A Private Little War(95)

“Machine guns?” Fenn asked. “You and Jacky find something?”

Carter waved a hand dismissively. “Figure of speech.” He hung his head and pinched the greasy bridge of his nose between his fingers. “Six hours over target and we didn’t see shit. Tommy was falling asleep at the stick when we landed.” He cracked his neck and saw spots exploding in the darkness. Then he started patting down his pockets for cigarettes. “Why aren’t you up right now? Didn’t you have a two/one this afternoon?”

“Scrubbed.” Fenn shrugged. “Ted’s orders.”

Carter snorted. “How long you have to spend on your knees each day to get favors like that?”

“Less than you’d think, darling.” He passed the bottle across the gap between their beds. “Drink. You’ll feel better.”

Carter took it, drank, didn’t. Twisting against the bed rail, Eddie held out a pack of cigarettes, and Carter extracted one dubiously. “You don’t smoke,” he said to the lawyer.

Eddie smiled wanly, something lost and sick about it. “I started. I don’t think I have to worry about them killing me at least.”

Carter turned, raised an eyebrow at Fenn, then turned back around and snatched the rest of the pack out of Eddie’s soft hand. “You don’t get to talk that way,” he snapped. Then he threw the pack back at him hard, bouncing it off his chin, scattering perfect, white, manufactured cigarettes in the dirt.

Eddie flinched back, wide-eyed. Carter looked back at Fenn. “He doesn’t get to talk that way. Tell him. Not in this house.”

“Throttle back, Captain,” Fenn said calmly. He lifted his chin in the direction of the bottle. “Take your medicine.”

Eddie started collecting cigarettes off the ground.

Carter had another drink, set the bottle in the dirt. “Fucking desk pilot,” he said to the top of Eddie’s head. “I heard you, you know. The other night. In Ted’s tent.”

“What other night?” Eddie asked.

For a hanging second, Carter had to think how to answer that question, then shook his head and snapped, “Don’t try to fucking confuse me! The other night. You were in there crying about finding a way off this rock. Trying to run. Trying to talk Ted into letting us catch a ride with some smuggler.” He lit his cigarette with Fenn’s lighter. “Whining little pussy.”

“That isn’t the way it happened at all,” Fenn said.

“It was. I was listening. I was going to tell you about it, Fenn, but…”

“That’s not the way it’s happening,” Eddie seconded.

Carter whirled on the lawyer. “Fuck you, Eddie. I heard you. I saw you. I saw Ted. We have a job to do here and he’s trying to do it, and you’re trying to run? You’re a fucking chickenshit coward.” Carter slapped at the pack of cigarettes in Eddie’s hand again but failed to connect, so shoved him instead. “A fucking lawyer!”

“Shut up, Kev.” Fenn was fiddling with the bottle’s cork, absently picking it apart with his fingers. Eddie had his head down.

“You defending him now?” Carter asked, turning back to Fenn.

“No. I’m just telling you to shut up or leave.”

“So you’re throwing me out now?” It was no longer a joke. “Because of him?”

“I invited him, Kevin. Be nice.”

Carter took a deep breath. He and Fenn had fought only once the whole time they’d lived together, which was really saying something, considering the closeness of the quarters and the amount of time they’d both spent in them. Regardless, Fenn had beaten Carter pretty completely. They didn’t talk about it, but it was there—a solid truth of their relationship. It’d taken Carter a week to recover. And right before, Fenn had had a look on his face like he had now, watching Carter from his rack. Not anger, but just the absence of his usual levity. A look with some real cold, dead weight behind it.

That first fight had been about good manners among houseguests, too, if Carter remembered correctly—a particular pet peeve of Fenn’s. And for a moment, Carter thought about making a go at his friend again, on principle, because he didn’t like that look much at all and didn’t like how Fenn leveled it at him like a gun across Fast Eddie’s back.

He decided against it, though. He was too tired, and fighting over Eddie seemed like a ridiculous thing to do anyhow. But he let Fenn know that he had been considering it before he looked away. Maybe he would’ve had a go had the hour been earlier, had he not already been hurting enough.

“Sorry,” he said. “Long day is all.”