No Cure for Death Read Free Page B

don’t you?”
    “Come on, I’ve been stationed in California, Mal, you know that.” His smile edged over onto one side of his mouth. “And I’ve always been one for mixing with the natives.”
    “Don’t give me that crap,” I said. “You dress like that hoping some hard case in a bar’ll call you a hippie and hand you an excuse for breaking a table over his head.”
    “Mal, you don’t really think that.”
    “Of course, some of it may have to do with a uniform not having the charm it once had for those young California girls.”
    “Maybe a little,” he admitted.
    That was not to mention, I thought, the certain kind of girl a uniform still can attract in California, something John had learned all too readily out there several years before, prior to our leaving for his first (and my last) Vietnam tour. Like too many guys to mention, John got hit by one of those pretty hustlers who marry service men, milk them while they’re overseas and then divorce them. In John’s case it was even worse: his had a kid by somebody else while he was gone, which didn’t do his head a lot of good.
    I reached down and picked up one of his bags and left him with the other bag and the clothes-carrier. He gathered them up, then turned and looked across the four lanes of Mississippi Drive, standing on his toes to see beyond the railroad tracks to the waterfront parking lot, where the edge of the river was lapping up onto the cement incline. The river was smooth today.John turned back and his smile said glad-to-be-home, and he said, “You got a car, kid?”
    “Yeah, it’s up the block.”
    “Lead the way.”
    “Forward march, you mean?”
    “Don’t get cute.”
    We walked a few steps and John said, “Is it cold, or am I just used to that sunny weather?”
    “It’s cold.”
    “Why’re you stopping?”
    I had stopped in front of a battered yellow Rambler, three or four years old. “Because,” I said, “this is my car.”
    “This is your car.”
    “That’s right.”
    “You’re serious.”
    “I’d have to be.”
    We stowed his stuff in the back and John said, “Whatever made you pick a self-proclaimed lemon like this?”
    “Saves money on gas,” I shrugged. “And it didn’t cost much to begin with.”
    “But I thought your folks left you a bundle, Mal. And since when are you frugal?”
    “Jesus, you Army types are a tactful lot, ain’t ya?”
    I got behind the wheel and John got in on the other side and I pulled out of the parking place and drove half a block and waited at a red light.
    “Tell you the truth,” I said, “I went through a lot of that cash my folks left me in the first year after they died. One of the things I wasted it on was one of those damn fiberglass ’Vettes, which I totaled within a month of buying it. Lately I’ve decided to make my money last a while, what’s left of it, so I can coastas long as possible without succumbing to taking—how you say?—gainful employment.”
    The light went to green and I turned right on Second.
    John said, “I had an MG out in California for a few months. The payments broke me, and the speeding tickets didn’t help, either. I was even in jail once.”
    “How fast were you going?”
    “Hundred ’n’ forty. I was dressed like this, you know? They treated me like garbage, until they found out I was an Army sergeant and then they almost apologized for stopping me. Hypocritical bastards.”
    “But that was after they jailed you?”
    “Just overnight. Didn’t have any identification on me. Jail was no big deal after living over one as long as I did.”
    “That reminds me, your stepdad wants to see you. Want to swing by his office?”
    “Naw,” he said, “just as soon grab a beer or something first. How about we go out to your place and shoot the bull?”
    “Fine.”
    We started up the gradual hill that Second Street turns into as it leads into the part of town called East Hill. Port City’s your typical quiet little middle-class,