telling you, Captain, that I am here to take it from you. That’s an order.”
The muscular, stocky Navy chief petty officer who was driving the Buick walked up.
“Chief, would you put Captain Whittaker in the car, please?” Canidy said.
“Yes, Sir,” Ellis said. “If you’ll come with me, please?”
“Now, just a minute!” the colonel fumed. “I will have that letter!”
“I’m sorry about the mix-up, Colonel,” Canidy said. “But I have my orders. I’m sure you’ll understand.”
He walked quickly after Whittaker and Captain Ellis.
The colonel made one last attempt. “I order you, Captain,” he called after them, “to give me that letter.”
“Sorry,” Whittaker said over his shoulder. The confrontation and the colonel’s frustration seemed to amuse him. “I don’t know who you are, Colonel, but Marshal Wyatt Earp and I are old friends. I think I’d better go with him.”
He opened the rear door of the Buick and got in. There was a man sitting against the far door, wearing a blue overcoat.
“Welcome home, Captain Whittaker,” he said. “My name is Douglass.”
“What about your luggage, Captain?” Chief Ellis asked.
“Luggage?” Whittaker parroted incredulously. “Luggage?”
Chief Ellis grinned, closed the door, and quickly got behind the wheel. Canidy trotted in front of the Buick and slipped beside Ellis.
“Get out of here, Chief,” he said, “before that colonel has a chance to think of something to do.”
After they were moving, Whittaker asked, “What the hell was that U.S. marshal business all about? What are you doing here, anyway? The last I heard, you were in China, flying P-40s for the Flying Tigers.”
“That was fun for a while,” Canidy said. “But then they started shooting at me, so I came home.”
“And became a U.S. marshal?” Whittaker asked. “Clever, Richard! An essential occupation that keeps you out of uniform.”
“We’re from the Office of the Coordinator of Information,” Douglass said.
“What the hell is that?”
“Colonel Donovan runs it, Jimmy,” Canidy said.
“And we work for Colonel Donovan,” Douglass said, “and he wants to make sure you deliver that letter to the President.”
“Where are we going?” Whittaker asked.
“To your house,” Douglass said. “We’re using it now as sort of a hotel. We’ll see that you get a good night’s sleep—you must be exhausted—and in the morning we’ll see about you delivering your letter.”
“I was wondering about that,” Whittaker said. “How would I do that? I can hardly walk up to the White House gate and announce I’ve got a letter for Uncle Franklin.”
“We’ll take care of it in the morning,” Douglass said.
“Who the hell are you guys?” Whittaker asked again. “What do you mean, Dick, you’re working for Bill Donovan? What’s he got to do with this?”
“Can you hold your curiosity overnight, Captain?” Douglass asked. “We’ll explain it all in the morning.”
“Jimmy,” Canidy said. “For tonight: Colonel Donovan tells us what to do, and he told us to meet you. Asking questions around here is like farting in church.”
Whittaker and Chief Ellis laughed.
“Are you hungry, Captain?” Douglass asked.
“Starved,” Whittaker said.
“We asked the cook to stay up,” Chief Ellis said, “in case you would be.”
“You’re in the house, Dick?” Whittaker asked. “Living there, I mean?”
“Your house is now sort of a fraternity house for strange people,” Canidy said. “Like you and me.”
“I’ll be damned,” Whittaker said.
“And you’ll be surprised, no doubt, to hear that our house mother is Cynthia Chenowith,” Canidy said.
“No kidding?” Whittaker said.
He had been in love with Cynthia Chenowith, the daughter of a close family friend, since he was seven and she was ten. At those ages, the age difference seemed to be an insurmountable problem. Now, he thought, it seemed like a minor inconvenience, even though Miss Chenowith showed no more romantic interest in him than she had at ten.
“There’s something you ought to know about her, Jim,” Canidy said.
“I really think that should wait until morning,” Douglass said quickly.
“I don’t,” Canidy said. “I think he should know before he sees her, and she’s likely going to be there when we get there.”
“What should I know?” Whittaker said.
There was a moment’s hesitation. Whittaker realized Canidy was waiting for permission to continue.
“Okay,” Douglass said. “Tell him. Maybe you’re right.”
“They did get word to you about Chesly?” Canidy asked.
Chesley H. Whittaker was Whittaker’s uncle.
“Yeah,” Whittaker said. “Uncle Franklin took care of that. He ordered MacArthur to find me and tell me.”
“Uncle Franklin”—Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the President of the United States—was not really Whittaker’s uncle, but the families were so close that Whittaker had grown up calling Roosevelt “Uncle Franklin”—and thinking of him that way.
“He was with Cynthia when he died,” Canidy