Griffin W.E.B. - The Corps 08 - In Dangers Path

me for the services of Mr. Oblensky.»

«I knew in my heart, Captain Galloway, that you would readily volunteer anything you could to this noble purpose of ours.»

«Screw you.»

«You can fly Catalinas, right?» Dillon asked.

«I can, but I'm hoping nobody remembers that I can,» Galloway said.

«Why?»

«You don't know about Mclnerney's little TWX? Seeking volunteers with Catalina pilot-in-command time for a classified mission involving great personal risk?»

«Oh, yeah,» Dillon said.

«Jake, I like what I'm doing. I don't want to fly a Catalina into the Gobi Desert,» Galloway said.

«Mclnerney's asking for volunteers. Don't volunteer.»

«If Mclnerney doesn't get the volunteers he needs, he'll go looking.»

«Charley, you're safe. When I saw Mclnerney, he told me you're the only man in the Corps who could command your squadron of bums.»

Galloway looked at Dillon long enough to be assured that he was hearing the truth.

«I'll feel safe when I see the Cats take off for the Gobi with somebody else flying them,» he said.

«Chief,» Big Steve asked, «you got any experience working with aluminum?»

«Not much,» McGuire said. «I've made car bodies out of it. Stuff like that. And once a motorboat. With a V-8 Cadillac in it.»

«For Clark Gable, right?» Dillon said, remembering.

«Yeah. I owed him a big one.»

«Jake, do I get to use the chief?» Big Steve asked.

«He's yours,» Jake said.

«I want one thing understood from right now,» Chief McGuire said. «I am not going to get in another goddamned airplane. Not now. Not ever.»

«I will take your desires under consideration, Chief McGuire,» Major Dillon said.

Chapter Sixteen

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The Gentleman's Bar

The Country Club

Memphis, Tennessee

1730 27 March 1943

«I have a matter of some delicacy to discuss with you, Jesse,» Braxton V. Lipscomb, President of the Planter's Bank & Trust Company of Memphis, announced to Rear Admiral Jesse R. Ball, USN, Flag Officer Commanding Naval Air Station, Memphis. The two men were in golf clothing, sitting in leather-upholstered captain's chairs at one of the dozen or so tables in the paneled barroom. It had been chilly on the links, and they had decided to have a little taste before taking a shower.

«I didn't think you invited me out here just to give me your money,» Admiral Ball replied. At five dollars a point, their scores had been 85 for the Admiral and 97 for the banker, who just couldn't seem to get out of the sand trap on the fourteenth hole. «What's on your mind, Braxton?»

«Let me set the stage,» Lipscomb said. «Identify the players, so to speak.»

Admiral Ball nodded, took a sip of his Jack Daniel's, and waited for the banker to proceed.

«The first vice president of Planter's Bank and Trust is a fellow named Quincy T. Megham, Jr. They call him 'Quincy Junior.' I don't suppose you know him?»

Admiral Ball shook his head, «no.»

«The main reason they call him Quincy Junior is that his father, the president before I took over, was naturally Quincy Senior.»

«Makes sense,» Admiral Ball said.

«The main reason Quincy Senior was president was that he and his family are the largest stockholders in the bank.» He clarified: «Not the majority, but the largest.»

«That makes sense too.»

«Now, Quincy Senior was a

banker

,» Lipscomb said. «He taught me just about everything I know about banking.»

Admiral Ball nodded again, and waited somewhat impatiently for the banker to go on. Admiral Ball was a Yankee. He had been appointed to the Naval Academy from Rhode Island, and his assignment to command the Memphisnas had been the first time he had ever been stationed in the South. It had taken him two weeks to decide that civilian Rebels were just like the Rebels he had known in the Navy. They never got to the point without looking for at least two bushes to beat around.

«Well, he apparently did a good job,» Admiral Ball said.

«Quincy Junior is not really a chip off the old block, unfortunately. He was not prepared to take over the bank when his daddy went to his reward.»

«But he still owned a good deal of stock in the bank?»

«So we named him first vice president,» Braxton Lipscomb said. «And I stepped into his daddy's shoes. The arrangement works. Quincy Junior is not really all that interested in the bank. But he has a title and an office, and it's something for him to do, somewhere for him to go, when he wakes up in the morning.»

«I see.»

«He does 'public relations' work, I guess you'd call it. He's a good-looking fellow, and he gives a pretty good speech, and the bank needs something like that.»

«I understand.»

«About a year ago, when the Tennessee Bankers Association needed someone to head up the Governmental Relations Committee, everybody agreed that Quincy Junior was just the man to head it up. Like I said, he gives a good speech, and he is the first vice president of Planter's Bank and Trust.»

«What exactly does this Governmental Relations Committee do?»

«Most of it has to do with helping the war effort. Getting school kids to invest part of their allowances in War Bond Savings Stamps.»

«They glue twenty-five-cent stamps in a book, and when they get twenty-five dollars' worth, they turn them in and get a twenty-five-dollar War Bond?»

«Actually, they get a twenty-five-dollar War Bond for eighteen dollars and fifty cents' worth of stamps. In ten years when they cash in the bond, they get the full amount, twenty-five dollars.»

«I see.»

«Quincy Junior also handles War Bond tours. You know, when Hollywood stars come around, or war heroes? He sets up the tour and handles the details.»

«Sounds like valuable work,» Admiral Ball said.

«It is. It is valuable, and it's right down Quincy Junior's alley.»

«I can see where it would be.»

Especially since good ol' Quincy Junior is not, unfortunately, a chip off Quincy Senior's block.

«It gets him out of town a good deal,» Lipscomb said.

«I can see where it would.»

«That's probably got something to do with the problem we have, him being away from home so much.»

«What problem are we talking about?»

«Elizabeth-Sue Megham, Quincy Junior's wife. I can see where she would get lonely. It's natural.»

«I don't think I'm following you, Braxton.»

«Elizabeth-Sue is considerably younger than Quincy Junior. He's forty-five, she's thirty-three, maybe thirty-two.»

«I see.»

«To get right to the point, Jesse…«

Finally?

»… Elizabeth-Sue seems to have gotten herself involved with one of your officers from the air station.»

«I'm sorry to hear that.»

«It's a delicate situation for all concerned.»

«Do you have a name?»

«Lieutenant Malcolm S. Pickering. He's a Marine.»

«He's a fine young officer, Brax. He served with distinction on Guadalcanal. He's an aviator. An ace, as a matter of fact.»

Who is obviously screwing this female, who is at least ten years younger than her husband, who is apparently a jerk

. Admiral Ball thought of something else.

«His father is a Marine general,» he added.

«I'm sure he's a fine young man,» Lipscomb said. «And—I like to think of myself as a man of the world—these things happen between young people. But the potential for real trouble—«

«I'll deal with it, Braxton,» Admiral Ball interrupted.

»—is there, and we're going to have to do something about it, you and I.»

«I said I'd deal with it,» Admiral Ball said.

«I knew I could count on you,» Braxton Lipscomb said.

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