“Yes, sir,” Bobby said.
“Is this going to cause any damage, Jack?” Bellmon asked.
“I don’t think so, sir,” Jack said after a moment’s reflection. “With one exception—Captain Smythe—Lunsford didn’t go beyond ‘classified mission’ to explain what we were looking for.”
“What about Smythe?” Bellmon asked. “We just gave him command of the Mohawk platoon we’re sending to Vietnam.”
“He was at Norwich—and in Vietnam—with Johnny Oliver, sir,” Jack said. “Major Lunsford had already decided we were going to take him before we got here.”
“Six senior officers spend God knows how many hours picking the right man for an important assignment, and one major comes along and steals him,” Bellmon said, bitterly. “Goddamn it!”
Jack didn’t reply.
“I know it’s not you, Jack,” Bellmon said. “Please excuse the temper flare.” He turned to Bobby. “If memory serves, Bobby, my words were ‘right away, tonight.’ ”
“Yes, sir,” Bobby said. “Dad, I—I’m sorry.”
“I know,” Bellmon said. “But you’ve just got to learn that ‘sorry’ doesn’t put things back the way they were.”
“You going to be here later, Jack?” Bobby asked.
“Marjorie wants to go into Ozark to see Liza Wood,” Jack said. “After that—”
“Right away, goddamn it, Bobby,” General Bellmon flared.
Bobby fled.
He had almost made it to the corner of the house when Bellmon called after him.
“Your schedule permitting, come for breakfast, Bobby. You can talk to Jack and Marjorie then.”
[ SIX ]
“What did you tell Liza on the phone?” Jack asked.
Lieutenant and Mrs. Portet were in Barbara Bellmon’s Oldsmobile, approaching Ozark on the Fort Rucker/Ozark Highway. Marjorie was driving.
“Nothing. Just they we were here and wanted to see her.”
“At the risk of destroying this marriage-made-in-heaven, my darling, in my studied judgment, this is a dumb fucking idea,” Jack said.
“Why?”
“For one thing, it’s none of our business, and for another, you can talk yourself blue in the face all night and not change her mind.”
“I was thinking maybe I could make her ashamed of herself for what she’s doing to Johnny.”
“Right now, your sainted Captain Oliver is not one of my favorite people,” Jack said.
“Really?”
“If he wasn’t behaving like a lovesick calf, I would at this moment be chasing you around our apartment, while you pretended to want to get away.”
“Oh, really?”
“Instead, because he got sauced last night, I get jerked out of my nuptial couch in the early hours of morning, have to fly down here, and now face the prospect of having to chase you around your girlhood bedroom with Mommy and Daddy listening.”
“You are, in other words, in what could be described as a self-pitying, lustful, frame of mind?”
“In words of multiple syllables, Madame, you bet your sweet fucking ass I am.”
“Is that how you think of it?” Marjorie asked.
“Do what you want to do, baby,” Jack said. “On the way just now, I realized I’m already henpecked.”
“I thought you tough Green Beret masculine types called that ‘pussy-whipped’.”
Jack didn’t reply.
“How about this for an alternate plan?” Marjorie said. “We go to see Liza. We have one drink, no more than two. We play with Allan. We don’t mention the name of Captain John S. Oliver, Jr., and if she does, we say ‘Who?’ Then we leave, we drive to Highway 231, we take a motel room. I will let you catch me before you get too tired, and later, much later, we will go to sleep in my girlhood bed.”
“God, if you could cook, I think I’d marry you,” Jack said.
XIV
[ ONE ]
Foster Garden Apartments
Fayetteville, North Carolina
1400 25 January 1965
When Major George Washington Lunsford let himself into the apartment he shared with Captain John S. Oliver, Jr., he found Oliver sprawled on the couch in fatigues. The television was on, but unless Oliver had suddenly developed an interest in As the World Turns, he wasn’t paying a hell of a lot of attention to it.
“Hey,” Father said.
“Hey,” Oliver replied.
“I need a beer. You want one?”
“No, thanks,” Oliver said.
Lunsford walked into the kitchen and returned a minute later holding two bottles of Heineken beer. He handed one to Oliver, then slumped into an armchair facing the couch.
Oliver held the beer bottle up.
“I really think I’ve had enough of this for a while,” he said.
“Moderation in all things, as it says in the Good Book,” Lunsford said. “And I happen to agree with the patron saint of the Green Beanies, John Wayne, who said he never trusted a man who turned down a drink.”
“I don’t think John Wayne said that,” Oliver said.
“If he didn’t, he should have.”
“Is Jack in his apartment? I want to apologize face-to-face.”
“Jack’s still at Rucker,” Lunsford said. “Jeremiah flew me up.
I had things to do here. Jack’s stripping the markings from an L-19, and getting SCATSA to check the radios. Jeremiah went back. Jack will bring the plane up here, and Jeremiah will bring Marjorie with him when he drives up here.”
“ ‘Things to do up here,’ ” Oliver parroted. “Presumably including dealing with the drunk-on-duty Captain John S. Oliver, Jr.?”
“Among other things, yeah,” Lunsford said.
“I’m sorry, Father, for what that’s worth.”
“You should be, buddy, and no, it’s not worth much.”
“Shit,” Oliver said, and took a pull at his beer.
“On the way down there, Marjorie said she was going to see the Goddamned Widow and give her a piece of her mind for abusing Poor, Dear Johnny, driving him to the bottle.”
“Oh, God, no!” Oliver said. “Did she?”
“At the last moment, according to Jack, wisdom prevailed. They went to see the Goddamned Widow, but neither side invoked the name of John Oliver.”
“You stuck your neck out pretty far flying Marjorie down there,” Oliver said.
“We got away with it,” Lunsford said. “By the skin of our teeth, as it turned out. When we parked at Cairns, Jeremiah—he was giving a Mohawk dog-and-pony show to some brigadier from Hood—parked right next to us. If he had known Marjorie—”
“Jesus!” Oliver said. “He hates being called Jeremiah—as you obviously know.”
“How long do you think it will take the team to start calling him ‘Aunt Jemima’?” Lunsford asked. “He’s got a tough skin. I did my best to piss him off, and couldn’t.”
“He’s a good man,” Oliver said.
“Anyway, I figured I owed Jack for saving your ass. And he’s going to Buenos Aires on Friday. He’s entitled to a little time with his bride.”
“Yeah,” Oliver agreed.
“What are you going to do about the Goddamn Widow, Johnny?” Lunsford asked.
Oliver met his eyes but didn’t respond.
“The bottom line is that I’m wondering if I can trust you to handle things in Buenos Aires,” Lunsford said.
“If I were you, I wouldn’t,” Oliver said. “If I were you, Father, I would have turned me in to Hanrahan.”
“No, you wouldn’t have,” Father said. “And I need you, Johnny. But you’ve got to settle this Goddamn Widow business once and for all.”
“You ever been in love?” Oliver asked.
“A hundred times, which probably means never.”
“This is my first time,” Oliver said. “It sneaks up on you, then whacks you in the back of the head. I can’t believe the effect it’s had on me.”
“The other option, of course, is to take of
f the suit, settle down in a vine-covered cottage by the side of the road, and start spending your money.”
“I’m a soldier, Father.”
“Soldiers—good soldiers—don’t get shitfaced when they’re supposed to go on duty.”
“Yeah. That thought has occurred to me more than once in the last couple of days.”
“I can’t let this hang in the breeze, Johnny,” Lunsford said. “You have to get off the dime.”
“All suggestions gratefully accepted.”
“Jack will be back here tomorrow or the day after,” Lunsford said. “I’ll send you to Rucker in the L-23 to ‘check on the L-19.’ While you’re there, go see her and get this settled, once and for all.”
Oliver looked at him but did not reply.
“Option Two,” Lunsford said. “I can probably arrange for you to take that assignment with the Air Mobile Division at Benning.”
“Pass the problem of the lovesick drunk to someone else?”
“I can’t deal with it, Johnny. If I can’t have you bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and sober, I don’t want you,” Lunsford said.
They exchanged looks again.
“How does the Goddamned Widow feel about Benning?” Father asked. “Is she pissed because you came here, or with you being in the Army, period?”
“Me being in it, period. She says she can’t go through having another husband blown away—put Allan through that again.”
“It’s up to you, pal,” Lunsford said. “When Jack brings the L-23 back, you can go to Rucker with the understanding that if you can’t get your act together, you’re out of here.”
Oliver nodded.
“What have I got to lose?” Oliver said. “Thank you, Father.”
“There is yet another option,” Father said. “Which I don’t think will interest you.”
“Which is?”
“I have been satisfying my carnal hungers with the Puerto Rican nurse in C-27.”
“Good for you.”
“She has a roommate,” Lunsford said. “Who has expressed an interest in you.”
“Bullshit.”
“Cross my heart and hope to die,” Lunsford said. “I’m headed there now. Maybe a little piece—i-e piece—would relieve the pressure on your gonads and clear your brain.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“I’m desperate, pal. I don’t want to lose you.”
Oliver looked at him for a long moment.
“For the absolutely last time,” Oliver said finally. “I’ll try to get her on the phone. And if what I think will happen happens, I’ll join you in C-27.”
“And go to Rucker later? Overwhelmed with shame and remorse? ”
“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.
Terrain had been improvised using pillows from the couch, a silver champagne cooler, three empty Heineken bottles lying on their sides, and an empty Heineken six-pack.
“Hey there, Jeremiah,” Major Lunsford called. “You’re armor. Come on in and give Jack a hand; Allan and I are whipping his . . . armor tactics.”
“Hi, Aunty Marjie,” Allan called.
“Hi, sweetheart,” Marjorie replied tenderly. And then, less tenderly: “What’s going on here?” and then, as Allan reached for one of the upright Heineken bottles, “My God, you’re not giving that child beer?”
Allan picked up a Heineken bottle, cried, “Beer, beer, beer,” and took a healthy swig.
Marjorie ran to take it away from him.
“As in root beer, light of my life,” Jack said. “What did you think?”
“What’s he doing here?” Marjorie asked.
“Allan’s mommy and uncle Johnny are discussing world ecological problems in my apartment,” Father said. “We are taking care of Allan.”
“If she sees him drinking out of that beer bottle, she’ll be furious, ” Marjorie said.
“God, I hope so,” Father said. “Johnny may have forgiven her, but Jack and I damned sure haven’t.”
“When did she get here?” Marjorie asked. “What’s going on?”
“She confessed, in the few minutes we’ve seen either of them, that she was inspired by our married bliss when we called,” Jack said. “Actually, what she said was that when we didn’t talk about Johnny, she thought there was something wrong. She was too proud to ask, of course, but after we left, especially when Allan wanted to know where Johnny was, and threw a fit when she told him he was going to have to forget about Johnny—”
“Oh, God,” Marjorie said.
“—she realized (a) that had been selfish of her and (b) that she really cared about him, leading her to conclude (c) that she would really rather be a camp follower after all, and immediately loaded Allan in the car and came here.”
“I’ll be damned,” Marjorie said.
“Come on in, Jeremiah,” Lunsford said. “We’ll take you out to the post in the morning. After you have a beer, you and I will go to my apartment and throw buckets of water on Romeo and Juliet to cool them down long enough to discuss sleeping arrangements. ”
“Father,” Marjorie said, “that’s disgusting.”
“You haven’t seen them,” Father said.
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