W.E.B. Griffin - The Corps IV - Battleground

He parked the Buick behind the First Philadelphia Trust Company and walked down 12th Street to the Trocadero. He encountered no real Easy Women on the street, and the Easy Women on the stage seemed not only a little long in the but bored as well. One of them actually blew a chewing gum bubble as she moved around on the stage.

And the Easy Women did not appear one after the other. Their performances were separated by comedians and intermissions, during which the audience was offered special deals on wristwatches, fountain pen and pencil sets, and illustrated books portraying life in Wicked Paris-offered today only, by special arrangement to Trocadero Theater patrons.

An hour after he went into the Trocadero, he got up and walked out. He walked back to Market Street and then up toward Broad Street. Just as he came to John Wanamaker's Department Store he saw the incredibly beautiful older woman from the train.

She walked purposefully out of Wanamaker's and turned toward Broad Street. She glanced at him but he felt sure she made no connection with the train.

Why should she? My God, she's beautiful!

I'm not following her. She's going in the same direction I am.

He almost caught up with her as she waited for the traffic light on Broad Street, but he slowed his pace so that he was still behind her when the light changed. He was sure she hadn't noticed him.

She turned left, and he followed her, for that was his direction too. He was going to meet Uncle Bill at the Union League Club for dinner.

I wonder what the hell that's all about?

She walked past the Union League, moving in long graceful strides, her smooth flowing musculature exquisitely evident under her straight skirt. Quickly consulting his watch, Sergeant John Marston Moore decided there was no reason he could not walk for a couple of minutes down South Broad before returning to the Union League to meet his Uncle Bill.

She came to the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel. The doorman spun the revolving door for her, and twenty seconds later for Sergeant John Marston Moore.

She crossed the lobby and went into the cocktail lounge. Sergeant John Marston Moore visited the Gentlemen's Room, relieved his bladder, and then washed his hands. He examined his reflection in the mirror over the marble wash basin.

Just what the fuck do you think you're doing?

He went into the cocktail lounge and took a seat at the bar.

"What can we get the Marine Corps?"

"Rye and ginger," he said, sweeping the room in the mirror behind the bar.

She was at a small table away from the lobby, near a door that led directly to the street. A waiter was delivering something in a stemmed glass. She took a cigarette from her purse, lit it with a silver lighter, and exhaled through her nose.

Like Bette Davis. Except that compared to her, Bette Davis looks like one of those cows in the Trocadero.

"Seventy-five cents, Sir."

He laid a five-dollar bill on the bar. When the waiter brought the change, he pushed the quarter away and put the singles in his pocket. When he found the beautiful older woman in the mirror again, she was looking at him, via the mirror.

And she was smiling.

In amusement, he thought, not in encouragement, or enticement.

He found his pack of Chesterfields and lit one with his Marine insignia decorated Zippo, pretending to be in deep thought. He was unable to keep his eyes away from the mirror. Sometimes he got a profile of her face. Twice his eyes were drawn to her legs; they were crossed beneath the table, ladylike, but they still offered a forbidden glance under her skirt.

You are not only about to make a flaming ass of yourself, but you are going to embarrass that nice woman.

He drained his rye and ginger ale.

I will leave by the side door, so that she can't help but see me leave and will understand that I am leaving, and not making eyes at her, or anything like that.

He determinedly kept from looking at her as he walked to the side door. As he reached the door, a half dozen people started to come into the bar from the street. He had to stop and wait for them. He glanced at her. She was no more than five feet away.

She was looking up at him. She smiled.

"The Club Car, right?" she asked. "You don't read very much, right?"

"I just came in for a drink," he blurted.

"I thought it was something like that," she said.

Christ, she knows I followed her in here!

"I have to meet someone for dinner," Moore said. "Just killing a little time."

"So do I, unfortunately," she said, more than a little bitterly. "Have to meet someone for dinner, I mean."

She ground her cigarette out in the ash tray and then looked up at him. Their eyes locked for a moment, and John felt a constriction in his stomach.

She broke eye contact, fished in her purse, and came up with another cigarette.

She just put one out. What is she so nervous about?

He held his Zippo out to her. She steadied his hand with the balls of her fingers. It was an absolutely innocent gesture, yet it gave him immediate indication that he was about to have an erection.

She raised her eyes to his again.

"Well, nice to see you again," she said.

There was nothing to do now but leave.

"I'll remember it a long time," he heard himself say.

She laughed softly, deeply.

"Oddly enough," she said. "I think I will, too."

As if with a mind of its own, his hand went out.

She caught it, as a man would, and shook it. But of course she wasn't a man, and the warm softness of her hand made his heart jump.

"Good-bye," she said as she took her hand away. "And good luck."

He didn't trust his voice to speak. He nodded at her, and then went through the door onto the street.

I'm in love.

No, you 're not, asshole. All it is is that you 're not getting saltpeter in your chow anymore.

For Christ's sake, she's thirty, you never saw her before the train, and you'll never see her again.

You are an asshole, Sergeant Moore. There is absolutely no doubt of that.

He walked up to Broad Street and turned north, back to the Union League Club.

What did she mean "unfortunately" she had to have dinner with someone? Was she suggesting that she would rather have dinner with me?

Back to Conclusion One, Sergeant Asshole, you 're an asshole.

"May I help you, Sir?" the porter asked, barring his access to the Union League.

"I'm meeting Mr. Marston," John said. "William Marston."

"Mr. Marston is in the bar, Sir," the porter said, pointing.

William Dawson Marston IV, forty-six, a tall and angular man in a nicely tailored glen plaid suit, was sitting in a leather upholstered captain's chair by a small table, his long legs stretched straight in front of him and crossed near his ankles.

He smiled and waved when he saw his nephew, then made a half gesture to get up.

"Sit you down, Johnny my boy, and have a drink."

"Hello, Uncle Bill."

"Christ, you even look like a Marine," Marston said.

"Thank you."

"What will you have to drink?"

"Rye and ginger."

"Ginger ale will give you a hangover," Marston said. "I'm surprised you haven't learned that yet. Or are you that impossible contradiction, a teetotal Marine?"

"What would you suggest?" John asked.

A waiter had appeared.

"Bring us two of these, will you please, Charley?" Marston said.

"What is it?" John asked.

"Scotch and water. Very good scotch, and thus with very little water. They call it 'Famous Grouse.' "

That will not be Uncle Bill's second drink. More likely his fifth or sixth.

"I have been here some time," Marston said, as if he had read Moore's mind. "Absorbing some liquid courage. That would annoy your father, but if you report on our conversation, you may feel free to tell him that yes indeed, Uncle Bill was at the bottle."