"Yeah." "Wasn't your good deed for the day? Your contribution to the Air Force's affirmitive action program?"
Kinsman laughed. "Where I come from, we write checks for good causes. We don't do anything, especially if it means coming in contact with lower-income types."
Colt saw no humor. He reached his door, unlocked it, and swung it open. "I didn't write any names down. I left my paper blank."
Kinsman leaned against the doorjamb. "We all heard." "Didn't think anybody'd want to be stuck with me."
"Because you're black."
"Because they're out to get me, man! They want to knock me off, pin my balls to their totem pole. And if they get me, they get my buddy, too."
"Nobody's out to get you, Frank. It isn't the Ku Klux
Klan out there."
"Sure. Sure. Just wait. You want to be my buddy, man? Then they'll be out to get you, too."
"Listen," Kinsman insisted. "They're down on you be- cause you've been behaving like a paranoid sonofabitch."
Colt smiled coldly. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I ought to act more humble . . . Yassuh, Massa Kinsman, suh. I's shore powerful grateful that y'all took notice of a po' li'l ol' darky lak me."
Grinning, Kinsman said, "Go to hell, Frank."
Immediately Colt replied, "Why this is hell, nor am I out of it."
With a shake of his head, "All I can say, buddy, is that you sure know how to break up a party. And T was just starting to get someplace with Mary O'Hara."
"That's her name, huh?" Colt made an enigmatic little 34 shrug, as if he were carrying on a debate within himself. Then he said, "Guess I owe you for breaking up the evening. Come on in, I've got a bottle of tequila in my flight bag."
"Say no more!"
By the time Major Tenny knocked on Colt's door he and Kinsman were sitting on the floor, passing the half-empty bottle back and forth with elaborate care. Colt climbed slowly to his feet and walked uncertainly to the door. The Major's squat bulk filled the doorway.
"Nice little show you put on down there. The poor bastard damn near drowned."
"Too bad," said Colt.
Tenny walked in and spotted Kinsman sitting on the floor, his back against the bunk. "What the hell are you guys up to?"
