Griffin W.E.B. - The Corps 09 - Under Fire

Pickering, who had been sitting with his feet on the windowsill, watching the activity-there hadn't been much-in San Francisco Bay, spun around, and grabbed the telephone. I am, he had realized, in one of my "Boy, do I feel sorry for Poor 0l' Flem Pickering " moods, and I don't want Pick picking up on that.

"Good morning," he said cheerfully. "What's up?" "Mom still in New York?" Pick asked. "I think today's Saint Louis," Pickering replied. "You know your mother."

A picture of his wife of thirty years-a tall, shapely, silver-haired woman with startlingly blue eyes-flashed through his mind. He missed her terribly, and not only be-cause she made him feel as if he were still twenty-one.

When Fleming Pickering had heard the sound of trum-pets and rushed off to the sound of musketry in World War II, Mrs. Patricia Foster Pickering had "temporarily" taken over for her husband as chairman of the PandFE board. Sur-prising everybody but her husband, she had not only imme-diately gathered the reins of authority in her delicate fingers, but pulled on them with consummate skill and artistry.

When he'd come home, there had been some talk of the both of them working at PandFE, but Patricia had known from the start that, if their marriage was to endure, she would have to find something to do other than share the control of PandFE with her husband.

The temporary chairman of the board of PandFE had be-come the chairman of the board of Foster Hotels, Inc., in part because she was the only daughter of Andrew Foster, majority stockholder of the forty-two-hotel chain, and partly because her father-who had wanted to retire-had made the cold business decision that she was the best-qualified person he could find to run the company.

While Patricia Foster Pickering shared her husband's- and her father's-belief that the best way to run an organi-zation was to select the best possible subordinates and then get out of their way, she also shared her father's belief that the best way to make sure your subordinates were doing what you wanted them to do was to "drop in unannounced and make sure there are no dust balls under the beds and that the liquid in the liquor bottles isn't colored water."

Which meant that she was on the road a good deal, most often from Tuesday morning until Friday evening. Which meant that her husband was most often free to rattle around-alone-in either their penthouse apartment in the Foster San Franciscan or their home on the Pacific Ocean near Carmel from Tuesday morning until Friday evening.

While he frequently reminded himself that he really had nothing to complain about-that in addition to his consid-erable material possessions, he had a wife who loved him, a son who loved him and of whom he was immensely proud, and his health-the truth was that every once in a while, say once a month, he slipped into one of his "Boy, do I feel sorry for Poor Ol' Flem Pickering" moods and, logic aside, he really felt sorry for Poor 01' Flem Pickering.

"Let's go to Tokyo," Pick said.

"Why should I go to Tokyo?"

"Because your alternative is watching the waves go up and down in San Francisco Bay until Mom gets home," Pick went on. "Come on, Pop. Let her wait for you for once."

It probably makes me a terrible husband, Fleming Pick-ering thought, but there would be a certain justice in having Patti rattle around the apartment waiting for me for once.

He had another thought:

"I thought it was decided you weren't going to Tokyo," he said.

He hadn't ordered Pick not to go to the conference, but he had happened to mention what Pick's grandfather had had to say about picking competent subordinates and then getting out of their way.

"Bartram Stevens of Pacific Cathay is going to be there. Charley Ansley called me from Hong Kong last night and told me. Charley doesn't want him pulling rank and taking over the conference; he asked me to go."

Bartram Stevens was president of Pacific Cathay Air-ways, which was to Trans-Pacific Shipping what Trans-Global was to PandFE. J. Charles Ansley, who had been with PandFE longer than Pick was old, was general manager of Trans-Global.

Charley didn't call me. There's no reason he should have, I suppose; he was asking/telling Pick to go, and that would be Pick's decision, not mine.

But if I needed one more proof that I am now as useless as teats on a boar hog around here, voila!

"And if I showed up over there, wouldn't that be raising the stakes?" Fleming Pickering thought aloud.

"With all possible respect, General, sir, what I had in mind-and Charley agrees-is to stash you quietly in the Imperial, but let the word get out that you're there. In case, for example, Commodore Ford just happened to be in the neighborhood."

Commodore Hiram Ford was chairman of the board of Trans-Pacific Shipping.

And that sonofabitch is entirely capable of showing up there and trying to take over the conference.

"This your idea or Charley's?"

"Mine, Pop," Pick said. "Come on! What the hell! You could see the Killer and Ernie. And I'll have you back by next Thursday."

"If you and Charley agree that I should."

"We do," Pick said, firmly.

What the hell. The alternative is watching the waves go up and down in San Francisco Bay until Patti gets home. And it'll do her good to have to wait for me for once.

"I'm with the State Department, myself," the asshole in the window seat announced.

Why doesn't that surprise me?

"Are you really?"

"I've just been assigned to General MacArthur's staff."

"That should be an interesting assignment," Pickering said, politely.

"I'm to be his advisor on psychological warfare."

"Really?"

"I'm looking forward to working with him," the asshole said. "From what I understand, he's an incredible man."

"Yes, I would say he is," Pickering agreed.

And the first thing you're going to have to learn, you sim-pleton, is that no one works with El Supremo, they work for him.

And the second is that the only advice Douglas MacArthur listens to is that advice that completely agrees with his posi-tions in every minute detail.

[TWO]

HANEDA AIRFIELD

TOKYO, JAPAN

1155 1 JUNE 1950

Fleming Pickering politely shook the hand of the State De-partment asshole in the window seat-who actually thought Douglas MacArthur would be grateful for his ad-vice-and wished him good luck in his new assignment.

Then he walked forward to the cockpit and stood and waited while Pick went through the paperwork associated with the end of a Trans-Global flight. Then he followed

Pick and the rest of the crew down the ladder pushed up to the cockpit door.

Pick waited for him at the bottom of the ladder, touched his arm, and nodded across the tarmac toward two nattily dressed military policemen who stood guard over a well-polished Douglas C-54 that bore the bar-and-star insignia of an American military aircraft, and had "Bataan" lettered on either side of its nose.

"That's MacArthur's, right?" Pick asked. "It says `Bataan' on the nose," Pickering replied, gently sarcastic. "I think that's a fair assumption."

"Doesn't look like there's much wrong with it, does there?" Pick asked.

"I think that's probably the best-maintained airplane in the Orient," Pickering said. "What are you driving at?"

"Just before we came over here," Pick said, "I had a call from Lockheed. The military laid a priority on them for a new 1049, to replace the war-weary C-54 of your pal MacArthur. So Lockheed's going to give him the next one off the line, which was supposed to be mine, and which I need."

"He is the Supreme Commander, Allied Powers," Pick-ering said. "And you're just a lousy civilian."

"Spoken like a true general," Pick said, with a smile.

"Yes, indeed, and why aren't you standing at attention in my presence?"