In Danger's Path Page 21

  “Off-limits,” he corrected her automatically, his mind on other things, specifically that Elizabeth-Sue was pressing her abdomen against his in a manner he didn’t think was accidental. “Yes, they are.”

  “Then you must get lonely in there, all alone by yourself.”

  “Actually, I don’t live in the BOQ.”

  “You’re married?”

  The pressure of her abdomen against his disappeared.

  “No. I live in the Peabody in Memphis,” he said. “And I’m not married.”

  The pressure of her abdomen against his reappeared.

  If she keeps that up, I’m going to get a hard-on.

  She did, and he did.

  The pressure of her abdomen against his remained constant.

  Elizabeth-Sue volunteered further information about herself: for example, that her husband, Quincy, Junior, as he was known, was considerably older than she was, was deeply involved with administering War Bond sales in Tennessee, and had to be out of town a good deal. He was, in fact, out of town for the next week.

  At that point, Elizabeth-Sue discreetly inquired if living in the Peabody was comfortable, and did he share his accommodations with anyone?

  He lied to her in that instance, not to deceive her, but because it was easier to say he was all alone than to explain that he and Captain William Charles Dunn, USMCR, of the Point Clear, Alabama, Dunns, shared the Jefferson Davis Suite in the Peabody—actually two threeroom suites sharing a common sitting room. It was understood between the two men that neither entered the quarters of the other without first telephoning to make sure a visit would not interrupt anything, or embarrass the participants.

  “Perhaps we could have a drink sometime,” Pick said.

  “Memphis is a small town, really,” Elizabeth-Sue said. “Everyone knows everyone. If anyone saw us together, there would be talk.”

  “Well, maybe if we just happened to bump into each other somewhere, say the bar at the Peabody, we could go somewhere where no one would see us.”

  “You really are a wicked man, aren’t you?” Elizabeth-Sue said, clearly aware that the somewhere where no one would see them was his room.

  Lieutenant Pickering pulled his Cadillac convertible up to the front door of the Peabody Hotel. After checking up and down the street to make sure no Shore Patrolmen or Military Policemen were in sight, got out quickly and tossed the keys to the bellman on duty. “I won’t be needing it tonight, I hope,” he said to the bellman. He entered the building and headed for the bank of elevators. Then stopped in disbelief.

  Sitting on a leather couch facing the passage between the elevators and the shallow pool in the center of the lobby was a fellow Marine officer and a lady, both of whom he was acquainted with. The Marine officer was in impeccable uniform.

  He slid onto the couch beside the Marine officer.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Lieutenant Pickering asked.

  “If she’s not pulling my chain,” Captain Kenneth R. McCoy, USMCR, announced, “I am about to see a flock of ducks march off the elevator, pass right by here, and then paddle around that pool.” He described the path with a pointed finger.

  “Truth is stranger than fiction,” Pick said. “The duck march is one of Memphis’s best-known cultural attractions.” He consulted his pilot’s chronograph and added: “And if they’re on time, and they usually are, that will take place in ninety seconds.”

  The two men looked at each for a moment.

  “God, I’m glad to see you,” Pick said.

  “Me, too, buddy,” Ken McCoy replied.

  “Who’s the broad?” Pick asked.

  “Screw you, Pick,” Miss Ernestine Sage said.

  “When did you get here? How did you get here?” Pick asked.

  “Nine o’clock this morning,” McCoy said. “We came on the train. I wanted to drive, but Ernie said she was afraid of the weather.”

  This was not quite the truth. She had actually said that she would like to get a compartment on the train. She had always had a fantasy about making love in a bunk on a train, with the rails making that clickety-click sound beneath them.

  Booking a compartment on the Cotton Blossom hadn’t been easy, but Captain McCoy had been highly motivated. In the event, in his view, the trip had been worth all the effort.

  “Why didn’t you come out to the air station? Or at least call? What did you do all day?”

  Miss Sage looked at Captain McCoy as if she feared he would tell Lieutenant Pickering how they had spent most of the day.

  “We walked down to the river and watched it roll by,” McCoy said. “I called out there, and Billy Dunn said you were really tied up and could we wait until you got off duty? If he told you we were here, he would probably have to court-martial you, because you could be counted upon to desert your post.”

  “He really takes being a captain a little too seriously,” Pick said.

  “According to him, you don’t take being a lieutenant seriously enough,” McCoy said, and then he said, “Well, I will be damned!”

  A line of ducks, a dozen of them, shepherded by a bellman, emerged from an elevator and marched quacking through the lobby into the shallow pool.

  “Aren’t they adorable?” Miss Sage inquired.

  “Lieutenant, may I please see your ID card?” a boatswain’s mate second class, USN, with an SP brassard on his sleeve inquired.

  “Oh, Jesus, Boats!” Lieutenant Pickering said. “Not again? What were you doing, waiting for me?”

  “We just happened to see you get out of your car, sir,” the SP said. “Can I have your ID card, please?”

  McCoy saw there were two SPs. The second, a seaman first class, was standing a few feet away, his hands folded behind his back.

  “Can I see you a minute, Boats?” McCoy said, standing up.

  “Sir, this is no concern of yours,” the SP said.

  “That wasn’t a suggestion, Boats,” McCoy said, and held up a leather folder before the SP’s face, just long enough for him to take a quick look at it.

  “Aye, aye, sir,” the Shore Patrolman said.

  He followed McCoy across the lobby, where McCoy stopped behind a massive pole.

  “Sir, could I see your credentials again, please?” the SP said.

  McCoy handed him the leather folder again. The SP examined it carefully, looked hard at McCoy, then handed it back.

  “You don’t see very many of those, sir,” he said.

  “I suppose not,” McCoy replied.

  I never thought about that. I wonder how many Special Agents—real Special Agents—of the Office of Naval Intelligence there are, running around?

  “How can I help you, Captain?”

  “You’re interfering with my business with that officer. Can I ask you to just walk away, or are we going to have to get your duty officer over here? Having to do that would annoy me.”

  “No, sir. Those credentials are enough for me.”

  “Thank you,” McCoy said.

  “Captain, it may not be my place…”

  “What’s on your mind, Boats?”

  “Off the record, sir?”

  McCoy nodded.

  “That lieutenant…Sir, he’s an ace from Guadalcanal. And he’s a really nice guy. Let me put it this way. Half the time I see him out of uniform, I don’t. You know what I mean?”

  McCoy nodded.

  “But the white hats and the enlisted Marines see him running around out of uniform, and they think they can get it away with it, too. And when I have to write them up, their asses are really in a crack.”

  “I take your point, Boats,” McCoy said.

  “I don’t know what your business is with him, sir, and I’m not asking. But I really hope he’s not in bad trouble.”

  “Nothing he can’t fix by trying to straighten up and fly right,” McCoy said.

  “Yes, sir,” the SP said. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Thank you, Boats,” McCoy said.

  The SP motioned t
o the other one, pointing to the door to the street, and walked away. McCoy returned to Ernie and Pick.

  “Come on,” he said.

  “What did you show that SP?” Pick asked.

  “Let’s get out of the damned lobby,” McCoy repeated. It was not a suggestion.

  “You fixed that somehow, didn’t you?” Pick said, as he stood up and walked toward the elevator. “How?”

  “Didn’t you see him wave his magic wand at the SP?” Ernie said. “Absolutely no compartments on a train without a priority? He waves his magic wand, people appear and hand him a priority. The Shore Patrol is about to haul you away, he waves his magic wand. The Shore Patrol goes away.”

  Pick looked confused.

  “However you did that, thanks, Killer,” Pick said.

  “Jesus Christ!” McCoy said. “I should have let him write you up!”

  “That would have really got my ass in a crack with Billy,” Pick said.

  “Yeah, he told me. Actually, he’s pretty disgusted with you. You never learn.”

  When the elevator stopped, Pick led them down the corridor to the door of the Jefferson Davis suite.

  “Is it safe for a nice girl like me to go in there?” Ernie asked.

  “My quarters are popularly known as either the Monk’s Cell or Celibate City, if that’s what you mean.”

  Ernie snorted. McCoy, shaking his head, chuckled.

  “If you hold me in such contempt, why did you try to talk me into marrying your girlfriend if you got yourself blown away?” Pick asked.

  “He probably thought I could reform you,” Ernie said. She looked around the sitting room. “Surprise, surprise, no naked ladies.”

  “They’re probably hiding in a closet,” McCoy said.

  “I was about to offer you champagne, but if the two of you…”

  “I’ll pass on the champagne.”

  “I won’t,” Ernie said.

  “I also just happen to have in my cell, through the door over there, a full case of Famous Grouse, recently flown in in my Corsair from San Francisco, California, in anticipation of the honor of your visit.”

  He led the way to the sitting room of his half of the suite.

  “You didn’t know we were coming,” Ernie said.

  “Both Mother and my father—separately—suggested it was a real possibility,” Pick said. “I really hope it wasn’t so that we could have a man-to-man, or girl-to-man, chat. I get enough of those from Billy.”

  “You said something about champagne?” Ernie said.

  “You take care of the glasses,” Pick said, pointing to a bar in the corner of the room, “and I will extricate the bubbly from the refrigerator.”

  McCoy went to the bar, found the still-sealed case of scotch behind it, and started to open it.

  “Wouldn’t you really rather have champagne?” Ernie asked.

  “No,” McCoy said simply, and removed a bottle of Famous Grouse from the case.

  Pick returned with a bottle of Mumm’s champagne and started unwrapping the wire cork-guard.

  “Mumm’s, huh?” Ernie said.

  “Actually, I prefer Moët and Chandon,” he said. “But it’s hard to come by. There’s a war on, you may have heard. You found the Grouse, I see, Ken.”

  “You keep fucking up, Pick,” McCoy said, “they’re going to send you back to VMF-229.”

  “There’s a lady present, Captain,” Pick said. “Please remember that you, too, are supposed to be a Marine officer and gentleman.”

  “What does that mean?” Ernie asked. “Pick was in VMF-229.”

  “It’s now where they send Marine pilots—fuckup Marine pilots—nobody else wants,” Pick explained. “Pilots that nobody else in the Corps but Charley Galloway can handle.” He paused. “Would you believe I applied for transfer to VMF-229? Billy turned it down.”

  “Billy needs you to train his pilots,” McCoy said. “Your pilots. You’re the squadron exec, for Christ’s sake!”

  “An amazing thing happens when they pin captain’s bars on some people, Ernie,” Pick said. “They start to think of themselves as generals-in-training.” He turned to McCoy. “Just for the record, Captain, I have never failed to be at the proper place at the appointed time. I am training my pilots.”

  “Billy said that, too,” McCoy said. “But you won’t be around to do that for your squadron if your MAG commander gets tired of hearing officially about your social life—and I mean the speeding tickets and the drunk driving, not only this out-of-uniform crap—and gets tired of Billy covering for you.”

  “I told you, I applied for transfer to VMF-229. And Billy turned me down.”

  “And now you’re trying to force them to send you anyway, right?” McCoy asked. “Why? Because that’s easier than going to Pensacola and finding out once and for all?”

  “What the hell are you talking about? Finding out what once and for all?”

  “You know what I’m talking about. Who I’m talking about.”

  Pick looked accusingly at Ernie.

  “He already knew about her,” she said. “But we compared notes, okay?”

  “Et tu, Brutus?” Pick asked sarcastically.

  “If you want to get pissed at somebody, get pissed at Dick Stecker,” McCoy said. “He said when he asked—”

  “Where did you see Dick?” Pickering interrupted.

  Lieutenant Richard Stecker, USMC, the son of Colonel Jack (NMI) Stecker, had gone through flight school at Pensacola with Pickering. He had been severely injured landing his shot-up Wildcat on Guadalcanal’s Henderson Field.

  “Ernie and I went to see him in Philadelphia when we passed through. That’s where they send banged-up avìators, you know.”

  “I went to see him…”

  “…a month ago,” McCoy finished. “He told me. He also told me to tell you he is now walking with a cane only.”

  “When I saw him, he was on one of those things…parallel bars set just high enough for your hands. Having a hell of a time. Jesus!”

  “He wants to go back to flying,” McCoy said. “Anyway, he told me he was worried about you. Ol’ Hot Shot himself. He told me that you told him that Good Ol’ Whatsername…”

  “Martha,” Ernie furnished. “Martha Sayre Culhane.”

  “Thank you very much, former friend,” Pick said.

  “Who, when the dashing Marine Aviator told her ‘I love you,’ said, ‘Thank you just the same, but I am not at all interested.’”

  “Don’t push me, Ken,” Pick said.

  “Breaking your heart.”

  “Honey,” Ernie said to McCoy. “It’s not funny.”

  “And causing you to turn to whisky and wild, wild women to forget. Which also caused you to change from being a pretty good Marine officer to a fuckup…”

  “Fuck you, Ken.”

  “…about to have your ass shipped to the fuckup squadron. How do you think your father’s going to like that?”

  “This is my business, not my father’s, not yours. Is the lecture about over, Captain, sir? Frankly, I’m getting a little bored with it.”

  “Jesus Christ, if this woman is so important to you, why the hell are you quitting? Give it another shot!”

  Pick shrugged, but didn’t respond directly to the question.

  “I asked if the lecture was about over?” Pick said.

  “Not quite. Almost.”

  “Then pray continue.”

  “And what makes you think Charley Galloway would put up with your hotshot, ‘I’m a Guadalcanal ace, the rules don’t apply to me,’ bullshit?” McCoy said, half sadly, half angrily.

  “Ken!” Ernie said warningly.

  “I went out to Ewa with Galloway to see Big Steve,” McCoy went on. “When Charley walked into a hangar, one of his lieutenants called, ‘Skipper on the deck!’ and everybody popped to. Including Big Steve. For Christ’s sake, Pick, grow up! Charley wouldn’t put up with half of the bullshit you’re giving Billy.”

  The doorbell rang just as Pick open
ed his mouth to reply.

  With a little bit of luck, that will be one of Pick’s naked ladies, Ernie thought. Arriving just in the nick of time to keep this from really getting out of hand.

  Pick went to the door and opened it.

  Mrs. Quincy T. (Elizabeth-Sue) Megham, Jr., stood there, wearing a perky little hat with a veil, a silver fox cape, and a look that was a mixture of surprise, disappointment, and discomfiture.

  “Oh, I hope I’m not interrupting anything!” she said. “I just took the chance…”

  “Fortunately, you are,” Ernie said, and walked quickly to the door. “Hi, I’m Ernie Sage. You got here just in time to help me drink some champagne. These two are on the hard stuff.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t want to intrude!”

  “Not at all,” Ernie said, as she grabbed her arm and dragged her into the room. “I’m really glad to see you.” She propelled her to the bar and poured a glass of champagne for her. “I’m the closest thing Pick has to a sister,” Ernie went on. “A big sister. And Captain McCoy is Pick’s best friend, although Pick sometimes forgets that.”

  “How do you do?” Elizabeth-Sue said, directing the greeting mostly to McCoy.

  McCoy inclined his head and said, “Ma’am.”

  “You’re stationed at the air station, Captain McCoy?”

  “You can call him ‘Killer,’” Ernie said. “All of his friends do.”

  “Oh, Christ!” Pick said, and laughed.

  McCoy shook his head in disbelief, but he seemed more amused than angry.

  “‘Killer’?” Elizabeth-Sue asked incredulously.

  “As in ‘Lady-killer,’” Ernie explained.

  “Oh, really?” Elizabeth-Sue asked.

  Pick started to giggle. It had a contagious reaction on McCoy.

  “He really is,” Pick said. “They both are. My best friends in all the world.”

  “Then you’re not out at the air station, Captain McCoy?” Elizabeth-Sue asked.

  “No, ma’am. We’re just passing through.”

  Elizabeth-Sue’s relief at hearing that was evident on her face.

  “Lieutenant Pickering—Pick—and I are involved in the Friday dance program for the enlisted people at the air station,” Elizabeth-Sue said.

  “Oh, come on,” Ernie said. “I told you we’re best friends.”