Comfort to the Enemy (2010) by Elmore - Carl Webster 03 Leonard Read Free Book Online

at me, playing, pretending I'm a desperate character.
    Carl listened, knowing what Jurgen was going t o s ay.
    I sit at the counter, the enemy, the kraut, having my coffee, having whatever I want. But the two guys in uniform can't sit at the counter with me. They aren't allowed to because of their race.
    I think they could sit at that counter if they wanted, Carl said.
    But not at every counter in America, or use the drinking fountain and toilets reserved for whites. Jurgen said. You know what I'm talking about.
    Nazis and redneck racists were not the same in Carl's mind and he could argue the difference with Jurgen. But not today.
    I have to leave you, Carl said, get back to Tulsa to pick up my wife.
    I don't think you ever said you were married. You have children?
    Not yet, Carl said. We're waiting till she gets out of the Marines.
    Jurgen gave him a funny look.
    Carl said, Yeah, what?
    *
    He was so glad to see Louly coming along the station platform in her uniform he ran up, got his arm s a round her and they started kissing, both of them holding on to each other until Carl's hat came off and he let it go. When they parted for a breath, Louly said, you remember the time in Kansas City, we were in the car kissing away and I knocked your hat off? Not all the way off but cockeyed, and right away you had to take it off, knowing you didn't look like a cool customer the way it sat on your head? You remember that?
    Carl said, I wasn't gonna take it off this time till we got out of bed.
    You know how long from now that'll be if we're going to your dad's house? He'll ask me about the Woman Marines, but I don't get to answer. It reminds him of women insurrectionists who fought along side the Mambis in Cuba, and there were some he knew and had camped with, while I'm trying to look interested.
    We're staying here, Carl said. I used my influence and got us a suite at the Mayo for as long as we want.
    *
    She said, You really love me, don't you? The two of them lying around the hotel suite in their underwear, drinking bourbon highballs, ordering club sandwiches and potato chips from room service, smoking cigarettes, taking baths together worn out from making love, Louly lying back between his legs in the bubblebath, her head resting on his chest, telling Carl about teaching flexible gunnery to Marine radiomen who would sit behind the pilot in an SBD Dauntless dive bomber, ready to shoot down Zekes that got after them without shooting off their own tail.
    Carl said, If I was in your class, I'd see you as that redheaded big-ass Marine who looks lonely.
    Anybody tries to get close I tell him I've shot two men with two different revolvers. One, to save the life of the man I knew I would marry. For the other I was given five hundred dollars by a bankers association for shooting a bank robber in a tourist court where he was holding me against my will. Deputy Marshal Carlos Webster said stay with that and you won't go to jail. Remember?
    I remember your big brown eyes looking up a t m e.
    But it wasn't till you came to Kansas City I knew for sure you loved me. When I was going by Kitty.
    Working for Teddy, Carl said. I spoke to him on the phone yesterday about Shemane. You don't remember her?
    I told you, Louly said, I'd only heard about her. How Teddy had her kidnapped and put in a whorehouse 'cause her dad got one of Teddy's girls to move to Tulsa. Louly stopped and said, This could be the same suite they were in, when Teddy's guy shot them.
    They were up on nine, Carl said. Teddy liked Shemane a lot, didn't he?
    He liked girls, Louly said. I wouldn't mind seeing him again.
    What for?
    In my uniform. Ask him what he's doing for the war effort these days, besides getting GIs drunk.
    Carl said, I thought he knew about Shemane entertaining her German POW, but she hadn't told him. I said to Teddy he ought to let her know what they're doing to the Jews. She thinks they're all nice guys from good homes.
    Louly said, That's right, Teddy's