What did she say? Carolyn wondered, shocked. Did she really say what I think she did?
"Hi," the young woman said. "I'm Ernie Sage."
Banning rose to his feet.
"How do you do?" he said politely. "I'm Ed Banning. This is Carolyn Howell."
"Oh, I know who you are," Ernie Sage said. "Ken's told me all about you."
All about me? That I'm married? And that my stateless wife is somewhere in China... if she's managed to survive at all?
A waiter delivered the drinks. Ernie Sage grabbed McCoy's and took a swallow.
"I need this more than you do," she said. "Today has been a real bitch!"
The waiter smiled. "Shall I bring you one of your own, Miss Sage?"
"Please," Ernie said. She turned to Carolyn. "I guess you know these two go back a long way together. But I never met him before. I admire your taste."
Carolyn was uncomfortable.
"Are you a New Yorker, Miss Sage?"
"Please call me 'Ernie,' " Ernie said. "I was raised in New Jersey. I've got an apartment here. When I'm not being a camp follower, I'm a copywriter for BBD and O."
"Excuse me, what did you say?" Carolyn blurted.
"When Ken has a camp I can follow him to, I'm there," said Ernie Sage. "So far I've failed to persuade him to make an honest woman of me."
"Jesus, Ernie," McCoy said.
"I even have a red T-shirt with MARINES in gold letters across the bosom," Ernie said, demonstrating with her hand across the front of her dress.
After a long moment, Carolyn said, "You don't happen to know where I can find one like it, do you?"
"I'm sure we can get one for you, can't we, honey?" Ernie asked, grabbing McCoy's hand.
The waiter delivered another drink.
"I'd like to wash my hands," Carolyn said. "Ed and I just came out of Radio City Music Hall."
"That made your hands dirty?" Ernie asked. She rose to her feet. "I'll go with you."
The men waited until the women had disappeared around the end of the bar.
"Very pretty, that girl," Banning said.
"Pickering introduced us, when we were in OCS at Quantico," McCoy said. "His mother went to college with her mother. Her family is somewhat less than thrilled about us."
"Carolyn knows about my wife, Ken," Banning said.
"I figured you would probably tell her," McCoy said. "You know that Rickabee has people checking on her in Shanghai?"
"No, I didn't."
"He probably didn't want to raise your hopes," McCoy said. "There's been word that some of the Peking Marines didn't surrender; that they're running loose with the warlords. Maybe she got in contact with them."
"That sounds pretty unlikely," Banning said.
"She's a White Russian. She's been through this sort of thing before. I'll bet she's all right."
What the White Russians did to survive when their money gave out, and they had nothing left to sell, was to sell themselves. Preferably to an American or a European. But when that wasn't possible, to a Chinese. Now that the Japanese are running things in China...
Banning had a very sharp, very clear picture of Milla, sweet goddamned Milla, who'd already survived so goddamned much... desperately hanging on to his hand as they were married in the Anglican Cathedral in Shanghai... seven hours before the goddamned Corps ordered him out of Shanghai for the Philippines, with no goddamned way to get her out.
"Shit," Banning said softly, bitterly.
McCoy looked at him.
"Drink your martini. There's nothing you can do about anything."
"Fuck you, Killer," Banning said.
McCoy let that particular "Killer" pass unnoted. And Banning, meanwhile, picked up his martini and drained it, then held it over his head, signaling he wanted another.
"So what brings you to the Big City, Lieutenant?" he asked, closing the subject of the former Baroness Milla Christiana Lendenkowitz, now Mrs. Edward F. Banning, present address unknown.
"I've been down at the Armed Forces Induction Station," McCoy replied. "What about you?"
"Rickabee ordered me to take a week off," Banning answered. "The week's over tomorrow."
"That figures. I paddle the goddamned rubber boat into the jaws of danger, while the Major sits on his ass in the Port Moresby Aussie O Club bar. And the Major gets a week off."
Does he mean that? Or is he pulling my leg?
"Didn't Rickabee offer you time off?"
McCoy smiled. "Rickabee suspected, correctly, that the goddamn Navy has been grabbing everybody who speaks Japanese and Chinese. He said if I could grab as many as I could for our side in a week or less, he'd call it duty and pay me travel and per diem. He knew my girl lives here."
"I presume, then, Lieutenant, that you're on duty?"
"Yeah," McCoy said, and gestured around the 21 Club. "Tough, huh?"
"And then you go back to Washington?"
"To Parris Island. They've got a dozen boots down there who are supposed to speak Chinese. You know what we need them for."
Banning nodded: As soon as arrangements could be made, McCoy was to be sent to China-to Mongolia, specifically-where he'd set up a weather-reporting radio station. It was of course hoped that he'd find a way to keep the Japanese from finding it and shutting it down.
Considering that no one was sure the Marines could hold on to Guadalcanal, it seemed pretty farfetched that the top-level planners were already considering the problems of long-range bombing of the Japanese home islands. But in one sense it was encouraging; somebody thought the war could be won.
"When does that start?"
"They don't confide in me," McCoy said. "Rickabee probably knows, but he won't tell me." He laughed.
"What's funny?"
"Do you know what an oxymoron is? Sessions just told me."
Banning thought it over a moment. "Yeah, I think I do."
"Rickabee had him in his office while he told me who to look for at Parris Island: Boots who would volunteer for this thing. 'The important thing to find there,' he said, 'is intelligence. I don't just want volunteers; I want smart volunteers.' And Sessions said, 'Colonel, that's an oxymoron.' I thought it meant sort of a supermoron or something. I didn't know what the hell he was talking about. But Rickabee was pissed and threw him out of his office. Sessions told me later that an oxymoron is something like 'military intelligence.' Anybody intelligent who volunteered for this thing would prove by volunteering that he was pretty stupid."
Banning laughed.
But you volunteered, didn't you, Killer? And you're not stupid. Or are you? What is the difference between valor and stupidity?
Carolyn Howell met Ernestine Sage's eyes in the ladies'-room mirror.
"I know about Mrs. Banning," she said.
"I thought maybe you did," Ernie said as she repaired her lipstick. "According to my Marine, your Marine is a man of great integrity."
"I met him in the library. He was researching the Shanghai Post to find out any scraps he could about what happened after the Japanese occupied the city."
"You're a librarian?" Ernie interrupted.
"Yes. I went back to work after my divorce," Carolyn replied absently. "And it just... happened... between us. I already knew about his having to leave his wife over there."