San Diego Noir

A pain more wicked than any struck. Not in the liver. Higher. Around his heart. Greg tipped forward, grabbed the stairs, and thought, Maybe I only hit him in the arm. Maybe he’s only passed out. He needed to know, before the pain took him under. Using the rail for balance, he managed one step toward the foot of the stairs.

The next boom came, and a cannonball slammed then sucked into Greg’s middle, just below the ribs. His head tipped backward. He saw Maurice, with gritted teeth and red eyes. In one hand, a pistol shook.

Despite everything, a new kind of love washed over Greg. He wanted to reach out and touch the fellow. He tried to say, Hey, amigo. But he began spinning. When his knees buckled, he was facing down the alley, toward the ocean where a mammoth wave rose, emerald green and luminescent.

As Greg sensed commotion around him, he watched the emerald wave sweep high, above the two-story shops, and flood over the sea wall, across the road, and into the alley.

Peace, Greg thought. It’s only peace. He turned, meaning to tell people not to worry, but all he saw was one fellow. Either Jesus or Chad, with a small but earnest smile that meant, I get it, brother. I’ve been there.

It was Chad, not Jesus, Greg thought, as he whispered a last “Ho-ho.” Because Jesus wouldn’t be nodding goodbye.

PART III

LIFE’S A BEACH

AFTER THIRTY

BY DON WINSLOW

Pacific Beach

1945

Charlie Decker is a hard case.

Ask anybody—his shipmates, his captain, his family back in Davenport if they’ll talk to you about him. They’ll all tell you the same thing.

Charlie’s no good.

He’s trouble and always has been. Drunkenness, absent-without-official-leave, brawling, gambling, insubordination—three stretches in the navy and Charlie’s been in and out of the brig and up and down the ranks. The navy probably would have thrown him out if there wasn’t a war on and they didn’t need a man who knew how to make an engine run. Give Charlie Decker thirty minutes and a wrench and he can fix anything, but you also know that he can wreck anything too, and just as easily.

People tried to tell Millie this, but she wouldn’t listen. Her roommates saw it clear as day. One good look in Charlie’s eyes, that cocky smirk of his, and you knew. They told her but it went through one ear and out the other. Now she opens her eyes, looks at the clock on her bed table, and slaps him on the butt. “Charlie, get up.”

“What?” he mumbles, happy in his sweet, warm sleep. They sat up and drank when she came home from her night shift at Consolidated, and then they did it and then drank some more, so he don’t want to get up.

She shakes his shoulders. “It’s thirty days.”

Millie knows the navy—up to thirty days it’s AWOL, after thirty it’s desertion. He’s been shacked up with her for almost a month now. Almost a month in the little bungalow that was already crowded with four other girls, and he said he was going back before the thirty days were up.

But now he mumbles, “To hell with that.” And closes his eyes.

“You’re going to get in big trouble,” Millie says. AWOL, he would get a captain’s mast, but probably no time in the brig because he’s set to ship out soon anyway. But for desertion he’s going to get a court-martial, maybe years in the brig, and then a DD.

“Charlie, get up.”

He rolls over, kisses her, and then shows her what trouble is. That’s the thing—she knows he’s bad news but he’s just so damn handsome and so good in the sack. She knew from the moment they met at Eddie’s Bar that she couldn’t keep her legs shut with Charlie.

Charlie makes her see fireworks.

Charlie rolls off her, reaches for the green pack of Lucky Strikes by the bed, finds his Zippo, and lights one up.

“Go fix us some breakfast,” he says.

“What do you want?”

“Eggs?”

“Try buying eggs, Charlie.”

“We got any coffee left?”

“A little.”

Like everything else, it’s rationed. Coffee, sugar, meat, cigarettes, chocolate, gasoline of course. The girls swap ration coupons but there’s only so much and she doesn’t like it when Charlie deals in the black market. She tells him it’s unpatriotic.

Charlie doesn’t give a damn. He figures he’s done his patriotic duty all over the Pacific, most recently on a tin can in the cordon line off Okinawa, and he deserves a little coffee and sugar.

The first cigarette of the day is always the best.

Charlie sucks the smoke into his lungs and holds it before letting it out his nose. It makes him feel good, relaxed, at ease with the decision he has to make.

“Then after breakfast you’ll go back,” Millie is saying.

“I thought you loved me,” Charlie says, flashing his smile. He’s proud of the smile—his teeth are white and even.

“I do.” She does love him, despite everything. That’s why she doesn’t want to see him get into a really bad jam. He’s always going to get in a little trouble, Millie knows, that’s part of what she loves about him.