Mrs. Zimmerman was also a silent partner in several other Chinese-flavored businesses in Beaufort as well as the proprietor of the local hamburger emporium, and the franchisee of Hertz Rent-A-Car.
The Ford station wagon in which the Zimmerman family appeared at 66 South Battery, properly attired for a visit to the ladies, belonged to Hertz of Beaufort.
Luddy Banning and Mae-Su Zimmerman embraced with understated, but still visible, deep affection. Mae-Su had been Luddy’s midwife by the side of the dirt road in Mongolia when she had given birth to Edward Edwardovich Banning.
In Cantonese, Mrs. Zimmerman inquired of Mrs. Banning, “Does the Killer know we know?”
“My husband told them,” Luddy replied in Cantonese.
“Sometimes I hate the U.S. Marine Corps,” Mae-Su said.
“Me, too. But they are married to it,” Luddy said.
The children were gathered and ushered up the stairs toward Mother Banning, who waited for them. She told them they all looked elegant, and gave each a kiss and a peppermint candy.
“The Colonel and the Killer are downstairs, Ernie,” Luddy said to Master Gunner Zimmerman.
“How is he?”
“Better than I thought he would be when I heard,” Luddy said.
“That don’t look like no Marine master gunner to me,” McCoy said when Zimmerman walked into what was known as “The Colonel’s study,” although it was in fact more of a bar than a study. “That looks like an ambulance chaser.”
That was not exactly the truth. Despite the splendidly tailored Brooks Brothers-style seersucker suit, white button-down-collar shirt, and red striped necktie, there was something about Zimmerman that suggested he was not a member of the bar, but rather a Marine in civvies. He was a squat, muscular, barrel-chested man, deeply tanned, and his hair was closely cropped to his skull.
“Screw you, Captain, sir,” Zimmerman said, walking to him, and grabbing his neck in a bear hug.
“How they hanging, Ernie?” McCoy asked, freeing himself.
“A little lower every year,” Zimmerman said.
“Help yourself, Ernie,” Banning said, gesturing toward an array of bottles in a bookcase.
“Thank you, sir. What are you—”
“Famous Grouse,” Banning said.
“What else?” Zimmerman asked, chuckling.
“And we have been marching down memory lane,” Banning said.
“Yeah? Which memory lane?”
“Guess who’s at Pendleton?” Banning asked.
Zimmerman shrugged.
“Major Robert B. Macklin,” McCoy said.
“No shit?”
“I saw his name on his office door when I was in the G-1 building,” McCoy said. “I didn’t see him.”
“That figures, G-1,” Zimmerman said. “That chair-warmer is a real G-1 type.”
Banning and McCoy chuckled.
“Killer,” Zimmerman went on, conversationally, “you really should have let me shoot that no-good sonofabitch on the beach on Mindanao.”
Banning and McCoy chuckled again, louder, almost laughed.
“Jack NMI Stecker said I could,” Zimmerman argued. “You should have let me.”
“I was there, Ernie,” Banning said. “What Colonel Stecker said was that you could deal with Captain Macklin in any way you felt you had to, if, if, he got out of line. As I understand it, he behaved in the Philippines. . . .”
“That sonofabitch was never in line,” Zimmerman said. “And now he’s a goddamn major, and they’re giving you the boot? Jesus H. Christ!”
“Ernie, I told Ken we wouldn’t talk about . . . that . . . unless he brought up the subject,” Banning said.
"How are you not going to talk about it?”
"By not talking about it,” Banning said.
“So what are you going to do? Take the stripes they offer you, or get out?” Zimmerman asked, ignoring Banning.
“Would you take the stripes, Ernie?” McCoy countered.
“I thought about that,” Zimmerman said. “Christ, when we were in the Fourth in Shanghai, I was hoping I could make maybe staff sergeant before I got my twenty years in. But that was then, Ken. A lot’s happened to us—especially you—since then. No, I don’t want to be a sergeant again, having to kiss the ass of some dipshit like Macklin, or some nice kid who got out of the Naval Academy last year.”
“Spoken like a true master gunner,” Banning said, chuckling.
Master gunners are the Marine equivalent of Army warrant officers. While not commissioned officers, they are entitled to being saluted and to other officer privileges. They are invariably former senior noncommissioned officers with long service, and expertise in one or more fields of the military profession. Their pay and allowances, depending on their rank within the master gunner category, approximates that of second lieutenants through majors.
“What did they offer you?” Zimmerman asked.
“I won’t know that until I get back to Pendleton,” McCoy said.
“You give any thought to what you would do if you do get out?”
“Fill toothpaste tubes at American Personal Pharmaceutical, ” McCoy said.