“He’s with Captain Fine,” the sergeant major said.
Canidy went up the stairs two at a time, then raced down the corridor of the house to Colonel Stevens’s office. The stairs creaked, and the carpet was threadbare. London Station, compared to Whitbey House, was crowded, dirty, and run-down. Stevens’s private office was dark and small.
“You wanted to see me, sir?”
“How did things go at SHAEF?” Stevens asked.
“Very nicely,” Canidy said. “I managed to get a word in with Bieer–I was right, he was being stashed by the Navy PIO–and he gave a nice liale speech about inter service cooperation. He is taking cocktails with Eisenhower. Or at least with Admiral Foster, and Ike has promised to drop by. The admiral also wanted Kennedy there, so I called him and told him to go.”
“I’m beginning to think like you,” Stevens said, “that is to say, scatologically. When I saw this, I thought, My God, publicity is like the clap. It comes as an epidemic. “‘ He handed Canidy a copy of the tabloid-size Stars’s Stripes.
There were two photographs on the front page. One was of the President of the United States, smiling broadly, his cigareae holder sticking up jauntily. The second showed a good-looking female standing on the lower step of an aircraft loading ladder. She was wearing a USO uniform, and she was waving. There was a caption beneath the two-column photo, AMERICA’S SWEETHEART IN UK–Monica sinclair waves as she debarks a MATS transport at London’s Croydon Airfield to begin a four week tour of American military bases in the UK She was greeted by Col. R J. Tourtillott [leftl of SHAEF Special Services.
“Couldn’t this have been stopped?” Canidy asked, shaking his head.
“I don’t like it. For reasons that may seem a liale far-fetched–a connection being made with her and Eric, for example.
But I have a gut feeling that this is bad news, and I’d rather go on the gut feeling.”
“I have the same gut feeling,” Stevens said, and then went on, “If we had known about it, we could have stopped it. But until just now, it never entered my mind to have a liaison officer at Special Services.
What do you think we should do about her, if anything?”
“How do you feel about assassination?” Canidy replied.
Stevens chuckled. “I don’t think we could keep that out of Stars and Stripes,” he said. “How do we handle her short of assassination?” “I thought you’d tell me,” Canidy said. “Fulmar know?”
“Not yet,” Stevens said. When Canidy looked at him quizzically, he added, “In the words of our sergeant major, he has never seen such fucked-up service record. He and Fine are wading through all the paper now.
Among other things, Fulmar’s never been paid, and he doesn’t have his National Service Life Insurance–that sort of thing.”
“Well, now he can put his mommy down as his beneficiary,” Canidy said.
“What do we do, Dick?” Stevens asked.
“I don’t know,” Canidy confessed.
“Do you know her?” “No,” Canidy said. “But I think Eric met her once.” “Maybe he won’t even want to see her,” Stevens said. “Or vice versa.”
“Well–before he sees Stars & Stripes himself–he’ll have to be told that she’s here. In the meantime, you and me will pray that he doesn’t want to see her.” Stevens nodded.
“Anything else?” Canidy asked.
Stevens shook his head. “Good luck, Dick,” he said.
Canidy picked up Stars’s Stripes, folded it so that the front page was not visible, and left Stevens’s office.
He found Fulmar in Fine’s office. He was sitting at a table with Fine and Master Sergeant Ed Davis, the sergeant major.
“Ali Baba, I presume,” Canidy said, “and the two thieves.” Master Sergeant Davis, a stocky, jowly man in his late thirties, was Regular Army. He had once been in a battery of Coast Artillery commanded by then Lieutenant Edmund T. Stevens. Stevens had bumped into him in the PX. Two days later, Davis had reported for duty at Berkeley Square.
Eric Fulmar, his jacket unbuttoned and his tie pulled down, stood up, smiled warmly at Canidy, then walked to him with his h? nd extended.
But the intended handshake turned into an embrace.