From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [17]
“I dont need to know psychology to know that much,” Leva said. “I guess you didnt see her kiss Champ Wilson when he won the lightweight championship last year?”
“Sure I seen it. So what? Wilson is Dynamite’s prize punchie and he won the crown. Natural enough.”
“Thats what she knew you’d think, and everybody else,” Leva said. “But there was more to it than that. She kissed him right on the lips, blood, collodion and all, and flung her bare arms around his back and rubbed them on the sweat. When she let him go her dress was dark with it and blood all over her face, dont tell me.”
“I aint tellin you,” Warden said, “you’re tellin me.”
“The only reason she aint picked you yet is because you’re new here.”
“I been here eight months now,” he said. “That ought to be long enough.”
Leva shook his head. “She cant take no chances. Them others, all but O’Hayer, was at Bliss with Holmes. Wilson, Henderson, and Kling. About the only one of them from Bliss she hasnt picked is old Ike Galovitch, who is too old. She . . .” He stopped, hearing the Orderly Room door slam again. “Now she’ll goddam well be in here,” he said. “Four bucks it costs me. Every time she comes here. If you dont get me that rating so I can get some of it, I’ll be in debt to the twenty percent men.”
“To hell with her,” Warden said. “We got work to do,” listening to her footsteps in the corridor and then on the porch and then before him at the door.
“Where is the First Sergeant,” Mrs Holmes demanded, coming in.
“I’m the First Sergeant, Maam,” Warden bawled, putting in his voice that sudden vehemence that always was so startling, like a thunderclap in a cloudless sky, and that he had developed purposely, ever since he’d been a noncom.
“Oh,” the woman said. “Yes, of course. How are you, Sergeant?”
“What can I do for you, Mrs Holmes?” Warden said, not getting up from his stool.
“Oh, you know who I am then?”
“Why shouldnt I, Maam, I’ve seen you often enough.” Warden looked her slowly up and down, making his light blue eyes wide under the bushy brows and black hair, putting into them the secret, unsayable challenge.
“I’m looking for my husband,” Mrs Holmes said, emphasizing it a little. She smiled thinly at him and waited.
Warden stared at her unsmiling and waited too.
“Do you know where he is?” she asked, finally.
“No, Maam. I dont,” Warden said, and waited again.
“Has he been in this morning?” Mrs Holmes stared back at him now, with the coldest eyes he had ever met in any woman.
“You mean before now, Maam?” Warden raised his heavy brows. “Before eight-thirty?” Leva, working at his desk, was grinning. When Warden said them, the Army’s rigidly enforced titles of respect had quite a different meaning from the one the ARs intended them to have.
“He said he was coming over here,” Mrs Holmes said.
“Well now, Maam.” He changed his tactics now and stood up, effusively polite. “He usually does come here, sooner or later. There is some work here for him to do, now and then. He’ll probably be in this morning, some time. I’ll tell him you want him, if I can catch him. Or I can leave a message if you want.”
Smiling, he opened the countertop and stepped out suddenly into the tiny counterspace with her. Involuntarily Mrs Holmes backed out onto the porch. Warden followed her, ignoring the grinning Leva.
“He was to pick up some things for me,” Mrs Holmes said. This was the first time, to her, the first sergeant had ever been more than a lifeless stageprop in the melodrama of her husband’s life. It disconcerted her.
The little boy was still trying to chin himself on the pipe no higher than his waist.
“Junior!” Mrs Holmes shrilled. “Stop that! Get back in the car! And I thought,” she said to Warden in a normal tone, “that he might have purchased them and left them for me.”
Warden grinned, broadly. She would never have used that word purchased unless he had got beneath her skin. He watched her eyes go slightly out of focus as she understood the grin. But she brought them right back in again and tried to stare him down. He decided she had guts.
Karen Holmes was suddenly aware of the impish twist of the eyebrows on his wide face, like a small boy who has pulled a fast one. She saw his sleeves, turned back, expo