you spending all your time ‘controlling’ Señor Guevara. ”
“Yes, sir.”
IV
[ ONE ]
226 Providence Drive
Swarthmore, Pennsylvania
1520 14 December 1964
H. Wilson Lunsford, M.D., answered the door of his home. “Good afternoon, Doctor,” Colonel Sanford T. Felter said. “It’s good to see you again, sir, and I apologize for the intrusion.”
“I’m sure you consider it necessary, Colonel,” Dr. Lunsford said. “Won’t you please come in?”
“How is he?”
“He and his buddy have been at the scotch since lunch,” Dr.
Lunsford said, and then, when he saw the look on Felter’s face, added: “Dr. McClintock at Walter Reed gave me tranquilizers for George to dispense as I saw fit. He said he thought there might be some depression. He and his buddy are having a good time, and the only price they’re going to have to pay is a hangover. I’m a lot happier giving him scotch than some exotic chemical.”
He motioned for Felter to precede him into the house, then down a corridor, and then stepped quickly ahead of him to open a door. Through it, Felter saw that it was a game room. There was an antique billiards table in the center of the room, and there were leather armchairs and a couch against one paneled wall, and there was an octagonal card table with a green felt playing surface in a corner.
“Your guest, George,” Dr. Lunsford said.
When Father Lunsford saw him in the doorway, he—a Pavlovian response—came quickly out of his chair.
“Good afternoon, sir,” he said, just a little thickly.
Felter waved him back into his chair and walked up and gave him his hand.
“Sorry to intrude, Father,” Felter said. “It couldn’t be helped, and I won’t be long.”
Then he turned to make his manners to Father’s buddy, who had also stood up when he entered the room, and was standing now.
Felter had been mildly curious about whom Father Lunsford would have for a buddy, and mildly concerned that, in the company of some high school or college chum, the scotch might loosen Father’s tongue a little too much.
“Good afternoon, sir,” Father’s buddy said, also a little thickly.
The last time Felter had seen Captain John S. Oliver was in the office of Major General Robert Bellmon. Oliver—whom Bellmon has described as “as good an officer as they come”—was Bellmon’s aide-de-camp.
“Hello, Oliver,” Felter said. “Good to see you.” Then he blurted what was in his mind. “I didn’t know you two knew each other.”
He was genuinely surprised. Oliver was an Army aviator, a Regular Army officer out of Norwich, who had already been accepted into what Felter thought of as the establishment. He knew that Bob Bellmon would have been happy if John Oliver and Marjorie had hit it off. This was, he realized, the first time he had ever seen Oliver—and he had been with him often—looking as if he had as much as sniffed at the neck of a beer bottle.
“Captain Oliver and myself, Colonel, have been anal orifice comrades since he saved my bacon in Vietnam,” Father said.
“Sit down, Johnny,” Felter said.
“With the colonel’s kind permission, I will adjourn to the gentlemen’s facility,” Oliver said, carefully pronouncing each word, and walked a little unsteadily out of the room.
Father looked at Felter.
“His lady love told him it was either her or the Army,” Father said. “He chose the Army, and she wasn’t bluffing.”
“I had no idea,” Felter said.
“And now he is sadly contemplating all those nights in the future, alone in a soldier’s bed.”
“What did she have against the Army?”
“She lost one husband, and decided she wasn’t equipped to lose another. No problem with him, Colonel. I’ll take care of him. He’s one of the good guys.”
“General Bellmon thinks very highly of him,” Felter said, thinking out loud.
“He’s Johnny’s general?” Father asked, and when Felter nodded, went on: “Yeah, he got Johnny a deal—”
"’Deal’ ?”
“You know he’s no longer a dog-robber?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Well, he’s not. He was good at it, but he hated it, and he was up for reassignment, and his general got him some kind of special job—executive assistant or something—to a General Rand, who’s going to have some new kind of division at Benning . . .”
“George Rand,” Felter supplied. “They’re calling it the 11th Air Assault Division.”
“Right,” Father said. “Anyway, Johnny told me that his general—Bellmon, you said his name is?”
“Bellmon,” Felter said. “He’s an old friend of mine.”
“. . . Bellmon told him that if he did a good job for this General Rand, he could expect to make major on the five percent list within a year.”