said to the manager and Hart. “We have an understanding, right? All calls to me except from the President, Senator Fowler, and Colonel Banning go through Captain Hart, who’ll be operating out of the Monroe Suite. All calls to Mrs. Pickering go on line three, which I will not answer. Right?”
“That’s already set up, General,” the manager said.
“Captain Hart will need the car to go to the airport to pick up his family at two-fifteen. Which means he will have to leave here at one-thirty.”
“The car will be available.”
“Okay, George. Take whatever time you need to get settled, then hop in a cab and go over to the CIA. Give my compliments to Admiral Hillencoetter and tell him I’m at his disposal, and that I’ve sent you there to get the latest briefing.”
“Aye, aye, sir. Sir, Louise is perfectly capable of getting a cab at the airport. . . .”
“Do what you’re told, George,” Pickering said, not unkindly. “How are you fixed for cash?”
Hart hesitated, then said, “Just fine, sir.”
Pickering pointed at the manager.
“Give Captain Hart five hundred dollars. Charge it to me.”
“Certainly, Mr. Pickering.”
“That’s General Pickering, Richard,” Mrs. Pickering said to the manager. “You can tell by the uniform and the stars all over it and by the way he gives orders with such underwhelming tact.”
“Sorry, General,” the manager said. “I really do know better.”
“Forget it,” Pickering said.
General and Mrs. Pickering looked at each other, but neither spoke or touched until they were alone in the suite.
Then Pickering’s eyebrow went up as he waited.
“God, I really despise you in that uniform,” Patricia said finally. “I think I hate all uniforms.”
“They make it easy to tell who’s doing a job that has to be done, and who’s getting a free ride,” Pickering said.
“You did your job when you were a kid in France, and you did your job in World War Two. When does it stop? When does somebody else take over and start doing your job?”
He looked at her for a long moment, then said: “Ken McCoy says he has every reason to believe Pick is alive and in good shape, and that we’ll have him back in short order.”
“And you believe him?”
“Yes, honey, I do.”
“I wish I shared your faith,” she said bitterly.
He didn’t reply.
“For the last four days,” Patricia said, “ever since Dick Fowler called and told me you were on your way to Washington, I have had fantasies of having your arms around me. And I promised myself I would remember it isn’t your fault . . . what’s happened to Pick . . . and that I wouldn’t be a bitch. . . .”
He looked at her a moment, then nodded.
“If you promise not to bite my jugular, Patricia,” he said softly, “I’ll put my arms around you.”
She didn’t reply.
He took a step toward her, then held his arms open. Very slowly, she walked into them, and he held her against him.
“Oh, my God, Flem,” she said softly, and then she began to sob. “Oh, God, I’ve missed you!”
“Me, too, honey.” His voice was not quite under control.
He held her a long time, until her sobs subsided.
Then she said, “I wish you’d take off that goddamn uniform.”
“I’ll still be a Marine, honey,” he said.
“My fantasy was to feel your bare arms around me,” she said softly.
“Well,” he said. “I guess it is like riding a bicycle. You never forget how.”
He was lying on his back in their bed. She was lying half on him.
She pinched him, painfully, on the soft flesh of his inner thigh.
He yelped.
“I’d forgotten you do that, too,” he said.
She didn’t reply.
“Pick’s got a girl,” he said.
“Pick has always had a girl,” she said. “He wasn’t even five years old when he talked Ernie Sage into playing doctor, and it went downhill from there.”
“This is serious, I think,” Pickering said.
“I have heard that before, and find it very hard to believe. ”
“In many ways, she’s very much like you.”
“You know her? That is unusual.”
“Yeah. I know her. And Ernie knows her and likes her too; they’ve become quite close.”
She propped herself up on her elbows and looked down at him. “Tell me about her. What do you mean, she’s like me?”
“Tough, smart, competent, and, I think, very much surprised to find herself in love with Pick. She’s a reporter, a war correspondent. Jeanette Priestly, of the Chicago Tribune. ”
“I’ve seen her stories,” she said. “No pictures.”
“Tall, graceful . . . like you. Long blond hair. Not peroxide. Blue eyes. Good-looking young woman.”