“Two barracks bags. They’re out there in that big barn you call a clerks’ office.”
“Well I guess they’re safe there,” Winch said dubiously. He looked outside through the curtained window. “Just sit down there for a minute and have yourself another drink. I’ll call the outfit for you. They can send a jeep up. For a man of your stature.”
“Why, thank you, First Sarn’t.”
They talked about Landers a little. Winch seemed to feel Landers was getting exactly what he wanted. And needed. “He’s come all apart at the seams,” Winch said. “A discharge is the only thing will help him. Otherwise. If he stayed in. Hell, he’d be no good to nobody.
“Besides,” Winch added, “a discharge is what he’s asked for. That was the way he told his company officers to slant their reports.
“How did you find that out?”
“From the officer. Who went up to talk to him.”
“Then I guess you got everything pretty well lined out for him.”
“I tried to. I hope so. Now, what about you?”
“What about me?”
“Have you told your wife? Have you told Linda Sue about what you’re doing?”
“No,” Strange said. “I haven’t.”
“Well, don’t you think you ought to?”
“No. Not especially.”
“Has she still got your GI insurance?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Are you still married?”
“Yes. Still married. Legally. Officially.”
“You’re not divorced yet. Then it would seem to me that you owe it to her to tell her what you’re doing, what to expect.”
“I’ll decide that,” Strange said. Then, because he felt that sounded too harsh, he added, “Maybe I’ll drop her a little note. Before I pull out.”
“I think you at least owe it to her to tell her face to face. Or at least over the telephone.”
“I don’t owe her a fucking thing,” Strange said.
“I think—” Winch began, but was stopped by the buzzing of his desk phone. He picked it up and listened for half a minute. Then when he put it down, he spread his arms. “Your jeep’s there.” He stood up, his arms still spread. “I don’t know what I think. That’s the fucking truth.”
“Me neither,” Strange said. “Join the club.”
“Come on down to the main PX some night. I’m there almost every night. Five-thirty or six,” Winch said.
As with Curran, there was the finalizing handshake. Both of them seemed to know it was the end of some era or other. As he and Curran had known.
But as he picked up his two bags and followed the jeep driver down the stairs, Strange remained surprised at how much Winch knew about his personal affairs. Winch hadn’t seen or talked to Linda since back in Wahoo before the sneak attack. Yet here he was, seeming to know it all.
Strange had already made his good-bys to Frances. That had happened in town in Luxor, the day after his final conference with Curran. But it was something that had seemed to be coming on for a long time, too.
Partly that was due to his having run through his $7000 savings and allotment money, and having had to give up the suite at the Peabody. Maybe. Maybe it was partly that. Or maybe it wasn’t?
Strange hadn’t been staying there much for quite a long time, and had taken to renting a double room at the Claridge for himself and Frances, which Jack Alexander, Winch’s old buddy, had got for him. The only two old-company men who still frequented the suite were Corello with that ruined shoulder of his and Trynor who had come into Kilrainey a few days after Strange himself. The rest of the time now, when there was a party there, all of the other people who were there were strangers and outsiders. Strange no longer really wanted to go to the parties. He much preferred being off alone with Frances.
But Strange was not about to let go of the suite till he had spent on it every nickel of the $7000. He didn’t care who came to the parties every night. He didn’t care if he himself didn’t go to them. Not one dime of that $7000 restaurant money was going to walk away from the Peabody in Strange’s pocket. And not one dime of it did.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, for Strange the money ran out swiftly after Landers went over the hill, and then came back and turned himself in and went into the prison ward. It was really only then that Strange began to realize how much money Landers himself had been pouring into the Peabody suite. Without Landers and