The Edge of Honor (34 page)

Despite all the Marine jokes, I’ve come to believe the Marine Corps knows precisely what it’s doing in this business. Don’t let all the hoorah and short hair fool you.”

“You’ll have to excuse me,” she replied softly. “My experience with Marines has been less than, er, sophisticated.”

“I apologize for them,” he said, his expression suddenly serious. He seemed ready to qualify his apology, but he said no more as the waiter approached with the first course. It had not escaped her that his speech had lost a lot of its foot-shuffling, aw shucks dialect.

To her surprise, the abalone, sliced transparently thin and interlaced with a lobster-based sauce, was exquisite, especially when accompanied by the last of the cold champagne. The prime rib was pink all the way across, a feat she had never managed to achieve in her attempts with supermarket standing ribs.

“This is perfect,” she exclaimed as the waiter poured them each a glass of seven-year-old Mondavi cabernet.

“And so is this,” she said, sampling the wine. The waiter nodded agreeably, as if the compliment was only his due.

After the champagne, she knew she would have to pace herself with the dinner wine or they’d be carrying her out of there—or he would. He was smiling again, enjoying her pleasure. Their eyes met over the wine for an instant, and she had to work to look away. Her body was whispering to her that it was more than the champagne and the wine, while her totally logical mind bravely fought off the notion. Out of nowhere, she remembered that Kingston Trio song with the bawdy refrain

“Have some Madeira, m’dear”—and smiled despite herself. When he asked what she was smiling about, she could only shake her head and giggle. She missed this game.

She asked for some coffee after the crspes, welcoming the caffeine. A kir royale, champagne, red wine, and the liqueurs in the dessert added up to more alcohol than she had had in a coon’s age. She felt deliriously relaxed but also somewhat on guard. Her mind wandered, and she tried to remember the old country expression, something was nice, but likker was quicker. She couldn’t for the life of her remember the first line. She suddenly hoped that this wasn’t all a big come-on, a standard seduction, with the inevitable invitation to go to his apartment and see the record collection or something. Or something, yeah.

Oh, shut up. You get back in your box. Yeah, right, in your box, in your box.

“Mercy,” she said out loud, taking a deep breath to banish the whispering thoughts in her head. “I think I need some more coffee.”

“Can do,” he replied, signaling the waiter.

After a second round of coffee, he reached into his jacket and produced two tickets.

“Do you like jazz?”

“Well, some kinds of jazz. I don’t think much of the New Orleans stuff—it all sounds the same after fifteen minutes.”

“No, this is the real thing; the Ramsey Lewis Trio is playing at the Bah Hai, on Shelter Island. These get us a table on the lanai at ten o’clock.”

She glanced reflexively at her watch; it was 9:30.

“I said dinner, Autrey,” she said, hearing the weakness in her objection even as she voiced it.

“After a dinner like this, jazz is the perfect digestive.

We can go in my car; I’ll bring you back here when the show’s over and you can get your car. You’re not ready to drive anywhere, are you?”

He was entirely correct. “And you are?”

“Oh yeah. Besides, the harbor’s downhill from here.

Makes it easier.”

They went in his car, memories of the first time she had been in it lurking in the shadows of the backseat. She rolled down the window on her side to dispel some of the alcohol. The cool night air was refreshing, and she closed her eyes, trying to determine when they reached the harbor area by the smell of the harbor and salt water.

He woke her when he had parked in the restaurant’s gardenlike parking lot, lighted by flaming patio torches and mantled in swaying palm trees.

The looming figure of a fake Easter Island monolith startled her as she woke up, and he laughed at her. He came around the front of the car and had the door opened before she realized how far her skirt had hiked up on the ride over. She tried to fix things as she turned to get out of the car, but she ended up showing a lot of snow down south, as the girls used to say in Atlanta. Oh, well, she thought, getting out as he took her hand, that’s why girls wear skirts and guys still open car doors, right?

Inside, the lanai was crowded with as many tiny tables as could fit within the fire code; the stage was equally small, but the trio, actually a quartet this evening, took up very little room for the size of the jazz they produced.

The waitress seemed put out when they ordered coffee instead of drinks, but Autrey gave her a five-dollar tip, which seemed to solve things.

They sat fairly close together, but not touching, and listened to the casual skill of the group as they drove through the intricate rhythms of

“Take Five” and other jazz classics.

During the break, they ordered more coffee and people watched.

Maddy withdrew to the powder room halfway through the break and did a little repair work on her makeup, although everything was pretty much in order. She stepped back from the mirror over the sink counter, smoothed down the front of her dress, and did a quick appraising turn. An older, heavyset woman standing three mirrors away watched.

“Honey, if that package don’t get it, your man must be dead,” she commented as she smeared on some
orange lipstick.

“This is just for looks tonight,” Maddy replied casually, brushing her hair.

“Well, damn, if that’s just for looks, I’d hate to see you decked out for action; rest of us plain Janes all have to go home.”

Maddy flashed her a quick smile as she put away her things and left the bathroom. Autrey watched her as she picked her way through the closely spaced tables, along with every other male on the lanai, and rose to seat her just as the musicians came back on stage. As she sat down, their eyes met again, and this time, she took a few seconds longer to look away. They listened to the soft patter of introduction coming from the stage as she examined her feelings. Even though the booze was wearing off and the coffee taking its effect, she measured the attraction and found it undiminished. Over the next half hour, the nightclub, the stage, and even the musicians faded to the periphery of her attention and she let herself become totally aware of him as he sat there in the dark, about one foot away, apparently lost in the intricate music. She watched him without looking, willing him to pay attention while staring absently into the middle distance, wondering what it would be like just to tap a man like this on the arm, look directly into his eyes, and say, “Let’s go,” knowing he would stand up without a word, ignoring protests from the people sitting nearby, and take her hand to lead her out of there. In her college days, before Brian, she had done that to a besotted business professor who had taken her to a nightclub, and they had made love three minutes later in the front seat of his car in a frenzied coupling, saved from being caught in the crowded parking lot by the condensation on the car’s windows. Listening now to the subtle chords and tantalizing beat of the jazz, she was feeling the same warmth, the same thigh-squeezing flush of awareness and desire coursing through her veins as she sat next to this man who had done nothing more overt than look at her.

She wondered whether he knew it, this man who taught other men to hunt humans, to be aware of their surroundings, like the animals; she wondered whether he could feel her heat, her sexual vibrations interleaving delicately with the bass guitar’s as she sat perfectly still, her legs crossed demurely, her left arm on the table, her right in her lap, not daring to stir as much as a finger lest she disturb this exquisite sense of being right on the edge … The trio slid seamlessly into a more lively number and the mood vanished like a mirage; she heard herself let out a sigh. Mighty hunter indeed, she thought. All you had to do was put one finger on the back of my hand just then and I would have closed this place and the Ramsey Lewis Trio down. The second set ended and, as she clapped enthusiastically with the crowd, the evening ended, as well. She smiled at Autrey and thanked him for the dinner and the show, then said she had better be getting back to the car. His face lighted up with that boyish smile and he took her out to the Chevy. They had to wait for some traffic on the causeway street, lined with yacht brokerages, but then made quick time back to the Grant Hotel. She showed him where her car was parked and he pulled into the spot in front and went around again to open the door. Her exit this time was more demure, but he looked anyway, a smile in his eyes. He walked over to the driver’s side of her car and waited while she unlocked it, looking up and down the street to make sure there were no cars coming. She opened the door and then turned to face him, the door partway between them.

“Autrey, that was a lovely evening. And I thank you again for bailing me out the other night.” Standing in front of him, she had to look up. He was close to her, but not too close. His face was solemn now.

“You were lucky, that’s all,” he said. She thought he was talking about MCRD. But then he continued. “Back there at the Bali Hai. You were lucky.”

She felt herself almost stop breathing. Had he, did he—

“I think you know what I’m talking about,” he was saying. “I can even prove it. I’ll bet you can’t pass the count test.”

“Prove it? Count test?” Her voice sounded weak, even to her own ears.

“Yeah, the count test. Let’s hear you count to ten. Out loud. C’mon.”

She was baffled. If he’d asked her to close her eyes—

“C’mon,” he said gently, smiling now. “Count to ten.

Out loud.”

“Autrey—”

“Out loud. One, two, three—you know how it goes.” She sighed impatiently and started to count. “One, two, three—”

He looked directly into her eyes but did not move closer, as she had expected. Then, holding her eyes with his, he reached forward with his right hand around the edge of the door, his index finger extended, and, barely touching her, drew his fingernail slowly across the fabric of her dress, across her belly, just below the belt, from left to right. She heard her voice quaver as he did it and she stopped counting, her voice gone, her eyes locked on his.

“See?” he said softly, withdrawing his hand and straightening up. “In case you thought I wasn’t listening.”

He stepped back and smiled at her again. “I will call you again, Maddy Holcomb. Now, get in before we get hit by a car.”

Still looking at him, she swallowed and slid into the front seat. He made sure she was clear, then pushed the door shut. He bent down. She rolled down the window.

“I will call you again, Maddy Holcomb.”

“Yes,” she said, in spite of herself, a thin line of fire tingling just below her belt. “Yes.”

As she drove home to the apartment, that yes reverberated in her mind and elsewhere. The answer is no, you dummy, no. Okay, you had a little relapse, went back to your Boston days and the mating game. Fine. But, no, you will not be seeing any more of Mr. whatever the hell his name is. You know nothing about him, and we wouldn’t exactly introduce him to Brian, now, would we?

It’s not like this is a social or professional friendship, or even an acquaintance. There is no basis whatsoever for your seeing this man.

Then why can I still feel that fingertip? Because you’re just horny, that’s all. You know nothing about this man except what he has chosen to tell you. Yes, but … in another sense, I know everything I need to know.

Gnawing a fingernail on her left hand, she had to drive around to the side of the building to find a parking spot.

She got out, locked the car, and headed for the front entrance. It was a beautiful night and the orange lights across the street made the park look like a carnival about to open. Stepping through the glass doors to the lighted lobby, she remembered that she had not checked the mail earlier. Opening her mailbox, she found two bills and a single crumpled airmail letter. In place of a stamp, the word Free was scrawled. From Brian, of course. A wave of embarrassment swept over her as she held the letter, which had been here the whole time she was out on her—what, date? Well done, girl. Great job of keeping the home fires burning.

Upstairs, she turned on the living room lights, locked her front door behind her, shucked her jacket, and flopped down on the couch to read his letter. It was several pages, describing the first weeks since leaving Subic, including the business about the shooting incident.

There were a few paragraphs on his worries about drugs in the ship. She sat up. Drugs? Surely not on a ship at sea? The so-called drug culture, that was something that went on back here. Hippies, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Timothy Leary. Roaches, lids, acid, freaks, speed, mushrooms.

What the hell did all that garbage have to do with the Navy? Oh, Brian, don’t be crusading again. But then he closed with an entire page about the number of days left till they came home and how the next tour would be ashore for two, maybe even three years.

He loved her and missed her and thought about her every night.

Shit! She threw the letter on the coffee table and slumped back, her head resting on the back of the couch and her eyes closed. She tried to picture Brian sitting in that little stateroom, scribbling away on a letter to her, contrasting that with the sinful taste of a kir royale at the Grant Grill. Enough, that’s enough. Mr. Autrey calls again, you tell him firmly but politely that it was delightful but it is over. Done with. Finito. Kaput. He’d saved her from her own stupidity and she’d had dinner with him.

Enough. Damn it, Brian, if you were only here. Oh, right, this is Brian’s fault? She groaned out loud. Goddamn navy. Goddamned deployments.

WESTPAC; Red Crown Station Halfway through the sixth week of Hood’s first line period, everything changed. The radio messenger had interrupted the after-dinner movie in the wardroom with a high-precedence top-secret message for the captain.

The captain had read it, stopped the movie, and then picked up the bat phone to Combat and instructed Austin to have the exec and all department heads meet with him in his cabin. Ten minutes later, a bleary-eyed Brian joined the exec, Benedetti, Austin, and Ralford Hatcher in the captain’s cabin.