Stanley Fine had two functions, and for these he was paid very generously: to have at his fingertips the status of whatever of Continental’s legal affairs Uncle Max had that moment wondered about; and, more important, to have a fast answer when Uncle Max looked over a document and demanded, “Stanley, what the hell does this mean?”
It wasn’t as simple as it sounded. Max Lieberman was by no means the fool he often seemed to be. The questions he asked were often penetrating, and almost always demonstrated his uncanny ability to “look for the dry rot under the varnish.”
The question Uncle Max had asked that had brought Stanley to Washington, at the moment, had no answer: “What about Monica Carlisle’s kid? He’s in Morocco for some god damned half-assed reason. Find out. Also find out what he’s a citizen of,” Uncle Max had said. “We’d look like shit if he joined the Nazis.”
Uncle Max had thought that over a minute and then added, “Do it yourself, Stanley, and do it next.”
Stanley had taken the first plane he could get, a Transcontinental and Western Airlines Douglas Skyliner to Chicago, and when his connecting flight to New York had been delayed, the train. The man to ask about this was obviously Colonel William B. Donovan, a man who was not only a good friend of Max Lieberman and Continental Studios but who also was the man Franklin Roosevelt most depended on for foreign intelligence.
Donovan was glad to hear he was in New York, he said. He had a few things to bring up involving the Whitworth Building-one of the buildings Continental owned a piece of-and if Fine was free, Why didn’t they have lunch downtown? Chesty Whittaker belonged to a luncheon club at 33 Wall Street, twenty-first floor, and he should be there, too.
After they had finished the Whitworth Building business, Fine brought up the question of Monica Carlisle’s son. He asked Donovan if he happened to know anyone at the Department of State with whom he could discuss a confidential matter. Donovan not surprisingly did. Chesley Haywood Whittaker then insisted-not invited, insistedthat Fine come to Washington with him on the Congressional Limited and spend the night with him at his house on Q Street.
“I hate that damned train, alone, and there’s no sense in you going to a hotel. I won’t be able to have dinner with you tonight, but I’ll see that you’re entertained, and meet you afterward.”
“Why don’t I just go to the Hotel Washington? It’s right around the comer from the State Department, and the studio keeps a suite there….”
“Don’t be silly,” Whittaker said. “What I have to do is have dinner with Roosevelt. My nephew, Jim, is being sent to the Philippines, and Roosevelt wants to see him before he goes. He was close to Jimmy’s father. I don’t see how I can get out of it. But it’ll be just that, dinner. It starts at eight-fifteen, and it’ll be over by ten or tenfifteen. What I’ve done, and I hope this is all right with you, is arrange for a very pretty woman, a lawyer by the way and the daughter of an old friend, to take you to dinner at the Mayflower, and we’ll meet you there afterward.”
“Aren’t I putting you out?”
“Not at all. I’m just sorry about the damned dinner.”
There were few people in the United States, Fine thought, who could be sincerely annoyed by the necessity of taking dinner with the President of the United States.
The young woman had turned out not only to be as promised, young, attractive, and a lawyer, but also the daughter of the late Thomas Chenowith, another pillar of the New York legal establishment. And he was dining with the son of Chandler Bitter and nephew of Brandon Chambers.
The odd thing, Stanley S. Fine decided, was that he liked these people and was comfortable in their presence. He felt a little jealous of Canidy and Bitter-younger men about to embark on a great adventure. It was certainly illogical that he should be jealous of young men going off to war, but he had learned at Comell something that had stuck in his mind: War was as much a part of the human condition as love and birth.