"The documentation is in my office, Mr. Lowell," the sales manager said. "If you'll be good enough to come with me?"
Lowell got a good look at Cynthia Thomas's long legs as she got out of the Mercedes.
He managed to touch her shoulder as he motioned her after the sales manager. She turned and looked at him, and smiled as if she somehow understood, perhaps felt the same hunger to touch him that he had to touch her.
The manager began a long speech about breaking the car in and bringing it in for service.
"I'll read the book," Lowell said, impatiently. He took a purchase order from his pocket. Porter Craig said that if the IRS hadn't put them all in jail for the airplane, the firm might as well own the car, too.
"Tell me how much," he said. "I presume you'll honor a purchase order?"
"The financial arrangements have been taken care of, Mr. Lowell," the sales manager said, a hint of suspicion in his voice. "I would have presumed you knew that."
"Are you sure?" Lowell said.
The sales manager handed him an envelope.
"I presume this is the title," he said. "It was delivered by a man from Mercedes three days ago."
Lowell tore the envelope open. There were two sheets of paper in it, one from Mercedes-Benz/Daimler G. m.b. H." a shipping invoice, paid in full, for one Mercedes coupe. And the other was a folded sheet of paper with an embossed crest.
My dear Craig, Permit me to offer this small token of appreciation for my life, and for my grandson.
v.G. "Jesus H. Christ!" Lowell said.
"What is it?" Cynthia Thomas asked, concerned. He handed her the note. "Who's "v. G'?" "My father-in-law," Lowell said.
"Nice father-in-law," she said. "What did he mean "for his life'?"
"In other words," Lowell said, avoiding the question, "we're through here?"
"It will take just a moment to have the battery connected," the sales manager said.
Minutes later, the double glass doors were opened, and Lowell drove the coupe across the sidewalk and onto Park Avenue.
"What did he mean "for his life'?" Cynthia asked again, as they started downtown. Before he had a chance to reply, she said, "Go cross town on 49th."
"Where are we going?" Lowell asked, as he made the corner.
"What about his life?" she persisted.
"He was in Siberia," Lowell said. "A friend of mine got him out. I had nothing to do with it."
"Siberia, as in Russian Siberia?" she asked.
"That's the one. Lots of snow. That Siberia."
"We want to come out onto Central Park West at 64th," she ordered.
"Your place?"
"I've got something to pick up," she said. "It won't take a minute.
And then you can take me for a ride in your nice new car.
"I'd like that," he said.
A doorman opened the door for her.
"I won't be a moment," she said.
Ten minutes later, as he was growing impatient, the doorman tapped on the window. Lowell found the window control switch and lowered the window.
"Miss. Thomas asks that you go up, sir," he said.
"What do I do with the car?" "I'll park it for you, sir," the doorman said.
"Be careful with it," Lowell said. "It's brand new." I will try, sir."
The elevator took him to the penthouse. There were two doors in the elevator landing. One of them was open.
He went to it and called her name.
"I'll be right out," she called. "Go in the living room and make yourself a drink."
Lowell saw that there were two penthouses in the building. Cynthia had what he thought was the better of them. She had views from three sides, to Central Park, across the street; west to the Hudson River; and downtown.
He found the bar, and made himself a drink. He hadn't been in an apartment like this in years. He had forgotten what a spectacular view there was from the top of a building like this.
He took a pull at his drink. He was not going to blow this one. He knew he and Cynthia would make love all right. But he wanted it to happen very carefully, very slowly. He wasn't going to grab at her and scare her off.
"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting," she said, and he turned to face her.
She was standing in the door to a bedroom, wearing a negligee that revealed more than it concealed.
"I had to get rid of the help," she said. "And I wanted to take a bath."
Oh, shit. I was right the first time. An independent female. I should have guessed from the way she swore. From the way she let me touch her. Goddamn it!
He made no immediate move to go to her.
"Is something the matter?" she asked. "Don't I pass muster?" "You're good looking," he said. "As a matter of fact, you're beautiful. But I just got off an airplane, and I'd like to get to Washington before it's too late."
"You sonofabitch!" she screamed, which he had more or less expected, and then she pulled off her shoe and threw it at him, which he had also more or less expected. And then she did something he didn't expect at all. All of a sudden, she sort of collapsed against the door and started to weep.
Lowell started for the door.
She was moaning now, repeating, "Oh, God! Oh, God!" over an dover.
Something is expected of me, required of me, as a gentleman.
He walked to her.
"Look," he said, "if you're worried that I'm going to say something, don't be. I'm not."
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She put her hand, the fist balled, into her mouth and looked at him out of horrified eyes. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Her breasts heaved with the effort of weeping.
"I really am tired," he said. "And I'm just not interested in a casual roll in the hay. No offense. It has nothing to do with you."
"I thought," she blubbered, "that was all you were interested in."
"You sonofabitch," she said, half weeping, "Do you really think I play the whore every time I meet a new mail?"
"I didn't say that," he said.
"But that's what you think, isn't it?" she challenged.
"No," he said.
"It is," she said. "It is. Oh, God! I can see it in your eyes.
That's just what you think!"
"Even if I did, so what? What possible importance can that be to you?" he asked, believing it to be a reasonable question.
She spat in his face, and then, before he could recover, hit him with her fist, just above his ear. He was shaken a little, but managed to grab her wrists. She kicked at his crotch. He ducked, but her knee painfully struck his thigh.
He put his foot behind her leg, then pushed. She fell backward, and he allowed himself to fall on top of her. He sat on her legs, far enough down so that she couldn't flail them, then pinned her hands to the carpet. His face was six inches from hers.
"Jesus Christ, what kind of a nut are you, anyway?" he asked. "Now behave."
"The kind of a nut that fell in love with you the minute I saw you," she said.
"Don't be absurd," he said, softly.
"I didn't want to, you sonofabitch!" she said. "It just happened."
"Jesus!" "I came on like a whore, because I thought that's what you wanted," she said. "And you know something? I liked it, because I thought that's what you wanted."
He laughed. It infuriated her. She struggled and failed to get free.
"Before you came out of the bedroom in your see-through negligee," he said, "I vowed to keep my hands off you. I was thinking that whatever I did, I would have to play this very coolly. That I really didn't want to blow it with you."
"And now what do you think?" she asked, very softly.
"The strange beating of my heart is only partially because you're under me with that exquisite genuine blond pubic tuft exposed," he said.
She looked into his eyes for a long moment.
"Since we've both lost our minds," she said, "do you want to do it right here on the carpet? Or would you rather get into bed?"
He got to his fee
t, and offered her his hand. He pulled her to her feet. As a reflex action, she closed the gown over her exposed breast.
She looked up at him. He bent and kissed her. Without taking her mouth from his, she shrugged out of the gown, so that by the time he had carried her to the bed, she would be naked.
XIV
(One) The Office of the Secretary of the Army The Pentagon Washington, D.C. 1230 Hours, 6 March 19S9
The Secretary of the Army is provided with a private dining room, adjacent to his suite of offices. It comes with a complete kitchen, staffed with a chef and two waiters. The chef and the waiters are army enlisted men.
The Secretary's mess can be viewed either as a shameless waste of the taxpayer's money or as an important management tool. Which is cheaper in the long run: operating a mess where the Secretary and his assistants can have their meals in a secure room, where they can work as they eat, or sending them from their office to eat somewhere where they cannot, for security reasons, discuss anything more classified than the weather?
The mess today had one table set up for lunch; and the word had been passed that the room would not be available for lunch to the staff. The table was set up with place settings for five people. The chef prepared a simple tossed green salad with a blue cheese dressing; vichyssoise; a small pork roast, with glazed carrots and French green beans; French bread; and for dessert, a cinme caramel. The Secretary of Defense, who would be present, was known to like crame caramel. Two bottles of a very pleasant Napa Valley California Cabernet Sauvignon were opened to breathe.
The wine was for the Secretaries coming, not the brass. So far as the brass was concerned a glass of wine at lunch in the Pentagon was drinking on duty. Glasses would be set before them, and they would turn the glasses over.
The Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of the Army arrived together from a meeting in the Secretary of Defense's small conference room. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (it was the Army's turn to hold that position, and the CJCS was an Army four-star general) and the Army Chief of Staff were waiting for them, standing up at the buffet sipping coffee.
One luncheon guest, the Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, was not yet present, but this was not mentioned in the belief that he would be along in a moment.
As expected, he entered the room not two minutes later.
"Mr. Secretary," General E.Z. Black said, shaking the hand of the Secretary of Defense, "I apologize for being late."
"Don't be silly," the SECDEF said. "We just got here."
"Mr. Secretary," General Black said, nodding at the Secretary of the Army. He nodded at the two other four-star generals, and twice said, "General." There was, E.Z. Black thought wryly, a hole in the protocol. There were only two verbal forms of address for the five people in the room.
Despite great differences in grade, the only titles available were "General" and
"Mr. Secretary." There was no practical alternative, except possibly to address the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as "Mr. Chairman," which would sound as if he had his office in the Kremlin.
He wondered why he was in such a flippant mood. The odds, he calculated, were about even that he would walk out of this dining room into retirement.
"I'm hungry," the SECDEF announced. "Can we eat?"
They took their places around the octagonal table.
The SECDEF bowed his head.
"For the bounty we are about to receive, dear Lord, we thank You," he prayed, almost conversationally, as if he were on close personal terms with the Almighty, "and ask Thy blessing upon our labor in your service. Through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Savior. Amen."
"Amen," the others mumbled, and reached for their napkins. The white-jacketed mess attendants appeared. One skillfully balanced five plates of salad, which he laid before them; the other carried a bottle of the California Cabernet Sauvignon. The CJCS and the Chief of Staff turned their glasses over. The SEC ARMY tasted the wine and nodded his head. The mess attendant half filled his glass, and then the glass of the SECDEF. He then put the bottle in a basket on a small table within reach of both.
"I'll have a little of that, if I may, Sergeant," General Black said.
What the Chief of Staff was about to use against him made drinking a glass seem an inconsequential sin.
"Excuse me, sir," the sergeant said, smoothly.
The CJCS raised his eyebrows. The Chief of Staff pursed his lips.
"Very nice," the SECDEF said. "This the stuff you get from California?"
"A guy I went to college with," the SEC ARMY said, "decided one day he didn't want to spend the rest of his life in the stock market; he sold out, went to California, and bought a vineyard. He sends it to me."
"I'm glad he did. This is very good. Can you buy it in stores?"
"I'll get you a case." "You like that, E. Z.?" the SECDEF asked.
"Very good," General Black replied.
"You've been at Knox, I understand," the SECDEF asked.
"Just got back," General Black said. "That's why I was late. I told the pilot to allow for an hour and a half in the stack over Washington National. I should have told him an hour forty-five."
"How's the rocket whirlybird project coming? That's why you went down there, isn't it? To see it demonstrated?"
"I saw it demonstrated at Rucker, Mr. Secretary," General Black said.
"I had other things to do at Knox, but I checked on their progress.
They have ten percent of their authorized equipment up and running."
"That was quick," the SECDEF said. He was not surprised. The quicker they got an operational unit running, the better. There was still a chance as long as it was only a "provisional" unit that they might still lose it to the air force.
"Yes, Mr. Secretary," Black said. "I thought so."
One of the waiters began to lay plates with thick slices of pork before them, while the other laid out bowls of French green beans and glazed carrots.
"You didn't happen to stop by Bragg on the way home, did you, General?"
the Chief of Staff asked.
"I decided not to, General," Black said. "I think the best way to handle that situation is to leave it alone."
"I was led to believe you were going there."
"No," B lack said, picking up his knife and fork.
The mess attendants placed two large silver coffee pots, a bowl of cream, and a bowl of sugar on the table and then left the room.
"Very nice pork," the SECDEF said.
"It's from the A&P in Alexandria, believe it or not," the SEC ARMY said.
"Very nice," the SECDEF repeated.
The SEC ARMY looked at General Black.
"Just for the sake of conversation, E. Z.," he said, "what would you think of CINCPAC?" (Commander in Chief, Pacific)
"In what context, Mr. Secretary?"
"Of taking, it over?"
The SEC ARMY did not like General E.Z. Black, personally or professionally. If he had his way, Black would be retired as soon as possible and replaced by someone who took orders from him and the Chief of Staff and who carried them out without question, without making as many waves as E.Z. Black made.
"I go where I'm sent and do what I'm ordered to do, Mr. Secretary," General Black said.
"For that matter, E: Z.," the CJCS said, "what would you think of
NATO?"
The SEC ARMY gave him a dirty look. The civilian control of the military broke down with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He was an Army officer, but he was not really subordinate to SEC ARMY He took his orders what orders he took from SECDEF. And he was an old buddy of the Commander in Chief, the President. He also knew that there was nothing anybody, including the Commander in Chief, could do to him but fire him. And no fool he knew that firing (actually, retiring) the CJCS was politically inflammable.
General Black took a swallow of his wine.
"Are those my choices, Mr. Secretary?" General Black asked the
SEC ARMY
"I didn't say that, General."
"There's a third option, E. Z.," the SECDEF said, "since this bad blood between you and the Chief of Staff seems to be getting worse, and the Air Force is still howling for your scalp."
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