Sin In Their Blood - Ed Lacy

     I'm a damn fool, I thought. Playing hero, lying out here like a fallen statue. Cold grass will fix me, but fast.

     When my head stopped spinning, I dashed back into the house. I tried to wipe the green grass stain from my shoulders, and shoved a thermometer iii my chattering mouth as I put on long woolen underwear and climbed into bed, waiting for the cold to come. I didn't have any temperature, but I was too worried to be angry at Saxton. I was mad at myself for being a prize patsy, risking my health by sticking my fool nose in other people's business.

     I turned off the table light and lay there, worried stiff and when I opened my eyes again it was daylight and 8 a.m.

WEDNESDAY

     I dressed without washing and was on the bus to town in ten minutes flat. I was at the VA shortly after nine, waiting for Doc Kent. He asked, “What's the matter? That's a right colorful eye you're sporting.”

     “Got into a fight yesterday—case of mistaken identity, on the other guy's part, but I got a pounding around the chest. And later in the night I was walking around the house in the nude and... eh... there was an open door and I was in a draft for quite a long time.” I realized how stupid it all sounded.

     Kent looked at me as though I was making it all up. “Coughing?”

     “No.”

     He stuck a thermometer in my mouth, took my pulse. Then he read the thermometer, said, “Normal. So is your pulse. What was wrong?”

     “Well, nothing was wrong, but, after all that I thought...?”

     “Thought what? How do you feel?”

     “Okay, I guess... But I...”

     “Then what are you running to me for? Get this Ranzino, I know all about your case—interested me so I made a point of studying it. I'm here to help you, but don't make a pest of yourself. Remember, there's nothing wrong with you now—you've had TB. While this office is always open to you, there's no need of running here every time you take a fast breath or...”

     “Okay, Doc, cut the lecture. Sorry I disturbed you.”

     “It isn't a question of disturbing me. Frankly, you're as big and healthy as a horse. While I wouldn't advise you to go in for marathon running at the moment, or anything that places an abnormal strain on your body, there isn't a damn thing wrong with you. If you'll simply regain confidence in yourself, in your body and...”

     “So long, Doc, you should use slides with your talks,” I said, walking out of his office. I cashed Saxton's check and the teller said, “See they solved the murder. Can't believe Mr. Wilson would do something like that, but got to hand it to the police—fast work!”

     “They been great since Buck Rogers joined the force.”

     “Who?”

     “Hopalong Cassidy,” I said, counting the money on the way out. I felt better on the bus back to White Beach, felt I really must be getting healthy if I didn't show anything after last night. Of course I didn't pay any attention to the doc's pep line about me being well, normal, that was a standard pitch.

     By half past ten I was back in my room, undressed, and in bed, resting as I read the morning papers. Wilson's suicide was all over the headlines but I only read the comics and the sports page. After a while I heard Mady get up, the flush of water in the bathroom, and then she was in the kitchen and in my doorway. She had a light red housecoat on and looked fresh for a babe who must be well hung over. There was a kind of Mona Lisa, cat-like expression on her face, the large mouth forming a real smile as she said, “Good morning, lazy. Where'd you get the papers?”

     “I've been up and into town and back. Didn't you hear me?”

     “I could sleep through an air raid, especially when I'm sleeping off a gutful.”

     “What time did you wake up Sunday, morning or afternoon?”

     She stared at me, her eyes suspicious. “Why?”

     “Forget it, the detective in me slips out now—and then. Seen the papers?” I spread the front page out for her and she sat on the edge of the bed, read the headlines.

     “Doesn't seem possible. Mr. Wilson was always so lively and gay—nothing phony about him. And here he murdered his wife and killed himself. I can't believe it.”

     “Neither can I. Did Wilson and Saxton get along okay?”

     “Far as I knew. Mr. Saxton always spoke highly of him and...”

     “Mister Saxton?” I grinned and she threw the papers down, asked, “Why the cross-examination? I told the cops everything I...”

     “You're right, no point in talking about a dead case. Skip it. You look very pretty.”

     “Do I? Didn't I look pretty yesterday?”

     “Not as pretty as you do now.”

     She stared at me, an amused expression on her face, then she giggled like a kid. “Did I give you that shiner?”

     “Nope.”

     She stood up. “Tell you what I will give you, roomer, a whopping breakfast—on the house. A deal?”

     “You've sold me.”

     She went back to the kitchen and I put on the blue army robe I'd swiped from the hospital, the only thing about the hospital I'd liked. She had orange juice on the table, was whipping up some eggs. I sat down and she said, “You're lucky that I have eggs. Way prices are, nobody has to worry about dieting.”

     She gave me some whole-wheat toast to butter and I went to work. She put the eggs in the frying pan, said, “We make a cozy little scene. By the way, I gather I was potted last night. How did I get to bed?”

     “I walked you there.”

     “That explains my dream—I dreamed you were making love to me.”

     “Why don't you stop it?”

     “Stop what?”

     “Those double-meaning cracks, the sexy chatter. You don't have to prove anything to me I...”

     “Who the hell's proving anything?” she asked, voice high with anger. “You men and your lousy conceit! Let a man tell a girl she has a nice shape, that he dreamed he was laying her... he's supposed to be manly. But if a woman says that, she isn't being womanly, only a slut! That's bull—”

     “And you don't have to prove how tough you are either,” I added.

     She strode over to the table and I watched the graceful movements of her body under the robe as she walked. “Will you stop telling me I have to prove anything to you! And if I want to be tough—hard as any man—what about it?”

     “Look, baby, don't give me a pitch on women's rights. I agree with you, but...”

     “But what?”

     “Cork the tough talk, it's...”

     “Maybe I like to talk tough,” she said.

     “Okay, okay, but in some things women aren't the equal of men, or men the equal of women. For instance, you have more vulnerable parts to your body than I have. But more desirable parts.”

     “Cut the coy bunk. The average man is as soft as a woman, is tough only because he assumes he's tough, born to believe it, or he packs a gun or a knife or...”

     “Why don't you stop talking like a dope?” I asked. “Maybe I'm nuts, but America is becoming tough-punchy. In the movies a guy can't romance a gal without slapping her around; in the so-called comic books, violence is a big laugh. Even kids—little ones—go around packing toy guns. Toughness has become a... a... a virtue, like honesty. When we going back to normal? Think of peace and love between people, stop trying so hard to be a nation of Humphrey Bogarts!”

     “Who puts on the tough act—you men! You big big heroes going off to war, to glory and adventure, while we're supposed to stay home and keep the home fires burning. Let me tell you something: you give us the worst end of the stick! It's tougher staying here, sick with worry and fear. When you men die, your life is over but we're the ones who have to go on living broken lonely lives, or...”

     I stood up and shook her. “Damn it, stop all this talk about glory and war! You think we were playing a game over in Korea? It was dirty, brutal, the worst lousy nightmare I.... Stop talking about it!”

     We stood like that for a moment, my hands on her shoulders, excited by her nearness, and then I took her in my arms and kissed her—above the mouth, I didn't want to give her any bugs—but she moved her lips over mine in a hard, complete kiss. Then she began to struggle and I held her and she said, “Take your arms away! You think because I talk and joke about it, that I'm easy, a push-over...!”

     “Mady will you stop all this silly talk? If you were deaf and dumb, never opened your trap, I'd want you. I know this is quick, but what's the point of delaying anything? Can't you see we're alike as can be? Both hurt by the war, both trying hard to get hold of something once more, both adrift. We're past the candy and flowers, the dates, all the normal stuff... we're too late for that.”

     She stared at me with wet eyes, then burst into tears. I hugged her tightly, aware of the softness of her body, as she whispered in my ear, “Oh, Matt, I do like you... and it has to work. I don't know, nobody... understands me. I've only had two men in my life, Billy and Saxton. With Saxton I was always humiliated, made to feel I...”

     “Forget it, I'm not Saxton.”

     “I know, darling, I know,” she said, and covered my face with little kisses that drove me crazy. “You're honest and true, real, like my Billy. He....”

     “Cut that too. This is all new, for both of us, starting from now. I'm nobody but Matt Ranzino, like nobody else and.... Honey, don't you think we're talking too much?”

     It was early in the afternoon when we finally got around to the eggs and orange juice. I was too happy to worry about my lungs, whether all the wonderful energy I'd used up with her would hurt me. And although I didn't know why, could hardly believe it, I had a deep sense of peace and relaxation being with Madeline. She wasn't just another girl to me. Okay, I didn't believe it either, but that was it.

     After we ate we went back to bed and when I was lying there, full of that happy tired feeling, she told me about Saxton.

     This goon didn't know what he had in Mady—could think of her only as an easy lay, treated her like a whore... although she must have offered him a sincere love... at the start. As she whispered, “At first I liked him, he was older, steady, and I didn't have anybody to turn to. I wasn't a romantic kid, didn't think of it as love, but... we could have been good friends. Then... he made me feel dirty. It's a horrible feeling to feel ashamed of yourself. He saw me only when he wanted me, had me quit my job because he knew I'd be dependent upon him.... Would toss me a few bucks now and then, send out a couple of bottles before he'd come, so I'd be liquored up. He sent those bottles last night.”

     “He was here. I threw him out,” I lied.

     “He came here? I'm glad you threw him out. I don't know what came over me, why I stood it. I must have been crazy. When the murder happened, the police and the reporters bothering me made me snap out of it. I told him we were through. It all sounds so.... wrong and stupid... now, but it seemed so easy to take a few drinks and forget everything. When things became too clear, all I had to do was reach for a bottle—reality went down with the chaser. But that's over. I'll find a job, get back into the routine of living again. I'll get off the bottle...”

     “Sure you will, honey, you're a long ways from being a rummy,” I said, trying to make it sound true.

     “Matt, don't leave me. What I mean: I don't know if marriage is for us, but if it isn't, don't leave me for a long time. I need you. Need you to... to lean on, feel I have something worth living for... to...”

     “Don't talk about it. You and me both, we'll lean all over each other,” I told her.

     We slept for a while and once I remember telling her about my being a physical instructor in World War II, volunteering for Korea because I wanted to see action... told her about the Korea I knew, before the Chinese came in, before the great battles and retreats. Somehow, it was good to get it all off my chest, tell her about the leveled villages—villages which hadn't been much to start with—the burned and frozen bodies, about the almost naked people facing the fierce winter, living in caves like animals. How you saw an entire area burned black by a jelly-gasoline bomb, and American boys splattered over a rice paddy.

     I tried to explain what it felt like to be surrounded on all sides by people hating you—the very people we were fighting for—without them ever asking us in. Like in all wars, it was the civilians who got the worst deal. I managed to even tell her about the time I was on the side of... of... that hill, the rice paddies below us laid out so neat, like a draftsman had cut up the ground. And then these people came struggling along the road toward us, blurry figures in white.

     I was scared stiff they were infiltrating guerillas... we'd been told again and again not to take any chances.... I yelled at them.... Maybe I didn't yell loud enough, maybe they didn't hear me... and in any case they couldn't understand me. Finally I opened up with the sub-machine gun. Later, when we advanced, I passed them... two old women, a very old man with a feathery white beard and a crazy square black formal hat, and a couple of kids, a boy and a girl not over ten or eleven. I stared at their dead bullet-torn bodies and my insides turned over.

     I kept thinking: I've shot down women and kids! Maybe the air boys never saw what their bombs did, but this was what I'd done. I kept brooding about it, told myself it was all an accident... but I kept seeing those dead bodies. Fighting was one thing, but kids and women.... Afterwards, when we dug in, I blacked out and three days later I came to in a Tokyo hospital, started to run the fever that puzzled the hell out of the docs—till finally the bug showed up in my sputum.