Read Online The Predators by Harold Robbins - Free Book Online Page B

sure that I would be 1-A. I was healthy and I didn’t have a family to support. “Maybe I should start looking for a defense job myself,” I said.
    “Maybe,” he said. “They goin’ to get all of us. And it ain’t going to be easy for niggers and kikes. None of the services like us.”
    I took a deep breath. “I’m not going to worry about it now. I’m okay.” I opened up another Pepsi. “What the hell! Christmas is coming in a couple of weeks and everything will be peaceful and merry.”
    I never realized I’d be so wrong, so fast. Later, after Kitty had come back and we were in bed together going at it pretty good, an announcer cut into the regular music on the radio and announced that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor that morning and the war was on.
    I looked down at Kitty. Suddenly there were tears in her eyes. And I had lost my hard-on. We both knew our lives would never be the same.

16
    Everything was screwed up by the time I got to work the next afternoon. It was a madhouse. For the first time I saw Uncle Harry himself working at the counter, because only one of the spicks showed up to work. The others had taken off. There was no way they were going to take any chances of being picked up by the draft board. Most of them were over draft age and had never showed up at the draft board to pick up their card.
    Harry screamed at me. “You’re late! You knew I needed your help today!”
    “I came down after school as usual, Uncle Harry,” I said, tying an apron around me.
    “Where the hell is Buddy?” he yelled. “He’s usually here by this time.”
    “I don’t know,” I answered. “Maybe he went to enlist.”
    “Not that boy,” he said. “I heard a week ago that he was going to get a defense job.”
    “Where’d you get that?” I asked, while selling a taxi driver a pack of cigarettes.
    “I have connections,” he said smugly.
    I looked at him. I knew his connection. His little black girlfriend. I turned to Fat Rita behind the register. “What’s with Eddie?” I asked. “How is he with the draft?”
    “He’s okay,” she answered. “The draft board gave him four-F because his right leg is crooked and shorter than his other.”
    Harry looked at me. “What’s the status with you?”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll graduate at the end of the next month, and I know I’ll have to report to the draft board as soon as I graduate. I figure I’ll be one-A for sure.”
    “I remember once that your father told me when you were a kid you had asthma,” he said. “Maybe that will keep you out.”
    “I’m not sure of that,” I answered. “I never heard anything about it.”
    “Maybe we can talk to your draft board.” He looked at me. “A little chicken schmaltz might grease the wheels a little.”
    I laughed. “Uncle Harry, they don’t even know chicken schmaltz in my draft board. The district is all goyim.”
    Harry looked at me. “Money is money. It talks in any language.”
    I shrugged.
    “Can you handle the counter with José and yourself?” Harry asked. “I have to run over to the Puerto Rican employment agency and get us some new help.”
    “We can manage for now,” I said. “But I don’t know if we can handle the six o’clock rush hour when all the factories are out.”
    Fat Rita called down from the cash register. “You get in trouble, I can help out.”
    “I won’t be too long,” Harry said. I watched him go up to his office. I didn’t see him after that. He always left by the back door that was downstairs from his office.
    Things quieted down after Harry left. I looked over at Fat Rita. “Has it been busy all day?” I asked.
    She nodded. “Everyone is talking about the war. Everyone was shocked by the news.”
    “Same for me,” I said. “That’s all we talked about at school.”
    She paused for a moment. “Has Harry ever said anything about letting me go?” she asked.
    “I’ve never heard anything,” I said. “Why should he? He just