She stepped inside. Jock also had aviator sunglasses on, so it was hard to gauge his feeling. But this was as good a place as any. They’d have a buffer of four empty tables around them, and it might even look natural. He hadn’t looked up. She stepped toward him.

“You found me,” he said to his plate.

She sat across from him. “It wasn’t easy,” she said.

They spoke in staccato, like sentry and encroacher confirming a password. She now saw his eyes behind his sunglasses because of the light from his window view. His position, she also saw, gave him a wide sightline of the main way through camp. This would do even better. From here, she could see if Frankie was coming. Though anyone could be on their payroll. Even a busboy in cook whites. Even Jock Quinn. But she had already decided. It was all worth the risk.

No steam came off his food; he’d been letting it sit. “That’s better with a hamburger patty,” she told him. “Locals Hilo Side call that the Loco Moco.”

Jock made a face at his plate. “You can have it.”

“I don’t want it.”

“We shouldn’t be talking here,” he said. He lifted his coffee mug, to look natural.

“Who’s the girl?” she said.

His eyes fixed on her. “I told her I was never coming back. I never thought I was, either. Not then.”

“What did she tell you?”

“Told me nuthin’. Just left me. Not even a Dear John. Nothing.” He shrugged. “What was she supposed to do?”

“You gonna try and find her?”

He shrugged again. “Now they inform me that the Marines should take me back. Now they tell me. I’m cured, they say. Selfer told me that. Lansdale had given his okay, apparently. Some of the guys are off the hook. No strings attached.”

“So you’re a regular joe again, eh?”

“Gyrene, ma’am. No. I’ll never be a regular joe again.”

“No strings attached—that means what?”

“They don’t require my duty for any more of their special assignments. I can leave. Reenlist. Their rosters are set. Certain men passed, others did not.”

“It sounds like you’re the one who passed.”

“You could put it that way.” Jock looked around. “I was never here, they tell me. No one was. Top secret. I can’t speak of it, not ever. Remains classified. Me, I was just lying on some remote beach this whole time, feet up in a hammock, stoned on rum, and maybe I had me a native girl to boot.”

“When do you leave?”

“My last shift is done. Selfer says I need to go. I can head on down the hill. The new goons will let me out of this cage.”

“Congratulations.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You packed?”

“I got my sea bag.”

“For where?”