
'It goes something like this: 'God punishes those whose prayers He answers. 'You might think about that.'
The roommate narrowed his eyes for just an instant. Then, instead of answering, he grinned, stepped back a single stride, spit sharply at the wooden floor, right at Tommy's boots, and then executed a precise, military about-face and marched away down the corridor, followed by the remaining men.
Tommy watched until the door to the assembly yard opened and clattered shut as they slammed it behind them.
Scott exhaled slowly.
'I think we will fight,' he said.
'Before they shoot me.'
He paused, then added.
'The rest? Well, Hart, that was what I was talking about. Hatred.
Ain't nice in person, is it?'
Scott didn't wait for a reply, but disappeared back into his room, leaving Tommy alone in the corridor. Tommy leaned up against the wall, catching his breath. He felt an odd exhilaration, and was curiously flooded with a long-forgotten memory of a time right before he and his bomber group had headed overseas. They'd been flying in formation over the coast of New Jersey, on a spring day not unlike this one, steadily making their way northeast toward Boston's Hanscom Field and their jump-off place to cross the Atlantic.
They were in the lead plane, and the captain from West Texas was looking out over New
