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"Get him whatever else you think he needs," he added. "Right," Ellis said.
"It won't take me long. You going to be all right?"
"We'll be fine," Canidy said. "I only look this way, Chief," Whittaker said.
"I'm not really crazy."
"You really want eggs with this steak?" the skinny black woman asked.
Whittaker nodded.
"Four, sunny-side up. And toast. She shrugged and went to the refrigerator.
"And coffee," he said.
"And milk." While Whittaker ate at the kitchen table, Canidy took a cup of
coffee and sat down with him. The black woman went out of the kitchen and
returned with pajamas and a robe.
"I couldn't find slippers," she said. "Thank you," he said. She saw that all
the food she had heaped on his plate was gone. "if that's all you want to eat,
I'll show you your room," she said.
Whittaker was unsteady on his feet, It was entirely possible he couldn't make
it upstairs by himself. "I'll show him," Canidy said quickly, and went with
him. He was glad he did. Whittaker had to haul himself upstairs on the
banister railing. In the upstairs foyer, Whittaker stopped at the door to the
master bedroom. "As I recall," he said," the shower in here has two heads.
I'll use this."
"The way it works around here," Canidy said, "is that rooms are assigned by
Miss Chenowith. Miss Chenowith goes into a snit when someone dares disobey
her. Miss Chenowith, I think you should know, is very impressed with her role
in the hierarchy around here."
"Fuck Miss Chenowith," Whittaker said, laughing, "which seems to be a splendid
idea, come to think of it."
"You going to be all right in there?" Canidy asked seriously.
Whittaker looked terrible. His eyes were bloodshot and burning, he was thirty
or forty pounds underweight, and he looked as if he was teetering over the
edge of exhaustion. "I look that bad, huh?"
"Yeah. You want me to wait?"
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"if you hear a loud crash, come after me," Whittaker said. "But I'd rather do
it myself, thank you."
"I'm really glad to see you, you bastard," Canidy said.
"And now that re here, I don't want you cracking open your skull falling down
in the you shower. "That's not how I plan to die," Whittaker said.
"Don't worry."
"Come on down when you're clean," Canidy said.
"If you feel up to it. I've got a bottle of Scotch we can work on."
"Yeah, sure," Whittaker said. Canidy, shamed, realized that drinking was the
last thing the poor, beat-up sonofabitch wanted to do. He wanted to fall into
bed, but his ego required that he accept the offer to booze.
We'll have one drink, Canidy decided, and then I will announce I'm beat, and
head for bed. He went back down the stairs and into the kitchen.
Cynthia Chenowith came into the kitchen fifteen minutes later. She was a tall,
lithe, fair-skinned nearly beautiful woman who was in her late twenties, but
looked younger, She was expensively dressed, and the purse hanging from her
shoulder was alligator. She gave Canidy an impersonal nod by way of greeting.
It was all he expected. He didn't like Cynthia Chenowith, and she didn't like
him. She went to a wall telephone hanging by the door to the dining room and
dialed a number from memory. "This is Miss Chenowith," she announced.
"I'm at the house and will be until further notice." She was checking in with
the duty officer at COI, Canidy thought. She loves it. It makes her feel
important. What would be nice would be for her to go upstairs and screw that
poor, beat-up, exhausted sonofabitch who thinks he's in love with her But that
won't happen. She sensed his eyes on her. "Something, Canidy?" she asked.
"No," he said.
"Nothing at all."
"He brought a man in," the black woman volunteered.
"Him and Ellis."
"Who, Canidy? Cynthia demanded.
"I asked if there was anything."
Well, the hell with you, too. He said, "Donovan sent Doug lass, Ellis, and me
out to Bolling Field to pick him up and bring him here."
"What are you doing here anyway?" she asked. "I'm not sure you have the need
to know, Miss Chenowith," Canidy said, openly mocking her.
"Suffice it to say that I, too, am on duty."
"You're here in connection with our problem with the admiral," she flared. He
smiled, very broadly, very artificially, at her. He didn't know what the hell
she was talking about, except that "the admiral" was more than likely Vice
Admiral d'escadre jean-Philippe de Verbey, French Navy, whom he had loaded
aboard a submarine off Safi and sent to the States, but he was damned if he
would let her know he didn't know. "No comment," he said.
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"I'm sure you understand." White-faced, she tried to stare him down and
failed. With a little bit of luck, he thought, she'll take a swing at me with
her purse. She did not. She turned to the black woman.
"Is the man upstairs a French naval officer?" The black woman shook her head
and told her that the new guest was an Air Corps captain; that he had arrived
looking as if he hadn't had a meal in a week and without luggage; that he had
crabs; and that she had put him in the second room on the left, as ordered.
Cynthia, Canidy saw, with pleasure, was annoyed. She turned to him. "Crabs?"
she asked incredulously.
"Body vermin?"
"Crabs," Canidy confirmed happily.
"I sent Ellis for crab medicine."
"I'll have to have the room fumigated!" she said. "They also serve who
fumigate," Canidy said. Ellis, as if on cue, came through the kitchen door
carrying a large kraft paper bag. "He's in the master bedroom, Ellis," Canidy
said.
"Take it up to him."
"The master bedroom?" Cynthia demanded. She turned furiously on the black
woman.
"I told you to put anybody who came in unexpectedly in the second room, left."
"She told me," Canidy said.
"But I decided, what the hell, it wasn't being used." He thought for a moment
that she was about to lose her temper. But then, as if she understood that was
exactly what he wanted her to do, she gained control of herself and smiled at
him just as warmly and patently artificially as he was smiling at her. "Well,
we'll just have to move him where he's supposed to be," Cynthia said, "won't
we?" She reached for Ellis's package.
"Give me that, please. "Mat's in it?"
"Personal-comfort items," Canidy said, winking at Ellis.
"And crab killer.
She took the bag and stormed upstairs to the master bedroom, which was
actually a suite. She had, as she always had when she went to its door, a
mental picture of Ellis carrying Chesley Hay wood Whittaker, naked, wrapped in
a sheet, dead, into that bedroom. And now Canidy had taken it upon himself to
put some vermin infested character in Chesly's room, to leave his filth in the
shower where they had put Chesly.
There was no answer to her knock on the master bedroom's door, so she walked
in. As she did, the sound of the shower died. "Hello in there," she said.
"I'm Miss Chenowith. I'd like a word with you. ), "I was hoping it would be
the guy with the stuff for my crabs," he said. "I have it," she said.
"Open the door a crack." It opened wide enough for a hand to pass.
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Steam billowed out. She offered the bag to a scarred hand with battered [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]