Lieutenant Cronley drained his Coca-Cola and set the glass on the bar. In an hour, he could call room service at the Lord Baltimore and order up something a little stronger. But Coke was it for now.
I wouldn’t want my bride to think I’m a boozer.
The Squirt said she would be here between eleven-thirty and noon. That gives me ten minutes to walk to the gate so I can be waiting for her.
He almost made it to the door when the bartender called his name. Jimmy turned to see he was holding up the handset of a telephone. He walked quickly to take it.
“Lieutenant Cronley, sir.”
“Colonel Mattingly, Jimmy. A car is being sent for you. It should be there within the hour. Collect your stuff and be waiting for it. You’re to be at the White House at fifteen hundred hours.”
“Shit!”
“Excuse me, Lieutenant?” Mattingly said coldly.
“Sorry. That slipped out.”
“Make sure nothing slips out when you’re with the President.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The car will be a Chevy station wagon. Civilian plates. The driver and his assistant are fellow alumni of Holabird High.”
“Yes, sir.”
“They will bring you to the Hay-Adams. Your parents are there.”
“My parents? How did they get there?”
“How would you guess? Your girlfriend’s grandfather sent the Connie for them. They’ll be going to the White House with us.”
She’s not my girlfriend. She’s my wife.
When do I tell Mattingly?
“And afterward?”
“You’re on the twenty-one hundred MATS flight… we’re on the twenty-one hundred MATS flight… from Bethesda to Frankfurt.”
“Shit!”
“That one I understand,” Mattingly said. “It’s out of my hands, Jim.”
“Yes, sir. I understand.”
“See you shortly.”
[SIX]
Marjorie kissed him when he got into the Buick.
“Well,” she said, “whatever should we do now to pass the time?”
“They called. We all have to be at the White House at three.”
She didn’t reply.
“My folks are there,” he said. “At the Hay-Adams.”
“I know. I thought I was going to have to break your mother’s legs to keep her from coming here with me. Grandpa saved me. He said, ‘Well, Virginia, I guess you are too old to remember that when you’re in love, you don’t want your mother hanging around.’”
“And then I’m on a plane at nine tonight for Frankfurt.”
“I didn’t know that. Oh God, Jimmy!”
“Yeah, oh God!”
“Well, maybe we can find a five-dollar motel between here and Washington,” Marjie said. “For a quickie.”
“They’re sending a car for me.”
“Wonderful!” she said, thickly sarcastic. Then she had a second thought. “I can’t go to the White House dressed like this. I’ll have to change!”
“Yeah. I guess.”
They locked eyes.
“I don’t know how yet,” Marjorie said, “but we’re going to find time between now and when you get on the plane.”
“God, I hope so!”
“Kiss me quick, Jimmy, before I start saying a lot of dirty words.”
He watched the Buick drive down Dundalk Avenue, and then he went inside the fence and walked to the goddamned Transient Officers Quarters to wait for the goddamned Chevrolet station wagon with goddamned civilian plates driven by a goddamned fellow alumnus of goddamned Holabird High.
[SEVEN]
Jimmy saw his mother and father standing with Cletus Marcus Howell and Colonel Mattingly the moment he walked into the hotel lobby.
His mother was wearing an ankle-length Persian lamb coat. His father had on a Stetson and western boots, and between them a Brooks Brothers suit, button-down collar shirt, and a rep-striped necktie. Both parents fit — as did their son — the description “lanky and tanned Texan.” But only his father had been born in Texas. His mother was from Strasbourg, a “war bride” from the First World War.
His mother went to him quickly and wrapped him in an embrace.
“My baby,” she said. “My poor, poor baby.”
She seemed to be on the edge of tears, and, he realized a moment later, had spoken in German, which he’d learned from his mother.
Jimmy then wondered what the hell that was all about, but asked the question that was foremost in his mind.
“Mama, wo ist der Squirt?”
His mother started to sob.
He partially freed himself from her embrace.
“Mama, was ist los?”
A visibly upset Cletus Marcus Howell walked up to them, tears streaming down his cheeks.
“Marjie’s gone, Jimmy,” he said. “Some drunken sonofabitch in a goddamned sixteen-wheeler hit her Buick head-on on U.S. 1 just inside the District and she’s gone.”
[EIGHT]
When the President of the United States came into the sitting room of the suite, Second Lieutenant James D. Cronley Jr. was sitting on a couch, holding a glass dark with whisky. To his left was Mrs. Martha Howell, and to his right, Mrs. Virginia Cronley, his mother. Cletus Marcus Howell and James D. Cronley Sr. were sitting on a matching couch across a coffee table from them.
The coffee table held a silver coffee service, a bottle of Collier and McKeel Handcrafted Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey, a bottle of Haig & Haig Pinch scotch, and a silver bowl of ice.
Leaning against the wall, and wearing a starched white jacket, was Thomas Jefferson “Tom” Porter, a silver-haired black man in his late sixties. He had been Cletus Marcus Howell’s butler/chauffeur/confidant and close and loving friend for as long as anyone could remember.
In an armchair pulled up to the end of the coffee table was an elegantly dressed Irishman in his early sixties. His name was William Joseph Donovan. Until it had been disbanded by Presidential Order about three weeks before — on October 1, 1945—he had been director of the Office of Strategic Services. Pulled up in another armchair at the other end of the coffee table was Colonel Robert Mattingly.
The First Lady followed the President into the room. She was followed by Rear Admiral Sidney William Souers.
All the men stood.
“The admiral tells me he thought it would be all right if Bess and I came to express our sympathy,” President Truman said.
“Very kind of you both, Harry,” Cletus Marcus Howell said. “Tom, fix the President a little taste of the Collier and McKeel while I make the introductions.”
The President ignored him and walked to Jimmy Cronley.
“Son, I can’t tell you how sorry Bess and I were when Admiral Souers told us what happened to your girlfriend.”
“She wasn’t his girlfriend, Mr. President,” Jimmy’s mother said. “They eloped yesterday.”
“Oh my God!” Mrs. Truman blurted.
Jimmy’s mother put her hands over her face and began to sob. Bess Truman went to the couch, dropped to her knees, and put her arms around her.