W.E.B. Griffin - The Corps 03 - Counterattack

There was no question in Pickering’s mind that Donovan would get him a priority, and no question either that Donovan would take the opportunity to remind Pickering that priorities were intended for people who were making a contribution to the war effort, not for people who placed their own desires and ambitions above the common good, by, for example, declining to serve with the Office of the Coordinator of Information.

Then Fleming Pickering had another thought: Richardson Fowler could probably get him a priority. Dick was a politician. Whatever law the politicians wrote, or whatever they authorized some agency of the government to implement-such as setting up an air-travel priority system-those bastards would take care of themselves first.

The thought passed through his mind, and was quickly dismissed, that perhaps he was being a horse’s ass, that he was not working for the government and therefore had no right to a priority, and that getting one through Fowler’s political influence would deprive of a seat some brave soldier en route to battle the Treacherous Jap. He was not going to California to lie on the beach. He still had a shipping company to run; coming here had taken him away from that.

There came a knock at the door. Pickering looked at it, and then at his watch. It was probably Dick Fowler. But why would Fowler knock?

"Come!"

It was Max Telford.

"Hello, Max, what’s up?"

"I have a somewhat delicate matter I thought I should bring to your attention," Telford said.

"Will it wait until I pour us a drink? I’ve had a bad day and desperately need one."

"I could use a little taste myself," Telford said. "Thank you."

"Scotch?"

"Please."

When Pickering handed him his drink, Telford handed him a woman’s red leather wallet.

"What’s this?"

"It belongs to Miss Ernestine Sage," Telford said.

Ernestine "Ernie" Sage was the daughter of Patricia Pickering’s college roommate.

"Where’d you get it?" Pickering asked.

"Miss Sage left it behind when she left the inn. The wallet and some other things."

"I don’t quite follow you."

"She was not registered, Mr. Pickering," Telford said carefully.

"She was here with Pick?" Fleming Pickering’s eyes lit up. He liked Ernie Sage, and there had been more than a tiny seed of hope in the jokes over the years, as Ernie and Pick had been growing up, that they could be paired off permanently. Still, it was a dumb thing for Pick to do. Ernest Sage, Ernie’s father, was Chairman of the Board of American Personal Pharmaceuticals. And he routinely stayed in the Foster Lafayette. Pick should have known she would be recognized.

"With Pick’s friend," Telford said. "Lieutenant McCoy."

"I know him," Pickering said, without thinking. "He’s a nice kid."

Pick and McCoy had gone through the Officer Candidate School at the Marine base at Quantico together. They had nothing in common. McCoy had been a corporal in the peacetime Marine Corps, and what he had, he had earned himself. But Pickering had not been surprised when he’d met McCoy and seen the affection between him and his son. Doc Mclnerney and Flem Pickering had become lifelong friends in the Corps in France, despite a wide disparity in backgrounds.

"Then you know he was wounded," Telford said.

"No. I hadn’t heard about that."

"I don’t have all the details," Telford said. "I didn’t want to pry, but McCoy is apparently some sort of officer courier. He was in the Pacific when the war started, and Pick got one of those ‘missing and presumed dead’ telegrams. He was pretty shook up about it. And then McCoy called from the West Coast and said he was back. Anyway, Pick came to me and said that McCoy was on his way to Washington, and if there was ever a time a Foster hotel should offer its very best, it was now, to McCoy. And his lady friend. And that all charges should be put on his account."

"And the lady friend turned out to be Ernestine Sage?"

"Yes, Sir. I recognized her immediately, but I don’t know if she knows I knew who she is."

"And they were here for a while? Lots of room service?"

"Yes. That’s a nice way to put it."

"Andrew Foster once told me that so far as he’s concerned, he’s prepared to offer accommodations to two female elephants in heat, plus a bull elephant, just as long as they pay the bill and don’t soil the carpets," Pickering said. "So what’s the problem?"

Telford laughed. "He told me a variant of that philosophy. It was two swans in heat, so long as they paid the bill and didn’t flap their wings and lay eggs in the elevators."

Pickering chuckled, and then repeated, "So what’s the problem? I’d rather my wife didn’t hear about this, but so far as I’m concerned, whatever Ernie Sage did in here with Lieutenant McCoy is their business and no one else’s."

"The problem is how to return Miss Sage’s property to her," Telford said. "The only address I have for either of them is the one on her driver’s license. That’s in Bernardsville, New Jersey. Her parents’ home, I think."

"Telford, your discretion is in keeping with the highest traditions of the innkeeping trade," Pickering said, meaning it. "If Ernest Sage found out-or even suspected-that his only child, his precious little Ernie, was shacked up with a Marine officer in a hotel in Washington, there would be hell to pay. Let me think."

He did just that, as he took a deep pull at his drink. "Ernie works for an advertising agency in New York," he said, after a moment. "J. Walter Thompson. It’s on Madison Avenue. Check the phone book. Send it to her there, special delivery, and put Pick’s address on it as the return address."

"All I have for that would be ‘Pensacola, Florida.’ "

"Add ‘Student, Flight Training Program, U.S. Navy Air Station,’ " Pickering said.

"I’m glad I brought this to your attention," Telford said.

"So am I. You about ready for another of these?"

"No, thank you."

The door opened and Senator Richardson Fowler walked in. There was someone with him, a stocky, well-dressed man in his sixties. He stopped inside the door, took gold-rimmed pince-nez from a vest pocket, polished them quickly with a handkerchief, and then put them on his nose.

"Good evening, Mr. Secretary," Telford said. "It’s nice to see you, Sir."

"Hello, Telford, how are you?" said Secretary of the Navy Frank W. Knox.

"Fine, and on my out, Sir," Telford said. "Is there anything I can send up?"

"All we want right now is a drink, Max, thanks," Fowler said. He waited until Telford had left, closing the door behind him, and then went on, "Frank told me at lunch, to my surprise, that you two don’t know each other."

"Only by reputation," Pickering said, crossing the room to Knox and giving him his hand.

"I was about to say just that," Knox said. "How do you do, Pickering?"

The two examined each other with unabashed curiosity. "Scotch for you, Frank?" Senator Fowler asked, looking over his shoulder from the array of bottles.

"Please," Knox said absently, and then, "Dick tells me you’re going to work for Bill Donovan."

"That didn’t work out," Pickering said.

"I’m sorry to hear that," Knox said.

"Why should you be sorry?"

"It takes away an argument I was going to use on you."

"What argument was that?"

Senator Fowler knew Frank Knox almost as well as he knew Fleming Pickering. Sensing that their first meeting already showed signs of becoming confrontational, he hurried over with the drinks.

"You all right, Flem?"

"Oh, I think I might have another. You can’t fly on six or seven wings, you know." He walked to the array of liquor.

"I gather your meeting with Bill Donovan was not entirely successful?" Fowler asked.

"No, it wasn’t," Pickering replied.