The sergeant standing there next to him had won a Confederate Cross. “P.G.T.B. Austin, without concern for his own safety, climbed onto the top of a U.S. traveling fort,” President Semmes said, not calling it a barrel, “and threw grenades into the machine through its hatches until fire forced the crew to flee, whereupon he killed three with his rifle, wounded two more, and accepted the surrender of the rest. Sergeant Austin!” The audience applauded. Photographers snapped away as Austin went up to get his medal. Kimball nodded to himself. Brave, lucky, and crazy, sure enough.
His own turn came a moment later. After hearing what the Army man had done, he felt embarrassed to accept even a lesser decoration. The president shook his hand and told him what a splendid fellow he was. He already knew what a splendid fellow he was, so he didn’t argue. The medal, a tiny gold replica of the Confederacy’s first ironclad hanging from a red, white, and blue ribbon, did look impressive on his chest.
He went back to his place under the awning and waited for the rest of the medals to be awarded. Then, as he’d expected, the men who’d won them got the chance to mingle with guests and reporters.
He wondered if Anne Colleton would still give him the time of day. He wasn’t a big fish, not in this pond. If she wanted heroes, she had her pick here. But she came straight up to him. Maybe she wants an ornery so-and-so, he thought. Takes one to know one.
“Congratulations,” she said, and shook his hand man-fashion. “I’m glad to see you here and well.”
“Same to you,” he answered. The feel of her flesh against his sent a charge through him, as if he’d touched a bare wire. He watched her face. Her pupils got bigger; her nostrils flared, ever so slightly. She wanted to be alone with him, too. Heat different from that of Richmond August filled him. “Last I got a look at you, you were seeing how fast you could get away from the Charleston docks.”
“I did fine, halfway to Marshlands.” Her voice turned bitter. “Then my car got stolen.”
“Rebels? Reds?” Kimball said. “You’re lucky they didn’t kill-”
“Not Reds,” Anne broke in. “Soldiers. Our soldiers. Oh, I suppose they needed it against the uprising, but-” She didn’t go on.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw men gathering around them, drawn to Anne Colleton like moths to a flame. He knew how good a comparison that was, too. But he was no moth; he had fire of his own. So he told himself, anyhow. Quickly, while he still had the chance, he asked, “Where are you staying?”
“Ford’s,” she answered. “Would you like to celebrate your medal by having supper with me there tonight?”
“Can’t think of anything I’d like better,” he said. He could, in fact, think of several things, but those were things you did, not things you talked about. “Half past six?” he asked, and, when she nodded, he drifted away as if she were just someone in the crowd he happened to know.
He showed up at the hotel a couple of minutes early. She was waiting in the lobby and, again, had drawn a crowd. Some of the officers were of considerably higher rank than lieutenant commander; all the civilians looked more than prosperous. Everyone stared after Kimball and Anne when they went off to the dining room, her hand on his arm.
He grinned over at her. “I could get used to this,” he said.
A tiny vertical crease appeared between her eyebrows. “Don’t,” she said, more seriously than he’d expected. “If people think of you because of whoever’s with you-so what? Make them remember you for yourself.”
He thought about that, then nodded. “I started on a little farm. I’ve come this far on my own. I’ll go farther, if I can.”
“That’s the way to look at it,” she agreed. “Any one of those fat lawyers back there would love to take care of my affairs-and you can take that any way you like. I won’t let them. I run my life, no one else.” That had the sound of hard experience behind it, and also, perhaps, a note of warning.
Ford’s Hotel did right by its dinner spread. “Wouldn’t hardly know there’s a war on,” Kimball said happily, digging into almost fork-tender leg of lamb.
Anne Colleton stayed serious. “What do you think of President Semmes’bill?” she asked. She didn’t need to say which bill. Only one mattered now.
“I’m against it,” he answered firmly. “As long as we’re holding our own, or even anything close, we should go on doing what we’ve been doing. Far as I can see, we’re giving the darkies a kiss on the cheek, right after they tried to up and knock our heads off.”
She nodded, slowly. “Is that how most Navy men feel?”
Kimball knocked back the whiskey in his glass. “It’s not even the way my exec feels. All you hear these days is arguments.”
“What if we can’t win the war, can’t hope to win the war, if things keep on going as they have been?” Anne said. “Would you want to arm Negroes then?”
“Hung for a sheep or hung for a lamb, you mean?” He shrugged, unable to come up with a better answer. “If we’re that bad off, putting rifles in niggers’ hands won’t help us, far as I can see. And if we do that, and we lose anyhow, what will the country look like afterwards? Be a hell of a mess, begging your pardon-not that it isn’t already.”
“A point,” she said. “It may be the most serious point in opposition I’ve heard yet.” A colored waiter came up and cleared away plates. After a tutti-frutti ice, brandy, a cigar for Kimball and a couple of cigarettes for Anne, the waiter came back. “Charge this to my room,” she told him, and he dipped his head with practiced obsequiousness.
Roger Kimball’s hand had been going to his wallet. He scowled, angry that she’d accepted the bill before he had the chance. “I’m not broke-” he began.
“I know,” she answered, “but, for one thing, I invited you to supper, not the other way round, and, for another, I promise I have more money than you do; I know what naval officers make. It’s my pleasure, believe me.”
“Weren’t you the one talking about making your own way when we came in here?” he asked, unhappy still.
“I didn’t suggest annoying your friends by being stubborn when that’s plainly foolish,” she said, a touch of sharpness in her voice.
He subsided, looking for a word he’d heard a few times but had had little occasion to use. Gigolo, he thought. She’s made me her gigolo tonight. He seemed to have no choice but to accept that. Well, all right. Gigolos had privileges of their own. He remembered how she looked under that maroon silk, and how she felt, and how she tasted, too.
If the Ford Hotel boasted a house detective, he was good at making himself invisible. Kimball and Anne went up to her floor and walked down the richly carpeted hallway to her room without interference. She opened the door with her key, leaned forward to brush his lips with hers…and then said, “Good night, Roger. I hope you sleep well.”
It was not an invitation to come in. “What the devil-?” he said roughly. “We’ve been-”
“I know what we’ve been,” she answered. “We won’t be, not tonight. The very first time we met, you did a splendid job of seducing me.” Her eyes glinted, half amusement, half remembered anger of her own. “And so, tonight, no. Call it a lesson: never, ever take me for granted. Maybe another time, probably another time-but not tonight.”
He wasn’t that much bigger than she, but he knew he was stronger. With a lot of other women, he would have picked them up, thrown them on the bed, and taken what he wanted. If he tried that with her-even if he succeeded, because he knew she’d fight like a wildcat-he figured she was liable to stab him or shoot him as he left.
“You are a bitch,” he said, reluctantly admiring.
“I know.” She knew, all right, and she was proud of it.
He seized her, jerked her chin up, and kissed her, hard. He figured she’d fight that, too, but she didn’t. Her body molded itself against him. When the kiss broke, though, she pushed him away. She was laughing-and panting a little. So was he. “Thanks for supper,” he said, and tipped his hat. He strode down the hall toward the elevator without a backward glance.