Tycoon (18 page)

“No. I remember my spanking. The pain was—If he'd done it to me alone instead of in front of the family, I might have done something that would have made him
really
mad.”

“Hey, Bets, drop it, will you?”

“What I'm going to drop is my pants. Give me just one whack. I want to see if I can take it. I've got to know if it will do to me what I think it might do to me.”

“Betsy,
please
drop the idea.”

“Hmm-mm. You're the only man I'd trust to do it, and you're not going to deny me. C'mon. That's a nice wide belt. It won't cut me.”

Jack kept shaking his head, but he pulled his leather belt out of the loops of his trousers.

Betsy hunched on her hands and knees on the bed and presented her backside.
“Do it! Do it!”

Reluctantly he swung the belt and snapped it against the soft flesh of her buttocks.

Betsy grunted, but she turned her head and complained, “Goddammit, Jack, if that's how you're going to do it, you might as well not do it at all. Now I want a
real
one! Wait a minute.”

She grabbed her panties and stuffed them in her mouth. She glanced at him, then turned her face away from him and nodded emphatically.

He pulled the belt back over his shoulder and swung hard. She shrieked, but the shriek was muffled by her panties.

He threw the belt across the room and sat down to take her in his arms. She was crying. Her cheeks were wet. But as she settled into his embrace, she took his hand in hers and guided it to her crotch. She was very wet there, too.

1942

J
ACK AND
K
IMBERLY SAT AT THEIR DINNER TABLE.
T
HE CHIL
dren had left with Mrs. Gimbel, their governess, and were upstairs finishing their lessons, which would be followed by their baths.

Jack rarely wore black tie to dinner anymore. Kimberly, just the same, made it a habit to dress for dinner, usually in a silk gown. Tonight she wore yellow, a color that did not become her, in Jack's opinion. She wore it because she believed it suited her new topaz necklace.

“I thought I'd heard everything,” she said quietly, barely able to maintain an air of patience.

“Kimberly, I'm thirty-six years old. I'm subject to the
draft!
I could wind up as a basic rifleman in an infantry squad.”

Her smile was acid. “You know that won't happen. Daddy can take care of it. He can keep you out or get you a navy commission. After all, the
navy
is where gentlemen serve. And he can see to it that you are assigned to Boston or New York or Washington.”

“I'm not looking for a gentleman's commission. I don't want to go to war as an infantryman; I won't kid you about that. But this is something I can
do!”

“What you are going to
do
is leave home,” she said coldly.
“Remember something. Remember the afternoon we got the word about Pearl Harbor. Do you remember at all how frightened little John was? He had a most vivid memory of your repeated accounts of the strafings in Belgium, and he wondered how long it would be before that would be happening here. Do you remember how you had to take him to his bedroom and explain to him that Pearl Harbor is thousands of miles away and that the war was not coming anywhere near Boston?”

“What are you saying?”

“I'm saying your place is at home with your family, giving your children comfort and assurance. Which they
need.
When that tanker was torpedoed off the coast two weeks ago, our children saw the red glow and in the morning saw the smoke. The war you told John would always be thousands of miles away was
right out there!
And I don't have to tell you that our John has a special reason to be afraid. He knows what the Germans do to Jews.”

J
OHN, AGE TEN, HAD DEVELOPED A CHILD'S FASCINATION WITH
airplanes, particularly warplanes. Not yet dexterous enough to build models from balsa and paper and dope, he built crude and simple ones from kits of solid wood. He had an aircraft spotters' handbook with pictures, silhouettes, and specifications of two hundred aircraft from all countries.

John studied the war aircraft avidly. He was proud that he, probably better than any other boy in his class, could distinguish a Henschel from a Heinkel, a Spitfire from a Hurricane.

John was sitting up in bed, studying a magazine with more pictures and diagrams of warplanes. Jack sat down on the foot of his bed.

“How goes it, Cap'n?” he asked, using the nickname he had given his son when he'd discovered the boy's fascination with airplanes.

“Daddy, will the war last long enough for me to fly? It won't be over before—”

Jack shook his head. “No, son. It won't last that long. When it's over, you'll still be a little boy. But I tell you what. I'll see to it that you get flying lessons and learn to fly a peacetime plane.”

John grimaced. “Not the same thing,” he said.

Jack took his son's hands between his own. “My boy, we can't arrange wars just to suit you. Anyway, there are plenty of ways to be brave, besides flying in wartime.”

John smiled weakly. “I s'pose.”

“I have to tell you something, John. All your friends' daddies are going into the services. You know that. I have to do the same. I can't sit at home and take no part in the war.”

“What are you going to do, Daddy?”

“Well, I'm not going to go out and fight with a rifle against German soldiers. It takes all kinds of activities and all kinds of people to win a war. What it takes, actually, is all kinds of skills. I happen to know how to run a network of radio stations. That's what I've done since before you were born. The War Department thinks I can be very helpful in London. I'll be working in an office over there, just as I do here. The only difference is, I'll be in London instead of Boston, and I'll wear a uniform instead of a blue suit.”

The ten-year-old boy closed his eyes, drew a deep breath, and flexed his shoulders. “Daddy . . . if some way the Germans managed to get to London, they'd kill you, wouldn't they? I mean, you first—you before other people. I don't mean before
all
other people, but—”

“What do you have in mind, John?”

The boy focused his eyes on Jack's. “They'd kill you because you're a Jew,” he said. “And if they ever got to Boston they'd kill me for the same reason. Wouldn't they?”

Jack tried not to let his son detect the shudder that went through his body. “Okay. That's why we have to do everything we can to make sure they don't get to Boston. Right? They're not going to get to Boston. I promise you. And not to London, either. But let's think this out. Suppose there was a chance they'd get here. What should I do? Should I stay home? Or should I go and do whatever I can do to fight them? John, even
if I had to go into the line with a rifle, isn't that what I should do?”

John nodded, but he sobbed.

“It's not going to be that way. I'll be in an
office
in London, helping to broadcast information. That's the best thing I can do to fight them.”

John cried, but he kept nodding.

“So what can
you
do? You give up your daddy for a little while. That's what
you
do to fight the Nazis.”

“Okay.”

Jack put his arms around his son. “We've never talked about being Jews. I never thought it made much difference until people started killing us. When I come back, we'll talk a long while about what it means, what it is. In the meantime, I promise you, John, that the Nazis are not going to kill you or me. Or your sister. Or your mother.”

John frowned. “Why her?” he asked.

“Because she married a Jew and had children by him. In their judgment that makes her the worst of all. But nothing like that is going to happen. Look, Cap'n. If Hitler can't get his soldiers across the English Channel, he's sure not going to get them across the Atlantic Ocean. Right?”

John nodded.

“Okay. I'm going to go and do what I have to do. But it won't be for long, and none of us will be in any danger.”

The boy nodded, but Jack could see that in his heart he remained unsure.

I
NDUCTED INTO THE
U
NITED
S
TATES
A
RMY WITH A COMMIS
sion as a captain, Jack once more encountered Kimberly's all-but-tearful scorn.

“Burke is a
commander,
United States Navy. That's the equivalent of a lieutenant colonel! And you . . . Do you have to go to boot camp?”

“Kimberly, I am assigned to OWI, the Office of War Information. I will go to an estate on Long Island and take a two-week orientation course. After that, as I understand it, I will fly to London. My assignment there will be confidential, but it will have to do with radio broadcasting.”

“I know what you're doing, Jack. You're bored with your business, you're bored with your home, and you're bored with your wife. You are
escaping!”

He did not answer her. If he had, he would have told her she was not altogether wrong.

T
HE TRANSATLANTIC FLIGHT WAS ACUTELY UNCOMFORTABLE
at first, then frightening toward the end.

Twenty officers, who had never seen each other before and would never see each other again, sat on their duffel bags in the fuselage of a B-24 bomber, bundled in long johns, wool clothes, and heavy overcoats but still feeling cold, comforted only by the jocular promise of the bombardier that he would not accidentally open the bomb doors and drop them into the ocean. Warmed a little by gallons of hot coffee and nourished by scores of stale doughnuts, the officers, who had nothing in common and nothing to talk about, tried to sleep.

Jack's discomfort was compounded by the understanding that he was the lowest-ranking officer aboard.

When the bomber landed at Reykjavik, the officers were welcomed inside a barren terminal building and told to use the toilets. They were given some thick, greasy soup.

Jack was paged by an American sergeant. “Captain Lear! Captain Lear!”

He took a radiotelegram from the messenger. It read:

YOU ARE ASSIGNED COMBINED OPERATION STAFF UNDER MY IMMEDIATE COMMAND STOP REPORT TWO DAYS AFTER
ARRIVAL LONDON STOP CONGRATULATIONS YOUR PROMOTION RANK COLONEL UNITED STATES ARMY STOP OBTAIN APPROPRIATE INSIGNIA ETC BEFORE REPORTING STOP

BASIL COMPTON
REAR ADMIRAL
COMBINED OPERATIONS EXECUTIVE

How had that been arranged? Jack wondered. Harrison Wolcott? He would never know.

Somewhere over the sea and in gray fog the B-24 went into an abrupt turning and diving maneuver. Three officers simply vomited, either from fear or airsickness or both. They heard machine-gun fire, or thought they did. They felt their aircraft hit, or thought they did. It was all over in thirty seconds. The B-24 leveled and resumed its course. None of the crew elected to explain what had happened.

A
s
J
ACK LURCHED INTO ANOTHER BLEAK TERMINAL, STIFF
from the cold and from hours without moving, Curt Frederick rushed toward him and seized his hand. In almost the same movement with which he took his hand, Curt passed him a pewter flask. It was filled with brandy, and Jack drank.

“Welcome to England! Yes, it's always this cold and always this wet.”

Jack reached into the pocket of his overcoat and took out the wire he had received in Reykjavik.

“I know,” said Curt. “Congratulations. You couldn't have hoped for a better assignment.”

“Which will be to do what?”

“I don't know. They'll tell you. How tired are you?”

“Tired.”

“Well, we've got to make a stop on our way to the hotel where you'll be living for the time being. See what he says?
‘Obtain appropriate insignia, et cetera.' I have arranged for you to see a bespoke tailor this morning. You
have
to see him this morning if your ‘appropriate' et ceteras are to be ready when you report. This kind of thing counts in London, old boy. I don't know how you got assigned to Compton, but I can tell you it will be very damned important to make a good first impression.”

“Why the hell Compton?” Jack asked. “And who the hell's Compton?”

“Professional officer, Royal Navy. Took a piece of shrapnel in the leg in the Mediterranean about six months ago. His job is to try to make British and American operations work together. We don't have a similar officer yet, but we will shortly, you can be sure. Take Compton very seriously,” Curt advised. “Washington does.”