The Edge of Honor Page 6

  Maddy noticed that the standees were not being at all discreet about appraising the women, making comments, whistling, or expressing feigned horror at the talent coming through the front door. The entrance to the bar itself was packed with people looking for tables, partners, or both.

  They had to wait in line for several minutes before they could get near the doorway leading to the dance floor. When the standees finally noticed them, they actually drew some cheers as they moved up to the doorway.

  Maddy flushed; Tizzy smiled and winked. Two large Marines immediately put down their drinks, detached themselves from the standees, and swooped down, taking Maddy and Tizzy by the hand without a word. They pushed through the crowd at the doorway, which parted according to the unwritten rule that people with partners had priority over those who were still window-shopping.

  Maddy lost Tizzy as soon as they reached the dance floor, and after shouting something about Bob in her ear, her Marine launched into a frenetic dance routine that exactly matched the tempo of the bombastic noise coming from the bandstand. Maddy gave it her best shot, but her experience with dancing to rock-and-roll music was limited. Brian liked the soft and slow stuff, but this music, with its overwhelming bass beat, jangling electric guitars, and incomprehensible lyrics, was definitely of the hard-and-fast variety. And it was nonstop; once a set began, the band segued into each new number while the final crashing chords of the last song were still buzzing in the speakers.

  The room was larger than she’d thought, but with over two hundred people packed inside, it was hot and smoky despite the air conditioning.

  Silvery planet lights hung from the ceiling and threw moving spots of light all over the room and the dancers. Small bar tables lined the perimeter of the floor, and these, too, were packed with people. Maddy was amazed at the number of good looking women put on the dance floor, all in their twenties or early thirties, with expensive clothes and hairstyles, and every one of them dancing with surprising intensity.

  Here and there, waitresses made their way gingerly through the gyrating crowd, writing shouted orders on tiny pads of paper before escaping to the service lines at the bar. Within minutes, they would start back into the crowd, where eagle-eyed customers would wave five-and ten-dollar bills at them until the trays emptied. The crowd on the dance floor was so thick that people consumed their drinks without ever leaving the floor.

  Maddy’s partner managed to secure two rounds of drinks this way, and Maddy found herself drinking scotch on the rocks on the first round and gin and tonic on the second, while the music and the dancing went on nonstop.

  She had no idea of how long she had been dancing and she downed the drinks quickly, wondering whether she could get off the dance floor for a minute to shuck the linen jacket. Handing her empty glass to a passing waitress, she shook the lapels at Bob to signify that she was dying of the heat. Bob grinned and shouted, “Take it off!” She laughed, slipped the jacket off, and continued to dance with it in her left hand. As the drinks took effect, the jacket became something of a prop, which she let fly around her hips, and she closed her eyes and concentrated on the insistent beat, no longer quite so worried about looking ridiculous, moving her body in time with the music as she got into the whole scene and tried now to keep up with the insistent pumping movements of her partners.

  Partners? Opening her eyes, she found that she was now dancing with two men, both in front of her and both as close as they could get to her without running into each other. She sensed there were other men behind her, but she couldn’t tell in the dim light whether they had other partners or whether she had become the local center of attraction. When a pair of strong hands settled on her hips from behind, she knew the answer and began looking for a way out, but they were too close, big men, looking strangely alike with their buzz haircuts, sport shirts worn outside of their trousers, and direct, leering eyes. When she turned to see whether there was an opening, they turned with her. She could feel hands touching her and heard their taunting voices, “Do it, baby. Shake that thing, mama. C’mon, c’mon,” mimicking the refrain from the rock group as they moved closer and then withdrew as the music grew even louder. Someone pressed another drink into her hands. It tasted like fruit juice of some kind, and she downed it in one motion, desperately thirsty, still wanting out of the small knot of men around her but also beginning to feel the sexual energy flowing from the dense pack of human bodies, the pounding music, and, despite herself, responding, moving more provocatively, looking back at the men, letting them press closer, aware that there were other groups like hers on the floor with one or even two women in the center of a ring of anonymous men. Now she understood why Tizzy wanted to come here. She lost track of time, working herself into a dreamy state of rhythmic exertion, letting the music and crowd and the noise carry her along, letting the anonymous males into her space, forgetting about the Navy and the deployment and the wardroom wives and her job and the fact that Brian had disappeared into the sunset for the next half a year.

  When the music finally stopped, the room seemed to decompress, the crowd breaking up with a collective sigh and starting to mill around, and most of the male dance partners disappearing to the bar. She looked around for Tizzy, but it was hopeless. Bob said to stay right there, that he was going for some more drinks, but she thought that it was probably time to get the hell out of there.

  Embarrassed and a little tipsy, she pushed through the crowd, fanning her face with the jacket and walking unsteadily from the heat and the drinks. She was perspiring and starting to feel uncomfortable with what had been going on out there on the dance floor. What on earth had gotten into her to act like that? She looked at her watch, looked again, and saw that it was well past midnight.

  Sobered, she hurried past the crowd of drunks milling around the front door and headed for the parking lot beyond, her shoes scrunching on the gravel walks in quick time, some bawdy comments following her from the club steps. She peered again at her watch. Damn, no doubt about it. And she had been the one pinging on Tizzy Her carping words about the witching hour echoed in her ears and the sinking feeling in her stomach was confirmed when she could not find the white convertible.

  As if hoping to make it reappear, she walked slowly over to the empty spot, looked around the nov/-half-empty lot, dropped her purse onto the gravel, and said, “Shit!” in a loud voice. Then she heard a scuffling noise behind her.

  She started to turn but was seized from behind by two strong arms and literally pulled up off her feet and up against a large male body that stank in equal proportions of beer, sweat, and cigarette smoke. She struggled, but he was immense and he had her arms pinned along her sides, inside of his own arms, and his hands were fumbling with the sides of her skirt. She tried to yell for help, but his arms were squeezing the breath out of her. All she could manage was a series of small yelps. She tried kicking back at him, but he was much too strong.

  She realized with growing horror that she could feel his erection pushing against the small of her back. He was talking to her in a low, slurred voice: “Gotcha, baby.

  Come to papa now. You been wigglin’ yer pretty ass at me all fuckin’ night, and now, yeah, now—there, yer gonna love it, baby. Stop yer kickin’ now. Just lemme— yer gonna— “

  He was dragging her backward toward the bushes lining the edge of the parking lot, her struggles doing no faod, her stockinged heels barely touching the ground, he realized her shoes were gone and that he now had her dress pulled all the way up over her hips, the night air suddenly, shockingly cold on her thighs. He was fumbling with his own pants as he dragged her toward the shadows. Her eyes filled with tears as she realized that she had absolutely no leverage, no way to get away from him, no—

  “Problem here, miss?” said a man’s voice from behind them. “Why don’t you put her down there, Marine.”

  Her assailant stopped in his tracks and turned his head, lurching sideways, and relaxing his grip for an instant.

  The movement landed
her back on her feet and she dropped straight through his arms, sprawling on her bottom. She bounced back up to her hands and knees, then, rising, spun around to face him, backing away rapidly, yanking her skirt down. She could see the figure of another man behind the Marine, but his face was in shadow.

  “Help me, please, help me,” she cried. “He was—he was—”

  “He’s going to go back to his buddies, aren’t you, Marine? Going to go eighty-six for the night. Had a little too much beer, right, Marine?”

  The man’s voice was flat, emotionless, but somehow menacing.

  The big Marine was fumbling with the front of his pants. Maddy could see that he was weaving unsteadily, trying to keep her in sight while looking at the other man.

  She backed away a few more steps, laboring to get control of her breathing and her runaway, pounding heart.

  “Who the fuck’re you?” grumbled the Marine.”

  “Wasn’t gonna hurt her or anything. I was only gonna fuck her, for Chrissakes. You saw her. Askin’ for it, man.

  Who the fuck’re you, anyway?”

  “I don’t know you, Marine,” said the man in a quiet voice, stepping into the lamplight for the first time. “But you know me. I’m Autrey.”

  The big Marine straightened up and stopped weaving for a moment.

  “Autrey? You’re fuckin’ Autrey?” He put his massive paws in front of his chest as if to push something away. “I don’t want no fuckin’ trouble, man.

  Not with you. Not over some twist. Shit. I’m gone.”-He staggered off toward the club, missing the gravel walkway, colliding with the hedge before floundering back toward the club building like a bear crashing through brambles.

  Maddy bent forward and started to gasp. Suddenly, she could not get her breath. The man who called himself Autrey came over to her swiftly.

  “Give me your jacket,” he ordered.

  She just looked up at him blankly, still trying desperately to get a breath. Then he reached toward her and started to take her jacket. She froze, then tried to back away, starting to panic again.

  “Hold still,” he said. “I’m going to take your jacket.

  You’re hyperventilating. I’m just taking your jacket. Hold still. You’re okay.” He took the jacket and bunched it into a makeshift sack. “There, now put your face into it, breathe slower. That’s right, little breaths, smaller than that, in, out. Good, steady it up. Now blow into the jacket. You got it. You got it, into the jacket, easy now, slow it down.”

  Slowly, she regained her breath as he stood in front of her, talking quietly, not touching her, coaching her with his voice. When she was finally able to lift her face, he nodded and then led her over to a car, a large four-door Chevrolet Impala. He opened the right-front door and steered her into sitting down sideways in the car’s doorway, her feet barely touching the ground. She slumped over, her face almost on her knees, her arms wrapped around her middle as she tried to control her shaking.

  She felt him standing nearby, his hand on her shoulder now. Suddenly, she experienced a wave of nausea. She looked up.

  “I think I—I’m going—”

  He lifted her out of the car doorway in one smooth motion and trotted her over to the bushes, where she was immediately very sick. He stood to one side and held her shoulders until she was still, then gently walked her back to the car. She heard the crackle of a cigarette pack and then the distinctive click of a Zippo lighter. She smelled the pungent aroma of tobacco and realized he was holding a cigarette in front of her face.

  “I don’t—I don’t smoke,” she said in a choked voice.

  “Take one drag,” he said. “It’ll kill the nausea. Go ahead.” He put the cigarette to her lips, and she hesitated, inhaled once in a shallow puff, followed by a little cough. “Deeper,” he ordered. “Inhale it.” She did, then exhaled slowly, trying not to cough. He took the cigarette away. He was right. The waves of nausea reaching for her throat seemed to subside back into her stomach almost at once. She looked up, but Autrey was a dozen feet away, retrieving her shoes and purse. He walked back and dropped them on the floor oa the passenger side.

  “I think maybe you need a lift home, miss.”

  She looked up at him. His face seemed foreign, almost Spanish, yet different from the typical San Diego Latino.

  He wore his hair in an uneven, spiky-looking flattop and was dressed casually in chinos and a loose-fitting long sleeved white shirt. His face was narrow and angular, with a prominent nose, heavy eyebrows, dark, even black, eyes, and thin lips. He was tall, perhaps six feet, with exceptionally wide shoulders, not big and beefy like the Marine, but rangy. He appeared to be on the verge of smiling, but she could not be sure in the semidarkness.

  “Uh, Maddy. Maddy Holcomb. And thank you, Mr … Autrey? Thank you very much. I—”

  “Yeah. Well, you’re very welcome. That didn’t look exactly like friendly persuasion. Do you have a car out here?”

  She shook her head. “No. My ride left, I guess. I don’t know. Can I—can I get a taxi somewhere?”

  “There’re pay phones up at the club. But you may have a problem getting a cab. They don’t like to come to MCRD on Thursday nights—too many drunks. They fight, get sick, don’t pay. You know.” He smiled at her.

  “Well, maybe you don’t know. I think maybe you’re new to this scene.”

  He was smoking the remains of the cigarette and took a final drag before flipping it into the parking lot in a shower of sparks. “I can give you a lift if you don’t live too far away. I’ve gotta get in early tomorrow.”

  “Thank you, but I can’t just—I mean, I don’t know you.”

  The man nodded slowly, looking politely over her head. She suddenly felt like an idiot. This man had rescued her from certain rape, and she was’ going to tell him that she couldn’t accept a ride from a stranger? She shook her head impatiently.

  “Let me try that again. Yes, I would very much appreciate a ride. And forgive me for—”

  “No sweat,” he said, definitely smiling now. Smiling made his face go crooked. He had very white and even teeth. “And I would kick my girlfriend’s pretty tail feathers around the block if she ever accepted a ride from a perfect stranger—that’s if I had a girlfriend.

  But you don’t want a ride from that crew,” he said, pointing with his chin to the rowdy bunch exchanging military noises at the club’s entrance.

  She nodded again and swung her legs into the car. He closed the door and went around to the driver’s side. She pulled her skirt down out of habit, although it occurred to her that he had already seen a great deal more than just a few inches of thigh. She flushed and stared straight ahead as he started the car and backed out. He drove out of the parking lot slowly and deliberately, and she wondered for a moment whether maybe he had been drinking, too. She looked around at the darkened base.

  She could always ask him to let her out at the main gate.

  But then she realized that the only smell of liquor in the car was coming from her.

  “So,” he said as the car cruised down toward the main gate. “You’ll have to give me directions.”

  “We … uh, I … live in the Florentine Apartments.

  Do you know where the entrance to the Balboa Zoo is?”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, the Florentine is on the other side of that park area across from the entrance to the Balboa Zoo.”

  “Got it.”

  “That’s not too far out of your way, I hope. I really appreciate this, Mr. Autrey.”

  “Just Autrey. Like in the cowboy, Gene Autry—but with an e.”

  He slipped through the main gate and turned right on Rosecrans, heading inland toward the Highway 80 freeway. He drove right at the speed limit, keeping in the right-hand lane. Cars zoomed past them on the left. The cool night air suddenly felt very good. Her nausea was almost gone.

  “That’s your name, Gene Autrey?” she asked, looking over at him. She thought she saw his face twitch. He was a strange-looki
ng man, but he seemed to be nice enough.

  He sat slouched against the door on his side of the seat, one hand on the wheel, the other cocked up on the open window. His face looked deeply tanned, but then she realized that it wasn’t a tan. His nose was hooked in two clear segments. He was smiling a little now; she was sure of it. He knows I’m looking at him. His cheekbones were pronounced, casting small shadows on his face in the flashes of light from the freeway streetlights. His short black hair stuck out in all directions over the collar of his shirt. He had long, muscled hands, and his forearms were smooth, with no visible hair.

  “Not quite. Autrey is my first name. My full name is Autrey Catches Crows. I’m an Indian, Maddy Holcomb.”

  “Oh,” she said, not knowing what else to say. She had never met an American Indian, but that explained the exotic face and dark skin. He pushed the big Chevy up the ramp onto the freeway and headed east through the twinkling lights of Mission Valley. She looked straight ahead. The feel of the drunk Marine’s hands on her body made her shiver. He caught the movement.

  “Cold? I can turn on the heat.”

  “No, that’s all right. I was just—well, never mind.”

  “I’ve got to ask, Maddy Holcomb.”

  “Ask what, Mr. Autrey?” Mr. Autrey? Or should she say Mr. Catches Crows?

  “Just Autrey’ll do it, Maddy Holcomb. What I’ve got to ask is the famous question: What was a nice girl like you doing in a place like MCRD?”

  She laughed despite herself. She relaxed further when he made the correct exit onto Route 163 and headed up the hill through the sudden darkness of the Balboa Park canyons.