The second time was after the 106 fired from the silos across the river almost put him under, tore his leg up with shrapnel and he had an awful time getting down from the third floor with the stairway blown to hell. He should have stayed up there. He climbed through the rubble, slipped out the back thinking he was pretty cool and walked right into them. A gang of guys in sportshirts carrying old M-1s and Mausers. He’d always remember how they grinned at him. The fuckers, they weren’t even soldiers.

They blindfolded and quick-marched him to a house he’d never have found again even if he could have seen where they were going; gave him a bucket of water and a dirty towel to do something about his bleeding and locked him in a room. Every once in a while the door would open and some more of them would look in to see the prize, laughing and making, no doubt, insulting remarks in Spanish. He told them to get fucked but they just laughed some more. When the girl came and stood in the doorway he knew who it was right away. Maybe it was the carbine she had slung over her shoulder, though he told himself later it was her eyes, the way she looked at him like they had met before.

She was skinny, without any breasts to speak of, but had beautiful eyes and chestnut brown hair.

He said, “Well, Luci, how you doing?” Taking a chance and hitting it on the head. She smiled. She looked like she’d be a lot of fun just to be with. She wore a T-shirt and jeans that were patched and faded. She left the carbine outside, came in and closed the door.

She said, “You’re the Cat Chaser.” Her whole face smiling.

“I’m one of ’em.”

“You catching much lately?”

“Well, I didn’t do too good today, I’ll tell you.”

She liked that; she smiled and went out and came back with a bottle of El Presidente and a dressing. She fooled around with his leg while he drank the beer, the leg not hurting yet, though it looked a mess. He asked about the guy he’d shot and she mentioned the guy’s name, which he forgot, and said the guy was not hurt bad but had quit the war. She asked him where he lived; he said Detroit and she told him she had stayed in Miami, Florida for two months, visiting. She told him she loved Miami, Florida and wanted to go back there sometime. She asked him if he liked the Beatles or did he prefer the Rolling Stones? Everyone, she said, was in love with the Beatles. They discussed the Supremes, Freddie and the Dreamers, Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs, the Righteous Brothers, Herman’s Hermits… She did not care much for the Beach Boys or Roger Miller. He said he didn’t either. Her favorite of all was Petula Clark. She sang a little of “Downtown” in English, snapping her fingers; she knew more of the words than he did.

When they took him out and put him in the panel truck she was there. He told her to take care of herself. She gave him a look that was sad and sort of longing and told him to take care of himself, too. She said, “I won’t shoot at you no more.” Some war.

They told him see, we’re not bad guys; we’re good to you. It’s your government, your President Johnson we don’t like. They handed him over to a Marine patrol on the west end of Independence Park. The Marines looked at him like he was some kind of weird freak and drove him to the field hospital at Haina.

It was the end of Moran’s war.

Mary was patient because she enjoyed watching him and could feel the enthusiasm he tried to keep inside him. Like a young boy. Excited but self-conscious at the same time. It gave her a feeling about him that was tender and made her want to touch his face. But maybe she simply liked to touch him; she would watch him asleep, breathing softly, and the same feeling would come over her.

When he returned to the taxi and got in next to her, she said, “That’s where you were wounded?”

He nodded slowly, several times, then cocked his head, looking out the windshield. “It seems bigger. You go back to a place where you lived or spent some time and it always seems smaller. But Santo Domingo seems bigger.”

“It probably is,” Mary said. “It’s grown. A million people live here.”

“I don’t mean that way,” Moran said. “I guess I mean it isn’t as easy to understand as I thought it would be. Things aren’t black or white, are they?” He shrugged and said, “Maybe it’s me. I see it differently now.”

With feeling, Mary thought. How many people did she know who spoke or looked at anything with genuine feeling? Without being cynical, on stage, trying to entertain. Without puffing up or putting down. She wanted to know what he felt and, if possible, share the feeling.

“What happened then?”

He hesitated for a long moment. “I was taken to a field hospital. Five days later I was evacuated. Home.”

They returned to the hotel along the broad expanse of Avenida Washington with its tall palms, its view of the Caribbean on one side and the facade Santo Domingo presented to the world on the other: sun beating on walled colonial buildings and straw markets, the old giving way to solitary glass structures rising in the background. Mary said, “This is one section that’s never blacked out.” She told of a Dominican couple she’d met at the country club who paid twelve hundred dollars a month for electricity. Moran said it would be something to tell his neighbors in Pompano; they were into electric bills and loved to compare them.

He asked Bienvenido about the radio broadcast. Was it true, what the lottery-ticket man had said?

Bienvenido said, “Yes, all day it’s on the radio about you. You don’t hear it?” He began switching dials on the car radio, getting static and rock music until he found a voice speaking dramatically in Spanish. “There,” Bienvenido said. “Listen.”

“What’s he saying?” Moran hunched over the front seat rest, laying his chin on his arm.

Bienvenido was leaning toward the car radio. “He say… the American Marine who fell in love with the girl name Luci has returned.”

“What? Come on-”

“For many years since the way Captain Morón has been thinking of her, missing her…”

“Captain?”

“… with his heart breaking, until now he has returned to find her.”

“Jesus,” Moran said. “They’re making it up. I hardly even knew her.” He turned to glance at Mary who sat composed. “They’re making all that up.”

“He say… if anyone knows where to find Luci Palma, tell her that the Marine, Captain Morón, is here who loves her very much and wants to take her to the United States to live. He is at the Hotel Embajador.”

“I don’t believe it,” Moran said. “How do they know all that? I mean my name. I didn’t give anybody my name.”

“Captain Moron?” Mary said.

“Morón,” Moran said. He poked Bienvenido’s shoulder. “How do they know about me? What’d you tell the newspaper?”

“What you told me, only. I think the radio station call the newspaper and maybe the hotel,” Bienvenido said, “talk to some people there. I don’t know.”

“But it isn’t true. None of it.” He turned to look at Mary again. “Do you believe it?”

Mary gave him a nice smile. She said, “I can’t wait to meet Luci.”

There were a dozen or more Luci Palmas scattered about the hotel lobby, some with relatives, mothers and perhaps fathers; several more were in the cocktail lounge talking to winter ballplayers, doing all right, forgetting why they had come here. There was no announcement. It was like a celebrity, a movie star, arriving. A bellman nodded, holding open the door, and all the Luci Palmas converged on the bearded man with the stylish lady, who was maybe his aide, his secretary. They called out to him, “Captain! Here I am!” They said, “Oh, it is so good to see you again!” They said, “My Marine, you have return!”

Moran said, “Wait a minute!…”

The bellman said, “Can I assist you, Capitano?”