He swallowed a couple of times and went on. “He had a heart attack last November. Actually, the day after Thanksgiving. We had breakfast together at Wendy’s and we were walking up the courthouse steps. He was glad-handing everybody, as usual. All of a sudden he stopped and sat down on the steps and said, ‘I think I’m having a heart attack. I feel like my chest is gonna explode.’ He was right. Massive coronary. He almost didn’t come back from that one. Doc Fleming gave him a week. Then two weeks, then two months. Two months later, he gave him six more weeks, and two months after that Brodie was holding court every day out in the garden. Smoking, having a couple of drinks, everything he wasn’t supposed to do. But he was going downhill fast. You could see a change every day. Yesterday, when I asked how it was going, Fleming said, ‘He’s sicker than most dead people I know.’ ”
Neither of them said much for a minute or two.
“You’re right about Brodie, Brett,” Bannon said. “I knew him for what? Two weeks? But he stayed with me. I thought a lot about him through the years.”
“That’s the way it is with the Captain.”
“It’s that damned army mail system,” Bannon said angrily. “The card should’ve been here weeks ago.”
“He understands that. When he read Pennington’s story about you getting the DSC and the Purple Heart, he did an Irish jig around the apartment. ‘And shot in the leg, just like me, wouldn’t you know it!’ he said. He was very proud of you. It doesn’t take two weeks to measure the strength of a man.”
“How true,” Millicent Bannon said, and looked at Bannon adoringly.
A lucky man, Merrill thought. And aloud, “Had a rough time of it, didn’t you?”
“Not really,” he answered. “Most of the time I was a glorified traffic cop, moving tanks, jeeps, half-tracks, quarter-tons through bottlenecks, getting them up to the front. We were near the German border and a German Tiger tank broke through the lines. We were caught in the middle of a firefight. I drove over a mine. Next thing I remember, I was under the damn jeep, with a fifty-caliber shooting at everything that moved. We slowed the bastard down just long enough for our artillery to get its range. It didn’t help win the war. Just another hour in the life of World War Two.”
“That isn’t exactly the way I heard it,” said Merrill.
“That’s exactly the way it happened,” Bannon said.
Merrill looked past him, smiled, and stood up.
“Here’s Del,” he said.
Delilah hadn’t changed a bit. Not a wrinkle, not a smile line, not a gray hair. Maybe Grand View was sitting on top of the fountain of youth, thought Bannon.
“Hi, hero,” she said, giving him a peck on the cheek and immediately turning her attention to his wife.
“You must be Millicent,” she said, offering her hand. Bannon watched her quick appraisal, saw the glint in her eye. All class, that’s what she’s thinking.
“How are things at Grand View?” Bannon asked.
“Nothing’s changed,” her dusky voice answered. “Things seemed to freeze in time during the war. You’re looking fit as a fiddle, Zeke.” She looked back at Millicent with a smile. “Must be the company you keep. Congratulations.”
“Thank you,” Millicent answered. She was a bit ill at ease, like meeting in-laws for the first time, and Delilah sensed it. Then Millicent said, “I feel as if I know you all. Zee has told me a lot about you. Actually, I met him the day before he came to San Pietro for the first time.”
“We saw the announcement in the Times that you two tied the knot.”
“We sneaked up to Monterey and got married. Neither of us wanted a big wedding. It upset my family but they’ll get over it.”
“I didn’t get the card until two days ago. It’s the damned army mail system…” Bannon started to repeat the excuse.
“That’s exactly what Brodie said.”
There was a moment of awkward silence and then Delilah said, “He’s out in the garden. Bring your drinks, we’ll freshen them outside.”
“I have to beg off,” Merrill said. “Today’s our anniversary. I’m taking Susan up to San Francisco for a week. We’re going to hole up at the St. Francis, have room service, and make believe we’re twenty again.”
“Congratulations,” said Millicent. “I’m sure you’ll have a grand time.”
They said their goodbyes and Merrill strode out of the hotel.
“Prepare yourself,” Delilah said, leading them across the sprawling lobby and out the French doors. “He’s taken a licking.”
It was a dazzling day, cloudless with a hint of wind, and the garden nestled between two wings of the hotel was a spotless oasis of emerald green grass bordered with flowers. Beyond it, the Pacific was as serene as a fish pond.
Brodie Culhane was sitting under a striped umbrella at a secluded table surrounded by acacia trees. His frame was spare. His failing heart had stripped away most of his weight and hollowed his cheeks. His skin was stretched tight over thick bones and had an almost translucent quality. His thinning hair was white as a swan.
There was a blanket over his shoulders even though it was a warm day. But though his body had betrayed him, his indomitable spirit had refused to surrender. He sat in a wheelchair, straight as a billiard cue, and his blue eyes were as alert as ever. As they approached the table, the Captain’s crooked, arrogant grin brightened his withered features.
“Well, it’s about damned time,” he said. His voice had lost some of its timbre but the rascally quality was still there. He turned his attention immediately to Millicent. He reached out, took her hand, and held it for a long time.
“Saw your picture in the society pages when you got married,” he said gruffly. “Beautiful, but pictures don’t do you justice. No wonder it took him so long to bring you up here. Probably afraid I’d steal your heart and we’d run off together.”
“We might still,” Mil said with mischief in her smile as well.
“She dragged my sorry carcass back to the living,” Bannon said. “She wouldn’t let me feel sorry for myself.”
“You’re a lucky man, Cowboy.”
They sat down around the table, relaxed like old friends. Brodie’s nature dispelled any sense of awkwardness. There was a small table beside him, with a bottle of Irish Mist and a sterling ice bucket sweating in the warm day. A half-dozen rolled cigarettes and a cheap lighter lay beside the bucket.
Brodie stared across the table at Zeke Bannon and saw a look he was familiar with, a look he still saw occasionally when he peered in the mirror.
“You heard them, didn’t you,” he said.
“Heard what?” Bannon asked.
“You know what I mean. You heard ’em flapping on your shoulder. Lying under the jeep, you figured he was there, come to get you. I know, pal, I heard ’em, too, lying in that ditch in France. Those wings. The Angel of Death, waiting to take you. Then he just flew away, like a robin you walk up on and scare off. That’s how close you came. Scared you right to the bones, didn’t it?”
Bannon didn’t say anything but Millie reached out and took his hand.
“Ever tell Millie?” Culhane said.
“He did,” she answered. “In his own way.”
“Fear’s a hard thing to admit,” said Bannon. “I never got that close to anyone.” He looked at Delilah and added, “My loss.” He turned back to Bannon. “So? How’s the leg?”
“Still a little gimpy. Another month I’ll lose the cane.”
“That was quite a piece your pal Pennington wrote about you. Still suckin’ up to the press, I see.”
“Yeah. You know me, Headline Harry.”
“So what’re your plans now that you’re all married and settled down?”
“No idea,” Bannon said. “I’m checking over my options.”
“Still thinkin’ about playing cops and robbers?”
“I don’t think so, Brodie. But you never know.”
“How do you feel about that?” he asked Millicent.
“Whatever he wants to do,” she said.
He laughed and shook his head. “Got it all, Cowboy. Well, you deserve the best.”