Free One to Count Cadence by James Crumley Page B

shave.”
    They grumbled, but they left, and were waiting in the Day Room, playing pool and shuffleboard when I came down.
    “So you’re lovely, Sarge,” Cagle said, “but Town is all used up by now.” It was 0745.
    “I hear you’re going to Town,” Tetrick said from behind his desk. He handed me the sheaf of three-day passes. “Make ‘em sign out.” His face was pale and bloated from a hangover, but he smiled. “They’ll take care of you until you can take care of them. I hope. But watch yourselves. Capt. Saunders is going stateside for six weeks, and Lt. Dottlinger will have the Company. He don’t like guys who go to Town. So stay clean.
    “You guys don’t let him fall in love,” Tetrick shouted as we left.
    Lt. Dottlinger was coming in, his OD armband still crinkling his shirt sleeve, as we tumbled out front to wait for the cabs to take us to the gate. He answered our quick salutes with a crisp touch of ball-point pen to cap bill and a grim, brimstone eye.
    * * *
    Angeles, in spite of its reputation as a minor version of heaven, was a collection of bamboo huts, wooden, tin-roofed buildings, dusty streets, open sewers, and seventy-five or eighty bars. It wasn’t quite as modern as a Mexican border town, which it very much resembled, nor as dirty as a large city slum. The streets always seemed festive in a way, filled with people, dogs and pigs wandering without the help of crosswalks or traffic lights. I liked the look of the people. They were cleaner than I had been led to expect, and without that wolfish, greedy glare of the citizens of Columbus, Georgia or Fayetteville, North Carolina or Kileen, Texas.
    Our cabs stopped in the center of Town where five streets intersected. Three kiosks were around the plaza, three of the half-dozen or so enclosed ones. The others, and there seemed to be hundreds spotted around Town, were open to the weather. It was explained to me that kiosks were for serious drinking, since the barmaids were indecently nice and wouldn’t even meet an American eye on the street. The whores were in the bars or in houses. Trick Two, my Trick, usually gathered at the Plaza.
    We filed into the narrow, high room, jammed ourselves around an elongated horseshoe bar on small, hard bamboo stools. Venetian blinds held off the early morning sun around one long and one short side, and three Edwardian fans ladled the air above the bar, buzzing and stirring as much breeze as fat, lazy blowflies. A huge hulk of chrome and plastic commanded the scene from a niche high in the end wall, contentedly bubbling, watching over her foolish children.
    “Roll Call, mama-san,” Morning said to the large, middle-aged owner of the Plaza.
    “Aaiiieeee,” she giggled, taking her glasses off. “Take business to Chew Chi’s.” She sat her glasses back on her face as if they might protect her as Trick Two sat down.
    “Too early,” said a heart-faced girl behind the bar. Her smile exposed a front tooth circled in gold-fill which formed a small, white heart on her tooth. She and two other girls gave everyone a cold, thick San Miguel and a utilitarian tumbler of such thickness it might be used for anything from weapon to anchor — and it was. Beers were neatly poured, then Morning pulled a crumpled sheet of paper from his pocket, and began:
    “In so much as this is a world we didn’t make, filled with dangers we refuse to understand, we of Trick Two do hereby withdraw ourselves from the arms race, the space race, and the human race for these next three days; and being the finest of fellows, comrades and carousers, humbly raise our glasses in defiance and bow our heads in shame, and here do solemnly swear (or affirm) to drink until the moon falls from the heavens, the heavens on our heads, or we, fat chance, on our asses.
    “Agreed?”
    “Aye!”
    “I shall read the roll of the honored and infamous alike.”
    “Thomas Earl Novotny,” Morning intoned.
    “Aye,” growled Novotny, then stood and poured the