"On Friday, I am going to buy uniforms. In Brooks Brothers in New York."

"What's Brooks Brothers?"

"It's a place where they sell clothing, including uniforms."

"Jesus!" McCoy said.

"And when we're not buying our uniforms, we can be lifting some skirts," Pickering said. "The only problem is finding a cab to get us off this fucking base to someplace we can catch a train to New York."

"We don't need a cab," McCoy said. "I've got a car."

"You have a car? Here?" Pickering asked, surprised.

McCoy nodded.

"Mr. McCoy," Pickering said. "The first time I laid eyes on you, I said, 'Now, there is a man of many talents, the sort of chap it would be wise to cultivate in the furtherance of my military career.' "

McCoy smiled.

"And will this car of yours make it to New York? Without what I have recently learned to call 'mechanical breakdown'?"

"It's a LaSalle," McCoy said.

"In that case, if you pay for the gas," Pickering said, "I will take care of the room. Fair?"

"Fair," McCoy agreed.

Chapter Twelve

(One)

The Foster Park Hotel

Central Park South

New York City, New York

2320 Hours 19 November 1941

Pick Pickering was at the wheel of the LaSalle when it pulled up in front of the marquee of the Foster Park Hotel. They had gassed up just past Baltimore and changed places

there.

McCoy had gone to sleep thinking about Ellen Feller, about her probably being somewhere in Baltimore, and about what had happened between them in China-memories that reminded him of the very long time since he'd had his ashes

hauled.

The doorman stepped off the curb, walked out to the driver's side, opened the door, and said, "Welcome to the Foster Park Hotel, sir," before he realized that the driver was some kind of a soldier, a Marine, and an enlisted man, not even an officer.

"May I help you, sir?"

Pickering got out of the car.

"Take care of the car, please," he said. "We'll need it sometime Sunday afternoon."

"You'll be checking in, sir?"

The question seemed to amuse the Marine.

"I hope so," he said. "The luggage is in the trunk."

He turned back to the car.

"Off your ass and on your feet, McCoy," he said. "We're here."

McCoy sat up, startled, looked around, and as almost a reflex action, opened his door and got out.

"Where are we?" he asked, groggily.

"My grandfather calls it Sodom-on-Hudson," Pickering said, and took McCoy's arm and propelled him toward the revolving door.

The desk clerk was busy with someone else as Pickering and McCoy approached registration. Pickering pulled the Register in front of him, took the pen, and filled out one of the cards.

When the desk clerk turned his attention toward Pickering, he thrust the Registration card at him.

"We'd like a small suite," he said.

"I'm not sure that we'll be able to accommodate you, sir," the clerk said.

The clerk didn't know what the OC insignia on the collar points of the uniforms meant, but he knew a Marine private when he saw one, and Marine privates couldn't afford the prices of the Foster Park Hotel.

"House is full, is it?" the Marine asked.

"What I mean to suggest, sir," the desk clerk said, as tactfully as he could, "is that our prices are, well, a little stiff."

"That's all right," the Marine said. "I won't be paying for it anyway. Something with a view of the park, if one is available."

The desk clerk looked down at the card in his hand.

He didn't recognize the name, but in the block "Special billing Instructions" the Marine had written: "Andrew Foster, S/F, Attn: Mrs. Delahanty."

"Just one moment, please, sir, I'll check," the desk clerk said.

He disappeared behind the rack of mail-and-key slots and handed the card to the night resident manager, who was having a cup of coffee and a Danish pastry at his desk. He handed him the registration card. The night resident manager glanced at it casually, and then jumped to his feet.

He approached the Marines standing at the desk with his hand extended.

"Welcome to the Park, Mr. Pickering," he said. "It's a pleasure to have you in the house."

"Thank you," Pick Pickering said, shaking his hand. "Is there some problem?"

"Absolutely no problem. Would Penthouse C be all right with you?"

"If you're sure we can't rent it," Pickering said. "Not at this hour, Mr. Pickering," the night resident manager said, laughing appreciatively.

"Well, if somebody wants it, move us," Pickering said. "But otherwise, that's fine. We'll be here until Sunday afternoon."

The night resident manager took a key from the rack and came from behind the marble counter.

"If we had only known you were coming, Mr. Pickering…" he said. "I'm afraid there's not even a basket of fruit in the penthouse."

"At half- past four this afternoon, it was even money that we would be spending the weekend with a brick and a pile of sand," Pick Pickering said. "I don't much care about fruit, but I wish you would send up some liquor, peanuts, that sort of thing."

"Immediately, Mr. Pickering," the night resident manager said, as he bowed them onto the elevator.

Penthouse C of the Foster Park Hotel consisted of a large sitting room opening onto a patio overlooking Fifty-ninth Street and Central Park. To the right and left were bedrooms, and there was a butler's pantry and a bar with four stools.

When he went directly to answer nature's call, McCoy found himself in the largest bathroom he had ever seen.

By the time he came out, there were two room service waiters and a bellboy in the room. The bellboy was arranging cut flowers in vases. One waiter was organizing on the rack behind the bar enough liquor bottles to stock a saloon, and the other was moving through the room filling silver bowls from a two-pound can of cashews.

Pick Pickering was sitting on a couch talking on the telephone. He saw McCoy and made a gesture indicating he was thirsty.

"Scotch," he called, putting his hand over the mouthpiece. By the time McCoy had crossed to the bar, the night resident manager had two drinks made.

"We're glad to have you with us, sir," the night resident manager said, as he put one drink in McCoy's hand and scurried across the room to deliver the other to Pickering.

When they were all finally gone and Pickering finished his telephone call, McCoy sat down beside him.

"What the hell is all this?" he asked.

Pickering leaned back against the couch and took a swallow of his drink.

"Christ, that tastes good," he said. "Incidentally, I have located the quarry."

"What quarry?"

"The females with liftable skirts," Pickering said. "There's a covey of them in a saloon called El Borracho… which, appropriately, means 'The Kiss,' I think."

"I asked you what's going on around here," McCoy said.

"We all have our dark secrets," Pickering said. "I, for example, know far more than I really want to about your lady missionary."

"Come on, Pick," McCoy said.

"This is the Foster Park Hotel," Pickering said. "Along with forty-one others, it is owned by a man named Andrew Foster. Andrew Foster has one child, a daughter. She married a man who owns ships. A lot of ships, Ken. They have one child. Me."

"Jesus Christ!" McCoy said.

"It is not the sort of thing I would wish our beloved Corporal Pleasant, or our sainted gunny, to know. So keep your fucking mouth shut about it, McCoy."

"Jesus Christ!" McCoy repeated.

"Yes?" Pickering asked, benignly, as befitting the Saviour. "What is it you wish, my son?"

(Two)

They did not get laid. All the girls at the first night club had escorts. They smiled, especially at Pick Pickering, but it proved impossible to separate them from the young men they were with. The candy-asses were worried about leaving their girls alone with Pickering, McCoy thought, approvingly. He was sure they had learned from painful experience that if they blinked their eyes, Pickering and their girls would be gone.