"Good, because there's more," Ernie said. "Now that we know how the Marine Corps paid you back for all your loyal service, I don't care if the goddamn Commandant himself knows we're well off-"
"You're well off," McCoy interrupted.
"-we're well off," Ernie repeated, firmly, even angrily. "Don't start that crap again, Ken. I've had enough of it."
"Yes, ma'am," he said.
"And we're going to live like it," Ernie said, firmly.
"Okay," he said.
"Okay?" she asked, as if she had expected an argument.
"Okay," he repeated.
"Starting tonight with dinner in the best restaurant in Tokyo," she said.
"Fine," he said.
"Well, with that out of the way," Ernie asked, "whatever shall we do now?"
Her hand moved sensually down from his neck over his chest and stomach.
"Hart said Pickering said I get thirty minutes, no more, `personal time' with my wife."
"Fuck him," Ernie said. "He can wait a couple of minutes. The whole fucking world can wait a couple of minutes." "My thoughts exactly," McCoy said.
[SEVEN]
Captain Kenneth R. McCoy, USMC, came out of his bed-room in a crisp uniform fresh from the dry-cleaning plant of the Imperial Hotel.
He was just a little light-headed. It was probably due, he thought, to the sudden change of uniform, from foul utili-ties to clean greens, from foul and heavy boondockers to highly shined low-quarter shoes, which felt amazingly light on his feet, and he was, of course, freshly bathed and shaved.
And freshly laid, he thought somewhat crudely. Freshly laid twice. It'll be a long goddamn time before those guys on the Clymer and Pickaway get to share any connubial bliss again. If they ever do.
Master Gunner Ernest W. Zimmerman, USMC, simi-larly attired, was sitting in one of the armchairs in the liv-ing room with Captain George F. Hart. They both had a drink dark with scotch in one hand, and a bacon-wrapped oyster on a toothpick in the other.
"Do I live here now, or what?" Zimmerman asked. "From the way the room I took a shower in looks, it looks that way."
"There's plenty of room," McCoy said. "You, too, George."
"The boss wants me in the hotel, but thanks."
That's the difference between a reservist and a regular. I never think of General Pickering as anything but "the gen-eral," and neither does Zimmerman. George thinks of him as "the boss." And George is perfectly comfortable with that drink in his hand at three o `clock in the afternoon, and I was just about to jump Ernie's ass about it.
Fuck it. We're entitled to a drink.
He walked to the bar and made himself a drink.
"How come we never came here before?" Zimmerman asked.
"I didn't know until fifteen minutes ago that Ernie owns this place," McCoy said. "Until then, I thought it was GI quarters; that we'd given them up when they sent me to the States."
"Ernie bought this?" Hart asked.
"Ernie didn't like the GI quarters," McCoy said.
"Good for her," Zimmerman said. "Mae-Su got us out of officer's housing at Parris Island just as soon as she could get a house built in Beaufort."
"Duty calls," McCoy said. "Should I gulp this down, or trust that CIC spook to drive slowly?"
"Gulp it down," Zimmerman said, stood up, finished his drink, burped, and walked toward the door.
As he did, the doorbell-actually, a nine-inch brass bell hung on the wall just inside the gate-rang.
"Our driver getting impatient?" McCoy asked. "Who else knows we're here?"
"Maybe something for Ernie?" Zimmerman asked.
McCoy shook his head "no"-there was a rear entrance to the property, with its own bell; tradesmen used that- and went to the front door, carrying his glass with him.
Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, USMCR, was halfway between the gate in the wall and the house. On his heels was Major General Ralph Howe, U.S. Army, and a large, muscular man in civilian clothing. He was carrying a briefcase. There was something about him that made Mc-Coy suspect he was a soldier, a noncom, or maybe a war-rant officer.
There being nothing else to do with it, McCoy shifted what was left of his double Famous Grouse on the rocks to his left hand, and saluted with his right.
Pickering and Howe returned the salute.
"You look pretty natty for someone fresh from the rice paddies of Korea, Captain," General Howe said. "Please forgive the intrusion. General Pickering said you wouldn't mind."
"We were just about to go to the Imperial, sir."
"Who's here, Ken?" Pickering asked.
"Hart, Zimmerman, and Ernie, sir," McCoy said. "And-I guess-the housekeeper and a maid."
"Well, if you don't mind, Captain, after you fix us all one of those, why don't you send them shopping?" Howe said.
"Yes, sir."
"Just the Japanese," Howe said. "Mrs. McCoy's going to have to be brought in on this. Your home just became what I understand you CIA people call a `safe house.'"
"Yes, sir," McCoy said.
"Charley," General Howe said to the muscular man in civilian clothing. "This is the legendary Killer McCoy-"
"Who really doesn't like to be called that, Ralph," Pick-ering said.
He's calling him "Ralph"?
"Sorry," Howe said. "Captain McCoy, Master Sergeant Charley Rogers."
Master Sergeant Rogers wordlessly shook McCoy's hand.
Hart and Zimmerman came more or less to attention as everybody entered the living room.
Howe made a gesture indicating they should relax. He went to Zimmerman.
"You look like what a Marine gunner should look like," he said. "Zimmerman, right?"
"Yes, sir," Zimmerman said.
"My name is Howe. This is Master Sergeant Charley Rogers. We go back to his being my first soldier when I was a company commander."
The two shook hands wordlessly.
Ernie McCoy, in the kimono she had worn earlier, came into the room.
"Nice to see you again, Mrs. McCoy," Howe said. "Sorry to barge in on you like this. We just couldn't take a chance that the ears in the walls in the Imperial might be active."
"Excuse me?" Ernie said.
"Charley found three microphones in General Picker-ing's suite. They might be Kempe Tai leftovers, and then again they might not be."
"Oooh," Ernie said, then: "Welcome to our home, Gen-eral."
"Ernie, send the help shopping for a couple of hours," Pickering ordered.
"Just the servants?"
"I think you're going to have to be in on this, Mrs. Mc-Coy," Howe said.
Ernie nodded and headed for the kitchen.
"McCoy, if you'll point out the booze to Charley?" Howe said.
"I'm the aide," Hart said. "I'll make the drinks. What will you have, sir?"
"What's that in your glass? Pickering's brand of scotch?"
"Yes, sir. Famous Grouse."
"Sergeant?" Hart asked.
Master Sergeant Rogers nodded his head.
Ernie McCoy came back into the room two minutes later.
"I told them to buy enough pressed duck to feed us all for dinner," she said. "Not to come back for two hours- and to ring the bell when they came in."
Howe looked at her a little surprised.
"This is not the first time I've sent the help shopping, General," Ernie said.