And I thought that everybody's refusal of a tip was another indication of Lowell's family's gratitude run amok.

"It's a complicated system," Lowell said as he walked to the bar. "I don't really understand how it works; Helene Craig calls me once a year and tells me how much of a Christmas present I just made. Ask her to do the same for you until you learn the system."

He pulled a bottle of a scotch Portet could not remember ever having seen before from an array behind the bar.

"I highly recommend this," he said.

"Colonel, I don't think we'll be staying here, living here, at Ocean Reef," Portet said.

"'Colonel'?" Lowell parroted. "There's a certain icy I am pissed at you I am pissed at you formality in that, formality in that, Captain, Captain," Lowell said. "You want to tell me what's got your back up?"

He handed him a glass half full of scotch.

"If we ain't buddies no more," Lowell said, "fuck you, get your own ice."

It was hard for Portet not to smile, but he managed not to.

"I thought I made it quite clear to Mr. Craig that his gratitude to Jacques for what happened at Stanleyville-"

"You're stuck with that, JP, I'm afraid," Lowell said. "My cousin's only grandson, the apple of his eye, was in your Stanleyville apartment with a good chance of having really terrible things happen to him when Jack showed up and did his John Wayne routine. That happened. He has a reason to be grateful to Jack. We all do."

"We don't need a financial expression of that gratitude, Craig," Portet said. "I made that point, I thought, to Porter Craig, but I apparently didn't get through to him."

"For example?"

"At first I thought I was being paranoid," Portet said. "When I applied for a mortgage on the house, the banker told me I was stealing it. So I had it appraised. The price Porter quoted me was ninety thousand under the appraisal I paid for."

"Okay. I'm beginning to see what's going on in your mind. We have our own appraisers. Everything we own is appraised on a regular basis so we don't get raped by the tax collector. When you told Porter you wanted to buy that house, he called me and said this should be the one exception to The Rule. And I agreed."

" 'The Rule'? What rule?"

"The family buys property, but never sells it. We lease it, sometimes by the year, sometimes by the century, but we never sell it. I agreed we should break The Rule for you and Hanni. You're more than friends-you're family."

"Ninety thousand under its appraisal value?"

"You're going to have to trust me on this, JP," Lowell said. "When I told him, sell it to JP, Porter called our appraiser and asked him what was on the books. Whatever figure Porter quoted you was the figure he got from our appraiser. We're a bank, not a benevolent society.

Portet looked at him for a long moment.

He took his wallet from his pocket and handed Lowell a business card.

Gresham Investment CorporationJ. Richard Leonard Vice PresidentSuite 1107 27 Wall Street New York City 10022 212 555-9767 "What's this?" Lowell asked.

"You don't know?" Portet asked.

"No. I never heard of them."

"I really want to believe you, Craig," Portet said.

"I never heard of these people, okay?" Lowell said coldly. "Where'd you get it?"

"At the airport in Miami," Portet said. "I've been going over there to see what's available on the used-airplane market, maintenance facilities . . . you understand."

"And?"

"This fellow came up to me while I was having a coffee-not in the terminal, across from it, in the cargo area. He knew who I was, called me Captain Portet, and said he heard I was at the airport, and that it was a fortunate coincidence, because he had been thinking of contacting me in the Congo."

"He say why?"

"He said that he 'and his associates' were on the edge of setting a charter company, half a dozen convertible 707s; that they were not happy with the people they'd been looking at to manage it; and that a search had come up with my name as someone with just the experience they were looking for. My long-haul jet operations, between Europe and southern Africa, and my short-haul piston operations in the Congo area, he said, were just about what they wanted to start up between the States and the Far East-I think he meant French Indochina, Vietnam. If I was interested, they were prepared to really talk seriously about it, and were prepared to offer me participation, which I took to mean a substantial piece of the company, plus a salary 'commensurate with my background.'"

"It sounded too good to be true, right?"

"I had talked to Porter Craig about buying into a small airline," Portet said. "Yeah, Craig, it sounded too good to be true."

"My first reaction is to tell you that Craig, Powell, Kenyon and Dawes does not employ people to wander around airports looking for people to loan money to," Lowell said. "People come to us, usually on their knees. But sometimes Porter does go overboard. And we own Twenty-seven Wall Street, and that piques my curiosity."

He pulled a telephone out from under the bar and dialed a number from memory.

Portet could barely hear someone answer the telephone.

"The Craig residence."

"Hello, Stephen, is my portly cousin there?"

Lowell held the telephone away from his ear so that Portet could hear the conversation.

"What can I do for you, Craig?"

"Give me a straight answer. Have you been trying to help Captain Portet with his plans to buy an airline? Straight answer, please, Porter."

"I would be happy to, but when I offered to help in any way I could, he politely but firmly told me no, thank you. I have respected his wishes. Does he want help now? Has he come to you?"

"What do you know about the Gresham Investment Corporation? "

"I never heard of it."

"How about a guy named J. Richard Leonard?"

"I don't know the name."

"They have offices in Twenty-seven Wall."

"So do a hundred other firms. That's a large building. I never heard of them, sorry."

"Who can you call to find out?"

"If it's important to you, I'll make inquiries in the morning."

"I mean right now."

"Good God, Craig! For one thing, it's after business hours."

"This is important, Porter."

"What would you like me to do?"

"See how much space they have, who they gave as credit references. That should be on the lease."

"I don't even know who manages that building."

"Porter, if I let you off the hook tonight, will you make it your first business in the morning? I'll be in the apartment in the Hotel Washington."

"I heard you were going to be using it," Porter Craig said.

"Geoff called me and told me you would be there."

"And I can't tell you why, Porter, except that there will be the usual complement of loose women. And seeing that tomorrow will be during business hours, check them out with Dun and Bradstreet-the confidential reports. I want to know who they're loaning money to."

"I'm beginning to think this is really important to you. You want to tell me why?"

"It is, and no."

"All right. I'll get on it first thing in the morning. Let me write all that down."

Lowell put the telephone back under bar, picked up his drink, and looked at Captain Portet.

"Porter has not been playing Santa Claus," he said. "And by ten o'clock tomorrow morning, I think we're going to have a pretty good idea of just what the Gresham Investment Corporation is."

"I guess you think I'm an ass," Portet said. "I feel like one."

"Yeah, JP, I do," Lowell said. "But I will forgive you if you come to Washington with me, either tonight, after dinner, or in the very wee hours tomorrow morning."

"What's that all about?"

"Felter wants to pick your brains about Joseph Desire Mobutu," Lowell said. "Following which, he will return you here in the Lear."

Lowell drained his drink.

"I'm for the shower," he said, and walked toward his bedroom. "You think of some plausible reason you can give Hanni for rushing away with me in the middle of the night."

"You seem pretty confident that I'll go."

"I think you're almost as curious about the Gresham Investment Corporation as I am," Lowell called over his shoulder.

[ THREE ].

Apartment B-14 Foster Garden Apartments Fayetteville, North Carolina 2105 10 January 1965 Dinner had been a little late, and if Mrs. Marjorie Portet had been asked, she would have admitted that she would have preferred to dine alone with her husband, rather than with two of his fellow officers.

But just before five, when he had been expected home, Jack had called from Camp Mackall and said he would be a little late, he had to go to the PX at Bragg. He arrived at half past seven, both arms loaded with groceries, and trailed by Captain John S. Oliver and Warrant Officer Enrico de la Santiago, who were each carrying a case of beer.

They were all in fatigue uniforms.

Jack had kissed her, and she had returned the kiss with considerably less enthusiasm than she planned.

The groceries and the beer had been deposited in the kitchen, and the three had left the apartment, to return a few minutes later, staggering under the weight of an enormous cardboard carton.

"What the hell is that?" Marjorie had asked after they had pushed her new coffee table out of the way so they could set the carton down on her new carpet in the middle of the living room.

"I have a speech to make, Miss Marjorie, but first I need a beer," Johnny Oliver said.

Beer bottles were opened and passed around. The officers, having declined the use of her new pilsner beer glasses, partook of them directly from their necks.

"That, Miss Marjorie, is a wedding present," Johnny Oliver said. "From Mr. de la Santiago and myself. More precisely, two-thirds of it is a wedding present from Enrico and me. The other third is a small token of my appreciation to you personally for two things. First, for being the only general's daughter in the history of the Army who did not make a royal pain in the ass of herself to her daddy's dog-robber."

"Oh, Johnny!"

"And the second for your deeply appreciated, if doomed to failure, efforts on my behalf with the Ice Princess."

"Oh, Johnny," Marjorie had repeated, genuinely surprised that tears had formed in her eyes.

"Unveil the present, Mr. Santiago," Oliver ordered.

"Yes, sir," Enrico said.

De la Santiago pulled a wicked-looking knife, which Marjorie hadn't noticed before, from his boot and slit the carton open.

It held a not-assembled bottled-gas-powered grill, the largest one Marjorie had ever seen.

"I think we have two little problems," Johnny said. "First, the assembly of that device will require tools, and second, it may not fit on the balcony."

"There's a tool set in the Jag," Jack said.

"You go get it," Oliver said. "And if Miss Marjorie can come up with a piece of string, for use as a measuring device, we will determine whether or not it will fit on the balcony."

Jack went to fetch the tool kit. Marjorie found a ball of twine and gave it to Johnny, who gave it to Enrico.

When they were alone in the living room, Marjorie asked softly, "You haven't heard from Liza at all?"

"When she hears my voice, she hangs up," he said.

"Keep trying," Marjorie said.

"Yeah," he said. He met her eyes. "I really miss Allan; that makes it worse."