The Quintessence of Quick (The Jack Mason Saga) (28 page)

“We sure did. Be nice if we could have an encore sometime soon.”

“Yes, it would,” she said. Will you be there until time for you to report to
Pensacola?”

“No, I need to go back down to Coconut Grove for a few days to see my good friends there. Then I’ll spend the last week or so tidying up around here before reporting in on June 13th.”

Silence on the
Ridgefield
end of the line for a few seconds. Then, “If you’re going to spend a few days there, could you spend a couple of them with me if I came down? I have a great friend in the
Miami
area that I’d like you to meet. Didn’t you say your friends were in the air taxi business?”

“I sure did; they’re my partners.”

Her enthusiasm picked up the tempo of her speech. “My friend Bill Pawley was Claire Chennault’s partner in setting up the American Volunteer Group. You’ve heard of the Flying Tigers in
China, of course.”

“Who hasn’t?”  Jack replied. “What a great bunch of guys they must’ve been.”

“Well,” she said, “Let me see if I can talk him into a little cruise on his yacht, the Flying Tiger II, while you’re down there. I was just checking my calendar; I could come down on the 26th, right after Memorial Day, and come back the 29th. Shall I check those dates with Bill?”

This time the pause came on the Bisque end of the line. “Sure. I’ll check them with my friends, Pete and Linda, and call you back as soon as I know something. But if for some reason they can’t go, I’ll look forward to seeing you-  and Mr. Pawley-  then. What’ll you do, fly into Miami International?”

“Yes, on Pan American. Juan Trippe wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Naturally. Call me with the flight number, why don’t you? I’ll meet you at the gate.”

“Done and done, Scorpio Dick. You’ve got me giddy as a teenager! See you soon.”

Momentarily taken aback by the sexual chutzpah, Jack floundered. What he came up with was,  “Where is
Ridgefield, anyway?”

“Do you know where
Westport
is?

“Sure.”

“It’s just about 15 miles due north. Why don’cha come up and see me sometime?” Not many people, Jack thought, could bring new life to that line. It’ll be nice, he thought, to see her do it in person...

“Clare Booth LUCE?”  Pete was doing his best to keep from shouting. “Henry Luce’s WIFE? You’ve hardly been gone a month, and now you’re sporting around with a society woman, make that a HIGH society woman, the wife of one of the most powerful men in the world? And she’s staying at Pawley’s place? Do you know who HE is?”

“Aside from being behind the flying Tigers, he owned Air
Cuba, or whatever it is, didn’t he? And he was ambassador to somewhere. She didn’t spend too much time telling me about him,” Jack responded, more than a little amazed at Pete’s reaction to his news. They sat in the Coconut Grove house’s patio over “welcome back” Daquiris, and Jack thought it would be a good idea to expand a bit on what he’d said on his phone call, inviting them for cocktails at Bill Pawley’s house on the 27th and a cruise on the Flying Tiger II the following day.

Linda was a lot less excited. “Owned the bus company too, didn’t he? Good old Autobuses Modernos? He must be at least as pissed off as the sugar barons at being dispossessed by Castro. He really lost his ass down there.”

“Just a chunk of one cheek, to hear Clare tell it. Among other things, he owns both of the major bus companies here, Miami Transit and Miami Beach Railway.”

“So,” Pete said, “all this highfalutin cocktailing and boating stems directly from your schlepping your mom’s bust of her up to the Waldorf.”

“Yep. Somehow we just seemed to hit it off right away. She was interested in my going in the Navy, and Mom just had to tell her that I was Phi Beta Kappa. Seems as though that was all the authentication I needed.”

“Jack. It’s us. Come clean. You’re screwing that old lady, aren’t you?”  Linda, grinning, asked him.

Jack returned the grin. “She’s only 56. Amazing, isn’t it? Rick said I’d be hopping in bed with Eleanor Roosevelt next.”  Looking at Pete, he said, “I told him we should just give it up and move in with the Bishop twins. God knows that joint would hold us.”

Pete rolled his eyes. “You’d better hang around for a few days after she gets out of here, mister. We’re grilling your ass on the situation after you’ve been dosed up with truth serum.” Raising his Daiquiri, he wiggled it aggressively.

“That was my plan, boss man. Hell, I might even scare up a lady or two less than twice my age.”

“That’s a good start,” laughed Linda, “but 23 and 23 are only 46.”  Jack didn’t miss the look in her eye when she said it.

Jack walked into Miami International’s new
20th St
terminal a few minutes ahead of Clare’s flight’s ETA. Checking Pan Am’s arrival board, he headed toward Concourse Three to meet her. His detour at a nearby newsstand took more time than he’d realized; as he stepped out the door he saw her, quicktiming up the concourse with a skycap in tow. Finessing the standard lovers’ collision/hug, she held one hand straight out to him at arm’s length. The arm was encased in the sleeve of what must have been a silk replica of the Fabioni flight suit that she wore to board the
Enterprise
in
Naples. “Hello, darling,” she said, slowing her pace only slightly, eyes scanning ahead for an indication of the baggage claim area. “I asked this dear man to come with me to baggage claim, just in case you were held up.”  Turning to the skycap, she said, “Thanks so much for your trouble, but as you can see I have an able-bodied man to handle my one little suitcase. Could you give the man something for his trouble, Jack? I’ll have to dig in my purse...”

Jack smiled and handed the skycap two dollars, eliciting a wide grin and a tip of the cap. She made no move to touch him, and did nothing to encourage his touching her as they made their way to baggage claim. Jack realized that she feared, no, expected, to be recognized in any public place that she appeared. “How was the flight?”  Jack asked her.

“Oh, routine. Except for getting to Idlewild. Pan Am chartered a chopper for me; that’s a first. Picked me up at
Danbury
Airport, and half an hour later Pan Am was checking me in. That could be habit-forming; made a big difference in my reveille time this morning.”

“Now that is first-class service,” Jack replied as they reached baggage claim.

“You bet. Loud, though. Here’s the claim check.”

They didn’t talk much on the drive to Coconut Grove as the air whistled through the car’s open windows, Briggs Cunningham having obviously deemed air conditioning to be a blot on the C3’s racing heritage. She seemed satisfied to enjoy being driven through the rapidly building
Miami
heat in Jack’s customary rapid fashion. “Nobody’s here,” Jack told her as they pulled into the driveway. “Pete and Linda are on a Bimini run. Said they’d be back around 3,
4 o’clock
this afternoon.”

“How nice,” she observed. “Gives us time to clean up a bit. I’d love a shower; wouldn’t you?”

They made love with a hint of savagery, each having acquired from their two previous encounters some appreciation of the other’s desires. He joined her when she came with a series of short shallow breaths ending in an attenuated scream. Jack pulled her close, a comforting hand pressing lightly at the base of her spine. He kissed her, tasting the remnant of his semen, wondering for a fleeting moment what her own juices tasted like to her.

Resting, they took mutual pleasure in, among other things, the fact that neither of them smoked. The air conditioning was sufficiently cool to chill bodies coated with perspiration, and he pulled the sheet up over them, prompting a delighted sigh from Clare. “Ooo, that’s good. Warming up in
Miami’s heat.”

He stopped teasing her nipple with his lips, looking sideways to grin at her. “You know what they say; “It ain’t the heat...”

“Umhmm. It’s the humidity. Another cliché proves itself in the arena of truth. We have a place in
Phoenix, and I’ve never felt as hot there as I did walking out to the car today.”

“Phoenix. One of the many places that I’ve yet to see. So you like it out there.”

“Yes, I do. You must come out; I’m there alone a great deal of the time, while Harry’s in
New York
running Time Inc. and fucking Jean Campbell.”

Jack was slow in responding, he hoped this “other woman” thing wouldn’t get her out of the mood. Interested in spite of that possibility, he said, “Jean Campbell. Who’s she?”

“ Just a little Brit doxy with some low-level job at Life. Oh, she’s also Lord Beaverbrook’s granddaughter.”

“Jesus, Harry’s British alter ego? Between them, they could probably cancel the national debt. How’d all this come about?”

“In about the same way as it did with me. Met her at a party; I wasn’t there, but I imagine that he played it true to form, stumbling in his preoccupied way through an introduction, sending flowers, drooling. The usual.”

“And this is a guy with a zillion dollars. Sheesh.”

“Not much of a correlation there, huh? He’s pretty thoroughly fucked up, thanks to being raised in
China
by his god-awful missionary parents, but at least he’s not a drunk like Brokaw, my first husband. I wrote a play about him.”  Looking at Jack in lustful speculation, she added, “I’d trade ’em both for a day of Scorpio Dick.”

Bill Pawley looked like a cross between Dan Dailey and Dumbo. His soft
South Carolina
accent belied the determination required to have achieved his several accomplishments in business and government. “I’ll pay anything, virtually anything, for Castro’s head,” he’d said last night over cocktails, and his dark brown eyes told you that he meant it. Today, holding forth in the salon of the 65-foot Flying Tiger II, their lethality was subdued but, to Jack or any other close observer, still present. “Nice day for a boat ride,” he said, lightly slapping Jack’s back. Glad we could get together before you head out for
Pensacola. A lot of our AVG guys went through there; Pappy Boyington’s probably the only name that you would know offhand.”

“Oh, yeah,” Jack said, “wasn’t he in a Jap prison camp until the end of the war? He was the referee on Wrestling From Hollywood for a while, wasn’t he?

“Yes, he was,” Pawley responded, the resignation causing his voice to drop slightly. “Pappy was always bad to drink, even in
China, and it did him out of any kind of postwar flying job. I don’t know who talked him into that wrestling business; it was a real shame. Since you saw him there, you remember he was practically skin and bones, and Pappy in his prime was a big bear of a guy. I don’t know what’s become of him, but wherever he is, I wouldn’t cross him, even today.”

“Probably a good idea. Don’t think I’ll try to add to that particular Navy, uh, Marine Corps tradition.”

“That’s an even better idea. Ah, here’s our lady now.”  Pawley extended his arm as Clare approached them, wearing a red two-piece swimsuit just a couple of steps away from a bikini. Putting it gently around her shoulders, he smiled down at her. “There’s my
China
doll,” he said, turning the smile on Jack. “That’s where we first met, in
Kunming
in 1940. She and Harry were on a fact-finding tour, and she was back in a hurry as a correspondent for Life after she, Harry and Teddy White left
China
for
New York. Sooner or later, she interviewed everybody who was anybody: Chiang, Chou En-lai, MacArthur, his deputy
Willoughby, Stillwell, Alexander...”

“You left out Madam Chiang,” Clare put in. “We’ve come a long way in air travel since then. I came down from
New York
yesterday in three hours, and that flight back from
China
on the Clipper took six days.”  Looking at Jack, she said, “Why don’t you get your swimsuit on and join us topside for a little sun?”

“Entirely my fault for delaying young Jack,” Pawley said. “We’ve been talking about the old days in
China
with the Flying Tigers.”

“You mean you’ve been talking about them, Bill Pawley. Once a salesman, always a salesman,” she said, linking arms with Jack.

“Guilty, guilty, guilty,” Pawley responded, raising his hands in mock surrender. “Let me go back with you while Jack changes. I haven’t had a chance to speak to Linda and Pete since we came aboard.”

“Holy
Toledo!”  Linda said as the Buick rumbled out of the Pawley compound. “That was really some day. You really tied into one this time, Skeezix.”

“You’re exactly right,” said Jack, supine in the hotrod limousine’s back seat. “She’s a six-alarm fire looking for something to burn down.”

“Just be sure it doesn’t turn out to be you, buddy,” Pete said. Talk about having been around the block; she’s been around the world. Literally.”

“Damned interesting to talk to,” Linda said. If I hadn’t heard the rundown on her from the two of you, I would’ve thought that I was dealing with some yo-yo with delusions of grandeur.”