And with the 4th Marines gone from Shanghai, there didn't seem to be any point in pretending that he hadn't done what he had done. And it was nice to have an appreciative audience, an audience that had previously believed he had been a truck driver.
"The important thing," he said finally, when he realized that he was tooting his own horn too much, "is that my colonel doesn't want me in the BOQ. So where does that leave us?"
Pickering reached for the telephone.
"This is Malcolm Pickering," he said. "Will you get the resident manager on here, please?"
When the resident manager came on the line, Pickering told him there had been "another change in plans."
"I will need that suite," he said. "Lieutenant McCoy and I will be here for the indefinite future."
They went down to dinner. There Pickering talked about flight school.
"I'm going to take a flight physical Thursday afternoon," he said. "If I pass it, I think I'm going to go for it."
And then they began a lengthy, and ultimately futile, search for a couple of skirts to lift.
It did not dampen their spirits at all. There was always tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, and the week after that. There were supposed to be twice as many women as men in Washington…
Despite the legend, McCoy said, it had been his experience that a Marine uniform was a bar to getting laid. When he came back from Hawaii and Manila, they would do their pussy-chasing in civilian clothes.
(Four)
Security Intelligence Section
U.S. Naval Communications
Washington, D.C.
1540 Hours, Wednesday, 3 December 1941
The sign on the door said OP-20-G, and there was a little window in it, like a speak-easy. When McCoy rang the bell, a face appeared in it.
"Lieutenant McCoy to see Commander Kramer," McCoy announced
"I'll need to see your ID, Lieutenant," the face said.
McCoy held the little leather folder up to the window. The man took his sweet time examining it, but finally the door opened.
"The commander expected you five minutes ago," the face said. The face was now revealed as a chief radioman.
"The traffic was bad," McCoy said.
He followed the chief down a passageway, where the chief knocked at a door. When he announced who he was, there was the sound of a solenoid opening a bolt.
"Lieutenant McCoy, Commander," the chief said. "His ID checks."
"I'm sure he won't mind if I check it again," a somewhat nasal voice said.
Commander Kramer was a tall, thin officer with a pencil-line mustache. He looked at McCoy's credentials and then handed them back.
"I was about to say that we don't get many second lieutenants as couriers," Kramer said. "That is now changed to 'we don't get to see much identification like that.' "
"No, sir," McCoy said.
"Are you armed, Lieutenant?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you're leaving when?"
"At sixteen-thirty, sir."
"From Anacostia, you mean?"
"Yes, sir. Naval aircraft at least as far as San Francisco."
"You normally work for Colonel Rickabee, is that it?"
"Yes, sir."
"I heard that they had levied him for officer couriers," Kramer said. "I'm sorry you were caught in the net. But it wouldn't have been done if it wasn't necessary."
"I don't mind, sir," McCoy said, solemnly.
Instead of heading around the world by airplane, I would of course prefer to be here in Washington inventorying paper clips. Or better than that, at Camp LeJeune running around in the boondocks, practicing "the infantry platoon in the assault."
"Your briefcase is going to be stuffed," Kramer said. "She was sealing the envelopes just now. I'll have her bring them in."
He pushed a lever on an intercom.
"Mrs. Feller, the courier is here. Would you bring the material for Pearl Harbor in here, please?"
Mrs. Feller?
Ellen Feller backed into Commander Kramer's office with a ten-inch-thick stack of heavy manila envelopes held against her breast.
"Mrs. Feller, this is Lieutenant McCoy," Commander Kramer said.
"The lieutenant and I are old friends," Ellen said.
"Really?"
"We got to know one another rather well in China, didn't we, Ken?"
"You don't seem very surprised to see me," McCoy said.
"I knew you were here," she said. "I didn't expect to see you so soon, but I did hope to see you."
"May I suggest you get on with the document transfer?" Commander Kramer said, a tinge of annoyance in his voice. "Lieutenant McCoy has a sixteen-thirty plane to catch at Anacostia."
There were thirteen envelopes in the stack Ellen Feller laid on Commander Kramer's desk. There was a numbered receipt to be signed for each of them, and McCoy had to place his signature across the tape sealing the flap at the place where it would be broken if the envelope was opened.
It took some time to go through the paperwork and stuff the unyielding envelopes into the briefcase. Enough time for Commander Kramer to regret jumping on both of them.
"Ellen," he said. "If you wished to continue your reunion with the lieutenant, there's no reason you can't ride out to Anacostia with him."
"Oh, I'd like that," Ellen said.
McCoy took the handcuffs from his hip pocket and looped one cuff through the handle of the briefcase, then held out his wrist for Kramer to loop the other cuff around it.
"Have a good trip, Lieutenant," Commander Kramer said, offering his hand. He then held the door for both of them to pass through.
"My coat's just down the corridor," Ellen said.
A Navy gray Plymouth station wagon and a sailor driver waited for them at the entrance. McCoy had ridden over to OP-20-G in the front seat with him, but when the sailor saw Ellen Feller, he ran around and held the back door open for her. McCoy hesitated a moment before he got in beside her, holding the heavy briefcase on his lap.
"You were right," Ellen said, as they drove off.
"About what?"
"That I could probably find a job because I speak Chinese." She switched to Chinese. "The first place I applied was to the Navy, and they hired me right on. As a translator. But there's not that much to translate, so I've become sort of office manager. I'm a GS-6."
"I don't know what that means," McCoy said, relieved that they could speak Chinese and the driver wouldn't understand them. "Where's your husband?"
"He's in New York, busy with his work," she said.
"You manage to smuggle the vase in all right?" McCoy asked
She raised her eyebrows at the question, but didn't answer it.
"I have a nice little apartment here," she said. "You'll have to come see it."
"The last time I saw you, you-seemed damned glad to be getting rid of me."
"Well, my God, you remember what happened the day before," she said. "That was quite a shock."
"Yeah," he said, sarcastically. "Sure."
"I was upset, Ken," she said. "I'm sorry."
"Forget it," he said. "Those things happen."
"I understand why you're… angry," she said.
He didn't reply.
She turned on the seat and caught his hand in both of hers.
"I said, I'm sorry," she said.
"Nothing to be sorry about," he said.
"If you're still angry, then there is," she said.
"I'm not angry," he said.
She rubbed his hand against her cheek and then let him go.
"Not everything that happened the day before was unpleasant, of course," she said.
He didn't reply.
"Do you remember what happened just before?".
You were blowing me, that's what happened just before.