Pacific Interlude (37 page)

The ironic voice rang with disbelief.

“Yes,” Paul said.

The eye studied them for a moment before the door was closed sharply. There was the jingle of the chain and then it opened wide. A girl of perhaps eighteen or twenty stood there as though poised for flight, but then changed her mind and backed against a wall. She wore a black short-sleeved dress, and her right arm was in a black silk sling. Her face and arms were shockingly bruised, but she was still a very pretty girl, obviously Eurasian. Her eyes glittered with fear, and defiance.

“If you're going to arrest me, you might as well get it over with—”

“We just want to look at the
jewelry,”
Syl said. “We're not going to arrest you. We're from an American ship.”

“Oh,” she said, her whole tense little body beginning to relax. “They are arresting many people. I was afraid …”

“We saw your sign,” Schuman said.

“Of course …” She forced a smile. “We never know what to expect these days …”

“Why are they arresting people?” Buller said.

She shrugged. “They look for people who worked with the Japs. It is not a secret. This restaurant served the Japanese. Everybody knows it.” She shrugged again, a gesture which seemed to mix despair with defiance, before adding, “So you really want to see the jewelry? I have many beautiful things, very good prices.”

From a fold in her sling she drew out a key and turned to open a closet door. It was a drab room containing nothing but a cot and a table, but there was a kind of indestructible quality, a dignity about this battered girl, like that of a broken figurine. When she turned, holding a teak box against her narrow waist with her one good hand, the black sling that covered her right breast tightened the cotton dress over the other. Syl wondered whether she had an exceptionally graceful body or whether he had just been at sea so long that anything in skirts looked beautiful and desirable.

“I always heard that the Filipino girls are the best looking,” Buller said. “Lady, you make me believe it, even if this restaurant served old Tojo himself.”

Her smile was generous despite her bruised cheeks and forehead.

“My father was American,” she said. “My mother's father was Spanish. We are not political. We have never been political. We just ran a restaurant, a very good restaurant, and when the Japanese came, my mother could not say, ‘So sorry, but no Japs served.' Why doesn't anybody understand that?”

As she talked she put the box on the table and took a small key from a string around her neck. When she tried to insert it with one hand the box moved, and Syl held it steady for her. Opening it, she took out a package of white tissue paper, put it on the table and with her free hand unwrapped it. Finally she held up a glistening amber necklace.

“Real amber,” she said as she dangled it under the sunlight streaming through a small window. “Very old. It was my mother's. It came from Spain more than a hundred years ago.”

“It's beautiful,” Schuman said. “Are you sure you want to sell it?”

In the poor room in that wrecked building, the question sounded ridiculous, and Schuman looked embarrassed.

“We need much money to start the restaurant again if the authorities will let us,” she said. “Everything must go. We have many beautiful things …”

She took a jade bracelet from the box.

“Real jade,” she said, holding it up. Her fingernails were long and had once been manicured with clear lacquer, but two were now broken and the shiny polish remained only in spots. It was still a very delicate hand, like a piece of sculpture itself, Syl thought.

“How much are you asking for this stuff?” Buller said.

Her face stiffened. “I don't want to ask too much, but this is very high quality jade,” she said. “I shouldn't let it go for too little …”

“It's a lovely piece,” Schuman said. “So is the amber necklace. I think that might be just the thing for my mother.”

“The amber is special,” she said, holding it up to the sunlight again. “Look in the middle bead, the biggest one.”

She handed it to Schuman.

“A fly caught in amber!” he said, squinting as he held it up to the light. “I've heard of that, but this is the first time I've seen one—”

“It's not really a fly,” she said. “It looks more like a flea or a cross between a flea and a spider. A teacher told me once it might be some extinct kind of bug, the last of its kind.”

“A real survivor,” Syl said.

Buller said, “How much for the jade bracelet?”

She took a deep breath before saying, “A hundred dollars? American money?”

“Too much,” Buller said. “It's too small for any of my girls anyway, wouldn't fit over an average-size hand.”

“Ah, but it opens, there is a concealed catch, very clever.” With her one hand she could not open the catch. She handed it to Buller, who fumbled with his thick fingers before passing to Syl. “I can't figure it out,” Buller said, “but even if it opens, a hundred is still too much. I can pick that kind of stuff up in New Orleans for twenty-five.”

Syl found the catch, made of intricately worked gold. “I don't think a hundred is too much.”

“Hey, don't bid against me,” Buller said.

“Is this an auction? The lady set a price, I'm paying it.”

“You'll take it?” she said, sounding incredulous.

“Sure. Maybe it will make up for all the letters I haven't written home.”

Syl reached for his wallet and gave her five twenty-dollar bills.

“Thank
you
,” she said, looking carefully at each bill before rolling them up and tucking them into her black sling. She tried not to grin too broadly.

“How much for the amber?” Schuman asked.

“A hundred dollars?”

“I'll take it if you'll accept Australian money,” he said. “A bank can change it for you.”

“I'll take it!” Her eyes gleamed with delight.

“You guys are some businessmen,” Buller said with disgust. “Don't you know you're supposed to bargain?”

“I think it's worth the price,” Schuman said, picking up the necklace. “Good amber doesn't come cheap, with or without the last bug of its kind.”

“You got anything else?” Buller asked.

Her face grew tense. “One more thing, but it is very expensive. A real diamond.”

“Let's see it.”

She opened a small drawer at the bottom of the box and with slightly trembling fingers took out a flat box of flaking leather. Syl had to help her with the catch. When he opened the lid, a single diamond in the middle of a gold brooch gleamed on matted black velvet.

“That is something,” Schuman said. “How many karats?”

“I don't know,” she said, holding it up to the light, where it flashed brilliantly.

“Two karats, maybe three, I'd guess. That really ought to be worth something.”

“
If
” it's real,” trusting man-of-the-people Buller said.

“Of
course
it is real. I don't cheat you—”

“How much you want for it?” Buller asked.

“How much do you offer?”

“I'll give you two hundred for it and I'm not even sure it's real—”

“It's worth much more than that,” Syl said.

“Skipper, you're
no
help.”

“You wouldn't want to cheat the lady, would you? Paul, how much do you think that things's worth?”

“At least a thousand, maybe much more if it's a perfect stone.” Schuman examined the diamond. “The whole brooch is beautiful. It looks very old.”

“Was it your mother's?” Syl asked.

“Yes,” she said, perhaps a shade too fast. “How much will you give me?”

“I'd offer fifteen hundred if I had the money but I don't,” Schuman said and shrugged. “I'm sorry.”

“You got it,” Syl said. “Take the rest of that Aussie money back.”

“I gave it to you, to your welfare fund—”

“Take it back. You won it fair and square.”

“Are you talking about the dough
I
lost?”

“That's right, Buller,” Syl said.

“I feel pretty strange about it,” Schuman said. “I don't like to be an Indian giver but now I'm going home … That stone might be worth a lot more than fifteen hundred dollars, do you realize that, young lady?”

“I will take fifteen hundred. I need money now.”

“Go ahead, buy it,” Syl said. “I don't like having all that cash in my cabin anyway, and if I give it to the men they'll probably just buy the same kind of trouble they bought in Brisbane.”

“That wasn't so bad,” Buller said, but he looked faintly uncomfortable.

“All right, I'll do it,” Schuman said. “Let's go back to the ship and get the money.”

“I'll stay here,” Buller said. “Do you have any more stuff for sale, honey?”

“Only small things …” She put an ivory bracelet and a thin gold chain on the table.

“I'll look at this stuff,” Buller said. “See you when you get back.”

“We all better go,” Syl said quickly. “We'll have to pick up another load of gas before we come back. What's your name, miss?”

“Mary O'Brian,” she said, looking uneasy. “When are you coming back?”

“About three hours—we have work to do, but we'll be back. My name's Syl Grant …” He introduced the others. Schuman paid her for the amber necklace.

“You are my good luck!” she said. “Now if they'll give me a license, I can open up this place again!”

Syl and Paul Schuman pocketed their gems and all three walked down the stairs.

“What's the matter, skipper?” Buller said as they reached the street. “Were you afraid to leave me up there with her alone?”

“We've got to go get another load.”

“You had your eye on her and didn't want me beating your time,” Buller said with a laugh. “Don't deny it …”

“You weren't exactly making friends with her—”

“She was cheating you guys blind. Don't you know a smart little whore when you see one?”

“What makes you so sure she's a whore?” Syl said.

“Hell, she thought we were going to arrest her. Either she stole that stuff or the Japs gave it to her. She was probably some colonel's private stock. But she's no ordinary street girl … I'll give her that.”

“I'm sure she'd be glad to hear it,” Syl said.

“Look, don't get me wrong … I liked her too but I
understand
her. She may have sold you a piece of glass, Paul, but you at least ought to get a good piece of ass along with it if you play your cards right—”

“For God's sake, she's been beaten up—”

“That won't hurt unless you just want to shake hands with her. The part that bugs me about this is that you're taking my money to buy a girl I want so bad I can taste her. Well, at least it'll teach me not to drink the next time I play poker with you …”

When they got back to the ship Simpson and Cramer met them at the gangway.

“The major was just here, skipper,” Simpson said. “They've got enough of the wrecks cleared to let the big tankers move in. They want us to go to Lingayen Gulf right away—another shuttle run.”

“And we never even got a chance to go ashore here!” Cramer groaned.

Syl said nothing and went to his cabin, put Schuman's money in a manila envelope that had carried his last convoy instructions.

“Here are your orders,” he said with a grin as he handed it to Schuman. “I wish you luck.”

“He's already got all the luck,” Buller said. “He gets to give my money to a prize piece of ass while we're off to shuttle more gas. I hear there ain't even a bar at Lingayen Gulf.”

Syl ignored him … “Paul, I hope we can all get together after this thing is over.”

“I'll want a blow-by-blow description of what my money gets you from Mata Hari,” Buller said. He actually leered.

“I've got to go back to that troopship in a couple of days,” Schuman said. “You know … it's crazy, but in a way I wish I were sailing with you guys.”

“If you're that crazy it's really time you went home,” Syl said, clapped his old friend on the back and after a final handshake, watched him walk toward the street with the brown envelope under his right arm.

“Ready to get underway, skipper,” Simpson said.

“Very well. Set a course for Lingayen Gulf.”

Here we go again …

CHAPTER 29

I
T WAS ONLY
about a hundred and ninety miles, a twenty-four-hour run, to Lingayen Gulf, the bay in which the invasion of Luzon had been launched. The fighting was now over there, and Syl could tell the men that they were to have a few days without needing to worry about enemy action.

The crew of the
Lucky Eighteen
did not feel so lucky during their short voyage, though. The ship had visited Manila, the so-called Pearl of the Orient, and only the officers had been allowed to go ashore. Cramer and some of the men still blamed Willis for this.

The unhappiness of the crew had deeper causes as well. There was a curious feeling of letdown after the action they'd seen, fear of more, but a more intense resentment of boredom while they were waiting for it. The men had already picked up rumors of further invasions and they studied small-scale charts, guessing whether Formosa, Okinawa or the islands farther off shore would be the next stepping stones on the way to Japan. Syl was not the only man aboard who worried about the weaknesses of the hull, the possibility of typhoons on any long voyage and the fact that the Japanese were more and more resorting to mass suicide attacks.

The crew's discontent increased when they discovered that the village of San Fernando on Lingayen Gulf, where they were to supply storage tanks and barges for an airstrip, had nothing to offer but one native bar off-limits to all military personnel. The only good part of this duty was that it was relatively unhurried. The ship could keep current air traffic supplied by shuttling gasoline from the merchant tanker only in the daytime and could anchor at night.