I outrank him, and I don’t have to tolerate his being a wise-ass. But on the other hand, we’re going to be together for the next two weeks, and it would be better if an amicable relationship existed.
“Major, it’s Lieutenant Pickering,” Macklin said.
“Let me have it,” Jake Dillon said, and took the telephone from Macklin. “Hey, Pick, where are you?”
“In the Beverly Hills.”
“Dunn with you?”
“Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”
“You’re supposed to be in the Roosevelt.”
“I don’t like the Roosevelt,” Pick said.
“Have you been at the sauce?”
“Not yet. They just brought it.”
“Where in the Hills?”
“Cottage B. It has a charming South Pacific ambience. You ought to see it.”
“I will. I’ll be right there. And you will be there when I arrive. Both of you.”
“Aye, aye, Sir. Whatever the Major desires, Sir.”
“Let me add ‘sober,’ ” Dillon said, and hung up. He looked at Macklin. “Well, that’s two out of three. Or five out of six, counting the three we already have in the Roosevelt. I don’t think we’ll have a problem with Captain Galloway.”
“They’re not in the Hollywood Roosevelt, Sir?”
“No, they’re in the Foster Beverly Hills.”
“I don’t understand, Sir.”
The telephone rang, and again Lieutenant Macklin answered it in the prescribed military manner.
“Sir,” his caller said, “may I speak with Major Dillon, please. My name is Corp-Lieutenant Easterbrook.”
Macklin covered the microphone with his hand.
“It’s Lieutenant Easterbrook, Sir,” he said.
In Lieutenant Macklin’s professional judgment, the commissioning of Corporal Easterbrook was an affront to every commissioned officer who’d earned his commission the hard way. The right way (and the hardest way) to earn a commission, of course, was to go through Annapolis, as he himself had. But failing that, you could take a course of instruction at an Officer Candidate School that would at least impart the absolute basic knowledge a commissioned officer needed and weed out those who were not qualified to be officers. Simply doing your duty as an enlisted man on Guadalcanal should not be enough to merit promotion to commissioned status.
These thoughts made Macklin wonder again about his own promotion. If he had been able to answer the telephone “Captain Macklin speaking, Sir,” perhaps Pickering’s tone would have been a little more respectful.
Dillon took the phone from him again.
“Hey, Easterbunny, where are you? How was the leave?”
“Just fine, Sir. I’m at the airport, Sir. You said to call when I got in.”
“Great. Look, hop in a cab and tell him to take you… Wait a minute. In ten minutes, be out in front. Lieutenant Macklin will pick you up. You came on TWA, right?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Be out in front in ten minutes,” Dillon said, and broke the connection with his finger. He dialed a number from memory.
“Jake Dillon,” he said to whoever answered, as Macklin watched with curiosity. “Is Veronica Wood on the lot? Get her for me, will you?”
He turned to Macklin.
“The station wagon is here, right?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Go pick up the Easterbunny, and take him to the Foster Beverly Hills, Cottage B. I’ll meet you there. It’s about time you met Pickering and Dunn. And they probably know where Galloway is, too.”
“Aye, aye, Sir,” Macklin said.
“Hey, baby,” Jake said to the telephone. “I’m glad I caught you. You want to meet me, as soon as you can, at the Hills?”
There was a pause.
“I don’t want to sit around the goddamn Polo Lounge either. I want you to meet a couple of friends of mine, Marines. They’re in B.”
“Boy,” Second Lieutenant Robert F. Easterbrook, USMCR, said to First Lieutenant R. B. Macklin, USMC, as they drove up the palm-tree-lined drive to the entrance of the Foster Beverly Hills Hotel, “this is classy!”
Lieutenant Macklin ignored him and looked for a place to park the station wagon. Another of Major Dillon’s odd notions was to decree that enlisted men could almost always be put to doing something more useful than chauffeuring officers around, and that henceforth the officers (meaning Macklin, of course; Dillon habitually drove his own car) would drive themselves.
He saw a spot and started to drive into it. A bellman held up his hand and stopped him.