Free The Young Lions by Irwin Shaw Page A

him, and he got a strong impression of gin and onions and violet perfume. "The sailors are plotting against him. In the uniform of their country. They are going to roll him and they're planning to follow me and snatch my purse in a dark alley. Take a beer bottle, Ronald, and go talk to them."
    The bartender put down their drinks and the woman took out a ten-dollar bill and gave it to him. "This is on me," she said.
    "This is a poor lonely boy on New Year's Eve."
    "You don't have to pay for me," Noah said.
    "To us, Honey." She raised the glass three inches from his face, and looked over it, through her veil, melting and coquettish.
    "What's money for, Honey, if it isn't for the use of your friends?"
    They drank and the woman put her hand on his leg and caressed his knee. "You're terribly stringy, Honey," she said.
    "We'll have to do something about that. Let's get out of here. I don't like this place any more. Let's go up to my little apartment. I got a bottle of Four Roses, just for you and me, and we can have our own private little celebration. Kiss me once, Honey." She leaned over again and closed her eyes determinedly. Noah kissed her. Her lips were soft and there was a taste of raspberry from her lipstick, along with the onion and gin. "I can't wait, Honey." She got down off the stool, quite steady, and took his arm, and they walked, carrying their drinks, to the rear of the bar.
    The two sailors watched them coming. They were very young and there was a puzzled, disappointed look on their faces.
    "Be careful of my friend," the woman warned them. "He's a Sioux Indian." She kissed Noah's neck behind the ear. "I'll be right out, Honey," she said. "I'm going to freshen up, so you'll love me." She giggled and squeezed his hand moistly and, still holding her glass, walked, with her exaggerated, mincing gait, the flowers dancing over her girdled rear, into the ladies' room.
    "What's she been giving you?" the younger of the two sailors asked. He didn't have his hat on and he had his hair cut so short that it looked like the first outcropping of fuzz on a baby's skull.
    "She says," Noah said, feeling powerful and alert, "she says you want to rob her."
    The sailor with the hat on snorted. "We rob her! That's hot. It's just the other way around, Brother."
    "Twenty-five bucks," the young sailor said. "Twenty-five apiece, she asked. She said she never did it before and she's married and she ought to get paid for the risks she's taking."
    "Who does she think she is?" the one with the hat on demanded. "How much did she ask you?"
    "Nothing," Noah said, and he felt an absurd sense of pride.
    "And she wants to throw in a bottle of Four Roses."
    "How do you like that?" The older sailor turned bitterly to his partner.
    "You going with her?" the younger one asked, avidly. Noah shook his head. "No."
    "Why not?" the young one asked.
    Noah shrugged. "I don't know."
    "Boy," the young one said, "you must be well serviced."
    "Ah," said the sailor with the hat on, "let's get out of here. Santa Monica!" He stared accusingly at the other sailor. "We might just as well have stayed on the Base."
    "What about him?" Noah touched the drunk sleeping peacefully on the mahogany.
    "That's the lady's problem."
    The young sailor put on his little white hat with an air of severe purpose and the two boys went out. "Twenty-five bucks!" Noah heard the older one say as he slammed the door.
    Noah waited a moment, then patted the sleeping drunk in a comradely fashion, and followed the sailors. He stood outside the door, breathing the soft, wet air, feeling it chill his flushed face. Under a wavering, uncertain lamp-post down the street he saw the two blue figures forlornly disappearing into the fog. He turned and went in the other direction, the whisky he had drunk hammering musically and pleasantly at his temples.
     
    Noah opened the door with careful deliberation, silently, and stepped into the dark room. The smell was there. He had forgotten the smell. Alcohol,