Part 11

“Right now the War comes first,” Larry agreed. He saw that they were curving off the parkway into a drive that circled the entrance to the airport. “I’d let him know how it is with you. He’s going to settle this Army thing any day, and while he’s changing his life around, you ought to let him know. He’d want to know. He was probably looking for some signs from you this morning, but you had all the flags down,” Larry reminded her.

She reached into her pocket for three baggage checks.

Larry took them. “Now’s the time to talk to him, Jan. Don’t put it off too long. Things move fast during a war.”

“As soon as I get back from the Coast,” she promised. “Before some editor decides to send me to China.”

Larry helped her gently through the low door of the taxi. “I think he always figured the job came ahead of him. With you, too. He’ll be relieved to find out that some of you wants to hang around.”

Later when Larry saw her thin, small frame disappear up the ramp into the monstrous silver hulk, he felt better than he had in months about Janice. She might turn out to be more than an affair for Bemrose, if his marriage continued to go sour and he needed an affair. The Janice he had seen this morning had a little the look and sound of the real thing.

_Chapter 12_

The last of January, a few weeks after Pearl Harbor, Larry walked into a Rogers Peet clothing store on lower Broadway to pin gold leaves on Bemrose’s uniform. Arthur sounded like a kid over the phone, kicked up about getting a Major’s commission with orders to report for duty in forty-eight hours. Larry had heard somewhere that it was traditional for wives to pin on the insignia for the first time, and wondered why Arthur hadn’t invited Lucy to do it. He was flattered to be selected instead of Lucy for the ritual, and happy to hear Bemrose’s voice over the phone. It sounded as if he had dropped twenty years since the last time Larry had spoken to him.

As Larry entered the clothing store downtown, Bemrose was turning slowly in front of a triple mirror while a salesman admired the fit of his blouse.

Bemrose pointed to some fullness under the left sleeve. He saw Larry, grinned at him and straightened, looking two inches taller. The loose flabby look he had in tweeds gave way to a tidy compactness, and there was less lawyer’s stoop to his shoulders already, his frame broader and squared off.

“Pretty snappy, huh?” the salesman asked. “The Major just walked right into it. He was lucky to find it on such short notice.”

“Looks swell,” Larry said, not quite as familiar as the salesman with this new Bemrose.

“Don’t you think they ought to take it in for me here?” Arthur pointed to the left side.

“You always liked a loose coat.”

“But a blouse. A blouse should fit.”

He acted as if he had been wearing them all his life.

“Are you going to report for duty in it?” Larry asked.

“I called up Bill Turner. He’s a colonel at Governor’s Island. Bill asked me how the telegram was addressed, and when I said to Major Bemrose, he said, ‘You’re in! No if about it. Report in your uniform.’ I’m in a helluva hurry to get this one altered so I can wear it to Maxwell Field tomorrow night.”

“How did you find out about the telegram?” Larry asked, when the salesman had left them to look for a fitter.

“I was at a committee meeting at the University Club, and Miss Thompson got me on the phone. She said, ‘Congratulations, Major Bemrose! I have a telegram for you from Washington.’ I damn near dropped the phone.”

“What did you do? Call Lucy?”

“I grabbed a cab, and rushed down to the office to read the telegram myself. After I called you, I phoned Lucy, Marge, Ed, the Storeys, and Davis Shore. Then I got Newton and Harrison in Washington. I must have gone a little nuts, I guess, and called about twenty people.”

“Are you going to be able to wind up everything in time?” Larry sat down and rotated his hat on his kneecap.

“Miss Thompson will store the furniture and files. When I have a chance, I’ll get the building to do something about the lease.” Bemrose acted as if he were going to accept a Supreme Court appointment, not like someone who was about to turn the key on a six figure income.

“And the house?”

“Lucy will close the place and go to live with Marge and Ed. Unless I get orders near home, like Mitchell Field.”

“Then the Air Force took you?”

“What do you think?” Bemrose leaned down and shook Larry by the shoulders. “Do you think I’m going to try court-martial cases in the Judge Advocate’s office? _It’s the Air Force._ What do you think?”

“It’s great, boy.” What Larry meant was that it was great for Bemrose, great for a guy who always had to be on the ground floor of the big thing. The Air Force was going to draw the cream of the services. The Air Force had been invented for a fellow like Arthur H. Bemrose.

The salesman pointed out the fullness below the armhole to the fitter who got busy with chalk and pins. They promised to rush the job through and give it to Bemrose first thing in the morning.

“But Mr. Frank made a special trip down to pin on my leaves. I can’t ask him to come back again.”

“Then you want to purchase some insignia, Major?” The salesman moistened his lips in anticipation of military sales he would roll up if it were a long war.

“Sell me the works!” Bemrose said. “Only you may have to tell me where they go.” It was the first hint that he hadn’t graduated from West Point.

With stubby, fat fingers, the salesman affixed the U. S. insignia above the notch in both lapels, and pinned the finely wrought wings with central propeller below the notch.

“Now if you’ll just put these here.” The salesman handed Larry two bright gilt leaves and pointed to the cross stitching on the shoulder strap of the blouse.

Larry’s fingers felt stiff.

“Right in the center,” the salesman directed.

“That’s a little too near the collar, isn’t it?” Bemrose asked. “I thought I read in the _Officers’ Guide_ that the rank insignia goes on the shoulder one-half inch from the seam of the sleeve.”

“A fellow from the Quartermaster’s was around, and he told us--” the salesman protested in a weak voice.

Larry inserted the pin at the place Bemrose indicated. He matched the second leaf to the position of the first and flipped the safety catch. “All the luck in the world!” He put out his hand.

“Now the missus’ll know where to put them for you,” the salesman said cheerfully.

Outdoors Larry looked sideways at the uniforms in the window and pictured himself in an ill-fitting G.I. version. Fear pinched and shriveled his heart. When he thought of waking-working-sleeping without the warmth of Bessie to give the days meaning, an icy fright cut off his breath. When he considered the return to a little boy’s world of doing-as-you-are-told and no Bessie around to talk things over with at night, his bone marrow solidified.

Larry recalled a summer in the Catskills when he was seven, and a smart-aleck kid had pushed him off a diving board into the lake. With the sudden impact, his eardrum had burst. Larry had mulled over the incident gratefully since Pearl Harbor. No Army doctor would pass him with a defect like that. It was a helluva thing to be happy about, a helluva thing when your best friend had been beating down doors to get in, but when he thought of Bessie, it seemed all right to put a reassuring finger in his left eardrum. If the world was going to blow up anyway, he wanted to spend the little time left with Bessie. Call him a heel. If there weren’t going to be Bess or Larry for much longer, he wanted to live the little time left by twos.

Bemrose, he knew, had to put his weight somewhere, make time count, get in on the big thing, perform like a big shot. Be one. And there was nothing phoney about his compulsion to get in. He might dread going home from the office at night and think his marriage was a mistake. He might be sick of his practice and angry at himself for passing up Janice, but he wouldn’t use the War as a cheap excuse to walk out. Some fellows might look for bargain ways to be a hero, and exit on a string of situations that had them tied in knots, but the description didn’t fit Bemrose.

Some other fellows might join up _from the wrong side of the heart_, but not Arthur H. The War counted with him, counted more than his personal life. His decision was clear-headed and unselfish. No ax-grinder, Bemrose. Axis-grinder. That was bad. Larry wrinkled his nose. Awful.

The bar was crowded; so they sat at a small, unsteady table and ordered double Martinis served in highball glasses. Larry raised his glass. “Now Hitler can start peeing in his pants!”

“How about you coming in?” Bemrose asked. “Maybe when I learn the ropes, I can find out about lining up a commission for you.”

So it was going to be a nice friendly war, like a club, with enough friends around to have a poker game on Saturday nights. A war where a fellow who had the rank pulled in his friends and made them second lieutenants. Not for Larry, not even to be a first lieutenant. He had finished the boy-meets-boy stuff at Columbia. He’d have to let the Bemroses fight the Supermen.

“I’ll take my chances on the draft board.” Larry’s finger automatically went to the left ear.

“If they’re going to get you anyway, you might as well be paid for it,” Arthur said.

“I’ll talk it over with Bessie. I think she’d rather have me take my chances on the draft board. I’d better stick around and take care of the women.”

“I wish you’d look up Lucy once in a while,” Bemrose said. “It’s going to be rough on her----”

Larry described a wide arc with his free hand. “I’ll take her out and get her drunk. How about another?”

The waiter saw them and brought refills.

“Janice had something when she said you’d be wearing eagles,” Larry said confidently.

“Not so fast. That isn’t how it works. They handed me this rank for being a specialist, but they won’t keep on promoting me. Not unless I’m in combat.” Arthur fastidiously wiped the rim of his glass with a paper napkin.

The eagles were already pinned on, Larry knew. What Bemrose meant was that it would take him a while, say about a month, to figure out how a man his age could wangle combat duty.

“What the hell are you guys celebrating?” The voice belonged to Tom Flannagan whom Larry hadn’t seen since law school.

Larry smiled up affectionately at Tom. “He just made Major.”

“No kiddin’!” Tom flung his blue serge bulk into an empty chair and pushed a forelock out of his eye. “What branch?”

“What do you think?” Larry asked, maneuvering his hand like an airplane.

“I’ll be glad if they take me as an ensign,” Tom said. “I had my physical and ought to be hearing.” He gulped a Bourbon and reached for the chaser. “Well, give ’em hell! Give those Heinies--” Tom turned to Larry. “The Air Force knows how to pick ’em.” He slapped the table. “Had more on the ball than any guy at law school. Give ’em hell, Major.”

Larry warmed toward Flannagan, as he had years ago at Columbia--soft-talking, blue-eyed Flannagan, all dumb cluck enthusiasm. It felt good to celebrate with a guy like Tom. He ordered another round of drinks.

“Where can I get in touch with you--in case this Navy deal falls through?” Flannagan asked Arthur with a sudden shrewd naïveté. “I may want to ask you to fix me up with a commission.”

“Haven’t you a bunch of kids?” Larry asked.

Flannagan held up his hand and spread his thumb and fingers. “Five reasons for going to war where it’s peaceful.”

“Larry will always know how to reach me,” Bemrose said. “How is your wife fixed if you go in?”

“She’ll have to get a job,” Tom said.

“You don’t want to leave her strapped.” Bemrose muffled his voice. “I’ll be glad to help you out, Tom.”

“You’re a white man.” Flannagan leaned a hand on his shoulder. “You don’t owe me a thing, Bemrose.” There was something wet in the corner of Flannagan’s eye. Larry watched carefully, but it didn’t drop, and decided it must have been the way the light was shining.

“Wait until I tell my wife-- She doesn’t want me to go,” Flannagan said. “Wait until I tell her how some other guys feel about the War.”

They toasted Roosevelt. They drank rounds to the annihilation of Hitler, of Goering, and of Goebbels. When Flannagan left them to catch a train for Dobbs Ferry, Larry felt the floor slide under his feet. Bemrose sprawled in the chair, his face bathed in a colossal contentment. He didn’t look like a man who had been squared off in a uniform a few hours before.

Larry thought of Arthur’s offer to loan Flannagan money. One more drink and he’ll offer me some dough to take care of Bessie if I come in with him.

The fool. The crazy, lonesome, patriotic fool. Larry felt sorry for the loneliness of all men, for Arthur’s hankering to have a brother with whom he could go to war, for his own fatal dependence on the warmth of Bessie, for Tom’s loneliness in the child-cluttered house at Dobbs Ferry. It was the loneliness of those who stayed and those who went to war. He knew the ones who went would be lonely in the midst of ten thousand others. Years after it was over they would feel bereft, missing the special loneliness that had bound them to those other lonely thousands.

“I told you she dreamed it out of her head,” Bemrose said irrelevantly. “I followed through on it just to be sure, but I knew all the time----”

Larry read the telegram Bemrose handed him, signed by the F.B.I. in Washington. The message read: RICHTER CASE CLOSED STOP UNABLE TO TURN UP FURTHER EVIDENCE.

“Right out of her head,” Arthur repeated. “Some of them have the damndest imaginations.” He tore up the telegram and scattered the bits in a dirty green ash tray. “I thought she was different. I thought she stuck to the facts.”

“I ran into Steve Holmes,” Larry said. “He told me she’s back from the Coast. Holmes must be seeing a lot of her.”

“Old friend of hers from Kansas,” Bemrose said affably. “Are you going to see her someday?” He seemed slap-happy satisfied to settle for Major, glad to forget about his woman trouble and pretend the War was an answer.

“Holmes mentioned getting together with them----”

Bemrose raised an important finger. “Tell her she dreamed it up. Tell her you read the official telegram.” He let the finger join his hand which dropped loosely beside the chair. “There’s not a thing wrong with that fellow Richter. Not a thing. Female fantasy. Ask the F.B.I. They say it’s fantasy. Remember that word when you see her,” he instructed Larry. “How about a drink on getting into the Air Force? How about celebrating?”

Arthur’s contentment with things as they had become expanded like rising yeast. It was as though Larry could see the fleshy cells of satisfaction multiply. The radius of Arthur’s delight ringed the next table. Quietly he leaned toward a gray-haired man and, rocking on the legs of his chair, toasted him. The stranger, seduced by Bemrose’s show of fellowship, automatically responded. Arthur swung his mellow light back to Larry and let it soften the air between them. “I want to do right by her,” he said proudly.

“By Janice?”

Bemrose nodded. “I always meant to. Mistake, walking off. I should have said why. She’s a good, smart girl. I should have had a talk with her. Meant to the other day at the office. Slipped my mind.”

Larry nodded encouragement while Bemrose mowed through his pockets for change.

“If you really think you bitched things up--I can find out where she is from Holmes. You ought to have a talk. She wants to tell you something about why she went to Sweden. It was a misunderstanding, Arthur. You both went off half cocked.” Larry pointed to a pay telephone on the wall. “Shall I try Holmes?”

“When I come up from Maxwell Field. Not now,” Bemrose said. “When I find out what they’re going to do with me. I’m only going to be around New York another twenty-four hours.”

Larry must have looked unhappy.

“When I come home on leave,” Bemrose promised.

Larry’s fingers followed the ridges in his forehead. “She may be in China by then! If you _want_ to talk to her----”

“Let’s pay and get out of here,” Bemrose said soothingly. “When I get back, we’ll have a long, long talk. She’s a smart girl, and she’ll understand when I tell her--” He settled his hat deep over his eyes with the extra caution of a man who had confined himself to double Martinis. “Don’t you worry, Larry.” He soothed him with his voice.

“But she may do something screwball, like marrying Holmes.”

“Not a thing to that.” Arthur took his arm. “Just an old friend from Kansas. Don’t you worry. Someday we’re going to have a good long talk, and then it’ll be all right.”

Larry crowded into a compartment of the revolving door with Bemrose, and they wheeled sideways into the dark rumble of the street.

_Chapter 13_

For the dinner he arranged with Lucy and Janice, Larry picked the Orangerie at the Astor where the atmosphere would be weighted on Lucy’s side. At a more exclusive spot like the Marguery, Janice would hold the aces, and Lucy, who was likely to be self-conscious anyway around Janice, might blur out.

The Astor was a slice of small-and-big town America, the crowded front porch of Broadway. It was the city’s cracker barrel on the main stem where all were welcome to gather round. They came by cab, on foot, in trolleys and busses, through the ample doors into a murky plush lobby where they waited. The timid shrank gratefully against camouflaging columns. The bold kept a hawk’s eye on the door, alert to select their prey from the damp, moving stream at the entrance.

The fickle March evening had alternated between rain and snow, and Larry called for Lucy. She had been living at the Daughertys’ the past six weeks. He hoped on the way over that the weather wouldn’t button her into those ugly tweeds Bemrose had selected for her in the fall, and was glad to see that she had the good sense to wear a well-cut black coat instead. It formed a solid pedestal for her gray-blonde softness.

Janice was too busy to be called for. He had tried to arrange for the dinner two weeks ago, but Janice was in Washington, and until six o’clock tonight, wasn’t sure of being able to make it. _Everett’s_ had assigned her to do a profile of a Major-General who shifted his headquarters every few days. Yes, she’d love to meet Larry for dinner if she could leave right afterward. If Arthur’s wife weren’t formal and would understand. If--well, Steve Holmes might join them later and see that she got to the General’s. If Larry were sure he didn’t mind about Steve. If he understood that her evenings weren’t her own, and she had to work. If she could come just as she was without going home to change. If he really thought it was a good idea for her to meet Mrs. Bemrose. If he’d buy her a couple of drinks before dinner because she was going to need them, and if he didn’t mind her cough. She had caught it on an air-conditioned train, and her voice sounded awful.

Larry told her he’d like to have her come.

With Lucy beside him he waited a damp twenty minutes in the Astor lobby, bone chilled from a draft that blew through the doorway. Janice arrived at last dripping ten dollars worth of Schiaparelli’s _Shocking_ and a new mink coat. Her blonde suède gloves were crushed at the forearms. Her hair was fresh from Elizabeth Arden’s, and the scratchy throat had evidently been restored by an otolaryngologist. Larry was glad to see her. He forgot the crick in his neck from watching people walk through the door, and patiently auditioned her excuses. Quite a few other people waiting for late dates seemed glad to see her too.

Upstairs in the citrus lighted dining room Larry saw at once it was the wrong tone for Janice’s mustard-colored dress but did nice things for Lucy’s skin. The Orangerie transformed her from the slender, inconspicuous woman who had followed Janice’s minks up the marble stairway to her own soft blonde harmony. When she slipped out of her coat, a simple black dress with draped neckline set off the pallor of her gray eyes.

Janice, evading Lucy at first and hesitating to take a real look at her, chatted to Larry of her troubles with the General’s public relations officer and complained about the dullness as a rule of military men. No first-class writer should be assigned to them, she maintained. While Janice pecked her harmless complaints at Larry, a clear, clean light seemed to emanate from Lucy. It was like viewing a morning glory which had just opened.

Janice turned toward her. “How does Arthur like the Army? I’ve been meaning to write and congratulate him on his commission.”

The quiet confidence growing in Lucy sent color to her cheeks. “He’s going to Miami Beach to help organize an Air Force Training Center, one of the biggest new schools in the country for officers.”

“What do you think of that?” Larry asked with the respect of a civilian for someone who does well in the Army. “He’s only been in a few weeks. How did he manage----?”

“He’s been promised a promotion so that they can make him director of one of the schools,” Lucy added.

The skin tightened across the bridge of Janice’s nose, and the dark eyes went cold.

“He says they can’t make him director of the school unless they do promote him,” Lucy explained.

“The T.O. must call for a lieutenant colonel,” Janice said.

“T.O.?” Larry asked.

“Table of organization. It tells an outfit how many officers of each rank it’s entitled to have,” Janice explained. “This officer I have to interview got a second star because his new post calls for a Major-General. If not for that, he would probably still be a one star general.”

“It’s wonderful recognition for Bemrose,” Larry said. “Wonderful.”

“Order me a drink, will you, Larry?” Janice asked.

He called a waiter. “Did Arthur say when he will leave Maxwell Field for Miami?” he asked Lucy.

“Tonight or tomorrow. Before the end of the week.”

“Not a bad spot, Miami. You can count on Arthur to pick the right place.” He looked at Janice. “Sounds all right, doesn’t it?”

“It’s all right,” Janice conceded. “It’s certainly good for the Air Force. They’re getting rid of the brass hats and that’s a good sign. Arthur’s going to be good for the Air Force, all right.” Her fingermarks showed on her water goblet where she had gripped it. “He’ll earn every cent they pay him. He’d earn it if they decided to make him a lieutenant _general_ instead of a lieutenant colonel.”

“What’s the matter then? Isn’t it going to be good for _him_?” Larry asked.

Janice looked tentatively at Lucy. “I don’t know. What do you think, Mrs. Bemrose? A lot of men couldn’t take all the success he’s had. Now in six weeks a military success and all kinds of authority--it takes a strong man to stand up to that.” She shrugged. “Maybe Arthur can swing it.”

Lucy meticulously sipped her clear consommé, her eyelids steady.

A party brushed past their table and as Janice watched them cross the room, she recognized someone with a birdlike forty-year-old face under snowy hair. Excusing herself, she followed them. “That’s Ward Oliver of the State Department,” she explained hastily. “He’s just back from China after being away for years. I missed him in Washington. He’s one of my oldest and best friends.” A look of affectionate warmth came into her eyes.

Larry sent Janice’s soup to the kitchen until she returned, and kept watch at the same time on Lucy. She lifted the dark eyebrows that made her eyes look paler, and a question shadowed them. “Have they known each other long?” she asked.

“Not very long.”

“But well.”

“She’s been around,” Larry agreed. “She knows how to hurry through the preliminaries. Have some more soup while we’re waiting?”

Lucy shook her head. “Do _you_ think this new job--” The gray eyes appealed to Larry.