“If what I think will happen happens, I won’t be going to Rucker.”
Lunsford nodded.
“One last word. If what you and I both think will happen happens, and I come back here and find you shitfaced, that’ll be it.”
“Understood.”
“Give me a couple of minutes for a quick shower and some cologne behind my ears, and I’ll be out of here,” Father said.
Five minutes later, Lunsford, now in a sport coat and slacks, stood at the apartment door.
“I hope it works out, pal,” he said, and then left.
Oliver stared at the door for a moment, then looked at the television, saw what was playing, uttered a disgusted “Shit,” and turned the television off.
He walked to the telephone, looked down at it for a long moment, then picked up the receiver and dialed.
“This is it,” he said aloud when it started to ring. “Whatever happens, this is it.”
After the fifth ring, Liza’s voice informed him that she was sorry she was not at home, but if he left his name and number, she would get back to him just as soon as she could.
He put the receiver back in its cradle.
“Fuck it,” he said aloud. “I don’t know what the hell I would say if you did answer the goddamned phone.”
Well, I can still fly down there tomorrow, or whenever Jack brings the L-23 back, and face her face-to-face.
Fuck that! I’ve made enough of an ass of myself. I said that would be it, that was it.
The Heineken bottle was on the chair side table.
I will finish that beer, and I will have another one, or two, with the girls in C-27. If I can’t handle that, and get shitfaced, I will admit I can’t handle the booze, and will join Alcoholics Anonymous.
And who knows, maybe Father is right, a piece of ass might be just what I need to come to my senses. And I suspect that the other Puerto Rican nurse will be a very interesting roll in the hay.
He drained the Heineken and went into his bedroom, stripped, showered, and was almost dressed when the doorbell rang.
What the hell is that?
Did Father, knowing that what we both knew would happen, happened, come back to hold my hand? To make sure I stayed off the sauce?!
He went to the door, opened it, and said after a moment, “What’s this?”
Liza Wood was standing there, holding Allan’s hand. There were four suitcases on the floor beside them.
“What does it look like?” Liza asked. “It’s a goddamned camp follower and her fatherless child.”
He didn’t know what to do, or trust his voice to speak, so he scooped Allan up, and growled in his neck.
“Horsey, Johnny,” Allan said.
He swung the child so that he was on his shoulders, and then he put his arms around Liza and held her tight against him, and the three of them bounced up and down together.
[ TWO ]
SECRET
Central Intelligence Agency Langley, Virginia
FROM: Assistant Director For Administration
FROM: 25 January 1965 1510 GMT
SUBJECT : Guevara, Ernesto (Memorandum #37.)
TO: Mr. Sanford T. Felter
Counselor To The President
Room 637, The Executive Office Building
Washington, D.C.
By Courier
In compliance with Presidential Memorandum to The Director, Subject: “Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara,” dated 14 December 1964, the following information is furnished:
(Reliability Scale Five) (From CIA Conraky, Guinea) SUBJECT departed Conraky 1525 GMT 24 January 1965 aboard chartered aircraft, announced destination, Cotonou, Dahomey.
Howard W. O’Connor
HOWARD W. O’CONNOR
SECRET
[ THREE ]
Apartment B-14
Foster Garden Apartments
Fayetteville, North Carolina
1735 27 January 1965
As Mrs. Jacques Portet put her key in the lock of B-14, she had a sudden chill. Jack expected her. They had telephoned an hour before to report themselves an hour out of Fayetteville. Jack was a lunatic. That translated to the very real possibility of him answering the door in his birthday suit, with a lustful leer on his face.
Ordinarily, she would have been privately pleased, but Captain Darrell J. Smythe was standing behind her. Despite her assurances that she could make it from his Buick to her door without assistance, he had insisted on walking up with her.
Captain Smythe, she had learned, was something of a prig.
When Marjorie pushed the door open she found her husband fully clothed, sitting on the living room floor. Also sitting on the floor was Major George Washington Lunsford. Major Lunsford was assisting Master Allan Wood in the driving of a toy, wire-controlled M-48 tank. Lieutenant Portet was in command of a toy, wire-controlled Russian T-34 tank. There were three bottles of Heineken beer sitting upright on the carpet.