and the building with her records destroyed, like most other buildings on the island of Malta. Profane had been there when they met: the Metro Bar, on Strait Street. The Gut. Valletta, Malta. 'Chicago,' from Pappy Hod in his gangster voice. 'You heard of Chicago,' meanwhile reaching sinister inside his jumper, a standard act for Pappy Hod all around the Med's littoral. He would pull out a handkerchief and not a heater or gat after all, blow his nose, and laugh at whatever girl it happened to be sitting across the table. American movies had given them stereotypes all, all but Paola Maijstral, who continued to regard him then with nostrils unflared, eyebrows at dead center. Pappy ended up borrowing 500 for 700 from Mac the cook's slush fund to bring Paola to the States. Maybe it had only been a way for her to get to America - every Mediterranean barmaid's daftness - where there was enough food, warm clothes, heat all the time, buildings all in one piece. Pappy was to lie about her age to get her into the country. She could be any age she wanted. And you suspected any nationality, for Paola knew scraps it seemed of all tongues. Pappy Hod had described her for the deck apes' amusement down in the boatswain's locker of the U.S.S. Scaffold. Speaking the while however with a peculiar tenderness, as of slowly coming aware, maybe even as the yarn unlaid, that sex might be more of a mystery than he'd foreseen and he would not after all know the score because that kind of score wasn't written down in numbers. Which after forty-five years was nothing for any riggish Pappy Hod to be finding out. 'Good stuff,' said Pig aside. Profane looked toward the back of the Sailor's Grave and saw her approaching now through the night's accumulated smoke. She looked like an East Main barmaid. What was it about the prairie hare in the snow, the tiger in tall grass and sunlight? She smiled at Profane: sad, with an effort. 'You come back to re-enlist?' 'Just passing,' Profane said. 'You come with me to the west coast,' Pig said. 'Ain't an SP car made that can take my Harley.' 'Look, look,' cried little Ploy, hopping up and down on one foot. 'Not now, you guys. Stand by.' He pointed. Mrs. Buffo had materialized on the bar, in her kimono. A hush fell over the place. There was a momentary truce between the jarheads and sailors blocking the doorway. 'Boys,' Mrs. Buffo announced, 'it's Christmas Eve.' She produced the boatswain's pipe and began to play. The first notes quavered out fervent and flutelike over widened eyes and gaping mouths. Everyone in the Sailor's Grave listened awestruck, realizing gradually that she was playing It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, within the limited range of the boatswain's pipe. From way in the back, a young reserve who had once done night club acts around Philly began to sing softly along. Ploy's eyes shone. 'It is the voice of an angel,' he said. They had reached the part that goes 'Peace on the earth, good will to men, From Heav'n's all-gracious king,' when Pig, a militant atheist, decided he could stand it no longer. 'That,' he announced in, a loud voice, 'sounds like Chow Down.' Mrs. Buffo and the reserve fell silent. A second passed before anybody got the message. 'Suck Hour!' screamed Ploy. Which kind of broke the spell. The quick-thinking inmates of the Impulsive somehow coalesced in the sudden milling around of jolly jack tars, hoisted Ploy bodily, and rushed with the little fellow toward the nearest nipple, in the van of the attack. Mrs. Buffo, poised on her rampart like the trumpeter of Cracow, took the full impact of the onslaught, toppling over backwards into an ice-tub as the first wave came hurtling over the bar. Ploy, hands outstretched, was propelled over the top. He caught on to one of the tap handles and simultaneously his shipmates let go; his momentum carried him and the handle in a downward arc: beer began to gush from the foam rubber breast in a white cascade, washing over Ploy, Mrs. Buffo and two dozen sailors who had come around behind the bar in a flanking action and who were now battering one another into insensibility. The group who had carried Ploy over spread out and tried to corner more beer taps. Ploy's leading petty officer was on hands and knees holding Ploy's feet, ready to pull them out from under him, and take his striker's place when Ploy had had enough. The Impulsive detachment in their charge had formed a flying wedge. In their wake and through the breach clambered at least sixty more slavering bluejackets, kicking, clawing, side-arming, bellowing uproariously; some swinging beer bottles to clear a path. Profane sat at the end of the bar, watching hand-tooled sea boots, bell-bottoms, rolled up levi cuffs; every now and again a drooling face at the end of a fallen body; broken beer bottles, tiny sawdust storms. Soon he looked over; Paola was there, arms around his leg, cheek pressed against the black denim. 'It's awful,' she said. 'Oh,' said Profane. He patted her head. 'Peace,' she sighed. 'Isn't that what we all want, Benny? Just a little peace. Nobody jumping out and biting you on the ass.' 'Hush,' said Profane, 'look: someone has just walloped Dewey Gland in the stomach with his own guitar.' Paola murmured against his leg. They sat quiet, without raising their eyes to watch the carnage going on above them. Mrs. Buffo had undertaken a crying jag. Inhuman blubberings beat against and rose from behind the old imitation mahogany of the bar. Pig had moved aside two dozen beer glasses and seated himself on a ledge behind the bar. In times of crisis he preferred to sit in as voyeur. He gazed eagerly as his shipmates grappled shoatlike after the seven geysers below him. Beer had soaked down most of the sawdust behind the bar: skirmishes and amateur footwork were now scribbling it into alien hieroglyphics. Outside came sirens, whistles, running feet. 'Oh, oh,' said Pig. He hopped clown from the shelf, made his way around the end of the bar to Profane and Paola. 'Hey, ace,' he said, cool and slitting his eyes as if the wind blew into them. 'The sheriff is coming.' 'Back way,' said Profane. 'Bring the broad,' said Pig.
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