The blood drained from Captain Geoff Craig’s face.
“I never dreamed you’d turn us in,” Geoff said.
“Geoff, if necessary,” Lowell said, “I’d have you shot. You two are just too fucking smart for your own good. I don’t think I have to tell you that you’re not to get clever with Felter. You’ll tell him exactly what you told me, and anything else he wants to know.”
“Then what happens to us?”
“You’ll probably be taken to a place that’s been set up on McCall and put on ice for the next three weeks or a month. You won’t be alone, but so far, there’s only one other officer who got nosy.”
“So you are going,” Geoff said.
“I want you to give Colonel Felter the name of your friend who talks too much,” Lowell said. “We have to find out how much damage he’s done.”
“And what happens to him? He gets court-martialed?”
“What do you think should happen to somebody who opens his fat mouth when the lives of a couple hundred people are concerned? A slap on the wrist?”
“He didn’t do anything I haven’t done,” Geoff said.
“If Felter tries to court-martial you and/or Franklin later, I’ll testify for you, testify that I ordered you to speculate, make wild guesses. That’s presuming you don’t play smart-ass to Felter.”
“Why don’t you just take us along?”
“It’s too late for that,” Lowell said. “For which answer, I deserve to be court-martialed. I would be grateful if you left that out of your conversation with Felter.”
“Craig, if I’ve fucked things up for you, I’m really sorry.”
“Geoff, I am perfectly capable, as my career has proved, of fucking things up for myself with no outside help.”
Ten minutes later, the Hughes dropped Lowell at Fairhope Municipal Airport. Geoff unloaded Lowell’s luggage. The airport operator called the Grand Hotel, who sent a station wagon for Lowell. When it came, Geoff offered Lowell his hand and wished him good luck.
“I’m sorry, Geoff, I really am,” Lowell said.
“What would happen if I just flew back to Rucker, and denied I ever had seen you?”
“You wouldn’t do that, Geoff. For better or worse, you’re a soldier.”
“Yeah,” Geoff said. “Ain’t that the truth? Do not pass Go. Do not collect two hundred dollars. Go directly to jail.” Then he came to attention and threw Lowell a crisp salute. Lowell returned it, as crisply.
Captain Geoffrey Craig said, “God, I’d give my left nut to be there when the bugler blows the fucking charge.”
Then he climbed into the Hughes and pulled the door closed and put on his shoulder harness.
(Four)
A black, gray-haired bellman met the Grand Hotel station wagon at the entrance to the hotel and took Lowell’s luggage from the back seat.
“Nice to see you again, sir,” he said, to Lowell.
“It’s been some time.”
“I expect it’s Colonel by now, isn’t it?” the bellman said. Well, Lowell thought, I’ll be damned. He really does remember me.
“If it wasn’t,” he said, “you would have really blown your tip.”
The bellman smiled back. “And the next time, I expect it’ll be General,” he said.
“You wouldn’t want to hold your breath and wait for that,” Lowell said. He followed the bellman into the wide, long lobby of the luxury resort hotel and walked up to the desk.
“My name is Lowell,” he said. “My wife is already here, but you’d better give me a key.”
“You’re in 216-220, Colonel,” the desk clerk, a good-looking young woman, said, handing him the key. “Nice to have you back with us.”
She wasn’t old enough to remember me, Lowell decided. So they must check a card file or something. I hope the card file doesn’t record that the last time Lowell, C W was here, his wife had red hair.
Suite 216 had windows opening on Mobile Bay. There was a bottle of Chivas Regal, a bucket of ice cubes, and a quart bottle of soda on the dresser in the bedroom. Taped to the mirror of the dresser was a note on hotel stationery: “I’m in the pool. 1550.”
He gave the bellman five dollars and told him he couldn’t think of a thing he needed. He locked the door after him and checked his watch. She had gone to the pool at ten minutes to four. It was now a quarter to five. What he should do, he thought, was go down to the lobby and use the telephone in the pay station. But Dorothy wasn’t likely to come back in the next couple of minutes.
He sat down on the bed, took a thin notebook from his pocket, got the hotel operator on the line, and, subtracting two from each number he had written down, gave her Sandy Felter’s number at Hulbert Field.
“Sandy,” Lowell said. “I’m sending you two officers, Major Bill Franklin and Captain Geoff Craig. They have been playing guessing games.”
There was a moment’s hesitation.
“Have they been good at it?”
“They are both very clever people,” Lowell said.
“All right, Craig, I’ll handle it,” Felter said. “Where are you?” he asked.
“In 216, the Grand Hotel, Point Clear, Alabama,” Lowell said. “The number is 928-9201.”
“You’re alone?”
“At the moment,” Lowell said, a tone of belligerence in his voice.
“Tell me more about Franklin and Geoff,” Felter said.
“Franklin was at Bragg last week and stopped off at McCall to see me.”
“McCall has been closed to transient traffic.”
“It wasn’t the first time that Franklin has been with me somewhere we weren’t supposed to be,” Lowell said.
Chew on that a little, Sandy. Remember that Franklin was in the cockpit of the Catalina when we picked your wet, bedraggled, and about-to-be captured ass off of the beach at the Bay of Pigs.
“I’m surprised he wasn’t asked to stay at McCall,” Felter said.
Lowell felt like a fool for not wondering before why Franklin hadn’t been grabbed and sent off to the detention facility at McCall. Anyone who had been there had to be presumed to have seen the mock-up at Dak Tae. That was one of the causes established for detention.
The chances were good that the officer of the guard had been plucked out of the jungle by Bill Franklin. One would be naturally reluctant to cause trouble for someone who had hovered over the jungle canopy to pluck one out of the jungle. Helicopters on insertion and withdrawal missions were sitting ducks for ’Cong ground fire. They were called “high pucker factor” missions, making reference to the sphincter muscles. Bill Franklin and Geoff Craig had both made so many high pucker factor missions that the First Special Forces Group had somehow seen to it that they had been awarded the Expert Combat Infantry Badge.
“He has a lot of friends,” Lowell said. “Including me.”
“I’ve already taken your point, Craig,” Felter said, coldly.
“Good. I’m glad you have,” Lowell said, as coldly. “Sometimes you’re a little dense about things like that.”
“Is there anything else you feel you should tell me?” Felter asked.
“On the way to pick me up,” Lowell said, “Geoff saw some interesting sea gulls on the beach.”
“Good God!” Felter said.
“And he knows a sea gull that talks like a parrot,” Lowell said. “And as I say, he’s a very good, very bright officer.”
“And they’re on their way here?”
“Not the parrot,” Lowell said. “Bill and Geoff. I don’t have the parrot’s name.”
“I’ll get it,” Felter said.
“Sandy, let’s take them with us. They’re both good Chinook pilots, and they both just came back.”
“That’s out of the question,” Felter said. “You know that.”
“Sandy, I don’t want you to fuck either one of them up,” Lowell said.
Felter ignored him. “When are you coming back from suite 216 in the Grand Hotel?”
“Now that I’ve
lost my ride, and don’t want to ask for another one, I thought about going back direct.”
“I think it would be best if you arranged to come back here,” Felter said. “After I talk to those two, I will probably want to talk to you.”
“Yes, sir,” Lowell said, sarcastically. “You know where to reach me, sir.”
“If you’re going to be gone from there for more than an hour or so, check in, will you please?” Felter said. “Thank you for calling, Craig.” He hung up.
Lowell went in the other room and took out of his suitcase a pair of swimming trunks and a cotton polo shirt. He decided he would not shower. He was going to jump in the pool anyway. He was just about to step into the trunks when the telephone rang in the second bedroom. Naked, holding the trunks in his hand, he went to answer it. Probably Dorothy, he thought, checking to see if he had shown up.
“Hello?”
“The nearest airstrip to where you are is Fairhope Municipal Airport. I’ll have an L-23 there to pick you up at 1630 tomorrow. Is there any reason why you can’t arrange to be ready?”
“No, sir. I will be there, sir.”
“Spare me the sarcasm, Craig,” Felter said. “Act your age.” The line went dead.
He pulled his trunks and the polo shirt on, then slipped his feet into rubber sandals. There was an exit at the end of the corridor; the Grand Hotel was the sort of place where one did not traipse through a lobby in one’s swimming attire.
The enormous, fan-shaped pool was three hundred yards from the main hotel building and separated from it by a cluster of cottages. He had tried to get a cottage; but on short notice, none had been available.
He stopped at the gate to the pool and looked around. He saw Dorothy on the far side on a plastic-web chaise longue. He felt sure that she was sitting there so she could watch the entrance and that she had seen him, but she didn’t wave.
He pulled the polo shirt off his head and slipped out of the sandals. He was about to dive in when a waitress walked by.
“Would you bring two vodka tonics over next to the diving board?” he said. If Dorothy didn’t want one, he would drink both.
Then he dived in the pool and swam across. When he reached the far side and hoisted himself up the ladder beside the diving board, he was tired and puffing. Dorothy removed her sunglasses and looked up as she shook water off. He bent over and kissed her on the lips. She didn’t pull away, but neither was she burning with passion. He pulled a chaise longue up beside her.
“I’m sorry, I couldn’t get away,” he said. “Any sooner, I mean.”
“I was getting a little worried,” she said.
“Wild horses, and such as that, couldn’t have kept me away,” he said.
“I saw the LOH,” she said, making a loose gesture toward the sky, using the military acronym for Light Observation Helicopter. “I figured that must be you.”
“Uh-huh,” he said. He saw the waitress coming their way with two plastic cups on a plastic tray. “Here come duh booze. And do I need it.”
“I’ve had a couple waiting for you,” she said.
I am being sniped at, he realized. A wifely-type complaint. Oddly enough, I don’t mind at all.
“Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa,” he said.
“You didn’t say ‘noon,’” she said, but she smiled.
The waitress delivered the drinks. He signed the tab.
“If you’re going to drink that,” he said, “I think I’d better order another one right now.”
“I’m going to drink it,” she said. He nodded at the waitress.
“Bring two more, please,” Dorothy said. That surprised him.
“Booze time, huh?”
She cocked her head and didn’t reply. Then she raised her glass to him, and sipped from it.
“I was wondering when I saw the LOH,” Dorothy said, “whether the Army treats all of its colonels that well, or whether you are a very senior colonel indeed.”
He looked at her, trying to understand the reason for the question.
“And then I realized that you really couldn’t use an F-105 to go away for a weekend.”
Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Sims had been flying an F-105 when he was shot down. He didn’t want to respond to that.
“Actually, I’m a very junior colonel,” he said. “I was a major for sixteen years.”
“You’re kidding,” she said. That much time in grade was very unusual. He had surprised her.
“And a lieutenant colonel eighteen months and three days,” Lowell said. He smiled. “Colonels are selected on merit alone. And I am obviously very meritorious.”
“Why were you a major that long?” Dorothy asked. “Tom went from major to light colonel in five years and three months.”
She was, he realized, compelled to bring her husband up.
He didn’t want to talk about him.
“At the time, I thought I was pretty clever,” he said. “I made captain in the National Guard, simply by joining up. And then I was in on the early stuff in Korea, where there was a lot of confusion, and you could get promoted by holding down a job.”
“A battlefield promotion, you mean?” Dorothy asked.
“Yeah,” he said. What the hell, a battlefield isn’t anything to be ashamed of. And then he said, without really being aware he was going to say it, “I got my gold leaf and a TWX telling me my wife had been killed on the same day.”
“Oh,” she said, with an intake of breath.
“And then I had to wait for the other guys to catch up on me,” he said. “And then wait until most of them were far, far ahead of me.”
She chuckled understandingly.
“You never talk much about your son,” Dorothy said. He leaned his head to look at her. “I’ve been sitting here thinking, really thinking. Asking questions.”
“Peter is twenty-two, about to be twenty-three,” Lowell said. “He’s a journalist. Works for a German magazine called Stern. Sort of Life with more words.”
“Do you see him often?”
“No. Not lately anyway. He’s a man with a life of his own. I missed him by three hours in Da Nang about ten months ago.”
“He’s a war correspondent?”
“If you can call it that,” Lowell said, and the bitterness slipped out. “He seems to think we’re the bad guys and Ho Chi Minh is the rice-paddy Son of God.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I was thinking about my own kids waiting for you.”
“Oh?” He didn’t like the sound of that.
“They would not understand this,” she said.
“Honey,” Lowell said. And then he didn’t know what else to say.
She reached over and took his hand.
“That wasn’t an accusation,” she said. “Just a statement of fact.”
“If things were different,” he said, “and there was a nice juicy scandal for everybody to talk about, would they understand that better?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re not the first married woman in history to fall out of love with her husband. Or to fall in love with another man, you know,” Lowell said. “Presuming, of course, that you are in love with me?”
“It looks that way,” she said. “I was so mad at you when you were late that it must be love.” She squeezed his hand.
The waitress delivered the second round of vodka tonics, and smiled at the couple holding hands. When she had gone, Dorothy added, “And jealous, too.”
“What have you got to be jealous about?” he asked, sitting up on the chaise longue and handing her her drink.
“When I checked in here, the desk clerk said, ‘It’s nice to have you with us again, Mrs. Lowell.’ You have obviously been here before, Colonel.”
“They’re programmed to do that,” he said. “They must have a card file or something. But yes, long, long before you, I have been here before.”
“Whoever she was, and don’t tell me,” Dorothy said, “I hate her.”
“Good.”
“Why didn’t you marry her? Was she married too?”
“No. But the thought of marriage never entered my head.”
“And now?”
“Oh, yes,” Lowell said.
“Which, under the circumstances, is not going to be easy to resolve, is it?”
“We’ll work it out.”
“I feel like the original bitch-slut right now,” Dorothy said. “Sitting here like this”—she gestured around the pool at the other guests, and at the general atmosphere of luxury and wealth—“with my kids stashed with my parents and Tom where he is.”
“I don’t feel that way,” Lowell said. “So help me, I don’t feel guilty at all.”
Dorothy finished her drink. She stood up and tucked her hair into a white rubber bathing cap. The motion stretched the one-piece suit against her body; Lowell was very much aware of her mound of Venus. She smiled down at him.
“Something funny?” he asked. The last thing he wanted to do was horse around in the water. He was tired. She leaned over him.
“When I caught Tom playing around on me one time,” she whispered, “he said something funny. He said ‘a stiff prick has no conscience.’”
She stuck her tongue, very quickly, in his ear, and then turned and made a running dive into the pool.
He got awkwardly, stiffly, off the longue and dived in after her. She was far faster than he was, already toweling herself off when he reached the far side of the pool. He got out and she took his hand, and they walked hand in hand to suite 216.
(Five)
“Shit!” Lowell said, when the telephone rang.
They were lying satiated together. He had made a drink for himself before, and it had gone untasted until afterward. He had expected her to do the ritual female business in the john. Instead, she had simply slipped out of the bathing suit and stretched out on the bed with her legs and arms spread to receive him.
The Generals Page 30