long?”
“Since’t last September.”
“Ever met her in the flesh?”
“No, sir, this here’ll be the first time.”
“That’s terrific.”
“She’s going to come back and live on the farm with me. She’s tired of city ways, she says.”
I took a closer look at the old gent. His suit was out of date, but it had been a good one when it was made, and a heavy gold chain hung from his coat. “Say, you don’t know the time, do you? My watch stopped.”
He reached for that chain and, as I expected, out came a solid gold watch bigger than a silver dollar. “Nine twenty, just about.”
“Thanks. So how’d you get in touch with this gal?”
“One of them lonely hearts correspondence clubs. We had a whole mess of interests in common. Gin rummy, for a start. Stamps, for another.”
“I used to collect stamps,” I said.
“It’s a wholesome hobby. I also breed horses, Morgans, and turns out she’s loved horses her whole life and hasn’t had a chance to be around ’em.”
“Good for her,” I said, feeling a little sorry for the horny old bastard across from me.
“Course my daughters and sons-in-laws are dead set against it. Afraid I’ll leave the farm and the money to her and not them. Well, sir, if they don’t treat her like a mother, then that’s just what’ll happen.”
I gathered that part of his desire to remarry was the idea that he’d missed out on something the first time around. “Fern was a mean woman, and her daughters are all three mean and crabbed as she was. I’ll tell you something on the QT. I was married to that woman thirty-seven miserable years, and she only let me make a woman out of her eight times, and the last three of those was by force. I didn’t care no more about it, I was done with her. When she hanged herself, you know what I said? Good.”
He leaned forward, the multitude of tracks outside signaling our imminent arrival at KC’s Union Station.
SIX
THE FRIENDS OF TOM PENDERGAST
S INCE THE VISIT was a surprise anyway I decided to grab a taxi and go straight to Vickie’s place in Westport. It was a hell of a lot colder than it had been in Wichita, and the cabbie laughed when I mentioned it. “Yeah, yesterday fooled you. You thought it was really springtime, didn’t you? Big arctic front coming down from Canada. Snowing in Chicago right now, is what it says on the radio.”
“You don’t say.”
“Could have some here tonight. And yesterday it got up into the high sixties.”
He was about my age and looked to be in sound health. “Let me ask you something, buddy. You in the war?”
“Sure was,” he said. “You?”
“Yeah. Miss it?”
He looked at me in the rear view mirror like I was either kidding or crazy. “Hell, no. I never had a worse time in my damn life than in the lousy goddamn Navy. There’s a petty officer I came damn close to killing. If I thought there was any chance of getting away with a murder on a United States aircraft carrier I by God would have done it, too, no regrets.”
I almost laughed; there was the Navy for you. An Army man would have figured out a way, and a Marine would have just killed the son of a bitch and damn the consequences.
IT HADN’T OCCURRED to me in the slightest that Vickie might be less than thrilled to find me standing there all chipper and horny on her welcome mat.
“Jesus, Wayne, don’t you ever send a telegram or anything?” She looked worse than I’d ever seen her look, which was still a cut above most women. Puffy-eyed, her hair a wreck, no makeup, and wearing just a tattered bathrobe, she gave me an up and down that, while still disapproving, was moving into the realm of the friendly. “You know perfectly goddamn well I work nights.”
“I could use some shuteye myself,” I said. “I only slept an hour or two on the train.”
“No, huh-uh. I need to sleep, and I mean sleep and nothing else.”
“How about I crash on the couch?”
“Nuh-uh. You be on your way. You’re
“Since’t last September.”
“Ever met her in the flesh?”
“No, sir, this here’ll be the first time.”
“That’s terrific.”
“She’s going to come back and live on the farm with me. She’s tired of city ways, she says.”
I took a closer look at the old gent. His suit was out of date, but it had been a good one when it was made, and a heavy gold chain hung from his coat. “Say, you don’t know the time, do you? My watch stopped.”
He reached for that chain and, as I expected, out came a solid gold watch bigger than a silver dollar. “Nine twenty, just about.”
“Thanks. So how’d you get in touch with this gal?”
“One of them lonely hearts correspondence clubs. We had a whole mess of interests in common. Gin rummy, for a start. Stamps, for another.”
“I used to collect stamps,” I said.
“It’s a wholesome hobby. I also breed horses, Morgans, and turns out she’s loved horses her whole life and hasn’t had a chance to be around ’em.”
“Good for her,” I said, feeling a little sorry for the horny old bastard across from me.
“Course my daughters and sons-in-laws are dead set against it. Afraid I’ll leave the farm and the money to her and not them. Well, sir, if they don’t treat her like a mother, then that’s just what’ll happen.”
I gathered that part of his desire to remarry was the idea that he’d missed out on something the first time around. “Fern was a mean woman, and her daughters are all three mean and crabbed as she was. I’ll tell you something on the QT. I was married to that woman thirty-seven miserable years, and she only let me make a woman out of her eight times, and the last three of those was by force. I didn’t care no more about it, I was done with her. When she hanged herself, you know what I said? Good.”
He leaned forward, the multitude of tracks outside signaling our imminent arrival at KC’s Union Station.
SIX
THE FRIENDS OF TOM PENDERGAST
S INCE THE VISIT was a surprise anyway I decided to grab a taxi and go straight to Vickie’s place in Westport. It was a hell of a lot colder than it had been in Wichita, and the cabbie laughed when I mentioned it. “Yeah, yesterday fooled you. You thought it was really springtime, didn’t you? Big arctic front coming down from Canada. Snowing in Chicago right now, is what it says on the radio.”
“You don’t say.”
“Could have some here tonight. And yesterday it got up into the high sixties.”
He was about my age and looked to be in sound health. “Let me ask you something, buddy. You in the war?”
“Sure was,” he said. “You?”
“Yeah. Miss it?”
He looked at me in the rear view mirror like I was either kidding or crazy. “Hell, no. I never had a worse time in my damn life than in the lousy goddamn Navy. There’s a petty officer I came damn close to killing. If I thought there was any chance of getting away with a murder on a United States aircraft carrier I by God would have done it, too, no regrets.”
I almost laughed; there was the Navy for you. An Army man would have figured out a way, and a Marine would have just killed the son of a bitch and damn the consequences.
IT HADN’T OCCURRED to me in the slightest that Vickie might be less than thrilled to find me standing there all chipper and horny on her welcome mat.
“Jesus, Wayne, don’t you ever send a telegram or anything?” She looked worse than I’d ever seen her look, which was still a cut above most women. Puffy-eyed, her hair a wreck, no makeup, and wearing just a tattered bathrobe, she gave me an up and down that, while still disapproving, was moving into the realm of the friendly. “You know perfectly goddamn well I work nights.”
“I could use some shuteye myself,” I said. “I only slept an hour or two on the train.”
“No, huh-uh. I need to sleep, and I mean sleep and nothing else.”
“How about I crash on the couch?”
“Nuh-uh. You be on your way. You’re
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