Dead Harvest

  The place was quiet when I arrived: a couple old-timers, nursing drinks at the end of the bar. A working girl, dividing her time between sipping her gin and tonic and nibbling on the ear of her john, whose suit – a little loose on his frame, but well-made, and only slightly out of style – suggested banker, and whose glassy eyes read well past drunk. And in a booth in the back, a large, red-faced man in a dusty brown suit and a fedora to match sat flirting with the barmaid, a buxom brunette in a skirt so high and a neckline so low they damn near met in the middle. A shock of red tie hung around the man's neck, and the woman fingered it playfully as she laughed at whatever it was he'd just said. But then he spotted me standing in the doorway, blinking in the sudden gloom of the bar after the brilliant glare of the afternoon sun, and he waved me over, his massive chins bobbing up and down. I shuffled toward him, clenching my jaw against the pain in my knee and willing the limp out of my gait.

  "Sam?" he asked, once I reached his booth. "Sam Thornton?"

  "That's me."

  "Good to meet you," he said. "Name's Dumas. Walter Dumas."

  He extended a hand. I shook it. Up close, I saw his bloodshot eyes, the gin blossoms that spread across his massive cheeks. It was pretty clear the guy was a few drinks to the good. He told me to have a seat, asked what I was having. I slid into the booth and said I wasn't thirsty. Dumas just shook his head and laughed.

  "Nonsense! Dinah, bring the boy a shot o' whiskey and a beer, and what the hell, the same for me as well!"

  "You got it, sugar," she said. She tapped Dumas playfully on the nose, leaning in as she did so he could better ogle the vast expanse of cleavage that pressed upward from her blouse in brazen defiance of gravity and decency both. Up close, her perfume was dizzying, and the apples of her cheeks were pricked with red, from rouge or drink I didn't know. She flashed me a wink as she turned to fetch our drinks, and then retreated to the bar, Dumas eyeing her all the while.

  "Fine piece a tail on that one," he said. "Got a husband, of course, but then that's no concern o' mine."

  I said nothing. Dumas just smiled.

  "So, Japs or Krauts?" he said.

  "Excuse me?" I said.

  "The limp – Japs or Krauts?"

  "Actually, neither. I've never served, though not for lack of trying. I enlisted back in '42, but they bounced me on account of my wife's condition."