"That's dirty!"
"They are both doing what they want to do. What's wrong with that?"
She exhaled audibly, shaking her head, then sipped at her drink.
"You're not what I expected, either," she said.
"What did you expect?"
"I was surprised I didn't have to defend my virtue," she said.
"Sorry to have disappointed you."
She laughed. "That I expected. The arrogance. I didn't say 'disappointed.' I said 'surprised.' "
"People think I'm arrogant?" he asked, as if this surprised him.
"The only reason Alex walked across that bar to you was because she knew you were the only man in there who would not walk across the bar to her. Or am I missing something here? Are you actually arrogant enough to think you can wait for me to make a pass at you?"
"Truth time?"
"Why not?"
"I really wish you had turned out to be a bitch like Alex instead of a nice girl. I don't make passes at nice girls."
"Baloney!"
"Boy Scout's Honor," he said, holding up three fingers like a Boy Scout. "I have learned that I have this great talent for hurting nice girls. There's enough of the other kind around so that I don't have to do that."
She found his eyes and looked into them.
"How do you hurt nice girls?"
"They seem to expect more of me than I can offer," he said.
"You've never had a nice girl?"
"I was, maybe still am, in love with a nice girl."
"And?"
"She was married to a guy in my line of work," Pick said. "He got killed on Wake Island. Once was enough for her. Oddly enough, now I understand."
He drained his drink.
"Are you staying here with Alex?" he asked. "Or can I take you home? The trumpeting of the mating elephants in there is getting me down."
She smiled.
"Where are you staying?" she asked. "With your mother?"
"No. In the hotel."
"Is anybody staying with you?"
"The king of the herd," Pick said, nodding toward the bedroom.
"You can take me home, if you'd like," Bitsy said. "But if you offered to show me your etchings, I just might accept."
Pick's surprise registered on his face.
"You have the saddest eyes I have ever seen," Bitsy went on. "I'm not what you think I am, Pick. Neither a virgin nor a quasi-virgin. As a matter of fact, I understand how your girlfriend feels."
"I don't understand."
"What happened to my husband wasn't heroic, like Wake Island. What happened to Dick was that a World War One cannon he was training on-or with, whatever-blew up at Fort Sill, Oklahoma."
"I'm sorry," he said.
"I think maybe tonight, we need each other," she said. She patted his cheek, smiled, and walked to the door, picking up her jacket on the way.
"Shall we go?" she asked.
Pick put his drink down and walked toward the door.
[ONE]
Office of the Supreme Commander
South West Pacific Ocean Area
Brisbane, Australia
0805 Hours 26 October 1942
"Good morning, General," MacArthur's secretary, a technical sergeant, said in a voice loud enough to alert everyone in the office to the presence of a general officer-meaning that everybody was supposed to stop what he was doing and come to attention.
"As you were," Brigadier General Fleming Pickering said quickly. The sergeant dropped back into his seat, and a couple of other enlisted men and a captain resumed what they were doing. But Lieutenant Colonel Sidney Huff, MacArthur's senior aide-de-camp, remained on his feet behind his desk.
"You too, Sid," Pickering said with a smile. "Sit down."
He's looking at my ribbons. Have a good look, Sid.
I should have started wearing the damned things long before this; people are impressed. It's not so much, look at me, the hero, but rather don't try to pull that "I'm a regular, you're nothing but a civilian in uniform" business on me. As these colorful little pieces of cloth attest, I have been there when people were trying to kill me, and failed. And this makes me a warrior, too, if only part time.
"The Supreme Commander is in conference with General Willoughby, General. I'll see if he can be disturbed."
"Thank you."
Huff depressed a lever on what must have been the world's oldest intercom device and announced Pickering's presence.
"Show the General in," MacArthur's voice replied metallically.
Huff started for MacArthur's door.
"Sid, I know where it is," Pickering said.
Huff ignored him. He tapped twice on MacArthur's door, immediately opened it, stepped halfway inside, and announced, "General Pickering, Sir."
"Come in, Fleming," MacArthur said. "I am delighted to receive a Marine this morning. You are entitled to bask in reflected glory."
"Good morning, General," Pickering replied with a polite nod in MacArthur's direction, and then added, "General," to Brigadier General Charles A. Willoughby, who was standing at a large map of the Solomon Islands mounted on a sheet of plywood, which itself rested on what seemed to be an oversize artist's tripod.
Willoughby nodded and said, "Pickering."
Was that to remind me that generals get to call each other by their last names? Or is he emulating El Supremo, who calls everybody but a favored few by their last names?
"That will be all, Huff, thank you," General MacArthur said. Colonel Huff stepped back into the outer office and closed the door.
"I presume you have a MAGIC intercept," MacArthur said. "When I had Huff try to find you earlier, he reported you were in the building but not available."
"Yes, Sir. You sent for me, Sir?"
"Have you seen Vandegrift's latest After-Action Report?"
"I glanced at it, Sir. You're referring to the twenty-three hundred twenty-five October AA?"
"Yes. I've got it here somewhere."