«No. No. thank you. We're going back to the office. I think this remarkable young man, this fine Marine, needs some time to himself.»
«Yes, sir.»
«I've got to go back to work, too,» Senator Fowler said. «Ken, do I have to tell you if I can be of any help, in any way, all you have to do is call?»
«Thank you, sir,» McCoy said.
«Duty calls, gentlemen,» Rickabee said, stood up, and gestured for them to precede him out of the apartment.
«If you get bored later on, Ken,» Captain Sessions said, «call me at the apartment after seventeen thirty.»
«Why should he get bored?» Major Banning said. «He's a remarkable young man, a fine Marine. That means he should be able to find something to do to keep himself from getting bored.»
«I don't want to see your smiling face for at least two weeks, Captain McCoy. Consider that an order,» Colonel Rickabee said. «Aye, aye, sir,» McCoy said.
«On the other hand, let us know where we can get in touch with you,» Rickabee said.
«Aye, aye, sir.»
In a moment, McCoy was alone. He took off his tunic, tossed it on the couch, pulled down his tie, and carried his drink over to the windows overlooking Pennsylvania Avenue and the White House.
Jesus H. Christ! I
really
was in that building, with the President of the United States
.
You're a long goddamned way from the machine-gun section of Baker Company, 4th Marines, in Shanghai, Corporal McCoy
.
He slowly sipped his drink.
When the chime sounded, he was in the process of making himself another. He opened the door and the floor-service waiter wheeled in a cart loaded with silver lidded dishes, cutlery, a vase holding a single rose, and a towel-wrapped bottle in a silver wine cooler.
«May I open the champagne for you, sir?»
«No. No, thank you.»
I
don't want any champagne. I don't even like champagne
.
«Is there anything else you require, sir?»
«No, thank you. This is fine.»
«Yes, sir. Thank you very much, sir.»
The waiter left.
No check was presented. There was a standing rule in the Foster Lafayette hotel from Mr. Foster himself. No check would ever be presented to anyone staying in the Marquis de Lafayette suite as a guest of Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, USMCR. Foster's only child, his daughter Patricia, was married to Pickering.
McCoy lifted the lids on the plates. The steak was enormous. And so were the dozen oysters on their bed of ice under another lid. He dropped the lid over the oysters back in place, sat down on the couch, and reached for the telephone on the coffee table.
«Person-to-person to Miss Ernestine Sage,» he ordered. «Try her first at J. Walter Thompson, the advertising agency, in New York City. I don't know the number. If she's not there, try Gramercy 5-4777. If there's no answer there, try the Sage residence in Bernardsville, New Jersey. I don't know that number either.»
He put the telephone in its cradle, leaned back against the cushions of the couch, and closed his eyes.
He opened them quickly and sat up when he heard the sound of a door being opened.
A young woman was walking across the sitting room toward him. She had jet-black hair, worn in a pageboy, and she was wearing a black negligee that was almost invisible in the light coming through the windows behind her.
She picked up the telephone. «You can cancel that call to Miss Sage, please, operator,» she said.
She looked down at McCoy. «Well, now I know,» she said.
«You know what?»
«That I
am
more important to you than eating a steak.»
His face contorted. His chest shook. He began to sob.
«Oh, baby,» Ernie Sage said, and went to the couch and put her arms around him.
He tried to sit up. «I'm sorry, honey! I'm…«
«Shut up!» she said, then held his face against her breast and ran her hands through his hair, until, after a moment, he stopped crying.
«I wonder if they'll work,» Ernie said.
«What?»
«The oysters. There's a dozen of them.»
«I wondered what those bastards were up to with that oyster business,» he said.
«Those bastards called me the minute they heard you were in California— which is more than you did. And they called me again when they knew when you were due in Washington. If it wasn't for those bastards, you'd still be trying to talk to me on the telephone.»
«Okay. Sorry. Are you really starved? Or would a couple of oysters hold you for a while?»
«Oh, God, Ernie, I love you.»
«If that's the case, what are we doing here in the living room, with all your clothes on?»
He stood up and looked down at her, then leaned over and picked her up and carried her toward the bedroom. Halfway to the door she kissed him, which caused him to lose his sense of direction, and he collided with the door frame.
But he quickly made the necessary course corrections, passed through the door to the bedroom, and kicked the door shut behind them.
note 21
Officers' Club
U.S. Navy Hospital
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
1745 17 February 1943
«Hi,» Captain James B. Weston, USMC, said to Lieutenant (j.g.) Janice Hardison, NNC, when she slipped onto the barstool beside him.
«Hi.»
«May I say that you do more for that uniform than any other member of the Naval Officer Corps I have ever met?»
Janice blushed and was furious with herself.
«I hope you're hungry,» he said. «I didn't get any breakfast, as you know, and what they offered for lunch was unfit for human consumption.»
«I have something to tell you about me,» she said.
Oh, shit. What? You've got a boyfriend? Hell, yes, you've got a boyfriend! Someone as good-looking as you are, in the midst of all these nice young men, is not going to be alone for long.
«I'm all ears.»
«I want you to promise, first, that you won't make some smart-aleck reply.»
He held up his fingers in the manner of Boy Scouts vowing the truthfulness of what they are about to say. «Boy Scout's Honor,» he said.
«I'm a virgin,» Janice said.
Just in time, he stopped himself from saying what immediately came to his mind:
No problem. We can fix that tonight
.
«If that was intended to surprise me, it didn't.»
«And I intend to stay that way,» she said. «So maybe you may want to change your mind about…«
«What I am offering, Lieutenant Hardison, is a lobster dinner.»
«You know what I mean,» she said. «I just wanted to have things clear between us.»
«They are crystal clear,» he said. «Now, would you like a drink?»
«Yes, please,» she said. «A weak scotch.»
He signaled the bartender and ordered her drink.
When it was delivered, she took a quick, small sip, put the glass on the bar, looked at him, found him looking at her, and quickly dropped her eyes to her glass.