Pickering put the handset back in its cradle.
If I wasn‘t on my third drink, would I have been less difficult? Well, fuck him! I told him in plain English that if the Navy tries to seize my ships, I’ll take it to the Supreme Court. He should have listened to me.
He stood up from behind his desk, walked to the liquor cabinet, and made himself another Old Grouse and water. Then he walked to an eight-by-twelve-foot map of the world that hung on an interior wall. Behind it was a sheet of light steel. Models of the ships of the PandFE fleet, each containing a small magnet, were placed on it so as to show their current positions.
After he checked the last known positions of the Pacific Endeavor, the Pacific Volition, and the Pacific Venture, he mentally plotted their probable courses. Then he wondered-for what might have been the seven hundredth time-whether it was an exercise in futility, whether he should move the three models down to the lower left-hand corner of the map to join the models of the PandFE ships he knew for sure were lost. Almost exactly an hour later, the bulb on one of his telephones lit up. When he picked it up, Mrs. Florian said, "Mr. Frank Knox is here, Mr. Pickering. He says you expect him."
Well I’ll be goddamned. He really is a tenacious sonofabitch!
"Please show Mr. Knox in," Fleming Pickering said.
He opened the upper right drawer of his desk, intending to put his Old Grouse and water out of sight. Then he changed his mind. As the door opened, he stood up, holding the glass in his hand. The Hon. Frank Knox walked in, trailed by a slim, sharp-featured, intelligent-looking Navy officer with golden scrambled eggs on the brim of his uniform cap. He had to be Captain Haughton.
(Two)
Before speaking, the Hon. Frank Knox, Secretary of the Navy, stared for a moment at Fleming Pickering, Chairman of the Board of Pacific and Far Eastern Shipping. There was no expression on his face, but Pickering saw that his Old Grouse and water had not gone unnoticed.
Christ, he’ll think I’m a boozer; I was half in the bag the last time, too.
"Thank you for seeing me on such short notice," Knox said. "I know you’re a busy man."
"I have three overdue ships," Pickering replied. "It’s the reason I didn’t come to meet you. I didn’t want to get far from a telephone."
Knox nodded, as if he understood.
"Mr. Pickering, may I present Captain David Haughton, my administrative officer?"
The two shook hands. Pickering said, "We spoke on the telephone."
"I’d like to talk to Mr. Pickering alone, David, if you don’t mind," Knox said.
"Yes, Sir."
"Mrs. Florian," Pickering said, "would you make the Captain comfortable? Start with a cup of coffee. Something stronger, if he’d like."
"Coffee will be fine," Haughton said, as he followed Mrs. Florian out of the office.
"May I offer you something?" Pickering asked.
"That looks good," Knox said, nodding at Pickering’s glass. "Dick Fowler told me you had cornered the Scotch market."
Is he indulging me? Or does he really want a drink?
"It’s Old Grouse," Pickering said, as he walked to the liquor cabinet to make Knox a drink. "And I’m glad you’ll have one. I’m a little uneasy violating my own rule about drinking, especially alone, during office hours."
Knox ignored that. He waited until Pickering had handed him the glass, then he nodded his thanks and said, "Haughton doesn’t like you."
"I’m sorry. I suppose I was a little abrupt on the telephone."
"He doesn’t think you hold the Secretary of the Navy in what he considers to be the proper degree of awe."
"I meant no disrespect," Pickering said.
"But you aren’t awed," Knox insisted. "And that’s what I find attractive."
"I beg your pardon?"
"There was a movie-or was it a book?-about one of those people who runs a motion-picture studio. He was surrounded by a staff whose primary function was to say ‘Right, J.B.,’ or ‘You’re absolutely right, J.B.,’ whenever the great man paused for breath. After our interesting encounter in Dick Fowler’s apartment, when I calmed down a little, I realized that sort of thing was happening to me."
"I don’t think I quite follow you," Pickering said.
"This is good stuff," Knox said, looking down at his glass.
"I’ll give you a case to take with you," Pickering said. "I have a room full of it downstairs."
"Because I’m the Secretary of the Navy?"
"Because I would like to make amends for my behavior in Fowler’s apartment. I had no right to say what I said."
"The important thing, I realized, was that you said it," Knox said. "And you might have been feeling good, but you weren’t drunk. I think you would have said what you said if you hadn’t been near a bottle."
"Probably," Pickering said. "That doesn’t excuse it, of course; but, as my wife frequently points out, when silence is called for, I too often say exactly the wrong thing."
"Are you withdrawing what you said?" Knox asked evenly.
"I’m apologizing for saying it," Pickering said. "I had no right to do so, and I’m sure that I embarrassed Richardson Fowler."
"But you believe what you said, right?"
"Yes, I’m afraid I do."
"You had me worried there for a moment," Knox said. "I was afraid I had misjudged you."
"It may be the Scotch, but I have no idea what we’re talking about," Pickering said.
Knox chuckled.
"We’re talking about you coming to work for me."
My God, he’s serious!
"Doing what?"
"Let me explain the problem, and then you tell me if you think you could be helpful," Knox said. "I mentioned a moment before that David Haughton doesn’t like you because you’re not sufficiently awed by the Secretary of the Navy. That attitude- not only on Dave Haughton’s part, but on the part of practically everybody else-keeps me from hearing what I should be hearing."
"You mean what’s wrong with the Navy?"
"Precisely. Hell, I can’t blame Haughton. From the moment he entered Annapolis, he’s been taught as an article of faith that the Secretary of the Navy is two steps removed from God. The President sits at the right hand of God, and at his feet the Secretary of the Navy."
"I suppose that’s so," Pickering said, chuckling.
"To Haughton’s way of thinking, and to others like him, the Secretary of the Navy controls the very fate of the Navy. That being so, the information that is presented to him has to be carefully processed. And above all, the Navy must appear in the best possible light."
"I think I understand," Pickering said. "And I can see where that might be a problem."
Knox removed his pince-nez, took a handkerchief from the sleeve of his heavy woolen suit-now that he noticed it, Pickering was sure the suit was English-and polished the lenses. He put them back on his nose, stuffed the handkerchief back up his jacket cuff, and looked directly at Pickering.
"That might be an overstatement, but it’s close," he said. "And to that problem is added what I think of as the Navy’s institutional mind-set. From the very beginning, from the first Secretary of the Navy, the men in blue have been certain that the major cross they have to bear is that the man with the authority is a political appointee who really doesn’t know-is incapable of knowing-what the Navy is really all about."