Winds of War (90 page)

“Really? It was news to me. Anyhow, that makes it a cinch.” He described the arrangements for her interview at Quantico.

The doorbell rang. Blowing her nose, Madeline went to answer it. “I think I’ve got a fever. I don’t want to go and interview a lot of marines.”

A girl with dyed black hair stood simpering in the doorway, in a yellow coat and yellow snow boots, showing stained teeth in a thickly painted mouth. Her smile faded when Madeline opened the door.

“I was looking for Mr. Hugh Cleveland.”

“Right here, baby.” he called.

The girl came into the suite with uncertain steps, peering from Cleveland to Madeline.

“What is this?” she said.

“Wait in there,” he said, indicating the bedroom with his thumb. “I’ll be along.”

The girl closed the bedroom door behind her. Ignoring Cleveland’s embarrassed grin, Madeline snatched her coat and jerked on one sleeve and the other. “Good-night. I’ll talk to you tomorrow..”

“You’ve got a drink coming.”

“I don’t want it. I want to get to bed. I’m shivering.”

Cleveland came padding to her in stocking feet and put his hand on her forehead. She pushed it away.

“You have no fever.”

“Don’t touch me, please.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I just don’t like to be touched.”

The waiter knocked at the door and came in. “Double martini, sir and the Monte Cristos.”

“Great. Thanks.” Cleveland offered the tray to Madeline when the waiter left. “Here. Take off your coat and drink up.”

Both hands jammed in her coat pockets, Madeline said, “It’s not fair to keep a prostitute waiting. All she has to sell is time.”

Hugh Cleveland slowly grinned, putting down the tray. “Why, Madeline Henry.”

“I’m sorry. I feel extremely lousy. Good-night.”

Cleveland strode to the bedroom. A murmur of voices, and the girl, tucking money in a shiny yellow purse, emerged from the room. She gave Madeline a tough unpleasant sad glance and left the suite.

“Sit down and have your drink. Here’s all the dope on Quantico” – he flourished a manila envelope – “and who to see, and the list of the performers. If you’re still not feeling well tomorrow just call me, and I’ll have Nat or Arnold come down and take over.”

“Oh, I guess I’ll manage.” Madeline sat, throwing her coat back on her shoulders, and drank.

“How are your folks?”

“Fine.”

“Any interesting guests at dinner?”

“Alistair Tudsbury, for one.”

“Tudsbury! Say, there’s genius. There’s a man I’d like to meet. He’s got style, Tudsbury, and a superb radio voice. But he’d never come on
Who’s in Tow
n. Who else?”

“Air Commodore Burne-Wilke, of the RAF.”

“Is an air commodore somebody?”

“From what my father says, he more or less ran the Battle of Britain.”

Wrinkling his nose, Cleveland put his feet on the desk again. “Hmmm. Not bad. The Battle of Britain’s awfully tired, though, isn’t it? I don’t know if he’d mean anything today, Matty. The audience has had the Battle of Britain up to here.”

“I wouldn’t dream of asking him.”

“I would.” Hands clasped, two fingers pressed judiciously to his chin, Cleveland shook his head. “No. Dated. I say balls to the Battle of Britain.”

“There was Senator Lacouture.”

Her employer’s thick sandy eyebrows rose. “Now,
he’s
hot. That’s right, isn’t he an in-law of yours, or something?”

“His daughter married my brother.”

“The one on the submarine?”

“No. The aviator.”

“What do you think? Would Lacouture come to New York?”

“For the chance to attack Lend-Lease, I think he’d go to Seattle.”

“Well, Lend-Lease is front-page. Not that one person in forty knows what it’s all about. Let’s get Lacouture. Do you mind talking to him?”

“No.” Madeline finished her drink and stood.

“Fine. Set him up for Monday if you can. We’re kind of blah on Monday.”

Madeline tapped the envelope in her hand, regarding it absently. The drink was making her feel better. “There’s Happy Hours at all the Navy bases, you know,” she said. “Practically on every ship. Probably in the Army camps, too. Couldn’t you do another show like this every now and then? It’s something different.”

Cleveland shook his head. “It’s a one-shot, Matty. Just a novelty. The regular amateurs are the meat and potatoes.”

“If we get in the war,” Madeline said, “they’ll be drafting talented people, won’t they? There’ll be camps over the country.”

“Well, could be.” With his most engaging smile, he waved a thumb at the bedroom door. “Sorry about her, kid. I thought you weren’t coming tonight.”

“It doesn’t make the slightest difference to me, I assure you.”

“You really disapprove of me. I know you do. The way my wife does. You’ve had a good upbringing.”

“I hope so.”

“Well, see, I wasn’t that fortunate.”

“Good-night, Hugh.”

“Say, listen.” With an amused genial squint, Cleveland scratched his head. “There might be something in that Happy Hour thing at that, if we do get in the war. It might be a series in itself. Start a file on Wartime Ideas, Matty. Type up a memo on that and stash it away.”

“All right.”

“Your father’s an insider. Does he think we’ll get in war?”

“He thinks we’re in it.”

Cleveland stretched and yawned. “Really? But the war’s sort of petering out, isn’t it? Nothing’s happening, except for the messing around in Greece and Africa.”

“The Germans are sinking a couple of hundred tons a month in the Atlantic.”

“Is that a lot? It’s all relative, I’d imagine. I guess Hitler’s got it won, though.” Cleveland yawned again. “All right, Matty. See you back in New York.”

When the girl had gone. Cleveland picked up the telephone, yawning and yawning. “Bell captain . . . Cleveland. Oh, is that you, Eddy? Fine. Listen, Eddy, she looked all right but I was busy. I sent her down to the bar for a while. Black hair, yellow coat, yellow purse. Thanks, Eddy.”

* * *

The slow movement of a Brahms symphony was putting Victor Henry in a doze, when a tap and a whisper roused him. “Captain Henry?” The girl usher appeared excited and awed. “The White House is on the telephone for you.”

He spoke a few words in his wife’s ear and departed. During applause after the symphony, Rhoda said, looking around at his still empty chair, “Pug’s evidently gone back to the White House.”

“Man’s life isn’t his own, is it?” Kirby said.

“When has it ever been?”

Pamela said, “Will he rejoin you at the dance?”

Rhoda made a helpless gesture.

An hour or so later, Victor Henry stood at the entrance to the grand ballroom of the Shoreham, glumly surveying the scene: the brilliantly dressed dancers crowding the floor; the stage festooned with American flags and Union Jacks; the huge spangled letters, BUNDLES FOR BRITAIN, arching over the brassy orchestra; and the long jolly queues at two enormous buffets laden with meats, salads, cheeses, and cakes. The naval aide at the White House had just told him, among other things, of thirty thousand tons sunk in the North Atlantic in the past two days.

Alistair Tudsbury came capering past him, with a blonde lady of forty or so quite naked from the bosom up except for a diamond necklace. The correspondent’s gold-chained paunch kept the lady at some distance, but her spirits seemed no less hilarious for that. He dragged his bad leg a bit as he danced, obviously determined to ignore it.

“Ah, there, Pug! You’re glaring like Savonarola, dear boy.”

“I’m looking for Rhoda.”

“She’s down at the other end. You know Irina Balsey?”

“Hello, Irina.” The blonde lady giggled, waving fingers at Henry. “Did Pamela come to the dance?”

“She went back to the office. The little prig’s doing the overworked patriot.”

Tudsbury twirled the blonde away with vigor ill-suited to his size and lameness. Crossing the dance floor, Henry saw his wife at a little round side table with Palmer Kirby.

“Hello, dear!” she called. “So you escaped! Get yourself a plate and join us. The veal is marvellous.”

“I’ll bring you some,” said Kirby, hastily rising. “Sit down, Pug,”

“No, no, Fred. I have to run along.”

“Oh, dear,” Rhoda said. “You’re not staying at all?”

“No. I just came to tell you I’ll be gone overnight, and possibly longer. I’m heading home to pack a bag, and then I’ll be off.”

Palmer Kirby said to him with a stiff smile, “Sorry you can’t stay. It’s a fine party.”

“Make the best of it. You won’t find such in London.”

“Oh, damn,” Rhoda said.

Pug bent over his wife and kissed her cheek. “Sorry, darling. Enjoy the dance.” The figure in blue disappeared among the dancers.

Rhoda and Palmer Kirby sat without speaking. The music jazzily blared. Dancers moved past them, sometimes calling to Rhoda, “Lovely party, dear. Marvellous.” She was smiling and waving in response when Kirby pushed aside his half-full plate of cooling food. “Well, I leave for New York at seven tomorrow, myself. I’d better turn in. It was an excellent dinner, and a fine concert. Thanks, Rhoda.”

“Palmer, I just have to stay another half your or so.” Kirby’s face was set, his large brown eyes distant and melancholy. Rhoda said, “Well, will I see you again before you go to London?”

“I’m afraid not.”

With an alert searching look at him, she deliberately wiped her mouth with a napkin. “I’ll walk out with you.”

In the crowded lobby, Rhoda stopped at a full-length mirror. Primping her hair, glancing at Kirby now and then in the glass, she spoke in a tone of the most careless chit-chat. “I’m sorry. I meant to tell Pug as soon as he got back. But he had so much to do, with his new job. And he was so relieved to be home. I just couldn’t, that’s all.”

Kirby nodded, with a cold expression.

She went on, “All right. Then along came this awful jolt, Byron marrying this girl in Lisbon. It took both of us days and days to simmer down. And hard upon
that
Janice arrived, all pregnant and whatnot. I mean, this close prospect of becoming grandparents, for the first time - you’ve just got to let me pick my moment, dear. It won’t be easy at best.”

“Rhoda, you and Pug have many things that bind you together. I fully realize it.”

She turned and looked in his eyes, then went back to her primping. “Don’t we?”

He said, frowning at her image in the mirror, “I’ve been very uncomfortable tonight. I really want to get married again, Rhoda. I’ve never felt that more strongly than I did at your dinner table.”

“Palmer, don’t give me an ultimatum, for heaven’s sake. I can’t be rushed.” Rhoda faced him, speaking rapidly, shifting her eyes around the lobby, and smiling at a woman who swished by in trailing orange satin. “Or rather, do just as you please, dear. Bring back an English wife, why don’t you? You’ll find dozens of fine women there eager to adore you, and delighted to come to America.”

“I won’t bring home an English wife.” He took her hand, glancing up and down her body with a sudden smile. “My God, how pretty you look tonight! And what a fine dinner you put on, and what a grand success this dance is! You’re quite a manager. My guess is I won’t get back till May. That should be plenty of time, Rhoda. You know it should be. Good-bye.”

Rhoda went back to the dance, much relieved. That last moment had cleared the air. At least until May, she could go on juggling.

* * *

Wearing owlish black-rimmed spectacles, Pamela Tudsbury clattered away at a typewriter, in her mauve evening dress and fancy hairdo. A desk lamp lit the machine; the rest of the shabby, windowless little office was in half-darkness. A knock came on the door. “Bless my soul, that was quick!” She opened the door to Victor Henry, in a brown felt hat and brown topcoat, carrying a canvas overnight bag. She walked to a silex steaming on a small table amid piled papers, pamphlets, and technical books. “Black you drink it, with sugar, as I recall.”

“Good memory.”

She poured two cups of coffee and settled into the swivel chair by the typewriter. They sipped, regarding each other in the lamplight.

“You look absurd,” Pug Henry said.

“Oh, I know, but he wants it by eight in the morning.”

She took off the glasses and rubbed her eyes. “It was either get up at five, or finish it tonight. I wasn’t sleepy, and I hadn’t the faintest desire either to dance or to stuff myself.”

“What are you working on?”

She hesitated, then smiled. “I daresay you know a lot more about it than I do. The annex on landing craft.”

“Oh, yes.
That
one. Quite a document, eh?”

“It seems like sheer fantasy. Can the United States really develop all those designs and build those thousands of machines by 1943?”

“We can, but I have no reason to think we will. That isn’t an operation order. It’s a plan.”

He relished being alone with her in this tiny, dreary, dimly lit office. Pamela’s formal half-nudity had a keener if incongruous sweetness here: a bunch of violets as it were, on a pile of mimeographed memoranda. He said gruffly, “Well, what’s the dope on Ted Gallard?”

I received a letter from his squadron commander only yesterday. It’s quite a long story. The nub of it is that three RAF prisoners in his hospital escaped, made their way to the coast, and got picked up and brought home. Teddy was supposed to break out with them. But after your visit he got a room of his own and special surveillance. So he couldn’t. They think that by now he’s been shipped to Germany and put in a camp for RAF prisoners. That’s the story. He’ll be well treated, simply because we’re holding so many Luftwaffe pilots. Still, you can see why I’ve no particular desire just now to go to posh supper-dances.”

Victory Henry glanced at the wall clock. “It was my doing, then, that he couldn’t get out.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“No, it’s a fact. I hesitated before talking to the Luftwaffe about him, you know. I figured it would call attention to him and give him a special status. I wasn’t sure whether that would be good or bad. Sometimes it’s best to leave things as they fall.”

“But I asked you to find out what you could about him.”