Читать книгу Atonement for Iwo - Lester S. Taube - Страница 8

Chapter 1

June 1965

Keith Masters jabbed his thumb on the doorbell, then, without waiting for a call to enter, opened the door and strode through the dimly lit hallway to the dining room at the rear of the house. A large, round table stood in the center of the room with a matching buffet off to one side.

“Hi, Mamie,” he greeted the fat Negress seated in front of a television set. He made his way around the table to the buffet and picked up an envelope marked ‘Metropolitan Life Insurance Company’. Inside was a receipt book and three one dollar bills. He marked down two weeks’ payment in the book, then opened his heavy debit book to record it there.

Mamie waited for a commercial before turning away from the television set. “Hi there, Mistah Masters. Where’s Mistah Bronsky?”

Masters grinned. “He’s sick. He got the clap from screwing all you girls on the debit.”

The fat woman shook with laughter. “Ah swear, Mistah Masters, Ah sure do miss you on the debit.”

Masters pocketed the three dollars, fired up a cigarette, and eyed her. “How’s everything going, Mamie?”

She pursed her lips. “Pretty good, considerin’ how sick Ah’ve been the last five years.” She cocked her head. “What you doin’ now. Ain’t seen you fur a long time.”

“I’m out with the boys all the time. Being an assistant manager is just a crock of crap.”

The woman, torn between wanting to watch her daily show or asking a question, dragged her eyes away to look back at Masters. “You tell that Mistah Bronsky Ah wants to know what’s goin’ on with that policy fur Lily.”

Masters shook his head. “Hasn’t he refunded the money?”

“What you mean, refunded the money?”

“For Christ’s sake, Mamie, I’ve told you a dozen times not to try grabbing a big policy for Lily. I told you to buy it bit-by-bit, quarter by quarter. Who dreamed up that ten dollar a month shit?”

“Mistah Bronsky said he’d get it through.”

Masters shook his head again. “Well, he didn’t get it through. It was rejected, just like the other three applications over the last five years.”

“What fur they always rejectin’ Lily?”

“Oh, Jesus Christ, Mamie, you know better than that. There isn’t a guy in town who hasn’t screwed Lily. The Company doesn’t mind you having a piece of ass now and then, but when you make a business of it...”

Mamie’s eyes narrowed. “That ain’t true, and you know it.”

He leaned over the table. “Name one guy who hasn’t fucked her?”

Her eyes narrowed further, then a twinkle came into them. “You!” she shouted, her heavy breasts heaving with laughter.

Master grinned as he closed the debit book. “I’m holding out for you, baby,” he chuckled, starting out of the house. Behind him, the room shook from her mirth.

On the street, he looked at his watch, surprised to see it was almost noon. He glanced at his route sheet. The next collection was in the Italian neighborhood. He walked the four blocks to where his car was parked and climbed inside. He turned the key three times before the motor caught.

Goddamn car, he muttered, eyeing the 1958 Chevrolet with distaste. If I ever get those fucking bills paid off, the first thing I’ll do is drop this heap in the junkyard.

He drove out of the Negro area to a drug store and sat at the counter to eat a ham sandwich. Thirty minutes later, he was on his way to the Italian section. He parked the car, got out, and opened the debit book to the route card. The first house to collect from was halfway down the block, on the other side of the street. He stepped off the curb.

(God!) his mind screamed, as a fiery slash of pain ripped at his chest! His mouth opened wide to gasp for breath.

(God!) He fell to his knees, the debit book sliding under the car.

(Help!) his mind cried out. Then he crumpled to the ground.

Mr. and Mrs. Elvino, seated on their porch across the street, saw him fall. The woman grasped her husband’s arm. “Tony, that’sa Mister Masters. Quick!”

The old Italian limped down the steps and across to the stricken man. He kneeled and rolled him over, then turned startled eyes towards his wife.

“He’sa dead!” he shouted. “Calla de police.”

(God, oh God! Stop the pain!) Masters’ mind shrieked.

Angelo Foretti, picking his teeth, came out of the house directly behind them. He took one look and ran down the steps.

“What’s the matter, Tony?”

“He’sa dead.”

Angelo kneeled to peer into the pale, clammy face. “He sure is. Who is he?”

“Insurant man, from de Metropolitan.”

(Stop! Please stop!)

“He had a heart attack,” explained Foretti. “I saw the same thing with my Aunt Mary. Bang! Just like that. One minute she’s reaching across the table to pour some wine, and the next minute she’s lying over all the food. I thought Mom would have a fit.”

(God!) the scream started. Then a merciful curtain of darkness cut it off.

A thin, colorless ray of light bored into the brain cell. The cell quivered under the violent impact, then passed on the vibration to the cells surrounding it. The motion spread out like a circular ripple triggered by a pebble dropped into a motionless pool as it rolled faster and faster in its rush to sensibility.

“Can you hear me, Mr. Masters?”

Masters’ eyes flickered, his head turned slowly to one side, his face muscles relaxed, his shallow breathing grew more steady.

“I think he’ll be all right,” said the cardiologist as he closed the flap of the oxygen tent. He turned to the nurse standing at the foot of the bed. “Keep him under constant observation and call me the moment he stirs.” He left the room with a younger doctor trailing behind. “That was a close one,” he commented in the hallway. “Imagine, a cardiac infarction and angina pectoris at the same time. What a massive shock he must have experienced.”

The younger doctor nodded. “Three days. I never thought he would make it.”

A short, gray haired man was waiting at the end of the hall.

“Doctor Martin?” he inquired of the approaching physicians.

The older doctor stopped. “Yes.”

“I’m George Brighton, manager of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, Northeast District. Keith Masters is one of my assistant managers. How is he?”

“He’s doing as well as can be expected, Mr. Brighton. I believe one of your people was in a day or two ago, to arrange for his hospitalization insurance.”

“Yes. I sent over one of our other assistant managers. I realize it’s somewhat premature to make a definite statement, but what is Mr. Masters’ actual condition?”

The doctor hedged. “It’s quite uncertain at this point.”

Brighton smiled wryly. “Doctor, I am an attorney by training. Furthermore, in my profession as an insurance company manager, I deal with these matters extensively.”

Martin raised an eyebrow. “All right, Mr. Brighton. His attack should not be fatal, but we won’t have a complete evaluation of the damage to his heart until a few more tests have been made. The one thing we can guess is that the next attack will be much more severe. It could come tomorrow, or in ten years.”

“Will he be able to return to work, or would you consider it a permanent disability?”

The doctor pursed his lips. “As an educated guess, I think he should be up and around in three or four months. But if he should do any kind of work except, light, part time duties, he will be back rather quickly.”

“Then we may conclude that he is permanently disabled?”

“If he were on my staff, I would order him to remain at home for a year and search for a hobby.”

The insurance manager nodded. “Thank you, doctor.” He left the hospital and drove directly back to his office. There he picked up the phone and dialed a number taken from an information card.

A woman’s voice answered.

“Hello, Gloria. This is George Brighton.”

“Why, hello, Mr. Brighton. This is quite unexpected.”

Brighton did not hesitate. “Gloria, Keith is ill.”

There was a moment of silence. “Oh?”

“It’s quite serious. A heart attack. He’s in City Hospital.”

There was a longer period of silence, then a sigh. “Why don’t you call Keith’s whore, Mr. Brighton? I’m no longer related to him. I even have a divorce certificate to prove it.”

“Take it easy, Gloria. You know they broke up five years ago. I thought perhaps that Bert should know.”

The woman’s voice was suddenly angry. “Look, Keith walked out on us seven years ago. Bert was only eleven years old then, and he’s grown up fully convinced that his father is nothing better than a worthless bastard. Furthermore, I’m remarried, and my husband and Bert are great friends. Frankly, we don’t care if we ever see Keith Masters again.” She hung up.

A choir was singing Silent Night on the television set when a knock came at the door. “Come in,” called Masters.

The door opened and George Brighton entered. He adjusted his eyes to the dimness of the room. “Hello, Keith. I was just driving by and thought I’d drop in to wish you a Merry Christmas.”

Masters grinned. “I bet you were just driving by, George. How far out of the way was it? A couple of miles?”

Brighton grinned back. He took a seat facing Masters, huddled in his chair with a shawl around his shoulders. “You’ve put on some weight,” he observed.

“I’m up to one hundred and thirty now. Still twenty pounds under.”

“Well, you don’t look too bad for a guy on full pension. How are you making out?”

“I should have gotten sick sooner. It’s the first time I ever caught up with my bills.” He studied the gray haired man. “George, did you call Gloria when I became ill?”

Brighton nodded. “She was still pretty angry.”

Masters pursed his lips, his face still slate looking. “Just like her. She’ll carry the grudge right to the grave, fighting like a son of a bitch to drag everyone else along. How about Bert?”

“She said he didn’t want to see you. Bert didn’t say it. She did.”

“Then you can bet your bottom dollar that it’s true. He was a fine little fellow until she got on his ear. I hope he never realizes what kind of a mother he has. Hating his father is bad enough.”

“What ever happened between you two? You and Gloria were a real handsome couple.”

Masters leaned back into his chair. “I honestly don’t know, George. Gloria is a damned good looking woman, and I thought we had it made. Then, all of a sudden, about two or three years after Bert was born, she changed. At first I thought it was the mother versus father grab for the kid’s affection, but it wasn’t that. Right off the bat she started acting as if she was the greatest piece of ass in the world, like she could lay back and eat an apple while you were knocking it off, and that you should rave about it for a week afterwards. Then the great withdrawal act, the suffering heroine putting up with all the crap in the world and keeping a stiff upper lip even though she had a bastard for a husband.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t figure it out. I thought maybe I wasn’t cutting the mustard in bed. Half the troubles of the world start there. But when this thing came up, I was hitting on all eight cylinders and she was jumping around and yelling like it was the greatest thing she ever knew.”

He drew the shawl tighter around his shoulders. “Maybe it was because I wasn’t earning all the money in the world. Gloria considered herself a pretty high class article.”

Brighton took out a pack of cigarettes, then self consciously shoved it back into a pocket.

“Go ahead, smoke,” said Masters. “I get the willies as bad whether you smoke or not.”

Brighton lit one up. “I was never able to understand,” he said, blowing smoke away from Masters, “why you were content to stay on a debit for so many years before I could persuade you to take an assistant manager’s job.”

Masters picked up a piece of hard rock candy and popped it into his mouth. “Maybe not all of us are big, determined men. I just never had the gumption to do anything but ride around and collect the three bucks each month. I was content. The only reason I took the assistancy was to get a few more dollars. I’ll tell you straight, George, there were a couple of hundred times I wanted to shove it right back. It was worse than digging ditches.”

Brighton stood up. “Well, I’ve got to be going. Glad to see you’re back to normal. How about coming in and having lunch with me when you’re able to?”

Once the door closed behind the gray haired man, Masters rose from the chair, switched off the group still singing Christmas carols, drew back the covers on the sofa, and lay down.

He folded his hands behind his head and thought back. I’m forty five-years-old now. At age zero, I am a red ball of meat in a skinny woman’s belly. The fellow that put me there was a railroad conductor. He had also started my brother two years before. Then he walked smack in front of a beer delivery truck and exit a father. At five years old, I have a step father, a barber. It wasn’t too bad until he blew the claim money my mother got from the beer company, then he started cutting hair elsewhere. At age ten, my brother, Ed, and I are out peddling papers on the streets of windy Chicago, and my mother is working in a shirt factory. At age fifteen, I screw what the hell was her name? Margot? Margaret? Well, it doesn’t make much difference, except that I got scared afterwards thinking I might have caught the clap, so I put alcohol on my pecker. It hurt worse than the clap I think. At twenty, I have already buried my mother, who is dead from a crummy pair of lungs. The skinny woman. I guess that’s what saints must have looked like, for she certainly was one. At twenty five, I have killed maybe fifteen or twenty men, all legally, and they even gave me medals for it. I also received the medal they awarded posthumously to my brother, Ed, who was scattered somewhere over the French countryside. At thirty, it is Gloria, and my son, Bert. At thirty five, I have been recalled by the army for duty in Korea, am back out of the service, and Gloria has her tail up in the air. At forty, it is...

“Keith,” said Cathy. “I don’t see any reason why we can’t get married.”

“For Christ’s sake,” he replied, putting down the newspaper. “Are we going to go all over that again? I’m paying every dime I earn for alimony to Gloria. I haven’t bought a goddamn shirt in two years. How the hell can we get married?”

“It doesn’t make any difference. We’re getting along now, aren’t we? If we can get along now, we can get along the same if we’re married.”

He eyed her with irritation. “Do you know something? You’re probably the best piece of ass in Chicago and most certainly the dumbest. I don’t know how the fuck I’ve put up with you for two years.” He mimicked her. “If we can get along now we can get along the same as now.” He threw the newspaper to the floor. “Can’t you get it through your thick, Polack skull that I just got rid of one wife and I don’t want another.”

Her lips trembled. “You don’t love me,” she wailed.

He jumped to his feet, his face flushed with rage. “No!” he shouted. “I don’t love you. You’re just an orgasm, a crying, nagging, smothering nobody who isn’t worth a shit ten minutes out of bed.” He stamped out of the apartment.

When he returned, hours later, reeling from too much beer, she was gone bag and baggage.

Masters turned over onto his side. Now forty five and a half dead man. God Almighty, what is wrong with me? Why can’t I find just a little of the peace I’ve searched for all my life? It’s as if a rot has been placed inside me, that I have been condemned to unhappiness.

And then, for the first time in twenty years, he forced himself to admit it. Yes, I knew Schneider was going to raise his rifle and shoot that Jap sergeant. I knew it the moment he came up and aimed and fired. I could have stopped it. I could have said, “Do not fire.” I could have even pushed up his weapon. But I didn’t. Because I wanted him to shoot!

God Almighty! I’ve murdered a man!