At first the AIS programs were one hour a day, five days a week. By late fall they were two hours a day, seven days a week.
Captain Emil Durenberger, the scrounger Jack had asked for, finally arrived. Durenberger was a career officer who had served with Pershing in pursuit of Pancho Villa in Mexico in 1916-1917, had been an assistant company commander in France in 1917-1918, had remained in the army between the wars, and had served here, there, and the other where, gaining a treasury of arcane knowledge about sources, regulations, forms, and especially the whole convoluted bureaucracy of the War Department. He was a diminutive man, almost bald, whose face was constantly wrinkled with the amusement he found in nearly everything around him. Someone had said of him that he might have been a general if he had been more serious.
The reputation that brought him an assignment to Jack Lear and the AIS had also probably impeded his promotion. He was widely known as a skillful and unscrupulous scrounger. The general who had assigned him to Jack in response to Harrison Wolcott’s request knew two more things about him: that he drank too much and that he had an unparalleled talent for breaking through tangles of prescribed methods and finding a direct way to accomplish whatever he wanted to.
On his first day in the office Jack had promised the secretary, Mrs. Eunice Latshaw, that she would be paid. Until Captain Durenberger arrived, he had been paying her himself. The captain chuckled and within two days had established Mrs. Latshaw as a civilian employee of the United States Army.
He did the same for Cecily Camden. Then he had her assigned a room in the Park Lane Hotel, not adjoining Jack’s suite but on the same floor. He had moved Jack to the Park Lane because it was a three-minute walk from the AIS offices on Half Moon Street and also because the army would pay the rental of a suite in that hotel, which was entirely comfortable but less luxurious than the Dorchester. Jack paid Cecily’s rent himself.
Finally, Captain Durenberger obtained an olive-drab 1938 Ford for Colonel Lear and the American Information Service.
TWO
1943
CECILY RARELY USED HER OWN ROOM. SHE SLEPT WITH JACK and took her meals with him, either in his suite or in a nearby restaurant. The only times she didn’t stay with him were when visitors came from the States.
Harrison Wolcott was the first to visit. Jack entertained him in the suite, and Cecily stayed in her room. Then Dan Horan, Connie’s husband, arrived. He was a captain in the Army Air Corps and was adjutant for a bomber squadron. At first Jack feared he might be stationed in or near London and might drop in from time to time, unannounced. In fact, he turned out to be stationed on a field in Kent, and he never came in to London without calling first. Probably he surmised that Jack did not live alone in the hotel suite.
Anticipating that Dan or someone else would tell Kimberly that Cecily was working for him, Jack told her himself in a letter, saying he had been fortunate to find her and to be able to hire her as driver and factotum.
Kimberly wrote constantly that she should be allowed to come to London. Her father settled that as firmly as Jack did, by reminding her that she could not leave the children alone.
Connie also wrote that she hoped to arrange a visit to England, to be with her husband for a few days. Dan must have discouraged it, even though travel restrictions would have allowed it.
Jack’s expertise at bridge made him a welcome guest in many homes, and he soon developed a circle of friends. Until Lord Mountbatten went out to Burma, he occasionally invited Jack to dinner and bridge. So Jack played cards with General Alan Brooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff; Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden; press lord Max Beaverbrook; Randolph Churchill; and General Bernard Montgomery. He also met General Charles de Gaulle and Prime Minister Winston Churchill, though he made no claim to be friends with them.
Cecily shared Jack’s taste in theatrical spectacles. The theaters remained open, and Jack especially enjoyed the Windmill Theater. In accordance with British law, girls could appear on stage stark naked so long as they did not move. Naked girls stood on pedestals and posed while scantily clad ones danced around them. Jack and Cecily went as often as the show changed.
Curt arranged a standing relationship for Jack with the bespoke tailor in Savile Row. From then on, the tailor would see to it that Mr. Lear had such suits as the seasons required, billing him only annually. In those years, the clothes were mostly uniforms, spring and fall weight, and winter weight. Each one was tailored from the finest fabrics and made to fit. When General Eisenhower arrived in London and was seen in the short, tight jacket that came to be called the Eisenhower jacket, Jack asked the tailor to make him one of those. The man covered his eyes with his hands and protested, “Mr. Lear! You wouldn’t!” And Jack never did.
Three
MAY 1943
KIMBERLY PULLED A LAST DRAG FROM THE HERBERT TAREYton in her cigarette holder, then put it aside. The radio beside the bed was tuned to the midafternoon news on WCHS, and this afternoon the news was of the American recapture of Attu, an island in the Aleutians.
It was early afternoon, and she was lying on her bed, letting the radio play but paying it minimal attention. She could not remember a time in her life when she had been more bored. She could not recall a time when she had been more dissatisfied.
Part of the trouble was her self-image, which was badly damaged. She was thirty-six years old, and she smoked, drank, and ate too much. Her body, which had once been spare and taut, was now heavier, and her flesh was looser. When flat chests were fashionable she had not been compelled to strap her breasts down, for they were small and firm. The current style was to wear brassieres that molded breasts into conical shapes and thrust them up and forward à la Lana Turner, the sweater girl. Kimberly was not comfortable with that style—in fact, she thought it was demeaning—but lately she had the flesh required. Her friend Betsy, on the other hand, who was five years older, gloried in showing off her boobs and was elated that fashion now dictated that she should.
Kimberly identified generosity of flesh with advancing age. She was not ready to turn forty, but forty was coming.
Another reason for her dissatisfaction was that she was idle. She did her committee work, as every patriotic woman was expected to do, but she did not find it challenging.
Herb Morrill and Mickey Sullivan ran Lear Broadcasting Company, along with a staff somewhat diminished by the draft. Kimberly had supposed at first that she would move into Jack’s office and assume considerable responsibility. But he had arranged things differently. He was never really out of touch; Morrill and Sullivan sent him a constant flow of reports, and Jack still made all the really important decisions. For example, a Baltimore station became available in April. Kimberly was a member of Lear Broadcasting’s board of directors, as was her father. In a board meeting she had asked to see the balance sheet and profit and loss statement of the company that owned the Baltimore station, and she had suggested she could not vote on the acquisition until she’d had time to study those documents and maybe let the family accountant check them. Herb Morrill had told her she was welcome to look at the documents but that Jack had already communicated his decision to buy the stock of the company and the tender offer had already been made.
Jack wrote regularly, but Kimberly found his letters bland and far from satisfying. It irritated her that he dictated them to a secretary, who typed them.
Even though he added a handwritten note to each typed letter, telling her he loved her and the children, she always felt as if she were reading a business letter.
When the doorbell rang, Kimberly breathed a happy sigh. She pulled on a light blue negligee and went downstairs. The maid had already opened the door and was welcoming Dodge into the house.
“Dodge! How nice to see you,” she said, trying to sound surprised. She doubted the maid was naive enough to believe there was anything surprising about the arrival of Dodge Hallowell. The girl probably knew that Mr. Hallowell would spend the next two hours or so in Mrs. Lear’s bedroom and wou
ld leave just before Mrs. Gimbel arrived home with the children.
“Rebecca,” Kimberly said to the maid. “See what you can do to dry Mr. Hallowell’s coat and hat.”
The maid took his dripping raincoat and left them alone.
Kimberly nodded toward the stairs. Dodge took her arm as they climbed to the second floor and headed to the master bedroom suite.
Dodge Hallowell was a handsome and distinguished man. If the Wolcotts had had their choice, Kimberly would have married him instead of Jack Lear. The only reason she had refused him was that he was seven years older than she was, which had seemed an insuperable obstacle when she was twenty-one. Now the age difference didn’t bother her at all.
Dodge was the president of Boston Common Trust, which was by no means the largest bank in Boston but was still a powerful bank with major assets and formidable lending capacity. He was a tall man with broad shoulders and a bulky body. He had thick graying hair, a ruddy complexion, and a strong, square chin. He wore an exquisitely tailored single-breasted dark blue suit. Like Curt Frederick, he never wore double-breasted jackets, even though they were in style. He didn’t like them, and what he did not like he did not wear.
He despised cigarettes and all but despised people who smoked them. Kimberly had to remember not to light up when she was with Dodge. If they hadn’t established a routine of sharing the needle shower at the beginning of their trysts, she would have showered to wash the cigarette stench out of her hair and off her body before he arrived.
But the first thing they did was shower together, even before they had a drink. She tossed away her negligee and, feeling slightly embarrassed to be seen in her long-line brassiere and panty girdle, helped Dodge undress. At forty-three, he was muscular and in better shape than Jack. His penis—which at times he called his “pecker”—fascinated her. It was long, curved, thin, and uncircumcised. She had seen only two others and was not sure if his was unusual.
He knew how to use it well. Again, she had a very limited basis for comparison, but she found that Dodge satisfied her as much as Jack did, no matter that his penis was not nearly as long as Jack’s and certainly not as thick.
Kimberly had not yet ventured to introduce Dodge to her Kama Sutra techniques. After six months of making these afternoon visits, he was still troubled by the idea of having sex with a woman who was not his wife—who was, in fact, another man’s wife. He was troubled, but he was also very grateful. He had never married, though Kimberly was certain she was not the first woman he’d ever had.
After their shower they often sat naked together on the settee in the sitting room of the master bedroom suite and drank Scotch. The first time they did this, Dodge had wanted to pull on his undershorts, but Kimberly had said no, no, no. This was one of the best parts of their relationship: these moments when they sat together and sipped whisky and she fondled his penis and he fondled her breasts.
“I received an interesting letter,” said Dodge. He had a bad habit of introducing irrelevancies into conversation when they were being intimate. “A colleague of mine, now in the Pacific, writes that he was supervising the unloading and unpacking of a shipment of small machine guns when he suddenly realized the weapons were stamped with the words ‘Kettering Arms, Inc.’ They were manufactured under license by your father’s company. He inquired around and learned that the guns with that stamp are well regarded by the men who use them.”
Kimberly smiled and tugged on his penis so hard he grunted. “You tell Dad,” she said. “I’d be hard put to explain how I knew the contents of a letter you received.”
“Harrison doesn’t know—”
“Of course not. Nobody knows. Oh, maybe Rebecca, my maid. Nobody can keep things from servants. And I think Connie has probably figured it out.”
“Connie!”
“Trustworthy as the day is long. Hey—I’m wet.”
Dodge drew a deep breath. “I’m on the verge of a premature ejaculation. I’ll make up for it in a little while.”
He did come fast—too fast. But ten minutes later he reentered and this time kept her in ecstasy for thirty minutes.
When they lay together in bed afterward, Kimberly tentatively suggested to him a couple of variations on the theme. His eyes widened. But he did not say he wouldn’t hazard a try.
Four
SEPTEMBER 1943
THE BEDSIDE TELEPHONE IN JACK’S SUITE IN THE PARK LANE Hotel rang at 2:33 A.M. Cecily picked it up and handed it to him.
“Hello?”
“Colonel? Durenberger.”
“What the shit in the middle of the night, Durenberger?”
“Fuckin’ big problem, Colonel, and thank God I found out about it first.”
Jack struggled to sit up. Cecily switched on the lamp. “What’s the big problem?”
“You awake, Colonel? Have Cecily get you a sip of brandy. We got a big problem.”
“So you say. What the shit is it?”
“Two employees of Lear Broadcasting are in the nick and scheduled to appear in Bow Street Magistrate’s Court in the morning.”
“Who and why, for God’s sake?”
“Well, Curtis Frederick, to start with. And a man you know as Willard Frederick, whose real name is Willard Lloyd. He’s not Curt’s brother.”
Jack beckoned to Cecily to bring him a cigarette. “In slow, simple words, what the Christ is going on?”
“Okay. A friend of mine at the BBC called. It appears that Curt Frederick and the man who calls himself his brother were on their way home tonight from dinner at Café Royale. Drunk. Just couldn’t wait to get home, it seems, and started doing dirties in the taxi.”
“Started doing what?”
“In clinical terms, Willard started fellating Curt in the taxi. The driver turns out to be a Christian sort who’s not about to tolerate that kind of conduct in his taxi, and he pulls up at a police station. The two of them are in durance vile and are to appear in court in the morning.”
“It’s the driver’s word—”
“No. They were still at it when a constable came out and took a look.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m at the police station. Might be a good idea if you came. I have the impression it would not be altogether impossible for us to work something out.”
“I’ll try to get someone from Combined Operations to join me,” said Jack.
“I’ve done that,” said Durenberger. “Captain Harvey is on his way.”
“Okay. While I’m getting dressed, tell Cecily the name of the station. She’ll probably know where it is and how to get there.”
The city was dark, of course, blacked out, and the shielded headlights of the Ford cast only a dim yellowish glow on the pavement. Jack always marveled at how Cecily could find her way around at night.
She parked wherever she wanted to. Civilian-type cars, painted olive drab and marked with big white stars, signified important officers and were never ticketed. Tonight she parked directly in front of the police station.
Durenberger was waiting, with a tall, distinguished-looking British naval officer whose face showed both annoyance and amusement.
“Colonel Lear, this is Captain Harvey.”
The two officers shook hands.
“What can we do about this, Captain? Anything?”
“It has been done, Colonel. The two men will be released in your custody. The charges have been dropped.”
“Well, I certainly thank you.”
“It’s part of my job,” the captain replied crisply. “I spend a good deal of time getting American officers out of scrapes.” He smiled faintly. “I must say, though, this is the first time I’ve had to cope with a charge of buggery.”
Jack heaved a loud sigh. “One of them is going home. Can we arrange transportation?”
“One of them is going home?” the captain asked.
“We need Curtis Frederick here, Captain. He’s doing a remarkable job of making the American people understand what’s going on, speci
fically of making them respect your people. I don’t think we want to give him up. How soon can we get the other one aboard a plane?”
“Not tomorrow, obviously. P’raps Wednesday, p’raps Thursday.”
“In my custody . . .” Jack mused aloud. “I’d like the one who’s going home to remain in jail until he’s taken to the airport.”
“Your choice, Colonel.”
“That’s my choice, then. I’ll take Curt Frederick with me now, if that’s all right.”
No man was ever more humbled and abashed than Curt Frederick when he was brought from a cell and handed over to Jack Lear. He was disheveled, and his breath smelled, not of alcohol but of vomit. He glanced at Captain Harvey, whom he recognized, and at Captain Durenberger; then without a word he followed Jack out to the car, where Cecily waited.
Only inside the car did he mutter, “What about Willard?”
Jack spoke coldly. “He’ll be put on a plane to the States later this week. Until then he stays where he is.”
Frederick said nothing. He hunched inside his raincoat, with the brim of his hat half covering his face.
Jack sat in the front seat beside Cecily. He turned and stared into the darkness, barely able to make out Curt’s figure. “What have you done to Betsy?” he asked sharply.
“Nothing,” said Curt. “She doesn’t know.”
“I did,” said Jack. “I was warned. I didn’t believe it.”
“Betsy doesn’t even suspect,” Frederick said, his voice breaking.
“Well, let’s get something straight, Curt. From now on, there will be nothing to suspect. Your former friend is not going back to Boston. He’ll be flown to Washington. He’ll be told not to come to Boston and to stay away from you. Durenberger will explain it to him. If he fails to obey his marching orders, somebody will use a baseball bat on him.”
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