And then Aunt Ramona looked at her diamond-encrusted watch and cried in her ladylike way, "I had absolutely no idea it was so late! Girls, we have to go this minute!"
Pick jumped to his feet, and Dick had been sure that what he was going to do was make his move. He was a smooth sonofabitch, and there was no question that he would say precisely the right thing, and in precisely the right way, and that the result would be that they would get to take Catherine-Anne and Melanie to dinner. Maybe starting with early cocktails.
But he didn't. He kissed his goddamned aunt on the cheek and told her it had been nice to see her. And then he smiled at the girls and told them it had been a pleasure to make their acquaintance and that he hoped sometime to see them again. And that was it. Melanie gave Dick one of those looks, and her hand; but then she was gone, following the other two out of the dining room.
"Jesus Christ, you blew that!" Dick snapped. "Blew what?"
"They're gone! Goddamnit! Didn't you notice?" "As opposed to what?" Pick had asked, innocently.
"I thought we were here to get laid," Dick whispered furiously and a little too loudly. Heads turned.
"You really didn't think… Aunt Ramona's friends?"
"I thought maybe dinner."
"They just met you, Dick," Pick explained. "Things just aren't done that way in Atlanta."
"Why not?"
"Well, if we get back here, maybe the next time I could get Aunt Ramona to give me their phone numbers, and maybe we could get them to meet us somewhere for a drink."
"What about now, for Christ's sake? What's wrong with now?"
"Can I say something to you without offending your feelings?" Pick said.
"I don't know," Dick said. "Right now, you're on pretty thin ice."
"You don't know much about girls like that," Pick said, seriously. "That's not a criticism; it's a simple statement of fact."
"So what? I can learn."
"You sort of liked the redhead, didn't you?" Pick asked.
"Melanie, her name is Melanie," Dick said. "Yeah, I did."
"Well, like I said, the next time we're here, if we come back, maybe I can get Aunt Ramona to put a good word in for you."
"But not now, huh?" Dick said, resignedly.
"Did you really think that something would happen?"
"Ah, hell, I guess not."
"I really feel bad about this," Pick said, as he signed his name to the bill and got up. "I really feel that I gave you the wrong impression about girls like that."
"Forget it," Dick said.
He followed Pickering out of the dining room and to the bank of elevators.
"Where are we going now?"
"Nature calls," Pick said.
"Yeah, me too," Dick said.
When they were in the suite, Pick touched Dick's arm.
"Hey, buddy," he said, "I've got an important phone call to make. Would you mind staying in your room until I yell?"
"You mean we drove seven hours just so we can't get laid and you can call your fucking widow?" Dick exploded.
Pick looked as if he had been about to say something but had changed his mind. Dick Stecker was instantly ashamed of himself.
"I'm a horse's ass," he said. "Good luck when you call her."
"Take the bar with you, why don't you?" Pick said.
"What?"
Pick pointed. There was something in the suite now that hadn't been in it when they had gone downstairs to meet Aunt Ramona, a cart mounted on huge brass wheels and holding an assortment of bottles, an ice bucket, and even two bottles of champagne.
"I'm liable to be some time," Pick said.
"In that case, I will take it," Dick said.
"Gimme one of the champagne bottles," Pick said, and took one from the cooler.
Then he turned his back on Stecker and started to open the champagne.
Stecker pushed the cart into his bedroom. He didn't want any champagne. For one thing, there didn't seem to be any point in drinking something romantic if you were alone in a hotel room. And for another, it tasted to him like carbonated vinegar.
He examined the bottles, selected the bourbon, made himself a drink, and then went to look out the window.
Always look for the bright side, he told himself. At least you're here, in the fanciest hotel room you have ever seen. And you at least met her, and maybe you can come back. And the day, isn't over. There is always hope.
Dick had been looking out the window for perhaps five minutes when there was a knock at his door.
"I'm here by the window," he said, "contemplating jumping."
"Oh, don't do that," a soft Southern female voice said. "There's all sorts of interesting ways to spend a rainy afternoon."
Dick Stecker did not, literally, believe what he saw when he turned from the window to face the door.
Melanie was there. She had a smile on her face, and a champagne glass in her hand, and she was stark naked.
"Holy Christ!" Dick said.
Melanie walked slowly across the room to him. Her boobs, he thought, were absolutely gorgeous. And she was a real redhead.
"Can you handle that all right, Lieutenant?" Pickering called. "Or should I make you up a flight plan?"
Dick's eyes snapped to the open door. Pickering was standing there, one hand holding a bottle of champagne, the other wrapped around Catherine-Anne's waist. Catherine-Anne was wearing nothing but a smile and a garter-belt. She was not a real blonde.
Melanie walked up to Dick and started to unbuckle his Sam Browne belt. When Dick looked at the door again, it was closing. He heard Pickering laugh. And then he turned his attention to Melanie.
On the way back to Pensacola the next day, Pick furnished Dick with an explanation. Ramona Heath was a madam, not his aunt. He had known her for years-since he been a sixteen-year-old bellhop. She had a stable of girls with which she traveled all over the country. Her girls were expensive, because they were the best. Most of her middle-aged clients were perfectly willing to close their eyes to the fact that the fees were paid by the people trying to sell their product and to allow themselves to think their charm and good looks were responsible for their being in bed with beautiful young women.
"I'm surprised," Jack said.
"Surprised? We went to get laid; we got laid."
"I mean, in good hotels," Stecker said. "Does that make me seem naive?"
"My grandfather once said," Pick said, "not to me, of course, but I heard about it, that the only thing he had against a paying guest coupling with an elephant in his room was that it was sometimes hard to clean the carpet."
"What did that little joke of yours cost you?" Stecker asked.
"Nothing. I tried to pay her-we danced, remember?-but she said no. She said I should think of it as her contribution to the war effort."
"Jesus Christ, Pickering, you're amazing."
"Yeah, I am," Pickering said, and there was something rueful in his tone of voice that made Dick Stecker look at him.
"Now what's wrong?'
"Well, I went to get laid. And I got laid. Getting it to stand up took all the skill at the command of the hooker, which I must say was most imaginative and thorough. And when it was
over, I felt like a piece of dog shit. How could 1 be unfaithful to good old Whatshername?"
"Oh Jesus, Pick, I'm sorry," Stecker said.
"What the fuck am I going to do, Dick?" Pick asked plaintively.
Stecker said the only thing he could think of. "Hang in there, buddy," he said. "Just hang in there."
Chapter Seventeen
(One)
The New York Public Library
1215 Hours, 25 March 1942
Carolyn Spencer Howell was thirty-two years old. She was tall, chic, and much better dressed than most of the other librarians in the Central Reading Room of the New York Public Library on Forty-second Street, and she wore her black hair parted in the middle, and long enough to reach her shoulder blades. She had begun-not without feeling a little foolish and wondering what her real motives were-what she thought of as her special "research project" four days before.