"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."
"You didn't have to tell me that," Ernie said.
"You didn't have to call yourself a camp follower," Carolyn said. "Why did you?"
"Well, for one thing it's the truth," Ernie said. "He won't marry me. So I take what I can get. Whither he goest, there goeth I, as it says in the Good Book, more or less. Except that he doesn't often go someplace where I can follow him." She gave her head a little regretful shake. "I lived with him outside Camp Pendleton for a while."
"Why won't he marry you?"
"The Killer thinks he's going to get killed... or rather, that's his professional opinion. He has integrity, too, goddamn him; he doesn't want to leave a widow."
"Have you two got plans for tonight?" Carolyn asked.
"The office boy has a reputation for coming up with anything you want, for a price. I gave him twenty dollars and told him to find me some steaks. He couldn't get any steaks, but he came up with a rib roast. I am going to pretend I'm a housewife and make it for him."
"I'll give you thirty dollars for it," Carolyn said. "And invite the two of you to join us for dinner in the bargain."
"Deal," Ernie said. "And in the bargain, I will smile enchantingly at Gregory and charm him into letting me raid their wine cellar."
[THREE]
The Andrew Foster Hotel
San Francisco, California
1730 24 October 1942
Mrs. Carolyn Ward McNamara was by nature a very fastidious woman. Consequently, she was at the moment a very annoyed one. Not only had she not bathed in seventy-two hours, or changed her clothing (except underwear, once) during that time, but her skin felt gritty from the coal ash that blew through the window of the passenger car on the final, St. Louis-San Francisco leg of her journey. The last time she combed her hair-as they were coming into San Francisco-she could literally hear the scraping noise the ash made against her comb.
Before she actually entered Philadelphia's 30th Street Station (how long ago? it seems like weeks), she really had no idea how overloaded the railroads were. Even in the middle of the night, 30th Street Station was jammed. Still, she was able to buy a ticket to San Francisco, thank God!... even if she didn't have a seat for most of the way to Chicago. And the passenger car was old!-even older than the one that brought her from Chicago to here; it had probably been retired from service after the Civil War and resurrected for this one. Anyhow, she found a place at the rear of that ancient passenger car, behind the last seat, where she was able to crawl in and rest her back against the wall.
During the trip, she subsisted on cheese and baloney sandwiches, orangeade, and an infrequent piece of fruit. She'd sell her soul right now for five ounces of scalloped veal, some new potatoes, and a green salad.
At the station, she waited thirty minutes for a taxi, then had to share the cab with two people who apparently lived at opposite ends of San Francisco.
And now she was finally arriving at the Andrew Foster, but God only knew what she was going to find there. If she managed to connect with Charley at all, he'd probably be in the same shape that she was: tired, dirty, and with no place to go.
"Here we are, lady," the driver said as the cab pulled up in front of the hotel.
Coming here, she realized at that moment, was not the smartest idea she ever had. But when she heard Charley's voice, and he told her he was on his way to San Francisco, it seemed like an inspiration. They would meet where they had parted, in San Francisco's most elegant hotel.