W. Griffin - The shooters

She took the second martini out of the freezer and carried it back to the couch. She extended it to him.

"Let's start over, okay?"

He shrugged. "Why not?"

They tapped glasses. Both took a sip.

"I came here, Castillo-"

"I call you Beth and you call me Castillo? Is that the way to commence an apology?"

"I came here, Charley…"

"Better," he said.

"…to apologize for my behavior at my house on Saturday…"

"And well you should. You nearly reduced poor Dick Miller to tears. He's very sensitive."

She shook her head, took another sip of the martini, and went doggedly on: "…and to ask a favor."

"Well, that certainly explains why you felt you needed a drink. Asking a favor-much less apologizing-to the likes of me has to be very difficult for someone like you."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"You are a general's daughter. You are not the first general's daughter I…have encountered."

"Randy told me about her," Beth said.

"Well, I'm sure that was fascinating. Did he manage to suggest that my behavior was ungentlemanly?"

"As a matter of fact, yes."

"Well, my conscience is clear. From Day One I made it absolutely clear to Daphne that I had no intention of marching up the aisle of the cadet chapel with her the day after I graduated."

"Daphne? Randy said her name was Jennifer."

"Same story. Jennifer was before Daphne, but I made it perfectly clear to her, too, that if she was looking for a husband, she was looking in the wrong place."

"Oh, you're not only a sonofabitch, but you're proud of being a sonofabitch!"

"No. As I said before, I am a bastard, not a sonofabitch."

"I know why you and Randy don't get along."

"I don't think so, but what does it matter? I accept your apology. Now, what's the favor you want?"

"I can't believe you drank that already," she said.

"Here is the proof," he said, holding the martini glass upside down. "And now I am going to have to make myself another, having let chivalry get in the way of my common sense."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"I gave you my second martini," he said.

He got up and walked to the wet bar.

"You may ask me the favor," he said, as he went to the freezer for another frozen glass.

There were two glasses in the freezer. He looked at them a long moment, and then took both out.

That would seem to prove that I am indeed the sonofabitch that she thinks-and Dick knows-I am.

But not to worry. Virtue will triumph.

If I so much as lightly touch her shoulder, she will throw the martini in my face and then kick me with practiced skill in the scrotum.

He set about making a second duo of dry martini cocktails according to the famous recipe of Brigadier General Bruce J. McNab.

Beth came across the room to where he stood.

He looked at her and then away.

"You might as well go sit back down," he said, stirring the gin-and-ice mixture. "You have had your ration of martinis."

"My family likes, really likes, your family," Beth said. "That was all they talked about at breakfast."

"And my family likes your family. Since both families are extraordinarily nice people, why does that surprise you?"

"My mother and father are going to San Antonio. Did you know that?"

"Abuela told me."

"Abuela?"

"My grandmother. Dona Alicia."

"Why do they call her that?"

"They don't call her Abuela. Fernando and I do. It means 'grandmother' in Spanish. They call our abuela 'Dona Alicia' as a mark of respect."

"I'm going to marry Randy," she said.

"I seem to recall having heard that somewhere."

"That will make Randy part of my family."

"Yeah, I guess it will."

"What I would like to do is patch things up between you and Randy."

"There's not much chance of that, Beth," he said seriously, and their eyes met again.

He averted his quickly, and very carefully poured the two glasses full.

"Starting with you being part of our wedding," she said.

"Not a chance."

"There's going to be an arch of swords outside the chapel. I'm sure Randy-you're classmates-would love to have you be one of the…whatever they're called."

"Beth, for Christ's sake, no. I can't stand the sonofabitch."

"I thought you didn't use that term. You preferred 'bastard.'"

"I didn't say I preferred it. I said that I wasn't a sonofabitch because my mother was the antithesis of a bitch."

He met her eyes again, averted them, picked up his martini glass, and took a healthy swallow.

"But you don't mind being called a bastard?"

"I am a bastard," he said, meeting her eyes. "There's not much I can do about it."

"A bastard being defined as someone who is hardheaded? Arrogant? Infuriating? And revels in it?"

"A bastard is a child born out of wedlock," Castillo said.

"I don't understand," she said. "Your parents weren't married?"

He shook his head.

He said: "The estimates vary that between fifty thousand and one hundred fifty thousand children were born outside the bonds of holy matrimony to German girls and their American boyfriends-some of whom were general officers. I am one of those so born. I'm a lot luckier than any of the others I've run into, but I'm one of them."

"Because of your father, you mean?"

"No. Because of my mother. My father was only in at the beginning, so to speak. Because of my mother. My mother was something special."

"Why are you telling me this?" she asked.

"I don't know. Possibly in the hope that it will send you fleeing before this situation gets any more out of hand than it is."

"I want to hear this," she said. "Does my father know?"

"Your father is a very intelligent man. He's probably put it all together by now. Or your mother has. Or Abuela told them."

He took another sip of his martini.

As Beth watched, she said, "That's your second you're gulping down, you know."

"I can count. And as soon as you leave, I will have the third."

"I'm not leaving until you tell me. What happened?"

"When my father finished flight school, they sent him to Germany, rather than straight to Vietnam. They tried to do that, send kids straight from flight school over there. The idea was that they would build some hours, be better pilots when they got into combat. And while he was in Germany he met a German girl, and here I am."

"The sonofabitch!" Beth exploded.

"No. Now you're talking about his madre-my Abuela-and she is indeed another who is the antithesis of bitch."

"He…made your mother pregnant and then just left? I don't care if you like it or not, that makes him a sonofabitch in my book. Oh, Charley, I'm so sorry."

"Hold the pity," he said. "For one thing, we don't know that he behaved dishonorably. For one thing, he didn't know she was pregnant. He did promise her he would write, and then never did. It is entirely possible that had he written, and had she been able to reply that she was in the family way, he would have done something about it. I like to think that's the case. Genes are strong, and he was my grandparents' son. But he didn't write, he didn't know, and we'll never know whether or not he would have gone back to Germany when he came home from Vietnam"-he drained his martini glass-"because he didn't come back from Vietnam."

"Your poor mother," Beth said. "How awful for her."

"And it's not as if my mother had to go scrub floors or stand under Lili Marlene's streetlamp to feed her bastard son," Castillo said, just a little thickly. "She was the eighteen-year-old princess in the castle, who'd made a little mistake that no one dared talk about.

"Her father, my grandfather, was a tough old Hessian. He was a lieutenant colonel at Stalingrad. He was one of the, quote, lucky ones, unquote-the really seriously wounded who were evacuated just before it fell. He was also an aristocrat. The family name is von und zu Gossinger. Not just 'von' and not just 'zu.' Both. That sort of thing is important in the Almanac de Gotha."