The clock said it was twelve-fifteen!
He’d missed his goddamn deadline by fifteen minutes! Jesus. Sitting here thinking and drinking and what’s he do? Just misses the most important deadline of his whole stinking life, that’s all. Oh, man. Now what?
A million little green smackeroos sprout wings and fly somewhere over the rainbow, that’s what.
Tears are streaming down his face as he gets slowly to his feet. Puts RC and the Stoli on the bar and wipes his eyes. All his life he’d thought he was so smart. And now he has to face the truth. He is just a dumbass gusano from Little Havana and he always had been.
He walked around the bar and pulled up a stool.
He’d kept his eye on that friggin’ clock up there, he really had, and now he’d gone and—wait a minute. Hold the goddamn phone!
Now the clock says eleven forty-five! What the—oh, man. He was losing it. Almost. Sitting behind the bar, he’d been looking at the clock in the mirror! It said twelve-fifteen in the mirror. That was only the reflection. It was eleven forty-five in real life! He was okay! He was cool! He had fifteen whole minutes left! He was going to—ouch, there was a light shining in his eyes. He whipped around.
Somebody was shining a couple of flashlights through the windows at the front of the PX, rattling the front doors. Had they seen him?
MPs, had to be. Great timing, guys, really great, thanks a million, no pun intended.
He grabbed the Stoli and RC, ran back behind the bar, and dropped to his knees. He had to boogie on out of here but quick. He crab-walked the length of the bar and quickly reached the back door he’d jimmied open on the way in.
Two seconds later he was sprinting through the swirling curtains of rain toward his car. There was a Humvee pulled up right behind it, blue lights flashing. Goddamn. He looked back over his shoulder at the PX. Saw two lights flickering around inside. By the time those dumbass cops found the back door broken open, he’d be adios amigo.
He opened his car door and tossed the Stoli and the RC on the front seat. Then he jumped behind the wheel and twisted the key in the ignition.
Aw shit, not now. Piece of crap Yugo, come on! Start, goddammit! Rain must have blown up under the distributor cap, that was it. Of all the times to—wait. Better idea.
He grabbed his bottle and RC, jumped out of his car, and ran back to the MP’s Hummer. Keys were in! Yes! There was a God!
He slammed the Humvee in gear, reversed, and saw the two flashlights bobbing through the rain, headed his way. Going to try and cut him off. No way, girls. He bounced back over the curb, put it in first, and stood on it, swerving up onto the grass, then back down the service driveway to the main drag, hauling complete ass. He looked at his watch. Ten minutes to midnight. He hung a Louie and headed for Sparky’s watch tower, looking in the rearview.
Careening around the corner on two wheels, he was mystified to see another Humvee with its blue flashers going, blocking the street. Jesus H. Christ! He hit the brakes, skidded short of the two MPs standing there, and slammed it into reverse, knocking over some guy’s arty-farty mailbox. Shit happens, neighbors.
Well, now, goddamn it all to hell. Here came the two Keystone Kops from the PX, running around the corner and blocking his “Escape and Evasion” maneuver. Held up his watch. Seven minutes. RC was on the seat beside him, thirty hours and seven minutes to payday. He just had to play it cool was all. The way he’d always played it, right?
The two MPs in front stayed put. Hands on their sidearms, tough guys, watching too many episodes of JAG lately.
He craned his neck around and saw the two dickwads behind him coming toward his car. One guy stayed at the rear on the passenger side, the other one walked slowly up to his window. He rolled it down, nice and polite like, shoving the Stoli bottle under the seat with his right hand. He’d like to hide RC, but here was the guy shining some bright light right in his damn window.
Five minutes. He felt the Vitamin V pumping hot in his veins. Hell, any fool could stay cool for five more goddamn minutes.
“How we doin’ tonight, sailor?” the MP said.
“Just fine,” he said, giving the guy a big smile. He couldn’t even see the guy’s face, the light was so bright.
“What exactly you doing in the PX on a rainy Sunday night, sailor?”
“Just having a little drinky-poo, sir,” he giggled. That’s what Rita called cocktails when she was at somebody’s house for dinner.
“Had quite a few, I’d say. Seein’ as how you picked somebody else’s vehicle to drive home in.”
“No, sir, I have not been drinking quite a few. Only had one, sir. My vehicle wouldn’t start is all.”
“Keep your hands where I can see them.”
“Yes, sir!” He’d been trying to slide RC out of the guy’s sight.
“What the hell is that thing?”
“That’d be your portable CD player, sir,” he said. Damn quick, too.
“Okay, very carefully, get your service ID out and hand it to me.”
“Yes, sir. It’s in the pantleg pocket of my fatigues. Right where I always keep it. ’Cause of the Velcro, you know. Okay?”
“Just show me the goddamnn thing,” the MP barked at him. Touchy, touchy.
He reached down and ripped open the Velcro seal on his pocket. Pulled out his ID packet. An open pack of Rita’s cigarettes came flying out, too, cigarettes spilling all over the floor. What the hell? Oh. She liked to wear his fatigues sometimes, when she went riding. So, that’s where she’d been hiding them! She was going to get an asswhupping for that all right!
Cigarette. That would steady the old nerves. He reached down and picked one up and popped it between his lips. Then he leaned over toward the MP’s light, put the end of the cigarette right on the glass lens, and started to drag on it, trying to get the damn thing lit.
“Hell’s wrong with your lighter, sir. Can’t even get—”
It wasn’t a lighter, he saw now, hell no, it was a damn flashlight. He’d tried to light his smoke on a flashlight! Sent a bad signal, probably.
“Step out of the vehicle, sir,” the MP said. “Now!”
“Absolutely,” he said, moving his foot off the brake and flooring the accelerator. He hit something, felt like a deer, maybe one of the damn MPs who wouldn’t get out of his way, and then his new Humvee was tear-assing across a few lawns and driveways and drainage ditches. He had the ideal “Escape and Evasion” vehicle, all right.
There were a whole lot of flashing blue lights in his rearview now. Shit, looked like the whole damn military police force was on his ass. Too late, kiddies, too damn late! He knew a shortcut to Sparky’s tower. He could be there in two minutes. He banged a wall hanging a hard right and banged walls a few more times going down the alley, sending trashcans flying left and right.
His watch said three minutes till twelve. He was going to make it, goddammit. He was going to pull this big bad mother out of the fire.
He burst out of the alley and there it was. Tower 22. Home of his best buddy, Sparky Rollins. All he had to do now was cross that baseball diamond and then a big open field and he was home free. No flashers in the rearview now. Good, they musta missed his shortcut. He accelerated across the diamond and decided to take out a row of bleachers down the right field line just for fun. Hell, it wasn’t his Humvee.
Then he was tear-assing across the open field, friggin’ airborne half the time. What a ride! His old heap would never have made it across all these damn flooded ditches and bushes and shit. To his left, he could see a train of blue flashers as the Humvees came to a stop in the parking lot of the baseball field. Then they too started racing across the diamond towards him. He managed a peek at his watch.
Thirty seconds.
He skidded to a stop a hundred yards from Sparky’s tower, jumped out, and ran over to the base. Cupping his hands, he yelled up to the tower.
“Sparky! My man! Sparky, you up there?”
