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him.
    â€œHe wants everything ... Barrin Industries, the Mondo Beach property ... the works. He’s going to get even with your grandfather.”
    â€œFuck McMillan.”
    â€œNot him, Dog. I told you, he’s a vulture. He’s got the money and the power. To him Barrin Industries is only a toy to be played with. That guy plays in international finance. He can buy anything he wants to.”
    I took a long drag on the cigarette and snuffed it out in the empty beer can. “Almost everything, Al. Or do you know about that too?”
    â€œYou even look at his wife sidewise and you’ll be dead, buddy. Like D-E-A-D.”
    â€œI wasn’t intending to. I just said there were some things you just can’t buy.”
    â€œDog, you’re nuts. Those two are crazy in love. They always have been.”
    â€œYeah, I know.”
    â€œMaybe there’s an age differential. Not much, but they’re sure as hell in love.”
    â€œI wasn’t talking about that,” I said.
    â€œWhat them?”
    â€œNothing that makes any difference right now.”
    We sat there rocking a few minutes, looking up Broadway. North of Thirty-fourth Street a gray cloud was beginning to encompass the Empire State Building.
    â€œIt’s going to rain.” I said.
    For the first time, old Al DeVecchio’s face was a study in consternation. I never had seen him like that before. It was like he had stumbled into somebody else’s foxhole and found it full of shit.
    â€œI never should have answered your letter,” he said.

REFLECTIONS: AL DEVECCHIO
    Who the hell is he now? You think you get to know somebody under four long years of war and gunfire and he zeroes out like a pissed-on cigar butt and the guy you knew isn’t there anymore.
    â€œSay, mate, you wanted Spit time, didn’t you?”
    â€œNow?”
    â€œReally, Major, if it wasn’t for this girl ... daughter of one of your senators, y‘know ... sort of asked for me and it’s hands across the ocean and all that sort of crap, y’know? Now, she’s a new Mark Thirteen and never been scratched. Only two milk runs on photo across to the sub pens...”
    â€œShe armored?”
    â€œFull up, Major.”
    â€œIf I get my ass snarled on this one ...”
    â€œBlimey, Major, I got them all prepped. No sorting out to do at all. Beansey, Jerry and Tag are off your wings. Good chaps, those. Twelve kills among them. Relatively new and not like you at all, but remember, dear boy, you wanted to fly the Spit ...”
    â€œNo time goes on my record?”
    â€œâ€™Pon my word, Major. I wouldn’t want to go before Old Snarly for anything. Realize you and the flight surgeon are having it out over those missing missions, but don’t forget, it was that little niece of mine who lifted your records. Good job, what?”
    â€œYeah, lovely.”
    â€œToo bad you chaps get rotated so soon. It’s really a gorgeous war,” he said. “Tell me, Major, why don’t you want to go home?”
    â€œLong story, my friend, And like you said, it’s a gorgeous war. I always did want Spit time. That crate handle well?”
    â€œYou should know, Major. Much better than the Nines. Just remember to find me an empty Mustang on the next Nuremberg run. There’s a farmhouse there occupied by a particularly nasty character who stuck a pitchfork in my buttock when I bailed out on his property. Damned near didn’t escape. If it weren’t for the little beauty across the river who always had been partial to the sons of John Bull I never would have made it. Quite an interesting stay, that was.”
    â€œYou Limeys are nuts,” Dog said.
    â€œDetermined, you must admit.”
    â€œSure, to lay an American senator’s daughter.”
    â€œOh, just trying to improve our relationship with the colonials, Major. Enjoy the Spit, old boy. My batman has everything arranged. Would