John MacDonald - The Good Old Stuff

I drove to Chicago. I made an appointment with Saggerty. He sat behind his desk and studied me for long minutes. I remembered that he used to make me uncomfortable. I realized that it was a technique with him. I stared back at his wispy figure, his mop of iron-gray hair, thinking that it was a technique with him, a means of feeding his own self-esteem. I grinned inside when I saw it was working in reverse. I was making him uneasy. He picked up a pencil and tapped his nose with the eraser end.

“So you want to come back to work, Garry. You look fit, but pretty thin.”

“You looking for an engineer or a guy with a shovel?”

“Don’t be huffy, son. We want you back. We’ve got a million highway jobs, all hot. I was just remembering how you and Christoff used to work together.”

I didn’t answer.

“Strange thing about Christoff. I heard about it. Always seemed like a solid boy. Guess he came a little unwrapped.”

“If that’s what you want to call it.”

“You can report in the morning. I’ll have Boon pick the job for you. See him. How about pay?”

“How about it? I’m three years older, nearer four. I’m that much smarter. I’ll take what I had before, plus fifteen hundred.”

“Too much.”

I picked my hat off the corner of his desk and stood up. He stared up at me and I held his eye. I turned and walked toward the door. He didn’t break until I had it open. He coughed.

“Okay, Garry. Your price. Tomorrow morning.” I nodded and left.

Boon gave me an average one. Forty miles of two-lane concrete potholes to convert to four-lane divided blacktop. Grade elimination. Curve elimination. A big shortage of equipment and some very porky labor — guys who wanted the water brought in a sterling bucket and wanted a half hour to drink it. We had to clip off as much as we could before the blizzards shut us down. Then the rest of it could be handled in the spring.

For a couple of weeks I felt good. I spent every minute on the job and slept like sudden death. Then Dan came between me and the work. Something would come up, and I’d stand and look off toward the blue hills. How would Dan handle this? I’d see his blunt face and slow grin. Hear him say, “What makes Garry run? Slow down, kid. Relax. You got a chunk of hill over there you can use for fill. Save fifteen minutes on each truck.” Then maybe I’d stomp on his foot and we’d roll over and over in the dust, growling at each other, while the men stood around and grinned at each other, delighted with the damn fool engineers.

That’s the way it was. It happened oftener and oftener. I’d stand in the chill mornings and expect him to walk around the side of one of the cats. It wasn’t that I needed the guy so badly. The job was going okay. It seemed almost as though he hadn’t been buried, as though he couldn’t rest. I owed him something, and I knew it. I knew what he would have done for me.

I went back to Chicago and talked to Boon. Then I went in and saw Saggerty. He started to get tough with me.

I held up my hand and stopped him. “Now look. I like the outfit. I like to work for you. Don’t get me wrong. Let’s not do a lot of fencing and trying to break each other down. I’ve got something I have to do. It’s a favor for a friend. An obligation. I’ve tried to ignore it, but I can’t. If it keeps on, I won’t be any good to you. Let me go handle it. Give me a leave of absence. I’ll be back. I’ve talked to Boon. The job’s under control. He’s got a new guy named Brent that he can assign to it. I’ll help Brent for a few days and then shove off.”

For a while his face was as sour as spoiled milk. Then he grinned and stuck out his hand. I was surprised. But when I thought it over, I realized that he’d have to have a few qualities like that to get where he was. You can’t be petty all the way through and expect to hold anything but a petty job.

I got Brent established and gave him some advice about finishing it off. Then I went back to town. I packed my stuff and loaded it in the car. I sat and pulled the list out of my pocket. With a pencil, I marked the sequence.

The repair manager said, “Dosani? Yeah. You can talk to him. He’s over in the far right corner of the shop.”

I walked over. Dosani had a starter motor in the vise. He had just clipped one battery cable onto it. He started to hold the other against the housing. He saw me and waved me back with his hand. I stepped back. He was a tall slim boy with swarthy skin and black shining hair that fell down across his forehead. He held the other battery cable against the housing and the motor spun, throwing the fresh oil back in a fine mist. He unhooked the battery and then spun the heavy handle of the vise. He whistled. He laid the motor carefully on the bench and then turned to me.

“Which car is yours?”

“None of them. I want to talk about something else. The manager told me I could come back here and bother you.”

“Look, mister. I’m not paying that bill until the damn radio works. Understand?”

“Not that either. I want to talk about that crash boat business in Ceylon, where the skipper was drowned.”

He looked up at me, and he was angry. “I’ve given testimony on that thing till I’m blue in the face. I’m sick of it.”

I waited a few seconds, then I said, “Look, Dosani. I’m not official. The guy was a friend of mine. My best friend. I just want to know what happened. Just what is a crash boat?”

He relaxed. “Oh, sure. If that’s the way it is. A crash boat is a job with nearly a P. T. hull. Crew of thirteen. Two aircraft motors. Uses hundred octane. Not much armament. Couple of Browning fifties, maybe a forty millimeter, and sometimes an eighty-millimeter mortar mounted on the stern. Used to dash in and pick wounded guys off the shore. Pretty fast job. Uses an army crew. Quartermaster.”

“What did you do?”

“Down there nursing those damn motors. Seasick every minute we were out.”

“What happened that night?”

“I don’t know much about it. This Captain Christoff comes aboard about ten o’clock with these two people, a guy and a babe. We knew it wasn’t right, but he was in charge of the boat. Quinn, the warrant, tried to argue with him, I heard, but no soap. We bust up a poker game and take her out. We went straight out of Colombo harbor, and then he opened her up. Quinn was handling her. I hear the three of them, Christoff and two passengers, went out on the bow. About ten miles out, Quinn turned her around and for a few seconds we were parallel to the ground swell. Just at that minute, according to the passengers, Christoff tried to get back to the bridge. You have to walk along a narrow spot near the low rail. He went over, and by the time the passengers got Quinn’s attention, he was too far past the spot to find Christoff. We circled for a half hour or so. They say that Christoff was potted, and that he probably sank like a rock.”

“Hear anything else from the other guys? Anything that struck you as funny?”

He rubbed the side of his face, leaving a streak of grease. Then he shook his head. “Not a thing. He just stepped out of line and got caught. He seemed like a good joe, a teek hai sahib. It was just a technicality that they put him in charge of Betsy for a few days until the regular replacement showed up. He wasn’t supposed to take her out, because he didn’t know anything about her. But I guess he got tight and that skinny British bitch went to work on him. Joy ride.”

“What happened to the first skipper you had?”

“Silly damn thing. Went swimming outside of Trincomalee Harbor. He and another guy were fishing with plastic explosive. Fenner swam out just as the other guy tossed one in with a short fuse. He wasn’t watching Fenner. The concussion under water collapsed his lungs. We didn’t cry none when he got it. He was one of those guys with a rule book in each hand and a frosty look in his eye. Thought he was an admiral.”