“Hi, Marine!” she said. “Looking for a good time?”
“Some other time, perhaps, Madam. I am just returned from learning more about the manufacture of truck windows than I really care to know. I have booze, and not lust, on my mind.”
He offered his glass to her. She shook her head “no,” so he took a healthy swallow.
“I was at the local theater group,” Veronica said. “You get no sympathy at all from me.”
“Not even if I tell you I have just examined the banquet program, and right after where it says ‘baked chicken breast Portland,’ it says, ‘remarks by yours truly.’ ”
She chuckled and then kissed him on the cheek.
“You’re good at it, Pick,” Veronica said. “You really are. You have them in the palm of your hand.”
“Did Jake send you over to stroke my feathers? He promised to get me out of making after-dinner speeches.”
“No,” she said. “But if he thought of it, he probably would have. I came over to tell you Bobby said he was sorry he missed you, and good-bye.”
” ‘Good-bye?’ What happened to him?”
“The first group of… what do you call them, ‘Marine war correspondents’?”
“Combat correspondents,” Pick furnished.
“Combat correspondents… are in Los Angeles. Jake put him on the train at half past four. Bobby’s supposed to teach them how to do it. At Metro-Magnum.”
“I must be getting old,” Pick said. “I think making him an officer was idiotic. He’s a nice kid, but the word is kid.”
“You and Jake,” Veronica said. “But Jake said he’ll probably do OK.”
“Jake’s whistling in the dark. Would you, if you were a man, take orders from Bobby?”
“I think you underestimate him, Pick.”
“I hope so. Still, for the sake of the combat correspondents, better Bobby than Macklin.”
“Ooooh, that’s an interesting observation! What have you got against him?”
“Forget it,” Pick said. “I was thinking out loud. I shouldn’t have.”
“Speaking of the devil…”
First Lieutenant R. B. Macklin, USMC, walked up to them.
“I wondered where you were, Pickering,” he said.
“I was out inspiring the workers to make more and better truck windows,” Pick said. “Was that idle curiosity that sent you in my direction? Or did you have something on your mind?”
“Washington has asked for a transcript of your remarks…”
“Washington?”
“General Stewart’s office. Since this tour is going so well, I think they intend to use it as sort of a model for the East Coast and Midwest war bond tours. They’re next, you know.”
“I just stand up and open my mouth,” Pick said. “I never wrote anything down.”
“Well, that’s what I’m asking, Pickering, that you write it down, so I can send it to General Stewart.”
Pickering motioned with his index finger for Macklin to put his head close to his. When he did, he whispered a few words into his ear.
Macklin colored, glared at him, and then said, “Well, we’ll see what Major Dillon has to say about that! Excuse me, Miss Wood.”
Veronica watched him go. “What was that all about, Pick? Did you whisper sweet obscenities in his ear?”
“And now he’s going to tell Daddy that I have been a bad boy,” Pick said.
“Tell me something, Pick,” Veronica said. “Did Bobby ever say anything to you about Dawn Morris?”
“About Dawn Morris?” Pick answered, thought a moment, and then replied, “No, what do you mean?”
“Well, he was hanging around with you and Dunn. I thought maybe he said something.”
“No. He hung around with us because we protected him from Macklin. Macklin likes to prove he’s a Marine officer by ordering Bobby around and making him call him ‘Sir.’… And I think maybe Bobby was hoping he could latch on to one of Little Billy’s rejects.”
“And did he?”
“You act like his mother. No, Mother, Bobby has been a good boy. I think-I know-that a couple of Billy’s rejects would have been perfectly happy to play house with him… with anyone wearing a Marine uniform. But I don’t think he could work up the courage to make a pass.”
“Maybe you should have found the courage for him,” Veronica said. “Where is Billy Dunn, by the way?”