Nightmare Alley Read online

  “Hi, Bob,” Lieutenant Breckenridge said. “The old man still in?”

  “Yep.”

  “Tell him I want to talk to him about something important.”

  “I think he’s drunk back there.”

  “He’s always drunk back there. So what?”

  Lieutenant Weslowska picked up the phone, pressed a button, waited a few moments, and then mumbled into the mouth-piece. He waited a few moments more, then hung up the phone.

  “He said he’ll see you now, and he sounded like he just woke up.”

  Lieutenant Breckenridge pushed open the door, walked down the corridor, and knocked softly on the door at the end of the corridor.

  “Come in!” said the voice inside.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge entered the office. The bamboo curtains were drawn, and in the dimness he saw Colonel Bob Hutchins lying on his leather-covered sofa, his telephone on the floor beside him. The faint odor of whiskey was in the air.

  “What’s on your mind, son?” Colonel Hutchins asked, not bothering to get up. His voice was slurred and his belt had been loosened to provide some breathing space for his big potbelly.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge held up the pack of mail and correspondence he’d picked up at division headquarters. “I’m just getting back from Division, and while I was there I heard a rumor that we’ll be shipping out to New Guinea in about a month.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “One of my friends who works there.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  “I think so. Also, Frankie La Barbara heard General Sully and Colonel Jessup talking about it.”

  Colonel Hutchins yawned. “I figured they’d be sending us back into the war pretty soon. Turn on that light on my desk, will you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Lieutenant Breckenridge walked to the desk and flicked the switch on the lamp. Colonel Hutchins stood, tied up his belt, and shuffled across the room, his graying hair mussed and his features puffy. His desk was piled high with documents and maps, and he sat on his chair, shuffling through the papers. Finally he pulled out a map of the southwest Pacific and looked down at New Guinea.

  “Your friend say where we’re going on New Guinea?” Colonel Hutchins asked.

  “He figured it would be somewhere west of Hollandia.”

  “That makes sense.” Colonel Hutchins sniffed, then wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “We’ll be shipping out in about a month, you said?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That’s not much time.” He looked down at the map and placed his forefinger on Hollandia. “It’s hard to say exactly where General MacArthur would want us to go next. I imagine he’s looking for the best possible places to jump off from when the time comes to invade the Philippines. We could go in anywhere along the north coast from Hollandia to the Vogelkop Peninsula.”

  “I imagine he’s looking for good airfields.”

  “If the Hollandia operation is any indication of what’s to come, he’ll try to take areas that are weakly defended.” Colonel Hutchins sighed and dropped onto his chair. “We don’t know what he knows, so we can’t figure out what he’s going to do. Want a drink?”

  “Don’t mind if I do.”

  Colonel Hutchins opened a drawer in his desk and took out a bottle of one-hundred-proof Old Taylor and two glasses. He poured three fingers of bourbon into a glass, then pushed the bottle and other glass toward Lieutenant Breckenridge, who poured himself a tall drink and sat down. Colonel Hutchins gazed at the deep-amber fluid he swished around in his glass. The office was silent and the sun was setting outside. Lieutenant Breckenridge sipped some bourbon, and it was very fine, a far cry from the white lightning brewed on Bougainville by the Headquarters Company mess sergeant.

  Both men thought about New Guinea, and everything they’d heard about it was bad. It was supposed to be the asshole of the war. The colonel and the lieutenant drank in silence, because there was nothing to say. They were going to war again, and each of them wondered if he’d be alive when the last shot was fired.

  Frankie La Barbara charged into the barracks and saw the guys getting ready to go to town. Pfc. Morris Shilansky, the former bank robber from Boston, combed his curly black hair in front of the full-length mirror near the door. The Reverend Billie Jones, an itinerant preacher from Georgia before the war, buttoned up his colorful Hawaiian shirt emblazoned with dancing girls, suns, and palm trees. Corporal Lupe Gomez, the ex-pachuco from Los Angeles, shined his shoes. Pfc. Jimmy O’Rourke, the former movie stuntman from Hollywood, admired his smile in the small circular mirror he kept in his footlocker. Craig Delane, the rich guy from New York, dressed himself in the spotless white linen suit that he always wore to town.

  Everybody looked at Frankie, who burst into their midst.

  “Guess what!” Frankie screamed. “We’re going back to the front!”

  Craig Delane’s hand froze on his genuine silk necktie. “Oh, God—no!”

  Morris Shilansky pulled himself away from the mirror. “How do you know that?” he asked Frankie.

  “I heard it at Division!”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “When are we going?”

  “About a month.”

  Craig Delane collapsed onto his bunk, closed his eyes, and groaned: “I don’t want to go back to the war. I hate the war.”

  Corporal Gomez jumped into the air and stretched out his arms. “Why us? We done enough fighting, for Chrissakes!”

  Morris Shilansky pulled out his pack of Camels and thrust one in his mouth. “I’m goin’ AWOL right fucking now!” he said. “Anybody wanna come with me?”

  “I’ll go with you!” said Frankie La Barbara. “Just wait a minute until I get out of this uniform!”

  The Reverend Billie Jones pulled out his handy pocket Bible. “I think we oughta all get down on our knees and say a few words to the Lord.”

  Frankie La Barbara turned on him. “Fuck you in your ass, you crazy holy-roller bastard! This ain’t no time for horseshit!”

  “Horseshit! You call the Lord horseshit?”

  The Reverend Billie Jones stuffed his Bible into his back pocket and advanced toward Frankie La Barbara with the clear intention of doing him bodily harm. Frankie La Barbara felt better instantly, because the prospect of punching somebody in the chops always raised his spirits. Jimmy O’Rourke, the movie stuntman, jumped in between them, because that’s what Clark Gable would have done.

  “Settle down, you two!” he said. “Do you wanna get Sergeant Cameron out here?” The mouth of the Reverend Billie Jones was a grim line, and Frankie La Barbara’s eyes glittered with excitement as both men raised their fists and prepared to go to war even before they arrived in New Guinea.

  The door to Sergeant Cameron’s private room off the corridor banged open, and Sergeant Cameron, attired in his khaki shorts, charged into the main room of the barracks. “What the fuck is going on here now!”

  The Reverend Billie Jones and Frankie La Barbara stopped in their tracks and lowered their hands.

  “Nothing’s going on here, Sarge,” the Reverend Billie Jones said, trying to smile.

  “That’s right,” Frankie said, “we’re just going back to the front in about a month, that’s all.”

  Sergeant Cameron blinked. He was tall and lanky, with red hair, large ears, and a nose like a potato. “We’re going back to the front?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Says who?”

  “Says me.”

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  “I’m the guy who just got the straight dope at Division. Lieutenant Breckenridge knows it too. He’s telling Colonel Hutchins all about it right now.”

  Sergeant Cameron staggered backward, as if someone had punched him in the stomach. “Oh, shit.” He sat on the nearest footlocker and wheezed.

  The barracks fell silent. Outside, there were shouts of laughter as other soldiers headed for town, but the men from the recon
platoon had fallen into a deep depression. They remembered buddies who’d died on Guadalcanal, New Georgia, and Bougainville, and also remembered wounds they’d sustained themselves. Every one of them had been wounded somewhere along the line, and some of the most illustrious members of the recon platoon were still in the hospital, recovering from bullets, shrapnel, and bayonet stabs received on Bougainville.

  “Them fucking Japs!” Sergeant Cameron said.

  “Pagan bastards!” added the Reverend Billie Jones, whose closest friend, Private Homer Gladley from Kansas, had been shot to death on Bougainville.

  “Slant-eyed cocksuckers!” said Frankie La Barbara, sitting on his bunk and reaching for his pack of Chesterfield cigarettes.

  Corporal Gomez pulled out his switchblade knife and pressed the button. The blade flashed out and he whipped it through the air. “I cut their fucking throats.”

  Morris Shilansky wondered where to run and hide after he went AWOL. Craig Delane felt certain that he would die on New Guinea, because he believed in the law of averages, and the law of averages said that front-line infantry soldiers didn’t last long. Jimmy O’Rourke, who had black hair and wore a Clark Gable–style mustache, wondered if he should shoot himself in the foot.

  “I need a drink,” said Sergeant Cameron.

  “Me, too,” said Frankie La Barbara, moving to his footlocker and taking out a fifth of Jim Beam. He unscrewed the top, drank some down, and tossed the bottle to Sergeant Cameron.

  Nobody felt like going to town anymore. The men could hear the rattle of Japanese machine guns and the dull cough of Japanese knee mortars. The men passed the bottle of Jim Beam around, and when they were finished, Craig Delane broke out a bottle of Black & White Scotch.

  The men from the recon platoon proceeded to get rip-roaring drunk.

  THREE . . .

  It was evening in the post hospital, and Colonel Hutchins burped as he made his way down the dark corridor. It was after nine o’clock, and the lights had been dimmed so the sick and wounded could catch up on their sleep. Colonel Hutchins had dressed himself in his tan class A uniform, complete with necktie tucked in under the third button of his shirt. He carried his cunt cap in his left hand and approached the nurses’ station.

  “Hello, ladies,” he said with a cheery smile.

  “Hello, Colonel Hutchins,” they replied, because he was a daily visitor and they knew him well.

  “Sergeant Butsko is in the solarium, I assume?”

  “Yes, he is,” said one of the nurses, “and he’s been a real problem today. He wants to get out of the hospital, but he’s not well enough yet.”

  “I’ll reprimand him, if you like.”

  “Oh, no!” said another nurse. “Don’t do that!”

  “No!” agreed another nurse. “Don’t tell him we said anything!”

  Colonel Hutchins grinned; evidently Butsko was terrorizing the nurses. “I’ll take care of everything,” he said. “Don’t worry about a thing.”

  Colonel Hutchins turned away and walked down the corridor to the brightly lit solarium at the end. It was there that soldiers who weren’t too sick stayed up late, playing cards and listening to the radio. Butsko could usually be found in the biggest poker game, gambling for the highest stakes, with chips showing on the table because gambling for real money was prohibited in Army hospitals.

  Colonel Hutchins entered the solarium and headed for the biggest card game, expecting to find Butsko there, but instead saw Butsko sitting in his wheelchair, smoking a cigar and looking out the window, his back to Colonel Hutchins. Stars twinkled in the sky outside the window, and lights in buildings glowed brightly.

  Colonel Hutchins picked up a chair, carried it to Sergeant Butsko, and placed it beside him. Butsko turned toward the sound. He was a big, bulky man with straight black hair and a face etched with scars, thirty-five years old, but appearing ten years older.

  “Hi, Colonel,” he said.

  “How’re you feeling today, Butsko?” Colonel Hutchins asked, sitting beside him.

  “I can’t take it here anymore. I got to get out before I go completely psycho.”

  “How’s your leg?”

  “I can walk on it, kind of.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I’m not completely crippled and I can get around.”

  “But you’re not ready for duty yet, are you?”

  “Light duty, maybe.”

  “What do the doctors say?”

  Butsko harumphed. “They say I’m not ready to be released, but what do they know? They wanted to cut this leg off once, the fucking pill-rollers. I hate their guts.”

  “Calm down. Save it for the Japs.”

  “What Japs? I don’t see any Japs.”

  “The regiment’s going back to the war,” Colonel Hutchins said.

  Butsko turned to look at Colonel Hutchins. “We are?”

  “Yes.”

  “It official?”

  “Not yet, but it will be soon.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To New Guinea, and don’t say we. It looks like you won’t have to go. Consider yourself lucky.”

  Butsko thought for a few seconds and smiled as the realization dawned on him. “That’s right,” he said. “I won’t have to go.”

  “Thank your lucky stars.”

  Butsko looked out the window at the stars. “I didn’t know I had some lucky ones, but I guess I do. Thank you, lucky stars.”

  Colonel Hutchins chuckled as he lit a cigarette. He blew smoke into the air and shook his head. “I must be crazy, but you know, Butsko, in a way I’ll be glad to go back to the war. Garrison life can get a man down. If we have one more of those silly chickenshit inspections, I think I’m gonna shoot a general.”

  “Shoot one for me,” Butsko said. “Shoot two.”

  “Those fucking pompous bastards, sniffing around for dust on windowsills and piss stains on toilet bowls. Is this supposed to be a janitor Army, or is it supposed to be a fighting Army?”

  “Don’t talk to me about it,” Butsko said. “I get sick to my stomach.”

  Colonel Hutchins stopped talking and puffed his cigarette. At the big poker table a soldier with an arm in a sling raised the dealer twenty dollars and called his hand. A nurse entered the solarium, carrying a tray of pills and syrups. Butsko looked out the window and wondered what his wife was doing just then. She hadn’t visited him for three days. I know what she’s doing, Butsko thought darkly. She’s fucking some other son of a bitch.

  “You know, Butsko,” Colonel Hutchins said, “ever since I heard the news about going back to the war, I haven’t known whether to be pissed off or happy. I guess I actually feel a little bit on both sides. In a peculiar way I’m looking forward to going back to the war. Although I hate war, I also like war. Have you ever felt that way, Butsko?”

  “Sure,” Butsko replied. “War sure as hell relieves the boredom, don’t it?”

  “Sure as hell does.”

  “The main problem is that it can also relieve you of your life.”

  “That’s true.”

  Butsko shrugged. “There’s no point in worrying about it, because you don’t have no choice. If we don’t stop the Japs out here, we’ll have to stop them in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Somebody’s got to do the dirty work, and it’s us—or I should say you, because I’m gonna sit this one out.”

  Colonel Hutchins puffed his cigarette and thought about what Butsko had said. A chubby little brunette nurse approached them, carrying her tray of pills and stuff.

  “Time for your medication, Sergeant Butsko,” she said.

  “Shove it up your ass,” Butsko replied.

  “Come on, now, Sergeant,” she said cheerily. “Take your pills like a man.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Colonel Hutchins felt embarrassed, because he was an officer and so was the nurse, but Butsko was only an enlisted man.

  “Take the pills, Butsko,” he said firmly. “Tha
t’s an order.”

  Butsko grinned. “Pulling rank on me, huh?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Gimme the pills,” Butsko said to the nurse.

  She handed him the little cup of pills, and he tossed them into his mouth, then accepted the cup of water and washed them down.

  “I think there’s saltpeter in these pills,” Butsko complained, “so’s I can’t get a hard-on and screw any of these nurses.”

  The nurse smiled and stepped away. “Don’t flatter yourself, Sergeant. What nurse would want you?”

  Butsko smiled and turned to Colonel Hutchins. “Spunky little bitch, ain’t she?”

  The nurse walked away. Butsko burped as the pills went down. He wondered why they kept giving him pills, because the pain wasn’t so bad anymore. He didn’t trust doctors. He thought they were all assholes. “Say, you didn’t bring your flask with you today, did you, Colonel?”

  “Sure did, Sergeant.”

  “Pass it over here, will you, sir?”

  Colonel Hutchins glanced around to make sure no nurses were watching him, then reached into his hip pocket for his trusty old flask.

  The street lamps shone on Lieutenant Breckenridge as he walked toward the nurses’ residence. He didn’t put his hands in his pockets because he couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t run into one of those officers who had conniption fits whenever they saw a soldier with his hands in his pockets.

  He was on his way to see Nurse Latham, and he knew he was making a mistake, but she had a gorgeous face and a figure that would make a pastor burn down his church. She’d be fancy as a movie star if she wore the right makeup and styled her hair like Veronica Lake.

  She was going to be mad at him; he knew that. Jack Utsler would have tried to get into her pants, and she wouldn’t be happy about it. Or maybe she would be. Maybe she was naked in the grass with him right now, bouncing up and down on his dork.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge didn’t think she was bouncing up and down on Jack’s dork. She was probably sharpening a knife up in her room, waiting for Lieutenant Breckenridge to show up. Actually she probably thought he’d never show up, after what he had done. But he was going to show up. It was a challenge to him. He considered himself an intelligent fellow and thought he could talk his way through anything.