The Last Heroes Page 3

  He went to a bank of house phones and asked to be connected with Mrs. Mark Chambers. The phone rang four times before a soft Southern voice answered it.

  ‘‘Yes?’’

  ‘‘Mrs. Chambers, I’m Dick Canidy. Anytime you’re ready, I’m in the lobby.’’

  ‘‘I’ll be down in just a minute,’’ she said. ‘‘How will I recognize you?’’

  ‘‘I look like a waiter,’’ he quipped, and immediately regretted it. ‘‘I’ll recognize you. Mr. Whittaker said you were a tall and lovely blonde.’’

  ‘‘Oh my,’’ she said, and hung up. Canidy thought he shouldn’t have said that either.

  Chesty Whittaker had in fact not described her as a ‘‘tall and lovely blonde’’ but somewhat less kindly as ‘‘your typical Southern magnolia blossom, Dick. I’m sure you know the type. Blond and helpless. ‘Po’ l’il ol’ me.’ Too afraid of the big city to get in a cab and come out here by herself. Hence the limousine. But I promised her husband that I would watch over her, so you’re elected to fetch her and take her home.’’

  ‘‘My pleasure,’’ Dick had said.

  ‘‘No, not your pleasure, I’m afraid. But I will owe you.’’

  ‘‘My pleasure to be of service, then,’’ Canidy said.

  Chesty Whittaker had squeezed his arm then in gratitude and friendship.

  Three minutes later, Mrs. Mark Chambers got off the elevator. She did look Southern. He was sure it was her even before he walked up and asked, ‘‘Mrs. Chambers?’’

  ‘‘Sue-Ellen,’’ she said, giving him her hand. She looked right into his eyes, and he found that disconcerting. ‘‘Mr. Canidy?’’

  ‘‘Dick,’’ he said.

  ‘‘It was so nice of you to come all the way here and get me.’’

  ‘‘My pleasure.’’

  And she was tall and lovely, he thought. Probably thirty or so.

  ‘‘I hate to be a burden on Mr. Whittaker,’’ she said, taking his arm. Innocently, he believed, she pressed her breast against his arm as they made their way across the lobby and down the stairs.

  ‘‘Mr. Whittaker is looking forward to having you in the house,’’ Canidy said, and thought: You have all the makings of a gigolo, Canidy. Charm oozes from your every pore.

  ‘‘My husband was delayed on business in New York,’’ she said.

  ‘‘So Mr. Whittaker told me.’’

  He got into the old Rolls beside her. In the closed car, her rich perfume became powerfully evident. It was surprisingly wicked perfume for ‘‘your typical Southern ‘po’ l’il ol’ me’ ’’ magnolia to wear.

  At the house there were cocktails, and then dinner was announced. Chesley Haywood Whittaker sat at one end of the table, and at the other was a New York lawyer named Donovan. Sue-Ellen Chambers as guest of honor sat beside Whittaker, and Canidy sat beside Sue-Ellen. Cynthia Chenowith sat on the other side between the other guests, who were British and Canadian. One of the Englishmen, on hearing that Canidy was in the Navy, introduced himself as a sailor himself, Commander, Royal Navy Reserve, Ian Fleming.

  Canidy liked Donovan, a fascinating man, full of sparkle and energy and a longtime Whittaker buddy. He had met Donovan a dozen times before in New Jersey. Donovan was called Colonel Donovan, even though he had long ago taken off his colonel’s uniform, which was adorned with the blue, silver-starred ribbon of the Medal of Honor, won while he was commanding the ‘‘Fighting 69th’’ Infantry Regiment in the American Expeditionary Force in France.

  He was a stocky, white-haired, charming, yet intense man, the only man Canidy knew who had won the Medal of Honor. As a result of his Navy experience Canidy had come to understand something of what command was all about. Canidy could see instantly that this man Donovan was one hell of a commanding officer. He possessed that rare talent that caused other men to eagerly carry out orders they would not accept from someone else. It wasn’t just that he was persuasive. It was a much, much rarer talent than that (FDR had it): Donovan was a man you just couldn’t say no to.

  Canidy could also tell—from some of the amused but admiring glances he from time to time shot at the colonel— that Commander Fleming held opinions about Donovan similar to his own. When Canidy made a comment to that effect to the commander, Fleming laughed. ‘‘Oh yes, Lieutenant, ’’ he said, pronouncing it Leftenant, ‘‘I know exactly what you mean. I’ve had considerable dealings of late with Colonel Wild Bill Donovan.’’

  ‘‘I’d like to hear about those,’’ Canidy said.

  ‘‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you very much, Leftenant,’’ he said mysteriously. ‘‘It’s all rather behind closed shutters.’’

  Canidy shrugged acceptance. He was not surprised that Donovan was up to something secret.

  Before long, the reason for the dinner came out. Whittaker Construction was building maritime fuel transfer facilities in Nova Scotia. Canidy knew a little about this. And what he did not know, Colonel Donovan quickly made clear.

  American petroleum products were to be shipped in American bottoms from the Gulf Coast. So long as they were in American waters, they would be safe from attack from German submarines. The British and Canadian navies would then provide protection for the tankers during the short voyage from the Canadian-American border to a port in Nova Scotia, where the petroleum would be pumped into English ships for the trip across the Atlantic. If the petroleum had been loaded into the English ships on the Gulf Coast, the ships would have been fair game for German submarines the moment they were fourteen miles at sea. Since the British had neither enough tankers to ship their fuel directly from Texas and Louisiana, nor enough naval vessels to protect them, other arrangements had to be made.

  Sue-Ellen Chambers’s husband owned a shipyard in Mobile to which Whittaker Construction had subcontracted the manufacture of the fuel-handling barges and other equipment that would be used in Canada. This yard was not only building tankers, but was about to hand over fuel-handling equipment to the Canadians. Ol’ Magnolia Blossom’s husband was a subcontractor, making the equipment for Whittaker Construction, who had the prime contract.

  From what Canidy had been taught about the rules of warfare, what the Americans were doing was undeniably a violation of the laws governing neutral countries during a war; but he was a lieutenant junior grade, Reserve, and no one had asked for his opinion.

  Cynthia Chenowith, however, did not share Canidy’s reluctance to speak out. ‘‘What all this amounts to,’’ she said to Donovan, ‘‘is that America is going to be in the war on Britain’s side, only not officially. Neutrality doesn’t count anymore, then, does it?’’

  ‘‘I think, Miss Chenowith, that you’ve made a more or less reasonable interpretation,’’ Donovan said.

  ‘‘I don’t like it,’’ Cynthia said. ‘‘I don’t like going into war through the back door.’’

  ‘‘You realize, miss,’’ said Commander Fleming, ‘‘that America will be in this war officially—and sooner rather than later.’’

  Cynthia paused a moment in order to take hold of that. Then, with a not quite nice smile, she said to Fleming, ‘‘Is this why you’ve come to Washington, Commander, to help make that happen sooner rather than later?’’

  ‘‘Something like that,’’ Fleming agreed, grinning, liking her directness.

  ‘‘Ian is very good at doing things through the back door,’’ Donovan said in a loud, stagy whisper.

  ‘‘What kind of things?’’ Canidy asked innocently.

  Donovan took a long, thoughtful sip from his goblet, weighing what he could reveal. ‘‘Wars were fought, once upon a time,’’ he said after draining the goblet, ‘‘by tribes who came at one another with clubs and stones. Each tribe beat on the other until only one tribe was left standing. All wars, until recently, have been conducted pretty much the same way. . . . Oh, there’ve been a few changes. We have airplanes now, which, in effect, let us throw stones farther than our grandparents could. But otherwise, one side continues to bash at the othe
r until only one is left standing. What has changed from what our grandfathers did is that much of the battle now is fought—long before the armies, navies, and air fleets clash—in the minds of the opposing forces. That may even be the decisive part of the battle. . . . Which means that we need to know the mind of an enemy before he commits his forces—what he can do to us and what he intends to do to us—so that we can prevent the moves that could harm us or at least counter them. And we need to conceal from our enemy what we can do to him and what we intend to do to him. Of course, we want him to believe that we are extremely powerful. That, too, is part of the war of the mind.’’

  He took another sip of water from his goblet, which a servant had refilled. Then he went on. ‘‘Unhappily, our nation has been woefully unprepared to wage this kind of warfare. Happily, Commander Fleming and some of his colleagues in England are very skilled at it, indeed, and have graciously agreed to help us put matters right.’’

  Meanwhile, as this talk of spying was going on about the table, a truly clandestine action was starting to happen beneath it.

  During the crab cocktail, Sue-Ellen Chambers, apparently mistaking Canidy’s foot for the table leg, stepped heavily on his instep. He waited until the opportunity presented itself, then moved his feet far out of her way.

  During the entrée, leg of lamb with oven-roasted potatoes, her shoe again found his, and again he moved it. He looked up in some surprise, for his foot was some distance from where hers should have been. When his glance reached her face, she looked directly into his eyes again.

  It was, he told himself, his overactive imagination that suggested she was anything different from what she claimed she was: a mother of two, who had come to Washington only because ‘‘the way things are’’ it was the only time she got to see her husband.

  There was Brie and toasted crackers for dessert, along with a very nice burgundy. While Canidy was spreading a cracker, he felt a tug at his pants leg, and a moment later there was the unmistakable pressure of the ball of Sue-Ellen Chambers’s stockinged foot against his calf.

  When he looked at her this time, she was smiling at him, and the tip of her tongue was peeping out from between her lips.

  Jesus Christ! Was she drunk, or what?

  There was to be bridge after dinner, but Mrs. Chambers asked to be excused. She had things to do in the morning, she said, and she really wasn’t used to the late hours everybody up north seemed to keep.

  ‘‘Dick will take you to your hotel, Sue-Ellen,’’ Chesty Whittaker said.

  ‘‘Oh, he can just see me to the car,’’ Sue-Ellen said.

  A goddamned tease is what she is. She had no intention of delivering what she seemed to be offering. If I made a pass at her, she would act like a goosed nun.

  ‘‘I had to send the car to New Jersey,’’ Chesty said. ‘‘Dick will take you in the station wagon.’’

  ‘‘If you’ll just call me a cab,’’ she said.

  Fuck you, lady. Now it’s my turn to tease.

  ‘‘I wouldn’t think of it, Mrs. Chambers,’’ Canidy said. ‘‘I’ll drive you home.’’

  And I won’t go within three feet of you. But I’ll give you a chance to worry a lot about whether or not you’re going to have to fight me off.

  ‘‘Would you get Dick the keys to the station wagon, Cynthia? ’’ Chesty said.

  She sat as far away from him as she could, against the door of the three-year-old but immaculate Ford station wagon. He drove down New Hampshire Avenue to Washington Circle, and then down Pennsylvania Avenue.

  As they passed between Lafayette Square and the White House, she laughed.

  ‘‘You’re not going to make a pass at me, are you?’’ she asked.

  ‘‘No, ma’am,’’ he said.

  ‘‘Because you’re afraid Mr. Whittaker or Colonel Donovan might find out? Or because you’re afraid of me?’’

  He didn’t reply.

  ‘‘I knew,’’ she said, ‘‘Chesty Whittaker being what he is, that he would not send me home alone.’’

  He looked at her as he turned down Fifteenth Street. She was fishing for something in her purse. She threw something in his lap. He felt for it. It was a hotel key.

  ‘‘When you come up for a nightcap,’’ she said, ‘‘try to make sure no one sees you.’’ When he didn’t respond, she added, ‘‘If I don’t appeal to you, or if you can’t work up the courage, drop it in any mailbox. They guarantee postage. ’’

  He let her out in front of the Willard and started back across Washington to the house on Q Street.

  He got as far as Washington Circle before he changed his mind. There he made a complete circle and went back to the Willard. He put the station wagon in a parking garage and entered the hotel.

  When he put the key to the door, she pulled it open.

  She was wearing a negligee and a garter belt.

  ‘‘I probably shouldn’t admit this,’’ she said. ‘‘But I was afraid you weren’t coming.’’

  The Monroe Suite The Willard Hotel Washington, D.C. 5:15 A.M., June 5, 1941

  When Canidy came out of the bathroom, Sue-Ellen was sitting up in the bed. She was even at first light a fine-looking female. Ladylike. To look at her, the fact that she was a married woman; that she had gone after him, rather than the other way around; and that she had been both so passionate and so delightfully, so wickedly inventive in the bed seemed hardly credible.

  ‘‘Sorry I have to run,’’ he said. ‘‘When am I going to see you again?’’

  ‘‘You’re not,’’ Sue-Ellen Chambers said, pleasantly but firmly.

  He found his trousers and put them on. He looked across the room at her.

  ‘‘Was I that much of a disappointment?’’

  ‘‘Not at all,’’ she said, and chuckled. ‘‘You were all I thought you would be, and more.’’

  ‘‘But?’’ he said.

  ‘‘I like to quit when I’m ahead,’’ she said, matter-of-factly.

  There was nothing of the magnolia blossom about her now, he thought. She was, under the drawl, about as soft as stainless steel. She had seen what she wanted, and taken it, and now it was time to make an end to the scene. Sue-Ellen was a tough cookie. Still, though she might want to stop him right here, he wasn’t willing to quit so easily.

  He turned away from her to zip his fly. ‘‘Because you’re married?’’ he asked, without turning around. ‘‘Is that it?’’

  ‘‘Obviously,’’ she said.

  ‘‘That didn’t seem to be a consideration last night.’’

  ‘‘Don’t be nasty,’’ she said.

  ‘‘I’m crushed,’’ he said wryly. ‘‘And a little curious.’’

  ‘‘I can’t take the chance of getting involved,’’ she said. ‘‘I could easily get involved with you.’’

  ‘‘Guilty,’’ he said. He slipped his feet into his shoes.

  ‘‘Every once in a while,’’ she said, ‘‘I do this. The conditions have to be right. I have to be alone, in circumstances that are in no way suspicious. And there has to be a suitable man.’’

  ‘‘I’m pleased that you found me suitable,’’ he said, hoping that the sudden anger he felt didn’t show in his voice.

  ‘‘Very suitable,’’ she said. ‘‘You struck me as someone who wouldn’t make trouble for either of us when I explained the circumstances. Someone who wouldn’t, for example, try to telephone me.’’

  ‘‘I really would like to see you again.’’

  ‘‘Don’t ruin everything now,’’ she said, and there was steel in her voice.

  ‘‘OK,’’ he said. He looked around for his cummerbund, and couldn’t find it.

  She read his mind. ‘‘You left it in the other room,’’ she said. ‘‘When you first got here.’’

  He remembered. She had been so anxious to get at him that she had dropped to her knees the moment she had closed the door. The cummerbund had been in the way.

  ‘‘Oh,’’ he said. ‘‘Thank you.’’


  ‘‘Good-bye, Dick Canidy,’’ she said.

  He inclined his head toward her, sort of a bow, but said nothing. He went out of the bedroom, closing the door after him.

  The driveway gate in the wall of the house on Q Street was closed, and the key for it was not on the key ring Cynthia Chenowith had given him. But there was a key to the walk gate, so he got out of the station wagon and entered the property that way.

  He was almost through Whittaker’s private park and at the driveway gate when a motion caught his eye.

  Chesley Haywood Whittaker, in a silk dressing gown, was walking quickly across the cobblestones between the garage and the kitchen.

  Canidy ducked behind a tree so that he wouldn’t be seen.

  Sonofabitch, Chesty is screwing Cynthia Chenowith. Why else could he have been in the garage . . . at five-thirty in the morning . . . where she had an apartment?

  He thought that over a moment. The first thing that came to his mind was that Chesty Whittaker was a dirty old man, demanding sexual services in repayment for the bills he was paying. But he knew Chesty Whittaker better than that. Chesty wasn’t the one who’d started whatever was going on.

  Was there a phrase to describe a Yankee version of a Southern magnolia blossom?

  Canidy stayed behind the tree until he was sure Chesty was inside the house, and then he opened the driveway gate and drove the Ford station wagon in, purposefully making a lot of noise opening and closing the doors.

  He went to his room, removed his clothes, and took a shower. When he came out, Chesty Whittaker was in the room.

  ‘‘I heard you come in,’’ he said. ‘‘I thought you might want some breakfast.’’

  ‘‘I’m sorry I woke you,’’ Canidy said.

  ‘‘Don’t worry about it. Apparently the hunting was good after you took Miss Magnolia Blossom home?’’

  ‘‘Can’t complain.’’