I was saying before you so rudely interrupted me, I was impressed with the list, but am even more impressed now that I can see them all on your manly breast.”
“Manly chicken breast,” Pick said. “Or chickenly man breast?”
McGrory chuckled.
“I did notice your collar seems a wee bit roomy,” McGrory said. “But for the record, you have gained eleven pounds while in my loving care. You’ll get it all back, Pick. You lost a hell of a lot of weight, pal. It won’t come back overnight.”
"The O Club had the effrontery to serve me rice with my pork chops last night,” Pick said. “I will never eat rice again in my life.”
“Is that how you made it, on rice?”
“We are back to my terrible ordeal, are we? Okay. I’ll give you that much. Yes, rice was a staple of my diet during my terrible ordeal. Are you now happy?”
“The longest journey begins with the first step,” McGrory said solemnly. “I think Confucius said that.”
“I hate to break off this fascinating conversation,” Pick said, “but I told Mrs. Mitchell I’d be waiting for her in the lobby”—he looked at his wristwatch—“in six minutes.”
“She’s not coming,” McGrory said.
The wristwatch, a battered pilot’s chronometer, had a new alligator strap. It had been a strange experience watching the salesgirl in the Ship’s Store replace the old one, which had surprisingly held up all the way in Korea. He had remembered sometimes passing the time at night watching the radium-tipped sweep second hand gradually losing its luminescence, and when it had—it had usually taken about forty minutes—holding the watch to his ear for the sound of its ticking. It had been comforting, proof that there was more to the world than human-feces-fertilized rice paddies, dirt roads, and thatch-roofed stone hootches. And unpleasant people trying to kill you.
He heard what McGrory said.
“What do you mean, she’s not coming?”
“She called and said she was sorry, but coming here was impossible, and would you mind taking a cab? I guess you were in the shower. You didn’t answer your phone.”
“So what happens now? I thought I had to be placed in the care of a responsible person?”
So I don’t have to go to the funeral. Great. I didn’t want to go anyway, and McGrory probably told her he was sorry, but the policy is that nutcakes can’t be released except in the company of a responsible person, so I’m off the hook.
So why am I so disappointed?
McGrory took out his pocket notebook, tore off a sheet, and handed it to Pick.
“You get in a taxi and go to Mrs. Mitchell’s apartment. That’s the address.”
“All by myself?”
“Yeah, against my better judgment, all by yourself.”
"Why against your better judgment? What do you think I’m going to do?”
“I have already told you what I’m worried about,” McGrory said. “In my experience, putting together two people—especially two people of different sexes—who are both suffering from an emotional trauma is a prescription for disaster.”
“But you don’t want to play God?”
“I hope I’m wrong.”
“I think you can relax, Doc,” Pick said. “The last thing I’m going to do is fuck up a nice lady like that.”
“Good,” McGrory said. “I was going to say, ‘Have a nice time,’ but you’re going to a funeral, aren’t you?”
[SIX]
APARTMENT 12-D, “OCEAN VIEW” 1005 OCEAN DRIVE SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA 0955 2 NOVEMBER 1950
The Ocean View apartment building was a large, curved structure overlooking the Pacific Ocean. When Pick got out of the taxi, he saw a Marine Corps staff car and a Cadillac limousine parked in the curving driveway, and a black wreath hanging from the nameplate on the right side of the double doors. That surprised him.
Maybe the owner’s patriotic. Or maybe just a nice guy. Or maybe he knew Mitchell.
When he had walked down the hospital corridor to the elevator, and then out through the lobby, he had felt what, for lack of a better term, he thought of as “funny in the feet.” He felt that way now, but he understood what it was. He had figured it out in the taxi. He was wearing shoes for the first time since he’d put on flight boots the morning he’d flown off the Badoeng Strait for the last time.
Even after he had been promoted to Category II and permitted to take his meals in the Officers’ Club, he’d worn slippers.
The doorman was a short, plump Mexican who directed him to the bank of elevators on the right of the lobby.