determine whether or not it will fit on the balcony.”
Jack went to fetch the tool kit. Marjorie found a ball of twine and gave it to Johnny, who gave it to Enrico.
When they were alone in the living room, Marjorie asked softly, “You haven’t heard from Liza at all?”
“When she hears my voice, she hangs up,” he said.
“Keep trying,” Marjorie said.
“Yeah,” he said. He met her eyes. “I really miss Allan; that makes it worse.”
Jack appeared with the tool roll from the Jaguar and handed it to Oliver.
“It’s my wedding present—”
“Our wedding present,” Marjorie corrected him.
“—you put it together.”
“Can the bride handle putting aluminum foil around the spuds?” Johnny asked.
“I’ll supervise,” Jack said.
Marjorie guessed correctly that it would take Enrico and Johnny at least as long to assemble the grill as it would take to bake the potatoes; they were done five minutes before the gas under the artificial charcoal lit.
This was followed by the smell of the preservative being burned off the interior parts of the stove, which lasted about five minutes. Cooking the thick steaks from the commissary took another fifteen minutes, but finally they were all sitting at her new dining-room table, and Jack was pouring wine into her new wineglasses.
The new telephone rang.
An hour after the dead telephone she had found on her first day in the apartment had been brought to life by a man from the phone company, another man from the phone company arrived at her door.
“It’s already working, thank you very much,” Marjorie had told him.
“Is this B-14, Lieutenant Portet?”
“Yes, it is.”
He handed her his Installation Order:One unlisted private line telephone to be installed Apt B- 14, Foster Garden Apartments (Lieutenant Portet) Bill to Finance Officer, JFK SWC Fort Bragg. No deposit required. (US Govt).
Jack reached over his shoulder and picked up the new telephone from her new dining-room sideboard.
“Hello?”
The acoustics were such that the caller’s voice could be clearly, if faintly, heard.
“Jack, is Johnny Oliver there with you?” General Hanrahan asked without any preliminaries.
“Yes, sir.”
“De la Santiago?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Would it be reasonable of me to presume that all of you have had a couple of beers?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Put Oliver on.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jack held out the phone to Oliver, who got up, went to the sideboard, and took the telephone from him.
“Captain Oliver, sir.”
“I just had a call from Felter. He wanted you up there tonight,” Hanrahan said.
“Up where, sir?”
“I will now call him back, and tell them that none of you are in any condition to fly tonight. Tomorrow’s Special Orders will contain a paragraph confirming and making a matter of record the following verbal order of the commanding general. You, Portet, and de la Santiago are placed on five days’ temporary duty to Headquarters, Department of the Army, Washington, D.C. Travel by U.S. government aircraft is directed.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Supplemental orders: Take Felter’s L-23. You serve as instructor pilot for de la Santiago, as the flight will also serve as his cross-country check ride in L-23 aircraft.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Schedule your flight so that you can present yourself, in suitable civilian clothing, to Lieutenant Colonel Lowell, at the National Aviation Club— you know where that is, Johnny?”
“Yes, sir. In the Hotel Washington. General Bellmon goes there a lot.”
“—not later than noon. Reservations have been made for the three of you in the hotel.”
“Yes, sir. For five days, sir?”
“That’s not set in concrete,” Hanrahan said. “When was de la Santiago supposed to finish his parachute qualification?”
“Two more jumps tomorrow afternoon, sir, and the night jump tomorrow night.”
“I’ll have Ski reschedule that. Any questions, Johnny?”
“No, sir.”
“Good night, Johnny.”
Hanrahan hung up.
Oliver hung up the telephone.
“Everybody get that, or do I have to repeat it?” he asked.
“Five days?” Marjorie asked.
What the hell am I going to do here by myself for five days?
“He said he wasn’t sure about that,” Oliver said, and then went on, thinking out loud: “It’s about two-twenty up there. Call it two-thirty. Another hour to get them to give us a car and get into Washington, three-thirty. Thirty minutes to change clothes. Four hours. Plus an hour for the You Damned Well Better Not Be Late factor, five hours. So we want to break ground at 0700.”
He looked down at the table.
“The twelve-hour rule be damned,” he said. “I’m going to have wine with my steak.”
He sat down and reached for his knife and fork.
“As part of your flight training, Mr. de la Santiago,” he said, “you can get on the horn and check the weather for us.”
“Did he say what Uncle Cr—what Colonel Lowell wanted?” Marjorie