From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [133]
He straightened up and looked around and waved at Sandra sitting with the sailors.
“Wonderful things, gook shirts, aint they, Baby Doll? So loose and cool. Plenty of room to move. I love gook shirts. Do you love gook shirts?”
Sandra wrinkled her pert nose at him and laughed. “I love gook shirts, Angelo.” The two sailors stared at Angelo sourly.
Maggio pulled the two heads together in front of him again. “Thats for me,” he whispered. “For all-l-l night. Unless you men picked her first, you got first choice. Man, I like em tall. I’m the midget who married the fat lady in the circus. Acres and acres,” he whispered. “Acres and acres.”
“What I want to know,” Stark said, “is where the hell all this money come from.”
“Simple,” Angelo said. “Really nothing. Nothing at all. But its a long story. Shall I tell it?”
“Sure,” Prew said. “Lets hear it.”
“Shall I really tell it? Well all right then, if you insist. But its a long story. You sure you really want to hear it? Okay then, if you’re positive. I will tell it. But lets go back to the latrine first.”
“I just been,” Stark said.
Maggio slapped himself on the belly. “Yeah, but you dint find there what I’ll find there.”
“Nuff said,” Stark said, and the three of them went arm in arm back to the ammonia strong latrine, foul with the emptied bladders of a thousand men, and while Stark broke the seal on the bottle and they had a drink Maggio told them the triumphant story.
“After you guys left for town I got to wonderin why the hell I should stay home. So I called up my queer, Hal (the one I met that night we went broke in the poker game, remember?), and made him drive up to Wahiawa and pick me up, the bastard.
“He was reluctant, but I blackmailed him with this,” he said, holding up a stiffened middle finger. “Ony I was polite about it. He’s a intellecshual and very sensitive. I tole him this was a crisis and if he couldnt stand by his friends in a crisis he didnt deserve to have any friends. He seen the light all right.
“He took me back downtown and bought me a big feed of steak and frenchfries at Lau Yee Chai’s, get that, Lau Yee Chai’s. No tonks for Maggio. When Maggio rides he hits the best. After the feed we went and drunk champagne cocktails at the good old Waikiki Tavern where all the boys hang out.
“I explained to old Hal how I’d borrowed twenty bucks off a twenty percent man in the Company and I had to have it back right away to pay him off because he was threatenin to turn me in and if he did I’d go to the Stockade sure and old Hal wouldnt see his little boy for about six months.”
He pulled a sheaf of ones out of his pocket and shook it at them happily.
“Thats all there was to it, men. Old Hal came through with a loan of twenty. He wanted to give it to me, but I’m too smart for that. I wouldn’t take it unless he made it a loan. I know how to handle him. If he could ever prove to himself I’m tryin to take him for a ride I’d never get another dime out of him. So now I owe him twenty bucks,” Maggio grinned triumphantly. “But I had rather owe it to him all my life than beat him out of it.”
Stark giggled and handed him the bottle. “So you told him you’d go to the Stockade unless you paid off this twenty percent man. What a story, sam. Dont this Hal know loanin money for interest is against the ARs? and that any man who does it cant collect it legal?”
“He dont know nothin about the Army,” Maggio grinned. “He tries to ack like he does, but he dont. But he knows the navy though. Just ask him for it how he knows the navy, thats all, friend,” he grinned.
He corked the bottle and put it back in his belt, under the hanging shirt. “Say,” he said. “Its gettin close on to two o’clock, men. We better be picking our stuff or them sailors out there going to beat our time.”
“I got mine picked already,” Stark said, suddenly sullenly, not looking at them.
“Yeah?” Maggio said. “Well that Great, Big, Tall, Long Sandra’s the one for me. Unless you picked her already. Who’d you pick?” he a