The Erection Set

out her chits and so did Hamilton from that theater chain. She’s a real swinger, that one. Built like a brick outhouse now. No mind, but built. Talented, too, I hear. A real sex machine ... something like having a new antique car. Style, performance, color, but a little aged.”

“That leaves Pam and Lucella,” I said.

“Same old story. Pam’s husband Marvin Gates got himself caught in one hell of a gigantic swindle when he tried to finance a cute little operation and Pam had to bail him out. It was either pay up or visit him in jail. Pam paid up and now Marv’s her own personal little ass kisser who had better not ever open his mouth again except when she says when, where or how. And I think you know what I mean.”

“Remembering Pam’s sexual preferences, I sure do,” I said. “And Lucella?”

“Too many luxuries. She woke up one day and it had all dribbled away. The Riviera, Paris and Rome were memories. That guy she married ... what was his name?”

“Simon.”

“Yes, Simon ... she sold his polo ponies, his race cars. Simon got a divorce in Mexico, married some old dame and Lucella keeps looking at her pictures of the Riviera, Paris and Rome.”

“Sad.”

“Isn’t it?” Al said. “But typical. Who was it said three generations from shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves?”

“Some wise-ass,” I told him.

“The rough part is this,” Al said. “Alfred and Dennison don’t know about all this machinery. They’re trying to operate on the assumption that the gal cousins have all their stocks and are bugging them to turn over control to them. None of them will buy the attitude ... not that they wouldn’t if they could ... it’s just that they can’t. It just ain’t there to sell anymore. Al and Dennie own thirty percent of nothing with old Cross McMillan ready to reach in and snatch it all away. He already owns one hell of a block he picked up when the original investors died and if it ever comes to a proxy fight, he can pick up all the marbles.”

“Maybe not.”

“Come on, Dog. The dame cousins of yours dumped everything. Whoever picked it up bought a sucker deal and it’s got to be spread out all over the place. It’s only junk, and who would bother with it anyhow?’

“Oh, you never could tell.”

For a long time, Al looked at me, his eyes tight little beads trying to see inside my mind, and finally they did. “You got it,” Al stated.

“Why not?” I asked him. “Like you said, it was only junk.”

He let me have that long look again. “McMillan is going to kill you.”

I grinned at him.

“He wants everything ... Barrin Industries, the Mondo Beach property ... the works. He’s going to get even with your grandfather.”

“Fuck McMillan.”

“Not him, Dog. I told you, he’s a vulture. He’s got the money and the power. To him Barrin Industries is only a toy to be played with. That guy plays in international finance. He can buy anything he wants to.”

I took a long drag on the cigarette and snuffed it out in the empty beer can. “Almost everything, Al. Or do you know about that too?”

“You even look at his wife sidewise and you’ll be dead, buddy. Like D-E-A-D.”

“I wasn’t intending to. I just said there were some things you just can’t buy.”

“Dog, you’re nuts. Those two are crazy in love. They always have been.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Maybe there’s an age differential. Not much, but they’re sure as hell in love.”

“I wasn’t talking about that,” I said.

“What them?”

“Nothing that makes any difference right now.”

We sat there rocking a few minutes, looking up Broadway. North of Thirty-fourth Street a gray cloud was beginning to encompass the Empire State Building.

“It’s going to rain.” I said.

For the first time, old Al DeVecchio’s face was a study in consternation. I never had seen him like that before. It was like he had stumbled into somebody else’s foxhole and found it full of shit.

“I never should have answered your letter,” he said.

REFLECTIONS: AL DEVECCHIO

Who the hell is he now? You think you get to know somebody under four long years of war and gunfire and he zeroes out like a pissed-on cigar butt and the guy you knew isn’t there anymore.

“Say, mate, you wanted Spit time, didn’t you?”

“Now?”

“Really, Major, if it wasn’t for this girl ... daughter of one of your senators, y‘know ... sort of asked for me and it’s hands across the ocean and all that sort of crap, y’know? Now, she’s a new Mark Thirteen and never been scratched. Only two milk runs on photo across to the sub pens...”

“She armored?”

“Full up, Major.”

“If I get my ass snarled on this one ...”

“Blimey, Major, I got them all prepped. No sorting out to do at all. Beansey, Jerry and Tag are off your wings. Good chaps, those. Twelve kills among them. Relatively new and not like you at all, but remember, dear boy, you wanted to fly the Spit ...”

“No time goes on my record?”

“’Pon my word, Major. I wouldn’t want to go before Old Snarly for anything. Realize you and the flight surgeon are having it out over those missing missions, but don’t forget, it was that little niece of mine who lifted your records. Good job, what?”

“Yeah, lovely.”

“Too bad you chaps get rotated so soon. It’s really a gorgeous war,” he said. “Tell me, Major, why don’t you want to go home?”

“Long story, my friend, And like you said, it’s a gorgeous war. I always did want Spit time. That crate handle well?”

“You should know, Major. Much better than the Nines. Just remember to find me an empty Mustang on the next Nuremberg run. There’s a farmhouse there occupied by a particularly nasty character who stuck a pitchfork in my buttock when I bailed out on his property. Damned near didn’t escape. If it weren’t for the little beauty across the river who always had been partial to the sons of John Bull I never would have made it. Quite an interesting stay, that was.”

“You Limeys are nuts,” Dog said.

“Determined, you must admit.”

“Sure, to lay an American senator’s daughter.”

“Oh, just trying to improve our relationship with the colonials, Major. Enjoy the Spit, old boy. My batman has everything arranged. Would appreciate it if you could bring her back more or less unscathed. Old Snarly has an eye for details like bullet holes and he knows my new buggy is still a virgin. Unpenetrated, y’know?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, cheerio.”

“Dog,” I asked him, “why the hell do you squeeze In extra missions? You coulda been out long ago. You like all this crazy fighting?”

“Something to be learned,” he told me. “You survive or you don’t. Get the worst of it in now and all the rest will look easy.”

He survived, all right. I wish I could confirm all those rumors that had been seeping out of Europe the past twenty years. But no matter what I heard, they didn’t jell with the Dogeron Kelly I knew. Nice guys