"Yes?" he snapped impatiently, "what is it?"

Oh, shit! It's probably General Mclnerney. And I was supposed to have answered that, "Lieutenant Pickering speaking."

"Pick?"

It was a female. And a half-second later, he knew which one.

"Hello, Ernie," he said.

"Are you alone? Can you talk?" Ernestine Sage said.

"You have interrupted a splendid orgy, but what's on your mind?"

"I want to talk to you," Ernie Sage said.

"Then talk," he said. "Just make it quick."

"I'll be right up," Ernie Sage said.

"You're here?" he asked, genuinely surprised. "In the hotel?"

"I just happened to be in the neighborhood and thought I'd just pop in," she said, and the phone went dead.

Between the time she hung up and the time he answered her knock at the door, he had considered the possibilities: Certainly this had to do with Ken McCoy. But what would bring Ernie all the way to Washington except true love? And the possibility, not as astonishing when there was time to think it over, that Ernie was in the family way. Could she be sure, so soon? To the best of his recollection, it took several months to be sure about that. It hadn't been that long since he had seen Juliet kissing Romeo in the Grand Central Oyster Bar.

"Hi," Ernie said, when he opened the door. "Don't you look horsey?"

For the first time in a long time, Pickering looked at her as a female, and not as part of the woodwork.

Damned good-looking, he judged. Marvelous knockers. They had obviously grown a good deal since (he now remembered with somewhat startling clarity) he had last seen them, looking down her bathing suit in Boca Raton. He and Ernie must have been thirteen or fourteen at the time. "Come into my den, as the spider said to the fly." "You're a hard man to find," she said. "I called your mother, or tried to, and they said she was in Hawaii. So I called your grandfather, and he told me where you were."

"Why do I suspect that you weren't suddenly overcome with an irresistible urge to see me?" Pickering asked. She looked into his face. "Where is he?" she asked.

"Where's who?"

"Come on, Pick," she said.

"Ken, you mean?"

"Where is he?"

"In Hawaii, too, come to think of it," Pick said.

"Oh, hell," she said.

"Not to worry," he said. "He will be back."

She looked at his face.

"That's important to you, isn't it?" Pickering asked.

"Don't be a shit about this, Pick, please," Ernie Sage said.

"Okay," he said. "It will be an effort, obviously."

"Do you have something I could have to drink?"

He gestured to the bar.

"Help yourself," he said.

She walked to the bar and made herself a Scotch.

"You want one?" she asked.

"I want one, but… oh, what the hell. Yes, please."

She made him a drink, handed it to him, and then sat down on a couch and stirred the ice cubes in her glass with her index finger.

"I never imagined myself doing this," she said, without looking at him.

"Doing what?"

"Running after a boy," she said, and corrected herself: "A man."

"I'm not surprised," Pick said.

She looked at him quickly.

"For one thing, McCoy's quite special," Pick said. "And for another, I saw the two of you in the Oyster Bar."

She did not seem at all embarrassed to hear that. Just curious.

"What were you doing there?"

"McCoy had led me safely through the wild jungles of Quantico," Pickering said, "protecting me from unfamiliar savage beasts. I thought it only fair that I return the favor."

"Protect him from me, you mean? Thanks a lot."

"I didn't know who it was until I saw you," Pickering said.

"Where did you meet him?"

"On a train from Boston," Pickering said. "He had just escorted prisoners to the Naval Prison at Portsmouth. And then he showed up, wholly unexpected, at Quantico." "Why unexpected?"

"Because our peers were… our peers. McCoy was a noncom of the regular Marine Corps, just in from years in China."

"He told me about China," she said. "He took me to a tiny little Chinese restaurant off Mott Street, where he talked Chinese to them."

"As I say, he's something special." "Isn't he?" she said. Then she looked up at him. "Four hours after I met him, I took him to bed." "He told me," Pickering said.

"I don't know what you think of me, Pick," Ernie Sage said. "But that's not my style."

"He told me that, too," Pickering said, gently. That surprised her. She looked into his face until she was sure that she had not misunderstood him.

"Pretty close, are you? Or did he proudly report it as another cherry copped?"

"Actually, he was pretty upset about it," Pickering said. "But not too upset to tell you all about it?" "We are pretty close," Pickering said. "I don't know. It's something like having a brother, I guess."

"You heard about his brother? The one who was offered the choice of the Marine Corps or jail?"

"I even know that was the choice they gave him, too," Pickering said. "Like I say, Ernie, we're close."

"Okay, so tell me what happened? I have six letters, all marked 'REFUSED.' "

"He found out you were rich," Pickering said. "Oh, God!" she wailed. Then the accusation: "You told him. Why the hell did you have to do that?"

Pickering shrugged his shoulders helplessly and threw up his hands.

"Now I'm sorry that I did," he said. She turned her face away from him. Then turned back, frowning.

"But I suppose I was thinking that the bad news better come gently, and from me. I didn't want that shocking revelation suddenly thrust upon him."

"If you came from a background like his, it would upset you, too," Ernie Sage said, loyally. "He has pride, for God's sake. I know he's a fool, but-"

"Did he tell you about the lady missionary?"

"What lady missionary?"

"There was a lady missionary in China who apparently gave him a bad time. Strung him along. Hurt him pretty badly."

"I'd like to kill her," Ernie Sage said, matter-of-factly.

"You've really got it pretty bad for him, don't you?"

"As incredible as it sounds," she said, "I'm in love with him. Okay? Can we proceed from that point?"

"Love, as in 'forsaking all others, until death do you part'?"

"I was disappointed when I found out I wasn't pregnant," she said. "How's that?"

"I hope you know what you're getting into," Pickering said.

"It doesn't matter, Pick," she said. "I have absolutely no control over how I feel about him. I thought that only happened in romantic novels. Obviously, it doesn't only happen in fiction."

"I'm jealous," Pickering said.

"What have you got to be jealous about?" Ernie asked, and then she understood. "You should be," she said. "But that's your problem. What do we do about mine?"

"I don't know," Pickering said. "If you're really sure about this, Ernie, Big Brother will think of something."

"I have never been so sure of anything in my life," she said. "It's either him and me, hand in hand, or to hell with it."

"For what it's worth, with the caveat that I am relatively inexperienced in matters of this kind, I would not say it's hopeless."

Ernestine Sage brightened visibly.

"Really?" she asked.

"Really," Pickering said. "For reasons I cannot imagine, Lieutenant McCoy seemed to be more than a little taken with your many charms."

"God, I hope so," she said, and then asked, "what's he doing in Hawaii?"

"They made him an officer courier," Pickering said. "He carries secrets in a briefcase."

"I never heard of that," she said. "How long did you say he'll be gone?"

"He's going to Hawaii. He got there today. Or will get there today. There is something called the International Dateline, and I've never figured it out. And from there, he's going to Manila, and then back to Hawaii, and then back here."