“Stay out of it. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

They were marching along with Jock pressing into his shoulder, and it looked routine enough from afar, the instructor giving trainee the earful.

“It ain’t about me. They are going to crush you. This ain’t some front line gone all snafu. You can’t just grab a truck back to your unit once you done your bender, changed your mind. Oh, I know how you doggies did that in the ETO. Well, we didn’t have the luxury stuck on some rock, some beach hotter than fugging embers.”

“Listen to me: I’m not changing my mind.”

“Goddamn, Lett, don’t make me have to save you from this.”

Lett halted, Jock with him.

“Do not do that,” Lett snapped. “Don’t.”

Both were hissing now, all whispers. Each took a step back, looking around, making sure it didn’t look too personal.

“Do not do that,” Lett repeated. “Not for me. I’m not your crew. We were never in the grinder together.”

“No? Then what the hell you think this here is, huh?”

“I want you to make it out of here. Please do that,” Lett said, and he marched off.

Jock didn’t follow. Lett felt the man’s eyes on his back. They might as well have been a sniper sight. But from whose side?

On his way Lett passed the two men waiting at the jeeps with the dummy, young goon types with greased hair, smoking out of the side of their mouths. One cackled and said, “Get a load of him.” “Whatsa matter, bub?” the other shouted to Lett. “You prefer the real McCoy?”

Lett kept going.

He thought about heading over to the Main House again and appealing to Selfer somehow. He considered walking straight to the front gate and seeing if he could just walk out. Maybe that would send a message to Lansdale, Frankie, whoever would deal with him. He strode back toward his bungalow instead. Down the midway he felt all the eyes on him. A couple people might have stopped and watched him, or so he imagined. He kept his head down, made no eye contact. He thought he heard a walkie-talkie rasping somewhere, the voices muffled but urgent. The sweat rolled down his face. He let it.

He strode right up into his bungalow, nearly hyperventilating now. He lay on his bed. He closed his eyes. He might have slept. Something made his eyes pop open, a creak maybe, but he didn’t know if it was in his dreams or the reality of this room that had never been his, a reality that wanted to boil his very marrow with shock. The sweat beaded on him again.

He closed his eyes.