Hold Tight by Christopher Bram Read Free Book Online

mornings, when nothing was happening, and not see anything but Mrs. Bosch and their men. Only what kind of men would they be dealing with? Maybe they wouldn’t be able to find men suitable for this house. There was still that possibility. Erich turned hopeful.
    “Eleven hundred, Commander Mason.” He pointed at his wrist-watch. “Our first men should be waiting outside.”
    “Quite right. Yes. This should be interesting, for both of us. The first lesson in your education, Erich.”
    “Yes, sir,” Erich replied, turned sharply and stepped outside.
    The corridor felt reassuringly sane and proper. Teletype machines were heard through open transoms, firing out good, conventional war-related reports. Navy Intelligence had temporary quarters in an old office building near Wall Street. Large, oak-paneled rooms were divided up by drab, beige, plywood walls. Brass light fixtures from the twenties remained, and an occasional portrait of a man fat with money. A beautiful Wave swiveled her hips down the corridor and two ensigns nudged each other as they watched her glide past. Erich noticed how attractive she was—the tight skirt gave her a fanny that stretched down the backs of her legs—then shuddered to think he felt obligated to find her attractive.
    But he liked women. He genuinely did. He wasn’t comfortable with American women yet—you could never be sure which class they were from and what liberties you might take—but that would come in time. His discomfort with this business had nothing to do with fears about himself. He loved women as much as he loved music, and concentrated on music now only because that was what was most familiar in this alien world. He should know better than to let Commander Mason’s nonsense intimidate him.
    A moment passed before Erich noticed the six sailors scattered over the wooden pews in the front office. Mason had scheduled them in batches, which Erich thought unsafe. But the men didn’t fraternize with each other. Most of them shouldn’t know each other, but they still sat apart, as if they knew why they were here and didn’t want to be seen together. They looked awfully young. Erich took the sheaf of orders they had left with the yeoman at the reception desk and called the first man. He looked like any other sailor, not at all effeminate. A little guilty, but no more guilty than any enlisted man on his way to see an officer.
    The interviews went quickly. Erich began to think his hope might be fulfilled. None of them were good potential prostitutes.
    Their names had been chosen from lists of men charged with homosexual activity. Some were up for court-martials; others had spent time in the brig and were back on active duty. Navy regulations were not clear on the subject; it was left to the discretion of each commanding officer whether a man should be discharged, imprisoned, or scolded and forgotten. The Navy was too busy with the war to concern itself with combing out sexual undesirables.
    Nobody admitted to being homosexual. Mason invited confessions by claiming he saw nothing immoral about it—which was true; he thought it a form of mental illness—but there were no takers. Some admitted to homosexual acts, but always under extenuating circumstances. One was drunk; another needed five bucks to take his girl to dinner; a third was homesick and Father O’Connor had been so kind and he didn’t want to hurt the chaplin’s feelings. Others wouldn’t admit to having done anything. How could they know it was a pansy bar, said the three who’d been picked up in a raid on the New Amsterdam. “I thought it was U.S.O.,” said a sailor who’d been arrested at the house outside the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
    There were several men from the house in Brooklyn, all still in their dress blues. They had been transferred off their ships and kept in New York to testify at the trial of Gustave Beekman, the man who ran the house. Now that the trial was over, the Navy didn’t know what to do with