Eureka (44 page)

CHAPTER 42

I drove back to the house, made a big fuss over Rosie, and gave him two cans of dog food and an extra bone. I kept my arm out of the shower so the bandage wouldn't get wet, then dressed in my best navy slacks and blue shirt. I stopped by the drugstore and picked up the most expensive bottle of champagne they had, and went next door to the toy store to get a tin bucket, the kind kids take to the beach. There was a little girl, no more than eight or nine, selling roses on the corner. Ten cents apiece. She had sixteen left. I bought them all and gave her five bucks. I thought she was going to cry.

It was getting dusk when I turned into Millie's drive.

She opened the door before I got to it.

“Hi,” I said, “I happened to be in the neighbor . . .”

She didn't let me finish. She pulled me in the house and put the roses and the pail with the champagne on a table near the door and she kissed my cheeks and my lips, and then took the pail and led me up the stairs and into her bathroom. She turned on the faucets to the tub and poured in a bottle of bubble bath. She unbuttoned my shirt slowly, kissing my chest as she did. She unzipped my pants and pulled them down, and sat me down on the edge of the tub and took off my shoes and socks. Then she slowly unbuttoned her shirt and let it fall on the floor, and slipped off her tennis shorts and panties. She stuck a toe in the water, eased herself down into the bubbles, then took my hands and led me into the tub facing her.

Then she noticed the bandage.

“My God, what happened?” she said with alarm.

“Later,” I said. “How about the champagne?”

“Later,” she murmured.

I settled into the tub and she slipped her legs around my hips and took my arm and gently kissed the wound.

“How bad is it?” she asked softly.

“Well,” I whispered, “I think it may have ruined my dreams of becoming a concert pianist.”

She locked her legs around me and slid me to her.

“Thank God,” she whispered in my ear. “I hate Chopin.”

EPILOGUE

1946

Bannon got a card from Brodie Culhane once while he was overseas. Christmas, 1944. He was in some little town in Normandy. He didn't remember its name. There wasn't enough left to remember.

“I know how it is at Christmas,” Brodie had written. “I'll think of you and hoist a glass of Irish Mist. One cube, please. Take care of yourself, Cowboy.” It was signed “Santa C.”

It had reached Bannon on January third, but it was the thought that counted.

Not a word since, except the card he had received two days ago. And now he was driving down the hill into San Pietro as he had five years before. Nothing had changed except the trees were a little taller and there was a different movie playing at the theater and Max and Lenny weren't riding herd on him.

He had said very little on the drive up, and the night before he had sat out by the pool, soaking his leg and rereading the file he had kept through the years. It was in a footlocker he had left with her when he went off to the army. He hadn't paid any attention to the old locker until he got the card, when they got back from their honeymoon.

He read it, showed it to her, then went down in the storm cellar, opened the trunk, and dug it out.

A closed case to everyone but you, Zee,
Millicent had thought.

She didn't ask him about it and they had talked little about the old file on the trip up, but she knew that there were questions in its yellowing pages that had gnawed at him since he had come back from San Pietro that last time. She had sat quietly with her hand on his leg, watching the foothills grow into mountains.

He was going to find the answers.

He took a left at the bottom of the hill, drove up to The Breakers, and parked in front of the entrance.

The valet was a sharp little noodle in a tailored uniform, hair slicked back and a solicitous smile on his face. The closer he got to the car, the more the smile changed from con man to awe. He stopped beside the car and ran the flat of his hand very lightly across the hood.

“Fine,” he said. “Italian paint job.”

He backed up about six feet, checked her out, and came back.

“Twelve cylinders. Speedometer top: one-sixty.”

“Close. One-eighty,” Bannon said.

“British leather and I'll bet she's got a Sternberg radio in the dash.”

“Muellenberg.”

He whistled low with great appreciation.

“You think you could find a place to park this baby so she don't get dinged up or get a door scratched?” Bannon said as he struggled out of the driver's seat. The kid walked over to help him and he handed the youngster his cane.

“I can handle it,” Zeke said. “Hold on to this for me.” He got out and took the cane, then the kid ran around to the other side of the car and opened the door for Millie. She was stunning as always, dressed in pastel colors: a pale blue skirt and a pink blouse, and she was wearing a yellow straw hat, its brim flopping down around her ears, with her silken hair sweeping over her shoulders. The kid was dazzled. He forgot the car for a minute as he helped her down to the running board and onto the walk. Then he bowed from the waist.

“Thank you,” she said, and flashed him a million-dollar smile. Bannon handed him a five-dollar bill but the kid shook his head.

“No, sir,” he said, looking at the two rows of ribbons on Bannon's khaki shirt. “I ought to be paying you for the privilege of driving it across the street.”

Then he ran around the front of the car, climbed aboard, and ran his hands lovingly around the oak steering wheel.

They entered the lobby, where Brett Merrill was sitting across the way. He stood up, loped across the room, and shook Bannon's hand hard enough to loosen a tooth.

“Good to see you, Zeke,” he said with a smile that lit up the soft light of the lobby. “How's the leg?”

“It's fine,” Bannon said. “I carry the cane to keep my balance. Millicent, this is Brett Merrill.”

“How do you do, Mrs. Bannon,” he said with courtly grace, and brushed the back of her hand with his lips. “What a delight to meet you.”

As always, a Southern gentleman to the core.

“Let's have a drink,” Merrill said.

They sat down in the barroom, which was an elegant recessed alcove off the main lobby. Nothing seemed to have changed in the hotel since Bannon had last seen it.

Merrill said to the waiter, “I know what the gentleman will have, unless his taste has changed. Irish Mist, neat, with one cube of ice.” And to Millicent, “What will you have, my dear?”

“Amaretto on the rocks,” she answered, her voice a startling blend of softness and strength. She reached over and held Bannon's hand. It was a gentle move, one that subtly proclaimed her affection for him. Her eyes said the rest.

When the army had sent Bannon to the hospital in San Diego, Millicent had insisted on coming to see him. He had resisted at first. He wanted to get through rehab, get himself back to together, be whole again. Get rid of the demons that follow all men home from the battlefield: guilt because he had survived when others around him had died; fear that is so real it tastes like acid in the throat.

But she had come anyway, driving down to the hospital every weekend, nursing him back with love and caring, cheering him up when he got the blues, chasing away the nightmares. The war had added a few years to Bannon's handsome features, but he seemed fit and looked well.

“The place hasn't changed,” he said, making conversation as he looked around the lobby.

“No,” Merrill answered. “It's reached that traditional stage. I have a feeling it
will
change, though. Times have changed. The old place will have to catch up.”

“That's too bad,” Millicent said. “There's something to be said for tradition, don't you think?”

“I do indeed,” Merrill answered.

“Sorry it took so long for us to get up here,” Bannon said. “That last card from Brodie was in a stack of mail that was forwarded to me from the hospital. I guess it had been bouncing around APOs for a month or two. Hope he wasn't pissed that I didn't answer sooner.”

“Brodie? Never,” Merrill said.

“How's it going with him?”

“Still alive,” Merrill said with a smile. “You know Brodie. He defies the odds.” There was a catch in his voice when he said it.

“Hell, I didn't really know him at all,” said Bannon.

“Yes, you did. In some ways, maybe more than any of us. You got in his skin, and you know a lot about a person when that happens. Otherwise you wouldn't be here.”

He swallowed a couple of times and went on. “He had a heart attack last November. Actually, the day after Thanksgiving. We had breakfast together at Wendy's and we were walking up the courthouse steps. He was glad-handing everybody, as usual. All of a sudden he stopped and sat down on the steps and said, ‘I think I'm having a heart attack. I feel like my chest is gonna explode.' He was right. Massive coronary. He almost didn't come back from that one. Doc Fleming gave him a week. Then two weeks, then two months. Two months later, he gave him six more weeks, and two months after that Brodie was holding court every day out in the garden. Smoking, having a couple of drinks, everything he wasn't supposed to do. But he was going downhill fast. You could see a change every day. Yesterday, when I asked how it was going, Fleming said, ‘He's sicker than most dead people I know.' ”

Neither of them said much for a minute or two.

“You're right about Brodie, Brett,” Bannon said. “I knew him for what? Two weeks? But he stayed with me. I thought a lot about him through the years.”

“That's the way it is with the Captain.”

“It's that damned army mail system,” Bannon said angrily. “The card should've been here weeks ago.”

“He understands that. When he read Pennington's story about you getting the DSC and the Purple Heart, he did an Irish jig around the apartment. ‘And shot in the leg, just like me, wouldn't you know it!' he said. He was very proud of you. It doesn't take two weeks to measure the strength of a man.”

“How true,” Millicent Bannon said, and looked at Bannon adoringly.

A lucky man,
Merrill thought. And aloud, “Had a rough time of it, didn't you?”

“Not really,” he answered. “Most of the time I was a glorified traffic cop, moving tanks, jeeps, half-tracks, quarter-tons through bottlenecks, getting them up to the front. We were near the German border and a German Tiger tank broke through the lines. We were caught in the middle of a firefight. I drove over a mine. Next thing I remember, I was under the damn jeep, with a fifty-caliber shooting at everything that moved. We slowed the bastard down just long enough for our artillery to get its range. It didn't help win the war. Just another hour in the life of World War Two.”

“That isn't exactly the way I heard it,” said Merrill.

“That's exactly the way it happened,” Bannon said.

Merrill looked past him, smiled, and stood up.

“Here's Del,” he said.

Delilah hadn't changed a bit. Not a wrinkle, not a smile line, not a gray hair.
Maybe Grand View was sitting on top of the fountain of youth,
thought Bannon.

“Hi, hero,” she said, giving him a peck on the cheek and immediately turning her attention to his wife.

“You must be Millicent,” she said, offering her hand. Bannon watched her quick appraisal, saw the glint in her eye.
All class, that's what she's thinking.

“How are things at Grand View?” Bannon asked.

“Nothing's changed,” her dusky voice answered. “Things seemed to freeze in time during the war. You're looking fit as a fiddle, Zeke.” She looked back at Millicent with a smile. “Must be the company you keep. Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” Millicent answered. She was a bit ill at ease, like meeting in-laws for the first time, and Delilah sensed it. Then Millicent said, “I feel as if I know you all. Zee has told me a lot about you. Actually, I met him the day before he came to San Pietro for the first time.”

“We saw the announcement in the
Times
that you two tied the knot.”

“We sneaked up to Monterey and got married. Neither of us wanted a big wedding. It upset my family but they'll get over it.”

“I didn't get the card until two days ago. It's the damned army mail system . . .” Bannon started to repeat the excuse.

“That's exactly what Brodie said.”

There was a moment of awkward silence and then Delilah said, “He's out in the garden. Bring your drinks, we'll freshen them outside.”

“I have to beg off,” Merrill said. “Today's our anniversary. I'm taking Susan up to San Francisco for a week. We're going to hole up at the St. Francis, have room service, and make believe we're twenty again.”

“Congratulations,” said Millicent. “I'm sure you'll have a grand time.”

They said their goodbyes and Merrill strode out of the hotel.

“Prepare yourself,” Delilah said, leading them across the sprawling lobby and out the French doors. “He's taken a licking.”

It was a dazzling day, cloudless with a hint of wind, and the garden nestled between two wings of the hotel was a spotless oasis of emerald green grass bordered with flowers. Beyond it, the Pacific was as serene as a fish pond.

Brodie Culhane was sitting under a striped umbrella at a secluded table surrounded by acacia trees. His frame was spare. His failing heart had stripped away most of his weight and hollowed his cheeks. His skin was stretched tight over thick bones and had an almost translucent quality. His thinning hair was white as a swan.

There was a blanket over his shoulders even though it was a warm day. But though his body had betrayed him, his indomitable spirit had refused to surrender. He sat in a wheelchair, straight as a billiard cue, and his blue eyes were as alert as ever. As they approached the table, the Captain's crooked, arrogant grin brightened his withered features.

“Well, it's about damned time,” he said. His voice had lost some of its timbre but the rascally quality was still there. He turned his attention immediately to Millicent. He reached out, took her hand, and held it for a long time.

“Saw your picture in the society pages when you got married,” he said gruffly. “Beautiful, but pictures don't do you justice. No wonder it took him so long to bring you up here. Probably afraid I'd steal your heart and we'd run off together.”

“We might still,” Mil said with mischief in her smile as well.

“She dragged my sorry carcass back to the living,” Bannon said. “She wouldn't let me feel sorry for myself.”

“You're a lucky man, Cowboy.”

They sat down around the table, relaxed like old friends. Brodie's nature dispelled any sense of awkwardness. There was a small table beside him, with a bottle of Irish Mist and a sterling ice bucket sweating in the warm day. A half-dozen rolled cigarettes and a cheap lighter lay beside the bucket.

Brodie stared across the table at Zeke Bannon and saw a look he was familiar with, a look he still saw occasionally when he peered in the mirror.

“You heard them, didn't you,” he said.

“Heard what?” Bannon asked.

“You know what I mean. You heard 'em flapping on your shoulder. Lying under the jeep, you figured he was there, come to get you. I know, pal, I heard 'em, too, lying in that ditch in France. Those wings. The Angel of Death, waiting to take you. Then he just flew away, like a robin you walk up on and scare off. That's how close you came. Scared you right to the bones, didn't it?”

Bannon didn't say anything but Millie reached out and took his hand.

“Ever tell Millie?” Culhane said.

“He did,” she answered. “In his own way.”

“Fear's a hard thing to admit,” said Bannon. “I never got that close to anyone.” He looked at Delilah and added, “My loss.” He turned back to Bannon. “So? How's the leg?”