Blame the Dead

by Ed Ruggero

  “It’ll probably just drive up the cost of bolt cutters on the black market,” Harkins said.

  Two boys stood nearby watching them. Colianno said something to them, and the boys nodded and smiled, then climbed into the two front seats.

  “You hire them as guards?” Harkins asked.

  “Nah. Lookouts. There’s a fifty percent chance they’ll come and get us if someone starts messing with the jeep.”

  “Good thinking,” Harkins said. Colianno did not acknowledge the compliment.

  They went into the courtyard, where a teenage boy sat by the door at a small table with several different types of ammunition arrayed before him, the individual bullets standing on end, lined up like shiny soldiers on parade.

  “No bullets inside,” the boy said in clear English.

  Colianno, who had a carbine slung on his shoulder, said, “Keeps the GIs from shooting each other. Pretty standard in these places. Give him your rounds, Lieutenant; hang on to the weapon.”

  Colianno cleared his carbine, and Harkins pulled the magazine from his pistol, ejected the round in the chamber. The boy held out his hand and Harkins gave him the ammo. Then the boy put out his hand again.

  “He wants a tip,” Colianno explained.

  “Tell him to always wear a rubber,” Harkins said, walking by the boy.

  Colianno produced a tropical chocolate bar from the pocket of his shirt and handed it to the kid.

  “Smart thing to do, Lieutenant, would be to acknowledge that we’re on their turf, maybe do things that will make our investigation easier. Don’t you think?”

  Harkins stopped and faced Colianno. Two more GIs squeezed past them, heading inside. They could hear women chattering behind a curtain.

  “I need a translator, not a coach,” Harkins said.

  “You sure, Lieutenant? ’Cause I’m thinking you need an interpreter. I could just tell you the words people are saying, but maybe you want to know what’s really going on.”

  Harkins thought about it for a moment. “Whatever happened to privates who just shut up and do what they’re told?”

  When Colianno didn’t answer, Harkins said, “OK. Just don’t forget that it’s my ass hanging out there. I’ll decide which way we go, right?”

  “You got it, Lieutenant,” Colianno said without a trace of sincerity.

  The two men turned in to the front room of the bordello. Harkins saw a line of chairs along one wall, with eight women in scarves and tiny slips, some of them smoking, one of them picking her teeth with what looked like a hairpin. Behind them, a threadbare wall hanging showed plump women bathing in a stream. The only other attempt to relieve the dreariness of the space was a table with a red cloth and an elaborate lamp. An older woman, probably the madam, stood beside the table and chatted with the men who had gone in ahead of Harkins and Colianno. Once they agreed on a price, the GIs walked along the line of seated women and made their choices.

  After she got her other customers settled, the madam came back to where Harkins and Colianno stood waiting.

  “Salutamu, senora,” Colianno said. “Comu si?”

  The woman smiled as Colianno continued in Sicilian, then said something back to him.

  “She says she’s going to charge you more because you’re an officer,” Colianno said, grinning.

  “Tell her we’re looking for this guy, Pritchard,” Harkins said. “You have a description?”

  “Yeah. Little guy. Blond hair. Looks like he’s twelve.”

  Colianno continued talking to the madam. The woman clucked her disapproval—it was not a good business practice to identify your customers. But Colianno persisted, at one point even reaching out and taking her hand. For a moment, Harkins thought he might kiss her ring. Watching him chat up the madam, Harkins imagined that Colianno could be charming when he wasn’t in a fistfight.

  The woman turned away from them, and Colianno said, “She’s going to bring him out to us when he’s finished.”

  “He’ll run out the back,” Harkins said. He followed the woman through a curtain and up a narrow staircase. When she reached the top she turned to face Harkins, putting her hands on her hips and unleashing a torrent of Sicilian.

  Colianno was right behind Harkins. “I said we’d wait for him downstairs, Lieutenant,” he said. “That was the deal I made.”

  “Tell her to get out of my way,” Harkins said as he continued his slow climb. “Tell her I said please. Tell her I don’t want the guy running away from us.”

  Harkins could tell that Colianno was apologizing for him, and he hoped the woman stood aside by the time he reached the landing.

  She did not.

  Colianno was still talking when Harkins stepped up to the woman. He smiled at her, put his hand on her elbow, and tried one of his few Sicilian phrases.

  “Pi fauri.”

  When she didn’t move, Harkins tried English. “Please.”

  He looked over his shoulder at Colianno, who’d kept up his patter. Finally, she shifted her weight and let Harkins move her aside, though she was still muttering rapid-fire.

  Harkins went down a hallway lined with small rooms on either side. He pushed aside a curtain and saw a GI with his back to the door, pants around his knees, bony white hips rising and falling. A woman wearing a look of complete boredom looked at Harkins over her customer’s shoulder. The man, who did not match Pritchard’s description, did not turn around.

  In the second room the GI, another big man, was facing the door when Harkins lifted the curtain. “What the hell?” he said.

  “Sorry.”

  The third curtain opened as Harkins approached; Pritchard stepped out. He was about five six with straw-blond hair and fine features. He looked like a shirtless schoolboy, except for the bite marks on his neck. Behind him stood a large woman, an inch taller than Pritchard and a good thirty pounds heavier. She pulled a thin cotton robe around her ample stomach and breasts, then cooed something into Pritchard’s ear. He laughed, reached behind, and patted her rump.

  “James Pritchard?” Harkins asked.

  “Who wants to know?” Pritchard was drunk, weaving a bit.

  “We want to talk to you about Captain Stephenson,” Harkins said.

  Pritchard’s eyes went wide, and Harkins could see that he wanted to run, but he and Colianno were blocking the stairs, and he probably didn’t feel quite his athletic best. After a few seconds he gave a resigned sigh.

  “OK,” he said. “I got it right here.”

  He went back into the room, which had a slit for a window, a tiny table with an overflowing ashtray, and a lamp. Pritchard pulled his shirt off of a chair, then reached under the narrow bed and pulled out a musette bag. When he came out into the hallway he handed it to Harkins. Beneath the “US” stenciled on the side were hand-inked letters spelling “Stephenson.”

  “Downstairs,” Harkins said. Colianno turned and led the soldier down, Harkins following. When they got to the front room, Colianno had Pritchard sit to put on his shoes and shirt. The women moved out of the way.

  Harkins loosed the straps that held the musette bag closed and looked inside. There were a few rolls of American ten- and twenty-dollar bills, maybe five hundred dollars. At the bottom, a metal disk of some sort.

  “Where did you get this?” Harkins asked. Colianno stepped up and Harkins showed him the contents of the bag.

  Pritchard, still drunk but sobering up rapidly, said, “Well, Stephenson didn’t need it anymore, did he?”

  “The milk of human kindness,” Harkins said. He motioned with his thumb. “Outside.”

  Colianno led the way again, followed by Pritchard, then Harkins. They collected their ammo, then went into the street, where the two boys still sat in the jeep. One of them, who could not have been more than eight years old, was smoking an American cigarette. Colianno gave them each a pack of Lucky Strikes, threw his gear and weapon in the back, then unlocked the heavy chain. Pritchard leaned against the front of the vehicle, looking sick.

&nbs
p; “I don’t feel so good, Lieutenant,” he said. “Maybe we could do this inside?”

  “Tell me about Stephenson. Was this his money?”

  Pritchard got an idiot’s grin. “I spent a lot of it,” he said. “Was planning on working my way through about half them gals in there. The ones with teeth, anyways.”

  “Just the society girls, huh?”

  Pritchard blinked at him, then pitched forward at the waist and threw up. Harkins jumped back, but not before his shoes got splashed with wine-red bile. Colianno, standing by the driver’s side of the jeep, smiled.

  “This just ain’t your day, Lieutenant.”

  Pritchard straightened up, burped, and said, “Sorry, Lieutenant. Musta ate something didn’t agree with me.”

  “Your drove Stephenson here last night?” Harkins said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Was he meeting anybody in particular?”

  “Just them wop gals, I guess,” Pritchard said.

  Colianno stepped around the front of the jeep until he stood beside Pritchard.

  “Private Colianno here takes exception to ethnic slurs like ‘wop,’” Harkins said.

  Pritchard looked to the side and, apparently unimpressed, said, “Fuck should I care?”

  Colianno delivered a lightning backhand that split Pritchard’s lip. The private yelped like a kicked dog and staggered against the jeep.

  “Beats me,” Harkins said. “Maybe you’ll think of a reason.”

  “You gave me a bloody lip!” Pritchard complained. “You goddamn MPs!”

  “I’m not an MP,” Colianno said helpfully. “I’m a paratrooper.”

  Pritchard looked confused but a bit more eager to cooperate.

  “What were Stephenson’s instructions when you dropped him off?”

  “He told me to go away and come back in two hours.”

  “Then what?”

  “That’s it. He was drunk as a coot when I came back; I had to help him into the jeep, then into his tent.”

  “That’s when you saw where he kept the musette bag?”

  “Yeah. Yes, sir.”

  “Go on. Don’t make me drag it out of you.”

  “When I heard somebody shot him, I figured there’d be a lot of confusion, so I went to his tent. Sure enough, the bag was still there. Came here when I finished a run this evening. Figured nobody would miss me for a few hours.”

  “Jesus, that’s cold,” Colianno said.

  Harkins had heard worse. There were a lot of Pritchards in the world.

  Harkins looked into Pritchard’s eyes, which were bloodshot. He had vomit on his chin and the front of his shirt and was still pretty drunk.

  “I felt bad, you know? I mean, I drove Stephenson a couple of times. He was a bit of a wild man, a fun-times guy. But at least he didn’t hate draftees. Not like that bastard Boone.”

  Pritchard flicked his eyes to Harkins, then Colianno, as if afraid this comment might get him popped again.

  “You ever drive Colonel Boone?” Harkins asked.

  “Just once or twice. In North Africa. Treats GIs like we’re his servants. Him a degenerate gambler and all.”

  The gambling comment made Harkins think about the contents of the bag in his hand; suddenly he knew what the metal disk was. He opened the bag and fished around inside, finally pulling out a nearly flat metal plate, about seven inches in diameter. It was hard to see in the dim light from the few windows around them, but it looked like gold on one side.

  “What’s that?” Colianno asked.

  “You ever an altar boy?”

  “Sure.”

  Harkins held the dish horizontally, just below his chin.

  “A paten,” Colianno said. “For Holy Communion.”

  “What?” Pritchard asked.

  “The priest or altar boy holds it under your chin when you receive Holy Communion,” Colianno said. “That way, if the host drops, it doesn’t hit the floor. The host is sacred, so you won’t want it touching somebody’s nasty shoes.”

  “Sounds like some dago Catholic voodoo shit,” Pritchard said.

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he cringed. Colianno didn’t move, but said, “Keep it up.”

  “OK, you need to go back to your unit,” Harkins said to Pritchard. “You’re AWOL now, but by tomorrow you’ll be a deserter, and they shoot deserters.”

  Pritchard looked sad as he tucked the tails of his blouse into his pants and wiped at the vomit with filthy hands. “Listen, Lieutenant,” he said. “I promised them girls I’d be staying for a while, you know. And they sure need the money, what with their families going hungry.”

  “So?” Harkins asked.

  “So can I just get enough of that cash for another round or two? It won’t take much.”

  “Unbelievable,” Harkins said. “Get out of here before I shoot you myself.”

  Pritchard pulled himself up as straight as he could, gave a sloppy-drunk salute, then stepped into the street.

  “Make sure you’re at your unit where I can find you,” Harkins called after him.

  Pritchard just waved over his shoulder. Two women appeared at the window on the second floor, and one of them called out something to the blond soldier.

  “I’ll be back,” he told her. “Don’t go nowheres. I’ll definitely be back.”

  When Pritchard was out of sight, Colianno said, “You think Stephenson won that money from Boone?”

  “Could be,” Harkins said. “Could just as easily be from other docs.”

  “That enough of a reason for somebody to kill him?”

  “Maybe. Could be that somebody owed Stephenson more than he could pay.”

  “So that’s, what? A clue, right?”

  “Except that Stephenson’s poker buddies will just say they didn’t owe anything, or any more than this. So unless Stephenson kept an account book, we won’t know. I didn’t see anything like that in my first pass through his gear. I’m more curious about this paten. What was it doing in this bag, and what was he planning to do with it?”

  10

  2 August 1943

  2200 hours

  “What’s with you and Ronan?” Harkins asked as he slipped into the passenger side of the jeep.

  “Not sure what you mean, Lieutenant,” Colianno said.

  They rolled back into the hills to where the hospital compound was tucked into a shallow valley. The jeep’s blackout drive—tiny slits of headlamps—did nothing to light the road. There was a steady stream of slow, two-way traffic, the GI drivers calling out as they passed within a few feet of one another.

  “Kathleen—Lieutenant Donnelly—thought that you two had become close while you were on the ward. She help take care of you?”

  “She was one of the nurses, yeah. Yes, sir.”

  Colianno slowed as they passed a couple of GIs on the side of the road, picking up crates that had fallen off their truck.

  “OK, you don’t want to talk about it. I get that. I’ll bet every GI that passes through that hospital has a crush on her.”

  Nothing from Colianno. Harkins felt like a nosy parent, fishing for information. He waited.

  “They were the first American women we’d seen in months,” Colianno said at last. “Just like it was for you. That alone makes them pretty special. But at least I can talk to the local women. Most GIs can’t.”

  “So it’s not hard for you to find female company?”

  “It wouldn’t be hard, I guess, if I wasn’t spending my time chauffeuring you around.”

  “Fair enough,” Harkins said, too tired to play any more games. He fell asleep immediately, woke when Colianno grabbed him by the shirt to keep him from spilling out of the vehicle at a corner. In spite of the hard seat, the bumpy road, the sharp turns, he was in a deep slumber when they finally stopped. Harkins came to and recognized the line of three pyramidal tents up against the churchyard wall.

  “Time to get out, Lieutenant,” Colianno said.

  Harkins put his feet on the
ground, reached behind his seat for his musette bag, picked up the paperback book from the floorboard.

  “Lieutenant Donnelly said you’d be able to find a spot here to stretch out. I’ll be back at dawn.”

  When the jeep pulled away, Harkins stumbled toward the closest tent, asleep on his feet. The sides were down, but his mind was too fuzzy to recall if they’d been down earlier.

  In a pleasant dream, Kathleen Donnelly came out of the tent and took him by the hand, led him through the darkened doorway. He stood still in utter blackness, then a match strike, a halo of yellow light as someone lit a kerosene lamp.

  “Eddie, you with me?”

  Harkins woke to see Donnelly dressed in only a long T-shirt, sidelit by the lamp.

  “Hi,” Harkins said.

  She came toward him, kissed him full on the mouth. She had just brushed her teeth and tasted like something this side of heaven. She took off his helmet, his pistol belt with its holster and canteen, then helped him with his blouse and T-shirt. His boots, belt, and pants.

  “I smell really bad,” he said.

  There were two five-gallon jerrycans stenciled POTABLE WATER, a small pile of sponges, and two clean hospital hand towels. She sat him on a crate, had him lean forward until his head was over a basin on the tent’s duckboard floor, then poured water on his hair. She soaped his head, used her fingers to massage his scalp, loosen the sand and dirt, which fell to the basin when she rinsed him. They switched places, and he washed her hair, his fingertips working along the edge of her scalp, her neck, the sides of her head. At that moment he was quite sure he had never felt anything as perfect as her ears.

  She stood, lifted the T-shirt over her head, pulled down his shorts, and washed him slowly with the sponge, lathering his neck, his chest and back, his legs. The soap—of course they would have soap at a hospital, he thought—the soap was an incredible luxury. When she knelt he watched the top of her head, the wet hair, her narrow shoulders, the curve of her spine, the ridge of her vertebrae, her careful movements. She nursed him back to someplace closer to civilization, closer to the simple things they missed: chairs and tables, hot coffee and clean sheets, iced drinks, sleep.