This Scorching Earth by Donald Richie Page A

Michael reminded him.
    "Aw, look at you," said the Major, laughing. "Here you act as though you think we're sinners or something. It's just a fast buck—no harm in that. And I bet you can use it too. What we acting so doggone guilty about?" He rolled his eyes, licked his lips, and his accent became broader and broader.
    Michael watched, slightly ill. He was always surprised at how phony the Major could be.
    Michael was acting guilty because he, unlike the Major, felt guilty. He had ever since he first started running those innocent-looking errands for the Major, delivering packages to Japanese office buildings or rich homes, drinking tea in damp waiting rooms, being bowed out of invariably overcrowded Western -style parlors, each complete with plum-colored easy-chairs and an upright piano. At first he'd thought the errands a part of his duties, but it was soon made clear that the Colonel was to know nothing of them. When he confronted the Major and refused to run any more errands, the latter grew red and threatened a great deal, but ended by giving him a percentage of the profits.
    The Major was a big-time operator and consequently dealt only in money changing—dollars to yen or yen to dollars, but always at an enormous profit, and if occasionally he had to use his official position to put the screws on, well, that's why he kept those golden oak leaves so brightly polished. Michael didn't mind the illegality of the transactions so much as he hated being involved with the Major. He felt guilty because, hating the Major as he did, he still worked for him, still shared the ever-present danger of discovery.
    The Major was saying: "This morning O'Hara's coming in." (It was definitely the Irish name on the Major's lips—not the softly spoken Japanese "small field" at all.) "I already got him almost talked into it. Hell, you'd think these people'd know a good thing when they see it. But they got no business sense, no get-up-and-go. Cautious. Real cautious. That's what they are. How they ever expect to get ahead in the business way beats me. But maybe you think I don't have a way to light a fire under O'Hara's tail! Just watch him this morning."
    "What am I supposed to do?"
    "The usual. He's taking dollars for the yen payment, or my name's not Calloway. It's for that opera tonight, you know. You'll deliver. Gonna buy that little girl of yours something nice out of the proceeds?" He smiled broadly.
    This was the usual finale to business arrangements between the Major and the Private.
    "After all, Richardson, it isn't as though it was just us doing things like this. Hell, half the Army's selling cigarettes or sugar or something. That's the way things are. I don't think it's up to us to go around trying to change them, do you?" He smiled again and said: "Besides, some changes are gonna be made in this here little old office before very long, and I think it'd be real nice if you stayed on—and as something a bit more important. Sergeant or something like that."
    The Major stepped back to see what effect this had.
    Michael looked at the floor. He'd suspected this was coming. Poor Colonel Ashcroft. Only someone like Major Calloway could possibly do something like this. And he was right. He could make a private a sergeant, simply through pull in the proper direction, a little juggling of the Table of Operations, a little interview with the proper colonel, then the proper general. Major Calloway was an operator.
    Michael turned to go back to the office, and the Major almost ran the few steps between them: "So—you got it straight about tonight? Got it?"
    Michael couldn't decide which aspect of the Major was the worst—the phony commander, leader of men, head of the office; or this ingratiating puppy-like little man, all buddy-buddy with the privates, the good Joe. He simply nodded to show he had in fact "got it."
    Instantly the Major became extremely affectionate. He threw his arm around Michael's shoulder, and they