Tommy reminded McCoy of a lot of Marines he knew, particularly in the line companies.

They wound up in a whorehouse by the railroad station. McCoy paid for the all-night services of a peroxide blonde not because he was really all that interested in screwing her, but because the alternative was worse: He was too shit-faced to get in his car and drive back to Tommy's rooming house or the Hotel Bethlehem.

The Corps was hell on drunk driving and/or speeding. He still hadn't accepted the possibility that he could become an officer. Which was the main reason why he hadn't said

anything about Quantico to either Anne-Marie or Tommy. Besides, they probably wouldn't believe it. Which was easy to understand; he didn't quite believe it himself. But getting arrested for drunk driving or speeding would be the end of it. He wanted to give it a shot, anyway.

Tommy pulled him out of the whore's bed at half-past six in the morning and said he had to go to fucking work and needed a fucking ride and some fucking breakfast: He couldn't work eight fucking hours on the fucking open hearth with nothing in his fucking stomach.

They went to a greasy spoon and had eggs and home fries and coffee. He dropped Tommy off at the walk bridge over the railroad tracks and drove back to the Navy Yard.

(Two)

The San Mateo Club San Mateo, California 27 August 1941

The building that housed the San Mateo Club had been built, in 1895, as the country residence of Andrew Foster, Sr. It so remained until 1939, when Andrew Foster, Jr., seventy, on the death of his wife, moved into the penthouse atop the Andrew Foster Hotel in San Francisco and put the estate on the market.

It had been quickly snapped up by the board of directors of the San Mateo club. Not only was the price right and the house large enough for the membership then rather crowded into the "old clubhouse," but the money was there. A very nice price had been offered for the "old club" by developers who wanted to turn its greens and fairways into a housing development.

The Foster Estate ("the new club") contained land enough to lay out twenty-seven holes (as opposed to eighteen at the old club), as well as gently rolling pastures right beside the polo field that could accommodate far more ponies than the old club could handle. And old Mr. Foster, Jr. had thrown in all of the furnishings, except for those in his private apartment, which had moved to the hotel penthouse with him.

The woman was lanky and fair-haired. She wore a wide-brimmed straw hat, a pale blue dress, and white gloves. From where she was standing, by the foot of the wide staircase leading to the second floor of the clubhouse, she could see the reserve supply of champagne. It was practically, if somewhat inelegantly, stored by the door to the passageway to the kitchen in ice-filled, galvanized-iron watering troughs for horses.

She took a delicate bite of her hors d'oeuvre, a very nice pate on a crisp cracker, sipped at her champagne, and seriously considered just picking up one of the bottles and carrying it upstairs. He would probably find that amusing.

But it would be difficult to explain if she met someone coming down the stairs. Without the champagne, it would be presumed that she was going up to use the John. There were inadequate rest room facilities for ladies on the main floor of the San Mateo Club. The men had no similar problem. What had been a private study off the library had been equipped with the proper plumbing and that was it.

Which meant that when nature called, the men could conveniently take a leak not fifty feet from the bar. But the women, when faced with a similar requirement, more often than not would find their small downstairs facilities occupied and would have to seek release in an upstairs John. The silver lining in that cloud was that no one looked curiously at a woman making her way up the wide, curving staircase.

She put her empty champagne glass on the tray of a passing waiter, smilingly shook her head when he offered her a fresh glass, and started up the stairs.

No one was in the upstairs corridors, which she thought was fortuitous. But she hurried nevertheless, and quickly entered, without knocking, a door halfway down the right corridor. There was a brass number on the door, 14. The numbered rooms were an innovation of the House Committee; before they had been put up, people spending the night or the weekend in the "new clubhouse" had been unable to find their own rooms.

She closed the door and fastened the lock. She could hear the sound of the shower and of his voice, an entirely satisfactory tenor. She smiled at that, then walked to the bed, saw that he had tossed his clothing on it, sniffed, and wrinkled her nose. She delicately picked up the sweat-soaked blue polo shirt (a cloth letter "2" still safety-pinned to it) and an equally sweat-soaked pair of Jockey shorts and dropped them onto the floor beside a very dirty pair of breeches, a scarred and battered pair of riding boots, and a pair of heavy woolen socks.

Then she pulled the cover off the bed and turned it down. She looked toward the bathroom, wondering how long he had been in there, how soon he could come out to find her.

Surprise! Surprise!

Then she had an even better idea. She walked to a credenza and pulled her hat and gloves off and dropped them there. Then she took off her wedding and engagement rings. And, very quickly, the rest of her clothing. It would be amusing only if she was finished undressing.

But when she had finished that, he still hadn't come out. The last time she'd seen him, she remembered, he had really needed a bath. He had been reeking with sweat; and perspiration was literally dripping off his chin. But enough was enough.

She examined herself in a mirror and smiled wickedly at herself, walked to the bathroom door, opened it, and went inside. There was no shower stall. One corner had been tiled. The tiled area was so large that water from three shower heads aimed at the corner did not splash beyond it.

His head and face were covered with lather. Still singing cheerfully, he was rubbing the tips of his fingers vigorously on his scalp. She saw a shower cap on a hook and quickly stuffed her hair under it. Then she stepped into the tiled area, hunching her shoulders involuntarily as the water, colder than she expected, struck her. Then she dropped to her knees, reached out, and put it in her mouth.

"Jesus Christ!" Pick Pickering said, "Are you crazy?" And then he yelped. "Christ, I got soap in my eyes!"

He stepped away from her abruptly to turn his face to a shower stream. Slipping and almost falling, the woman rose to her feet. She went to him, pressed her body against him, and nipped his nipple.

"Where the hell is your husband?" Pick Pickering asked.

"In the bar, I suppose," the woman said. "I got bored."

She put her hand on it and pumped it just a few times until it filled her hand.

"You want to try doing it standing up?" she asked. "It would be sort of like doing it in the rain."

"Dorothy!" Pick said.

She tried to arrange herself so he could penetrate her, and failed.

"I don't think that's going to work," she said, matter-of-factly.

Pick Pickering picked her up and carried her to the bed. Penetration there proved simple.

Three minutes later, he jumped out of bed.

"Wham, bam, thank you, ma'am?" she said. "That's not very nice."

"You're out of your mind, Dorothy, do you know that?"

"Where are you going?"

"I am due in town right now," he said.

"Who is she? Anyone I know?"

He didn't reply.

"No goddamned underwear!" He cried as he pawed through a canvas overnight bag. "I didn't bring any underwear!"

"How sexy!" Dorothy said.

"What the hell am I going to do?"

"Do without," she said. "I do that all the time."