The Hour of the Innocents by Robert Paston

Author:Robert Paston
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

FIFTEEN

Framed by snow flurries, my visitor looked like an undercover narc: hair timidly shaggy, jeans pressed, leather jacket too new, complexion too healthy.

“Will Cross?”

I nodded. Was he going to read me my rights?

“Sorry to bother you. I’m trying to link up with Matthew Tomczik. His mother sent me to his friend Stanley. He told me Matt might be here.”

It took me a blink to remember that Stosh’s legal name was Stanley.

“Matty’s not here,” I told him, with the Blues Project on the stereo behind me. “He went to Philly.”

“When do you expect him back?”

The guy’s stiffness reeked of cop or some other form of officialdom. He was trying to kill the taint, but it wouldn’t die.

“Look, I don’t know who you are. Or why you’re here asking me questions about Matty.”

Wounded eyes, downcast face. As if he had blundered badly in a foreign language.

“Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.” He held out his hand. “Larry Masters. I’m a friend of Matt’s. Or maybe I should just say ‘acquaintance.’ We served together in Vietnam. I’ve been traveling around, visiting a few of the guys, and I wanted to look him up.”

His demeanor had broken and changed. Awkwardly earnest, he became a bareheaded pilgrim on a winter journey.

There was room at the inn. And the innkeeper had questions.

“Come on in,” I said. “I’m not sure why he went to Philly, but he’ll be back by evening. We have a songwriting session.”

My visitor stepped inside, wiping his nose with a well-pressed, whiter-than-snow handkerchief. He brightened. “He’s playing music, then? Everything worked out? Does he have a band?”

* * *

Al Kooper wailed through “Wake Me, Shake Me.” I lowered the volume.

“Groovy music,” my guest commented.

If any serious human being had ever used the word groovy, it had been at least two years earlier. But there was something so earnest about Larry Masters that I couldn’t bring myself to be a smart-ass.

“I was going to make myself a sandwich,” I told him. “Want one?”

“That’d be great. If I’m not imposing.”

In the warmth, he began to shiver.

“Take the chair by the radiator,” I said.

He smiled. “I’m still not used to the cold. I guess you can tell. That’s a nice Christmas tree.”

Wary of being suspected of sentimentality, I just shrugged and lit the stove, then pulled a ring of Dutchie sausage from the refrigerator. As I sliced the meat for frying, I said, “I met another one of Matty’s buddies. Couple of months back. Little spade dude. Doc Something-or-other.”

“Doc Carley.”

“Yeah.”

“Old Doc. I tried to get him a Silver Star.” He snorted. “Battalion wouldn’t even approve an ARCOM. Sergeant Major just hated him.”

“Redneck?”

“No. Sergeant Major Jefferson’s a Negro. But old school. He’d just go nuts whenever Doc pulled one of his Black Power stunts. Terrific field soldier, though. Doc, I mean. Braver than I ever was.”

“I hear Matty was pretty brave.”

Flipping the meat in the frying pan, I heard my visitor shift in his chair behind me. “I’ll bet he never told you that himself.”

“No. Doc mentioned it. Coffee? A beer?”

He thought about it.

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