point in their discussions. “But do you really think he detests me? That was the word you used. Where did you get that word?”
“It was Winch’s word,” Strange said. “He used it.” The odd look of urgency had come back over his face. “Winch would never use that word himself. So I reckon he heard the old man use it.”
“But detests,” Landers said. “That’s pretty strong.” He looked into Strange’s eyes, with their urgency which still did not make any sense to Landers. “If he detests me, it’s because I showed him what hypocrites he and the Army are,” he said righteously, “for not firing Hogan.
“He’s never been shot at, neither has Hogan,” he finished inconclusively. “None of them has. Or ever will be.”
“No,” Strange said. “I don’t reckon they ever will be.” The silent look of urgency, Landers noted, had not left his face.
“What’s this with Winch?” Landers asked him. “I didn’t ask him for anything. I don’t want any help from him.”
“You better be damn glad you had help from him,” Strange said. “Without him you’d be in jail.”
“Fuck him. He never comes around. We never see him. We never hear from him. He never comes up to the hotel.”
“He’s busy out at O’Bruyerre. He’s back to duty, and holding down a whole new job,” Strange said. “But he keeps an eye on us. Besides, he’s got some little girl he’s shacking up with.”
“Who? Not that little girl I tried to make?”
“I don’t know, honestly,” Strange said. “And I don’t care. Why? Does that make you sore?”
“Me? Are you kidding?”
“Well, what’s eating you then?”
“Nothing,” Landers said. “But fuck Winch.”
With his tentative bust to private in the works, Landers was no longer on ward arrest. He was able to go back to the suite at the Peabody. Until the demotion was approved in Washington he was not required to remove his sergeant’s stripes, so he didn’t. He found he had a really serious reluctance to part with them that was totally unanticipated. Especially around the Peabody.
But getting back to the Peabody was not the great thrill he had imagined so heatedly, when he was being kept away from it. The girls were all pretty much the same girls. And the few new ones were not that much different. The fellows were all still the same fellows. Corello, and Trynor, and the others. Strange apparently had developed a permanent relationship with Frances Highsmith, and no longer came around to the suite much, though he still saw to it that all its bills were paid, as did Landers himself. With Strange gone, Landers became the leader. He developed a semipermanent relationship himself, with Mary Lou Salgraves. But none of it was really that exciting.
Landers had lied to Col Stevens only once, and that had been during the interview when Stevens had asked him about his ankle. Stevens understood that Landers had reinjured his ankle in the fight in the rec hall with the lieutenant. He was given this impression by Landers’ surgeon, Curran, who had examined the ankle after the fight. Actually, the ankle had been reinjured in the first fight he and Strange had had with the Navy petty officers in the hotel bar, and then reinjured again when Landers had kicked the Air Force ferry commando in the head. But Curran had not known about this, and had not examined the ankle after the first fights, had assumed the ankle was reinjured in the hospital fight, and Landers had not felt up to telling either Curran or Stevens the whole truth about it.
It was not until after the whole thing was over and the court-martial had been canceled that Curran told Landers he had known about the ankle all along. They were together in Curran’s little office, after the most recent examination of it.
He had grinned. “Yes, it’s not too hard to tell from the swelling, or lack of it, if a muscle or a joint has been injured recently. It’s harder to tell how long ago, or how many times, something has been hurt, if the injury was at some time in the past. I just knew, was pretty sure, that you hadn’t done it in that particular fight.”
“Why didn’t you tell that to Col Stevens?” Landers said.
Curran was still grinning, that funny little private smile of his. “Well, you obviously hadn’t told him yourself. For some private reason of your own. I just wanted to back you up, and give you some maneuvering room if that was