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

The only reason that they hadn't court-martialed him, Jimmy Ward told her, was that the witnesses were either dead or scattered all over the Pacific and could not be assembled.

So what they had done was take him off flight status and return him to the States for duty as an aircraft mechanic. It was only a critical shortage of pilots that had found him- the very morning of the day Caroline met him-back in a cockpit. The Marines were demonstrating parachute troops to the press and couldn't run the risk of having a less than fully qualified pilot fly the plane.

After their first night together, Caroline couldn't have cared if Charley was a PFC. Or what anyone thought about her taking up with an enlisted man eight years younger than she was.

On the twelfth of June, ten days before Caroline and Charley were driving into San Francisco, she went to Quantico to be with him. But he wasn't there.

And then two days later he showed up as Captain Galloway, USMCR, having been pardoned and commissioned by the Commandant of the Marine Corps himself. There was a price, however. He had five days leave, plus travel time, to report to San Francisco, there to board a plane for Hawaii, and there to assume command of a newly activated Marine fighter squadron.

Caroline decided she didn't give much of a damn what anyone-God included-thought about her traveling across the country with a man to whom she was not joined in holy matrimony. She was going with him.

And given a little more time, she thought, she would have been able to clean up his vocabulary so that even the Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Philadelphia could have found no fault with it.

Unfortunately, there was hardly any time left at all. And then there was the matter of finding a room to make time in.

" 'Conspire' is the word you were looking for," Caroline said. "We are going to 'conspire' our way into the Andrew Foster Hotel."

"You think it would really work?" Charley asked.

"They make mistakes," Caroline said. "Everybody does.

All we have to do is make them think they made one with us, and we get a room."

"Sound like bull-aloney to me," Charley said.

"Better," she chuckled, "better."

"This hotel is important to you, isn't it?" Charley asked. "What did you do, stay there with your husband?"

"No," Caroline lied, easily. "With my parents."

My conscience, she thought, is clear. I don't want him in there thinking of me being there with Jack. All I want him to remember about the Andrew Foster Hotel is the luxury, and the food, and the two of us together in one of those lovely beds. Or together in one of those marvelous marble-walled showers with all the shower heads. I don't think Charley has ever seen anything like that. I want him to remember us there.

"And you think that would work?"

"Yes, I do," Caroline said, trying to put more conviction into her voice than she felt.

"OK, Baby," Charley said. "If that's what you want, we'll give it a shot."

"Good," she said.

"We'll have to pull over somewhere and get a tunic and a tie out of my bag," Charley said. "I can't walk in a fancy hotel wearing a flight jacket. I wish I could shave. I feel as cruddy as the car."

The light oak bodywork of the 1941 Mercury station wagon was covered with five days and several thousand miles of road grime. They had driven practically nonstop from Quantico, Virginia. There had been a light rain during the night, and the half-moon sweep of the wipers showed by contrast just how dirty the rest of the vehicle was.

"Well, when we get to our room, Mommy will wash your ears," Caroline said. "Or anything else you think needs it."

"I told you to knock off that 'Mommy' shit," Charley said, coldly. "I don't think it's funny."

Caroline did not respond with a dirty word of her own. She was wrong, and she knew it.

Why did I say that? I know it angers him. There's probably something Freudian in that Mommy shit. Obviously. We both know I'm thirty-three and he's twenty-five. There is probably a hint somewhere in there of perversion, too. Charley can't understand why I stayed married to Jack for so long after I learned that he was homosexual. First she was married to a fairy, he thinks, and now she's shacked up with a Marine eight years younger than she is and doesn't give a damn who knows it. Obviously, there is something strange about that dame. Strange is not all that far from perverse.

Charley pulled off the highway and stopped.

"I won't say that again, Baby," Caroline said.

And now he will take affront at 'Baby'! Why did I say that? What the hell is the matter with me?

"Forget it," Charley said, and smiled at her. "My bag will be the one on the bottom, right?"

"Probably," she smiled. "Would you like me to drive? I know where the Andrew Foster is."

"Go ahead," he said.

He got in the back and she slid behind the wheel.

There were four men behind the marble reception desk of the Andrew Foster Hotel, flagship of the forty-one-hotel Foster chain, atop San Francisco's Nob Hill. Three wore formal morning clothes, wing collars and tailed coats. The fourth man, older than the others, wore a double-breasted gray coat and striped trousers and had a rose-bud pinned to his lapel.

"Madam, I'm terribly sorry," one of the men in formal clothing said to Caroline McNamara. "I just don't seem to be able to find any record of your reservation."

"Well, as long as you can put us up, I suppose no harm is done," Caroline said.

"That, Madam, I'm afraid, is going to pose a problem," the desk clerk said. "The house, I'm afraid, is absolutely full. I'll call around and see if we can't find something for you..."

"Excuse me," the older man said to the desk clerk. "There has been a cancellation." He handed the clerk a key. "Why don't you put this officer and his lady in 901?"

"Yes, of course," the desk clerk said and snapped his fingers for a bellman.

"Thank you," Caroline said.

"I'm sorry about the mix-up with your reservation," the older man said. He nodded at her, and then at Charley, and disappeared through a door in the paneled wall behind the counter.

Nine oh one turned out to be a corner suite consisting of a sitting room, a bedroom, and a butler's pantry.

As soon as Caroline tipped the bellman and he was gone, Charley said, "Jesus, what do you suppose this is going to cost us?"

"What you are supposed to say, Darling, is 'I was wrong and you were right, and I'm sorry I doubted you.'"

"Consider it said," Charley said. "And what do you think it's going to cost?"

"Do you really care?" Caroline asked. "And anyway, I've got a bunch of traveler's checks."

"No. What the hell," Charley said. "Why not?"

"Why not, indeed?"

"I'm going to take a shower," Charley said, and headed for the bathroom. In a moment, he was back. "Hey, look at this, they even give you a bathrobe!"

He held a thick, terry cloth robe in his hands, embroidered with the logotype, "ANDREW FOSTER HOTEL San Francisco."

"Between the hotel and me, Darling, you'll have everything your heart desires," Caroline said.

As soon as I hear the shower running, I'm going to get in there with him. Surprise, surprise!

She looked around the room, hoping that there would be something to drink-preferably something romantic or erotic, like cognac. She was disappointed, but not surprised, to find a liquor cabinet full of glasses, but no booze. She considered calling room service, but decided that getting in the shower with him was the highest priority. She could call room service later.

She found the bottle of scotch they'd bought in Nevada and set it on the bar. Then she changed her mind and took it and two glasses to the bedside table. And then, after taking Charley's clothes from where he had tossed them on the bed and throwing them onto the floor, she took off her clothes, added them to the pile, and went into the bathroom.