because of it. If it hadn’t been for Johnny, Bobby knew, he wouldn’t be wearing wings, period.
Bobby realized that what he really admired in Oliver was his self-confidence. He decided what was right, and then did it. Bobby privately thought that he was still thinking like a plebe: If a thing is not specifically permitted, it is prohibited. Johnny reversed that: If something isn’t specifically proscribed, screw it, let’s do it!
Captain Johnny Oliver had signaled the bartender for another round of beers, and the bartender had just stooped over the cooler to get them when the phone rang. Bobby picked it up.
“Annex Number One, Lieutenant Bellmon, sir,” he said in the prescribed manner.
“Is Captain Oliver in there?” a male voice asked. “This is Major Ting. I’m the AOD.” The aerodrome officer of the day.
“Hold one, please, sir,” Bobby said, and covered the microphone with his hand. “It’s for you. Major Ting. The AOD.”
When Bobby handed him the telephone, Captain John S. Oliver had also been thinking of 1 January 1965. On that date, he believed, it would be possible for him to put Liza Wood—and the kid—out of his mind once and for all.
Obviously, it wasn’t meant to happen. Love couldn’t overwhelm the obstacles to their getting married and living happily ever afterward.
He understood Liza’s position, and was aware that a lot of people—including himself, from time to time—would think she was absolutely right.
She had lost one soldier husband—Allan’s father—and had been devastated by the loss, and determined not to let it happen again, to her or to Allan.
“He’s already lost one daddy, Johnny, and I’m not going to put him through that again.”
The implication there, of course, was that he had become Allan’s daddy, and that was true. He liked the kid, and the kid liked him, and he would have been perfectly happy to raise him as his own.
And it was not as if he would have to take off his officer’s uniform and get a job selling used cars or life insurance. He was a millionaire, which—although it was hard to really comprehend—was absolutely true.
His sister and her husband had tried to cheat him, screw him, out of his half of their father’s estate, which consisted primarily of Jack’s Truck Stop, in Burlington, Vermont. It was painful to think that your own sister, your only living relative, would consciously plan to screw you of what was rightfully yours, but that’s what she had done.
His father’s will had said that either his sister or he could offer to buy the other one out. His sister had sent him a letter saying she and her husband wanted to buy him out, and his share was worth so much.
At that point, he had the option of sending her that much money, and he would own all the truck stop. Or taking her offer, which meant that she would send him a check and she and her husband would own it. Actually, she didn’t offer to send him a check, she said that she and her husband would pay him off “over time.”
His first reaction when he got the letter was that—even knowing nothing about it—the truck stop was probably worth a little more than twice what she was offering. But that was a moot point, because he had about two thousand dollars in the bank, which wasn’t even in the same ballpark as the two hundred sixty-eight thousand he would have had to send her to buy her out.
At that point, Lieutenant Colonel Craig W. Lowell had entered the picture. Lowell said that he didn’t want to intrude in Johnny’s personal business, but business was business, and a quarter of a million dollars was a lot of money, and it couldn’t hurt to get a professional opinion of the offer.
Lowell said that Geoff Craig’s father was chairman of the board of Craig, Powell, Kenyon & Dawes, Investment Bankers, of New York. They had experts on the staff who knew about such things, and Lowell felt sure they would be happy to help.
“Thanks, Colonel, but I don’t want to lean on Geoff to lean on his father.”
“I’m vice chairman of the board,” Lowell had said. “Let me give them a call, Johnny.”
A funny little man showed up at Johnny’s BOQ and handed him a card identifying him as Foxworth T. Mattingly, Esq., Attorney-At-Law. Mattingly said that he was from Craig, Powell, Kenyon & Dawes, and had been instructed by Colonel Lowell to take care of the details of the truck stop