Free Very Old Bones by William Kennedy Page A

together. We both had Heilbutt vom Rost, mit Toast. ”
    “What do I care what you ate? Where is he? He’s no longer at the theater.”
    “He sold the theater,” Bosco said.
    “ Heilbutt vom Rost is my favorite German dish,” I said. “I had it on Good Friday, with Krauterbutter. ”
    “The Captain threw you in, of course. You knew that.”
    “I suppose I did,” I said.
    “I’d have him killed, if I were you,” said Bosco.
    “That’s extreme,” I said. “Not my way. I admit I considered it, however.”
    “The Captain’s in London,” Bosco said. “Living it up at the Strand and the Ritz, dining out at the Connaught and Brown’s Hotel, shopping on Savile Row, screwing all
the girls in Soho. And you call yourself a spy?”
    “I never call myself a spy,” I said.
    I looked at the whore. She looked like my third-grade teacher, who used to rub herself against the edge of the desk while lecturing us: A beautiful woman. A tall redhead with long blond hair.
She was smitten with me. Followed my career all through grammar school. No one quite like her, the sweet little dolly.
    “ Heilbutt vom Rost I could go for right now,” I said.
    “I can get it for you half price,” Bosco said.
    “Where’s Geld?” I asked.
    “Geld is where you find him,” Bosco said. “In the Russian zone by this time, I’d venture.”
    “You always said he was a double agent.”
    “No, I merely suggested that he was a provocateur-killer with a finger in every political honeycomb in Europe. Even his toenails are illegal. He’s a great man. He’s entitled to
finger anything or anybody he pleases. You know who the greatest man in the world is?”
    “Of course,” I said. “Harry Truman. For dropping the bomb on Hiroshima. I never thought so many were undoable.”
    “And the second-greatest man in the world?”
    “The pilot who bombed Hiroshima. Think of the night sweats and headaches he’s had to put up with ever since.”
    “In my opinion,” Bosco said, “there’s only one war, with intermissions.”
    “That’s how it should be,” I said. “Let me tell you the greatest bunch of men I ever came across. The glory brigades who landed at Normandy on D Day, pissy with fear,
climbing that fucking cliff into the path of those fortified Nazi cock-suckers, soaked to the soul in blood, brine, sand, and shit, choking with putrescible courage and moving ahead into the
goddamn vortex of exploding death. Who’s got balls? Those guys had cojones big as combat boots. I arrived two weeks after Normandy, a goddamn latecomer, a slacker, a shitassed mewling
little yellowbelly, and I got separated from my outfit for three days with no food or water and then I saw a Nazi, a fat fucking killer of women and children and newborn baby Jews, an asswipe
shitface murdering swine of a fucking Nazi prick, and I got him in my sights and shot him through the nose. Then somebody shot at me. It was dusk. I couldn’t see where the shot came from, but
obviously he had a Kamerad on his flank, and so I went back into my cave, my earthworks, and laid low. Four days without food by this time, and we piss and moan when we miss a meal. I
crawled as far into my earthworks as earth would allow and I heard someone up there walking around calling, “Here, doggie, come on, nice little doggie,” all this with a kraut accent, of
course, thinking I’d fall for the old dog-biscuit offer. He probably didn’t even have a dog biscuit. Then it grew silent and I went dead out, probably slept two more days. It
might’ve been a month. Who knows how long, or how well, or how deeply, or how significantly, or how richly, or how comfortably we sleep when we’re fucking asleep? We’re asleep,
aren’t we? So how the hell are we supposed to know how well, or how deeply, and so on? But to get to the point—are you with me?”
    “Dogfood,” said Bosco.
    “Good,” I said. “So I came up from the earthworks, crawling out like some goddamn creature of the